Good and Bad Spoken of Joseph Smith in all the World

Yesterday I was reading the introduction to the Book of Mormon and noticed the following: “He called me by name, and said unto me that he was a messenger sent from the presence of God to me, and that his name was Moroni; that God had a work for me to do; and that my name should be had for good and evil among all nations, kindreds, and tongues, or that it should be both good and evil spoken of among all people.

Then later in the day I noticed that a movie was being made with Ron Howard directing based on a book that talks about a couple polygamous brothers that were murders. He blames doctrine taught by Joseph Smith as causing their actions. The basic weakness in his argument is that if Mormon doctrine was likely to cause violent actions then there should be more murders among the Mormon population than others. Also, the polygamous brothers had already been excommunicated from the church and were no longer members. Unfortunately when most people read the book or watch the movie they'll likely come away with quite a negative impression of the church and the prophet Joseph Smith. That's unfortunate, but because I read the prophesy in the Book of Mormon in the morning, I wasn't upset or surprised by the movie announcement. It looks to me to be the natural course of events.

What's so remarkable about Joseph Smith's prophecy about his name being known for good and evil throughout the world is that he wrote it in 1838. There is no way he could have known what would happen to his name and fame without it being a revelation from God.

It's just another example of his being a prophet.

Here's a link to the announcement: http://www.ksl.com/?sid=16466015&nid=1016

Here's a link to the church's statement on the book when it came out: http://newsroom.lds.org/article/church-response-to-jon-krakauers-under-the-banner-of-heaven