[delacoert]

Another post on the FR Religion mentioned the concept of the LDS Church's policy of "faith-promoting history" and it got me looking. I found this article and thought it worth sharing.

Mentioned in the article is the penchant for declaring historical truths that apologists find uncomfortable as "propaganda" - we've seen that repeatedly in this forum.

Another comment in the article that I assocciated with was about Mormon colleagues and wondering how they could possibly beieve the way they do.

During the past two decades I have been at many informal non-Mormon gatherings in scholarly conferences at which the subject of Mormonism has arisen. Almost invariably at least one individual has turned to me and said something along the following lines: "One thing about them has always puzzled me. I have a valued Mormon colleague who seems to be an otherwise fine and intelligent person, but frankly it baffles me how any thinking individual could believe what he does. I just can't understand it."

[delacoert]

Hmm. The link broke. I can still find it in Google's cache though.

[Elvina]

Just struggled through an audiobook of “Massacre at Mountain Meadows” and experienced the exact phenomenon mentioned in this article. I didn’t find out until afterwards that it was written by Mormons.

[Texas Fossil]

Fawn Brodie....her path-breaking biography "No Man Knows My History"

I read that many years ago. A non-Mormon friend of mine who worked in Salt Lake for a time loaned me a copy. It was sold in select book stores in Salt Lake in a plane brown wrapper and never displayed for sale.

[Godzilla]

the internet kicks the availability of non-filtered history wide open for mormons today. It becomes increasingly humorous to watch the professional, non-official mormon apologists tie themselves in knots (as well as contradict each other) to explain away mormon history.

[Colofornian]

From the article: The growing respect for Mormon social history has not spread as yet, except in rare cases, to respect for Mormon beliefs. During the past two decades I have been at many informal non-Mormon gatherings in scholarly conferences at which the subject of Mormonism has arisen. Almost invariably at least one individual has turned to me and said something along the following lines: "One thing about them has always puzzled me. I have a valued Mormon colleague who seems to be an otherwise fine and intelligent person, but frankly it baffles me how any thinking individual could believe what he does. I just can't understand it." I can understand this sense of disbelief as well. After all this was my own initial reaction both to Mormons and to their history. Before I got to know Mormons better, they chiefly appeared to be hardworking, clean-cut, loyal, thrifty, brave, clean, reverent—and utterly boring. No group ever talked more about free will (or in Mormon parlance "free agency") yet in practice seemed to exercise free will less in important matters. I was vividly reminded of a cartoon that showed a large, overbearing woman talking with her neighbor while her small, shy husband dutifully sat on the couch, his hands meekly folded. The woman was saying: "Hubert has a will of iron; he just seldom gets a chance to use it." This for me was the epitome of Mormonism and why I found it basically uninteresting and even sometimes distasteful. Popular Mormon history merely reinforced this stereotype. Mormons throughout history, it seemed, had always been PARAGONS of virtue, dedicated to the faith 100 percent or more. They had never had any doubts or problems except how better to spread the "gospel" among non-Mormons...

"Paragons"....Hmmm...just where have I heard that word in association with Mormons??...seems so familiar...yet so far away....Hmm...Who can help me out...It's seems right on the tip of my tongue.

Oh, yeah! Paragons of virtue...like the Mormon "Paragonian" who compared Freepers to Nazis & got zotted unto outer darkness. Why, how "virtuous!"

[Colofornian]

Mentioned in the article is the penchant for declaring historical truths that apologists find uncomfortable as "propaganda" - we've seen that repeatedly in this forum.

Exactly.

What's so ironic is the zotted-unto-outer darkness one would use "propaganda" as his fave slime word.

Yet, the author of this article points out how Mormon leaders are prone to practicing propaganda: Leaders of the church are now calling publicly for their historians to write only sanitized, saccharine accounts, treatments which would best be characterized as

"propaganda"

by an objective observer. Never in the past decade has the outlook for the serious writing of Mormon history appeared so grim. I am convinced that this restrictive tendency can only be counterproductive. The writing of misleading yet supposedly "positive" accounts of the Mormon past will be neither faith promoting nor good history. Of course it all depends on what kind of faith one is trying to promote. If one wishes to promote uninformed, unthinking acquiescence to the church as an institution that can do no wrong, then clearly the

propagandistic

approach is most suitable.

[Colofornian]

From the article: Even without any knowledge of what had actually gone on, I was certain that the official [Lds] version could not be the full story. Surely there must be more to Mormon history than such naive accounts indicated if their church had been able to achieve the remarkable degree of success that it had...Nowhere was such blindness to their own history more pronounced than in Mormon treatments of polygamy, the primary topic I was investigating. The most common approach seemed to be to say as little as possible about the subject, as though it was something of which to be ashamed. Only when talking about how inexplicably nasty and hostile non-Mormons were to the Saints was polygamy brought up, and then almost exclusively as a religious revelation that had been introduced to test the faith of the Saints...Despite the great achievements of Mormon historical studies over the past two decades, many Latter-day Saints nevertheless have remained

fearful

of realistic writing about the Mormon past or attempts to deal seriously with controversial issues such as polygamy. The repeatedly expressed anxiety is that such an open and honest approach might not be "faith promoting," that it might tend to raise questions which would cause Latter-day Saints to be less loyal to their church. As a result of such

fears,

the last few years have seen an increasing drive from some factions of the church to restrict or even put a stop to serious historical studies of Mormonism. Leaders of the church are now calling publicly for their historians to write only sanitized, saccharine accounts, treatments which would best be characterized as "propaganda" by an objective observer. Never in the past decade has the outlook for the serious writing of Mormon history appeared so grim. I am convinced that this restrictive tendency can only be counterproductive. The writing of misleading yet supposedly "positive" accounts of the Mormon past will be neither faith promoting nor good history. Of course it all depends on what kind of faith one is trying to promote. If one wishes to promote uninformed, unthinking acquiescence to the church as an institution that can do no wrong, then clearly the propagandistic approach is most suitable. But if one wishes to promote a mature faith tested by a responsible exercise of free agency, then such an approach can only be destructive and self-defeating. All too many Saints seem to be less concerned with promoting faith in Mormonism and more concerned with promoting faith in the naive writings that have appeared about Mormonism, even if those accounts can be clearly shown to be misleading or inaccurate. It is indeed sad that for some Saints the horror of having any doubt is so great that they do not see the even greater horror of having a faith so small that they are

afraid

ever to doubt or test it for

fear

the whole structure would crumble. Realistic faith, it seems to me, must grow out of confidence rather than

fear

and defensiveness.

What's interesting is that one of the top hierarchical Mormons -- one of the top three -- Boyd Packer -- addressed a bit of this in his General Conference message last weekend. In talking about some Mormons, Packer said:

"...some take offense at incidents

in the HISTORY of the church

or its leaders and are unable to get past the mistakes of others...they fall into inactivity."

That's the actual quote from his message. The Mormon church paraphrased it as:
Many members have been offended by some aspect of the Church and have fallen into inactivity. President Boyd K. Packer: Guided by the Holy Spirit -- but you can see the actual quote where Packer ties it into how the revelation of Mormon history has been leading to some Mormons falling away from the church here: Packer you tube

The REAL history of the Mormon church is an enemy to the Church...hence the fear that this author mentions about it from Mormons.

The big bogeyman of Mormonism is its own history!!!

(Too many skeletons reside there for comfort)

[Scoutmaster]

As you know, I wrote the post on "faith-promoting history." It was brief and covered only a tiny part of why I can provide - with links and references - to faith-promoting history.

I believe the reason your link broke is that the article was available at the online library of Signature Books, a Mormon publishing company, which became temporarily unavailable as of April 7, 2011. The website is being moved, updated and books are being proofed, organized, and uploaded. Here is the explanation.

Links from my post on "faith-promoting history" are now 404'd as well.

When completed, the online library for Signature Books will be available here. Notice the slightly different domain name. About 50 books are available there now, as opposed to the 150 0r 200 that were available previously. What's sad about your link disappearing (if your link to the article above is the same as my link), is that the article was part of a Signature Books collection of about a dozen articles on the difficulties in writing and reading Mormon History, many of them with thirty to sixty footnotes to articles available online in the articles in Dialogue: A Journal on Mormon Thought, or in Sunstone magazine, or in other academic periodicals. It was a great starting place to read about writing and reading Mormon history by both LDS historians and non-LDS religious academics.

delacoert, my post on "faith-promoting" history was perhaps 1% of what I have on the subject of publishing only faith-promoting history;

I didn't provide links or footnotes to my references, which I can do.

You could start by asking a few authors and historians about the church's view on academic freedom.

Fawn M. Brodie.

Grant Palmer.

Thomas W. Murphy.

D.Michael Quinn.

Avraham Gileadi.

Paul Toscano.

Lavina Fielding Anderson.

Maxine Hanks.

Lynne Kanavel Whitesides.

Michael Barrett.

Brent Metcalfe.

Janice Allred.

Margaret Toscano.

Shane LeGrande Whelan.

Boyd Packer didn't start the concept of hiding history; he just gave it the famous name of publishing only "faith-promoting" history.

Here, direct from Brigham Young University, is LDS Apostle Boyd K. Packer's speech on the Mantle is Far, Far Greater Than The Intellect," which was originally given to BYU professors and church employee-historians. (PD's favorite source, www.fairlds.org, admits that the speech took place; however fairlds says that it is perfect fine for a religious employer to tell its employees what historical facts may be told - notwithstanding that (a) some of the employees are BYU professors who are supposed to enjoy academic freedom, (b) the members of the church are told that the history they are provided is true and not completely laundered, and (c) the speech was later published in a pamphlet and distributed beyond this select crowd).

This speech is where the phrases "faith-promoting" history comes from. Note this article comes FROM BYU. It was later published in a pamphlet for wider distribution.

As a starting place, you may also want to delve into the letter (you'll find the same letter published everywhere, including some photos of the typed letter.) LDS Apostle Bruce McConkie wrote to BYU historian Eugene England back in 1981, regarding England's paper sent to McConkie for review, Perfection and Progression of God: Two Spheres of Existence and Two Modes of Discourse." (it was published eight years later with a slightly different name). In the letter McConkie chided England for publicly discussing controversial statements made by Brigham Young, though he fully admitted Young did in fact teach them. In closing he warned England:

"Now I hope you will ponder and pray and come to a basic understanding of fundamental things and that unless and until you can on all points, you will remain silent on those where differences exist between you and the Brethren. This is the course of safety. I advise you to pursue it. If you do not, perils lie ahead. It is not too often in this day that any of us are told plainly and bluntly what ought to be. I am taking the liberty of so speaking to you at this time, and become thus a witness against you if you do not take the counsel."

You see, McConkie had taken the position that God never progressed in his views, despite the changing revelations that were given to LDS prophets (remember the policy on the priesthood for Blacks? Polygamy? Adam-Gold? Even McConkie admits that Brigham Young taught Adam-God.).

Here's a .mp3 of the speech. Here's an unedited transcript of the speech.

Here's the version of McConkie's speech as published by BYU, which has been edited.

Google McConkie and England and you'll find plenty written by Mormon and non-Mormon authors.

Put you hands on the June 1945 copy of Improvement Era Magazine (the predecessor to Ensign magazine), sponsored by the LDS General Authority and the official magazine of the LDS Young Men's Mutual Improvement Association. Flip to page 354:

"When our leaders speak, the thinking has been done. When they point the way, there is no other which is safe. When they give direction, it should mark the end of controversy.... He [Satan] wins a great victory when he can get members of the Church to speak against their leaders and to 'do their own thinking'"

delacoert, you wouldn't believe what all I have. I'm not going to post an article on LDS history or church-mandated deception because I believe that LDS members have every right to practice their religion. I simply get angry - particularly because of things PD said to me after I started a polite conversation with him - when LDS apologists call people liars and propagandists for publishing historical facts about LDS history, when those apologists KNOW that the LDS church has a policy of publishing only faith-promoting history and of pulling temple recommends, disenfellowshipping, or excommunicating historians for publishing facts that are true but not faith-promoting.

[Cronos]

question: why is mormon stuff so dang long? At least it’s better than the stuff on lds.org that twists the sentences like crazy.