"Thirst for my blood..."

[Not Buying It]

Somewhere around 10 years ago I caused a bit of a stir in Elder's Quorum during a lesson from the Joseph Smith manual called "Beware the Bitter Fruits of Apostasy". It didn't have the specific quote that apostates thirst for Joseph's blood, but it had tons of other quotes about how evil and wicked apostates become.

I voiced my objection - I said something along the lines of "many of those who leave the Church are good and decent people, and to the extent we demonize them, we do them and ourselves a disservice". Immediately after, the instructor read the next quote from the manual about how evil apostates are, and I said "There it is again. Listen, most apostates are not evil, bad people". Pretty sure I didn't change anyone else's mind, just made a lot of people uncomfortable.

The Church needs to convince members that those who leave are wicked. If they don't, more will feel comfortable leaving, and they can't have that. I've often thought that it was because of my comments in this lesson that I got banished to Primary for the next eight years, which, oddly enough, seems to be what they often do with people they can't figure out what to do with.