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Mormon General Authorities That Fell

As been pointed out many times, GAs are given an 'aura' by members sometimes as though they are infallible, we know this is not true, especially as a few of them have fallen. This has been a great embarrassment for the Church, but is there something to be learnt? This thread has been started to analyze the cause of their fall and if they were ever truly true to the Faith.

We can start with George P. Lee, a man that had some rebellious views, and caused great hurt to the Church and himself...

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Okay. For what I understand or I should say the rumours say that Lee's principal 'rebellion' come from thinking that the Church is a white church and that soon should give back the power to the Lamanites. He wrote an extensive letter to the First Presidency stating his issues.

"Brethren the Lord makes it very clear in the scriptures as to who the Gentiles are and who Israel is," (p. 2).

"Only one of the two groups has the priesthood assignment to bless all the human families throughout the world.

"Do the Gentiles or `adopted Israel' have the mission to bless the whole world with the gospel(?) I think not, at least not totally. They will assist true Israel in accomplishing this mission but I do not believe they will have `front seat' leadership role in it," (pp. 4-5).

"You are slowly causing a silent subtle scriptural and spiritual slaughter of the Indians and other Lamanites. "While physical extermination may have been one of (the) Federal government's policies long ago... your current scriptural and spiritual extermmation (sic) of Indians and other Lamanites is the greater sin and great shall be your condemnation for this," (p. 18).

"Fourth, Lee accuses the LDS hierarchy of, "Pride, arrogance and unrighteous dominion and control which encourages priesthood abuse, induces fear and produces forced obedience," (p. 19). "Love of power, status, position which creates a sense of worship for those in control and power," (p. 19).

The sixth charge is very serious : . "Love of Money. The rich seem to get richer and the poor get poorer which encourages no sense of responsibility to the poor. In fact you told me to not talk about (the) poor nor pray for them. Our faith, devotion and commitment seemed to be based on being paid to do the work. A lot of our Priesthood leaders depend on being paid to attend important priesthood meetings which includes Bishops, branch presidents, district presidents, stake presidents, regional representatives and even general authorities.
Of course most of these Brethren would go anywhere in the name of `the Lord's work' as long as they are being paid and as long as all of their expenses are being paid. I am not sure how many of us would really do the Lord's work if we were not being paid," (pp. 20-21).


Also, researching about this subject I read he was accused of sexually molesting a 12 years old girl back in 1989. He denied all the charges but surprisingly he plead guilty of those charges (this is what I read). LDS spokesman said the Church didn't know about these allegations.

Edited: LDS_forever on 5th Apr, 2004 - 1:59pm

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Some people on an email list where I am active personally know George Lee, and have written about the situation. It is extremely troublesome.

He was very concerned about the fact that in the 60s and 70s, the Church was apparently involved in some shady practices concerning the Lamanite programs. There are serious allegations of Church representatives forcibly taking Indian children from their homes and placing them in white homes. But he continued to work within the system, as much as he could, to resolve these problems.

His other great concern was that he saw the GAs riding first class on all their flights, driving big, beautiful cars, having wonderful offices, etc, at the expense of the Church. He publicly denounced these practices as being priestcraft. He also pointed out how the GAs now seem to be chosen based on their success in business matters (worldly success) rather than their spirituality.

I think these are all valid concerns, and need to be publicly addressed.

From what people who know him personally have said, he was set up for the charges of adultery and/or molestation. They don't talk about the charges, other than to say that he was set up. These charges were the foundation upon which he was excommunicated.

I don't know for sure. Just reporting what his friends have said.

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I wonder what he is doing now? Some of these tend to setup some sort of contact, or mission with regards to addressing these issues, but I guess he decided to remain quiet? As far as being setup... by who? Alligations so high as those wiould either have to be true or false.

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I don't know what is he doing now but I heard that when he saw two authorities of the Church asked him his credit cards and belongings to be returned, he knew there was trouble and went to pray and fast to the mountains just like his father taught him.

Mormon General Authorities That Fell

This is from a friend who lives in northern Idaho. Her family personally knew Elder Lee.

Another bit I found indicated that the legal charges were brought against him just as he moved back to the Navajo nation, in order to establish residency to run for office within the nation. He needed to live there for 13 months before the election. Since he now had these charges against him, he wasn't able to spend the time on the reservation, so wasn't able to run for office, not to mention that his reputation had been destroyed.

Apparently the SLC newspapers made a big deal about how he pled guilty to the charges against him, when actually he pled "no contest" to a much lesser charge. The punishment was 15 months of unsupervised probation.

In my experience, personally knowing a pedophile, it is extremely rare for there to be a "one-time" incident of molestation - it is a personality.

It sounds to me like he is living and working in the Navajo nation. It also sounds as if he does not carry a grudge about it.

Mormon General Authorities Fell

Thanks for the info. What exactly did he plead 'no-contest' too?

Now to throw in another GA.. Paul H. Dunn... he was known as a great storyteller and had authored many many books. One of the stories he wrote appeared in the Ensign or other publication in which he claimed to be a hero in a war event. A nonmember who was actually in the same war event read the story and contacted the Church about the falsehoods located within the article/publication. This led to an investigation and eventual confession that Paul had exaggerated his stories about what he had really done. Somewhere in 1991-2 he was disfellowshipped. I believe hs is now in full fellowship. Immediately after his disfellowship status was announced to the Church, members began throwing away his books and talk tapes!

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I don't remember him being disfellowshipped, but then we lived far from Utah at the time. I think he is still referred to as an "emeritus" member of the Seventy, which means that he just retired from active work within that body.

But I could easily be wrong on both counts.

You are certainly right, though, in the fact that when he "fell from grace" the majority of the members really turned on him. It didn't make much difference to me, as I never really liked his writing. I always felt it was shallow and exploitive, even when I was a teen.

There was no information about the lesser charge in the report I read.