In mining old conference talks for interesting quotes, it quickly became apparent that Ezra Taft Benson was among the most colorful and controversial conference speakers. The Glenn Beck of apostles, he would often rail against perceived communist threats and conspiracies from the conference pulpit. He taught that the civil rights movement was a front for communism and that public schools were established by Marxists for the propagation of atheism. But I recently found my favorite Benson quote:
Have we, as Moroni warned, “polluted the holy church of God?” (Morm. 8:38.) The auxiliaries of the Church are to be a help, not a hindrance, to parents and the priesthood as they strive to lead their families back to God. Do any of us wear or display the broken cross, anti-Christ sign, that is the adversary’s symbol of the so-called “peace movement”? – Ezra Taft Benson, October 1970 General Conference
Those of you who live or have lived in Logan know that its populated with quite a few tree-hugging, peace-loving Mormons. Well, the above quote may come as bad news to them. Benson is arguing that Mormons shouldn’t associate with the peace sign, because it is “the adversary’s symbol.” This isn’t likely true. Most trace the origins of the peace sign to the semaphore flag positions for “N” and “D,” standing for “nuclear disarmament.”
Cultural Mormon Cafeteria suggests that Benson got the idea that the peace sign is anti-Christian from John Birch Society propaganda.
Titled “Peace Symbols: The Truth About Those Strange Designs,” the [John Birch Society] article lambasted the peace movement by associating their symbol with a broken cross, Communism, anti-Christ, and a Satanism.
It was the upside-down broken cross. Such anti-Christian and anti-Jewish symbolism is common to Satanists…
The revolutionaries are pushing this business [of Satanism and black magic] like there’s no tomorrow. And those ‘peace symbols’ are a part of it. They are symbols of the anti-Christ!…
[T]he actual origin of this Satanic symbol can be pinpointed….
[I]n America, as thousands of radicalized youths parade that same symbol, the heretics of the Christian have all but adopted the ‘sign of the anti-Christ’ as their own. And you can be absolutely certain that the Communists planned it that way.
Ezra Taft Benson’s political rhetoric helped make the LDS Church the conservative bastion it is today. But as I have shown (and will continue to show) in my general conference series, some apostles have espoused surprisingly liberal opinions during conference.
While I realise Mormons claim not to believe their hierarchy isn’t perfect, you’d think that god wouldn’ve know better than to choose a raving, anti-communist, racist lunatic as “prophet, seer, and revelator”.
But of course, like everything else uncomfortable, the truth about E.T. Benson has been swept under the rug.
How I’ve heard Mormons defend Benson, though, is that he became pretty mum about politics when he became president of the church. And that’s certainly true. He was no longer the far-right firebrand he once was. But one wonders whether that was a change of heart, or the senility he suffered from for most of his tenure as church president. I think it was a bit of both.
It’s true I never heard about any of his craziness when I was in the church – but I was also only about 11 or so when he died. It does seem that he wasn’t so vocal whilst church president, but the fact remains that it is largely because of his earlier rhetoric whilst apostle that the church is so Randian these days. And that makes me sad because even though I believe all the doctrines to be total bullshit, there was real socialist potential in the earlier church.
Ezra Taft Benson was the Secretary of Agriculture for two terms under Eisenhower and widely respected not only inside the LDS Church but outside side as well. They say it takes one to know one. Obviously the comments from the last three comments show they don’t know much about what makes a good man. Benson was never a member of the John Birch Society although he did support many of their views. Considering Stalin killed over 20 million of his own people in death camps and by starvation, it is not hard to see why any thinking person, including Benson, would be adamantly anti-communist.
Ezra Taft Benson was the Secretary of Agriculture for two terms under Eisenhower and widely respected not only inside the LDS Church but outside side as well. They say it takes one to know one. Obviously last three comments show they don’t know much about what makes a good man. Benson was never a member of the John Birch Society although he did support many of their views. Considering Stalin killed over 20 million of his own people in death camps and by starvation, it is not hard to see why any thinking person, including Benson, would be adamantly anti-communist.