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

Classic Books on 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

Thou Shall go to Ohio - 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

Kirtland 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 Letter #1 - 1831

Ezra Booth Letter #2 - 1831

Ezra Booth Letter #3 - 1831

Ezra Booth Letter #4 - 1831

Ezra Booth Letter #5 - 1831

Ezra Booth Letter #6 - 1831

Ezra Booth Letter #7 - 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

Mormons in Missouri - 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

Mormon Angel Uncovered - 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

Mormon Danite Murders - 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

Kinderhook Plates Hoax - 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

Nauvoo Law and Order - 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

Christendom is Babylon - 1845

Mormon Polytheism - 1845

Divisions Among the Mormons - 1845

Revenge Upon the Gentiles - 1845

Murders by Mormons - 1845

Swindling by Patriarch Blessing - 1845

Typical Mormon Thief - 1845

Definition of a Jack Mormon - 1845

Mormon War - 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

Mormon Battalion - 1846/1847

Western Mormon Migration - 1846/1847

Honoring the Victims of the Mormons - 1847

Escaping from the United States - 1847

Mormon Migration Myth - 1847

New Mormon Zion - 1847

Adultery of Brigham Young - 1847

Church Growth Due to Foreigners - 1848

The State of Deseret - 1849

LDS Against the State of Deseret - 1849

Gentiles Against the State of Deseret - 1850

Fools Looking For Gold - 1851

Mistreatment of Indians - 1851

Mistreatment of Oregon Settlers - 1851

Mistreatment of Major Singer - 1851

Mistreatment of U.S. Officials - 1851

Mormon Treason - 1851

Mormon Splinter Groups - 1851

Mormon Failure in Chile - 1851

Charges Against Brigham Young - 1851

Life in Utah - 1851/1852

Report to President Fillmore - 1852

Nauvoo After the Mormons - 1852

Mormon Broadside of Christianity - 1852

Justifying Polygamy - 1852

Mormon Destiny - 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

Fugitive William Smith - 1854

New Mormon Alphabet - 1854

Salt Lake City Christmas - 1854

Hunting For Lost Sheep - 1855

Kingdom of the Devil - 1855

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

Memories of Joe Smith - 1858

The Mormon War - 1858

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 BOM - 1861

Mark Twain on the Massacre - 1861

Mark Twain on Utah High Prices - 1861

Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act - 1862

Bear River Massacre - 1863

RLDS Versus LDS - 1865

Conference News - 1866

Mormonism Defined - 1867

Mormon Preaching - 1867

Memories of Joe Smith - 1867

Memories of Joe Smith - 1869

Memories of Sidney Rigdon - 1869

Memories of Solomon Spaulding - 1869

Brigham Young: I am the Dictator - 1869

Mountain Meadows Massacre Excuse - 1869

Mormon Dance Halls - 1870

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

Mormon Confessions - 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

BOM Lost Pages Found - 1876

Son of Joe Embarrassed - 1876

Summary of Utah Life - 1877

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

Memories of Joe Smith - 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

Plagiarism of the BOM - 1879

Sidney Rigdon's Disclaimer - 1879

Kinderhook Plates Hoax - 1879

Examining the BOM Witnesses - 1879

Conversion of Sidney Rigdon - 1879

The Fraud of Joe Smith - 1879

The Idea Behind the BOM - 1879

The Author of 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

Who Started Mormonism - 1879

An Appeal to the Latter-day Saints - 1879

New Revelations Versus Books - 1879

The Voice of the Lord - 1879

Emma Smith and Mormonism - 1879

Smith Family Member's Testimonies - 1879

The Murmurs of Emma Smith - 1879

Translating the BOM - 1879

Polygamy in Nauvoo - 1879

First Idea Behind Mormonism - 1879

Urim and Thummim Analyzed - 1879

George Reynolds vs. The United States - 1879

Polygamy Analyzed - 1880

The Danites Revisited - 1880

Joe Smith and Buried Treasure - 1880

Memories of Joe Smith in Susquehanna - 1880

Matilda  Spaulding  McKinstry's Testimony - 1880

Mormon Oneness or Unity - 1880

The LDS Father - 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

Spaulding Statements - 1881

The Founders of Mormonism - 1882

Salt Lake City Lutheran Church - 1882

Mormon Schisms - 1884

Mrs. Joe Smith - 1884

Fruit of Mormon Reformation - 1884

John Taylor the Liar - 1885

New Light on Mormonism - 1885

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

William Law Testimony - 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

Mormon Church vs. USA - 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

Mormon Utah Gambling - 1897

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

The Case of Reed Smoot - 1906

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

Book of Mormon Origins - 1925

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

Brave Mormon Publisher - 1991

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.

 

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