{"id":35929,"date":"2016-08-16T01:18:55","date_gmt":"2016-08-16T07:18:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=35929"},"modified":"2016-08-16T01:18:55","modified_gmt":"2016-08-16T07:18:55","slug":"im-a-spy-for-the-mormon-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2016\/08\/im-a-spy-for-the-mormon-church.html","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;I&#8217;m a spy for the Mormon Church&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_35930\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-35930\" style=\"width: 596px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2016\/08\/1000px-Spy_silhouette_document.svg_.png\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-35930\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-35930\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2016\/08\/1000px-Spy_silhouette_document.svg_.png\" alt=\"Spy silhouette\" width=\"596\" height=\"477\"><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-35930\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A Mormon spy with a stolen document (or, perhaps, one of the golden plates)<br>Wikimedia Commons<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>I would imagine that some of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/allergicpagan\/2016\/08\/14\/im-a-spy-for-the-mormon-church\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\">this guy\u2019s<\/a> audience will believe him.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>After all, his story is no crazier and no more obviously bogus than the claims with which Ed Decker and Bill Schoebelen and the inimitable Loftes Tryk have entertained audiences (and from which at least one of them has apparently derived a living) over the past several decades:<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>On Ed Decker (and, to some extent, on his sidekick Bill Schoebelen), see <a href=\"http:\/\/publications.mi.byu.edu\/fullscreen\/?pub=1436&amp;index=5\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cP. T. Barnum <em>Redivivus<\/em>.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>On Loftes Tryk, see <a href=\"http:\/\/publications.mi.byu.edu\/fullscreen\/?pub=1426&amp;index=20\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cA Modern <em>Malleus maleficarum<\/em>,\u201d<\/a> which represents perhaps the most fun I\u2019ve ever had while writing,<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\">Posted from Oslo, Norway<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 \u00a0 I would imagine that some of this guy\u2019s audience will believe him. \u00a0 After all, his story is no crazier and no more obviously bogus than the claims with which Ed Decker and Bill Schoebelen and the inimitable Loftes Tryk have entertained audiences (and from which at least one of them has apparently [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>&quot;I&#039;m a spy for the Mormon Church&quot;<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"&nbsp; 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