The church has released Marlin K. Jensen as the Church Historian. I knew him when he practiced law in Ogden, many years ago before he became a General Authority. He was an honorable man then, and has provided a long and honorable service to the church as the Church Historian. The policy of releasing General Authorities and making them emeritus is costing us a valuable resource. I hate to see him go.
Brother Steven Snow, an attorney from St. George and current member of the Seven Presidents of the Seventy will replace him. I wish him well in his new assignment. The Church Historian’s job is challenging, to say the least. It would be wonderful if there is a continuation of the Joseph Smith Papers project, a second volume of the Mountain Meadows Massacre work (which was promised when the first came out), and a more open-door policy about our history.
I do not think we have anything to fear by letting more information flow into the public arena from our history. The more the better, in my view. What may be viewed as an embarrassing revelation from one vantage point, may be a hopeful declaration that God’s work can be done despite human weaknesses by another. Some of our grandiose claims will necessarily become more modest, but that will only help, not hurt, people of faith.
Some of the greatest figures in the Bible are flawed, craven people. David’s triumphs and failures are exposed to full view and we are not the worse for it. Quite the opposite, we are the better for it. Solomon’s legendary wisdom sank into a mire of foolishness in old age, and we are blessed to read about it all.
Perhaps if we let our own heroic figures reveal themselves in more a complete and complex light, it would help us de-mythologize the way we treat our living leaders. They might be able to get more done if we let them make mistakes from time to time. When they are forced to defend every action as “truly inspired” we have a much harder time fixing our many problems.
Our history is great, even glorious. It doesn’t need to be fiction to be edifying. Scriptural characters like Sampson, Job and Jonah are as valuable to us as Elijah, Nephi and Christ. Who among us would want to hide Aaron’s golden-calf building? Who would eliminate Lot’s residency in Sodom? When we edit our history to remove the shadows, we lose more than contrast. Sometimes we lose context as well.
I’d like to see the church’s history become the thing of wonder it was meant to be, rather than the sometimes plastic imitation we’ve allowed it to become. It will still be more than enough, even if it is merely the truth.