Jerald and Sandra Tanner facts for kids

Jerald Dee Tanner (June 1, 1938 – October 1, 2006) and Sandra McGee Tanner (born January 14, 1941) are American writers and researchers who publish archival and evidential materials about the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). The Tanners founded the Utah Lighthouse Ministry (UTLM), whose stated mission is "to document problems with the claims of Mormonism and compare LDS doctrines with Christianity". As of 2022 Sandra Tanner continues to operate the ministry after Jerald's death in 2006.

The Tanners, who are ex-Mormon, printed original versions of early Mormon writings and scripture in which they annotated and highlighted doctrinal changes, such as the rejection of Brigham Young's "Adam–God doctrine". They jointly published more than 40 books about many aspects of the LDS Church, primarily its history.

Biographies

Jerald Tanner was born in Provo, Utah, and was a fifth-generation Mormon. He studied at the University of Utah and received a degree from Salt Lake Trade Technical Institute. His great-great-grandfather, John Tanner, gave large donations to church founder Joseph Smith when the fledgling church was deeply in debt.

Like her husband, Sandra was a fifth-generation Mormon. She is a great-great-granddaughter of Brigham Young, the LDS Church's second president. Both families had longstanding ties to the Mormon community.

They met in the spring of 1959, in Salt Lake City, at a religious meeting of Pauline Hancock's Church of Christ (Lukeite), Soon after they were introduced, Jerald and Sandra began jointly researching the subject of Mormonism. Each had been raised as Latter-day Saints, but discovered that they had each begun questioning the church in their teenage years.

Jerald and Sandra Tanner were married by a Protestant minister in Mission Hills, California, on June 14, 1959. The following year, both resigned from the LDS Church. In 1964, they began an outreach to Mormons at their house in Salt Lake City, which grew into UTLM. They had two daughters and a son together. After 47 years of marriage, Jerald died in Salt Lake City on October 1, 2006, as a result of complications arising from Alzheimer's disease. He had retired a few months before his death.

Legal challenges

In 1999, the LDS Church sued the Tanners for internet linking from their website to the copyrighted Church Handbook of Instructions. The lawsuit was settled out of court before an appeals court could rule on what observers described as a potentially landmark case concerning internet linking.

Challenging anti-Mormonism

On occasion, the Tanners have publicly challenged critics of Mormonism and earned praise from some LDS scholars. For instance, the historian Daniel C. Peterson, the former chairman of Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS) at Brigham Young University, suggested the Tanners' willingness to debunk false documents, regardless of their content, was a sign of integrity:

There are some anti-Mormons out there that I hold in contempt. They're demagogic. They spread hatred and strife and disharmony. I don't see the Tanners in that way.

The Tanners were among the first public critics of the forger and later murderer Mark Hofmann. Hofmann's "discoveries" of important Mormon documents he had secretly forged appeared to bolster the Tanners' arguments, but by early 1984, Jerald Tanner had concluded there was significant doubt as to the Salamander Letter's authenticity. He even went as far as to publish an attack on the Salamander Letter, shocking many scholars, historians, and students who believed the document was genuine. By late 1984, he questioned the authenticity of most, if not all, of Hofmann's discoveries, largely for their undocumented provenance. He was ultimately vindicated when Hofmann's forgeries were exposed.

The Tanners have debunked what they characterize as misrepresentations of the LDS Church by Ed Decker, a Christian evangelist. They criticized his film The God Makers II, despite their involvement in his earlier film, The God Makers.

Selected publications

• Mormonism: Shadow or Reality? includes reproductions of early Mormon documents accompanied by commentary. A revised version is the basis for their more accessible book, The Changing World of Mormonism.
• The Case Against Mormonism, Vols. 1–3.
• The Mormon Kingdom, Vols. 1–2
• Evolution of the Mormon Temple Ceremony: 1842–1990, includes the complete text of the 1990 changes to the temple ceremony, and examines many other changes made to the ceremony throughout the years.

See also

• Brent Metcalfe
• Criticism of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
• Descendants of Brigham Young
• H. Michael Marquardt
• Mormonism and Christianity
• Wesley P. Walters