Minister arrested after taping Mormon pageant

Salt Lake City Tribune ^ | August 13, 2006 | Jennifer Dobner

[Colofornian]

SALT LAKE CITY - An evangelical Christian minister claims he was unlawfully arrested while trying to tape a performance of a Mormon-themed pageant in the Clarkston Cemetery near Logan Friday night.

Joel Kramer, 39, was arrested and booked for disorderly conduct after he told a Cache County sheriff's deputy he was not violating any laws by videotaping the pageant. The pageant depicts the life of Martin Harris, an early disciple of Joseph Smith, founder of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

"These are free pageants, so there's no copyright violation and I'm within my rights to be on public land," Kramer said. "I feel like it was the LDS church influence. That's the reason I was arrested."

Kramer, who claims the entire incident was recorded on video and audio tape, said he was told by a sheriff's deputy the Mormon church had requested Kramer turn off his cameras.

Jail records and an online incident report for the Cache County sheriff's office confirm Kramer's arrest and booking. He posted $280 bail and was released.

No one from the sheriff's office was available to discuss the incident, a deputy said Saturday.

Mormon church spokesman Mike Otterson said he was unaware of what happened. A message left for Donald Jeppesen, who is listed as the information contact for the Clarkston pageant on a church Web site, was not immediately returned. Clarkston is about 160 miles north of Salt Lake City, the home base of the Mormon church.

Kramer is the director of Living Hope Ministries, a non-denominational ministry based in Brigham City, that says its mission is to bring Bible truths specifically to members of the Mormon church.

Kramer has produced several videos, including "The Bible vs. The Book of Mormon" and "DNA vs. The Book of Mormon," which can be watched over the Internet for free or purchased.

He said he tapes the Mormon pageants - he's recorded those in Palmyra, New York and Manti, Utah - and uses sections of the tapes in his evangelizing videos.

At other pageants, Kramer said he's talked with police but has never been arrested.

At the beginning of each pageant, an announcer asks the audience to refrain from taking photographs or video, Kramer said.

"It sounds like law, but it's a request," Kramer said. "It would be like me announcing over a loudspeaker that I would like them not to show the pageant."

Friday night, Kramer said he and three other men from Living Hope Ministries turned off their cameras and tried to reason with the sheriff's deputy, especially when told the cemetery amphitheater had been leased by the city to the Mormon church. They also changed locations in the cemetery, moving farther away from the amphitheater, but Kramer was still arrested.

"I told (the officer) you just arrested me for breaking the LDS rules," Kramer said, who added that none in his group went to the pageant to proselytize.

It's unclear if prosecutors will formally charge Kramer with a crime.

[Colofornian]

Your "spiritual progeny" stuff is over generalized and to be honest a little confusing. Billy the Kid was Mormon (the oldest of 11 kids). Perhaps we should hold Mormons accountable for his crimes. Ezra Taft Benson was as conservative as they come, anti communist, JBS'er. His Grandson Steve Benson got excommunicated and is one of the worst Liberal political Cartoonists. Does this discount his grandpa's anti communist statements?

Well, I could do even better than your examples to "balance out" my statement: Lucipher himself is a "spiritual progeny" of God as Creator, is he not? Yet we don't hold God accountable for how he, or any demon, turned out, right?

So, yes, free agency exists in the universe. Individual responsibility has not been negated.

Yet there is a key, important distinction between Adam, Eve, Lucipher & every demon. They all, at the time of their downfall, were morally perfect. Therefore, free agency was a 100% reality in each of their cases.

The same thing cannot be said of anyone born into the human situation--the bondage of sin. [Ephesians 2:1, which states we are each born spiritually dead, shows that free agency has been curtailed to a key extent, since the fall].

In the human situation, sin takes on both individual AND corporate dimensions. We not only have transmitted sin in every generation going back to Adam & Eve, we also pick up "pet sins" (habits, customs, tendencies, etc.) from our parents.

Otherwise, we wouldn't have seen racism or egregious acts of racism, for example, more prevalent in the South from the 19th century through the early 1960s. It wasn't that racism was in anyway a "Southern sin" only...it's just that was the "moral progeny" southern families tended to leave as a legacy for the following generation. It wasn't a universal southern trait, but no one could deny its prominence.

Likewise, I'm sure you could isolate certain "pet sins" that are more likely to reside in one denomination or sect versus another--some more prominent than others. For example, a Hindu might be accused of assigning equal or greater value toward a cow as of that a street kid in Calcutta. To deny that reality is to again deny the obvious.

To state such existing "pet sins" as a fact denominational/sect "fact" might be to overgeneralize in painting a broad brush against the entire group. Some philosophical positions overstress corporate responsibility to the exclusion of individual responsibility; others do the reverse. And it's the latter that's the greater problem of the West. We've not been taught well that there is moral corporate culpability.

It's a prominent theme all throughout the Bible, and especially in the Old Testament. Notice how fine-tuned the Bible gets on individual versus corporate responsibility in passages like Ezekiel 33:5-9. Ezekiel says individual man is held responsible for his own sins; but that God holds others responsible for the blood of that man.

So Billy the Kid? Billy was responsible for his sins, not the Mormons. But the blood on Billy's hands? Only God knows if others besides Billy's are held accountable. I don't see how you can assume that blood-guilt is a solo issue. [The irony in all of this is that the LDS for a time took the opposing view, that blood-guilt was not a corporate matter in Jesus dying for others' sins, but that certain sins could only be atoned for by an individual's blood being shed for his own sins. This was Brigham's doctrine of blood atonement--a doctrine denounced by current LDS thought but still embraced by some Mormon fundamentalist sects].

I don't hold it against my Catholic friends that John Kerry claims to be Catholic.

As stated in my previous graph, Kerry is his own man, whether he is Catholic or becomes converted to some other grounding. But, and I say, but...if his political views resulted in the additional shedding of innocent blood (say, preborn children), then that could become a greater assignment of blood accountability. That "assignment of blood accountability" is an act of God, since only He would not the true total scope...but sometimes God makes known some of the broader linkages via a spokesperson.

As to how we as everyday people go about making general assessments...if I had a Muslim neighbor who denounced acts of Muslim terrorism, would I hold him responsible for what Muslim terrorists do? No way! That would be overgeneralizing (guilt by association).

However, if I had access to all his commentary about such terrorist acts, and he either endorsed them or never denounced them, then indeed, would you not concede, that he is more a part of the problem than part of the solution?

[ladyinred]

My husband got into trouble trying to tape inside the visitors room at a Mormon Temple where our dear friend was getting married. We thought it was okay in an area they allowed us in, but they got very upset and were trying to take our brand new over a 1000 bucks camera! Hubby refused to give it to them, and they were very angry. Scary stuff that I will never forget!

[Colofornian]

You are not confusing Mormonism with Battlestar Gallactica with all the "mother ship" talk are you?

Well I'm sure if you were doing Mystery Science 3000 commentary on several of the 1950s flying saucer films, we'd hear you point out from your theater front row that the alien saucer hovering over LA was from Mars, but that other ship hovering simultaneously over DC just happened to be from another galaxy entirely. It's all coincidence; happenstance; a total random, cosmic event w/no connection whatsoever.

As such, you would be totally consistent with the spiritual & moral libertarianism that seems to be traceable to your posts. So, is that indeed your posture? Are you a moral libertarian?

[Rameumptom]

Battlestar Gallactica is a joke. It was highly influenced/written by a Mormon and has a ton of Mormon type references. I was saying it to say that what one person does does not the entire church make.

I find the entire posting here highly intriguing and it is dissected and debated in more ways than I could have come up with myself of course. Unfortunately we do not have enough good information from the article to truly judge what happened. I for one would like to see the video the minister took. Perhaps the disorderly conduct charge was proper perhaps it wasn't. I do disagree that the Police were acting under direction of the Church leaders as some have insinuated. As a former Police Officer I realize officers have a high degree of discretion. Without more information I can contribute little of relevance to the incident itself.

I am not a moral relativist or libertarian. More in next post.

[Rameumptom]

Free agency is a term not found in the scriptures (though the concept is popular here in America). Moral Agency more accurately describes the condition of man. Everything we do has consequences.

Adam and Eve were innocent in the Garden. They had some level of choice as they chose to disobey and eat the fruit. They did not have a full understanding of what they did, but they did sin in disobeying God.

I would agree with your individual and corporate definitions of sin. (I would call corporate, societal or group sin)

The Lord makes a distinction between individual and group sins to the Mormon Saints in the 1800's.

D&C 105: 2 Behold, I say unto you, were it not for the transgressions of my people, speaking concerning the church and not individuals, they might have been redeemed even now.

Men are born into sin but the atonement of Christ overcame that sin on an individual and corporate level. Mormons beleive that the atonement of Christ is universal and ovecomes Adam and Eve's original sin.

1 Cor. 15: 22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.

In the OT Aaron made a blood atonement offering once a year to cover corporate (group) sins. (Ex. 30: 10)

When Christ came he performed his atonement so those who fully come to him are washed clean from the sins of their generation.

In the OT and Book of Mormon the Lord talks about sins occuring to the third and fourth generation. Showing that sin can be passed on (bolstering your corporate argument). (Ex. 34: 7)

Mosiah 13: 13 And again: Thou shalt not abow down thyself unto them, nor serve them; for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generations of them that hate me;

Those who have known Christ and deny him will be under greater condmenation than those who have not yet heard the good news. Judas is the best example of this. The Pharisees and Saducees also. Jesus' harshest criticism was for them because they should have known better.

Now it is the application of corporate and individual sin in the that we disagree on.

You use an example of a man who is not LDS who sounds like a bad guy to show that the Mormon church is corrupt. He in effect is the evidence (generational) that the mother church was wrong. I disagree with this characterization. Judas denied Christ but that doesn't diminish the truth of Christ. Because some bozo did weird stuff (I haven't read the book) doesn't mean the entire Mormon church is false.

Kerry is his own man, whether he is Catholic

With the example of Kerry you say he is responsible for his own sin, his own man. But his sin could be corporate if is a proponent of abortion. But you do not take it a step further and claim the Catholic church contributed to Kerry's corporate sin.

But you do take it that further step with the Mormon church. In effect saying in some murderer's case the Mormon chruch is responsible. When in your case with Kerry the Catholic church is not corporately respnsible for Kerry's political views.

Those previous two paragraphs are hard to follow. There is probably a better way to state it. I agree with your fundamental definition of corporate and individual sin just not the application in the cases cited.

[subterfuge]

Nice jumping to conclusions. Nowhere is the religion of the Officer described in the article

Well duh. After reading some of your posts I have to ask. Is there anything you don't know Newbie?

[Rameumptom]

Well duh. After reading some of your posts I have to ask. Is there anything you don't know Newbie?

I disagreed with your post and it obviously struck a chord.

There is lots I don't know. But my friend Frankie Google seems to know quite a bit.

Wikipedia Newbie

Newbie

A newbie is a newcomer to a particular field, the term being commonly used on the Internet, where it might refer to new, inexperienced, or ignorant users of a game, a newsgroup, an operating system or the Internet itself. The term is generally regarded as an insult, although in many cases more experienced/knowledgeable people use it in purposes of negative reinforcement, urging "newbies" to learn more about the field or area in question.

Social rejection

In some contexts, such as on Usenet and in online multiplayer video games, newbies are discouraged from the group. Newbies may ask questions that seem extremely simple to experienced users, or disrupt normal order with their lack of skills or etiquette in a certain type of technology. For example, video game players may dislike newbies because they think newbies will hurt or bring down the collective efforts of a team game. Usenet posters may dislike newbies for bringing up off-topic discussion or violating netiquette. Noobs also ask questions with answers that can easily be found in the options menu of the game they are playing.

In some groups, the term "newbie" is used by experienced users to refer to any newcomer, whether the newcomer acts ignorantly or not. In this case, the regulars assert their position with a sort of hazing

....Blah Blah Blah it goes on... Ooh this is interesting further down the article newbie actually started in the NAVY from N.U.B. onboard submarines.

I plan to be around for awhile, sorry.

[Colofornian]

Free agency is a term not found in the scriptures (though the concept is popular here in America). Moral Agency more accurately describes the condition of man. Everything we do has consequences.

General agreement there...LDS actually like to frequently use the word "free agency"--and it's a term that really no longer applies theologically to man in his basic state. Bondage of the will is a more descriptive phrase.

[Colofornian]

You use an example of a man who is not LDS who sounds like a bad guy to show that the Mormon church is corrupt.

Not sure who you're referencing here. Leroy Johnson, the one non-LDS person I mentioned by name, perhaps has a better moral legacy than the other two (both LDS) I mentioned by name--John D. Lee and Warren Johnson.

[Colofornian]

With the example of Kerry you say he is responsible for his own sin, his own man. But his sin could be corporate if is a proponent of abortion. But you do not take it a step further and claim the Catholic church contributed to Kerry's corporate sin. But you do take it that further step with the Mormon church. In effect saying in some murderer's case the Mormon chruch is responsible. When in your case with Kerry the Catholic church is not corporately respnsible for Kerry's political views.

To hold the Catholic church responsible for Kerry's views, you would need to show me where the Catholic church has taught those views. You can't. There's no correlation there. [The most you could try is to point to a church body's sin of omission...that they idly stood by when they could have save pre-born children...but basically the entire religious world is guilty of that].

Let me give you an example of a correlation: President Bill Clinton said he belonged to a Baptist church whose pastor believed life began at birth (first-breath). So do I hold that Arkansas church (when that pastor was alive) as being guilty of corporate blood-guilt? Yes I do.

Now, do you think no chords run through the violence of people like John D. Lee and those he answered to? In the book UNDER THE BANNER OF HEAVEN, the author makes it clear that Lee received permission to finish the butchering job of kids aged 6 & up--along w/executing their parents--from 2 LDS people in authority...one who headed the militia of Southern Utah...and the other who was both mayor of Cedar City & head of the LDS ward. About 140 people in the wagon train were slaughtered in the Meadow Mtns. Massacre.

Lee himself was especially close to Brigham Young, and he claimed late in life that he did nothing not sanctioned by the church...that he was simply a scapegoat.

The book, along with other sources, also makes a case for the two Powell expedition party who were missing were killed in an LDS ward in southern Utah.

So, when you have the leader of a ward butchering small innocent children and their families; when you possibly have a ward killing off two men in the very internals of a ward...with no justice ever taking place in either of those cases other than Lee being fired at...and then you add the cases assigned to those referenced by Tspud1 in post #62...with Porter Rockwell being sanctioned by Young in most, if not all he did...

Tspud1 wrote: Ever heard of The Mountain Meadows Massacre, the Danites, Destroying Angels, Avenging Angels, The "Death Society" - also known as "Daughters of Gideon," or, in Brigham Young's reign, as "Sons of Thunder," "Sons of Dan," How about blood atonement?

[Hammerhead]

Mormons: Biggest wacko fruitcake cult there is (besides Islam)

[JavaTheHutt]

The article said he's using footage from these tapes in videos that he's making.

Yes, but until he actually distributes his video tapes with some of this footage included, what law has he broken?

Maybe the cops should automatically pull over everyone they see driving a muscle car and write them a ticket for speeding in a school zone. They haven't actually done it yet, but by God, they will!

[JavaTheHutt]

But, as he said, he uses portions of them in his own videos; this seems to be a clear violation of copyright as well as a violation of the rights of any actors in the productions who had not given their releases for the use of their images.

But he hasn't actually distributed anything with the video footage included. Mabe the cops, in addition to writing people speeding tickets for future acts of speeding through a school zone that they may commit, should also arrest people at the point of making a firearm purchase. They could charge us all with bank robbery.

I'll be paranoid the next time I run to Home Depot to get some duct tape, I sure would hate to get arrested for kidnapping.

[Tspud1]

Here's another question to ask. If Joseph Smith or other leaders get it straight from god in his revelations, how can god change his mind?

[ER Doc]

I was referring to the previous LDS events he's taped and included in his own videotapes, as mentioned in the article.

[Rameumptom]

Blood Atonement is a false doctrine. Critics point the the Journal of Discourses to prove it was taught. I've posted about it before, I'll reprint it here for you. It is not a doctinre or tenet or creed of the Mormon church.

The Journal of Discourses is not Doctrine or accepted Canon of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. A little history of the JD shows why. (simplified and summarized by me)

A member of the Church attended various meetings and conferences of the Church, in his own version of shorthand he copied down the sermons. Some of the talks he did not write at the time but up to a few weeks later as he best remembered them. He did this over a period of approximately 25 years. He decided that all this material should be published. So he did publish the material privately for which he received money (profits). To do so he had to reconstruct what he meant by his shorthand from the past 25 years. This man was not called by the church or held any position as recorder or historian. What he wrote is very valuable material for historians and people interested in the what early apostles and prophets "possibly" said. While it does provide a great window into some early sermons of early church leaders it is clearly not accepted as Canon of the Church.

I have personally had non Mormons tell me that I believe the "Adam-God Theory" and "Blood Atonement" by using quotes from the Journal of Discourses. They are both false principles. (Though I agree with the idea that a murderer's blood should be spilt, die by lethal injection, hanging or electrocution. I personally believe in Capital Punishment. It just doesn't have any effect on his consequence in the afterlife.

Blood Atonement is not doctrine or canon of the Church thus disqualifying it for your corporate sin arugment that the church is responsible for Lee Murdering innocent women and children.

The Danites were a group of Saints that took secret oaths to fight the Missouri mob who was killing Mormons. When Joseph found out about their secret oaths he spoke against them and many were run out of town. "Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling" recounts what happens using both pro and anti literature from the time to recreate what happened.

John D. Lee murdered women and children. He was executed for his murders, Like any murderer should be. There were sensational reports even at the time that he was acting under orders from the church leadership. Since when has the media been unbiased or honest? The "conspiracy theories" that floated around at the time are similar to the liberal conspiracy theories that float around today about President Bush having a hand in 9/11. It's just pure hogwash.

I have not read the Book banner of Heaven so I can;t comment on it. The other two men you mention (who were not Mormon said god told them to murder a woman and her daughter. Sounds crazy to me. They don't mention Brigham Young at all)

One big clue about the book however (even though I have not read it) is the critical reviews it has received. I am highly suspicious about anything highly praised by The NYT's.

"Powerfully illuminating. . . . Almost every section of the book is fascinating in its own right, and together the chapters make a rich picture. . . . An arresting portrait of depravity." —The New York Times

"Illuminating . . . provocative. . . . Krakauer is an adept chronicler of extremists [and] the tour guide of choice for secular quests." —Los Angeles Times Book Review

"Scrupulously reported and written with Krakauer's usual exacting flair, Under the Banner of Heaven is both illuminating and thrilling. It is also the creepiest book anyone has written in a long time—and that's meant as the highest possible praise." —Newsweek

[Rameumptom]

More about "Under the Banner of Heaven".

The more I read about the author of the book the more I understand why the NYT's loves the book.

Here are some of Krakauer's own words. (he's agnostic)

“I don’t know what God is, or what God had in mind when the universe was set in motion. In fact I don’t know if God even exists, although I confess that I sometimes find myself praying in times of great fear, or despair, or astonishment at a display of unexpected beauty.”

“Faith is the very antithesis of reason...,"

His book bashes religious fundamentalism in general. I would say he is not an unbiased source. Hence the lavish prasie by the MSM.

Official Church response to Under the Banner of Heaven.

The link is of course the Official response from the LDS church which you may feel is biased. However, I think a even a quick skim of the article written by historians reviewing his book does a good job tearing apart his supposed history.

[Rameumptom]

with no justice ever taking place in either of those cases other than Lee being fired at...

fired at....? That's Sort of like saying "Lee died of natural causes... too much lead in his system." That's puting it mildly. Those shots happened to be in a firing squad that executed him for his murder. It is also not suprising that a convicted murderer would lie about his motive. "Uhhh it's someone elses' fault not mine."

John D. Lee sitting on his coffin moments before his execution.

[capta1nm0r0n1]

the man's ministry is focused on convincing mormons that they are wrong, so he is probably misrepresenting the footage as a false way of proveing mormons wrong about their religion. and trust me he is not the only person using anti mormon propoganda.

[capta1nm0r0n1]

copyright dosn't only cover the sell of of an item for profit. it also cover's the unlawful display of something.