Rating: 
Summary: An LDS Public Relations Hack Spins Mormon History
Review: This book is clearly a response to Mormon America: The Power and the Promise, by Richard and Joan Ostling. Now I will readily admit that this is a serious accusation, and that I will never be able to ever prove a thing, yet it has the "fingerprints" of the LDS Church public relations department all over the book. Consider the following,* The author admits both on the dust jacket and in the preface that he works presently (as he has for nearly a decade) for the LDS Church as an "international public relations officer at world headquarters in Salt Lake City." * The author in the acknowledgments thanks (and I quote) "At the headquarters offices of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint: Brian D. Garner of the Church Educational System, and Ronald O. ("Omivorous") Barney of the Historical department for their close reading of the manuscript, sought for both to keep me accurate and to keep me employed...". This is clearly an admission that continued employment by the LDS Church requires that he not write anything that would displease his employers. * At the end of the book is a "Selected Bibliography"; more likely it should be called a "Selective Bibliography". Only two out of the 18 bibliographic references given were to non-Mormon publishers. AND, even at that, one of the two non-Mormon references was to The Encyclopedia of Mormonism published by Macmillan, but produced under the independent editorial control of Mormon apologist Daniel H. Ludlow (i.e. Macmillan gave Ludlow final say on what went to press). While BYU Studies was mentioned, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Journal of Mormon History and Sunstone were omitted from bibliography. What makes the omission of Dialogue and Suntone odd is that the are mentioned in what passes for footnotes in 3-4 spots in the text (for example, Dialogue is cited on page 145n299, and then again on page 160n330; Sunstone is cited on page 165n339). Yet what most clearly seems to identify this book as a reply to Mormon America is this remark on page xiv. "Those books written by outsiders to the Latter-day Saints' faith and employing a reasonable range of objectivity vary widely in their ability to get it right, to really comprehend LDS thought and doctrine...Those texts written by dissidents, or even by objective outsiders who surrender to some odd compulsion to get their "research" from the mouths of such dissidents, continually end up with the same dirty water, contaminated and dangerously unreliable. (Would you study Catholicism at the knee of a rabbi?)" Admittedly, the endnotes in Mormon America that go on for 30 pages, the Ostlings' include "controversial facts and opinion" about LDS Church history and doctrine (included in their "For Further Reading" section, the Ostlings' include many titles about the same by faithful Latter-day Saints; nearly 6 full pages in all). Unlike the author of Latter Days however, the Ostlings' have more faith and trust in the intelligence of their readers. Additionally, the treatment of two well-known figures from early Mormonism in Latter Days tipped me off to the author's inclination to distort historical fact for partisan religious advantage (and might I add, to the disadvantage of those that can no longer speak for themselves). The first figure is none other than Emma Hale Smith, the wife of Mormon Prophet and Founder, Joseph Smith. Beginning on page 130, the author writes, quoting an early LDS Church leader, "Many people have turned away from the truth because things did not come exactly to suit them...Emma Smith, for example." This is an unalloyed a slur against a woman who, like Hillary Clinton, stood by her man. And Emma was not merely "discomforted" (the adjective the author uses) with the principle of polygamy, she was diametrically opposed to the practice. Indeed, the women's organization (the Relief Society) was disbanded in part because it was being utilized to rally opposition against polygamy. The first president of the Relief Society? Emma Smith. And finally, in one final attempt (and a rather ghoulish one at that) to discredit Emma Smith, the author alleges that in her attempt to make a break from the LDS Church, she attempted to literally take her dead husband with her. And while Mary Fielding Smith, the widow of Hyrum Smith, Josephs' brother that was killed along with him at the same time, was not invited to a private reburial of the their bodies, she did know for a fact of the whereabouts. The primary consideration of Emma here was that the bodies of Joseph and Hyrum not be dug up and desecrated by their enemies. The other individual that comes in for rough treatment is Oliver Cowdery, the scribe for Smith during the "translation" of the Book of Mormon, the Second Elder and Assistant President of the LDS Church. Starting on page 86, the author writes that "by midsummer, the threats to the church were not only external but internal. Four church officers, including...Oliver Cowdery were found profiting from funds designated for helping the poor incoming settlers, and excommunicated. In his own way, each began to retaliate." Since the author does not state who the other three church officers were, nor does he even so much as leave a citation to this unsubstantiated allegation, we the readers are left to wonder. Nor is the author any more specific about how "each began to retaliate." Please, if you want to learn more about LDS Church history and doctrine, there are many titles available to choose from, even some by faithful, believing and observant members of the Church. One such book, The Mormon Experience: A History of Latter-Day Saints, by Leonard Arrington (now deceased) and Davis Bitton (and published by the more discriminating University of Illinois Press) available from Amazon, not only cost less (so you can do like I do and buy more books from Amazon), but is a more balanced account of LDS Church history and doctrine. END
| 
