2009-3-14 06:41:00
Here is an article I wrote about Chris Nemelka who claims to be a prophet and to have translated The Sealed Portion.
Even though there are not two or more witnesses to the gold plates or supernatural visitations that Chris claims, there are two or more witnesses that the Sealed Portion was a work of his own hands.
The first witness comes from the Sealed Portion itself.
This is found in Chapter 47 [of The Sealed Portion as written by Chris Nemelka] where it comments on the following vision by Joseph and Oliver at the Kirkland Temple as described in The Doctrine & Covenants (D&C), Section 110, Verses 11-16.
"After this vision closed, the heavens were again opened unto us; and Moses appeared before us, and committed unto us the keys of the gathering of Israel from the four parts of the earth, and the leading of the ten tribes from the land of the north. After this, Elias appeared, and committed the dispensation of the gospel of Abraham, saying that in us and our seed all generations after us should be blessed. After this vision had closed, another great and glorious vision burst upon us; for Elijah the prophet, who was taken to heaven without tasting death, stood before us, and said: Behold, the time has fully come, which was spoken of by the mouth of Malachi -- testifying that he [Elijah] should be sent, before the great and dreadful day of the Lord come -- To turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the children to the fathers, lest the whole earth be smitten with a curse -- Therefore, the keys of this dispensation are committed into your hands; and by this ye may know that the great and dreadful day of the Lord is near, even at the doors."
(D&C 110:11-16)
Concerning this visitation the Sealed Portion [as written by Chris Nemelka] says:
"For these two did have the heavens opened up to the eyes of their understanding and there appeared unto them Moses, and Elias, and Elijah, and committed unto them the keys of administration in the priesthood, so that these could go forth into the world and begin to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. But on this occasion, there was no physical or mortal contact with Moses, or Elias, or Elijah, BUT THESE THINGS WERE DONE BY THE EYES OF THEIR UNDERSTANDING BEING OPENED UP UNTO THEM. And these things were done in similitude of those things which were done among their fathers, even among the Jews and those of my fathers who were upon the land in which these two in the latter days shall dwell in the latter days. And this first prophet shall say unto his companion: Thou knowest that the people of this world are prideful in that which they believe. Behold, they can hardly accept the revelations of God that have been given unto them already. And except they believe that an angel of God hath given these things unto us, they shall not believe that we have been given the authority to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, which we have been called to preach. Therefore, LET US GIVE UNTO THE WORLD THE WORDS OF OUR UNDERSTANDING that we have received this day in the house of the Lord, so that they may be accepted by the people as that for which they are waiting and anticipating. And with this first prophet, his companion shall agree and make a solemn promise that he shall never reveal unto the world that Moses, Elias, and Elijah DID NOT ACTUALLY APPEAR UNTO THEM IN THE FLESH, BUT ACCORDING TO THE SPIRIT, WHICH IS HAVING THE EYES OF THEIR UNDERSTANDING OPENED UNTO THEM. And now, this prophet did nothing contrary to the will of the Lord in this thing. For behold, the children of men are slow to learn the things of God and are even slower to righteous works. And for this reason, the FATHER ALLOWETH HIS SERVANTS TO TEACH THE PEOPLE ACCORDING TO THEIR UNDERSTANDING and prepare a way whereby they might be more receptive to His words."
(Chapter 47:20-25)
What do we learn from this?
According to the Sealed Portion [penned by Chris Nemelka], Joseph and Oliver really did not have a visitation from Moses and Elijah, but only saw them through the eyes of their understanding. Since this type of seeing wouldn't carry much weight with their followers because they are "prideful" they made a secret combination type of agreement to hide the truth and present the lie that they had a visitation far beyond the mere seeing with "eyes of understanding."
Now the astounding thing is this. The Sealed Portion says that Joseph did nothing wrong and God allows this type of deception. Hmmmm. Which God allows this?
"Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for HE IS A LIAR, AND THE FATHER OF IT." (John 8:44)
The truth is this. It matters not whether it be God, angels, a prophet or ordinary man -- a lie is a lie and it is wrong and contrary to the laws of heaven. A lie puts a person on the same side as the adversary of truth. In fact, it makes him an adversary to truth.
There are many times that the whole truth is not revealed by God or his servants, but that which is revealed will be as true as truth can be when placed in mortal words.
Now we see revealed in the Sealed Portion itself that a visitation may merely be something that is merely seen with "the eyes of the understanding" some of the previous witnesses concerning Chris and his work make a lot of sense.
Witness #2: Here's a quote from the Salt Lake City Weekly by Ben Fulton, December 27, 2001. Here it is quoting a friend of Chris named Kyle Williams:
"Nemelka sent him a copy of his sealed portion, but (Kyle) Williams never bothered to read it. 'He told me he was doing it as a way of mocking the Mormons. He was a real interesting character,' Williams said. 'I had hoped he would come to his senses and live a normal life, but he's gone the other way. He's continued with his religious nonsense.' [...] Williams, his old friend, thinks of Nemelka this way: 'What he believed, really, was that Joseph Smith was doing the same thing that he's doing. That Joseph Smith had a vision of improving people, of helping people, and that he used falsehood to further that purpose. He thought Joseph Smith invented the golden plates story and all that to further the ethics of Mormonism. Chris set out to do the same thing with his sealed portion.'"
Witness #3: Another witness comes from a letter written in Chris' own hand: In an April 2, 1993 letter to one of his wives, which Nemelka admitted to having penned, he wrote:
"When I deal with people, I am amazed at the ignorance and stupidity of most. People are so easily manipulated and deceived. Knowing this has made me a near master of manipulation. I try only to use this art, however, to help people. Sometimes the things I do seem terrible at the time, but usually the manipulation works to accomplish that which I intended." (SLC Weekly)
Witness #4: Here are some witnesses against the Sealed Portion in Chris's own words as quoted from the SLC Weekly:
"'When I came out and told these other polygamists, fundamentalist guys, that I had really written the sealed portion, that I had done it just to show people that it could be done-they were very upset.'"
"'All the revelations are bullshit, of course. I made 'em up.' But he did it all for Marie, and Marie alone, to comfort her. Marie needed the comfort of her religious convictions, and he could provide it with his writings."
"'My whole purpose, though, was to write the sealed portion. Get the sealed portion done. Sell it to the church. My whole idea was to sell it to the LDS church. I was going to sell it to them, because all the Mormons are looking for the sealed portion to come back. I thought I had a good talent for writing. I was going to write it up and sell it to them. They could do with it what they wanted. They probably would have kept it off the market.'
"'I set about in my own mischievous and arrogant way, of which I'm not proud of now, to prove that a person could actually write scripture and present it to people who were looking for certain scripture,' Nemelka said. 'I was playing on the belief that LDS people have that one day the gold plates would be returned and the sealed portion would be translated. Basically, I set about to write a fictitious version of the sealed portion as I thought Joseph Smith would have written it had he continued to perpetuate his translation of the gold plates. Much to the chagrin of the LDS church and others, what I wrote was indeed well versed and quite appropriate for the scripture I was trying to portray. Anybody who reads it would just be totally amazed.'
"'My true intent was to somehow perpetuate a religion that would be based on true Christian principals of Christ-like love,' Nemelka explained in a phone interview from jail. 'Where I made my greatest mistake, for which I'm now extremely sorry for, is that I used deception to perpetuate what I proposed as the truth, assuming at the time that Joseph Smith had done the same thing.'"
(End of Quotes)
It is interesting that the Sealed Portion itself reveals that Chris thinks Joseph used deception to present the idea he had visitations and this was OK. Even though Chris now says he lied to the Newspaper to get out of jail the quotes seem to be in alignment with the Sealed Portion itself.
Chris actually states the following in his own words in his autobiography from his website: "I thought nothing of telling Ben Fulton that I had made up the whole thing...."
Presently he maintains the Sealed Portion was divinely revealed but it is difficult to take this claim seriously when he "thought nothing of" denying the whole thing.
Do you think that Joseph Smith could have denied the whole revelation of the Book of Mormon and thought nothing of it?
Could Moses have denied his visitation from God and thought nothing of it?
I don't think so.
At this point, even if the Sealed Portion were true there is so much damage to the truth caused by this modern day prophet that God would have to start over again with someone who basically believes in telling the truth.
After studying the details here is my personal conclusion.
I believe that Chris was a sincere member of the church early in his life. Unlike many members, after his mission he continued to study his religion, its history and the scriptures.
After gaining much knowledge he had a number of discouraging things occur in his life that made him doubt the existence of God. A turning point was when he worked as a janitor for the church and his image of the general authorities was shattered. He took a second look at Joseph Smith and concluded that he invented the gold plates and wrote the Book of Mormon himself. The supernatural visions were also invented to promote Joseph's new religion.
Even so he saw a saving grace in Joseph -- that Joseph Smith had good intentions. That is, he had ideas that would make the world a better place and if a deception would help accomplish this end then it was worth it.
Chris also had ideas that he believed would make the world a better place so he thought he would follow the same path. He felt he could write a work as convincing as the Book of Mormon and set out to do so with the idea it would be the Sealed Portion.
The Nemelka version of the Sealed Portion thus came into existence. The true Urim and Thummim was the "eyes of his understanding."
Copyright © 2009 by J.J. Dewey, All Rights Reserved