The picture you see to here is one of the biggest embarrassments the Mormon Church has ever had to endure. It is a picture of master forger Mark Hoffman fooling "God's prophet" the late Spencer W. Kimball (in the middle of the picture with the magnifying glass).
Also fooled along with Kimball were (from left to right) N. Eldon Tanner, Marion Romney, Boyd Packer and Gordon Hinckley. While Tanner and Romney were fellow apostles and councilors to Kimball, Hinckley later became President of the Mormon Church and Packer is, as of this writing, next in line to become Church President.
Mormons revere leaders like these as "Prophets, Seers and Revelators" and have a unique belief about them. As the late apostle John Widtsoe wrote:
"...a prophet is a man who receives revelations from the Lord...A seer is one who sees with spiritual eyes. He perceives the meaning of that which seems obscure to others; therefore he is an interpreter and clarifier of eternal truth. He foresees the future from the past and the present....."A revelator makes known, with the Lord’s help, something before unknown. It may be new or forgotten truth, or a new or forgotten application of known truth to man’s need. Always, the revelator deals with truth..."
The document that Kimball and the others are looking at is a fake. Hoffman faked it to prove to the world that the leaders of the LDS Church don't have any special powers as claimed by Widtsoe and all other Mormons. He also did it to make money off of his forgeries.
After it came out that Hoffman fooled the Prophet, the Twelve Apostles and all the faithful, the Mormon Church went into damage control mode. Apostle Dallin Oaks was given the task of helping questioning members to see the light. In a talk given at the time he said:
"It is one thing to depreciate a person who exercises corporate power or even government power. It is quite another thing to criticize or depreciate a person for the performance of an office to which he or she has been called of God. It does not matter that the criticism is true. As Elder George F. Richards, President of the Council of the Twelve, said in a conference address in April 1947, 'when we say anything bad about the leaders of the Church, whether true or false, we tend to impair their influence and their usefulness and are thus working against the Lord and his cause.' ... The Holy Ghost will not guide or confirm criticism of the Lord's anointed, or of Church leaders, local or general. This reality should be part of the spiritual evaluation that LDS readers and viewers apply to those things written about our history and those who made it." (Apostle Dallin H. Oaks, "Reading Church History," CES Doctrine and Covenants Symposium, Brigham Young University, 16 Aug. 1985, page 25)
In other words, pay no attention to Kimball and his fellow apostles being fooled! If you do, God won't like it!
While the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve had egg on their faces, I along with a good friend of mine really never bought Hoffman's story. We made jokes about our "pet salamander" and thought it seemed suspicious that one guy could come up with all of these documents.
But the Mormons have the unspoken iron creed of the Infallibility of the Prophet:
“The Lord will never permit me or any other man who stands as President of this Church to lead you astray. It is not in the programme. It is not in the mind of God. If I were to attempt that, the Lord would remove me out of my place, and so He will any other man who attempts to lead the children of men astray from the oracles of God and from their duty.” (Mormon President Wilford Woodruff)
Years later, when I began to question Mormonism, I found the above picture in some of the things that I had collected about the church over the years. I was given a copy of it and the article that went along with it by a member of the first branch I belonged to. He told me it was more proof that Joseph Smith was a prophet. In the article Kimball thanks Hoffman for bringing it to the attention of the LDS Church historical department.
I'm still suprised that I didn't allow this to affect my belief in Kimball as a prophet at the time that it happened. If the entire leadership of the Mormon Church, the leadership that God would never allow to lead me astray, were fooled by a slick con man and forger....then what else might they have been wrong about?
I was too far in to ask that sort of question. I had too much invested emotionally and all my friends were Mormons. I had no where else to go at the time.
I had to pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.
