Mormon History
Pro-Mormon historians have traditionally relied upon four arguments in dismissing the Spaulding Enigma: (1) that Solomon Spalding wrote only a single novel, Manuscript Story - Conneaut Creek; (2) that Doctor Hurlbut's hateful desire to destroy Joseph Smith and the Church renders his evidence hopelessly biased and unacceptable; (3) that Sidney Rigdon was not in Pittsburgh until 1822 and never had any connections with the print shops there; and (4) that Rigdon's first contact with Joseph Smith took place in late 1830, many months after The Book of Mormon had already been published. Who Really Wrote the Book of Mormon, page 99.
Old Newspaper Articles and Books on Mormonism
Sidney Rigdon the Catalyst Behind Mormonism
Fascination With Prophets - 1795
Sidney Rigdon in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania - 1816
Fascination With Indian Civilizations - 1818
Fascination With Indians Being Jews - 1819
Fascination With Brass Plates - 1821
Fascination With Money Digging - 1822
Fascination With Ancient Indians - 1822
Fascination With Old Manuscripts - 1823
Fascination With Modern Revelations - 1823
Fascination With Religious Revivals - 1824
Fascination With Cult Migration - 1826
Fascination With Polygamy - 1828
Joe Smith's Brush With Being a Methodist - 1825
The New York Arrest Records of Joseph Smith - 1826
Joe Smith: John the Apostle Never Died - 1829
Joe Smith: I am the Lord and you are my Dupes - 1829
Joe Smith, Author and Proprietor - 1829
Joe Smith and His Golden Story - 1829
Knowledge of the BOM in NY Before Publication - 1829
Knowledge of the BOM in Ohio Before Publication - 1829
Joe Smith: I am the Lord and you are my Dupes - 1830
Warning About Smith Family in NY - 1830
Excuse for the Lost BOM Pages - 1830
Joe Smith: I Don't Have to Work Anymore - 1830
Joe Smith: Michael is Adam and is also God - 1830
Joe Smith: I am the new Moses - 1830
"Conversion" of Sidney Rigdon - 1830
Warning About Mormons in Ohio - 1830
Joe Smith: I am the Lord and you are my Dupes - 1831
Dull Joe Following Rigdon to Ohio - 1831
Moving to the Holy Land - 1831
Joe Smith: Build me a House - 1831
Thomas Campbell Letter to Sidney Rigdon - 1831
Alexander Campbell's Full Critique of the BOM - 1831
Ministers Exposing Mormonism - 1831
Thou Shall Attend Conferences - 1831
Campbell Examination of the BOM Part 1 - 1831
Campbell Examination of the BOM Part 2 - 1831
Mormon Miracle Healings? - 1831
Joe Smith the Anti-Physician - 1831
Missouri Non-Mormons are Your Enemies - 1831
Thou Shall go to Missouri - 1831
Leaving for the New Jerusalem - 1831
False Prophecy About Missouri - 1831
Ezra Booth Letters #8 & 9 - 1831
Warning About Mormonism - 1831
Joe Smith: I am the Lord and you are my Dupes - 1832
Deluded Fanatics the Mormonites - 1832
Beginnings of the Spalding Enigma - 1832
Mormon on Mormon Violence - 1832
Israel Restored in Missouri - 1832
South Carolina will cause World War I - 1832
Joe Smith: I am the Lord and you are my Dupes - 1833
Joe Smith: Build me a bigger House - 1833
Controlling the Mormons in Missouri - 1833
First Missouri Mormon War - 1833
Missouri Lieutenant Governor Letter - 1833
Kirtland as the Base of Operations - 1833
Martin Harris and Domestic Violence - 1833
New York Statements on Joe Smith - 1833
Charles Anthon Statement on the BOM - 1834
Silencing an Anti-Mormon - 1834
The March of Zion's Camp - 1834
Excuse for the Retreat of Zion's Camp - 1834
Letter from Missouri Governor - 1834
End of the World False Prophecy - 1835
Joe Smith: Much Money in Massachusetts - 1836
Only Dreamers Have the Gospel - 1836
Letter from Kirtland Christian - 1836
History of Mormonism to Date - 1836
Mormon Money Bank Scam Notes - 1837
Kirtland Mormon Money Schemes - 1837
Mormon Love for Kirtland Money - 1837
Kirtland Mormonism Exposed - 1838
Inflammatory July 4th Sermon - 1838
Inflammatory Mormon Elder's Journal - 1838
Reaction of Carroll County Citizens - 1838
General Alarm by Missouri Citizens - 1838
Non-Mormons Trying to Avoid War - 1838
Missouri Governor's Call to Mobilize - 1838
Second Missouri Mormon War - 1838
Conclusion of Missouri Mormon War - 1838
Mormon Prisoners in Missouri - 1838
The Escape of Joseph Smith - 1839
Statement of Solomon Spaulding's Wife - 1839
Adam is God and the Mormon Priesthood - 1839
Renaming of Commerce to Nauvoo - 1840
Mormons and Numerous Petty Thefts - 1840
Illinois Politicians Using the Mormons - 1840
Joe Smith: Build me a Mansion House - 1841
Move to Nauvoo and Secure Your Eternal Inheritance - 1841
Sidney Rigdon's Trip to Heaven - 1841
First Nauvoo Defections - 1841
Joe Smith's Hate For Independent Journalists - 1841
General Alarm by Illinois Citizens - 1841
Position of Non-Mormon Journalists - 1841
Citizen Reaction to Mormon Hate - 1841
Kirtland Money Fraud Revisited - 1841
Joe Smith the General and Prophet - 1841
Warning to Politicians About the Mormons - 1841
How Martin Harris was Duped - 1841
The Mormons and Alcohol - 1841
The Swindling of New Converts - 1841
General Alarm by Iowa Citizens - 1841
Interview with Joe Smith - 1841
Mormon Growth due to Foreigners - 1841
Warning to all of Illinois - 1842
The Lust of Brigham Young - 1842
Attempted Assassination of Former Missouri Governor - 1842
Warning from U.S. Military Officer - 1842
Prominent Mormon Defectors - 1842
Mormon Plot to Control Illinois - 1842
John C. Bennett's 1st Disclosure - 1842
John C. Bennett's 2nd Disclosure - 1842
John C. Bennett's 3rd Disclosure - 1842
John C. Bennett's 4th Disclosure - 1842
John C. Bennett's 5th Disclosure - 1842
John C. Bennett's 6th Disclosure - 1842
John C. Bennett's 7th Disclosure - 1842
Mormon Control of Illinois General Election - 1842
Saving Joe Smith From Prosecution - 1842
Joe Smith Publicly Flaunting State Law - 1842
Arrest Warrant for Joe Smith by Outgoing Governor - 1842
First Arrest and Release of Joe Smith - 1843
Debate Over Nauvoo Charters - 1843
Joe Smith: Angels Can Have Sex - 1843
Joe Smith: God the Father Can Have Sex - 1843
It is Impossible for Joe Smith to be Saved - 1843
Polygamy Revelation in Writing - 1843
Second Arrest and Release of Joe Smith - 1843
Puppet Governor's Excuse for Release - 1843
Nauvoo Visit and Joe Smith Interview - 1843
Uneducated Gullible Mormons - 1843
Fanatical Mormon Baptism - 1843
Special Privileges of General Joe Smith - 1843
Appeal to the Green Mountain Boys - 1844
Mormon Caused Problems at Carthage - 1844
Spiritual Advice for Joe Smith - 1844
Puppet Governor's Lack of Concern - 1844
General Joe Smith for President - 1844
Special Privileges of the Nauvoo Charter - 1844
Joe Smith Compared to Mo-ham-mad - 1844
Nauvoo High Council in Action - 1844
King Follet Discourse by Joe Smith - 1844
Joe Smith and the Use of Slander - 1844
Why Oppose the Mormons? - 1844
Dissention Among the Mormons - 1844
Establishment of the Nauvoo Expositor - 1844
Final Public Blasphemy of Joe Smith - 1844
Slander of Henry Clay by Joe Smith - 1844
The Lone Issue of the Nauvoo Expositor - 1844
Illegal Destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor - 1844
Reaction to the Destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor - 1844
Arrest and Murder of General Joe Smith - 1844
Puppet Governor's First Proclamation - 1844
Sidney Rigdon Versus Brigham Young Power Struggle - August 8, 1844
Puppet Governor's Second Proclamation - 1844
Exposing the Illinois Puppet Governor - 1844
Blaming the Warsaw Signal Editor - 1844
Hancock County Peace Treaty - 1844
Repealing the Nauvoo Charters - 1844
Legislative Debate Over Charters - 1845
Mormon Persecution Story - 1845
Divisions Among the Mormons - 1845
Revenge Upon the Gentiles - 1845
Swindling by Patriarch Blessing - 1845
Definition of a Jack Mormon - 1845
Brigham Young Versus William Smith - 1845
Brigham Young Versus the State of Illinois - 1845
Olson Hyde Versus William Smith - 1845
Nauvoo Temple Ceremonies - 1845
Conduct of Orrin P. Rockwell - 1845/1846
Beginnings of the Strangites - 1846
Nauvoo After the Mormons - 1846
Puppet Governor's Summary - 1846
Mormons & the Donner Party - 1846
Western Mormon Migration - 1846/1847
Honoring the Victims of the Mormons - 1847
Escaping from the United States - 1847
Adultery of Brigham Young - 1847
Church Growth Due to Foreigners - 1848
LDS Against the State of Deseret - 1849
Gentiles Against the State of Deseret - 1850
Mistreatment of Indians - 1851
Mistreatment of Oregon Settlers - 1851
Mistreatment of Major Singer - 1851
Mistreatment of U.S. Officials - 1851
Mormon Failure in Chile - 1851
Charges Against Brigham Young - 1851
Report to President Fillmore - 1852
Nauvoo After the Mormons - 1852
Mormon Broadside of Christianity - 1852
Church Growth Due to Foreigners - 1853
Trouble With the Strangites - 1853
Kingdom of Brigham Young - 1853
Gentile Mountain Man Escape - 1853
Murder of Captain Gunnison - 1853
Salt Lake City Christmas - 1854
Mormonism's Mother of God - 1856
Republican and Anti-Mormon - 1856
Orson Hyde Exposing Mormonism - 1857
Fruit of the Mormon Reformation - 1857
Eliminating Parley Pratt - 1857
U.S. Officials Leaving Utah - 1857
Joe Smith's Egyptian Mummies - 1857
Memories of Brigham Young - 1857
Mitt Romney's Traitorous Ancestor - 1857
Mountain Meadows Massacre - 9/11/1857
San Bernardino County, California - 1857
Brigham Young: Adam is God - 1857
Blacks cannot receive the Priesthood - 1859
Mountain Meadows Massacre Statement - 1860
Mark Twain on Destroying Angels - 1861
Mark Twain on Mormon Booze - 1861
Mark Twain's Visit with King Brigham - 1861
Mark Twain on Mormon Contracts - 1861
Mark Twain on Mormon Women - 1861
Mark Twain on Gentile Rumors - 1861
Mark Twain on the Massacre - 1861
Mark Twain on Utah High Prices - 1861
Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act - 1862
Memories of Sidney Rigdon - 1869
Memories of Solomon Spaulding - 1869
Brigham Young: I am the Dictator - 1869
Mountain Meadows Massacre Excuse - 1869
Establishment of the Salt Lake Tribune - 1871
Brigham Saving the Nauvoo Legion - 1871
Mark Twain on Mormon History - 1871
Mark Twain on the Massacre - 1871
Open Letter to Brigham Young #1 - 1871
Open Letter to Brigham Young #2 - 1871
Open Letter to Brigham Young #3 - 1871
Open Letter to Brigham Young #4 - 1871
Open Letter to Brigham Young #5 - 1871
Open Letter to Brigham Young #6 - 1871
Open Letter to Brigham Young #7 - 1871
Open Letter to Brigham Young #8 - 1871
Open Letter to William S. Godbe - 1871
Evidence for Solomon Spalding Authorship - 1872
Polygamy Revelations of Convenience - 1872
Emma Smith versus Brigham Young - 1872
Effort to Bring Brigham Young to Justice - 1872
Affidavit of Philip Klingon Smith - 1872
Mormon Slander and Intimidation - 1872
Death Notice of Sidney Rigdon - 1873
Spaulding BOM Authorship Witnesses - 1873
Holy Bible versus the BOM - 1874
Interview with John D. Lee - 1874
Mormon Beginnings Revisited - 1874
Memories of NY Smith Household - 1875
Denial of Polygamy by Joe Smith - 1875
Memory of Encounter with Joe Smith - 1875
Analysis of Orson Pratt's Sermon - 1875
Death Notice of Martin Harris - 1875
Jackson County Revisited - 1875
Ann Young versus Brigham Young - 1875
Typical Cumorah Hill Pilgrim - 1875
Reference Materials on Mormonism- 1876
Elder Brown versus Brigham Young - 1877
Brigham Young Preaching on Hidden Gold - 1877
Death Notice of Brigham Young - 1877
Interview With The Original Book of Mormon Pressman - 1877
Oliver Cowdery Apostasy - 1878
Orson Pratt Unanswered Questions - 1878
Sidney Rigdon Unanswered Questions - 1878
Martin Harris Unanswered Questions - 1878
Oliver Cowdery Unanswered Questions - 1878
Early Mormonism and Millennial Fever - 1878
David Whitmer Unanswered Questions - 1879
Honest BOM Witness Interview - 1879
Spaulding & Rigdon BOM Authorship - 1879
Rebuttal to the Deseret News - 1879
Sidney Rigdon's Disclaimer - 1879
Examining the BOM Witnesses - 1879
Conversion of Sidney Rigdon - 1879
The Idea Behind the BOM - 1879
The Inventor of Mormonism - 1879
The Genesis of Mormonism - 1879
Destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor - 1879
The Surrender of Joe Smith - 1879
An Appeal to the Latter-day Saints - 1879
New Revelations Versus Books - 1879
Emma Smith and Mormonism - 1879
Smith Family Member's Testimonies - 1879
The Murmurs of Emma Smith - 1879
First Idea Behind Mormonism - 1879
Urim and Thummim Analyzed - 1879
George Reynolds vs. The United States - 1879
Joe Smith and Buried Treasure - 1880
Memories of Joe Smith in Susquehanna - 1880
Matilda Spaulding McKinstry's Testimony - 1880
Mormon Oneness or Unity - 1880
Abner Jackson Statement on Solomon Spaulding - 1881
James Garfield Inaugural Address - 1881
Mormon Response to Spaulding Authorship - 1881
Mormon Baptismal Regeneration - 1881
Delusions of David Whitmer - 1881
Memories of Missouri Wars - 1881
Misrepresenting President Garfield - 1881
Murder of Bishop Klingensmith - 1881
The Founders of Mormonism - 1882
Salt Lake City Lutheran Church - 1882
Fruit of Mormon Reformation - 1884
Discrediting and Destroying Evidence - 1885
Memories of Solomon Spaulding - 1886
Mormon Women's Protest Against the Edmund-Tucker Act - 1886
Lectures by Dr. James Fairchild - 1886
Confronting Mormon False Statements - 1886
Evidence for Solomon Spaulding - 1886
Peaceful Ohio After Mormonism - 1887
Correspondence from William Law - 1887
What Happened to Revelation? - 1887
Interview with Sidney Rigdon's Grandson - 1888
Naked Truths About Mormonism - 1888
Benjamin Winchester Testimony - 1889
Republican and Anti-Mormon - 1890
End of the World General Conference - 1890
Mormons Nervous About Bad Publicity - 1891
Anniversary of Joe's Death - 1894
Mormon Heretical Blasphemes - 1894
Saints Better be Obedient - 1896
Last Will & Testament of Charles Malmstrom - 1896
The Unveiling of Moroni - 1899
Documented Dishonesty of Mormon Historian and Theologian Brigham H. Roberts
Christian Standard - March 10, 1900
Christian Standard - April 7, 1900
Joe Smith Almost Walked on Water - 1901
Book of Mormon Proved a Fraud - 1902
Memories of Brigham Young from 1830 - 1903
Christian Standard - February 4, 1905
The Christian Advocate – February 9, 1905
The Christian Advocate - February 16, 1905
The Christian Advocate - February 23, 1905
The Christian Advocate - March 2, 1905
The Christian Advocate - March 9, 1905
Mountain Meadows Massacre Memories - 1905
Christian Standard - July 8, 1905
Christian Standard - May 26, 1906
Christian Standard - August 11, 1906
Christian Standard - September 29, 1906
Christian Standard - January 5, 1907
Christian Standard - March 9, 1907
Christian Standard - July 27, 1907
Son of Joe Smith Condemns Brigham Young - 1907
Son of Joe Smith Condemns Secret Polygamy - 1907
Salt Lake City Prostitution - 1908
The Herald - November 16, 1912
The Herald - November 23, 1912
Christian Standard - March 16, 1915
Washington County Early Religions - 1922
Burlington Daily Times - June 27, 1930
Burlington Daily Times - July 4, 1930
Burlington Daily Times - July 17, 1930
Burlington Daily Times - August 9, 1930
Burlington Daily Times - September 4, 1930
Burlington Daily Times - October 8, 1930
Prophet Insurance Guru Heber J. Grant - 1938
Book of Mormon & Solomon Spaulding - 1952
For Time & Eternity Romney Style - 1967
Handwriting Experts and Solomon Spaulding - 1977
Civil Rights = Mormon Revelation on June 1, 1978
Mark Hofmann Forgeries and Murders - 1987
Techniques of Mormon Revelation - 1989
Sixty Minutes Interview with Gordon Hinckley - 1996
Mormon Heretical Blasphemes - 1998
Mormon Racist Teachings Revisited - 1998
Mormon History
Don't sanitize history, Mormons say
Historians are hopeful that the LDS Church will be more open
By Peggy Fletcher Stack
The Salt Lake Tribune
07/21/2007
You won't see many
people in Tuesday's Pioneer Day parade dressed up as one of Brigham
Young's polygamous wives or floats touting the Mormon theocrat's view
on cooperative economics.
Like all such pageantry, the annual celebration tends to feature an
idealized, heroic view of the Mormon pioneers' arrival in Utah on July
24, 1847, and that's the way much of the faith's history has been
written, too.
Now a new survey reveals many Mormons want accounts of their
history "to be inspiring, but not sanitized," says Rebecca Olpin,
director of audience needs for the LDS Family and Church History
Department. "They want it to be frank and honest. They are looking for
the whole story, accounts of real people and a wider scope of history
than early 19th-century pioneers."
It's not a trivial conclusion.
Mormons believe God commanded them to keep a record of their lives
and actions beginning with the church's founding in 1830 and continuing
to the present. To them, history is a kind of theology, and writing it
is a sacred responsibility.
That perspective long has put LDS historians and their scholarship
at the center of controversy, as they tried to balance accounts of the
miraculous with knowledge of human fallibility and flaws. The conflict
came to a head in the late 1970s, when Leonard J. Arrington was the
church's official historian. He assembled a crack team of scholars who
together produced two single-volume histories of the church, 18 books,
about 100 articles for professional periodicals and more than 250
articles for church magazines. They were at the vortex of a movement,
known as the New Mormon History, that combined respect for the LDS
faith tradition with academic rigor.
Unfortunately, LDS leaders were unnerved by Arrington's approach.
They dismantled his team, restricted access to documents and
unceremoniously "released" him from his position as church historian.
Two decades, more sophistication among members and an online
revolution later, a renewed sense of balance seems to be reflected in
the recent survey.
Olpin's department was looking to determine what kind of historical
approach and products Mormons wanted. So they queried 2,000 LDS Church
members who were engaged in genealogy online. Respondents were active
in the LDS Church, interested in family history and computer savvy.
The survey revealed that Mormons get a lot of their information
about church history from historical novels such as The Work and the
Glory or at church-sponsored historic sites such as Palmyra, N.Y.;
Nauvoo, Ill.; and Kirtland, Ohio.
They'd like to see more official histories tackle the tough topics.
"I wish there were an easily accessible and authoritative source
that would separate fact from speculation on true but troubling events
in [LDS] Church history," wrote one respondent.
Respondents also said they wanted to see official history expand
beyond the church's first decades to include family histories from more
recent converts, pioneering Mormons in other countries and varied
cultural traditions. They want to understand the lives and challenges
of ordinary believers, not just celebrity Saints.
And they said they wanted it all to be easily available online,
which neatly coincides with the LDS historical department's goal to
open its holdings to the public.
Some historians worry that Olpin's department is focusing too much
on the needs of church members and might exclude professional
historians, non-Mormons and critics.
When Olpin reported the survey to the Mormon History Association in
May, Jonathan Stapley says, "there was palpable fear that historians
would lose access and not be a priority of the department."
Others worried, he says, that the church "could not be a credible
source for tough historical issues when there hasn't been a good track
record."
For his part, though, Stapley has had only a positive experience
researching the history of women's healing practices at the LDS
archives. He has a digital copy of a once-restricted collection that
has been invaluable in his work.
Though minutes of church meetings, disciplinary hearings, temple
discussions and some diaries will remain off-limits, historical
department researchers, staff and volunteers have digitized many
microfilmed documents, including many pioneer family histories, and
personal journals.
"Digitization really is going to be a liberator," says Stapley, an
independent Mormon researcher in Seattle. "Entire collections have been
restricted because of a single paragraph. Now the church can excise
that and make the rest available."
Four years ago, the church posted a searchable database of 250
pioneer companies. It included about 37,000 individuals but had no full
text tied to the sources. Now, the database has 335 companies, with
43,779 individuals, and 8,590 sources, of which 3,022 have full text
accounts tied to them, says Christine Cox, the library's director of
customer services.
Cox has seen a similar increase in the number of phone, e-mail and
walk-in queries to the LDS historical library from 11,698 questions in
2004 to 21,393 in 2006.
The church is also engaged in gathering and publishing all archival
materials dealing with the life, mission, teachings and legacy of
Joseph Smith, Mormonism's founding prophet. The massive project
includes about 5,000 documents and involves more than three dozen
researchers, writers, editors and volunteers.
This unprecedented compilation is expected to produce 25 to 30
volumes, including journals, correspondence, discourses and written
histories, as well as legal and business documents, Elder Marlin K.
Jensen, church historian and recorder, told The Salt Lake Tribune
in 2005.
The Joseph Smith Papers Project "is the most important church
history project of this generation," Jensen said at the time.
"It is a fulfillment of our mission," Olpin said, "to help God's
children make and keep sacred covenants by remembering the great things
of God."
Why they leave
Scott Tracy
NetXNews
September 23, 2007
Recently on a former-Mormons website, a poll was taken asking the question "Why did you leave?" and the results might be somewhat shocking to most current members of the church.
Kevin Whitaker, in his recent article on postmormon.org expressed the view that most members who leave the church are sinners, offended, or weak in the faith. This, while may be true for some, fails to cover the reasons that most people leave the faith, and reflects the most common misunderstanding between members of the LDS faith and their former Mormon counterparts. In this article, I will try to cover the reasons that people who leave give, and hopefully increase understanding and acceptance for everyone. By way of warning, I will not go in depth into any faith-harming material, nor will I be unfairly critical of anyone. This is my faith community as well, and my intent is to help us understand.
The number one reason listed by people who participated in the poll was "I found out about Mormon history". In fact, this was the number one response at 67 percent and might be shocking to most faithful LDS. What most faithful members are unaware of is that the history we are taught in church and seminary is termed by LDS historians as "faithful history." The word former Mormons use is 'Whitewashed.' Until recently, there has been a policy for Mormon historians about only speaking or writing about faith promoting history, and violations of this policy were punished often with excommunication.
In an address to Mormon historians at BYU in 1981, Boyd K. Packer stated "There is a temptation for a writer or 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". The church, I think, is beginning to realize that this policy is very devastating to people who feel that covering up difficult history amounts to lies by omission, and is attempting to be more open about things, as evidenced by the recent article in the ENSIGN about the Mountain Meadows Massacre.
Tied for second place with "I never thought it was true" was "Mormon culture made me uncomfortable," both of which garnered 10 percent. These two are mostly self explanatory with the first falling into the 'lacked faith' category (does not make them bad people) and the second covers anyone who has come into contact with the anti-homosexual, anti-intellectual and anti-feminist bias that the church culture breeds. Not to pick on Brother Packer, but he specifically named these three groups as the biggest enemies of the church. In fact, most leaders of the church feel the incessant need to insert the dismissive phrase 'so-called' before any mention of these three groups. Many people leave the church over the "one size fits all mentality."
Finally I will be addressing 'disagreed with leaders ethics' at 8 percent. This I feel the need to cover in a very sensitive way, lest I risk offending either community. If you ask any life long member of the church if polygamy is doctrinal, the answer would be "Yes, but God disallows the practice at this time" or something very similar. When Gordon B. Hinckley was asked about polygamy on Larry King, he responded, "It's not doctrinal." Many in the former-Mormon community see this as a lie, and to them, this casts doubt on his prophetic calling. Even faithful Members are sometimes uncomfortable with this 'milk before meat' philosophy. This is one example and I will not go into further detail, but I will say that this has been an issue for the church since its founding and mostly (but not always) in relation to the practice of polygamy.
People leave the church for many reasons and when they do, they face a hostile community, broken families, destroyed marriages and even risk loss of employment. People do not leave the church lightly. When they leave, they feel they are doing the right thing for themselves, and feel they are making ethical decisions. By increasing understanding, I hope that when people do make the decision to leave they will leave with fond memories and a glad heart-not bitter memories and an enmity for the church and its members.
Making Mormon history
An influential religion struggles with how to tell the story of its past
By Mark Oppenheimer
The Boston Globe
December 9, 2007
Since its founding in 1830 by Joseph Smith, a young self-proclaimed prophet from upstate New York, the Mormon church has become one of the most influential religious groups in the United States. Officially known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), it claims nearly 7 million adherents nationwide, and even the lowest outside estimates - about 3 million American Mormons - suggest there are now more Mormons in the US than there are Congregationalists.
Mormons control politics in one state, Utah, and hold considerable clout in others, such as Arizona and Idaho. And if Mitt Romney becomes president, then the country's top Republican and one of its top Democrats, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, will both be Mormons.
With the LDS church growing in membership and power, Americans are no longer at liberty to think of Mormons as some distant sect. The institution that most Americans used to know only through the pairs of clean-cut young men knocking on our doors as missionaries now has national and international reach.
Feeding Americans' curiosity about this home-grown religion are Jon Krakauer's best-selling 2003 book Under the Banner of Heaven and PBS's recent documentary The Mormons. In the realm of academia, more historians than ever are looking closely at the church. Many of those historians are themselves Mormon - including several of the talking heads on the PBS series. Many other Mormons talk freely about their religion. Harry Reid, for example, spoke candidly about his faith in a 2005 profile in The New Yorker, and Mitt Romney gave a major speech about faith last Thursday.
From this, it would be easy to believe the church is entering a new period of openness, but the church has seen moments of transparency come and go before. In fact the relationship of the Latter-day Saints hierarchy with scholars and journalists has frequently been antagonistic: The church has excommunicated historians whose writings were deemed to portray Mormon history in a negative light, and to this day church archivists closely guard many documents, keeping some entirely secret, to scholars and everyone else. One church leader gave a famous speech in which he cautioned against unvarnished truth if it imperiled people's faith.
Serious analysis of Mormonism has never been more important, but that doesn't mean it will be easy. In Romney's speech on faith last week, for example, the candidate spoke movingly about religious tolerance, and tried to highlight similarities between Mormonism and mainstream Christianity, but he said nothing substantive about Mormon theology or history. Campaigning politicians can't be expected, of course, to discuss the more uncomfortable aspects of religious history, which for the Mormons include a ban on blacks in the priesthood until 1978, and their often contentious relations with what they call their "Gentile" neighbors. It is historians and journalists who are charged with describing unpleasant realities, and how well they accomplish their task will depend in part on which the LDS church decides is more important: guarding its image or uncovering the truth.
Mormon history should be uniquely accessible. In 1829, Smith finished his "translation" of a new Christian testament, the Book of Mormon, from gold plates he claimed to have found hidden outdoors, and the following year he and his followers published the book. Persecuted for the heretical beliefs they were developing - including baptism of the dead, the nonexistence of original sin, the Book of Mormon's completion of the (insufficient) Bible, and, for a time, the need for "plural marriage," or polygamy - the group traveled from Ohio to Missouri to Illinois. Along the way, the group made converts but even more enemies, and in 1844, in Carthage, Ill., an angry mob murdered Smith, shooting him repeatedly. Numerous newspaper accounts of Smith survive, as do diaries of his followers. As far as historical religious figures go, Smith is not a murky one.
What's more, Mormons have always been obsessive record-keepers and genealogists, so it would be incorrect to say that they had contempt for history. But as in many church traditions, historians of the faith were expected to support the faith. And unlike, say, many Congregationalists or Episcopalians, few Mormons attended leading secular universities, where they might have been drawn to academic history. So for much of Mormon history - from Joseph Smith's "First Vision," when God spoke to him in 1820, through his writing of the Book of Mormon, decades of persecution, the arrival of Smith's followers in Utah in 1846, the end of plural marriage in 1890, to the first decades of the 20th century - Mormons who wrote Mormon history worked in the devotional mode. They gave "the Mormon story as an account of a true church led by a true prophet versus a hostile world," writes Jan Shipps, an esteemed non-Mormon historian of Mormonism, in the September issue of The Journal of American History. Non-Mormon historians, Shipps adds, approached the same story with the opposite bias, calling Smith a con man.
In the 1940s and 50s, some Mormon historians became impatient with the piety enforced on them, and they began to publish accounts greatly at odds with the church's preferred versions. The most famous was Fawn Brodie, who in 1945 wrote "No Man Knows My History," a biography of Joseph Smith notable for its skeptical and irreverent attitude toward the founder and his supernatural claims. Her book scandalized the church, and in 1946 she was excommunicated. Brodie was from an influential Mormon family - her uncle would in 1950 become the Mormon prophet-president - and her banishment was a strong statement from the LDS hierarchy that some unspoken lines could not be crossed.
Soon, however, the church entered a new period of scholarly engagement, with Mormon historians taking greater liberties and non-Mormon historians beginning to take a fresh, less anti-Mormon look at the church, too. Beginning in the 1960s, younger scholars wrote books, rigorous and academic in their approach, that formed the heart of what came to be called the "New Mormon History." As historian Shipps notes, other factors contributed to this opening of the Mormon mind. In 1965, the Mormon History Association was founded, and the next year Dialogue, a new, independent journal of Mormon studies, began publication. The Mormon bureaucracy itself added historical and archival departments, hiring well-trained historians. And new and expanded history departments at church-affiliated schools, like BYU and Iowa's Graceland College, meant new jobs for Mormon historians with secular training.
In 1972, Utah State professor Leonard Arrington was hired to be the official LDS church historian. Arrington was a Mormon, but he had been trained at the University of North Carolina. Under Arrington, the Mormon archives were opened to more historians, and with fewer restrictions than ever before. The result was a flowering of scholarship, as both Mormon and non-Mormon historians offered frank looks at Mormon history and Mormon ancestors, in many ways picking up where Fawn Brodie left off. They wrote about skeletons in Smith's closet, such as his interest in the occult, or the Mormons' massacre of non-Mormons at Mountain Meadows, Utah, in 1857.
The New Mormon History constituted a new field of scholarly inquiry. Historians wrote dozens of well-regarded books, greatly increasing what we reliably know about LDS history. Mormon and non-Mormon historians developed close relationships, and the academic establishment began to treat Mormonism less as a bizarre cult and more as a religion. But these books and articles also worried conservatives within the church. In 1981, Mormon apostle Boyd K. Packer, a leading conservative, famously cautioned: "Some things that are true are not very useful." Mormon historians who do their work "regardless of how they may injure the Church or destroy the faith of those not ready for 'advanced history,' " he said, may find themselves in "great spiritual jeopardy."
It was not empty rhetoric. A decade later, in 1993, the church excommunicated several scholars, including D. Michael Quinn, a tenured historian at Brigham Young University who had written a number of controversial works, including one about the persistence of church-sanctioned polygamy after its official ban in 1890.
"I was excommunicated from the LDS church," Quinn said recently, "and the only detailed explanation was a letter outlining publications of mine that were defined as apostasy, which is the Mormon term for what other Christians understand as heresy. I've become in Mormon culture a cautionary tale of the danger of looking too deeply at the Mormon past."
At almost the same time, one of America's greatest historians, Harvard's Laurel Thatcher Ulrich - MacArthur Foundation "genius prize" winner, Pulitzer Prize-winning author, and a lifelong, practicing Mormon - also felt the chill coming from Salt Lake City. In 1992, the planning committee for a women's conference at Brigham Young University proposed Ulrich as their keynote speaker. But before an invitation could be issued, the university vetoed her invitation.
In her essay "Dangerous History," Jan Shipps argues persuasively that Ulrich's invitation was blocked because of her feminist reputation. Ulrich herself holds no grudge, noting that BYU recently invited her to lecture. She feels the school, and the church that runs it, were trying to make amends. "There was a great effort at BYU to let me know, without saying so, that people were pretty embarrassed."
Today, bigger and more prominent than ever, the church is in a period of heightened confidence, and with it has come a renewed receptivity to scholarship. Mormon historians aren't as afraid of crossing their church as they would have been 10 years ago. "I do think there's more openness today than in the nineties," says Jed Woodworth, a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin, who assisted in the research for a recent biography of Smith by Richard Bushman, a former Columbia history professor and a Mormon patriarch. "Obviously Michael Quinn was writing then, and things were not good for him. But we're at a point when many, many Latter-day Saints want to get beneath the veneer, get a picture that isn't shiny and doesn't have a PR sheen to it."
This renewed openness, however, still has limits. The Mormon hierarchy is still far more suspicious of historians than other churches are. Access to documents considered private, sacred, or confidential is still forbidden or restricted. And one historian who has worked in the church's archives in Salt Lake City reports that even the system for viewing available documents is not scholar-friendly.
"At the church archives, I was frustrated," says Boyd Petersen, who teaches at Utah Valley State College, in Orem. "The archivist would find them for me, instead of letting me go through the boxes and see what's there. You need to have access to all the papers, you need to be able to hold them in your hand, look through everything.
"I think the church has felt like they've been burned by historians," Petersen says. "They've allowed certain people this kind of access and the books that have come out of it have been unfavorable. The Fawn Brodie book was one of the biggest wakeup calls the church has had." (He added that his intent was "not to defend" the church on its handling of Brodie.)
Other churches have closely guarded archives - the Vatican archives only allows in credentialed scholars, for example - but many Mormon historians I spoke with admitted that they do not demand openness from their hierarchy the way that Catholic, Protestant, or Jewish scholars do from theirs. When Quinn was disciplined in 1993 along with five other scholars and activists - the so-called "September Six" - objections from intellectuals in the church were muted. I mentioned to Petersen that archivists at other churches - Episcopal, say, or Unitarian - see themselves not as gatekeepers, but as helpers. They want historians to find everything they're looking for.
"That's definitely different," Petersen said. "There is a gate-keeping system in the [Mormon] church archives. I don't think there's a historian anywhere who would deny that." And he agreed that Mormon scholars are unusually timid about agitating for change. "I guess the reason we [historians] are the way we are is we've seen it worse. And there's a tendency to think if we just play nice, it will get better."
But the belief that history is subordinate to faith may be hard to shake, and for Mormons especially. As a newer religion, the LDS church is particularly susceptible to the challenges of historical muckraking. No one will ever discover if Moses truly heard God speak from a burning bush. But Joseph Smith left behind a long historical record - he wrote; his friends wrote about him; we know where he lived. Polygamy, a sensitive subject in the church, was banned in 1890, when the grandparents of many living Mormons were in plural marriages; history can seem painfully close.
Mormon spiritual cosmology can also be interpreted to require secrecy, in ways that thwart historical scholarship. This is how Jed Woodworth explained why certain documents might be kept private: "They say if there was a council, say a high church council that met privately in the 1880s, and it was closed to other church members, because they considered their meetings private, then we'll respect that.{hellip} It's about respect for the dead. I'm not defending it, but it's important to understand."
Finally, Mormons have a time-tested sense of persecution that they may not be ready to abandon. Their founding prophet was murdered. The governor of Missouri issued an extermination order in 1838, giving the OK to kill Mormons who would not leave the state. And anti-Mormon bigotry, as reflected in polls, helped occasion Mitt Romney's speech on Thursday.
It was not scholarship that got Mormons to the promised land of Utah or helped them multiply their numbers down to the present time. It was faith, they believe. Secular historians ask Mormons - ask us all - to trust that whatever the record shows is more edifying than our ignorance. In many ways, Mormons trust the secular world (it has certainly been good to Romney); the question they are asking is whether its scholarship can be trusted, too.
Mark Oppenheimer is the author of "Knocking on Heaven's Door: American Religion in the Age of Counterculture." He is also an editor of The New Haven Review.
New Mormon church press to boost publishing of history projects
Associated Press - February 25, 2008
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will launch a new imprint for publishing works that detail the faith's early history and growth.
Church elder Marlin K. Jensen says the establishment of the Church Historian's Press underscores the value church leaders place on history.
The first project of the new press will be the Joseph Smith Papers, a documentary series, later this year. Between 25 and 30 volumes are expected in the series.
Project editor Ronald Esplin says the Smith works will provide a greater opportunity for historians and will lift the overall standards for Mormon historical scholarship. (I doubt it)
BYU CONTINUES A BIASED VIEW OF HISTORY
Historian: Mormon land grabbed in Missouri
Published: June 27, 2008
SALT LAKE CITY, June 27 (UPI) -- A historian at Brigham Young University argues that Mormons were persecuted in Missouri in 1838 in a deliberate and successful effort to get their land.
Joseph Walker, who is working on the Joseph Smith papers, said documents show the Extermination Order of 1838 -- aimed at the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints -- was timed to prevent Mormons from buying land they had improved, Mormon Times reported.
Local laws allowed what was known as pre-emption, Walker says. Settlers had the right to buy government land they had lived on and farmed, but if they were unable to do so, others could buy the improved land at the price of vacant land.
Mormons settled in Missouri in the early 1830s. They were driven out in 1838 by government-sanctioned violence, Walker said, and moved to Nauvoo, Ill., where Joseph Smith, the church's founder, was killed by a mob in 1844.
Brigham Young, Smith's successor, led the Mormons to Salt Lake City.