Last Friday was the 25^th anniversary of one of the more bizarre crimes in American history; a crime sparked by God expert obsession with concealing the truth.

On the morning of October 15, 1985, a nail bomb concealed in a package addressed to a Salt Lake City businessman named Steve Christensen exploded when he picked it up in his downtown office, killing him instantly. An hour and a half later, the wife of another Salt Lake City businessman picked up a package addressed to her husband that had been left on their walkway; the bomb it contained ripped Kathleen Sheets to shreds.

It didn’t take police long to determine that the first victim and the husband of the second were involved in a failing business venture, and they began assembling a list of disgruntled investors. Their focus changed, though, when a third bomb exploded the following day, in the back seat of a car owned by Mark Hofmann, a rare document dealer who was unconnected with the failing business.

Unlike the Christensen bomb, the Hofmann bomb contained no nails, and though he was badly injured Hofmann survived. The story he told police about how the bomb in his car had exploded did not match the physical facts. His alibi for the time of the previous morning bombings, that he was driving around aimlessly and thinking, was less than airtight. When police learned that Hofmann had been scheduled to meet with Steve Christensen and top Mormon leadership the day that Christensen was killed, to deliver a document he did not in fact possess, Hofmann himself became the prime suspect.

The tale of how the police ultimately proved Mark Hofmann to be the bomber is fascinating for true crime fans, involving the Salt Lake police forensics department showing up the FBI. More relevant for humanists are the motive and context of Hofmann’s crimes.

Mark Hofmann, now serving a life sentence in Utah State Prison, was a sixth generation Mormon. He collected stamps and coins as a boy, and early on discovered an uncanny talent for fraud. At the age of 12, he used a metal press to modify an ordinary dime by adding a “D” mint mark to it, raising its collector value to $20,000. He lost his Mormon faith while he was a teenager, but still went through the motions: going on a foreign mission, marrying a Mormon, and raising his four children as Mormons. He developed a profound admiration for Mormon founder Joseph Smith – not as a holy prophet, but as a successful con man who fooled thousands into doing his bidding.

His admiration bordered, perhaps, on jealousy; Hofmann decided to use his talent to undermine the multibillion dollar enterprise Smith had launched. First, he had to win the Church’s trust. In 1980, Hofmann manufactured a document purportedly written by Joseph Smith himself. The page contained characters copied from the golden plates of the Book of Mormon that Smith claimed to have found, for examination by a Columbia University classicist. Though the Columbia professor pronounced it gibberish unrelated to any ancient language, for Mormons this was a tremendous discovery – the only evidence of the golden plates themselves, which had conveniently been taken by an angel back to heaven. Mormon Church experts examined the document, declared it genuine, and promptly paid Hofmann $20,000 for his find. A Mormon theologian then translated it as corresponding to a particular passage from the Book of Mormon, while non-Mormon scholars agreed with the original professor’s conclusion that it was a hoax.

Hofmann quickly developed a talent for “finding” important Mormon historical documents. For example, he found three different letters Joseph Smith had written from the Carthage jail on the last day of his life. All were sold to collectors after being duly authenticated – but by three different experts. Had the same person examined all three, he or she probably would have noticed that all three were in different ink, on different types of paper, which is a bit suspicious for a man who was supposed to be sitting in a jail cell. Some 446 Hofmann masterpieces ultimately found their way into the Church’s hands.

The following year, Hofmann approached the Church with some disturbing news. He had “found” a letter proving that Joseph Smith had designated his son, Joseph Smith III, as his successor, rather than Brigham Young. This was exactly what a smaller Mormon sect based in Missouri had been claiming for the past hundred years. Clearly, this had to be hushed up, but the Church historian balked at the price Hofmann was demanding. “Fine,” said Hofmann. “I’ll just sell it to the Missouri people instead.” A bidding war between the two sects ensued, which was won by the vastly wealthier Utah branch. Unfortunately, as soon as the money changed hands, word was leaked to the press – by guess who – and the highly embarrassed Utah hierarchy saved face by “donating” the fabrication to the Missouri group.

In 1984, Hofmann delivered even worse news. He had found a letter from Martin Harris, Joseph Smith’s original scribe and financial backer, adding a wrinkle to Smith’s story about the golden plates. According to the Harris letter, Smith had told him that when he found the plates they were being guarded by a magic white salamander that attacked Smith and tried to keep him away from the plates. Not only was this version of events utterly contrary to what Smith had told the world, but it portrayed Smith as a trafficker in black magic (as in fact he was). Mormon experts studied the salamander letter carefully, and after comparing it with a sample of Harris’ handwriting found in an old prayer book, reluctantly concluded it was genuine.

What they did not know was that the Harris writing in the prayer book had also been forged by Hofmann. In any event, the last thing the hierarchy wanted was for the world to know the contents of the salamander letter, so they arranged for a Mormon businessman to purchase the document from Hofmann and then donate it to the Church, where it could be locked away forever. The businessman was Steve Christensen, killed a year later in the first bomb blast. Unfortunately for the Church, word about the salamander letter was soon leaked to the press – by guess who – and public pressure forced its disclosure. Mormon theologians sprang to action, gravely explaining how a salamander is actually the same thing as an angel.

Hofmann was somehow able to keep a straight face, which is more than I could have done. Believing himself invincible, he managed to run up debts even greater than the now large income he was earning by forging documents of everyone from George Washington to Emily Dickinson. So he turned again to the great sugar daddies in Utah, this time with a larger set of documents called the McLellin collection, written by an early Mormon apostle who later broke with the Church. This was the true mother lode of Mormon dirt, warned Hofmann. But his timing was off; the Church was desperate to buy it and lock it away before Hofmann had gotten around to producing it, and his steady stream of excuses and delays was beginning to look suspicious. The powwow scheduled for October 15, 1985, was put up or shut up time. The first bomb that morning killed Christensen, who was going to purchase and donate the McLellin papers as he had the salamander letter. The second bomb was purely a diversion to throw police off the trail. The intended victim of the third bomb is not entirely clear, but it may be the case that the master con man intended to destroy the only copy of the fake McLellin papers while injuring himself, to clear himself of suspicion.

Humanists take facts as they are, and draw conclusions from them. For example, when the diaries of H.L. Mencken were first published in 1989, revealing his racist and anti-Semitic darker side, many who had previously admired him simply changed their minds. God experts already know the conclusions, and twist whatever facts come their way to support them. Or, in the case of the Mormon Church, they spend vast sums to conceal troublesome facts from public view. Mark Hofmann was a psychopath, sometimes defined as “a person who commits antisocial acts and fails to feel guilt for such acts.” What does that make the Mormon Church?

Luis Granados

During his recent trip to Britain Pope Benedict XVI stirred the pot by equating secularism with Nazi tyranny. Here is what he said (emphasis mine):

Even in our own lifetime, we can recall how Britain and her leaders stood against a Nazi tyranny that wished to eradicate God from society and denied our common humanity to many, especially the Jews, who were thought unfit to live. … As we reflect on the sobering lessons of the atheist extremism of the twentieth century, let us never forget how the exclusion of God, religion and virtue from public life leads ultimately to a truncated vision of man and of society and thus to a “reductive vision of the person and his destiny.” … Today, the United Kingdom strives to be a modern and multicultural society. In this challenging enterprise, may it always maintain its respect for those traditional values and cultural expressions that more aggressive forms of secularism no longer value or even tolerate.

Fact Check: Did the Nazis wish to eradicate God from society? Did the Nazis promote “the exclusion of God, religion and virtue from public life”?

Backing up just a little, remember that the Nazis were a copycat of the Fascists in Italy, who seized power ten years before Hitler did. The Fascists were Catholic to their core; in fact, their success was that of a Catholic counter-revolution against the secular Italian state that had the nerve to dispossess the Pope of his civil power over central Italy. Mussolini’s “March on Rome” was fully backed by the Catholic hierarchy. Once in power, he put crucifixes back into courts and schoolrooms, and even reinstated the pope as a civil ruler over a minuscule “nation,” a legal fiction that has plagued international law ever since. At the same time, he paid a massive bribe to the Church to give up its claim over the rest of central Italy, a bribe that was used to establish the Vatican Bank, an organization whose far-flung criminal activities are in the news again.

In Germany, the Catholic hierarchy during the 1920s opposed the Nazi Party, for the simple reason that they were promoting their own Catholic political organization, which they called the Center Party. By far the most important issue on their plate was the approval of a “Concordat” between Germany and the Vatican, to give the Church power over marriage, schools, tax money, etc. As the German economy deteriorated and the Nazis grew in strength, confrontations between Nazis and their rivals in the Center Party grew increasingly bitter, and often violent.

In the elections of 1933, Nazis won the plurality of the Reichstag seats, but not an outright majority. A grand deal was struck: the hierarchy would not only back Hitler’s bid for the chancellorship, but would dissolve the Center Party itself, most of whose adherents would then flock to the Nazis. In exchange, the Catholics got the Concordat they had pursued relentlessly for the previous 50 years. In the Concordat, Hitler agreed to have the government pay the cost of Catholic education at every level, all the way through secondary school, with the hierarchy given the right to hire and fire government-paid teachers.

Germany’s Catholics celebrated the Concordat with a joyous Mass of thanksgiving at St. Hedwig’s Cathedral in Berlin, with the papal nuncio himself presiding. Nazi flags mingled with Catholic banners, and the Nazi “Horst Wessel song” was sung along with Catholic hymns, while thousands listened on loudspeakers outside.

The new chancellor proclaimed that “The National Government will regard it as its first and foremost duty to revive in the nation the spirit of unity and co-operation. It will preserve and defend those basic principles on which our nation has been built. It regards Christianity as the foundation of our national morality, and the family as the basis of national life.” A few months later, he added that “The National Government regards the two Christian confessions (i.e. Catholicism and Protestantism) as factors essential to the soul of the German people. … We hold the spiritual forces of Christianity to be indispensable elements in the moral uplift of most of the German people.” Later he bragged that “We were convinced that the people need and require this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out.”

Hitler kept his word. Read the rest of this entry &raquo

I plan to attend oral arguments next week in the case of Snyder v. Phelps. That’s the Supreme Court case involving Al Snyder’s law suit against members of the Phelps family for picketing at his son’s funeral.

In my opinion, this is a major free speech case. The U.S. Constitution appears to guarantee that we can say anything we want, any time we want to, without being called to answer for our statements.

But the Supreme Court has said “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech” really doesn’t mean “no” as in never. For example, in Morse v. Frederick (2007), the Supreme Court held that a high school principal did not violate a student’s free speech right when she disciplined the student for displaying the sign “Bong Hits 4 Jesus,” interpreting it to promote the use of illegal drugs. Other “exceptions” include speech deemed to be incitement to riot, defamatory, or pornographic.

Why the exceptions in view of the absolute phrasing of the First Amendment? The answer lies in the Court’s balancing role – that often conflicting rights are at stake. So while speech is given extraordinary weight, in rare circumstances the rights of other persons – such as those mentioned above – must be considered.

Interestingly, the American Center for Law and Justice and Liberty Counsel – two religious right legal organizations – have filed friend of the court briefs in the case supporting Phelps free speech rights. The ACLJ brief argues: “Free speech receives maximum protection when exercised peacefully in a traditional public forum. … The idea that such speech could be subjected to potentially limitless tort liability because it disturbs the atmosphere in an adjoining location is wholly incompatible with constitutional protection for that speech. Indeed, the very point of public demonstrations is often to unsettle the mood in adjacent sites.”

Phelps’s picketing funerals with the message that a soldier’s death is God’s punishment for homosexuality is particularly distasteful. However I believe the ACLJ and Liberty Counsel are supporting Phelps out of concern that if the Supreme Court holds for Snyder, the Court could apply the same rationale to limit picketing of health clinics by Christian anti-abortionists or to curb other forms of aggressive evangelism.

Middle ground is often hard to find in these cases. Yet, forced to choose, I come down on the side of free speech. At the same time, I can support laws which establish a reasonable buffer between picketers and a funeral or a health clinic, or school policies which prohibit students from bullying other students, including taunting other kids perceived to be gay or lesbian.

Ever been mugged? Burglarized? Car stolen? Something worse? You may have spent a few guilty moments fantasizing about what you would like to do to the perp in the unlikely event the police ever catch him. Most of what you were thinking about is wildly illegal, for good reason. But at a minimum, it is thought to be okay to put such people behind bars for a while, taking away a great deal of the freedom available to law-abiding citizens. If you knew what kind of freedoms prisoners enjoy in the name of religion, though, under the “Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000” enacted ten years ago last Wednesday, you might start fantasizing again – this time about the people who wrote this ridiculous law.

Our story begins in the early 1970s, when a prisoner named Harry Theriault at the Atlanta federal penitentiary noticed the special treatment that religious prisoners were given, and decided that he deserved special treatment, too. So he acquired a Doctor of Divinity degree through mail order, and then founded his own new religion, called the “Church of the New Song,” acronym “CONS.” CONS began spreading through the federal prison system, in part because its chief minister, Rev. Theriault, had a hobby of launching armed attacks on prison guards, thus facilitating his transfer to several different institutions. It flourished as well because its teachings touched a chord of spirituality among the oppressed inmates. Its chief sacrament, for example, was called the “Celebration of Life,” a celebration requiring the consumption of steak and Harvey’s Bristol Crème every Friday at 5:00 pm. After all, the prison accommodated the demands of Muslims and Jews for special foods; why shouldn’t it accommodate the demands of CONS as well?
Read the rest of this entry &raquo