Then-Elder, later-President James E. Faust spoke in General Conference in April 1993, giving a talk called “Father, Come Home” (posted at lds.org here). He spoke of family roles, particularly that of fathers. The talk holds up well, I think, and may even be remarkable for 1993, because Elder Faust spoke of “male nurturing” and the heroism of single parents, and acknowledged that “some marriages just fail.” He calls on us to realize that “priesthood is not gender,” and cites Eliza R. Snow approvingly. He spoke of the priesthood’s sealing powers not so much as legalistic rituals, but as the turning of hearts: “This sealing power thus reveals itself in family relationships, in attributes and virtues developed in a nurturing environment, and in loving service. These are the cords that bind families together, and the priesthood advances their development.”
His closing paragraph reads thus:
I so testify that the blessings of the priesthood, honored by fathers and husbands and revered by wives and children, can indeed cure the cancer that plagues our society. I plead with you, Fathers, come home. Magnify your priesthood calling; bless your families through this sacred influence, and experience the rewards promised by our Father and God. I say this in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Read that again, to be sure you understand it. It is the blessings of the priesthood that can cure modern ills, and everyone – men and women and children – have a duty to that priesthood: men, to honor it by their actions as priesthood holders; women to revere it for its power for good.
But what do I find as a meme based on this talk, apparently created by someone at mormon.org, but posted at lds.org, here:
.
.
Someone has extracted a line from Elder Faust’s talk, with the words in the right order … but has truncated them and completely, drastically, inexcusably, evilly changed the meaning. It is no longer the priesthood that should be honored and revered by all, but husbands/fathers who should be revered by wives and children!
How is it possible that this meme is posted at lds.org for downloading and sharing by Latter-day Saints? How long has it been there? (It’s been there at least since June 25 – when I checked out someone’s Facebook wall to understand something he had posted in a group I belong to, I find that he posted it on that date. I had not seen it before — but surely many, many Latter-day Saints have seen it.)
Friends, be careful of your quotations and memes. If something doesn’t feel right – as this did not to me – check it out by looking for its source. You’d think you could trust lds.org, but even so, when something doesn’t feel right, check it out.
I saw this when my tablet pinged after I had gone to bed. It bothered me so much that I didn’t wait until morning to research it. What I found disturbed me so much that I wrote and posted this without putting my contact lenses back in. Please excuse typos — I’ll proofread in the morning.
WTH? Who posted this and didn’t get it vetted properly? It’s like Dan Peterson’s story of the manual getting approved with his joke in it.
That is just horrible.
Following the link to James E. Faust picture quotes then back to this one gets me a version with a copyright notice: 2015, IRI. I don’t know who made this, but the Church is asserting ownership.
When I was a missionary, someone gave me an anti-Mormon pamphlet omitting several key words from a quote by Oliver Cowdery to suggest that the Book of Mormon was a fraud — why, he wrote it himself, with his own pen! That’s been at the top of my list of evilly distorted quotes for a couple decades now. I think it’s just been supplanted. Anti-Mormon authors have some excuse for not knowing LDS history. No one making repostable images for IRI has any excuse for a distortion on this scale.
Do you think it would be appropriate to use the feedback link at the bottom of the lds.org page? I guess it is meant more for giving feedback about technical issues, but is there any better way to give feedback?
Thank you, Ardis, for being so righteously outraged that you needed to write this post. It is a travesty in the clearest and most basic sense of the word. I shudder to think how many RS, YW, and Primary handouts have been crafted with this.
Now, sleep sweet, having done a good work, perhaps far greater than you know.
Thanks for these responses. Sometimes things are so bizarre that I wonder if I’m dreaming — a kind of fear of gaslighting, maybe. But when all of you see the pink elephant, too, he’s probably really there.
Niklas, I think that’s a good start. I actually thought of doing it already, but decided to hold off for a day so that the links for this post would still work and somebody could validate my report — this is so awful that I obviously think any responsible adult at lds.org would take it down instantly upon seeing it … but then I cannot imagine how it has been posted in the first place. But yes, let’s give feedback where someone at lds.org will see it.
That’s horrific. I’m relieved to say that it’s new to me; I’ve never seen it used as a handout or quote in a lesson, but forewarned is forearmed. Sad to say that while this is unlikely to be thought useful at my ward level, some undiscerning stake leaders might see nothing wrong with it (although not for long, if I had any say in the matter).
That’s awful. The person who made the illustration probably thought the editing was justified because she/he saw an equivalence between “priesthood” and “fathers and husbands.” Ironic, considering Elder Faust was likely addressing this very misconception when he said, “priesthood is not gender; it is blessings from God for all at the hands of the servants He has designated.”
Thanks, I guess. (I could have lived happily without ever seeing this.)
The meme itself is disturbing but not surprising. I know some people think that way. However much I disagree, it’s real.
Assigning the line to Elder Faust is simply wrong. Compounded times three by posting at LDS.org.
I think I see how this all fits together. You see, “man (and woman) is an enemy to God, and has been since the fall of Adam, and will be forever.” We have the Priesthood to help us, so that with with faith we’ll “have a perfect knowledge of things which are true.” In that way, we can repent so that “wickedness can turn to happiness.”
I feel that President Faust would be the most offended to see his words taken out of context, although the change is large enough it’s practically an original work.
Also, I suspect Ardis isn’t the first to realize something was off, it looks like some effort was made to remove it from LDS.org. The direct link here works, but none of the category tags on the page link back to it. That may just be poor search functionality, but the more doctrinally correct fatherhood memes all appear just fine.
Just following up my last comment, if someone did notice it and remove the links on lds.org, leaving the image up was an incredibly poor decision. Maybe update the image with the correct quote? Put an apologetic note on it is in no way what was originally said. Silently removing things leaves no chance to fix the mistake. Elder Holland had the right approach to fixing erroneous statements, https://www.lds.org/church/news/elder-holland-shares-account-of-missionary-speech-of-all-time-with-new-misson-presidents?lang=eng
Even if Elder Faust had said it, who on earth that has ever lived in a real family would think either that this is true or that it is anywhere close to possible? I think my wife generally thinks I’m a halfway decent chap, and some days I suspect she’s still happy she agreed to this whole racket. But “revere”?? Hah.
And the children? I’ll have to do a quick survey to see where “revere” ranks in the range of feelings they have towards me. Probably not in the top 500.
This likely results from years of prooftexting our scriptures, forgetting all context. Ugh.
That’s so altered in sentiment that it qualifies as falsified or fraudulent. I wonder who is behind it, what the motivation was, and why the “gatekeepers” (website people) didn’t catch it.
Why do people do this? There’s been a clearly fraudulent inspirational quote going around attributed to C.S. Lewis, something to do with monkey bars. People share and reshare and never pause to think that it doesn’t sound in the least like Lewis. Why, people?? (Turns out there’s an ongoing series on a C.S. Lewis website about quotes falsely attributed to him. Most of them are pretty awful, some of them are downright funny, and one entry addresses what Kevin said about taking things out of context.)
Thanks, Ardis, for a watchful eye.
Great catch, Ardis. This is awful.
We have quite a few places, President Hunter comes to mind, where he admonishes husbands to reverence their wives. It is different because we are trying to get away from the idea that husbands rule over their wives and that they should always be obeyed and, as you say, Elder Faust wasn’t one of the ones saying this. But I think it should be acknowledged that the rhetoric is there.
Appears to be gone now.
Yes! It may still appear to work on some machines (as it does on my tablet) until the cache is cleared, but yes, it does appear to be down!
Hey, we did something, friends!
I feel like I’ve seen this exact butchering of Elder Faust’s quote on Instagram years ago, but Instagram makes it nearly impossible to find old posts or comments so I can’t verify. Either way it makes me wonder how much of what is in the church’s media library is picked up from instagram and pinterest without vetting.
Good job Ardis, it does not show up for me when I follow the link. I am glad you took the time to double check the quote. Because of my time reading your writings I am careful about quotes and memes I see. I always try to find the original to make sure it is a real quote/statement from that particular person.
Recently I was reading a book or article that thanked a particular sister (in a general presidency)for a quote she had given. The presidency member shared it in a talk she gave. I knew the quote had come from another sister (wife of prophet), and the presidency member had attributed it correctly. It was the writer of the article/book that did not make sure they had the correct information.
Once again, thanks for your hard work and all that you have taught me!
Oh golly, what a travesty. I’m so glad to hear that it’s down now! I was very fond of Elder Faust and I bet he would have been horrified.
Your place in Heaven is assured, Ardis. Keepapitchin, girl! I marvel at your work.
Thanks again, Ardis ‘Snopes’ Parshall!
Good job!
This is awful. And amazing that it was removed! Well done!
There was a misattribution in the last general conference–Saturday afternoon session. But it didn’t make any doctrinal difference. I just knew that someone else said it first.
I have to say, Ardis, that the outcome of this is pretty amazing. Have you ever seen anything like this happen before?
I’m guessing this may have been corrected so fast, Gary, because it was a casual meme, not something more substantially embedded in content. That is, if Elder Faust really had said what the meme had him say, in a talk or Ensign article, it would have been much harder to extract. This was easy to take down, on the grounds that Elder Faust had not said it, even if somebody didn’t object to the meme itself.
I also think it might have helped that the general tone here was “This isn’t what we expect from lds.org — how could this have happened??” — an exception, that is, rather than a condemnation like “How typical — another illustration that the Church can’t ever do anything right.”
It’s pleasing to know that Keepa’s readers include people at the COB, or at least that Keepa readers know people who know people who could fix this.
But it was pretty darn amazing, wasn’t it? 😀
Well done, Ardis! Well done!
I just got online after a couple of weeks of surgery bedrest. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, and I am so glad that Ardis got on this as soon as she did and pushed to see the image taken off-line. Members of the Church need to be reminded often that “The Priesthood” doesn’t mean the male members of the Church or our families, but it is the “Power of the Priesthood” used by these men which allow them to act in our behalf and which encompasses women and children also.