In an emotional speech, emeritus member of the Seventy Elder Lance B. Wickman repeatedly warned an audience of BYU-I geology students about the dangers of “powerful coastal forces.”
“These threats are emerging threats,” he noted. “They have been known of for many years now, but we have only recently learned of just how serious they are.”
Elder Wickman repeatedly returned to a large diagram that illustrated what he referred to as “subversive subduction zones” that occur at the edges of oceans. He warned, “These subduction zones are powerful, and they operate out of sight of priesthood authority, under fathoms of Satan-controlled sea.”
After a nod to audience members’ field of study, he warned them of the limits of man-made knowledge. “Geology tells us that subduction zones occur where one plate slides under another. But what it does not reveal is that this process goes against God’s great plan of happiness. Plates were created to remain level and stable. Some plates, such as the gold plates and the brass plates, are truly among God’s very elect. But these plates that would willfully pass beneath one another are exhibiting devilish defiance against divine decree.”
Wickman concluded by explaining his ultimate concern with subduction zones: “Church leaders have learned that the powerful coastal forces that push these plates downward into the so-called ‘Adversary’s asthenosphere’ are threatening the lives of the Lost Ten Tribes living within our hollow earth. Now is the time for men of faith and their wives to stand up to this ghastly geology and demand that the governments of the world turn their focus from the concocted crisis of so-called ‘climate change’ to the crucial catastrophe faced by the Lost Ten Tribes.”
How was this recieved by geology students?
Do they teach about the hollow earth at BYU I
“Men of faith and their wives” made me chuckle in an unseemly way. Thanks for the laughs, Ziff!
Bleuschist is clearly the most adversarial of all the metamorphic facies. By their glaucophane ye shall know them!
Is it proof of my own stupidity or a sad commentary on the weirdness of the Church that I didn’t immediately recognize this as satire?
Ziff, you truly are the light of the bloggernacle.
God is not in the whirlwind. He is in the still, small high pressure ridge bringing sunny skies to those who love Him.
Strange parody, Ziff, but I guess there’s some connection here, although I’m not completely following you. I assume you’re trying to point out that there’s some overlap between the big religious freedom drive in the Church and the belief in really bad science (and the tendency for nonexperts to declare official statements about both). Am I close?
Sorry it’s odd, Wally. I guess it’s more just a riff on Elder Wickman’s funny phrase than a parody really. Just kind of random ideas tossed together.
Brilliant. Loved it to the depths of the Mariana trench and back. DH (a geophysicist) was also highly amused once I explained it was satire.
EBK,
It took me to the third paragraph to recognize the satire.
Ziff,
Excellent piece.
Some Elders in the MTC with my husband had been warned of the powerful coastal forces, especially the Eastern ones, and they expressed their concern that he had lived under such threatening conditions. He was very confused by this because he’s from Pennsylvania, a state with no coastline.