Hammer Away!

[_Themis]

This assumes that there is some intentional effort to cover up church history in the manuals. Having written and edited some of them, I'm sure that is not the case.

I suspect most would be unintentional, but somewhere along the line someone has to decide not to include things like polygamy, and the events and witness statements surrounding it.

[_Runtu]

I suspect most would be unintentional, but somewhere along the line someone has to decide not to include things like polygamy, and the events and witness statements surrounding it.

Well, that decision would have been made way above my pay grade. Generally, the writing committee was given a list of lesson subjects, usually focused on principles and doctrines. So, for the section 132 lesson, the purpose would be to explain the doctrine of eternal marriage. Sure, you lose half the content, but plural marriage isn't the topic, so it's not discussed.

I'm sure someone decided not to talk about certain issues, but I don't see some grand conspiracy.

[_Themis]

Well, that decision would have been made way above my pay grade. Generally, the writing committee was given a list of lesson subjects, usually focused on principles and doctrines. So, for the section 132 lesson, the purpose would be to explain the doctrine of eternal marriage. Sure, you lose half the content, but plural marriage isn't the topic, so it's not discussed.

I'm sure someone decided not to talk about certain issues, but I don't see some grand conspiracy.

I think it would be people above you making these decisions, and I agree that it was not a grand conspiracy.

[_Fifth Columnist]

This assumes that there is some intentional effort to cover up church history in the manuals. Having written and edited some of them, I'm sure that is not the case.

Runtu, what did you mean when you said the Church puts its best face on to save souls? Doesn't putting its best face on mean omitting any reference to embarrassing details that will undermine faith?

Just to be clear, I don't think the Church curriculum department (my SP is the head of it) does extensive historical research for every new manual and then purposefully removes anything that doesn't build faith. I think they approach a new manual by going back and looking at older manuals and other resources (GC talks, etc.) from the last 20-30 years. They remove statements that are "old-fashioned" or "outdated" (the stuff that will become highly embarrassing later on). The changes aren't huge, but over the history of the Church they add up to the milquetoast curriculum we have today.

[_Runtu]

Runtu, what did you mean when you said the Church puts its best face on to save souls? Doesn't putting its best face on mean omitting any reference to embarrassing details that will undermine faith?

I just mean that an organization focused on growing is going to focus on the good, the inspiring, and the faith-promoting, and they will emphasize what is taught now over what used to be taught. I don't think there's anything sinister going on, just a desire to grow and increase people's faith.

Just to be clear, I don't think the Church curriculum department (my SP is the head of it) does extensive historical research for every new manual and then purposefully removes anything that doesn't build faith.

My experience agrees with that completely.

I think they approach a new manual by going back and looking at older manuals and other resources (GC talks, etc.) from the last 20-30 years. They remove statements that are "old-fashioned" or "outdated" (the stuff that will become highly embarrassing later on). The changes aren't huge, but over the history of the Church they add up to the milquetoast curriculum we have today.

That is sometimes the case, but often there is a mandate from above to change the approach, such as in the early 90s when the church decided to focus more on the scriptures and less on supplemental materials. We pretty much wrote the Gospel Doctrine manuals from scratch. At other times, though, it's more of an evolution (I've already mentioned my experience with the AP manuals).

[_Fifth Columnist]

I'm sure someone decided not to talk about certain issues, but I don't see some grand conspiracy.

Most of the leaders don't even know the history. I think most of them are chapel Mormons. Some guy posted an interview he had with Russ Ballard last year and Ballard knew very little about the historical controversies. Ballard just kept telling the guy he would get a historian to answer his historical questions later.

At some point, someone researched the history made some very disingenuous choices about what is taught. DCP may be one of those people. He admitted that he helped write the manuals and he is fully aware of the history. He chooses the materials that will promote faith and omits anything that does not.

[_McKay Jones]

Thanks for the transcripts and notes.

Bishop Jones, if I may ask you a question here, would you be comfortable allowing the members in your ward to use some of the non correlation approved materials Dan (Dr. Peterson if you prefer) referenced above in a church classroom setting?

Thanks

Absolutely, within reason. Appropriate "non-correlated" material can be of great use and help in that setting, but should not be the sole source or content, of course.

It would depend on what it is and the nature of it, of course, but I personally don't disallow things an und für sich because they aren't "correlated."

[_Runtu]

Most of the leaders don't even know the history. I think most of them are chapel Mormons. Some guy posted an interview he had with Russ Ballard last year and Ballard knew very little about the historical controversies. Ballard just kept telling the guy he would get a historian to answer his historical questions later.

At some point, someone researched the history made some very disingenuous choices about what is taught. DCP may be one of those people. He admitted that he helped write the manuals and he is fully aware of the history. He chooses the materials that will promote faith and omits anything that does not.

I don't think it's necessarily disingenuous. It's a matter of purpose. When Dan was on the writing committees, I'm sure he was given instructions as to the content and focus of the lessons. Following those instructions does not make Dan or anyone else on those committees dishonest or unscrupulous.

Look, I understand why people are frustrated with the shallow and superficial treatments the manuals give to church history. I think the issue is that, as you said, the higher-ups are not familiar with the history, but they are the ones who control the content. If you don't know about polyandry, for example, you're not going to even think about discussing it in a manual.

So, the writing the committee gets their assignment and fulfills it. Does anyone imagine Dan Peterson or anyone else on a writing committee saying, "Hey, Elder Ballard, why aren't we talking about polyandry?"

[_moksha]

If any posts were actually deleted anywhere -- I don't know whether any were -- it wasn't done by me or at my order or with my knowledge. I can't recall deleting even a single post, nor so much as asking that even a single post be deleted -- let alone thousands.

Plus the implication that these posts were erasures to eliminated any ammunition for defense appeal in the Elizabeth Smart kidnapping trial were unfounded and the timing of this erasures was just one of those cosmic coincidents. I see these coincidental erasures much like the good riddance to the Archbishop of Canterbury by some knights so eager to please, that they inadvertently shone suspicion on their King - when he clearly had never made any order against the Archbishop.

[Guest]

If such erasures took place, I'm unaware of them. Nor can I imagine that anything I've ever said on line would have been of even the remotest interest to either the prosecution or the defense or the judge in the Brian David Mitchell trial.

The conspiracy theories that have been formulated on that topic are silly nonsense, nothing more.

****

But on to more important things:

For the record: I don't much care for the Church's manuals, and have never, ever, used them (except to get the scriptural readings to be discussed) when teaching Gospel Doctrine.

For the record, too, I'm a "chapel Mormon." There isn't a single claim of the Gospel that I reject. The existence of God, the divinity of the process of creation, the deity of Christ, the necessity of his atonement, the restoration of priesthood, the requirement of temple ordinances, the authentic physicality of the gold plates, life after death, the reality of the sealing power, the doctrine of exaltation, the existence of Jaredites and Nephites, the literality of Moroni's visit to Joseph Smith, Christ's appearance in the New World, the transfiguration of Brigham Young -- I believe and teach it all.

If you follow this standard of honesty, then teaching level A history is dishonest.

"We can also intentionally deceive others by a gesture or a look, by silence, or by telling only part of the truth. Whenever we lead people in any way to believe something that is not true, we are not being honest." http://LDS.org/manual/gospel-principles ... y?lang=eng

It's possible to deceive by telling only part of the truth, yes, but telling only part of the truth isn't always (or even commonly) deceptive.

Every discussion of the Civil War or American Revolution that you've ever heard, every biography that you've ever read, has omitted far more than it has included. (To do otherwise is impossible.) Every account that a daughter gives to her father of how her date went leaves out more than it includes -- perhaps with intent to deceive, but very likely without any such intent at all.

Vast quantities of historical information falls under "telling only part of the truth" and "leading people to believe something that is not true."

I disagree.

One of the best examples of this is the description and art work that shows the Book of Mormon translation. That one is a blatant lie,

Yes, that's one of the best examples. And it's not very good.

Artist's renditions are often inaccurate. But those wonderful depictions of "The Flight of the Holy Family into Egypt," located in just about every art museum in Europe and North America, aren't "lies," even though they have Joseph and Mary dressed like Ottoman Turks and either passing through Flanders or crossing the Swiss Alps. It's not a "lie" when Renaissance masters depict "The Annunciation" as occurring in an Italian palazzo. It wasn't a lie when the cover artist for my first paperback edition of C. S. Lewis's Out of the Silent Planet had people in space suits standing on a barren landscape like the surface of the moon -- even though that depiction is utterly unfaithful to the explicit descriptions in the novel. It's not a lie when a very common illustration of the experience of the Eight Witnesses has them gathered around a tree stump; it's just artistic license.

I don't ever go to artistic representations for historical truth.

but the rest of the history is whitewashed to remove anything that is embarrassing to the Church.

That's not true.

That isn't honest.

As I've said, I believe Level A Church history to be true. I disagree with your assessment.

History as taught in the Church is simplified, but it's not false. Hence, it cannot justly be termed "dishonest."

Does the church encourage members to look into their history?

More than most churches and parties, yes, it does.

History does not need to be taught it church but I think some of the history is important and should be taught.

Please don't misunderstand my position. I really, really want Mormons to know much more of their history than they typically do. I love history. I'm not opposed, even slightly, to greater historical knowledge. Quite the contrary.

Does it really take much longer to say that Joseph Smith had more than 1 version of the 1st vision?

No. Not really. And I happily say it. And Deseret Book has published volumes on the subject, and the Church's official magazine has published the texts of the various versions.

How long does it take to say that Joseph Smith slept with women behind Emma's back?

A bit more. The way you state what happened is rather inflammatory. Leaving it at that, though, would be, in my judgment, very misleading. Which, again, is why I'm delighted at the appearance of new books like the anthology edited by Newell Bringhurst and Craig Foster, and at the publishing of articles like Spencer Fluhman's on Helen Mar Kimball and Greg Smith's on Nauvoo polygamy. May their tribe increase.

I think I got taught about the WOW, chasitity, tithing, baptism, faith, etc it least 100 times each and it was very repetitive. I think a little history I did not know would've it least made church a little more interesting.

I'm not unsympathetic to that complaint.

I guess what I am saying is the church could come out and say read stuff like RSR to get to know church history more. They could say it is better getting it from a friendly source instead of an anti source.

I agree, pretty much, although I don't think that the Church should ever endorse any particular biography or academic historical book. We don't seek such endorsement for anything published by the Maxwell Institute, and wouldn't really welcome it.

I learned stuff about church history I did not know before from an anti source and I felt betrayed.

I understand that reaction, and regret it.

Then I get told it is my fault for not looking at church history.

Well, the fact is that there is an abundance of material published on the history of Mormonism, very much of it by highly competent and faithful academic Mormon historians. Many scores of good books, along with good journals like the Utah Historical Quarterly, BYU Studies, the Journal of Mormon History, Mormon Historical Studies -- and very few people read them.

When I remember Boyd K. Packer saying that a lot of the history was not important.

He's right, of course. A lot isn't. Unless you're really a historical buff.

Plus I really didn't think there was much other history to learn because I thought I learned most of the important stuff in institute after going for 7 years.

You did.

But seven years of Institute -- on the Book of Mormon, the New Testament, the Old Testament, Courtship and Marriage, and the like, heavily mingled with social activities and service projects and encouragement to date -- shouldn't be confused with seven years of graduate study in Mormon historiography.

.