Does "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" have any Mormon history associated with it?
Posted May 26, 2023, 12:03 PM UTC
49
Absolutely. It is part and parcel of Skousenism, which as we all know is the very heart of modern Mormonism.
Case in point: in the late sixties (when Communism was about to usher in the End Times), we had a family in our ward in N Cal who hailed from Washington County, Utah. They had a fire in their home, and after the fire they were fined by the Fire Department for having a veritable arsenal of weapons and explosives without any sort of permits. These were all in preparation for the End Times, of course. At the time I couldn't understand their motivation, but over time4 I came to understand that in the milieu in which they grew up- southern Utah- such thinking was/is integral to their interpretation of Mormonism.
But a while before that fire, the fire set up a presentation to our family explaining all the evils that were about to be unleashed on the people of God- the Mormons, of course. And central to his arguments was that very publication. Again, at the time, I was baffled, but it is obvious that in his Washington County tradition, the tract was accepted as indisputably accurate and required reading for all real Latter Day Saints.
Does this help?
11
To clarify, Mormons did not write the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, an anti-Semitic text that describes a Jewish conspiracy to control the world. This horribly damaging text originated in Russia in the 1890's and was later picked up by the Nazi party in Germany as one justification for their genocide.
The Mormon tie-in with Skousen is his reference and discussion of it in his book "The Naked Capitalist" that featured a forward by Ezra T. Benson who would become president of the LDS church. The mention in the book was as a part of a discussion on alleged secretive forces and agendas governing the world. While he didn't outright support the validity of the protocols, he definitely didn't use the opportunity to denounce them. This has lead many who follow his work to accept them as truth, especially since they were both members of the John Birch society that held such conspiracies and "New World Order" to be fact.
10
Southern Utah is- or was, at any rate- a haven for the America First movement- a group characterized by racism and antisemitism. Two of its most prominent members were Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh- both of whom were best buds with Adolf Hitler.
7
It definitely still is. It's a significant part of why I moved away from there.
1
The problem is that the conspiracy-minded kind of pick and choose from multiple mutually inconclusive exclusive conspiracies, and if you're in those circles you're not inclined to correct anybody even if you don't subscribe to that version of the narrative. Today it's an often-maligned ethnoreligious group who's behind everything I don't like in our culture, tomorrow it's a Communist conspiracy infiltrating the Eisenhower administration, the day after it's the UN, then it's everybody who attends some summit on climate change whose real goal is to force us all into servitude.
Benson's fellow Birchers would have been wildly inconsistent on the specifics but they'd be unified on who the in-group was (good "patriotic" Americans with ahem, certain demographic statuses), and who the out-group was (civil rights activists, people of color, the educated, people who believe in evolution, people who support the government programs I don't like, religions whose rituals I see as strange, the irreligious). And that was really all that mattered. So Benson might privately roll his eyes at some of that stuff but see it as a colorful misconception on their part, because of course he had the clearest understanding of the situation. And they'd in turn do the same for him.
5
J. Reuben Clark held antisemitic views and was said to pass out the protocols of the elders of zion to people.
6
If true, good thing the law school at BYU bears his name.
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1
I read the book. Absolutely. They talk about how they will end Christianity and all religion to ease the process of controlling people.
By doing these things;
Making alcohol mainstream Confusing people Making bullshit theories like evolution Keeping people distracted by entrainment (sports, games) Much more in the book
1
Skousen was buddies with Ezra Taft Benson. It was a whole thing.
https://religionnews.com/2020/10/07/how-did-mormons-become-so-republican/
The article is talking about this book: https://www.amazon.com/Watchman-Tower-Benson-Making-Mormon/dp/1607817578
There are many reasons that the General Conference talks prior to 1970 are not on the church's website, most of them embarrassing reasons... One reason is Ezra Taft Benson's communist conspiracy theory talks that he used to give in the 1960s. He and Hugh B. Brown traded some very public barbs meant for each other in their general conference talks. The perception of the Q15 as always united in everything is a fairly modern phenomenon. Apostles used to publicly disagree about stuff all the time.
Benson and Skousen's stuff influenced a lot of members to become fairly extreme. And because Benson was an apostle (and not alone in his views, though he was probably the most vocal), the members felt entirely justified in becoming so.