As a Mormon historian, I desire to use the skills of scholarship in research and documentation, to emulate examples of sacred history in approach and philosophy, and to help Saints understand the vitality of Mormonism from a position of knowledgeable strength. In warning Mormon historians against objective history and against telling too much truth about the Mormon past, Elder Packer says, "Do not spread disease germs!"
I see Elder Packer's symbolism in another way. It is apostates and anti-Mormons who seek to infect the Saints with "disease germs" of doubt, disloyalty, disaffection, and rebellion. These Typhoid Marys of spiritual contagion obtain the materials of their assaults primarily from the readily available documents and publications created by former LDS leaders and members themselves.
To continue Elder Packer's symbolism, believing Mormon historians like myself seek to write candid church history in a context of perspective in order to inoculate the Saints against historical "disease germs" that apostates and anti-Mormons thrust upon them. The criticism we have received in our efforts would be similar to leaders of eighteenth-century towns trying to combat smallpox contagion by locking up Dr. Edward Jenner who tried to inoculate the people and by killing the cows he wanted to use for his vaccine.
The central argument of enemies of the LDS church is historical, and if we seek to build the Kingdom of God by ignoring or denying problem areas of our past, we are leaving the Saints unprotected. As one who has received death threats from anti-Mormons because they perceive me as an enemy historian, it is discouraging to be regarded as subversive by those I sustain as prophets, seers, and revelators.
Historians did not create problem areas of the Mormon past, but most of us cannot agree to conceal them, either. We are trying to respond to those problem areas of Mormon experience. Attacking the messenger does not alter the reality of the message. (Emphasis added)
On Being A Mormon Historian (and It's Aftermath).
Whatever convinced Quinn that uncensored history would boost faith, and prevent apostasy? He is perhaps now more revered and quoted by "apostates and anti-Mormons", and he has virtually been shunned by the Mormon academic and apologetic communities.
In an April 2006 article, Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Golden wrote that Quinn has become unhireable because almost all the funding for professorships in Mormon studies comes from Mormon donors. In 2003, Brigham Young University threatened to withdraw funding for a conference it was co-sponsoring at Yale if Quinn were allowed to speak. More recently Arizona State University administrators vetoed the department of religious studies in its recommendation to hire Quinn. ASU faculty believe officials fear alienating ASU’s 3,700 LDS students and offending Ira Fulton, a powerful Mormon donor who, according to Golden, has called Quinn a “nothing person.”
Did apologists destroy Quinn, or did Quinn destroy himself with the fabulistic notion that "warts and all" history could "innoculate faith"?
Daniel Golden, Universities Bend To Views of Faithful (LDS Mormon), Wall Street Journal, April 6, 2006.
