"Some Things Are True That Are Not Very Useful"

Another day I call and never speak
And you would say nothing's changed at all
And I can't feel much hope for anything
If I won't be there to catch you if you fall

Oh again
It seems we meet
In the spaces
In between
We always say
It won't be long
Oh but something's always wrong

Another game of putting things aside
As if we'll come back to them some time
A brace of hope, a pride of innocence
And you would say something has gone wrong

Oh again
It seems we meet
In the spaces
In between
We always say
It won't be long

Oh but something's always wrong 

[Toad The Wet Sprocket - "Something's Always Wrong"] 

The next milepost in my faith journey came in late 2007. I was a young father, still only a few years out of law school, trying to balance the increasing demands on my time at work, at home, and at church. Because of the recommendation of a trusted friend, I decided to brave Rough Stone Rolling — the new biography of Joseph Smith making waves in Mormon circles. The book, while unabashedly apologetic, was my first confrontation with troubling historical details about the prophet (details that I couldn’t automatically dismiss), which threatened Joseph’s heroic portrayal in the faith.

 

Up to this point, that heroic portrayal had been the only version of Joseph I had known. And reading of this other version of the man was jarring, traumatic even.

 

My testimony survived the ordeal (for a long while yet). And eventually, I even told some that the experience had strengthened my belief in God and his church — though I think that claim was more aspirational than objectively true. Either way, this marked the beginning of my shift toward a more nuanced faith.

 

Work-Life Balance

 

In the fall of 2007, Michelle and I were living in La Mesa, California. Our little family had grown to four, and we were renting a small two bedroom apartment across the street from the Amaya trolley stop. We'd been in that rather dark apartment nearly a year, after opting to leave behind the billable hour, as well as a near perfect ward and community in Irvine (about 90 miles north).

The Clark Family - 2007

I was now a fledgling federal prosecutor in San Diego — the job I'd hoped for since my first year of law school. Michelle, in a selfless gesture I didn’t fully appreciate at the time, had supported the career move, even though it meant a drastic pay cut and leaving behind a network of friends.

 

I’ve always said that it felt like I'd won the lottery landing that job. But even with my good fortune, I still faced plenty of road bumps those first few years. In fact, I remember an awful lot of morning trolley rides into work feeling a pit in my stomach about the coming day.

 

Some of that was surely just part and parcel with acclimating to my new responsibilities (and my near perpetual fear of screwing something up). Some of it, too, was simply because I was an introvert amongst what seemed to be a sea of extroverts in the office — most of whom appeared to connect with each other (and the work) so much faster than I did.

 

Additionally, though, I felt intense pressure (mostly internal but not always) to get home on time, to try to relieve an often frazzled wife who'd spent the day in our dingy apartment with two very active toddlers.

 

Granted, I had sold Michelle on the notion that my career move meant I’d reliably be home more often. And to be clear, I wanted to be home spending time with her and our kids. But there was a bit more to it.

 

I've written before about how the church's (God's) ideal of stay-at-home motherhood proved difficult for Michelle — how she faithfully lived the ideal, despite the ideal often leaving her hollow and unfulfilled. These frustrations came on top of the difficulties inherent in rearing toddlers full-time, so Michelle understandably dealt with bouts of unhappiness that often turned into outright depression.

 

Michelle's nagging melancholy, especially in contrast to my idyllic career pursuit, often left me guilt-ridden.

 

Beyond the guilt, though, Michelle's persistent unhappiness felt like my responsibility. And taking on that responsibility was, after all, how I understood marriages were supposed to work — even when her unhappiness wasn’t my fault. [In this, I took cues from prophetic counsel, among other things.] In fact, in the years we’d been together, I had rather prided myself on the lengths I could and would go for Michelle’s comfort and happiness.

 

But my efforts never seemed to be enough to "fix" things for Michelle — at least not in the long term. And no matter how hard I tried, I typically felt like I was still, somehow, falling short.  

 

[In marriage counseling years later, I’d learn the term for this: co-dependency. Turns out it’s not a healthy approach to relationships.]

 

So, while my colleagues (few of whom had young kids) seemed contented and willing to stick around the office as long as necessary, I rarely felt like I could. Short of a trial or some emergency, I was out the door by 5 pm each evening with almost religious devotion — racing to catch the 5:10 trolley home.

 

All of this probably helps explain why I spent those first few years at the US Attorney’s Office mostly feeling like I was a step or two behind my peers.

 

To be sure, I don’t mean to suggest that we didn’t still have lots of happy memories from that time period. These were some of the golden years with our kids, when they were still small enough to beg me to play "Daddy's Lion," and when they demanded bedtime stories and songs. In these years, they also delighted to “sneak” out with me for donuts, or to the grocery store, hunting sales on cold cereal and hidden delights on the day-old bakery rack. And because we had a ground floor apartment, these were the days we could wear out our little ones near bedtime with energetic family dance parties.

 

Jared and Emily - 2007

My daily journal entries from this time period are filled with so many precious moments with the kids. For example, one Sunday, as I sat in Sunday School with little Emily on my lap (still too young even for the nursery), I felt a wave of sadness to realize she had to grow up — that she’d soon enough be off to nursery and too big to sit contentedly on my lap. I wanted time to stand still with my daughter. And because I knew it wouldn’t, I mourned the inevitable loss of my little girl.

 

Church Responsibilities

 

On top of my responsibilities at work and at home, I was also the 2nd counselor in our ward's new bishopric. That calling had come as quite the surprise because we were still so new to the ward, and because I hardly talked to anyone at church. [In fact, I’d said little more than “hello” to the man called to be bishop, but I was still somehow on his radar (likely from bearing my testimony on fast Sundays)].

 

The calling initially felt like great spiritual reassurance — God’s way of telling me I was on the right track!  The bishop was such a good man, too, and his other counselor so fun to joke with. I also kind of liked planning out and conducting Sacrament meetings, as well as having a voice on issues facing the ward.

 

[I was less thrilled with all of the extra meetings, and having to extend callings and ask people to speak].   

 

The calling, though, soon became yet another area where I felt I was falling short. This was because one of my chief assignments was over the youth programs in the ward, and it seemed I could never give that assignment enough time or energy to satisfy anyone. [I know this because youth leaders would sometimes tell the bishop as much]. It didn't help that I really didn’t enjoy camp outs, but I enjoyed even less the idea of leaving Michelle at home on weekends to care for the kids by herself. So I usually found reasons to avoid the monthly campouts, and I also ducked out of the weeknight gatherings as often as I could.

 

When it came down to it, I was just terribly reluctant to be away from home any more than I had to be.

 

In one journal entry from this time period, I described missing a weeknight bishopric meeting because Michelle had been sick. The bishop called afterward to fill me in, and in that conversation, I ended up admitting that I felt terrible about my failings with the youth. The bishop didn’t contradict me, but he still expressed appreciation for my “grounding in the gospel” and the support I had given him.

 

It felt like a timely expression of gratitude, because I often sensed in those days that I was failing in all the areas of my life that mattered.

 

In fact, even now when I think back on that time period, I can still feel the heaviness of those years, the feeling that I was barely hanging on.

 

The upside of that heaviness was that it made me especially solicitous of Heaven. I knew I needed God's help, so I approached daily scripture study less out of obligation than sheer desperation — desperation to hear God’s voice of comfort and counsel, to win his favor through faithfulness, and to merit his forgiveness, support, and protection. Michelle and I together tried to do all the things we knew: dutiful weekly family home evenings, nightly family prayer and scripture study, keeping the Sabbath day holy, paying tithing and fast offerings, and faithfully ministering to our home and visiting teaching families. And on those rare occasions when we had the forethought and energy, we tried to attend the temple.

 

But more than all this, in what truly felt like one of the greatest sacrifices of my life, I also gave up watching my favorite TV show, Lost, midway through the third season — when I could no longer rationalize away the nudges (from God) that some of the content was inappropriate.

 

[I’m not kidding about how hard that was.]

 

When the calling into the bishopric came a few weeks later, the timing left me with the strong suspicion that it was because I had followed the prompting to stop watching Lost.

 

***

 

While we lived in La Mesa, Michelle and I made friends with a few couples in the ward. One friend of mine was the ward mission leader and a Church Education System (CES) institute teacher [i.e., he was a church employee, paid to teach religion classes near Grossmont college]. This friend was extroverted in all the ways I wasn't, and he seemed as willing as anyone to share the message of our faith at every opportunity (and watching him work often left me feeling guilty because I wasn't also sidling up to strangers in hospital waiting rooms and handing them “pass along” cards about the church). We weren’t the best of friends (Michelle was closer with his wife), but the two of us had bonded over discussions of church doctrine, and the "secret" retracted talks of Boyd K. Packer.

 

The Joseph Smith I Knew

 

The next part of the narrative requires a bit of background.

 

I had grown up in the faith only ever reading and hearing stories of an idealized version of Joseph Smith. This version of him came through in his own history (canonized in a volume of LDS scripture, the Pearl of Great Price), his mother's biography of him, and other correlated materials.

 

Joseph was the young boy who, facing a painful leg operation, had refused alcohol as a form of anesthesia. He insisted he could make it through the operation if only his father held him. 

 

At 14 years old in Upstate New York, Joseph felt intense interest and confusion over religion. He wanted to know which church he should join. After reading in the New Testament (James 1:5) that he could ask God, who "giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not," Joseph set out to the nearby woods to pray. There, he asked God which church he should join, and in response, experienced the "First Vision." According to the canonized version of that vision, Joseph saw both God the Father and Jesus Christ. They told Joseph that he should not join any of churches of the day — "for they were all wrong" and "all their creeds were an abomination in [God's] sight" and their "professors were all corrupt."

 

As I had always known it, the boy Joseph thereafter experienced persecution from pastors and townsfolk, who derided him simply for claiming to have seen a vision.

 

A few years later, Joseph had another vision as he knelt in his bedroom one night, seeking forgiveness for his sins. This time, an angel visited him (several times over the course of the evening), giving various instructions. Among those instructions, the angel revealed the location of gold plates, buried in a nearby hillside. The plates contained the record of ancient inhabitants and their dealings with God.

 

After four years, the angel allowed Joseph to retrieve and translate the plates by the "gift and power of God." That record became scripture known as The Book of Mormon.

Church Magazine Cover Art Depicting Joseph's Translation of the Gold Plates - 2001

God thereafter instructed Joseph to restore his church to the earth (it had been lost millennia earlier through apostasy), and he became the church's first president and prophet. As prophet, he received additional revelations (that mostly comprise the Doctrine & Covenants), translated ancient Egyptian papyri (now the Book of Abraham in the Pearl of Great Price), and even rendered his own "inspired" translation of the Bible.

 

A loving husband and father, the Joseph Smith I knew was the man pulled from his home at night by an angry mob, who tarred and feathered him. After spending the night cleaning up and nursing his wounds, Joseph preached a sermon the next day on God's love and forgiveness (with several in the congregation who had been part of the mob the night before).

 

Joseph didn't claim to be perfect, but there seemed to be a perfection even in the way the stories and scriptures framed his acknowledgment of imperfections.  

 

Joseph was God's prophet on the earth, tasked with restoring God's true church, priesthood, and ordinances to prepare for Jesus Christ's Second Coming. In God's revelations (through Joseph), God had promised to "stand by [Joseph] forever and ever" and that his people "shall never be turned against [Joseph] by the testimony of traitors." [D&C 122:3-4].

 

After Joseph's martyrdom at Carthage jail, future church president John Taylor wrote (in what's now canonized in D&C 135) that Joseph "has done more, save Jesus only, for the salvation of men in this world than any other man that ever lived in it."

 

Among the hymns we sang in church, there is this vigorous ode to Joseph, "Praise to Man" (written by Joseph's friend, William W. Phelps), that includes these stirring lines:

 

Praise to the man who communed with Jehovah!

Jesus anointed that Prophet and Seer.

Blessed to open the last dispensation.

Kings shall extol him, and nations revere

 

Praise to his memory he died as a martyr;

Honored and blessed be his ever great name!

Long shall his blood, which was shed by assassins

Plead unto heav'n while the earth lauds his fame

 

Great is his glory and endless his priesthood.

Ever and ever the keys he will hold

Faithful and true, he will enter his kingdom

Crowned in the midst of the prophets of old.

 

With each verse, there is also this rousing chorus:

 

Hail to the Prophet, ascended to heaven!

Traitors and tyrants now fight him in vain.

Mingling with Gods, he can plan for his brethren;

Death cannot conquer the hero again.

 

The Joseph Smith that I read of and knew, whose stories had been told to me at home, at church, in the scriptures, and in general conference was, indeed, a hero. In fact, by all accounts I had ever known, he was a hero among heroes. And while I would have vehemently denied that we worshipped him, our praise and veneration of the man probably came as near as possible to worship without crossing the line.

 

It's hardly a coincidence that this is the exact version of Joseph on display in this church produced, hour-long movie of his life (that shows in the Legacy Theater in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building on Temple Square).

 

From all I knew of the man, I idolized Joseph (in the non-idolatrous sense). I wanted to be like him, and I was willing to give my life for the church he restored.

 

"Some Things Are True That Are Not Very Useful"

 

I've mentioned this before, but for my daily religious study, I relied almost exclusively on correlated materials provided by the church: the four volumes of scripture, sermons from the semi-annual general conferences, church lesson manuals, and monthly magazines. This was by design and in keeping with prophetic counsel. These were, after all, the materials that would help draw me nearest to God and keep the Holy Ghost's companionship.

 

For better or worse, beyond these daily efforts, I had little time or appetite for studying church history (outside of what I found in these resources). I didn't necessarily begrudge those who did, but I personally didn't see how church history would help with what I needed. 

 

I had long since accepted that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was God's one true church on the earth (I had felt that repeatedly over the years), and that the gospel of Jesus Christ (as preached through Mormonism) was the one path to happiness in this life and the next. So I had no interest in anything that threatened that certainty.

 

Honestly, I just wanted help with being a good husband and father — to lay claim to the promised blessings of peace and fulfillment (that almost always seemed to elude me) in my marriage and family. Arcane tidbits from church history weren't likely to help much with that.

 

In fact, I often used to (almost) boast that I would only get around to studying church history after I had figured out charity. Until then, I had little use for it.

 

It didn't help any that I'd also been conditioned by apostle Boyd K. Packer to be wary of anything but the most faith-promoting presentation of church history. A World War II veteran and seminary teacher before becoming a church general authority in 1961, Packer helped steer the church away from intellectual rigor toward the primacy of feelings in determining spiritual truths.

 

In a famous 1981 address to church educators, Packer, then an apostle, pushed for believing historians and educators to avoid objectivity when writing and teaching church history. As he viewed it, they were to be advocates (akin to attorneys representing the church), responsible for building faith. In that role, he argued, it would be a "breach of ethics, or integrity, or morality" to "collect[] evidence" [of unfavorable facts of church and its leaders] and pass that information along to "the enemy."

 

For Packer, this meant the church historian and educator had a moral obligation to leave out stories and facts that could undermine faith — that contradicted the correlated narrative of church history: "There is a temptation for the writer or the teacher of Church history to want to tell everything, whether it is worthy or faith promoting or not. Some things that are true are not very useful." (emphasis added).

 

[Packer apparently wasn't considering the obligations of criminal prosecutors among the advocates he references. A prosecutor’s obligation is to pursue zealous advocacy and objective truth. They are also required, under caselaw interpreting the  Constitution, to pass along to "the enemy" evidence that is unfavorable to their case. In fact it is a dangerous "breach of ethics, or integrity, or morality" to withhold such information. Why? Because the law recognizes that, whatever one’s motives, intentionally withholding negative or contradictory information presents a distorted reality and works a deception. This is true in criminal cases when someone's liberty is usually at stake. Should it be any less the case with those claiming to hold the keys to our eternal salvation?]

 

Packer at one point recounted an incident with a church historian, presenting to college students, who "introduced many so-called facts that put [the prophet] in a very unfavorable light." Packer inferred that this historian's "purpose" was to persuade the audience that the prophet "was a man subject to the foibles of men." This approach may have weakened or destroyed faith, and it "[took] something away from the memory of a prophet." Packer further claimed the historian "was determined" "to prove that the prophet was a man."

 

Packer, instead, wanted historians who could "convince us that the man was a prophet." (emphasis in original).

 

He then warned that historians who "injure the Church" or destroy faith with this kind of "advanced history" put themselves in "spiritual jeopardy." And if they are members of the church "[they have] broken [their] covenants and will be held accountable." If one does so and is also employed by the church, they "accommodate the enemy" and are "a traitor to the cause."

 

Packer was not alone in this sort of preaching in the 80's. Four years later, apostle Dallin H. Oaks (now a counselor in the First Presidency), made similar remarks in a speech at BYU. Starting at about 16:25 in the audio, Oaks claimed that "truth can be used unrighteously," including by "persons who make true statements out of an evil motive, such as those who seek to injure another…." Echoing Packer's remarks, Oaks preached that “the fact that something is true is not always justification for communicating it.” He then offered specific counsel to "readers of history and biography": “...some things that are true are not edifying or appropriate to communicate. Readers of history and biography should ponder that moral reality as part of their efforts to understand the significance of what they read.”

 

Additionally, then apostle (now prophet and church president) Russell M. Nelson was even more explicit. In remarks only a few weeks after Oaks', Nelson flatly observed, "Some truths are best left unsaid." Invoking his mother's instruction, "Russell, if you can't say something nice about someone, say nothing," Nelson excoriates historians who publish unflattering truths about venerated historical figures:

 

We now live in a season in which some self-serving historians grovel for “truth” that would defame the dead and the defenseless. Some may be tempted to undermine what is sacred to others, or diminish the esteem of honored names, or demean the efforts of revered individuals. They seem to forget that the greatness of the very lives they examine is what endows the historian’s work with any interest.

 

For Nelson, absent a "righteous" motive, the scrupulous historian should remain silent about any character flaws she unearths while researching "honored names" and "revered individuals."

 

***

 

In 2007, I wasn't aware of the remarks by Nelson and Oaks on the subject. Packer's, though, were prominent (they remain part of the preservice readings for seminary teachers), and it would be hard to overstate the effect of Packer's words on my mindset.

 

Again, I had been raised not to question church leaders, rather to prove my faithfulness by adopting and defending their teachings. Packer's commentary, in fact, seemed to confirm my approach in limiting my religious studies to church authored/approved materials.

 

This is my best explanation, anyway, for why I somehow didn't even raise an eyebrow at the idea that fostering faith in God's one true church sometimes required hiding facts about its history.  

 

Rough Stone Rolling

 

In 2005, Richard Bushman, a Columbia University history professor and faithful church member, published Rough Stone Rolling, a "cultural biography" on Joseph Smith. Coming in at nearly 600 pages (plus footnotes), the book is a lengthy and, by many accounts, definitive biography of Mormonism's founder. In fact, even the church owned newspaper promoted the book, and it could be purchased at church owned bookstores. 

 

This was not a small thing, since, as the comments above suggest, Mormons tend to be wary of any treatment of church history that is not authored (or at least approved) by the church — any narrative that threatens the correlated history we'd grown up with.

 

I had been loosely aware of the book, noting in one journal entry that reviews I'd read praised it "for revealing the prophet's weaknesses and bring[ing] him down from the pedestal of perfection we Mormons are wont to set (and keep) him on."

 

As I noted above, though, I had little interest in knowing Joseph's weaknesses and mistakes — I didn't want to bring him "down to my level." In that same journal entry, I expressed my reticence about reading the book because I much preferred "[Joseph] were able to stay up on that pedestal and help raise me up to his."

 

The church's apparent blessing of the book, though, offered needed reassurance that it was "safe," meaning it wouldn't undermine my testimony of Joseph Smith as God's prophet, seer, and revelator.

 

***

 

This is where the narrative picks up for me again in late October 2007. My CES friend was effusive about Rough Stone Rolling (in the way that perhaps only seminary and institute teachers can be), and told me about how much the book had strengthened his testimony of Joseph Smith as a prophet, seer, and revelator.

 

I reluctantly decided to give the book a try. After purchasing it, I began reading it on my trolley rides home from work.

 

In his preface, Bushman further seemed put my believing heart at ease, describing himself as a "believing historian" and confessing that, for him, "pure objectivity is impossible" (here he was speaking Packer's language). Bushman told readers that he had written the book from an "irenic" viewpoint, which meant he would describe Joseph’s visions and revelations as if they actually occurred. Taking Joseph at his word, Bushman claimed, would give readers “unimpeded access to [Joseph’s] mind.”

 

In this same preface, though, he also sounded alarm bells for me. Bushman noted that he intended to "look frankly at all sides of Joseph Smith, facing up to his mistakes and flaws."  Apparently sensing the need to justify this approach to some readers, Bushman offered that "Flawless characters are neither attractive nor useful. We want to meet a real person." In apparent contravention of Packer's and Nelson's direction, Bushman further observed, "Covering up errors makes no sense in any case."

 

I honestly wasn't so sure.

 

Very quickly, the contents of the book unsettled me. In my journal entries, I started wondering openly whether I really wanted to finish it. Bushman's position as a faithful, believing member made the contents impossible to dismiss (I noted that there was no "mal intent" with the book), but I found it so difficult to read about the prophet's apparent flaws.

 

I also found Bushman's detached descriptions of certain spiritual events (“perfunctory” is the word I used in my journal) to itself be damaging. For instance, Bushman described the revelations as "Joseph's" and discussed the development of his “prophetic voice” (e.g., “The speaker stands above and outside Joseph, sharply separated emotionally and intellectually.”)  In my apparent naiveté, I'd never thought of the canonized revelations as Joseph’s — they were God’s revelations to Joseph. And the very idea that Joseph’s voice would be in them at all (that he had done anything more than, essentially, take dictation from God) tended to diminish the revelations to me, at least back then.

 

Hardly a week into reading it, I wrote in my journal, "A part of me tonight is wishing I had never picked up that Bushman book."

 

Two weeks into the effort (I am not a fast reader), I couldn't handle the book's contents any longer. Details of a culture of magic and mysticism mixed with Christian religion (a culture to which the Smiths seemed at least as susceptible as many others in the region), of a family prone to believing tales of buried treasure guarded by Native American spirits, of Joseph's use of peep stones to try to locate this treasure, of multiple accounts of the First Vision (though the book still obfuscates any serious discrepancies), and Joseph's apparent use of one of these peep stones in a hat to translate the gold plates (as opposed to the correlated narrative and images of Joseph interpreting characters on the plates as he read them) — these and so many other new "facts" left me very, very uneasy.

 

I felt darkness, not light, as I read and the narrative slowly chipped away at my heroic image of Joseph Smith. [And I hadn't even gotten to discussions of a possible affair with (and his first plural marriage to) Fanny Alger, or Joseph's extensive practice of polygamy and polyandry (marrying women still married to other men), of which Bushman offers precious little detail by comparison].

 

I'd been taught that those dark feelings meant the absence of the Holy Ghost (that it had “withdrawn” from me), and was God's way of telling me when something was not true.

 

Except, how could these things not be true, given Bushman's care as a "believing historian" and the church's promotion of the book?

 

[I recognize now that those "dark" feelings were the result of cognitive dissonance, which is typical when one confronts information that threatens their worldview or deeply held beliefs — the more deeply held the belief, the darker those initial feelings.]

 

In my journal entry on November 14, 2007, I described and tried to justify my decision to abandon the book. Feeling pulled in competing directions, I pointed to difficulties with the "scholarly tone" of the book, even though Bushman still credited Joseph's claims of divinity.

 

[Looking back over the book now, what stands out is how little attention (and how much justification) Bushman gives to some of the more controversial aspects of Joseph's history. For one critique of what's missing from Bushman's work, including the limitations of taking the subject at his word, I suggest this brief commentary from (non-believing) historian Dan Vogel. Vogel's own work on Joseph Smith would later be one of the final blows to my faith].

Here is an excerpt from that agonizing journal entry, and note again the clear influence of Packer's remarks on my thought process (and my wrestle with the obvious incongruity):

 

Almost from the moment I started reading the book, I didn't like where it took me or the thoughts it lead me to.  I've had a hard time putting my finger on why, and fought against the feeling over and over again that I should abandon the book.  When pressed, I couldn't give a good reason for putting it down, except that something doesn't feel quite right about what I'm reading.  I'm not keen on the perfunctory tone in which spiritual experiences or events are described, and I don't really like hashing through Joseph's apparent weaknesses or the authenticity of the Book of Mormon.  Yet even collectively, I can't be sure that's exactly why.  Abandoning the book makes me feel like an intellectual coward.  I want to know about Joseph's life, but I don't want a "balanced" book.  I realized last night, though, that reading the book has made it harder for me to feel the Holy Ghost, and after talking about things with Michelle — that settled the matter, intellectual coward though I may be.  I want to know about Joseph's life, but I can't seem to stand even a "balanced" book.  I want to read a book about him that's every bit as scholarly and intellectually honest though much more one-sided.

That night I put the book on my shelf (literally and figuratively) and went back to dedicating my studies solely to the church's correlated materials. The dark feelings I'd experienced eventually gave way to the familiar, comforting feelings I got with the correlated curriculum.

It would be three years before I decided to pick up the book again.

Second Effort

In early 2008, Michelle and I moved away from La Mesa and a bit closer to downtown San Diego. The move significantly cut my commute time to work. It also put us in an entirely new ward and stake (wards and stakes are determined by geographic boundaries), which meant a release from my calling in the bishopric.

 

The relief from church leadership didn't last long. Within a month, I was called to be the executive secretary in our new ward (which meant more bishopric and ward council meetings). And within three months of our move, I was called to be a counselor in the bishopric of the new ward [which, again, is rather remarkable for someone as introverted as I am].

 

That ward would be our home for the next 7+ years, and I was in the bishopric most of those years.

 

I don't remember what prompted me to make another attempt at Rough Stone Rolling (and my journal is silent in that regard). In mid-December 2010, there's a brief notation that I had started reading it again. I recounted in that entry that "I'd put [Rough Stone Rolling] down years ago because I didn't like what the book seemed to be doing to my faith. I'm not finding that a problem at the moment." As I remember it, I wasn't reading the book because I really wanted to learn anything about Joseph, but mostly just to be able to say I'd made it through.

 

About two weeks later, I finished. I had not enjoyed the book so much as I had survived it. My observation in my journal that night: "I'm still not sure if I liked learning about the prophet – if it was helpful."

 

A Move Toward Nuance

 

There's a fuzziness to the timeline regarding the exact evolution of my thought process, but my experience with Rough Stone Rolling proved to be a catalyst. Not away from faith (not for many years yet) but toward a more nuanced approach.

 

I came away from the experience even less interested in church history. My marriage had only became more fraught as our family of four turned to five, and as Michelle spent more of her years at home full-time with our little ones.

Clark Family - Disneyland 2008

I still approached God and my daily scripture study with a kind of meek desperation: could God show me what I needed to do — who I needed to be — to heal my marriage and make our home a happy one?

 

I had little time or interest in spiritual pursuits that weren't bent on answering that question.

 

I knew now, though, that the correlated version of church history was effectively white-washed. Bushman's book had opened my eyes to the reality that Joseph Smith and others had flaws — sometimes serious flaws.

 

[Just try to imagine, for example, the Joseph Smith movie above also depicting a young treasure-digging Joseph — accepting money from people on the prospect he could use a peep stone to find them buried treasure. And later using that same stone to translate gold plates (by looking at the rock in a hat). Then depicting Joseph's polygamy and polyandry (!) against the scene where (with no hint there were any other women in Joseph's life but Emma) he counsels a new follower to help with household chores to improve his marriage. That movie probably wouldn't offer the same kind of feel-good experience as the current version — and that seemed to be Packer's point about why he wanted church historians and educators to hide those kinds of facts in the first place.]

 

None of this, though, affected my firm belief in the foundational claims of the church — that Joseph had seen a vision of God at 14, that an angel had given him the gold plates, that God had given him power to translate the plates and later to restore his church. I also still loved the Book of Mormon and other scripture; I still believed they were God's revelations through Joseph.

 

I believed all those things because they still felt true, and I spent my time and energy studying materials that only reinforced those beliefs.

 

As for Joseph’s imperfections that I'd read about — the hazier the details in Rough Stone Rolling became with time, the easier it was for me to take comfort in the idea that Joseph's flaws simply highlighted God's ability (and willingness) to work through obviously imperfect people.

 

For someone like me, who often obsessed over nagging imperfections, it felt like a very hopeful approach. Hence my claims to some in the years afterward that Rough Stone Rolling had actually strengthened my faith. Again, that was probably more aspirational than objectively true.

 

The Opposite of Helpful

 

I did, however, become increasingly disillusioned with Packer's comments and approach to church history. While stopping short of criticizing him or the church outright (which you just don't do), I blamed Packer's mindset for the turmoil I felt when I learned the "truth" about Joseph.

 

I even went so far as to confide in others that I found Packer's approach to be "the opposite of helpful."

 

In recent years, the church has made much greater efforts at transparency. This is evident in its numerous recent projects (e.g., the gospel topics essays, the Joseph Smith Papers project, and the Saints history series), as well as the simple fact that it embraced Rough Stone Rolling 16 years ago. But, as I'll likely discuss in a later post, even with these efforts, there’s still a sense of clear limitations to how transparent the church is willing to be — that it's mostly just trying to retake control of (and reshape) the narrative for its members.

 

I sense this, in part, because the church now apparently denies any prior efforts to hide unfavorable historical details. For instance, in this Face to Face event (the relevant portion quoted below begins at about 47:30), apostle M. Russell Ballard, with Oaks supportively at his side, at best seemed to have forgotten Packer's (and Oaks' and Nelson's) vehement counsel in the 1980's. Assuring the youth of the church that the brethren have never tried to hide anything, Ballard asserted, "There has been no attempt on the part, in any way, of the church leaders trying to hide anything from anybody." Moments later he continued, "So just trust us, wherever you are in the world, and you . . . share this message with anyone who raises the question about the church not being transparent: we're as transparent as we know how to be in telling the truth. We have to do that. That's the Lord's way."]

 

Frankly, as much as I have respected Ballard over the years for his seeming candor, this feels like gaslighting. For as earnest and folksy as Ballard comes across in the clip, his comments strike me as disingenuous with Packer’s, Oaks’, and Nelson’s remarks on “advanced history” still ringing in my ears. And it was this very inability of the church to own and admit to mistakes (manifest in far more than Ballard's remarks here) that eventually hastened the erosion of my faith: as the spiritual threads began to unravel years later, I realized that I could not trust these men to be honest with me.

 

That turning point, though, was still years away for me back then.

 

But during this time period, I still began to yearn for transparency from current leaders. Not because I questioned whether they represented God (I didn’t), but because I felt hungry for some sense of vulnerability — some hint that they, too, had real weaknesses. I wanted to hear from someone that they had dealt with recurring depression. I wanted reassurance that they had also weathered troubled marriages like mine. I wanted someone to be strong enough to admit that they, too, were trying to stop yelling at their kids. More than anything, I wanted someone in leadership willing to own up to unflattering mistakes, if for no other reason than to feel a little less alone in mine.

 

With few exceptions, though, I rarely sensed that kind of vulnerability from the general authorities.

 

A few years ago, I came across this saying: “Catholics say the pope is infallible but don’t really believe it; Mormons say the prophet is fallible but don’t really believe it.” At least on the Mormon end of that observation, there’s a hint of humor, but also an uncomfortable dose of stinging truth (at least for me). In fact, as much today as ever, the public persona of the church’s general leadership seems to be so carefully cultivated that the believing, unsuspecting membership [e.g., me back in the day] is left with the strong impression that, like Joseph and other past church leaders, these men are the living embodiment of righteousness (though we'd still give lip service to the idea that of course they aren’t perfect, only Jesus was perfect).

 

I feel like I’ve seen that movie before. And Bushman's observation in the preface to Rough Stone Rolling feels more salient now than ever: "Flawless characters are neither attractive nor useful. We want to meet a real person."

 

While I no longer believe in or affiliate with the faith, I would still love to see more vulnerability from the church’s general authorities. The fact that it remains the rare exception, though, rather confirms for me that these same leaders are probably a long way from being ready to steer the church to a point where it can be truly vulnerable (truly honest) about its history — including its history with history.