Church History in early 1980’s

[Calm]

I never read the books, but I thought Work and Glory had polygamy in it, including Joseph’s…my gosh, they were thick enough.

Edited June 6, 2022 by Calm

[Tacenda]

21 minutes ago, Calm said:

I never read the books, but I thought Work and Glory had polygamy in it, including Joseph’s…my gosh, they were thick enough.

It mentioned him being commanded to live it but that's as far as it got, if memory serves. I may have tired reading the last book or two, or when they came to Utah. 

[sunstoned]

11 hours ago, webbles said:

What in the essays would have caused them to face a church court?  I think most of the things in the essays were taught and discussed back in the 80s.

I disagree.  JS's polyandry, BoM translation using a rock in a hat, polygamist marriages after the manifesto, etc.  were not common knowledge.  And they sure didn't come up in any of my BYU religion classes.

[sunstoned]

8 hours ago, Calm said:

Wards outside of Utah at least had the High Priests selling books from DB and Bookcraft, iirc, in the 70’s though that might have been earlier.  I can’t remember when they discontinued the practice.  I believe it had been happening for decades.  I heard some ward members grumble about it.  We had tons of church books and didn’t live in Utah or visit much as grandma came to stay with us (there wasn’t really room for all of us at her place) and I am pretty sure that is where my parents and my Californian grandparents got theirs.

I remember the 70 missionary book stores.  They had on in Orem.  I also remember the 70s selling books at church.  I thought it was a great program.

[webbles]

41 minutes ago, sunstoned said:

I disagree.  JS's polyandry, BoM translation using a rock in a hat, polygamist marriages after the manifesto, etc.  were not common knowledge.  And they sure didn't come up in any of my BYU religion classes.

Sure, I doubt they were common knowledge, but you said "If people would have taught back then what is now in the essays, they would have faced church court.".

I already pointed out in an earlier post that polyandry was discussed in an Improvement Era of 1946.  The polygamists marriages after the manifesto were known by family members and taught to family and friends.  I have post-manifesto polygamy in my ancestry and it might even be the last legitimate polygamous marriage (March 12, 1904).  The rock in the hat was discussed in a 1977 issue of the Ensign.

So they were taught and those people didn't face a church court.

[webbles]

57 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

It mentioned him being commanded to live it but that's as far as it got, if memory serves. I may have tired reading the last book or two, or when they came to Utah. 

It's been a while since I read it but per the reviews at https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20113232-praise-to-the-man, it seems like it talks a little bit more than just that.  I'll have to find a copy of it and re-read it to see what it actually says.

[Calm]

3 hours ago, sunstoned said:

I remember the 70 missionary book stores.  They had on in Orem.  I also remember the 70s selling books at church.  I thought it was a great program.

It was probably the Seventies who ran it…the old guys was what I identified them as, which age group I now solidly fall into.  

[Peacefully]

10 hours ago, Tacenda said:

That's what I did, I read The Work and Glory series and read mostly Ensign articles. 

Same

[Nofear]

For one's entertainment.
https://www.facebook.com/704824074/videos/973495646656079/

[Tacenda]

38 minutes ago, Nofear said:

For one's entertainment.
https://www.facebook.com/704824074/videos/973495646656079/

Hilarious!!

[Navidad]

On 6/5/2022 at 3:52 AM, Calm said:

What was supposed to not be known?  Banner iirc has Brigham responsible for MMM. While I believe he and other Church leaders contributed to the overall tension/antagonism in the air due to the massive threat of the US Army headed to Utah…there were plenty still living who would remember the government backed violent expulsion from Missouri as well as the forced migration out of Illinois of most members, the best evidence is he actually tried to prevent engagement with the settlers. I have read BYU Church history institute texts from late 70s that taught MMM and iirc, did show there was intended cooperation later on with bringing the perpetrators to justice, but you aren’t going to find Church sources saying Brigham backed the slaughter nor should you. 
 

Plural marriage was discussed in the same institute texts with Emma’s vehement opposition and the deception when she agreed to give him the two sets of sisters who lived with them as plural wives. 
 

The various versions of the First Vision I haven’t checked in the past, so can’t recall. Give me some time to check. 
 

What else is on Banner’s list of tabooed subjects?

Ivan Barrett wrote one of them, Joseph Smith and the Restoration. I keep getting it and him mixed up with William Barrett and his The Restored Church. 

Some of the folks indicted for MMM, came here and hid out in the Mexican colonies. There are some fascinating stories about their time here. That might be my next MHA article. Anyone ever hear of George Calvin Williams? What an interesting character, founder of several colonies, and right in the middle of the turmoil over some of the perpetrators being here in the colonies. He is buried in the smallest public registered cemetery in Arizona. It is destined for housing development. Only four graves. Sorry, I digress.

[Rivers]

12 hours ago, Tacenda said:

Hilarious!!

I forgot about this scene!  😆

[HappyJackWagon]

On 6/5/2022 at 4:13 AM, Rivers said:

Just finished watching the final episode of Under the Banner of Heaven.  The show depicts church leaders as mustache twirling villains distorting history while ironically doing the very thing it accuses the church of doing.  
 

Today we live in a golden age of information and the church is more transparent than ever before.  But I wasn’t alive during the early 1980’s when UTBOH takes place.  I’m curious to know what kinds of faithful sources of church history existed during that time period.   Was the state of information as bad as the show makes it out to be?  I’m sure there were better history books besides Mormonism: Shadow or Reality that Andrew Garfield’s character could have been reading right?

I think this is an interesting question and I'd be really curious to know if any research has been done about the accurate dissemination of church history to different generations. I say this because when I ask people of an older generation they often are aware of some of the things that were never taught to me in Sunday School or seminary. There seemed to be a big push (at least as I remember it) about only reading trusted books about the church and avoiding anti-mormon literature. It was like the boogie man when I was growing up and in early adulthood. A lot of that has changed now but I wonder if anyone else sees any kind of generational correlation regarding accurate church history.

I am in my mid-forties and it seems to me like the 70's-2000 were very strict and fear driven. Or maybe it was just my particular experience based on family and location. I don't know. But there do seem to be a lot of people around my age learning church info for the first time over the past decade.

[Duncan]

2 hours ago, HappyJackWagon said:

I think this is an interesting question and I'd be really curious to know if any research has been done about the accurate dissemination of church history to different generations. I say this because when I ask people of an older generation they often are aware of some of the things that were never taught to me in Sunday School or seminary. There seemed to be a big push (at least as I remember it) about only reading trusted books about the church and avoiding anti-mormon literature. It was like the boogie man when I was growing up and in early adulthood. A lot of that has changed now but I wonder if anyone else sees any kind of generational correlation regarding accurate church history.

I am in my mid-forties and it seems to me like the 70's-2000 were very strict and fear driven. Or maybe it was just my particular experience based on family and location. I don't know. But there do seem to be a lot of people around my age learning church info for the first time over the past decade.

My Mom talks about the Church "back in the day" at least here and at least RS was very homemaking and fundraising for a new stake centre. So, things that happened globally you only really heard about in the physical copy of the Church News, Ensigns or at General Conference. She saw that netflix thing about Mark Hofmann quite sometime ago but she said she vaguely remembered a member here talking about it. I think, as you say, back then dissemination of information was very hands on and so if you wanted to know something you had to read about it or order it from somewhere. Some things are local problems that have lingered and if you don't live there or then why worry about it now. Like for us here in middle Canada the MMM is in Utah in the 1850's, well, we don't have any connections to that so it isn't something i've ever heard about it ever really. I know we had that Trek and trying to remember the pioneers, I told someone that the pioneers here didn't pull handcarts they made chocolates in a freezing gym trying to raise money for building fund and then selling them. They should do that because that's what the kids' grandparents did in the 50's to the 70's, not pulling handcarts to Utah

[The Nehor]

16 hours ago, HappyJackWagon said:

I think this is an interesting question and I'd be really curious to know if any research has been done about the accurate dissemination of church history to different generations. I say this because when I ask people of an older generation they often are aware of some of the things that were never taught to me in Sunday School or seminary. There seemed to be a big push (at least as I remember it) about only reading trusted books about the church and avoiding anti-mormon literature. It was like the boogie man when I was growing up and in early adulthood. A lot of that has changed now but I wonder if anyone else sees any kind of generational correlation regarding accurate church history.

I am in my mid-forties and it seems to me like the 70's-2000 were very strict and fear driven. Or maybe it was just my particular experience based on family and location. I don't know. But there do seem to be a lot of people around my age learning church info for the first time over the past decade.

A lot of church culture developed a siege mentality. When the hippie movement and drug culture popped up many members saw it as the End of Days. It is almost cute now to look back at it. We still haven’t dropped the beard thing that came mostly from the hippie movement. There were evils everywhere and it wasn’t just the church. Stranger danger, reefer madness, satanic panic, roleplaying game murders, everything was out to kill your children. Strangely I remember my childhood as fun despite that. I think my generation was the last one to play with friends unsupervised by adults and that has tightened down despite things actually supposedly being safer. Not sure what caused it. My dad wouldn’t let us do stuff he did as a kid mostly because of the climate of fear.

That climate of fear was sold to us for a reason and did exactly what it was supposed to do. It made people money.

[Duncan]

On 6/8/2022 at 8:17 AM, The Nehor said:

A lot of church culture developed a siege mentality. When the hippie movement and drug culture popped up many members saw it as the End of Days. It is almost cute now to look back at it. We still haven’t dropped the beard thing that came mostly from the hippie movement. There were evils everywhere and it wasn’t just the church. Stranger danger, reefer madness, satanic panic, roleplaying game murders, everything was out to kill your children. Strangely I remember my childhood as fun despite that. I think my generation was the last one to play with friends unsupervised by adults and that has tightened down despite things actually supposedly being safer. Not sure what caused it. My dad wouldn’t let us do stuff he did as a kid mostly because of the climate of fear.

That climate of fear was sold to us for a reason and did exactly what it was supposed to do. It made people money.

That's exactley what my Mom said about when she joined in the late 60's. With the Vietnam War, Nixon, food storage, you though the world was coming ot an end but it didn't and it created as you say a siege mentality and you still see it today. 

[JAHS]

On 6/5/2022 at 9:35 AM, sunstoned said:

I went through early morning seminary and graduated in t he 1970's.  I also attended BYU and took the required religion classes.  I don't know how things are now, but back then I was taught a very white washed and stylized version of church history.   If people would have taught back then what is now in the essays, they would have faced church court.  The wealth of information that is now available on the internet has change everything.

I took institute classes at Weber State college in the early 70's and there was one class that dealt with the more controversial events and doctrines of the church and each of us had to pick one and write an essay about it. We were able to find plenty of information on each one.
Of course back then we had to actually go to the library and check out books.

 

Edited June 9, 2022 by JAHS