FAIR is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing well-documented answers to criticisms of the doctrine, practice, and history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
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Revision as of 19:34, 26 April 2014
Mormonism and history
Topics
Accuracy of Church history
The Church's Gospel Topics essays
Summary: The Church has posted a series of Gospel Topics essays on LDS.org which discuss a variety of issues related to Church History and belief.Elder Oaks on Church History
Summary: Elder Dallin Oaks discusses the issue of church history and facts that are not discussed frequently in church approved curriculum during an interview with Helen Whitney (HW) for the PBS documentary, The Mormons [1].Accuracy of Church art
Summary: It is claimed that the Church knowingly "lies" or distorts the historical record in its artwork in order to whitewash the past, or for propaganda purposes. A commonly used example is the inaccuracy of any Church art representing the translation process of the Book of Mormon.Mormonism and history
The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.
From our perspective in the present, the past is mostly gone. The people have passed away; their experiences have ended. However, pieces of the past remain . . . Today, we can learn about the past only indirectly through the pieces that remain. Information is always lost between the past and the present.[1]
We can only ever partly understand the past. We don't have all the "pieces," and the evidence of what happened is not the same thing as what happened. For example, consider eating a meal today. You could video record eating the meal, but that recording leaves out a lot of what actually happened: what was the situation leading up to the meal? what was happening beyond the view of the camera? what was your emotion while eating? All of these can't be fully captured or understood through the video.
This is even more true about the "distant" past. We have only fragmentary writings, and sometimes a photograph or painting, to help us understand an event. Thus, we must try and interpret what the fragmentary records are telling us about what actually happened. This is even harder because we don't fully understand the context of the past. They had different customs and norms, and trying to understand the past based on our present customs and norms is called "presentism."
Video by BYU Religious Education.
Understanding Information and Records
When trying to interpret the past, we use information in an attempt to demonstrate that some belief can at least be true. This information comes from records, which are compiled by people (sources). Understanding information and records can help in addressing doubts. Understanding the perspective and bias of sources is also important.
Information
In our context, information can be objective (descriptive) or subjective (normative).
- Objective (descriptive) information is a statement about the physical condition of something at a moment in time, or in other words. The statement is either true or false for everyone. For example, "Joseph Smith saw the Father and the Son" is an objective statement. Either the event happened or it didn't. People may disagree on whether or not it happened, but the event cannot have happened for some people but not for others.
- Subjective (normative) information is a statement about the value condition (good or bad, better or worse) of something at a moment in time. Whether the statement is true or false depends on who is speaking. For example, "Joseph Smith was a good person" is a subjective statement. Good is a judgment of value and its meaning depends on the opinion of the person speaking. Joseph Smith could be seen as good by some people and not by others.
Information can come from a primary or secondary source.
- A primary source means someone directly involved in whatever is being discussed. In addition, generally the person needs to share the information close to whatever moment in time is referenced. (This is due to how human memory works.)
- A secondary source means someone not directly involved in whatever is being discussed. It can also apply to someone directly involved if the person did not share the information close to whatever moment in time is referenced. For example, "Joseph Smith saw the Father and the Son" would be secondary information if it was stated by someone other than Joseph.
Finally, information can be direct or indirect.
- Direct information is an explicit statement. For example, suppose we want to know the year Joseph Smith had his First Vision. The statement "Joseph Smith saw his First Vision in 1820" explicitly gives the information we want.
- Indirect information is not an explicit statement, but information can be inferred based on what is or isn't stated as well as other information we already have. For example, the statement "Joseph Smith was 14 years old when he saw his First Vision" does not tell us what year the vision happened. However, combining that information with information we already had about Joseph's birth year (1805) allows us to determine the year of the vision (1820).
Records
Information is contained in records. Records are either original or derivative.
- An original record is, well, original. It is probably best described by what it is not. It is not a derivative record. For example, Joseph Smith's original 1832 history is an original record. (An image of the original record is available on the Joseph Smith Papers website. It should be noted that images of original records are generally also considered original records.)
- A derivative record is any record with information that is translated, transcribed, abstracted, extracted, indexed, and so forth. For example, the transcription of Joseph's 1832 history that appears next to the image is a derivative record. Some derivative records are more reliable than others. For example, the transcription of the history on the Joseph Smith Papers website is more reliable than a transcription appearing in a self-published book by an anonymous author.
Perspectives and Bias
When evaluating information and records, it is important to understand the source of the information or record. In addition to affecting the category of information or record provided, knowing the source helps to be aware of whatever perspective or bias affected the information and records searched or cited. (Everyone has some sort of perspective or bias, and anyone who thinks they don't are deceiving themselves. If you want to know more about biases, just do an internet search for something like "everyone has a bias.")
Evaluating Information and Records
There are various ways to evaluate information and records about Church history, doctrine, or practice.
Five Questions
BYU professors Anthony Sweat and Kenneth Alford encourage asking five questions about an account or information discussing Church history:[2]
- Is it a primary account?
- What is its relationship to other sources?
- Is it a contemporary account?
- Does it have an objective perspective?
- Are its claims supported by evidence?
Seeing Historical People in Context
Another part of interpreting the past is understanding the context. Elder Dallin Oaks discusses the issue of church history and facts that are not discussed frequently in church approved curriculum during an interview with Helen Whitney (HW) for the PBS documentary, The Mormons. He gives a good description of this dilemma and the church's method for confronting it. [3]
Referring to the importance of not focusing on a person's negative aspects while learning of their history Elder Oaks said,
...See a person in context; don’t depreciate their effectiveness in one area because they have some misbehavior in another area — especially from their youth. I think that’s the spirit of that. I think I’m not talking necessarily just about writing Mormon history; I’m talking about George Washington or any other case. If he had an affair with a girl when he was a teenager, I don’t need to read that when I’m trying to read a biography of the Founding Father of our nation.
Elder Oaks is then asked how the church deals with imperfections of early church members and current members coming across this information themselves on the internet rather than through teachings of the church. Elder Oaks responds,
It’s an old problem, the extent to which official histories, whatever they are, or semi-official histories, get into things that are shadowy or less well-known or whatever. That’s an old problem in Mormonism — a feeling of members that they shouldn’t have been surprised by the fact that this or that happened, they should’ve been alerted to it. I have felt that throughout my life.
People's Readiness to Understand History
There are several different elements of that. One element is that we’re emerging from a period of history writing within the Church [of] adoring history that doesn’t deal with anything that’s unfavorable, and we’re coming into a period of “warts and all” kind of history. Perhaps our writing of history is lagging behind the times, but I believe that there is purpose in all these things — there may have been a time when Church members could not have been as well prepared for that kind of historical writing as they may be now.
On the other hand, there are constraints on trying to reveal everything. You don’t want to be getting into and creating doubts that didn’t exist in the first place. And what is plenty of history for one person is inadequate for another, and we have a large church, and that’s a big problem. And another problem is there are a lot of things that the Church has written about that the members haven’t read. And the Sunday School teacher that gives “Brother Jones” his understanding of Church history may be inadequately informed and may not reveal something which the Church has published. It’s in the history written for college or Institute students, sources written for quite mature students, but not every Sunday School teacher that introduces people to a history is familiar with that. And so there is no way to avoid this criticism. The best I can say is that we’re moving with the times, we’re getting more and more forthright, but we will never satisfy every complaint along that line and probably shouldn’t.
Apologist Michael Ash has observed something similar:
Information can be withheld intentionally or unintentionally. First we will discuss the intentional reasons. In the context of early creations of LDS history, we find a tradition among most-nineteenth century biographies (the primary form of historical creations) that emphasized the positive aspects of heroic figures in the hopes of inspiring readers while often exaggerating or even fabricating anecdotes—such as George Washington chopping down his father's cherry tree. Frequently, in cases of early American biographies involving religious or philosophical movements, the movement took center stage and the "history" was a tool for evangelizing the movement. Any information that might harm the movement was withheld from the biography/history.
Early Mormon historians, like many historians of their era, were not trained in history but were instead influenced by the English Puritans whose histories were written as faithful explanations of their events. These Puritans (as well as early LDS historians) believed that, like the Hebrews before them, they were God’s chosen people whose coming to America was part of God's unfolding plan. "Their history and biography" note three prominent historians, "told the saga of God's dealings as seen in their personal lives. In short, Puritan biography and autobiography were simultaneously scripture as well as history." "Accuracy and realism were...largely things of the future."[4]
Apostle George Q. Cannon, whose faith-promoting stories were intended for the youth of the Church, wrote some of the more popular historical accounts of early Mormonism. Such works, like many other non-LDS works of the nineteenth century, were defensive in tone, biased, one-dimensional, and devoted to evangelizing a particular perspective. Today such writings are often referred to as hagiographies. It was not until the middle of the twentieth century that the modern biography—critical, multi-dimensional, and objective (at least in principle)—"began to take its present form."[5] The early faith-promoting histories, however, became the source of historical knowledge for many Church members and launched similar popular works for decades to come. While it can be said that early LDS histories intentionally withheld challenging and non-flattering information, in the context of the times this was not unique to Mormonism and is to be expected.[6]
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Notes
- ↑ Keith A. Erekson, “Understanding Church History by Study and Faith,” Ensign, February 2017.
- ↑ Anthony Sweat and Kenneth L. Alford, "A Method for Evaluating Latter-day Saint History," Religious Educator 21:3 (2020).
- ↑ Dallin Oaks, "Elder Oaks Interview Transcript from PBS Documentary," Newsroom (20 July 2007) off-site
- ↑ Ronald W. Walker, David J. Whitaker, and James B. Allen, Mormon History (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2001), 117.
- ↑ Ibid., 117, 119–120.
- ↑ Michael R. Ash, Shaken Faith Syndrome (Redding, CA: FairMormon Press, 2014), 13.
Authorship of the History of the Church
Summary: I've heard that the History of the Church, though credited to Joseph Smith, was not actually authored by him. What can you tell me about this, and what does this mean for the History's accuracy?
Mormonism and history
Ironically, those who criticize Mormon histories as being unreliable and incomplete use Church-produced documents as their source material
The author of the critical book One Nation Under Gods claims that "Mormon leaders, especially since the 1970s, have repeatedly called for LDS historians to 'tell only that part of the truth that is inspiring and uplifting.'" and that "some of the least reliable reports on Mormon history, especially with regard to its earliest years, are those that have been produced by the LDS church."
How does one define "least reliable?" The assertion that "some of the least reliable reports on Mormon history" are those "produced by the LDS church" does not acknowledge that some of the source documents used by the author in his book include the Journal of Discourses, the Messenger and Advocate, the Millennial Star, the Evening and Morning Star, the Ensign, Conference Reports, and the Encyclopedia of Mormonism, to name a few.
Each of these sources is viewed by members and non-members alike as being "produced by the Church. If they are so unreliable, why does the author cite them? If there is a disagreement between two sources—one from the Church and the other from someone viewed as an enemy of the Church—how does the author know which one is more reliable? And why if he is relying on Church sources, why does he so often misrepresent the Church?
Elder Boyd K. Packer's comment: "Some things that are true are not very useful"
Elder Packer gave an address to religious educators called "The Mantle is Far, Far Greater Than the Intellect."[1] The quote "Some things that are true are not very useful" has become a favorite of critics to demonstrate that the Church suppresses truth or intellectual thought.
Elder Packer said nothing about stopping historians or insisting that they not aim for objectivity
As is often the case, there is more to the story that we can only learn by examining the original quotation in context.
There are two aspects to this criticism:
First criticism
The first is the claim that Church officials have "routinely" insisted LDS-authored historical materials be "faith promoting" at the expense of being historically accurate. To prove this assertion, the author provides the example of a talk by Boyd K. Packer that was published in BYU Studies. Elder Packer stressed four main points:
- There is no such thing as an accurate, objective history of the Church without consideration of the spiritual powers that attend this work.
- There is a temptation for the writer or the teacher of Church history to want to tell everything, whether it is worthy or faith promoting or not. Some things that are true are not very useful.
- In an effort to be objective, impartial, and scholarly, a writer or a teacher may unwittingly be giving equal time to the adversary.
- The final caution concerns the idea that so long as something is already in print, so long as it is available from another source, there is nothing out of order in using it in writing or speaking or teaching.
The only mention of "objectivity" in the talk was in relation to the first and third points, and Elder Packer said nothing about stopping historians or insisting that they not be objective. He simply said that no treatment of Church history could hope to be objective without consideration of the spiritual powers that attend the work.
The intellectual context
Some historians insist that they are being objective—but objectivity is impossible. We can strive to be fair, honest, and balanced, but no one can achieve objectivity. Claims of being "objective" have often, it turns out, been a shield historians who wish to hide their biases or advance their own agendas while claiming to be simply neural purveyors of fact. Very often, such historians insist that because spiritual matters cannont be "proven," they are therefore not obliged to mention them or consider them. It is this dynamic—which was a hotly debated and contested matter at the time—that his remarks refer to.
For example, one author wrote:
Can secular historians claim that their interests and questions reflect a higher order of significance? Can they demonstrate that their approach to history is truly objective? Can they legitimately refer to their own brand of history as mature, accurate, and insightful as opposed to the inevitably "naive, narrow- minded, pollyannish" histories written by Mormon historians who take their own religious categories as a theme for the understanding of the Mormon past?
Such questions must be answered because if the ideal of neutrality and objectivity cannot be approximated, then the historian’s distinction between "good history" and "bad history" evaporates and the secular historian’s claim that somehow his account is of a higher order can no longer hold. ... Such arguments are based on two assumptions: (1) that the historian can somehow be objective and neutral and (2) that the historical record is an independent and objective ground over against which historical explanations can be verified. It is exceedingly doubtful either assumption can stand up to careful and logical scrutiny.[2]
This debate was not a new one for the history profession generally—but historians of Mormon matters were philosophically and intellectually behind the times.[3] They were still attempting to lay claim to a superior "objective" history that the mainstream historical profession had conceded was impossible, and usually a cover for either unrecognized or unacknowledged biases and ideology.[4] This was not a case where only "conservative believers" held this position—even some non-LDS historians argued that the conservative argument was far better grounded in the current philosophy of history than the supposed "objective" faction.[5]
Even in the twenty-first century, there are some who persist in claims about objectivity that do not withstand philosophical or logical scrutiny.[6]
One author at the independent Sunstone magazine noted how the supposedly "objective" secular scholars went out of their way to prevent this type of criticism of their efforts from being published:
At that time, SUNSTONE had just published an article challenging some of the assumptions of those intellectual heroes known in the Church as "New Mormon Historians." What startled—and disillusioned—me was the discovery that a number of historians had gone to great lengths to discourage the publication of this manuscript. For them, open discussion and disagreement was insufficient; they sought to prevent distribution of ideas contrary to their own. Those who had fought against intellectual suppression had suddenly embraced it.[7]
In addition to this intellectual current, Elder Packer was telling LDS teachers and historians employed by the Church that to leave out consideration of God's Spirit was to leave out an important component of why and how things were done in the Church. Omitting spiritual ideas and claims is no more "objective" than including such things. But, in the intellectual environment of the time, secularist approaches were attempting to claim the high ground of being "real" history, while everything else was biased, "non-objective" writing.
Second criticism
The second is the claim that the Church historical department staff were required to "sign a form" regarding the Church's right to censor anything the staff might publish. Apparently the author hopes we will believe this is a means for the Church to suppress scholarly work.
The author never confronts the issue of whether the Church has a right to control (a) access to their own historical records, and (b) how those records are used by employees.
If we considered a business, there would be no question that businesses have the right to do control access to their records and insist that their employees' use of those records not actively undermine the company's goals.
Does The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (or any church, for that matter) have the right to control its own records and how they are used? If businesses and governments do, why not churches? And, why should the Church be required to pay employees to undermine it?
This stipulation of employment is thus unsurprising, and not a sign of sinister goings-on. Most organizations have similar policies and standards.
Notes
- ↑ Boyd K. Packer, "The Mantle is Far, Far Greater Than the Intellect," Address to the Fifth Annual CES Religious Educators' Symposium, 1981; see also Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1991), 101-122; see also Boyd K. Packer, "'The Mantle is Far, Far Greater than the Intellect.'," Brigham Young University Studies 21 no. 3 (Summer 1981), 259–278. PDF link Later references to this address refer to the BYU Studies reprint, since the PDF is available on-line. It starts on page 1.
- ↑ David Earl Bohn, "No Higher Ground: Objective History is an Elusive Chimera," Sunstone (May–June 1983). off-site
- ↑ Gary Novak, That Noble Dream: The 'Objectivity Question' and the American Historical Profession (Cambridge University Press, 1988).
- ↑ For examples of the debate, see: Martin E. Marty, "Two Integrities: An Address to the Crisis in Mormon Historiography," in Faithful History: Essays on Writing Mormon History, ed. George D. Smith (Salt Lake City, Utah: Signature Books, 1992), 169–87 and David Earle Bohn, "Unfounded Claims and Impossible Expectations: A Critique of New Mormon History," in the same volume, 227–56. Louis C. Midgley was a major player in the debate, such as in "The Acids of Modernity and the Crisis in Mormon Historiography," in Faithful History, 189–215. See also: "The Challenge of Historical Consciousness: Mormon History and the Encounter with Secular Modernity," in By Study and Also by Faith: Essays in Honor of Hugh W. Nibley, ed. John M. Lundquist and Stephen D. Ricks, 2 vols. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book and FARMS, 1990), 2:502–51; Louis Midgley, "The Current Battle over the Book of Mormon: Review of The Word of God Is Enough: The Book of Mormon as Nineteenth-Century Scripture by Anthony A. Hutchinson," Review of Books on the Book of Mormon 6/1 (1994). [200–254] link; Louis Midgley, "'Atheists and Cultural Mormons Promote a Naturalistic Humanism (Review of Religion, Feminism, and Freedom of Conscience: A Mormon/Humanist Dialogue by George D. Smith'," FARMS Review 7/1 (1995). [229–297] link; Louis Midgley, "Directions That Diverge (Review of The Ancient State: The Rulers and the Ruled)," FARMS Review 11/1 (1999). [27–87] link; Louis Midgley, "Comments on Critical Exchanges (Review of 'A Hard Day for Professor Midgley: An Essay for Fawn McKay Brodie')," FARMS Review 13/1 (2001). [91–126] link; Louis Midgley, "'A Mormon Neo-Orthodoxy Challenges Cultural Mormon Neglect of the Book of Mormon: Some Reflections on the 'Impact of Modernity' (Review of Mormon Neo-Orthodoxy: A Crisis Theology by O. Kendall White, Jr.'," Review of Books on the Book of Mormon 6/2 (1994). [283–334] link; Louis Midgley, "Editor's Introduction: Debating Evangelicals," FARMS Review 20/2 (2008). [xi–xlvii] link; Thomas G. Alexaner, "Historiography and the New Mormon History: A Historian's Perspective," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 19 no. 3 (Fall 1986), 25&ndash49. link; John-Charles Duffy, "Can Deconstructionism Save the Day? "Faithful Scholarship" and the uses of Postmodernism," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 41 no. 1 (Spring 2008), 1–33. link
- ↑ Massimo Introvigne, "The Book of Mormon Wars: A Non-Mormon Perspective," Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 5/2 (1996). [1–25] link
- ↑ Alan Goff, "The Inevitability of Epistemology in Historiography: Theory, History, and Zombie Mormon History," Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 9/4 (28 March 2014). [111–208] link
- ↑ Scott C. Dunn, "So Dangerous it Couldn't be Talked About," Sunstone no. (Issue #42) (November–December 1983). off-site
Other Church history topics
"Magic" in Mormon history
Hugh Nibley
Summary: Nibley was a pioneer in LDS scholarship and apologetics.Authorship of History of the Church
Summary: I've heard that the History of the Church, though credited to Joseph Smith, was not actually authored by him. What can you tell me about this, and what does this mean for the History's accuracy?B.H. Roberts' testimony of the Book of Mormon
Summary: Critics charge that the 'problems' with the Book of Mormon made Brigham H. Roberts (an early LDS apologist and member of the First Quorum of Seventy) lose his faith in the its historicity. The primary source upon which this criticism is based originates with Roberts' manuscripts detailing his critical study of the Book of Mormon, which was published under the title Studies of the Book of Mormon years after his death.- Use of sources—Roberts and the Book of Mormon in Richard Abanes' book Becoming Gods—
Brief Summary: The book asserts that FARMS claims that B.H. Roberts was only playing "devils advocate" when he wrote the critical documents now contained in Studies of the Book of Mormon. The book goes on to claim that FARMS has have never provided documentation to support this assertion, and that FARMS only focuses on Roberts' declarations that were made before he reached what the book calls his "final conclusion." (Click here for full article)∗ ∗ ∗
- Use of sources—Roberts and the Book of Mormon in Richard Abanes' book Becoming Gods—
Garden of Eden in Missouri?
Summary: Is it true Mormons believe the original Garden of Eden was located in Missouri? What can you tell me about this?Graven images and statues of angel Moroni
Summary: It is claimed that the Church violates the Biblical command against "graven images" because it displays sculptures of Christ, statues of the angel Moroni on the spires of our temples, or paintings showing scriptural scenes, within temples, chapels, visitors' centers, and publications. (See Exodus 20:3-4.)Name of the Church
Summary: Why did the Church change its name twice during its history? Shouldn't the name have been given by revelation?Reports of Drunken Behavior at the Kirtland Temple Dedication
Summary: Were there really spiritual manifestations attending the dedication of the Kirtland temple? I have heard allegations that it was in fact a drunken orgy.The Seer (periodical by Orson Pratt)
Summary: Some critics of the Church quote from a newspaper called The Seer. Was this newspaper published by the Church? Are its contents considered official Church doctrine?Succession in the Presidency of the Church
Summary: There was much contention regarding who Joseph Smith's successor was supposed to be after his death, and some claim that Joseph Smith designated his son Joseph III as his successor.- Seniority in the Quorum of the Twelve—
Brief Summary: What is the seniority in the Quorum of the Twelve? (Click here for full article)∗ ∗ ∗
- Seniority in the Quorum of the Twelve—
== Notes ==