{"id":1201,"date":"2011-05-30T09:56:11","date_gmt":"2011-05-30T13:56:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/flunkingsainthood\/?p=1201"},"modified":"2011-05-20T04:25:49","modified_gmt":"2011-05-20T08:25:49","slug":"one-year-later-bruce-r-mcconkie%e2%80%99s-mormon-doctrine-buh-bye","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/2011\/05\/one-year-later-bruce-r-mcconkie%e2%80%99s-mormon-doctrine-buh-bye.html","title":{"rendered":"One Year Later, Bruce R. McConkie\u2019s “Mormon Doctrine”: Buh. Bye."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Last week marked the one-year anniversary of the quiet removal of Bruce R. McConkie’s compendium Mormon Doctrine<\/em><\/a> from Deseret booktores. All references to it had already been expunged from the Gospel Principles manual brought back into use for priesthood and Relief Society in 2010. It is no longer officially recognized by the Church.<\/p>\n

Like many Mormons, I have some personal history with this book. When I was baptized into the LDS Church in 1993, the father of a friend gave me a copy <\/em>, carefully inscribed to congratulate me on this momentous step. It looked like a helpful resource with its A to Z organization and comprehensive explanations. I was pleased to have it.<\/p>\n

But then a friend quietly took me aside, looking fairly constipated with anxiety.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know you, and I know you\u2019re actually going to read<\/em> that book,\u201d she told me. \u201cSo I wanted to tell you that just because it is called Mormon Doctrine<\/em>, and it was written by a general authority, doesn\u2019t mean that everything in it is really what the Church teaches now. If you have any questions about anything, anything at all, just come and ask me.\u201d<\/p>\n

This was confusing. This hyper-orthodox Molly Mormon friend was telling me, in her gentle Utah woman\u2019s voice, that a Church general authority was not quite trustworthy as a source of information about the Church. Interesting.<\/p>\n

Boy, was she ever right. When I read the book I found numerous passages I considered offensive, and others that seemed flat-out wrong in their interpretation of the Bible. I was grateful that she had taken the time to warn me and to teach me a valuable lesson: just because something has the veneer of authority does not make it authoritative or true.<\/p>\n

I was very glad to hear the news a year ago that the Church had finally begun to officially disassociate itself with the book. Yet I still worry that the book lives on like that stubborn, garrulous old great-uncle you try to avoid at family reunions. It\u2019s given enduring legitimacy to McConkie\u2019s racism, sexism, and strange interpretations of the Gospel. (Check out a first edition to see his rant about psychology as a tool of the devil. It\u2019s seriously trippy stuff. That was later removed, along with many other things.)<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not like various leaders of the Church haven\u2019t tried their best to downplay the reliability of this book. When it was first published in 1958, its appearance was news to the prophet, David O. McKay<\/a>, because McConkie \u2013 then just a member of the Council of the Seventy \u2013 hadn\u2019t bothered to tell the First Presidency his plans to publish a book claiming to be an encyclopedia of Mormon doctrine. Whoops. McKay and two other apostles (including Marion Romney<\/a>, Mitt’s dad’s cousin) spent over a year studying the book and compiling a report of the \u2013 wait for it \u2013 1,067 <\/em>corrections that needed to be made. The First Presidency ultimately recommended that the book not be given a second edition at all; it was too full of errors and had been \u201ca source of concern to the Brethren ever since it was published.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the Mormon people apparently loved it, and six years later McConkie lobbied the ailing prophet for a second edition. It is not clear that McKay ever authorized it to be published under Church auspices, but McConkie moved forward anyway. (The McConkie family disputes this last claim, and if documents are added to the historical record that demonstrate McKay\u2019s approval of the project, I will stand corrected. I have not yet seen any such evidence.)<\/p>\n

Whether the second edition was authorized or not, the book’s success is history. It was\u00a0 a top backlist performer for Deseret for half a century, even after the Church tried several years ago to supplant Mormon Doctrine<\/em>\u2019s monopoly on the easy-to-use dictionary format with the handy (and free!) little A-Z reference book True to the Faith. <\/em>It helped some, but not entirely.<\/p>\n

There will probably never be an official repudiation of the book. It\u2019s not seen as good form for general authorities to rebuke one another; they\u2019re much too nice for that nowadays. But at times it would save us all a lot of anguish if they would just stand up in General Conference and shout, \u201cElder so-and-so, your book was full of crap!\u201d This kind of thing was done routinely in Joseph Smith\u2019s day. Then he\u2019d excommunicate everybody, they\u2019d say they were sorry and request rebaptism, and they\u2019d all sit down to fried chicken. It felt good to clear the air.<\/p>\n

McConkie is long dead now \u2013 and, to be fair to him, he did issue the equivalent of an \u201cI\u2019m full of crap\u201d statement after Spencer W. Kimball\u2019s 1978 revelation on blacks and the priesthood<\/a>. At that time, McConkie encouraged Latter-day Saints to forget everything he\u2019d ever said about race and people of African descent, since the Church now had further light and knowledge on the subject.<\/p>\n

The trouble is, some didn\u2019t forget. Now, with his book finally off the shelves and lacking the Church\u2019s seeming imprimatur, perhaps they will.<\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week marked the one-year anniversary of the quiet removal of Bruce R. McConkie’s compendium Mormon Doctrine from Deseret booktores. All references to it had already been expunged from the Gospel Principles manual brought back into use for priesthood and Relief Society in 2010. It is no longer officially recognized by the Church. Like many…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":226,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,3],"tags":[365,372,367,302,22,21,220,370,366,368,1144,369,371],"class_list":["post-1201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","category-mormonism","tag-bruce-r-mcconkie","tag-corrections-to-mormon-doctrine","tag-david-o-mckay","tag-deseret-book","tag-flunking-sainthood","tag-jana-riess","tag-lds-church","tag-mormon-bestsellers","tag-mormon-doctrine","tag-mormon-theology","tag-mormonism","tag-mormonism-and-psychology","tag-true-to-the-faith"],"yoast_head":"\nOne Year Later, Bruce R. McConkie\u2019s "Mormon Doctrine": Buh. 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