It seems my little satire earlier this week ruffled a few
feathers in the ex-Mormon community. Thanks to that, it quickly became the most
viewed post in the history of this little, irrelevant web-space. At present, it
has garnered nearly twice as much traffic than any other post I’ve written in
the last 2-plus years. So, I thought another post on the so-called hidden
history of the Church is in order. This time, I’d like to focus in on the First
Vision.
The “Hidden” History
of the First Vision
I was reading Steven C. Harper’s paper “Suspicion or Trust: Reading the Accounts of Joseph Smith’s First Vision,” which appears in the
Robert L. Millet edited volume, No Weapon Shall Prosper: New Light on Sensitive Issues (Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret
Book and BYU Religious Studies Center, 2011), another volume published last
year, and fairly accessible to the lay reader. Many critics accuse the Church
of hiding the additional accounts of the First Vision that Joseph Smith told. Harper
cuts directly into this accusation:
It is vital to recognize that only Joseph Smith knew whether
he experienced a vision in 1820. He was the only witness to what happened and
therefore his own statements are the only direct evidence. All other evidence
is hearsay. With so much at stake, Joseph’s accounts have been examined and
questioned. Many have asked if they are credible. To answer that question
satisfactorily, seekers need to know all the evidence and examine it for
themselves. For several decades now, the Church and various scholars have
repeatedly published and publicized the known accounts of Joseph’s First Vision;
images of the documents containing his own direct statements are available in the
Selected Collections from the Archives of The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints. But efforts to
publish and publicize the historical record of the vision have not been widely
accessed by Latter-day Saints generally. Relatively few people have learned of
these vital historical documents and their contents. Critics, with the
assistance of the pervasive Internet, prey upon that ignorance to try to
undermine faith in the vision. The antidote to this problem is to study the
accounts Joseph left. (p. 64, emphasis mine.)
Harper’s blast against the notion that the Church is hiding
this stuff is backed up by a footnote, which includes, but is not limited to, James
B. Allen’s article discussing the different accounts, which appeared in the Improvement Era (official magazine of the
Church at the time) in April 1970, Milton V. Backman Jr.’s article reporting on the different accounts that appeared in the January 1985 Ensign, and Richard L. Anderson’s 1996 Ensign article which probes important questions on the First Vision and the historical record. That is three sources which directly discuss the
different accounts all published in an official Church publication. Harper also
includes reference to Dean C. Jessee’s 1969 BYU Studies article, which includes full transcripts of each account given by Joseph
Smith. This article has been recently republished not once, but twice, first in the 2005 anthology Opening the Heavens, edited by John W. Welch, and now just hot off the press in the
volume, edited by Harper along with Samuel Alonzo Dodge, Exploring the First Vision. To all of that could be added the YouTube
video discussing the different accounts on the occasion of their publication in the Joseph Smith Papers, uploaded earlier this year to the Mormon Channel, an official media arm
of the Church, the Joseph Smith Papers themselves (in Histories, Vol. 1), Milton V. Backman Jr.'s 1986 Ensign article discussing the contemporary second hand accounts, his response in the "I Have a Question" segment of the April 1992 Ensign, and this entry on the different accounts found in the Church's online Gospel Topics index. And, of course, they are talked about in this paper by Haper
(and this other paper by Haper). The accusation that the Church is hiding this stuff
has just got no teeth to it.
Thank You, my
Ex-Mormon Friends
Still, thanks to the ex-Mormon’s who took notice, October is
well on its way to being a record breaking month for me! So I guess I owe them a
hearty thanks for driving up my traffic! I thought I would show my gratitude by
acknowledging, and responding, to some of their reactions.
One person complained that my blogpost was nothing more than
a straw man. A straw man of what, now? Apparently of the arguments against the
Book of Mormon. He wrote: “This blog post is a straw man. He takes a handful of
arguments against the Book of Mormon and removes them from their context.” Never
mind the fact that my blogpost didn’t attempt to refute any arguments against
the Book of Mormon, I apparently removed some such arguments from their
context. This same commenter goes on to say that, “If the church really wanted
to engage in historical honesty, then these footnotes would appear in our Sunday
School manuals or be accurately described in General Conference and the Ensign.”
I suppose he missed the link I gave in that blog post, which leads to a page in the FAIR Wiki that provided references from official Church sources, like the Ensign, to all kinds of historical
issues allegedly hidden by the Church. (Also see links above on the First
Vision.) I guess he might complain that these don’t accurately describe those issues, but I suspect nothing short of
writing “therefore, Joseph Smith can’t be a true prophet” will ever be deemed
as an accurate representation of these issues for him. The articles in the
Church publications are written by some of the very best scholars and
historians of these respective topics. To go back to the Harper paper quoted
earlier, “These are not bumpkins. They include Ivy League-educated historians
who have authored prize-winning books and have studied the documents and their
context for decades.” (p. 72)
Another lamented my “almost unbearable” tone. I suppose I “marginalize[d]
the pain some of [them] feel after being deceived by TSCC.” I’m not hip on exMo
lingo, but I’m assuming that TSCC has some reference to the Church. I fully realize
that for some people the shock they experience upon learning that Sunday School
wasn’t a full on history course is painful and difficult, and really do
empathize with that. I said nothing of the pain, nor of individuals who
experience it. I was addressing an argument,
and one that I don’t think particularly holds much water. In any event, I can
understand why some might take offense to my tone, but when ex-Mormon’s are
constantly skewering “TBMs” (True Believing/Blue Mormons), ridiculing my faith
as “absurd”, etc. and are completely indifferent to pain that their mocking
causes for me and others who still hold these truths sacred, well, then, I’m
sorry, but I’m not so sympathetic. Motes and beams, as they say. (Notice that in
spite of the evidence available, he/she still claims that the Church is “deceiving”
people about this stuff.)
This same commenter goes on to say that “I imagine for the
majority of TBM’s, in the end it won’t matter if they learn uncorrelated mormon
history on mormonthink.com or at Deseret Book. The outcome is largely the same.
Once you read ‘How we got the BOM’ or RSR [Rough
Stone Rolling] or the new Brigham Young biography will say to themselves ‘Sh*t,
it really is a cult. Smith really was a con man. I’m out.’” One thing is for
sure, this person has quite the imagination. I’m going to guess that their only
exposure to Turley and Slaughter’s book is from my blog post, because speaking
as a “TBM” who has read it, I can’t possibly imagine anyone losing their
testimony over anything in there. (And despite the fact that it was a best seller last year, we saw no mass exodus from the Church over it's contents.) It is also hard to imagine how that can be
such a foregone conclusion in the case of Richard Bushman’s biography of Joseph
Smith (RSR), given that the author himself is a “TBM” by all accounts, just as Turley
and Slaughter are (and again, these are not bumpkins, as Harper says). The new
Young biography is by a non-member, and I haven’t read it, so I won’t comment
on that. I find that it is typically quite hard for ex-Mormon’s to imagine
anyone who is rational being able to conclude anything but the same thing they
have. (So maybe their imagination is not quite as creative as I thought it
was.)
Another person just yawned at the contents of my blog,
saying that I don’t “cover any of the super sticky topics anyway.” Well, I
guess I don’t, though I suspect that what qualifies as a “super sticky” issue
is in the eye of the beholder. “Super sticky” stuff usually takes a lot more
time and effort than what I have for this blog at the time (I am a working, married
student, after all). In any event, this is hardly a good reason to dismiss what
I do comment on.
A couple of guys came by and commented on the blog directly.
One responded by saying I “assert, erroneously, that this is a widely read
publication that every member has access to and has purchased.” But I asserted
no such thing. In fact, my point is that books like this are not widely read by the membership of the
Church, at least not carefully. Hence, anti-Mormon’s prey on their ignorance of
issues they could have known about had they just picked the book up off their
coffee table once and a while. (Again, see the Harper quote regarding the First
Vision accounts.) And of course, I do realize that it is not on every member’s coffee table (heck, it
isn’t even on my coffee table, but
that is because I’m missing the coffee table, not the book). In the satire (remember, it is a satire) I talked like everyone had it,
but of course I was exaggerating (something people tend to do in satires). My point still is that the
book is written not for people like
me who read history books anyway, but for the general membership, and it was a
best seller at Deseret Book for awhile. And, to add to that, it is not the only
book of its kind. I already mentioned No
Weapon Shall Prosper, which has, in addition to Haper’s article on the
First Vision, articles on Joseph Smith’s participation in “folk magic,” his
polygamous marriage to a 14 year old, and a number of other “super sticky”
topics. And though it is not an official Church publication, I’ve heard that
this book came into fruition at the request of the Brethren, and was meant to
be a resource accessible to the general membership, particularly for those who
might be struggling with some of these issues. The recent book collecting articles
on the First Vision (mentioned above), was also published with the intent of
making the historical issues more widely available to the “raising generations”
of average Latter-day Saints (p. vi, viii; both citing D&C 69:8). There are
several, even dozens, more and as already pointed out, these historical details
have been discussed in the Ensign before. Again, this criticism just has no
teeth.
Some Closing Thoughts
In the end, none of those who commented on my previous post ever
substantially dealt with the fact that, as made clear in that post and this
one, none of the allegedly secret details of Church history are actually
secret. They are readily available in Church friendly resources, including some
official Church resources, and in formats accessible to lay readers. Notice
that several of the things I pointed to in this post are available for FREE
online, some even on the Church’s official website. The issue is not that they
are hidden; the problem is that some people just don’t know where to look. And
on that point, I’ll freely admit that the Church could do a better job at
making these resources known to general Church membership – but that hardly
means that the Church is trying to cover it all up.
Great post. I get that alot too: "You Mormons have all kinds of secret history, look it's right here in the Journal of Discourses printed in Salt Lake City!" Yeah, real secret guys.
ReplyDeleteNeal, the Satire was great and so is this post.
ReplyDeleteYour original point was to address the issue of whether this information was delibrately being kept secret or not, which you did a very good job of showing that it is not.
It is a blow against the integrity of the "anti-mormon" community that they would use this tactic when it is clearly false.
Church members aren't "lazy" for not reading these publications en masse. To me that is a sign that the vast majority of practicing members are satisfied. If they felt something was wrong, then they would look for it, and if they do, they will find it readily available. If I don't feel sick I don't probe the doctor when he says my health is fine, or I don't go get a second opinion from another doctor.
Another issue I have with the "anti-mormon" community is that they want to dig up all these controvesial stories in Church history to combat the veracity, but they completely ignore the facts that continue to build that support the Book of Mormon is true. You will never hear an "anti-mormon" talk about Beit Lehi, because it basically makes the veracity of the Book of Mormon irrefuteable. Very intersting videos on YouTube. Or the discovery of the land when Ishmael died, which was unknown to everyone 200 years ago.