{"id":113342,"date":"2025-10-21T16:54:43","date_gmt":"2025-10-21T22:54:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=113342"},"modified":"2025-10-21T16:54:43","modified_gmt":"2025-10-21T22:54:43","slug":"truth-and-treason","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2025\/10\/truth-and-treason.html","title":{"rendered":"“Truth and Treason”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

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\"Looking<\/a>
\u201cEyes Westward\u201d \u2014 a statue of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young that is located in Nauvoo, Illinois (Wikimedia Commons public domain photograph)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This thirty-one-minute video interview podcast with Christopher Blythe went up sometime yesterday evening: \u201cDaniel Peterson on Brigham Young.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0 It was recorded several weeks ago, and there is one correction to it that I need to make: We have now rethought our plan for releasing our series of Becoming Brigham<\/em> mini-docmentaries. Instead of \u201cOctoberish,\u201d as I said in the interview, we\u2019re now planning for a launch sometime in mid-January. \u00a0I hope that you\u2019ll watch them, that you\u2019ll enjoy them and profit from them, and that, when the time comes, you\u2019ll recommend them to others. \u00a0And if, in the meanwhile, you want to contribute financially to the support of our effort, I certainly won\u2019t complain. \u00a0I\u2019m excited about the project.<\/p>\n

\"I<\/a>
The official movie poster for \u201cTruth and Treason\u201d (fair use)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

My wife and I went to see Truth and Treason<\/em><\/a> late this morning. \u00a0It\u2019s the true story of the Latter-day Saint teenager Helmuth H\u00fcbener<\/a>, who was martyred for his resistance to the Third Reich, and I should warn you (in case you haven\u2019t already guessed) that it\u2019s not exactly The Feel-Good Movie of the Year. \u00a0You won\u2019t come out of the theater humming tunes, laughing, and dancing. \u00a0In fact, the small to middling audience that watched the film with us stayed, and stayed profoundly silent, through the credits \u2014 as was, in my opinion, entirely appropriate.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve thought about Brother H\u00fcbener\u2019s story for decades now. \u00a0It\u2019s worth thinking about.<\/p>\n

See this Deseret News<\/em> article: \u201c\u2018Truth & Treason\u2019: The real story behind the Latter-day Saint teen who resisted the Nazis:\u00a0Director Matt Whitaker has been absorbed by Helmuth H\u00fcbener\u2019s story for decades. His film adaptation, \u2018Truth & Treason,\u2019 is distributed by Angel Studios\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Truth and Treason<\/em> is a rather dark film in every sense of the word, but a very solid one, well acted and well directed. \u00a0It doesn\u2019t shy away from the difficulties posed by the story. \u00a0(Jeremy Roberts has a thoughtful Facebook post on the subject.) \u00a0What, for example, should we think of the branch president, Arthur Zander? \u00a0(Despite the film\u2019s calling him one, he wasn\u2019t a bishop. \u00a0There weren\u2019t yet any wards or stakes in Germany during the 1940s.) \u00a0I highly recommend the film to you.<\/p>\n

One of the questions that faithful Latter-day Saints should ask themselves after encountering the story of Helmuth H\u00fcbener is this: How far does my duty to obey the law and sustain my government extend? \u00a0Is it absolute? \u00a0Can there ever come a time when rebellion is justified? \u00a0Where and how and on what basis, if any, should we draw the line?<\/p>\n

In the film, Helmuth\u2019s branch president, standing at the pulpit on a Sunday, quotes the Twelfth Article of Faith:<\/p>\n

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We believe in being\u00a0subject\u00a0to\u00a0kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in\u00a0obeying, honoring, and sustaining the\u00a0law.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

On the other hand, Latter-day Saints venerate the American Founders, who established a new nation after rebelling against King George III. \u00a0Benjamin Franklin is probably the person who suggested \u201cRebellion to tyrants is obedience to God\u201d as a motto to be featured on the Seal of the United States. \u00a0 It wasn\u2019t adopted, but Thomas Jefferson \u2014 who wrote the American Declaration of Independence, which is as close to secular scripture as anything in American history \u2014 eventually selected it for use on his own personal seal. \u00a0What should we make of that?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"T.<\/a>
The personal seal of Thomas Jefferson (Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

I was impressed, as well, by the previews that we saw before the feature, all of which were from Angel Studios (as is Truth and Treason<\/em>). \u00a0We watched the trailers for I Was a Stranger<\/em><\/a>, Young Washington: A Founder\u2019s Story<\/a><\/em>, and Sarah\u2019s Oil<\/em><\/a>. \u00a0I want to see all of them.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m impressed that Angel is telling uplifting stories. \u00a0They\u2019re also good<\/em> stories, stories that Hollywood, obsessed as it is with superheroes and \u201cwokeness\u201d and saturated in extramarital sex, seems uninterested in telling. \u00a0Angel Studios merits our patronage and support. \u00a0It truly is<\/em> better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>
Structures such as this one (shown in a Wikimedia Commons public domain photo) were once thought by the Enlightened to be relics of a dark age of human history that, we could hope, was coming to an end with our own glorious epoch of peace, selflessness, enlightenment, and human flourishing. \u00a0However, that may not be the case.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

These stories seem to me mutually relevant:<\/p>\n