Visit to the Tanners' Bookstore

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felixfabulous
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Visit to the Tanners' Bookstore

Post by felixfabulous » Fri Nov 30, 2018 10:25 am

I had a conference in Salt Lake and stopped by the infamous Tanner bookstore. People like Mark Hofmann, Brent Metcalf and Thomas Ferguson spent time here discussing problems in Church history. I grew up hearing about the Tanners as the most infamous anti-Mormons. I thought the Mormon Stories interview with Sandra Tanner was fascinating to hear their role in discovering and publishing things like the Egyptian Grammar and Manuscript book and 1832 First Vision accoutn.

Walking into the bookstore was like going 20-30 years back in time to see how this kind of information was generated and published pre-internet. Stacks of well-known books ranging from Rough Stone Rolling to a whole bunch of books by evangelicals on how to Bible bash with missionaries. I also saw the replica lead golden plates that are impossible to lift. There are also lots of handmade tracts that are printed on color copy paper and home-printed books that were put together at a copy center. (I think they have all that stuff in-house).

It was interesting to see and experience. It's always fascinating to me that evangelicals can point out the flaws in Mormonism and not see the same problems with the Bible and their brand of Christianity. I do admire the Tanners' tenacity, all indications are they have not gotten rich with the bookstore and their Lighthouse Ministries.

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FiveFingerMnemonic
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Re: Visit to the Tanners' Bookstore

Post by FiveFingerMnemonic » Fri Nov 30, 2018 11:16 am

That's really cool, did you get to meet Sandra herself or was it just staffed by other employees?

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Palerider
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Re: Visit to the Tanners' Bookstore

Post by Palerider » Fri Nov 30, 2018 11:21 am

felixfabulous wrote:
Fri Nov 30, 2018 10:25 am
I do admire the Tanners' tenacity, all indications are they have not gotten rich with the bookstore and their Lighthouse Ministries.
And after telling us how bad the Tanners are, this would be the second thing the church and it's apologists would point out. How rich they have become.

But for us to point out how filthy rich the church has become.....well, that would be in bad form. How dare we even suggest such a thing. :|
"There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily."

"Truth will ultimately prevail where there is pains to bring it to light."

George Washington

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felixfabulous
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Re: Visit to the Tanners' Bookstore

Post by felixfabulous » Fri Nov 30, 2018 12:20 pm

No, Sandra wasn't there. There was one other employee at the store and someone else in the back. It's in the living room of an old house, across the street from the Salt Lake Bees stadium.

I have always wondered about the provenance of the grainy black and white photos of the Smith family magical parchments and dagger. I asked the person working there if she knew if someone had given that to the Tanners, but she said it didn't come through them, but Mike Quinn.

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Hagoth
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Re: Visit to the Tanners' Bookstore

Post by Hagoth » Fri Nov 30, 2018 3:25 pm

Didn't you feel the spirit flee because you were standing in unholy places?

I think Sandra has said she makes something like $30K/year.

Like you, I had heard about the spooky Tanners all my life. When I first visited their bookstores I felt like rolling on the floor laughing. This is the big scary boogyman that has had the legal team of The Stone Cut Out Of A Mountain Without Hands tied up in knots all of these years? This is Public Enemy Number One?! This is the vanguard of Satan's army? The Church of Jesus Christ and its hundreds of billions of dollars can't best this little old lady? :lol: :lol: :lol:
“The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.” -Mark Twain

Jesus: "The Kingdom of God is within you." The Buddha: "Be your own light."

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Rob4Hope
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Re: Visit to the Tanners' Bookstore

Post by Rob4Hope » Fri Nov 30, 2018 3:29 pm

I went into that bookstore a while back, and Sandra herself walked out. She is a very nice woman: pleasant, helpful, gracious and reminded me of a grandma. NOTHING about the stories I was raised about her and her husband being of the devil came through.

I purchased a bunch of stuff, and will continue to do so.

Reuben
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Re: Visit to the Tanners' Bookstore

Post by Reuben » Fri Nov 30, 2018 9:39 pm

Rob4Hope wrote:
Fri Nov 30, 2018 3:29 pm
I went into that bookstore a while back, and Sandra herself walked out. She is a very nice woman: pleasant, helpful, gracious and reminded me of a grandma. NOTHING about the stories I was raised about her and her husband being of the devil came through.

I purchased a bunch of stuff, and will continue to do so.
Sounds exactly like the kind of seductress Satan would masquerade as.
Learn to doubt the stories you tell about yourselves and your adversaries.

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2bizE
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Re: Visit to the Tanners' Bookstore

Post by 2bizE » Sat Dec 01, 2018 1:24 pm

Where is the bookstore located in Salt lake?
~2bizE

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FiveFingerMnemonic
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Re: Visit to the Tanners' Bookstore

Post by FiveFingerMnemonic » Sat Dec 01, 2018 1:46 pm

2bizE wrote:Where is the bookstore located in Salt lake?
Across the street from the Bees stadium in an old house.

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Rob4Hope
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Re: Visit to the Tanners' Bookstore

Post by Rob4Hope » Sat Dec 01, 2018 1:50 pm

For those who purchase books, I suggest you try her store for your NOM needs. I don't get anything for saying this...but the lady has been through a lot with the LDS slanders against her. And, all in all, she is a champion of honest history.

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moksha
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Re: Visit to the Tanners' Bookstore

Post by moksha » Sun Dec 02, 2018 12:25 am

Righteous Harassment at the Tanner Bookstore: A wild road trip to Salt Lake
by Louis Midgley, Brigham Young University

July 2, 1997

Sandra Tanner
Utah Lighthouse Ministry
P.O. Box 1884
Salt Lake City, Utah 84111

Dear Sandra:

I must admit that I was astonished when, on June 19th, your husband showed up and tossed me (and my friend) from your bookstore. If I said or did something that offended you, of course I apologize. But I am at a loss to figure out what I might have said to you that warranted our being tossed out of your bookstore--I thought that we were having a thoroughly civil conversation. As in each of my previous conversations with you, both on the phone and in your shop, I thought that we had been able to communicate and even disagree without being disagreeable. I do not recall either feeling or expressing hostility towards you in any of our conversations. In the past the issue that seemed to agitate you the most was my probing concerning the likelihood that George D. Smith's has financially assisted Utah Lighthouse Ministry. But even that portion of our previous conversations was entirely civil.

As you will recall, on the 19th we began by mentioning to you that you have a potential problem with your website. Why? Ordering with a credit care is unsecured. Pointing out that problem would hardly seem to constitute grounds for being tossed out. In addition, I was curious because it seems that you have determined to suppress the How Wide the Divide? even though it was published by a leading evangelical press. In your justification you ended up, as might be expected, attacking both Craig Blomberg and Stephen Robinson. I was astonished by the way you rationalized your opinions on Blomberg and Robinson and hence justified your decision to both suppress their book.

Once again I addressed your silence on D. Michael Quinn's homosexual agenda; and I again stressed its obvious impact on the way he has recently chosen to write about the Mormon past. Quinn is, after all, the same fellow who you thought was unprincipled and incompetent when he, as "Dr. Clandestine," wrote something critical of your work. But you now privilege and defend him. As I explained on this and two other occasions, it seems quite obvious that Quinn's homosexual agenda colors or controls his recent essays.

It turns out that you love Quinn's essays when he writes under his own name, but detest him when he writes as "Dr. Clandestine." When he attacks the Brethren or gossips about something you think is embarrassing to the Church of Jesus Christ, you become his apologist and promote and borrow from what he has written. Part of your defense of Quinn was that he provides hordes of citations. I was therefore delighted to discover that neither you nor your husband have checked any of the documentation in his essays. And it pleased me to demonstrate to you how easy it is to uncover flaws in his endnotes.

I was stunned when you claimed that neither you nor your husband have bothered to have a look at Quinn's Same-Sex Dynamics Among Nineteenth Century Americans: A Mormon Example (University of Illinois Press, 1996). You seem intent on borrowing from and/or promoting Quinn's Mormon Hierarchy (and items like his ridiculous talk entitled "On Being a Mormon Historian"), while ignoring his recent sex book. In the April 1997 Salt Lake City Messenger, your husband offers an apology for Quinn. And in so doing he has knowingly suppressed (1) the facts about Quinn's disgusting sex survey, (2) his public announcement in Out Magazine of his own homosexual passion, and (3) the details of the controversy over the publication of Same-Sex Dynamics. Any of these, if made known to your readers, would undercut Quinn's credibility and prove embarrassing to your efforts to use his work as a stick to beat the Church. Instead of telling the truth about these matters, your husband has argued that Quinn merely made a harmless little mistake when he claimed that Joseph Smith was favorable to homosexual behavior between men. It does you no credit to act as an apologists for Quinn merely because his recent essays turn out to be sources of gossip that you want to use to attack the Church of Jesus Christ. What you are apparently unable or unwilling to concede is that some of those same essays have done much to discredit Quinn as an historian.

I was astonished to discover that neither you nor your husband have moved beyond Quinn's 1995 essay in Dialogue. But your husband has ignored the bulk of even that essay, where Quinn attempted, among other things, to demonstrate that Evan Stephens was a homosexual and that those with whom he associated were involved in so-called "same-sex" relationships with him, as well as the preposterous notion that Joseph Smith favored what amounts to homosexual behavior between males. Why not at least inform your readers of the full contents of Quinn's essay in Dialogue, even if you continue to suppress his Same-Sex Dynamics, which richly illustrates his homosexual apologia? Why suppress the details concerning the controversy generated by its publication? Why suppress relevant information and blur the context in which claims such as those currently being made by Quinn are presented?

As I indicated to your husband, as he was ordering us from your bookstore, it will eventually turn out to be an embarrassment for you and your anti-Mormon cause to continue to use Quinn as a stick to beat the Church. And to continue to apologize for Quinn just seems to demonstrate once again that anti-Mormons will use just about anything or anyone to attack the gospel of Jesus Christ, even or especially when they know exactly how deficient their sources really are. You did yourself at least some credit by distancing yourselves from Ed Decker's unseemly sequel to his Godmakers. Why not now distance yourself from the agenda and essays being fashioned by an unfortunately deeply troubled Michael Quinn? When I made this point in our recent discussion, I did not see what I was saying as constituting but friendly advice. I certainly do not see how my having offered such advice, as unwelcome as it may have been, provides a justification for a sudden and impolite expulsion from your bookstore.

Grace and peace,

Louis Midgley

http://www.shields-research.org/Critics/TannerIn.htm
Good faith does not require evidence, but it also does not turn a blind eye to that evidence. Otherwise, it becomes misplaced faith.
-- Moksha

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Yobispo
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Re: Visit to the Tanners' Bookstore

Post by Yobispo » Fri Dec 07, 2018 9:51 am

I dropped in while visiting my daughter a while back. I asked to meet the Elect Lady and she came out, pulled up a chair and invited me to sit across from her for a chat. We spoke for about 30 minutes, but mostly it was her talking and me soaking it in. She was so comfortable. It felt like I was in her Bishop's office and she was trying to teach me, the young deacon, the way things really are.

I asked for a picture, being nervous because I'm no star-chaser, and she was very casual and kind about it, as though it was the 10,000th time she'd been asked. She even knew the best spot in the bookstore for the light.

Since then I've bought all my books on her site and usually add in a small tip just to support the cause. She's a gem.

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