The Silencing of Richard Price -- Part One -- Mamusz' Restoration Forum

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Date Posted: 07:28:37 06/20/13 Thu
Author: George
Subject: The Silencing of Richard Price -- Part One

I am recycling this because Community of Christ shills are still on the internet trying to assert that the CofC is not dishonest in the specific matters this "counseling" session addressed.

>>N.B. As you read the following transcript, be sure
>>to notice that the chief thrust of the Stake
>>President's argument is that Richard Price is causing
>>trouble in the church by printing things that "aren't
>>true." Price says that if he will point out what is
>>not true, that Price will print a retraction. The ONLY
>>specific thing that the Stake President identifies is
>>the allegedly untrue statement that the leadership
>>intends to take the church into the NCC and WCC, which
>>the stake president emphatically emphasizes is NOT
>>true. But as of this year, we all know differently. So
>>Richard Price has been vindicated at last. The only
>>objection the leadership of the church had to silence
>>Price was that he was TELLING THE TRUTH.
>>
>>
>>(To make posting this easier, I will have to break it
>>down into sections.)
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>THE SILENCING OF RICHARD PRICE
>>Transcript of tape recording of "settlement
>>conference" with O.C. Hinson
>>
>>
>>This is March 12th, 1985, at the Center Stake office
>>in Independence, Missouri. Stake President O.C. Hinson
>>has called Elder Richard Price in to discuss the
>>possibility of his being silenced. David Price and
>>Russell Shipley are present as witnesses.
>>
>>RICHARD Well, some people have talents, and
>>some people are like me... [chuckle]
>>
>>DAVID I can only carry a tune in a bucket, or
>>maybe a radio, but I don't want to compare it to you
>>guys. [More chuckles] I had to turn the thing on, lest
>>we forget.
>>
>>RICHARD We have a tape recorder here, like we
>>agreed upon at Enoch Hill, (1) uh, so that we can have
>>a record of these things. I do intend to publish
>>things as needed, and, uh, we want it to be as
>>accurate as we can have it.
>>
>>O.C>. Now let me tell you what I want to talk
>>with you about, Richard.
>>
>>RICHARD Okay.
>>
>>O.C>. If there is any way possible, we would
>>like to explore that possibility of finding a way to
>>reconcile your difference with the church.
>>
>>RICHARD With the church leaders. I don't have
>>any difference with the church.
>>
>>O.C>. Well, uh, you can put it any way you
>>want, but I...
>>
>>RICHARD [unintelligible interruption]
>>
>>O.C>. Excuse me....
>>
>>RICHARD Uh, they've printed what they believe,
>>and I've printed what I believe, and, uh, I don't know
>>how you can get the two ideas together. Uh, perhaps
>>you can help us with that.
>>
>>O.C>. Well, you can't get them together when
>>they're, uh, polarized in that fashion, to the
>>extremes. The question will never, of course, I'm sure
>>as you know, boil down to the leadership changing
>>their point of view about the role which is theirs.
>>They do not believe for a moment that they have left
>>the Restoration Church, as so many of your... writings
>>have indicated.
>>
>>RICHARD Yes ... well, we believe that they
>>have, and we, uh, use their writings as the
>>evidence: The Position Papers, and the Presidential
>>Papers, and all the HERALD articles for twenty years,
>>uh, COMMISSION Magazine, and the whole business; it's
>>very obvious that they don't believe in the original
>>beliefs of the Reorganized Church that we find taught
>>by Joseph Smith and we find it in the Three Standard
>>Books, and you understand that, don't you?
>>
>>O.C>. Well, Richard from your perspective, (2)
>>but as I understand it, you've never gone to any one
>>of these men and asked them a question.(3) (4) What
>>you have done is you have taken what you...'ve found
>>from something they have said and written and given it
>>an interpretation to it according to your own personal
>>point of view. I think there's where part of this
>>business comes in...the polarization that I'm talking
>>about.
>>
>>RICHARD Do you think that if I went and talked
>>to them that they would see it differently and that
>>they would change their, uh, course and, uh, their,
>>uh, beliefs, their ...what they're printing.
>>
>>O.C>. I think that they would (5) tell you
>>whether or not what you're printing is true, because
>>so many things that have been printed, they deny and
>>say are not true.
>>
>>RICHARD But they never give us any
>>examples.(6) Uh, when "The Saints at the Crossroads"
>>came out they talked to the uh... Leon
>>L[unintelligible] told me they went to every lawyer in
>>the church, [unless] that's an exaggeration, and all
>>the lawyers said, "No, they quote it as you wrote it,
>>and as you meant it to be," and therefore, that's, uh,
>> ....they wouldn't handle the case...they wouldn't
>>take it.
>>
>>O.C> I never heard that.(7)
>>
>>RICHARD Well, this is what Leon
>>L[unintelligible] told me (he was a lawyer), he read
>>the
>>manuscript before it was printed, and uh, he then
>>talked to me after it was printed.
>>
>>O.C> Did he put that in print anywhere?
>>
>>RICHARD No. So....uh.
>>
>>DAVID I might add that Tom Cochrane, the church
>>lawyer at that time, (he's dead now), but you might
>>want to research that, because he was one who was
>>contacted first, and I believe, hisstatement was
>>according to Brother L[unintellgible] was "I wouldn't
>>touch this case with a ten-foot pole."
>>
>>RICHARD Now, if there was anything that I had
>>said that was not what they intended for it to say,
>>they would have had me silenced, or up on the carpet a
>>long time ago. But there wasn't anything in there that
>>I said that, uh, they, uh, could find that wasn't
>>true.
>>
>>DAVID Have you been contacted, Dad, uh, in the
>>last thirteen years regarding this?
>>
>>RICHARD They have never asked me to come in
>>and, and talk to them about it. Now, if they think
>>that I really did them wrong they should have talked
>>....at least suggested that I, uh, meet with them or
>>talk with them uh, I didn't want to take to take their
>>time, after all, in the first place, [unintelligible]
>>place, I don't believe they would want to talk to me.
>>
>>DAVID Are, are you willing to retract any
>>statement that you have made that was out of context,
>>if they would retract their statement, or, or try to
>>explain, in other words, you quote an individual that
>>says that, oh, uh, "We don't believe the Book of
>>Mormon is true anymore;" now, if he would say that he
>>really didn't mean to make that statement, would you
>>be willing to, to acknowledge that?
>>
>>RICHARD The only mistake I made in "The Saints
>>at the Crossroads," was that I put Israel A.'s name
>>instead of [unintelligible]'s on one page, but the,
>>uh, thought was still there, so, no, I have nothing to
>>retract, because I have not said anything that wasn't
>>true, according to their publications. You know, uh, I
>>want to keep this matter on a written basis, uh,
>>because they write what they believe. I can read it,
>>and you can read it, we all know what they mean, and
>>it's just a matter of, uh, telling people this is what
>>they said, and this is what they meant, and this is
>>what will be the result of what they're doing.
>>
>>DAVID I'd, I'd like to insert something if I
>>could. Now, it's been offered that my father has his
>>own private interpretations, but my father's fairly
>>welly...well...widely read in this, uh, area, and one
>>thing that he has read is under the editorship of
>>Brother Draper, and under the writing of Brother
>>Howard Boothe, this Restoration Studies I, uh, Recent
>>Shifts in Restoration Thought, where, Brother Boothe
>>stated, in writing, and Brother Draper evidently
>>either approved, or had his name on the document that,
>>uh, endorsed everything that my father stated. He
>>said it was all, all true (8) that W. Wallace Smith
>>had rejected the concept of the New Testament
>>priesthood in church, and that we weren't the true
>>church, that W. Wallace Smith had deliberately changed
>>the Epitome of Faith and Doctrine, taking out the
>>concept of Christ's return, and had, uh, denied the
>>scriptural concept of Zion, and had stated that
>>doctrines are changeable, and even said that Wallace
>>B. Smith did...now, this is rather, again, these
>>aren't my father's ...Howard Boothe wrote this, that
>>Wallace B. Smith had deliberately used tricky language
>>to fool the Saints so they would keep paying their
>>tithing, and keep being members...now that's a
>>paraphrase in my words that particular, those two
>>phrases, that he, he did secretly conspire, Brother
>>Boothe indicated, uh, to do away with the concept of
>>the Restoration, to deny the Book of Mormon, the New
>>Testament church and priesthood, and, again, to, to
>>reject Zion. Here's one of, I would say, one of the
>>church's authorities on such matters, who has, in
>>effect, endorsed everything my father said, so it's
>>not, not a private interpretation, it's the
>>interpretation of the leading minds of the day on both
>>sides of the spectrum, both liberal and
>fundamentalist.
>>
>>O.C> David, what you're doing is you're taking
>>one man's writing, who is not an official in the
>>church, and how... and having that statement from him,
>>a person who is not an official in the church, not the
>>man who wrote the article, like W. Wallace Smith,
>>speak about that man's article, and your dad has taken
>>the time to respond to it. That's , you know, that's
>>just kind of like taking, uh, a hearsay from one
>>source and a hearsay from another source, and putting
>>it together...
>>
>>RICHARD ...Now, wait a minute....
>>
>>O.C> ...when what should have happened, if
>>Richard had a question about that in W. Wallace
>>Smith's philosophy, or theology, or writings, go and
>>talk with Brother Smith about it himself, rather than
>>to go ask Howard Boothe, who does not represent the
>>church.
>>
>>RICHARD I didn't go ask anybody. Uh, Brother
>>Maurice Draper, is an authority in the church, as you
>>are well aware, and he's the one that edited this, uh,
>>this, uh, paper, The Restoration Studies uh, two, and
>>I think there's three now, and he was saying, and
>>states very clearly in there that they've done exactly
>>what I said they did.
>>
>>O.C> No....
>>
>>RICHARD Now I'm just saying the same story that
>>they did, and I never saw these papers.
>>
>>DAVID This was long after...
>>
>>RICHARD ..Until after I had already printed
>>this material.
>>
>>DAVID They have verified my father's
>>statements. So what I'm saying, it's no private
>>interpretation of my father. These are acknowledged
>>historical facts from officials and observers within
>>the church. And I would hope they're objective
>>observers, uh, I would certainly think Brother Boothe
>>and, and, uh, Brother Draper are intelligent scholarly
>>men. And we take them at what they say. Uh, we are
>>trusting people, and we trust that when they, they,
>>uh, say these things that they mean what they say they
>>mean.
>>
>>RICHARD Uh, I have quoted W. Wallace, Brother
>>Draper, and these other men, right out of their own
>>writings and uh, using the interpretation they gave on
>>it, it's very plain, it's very obvious, they've had
>>ten years to have me up on the carpet, uh, they
>>haven't said a word, because they know what I've said
>>was true. And I think you know they're true.
>>
>>O.C> No... that isn't....
>>
>>RICHARD [unintelligible]
>>
>>O.C> That isn't, uh, that isn't correct,
>>Richard. Now let me explain to you the procedure for
>>this kind of thing. If somebody wants to take a
>>position in the church that, say, similar to what
>>you've done, in writing that is expressing an
>>opposition what the Pres, Presidency have stated or
>>have expressed as direction for the church, it isn't
>>that the Presidency call that man and ask him to come
>>in. They don't have a tendency to do that. Uh, they
>>don't defend themselves. That's not been their general
>>policy. On rare occasion they might, but that is not
>>their general policy. If anybody is going to test the
>>water in that particular area, or if anybody really
>>feels that they've got a case, they, the administrator
>>closest to the situation, is the person who deals with
>>that.
>>
>>RICHARD All right
>>
>>O.C> Now, that will eventually, of course, go
>>back to the First Presidency through the channels. But
>>it doesn't go direct from the person out here directly
>>to the First Presidency. That has not been the policy.
>>Nor the tendency for that kind of, uh, relationship to
>>develop or to exist just isn't there. If it were,
>>Richard, you'd have [sigh] (because there are such a
>>variety of concerns, not particularly theological
>>concerns or matters that relate to what is the history
>>of the church saying to us about the future, or
>>anything like that) it is just a compilation of things
>>that would not allow
>>them to do anything else as the First Presidency but
>>sit in their desk and answer questions like this or
>>respond to all the time.(9)
>>
>>RICHARD Sure, I understand that.
>>
>>O.C> So they don't, they don't get into that
>>defensive posture. Except on rare occasions. Now, let
>>me respond to something about whether or not they were
>>assuming that because, you were assuming that because
>>they didn't respond you were right.
>>
>>RICHARD No, I didn't do that. I know why they
>>didn't respond. They just say they don't have time,
>>and second, they know that what I said is correct....
>>[Rest of response obscured by the premature beginning
>>of O.C>'s next statement]
>>
>>(Cont in next post)

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