- Aug 27, 2014
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Since I've had a lot of time to wait around in airports lately, I've cracked open a book I bought a few years ago that I've been meaning to read and just never had the time. It's called The Mormon Murders by Steven Naifeh & Gregory White Smith (published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1988), and its about the Mark Hoffmann forgery/murder case of the 1980s, but to me (so far; I'm only about 150 pages into it) that's the least interesting aspect of it.
Far more interesting -- and relevant to this subforum -- is the picture it paints about the LDS intellectual climate in the early 1970s to early 1980s, which forms the background of Hoffmann's frauds and his subsequent murders of Steve Christiansen and Kathy Sheets.
To sum it up, in 1972 a man named Leonard Arrington was appointed the first Church Historian (before that position was held by a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, which Arrington was not) and ushered in a kind of 'liberalization' (relatively speaking) of the LDS Church's approach to its own history by opening up the LDS archives to both Mormon and non-Mormon scholars, as well as avoiding the Church's 'correlation' program (the LDS euphemism for the creation of rewritten and sanitized polemical histories that characterized the official LDS approach to their own history as written in the time before and after this period, so as to be 'faith promoting'/fit the official LDS narrative). This resulted in a miniature explosion of freer thought regarding Mormon origins and histories, and it is to this time period that many of the "journals of Mormon Thought" like Sunstone Magazine (est. 1975) can be traced.
Understandably, there was a backlash against this new openness among the 'old guard', as apparently they preferred the old way of keeping controversial things locked away in a vault which nobody could access, or otherwise hidden or obscured under layers of fanciful but faith-promoting propaganda. Apparently (and this is where the book's narrative comes in; pg. 116 and following) this tension between the opposing camps came to a head in 1983 with the mass movement against those participating in this historical wave wherein local LDS officials, acting on orders of higher ups, called in dozens of writers to answer for their writings, and to remind them of what kind of effect these writings could have on them in this life and in the next. BYU professors were not immune from the sweep, either. It was actually another professor (though from University of Utah, not BYU), J.D. Williams, who described it at that time as "an inquisition".
On the pro-inquisition side, we had people like Richard Cracroft, dean of the College of Humanities at BYU, saying "If this is what the Brethren [the Prophet and his Apostles] want, then good Latter-day Saints must say it is appropriate. This may be difficult for scholars, but obedience is an important concept of the Mormon Church." (ibid, 117-18). And there was more to it than that -- this hurt the LDS religion's bottom line, which was obviously a big no no. To quote the authors, "it didn't take a genius to know that what the historians were uncovering about money digging and polygamy didn't exactly lent itself to the all-important missionary effort. In fact, the reports were coming back from the field. These newspaper articles about Mormonism's colorful, cultish past were killing them in Polynesia." (ibid, 119)
In short order, not only was Arrington demoted from Church Historian to head of the Church's Historical Department, but then that department itself was moved to the campus of BYU, which effectively removed historians' access to the documents that they needed in order to be able to do their work, as the archives and library themselves were to remain at the Church headquarters in SLC (it may only be a 43 minute drive from Provo, where BYU is, but it might as well be on the moon in light of the crackdown that had by that point placed its contents off limits to anyone who would not tow the line). All of its publications would be subject to correlation by the order of one G. Homer Durham, a general authority (and former missionary "buddy" of Gordon B. Hinckley) who was specifically tasked by counselor [essentially by that point acting-President] Gordon B. Hinckley to bring LDS historians to heel, who also ensured that the once-open archives would be sealed off again from any research that might not meet the objectives of the Mormon religion/corporation.
To cap it all off, Arrington was dismissed from his position as the head of the Historical Department in 1982 to be replaced by (drum roll please) G. Homer Durham.
Some quotes from the book (p. 121) by Elder Boyd Packer from an August 1981 speech to get the point across:
“I have come to believe that it is the tendency for many members of the Church who spend a great deal of time in academic research to begin to judge the Church, its doctrine, organization, and leadership, present and past, by the principles of their own profession.... In my mind it ought to be the other way around....There is a temptation for the writer or the teacher of Church history to want to tell everything, whether it is worthy or faith promoting or no. Some things that are true are not very useful....Be careful that you build faith rather than destroy it.”
and
“A destroyer of faith – particularly one within the Church, and more particularly one who is employed specifically to build the faith – places himself in great spiritual jeopardy. He is serving the wrong master and unless he repents, he will not be among the faithful in the eternities…In the Church we are not neutral. We are one-sided. There is a war going on, and we are engaged in it….[T]here is a limit to the patience of the Lord with respect to those who are under covenant to bless and protect His Church and kingdom upon the earth but do not do it.”
Far more interesting -- and relevant to this subforum -- is the picture it paints about the LDS intellectual climate in the early 1970s to early 1980s, which forms the background of Hoffmann's frauds and his subsequent murders of Steve Christiansen and Kathy Sheets.
To sum it up, in 1972 a man named Leonard Arrington was appointed the first Church Historian (before that position was held by a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, which Arrington was not) and ushered in a kind of 'liberalization' (relatively speaking) of the LDS Church's approach to its own history by opening up the LDS archives to both Mormon and non-Mormon scholars, as well as avoiding the Church's 'correlation' program (the LDS euphemism for the creation of rewritten and sanitized polemical histories that characterized the official LDS approach to their own history as written in the time before and after this period, so as to be 'faith promoting'/fit the official LDS narrative). This resulted in a miniature explosion of freer thought regarding Mormon origins and histories, and it is to this time period that many of the "journals of Mormon Thought" like Sunstone Magazine (est. 1975) can be traced.
Understandably, there was a backlash against this new openness among the 'old guard', as apparently they preferred the old way of keeping controversial things locked away in a vault which nobody could access, or otherwise hidden or obscured under layers of fanciful but faith-promoting propaganda. Apparently (and this is where the book's narrative comes in; pg. 116 and following) this tension between the opposing camps came to a head in 1983 with the mass movement against those participating in this historical wave wherein local LDS officials, acting on orders of higher ups, called in dozens of writers to answer for their writings, and to remind them of what kind of effect these writings could have on them in this life and in the next. BYU professors were not immune from the sweep, either. It was actually another professor (though from University of Utah, not BYU), J.D. Williams, who described it at that time as "an inquisition".
On the pro-inquisition side, we had people like Richard Cracroft, dean of the College of Humanities at BYU, saying "If this is what the Brethren [the Prophet and his Apostles] want, then good Latter-day Saints must say it is appropriate. This may be difficult for scholars, but obedience is an important concept of the Mormon Church." (ibid, 117-18). And there was more to it than that -- this hurt the LDS religion's bottom line, which was obviously a big no no. To quote the authors, "it didn't take a genius to know that what the historians were uncovering about money digging and polygamy didn't exactly lent itself to the all-important missionary effort. In fact, the reports were coming back from the field. These newspaper articles about Mormonism's colorful, cultish past were killing them in Polynesia." (ibid, 119)
In short order, not only was Arrington demoted from Church Historian to head of the Church's Historical Department, but then that department itself was moved to the campus of BYU, which effectively removed historians' access to the documents that they needed in order to be able to do their work, as the archives and library themselves were to remain at the Church headquarters in SLC (it may only be a 43 minute drive from Provo, where BYU is, but it might as well be on the moon in light of the crackdown that had by that point placed its contents off limits to anyone who would not tow the line). All of its publications would be subject to correlation by the order of one G. Homer Durham, a general authority (and former missionary "buddy" of Gordon B. Hinckley) who was specifically tasked by counselor [essentially by that point acting-President] Gordon B. Hinckley to bring LDS historians to heel, who also ensured that the once-open archives would be sealed off again from any research that might not meet the objectives of the Mormon religion/corporation.
To cap it all off, Arrington was dismissed from his position as the head of the Historical Department in 1982 to be replaced by (drum roll please) G. Homer Durham.
Some quotes from the book (p. 121) by Elder Boyd Packer from an August 1981 speech to get the point across:
“I have come to believe that it is the tendency for many members of the Church who spend a great deal of time in academic research to begin to judge the Church, its doctrine, organization, and leadership, present and past, by the principles of their own profession.... In my mind it ought to be the other way around....There is a temptation for the writer or the teacher of Church history to want to tell everything, whether it is worthy or faith promoting or no. Some things that are true are not very useful....Be careful that you build faith rather than destroy it.”
and
“A destroyer of faith – particularly one within the Church, and more particularly one who is employed specifically to build the faith – places himself in great spiritual jeopardy. He is serving the wrong master and unless he repents, he will not be among the faithful in the eternities…In the Church we are not neutral. We are one-sided. There is a war going on, and we are engaged in it….[T]here is a limit to the patience of the Lord with respect to those who are under covenant to bless and protect His Church and kingdom upon the earth but do not do it.”
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