Does the Church Suppress History?

[_Mister Scratch]

This is a spin-off from the BKP thread I started the other day. As it happens, the MADthread which spurred on my initial post is still underway, and it has evolved into a discussion of whether or not the Church suppresses the negative facets of its history and/or whether the Church discourages people from reading works of "anti-Mormon" literature. Anyways, there were a couple of things that struck me about the thread. For one thing, one of the stalwart critics on there, a person called "RLD," has been arguing that s/he was strongly discouraged from reading certain texts (though these texts weren't necessarily ever specified). This prompted DCP to respond thusly:

there wasn't, isn't, and never has been anything remotely resembling a Mormon Index Librorum Prohibitorum.

Well, okay... But surely there *are* specific texts which TBMs are "strongly discouraged" from reading? E.g., No Man Knows My History? Prof. P. says "No," and states that he has read NMKMH. But check this out:

But there is no hard and fast rule about what a Mormon can read and what she can't, and there was certainly never any prohibition against reading Fawn Brodie'shistorical novel about Joseph Smith.

(emphasis added)

Wha...? Why is he calling it a "novel" rather than a biography? Anyways, I think it's interesting to juxtapose the comments of the TBMs on that MAD thread with these remarks from BYU Prof. Marvin S. Hill:

For more than a quarter century Fawn Brodie's No Man Knows My History has been recognized by most professional American historians as the standard work on the life of Joseph Smith and perhaps the most important single work on early Mormonism. At the same time the work has had tremendous influence upon informed Mormon thinking, as shown by the fact that whole issues of B.Y.U. Studies and Dialogue have been devoted to considering questions on the life of the Mormon prophet raised by Brodie. There is evidence that her book has had strong negative impact on popular Mormon thought as well, since to this day in certain circles in Utah to acknowledge that one has "read Fawn Brodie" is to create doubts as to one's loyalty to the Church.(from Dialog, Winter 1972)

(emphasis added)

Indeed, it seems that it is very difficult to find anything among "official" Church pronouncements (aside from BKP's infamous "Mantle" speech) which formally condemn the reading of embarrassing LDS history or otherwise "anti" literature. Rather, I think the problem needs to be reframed in terms of LDS rhetorical strategy. What I mean is this: It seems to me that the Church hasn't so much suppressed history, or openly advised members against reading certain things; rather, Church leaders have cannily engaged in spinning and smearing of certain works. Thus, Brodie's admirable and groundbreaking biography becomes a "historical novel." D. Michael Quinn's work becomes "untrustworthy." So on and so forth. I reckon that this process, and the effect it has on the membership, is somewhat akin to the exhortations to avoid R-rated movies and the like. There's not really a formal list (or an Index Librorum Prohibitorum, as it were---conveniently, the MPAA does this for the Church) on which specific films are banned; instead, the general warning is enough to scare most TBMs away from this.

[Guest]

YES! to spend age 8 until age 19 in the church and going to sunday school, sacrament meeting, priesthood meeting, mia and never hearing about Joseph Smith's other wives suggests - a spoilation of evidence a.k.a. suppression. You will never hear in a Conference about Joseph's wife Lucy Walker or Emily Patridge as half the people at the event will look at each other and say "what?" and about one tenth of the people will look at each other and say "what the F___".

[_Infymus]

But there is no hard and fast rule about what a Mormon can read and what she can't, and there was certainly never any prohibition against reading Fawn Brodie'shistorical novel about Joseph Smith.

That's just DCP trying to downplay the significance of Brodie's work. You won't find the book in the Cult owned bookstore, so it is easy to dismiss it.

there wasn't, isn't, and never has been anything remotely resembling a Mormon Index Librorum Prohibitorum.

Yep, prevalent attitude that you will find here with the Cult lapdogs Bourne and Nehor. The history is in your face and it is your fault if you didn't know about it. And if you did know about it, and followed it incorrectly, then you were to blame. The Cult will always be blameless.

Take for instance the Ensign propaganda piece published by the Cult this year. In it, they state that the Nauvoo Expositor was run by Anti Mormons who despised the Cult - and - that it was publishing Anti Mormon material. This isn't a "Librorum Prohibitorum" (what a pompous a$$ DCP is), this is an outright fabrication of the truth. The Cult is lying to their members. The press was owned by Mormons who were active in the Cult of Joseph Smith. They were writing to expose old Horny Joe’s sexual escapades that he was hiding with garments and secret handshakes. The Cult material states that Joe was falsely arrested when actually he fled under cover of darkness. He was arrested for breaking the law. The Cult goes on to lie further about old Joe crying out to God in Carthage and totally avoiding the fact he had a gun and that he wrote an epistle to his legion commander to come and bail him out.

Naw, the cult doesn’t use a “Librorum Prohibitorum”, it just twists, distorts and outright lies to the members to keep them doing what is most important : Pay, Pray, Obey.

As always, I greatly enjoy your posts Scratch.

[_Mister Scratch]

Actually, I just remembered a clear, documented instance of a Church leader deliberately suppressing history. This was spurred on by this thoughtful post from RDL:

Consider a religion apart from Mormonism. Take Scientology. Suppose Scientology came into the possession of a letter from L. Ron Hubbard that spoke of "all the suckers who buy into the silly tale I'm telling." Is the Church of Scientology not committing fraud by withholding that letter from Scientologists, who might be inclined to leave if they saw that letter?

Regardless of whether or not you agree with the statement, I found it interesting to recall how closely this imagined scenario parallels Pres. Hinckley's suppression of materials during the Mark Hofmann episode. If I recall correctly, Hinckley had possession of one of the embarrassing documents---the blessing of Joseph Smith III, perhaps---and he lied to the police in order to avoid having to fork it over. Another instance in which LDS history has been suppressed can be found in the case of sealed historical documents, such as the William Clayton journals. Clayton, of course, was Joseph Smith's personal secretary during the time of the Kinderhook Plates. I wonder: is there something fishy in these sealed-off papers?

[Physics Guy]

But there is no hard and fast rule about what a Mormon can read and what she can't, and there was certainly never any prohibition against reading Fawn Brodie'shistorical novel about Joseph Smith.

That's just DCP trying to downplay the significance of Brodie's work. You won't find the book in the Cult owned bookstore, so it is easy to dismiss it.

Yes; fascinatingly, DeseretBook.com does not list No Man Knows My History, despite the fact that none other than Richard Bushman states that "it has shaped the view of the Prophet for half a century. Nothing we have written has challenged her domination. I had hoped my book would displace hers, but at best it will only be a contender in the ring". Why would this critical book on the life of Joseph Smith be kept out of the Desert Book catalog? Hmmm??? Prof. Bushman rightly cites it as *the* dominant interpretation of Joseph Smith, and yet where is the book in the Church's bookstore? Also conspicuously absent from the website's store (unless I'm missing something, that is):
--Anything by Juanita Brooks
---Anything by Will Bagley
---Anything on Mountain Meadows, for that matter
--Anything by D. Michael Quinn

Well, can we at least concede, then, that the Church is indeed suppressing problematic history on a corporate level? Somewhat amusingly, I typed in "Grant Palmer", and the only one of his books to appear was The Incomparable Jesus. It seems that making these kinds of texts freely available is something that the Church just won't do.

I guess we've found the "Mormon Index Librorum Prohibitorum", in a sense. I wonder if the Des. Books execs maintain an actual, physical list of books which are specifically banned from the shelves.

Edited to add: It seems a masterstroke on the part of Church leaders to eliminate the texts in this way. Having an actual list would just make people curious, and in all likelihood make people want to go an check out the books, even if only for prurient reasons. It is far more clever to just omit these titles from DesBooks's listings.

[_solomarineris]

But there is no hard and fast rule about what a Mormon can read and what she can't, and there was certainly never any prohibition against reading Fawn Brodie'shistorical novel about Joseph Smith.

(emphasis added)

One can build a library with this kind of stupid quotes of his.

The recent one about MMM thread on MAD board, he branded the event;
"So called MMM"

[_Doctor Steuss]

The recent one about MMM thread on MAD board, he branded the event;
"So called MMM"

What is even crazier is I have stumbled across the use of "so-called" (meaning "Commonly called") in the last two books I've read (Backgrounds of Early Christianity by Ferguson, and Aspects of Religious Propaganda in Judaism and Early Christianity edited by Fiorenza), and in a (disappointing) book by Dr. Marcus Martins on the priesthood ban.

I’m glad there are other scholars (some non-LDS at that) that have shared in his stupidity. Surely we can give him the benefit of the doubt in regards to “so-called,” no?

[_Who Knows]

They do it indirectly. The logic goes something like this:

Criticism of the church is evil.
Anti-mormonism is basically criticism of the church.
Stay away from evil / appearance of evil.

And then, the leaders are always telling the members how satan is always waiting for you to slip up. How easy it is to lose your testimony. etc.

And of course, you're not going to hear the 'bad' stuff in sunday school / relief society / priesthood.

Add it all together, and you've basically got church suppression of unflattering church history.

[_cksalmon]

I would recommend highly this long and detailed response by Todd Compton to two FARMS reviews of his In Sacred Loneliness by Anderson/Faulring and Bachman. Plan to dedicate probably at least an hour to Compton's thoughts here. It runs to, at least, some 120 pages when typeset in international A5 size.

Compton, a still-believing LDS, is often utterly baffled by the treatment he receives at the hands of these FARMS reviewers. Note of interest: this pamphlet publication by Compton was one of the stated reasons that Bob McCue began to seriously question his LDS beliefs. His initial thought was: I'm glad they took Compton to task. Then he read this response and thought something like: Whoah! This guy is actually doing honest history.

Despite its largely informal nature, Compton's response deserves to be widely read. One can only hope that it will be published soon.

CKS

[_moksha]

Surely we can give him the benefit of the doubt in regards to “so-called,” no?

Could be worse. In Utah-speak, the next step on the disparagement scale would be to label it "liberal".