A few years ago, while my wife and I were having dinner at a restaurant with an LDS member and her non-Mormon husband, the latter suddenly asked me, “out of the blue,” the following question: “Dan, as an academician and someone who teaches a variety of subjects, have you ever found anything in all your years of study and research that has made you doubt your belief in the Church?” I answered, “No, actually quite the contrary. The more research I’ve done, the greater my testimony has grown of the truthfulness of the Restored Gospel.”
This affirmation may come as a surprise to those who may read these words, yet such a conviction has always been with me, even from my earliest memory as a child. Being a fifth-generation “Kentucky Mormon” and the only active member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in my high school, I had numerous opportunities to discuss religion and my own beliefs with my peers of other Christian faiths. Now, as an academician, I have continued to have similar interaction at times with my students who come from very diverse cultural and religious backgrounds, from Islam to Buddhism. Yet I have always known that the Book of Mormon was true, along with the Bible—a knowledge obtained through much study, but most importantly through the convincing witness and influence of the Holy Ghost.
Columbus assured King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain in the late fifteenth century that it was through the influence of the Holy Spirit that he had learned the basic skills of cartography and maritime skills by which he successfully made his voyages to the New World. I too have gained a personal and peaceful witness that the Book of Mormon is indeed the “word of God,” and that Joseph Smith, Jr., was a true prophet of God in these latter-days, the same as Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and other famous biblical personalities.
As I served a two-year, full-time mission for my church in southern California and then completed a B.A. in history and a minor in anthropology, an M.A. in history, and a doctorate in folklore and folklife, that same conviction has continually stayed with me and buoyed me up in a world steeped in doubt and confusion as to the meaning of life.
The Gospel of Jesus Christ, as taught within Mormonism, has made me appreciate my wife, five children, and, now, thirteen grandchildren more abundantly, when I realize that we can be together forever as a family. One of the very reasons my second great-grandfather, Edward Callahan Rolph, converted to Mormonism in Kentucky in 1897 was because of his own fervent belief that families should be together forever, and that the Lord’s Church should have apostles and prophets as did the ancient Church, as recorded within the Bible. I cherish the fact that, as a middle-aged man, he strongly believed such doctrine, even though he was “tied to a tree and whipped” for his convictions.
The diversity and subject content of the courses I’ve taught or currently teach continue to convince me of the truthfulness of the Gospel message, be they ancient, medieval, early American or non-Western world classes, etc. I have always been a true Renaissance Man when it comes to learning, as witnessed by my own personal library, my filing cabinets, and the material found within my own home, besides almost one hundred boxes in public storage, centered on every subject from entomology to Islam.
When my five children were growing up in our household, like most children they would occasionally complain of being bored. I’d scold them and say, “If every library was burned to the ground, and nothing was left but what is in my study, you would be able to reconstruct the ‘History of the World’ and even part of the Cosmos from the information contained within my books and files.” They may still have been bored after the lecture, but at least they eventually quit complaining! My poor wife, as well, though a scholar of religion in her own right, objects at times to seeing every edition that exists of Beowulf in our bedroom bookcase!
For the past twenty-six years, I have worked not only as an historian but also as the “Head of Reference Services” at The Historical Society of Pennsylvania (or HSP) in Philadelphia, where I serve primarily as the Civil War scholar, though I also help patrons with their varied dissertation topics and with family history. At HSP, some 21 million manuscripts, 700,000 books, and over 500,000 graphic items, which include many primary sources written by our nation’s Founding Fathers, are housed for the benefit of both scholars and the general public. There I also pen a monthly sketch entitled History Hits, as well as a blog called Hidden Histories, both being derived from our vast collections. My topics are as diverse as “Antarctic exploration” and the “Signatures of Muslim Slaves” in antebellum America.
The point to all the above is that, regardless of the fields of enquiry, many of which I am acutely familiar with from an academic or scholarly perspective, I strongly feel that the principles and doctrines of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are not opposed to any truth, but reinforce it more abundantly. I am not in any way opposed to empirical evidence, but I do question what is often taught as fact but upon scrutiny is found to be simply opinion or even what happens to be “academic fashion.”
“Mormonism” is not in any way opposed to rigorous research. In fact, it invites and encourages such investigation by its membership. I would invite all who truly epitomize the Greek word potheo (“to yearn”) to begin to search out why it is that educated Mormon scholars emphatically embrace the Mormon “belief-system” and still retain their faith. I would encourage all to seek out for themselves the answer to that question, which is so puzzling to many. To myself, and to others like me, there is no doubt, only peace of mind and a stronger desire to learn even more.
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Daniel N. Rolph is Historian and Head of Reference Services, The Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, where has worked since 1985 and where he frequently lectures, offers presentations, writes newspaper articles, does media interviews, and prepares displays. He is also Senior Lecturer in History at Montgomery County Community College in Bluebell, Pennsylvania, and he has taught at Gwynedd-Mercy College and at Hahnemann University, both in Pennsylvania.
He was born in Maysville, Mason County, Kentucky, in 1953. After earning a bachelor’s degree in history with a minor in anthropology from the University of Utah, he went on to earn an M.A. in history from the University of Kentucky and a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania.
Dr. Rolph is the author of “Kentuckians and Mormonism: An Historical Overview: 1831-1931” (M.A. thesis, University of Kentucky, 1985); “Kentucky Reaction and Casualties in the Utah War of 1857-58,” The Journal of Kentucky Studies, (1987): 89-96; “Family Folklore and the Civil War: The Search for an Elusive ‘Rebel’ Soldier,” Genealogy Digest (Summer 1988): 25-28; “Wooden Signal Horns of Southern Appalachia: Provenance and Function,” Material Culture (now Pioneer America) 21/3 (Fall 1989): 9-25; “Folklore, Symbolic Landscapes, and the Perception of Southern Culture,” Southern Studies 1/2 (Summer 1990): 117-126; To Shoot, Burn, and Hang: Folk-History from a Kentucky Mountain Family and Community (Knoxsville, TN: University of Tennessee Press., 1992); “Prophets, Kings, and Swords: The Sword of Laban and Its Possible Pre-Laban Origin,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 2/1 (Spring 1993): 73-79; and My Brother’s Keeper: Union and Confederate Soldiers’ Acts of Mercy During the Civil War (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2002), in connection with which did over 150 presentations at bookstores, historical societies, and Civil War roundtables.
Dr. Rolph is married, with five children and thirteen grandchildren.
Posted September 2011
I have spent most of my last fifteen years learning to think like a scientist: questioning everything I am told to see if it matches with the evidence that I have and those things I have learned. Developing these traits has served me well as a scientist and engineer, and has likewise served me well in my religious understanding. I must admit that I question everything. Could this be right? Could this be true? Using these questions and my experience with the gospel taught by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints leads to only one conclusion for me: The gospel and teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are true and will lead a man back to God and to happiness in this life if they are followed.
I am a believer, but contrary to the Tony award winning Book of Mormon musical, I don’t “just believe.” My convictions derive from a more complex blend of study and faith than the musical suggests when the fictional Elder Price sings, “I am a Mormon and a Mormon just believes.” In addition to being a Mormon, I am also an historian who teaches and researches Utah history, Mormon history, and the history of the U. S. West. I am a believer, in part, because of my profession, not in spite of it.
While I was attending college in Minnesota in 1983, I had a good Lutheran friend with whom I had animated religious and philosophical discussions. Our friendship was secure enough that I disclosed to him my sincere opinion that the Roman Catholic Pope had to know on some level that his own authority was fraudulent. My friend was incredulous that I could believe this. I had come to this conclusion (astonishing, in retrospect) despite my inclination to acknowledge truth wherever it is found, because of two mistakes. First, I felt erroneously that I had a sufficient understanding of Roman Catholicism to address its internal coherence. Second, I had applied the all-or-nothing reasoning I had often heard Latter-day Saints use as a proof for the restored gospel: the proposal that the truth or falsehood of a key point necessarily determines the truth or falsehood of everything else in the belief system. (I have since come to recognize this as a common but potentially misleading approach to all types of religious and quasi-religious understanding.) During my mission service in Southern Germany, I had met countless cultural Catholics who did not inspire much respect in me for their own faith experience or commitment, especially compared to many German Latter-day Saints that I knew.
I cannot forget how I picked up a perfect, intact snakeskin, about fourteen inches long, on top of the Hill Cumorah in New York state half my life ago. The memory of it is still brilliant, a treasure! Beautifully it showed that, getting my head in a forward position, I can wriggle my body out of the old, useless encumberments. That transparent snakeskin was significant in my metaphorical keepsakes. There were gentle curves of discarded old materials of living left behind, so life could function as a new, enlarged, unique being. I can testify to a number of things, because each year I live, I learn more, struggling out of old ways in favor of something higher. Examples are precious to me because I have learned the source and purpose of life.
I have known that God is our Heavenly Father, that He lives, that Jesus Christ is the Savior of humankind, and that the Holy Ghost is a revelator of eternal truth for as long as I can remember. That knowledge has been supplemented from time to time by empirical data and by rational argument. However, these things have never ascended beyond the status of supplement; they have never constituted the basis for the knowledge I have of sacred truths. One might ask, “How can you know—or claim to know—that which you cannot directly encounter with the senses?” But the question strikes me as an odd one, since the senses merely mediate one’s encounter with the world. One person might sense a particular phenomenon in one way, and another sense ostensibly the same phenomenon in quite another way. While, as far as workaday matters or “present particulars” are concerned, most of us are largely in agreement on questions of how the world around us looks, sounds, feels, tastes, or smells, still even a young child soon becomes aware that there appears to be room for wide divergence of opinion or interpretation. As for rational argument—as vital as rationality is to our present existence, the conclusions on which such argument is based are only as good as the assumptions which underwrite them. Thus, when it comes to the really big questions—“What is existence?” “What is the purpose of life?” “Does what I do or not do really matter?” “Is there such a thing as right and wrong or does morality merely boil down to personal preference or societal convention?” “Is there life after death?” “Is there a God?”—I have always felt drawn to a search for the fixed points of the universe. It is my certain conviction that such fixed points exist, and my search for the fixed points has led me to feel in my heart that, if indeed I can claim to know anything at all, it is that God lives and that Jesus Christ is the Savior and Redeemer of humankind. That assurance has both informed my convictions relative to the “big questions” and has directed the choices I have made during the course of my life.
I grew up in a small town (Springville) just south of Provo, Utah. My father was a laborer and my mother also worked full-time in a department store. Both were members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon Church), though neither was active in my youth. My parents sent me to our nearby ward with my two sisters and I always went willingly. There were no religious discussions, prayers, or blessings in our home. My belief and conviction of the truthfulness of the teachings of the Mormon Church grew steadily, though slowly, through these high school and college years. In these formative years, I had questions regarding some of the church doctrines but I continued to attend church regularly, to serve in the church, and to read the canonized scriptures of the church including the Holy Bible and the Book of Mormon. I have not encountered any church principles that are contrary to my personal beliefs as a scientist. I believe that truth will prevail, whether from scientific discovery or from heavenly revelation. As an advanced college student, and then professional, and a husband and father, my testimony increased, through reading of the scriptures, answers to prayers, seeing the impact of the church on the lives of new members, and hearing testimonies of others. Now, I have an unwavering conviction that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is true and that it possesses the priesthood authority of God to provide the essential saving ordinances, including baptism, to all who will believe and repent. I bear witness that this church was restored in the latter days by revelation to the Prophet Joseph Smith and that each succeeding president of the church holds the sacred keys of the priesthood. I believe that the Book of Mormon, like the Holy Bible, contains the fullness of the gospel. It has been my studying and pondering of the Book of Mormon and the promised inspiration of the Holy Ghost that the book is true that has had the greatest impact on my testimony. I bear witness that Jesus Christ is the literal Son of God, the Father, and that He suffered in the Garden of Gethsemane and on the cross to overcome death brought about by the fall of Adam and the sins and weaknesses of all humankind, including me. I know He is my Savior, and without His atoning sacrifice I would be hopelessly lost for the eternities. My membership in the church and my family are most important to me in my life.
I understand things now that I didn’t before. I also know that this understanding has come because of an enduring pursuit that has led to experiences with the divine that have changed my heart. At times, I have wanted to abandon this pursuit; but I have persevered for a few reasons.
In the early 1990s, I picked up a tome with an intriguing title, The Birth of the Modern (Harper Collins, 1991), by the eminent British historian Paul Johnson. His previous work, Modern Times, a one-volume history of the twentieth century, was captivating and significantly changed my view of world history.
My faith in God and in His role as our Heavenly Father and as creator of the universe and of our spirit beings; in His Son’s role as Jesus the Christ, our Savior and Redeemer; and in the Holy Ghost’s role as Inspirer and Comforter—this faith stems from my testimony of the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ, of the Prophet Joseph Smith, and of the Book of Mormon.