Posted by:
steve benson
(
)
Date: December 21, 2013 12:40AM
I have had a recent, long, direct and informative discussion with a well-placed and highly-credible Mormon Church source, which focused on the question of who, specifically, authored the historically-revisionistic essays that the Mormon Church has now placed on its official website. (My source is aware of the fact that I am posting this on the Recovery from Mormonism discussion board, since I told the source I would be doing so).
Per mutual agreement with the source, I will not, at this time, be disclosing the names of those who participated in the writing of the essays--although the identities of certain specific individuals were given to me who, directly or indirectly, assisted in the authorship of the essays.
Just let me say that these essays were not written by members of the Quorum of the Twelve or the First Presidency.
I was told that the directed goal of the essays' authors was to craft statements that would satisfy everyone--an assignment which the source said was their first mistake. These publicly-unidentified-authored efforts, I was further told, ultimately were required to pass what was described as the paranoid approval of the Quorum of the Twelve--a group that was also characterized as being full of egomaniacs who needed to be humbled.
The authors of these essays were said to represent a wide variety of people employed by the Mormon Church in the LDS Historical Department, some of whom are historians themselves. In authoring the essays, these individuals were also given the task of contacting others outside the Mormon Church Historical Department who were considered by the LDS Church's Historical Department to be experts and scholars, and from whom all kinds of input was sought. I was told that the Mormon Church, in present circumstances, was doing the best it could.
The source noted that these essays would not be laying blame at the feet of the Mormon Church's founder, Joseph Smith, because that was simply not possible to do at the present time. From the source's perspective, the decison not to take problematic issues back to Joseph Smith (especially on the issue of race) was understandable, given what were characterized as current complicated realities facing the Mormon Church--although the source said that they (meaning the source) was not pleased with the essay on polygamy.
I was told that employees of the Mormon Church Historical Department were given the assignment of hammering out statements in their essay documents that would:
1) repudiate racism and sexism;
2) create pronouncements that strike a balance; and
3) lay the groundwork for the release of new information in the future.
I told the source that the sooner the Mormon Church quit mischaracterizing the historically-doctrinal (not policy) nature of official Mormon Church positions--(particulary as related to its historically-racist ones that are currently embedded in the LDS Church's canonized scriptures, notably the Book of Mormon and Pearl of Great Price, as well as in the officially-authoritative statements of the First Presidency that have traced Mormon Church doctrine directly back to Joseph Smith)--the better,
During the course of our lively one-on-one discussion, the source and myself did not agree on all points, although our discussion was quite cordial, as it typically is.
So, there you have it:
"Revealed" Mormon Church truth, brought to you by anonymously rolled out, correlated committees.
In the name of, "Is this all you folks have got?"
Amen.
Edited 28 time(s). Last edit at 12/21/2013 04:31AM by steve benson.