As I have done in the past, I feel the need sometimes to “liken” current affairs to scriptures in the Book of Mormon.  One instructive episode concerns the preaching of lies about the church by the Anti-Christ Korihor, in Alma chapter 30.   Korihor claimed Alma did not know there would be a Christ or that there was a God, and that Church leaders were profiting from their preaching.  The conflict was basically about who was preaching “truth.”

    Alma accused Korihor of saying things that Korihor knew were not true for personal profit. “31 And he did rise up in great swelling words before Alma, and did revile against the priests and teachers, accusing them of leading away the people after the silly traditions of their fathers, for the sake of glutting on the labors of the people. 32 Now Alma said unto him: Thou knowest that we do not glut ourselves upon the labors of this people; … 34 And now, if we do not receive anything for our labors in the church, what doth it profit us to labor in the church save it were to declare the truth, that we may have rejoicings in the joy of our brethren? … 41 But, behold, I have all things as a testimony that these things are true; and ye also have all things as a testimony unto you that they are true; and will ye deny them? Believest thou that these things are true?

42 Behold, I know that thou believest, but thou art possessed with a lying spirit, and ye have put off the Spirit of God that it may have no place in you; but the devil has power over you, and he doth carry you about, working devices that he may destroy the children of God.”

      The lies that have become a litmus test for leadership in the Republican Party are perfectly obvious to anyone who has paid any attention to the facts of the recent election and it’s aftermath. Such lies are, perhaps, even more obvious than the lies that confronted Alma, whose position involved religious faith. The Big Trump Lie, which so many Republicans have bought into is, like Korihor’s lies, supported by no “evidence,” but merely by the rantings of a dishonest man. 

    Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints should be fiercely loyal to the truth and should reject the lies of the current Republican Party leadership. Failure to to do so may, as the Book of Mormon also demonstrates, lead to secret combinations of evil people fighting against all truth.