Splinter Group: Apostolic Brethren Part 1

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Be sure to pick up your copy today at your favorite Christian bookstore viewpoint on Mormonism program that examines the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints from a biblical perspective viewpoint when Mormonism is sponsored by Mormonism research ministry since 1979 Mormonism research ministry has been dedicated to equipping the body of Christ with answers regarding the Christian faith in a manner that expresses gentleness and respect. And now, your host for today's viewpoint on Mormonism. So glad you could be with us for this edition of viewpoint on Mormonism on your host, Bill McKeever, founder and director Mormonism research ministry and with me today is Eric Johnson. My colleague at MRM for the past several broadcasts we been looking at some of the more lesser-known splinter groups of the restoration movement and today were going to be looking at what is known as the apostolic United brethren. They have other names as well. They are often called a you be there. Also called the group the work and they are also known as the all read group and there's a reason for that. This group the apostolic United brethren was founded by a man by the name of Rulon C already was born in 1906 he was murdered in 1977 but in 1954 he founded the apostolic United brethren in it does have its share of controversy and I might mention you may not even know this, but they are connected to the reality show sister wives, although if you watch that show.

You may never know this connection as far as I understand it was not mentioned a lot, if at all on that program, but Cody Brown is a part of this group and one of his wives actually had the maiden name of all read. So certainly there is a connection to this group. Let's talk a little bit about the history of this group and where are they have already mentioned that it was founded in 1954 by Rulon see all read the current leader is a man by the name of Lynn a Thompson and he's been the leader since 2014. How large is this group Eric S about 7500 people and their mainly based in the United States, including Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, and they apparently have a few hundred followers in Mexico when I did the research for this group. It was of the seven splinter groups that were taking a look at during this series, the most difficult to find out information they don't have a website they don't tell you a whole lot. I tried to get in contact with some of the leaders and I was not able to get any information so when I have here though is it's a small group but it's a substantial group.

When you consider Cody Brown and the influence that he has over many years of being on the TLC network and talking about polygamy and making it look somewhat glamorous. Although the warts and all the bad things that go with polygamy are certainly shown on that show. Now Rulon see all read was a chiropractor and he had a practice in Salt Lake City. He grew up in polygamist families claimed he had a vision in his 20s, telling him to take additional wives.

His first wife was a woman by the name of Kathryn Hanby.

She ended up leaving him because he wanted to marry other women and this is a problem when those of an LDS background decide to move on into the realm of plural marriages often times that wife does not want to go with them and that does cause some serious problems in the relationship that he belonged to the group in Short Creek, Arizona Short Creek is connected to the Warren Jeffs group that were just father was also a Rulon and we were talking off air why is Rulon such Mormon name. I'm not really sure why that is but anyway associated himself with the short Creek group in the early 1950s. And then there was a raid on short Creek, Arizona. This took place in 1953. From what I've read of the short Creek raid. They went in and they arrested all these men who had polygamist wives. It ended up being really a public relations nightmare because we do with all these men that you've arrested you just taken the breadwinners away from these families.

And now the state becomes responsible for them so they ended up letting all the men go anyway and what was a disaster. As far as public relations goes as you mention is that there were photographers there who were taking pictures of the children who are crying. The wives were being left behind.

And so it was a major PR disaster July 26, 1953 and all read was a part of that, though he later associates himself with the LeBaron group.

Now this is a real controversial group approval. LeBaron was the leader of this group. They made a movie about herbal LeBaron. It was called profit of evil, the herbal LeBaron story. It was a TV program came out in 1993 Brian Dennehy, who passed away in April 2020. He played herbal LeBaron and also in the film was an actor by the name of William the vein you probably know him because he's always hocking gold coins on TV nowadays but herbal LeBaron was bad news. Herbal LeBaron was responsible for the murder of Rulon see all read in his office in Salt Lake City. We have to understand that when Rulon went to Mexico he was promised great wealth to be with the LeBaron's but it didn't happen and so all read. He started his own group in 1954 and by 1959 he had a thousand members and and that's how this group really got started in the first few years. A thousand members is pretty good. After five years. Then he starts to publicly declare his polygamist ways and he discusses that with journalists. This man had at least seven wives and 48 children.

But one thing that he did that was a mistake on his part is, he did not make friends, not only with the FL DS group, the fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and that would've been Rulon Jeffs as well as Warren Jeffs, but also he did not have good relationships with the LeBaron's that group that he had left in 1954. So in the late 1960s. He begins to get death threats from the LeBaron's and then on May 10, 1977. He was working as a chiropractor to disguise women visited his office and shot him to death in one of the killers was a plural wife of herbal LeBaron the top LeBaron leader after Eldred's death.

He was replaced by his brother: I'll read: was born in 1914 he passed away in 2005.

He had eight wives 23 children and more than 200 grandchildren and he had been excommunicated from the LDS church in 1942 when he married his second wife, and then when he died in 2005 a guy named Jay Lemoine Jensen led the church until 2014.

He died of cancer in today. The current leader of this church is Lynn a Thompson, who was born in 1940. He's had some controversy with some of the members in his church and including sexual misconduct. Several women have accused him of that and also his daughter in November 2014. The daughter claimed that her father had abused her in the early 1950s when she was 12 and so with these different claims there's been controversy with Lynn Thompson, who is not at all read, we have to understand that this church is led by a priesthood council, the top leader is called the president of the priesthood and the number of men in the Council varies because there is no set number today. The church is based in Bluff Dell Utah with an interesting trivia fact is that the church had a house where they met where the fashion Place mall is now located today in Murray, Utah, and they ended up selling that to the developer and they ended up buying this land and bluff bill, which is where they are located today. If you're not familiar with the geography in the Salt Lake Valley bluff Dale would be in the Southwest quarter. They do have several places in Utah and Montana that they own in Pinedale Montana. They have a total of 640 acres and in the early days in 1973 that there were more than 400 polygamist that lived there. By 1998 they had more than 800 people. But today it's fewer than a thousand people that live in this mainly polygamist town of Pinedale Montana and then we have Rocky Ridge which is 225 acres that is located between Santa Quinn and Mona Utah in 2009. They had 65 families and what I found in my research, it appears that there are fewer than 50 families.

Although they built the chapel in 1990 that that can accommodate up to 750 people. So this church is not grown, perhaps the way that it thought it was going to but it also has locations in Cedar City Annan and Eagle Mountain Utah may have several hundred members who live in of Zumba Mexico. They built a temple there.

In the 1990s. Now they built the temple. Why do they even have a temple with the do in this building is it is it like the LDS church or what. And that's a great question and bill. I really tried to find out any information and there's just no information on what they do in the temple that they built in the 1990s, do they do baptisms for the dead, like the Mormon church does. I don't really know.

All I do know is that before 1978 the church encouraged its members to stay with their membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints so they could actually utilize the temple and do the work there but it all went to pot in 1978, when, in June the church announced that Blacks would now be allowed to hold the priesthood and so they are against the two declarations that are found at the end of that the doctrine and covenants declaration one which banned polygamy in 1890 and then in 1978 allowing Blacks to hold the priesthood. They disagree with both of those they must have some kind of similarity, at least in what the leave. It seems with what goes on in the temples that are owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints if they are encouraging their people to keep their membership in that church to use their temples for what they believe to be. I guess true as well yeah what they do there and what they do at the endowment house that's located in Bluff Dell that was built a number of years ago.

There's not any information on the Internet without having a will Internet site. The church is very quiet about what it teaches and as much research as I could do.

I was not able to determine what exactly is going on at the endowment house what's going on in the temple in Mexico and I guess that's to be expected because a lot of these groups that do believe in plural marriage. They probably feel for their own survival. They need to be very secretive about what's going on. They don't want to share a lot of information because some of that information might possibly be used against them.

Down the road for whatever reason you and I found that out with the harvesting group that was based out in man tie Utah. We had talked to some of the leaders in that group and I do admit that when we were interviewing the president of the group at that time, and the president is separate from the prophet Jim Harmsen who's since passed away. He was pretty open with some of the things he was telling us, but they normally did not go public with a lot of this information and so if you wanted to know what they really believed he almost had to know someone that was in the group or set up an appointment like we did and we had a great conversation and that was the year 2000. After prophecy had been made in 1999 that Jesus was returning. I have to say that I tried to get in contact with that president and other leaders of the group from 2001 and on and the group became completely silent and would not talk to anybody.

We been talking about the apostolic United brethren, and in tomorrow's show were going to continue looking at what this church believes.

And again, there's a difficulty in finding out exactly where their doctrinal positions are on a number of things. Thank you for listening.

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