I write the following not because I do not have a testimony of the Church of Latter-day Saints, which I joined as a 32 year old in 1997, but because I do. I work upon the premise that I am a flawed individual, that every other person is flawed in their own way, and that all groupings of people are flawed, in one way or another. Repentance is the process by which we recognize our flaws and try to do better moving forward. As my children were growing up, I tried to teach them that I knew I was flawed and that sometimes our own flaws are the most difficult to detect and guard against.
Which brings me to my topic, Bruce R. McConkie’s book, “Mormon Doctrine.” The book Mormon Doctrine has been accepted by many, inside and outside of the Church, as an authoritative reference useful in the study of the Church’s teachings regarding the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Bruce R. McConkie’s son, Joseph Fielding McConkie, who wrote a biography of his father, said of his father’s book as to Latter-day Saint readers, “Few books can match it in endurance or number of copies sold. Perhaps few books, except the scriptures, can match it in the frequency with which it has been quoted in talks and lessons by those seeking to teach gospel principles.” At the time of its last printing in 2010, the book had sold hundreds of thousands of copies and gone through 40 printings.
In my own mind, the book Mormon Doctrine has done much to lead astray those both inside and outside the Church who are seeking to understand the message of the Church, and by extension the cause of those seeking to lead others, and themselves, to a deeper understanding of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I want my children to understand my perception of one of the most influential books within the Church.
To be clear, I never met Bruce R. McConkie. I am not nor do I pretend to be an expert on Church history or Church doctrine. I recognize and acknowledge that Mr. McConkie had spent many more years than I studying and memorizing the scriptures and the words of Church leaders. I speak only for myself, and primarily to my children. My fervent wish is that my children embrace and seek to understand the teachings of Jesus Christ.
By way of background, Bruce R. McConkie was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1915. Both his parents were members of the Church. In 1937, Mr. McConkie married Amelia Smith, a fellow student at the University of Utah. The marriage was performed by Amelia’s father, Joseph Fielding Smith. Joseph Fielding Smith was the son of the sixth president of the Church, Joseph F. Smith, the nephew of Joseph Smith, Jr., the first president of the Church, and at the time was serving as an Apostle in the Church. It would be hard to find a more prominent family in the Church to marry into. A few years after his marriage, Mr. McConkie graduated with a law degree from the University of Utah and then served as an intelligence officer during World War II.
Soon after the war ended, while working as a reporter for the Deseret News, Mr. McConkie was called to the First Council of the Seventy of the Church. The First Council of the Seventy is the third highest layer of authority on the earth in the Church. The top layer is the First Presidency, which includes the sitting President and his two counselors. The second layer is the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.
In 1958, Mr. McConkie published his book, “Mormon Doctrine: A Compendium of the Gospel.” In his Preface, Mr. McConkie described his book as “the first major attempt to digest, explain, and analyze all of the important doctrines of the kingdom.” He stated that “never before has a comprehensive attempt been made to define and outline, in a brief manner, all of the basic principles of salvation-and to do it from the perspective of all revelation, both ancient and modern. This work…..is designed to help persons seeking salvation to gain that knowledge of God and his laws without which they cannot hope for an inheritance in the celestial city.”
Mr. McConkie also included in the Preface a disclaimer of sorts which read, “For the work itself, I assume sole and full responsibility.” These words were immediately followed by, “Observant students, however, will note that the standard works of the Church are the chief sources of authority quoted and that literally tens of thousands of scriptural quotations and citations are woven into the text material.”
From the accounts that I have found, the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Church where not aware that Mr. McConkie had written his book, nor had they asked him to do so, nor had they reviewed it prior to its publication. Mr. McConkie’s father-in-law, Joseph Fielding Smith, who was at the time the longest serving member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, did not even find out about the book until after its publication.
In early 1960, the First Presidency under then President David O. McKay, stated that the book “must not be republished, as it is full of errors and misstatements, and it is most unfortunate that it has received such wide circulation. It is reported to us that Brother McConkie has made corrections to his book, and is now preparing another edition. We decided this morning that we do not want him to publish another edition.”
It was agreed that the necessary corrections are so numerous that to republish a corrected edition of the book would be such an extensive repudiation of the original as to destroy the credit of the author; and that the republication of the book should be forbidden and that the book should be repudiated in such a way as to save the career of the author as one of the general Authorities of the Church.
At the request of the First Presidency, Joseph Fielding Smith was told that the First Presidency were “disapproving” of the book “as an authoritative exposition of the principles of the gospel” but that Mr. McConkie “is a General Authority, and we do not want to give him a public rebuke that would be embarrassing to him and lessen his influence with members of the Church.” Joseph Fielding Smith agreed that the book should not be republished and that he would talk with Mr. McConkie.
To be clear, many if not all of the thoughts and opinions expressed by Mr. McConkie in his book did not originate with him, and many of his sources where prior leaders of the Church, but it was Mr. McConkie who decided to publish these writings as the doctrine of the Church and by extension inherent within the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Mr. McConkie’s son in his biography of his father related the following regarding the First Presidency’s reaction to his father’s book.
After writing the chapter “The Mormon Doctrine Saga” [in his biography of his father], I understand what [my father] was teaching me when one day while I was sitting in his office out of the clear blue he said, “When the time comes that you are called in and rebuked for something that you did that was right and proper, you stand and take it, you offer no excuses just take it.”
The book, though, was republished by Mr. McConkie, in 1966, although under exactly what circumstances I do not know. Mr. McConkie’s son states that he knows that President McKay directed his father to reprint his book because, “My father told me that President McKay had so directed him. In addition to that, I am in possession of handwritten papers by my father affirming that direction.” Also, despite the implication earlier that his father thought publishing his book was “right and proper” even after his rebuke by the First Presidency, the son says the “changes between the two editions center on the softening of the tone in which things were said and the selection of things that were commented on. A responsible editor would have caught these things and insisted that they be changed. Much of the flap and fuss about Mormon Doctrine could thereby have been avoided.”
The new addition, although still the work of Mr. McConkie himself and not an official Church publication, did contain many noted changes. Some of the changes where no doubt to correct some of the 1,067 mistakes that Elders Mark E. Petersen and Marion G. Romney noted in the 1958 edition’s 776 pages.
One noted change was from the title page itself. Removed from the second printing was the reference to Mr. McConkie as “Of the First Council of the Seventy, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” Also removed from the Preface was the sentence regarding observant students noting “that the standard works of the Church are the chief sources of authority quoted and that literally tens of thousands of scriptural quotations and citations are woven into the text material.”
The dedication page was also changed. The original dedication page read as follows:
To Oscar W. McConkie, my father, a pillar of spiritual strength, a scriptorian and theologian, who has brought up his children in light and truth and instilled in the heart of each of them a desire for excellence in gospel scholarship.
The 1966 republication read as follows:
To Oscar W. McConkie, my father, a pillar of spiritual strength, a scriptorian and theologian: and to Vivian R. McConkie, my mother, a saintly and spiritual soul whose example and teachings have been Christ-like.
The pages and pages of corrections in the form of deletions and additions are too numerous to relate here. The series of changes I will concentrate on are the deletion of the 1958 edition’s repeated derisive references to the Roman Catholic Church. As someone who was raised Catholic, I chaff at those too willing and quick to condemn in total the Roman Catholic Church. Deleted was Mr. McConkie’s original claim that the “doctrines, traditions, practices and policies of the Catholic Church comprise some of the most wicked of all abominations” and his claim that “the Catholic Church is the papal Babylon,” and “domain of the antichrist.”
Referring to those changes in his father’s book, the younger McConkie said the following:
Question: Did the first edition of Mormon Doctrine cause embarrassment to President McKay?
Response: Yes. The Catholic bishop in Salt Lake City, Bishop Hunt, communicated to President McKay his displeasure with the book and what it said about the Catholic church.
Question: What was Elder McConkie’s reaction to that criticism?
Response: He agreed that what he had written did not facilitate good relations with our Catholic neighbors. He stated, “It wasn’t smart on my part.” He had no reluctance in making the changes he made in the second edition of the book.
Referring again to the changes made between the first and second editions and the suggestions for change in the book made by the Apostle Spencer W. Kimball, the younger McConkie stated his father “was very appreciative. Elder Kimball was a wise mentor who taught him the difference between being right and being appropriate. The fact that something is true does not necessarily mean one ought to say it.”
A number of years after I joined the Church I was in a Sunday School class which referenced the Book of Mormon’s language regarding the “great and abominable church” and “whore of all the earth.” Although I was unfamiliar with the book Mormon Doctrine I had heard through casual conversation that this language referred to the Roman Catholic Church. The teacher of that lesson specifically stated that the language did not refer to any specific church or organization. When I asked the teacher after the lesson, he showed me where the lesson manual specifically stated as such. In writing the Sunday School lesson manuals, the presiding authorities must have decided that it was necessary to counter such non-doctrinaire teachings.
Many Latter-day Saints, including myself, do not agree with those outside the Church who say Latter-day Saints are not Christians. Many Latter-day Saints are offended by such accusations. This is perhaps one of the reasons that Church members have been counseled to move away from using the moniker Mormon and instead to refer to themselves as Latter-day Saints, or even members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Joseph Smith, Jr. and the early Saints had faced many persecutions in their day, in the early 1800’s. This persecution was largely from those in the established religious groups in the area, notably not Roman Catholic, who accused Joseph Smith, Jr. of being a false prophet and the Latter-day Saint movement of not being founded on the principle of continuing revelation, but on the conceits and evil designs of men. Latter-day Saints, then and since, have resented these accusations and characterizations of their religious practices, and, in my opinion, for good reason.
But if it is insulting and divisive, and factually wrong, for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to be called not Christian, how much more so would it be for a Roman Catholic to be told his or her Church is the “domain of the anti-christ”? I cannot imagine that it is pleasing to Our Heavenly Father when His children level such accusations against each other. This was not and is not the teaching of Jesus Christ, and I do not believe of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In Mark 14:38, after Jesus Christ found his apostles sleeping in the Garden of Gethsemane, he said simply, “Watch ye and pray, lest ye enter into temptation. The spirit truly is ready, but the flesh is weak.” He knew of our weaknesses, and sought to help us to overcome them.
If we are to be true followers of Christ, it would seem to me that someone not agreeing with us about every aspect of every teaching of Jesus Christ does not make them not Christian, or the anti-Christ. This sort of all or nothing approach is incredibly damaging to the cause of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. When we hold ourselves or others to a standard which is all or nothing, either we understand and follow Jesus Christ’s teaching with perfection or be damned, then we set before us and others an impossible task.
The all or nothing stance has damaged the cause of Jesus Christ from the beginning, The conflict between the Greek Orthodox Church centered in Constantinople and the Roman Catholic Church centered in Rome is a very significant, if largely forgotten, historical example of the damage done by such mind sets. That most seem to have so little appreciation for the importance to Christendom of the Greek Orthodox Church for the first 1,400 years or so after Christ’s ministry testifies to the utter destruction of Constantinople by the Muslim Turks as a center of the Christian faith, a destruction brought on in part by the constant squabbling with Rome for supremacy in matters of Christian doctrine.
Mr. McConkie’s self-perception not only colored his views of those outside the Church, but within it as well. In 1977, a life-long member named Eugene England was hired as a professor by Brigham Young University. BYU is a Church owned and operated university, directly or indirectly under the supervision of the First Presidency. The Quorum of the Twelve Apostles has a number of members who were former presidents of BYU, including Dallin H. Oaks and Jeffrey R. Holland, while Mr. England taught there. During his 21 years at BYU, in addition to teaching classes on American and Mormon literature, Shakespeare, and the Book of Mormon, he team-taught an intensive Freshman Honors Colloquium.
In the early 1980’s Mr. McConkie, after his call to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in 1972, got in a squabble with Mr. England. In a nutshell, the issue was whether or not Our Heavenly Father was still progressing in knowledge or eternally all knowing. Mr. England argued, based in part on statements made by Brigham Young himself, that Our Heavenly Father was still learning and progressing. Mr. McConkie argued that Our Heavenly Father was all-knowing and therefore could not be gaining in knowledge. One of Mr. McConkie’s most infamous quotes, directed in a letter at Mr. England during this discussion, was made at this time. “It is my province to teach to the Church what the doctrine is. It is your province to echo what I say or to remain silent.” As one member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and not one of the most senior, Mr. McConkie’s use of the pronouns “my” and “I,” instead of “our” and “we” is I think telling.
The damage done by Mr. McConkie’s Mormon Doctrine and his example, both in regards to the relationship between the Church and those outside the Church, and but also between members themselves, is considerable and still being felt. As stated at the beginning of this writing, we are all flawed in our own way and therefore in need of repentance, both as individuals and as groups of individuals. How we, as individuals or as a group of His followers, handle the repentance process will determine whether we progress in our relationships with each other, our understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and our relationship with Our Heavenly Father, or not.