Taggart, a self-described former “Molly Mormon” and divorced mother of eight, said she had found something better: a translation of the fabled sealed portion of the Book of Mormon.
After she heard a version was out there, Ida Smith later wrote, “I felt like I had been struck by a bolt of lightning.” All her life, the now-79-year-old Ida had been waiting for the sealed portion of the gold plates that LDS Church founder Joseph Smith had been unable to translate. It was from the remaining one-third of the gold plates that he translated The Book of Mormon. According to Mormon mythology, the sealed portion—of which, Mormon scripture authorities say, very little is known—would only be released when the faithful were ready for it.
>> Read Chris Nemelka's response to this story <<
Ida Smith (pictured at left) has always believed, “if I wanted the truth badly enough, I would get it.” After then-LDS president Gordon B. Hinckley had asked his church’s 10 million members to read The Book of Mormon during 2005, Ida Smith had been convinced the LDS Church would finally receive the sealed portion. But come LDS General Conference in April 2006, and then October that same year, it was not mentioned.
Daniel Peterson, a Brigham Young University professor of Islamic studies and Arabic, says, “Mormonism is rich in producing would-be prophets” and that occasionally “people come along purporting to know what was in the sealed portion or actually reveal it.” One such person is Christopher Marc Nemelka. While Nemelka acknowledges there are two other sealed portions on the Internet, his translation, he says, is the only one taken from the gold plates, which were given to him by Joseph Smith in a 1987 visitation while Nemelka worked as a security guard in the Salt Lake Temple. “If Joseph Smith were a true messenger,” then, Nemelka says, there’s “a big chance” so is he.
Nemelka’s translation, which Taggart gave to Ida Smith, is titled The Sealed Portion: The Final Testament of Jesus Christ. Nemelka says the book uses “religious prose and symbolism to explain how advanced human beings have interacted with human kind throughout the history of the earth.” One LDS Church member who converted to Nemelka’s version of the sealed portion is Monica Smith (no relation to Ida Smith). Monica Smith wrote on TheSealedPortion.com that, after reading it, “The atonement of Jesus Christ finally made sense. The meaning of the temple endowment was absolutely incredible. The history of the Earth laid out in one fell swoop was remarkable. Christ’s visit among the Nephites brought me to tears.” Its ultimate message, as Monica Smith wrote, was “do unto others what I would want them to do unto me.” This expanded to the Worldwide United Foundation, an organization promoted in the sealed portion and set up by Nemelka and his followers. It functions as both a vehicle to end global poverty and also to receive anonymous donations from those moved to support its aims to outlaw hunger, homelessness and promote universal insurance through a signature campaign.
While BYU’s Peterson finds the translation unconvincing, in part because “it’s contradictory to canonized [LDS] texts,” Ida Smith nevertheless had an intense, life-changing reaction when she read the book. She devoured it over six weeks, in the process emptying two boxes of tissues and several red ballpoint pens as she wept and underlined page after page of scripture. The voice of the Mormon angel Moroni “was unmistakable,” she later wrote. By the time she had finished the book, “my entire worldview had been forever changed.” It revealed to her what she had suspected since her youth: that the LDS Church was fallible and unnecessary, and that its prophets since Joseph Smith had been in name only. No other sealed portion, Nemelka says, “has the power to take somebody like Ida Smith and change their mind about their religion.”
Nemelka (pictured at left) says his job “is to counter the bullshit of the LDS Church.” Whether you believe he made up the sealed portion or not, he says he is doing his work, “for the good of other people. All I’ve seen is the prejudice, alienation and pain the LDS Church has caused other people, and I did something about it.” A spokesman for the LDS Church declined to comment in regard to this story.
Nemelka has indeed attempted to demolish the LDS faith. Polygamy critic John Llewellyn argued in a 40-page court-filed document when Nemelka unsuccessfully sued him for defamation and slander, that Nemelka used “Joseph [Smith], Moroni and Timothy to negate the basic beliefs and teaching of the LDS Church, mainly priesthood authority and the sacredness of the family unit.”
While Nemelka says he has no followers, ex-acolytes put those who believe he is a modern-day Joseph Smith as numbering no more than 80, although Ida Smith says a hundred thousand have downloaded his sealed portion.
In her small, book-lined living room in Orem, Ida Smith says the translation “made so much sense, it never entered my mind to question what it was.” But when she tried to share her new gospel with her younger brother, Hyrum Smith, he pleaded with her to abandon it and return to the LDS faith. “Your eternal future is at stake here,” Hyrum wrote in an e-mail. “You have been duped by a very clever, seemingly sincere, diabolical guy.”
Wow! Chris Nemelka. Haven't heard or thought about this guy in many years. But then again, he wasn't using Nemelka as his last name back then.
Some history that all of you believers and non beleivers might find interesting. I met Chris at an LDS church dance. I got out of my car, he got out of his and sparks flew. I thought to myself--Geez--this guy is single? So handsome and engaging. We started to date. After 3 or 4 times seeing each other he began to open up about who he really was. After he told me these many things, I never wanted to see him again and told him so and didn't. After what he told me I felt as if I was in the presence of Satan himself. Strong words I know, but I cannot even explain how dark and ominous of a feeling it was.
Chris explained to me that he had been the body guard to the President of the LDS church. But was booted out for accessing areas of the church that only officials of the church were allowed into. And many other issues. He also said that he had taken some documents. He stated that he had in his possession the lost pages of the Book of Mormon and that the church had them all along but kept them hidden from the world. And that he was now translating them and he proudly professed to me that he single handedly wanted to bring the Church to it's knees. His words not mine. He then said he was practicing polygamy but his wives were not happy with what he was doing so the family was disbanding. I believe at this time he was 36 and said he had either 6 or 9 children with 3 women. I wasn't so concerned at listening to his marital escapades as I was the former statements.
His arrogance and blatant hypocrisy was chilling.
You could have knocked me over with a feather. After I told him that I did not want to be involved with him anymore, he said he understood. That his lifestyle wasn't for everybody and he didn't contact me again.
For a while after that, I thought about the unfortunate people that he would come in contact with that would believe him and his lies. I was very grateful for my intuition that he was a liar and deceiver from the second he opened his mouth to tell me about himself. Whether all he told me was a lie or the truth that day, I cannot ever shake the horrid feelings it gave me to my soul.
I will not read the literature by Chris and I will not read the newpaper articles. I have just resd some of these posings to get the jist of what has happened in the past 13 or so years. This is my experience and my truth. And very grateful that I never let this guy further into my life and that I had the comon sense to listen to my heart and mind.
lol
Nemelka may be my new hero. He's better looking than Joseph Smith. Does anyone know if he has been bedding 14 year-old girls after promising their parents eternal life? Has he been sending missionaries out in the field and then taking their lonely wives as his own? Has he begun putting his closest confidants in some kind of new, magical underwear? Just asking. As far as I'm concerned, I think he's just proving that pretty much anybody can write a Book of Mormon. All it takes is imagination and the gift of gab.
I, too, used to believe in the Book of Mormon and once I was very protective of Joseph Smith. I would tell people, "You know what? I don't care that he had 34 wives. I don't care that a couple of them were underage, and that some were already to married men. He was the Prophet of God, dangit, and as such he could do whatever he wanted!" But I was an ass. Some people very close to me still routinely reads the BoM and believes in Smith, and they are very normal and intelligent people. Just goes to show you. The spirit of charlatanism is alive and well on the Earth, and one of its wellsprings is Salt Lake City.
One of the many 'shots' that sealed the deal on this nonsensical rendition on scripture was when Chris Nemelka tried pawning it off on the LDS church, and he only wanted to consult them on church affairs behind the scenes - lol.
Second is how the book rights to his Human Reality Book rights are up for sell, just call his lawyer - RV. I mean how much really is it for sell for?
Third shot is beyond ALL the nonsense is what, a man who has been committed to a mental facility, has a silly amount of court dates (just go to a CORIS computer - any District Court house has one). And yet he WANTS respect from the government he defames, belief from the community he actively denounces, and money from all those who don't know any better - yes including you JJ & HUH. You met Timothy? or the other figments?
How about sitting with your leader next time he is doped up camping, on pot brownies and get out of him some better insights or real truth?
Chris H.
Great article. It's not often that the phenomenon of fringe prophets in Utah, with their Mormon connections, is explored with this kind of care and attention. The effect on the lives of the followers is extreme and rarely positive.
My own interviews and encounters with Christopher Nemelka and his followers are explored in the forthcoming book, Secrets & Wives: The Hidden World of Mormon Polygamy (Soft Skull) which is coming out over the next few months.
Excerpts and info here: www.sanjivb.com.