{"id":41623,"date":"2021-04-03T06:11:35","date_gmt":"2021-04-03T11:11:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.timesandseasons.org\/?p=41623"},"modified":"2021-04-04T16:30:29","modified_gmt":"2021-04-04T21:30:29","slug":"richard-turley-on-dallin-h-oaks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2021\/04\/richard-turley-on-dallin-h-oaks\/","title":{"rendered":"Richard Turley on Dallin H. Oaks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recently, President Dallin H. Oaks\u2019s biographer, Richard E. Turley, Jr. sat down with Kurt Manwaring to discuss the recently-published book In the Hands of the Lord: The Life of Dallin H. Oaks<\/a><\/em>.\u00a0 What follows here is a co-post to the one at Kurt Manwaring\u2019s site, with quotes from and discussion about the full interview, which can be read here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As part of the discussion, Richard Turley discussed some of the documents he had available to him to draw upon in writing about President Oaks.\u00a0 He stated that:<\/p>\n

He is one of the most documented Church leaders in history. I used his personal history, his journals, his correspondence, his talks, and a host of other materials ranging from newspaper articles to photographs.<\/p>\n

I would characterize his journals as being among the best ever kept by a Church leader.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I would be curious to know more about President Oaks\u2019s journals, especially given some of the things I\u2019ve heard about general authorities being discouraged to keep journals.\u00a0 It gives me hope that we will be able to have at least some journals and diaries of Church leaders from our time akin to those being published by the Church Historian\u2019s Press<\/a> or Signature Book<\/a> from Church leaders in the past like George F. Richards, Emmaline B. Wells, George Q. Cannon, Brigham Young, Anthony Ivins, and so forth.<\/p>\n

Now, President Oaks is, admittedly, a controversial figure in the Church, but it sounds like the biography shows a more well-rounded view of him as a person.\u00a0 While I appreciate many of Elder Oaks\u2019s addresses in general conference, I\u2019ve also joked that I walk away from many of his talks either feeling like I survived a college lecture or that I just received a detailed list of reasons for why I\u2019m going to be damned.\u00a0 Turley addressed a couple of reasons for why we only get to see a specific portion of President Oaks\u2019s personality in those public speeches compared to what he tried to display in the biography:<\/p>\n

First, when he speaks in formal settings, he seeks to fulfill his calling and takes his responsibilities very seriously. When I read Jacob 1 in the Book of Mormon\u2014especially verses 7, 17, and 19\u2014I can hear his voice.<\/p>\n

Second, he is extraordinarily well-rounded as a person, and yet most people see only the side he presents at the pulpit. I tried in the biography to capture the whole person.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It\u2019s an interesting view into how President Oaks approaches his ministry and good to hear that we get a view into his personality in the biography than what we generally get to see.<\/p>\n

When President Nelson assumed the mantle of president of the Church, many Church members were disappointed to have President Uchtdorf released from the First Presidency and to have President Oaks called as first councilor.\u00a0 According to Richard Turley, some of the background to that decision was that: \u201cPresident Nelson took the unprecedented step of interviewing all the living apostles and seeking their input before praying and selecting his counselors as he felt inspired to do.\u201d\u00a0 I\u2019m sure there were many factors that were a part of the decision, including the opportunity for greater continuity between administrations (since President Oaks is next in line to become president of the Church) and relationships between individuals in the Quorum.\u00a0 In any case, it is interesting to hear about some of the work President Nelson put into making that choice.<\/p>\n

Now, I\u2019ve been relatively brief here, hitting a few of the highlights, but there is much more available for reading in the full interview (available here<\/a>).\u00a0 They discuss a few opportunities that could have led to Dallin Oaks serving on the U.S. Supreme Court and reasons why he never did, insights into President Oaks\u2019s early life, and how Richard Turley came to write the biography in the first place.\u00a0 It\u2019s an interesting read, so I recommend taking the time to do so.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recently, President Dallin H. Oaks\u2019s biographer, Richard E. Turley, Jr. sat down with Kurt Manwaring to discuss the recently-published book In the Hands of the Lord: The Life of Dallin H. Oaks.\u00a0 What follows here is a co-post to the one at Kurt Manwaring\u2019s site, with quotes from and discussion about the full interview, which can be read here. As part of the discussion, Richard Turley discussed some of the documents he had available to him to draw upon in writing about President Oaks.\u00a0 He stated that: He is one of the most documented Church leaders in history. I used his personal history, his journals, his correspondence, his talks, and a host of other materials ranging from newspaper articles to photographs. I would characterize his journals as being among the best ever kept by a Church leader. I would be curious to know more about President Oaks\u2019s journals, especially given some of the things I\u2019ve heard about general authorities being discouraged to keep journals.\u00a0 It gives me hope that we will be able to have at least some journals and diaries of Church leaders from our time akin to those being published by the Church Historian\u2019s Press or Signature Book […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10397,"featured_media":41625,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2890],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-from-the-desk"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Oaks-biography-cover.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10397"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41623"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41623\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41627,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41623\/revisions\/41627"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}