“My testimony of the truthfulness of the Church is not based on church history!”

That is a common response heard when believing Mormons are confronted with conflicting or controversial accounts from LDS church history, such as Joseph Smith’s proposal to 14 year old Helen Mar Kimball, racist statements of prior prophets, Joseph’s economic tyranny, Joseph’s lies about polygamy, etc.

This response allows the person to ignore those troublesome issues and instead rely on the feelings that they have had, which they believe to be the spirit testifying of the truthfulness of the church (I have addressed these feelings in “The Lies that Bind“). If this denial of the relevance of history is, in fact, correct – then nothing Joseph Smith is ever discovered to have taught, done or said would ever cast any doubt or question about the church he founded.

To an outsider, this is a difficult position to understand. To help members see what I mean, consider that L Ron Hubbard is quoted to have said “Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man really wants to make a million dollars, the best way would be to start his own religion.” Mormons may look at Scientologists who deny this statement or claim that it is irrelevant with no small degree of incredulity.

Member’s denying the implications on the claims of the church from the vagaries of church history usually can’t see how disconnected their perspective may appear to non-mormons or former mormons. If you are someone whose “testimony is not based on Church History” and so you find church history irrelevant to your testimony – then you may find the following scenario instructive:

The Parable of the Church of the KKK

Imagine that 100 years ago the Ku Klux Klan claimed to speak as God’s voice upon the earth, and that the only way that you could be saved and return to the glory of God was to follow their teachings and leaders. They spent decades providing all sorts of scriptural and revelatory justifications for why God did not grant blacks, indians, asians, or other ethnicities the same blessings that white men and women enjoyed. Early leaders, the Grand Dragons, claimed bold revelations to be God’s unchanging law, which decreed that God endorsed and practiced segregation as well as the prohibition of interracial marriage.

The early years of the Klan

A New Face

Now suppose that the KKK, under extreme social and legal pressure, declared one day that new revelations from God decreed that all races were equal in standing before Him. In a remarkable PR move, they downplayed the statements of their prior Grand Dragons and boldly claimed that anyone who made racist or bigoted statements could in no way consider themselves to be a true Klansman. Then they went further – they really cleaned up their image. They ditched the hoods and the burning crosses. They scrubbed all of their manuals, cleaning out any vestige of racist teachings; started adding people of color to all their brochures and commercials. They made sure to teach their members only the good and peaceful things that the early Grand Dragons said. They began to teach that the diversity of races and cultures actually was a blessing to the Klan, and to the earth, and that people who have hardships as a result of their race will be blessed for their ability to endure such trials.

Nice Clean Logo and the New Klan Image!

You Enter the Scene

Then – you are born. You are a black boy or girl in a mixed race family. Your family were devoted klansmen prior to your birth – having joined the Klan after the great PR transformation. You are only exposed to the clean, polished, and socially acceptable teachings of the new Klan. The Grand Dragon is a kindly old man who speaks in soft tones about God’s love for all of mankind. You are surrounded by good people who don’t resemble anything like the Klansmen of a century ago. You feel inspired by the clean image of your fellow Klansmen and the wholesome teachings of your dear Grand Dragon.

Growing up Klan

Now suppose that you grow up and devote much time, effort, and money to the Klan. You go on a mission and recruit others to join the Klan – all the while teaching the cleaned up and wholesome new Klan message. While on your mission, some people try to tell you that the Klan was a racist and violent organization, but you assure them that they are mistaken. After all – you grew up Klan and your experience was nothing like that. You eventually marry a Klanwoman in the Klan Lodgehouse and start a little Klan family of your own. Life is good. You know your place in the world and you feel secure knowing that the Grand Dragon speaks for God. You must simply follow the Grand Dragon, read the Klan writings and have regular family meetings to reinforce Klan teachings.

Missionaries for the kinder, gentler Klan

A Crack Appears

But then one day, while perusing the internet you read about other Klansmen who are leaving the Klan, because they are upset about some historical documents that are now available to everyone, through the miracle of the Internet. Shocked that anyone could turn away from something as beautiful as the loving message of peace that the Ku Klux Klan and its kindly Grand Dragons offer – you decide to do some research, in order to prove them wrong. You rummage intensely through the historical documents – only to discover what the Klan started as. You uncover numerous examples of hateful bigoted discourse by old Grand Dragons, Grand Dragons you had assumed were as meek and loving as the ones you revere today. You even read about calls for violence, and horrific murder committed by early Klan members – motivated by the teachings of the old Grand Dragons.

Introspection – Does History Matter?

You discover all these things and now you must decide – does this history matter? The sterilized and cleaned up version of the clan is what had given you the good feelings that you believed meant the the Klan was true – but the same claimed authority which drives the clan today also produced all of those troubling things in history.

If history really doesn’t matter when it comes to believing the claims of the church – then none of those challenging historical discoveries – or their implications – should be heeded. You should just close the history books and keep on believing.

If, on the other hand, you see that the history of the church of the KKK impeaches the cleaned up modern church of the KKK – then you realize that history actually does matter.

How can you still trust the Grand Dragons, when they tell you that they are the only ones on the earth who speak for God? They must have also been speaking for God back then – because they said so with the same fervor as present. How can you still consider the Klan a divine institution, when they used to advocate the most vile doctrine as the Law of God? Can can you stay in the Klan when it’s only a matter of chance that you happened to be born during its cleaned up years?

What if you had been born in the years of its most vile racist teachings? If they had taught that mixed race marriages meant “death on the spot” then you wouldn’t even have been born. How could you still revere the church as a divine institution headed by men of God?

Conclusion

Remember that any institution can clean up its image and hire great PR firms and graphic designers, and make a really sharp presentation to the world. A corrupt, deceptive organization would do that in order to maintain its hold upon the hearts of its followers.

A corporation or other secular organization could undergo a complete corporate makeover and may be justified in regaining the trust of people who left because of prior shortcomings.

A religion that claims exclusive truth, exclusive authority, and exclusive communication with God is an altogether different matter. Corruption at the level of a self professed mouthpiece of God reveals the entire enterprise to be a deception of men, and no amount of image or doctrinal rehabilitation can restore a divinity and authenticity that was never there in the first place.

In the end, it is not a question of whether your testimony is based on history or not – people may base their testimony on any number of things. The real question is whether the history supports or refutes the claims of the church in which you have a testimony.

If history would matter in the Church of the KKK – then it should also matter in the LDS church.