Alter Idem wrote:Jason, I've read that book some time ago and it is disturbing. Many of the stories are heart-rending. He does not sugar coat polygamy, but reports the sad stories as well as the happy ones.
I don't know whether he is active now or not, but he was active LDS when he wrote and researched it--you can tell your wife that. I don't consider it an anti-mormon book--it didn't shake my faith. However, it does force one to take the "rose-colored" glasses off of how we view polygamy and how it is often portrayed.
It shook my faith in Joseph Smith Alter Idem. The portrayal of him in that book, is very different to the portrayal of him at church meetings. I guess we all respond differently to new information. The most disturbing information in there for me was that on Fanny Alger, and the polyandry issue, of Joseph marrying other men's wives. I couldn't reconcile that information with what I had always been taught.
Glad you were able to get through it though with your faith intact.
Alter Idem wrote:Jason, I've read that book some time ago and it is disturbing. Many of the stories are heart-rending. He does not sugar coat polygamy, but reports the sad stories as well as the happy ones.
I don't know whether he is active now or not, but he was active LDS when he wrote and researched it--you can tell your wife that. I don't consider it an anti-mormon book--it didn't shake my faith. However, it does force one to take the "rose-colored" glasses off of how we view polygamy and how it is often portrayed.
It shook my faith in Joseph Smith Alter Idem. The portrayal of him in that book, is very different to the portrayal of him at church meetings. I guess we all respond differently to new information. The most disturbing information in there for me was that on Fanny Alger, and the polyandry issue, of Joseph marrying other men's wives. I couldn't reconcile that information with what I had always been taught.
Glad you were able to get through it though with your faith intact.
Mary
Hi Mary, I'm sorry you weren't able to reconcile it--I think I was lucky to have been exposed to more controversial things when I was younger. I'm probably in the minority of not having a problem with it. I remember reading the Sidney Rigdon biography and thinking it was great--so I loaned it to a friend. They did not think it was objective and I was surprised.
Jason Bourne wrote:My wife has started reading his book Mormon Polygamy. She asked me about him. I think he is LDS though I do not know his status as active, dissaffected, or what. Does anyone know anything about him?
Hi Bourne. My MIL gave me this book to read, and she was a temple worker at the time, and very TBM. I read it, and it shook me up. As far as VanWagoner's status I do not know, but I know the book was sold by Deseret Book, that's where my MIL got it. As of 9/18/2006 you could purchase the book at DeseretBook.com although I searched again for it recently and could not find it. Sorry I couldn't help more.
Jason Bourne wrote:My wife has started reading his book Mormon Polygamy. She asked me about him. I think he is LDS though I do not know his status as active, dissaffected, or what. Does anyone know anything about him?
Van Wagoner has been described in various places as a "Mormon historian" and also an "LDS historian".
According to one review:
"It was a serious mistake," said Van Wagoner, a fifth-generation Mormon whose ancestors include polygamists.
I spoke with Van Wagoner once, several years after his polygamy book came out. He was then a very liberal believer.
In Van Wagoner's later Sidney Rigdon bio, he offered cynical interpretations of many of Joseph Smith's actions, even his religious claims. But a letter he wrote in Dialogue(?) responding to David Whittaker suggests to me that while he sees Joseph Smith as problematic, he would still identify himself as a Christian and a Mormon.
for what it's worth, I also spoke with his wife one the above-mentioned occasion. She seemed more skeptical than her husband, and, IF I recall correctly, did not self-identify as a Mormon. She did seem to have some sort of liberal belief in Jesus, centered on the historical Jesus as revealed by scholarship.
Jason Bourne wrote:My wife has started reading his book Mormon Polygamy. She asked me about him. I think he is LDS though I do not know his status as active, dissaffected, or what. Does anyone know anything about him?
The truth is source-independent. I don't care if Richard van Wagoner were a gay black less-active-mormon atheist woman.
Did he write the truth or didn't he?
- Whenever a poet or preacher, chief or wizard spouts gibberish, the human race spends centuries deciphering the message. - Umberto Eco - To assert that the earth revolves around the sun is as erroneous as to claim that Jesus was not born of a virgin. - Cardinal Bellarmine at the trial of Galilei
Well, in all fairness, I'm not sure that it's possible to get at the unadulterated (pardon the term) truth in this book. He uses lots of sources, but then how good are the sources? (Which is one of the comments that came back to me via the letter sent to the Stake President if I remember rightly)
I'm not saying I wasn't pretty convinced by his book. The sources are impressive, just that at the end of the day we're dealing with peoples recollections and memories and bias. It wasn't filmed...more's the pity.
Miss Taken wrote:Well, in all fairness, I'm not sure that it's possible to get at the unadulterated (pardon the term) truth in this book. He uses lots of sources, but then how good are the sources? (Which is one of the comments that came back to me via the letter sent to the Stake President if I remember rightly)
Tell the Stake President that that applies to every book on history.
The sources are impressive, just that at the end of the day we're dealing with peoples recollections and memories and bias. It wasn't filmed...more's the pity.
Like I said, that applies to every book on history.
"Finally, for your rather strange idea that miracles are somehow linked to the amount of gay sexual gratification that is taking place would require that primitive Christianity was launched by gay sex, would it not?"
Miss Taken wrote:Well, in all fairness, I'm not sure that it's possible to get at the unadulterated (pardon the term) truth in this book. He uses lots of sources, but then how good are the sources? (Which is one of the comments that came back to me via the letter sent to the Stake President if I remember rightly)
Tell the Stake President that that applies to every book on history.
The sources are impressive, just that at the end of the day we're dealing with peoples recollections and memories and bias. It wasn't filmed...more's the pity.
Like I said, that applies to every book on history.
Shades, I'm going back 15 years or so on that...bit late to tell the SP anything..... I guess there are quite a few things that I should have said and didn't, but as you probably know, active members don't have much patience on the whole with doubters. The church is true, concentrate on the basics, everything will work out...and all that! Maybe that's why I like these boards so much, you finally get to talk reasonably openly about issues, rather than hiding behind a mirror of faith.