Go Forward With Faith – Sheri Dew

[Anonymous]

I read this one awhile ago and thought it would be an interesting post here. This is obviously a faith promoting book, with very little in the way of dirt or anything like it. This is basically an idealized biography that tells the story of Gordon B. Hinckley’s life through the middle 1990s. It’s interesting if you like human interest stories, but offers little new insight into Church governance or the difficult decisions that came with the expansion of the Church and new challenges to the LDS faith. If you compare this to something like “David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism”, Prince wins in a laugher: he’s a serious historian, a better writer, and more willing to deal with issues beyond the narrow confines of correlated history.

That said, Mormonism is in a unique position with regard to the biographical potential of its leaders. Of the presidents of the Church, only Joseph Smith and Brigham Young have been important figures in American history beyond their special significance to Mormons and those interested in Mormonism. You can’t tell the story of the second Great Awakening without devoting significant time to Joseph Smith and the LDS movement. You can’t tell the story of the settling of the American West without a reasonably extensive treatment of Brigham Young and the Mormon settlers. You can, however, speak of 20th century American history in a fair amount of detail without ever mentioning folks like David O. McKay or Gordon B. Hinckley. Prince’s work was a labor of love that is likely going to be all too rare, as it dealt in extensive detail with a figure of immense importance to the modern Church who had virtually no impact on the world outside the Church. What this means is that faith promoting history (or, alternatively, critical or even anti-Mormon history) will likely be the most accessible sources of information about many modern leaders of the Church. So, I think it worthwhile to examine this stuff and see what we can learn from what’s presented.

The primary theme I would stress is that Hinckley appears throughout the book as a cautious man, concerned with appearances, propriety, and a well ordered institution. While one might be tempted to indulge the frequent characterization of Hinckley as a “PR man”, I think it more instructive to look deeper into what it might mean to have a president of the Church who is concerned with the public image of the institution. Hinckley’s decisions throughout the book are well considered, with his mission, marriage, college education, and work in the Church Education System being considered and implemented with a great deal of care. Hinckley rose to power in the Church during the era of correlation and it is not difficult to observe the interaction between he and the Church’s move toward a standardized institutional gospel. The potential disadvantages of correlation are probably obvious to anyone on this site. However, Dew’s biography demonstrates many of the positive aspects of correlation as well. Correlation brought order to a church that could no longer be governed in an ad hoc manner from the Great Basin: by the time Hinckley joined the Quorum of the Twelve, the Church was an extraordinarily complex institution. It was necessary to move forward with some kind of plan for integrating new stakes into the Church, teaching the gospel to members and investigators in a relatively cohesive way, and allocating scarce resources. For Hinckley, the correlation process was one of bringing order to a situation that could very easily fall into chaos due to the lack of a paid clergy and the inherent complexity of a global church.

What can we learn from all of this? For one, I think Hinckley’s story is interesting in itself. Beyond that, it shows that many things that we consider “whitewashing” might also be interpreted as caution in the face of complexity. For example, Hinckley’s infamous repudiation of “as man is, God once was” and polygamy can easily be seen as a refusal to stress the most controversial aspects of our doctrine to the outside world when we’ve yet to develop a comprehensive internal vision of those doctrines. This isn’t necessarily a new insight, but I do believe that it gains new credibility in light of a concern with order and organization within the Church. So, rather than seeing Hinckley’s broad brushstrokes as whitewashing, we might see them as bringing the Church’s public image into line with what we actually teach on a day to day basis (which, of course, has nothing to do with God once being a man or the fine points of polygamy).

For us struggling members of the Church, I think Dew’s work gives rise to another interesting take. Many of us are concerned about the Church’s unwillingness to confront its history squarely, both in its presentation to the outside world and its treatment in Church meetings. If we call that a whitewashing, then we’re bound to react negatively, since lying and covering up the truth are not generally things we endorse in any forum. However, I think we need to examine how essential many of these ideas actually are to our faith as it is practiced today. Nobody in the leadership of the Church was alive when polygamy was renounced. Very few even have memories of the Great Depression, much less the battles in the Quorum of the Twelve in the early 20th century (which were hardly common knowledge). None of us were alive when the King Follett discourse was delivered. Even more telling, none of us were alive when the King Follett discourse was given any significant treatment in Church at all.

So, I think how we see Hinckley has to do with the scope of the doctrines and practices he deemphasized. If you see them as central in the LDS tradition, then he’s whitewashing. If you see them as peripheral, it may be that he’s simply redefined the Church in terms of what’s actually taught and believed there. Dew’s book should at least prompt us to consider that Hinckley might have been more a manager than a whitewasher. While we might have difficulty reconciling that with the Church’s rather grandiose statements about itself, we might welcome that realization as a sign that many of the things which trouble us most aren’t really a major part of the institution to which we now belong.

[Anonymous]

Gabe P wrote:

I read this one awhile ago and thought it would be an interesting post here.

Gabe P,

Thanks for your review. A very enjoyable read. (your review, I haven’t (and probably won’t) read the book.)

HiJolly

[Anonymous]

Quote:

we might welcome that realization as a sign that many of the things which trouble us most aren’t really a major part of the institution to which we now belong.

That, in a nutshell, is the heart of why most things that bother many greatly don’t bother me much. Since I view the entire Restoration as a process (not an event), and since I view the growth of the Church as an apostasy pruning process, I just am not concerned very deeply about “the past”. I’m focused on the present and the future – on the church to which I, personally, belong.

Thanks for this post, Gabe. I agree that the book isn’t “great literature” or “great history”, but I really like the insights you shared.

[Anonymous]

Excellent review Gabe. I read this book as a TBM so I simply loved it. Hinckley was nearly canonized and in my mind could do no wrong. Your review, however, has given me a new perspective on the issue. While I may not agree with the way the church chooses to run the organization, I can at least understand what they were thinking.

Dew is not the greatest author, and tends to overlook anything less than glowing, and I found the biography a bit dry, but overall I’m glad I read it.

[Anonymous]

Quote:

Gabe P. said….For us struggling members of the Church, I think Dew’s work gives rise to another interesting take. Many of us are concerned about the Church’s unwillingness to confront its history squarely, both in its presentation to the outside world and its treatment in Church meetings.

I could’nt help but think how unreasonable it is to expect any organization, church or other wise, to blab about all perceived misdeeds.

I mean how long did it take the catholic church to admit to holding poor old Galileo’s toe’s to the fire. Most organizations spend time any money trying to improve their image. Don’t you think it’s a little unrealistic to expect a church to set up a department just to seek out all the negitive stuff they can find and publish it to the world.

I suspect the leadership has a lot to keep track of just in the present and near future. It’s also possible the past is the rocks over which we break our selves, or tip toe over carefully enough to not lose our balance.

[Anonymous]

jeriboy wrote:

I could’nt help but think how unreasonable it is to expect any organization, church or other wise, to blab about all perceived misdeeds.

While I understand this point, I think the hangup so many people have is that the organization (as represented by the leaders) preaches honesty, openness, and truth. Hence we expect that from the organization. I don’t expect Microsoft to blab about its misdeeds because I know there are corrupt monopolistic practices in which it engages. I don’t expect Goldman Sachs to blab about its misdeeds because it isn’t in the business of promoting truth and righteousness.

The LDS church, OTOH, does. So I really think it’s a double edged sword. Should we expect the organization that preaches honesty, openness, and truth to be honest, open, and truthful? Well, I guess not because its unreasonable to expect that from any organization (what with humans running them and all). But I can’t blame people who succumb to the social justice myth since we have always been taught, and believed that we ought to be above normal.

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