Comments on: David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism

By: arthur r

arthur r — Mon, 06 Feb 2006 06:02:07 +0000

I don’t get any of this…should I even read Mormon Doctrine? Did Bruce R. McConkie ignore the First Presidency in publishing the second edition of Mormon doctrine or did he have permission to do so? If he flagrantly ignored the First Presidency and published the second edition anyway this would create a serious problem for me.

By: Chris Grant

Chris Grant — Wed, 21 Sep 2005 22:42:33 +0000

Perhaps Greg has left the building by now, but if not it would be interesting if he’d elaborate on his assertion, with regard to Fawn Brodie, that: “There is no evidence McKay had any role in his niece’s excommunication”. This is in striking contrast to Newell Bringhust’s assertion that: “It appears that David O. McKay played a prominent role in the excommunication of his niece.” Bringhurst footnotes his claim with references to oral histories of Thomas B. McKay and Flora McKay Crawford that he recorded in the 1980s. Has Greg examined these histories and found them to be without substance?

By: manaen

manaen — Mon, 22 Aug 2005 23:04:16 +0000

75, #2
I remember when GA visits to stake conference were reduced from every conference to every other conference. An apostle visiting our conference — and I surely wish I could remember who he was — used a phrase to describe it that I still remember with a chuckle. He said that if one GA came, it was a regular conference; if two GAs came, something was afoot; if three or more came, you knew that “all hell’s a poppin’!”

By: Mark B.

Mark B. — Mon, 22 Aug 2005 20:49:27 +0000

A few points regarding international stakes–

It seems that some of the brethren (esp. Joseph Fielding Smith) felt strongly that Zion was to be in the Americas, and resisted the idea that stakes should be created overseas. That feeling may have been a “brake” on the creation of stakes in Europe, Africa (South Africa in those days) and Asia.

Second, the other matter related to the supervision of stakes, especially attendance by general authorities at quarterly stake conferences. As stakes were created farther and farther from Salt Lake City, the challenge of sending brethren to those conferences increased. It’s interesting that this difficulty has been addressed in a different way: reduce the number of conferences to two per year, reduce the number where there’s a general authority “visitor” to once every two years, and make that “visit” electronic in most cases, call additional general authorities (the organization of the Seventies quorums in 1976) calling area authority seventies, etc.

By: Levi Peterson

Levi Peterson — Mon, 22 Aug 2005 20:31:22 +0000

I bought the book at the Salt Lake Sunstone symposium and have read it. It was a good investment–well written and very enlightening. I was interested to learn that President McKay expressly refused to allow the excommunciation of Juanita Brooks following her publication of the reinstatement of John D. Lee.

Juanita wasn’t always in a good humor with David O. McKay. She believed that he had stonewalled her acquisition of affidavits by witnesses of the Mountain Meadows massacre while she was researching for her book on that topic.

By: Gary

Gary — Sun, 21 Aug 2005 22:17:04 +0000

Greg: You make at least two mistakes on page 45. First, no form of evolution accepted by science was involved in the discussions you refer to in the first paragraph under the heading "The Evolution Debate" (see ndbf.net). Second, Joseph Fielding Smith did not, as you claim, act "on his own volition to publish Man, His Origin and Destiny." The truth is that President Smith was urged by his associates in the Quorum of the Twelve to write and publish the book (see here and here).

By: Ross Geddes

Ross Geddes — Sat, 20 Aug 2005 04:52:47 +0000

Thanks for your response, Greg. What you say makes sense. The first international stake (not counting Hawaii, western Canada and the Mexican colonies) was in Auckland, New Zealand and was created only a month after the temple dedication in 1958. Perhaps the reason it was able to be created two years before the first stake in Europe was that NZ had probably not been affected as much by emigration to Utah as Europe had been, particularly among the Maori where the greatest strength of the Church in NZ was at that time (and arguably still is). Then in 1960-61 there were a spate of stakes created in England, Australia, Germany, Switzerland etc, all a natural result (as you say) of members staying in their homelands because of the closer proximity of temples.

By: Wilfried

Wilfried — Fri, 19 Aug 2005 23:54:20 +0000

I just got back from my spring and summer stay in Belgium and haven’t had a chance yet to purchase and read the biography, but this is a high priority now. Even so, I would like to say this thread has been fascinating all along, with many interesting questions, and especially the very helpful and enriching answers by Greg Prince. He has been a marvelous source of extra information. Thank you, Greg! And let it continue…

By: Greg Prince

Greg Prince — Fri, 19 Aug 2005 23:33:59 +0000

Ross: Your point about Matthew Cowley is fascinating. I saw no record of a First Presidency discussion of the topic, but Cowley’s talk occurred during the first General Conference following McKay’s announcement to the Twelve that there would be overseas temples. It’s easy to see how Cowley could connect the dots himself, but it is more likely that this issue was discussed in one of their council meetings prior to his talk. I just don’t have the documentation to tell you when. McKay’s diaries generally included only brief descriptions of council meetings (if any). The minutes of those meetings–First Presidency, Quorum of the Twelve, Joint Council–are not open to researchers, including myself. It is likely that the answer to your question resides there.

Stakes might not have been mentioned by name, but there is no doubt that they marked (and continue to mark) the endpoint of Church maturation in any geographical area. The earliest references to stakes, in the Joseph Smith era, place no geographical limitations, so there would not have been a need to change any policy in order to establish them internationally. The only requirement was to have sufficient numbers and maturity in those areas, and that had not been possible for over a century because of the continual drain of the policy of gathering to the United States. Once the policy was reversed, it was largely a matter of time until “natural” processes resulted in the creation of stakes. Certainly there was no rush to do so–five years elapsed between the time the first European temple was dedicated and the time of the creation of the first European stake. McKay knew the crucial point at which to intervene, and it was the temples. To borrow (with apologies) from a later movie, “If you build it, they will stay.”

By: Lisa B.

Lisa B. — Fri, 19 Aug 2005 23:33:45 +0000

Ed #58 Now I’ll have to get the book just to read the chapter on correlation. This is a heavey subject for me. I also hope for the pendulum to swing back, especially now that it has been re-emphasized in the proclamation on the family that gender is eternal.