Mormon church manual paints polygamist Brigham Young

as monogamist

From the Idaho State Journal, in Pocatello.
The title is "Mormon Church Manual paints Polygamist Young as Monogamist".
[Old news is new news if you have not read it yet.]

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

By Vern Anderson The Associated Press

April 4, 1998

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 personally know most of the people quoted on both sides of this article. Quotes from the article appear below with commentary inserted.]

Mormon church manual paints polygamist Young as monogamist ...

But she had some advice.

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

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

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

[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

[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?]

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 longest lived 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 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!]

[Anyone want a really long post of the 250 Brigham young speeches on plural marriage, please email me, but the file is 199k of disk space. plporter@pobox.com]

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.

[See detail below]

[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 Hinckley, or does it discredit the integrity of Hinckley 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!]

[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!]

[Vern Anderson 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?]

[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?]

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

[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. Widtsoe.

"... 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. Widtsoe.

"...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

"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. Widtsoe. 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. Widtsoe.

[Note that the original had a reference to Celestial or Plural Marriage, as it was practiced at the time. Note also 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 text is sanitized for the delicate testimonies of the weak members, saved for the eleventh hour of the last dispensation.]

[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 everyone 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 believe. 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 practiced 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 Widtsoe, 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?]

Ciao Perry

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