Back to Mormon Quotes Index
"You [the LDS church] are slowly causing a silent and subtle scriptural and spiritual slaughter of the Indians and other Lamanites.
"While physical extermination may have been one of the Federal government's policies long ago, your current scriptural and spiritual extermination of Indians and other Lamanites is the greater sin and great shall be your condemnation for this,"
- George P. Lee,
Deseret News, September 2, 1989
"After reading in person a 23-page letter detailing his concerns, Lee said he was astounded at the speed with which he was ousted.
"Within minutes, two officials came to his office and told him to turn over all church property, including a credit card and a signed pass with which faithful Mormons gain entry to their temples.
“‘I was stripped of everything,' said Lee... ‘It was just absolutely cold.'"
-
Salt Lake Tribune, September 10, 1989, p. 14B
"Dr. Lee said he was sure the church would soon appoint another American Indian as a general authority `so they can continue to look good,'"
-
Salt Lake Tribune, September 2, p. 1B
“George P. Lee ‘seeks a spiritual rebirth' by ‘...heading to the mountains alone for a month or more of fasting, prayer and meditation....'
“‘It's the way of my people,' Lee, son of a medicine man said.... ‘My father would take me to a mountaintop and we'd communicate with the Great Spirit. I was more spiritual then than I am now...'"
-
Salt Lake Tribune, September 10, 1989 p. 14B
“The Mormon Church has excommunicated the only American Indian who ever achieved a leading position in its hierarchy.
“The excommunication of the church official, Elder George P. Lee, a 46-year-old Navajo, was announced Friday in a one-paragraph statement. It followed his assertion that Mormon leaders were racist and that the church's president was too feeble to make decisions.
“The excommunication is the first in 46 years imposed against a Mormon general authority, one of 85 men who administer the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
“The church's statement said Mr. Lee had been expelled for ‘apostasy and other conduct unbecoming a member of the church.' A church spokesman, Don LeFevre, said he would not elaborate on the statement.
-
New York Times, September 3, 1989, p. 29
“‘It got to the point where I had to follow them or Jesus Christ,' he said, ‘and I chose to follow Jesus Christ. I told them they are the ones that are apostatizing – teaching false doctrine.'”
- George P. Lee,
New York Times, September 3, 1989, p. 29
“In recent years, he [Lee] said, the church's general authorities have been preaching that non-Indian members are literal descendants of Ephraim, a grandson of Israel in the Old Testament, thereby giving non-Indian Mormons an excuse to ignore their Indian brothers.
“‘This type of teaching encourages an attitude of superior race, white supremacy, racist attitude, pride, arrogance, love of power and no sense of obligation to the poor, needy and afflicted,' Mr. Lee wrote.”
-
New York Times, September 3, 1989, p. 29
“Mr. Lee said Mr. [Ezra Taft] Benson was so feeble by his great age that his counselors in the First Presidency, Gordon B. Hinckley and Thomas B. Monson, made all important decisions in his name.”
-
New York Times, September 3, 1989, p. 29