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LDS Church Materials of Interest Jan 2011
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mormon lds exmormon restricted handbook bishops church history
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|-----------------------------------------------|
                |   Materials of Interest From and About the    |
                |  Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints  |
                |-----------------------------------------------|

1 - Restricted Access Publications
  Books and Manuals:
    - Charge to Religious Educators (1994)
        This is a manual and guide for religious educators in the Church
        Education System (both the Seminary and Institute programs).  It
        contains a wide compilations of tealks and excerpts of talks relating to
        teaching LDS religion courses.  One interesting aspect of the book is
        that, while restricted, it is a commonly cited source for CES student
        manuals such as "Teachings of the Living Prophets".  This manual also
        contains manu famous (and infamous) talks such as "Candle of the Lord",
        "The Mantle is Far, Far Greater Than the Intellect", "To Those Who Teach
        in Troubled Times", "Finding Answers to Gospel Questions", and more.  An
        interesting piece inside is the "Basic Doctrine" section which lays out
        the basic doctrine that an LDS religious instructor is expected to
        teach.
    - Church Handbook of Instructions (Book 1) (2010)
        The CHI is the instruction manual given to Bishops and Stake Presidents
        to aid in the administration of wards and stakes.  It contains
        instructions and counsel, as well as the Church's official stance on
        many questions that lay members may approach their local leaders about.
        Book 1 is heavily restricted, although Book 2 (meant for other local
        ward and stake leaders) has been publicly available for years and is in
        the "Obtainable Publications" folder.  This particular leak is famous
        for appearing on the Internet a number of days *before* they were
        officially announced to local Church leadership.
  Etc
    - Official LDS Sites - Web Traffic Stats (Dec 2010)
        Leaked to the Internet early in 2011, these stats meant for internal use
        by Church employees and General Authorities show the dismal performance
        of LDS web sites; nearly all of the traffic is self-generated by
        existing members of the Church who are doing geneological research,
        looking at Church materials at lds.org, or using scriptures.  Nearly all
        mobile use is for scriptures.  Proselytizing and outreach websites
        experience much lower traffic than member-oriented websites and, on the
        whole, monthly visits are much lower than currently accepted figures of
        "active" members of the Church implying that not even Mormons themselves
        make much use of the Internet websites available to them.
  Talks and Pamphlets
    - Boyd K. Packer "Talk to the All-Church Coordinating Council" (1993)
        This famous talk details what Elder Boyd K. Packer felt, in 1993, as
        three "dangers" facing Church members in the form of the gay-lesbian
        "movement", the feminist "movement", and "so-called" scholars or
        intellectuals.  
    - Boyd K. Packer "To Young Men Only" (1976)
        This talk was given in the October 1976 Priesthood of General
        Conference, but it was decided not to publish the talk publicly in the
        "Ensign" magazine.  Instead, the talk was only published in the official
        "Conference Report" (from which this copy is taken) and in a seperate
        pamphlet that enjoyed widespread publication up until the mid-2000s.
        Famous for its replacement of such apparently difficult terms as
        "testicles" with "little factory" and "semen" with "life-creating
        substance", the talk also discussed Elder Packer's approval of the youth
        keeping themselves safe from those who would seek homosexuality even
        through violence if necessary.  Elder Packer describes an implied gay
        missionary who was punched by his companion by saying, "Well, thanks.
        Somebody had to do it, and it wouldn't be well for a General Authority
        to solve the problem that way."
    - Mark E. Petersen "Race Problems as They Affect the Church" (1954)
        This talk, famous and well-used in its day, is now nowhere to be found
        in publications, both print and online, from BYU or the LDS Church.  In
        it, Elder Petersen covers for Church educators his approach to the
        "Negro Question".  Although the views presented in this talk have been
        repudiated, topics such as interracial marriage are still often viewed
        with distrust by older Church members.  Elder Petersen is widely
        considered to have authored the editorial "Interracial marriage
        discouraged" in the LDS Church News of June 17, 1978: the same issue
        announcing the reversal of the Temple and Priesthood Ban for black LDS.
2 - Redactions and Private Correspondence
    - Letter from Bruce R. McConkie to Eugene England (1981)
        In this authoritatively-written letter in response to some public
        and private musings by professor Eugene England of the BYU English
        faculty, Elder McConkie attempts to set Dr. England straight on how to
        read statements by Brigham Young about the Adam-God doctrine.  It was
        not meant to be publicly distributed, but since Elder McConkie also sent
        copies of the same letter to many of Dr. England's aquatainces it leaked
        out into the public before Dr. England was even aware he had received
        it.  Famous for Elder McConkie's admission that Brigham Young had, in
        fact, taught that Adam was God.
    - Ronald E. Poelman "The Gospel and the Church" (1984)
        Delivered, somewhat ironically, in 1984, this talk was well-received by
        Church members when Elder Poelman spoke in the October general
        conference.  However, when the talk was published in the Ensign it had
        received drastict revisions.  Also, in a bizarre event, the talk was
        actually re-recorded with Elder Poelman delivering the redacted text in
        the Salt Lake Tabernacle (complete with a "cough track" and a
        congregational response of "Amen" after Elder Poelman finished). The
        changes were noticed, however, by some members of the Church and a few
        early VCR recordings of the talk as originally delivered are in
        existence.  This presentation of the talk is given with the deletions
        and additions kept in-text so that the reader can view for themselves
        how the inteded purpose of the talk itself was reverse almost entirely
        by the required redactions.  It is still unknown at this time who called
        for the changes or was in charge of coordinating the rewriting and
        re-recording.
3 - Obtainable Publications
    - Anonymous - Interracial Marriages Discouraged (1978)
        Published in the same issue of the LDS Church News that joyfully
        announced the end of the Temple and Priesthood Ban for black LDS
        members, this editorial reaffirmed the Church's public opposition to
        cross-cultural marriages even as black members of the Church began to
        enjoy full participation in the rituals and practices of the Church.  It
        was widely believed to have been either written by or demanded by Elder
        Mark E. Petersen of the Quorum of the Twelve who had a long history of
        public pronouncements against cross-cultural marriages.
    - Boyd K. Packer - For Time and All Eternity (1993)
        Famous for its bizarre, sexually-loaded "parable" at the end, this talk
        declares that gender roles are eternal, shares one of Boyd K. Packer's
        favorite stories used to mock LGBT legislation (voting on a kitten's
        gender), and speaks of the "devestating effect" of women entering the
        workforce during WWII. 
    - Boyd K. Packer - The Equal Rights Amendment (1977)
        A fascinating view into the anti-ERA sentiment officially encouraged by
        the LDS Church during the late 1970s and early 1980s.
    - Boyd K. Packer - The Snow-White Birds (1995)
        Due to the originally-scheduled speaker being ill, Elder Packer spoke at
        the newly-finished BYU Wilkensen Center about BYU's historical
        encounters with "higher criticism" and "evolution", complete with a
        misquoted and misattributed dream about how scholastic studies were
        preventing students from spiritual soaring.
    - Church Handbook of Instructions (Book 2) (2010)
        Already publicly available for years, Book II of the CHI contains
        instructions for auxiliary leaders in wards and stakes.  For the
        heavily restricted Book I, see the Books and Manuals folder of the 
        "Restricted Access Publications" folder.  This particular leak is famous
        for appearing on the Internet a number of days *before* they were
        officially announced to local Church leadership.
    - Journal of Discourses
        Covering a period of over forty years, the Journal of Discourses is a
        collection of shorthand recordings of sermons and speeches given in
        Utah throughout the later half of the 19th Century.  Although they are
        occasionally ignored due to supposed errors in transcriptions, the use
        of shorthand in the recordings was actually quite good and the Journal
        of Discourses shows far better accuracy and consistency than most of the
        public sermons of Joseph Smith that Church members today study.  They are
        a fascinating look into the viewpoint, doctrine, and culture of 19th
        Century Utah.
    - Julie B. Beck - Mothers Who Know (2007)
        President beck has often been a divisive figure who can quickly
        alternate back and forth from supporting to detracting from a feminist
        empowerment of the LDS Female Relief Society.  This talk, delivered in
        2007, was widely seen as a retrenchment-style talk that encouraged
        "traditional" gender roles for women within the home such as housework,
        cooking, and cleaning.
    - Missionary Handbook (2005)
        While not available online, this small handbook of rules, guidance, and
        instruction for LDS missionaries is publicly available through the
        Church's Distribution Services.  It is, along with the teaching manual
        "Preach My Gospel", one of the major tools used by LDS missionaries
        worldwide.
    - Vaugh J. Featherstone - A Self-Inflicted Purging (1975)
        Fun more for the unintentional irony of the talk-name, this speech
        focused on avoiding masturbation and homosexuality for LDS men through
        "purging" the Church and themselves of such things.
4 - Additional Papers and Books
    - Alexander Campell "Delusions" (1831)
        One of the first critiques of the Book of Mormon, this review and
        deconstruction of the book was written by Alexander Campbell.  From the
        review it is evident that Campbell did not simply reject the work
        outright, but spent time on a close reading the entire work and
        subsequently comparing its teachings with the Bible.
    - Edward L. Kimball "Lengthen Your Stride" (Working Draft, 2005)
        In producing this biography of his father's presidency, Edward Kimball
        presented this working draft to Deseret Book for editing and
        publication.  Deseret Book was hesitant about some of stories and
        details related that could be seen as too human or too negative for
        general authorities, so a strongly edited print copy was produced.
        However, Edward Kimball was able to persuade Deseret Book to include the
        working copy with the published book.  This PDF contains colors to mark
        areas where Deseret Book editors felt additional work and/or editing was
        needed.  These cover both normal editorial problems (overly repetitious)
        as well as problems specific to a book published by a Church-owned
        publication company.  While written as a faith-affirming volume, it is a
        fascinating look into the 1970's Church administration.
    - Gregory A. Prince "The Red Peril, the Candy-Maker, and the Apostle" (2004)
        Detailing some of the issues that church leaders such as President David
        O. McKay and Elder Ezra Taft Benson had in the 1950s and 1960s in how to
        officially approach Communism and anti-Communist organizations like the
        John Birch Society.
    - Joseph Smith, jr, As a Translator (1912)
        One of the first responses published by trained Egyptologists to the
        facsimiles in the Book of Abraham, this book as a bombshell when
        published in Utah in 1912.  Containing the educated interpretations of
        a number of the world's leading Egyptologists they showed that the
        official LDS Church interpretations of the facsimiles, written by Joseph
        Smith before archeologists and historians could read and understand
        ancient Egyptian, did not line up with modern understandings of Egyptian
        language and art.  While not discussing much of the English Book of
        Abraham or its translation (the papyri Joseph used had been assumed to
        be lost in the Chicago fire and would not be rediscovered for over fifty
        years), the book was a devestating critique of Joseph's ability of
        translation and interpretation.
    - Linda King Newell "A Gift Given: A Gift Taken" (Dec 1999 Reprint)
        A gound-breaking paper, Ms. Newell details the rise and fall of the
        common practice among LDS women in the 19th Century of blessings and
        healings performed through the laying on of hands.  While still of much
        use, it has been superceded by the recent paper "Female Ritual Healing
        in Mormonism" in Journal of Mormon History Winter 2011 (v37n01).
    - Responses to "A Gift Given: A Gift Taken" (Oct 1981)
        Contains the famous assertion by Dr. D. Michael Quinn that LDS women are
        ordained to the Priesthood through the Temple endowment ceremony and
        have, by extension, been Priesthood holders since the mid-1840s.
    - Richard S. Van Wagoner "Mormon Polyandry in Nauvoo" (1985)
        A good general overview of the practice of polyandry that occured in
        Nauvoo where Joseph Smith would request and marry women who were already
        married.
    - Ronald V. Huggins "Did the Author of 3 Nephi Know the Gospel of Matthew?"
      (1997)
        A comparison and study of the "Sermon at the Temple" in 3 Nephi showing
        the close relationship with Matthew's "Sermon on the Mount" and arguing
        for a wholesale copy from the New Testament to the Book of Mormon,
        complete with King James Version mistranslations and misunderstandings.
    - Testimony of Important Witnesses (Reed Smoot Hearings 1904-1905)
        Apostle Reed Smoot became, in 1903, the second Latter-day Saint General
        Authority to be elected to represent Utah in Congress and the first to
        be allowed to serve his term (B.H. Roberts had been sent home in 1898).
        Unlike Robert, Smoot was a monogamist and had been elected to the
        Senate.  After allowing Smoot to take his seat, Senate leaders began a
        lengthy series of heries to decide whether Smoot would be allowed to
        continue to serve as a United States Senator.  Under question was
        whether his alleigance was to the LDS Church or the US Constitution
        foremost, but there were also claims that he was secretly living a
        polygamous lifestyle.  The hearings subpoenaed many famous and infamous
        Utahns.  This collection is notable for having the three-day questioning
        of LDS Church President Joseph F. Smith (begins on page 59).  Smith was
        questioned on a range of subjects from aspects of his presidency, to his
        business holdings and the Church's financial control of Utah, to Utah
        politics, to female ordination to the Priesthood, to temple ceremony and
        ritual, to expectations of the LDS Church for its members at that time.
5 - LaTeX Sources Files
      These are the source files for many of the PDFs in this collection.  You
      are free to edit these sources files into a better format or fix editorial
      or grammatical mistakes.  Some of these items are in the public domain;
      others are obviously still under copyright.  You should be able to compile
      PDFs using these LaTeX files on a machine with a general TeX Live
      installation.