Where do I find “Official” History?
The tension between “official” Mormon history and other sorts of Mormon history is a central narrative for a lot of Mormon intellectual discussion. D. Michael Quinn, for example, who is a fabulously tenacious researcher at times seems to have little in the way of a historiographic agenda other than to do “honest” history rather than “official” history. This is very laudable, of course, but it is an intellectual agenda that depends decisively on being able to identify “official” history and its scholarly lapses. Which brings me to my question: Where do I find the “official” history of the church?
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R Gary, I think you won. Can’t get more official than that! And the CES manual is prominent on the page!
And math is the never ending Pit of Doom!
I have to agree with Mark in # 2, and Steve in # 5. This reminds me of the “faithful history” vs “objective history discussions of the 80’s. The church may publish an official history book, or multiple books, as in “Truth Restored” and the CES manual, but history is an ever moving target. We can only view it through the lens of various interpreters, but not totally objectively, as we are constantly learning new things, old manuscripts are lost, oral histories are not recorded, and new artifacts uncovered.
We can take a snapshot in time, and say this is what the church currently says about it’s history, but it can be different in many important ways in just a few years. Turley’s MMM article in the September Ensign was probably unthinkable 10 years ago. Just as the doctrine, outside of a few core principles (and who can always say what that is?) is also subject to change in important ways.
There are few constants in history, unlike math or chemistry. Would that we could lay claim to the historical equivalent of Avagadro’s Number (take that, you non-euclideans!).
kevinf going all mathematician on our backsides! Good to see you here, man.
I was a history teacher for a few years. Frankly, I stopped looking for objective, official history long ago, when I realized how much more fun, entertaining and exciting real history is - to study and to teach. As Ardis implies often, journals and letters and unguarded communications are SO much richer than textbooks - the account of the winners’ most elite element. Academicians brought us the flat-earth theory; sailors knew better for many, many years.
If you want to know what “Mormonism” really is (or was at a given time), at its most basic level, read the writings of the lay members of that time. The official pronouncements tell what the Church teaches; the local implementations show what the Church believes. The gap is fascinating.
Nice link, R. Gary (#50). But the page at that link (at LDS.org) describes the accompanying text and links as: “The introductory resources assembled here tell this story.” They are just resources; they are just introductory; and they are assembled (i.e., listed on the page) rather than used as sources in a unified narrative. There is certainly nothing with the heading “The following account constitutes an official history of the Church.”
I would have expected you to link to Joseph Smith–History, a canonized text that at least makes an arguable claim to being “official” history.
Dave, I like Ray’s comment about the distinction between official and real. So if you folks don’t like the LDS.org version, feel free to look elsewhere. I’m curious though. Where else are you going to look for “official” (i.e. “authorized”) Church history? And who will have authorized it?
Aw, he’s not going mathematician on us, Ray, he’s going chemist. Plain ol’ boring, garden variety, utilitarian chemist. “Let geese gabble and hiss.” Come with me and “stare at nothing, intricately drawn nowhere,” if you want math in its purest, most eternal and endlessly creative form.
R. Gary (#55), certainly a canonized text is a prime candidate. If the Church took an actual book and distributed it as part of the LDS curriculum for Sunday teaching, that would be a good candidate as well. This was done about fifty years back, for example, with Hugh Nibley’s Lehi in the Desert. But since the Church doesn’t really issue books or documents captioned “Official History,” I’d be inclined to question how useful the category is. It seems silly for us to maintain the category exists if we can’t figure out what is in it. Even if there was such a category, it’s not like it would be equivalent to “accurate history.” Infallibility is not, after all, an LDS claim.
Maybe we just have to muddle through historical questions (and historical faith questions) by actually reading history books and thinking about it ourselves.
Thanks, Ardis. No wonder it lost me. I am proud of the fact that I have never read a chemistry book in my life. (*wink*)
#52: I will try one last time (maybe). There are Billions of constants in History, like the address of the home you grew up in. These constants must be isolated and agreed too. That is History. Then we can move on to what the mean, that is Lore. In law. evidence first (facts,history), then arguments as to what the facts mean. If you don’t want to use my words ( History Vs, Lore), fine. But if you don’t draw a line, you can’t get to where you want to be. Fining Official Church history is easy, fining Official Church Lore is hard.
Try your own journal.
Bob, I understand what you mean, and appreciate why you mean it. Identifying the most basic, immutable, indisputable elements of fact is the first step; everything else is a superstructure built on those fundamental bits.
Even those most basic facts, though, may be so burdened with meanings beyond themselves that such a definition of “history” is so impractical as to be useless. The very fact of selecting the isolated constants can imply meaning beyond those facts:
Joseph Smith jr. was the son of Joseph Smith sr.
‘Joseph’ was the name of a Book of Mormon prophet.
‘Joseph’ was the name of an Old Testament prophet.
Those might all be considered constants, basic facts of history. Isolating those three constants and agreeing to their validity means a whole lot more to most of us than meets the eye, though.
We might also identify and agree to the validity of these facts of history:
John Taylor was born on a Thursday.
Brigham Young enjoyed peppermint candy.
Lucy Mack Smith wore a blue apron on the morning of May 14, 1840.
Together — or separate — those statements mean a lot LESS than meets the eye.
Even the act of isolating and agreeing on the basic evidence involves making judgments and telling history. I don’t believe it is possible to strip history down to such elemental factoids that those judgments are absent.
61: I agree. It has always been the problem: Science takes things apart to the point they no longer have value. Art takes things of little value, and turns them into something of worth.
Sorry for over talking, I will be silent now.
Bob, I seriously disagree that science takes things apart so they don’t have value.
I agree 100% with Ardis on this one. Look at the MMM - the Ensign article and September Dawn. There is very little disagreement about the “dry facts” (once you eliminate the obviously fictional love story), but there is a HUGE difference in how those facts are told to explain what they mean.
I think most of us have heard something like, “Faith isn’t faith until it’s exercised.” When I started teaching, I was told, “History isn’t history until it comes alive by being told. Until then, it’s just dead trivia.” I also came to believe that history is useless until it is analyzed and interpreted - that learning historical facts is meaningless unless one draws conclusions from those facts - that studying the “what, when, where and how” has no power unless one also tries to determine the “why” and the “why not” and the “so what”.
In many ways, continuing revelation keeps the Church from establishing immutable, official doctrine, and in many ways, the lay ministry and emphasis on individual revelation and the Gift of the Holy Ghost eliminates the need to establish official history - as I have come to define history. Frankly, many bloggers seem to ask for an “official history” to be written, but I guarantee that almost all (if not all) of those same bloggers would read that “official history” and immediately, automatically and somewhat subconsciously initiate their own individual version of that history. I have no problem with that. It’s one of the things that I really like about the Church.
I know nothing about chemistry, except what I learned while helping my father proofread his freshman chemistry textbook (Quantitative Measurements and Chemical Equilibria, 1972), but I do remember that it was Avogadro, not Avagadro (or Ava Gardner, for that matter) who came up with that number.
#18…ditto #43…it was then-Elder Packer who wrote that talk.
Nate has raised an intriguing issue and k l h (#38) has made it even more so by linking it in his comments to the Turley-Leonard-Walker ms. (”Tragedy at Mountain Meadows”) forthcoming from Oxford U. Press. I find it very difficult to believe that Oxford would publish an “official” (authorized) history by any church, including the LDS Church. So what IS it that Oxford will be publishing? Is it the independent work of three scholars working on their own time without church sponsorship, funding, ms. review, or endorsement? Or will Oxford be publishing a study researched and written by three scholars (employed by the church) working on church as well as personal time using the services of a small army of church-paid researchers whose extensive travels and time-consuming efforts are well-known and the subject of much speculation (as to the cost in tithing dollars and its meaning) in the historical community interested in this book.? There are, of course, answers to these questions. How, when, and with what clarity the answers are forthcoming will have a very important impact on the book’s credibility and reception and Oxford’s reputation — no small matter. Presumably all will be revealed when the book comes out and the public can read whatever the Foreword says about the basis on which the book was produced. The September “Ensign” article then becomes even more important if it — in a church-sponsored publication — turns out to be an accurate (maybe even verbatim) summary of the book’s conclusions. So who, if anyone, has sponsored what and what is “official” and what is wholly independent? Ambiguity, like rain water, cuts at least two ways. It can be a wonderful (at times essential) facilitator as well as a destructive force that produces havoc through lack of clarity. There are times when institutions like churches and publishers need to be very clear on what they sponsor, endorse, pay for, distribute, and stand behind foresquare in the way of narrative history — times when destructive, murky ambiguity doesn’t cut it. The answers will be important, and I look forward to reading them within the context of such words used in this thread as independent, official, sponsored, and endorsed.
My personal opinion (more or less what Steve said) is that something is official when the Church says it is official and not just because it’s published by them. And they rarely say something is official.
^#63: You pull a rose apart, soon the ‘rose’ is gone. It’s sum was greater than it’s parts..the rose is gone,what is it now? I agree I could have worded better, especially since I was backing first Science than Art in History.
#^4 Ray: Again I have failed. I do agree fully with you. I am only trying to say there IS an Official Church History,but it IS only ‘dead Trina’, But beyond that is Lore,it’s a great story, but open to challenge . I am saying Lore is more useful than History (My words), in gaining wisdom. But let’s not say (my words), there is no Official History.
Everyone, I think people are misconstruing the challenge in identifying “official church history.” The comparison to the challenge of identifying church doctrine is unhelpful because in that case the trick is defining “doctrine,” as opposed to policies, principles, ideas, and concepts. There is no similar trick to defining a history; we’re agreed on what is a history. The only label in dispute is “official,” and anything done by the church proper is, by definition, “official.” Any history done by the church is therefore “official history”. The only remaining question (and this matters for “official” church doctrine, too), is determing what other authorities, besides the church itself, “officially” speak for the church. The First Presidency? The president? Apostles? Church historian?
Mark IV, there’s no reason official church histories can’t contradict each other. That histories contradict each other in parts doesn’t mean they aren’t “official”.
Clark, “most CES manuals have a disclaimer that they aren’t official doctrine.” This would be a disclaimer about the meaning of “doctrine,” not about “official”. Anything an organization does in its own name is “official” whether or not they want it to be.
Matt, but official in this context seems to imply something more than simply “published by the Church.”
Because “published by the church” is sufficient, but not necessary, for something to be “official,” I agree there may be more official histories than just those produced by the church.
I don’t know about ‘official’ and non-official histories of the LDS Church but the official encouragement to members to keep personal journals creates a wealth of wonderful and very genuine history.
Matt (#70): That’s certainly a clear and perhaps defensible definition – anything issued from an office is “office-ial†— but it lacks an element of authoritativeness that most of us are trying to define. Does every sermon, letter, and grocery list dictated by Pres. Hinckley carry the same prophetic weight, or do recipients have to discriminate between the prophetic, the personal, and the temporarily practical? A lot of church departments issue materials referencing the church’s past for a lot of different purposes, and while they may all be therefore “official,†they don’t all merit the same consideration. IMO.
Bill (#67): There are a lot of gradations between total independence and total submission. We don’t have any trouble recognizing that in academia: A professor may think and write on salaried time, use his school’s libraries and ILL resources, command an army of grad students paid by university funds, direct his secretary to type his manuscript while on the school clock, keep his superiors advised of progress, consult with his colleagues, travel to conferences on the university’s dime to speak of his findings, use file folders and paper clips drawn from the department supply closet, and address a topic closely allied with the school’s past, yet the world’s belief in “academic freedom†establishes the book as the work of Professor X (“with the generous cooperation of Podunk Uâ€) and not the voice of Podunk U itself, unless the university president or board of trustees or other authoritative voice announces “he speaks for us.†The world assumes differently where Mormons are concerned, but I’m not sure that’s a legitimate assumption. I think it is a modern version of the old canard that Mormons are so controlled by a despotic hierarchy that we can’t do anything individually without permission and direction from above. I hope, as a matter of curiosity, that the MMM book’s foreword does clarify the issues you outline, but I also think that nothing that could possibly be stated in the foreword will affect the credibility pre-judgments of the book’s audience, in or out of the church.
A key issue in the tension between ‘official’ and non-official history is surely that LDS history is not hermetically sealed. It takes place in the context of other historical narratives swirling in and out of it. Any official LDS history will inevitably have to tell bits of those stories as well in order to tell its own, and thus impinge on other people’s narratives. Thus someone might not quarrel with how the LDS church defines itself in its own terms but how it may at points directly or indirectly redefine other people’s identities.
Ardis,
Your #74’s parallel with the publishing output of a university faculty member is helpful and reflects your non-Euclidian thought process at its best, although I think there are some significant differences in the two institutions (university and church) that make it important for there to be a clarification in the latter that would seem wholly unnnecessary in the former (especially when the book treads such sensitive reputational ground as accusations of mass murder by the institution’s leaders at various levels). For example, based on my involvement with it, I’m pretty sure that in 1998 when Howard Lamar and Yale Press brought out his 1,000+-page “New Encyclopedia of the American West” that the financial and human resources were strictly a matter of him alone and the press, not the university as an institution. (He has a hard time even getting the history department’s secretary to type his letters, many of which are therefore longhand, eventhough he’s president emeritus and Sterling Professor of History, Emeritus. If he had cadged, say, $400,000 in university resources outside of the press’s support to produce the book, it would have created an uproar on campus.) For me, it would be helpful and supportive of the MMM book’s credibility if the Foreword were to contain a statement to the effect that the historians’ employer was supportive of their effort at finding the truth about this important subject by providing time, financial, and research resources but has not sponsored, directed or influenced the historians’ conclusions/interpretations other than perhaps to comment on matters of fact along with the ms.’s official (press-designated) readers. Such a statement is pretty close to the fact of the matter as I understand it, and, if I have it correct, would serve to clarify for readers like me the roles and responsibilities for the book’s production. I would think Oxford University Press would also need to have such a statement in order to answer questions that will inevitably arise as to the book’s origins/sponsorship. I also think that Oxford’s marketing people will need to know at some point what they can say promotionally about the LDS Church’s “position” on the book. Apparently the church as an institution has recently said that it has no comment on the film “September Dawn.” What will it say by way of requests for comment about “Tragedy at MM”? We’ll find out soon enough, and I hope that whatever is said will help rather than muddy the waters about what I predict will be a very good study produced by three fine historians working prodigiously hard over a five-year period.
By the way, Ardis, if you are tempted to think that I have raised this matter of clarity because of a belief that Mormon historians can’t possibly produce anything about the history of the church and its members without church control, relax. Your “Pursue, Retake & Punish” article on the Santa Clara Ambush of 1857 in “UHQ” certainly refutes any such notion, and in the case of the “Tragedy at MM” ms. I’m pretty sure that its origins are rooted in Rick Turley’s ability to convince the church’s Historical Dept. that such a truth-seeking book is need rather than a matter of him, Glen, and Ron being dragooned by their employer into taking on such a daunting project.
anything issued from an office is “office-ial†— but it lacks an element of authoritativeness that most of us are trying to define.
Ardis, it’s not possible to be more official — to have greater authority to speak — than the church has to speak for itself. When the president or an apostle writes a history they can say that the views expressed are those of the author, the purpose being to point out that it isn’t “official” — it’s not done with the authority of the church. When the church writes a history, however, it’s not possible to say that the views aren’t those of the church because the church is the author. Of course it wasn’t necessary for the church to produce histories, especially a history textbook, and some may have discouraged them from doing one and leaving the writing of histories to individuals, or even paid an historian to write the history and publish it under their name, but for whatever reason the church decided to produce a church history book and publish and promote it under their own name.
The tough cases you mention are attempts to determine when other actors, like presidents or apostles of the church, are speaking officially for the church — as though the church were speaking itself — even though they’re acting under their own name. In the law this issue is called “agency” — if a Pizza Hut employee causes an accident, is Pizza Hut responsible? If Pizza Hut owns the car? If he’d stolen the car? If he was on the clock? Off the clock? On break? In violation of managers instructions?, etc. The question is figuring out when the individual’s acts are acts of Pizza Hut, as though Pizza Hut did the act itself.
Bill (#76): The “generous support†extended by the church in this case is certainly extraordinary in scale, but not, I maintain, in kind from an academic’s use of official resources within his contract or research allowance for the production of a book bearing his name. (Your use of the word “cadging†makes me hasten to add that modification – it’s another matter entirely for anyone at any institution to misappropriate resources.)
I also hope we know each other well enough that you don’t think I put you among those who won’t evaluate the new MMM book on its merits, regardless of any sponsorship clarity offered (or not) upon publication. We do have colleagues who have already passed judgment on the book’s merits based on the authors’ day jobs, though. Epithets of “hacks†and “shills†have been freely and publicly used by the less restrained of our colleagues, and even so staid and respectable an historian as Jan Shipps, in her remarks following the trio’s papers at MHA two (? or three?) years ago, acknowledged that their status as church employees could not, should not, would not be removed from evaluations of the book’s candor.
To tie this more closely to the topic of this post, some Mormons will be no more able to avoid their prejudices in deciding whether “Tragedy at MM†is “official†history. There will be some who insist that it is not official until the First Presidency or Quorum of the Twelve explicitly endorse it as such, and there will be others – probably more – who assume that because “those nice boys down at church headquarters†wrote it, it is official.
Someone please explain for me the difference between official history and “official” history. Is the difference related to the position that the father of the writer of this post holds at the Museum of Church History and Art? Or should that be “Museum” of Church History and Art?
Matt (#77): This has become, or is fast becoming, one of those instances where “winning” through having one’s own definition adopted is more important than reaching mutual understanding. I have no further comment.
John (#79): I don’t know about others, but I have used the quotation marks as a form of emphasis, not as scare quotes to cast doubt.
emphasis is better done with *asterisks*, to eliminate confussion. In my opinion. Now I feel like a jerk.
Matt W, you’re not a jerk, a “jerk” or a *jerk*
Ardis, I’m open to an alternative definition of “official,” I honestly don’t know what definition anyone else is proposing that I’m not understanding. I’ve been responding to those seeking a history more official and authoritative than a history done by the church in the name of the church — I don’t believe anything can be more official than “done by the church in the name of the church.” I’m open to counterarguments.
I’m currently reading the Comprehensive History of the Church by B.H. Roberts, and find it to be a pretty candid, yet faith-promoting look at Church history. I’d recommend it as a nice starting point.
I agree with LifeOnaPlate’s #85 about the value of B.H. Roberts’s “Comprehensive History.” It was one of the first sources that I used fifty years ago, and I still use it. One example — this one about Utah rather than church history — deals with the long-standing myth that Brevet Lieut. Col. E.J. Steptoe declined Utah’s governorship (from President Pierce) and signed a petition urging Brigham Young’s retention in that role because BY blackmailed him after entrapping him in a compromising situation in Salt Lake City involving two Mormon women during December 1854. In “Tell It All” Fannie Stenhouse embraced the BY entrapment story with great enthusiasm and decades later Nels Anderson (”Deseret Saints”) perpetuated the piece about Steptoe misconduct. B.H. Roberts threaded his way through this reputational minefield in very careful, balanced fashion, putting the lie to the notion of BY shoving women at Steptoe and of Steptoe’s libido running amok in GSLC (although some of his subordinate officers were clearly off the reservation). Also Roberts is about the only historian (Mormon or non-Mormon) who has reported that By was indicted for treason by a federal grand jury on 30 December 1857 — probably not something that most Mormon historians of the era were eager to report, if they knew it — , and he is about the only one who also analyzed carefully the composition of the grand jury and how that might have impacted the character of the indictment returned. The trouble with Roberts’ s great study is that it ended with 1930.
Wouldn’t you know it, but I have been accused of misspelling the only word I remember from high school chemistry (you say Avogadro, I say Avagadro). Just goes to show how history can sure get messed up.
Sorry, Nate. But this seems like a trick question.