Should the LDS Church provide membership with full details of its history?

[il Padrino Ute]

Has the LDS Church opened its super secret vaults containing historical documents never before seen (unless they've been opened) by secular historians? I honestly don't know. It's an honest question asked with goodwill and in good faith.

This, to me, is the relevant question. I sympathize with Indy's point that history is always reinterpreted and debated. No matter what the LDS Church presented as its official history, even if done in good faith, would be subject to attack.

Moreover, the LDS Church is not in the history business. As far as I'm concerned it's folly for it even to have an official historian. It's a religion and hence does not trade in empiricism.

So, I as well respectfully abstain from the vote.

I've never heard of secular historians seeing any documents. I don't know why the LDS church has never shared what it has and while I think it would be a good idea to do so, it's not my call so I really have no issue with it never having been done.

I also agree with you that the church isn't in the history business, but in any organization, be it secular or religious, we'd be hard pressed to find one that doesn't have some sort of historian or keeper of the archives. Keeping records is human nature, as demonstrated by hieroglyphics to modern day data bases. It's just what we do.

[SoCalCoug]

I voted "undecided" because I couldn't get on board wholesale with any of the options.

Here's the thing - I know that I wouldn't want my children to know my whole history, and there's a lot that's just not important for anyone but me to know.

I kind of see it like that for the church. There's some stuff that isn't actively taught, and which doesn't need to be actively taught. But there's stuff that's definitely been swept under the rug.

I think it should all be available (i.e., not vaulted away), and that church leadership should stop teaching things that are not historically accurate.

So I'm kind of in the middle.

[creekster]

I've never heard of secular historians seeing any documents. I don't know why the LDS church has never shared what it has and while I think it would be a good idea to do so, it's not my call so I really have no issue with it never having been done.

I also agree with you that the church isn't in the history business, but in any organization, be it secular or religious, we'd be hard pressed to find one that doesn't have some sort of historian or keeper of the archives. Keeping records is human nature, as demonstrated by hieroglyphics to modern day data bases. It's just what we do.

archivists and historians are very different animals. I know the church has an archives. Does it have a history department?

[woot]

archivists and historians are very different animals. I know the church has an archives. Does it have a history department?

My uncle works in the JSMB and is a "church historian." I haven't talked to him in years, but his job leads me to believe that the church does have a history department.

I'm sympathetic to SU's view on this one. This stuff is important, but all they should do is let historians have access and avoid whitewashing official histories. I don't see any reason to include any of it in lesson manuals and the like.

[doctorcoug]

archivists and historians are very different animals. I know the church has an archives. Does it have a history department?

FARMS?

[Rosebud]

Here's the thing: it seems to me that if it weren't for correlation's existence in the first place, exposure to non-correlated ideas probably wouldn't be all that threatening. Things weren't correlated in the 1940s and the church was alive and strong. I don't really know, but I'm guessing most members then were more comfortable with inconsistencies than we are now.

Part of the problem the church is facing today with the accessibility of non-correlated information on the internet may be that until now very few of us had been exposed to anything but a whitewashed, correlated view of doctrine and history. It's pretty difficult for us to face real fact when our testimonies are based on materials that were carefully crafted for impossible consistency.

In other words, we wouldn't need to be differentiating between TBMs and CUFlike Mormons if we never had correlation-created, unrealistic expectations of reality in the first place. These are just my thoughts, but maybe the TBM still believes whole-heartedly in the doctrines and history as they've been presented by correlation while the CUFlike Mormon has allowed him or herself to really think about doctrine and history and question some of it. If we hadn't spent the last 50 years of our history promoting the existence of only one consistent truth, maybe we wouldn't have so many people losing their confidence in the church when they are exposed to uncorrelated information. Maybe we wouldn't have so many TBMs quickly jumping ship after a few disappointing internet searches.

So my opinion is with David O.'s. I think correlation was a bad idea in the first place. I can see how it has been beneficial in making the gospel more widely accessible, though. Since I think it wasn't such a hot idea in the first place, I think the sooner we can recover from it the better. I think realistic belief in God is superior to testimonies based on less than enough information.

So in answer to the direct question: should the LDS Church provide membership with full details of its history... yes, eventually. I don't see that the church is ultimately going to have a choice but to start admitting up to some of the pieces of doctrine and history that haven't been acceptable over the last fifty years. The problem is that the church is a huge organization that has a lot of momentum going in a specific direction. There are so many committees and so many powerful figures invested in the status quo that it isn't likely that a policy change could be implemented in the next few years even if the first presidency wanted it to be. It would take so much. And then it would have to be done gradually. I don't even know if correlated members (most of the population at church headquarters) have the ability at this point to move away from what is so familiar and "true" to them.

It's actually kind of exciting to be watching and participating in this place in history when our church will eventually (IMO) have to deal with the fact that information can't be controlled. I'm kind of excited to see how things play out.

[grapevine]

Who said they aren't telling the truth about our history. And antilds sites are not the best sites to find out information about our past. I have had people call the media referals just to tell us we were wrong. I still know the LDS church is true. By following the prophets and reading there message I know it is true and am not worried about what enemies of the truth say. I ahve on occasion listened to programs like to every man an answer and the Bible answer man just to yell back at the radio they did not know what they were talking about.

In book straightforward answers to gospel questions Joseph Fielding Mcconkie told of a long distance phone call he had from a missionary in Texas, Though I thought that was against mission rules. Some pamphleter said Adam was God. Mcconkie asked if he was ever taught that someone that went to church all his life, or anyone else. No. Why not. Didn't know. Because we don't beleive it.

I have hard anti lds people tell me what we beleive, however that is stuff I doubt any of the 13 million members heard from the real source. And anti sources is not the way the lord reveals his word.

Here is something Ezra Taft Benson said on telling the truth about our history. Read it and enjoy. http://speeches.byu.edu/reader/reade...=6125&x=65&y=5

[Rosebud]

grapevine, seriously.... are you a troll? I mean, are you adding this irony purposely?

[SeattleUte]

archivists and historians are very different animals. I know the church has an archives. Does it have a history department?

Arrington and Quinn were both "Official Historian of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints." Maybe after Quinn they abolished the office.

[scottie]

Arrington and Quinn were both "Official Historian of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints." Maybe after Quinn they abolished the office.

Marlin Jensen is the current historian, but based on this Church News article there was a gap with no historian from from Oct. 1997 until April 2005.

"I've always loved the history of the Church; my wife has gotten after me for years for all the books I've bought," reflected Elder Jensen in a recent Church News interview, having been sustained in April at general conference as the Church Historian/Recorder. He is the first person to hold that office since Elder Dean L. Larsen of the Seventy, who was sustained in April 1985 and formally released in October 1997...

http://www.ldschurchnews.com/article...preserves.html

[MarkGrace]

In book straightforward answers to gospel questions Joseph Fielding Mcconkie told of a long distance phone call he had from a missionary in Texas, Though I thought that was against mission rules.

lol!

[beefytee]

Well, Deseret Book officially stopped publishing "Mormon Doctrine" yesterday

I guess I don't know how this affects correlation either way.

[scottie]

Well, Deseret Book officially stopped publishing "Mormon Doctrine" yesterday

I guess I don't know how this affects correlation either way.

That is interesting. Do you have any more details? Maybe a link to share?

[Sleeping in EQ]

I can't think of a single, large organization that has done such a thing. That's not to say, though, that I don't think we can have a more open and realistic discussion of such things in official Mormonism.

[SCcoug]

grapevine, seriously.... are you a troll? I mean, are you adding this irony purposely?

grapevine is a legend who's work spans many message boards and wiki articles.