An Abbreviated Journal of Discourses

While Bruce R. McConkie’s controversial Mormon Doctrine is famous in Latter-day Saint circles, it wasn’t his first controversial project. Prior to that time, he worked on preparing a “best-of” collection from the Journal of Discourses that was known as Sound Doctrine. The project was close to publication when the First Presidency intervened and shut it down. Devery S. Anderson shared some information about the volume in a recent interview at the Latter-day Saint history blog From the Desk. What follows here is a copost to the full interview.

To begin with, Devery S. Anderson shared an overview of the project:

Sound Doctrine was a ten-volume project that would reprint and make accessible what Elder McConkie deemed the “best of,” or about a fifth of the twenty-six-volume Journal of Discourse sermons by Brigham Young and others in the nineteenth century. …

Bruce R. McConkie’s goal in compiling select sermons from the Journal of Discourses was to benefit church members. In particular, he felt they would benefit from greater access to the talks that best reflected his understanding of Latter-day Saint doctrine. He intended to avoid many controversial discourses, such as Brigham Young’s teachings about the Adam-God theory.

It was an abbreviated version of the Journal of Discourses, focusing on compiling the sermons that McConkie deemed to be most applicable for Church members of his day.

Sound Doctrine raised some alarm bells among the First Presidency when they got wind of the project:

First Presidency counselor J. Reuben Clark learned about it after seeing it advertised and became very concerned. He felt publishing some of the sermons would inspire enemies of the church to look into the others and open a can of worms. …

President Clark also worried that the title Sound Doctrine implied that the church also taught things that could be considered unsound doctrine. We also know that Clark expressed concern about McConkie’s inclusion of a Journal of Discourses sermon about electricity because it no longer aligned with scientific understanding.

The First Presidency furthermore expressed displeasure that Elder McConkie didn’t clear the work with them first. …

J. Reuben Clark told Elder McConkie not to proceed with Sound Doctrine when the two met together in Clark’s office on March 15, 1956.

Thus, J. Reuben Clark worked to close the project down and stop publication of McConkie’s Sound Doctrine. As an aside, while I do not appreciate the conservative direction President Clark steered the Church, I’ve been seeing the more pragmatic side of the man in some of my recent readings. This seems to be a case where that pragmatism over dogma mentality shows through. It also is notable that Clark was particularly concerned about Mormon Fundamentalists during his time in the First Presidency, and likely saw this as a project that would play directly into their hands. Devery Anderson agreed with Clark’s assessment, writing that “I believe it would have created a renewed interest in these sermons. I also think that people would have sought them out to the anxiety of church leaders, just as the First Presidency feared in 1955. They likely would have been accused of censoring the other speeches, which they wanted to avoid.”

While McConkie expressed that he had erred in not consulting with the First Presidency before trying to publish this project, he was a stubborn man. If anything, he learned that it was best to publish his books without the First Presidency getting wind of it until after the fact, as was the case with Mormon Doctrine:

Today, there are clear policies dictating books written by general authorities. In Elder McConkie’s day, his project helped shape the First Presidency’s view that general authorities should clear books with the presidency before submitting manuscripts. However, this appears to have been only an informal instruction when McConkie was working on an abbreviated version of the Journal of Discourses.

Elder McConkie admitted he had erred in not clearing Sound Doctrine with the First Presidency. He also agreed with several of the specific criticisms shared by President Clark …

It wasn’t until McConkie again went through the publication process without informing the First Presidency (this time in 1958 for Mormon Doctrine) that the Brethren formalized the rule.

It would make for a fascinating counter-history to see what would be different about the Church if the First Presidency had put the policy in place after the Sound Doctrine episode. 

Eventually, part of the Sound Doctrine project was published by McConkie’s son:

Elder McConkie intended to publish the first volume of his abbreviated Journal of Discourses series in 1955, but the First Presidency stopped the project. Two decades later, Joseph Fielding McConkie published the first volume with Bookcraft in 1975.

Journal of Discourses Digest, Vol.1, as the work was titled, was a good collection, but there were never subsequent volumes published. As Anderson noted, “In the end, Bookcraft told Joseph Fielding McConkie that they thought they could do better by just reprinting the original twenty-six volume run of the Journal of Discourses.”

For more on Bruce R. McConkie’s abbreviated Journal of Discourses project, head on over to the Latter-day Saint history blog From the Desk to read the full interview with Devery S. Anderson.