By Jerald and Sandra Tanner
Since we began our work in the early 1960s, a great deal of historical information has come to light which shows that Mormonism is not based upon a solid foundation. The General Authorities of the Church could not deal with the problems and called upon the historians hoping that they could provide some answers. Leonard J. Arrington was called to be Church Historian and a whole crew of professionally trained people began working with the documents. Unfortunately for the Church, however, the results were disastrous.
As the historians began their work, they saw that the problems were much deeper than anyone had ever realized. Instead of providing additional evidence for the Church, the original foundational documents proved to be very embarrassing. Some of the prominent historians, therefore, began to lose faith in the Church and to search for some type of “middle ground.” At first the Mormon leaders seemed to be oblivious to what was happening, but as time went on they began to comprehend the gravity of the situation. As we indicated earlier, they finally suppressed the 16-volume sesquicentennial history, moved “the Historical Department from the main source of manuscripts at Church Headquarters in Salt Lake City to BYU,” and released Leonard J. Arrington as Church Historian. The Church leaders apparently realize that Dr. Arrington is too prominent a man to publicly take issue with, but they hope that his influence will gradually be dissolved. On March 14, 1982, the Seventh East Press printed the following:
Along one hall on the second floor [of] the Church Historical Department (LDS Church Office Building) hang portraits of LDS Church Historians from the beginning down to Elder G. Homer Durham. Interestingly, however, there is no portrait of Leonard J. Arrington.
The same issue of Seventh East Press reported:
In a recent lecture . . . James L. Clayton . . . announced that Dr. Leonard J. Arrington has been dismissed as LDS Church Historian. . . . Reliable sources report that Elder G. Homer Durham, member of the presidency of the First Quorum of Seventies, has been set apart as the new Church Historian.
Although the Church has made no official announcement, the Sunstone Review for May 1982, asserted that “Elder G. Homer Durham . . . was called and set apart as Church Historian on February 2.” If this report is true, it is certainly a very strange procedure. Dr. Arrington was publicly “sustained in the April 1972 General Conference” (Ibid.), but no announcement was ever made by the Church that he had been released. Durham, on the other hand, apparently replaced Arrington without being publicly sustained in the April 1982 conference. This seems to be a rather underhanded way of removing Dr. Arrington from his position.
In any case, in “a draft of the first chapter of a manuscript for a book entitled No Middle Ground,” Professor Louis C. Midgley, of Brigham Young University, has accused some Mormon historians of “caving in” on the vital issues:
I wish to show that what is behind the writing of at least some recent Mormon history is a rash and unnecessary caving in on crucial issues. . . . I would prefer to see Mormon history written with an eye to building and defending the Kingdom of God; it is a grave mistake for a Mormon to do otherwise. (“The Question of Faith and History,” pages 1 and 2)
Professor Midgley maintains that it is impossible for Mormon leaders to take a neutral position with regard to Joseph Smith:
Mormon historians who attempt to account for Joseph and the restoration with one of the “countless options” of Professor Marty’s middle ground between genuine prophet and fraud will have invoked theories that necessarily entail a problematic competing “religious” faith . . . from the point of view of the Mormon faithful . . . any explanation of Joseph’s prophetic claims that does not accept him as a genuine prophet has in effect rejected him as a fraud: there is no real middle ground between those alternatives. All of the “countless options” available to explain what might have caused Joseph to claim prophetic revelations other than God end up being just different versions of the fraud thesis. To substitute illusion, delusion or madness for conscious fraud (or charlatan) is obviously destructive to the Mormon faith. For the Mormon historian to toy with one of these “countless options” is therefore tantamount to rejecting Joseph’s prophetic claims. To explain Joseph’s revelations (for example, the Book of Mormon, Book of Moses, Book of Abraham) as mere products of culture is an act of treason; it would amount to handing over the sacred texts to the enemy by treating these texts as somehow merely the invention of Joseph Smith. . . . The gentiles . . . have now offered what they believe is a choice different than that of prophet or fraud: they propose a choice between prophet and product of culture. As I will show, these product-of-culture explanations make it next to impossible for the historian, or those influenced by his explanations, to take the gospel seriously; they are also only nice ways of saying fraud.
The Mormon position has always been to argue that on the decisive question of the veracity of Joseph’s prophetic revelations there are only two alternatives: he was either a genuine prophet or a base fraud. . . .
But are Mormon historians now really tempted by the New Chicago Argument? Are Mormons really interested in reaching such an accommodation with secular and gentile historians? Are Mormon historians now busy grasping for a middle ground between prophet and fraud in their accounts of Joseph Smith and the Restored Gospel? The answer is yes! . . . Certain Mormon historians—the New Mormon Apologists, armed with the Chicago Argument—are busy attempting to discover a safe middle ground—a kind of neutral territory—somewhere between divine revelation on the one hand and outrageous fraud on the other; . . .
Clearly one would have no interest in such detachment or neutrality unless one began with a premise that in effect denied the possibility that the Saints have had access to genuine prophetic revelation. . . . the history of the Mormon community would be, in the hands of the New Apologists, only the story of a people guided by an illusion, and the telling of that story would have as its end the utter disillusionment of that people. . . .
The real challenge to the Restored Gospel is not with the findings; or theories of some special science, but with history . . . Is it not with historical questions or with an examination of historical documents or artifacts where the attack on the Restored Gospel always begins and where the greatest difficulties arise? The pressure of such questions has taken its toll on Mormon historians. The suggestion is currently being advanced, sometimes in a rather cautious and indirect manner by the New Mormon Apologists, that it is now both necessary and even quite proper to abandon the old notions such as the belief that the Book of Mormon and the special revelations of Joseph Smith are genuinely prophetic. . . . some have been quick to assume that the battle for the capital has been decided and that Mormon faith has finally lost the war. . . . The New Mormon Apologists have thus striven to show that there is nothing in the Book of Mormon or the early teachings of Joseph Smith that was not wholly typical of the sectarian religious background of New England and western New York. . . . Those who now toy with various so-called middle-ground alternative explanations of the restoration have probably not worked out the implications of their endeavor or sensed the grave risks involved in their project—that seems to be the common problem . . . There is no way around the fundamental controversy about his [Smith’s] claims to some neutral or middle ground somewhere between the traditional alternatives of prophet or fraud. A neutral or presumably “objective” explanation would not be a genuinely higher ground. To attempt such a maneuver is to enter the darkness of a night in which all cats are grey. (Ibid., pages 16-19, 21-23 and 28)
Davis Bitton, who used to serve as Assistant Church Historian under Leonard Arrington, commented on Midgley’s paper. Midgley responded by accusing Professor Bitton of defending the idea of a “middle ground between prophet and fraud.” He went on to stress that
The substantive arguments that propose to be “middle-ground” explanations have, up to this point, all turned out to be merely rather obvious variations on the fraud thesis. (“The San Antonio Discussion On Mormon Historiography,” page 8)
Jan Shipps also commented on Midgley’s paper. In reply, Midgley said that
Professor Shipps’ passion to defend the “club members” in the Mormon History Association from serious criticism has led her into the land of murky distinctions. . . . (Ibid., page 13)
On page 10 of the same paper, Midgley claimed that Shipps’ “hero is none other than Leonard J. Arrington”—the man who was recently released from his position as Church Historian. Midgley went to say that “Hugh Nibley is a hero and Fawn Brodie a villain in my plot. I think that Jan Shipps is somehow offended because she senses that my hero is not Leonard J. Arrington. I must have violated a club rule.” (Ibid., page 15)
While Professor Midgley finds it easy to condemn Mormon historians, he probably does not realize the serious problems they are facing. Most of them would probably be elated to find evidence that Joseph Smith was a true prophet. The documents, however, point in the opposite direction. Under these circumstances, we can understand why Mormon historians would try to find a neutral position. Midgley, of course, is correct in saying there is really no middle ground. As the Mormon Apostle Orson Pratt once said,
The Book of Mormon . . . must be either true or false. If true, it is one of the most important messages ever sent from God. . . . If false, it is one of the most cunning, wicked, bold, deep-laid impositions ever palmed upon the world, calculated to deceive and ruin millions. . . . (Orson Pratt’s Works, “Divine Authenticity of the Book of Mormon,” 1851, page 1)
Although some of the historians now agree with us that the Book of Mormon was not really translated from gold plates, they feel that we have been too harsh on Joseph Smith in our publications. Actually, the question of whether Joseph Smith was self-deceived, a deliberate impostor or a combination of both is one that is very difficult to answer. We do not pretend to know what was going on in his mind, and therefore we do not claim to have the final solution to this problem.
If the historians prefer to believe that Joseph Smith was a “well-meaning but mistaken” man, we will not spend a great deal of time arguing about the matter. The important thing is whether Smith actually had gold plates written by the ancient Nephites. If he did not, then the whole foundation of Mormonism collapses.
In our book, Mormonism—Shadow or Reality? we deal at great length with the question of the origin of Mormonism. Through quotations and photographs from hundreds of printed sources and original documents, we prove conclusively that Mormonism is based on a sandy foundation. The 1972 edition of Mormonism—Shadow or Reality? was proclaimed by Wesley P. Walters to be “the most definitive work in print on the fallacies of Mormonism.”
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