Church to Address History Whitewashing?

[_Mister Scratch]

I saw this over on thefoyer. Apparently, the Church is finally caving in to the demands that it present history that it not sugar-coated. The following is from a recent DesNews article:

Active Latter-day Saints want their church to provide a "frank and honest" presentation of church history, unvarnished by attempts to sugar-coat the past in order to make it more palatable.

That's one finding to come from a new e-mail survey done by the family and church history department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The survey targeted members who use the church's resources to do family history and sought to determine how they engage with the faith's past.

Olpin said the survey also showed that respondents:

• Want to get their information about history from the church but "don't want to hear it in Sunday School. They want Sunday activities to be devotional and inspirational."

• Are eager to learn church history via the Internet, documentary-type films, restored LDS historical sites and books. She said nearly half of those surveyed had visited at least one LDS historical site. Nine in 10 said they watch church-produced films as a regular family activity.

• Get much of their information about the church's past from historical fiction. When asked to respond to the statement, "I learned much of what I know about church history from 'The Work and the Glory,"' (a fictional series of books and films about an early Latter-day Saint family and their trials) Olpin said almost half of the respondents answered "yes."

It is quite intriguing to me that this survey was initiated by the Church History Department. Is the hierarchy finally figuring out and admitting that the whitewashed history winds up causing a lot of apostasies, in spite of BKP's admonitions in "The Mantle is Far, Far Greater than the Intellect?" Perhaps the truth does not destroy per se, but withholding the truth---or whitewashing it---certainly does?

[_moksha]

There does seem to be something wrong when the Tanners are able to portray a more accurate picture of past Church history than the Church, does it not?

Let us hope this issue is dealt with by the availability of more open access to accurate Church information.

[_The Nehor]

There does seem to be something wrong when the Tanners are able to portray a more accurate picture of past Church history than the Church, does it not?

Let us hope this issue is dealt with by the availability of more open access to accurate Church information.

It's always been available to those who really want it. I mean the Tanners found it, right? The best way to get more readily accessible stuff out is to get books written but the Church probably shouldn't be writing them.

I'm curious as to how this will be done though. It doesn't belong in the Sunday Block where Church History is only taught in the most simple sense while going over the D&C in Sunday School. Priesthood and Relief Society are even less about history. The closest you'll get to the Church teaching more comprehensive Church History is Institute and Seminary. It'll be interesting to see.

[_Mister Scratch]

To me, the whole thing basically demonstrates a kind of "admission" on the part of the Church that all the secrecy regarding history is having a deleterious effect. It reminds me of the survey they sent around which eventually led to the removal of the penalties from the temple ceremony.

[_Yong Xi]

There does seem to be something wrong when the Tanners are able to portray a more accurate picture of past Church history than the Church, does it not?

Let us hope this issue is dealt with by the availability of more open access to accurate Church information.

It's always been available to those who really want it. I mean the Tanners found it, right? The best way to get more readily accessible stuff out is to get books written but the Church probably shouldn't be writing them.

I'm curious as to how this will be done though. It doesn't belong in the Sunday Block where Church History is only taught in the most simple sense while going over the D&C in Sunday School. Priesthood and Relief Society are even less about history. The closest you'll get to the Church teaching more comprehensive Church History is Institute and Seminary. It'll be interesting to see.

I think a wax museum in Nauvoo with lifelike renderings of Joseph Smith and all his wives would go a long way to helping members' understand that polygamy started with him. It would make a lasting impression.

Really, it's not that hard to let members know about the church's history. The church has many media choices and opportunites to provide this information. The church has chosen to not emphasize those aspects in its' history which it believes would be damaging to members' testimonies.

Frankly, I don't blame the church for not revealing the less savory to its' faithful. Perhaps, however, the genie really is out of the bottle and some frank discussion is in order.

[_guy sajer]

It's always been available to those who really want it. I mean the Tanners found it, right? The best way to get more readily accessible stuff out is to get books written but the Church probably shouldn't be writing them.

God, I get tired of this rationalization. How many members know this even exists? How many understand that the real history is quite different at times from what they're taught at Church or in Church publications?

How much of this information is available in Spanish, Swahili, Khmer, Portuguese, Russian, etc.? What's the likelilhood that a semi-literate peasant in any Third World country is going to read, let alone understand, all this?

Your statement is plain naïve and ignorant. Sorry to be blunt, but it's time to put this particular canard to rest.

[_The Nehor]

It's always been available to those who really want it. I mean the Tanners found it, right? The best way to get more readily accessible stuff out is to get books written but the Church probably shouldn't be writing them.

God, I get tired of this rationalization. How many members know this even exists? How many understand that the real history is quite different at times from what they're taught at Church or in Church publications?

How much of this information is available in Spanish, Swahili, Khmer, Portuguese, Russian, etc.? What's the likelilhood that a semi-literate peasant in any Third World country is going to read, let alone understand, all this?

Your statement is plain naïve and ignorant. Sorry to be blunt, but it's time to put this particular canard to rest.

To be honest the Church members I have met that didn't know English or only recently learned it didn't know the Church History most Americans and British knew. We have a plethora of sources, they don't.

In answer to your question though....anyone who thinks much at all knows that real history is different from that available in Church publications. There's simply too little of it in the publications. Behind me right now I have a 600 page Institute Manual on Church History. Complicated changes in the Church are covered in a page. The Mormon Battalion got a page, the arrival in Salt Lake a page, the First Vision only got 4. It's a digest at best. I have dear friends who read less than this one book in a year outside of school and work obligations. I know this doesn't have everything in it. It's basically a few highlights.

The biggest problem faced with trying to get a more complete history out is general apathy. I was shocked when teaching an Old Testament class that most LDS couldn't work out even a sketchy outline of Adam, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Jesus. The truth is most people just don't care. I find it bewildering but what are you going to do? How do you teach people that don't really want to learn? I know as much as I do because I've spent several hundred hours reading this stuff and I'm an amateur Mormon historian and I know that.

I'm sincerely asking.....how do you get the word out? I don't think it's the Church's job to do it. Apologists and critics write back and forth endlessly but who reads them......apologists and critics. Most members of the Church are aware that this stuff is going on.....and they don't care.

[_Coggins7]

I saw this over on thefoyer. Apparently, the Church is finally caving in to the demands that it present history that it not sugar-coated.

Eventually, Scratch is going to actually begin a thread or create a post that isn't coated in...oh...nevermind.

[_Polygamy Porter]

I think a wax museum in Nauvoo with lifelike renderings of Joseph Smith and all his wives would go a long way to helping members' understand that polygamy started with him. It would make a lasting impression.

How about a wax museum with renderings of a butt neekid Joseph getting his way with a half naked 17 year old Fanny Alger annd Emma sobbing in a dark corner?

[_harmony]

I think a wax museum in Nauvoo with lifelike renderings of Joseph Smith and all his wives would go a long way to helping members' understand that polygamy started with him. It would make a lasting impression.

How about a wax museum with renderings of a butt neekid Joseph getting his way with a half naked 17 year old Fanny Alger?

We aren't in Victorian England, ya know. We have standards for our wax sculptures!