Just thinking with my fingers here, but maybe the most difficult thing about an official debunking website (the Newsroom maybe fills that function for current events) is the kind of questions people would ask that wouldn’t really be appropriate for such a site (unless, perhaps, the Q12 were charged with manning the website?). Questions wouldn’t be limited to “Nephite coins” and “did X really prophesy Y?” but would tend toward demanding answers that just haven’t been given. I’d guess that the top question would be some version of “I’ve always been told X about polygamy in the next life. What’s the real scoop?”

The comments on the Moroni article were fun to read through. One suggestion that came up a few times in those comments was to have an official church debunking site. I wonder though if that might not have the unintended consequence of encouraging certain myths if it became a common snopes-like stopping place. I can almost hear people in my mind saying that some outrageous story must be true since it wasn’t listed on what would by nature be an ongoing and incomplete reference. It would be a helpful resource for many, but I can also see it adding to the fervency of those who have a greater propensity for passing on doctrines or stories without thinking to verify them first.

Hopefully this isn’t too tangential to your post.

Any thoughts on potential drawbacks of an official debunking website?

I have been to Valley Forge, and I agree it is a great place. Maybe those who are unimpressed should spend a winter there.

Speaking of Valley Forge, the Father of our Country was a deeply moral man, frequently referred to Providence, and was sort of a Deist. So while nobody except maybe the Angels saw him in the woods, I’m not sure he got off his horse and kneeled in the snow. Sorry, Arnold Friberg. http://www.npr.org/2011/02/21/133943644/George-Washington-Separating-Man-From-Myth. See also, James Thomas Flexner, George Washington, in four volumes, (Little, Brown & Co., Boston, 1967).

And I don’t think Deists generally had visions of angels as a rule.

I did not intend this post to be a living demonstration of my carelessness, but there it is. Hannah’s name is corrected in the post. I really owe the poor woman an entire post dedicated solely to her, in recompense for having botched her story and her name twice now!

Whew! Crisis averted. “Granny Grennell” was named Hannah Woodstock Grennell (1783-1853), at least according to the Pioneer Overland Travel database. That’s a relief. I didn’t have time to be wrong today.

Family Tree has an entry for her (I think; it has her name spelled Grinnell) but it doesn’t show a death date, and her children don’t seem to have crossed the plains with her.