Landmark 'Mormon Doctrine' goes out of print

After more than 50 years, Bruce R. McConkie's Mormon Doctrine, one of the most influential LDS books of the 20th century, has quietly gone out of print.

The encyclopedic explanation of LDS teachings, first published in 1958, went through 40 printings, selling hundreds of thousands of copies. Deseret Book has decided not to reprint the classic volume, said spokeswoman Gail Halladay, because of "low sales."

"The demand is no longer there," said Halladay, managing director for marketing and communications.

From the day it came off the presses, though, Mormon Doctrine, was at once wildly popular to many and deeply troubling to more than a few, even at the highest levels of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Several passages about the Roman Catholic Church and McConkie's views of blacks were seen as especially offensive.

Although McConkie, an LDS apostle who died in 1985, took sole responsibility from the start for Mormon Doctrine's content, it often was quoted over the pulpit and treated by members as quasi-official. The book, with its presumptive title, seemed to provide an answer to every question and left little room for ambiguity.

"Mormon Doctrine served two generations of the Mormon rank and file as the main authoritative source of LDS teachings," said LDS sociologist Armand Mauss. "With its authoritative tone and constant promotion from high places, it came to be regularly cited in the church curriculum, especially in [Church Educational System] materials, and soon took on almost a scriptural stature."

To assemble the volume, McConkie, son-in-law of LDS Church President Joseph Fielding Smith, drew on Mormon scriptures, prophetic sermons and commonly held beliefs. He put them together in alphabetical order and with a tone of certainty.

Still, many complained that it did not fairly reflect the diversity of opinion among Latter-day Saints and their leaders.

"The book would more accurately have been entitled, Mostly Mormon Doctrine," Mauss wrote in an e-mail from his home in Irvine, Calif.

The book was even challenged by LDS President David O. McKay, who led the church from 1951 to 1970.

McKay asked two senior apostles, Mark E. Petersen and Marion G. Romney, to review Mormon Doctrine soon after its release and propose a list of corrections, according to David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism by Gregory Prince and Robert Wright.

Petersen recommended 1,067 changes "that affected most of the 776 pages of the book," the biography says.

McKay feared that if the corrections were made, it would seriously affect McConkie's credibility, so he preferred not to see the book republished at all.

"Nonetheless, McConkie audaciously approached McKay six years later and pushed for publication of the book in a revised form," according to Prince and Wright. McKay responded that "if republished," the book should be clearly marked as McConkie's work and not an official church publication.

"The book became one of the all-time best-sellers in Mormondom," they wrote, "achieving the near-canonical status that McKay had fought unsuccessfully to avoid, and setting a tone of doctrinal fundamentalism, antithetical to McKay's personal philosophy, that remains a legacy of the church to this day."

McConkie came to be viewed as a leading LDS theologian. He wrote many other books, including a series about the life and ministry of Jesus Christ, the chapter headings in Mormon scriptures, even the words to the popular LDS hymn "I Believe in Christ."

Many Mormons forever will remember his tearful and stirring final testimony at the April 1985 General Conference just weeks before dying of cancer.

"I am one of [Christ's] witnesses, and in a coming day I shall feel the nail marks in his hands and in his feet and shall wet his feet with my tears," he said. "But I shall not know any better then than I know now that he is God's almighty son, that he is our savior and redeemer, and that salvation comes in and through his atoning blood and in no other way."

Prince said he "never saw anything in Bruce McConkie that was mean or un-Christian," but the LDS scientist nonetheless was "delighted" by news that Mormon Doctrine no longer would be published.

In the first edition, Prince said, it was his "diatribe against the Roman Catholic Church that did the most harm, but subsequently, the real damage has been his statements about blacks."

After the LDS Church opened its all-male priesthood to blacks in 1978, McConkie deleted his previous statement predicting that never would happen. Even in the most recent edition, though, McConkie wrote that God cursed Cain with "a mark of a dark skin, and he became the ancestor of the black race."

Mauss, the sociologist, thinks the book is going out of print "none too soon, especially given the current public-relations preoccupation of the LDS Church."

The volume's continued availability after its wide distribution, he said, will "continue to provide critics of the church with an enduring basis for claiming, however unfairly, that 'Mormon doctrines' are non-Christian or anti-Christian, and that the church is a racist institution."

"Elder McConkie was an apostle and a good man but a man of his times," said Darius Gray, former president of the Genesis Branch for black Mormons. "Sadly his times included a period in this nation when not all men were judged by the content of their character but rather the color of their skin."

The gospel of Jesus Christ never has been a respecter of persons, said Gray, co-producer with Margaret Blair Young of a documentary film, "Nobody Knows: The Untold Story of Black Mormons."

"The LDS Church is a young church," he said, "and, as it has grown, it has become more inclusive, embracing of all God's creations."

The continual publication of Mormon Doctrine seemed to suggest an approval of the concepts and attitudes of a former time, Gray said. By not reprinting it, "a weight will have been lifted off the body of the church. We have thankfully moved on."

Excerpt from Mormon Doctrine about Noah's son Ham "HAM: Through Ham (a name meaning black) 'the blood of the Canaanites was preserved' through the flood, he having married Egyptus, a descendant of Cain. ... Ham was cursed, apparently for marrying into the forbidden lineage, and the effects of the curse passed to his son, Canaan. ... Ham's descendants include the Negroes, who originally were barred from holding the priesthood but have been able to do so since June 1978."

Boy, unless this guy repents, he is in for an eternal surprise.

JESUS: Hey Smith!
Remember that boast you made about doing more than even I had done to hold the 'church' together?

JOSEPH SMITH: Where am I?

JESUS: Don't you remember? A few seconds ago you were in that jail.

JOSEPH SMITH: Oh; yeah; but where am I NOW?

JESUS: Don't you remember? Does bang - bang ring a bell?

JOSEPH SMITH: Oh; yeah - that crummy gun I had was about USELESS!

JESUS: I hope you left instructions on how to hold your church together.

JOSEPH SMITH: Dang! I knew there was SOMETHING I was forgetting!

JESUS: Looks like there's a power struggle going on down there.

JOSEPH SMITH: Yeah; there was always SOMEone who wanted the power that I held - especially over the LADIES - wink wink.

JESUS: No need to worry about that now; remember what my friend Matthew wrote down?

JOSEPH SMITH: This? “At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven” (Matthew 22:30)

JESUS: That's it.

JOSEPH SMITH: I thought that was mistranslated.

JESUS: Nah - it was right.

JOSEPH SMITH: Oh well; it was fun while it lasted. My buds will still get it on with the girls.

JESUS: Uh; I'm sorry; in just a few more years; your followers will cavein to the United States government and abandon the 'Eternal Covenant' that you came up with.

JOSEPH SMITH: ME!? YOU are the one that told me to do that!

JESUS: Sorry; but you must have mistranslated what I told you. What part of Do NOT commit ADULTERY did you not understand?

JOSEPH SMITH: mumble....

JESUS: What did you say?

JOSEPH SMITH: Oh, nothing.

JESUS: Well; it was interesting talking to you; but now I must get back to perparing a place for those who believe in Me.

JOSEPH SMITH: Oh, yeah; the Celestial Kingdom.

JESUS: No...

JOSEPH SMITH: The Telestial one?

JESUS: Nope.

JOSEPH SMITH: SUREly not the TERRESTRIAL one!!

JESUS: Nope. Didn't you read that the mind of man had NOT conceived of it? Paul wrote it down in 1 Corinthians 2:9.

JOSEPH SMITH: I thought that was mistranslated.

JESUS: No; it wasn't.

JOSEPH SMITH: You SURE?

JESUS: Yes. Now I must be going: what did you say your name was again?

JOSEPH SMITH: Joseph Smith.

JESUS: Hmmmm. According to my Heavenly Facebook, you didn't sign in as one of my friends - sorry, I never knew you.

JOSEPH SMITH: But....

One of them (who is now a professor at BYU) used to cite McConkie all the time when it suited his purposes, but would abandon him at the drop of a hat (once even calling McConkie "that clown") if the doctrine was the least bit embarassing to LDS. Actually, as frustrating as I found those actions, they fit very well with how the LDS "church" uses McConkie. If someone likes what McConkie says, then that is the LDS position. If someone objects to McConkie's statements, it can be asserted that position isn't the official "church" position. Like plausible deniability in politics.

Ah, you've captured the Mormon defensive spirit perfectly.

After spending a solid year or more discussing in-depth with LDS Freepers (2007 into the first four months of '08), this spirit of disenguous distancing revealed itself over & over again. To the point where, finally, when an Lds Freeper posted an article by Lds apostle Jeffrey Holland on May 5 two years ago, I just had to respond to highlight this same spirit you noticed.

Here's what I wrote back then (the first part I mention the McConkie spirit...but the latter part falls in exactly with what you mentioned):

[All following references to "From the Article" were from this Lds apostle's article -- see 'My Words...Never Cease' ]

From the article: Continuing revelation does not demean or discredit existing revelation.

Yes it does, if it directly contradicts. The Bereans were “noble” because they searched out “new revelation” to see if it matched the “older” revelation. (Acts 17:11) To not do that when something contradicts is to be ignoble.

From the article: Clearly the Bible, so frequently described at that time as “common ground,” was nothing of the kind—unfortunately it was a battleground.

Aha! Holland is in the Bruce R. McConkie camp, after all, eh? (McConkie later in his life didn’t want Mormons to challenge anything based on the Bible anymore…he wanted only the distinctive LDS “revelations” emphasized.) So the “McConkie” campgrounders are those who see the Bible as only a snake-infested swamp to stay away from.

From the article: So the scriptures are not the ultimate source of knowledge for Latter-day Saints.

Ah, the second shoe drops for the McConkie camp…Wow! What a “nifty” move…moving folks away from the Bible as their key revelational foundation in life! (This way, if the Bible causes "doubts" in the minds of Mormons, well, it wasn't "the ultimate source of knowledge for LDS," anyway, says Holland as he tries to innoculate the Saints from the Bible!!!

From the article: In this Church, even our young Primary children recite, “We believe all that God has revealed, all that He does now reveal, and we believe that He will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God.”

I don’t think I’ve yet encountered an LDS missionary (of any lengthy convo, that is) who doesn’t get around to basically saying this same thing, citing Amos 3:7 as a proof quote to underscore the “need” for an ongoing living revelator: Surely the Sovereign Lord does nothing without revealing his plan to his servants the prophets. [The way they often apply this verse, I’m often thinking, What? Now we have prophet-weathermen because the Lord won’t let it rain & snow without telling an LDS prophet of his “plan?”] Ya gotta understand how LDS missionaries have often plastered this verse on others & how it’s used: The following is a bit of an exaggeration of the tone, but not much: “Naa, Naa, Naa, Naa, Naa…we have a 24/7/365 living revelator & you doe-on’t.” Now if I took the same angle Holland took with describing an ongoing “revelator and seer” I think folks would say “ho-hum…why do we need him again?”

What do I mean?

Well, how often does somebody cite a previous sermon or Journal of Discourses reference by an LDS "prophet" or general authority only to be told, “Ya know, that’s not LDS canon!” or “You can’t hold an LDS 'prophet' or 'apostle' accountable for every obscure spiritual message he gives in public, can you?”

Well, now we’re really befuddled. Here, LDS have lectured us left & right about the need for living revelators & seers via general conference messages, Ensign mag articles, sermons, teachings, writings, etc. (So tell us again why it’s our issue if you consider what any “prophet”—dead or alive—has voiced publicly to be obscure?)

I think it’s downright disingenuous to hype up tone & content-wise to…

IN ONE BREATH…
“We’re the only church on earth that has a living prophet who speaks for God on all things”…

AND THEN IN THE NEXT BREATH TELL US…
“Yeah, we know all about that ‘speaking for God’ thing but you know…
(a) …”Nobody’s perfect…”
(b) …”these guys engage in countless public speculations…”
(c) …”we were hoping you wouldn’t notice all that much of what they’ve had to say ‘cause we assigned much of it to that round file over there we call the ‘obscurity bucket…’
(d) …”and, besides, nobody knows for certain if what they say has been recorded accurately…these are things that were just reported to have been said at one time or another…I mean, come on, they’re only God’s living prophet, president, revelator, seer & representative on earth…What? Do you expect us to have an accurate stenographer on hand to at least 100% accurately report what they’ve said in sermons & general conferences?”

So my questions? What good is an ongoing living “seer & revelator” of God if he can’t properly ID who God is? (“He’s Adam.” “You’re kidding?” “Nope.” “Imagine that. Well, we’ll just have to name our most prominent university after you because of your amazing perception of who God is!”)

What good is an ongoing living “seer & revelator” of God (like Young) if he inserts ourselves in place of the Savior’s blood a temporary doctrine of individual blood atonement? (How trustworthy then is to apply Amos 3:7 in any absolute way to an LDS prophet?) Or since Young inserted our blood for Jesus’ blood in that doctrine, what about an LDS “prophet” like John Taylor who emphasizes the LDS church as saviors of the world due to the practice of baptizing dead folks?

What we keep hearing from Mormons is along these lines: "What I don't understand is why anti-Mormons want to look up obscure things that someone or another was reported to have said at one time or another and then try to claim that their statement somehow is a core doctrine of the LDS Church. Tell me, is everything that comes out of the mouth or the pen of every pastor, preacher, priest, elder, minister, bishop, cardinal, reverend, or whatever of every other church the authoritative gospel of that particular religion? Is every book published by any Baptist minister now a core doctrine of the Baptist religion? Is every word that every Pope has uttered core doctrine of the Catholic Church? I don't understand why you set such an unreasonable standard for the LDS Church and its members."

Answer: It’s not us who have set the standard & built it up. It’s LDS who cite Amos 3:7 & say God doesn’t do anything without revealing His plan & will to His prophet. So you expect to tell us that we can continually look to him for ongoing plan revelations and ongoing will revelations but when we do, you say, “Hey don’t be disappointed…99.99999999999% of what he has to say won’t even qualify as core doctrinal level statements let alone be sustained as a new revelation. What gave you the idea that everything that comes out of the mouth or the pen of every living revelator, seer, prophet, God’s only authoritative rep on earth is the authoritative gospel? Why we just can’t understand how you would misconstrue our build-up of an Amos 3:7 prophet!!!”

From the article: I testify that the heavens are open. I testify that Joseph Smith was and is a prophet of God, that the Book of Mormon is truly another testament of Jesus Christ. I testify that Thomas S. Monson is God’s prophet…I would like to address the other major doctrine which characterizes our faith but which causes concern to some, namely the bold assertion that God continues to speak His word and reveal His truth, revelations which mandate an open canon of scripture. …our friends in some other faiths shut the door on divine expression that we in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints hold dear.. Imputing no ill will to those who take such a position, nevertheless we respectfully but resolutely reject such an unscriptural characterization of true Christianity.

Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that we buy what LDS criticize others for…Let’s say, “OK, heaven’s revelationally wide open…God still reveals Scripture…You’re telling us His mouthpiece is that old guy over there…Let’s take a look @ what he has to say since I guess we need to apply Amos 3:7 according to the way you’ve structured it…”

Two minutes later we say, “Wait a minute.” You say, “What?” “I thought you told me that the Lord does nothing without revealing his plan to his prophet?” “And?” “Well, I just reviewed his general conference talk on the Lord’s will?” “And?” “Well, when’s this going to be added to the D&C as a new revelation?” “Uh, it probably won’t be.” “Why not?” (Silence)

Bottom line: Stop putting “prophets” up on the New Scripture-producing pedestal if you’re going to keep lambasting them as dried-up, antiquated sources of irrelevant obscure directives from the Lord (like Brigham Y. talking about individual blood atonement or Adam=God). Otherwise, it’s far too easy for you to distance yourself from them when they embarrass you; and then to elevate them to the highest post on earth when you want your PR ambassadors to be able to market, “See, we have God’s ONLY direct authoritative pipeline to earth.”

As for your references to our pastors, preachers, priests, elders, ministers, bishops, cardinals, reverends, churches, southern Baptist ministers, and even the Pope, you just let us know when they claim to be New Scripture-producing factories and then you can hold them all to the same standard. (The same can be said, minus the Pope, re: just letting us know that any ONE of these titled persons claims to be God’s ONLY direct authoritative pipeline to earth…then when that day comes, please hold them to the same standard!) Until that day comes, stop the double standards, the double-talk, etc.!!!

From the article: Continuing revelation does not demean or discredit existing revelation.

Oh???

What about that BLACK priest thing?

What about the END of the ETERNAL COVENANT of POLYGAMY?

What about the CHANGES in the wording of the BoM?

In conclusion let us summarize this grand key, these “Fourteen Fundamentals in Following the Prophet”, for our salvation depends on them.

1. The prophet is the only man who speaks for the Lord in everything.
2. The living prophet is more vital to us than the standard works.
3. The living prophet is more important to us than a dead prophet.
4. The prophet will never lead the church astray.
5. The prophet is not required to have any particular earthly training or credentials to speak on any subject or act on any matter at any time.
6. The prophet does not have to say “Thus Saith the Lord,” to give us scripture.
7. The prophet tells us what we need to know, not always what we want to know.
8. The prophet is not limited by men’s reasoning.
9. The prophet can receive revelation on any matter, temporal or spiritual.
10. The prophet may advise on civic matters.
11. The two groups who have the greatest difficulty in following the prophet are the proud who are learned and the proud who are rich.
12. The prophet will not necessarily be popular with the world or the worldly.
13. The prophet and his counselors make up the First Presidency—the highest quorum in the Church.
14. The prophet and the presidency—the living prophet and the First Presidency—follow them and be blessed—reject them and suffer.

I testify that these fourteen fundamentals in following the living prophet are true. If we want to know how well we stand with the Lord then let us ask ourselves how well we stand with His mortal captain—how close do our lives harmonize with the Lord’s anointed—the living Prophet—President of the Church, and with the Quorum of the First Presidency.

Ezra Taft Benson

(Address given Tuesday, February 26, 1980 at Brigham Young University)

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