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Mormonism and history
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Mormonism and history
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- Accuracy of Church history
- Censorship and revision of Church history
- Attitude of the Church toward historians
- "Magic" in Mormon history
- Responding to Criticisms Based in History
- The location at which the Church was organized
Has the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) "whitewashed" its history?
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- Question: Has The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints deceived its members regarding controversial issues about its origins, history, and/or scripture?
- Question: What are the different levels of knowledge that members may have about Church history?
- Question: Do Mormon histories have a long history of omitting mention of plural marriage as a cause for the Saints' troubles in Illinois?
- Question: Why does the account of Sidney Rigdon's 'trial' recorded in the Times and Seasons differs markedly from the version available in the History of the Church?
- Question: Does Oliver Cowdery's blessing and promise to Orson Hyde contain a false prophecy, which was then altered before being printed in History of the Church?
- Question: Did Wilford Woodruff criticize assistant Church Historian Andrew Jenson's decision to publish the names of those who were married to Joseph Smith because he wanted to hide the fact that Joseph was married to other women?
- Question: Did the Church order Ronald L. Poelman's 1984 conference talk to be re-recorded with a "cough track" in order to hide the fact that changes had been made?
- Question: Why is History of the Church written in first-person, as if Joseph Smith himself wrote it?
- Question: How has the Church responded to issues related to Church history?
- Question: Does Church manual, The Teachings of the Presidents of the Church: Brigham Young, attempt to "hide history" by portraying Brigham Young (a well-known polygamist) as having only one wife?
- Question: What does The Teachings of the Presidents of the Church: Brigham Young say about Brigham's wives?
- REDIRECT Approaching history
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Accuracy of Church History |
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Mormonism and history
Ironically, those who criticize Mormon histories as being unreliable and incomplete use Church-produced documents as their source material
The author of the critical book One Nation Under Gods claims that "Mormon leaders, especially since the 1970s, have repeatedly called for LDS historians to 'tell only that part of the truth that is inspiring and uplifting.'" and that "some of the least reliable reports on Mormon history, especially with regard to its earliest years, are those that have been produced by the LDS church."
How does one define "least reliable?" The assertion by the author that "some of the least reliable reports on Mormon history" are those "produced by the LDS church" is very interesting in light of the fact that some of the source documents used by the author in his book include the Journal of Discourses, the Messenger and Advocate, the Millennial Star, the Evening and Morning Star, the Ensign, Conference Reports, and the Encyclopedia of Mormonism, to name a few. Each of these sources is viewed by members and non-members alike as being "produced by the LDS church." If they are so unreliable, why does the author cite from them? If there is a disagreement between two sources—one from the Church and the other from someone viewed as an enemy of the Church—how does the author know which one is more reliable?
The author of One Nation Under Gods castigates sources produced by the LDS Church, but then uses many of those materials in constructing and expressing viewpoints. He also cites material from people who have a professed grudge against the LDS Church and its teachings. Reliability of documents, then, becomes an issue of acceptability to each individual.
Elder Boyd K. Packer's comment: "Some things that are true are not very useful"
Elder Packer gave an address to religious educators called "The Mantle is Far, Far Greater Than the Intellect."[1] The quote "Some things that are true are not very useful" has become a favorite of critics as a way to demonstrate that the Church suppresses truth or intellectual thought.
Elder Packer said nothing about stopping historians or insisting that they not be objective
An examination of the reference provided above may prove insightful. There are two main parts to this reference. First, is the assertion that Church officials have "routinely" insisted LDS-authored historical materials be "faith promoting" at the expense of being historically accurate. To prove this assertion, the author provides the example of a talk by Boyd K. Packer that was published in BYU Studies. Elder Packer stressed four main points:
- There is no such thing as an accurate, objective history of the Church without consideration of the spiritual powers that attend this work.
- There is a temptation for the writer or the teacher of Church history to want to tell everything, whether it is worthy or faith promoting or not. Some things that are true are not very useful.
- In an effort to be objective, impartial, and scholarly, a writer or a teacher may unwittingly be giving equal time to the adversary.
- The final caution concerns the idea that so long as something is already in print, so long as it is available from another source, there is nothing out of order in using it in writing or speaking or teaching.
The only mention of "objectivity" in the talk was in relation to the first and third points, and Elder Packer said nothing about stopping historians or insisting that they not be objective. He simply said that no treatment of LDS Church history could hope to be objective without consideration of the spiritual powers that attend the work. In other words, he was telling LDS historians that to leave out consideration of God's Spirit was to leave out an important component of why and how things were done in the Church.
The second main part of the ONUG reference is the claim that the Church historical department staff were required to "sign a form" regarding the Church's right to censor anything the staff might publish. It appears that the author feels such a form is an example of ways in which the LDS Church suppresses scholarly work. The author never addresses the issue, however, of whether the Church has a right to control (a) access to their own historical records, and (b) how those records are used. If this were a discussion about business corporations, there would be no question that the businesses have the right to do both — control access and use of past business records.
Does The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (or any church, for that matter) have the right to control its own records and how they are used? If businesses and governments do, why not churches?
Notes
- ↑ Boyd K. Packer, "The Mantle is Far, Far Greater Than the Intellect," Address to the Fifth Annual CES Religious Educators' Symposium, 1981; see also Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1991), 101-122; see also Boyd K. Packer, "'The Mantle is Far, Far Greater than the Intellect.'," Brigham Young University Studies 21 no. 3 (Summer 1981), 259–278. PDF link Later references to this address refer to the BYU Studies reprint, since the PDF is available on-line. It starts on page 1.
"Magic" in Mormon history
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Joseph Smith and folk magic or the occult
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- Question: What is the distinction between belief in "folk magic" and a religious belief in the supernatural?
- Question: Were Joseph Smith's spiritual experiences originally products of magic and the occult?
- Question: What were the attitudes of Joseph Smith and his contemporaries toward "magic"?
- Question: How did Joseph Smith use his seer stones as a youth?
- Question: Was a "vagabond fortune-teller" named Walters Joseph Smith's "mentor"?
- Question: Does Lucy Mack Smith's mention of the "faculty of Abrac" and "magic circles" evidence that "magick" played a strong role in the Smith family's early life?
- Question: Did Joseph Smith, Sr. practice "divination"?
- Question: Did early members of the "Mormon" Church believe in witchcraft?
- Question: Was the fact that the recovery of the Book of Mormon plates occurred on the autumnal equinox somehow significant?
- Question: Did Joseph Smith derive his religious ideas in part from a mysticism called Kabbalah?
- Question: Did Joseph Smith have a Jupiter talisman on his person at the time of his death?
- Question: What is the source of the story about Joseph Smith possessing a Jupiter talisman?
- Stephen Robinson: "In the case of the Jupiter coin, this same extrapolation error is compounded with a very uncritical acceptance of the artifact in the first place"
- Question: Could the list of items on Joseph's person at the time of his death have been incomplete?
- Question: What is the probability that Joseph Smith possessed items related to "magic"?
- Question: Was a "magic dagger" once owned by Hyrum Smith?
- Question: Does the Book of Mormon’s reference to “slippery treasures” stem from Joseph Smith’s involvement in money digging and the occult?
FAIR Answers—back to home page
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Accuracy of Church History |
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Forgeries and folklore |
Mormonism and history
Question: How can one answer criticisms of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints based in history?
Introduction to Question
The history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is researched on an ongoing basis and critics are almost always a part of that group that are researching to create new criticisms that they can level at the Church. This article will present several principles and other resources that will help individuals in evaluating historical criticisms.
Articles that Are Necessary to be Familiar With
There are a number of articles that we recommend on familiarize themselves with in order to respond to/react properly to historical criticism.
Disagreeing with Church Leaders
FAIR has produced an article about disagreeing with Church leaders. Honing these principles will help you know how you need to react to the decisions and words of Church leaders in the past.
Moral Standards of Church
Latter-day Saints have a moral code informed by the Savior’s teachings about love. This article discusses love from a Gospel point of view.
General Principles to Keep in Mind
Remember that Seeming Contradictions in a series of historical accounts about the same event by the same person are not inherently problematic
As taught on the Church's website, "Historians expect that when an individual retells an experience in multiple settings to different audiences over many years, each account will emphasize various aspects of the experience and contain unique details."[1]
This is a general principle that has been used to respond to criticism of the First Vision, for instance.
We’re trying to establish what most likely happened. Not what actually did happen.
As taught by BYU Professor Gerrit Dirkmaat:
Historians can only establish what most likely happened in the past. We aren’t in the business of being able to prove impossibilities. Historians--based upon sources that exist, based upon context--are able to say “this is most likely what happened in the past.” And so, part of understanding the past--when you’re studying religion, when you’re studying Latter-day Saint history--is realizing that all sources are not created equal. The fact that someone said something in the past is not proof that what they’re saying did or didn’t happen--especially when it comes to a miraculous event.[2]
Doing History
Now we get into some of the bread and butter skills a person will need to have when doing history so that they can properly evaluate sources and the claims of the people today, scholars and laypeople alike, who are interpreting those sources.
1. Evaluate Your Historical Sources
The first skills you will need to acquire are in evaluating historical sources. This video and infographic explain how to evaluate historical sources.
2. Use the Best Sources for Your Analysis
You need to trust the best sources. The best sources are:
- First hand: We want to learn about an event from the person who experienced it first. Sources that are second, third, fourth hand, and so on are increasingly likely, to be unreliable in relaying information correctly. It’s like the game of telephone where a message starts out as “I like monkeys”, gets passed around the room through whispers, and then comes out as “pie bike palm trees.” Sometimes the first hand accounts don’t exist and we have to rely on second hand witnesses. The later hand sources are not automatically less reliable, but they are only more likely to not be such.
- Early: The closer in time an account is to its corresponding event, the more likely we are to have an accurate recollection of something that happened. This is for the simple reason that our memory is more likely to fail us over time.
- Friendly: People are more likely prone to relaying information about someone in a less accurate way when they are biased or hostile towards a person. The friendly sources are often times more likely to be more accurate in relaying information.
- Sober: the more people will recall the events that happened to them in a matter-of-fact way, the more we can trust their account as reliable. When that person obviously is filtering their memory through nervousness and other emotions, we might be more likely to be dealing with fabrications, distortions, half-truths, and more.
3. Read through all the sources
We obviously then need to read through all sources, reliable and unreliable, to get an idea of what happened.
4. Craft a narrative
Give an account, based on the sources, of what you believe most likely happened. Sometimes your confidence in your answer will be high, and sometimes you will not be at all certain that you can answer the question.
5. Read what other historians have said about an issue
You will want to compare your findings to what other interpreters have said about a particular event to be able to make sure that you haven’t overlooked important arguments that may or may not change how you view an event.
For more tips and an even more thorough overview of how to evaluate claims about Latter-day Saint history see the article by Anthony Sweat and Ken Alford in Religious Educator.[3]
Notes
- ↑ "First Vision Accounts," Gospel Topics Essays, November 2013, https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics-essays/first-vision-accounts?lang=eng.
- ↑ BYU Religious Education, “Understanding Latter-day Saint Doctrine and History,” BYU Religious Education, December 7, 2020, video, 6:32, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4U2OI00tCs
- ↑ Anthony Sweat and Kenneth L. Alford, “A Method for Evaluating Latter-day Saint History,” Religious Educator 21, no. 3 (2020): 61–81.
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The location at which the Church was organized
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- Question: Was the Church of Christ organized in Fayette? Or was it Manchester?
- Christofferson: "Recording mistakes, for example, have sometimes been seized on as evidence of misrepresentations or bumbling by the Prophet"
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