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Internet Message Format | 1998-04-05 | 23KB

From: "Perry L. Porter" <[e-mail]>
Subject: ---> Brigham Young Manual hits the news
Date: 05 Apr 1998 21:33:14 -0700


From the Idaho State Journal, in Pocatello.

The title is "Mormon Church Manual paints Polygamist Young as Monogamist".

Mormon church manual paints polygamist Young as monogamist

Officials says it is not meant to be a biography of the leader

By Vern Anderson The Associated Press

SALT LAKE CITY - Valeen Tippetts Avery, a professor of history at Northern
Arizona University, had never met the perplexed young woman who came
knocking at her door.

Newly married to a Mormon, the student had been reading up on the faith
and attending its women's auxiliary. She was confused now, and someone had
suggested she talk to Avery.

''Dr. Avery,'' she said, ''I just got the new Relief Society manual, which
is about Brigham Young, and he only has one wife.''

Avery, a Mormon who knew the pioneer leader had 55 wives, couldn't explain
why the lesson manual being used since January by male and female church
members in 22 languages paints America's most famous polygamist as a
monogamist.

But she had some advice.

''The Mormon church is trying to say to the new people coming into the
church, as well as to the larger American society, that there was nothing
questionable in the Mormon past,'' Avery told the woman. ''And if you want
answers to these kinds of sticky questions, you're not going to find them
inside accepted Mormon manuals and doctrines.''

The absence of any mention of polygamy is just one of the criticisms being
leveled at the manual, the first of a projected series based on selected
teachings of presidents of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints.

''Homogenized pap,'' snorts historian Will Bagley. ''I think it really
shows a contempt for the intelligence of the members.''

''Whoever compiled the manual is extraordinarily embarrassed by the
church's second president,'' says Ron Priddis of Signature Books.

''It's a religious tract, not history,'' scoffs historian Nancy J.

Taniguchi.

''This isn't about Brigham Young. It's about what somebody in the church
Correlation Department thinks is Brigham Young,'' says Glen Hettinger, a
lawyer and amateur church historian in Dallas.

Church officials say the barbs are unfairly aimed at a work that never was
intended as a portrait of the colorful, controversial colonizer who
brought the Mormons west to establish a theocratic empire. Instead, they
say, it is a highly selective compilation of Young's teachings on a
variety of gospel topics seen by church leaders as relevant today.

''We're introducing Brigham Young to a church member throughout the world
who is not familiar with the historian's perspective, so it's not a
biography. It's not a history,'' said Craig Manscill, chairman of the
writing committee that produced the 370-page work.

Not the intent

''Those who believe that this is a historical account of Brigham Young, or
an all-inclusive book of his teachings, or something to learn more about
Brigham Young the man, the statesman, the great colonizer and so on - that
was never the intent,'' said Ronald L. Knighton, managing director of the
church's Curriculum Department.

Rather, the focus was the gospel of Jesus Christ ''as taught through the
mouth and sermons of that great president of the church,'' he said.

Within months of assuming the church presidency in March 1995, Gordon B.

Hinckley told the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles to begin updating the
curriculum of the adult male priesthood quorums and of the Relief Society,
both of which had always been separate.

Soon, a writing committee was formed, using ''Discourses of Brigham
Young,'' a 1954 compilation of Young's teachings by Apostle John A.

Widtsoe, as the primary source for a new priesthood manual. A few months
later, church leaders decided the manual would be used by both men and
women and added women to the writing committee.

Widtsoe's work, narrowly winnowed from the hundreds of Young speeches
contained in the multivolume ''Journal of Discourses,'' had served to
spruce up and sanitize the rough-and-ready frontier prophet for modern
audiences. Widtsoe eliminated many of the cantankerous, contradictory,
humorous and hyperbolic rantings for which Young was known and widely
beloved, together with doctrines he espoused that the church no longer
did.

Polygamy, which church founder Joseph Smith secretly established as ''the
new and everlasting covenant of marriage'' and which Young publicly
championed, was dropped 13 years after his death in 1877 and appears
nowhere in the Widtsoe index or the new manual.

Also missing from the manual are Young's theories that Adam was God the
Father and that Eve was just one of God's wives, the rest having been left
on other worlds. Blood atonement was another casualty.

Quotes altered

Worse than a glaring lack of context, though, say critics who have closely
compared statements in the manual to Young's sermons, are the resulting
misrepresentations of his ideas.

''I'd say that about 10 percent of the quotes are overtly lifted out of
context, with about another 10 percent that are more subtly altered. In
addition, about 5 percent have been abbreviated to avoid offense regarding
race, nationality, gender and so on,'' Priddis said.

Bagley is perhaps the most vociferous in his disdain for the new manual,
which he sees as a misguided attempt ''to pass Brigham Young off as a 20th
century Mormon,'' as ''this defanged creature.''

Young as Hinckley

The ill-considered result, he said, is ''Brigham Young as Gordon B.

Hinckley.''

Knighton acknowledges the work is ''a cut and paste of doctrine,'' but
''not to misrepresent or try to interpret.''

''We'd ellipse occasionally as the brethren would counsel - most of those
ellipses, or many of them, came from the First Presidency's reading - but
it was not an intent to capture full discourses,'' he said.

The absence of polygamy - even in a chronology of Young's life that
mentions his first wife - should not be surprising, Manscill said, because
the church dropped the practice in 1890.

''Was it in the material that we reviewed? Oh, it was there. And did we
ellipse in certain places? Of course we did. But we were following what
our leaders had asked us to do,'' he said, ''meaning that this was the
(current) doctrines.''

Ronald K. Esplin, director of the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for
Church History at Brigham Young University and a Young scholar, would have
preferred a more historically seasoned manual. But he recognizes church
leaders need to cater to first-generation Mormons who require a steady
diet of basic gospel principles.

''No doubt the concerns for a worldwide curriculum are not ones that
satisfy lifelong, fifth-generation Wasatch Front Latter-day Saints,'' he
said. ''That's been true for quite some time and it's probably even more
true right now.''


[Commentary below, As a graduate of BYU, I find this rewriting of history
appalling.  I know most of the people quoted on both sides of this
article.]


Mormon church manual paints polygamist Young as monogamist
...

Avery, a Mormon who knew the pioneer leader had 55 wives, couldn't explain
why the lesson manual being used since January by male and female church
members in 22 languages paints America's most famous polygamist as a
monogamist.

But she had some advice.

''The Mormon church is trying to say to the new people coming into the
church, as well as to the larger American society, that there was nothing
questionable in the Mormon past,'' Avery told the woman. ''And if you want
answers to these kinds of sticky questions, you're not going to find them
inside accepted Mormon manuals and doctrines.''

[One has to ask one's self if sanitizing history is the best course of
action?]

The absence of any mention of polygamy is just one of the criticisms being
leveled at the manual, the first of a projected series based on selected
teachings of presidents of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints.

''Homogenized pap,'' snorts historian Will Bagley. ''I think it really
shows a contempt for the intelligence of the members.''

...

Church officials say the barbs are unfairly aimed at a work that never was
intended as a portrait of the colorful, controversial colonizer who
brought the Mormons west to establish a theocratic empire. Instead, they
say, it is a highly selective compilation of Young's teachings on a
variety of gospel topics seen by church leaders as relevant today.

[So where is the churches or BYU's definitive autobiography of Brigham,
that shows ALL of his color and controversy?]


''We're introducing Brigham Young to a church member throughout the world
who is not familiar with the historian's perspective, so it's not a
biography. It's not a history,'' said Craig Manscill, chairman of the
writing committee that produced the 370-page work.


[How can you introduce a man that is WORLD famous for a peculiar
lifestyle, and never mention that lifestyle once!  It is like writing the
history of JFK and failing to mention how he died or that he was
President!]


Not the intent

''Those who believe that this is a historical account of Brigham Young, or
an all-inclusive book of his teachings, or something to learn more about
Brigham Young the man, the statesman, the great colonizer and so on - that
was never the intent,'' said Ronald L. Knighton, managing director of the
church's Curriculum Department.

[Then why was this not mentioned in the introduction of the manual, rather
than an excuse, once the cat is out of the bag?]


Rather, the focus was the gospel of Jesus Christ ''as taught through the
mouth and sermons of that great president of the church,'' he said.

[Brigham Young added very little to what about Jesus Christ, other than
that he thought that Jesus was married to multiple women and had children
by them.  But Brigham said much about the father of Jesus, and I don't
mean Joseph.  contrary to sanitized histories of Brigham young, he
mentioned that Adam was the father of Jesus not 2 or 3 times but preached
over 250 sermons containing or on the very subject of Adam God.  Yet this
is not seen as significant to be included or at lest lied about in the
manual?]


Within months of assuming the church presidency in March 1995, Gordon B.
Hinckley told the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles to begin updating the
curriculum of the adult male priesthood quorums and of the Relief Society,
both of which had always been separate.

Soon, a writing committee was formed, using ''Discourses of Brigham
Young,'' a 1954 compilation of Young's teachings by Apostle John A.
Widtsoe, as the primary source for a new priesthood manual. A few months
later, church leaders decided the manual would be used by both men and
women and added women to the writing committee.

[But missing from the manual, are the Women of Brigham Young, or women
being significant?  Off all the people on earth that knew Brigham Young
well, would not his wives know him best?  What do the women of the relief
society learn for a year?  The perspective of the wife of our logiest
prophet, mothers of the prophet's children?  NOTHING!  What we get is a
1996 view of one man, as seen by other men, threw the eyes of a male
compiler, of speeches preserved by other men.  What women's organization
would not be proud of that!  They added women to the committee, did they
add women to the book?  What does this REALLY say of the churches real
used for women in the church?  Will they dedicate an entire year to the
study of any Mormon Women in relief society?  When was the last relief
society lessens that dealt with the life of a women that spanned more than
one lesson?]


Widtsoe's work, narrowly winnowed from the hundreds of Young speeches
contained in the multivolume ''Journal of Discourses,'' had served to
spruce up and sanitize the rough-and-ready frontier prophet for modern
audiences. Widtsoe eliminated many of the cantankerous, contradictory,
humorous and hyperbolic rantings for which Young was known and widely
beloved, together with doctrines he espoused that the church no longer
did.

[Widtsoe's book was already a sanitized history, but for today's world
wide church, they removed his wives!  It is not as if the church doesn't
have a copy of the Journal of Discourses!]

Polygamy, which church founder Joseph Smith secretly established as ''the
new and everlasting covenant of marriage'' and which Young publicly
championed, was dropped 13 years after his death in 1877 and appears
nowhere in the Widtsoe index or the new manual.

Also missing from the manual are Young's theories that Adam was God the
Father and that Eve was just one of God's wives, the rest having been left
on other worlds. Blood atonement was another casualty.

[Anyone want a really long post of the 250 Brigham young speeches on
plural marriage, please email me, but they take about 1 to 3 meg of disk
space.]


Quotes altered

Worse than a glaring lack of context, though, say critics who have closely
compared statements in the manual to Young's sermons, are the resulting
misrepresentations of his ideas.


[Also see below]


''I'd say that about 10 percent of the quotes are overtly lifted out of
context, with about another 10 percent that are more subtly altered. In
addition, about 5 percent have been abbreviated to avoid offense regarding
race, nationality, gender and so on,'' Priddis said.

[Anyone out there willing to take the time to flesh this out?]


Bagley is perhaps the most vociferous in his disdain for the new manual,
which he sees as a misguided attempt ''to pass Brigham Young off as a 20th
century Mormon,'' as ''this defanged creature.''

Young as Hinckley

The ill-considered result, he said, is ''Brigham Young as Gordon B.
Hinckley.''


[Does Brigham become more credible by making him sound like a 20th century
Hinkley, or does it discredit the integrity of Hinkley to attempt such a
travesty of church history?]


Knighton acknowledges the work is ''a cut and paste of doctrine,'' but
''not to misrepresent or try to interpret.''

[Spin doctor-ing, this is an out and out lie!]


''We'd ellipse occasionally as the brethren would counsel - most of those
ellipses, or many of them, came from the First Presidency's reading - but
it was not an intent to capture full discourses,'' he said.

[Boy this guy is going to have his butt in a sling, come monday, he just
fingered the brethren as the source of the deception!]


The absence of polygamy - even in a chronology of Young's life that
mentions his first wife - should not be surprising, Manscill said, because
the church dropped the practice in 1890.

[So because, the church stopped, "starting" polygamous marriages in 1890,
that means we can not act as if it never happened?  BTW, it is 1904, they
just can't help themselves from lying!]


''Was it in the material that we reviewed? Oh, it was there. And did we
ellipse in certain places? Of course we did. But we were following what
our leaders had asked us to do,'' he said, ''meaning that this was the
(current) doctrines.''

[Vern Anserson seems to be asking the right questions, and Manscill seems
to be speaking out of school.  The big question is what is there about
belonging to the only true church, that requires that we falsify our past
history to homogenize with current doctrines?  How tenuous is that truth,
that lying is our best option?]


Ronald K. Esplin, director of the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for
Church History at Brigham Young University and a Young scholar, would have
preferred a more historically seasoned manual. But he recognizes church
leaders need to cater to first-generation Mormons who require a steady
diet of basic gospel principles.

[Will that ever end?  Well the church call a moratorium on converts and
children, so that we can all become adults at once and be treated as such?
 This is just a convenient excuse.  The RLDS church has dealt with it's
previous denial of Joseph's plural marriages, and other whitewashed
history, and it cost them a over 20,000 members, but they bit the bullet.
When are we going to bite the bullet of reality?  Or are numbers more
important than integrity?]

''No doubt the concerns for a worldwide curriculum are not ones that
satisfy lifelong, fifth-generation Wasatch Front Latter-day Saints,'' he
said. ''That's been true for quite some time and it's probably even more
true right now.''


[Is F.A.R.M.S. satisfying that deeper quest for knowledge in the area of
Adam God, Plural marriage, etc.?]



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Then there is the following misrepresentations in the new Relief Society
and Priesthood Manual about, Brigham Young.



"... especially to those who are presiding officers, Set that example
before your [wife] and your children,..."
Teachings of Presidents of the Church, Brigham Young, Page 165
The cite is : Discourses of Brigham Young, page 198, Edited by John A.
Wodstoe.


"... especially to those who are presiding officers, Set that example
before your _wives_ and your children,..."
Discourses of Brigham Young, p.198, Edited by John A. Wodstoe.

"...especially to those who are presiding officers, Set that example
before your _wives_ and your children..."
Journal of Discourses, Vol.15, p.230, Brigham Young, October 9, 1872


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"Let the husband and father learn to bend his will to the will of his God,
and then instruct his _wives_ and children in this lesson of
self-government by his example as well as by precept, ..."
Young, Brigham. Discourses of Brigham Young, Edited by John A. Wodstoe.
1941, p.198

"Let the husband and father learn to bend his will to the will of his God,
and then instruct his _wives_ and children..."
Journal of Discourses, Vol.9, p.256 - p.257, Brigham Young, March 16, 1862

"Let the husband and father learn to bend his will to the will of his God,
and then instruct his [wife] and children..."
Teachings of Presidents of the Church, Brigham Young, Page 165
The cite is : Discourses of Brigham Young, page 198, Edited by John A.
Wodstoe.


[Note that the original had a recreance to Celestial or Plural Marriage,
as it was practiced at the time.  Note that even in 1941 it was still ok
to admit that our ancestors lived polygamy, but in 1998, apparently we are
to ashamed of the marriage system of our ancestors and the original and
edited test is sanitized for the delicate testimonies of the weak
members.]



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Additionally, on page 163, the first paragraph of the lesson, begins with
the word "It", with the words [eternal marriage] in brackets supplied to
define what the pronoun is referring to. Trouble is, "eternal marriage" is
not used as the reference for the pronoun in the original, but refers to
the nature of eternity.  Brigham Young was not talking about how much he
or others knew about it, but how little any man knows about it, especially
how it relates to the Marriage Relation.  Then Brigham Young goes on about
how we could not get to know every one whom ever lived, even if we spent
only 5 minutes with them.  Which has nothing to do with [eternal
marriage].
Discourses of Brigham Young, page 195.

Brigham Young's Address delivered at the General Conference, in the
Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, October 6, 1852 is entitled, "Marriage
Relations of Bishops and Deacons."

Brigham Young Corrects Paul's First epistle to Timothy, third Chapters "A
Bishop must be blameless, the husband of one wife, Vigilant, sober ..."

To this Brigham responds, "... I believe directly the reverse; but his
advice to Timothy amounts simply to this - It would not be wise for you to
ordain a man to the office of a Bishop unless he has a wife ; you must not
ordain a single or unmarried man to that calling."
(JD v2. p.88)

Brigham Young's talk is about Plural Marriage, not [eternal marriage] as
the manual would have you belive.  The paragraph leading up to the quote
states:

"I have no reasonable grounds upon which to say it was not the custom in
ancient times for a man to have more than one wife, but every reason to
believe that it was the custom among the Jews, from the days of Abraham to
the days of the Apostles, for they were lineal descendants of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob, all of whom taught and practised the doctrine of
plurality of wives, and were revered by the whole Jewish nation, and it is
but natural that they should have respected and followed their teachings
and example.

So much I wished to say to my brethren and sisters.  We have had a
splendid address from brother Hyde, or which I am grateful. ..."
Journal of Discourses, Vol.2, p.89 - p.90, Brigham Young, October 6, 1854

Here is the quote in full context.

"I say to the congregation, treasure up in your hearts what you have heard
to-night, and at other times.  You will hear more with regard to the
doctrine, that is, our "Marriage Relations."  Elder Hyde says he has only
just dipped into it, but, if it will not be displeasing to him, I will say
he has not dipped into it yet; he has only run round the edge of the
field.  He has done so beautifully, and it will have its desired effect.
But the whole subject of the marriage relation is not in my reach, nor in
any other man's reach on this earth.  It is without beginning of days or
end of years; it is a hard matter to reach.  We can tell some things with
regard to it; it lays the foundation for worlds, for angels, and for the
Gods; for intelligent beings to be crowned with glory, immortality, and
eternal lives.  In fact, it is the thread which runs from the beginning to
the end of the holy Gospel of salvation--of the Gospel of the Son of God;
it is from eternity to eternity.  When the vision of the mind is opened,
you can see a great portion of it, but you see it comparatively as a
speaker sees the faces of a congregation.  To look at, and talk to, each
individual separately, and thinking to become fully acquainted with them,
only to spend five minutes with each would consume too much time, it could
not easily be done.  So it is with the visions of eternity; we can see and
understand, but it is difficult to tell.   May God bless you.  Amen."
Journal of Discourses, Vol.2, p.90, Brigham Young, October 6, 1854

[To take a quote from the Discourses of Brigham Young by Widstoe, and look
up the original takes at most 5 minutes.  If you want to know if the quote
is taken out of context, it only takes a few minutes, isn't that a small
price to pay for intellectual integrity?]


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Ciao Perry     <[e-mail]>    http://pobox.com/~plporter

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