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Lds Church History - Mormon Doctrine Studies - Posted: 5th Sep, 2015 - 11:04pm
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Mormon History
LDS Church History
One of my passions is learning about Church History (Note: Many of the topics dealing with Church history are in the LDS Mature board). Elder Oaks said the following in the extended interview of the PBS special about the Church, with regards to Church History:
QUOTE HW: You used an interesting phrase, "Not everything that's true is useful." Could you develop that as someone who's a scholar and trying to encourage deep searching?
The talk where I gave that was a talk on "Reading Church History" - that was the title of the talk. And in the course of the talk I said many things about being skeptical in your reading and looking for bias and looking for context and a lot of things that were in that perspective. But I said two things in it and the newspapers and anybody who ever referred to the talk only referred to [those] two things: one is the one you cite, "Not everything that's true is useful," and that [meant] "Was useful to say or to publish." And you tell newspapers any time (Media people) [that] they can't publish something, they"Ll strap on their armor and come out to slay you! [Laughs.]
In relation to history, I was speaking in that talk for the benefit of those that write history. In the course of writing history, I said that people ought to be careful in what they publish because not everything that's true is useful. See a person in context; don't depreciate their effectiveness in one area because they have some misbehavior in another area - especially from their youth. I think that's the spirit of that. I think I"M not talking necessarily just about writing Mormon history; I"M talking about George Washington or any other case. If he had an affair with a girl when he was a teenager, I don't need to read that when I"M trying to read a biography of the Founding Father of our nation.
Interviewer: Just one more question on that. In every church, in every person, there's a shallow territory usually explained away through context. Many find information through the Internet - some would rather find things out about the Church history, doctrine through teachings, rather than the Internet, or other resources.
Elder Oaks: It's an old problem, the extent to which official histories, whatever they are, or semi-official histories, get into things that are shadowy or less well-known or whatever. That's an old problem in Mormonism - a feeling of members that they shouldn't have been surprised by the fact that this or that happened, they should"Ve been alerted to it. I have felt that throughout my life.
There are several different elements of that. One element is that we"Re emerging from a period of history writing within the Church [of] adoring history that doesn't deal with anything that's unfavorable, and we"Re coming into a period of "Warts and all" kind of history. Perhaps our writing of history is lagging behind the times, but I believe that there is purpose in all these things - there may have been a time when Church members could not have been as well prepared for that kind of historical writing as they may be now.
On the other hand, there are constraints on trying to reveal everything. You don't want to be getting into and creating doubts that didn't exist in the first place. And what is plenty of history for one person is inadequate for another, and we have a large church, and that's a big problem. And another problem is there are a lot of things that the Church has written about that the members haven't read. And the Sunday School teacher that gives "Brother Jones" his understanding of Church history may be inadequately informed and may not reveal something which the Church has published. It's in the history written for college or Institute students, sources written for quite mature students, but not every Sunday School teacher that introduces people to a history is familiar with that. And so there is no way to avoid this criticism. The best I can say is that we"Re moving with the times, we"Re getting more and more forthright, but we will never satisfy every complaint along that line and probably shouldn't.
The talk where I gave that was a talk on "Reading Church History" - that was the title of the talk. And in the course of the talk I said many things about being skeptical in your reading and looking for bias and looking for context and a lot of things that were in that perspective. But I said two things in it and the newspapers and anybody who ever referred to the talk only referred to [those] two things: one is the one you cite, "Not everything that's true is useful," and that [meant] "Was useful to say or to publish." And you tell newspapers any time (Media people) [that] they can't publish something, they"Ll strap on their armor and come out to slay you! [Laughs.]
In relation to history, I was speaking in that talk for the benefit of those that write history. In the course of writing history, I said that people ought to be careful in what they publish because not everything that's true is useful. See a person in context; don't depreciate their effectiveness in one area because they have some misbehavior in another area - especially from their youth. I think that's the spirit of that. I think I"M not talking necessarily just about writing Mormon history; I"M talking about George Washington or any other case. If he had an affair with a girl when he was a teenager, I don't need to read that when I"M trying to read a biography of the Founding Father of our nation.
Interviewer: Just one more question on that. In every church, in every person, there's a shallow territory usually explained away through context. Many find information through the Internet - some would rather find things out about the Church history, doctrine through teachings, rather than the Internet, or other resources.
Elder Oaks: It's an old problem, the extent to which official histories, whatever they are, or semi-official histories, get into things that are shadowy or less well-known or whatever. That's an old problem in Mormonism - a feeling of members that they shouldn't have been surprised by the fact that this or that happened, they should"Ve been alerted to it. I have felt that throughout my life.
There are several different elements of that. One element is that we"Re emerging from a period of history writing within the Church [of] adoring history that doesn't deal with anything that's unfavorable, and we"Re coming into a period of "Warts and all" kind of history. Perhaps our writing of history is lagging behind the times, but I believe that there is purpose in all these things - there may have been a time when Church members could not have been as well prepared for that kind of historical writing as they may be now.
On the other hand, there are constraints on trying to reveal everything. You don't want to be getting into and creating doubts that didn't exist in the first place. And what is plenty of history for one person is inadequate for another, and we have a large church, and that's a big problem. And another problem is there are a lot of things that the Church has written about that the members haven't read. And the Sunday School teacher that gives "Brother Jones" his understanding of Church history may be inadequately informed and may not reveal something which the Church has published. It's in the history written for college or Institute students, sources written for quite mature students, but not every Sunday School teacher that introduces people to a history is familiar with that. And so there is no way to avoid this criticism. The best I can say is that we"Re moving with the times, we"Re getting more and more forthright, but we will never satisfy every complaint along that line and probably shouldn't.
https://www.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/v/index.jsp...VCM100000176f62
Is the Church moving towards a new position with regards to Church History? Do you see a change concerning talking about certain topics that somehow the Church did not want to talk about in the past? What are your views about Elder Oak's statements?
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History Church LDS
I get the feeling more now than ever that Church history is more about what the Church wants to tell you about its history and less about the actual research that can be done into the Church's history. It is like telling a historian to not do too much research because you may encounter some things that may not fit with our current interpretation of history. It is also like the men who told Columbus the world was flat and wanted to silence his round globe theory. Some people are quite happy with knowing it is flat and if you go too far to the horizon you fall off a cliff.
Post Date: 4th Sep, 2015 - 11:35am / Post ID: #
NOTE: News [?]
LDS Church History Studies Doctrine Mormon
15 lesser-known but important events in LDS Church history
Susan Easton Black, Mary Jane Woodger and Casey Paul Griffiths, three members of the Department of Church History and Doctrine at BYU, have teamed up to write "The 100 Most Important Events in Latter-day Saint History." The book is still in the process of being published and will likely be released in 2016. These lesser known but important events are taken from the authors' list. The summaries are written by or summarized from the writings of Griffiths and Woodger. Ref. Source 4n
Post Date: 5th Sep, 2015 - 11:04pm / Post ID: #
History Church LDS
If you really want to read a enlightening,, blow you mind Church History, I would read Denver Snuffer's book, Passing the Heavenly Gift. He breaks the Churches history into 4 phases if I remember correctly.
Denver Snuffer was Gospel Doctrine teacher for like 25 years; he is a lawyer, and knows how to well document all of what he says.
TOPIC: LDS Church History