{"id":47662,"date":"2024-08-23T08:07:00","date_gmt":"2024-08-23T14:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.timesandseasons.org\/?p=47662"},"modified":"2024-07-29T20:30:50","modified_gmt":"2024-07-30T02:30:50","slug":"review-bruce-r-mcconkie-apostle-and-polemicist-1915-1985","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2024\/08\/review-bruce-r-mcconkie-apostle-and-polemicist-1915-1985\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Bruce R. McConkie: Apostle and Polemicist, 1915\u20131985"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Bruce R. McConkie: Apostle and Polemicist, 1915\u20131985<\/a><\/em> by Devery S. Anderson is the latest entry in Signature Books\u2019 Brief Mormon Lives project. As has been the case with other books in the series, this one is a short biography of an individual of note in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and is very well done.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

The book covers the breadth of McConkie\u2019s life, highlighting both events that are well known in Latter-day Saint history and some other, more personal, moments that are indicative of who he was. I appreciated more illumination on his early life and heritage (including his decades as a President of the Seventy and time as a mission president in Australia), since I haven\u2019t heard much about that time before. I found it particularly interesting to know that Mormon Doctrine<\/em> wasn\u2019t his first controversial effort to publish a book that the First Presidency opposed\u2014he tried publishing selections from the Journal of Discourses<\/em> that he found to be relevant in the modern church as Sound Doctrine<\/em>. He was asked to not proceed due to concerns about raising awareness among Church members about the Journal of Discourses<\/em> (which was thought would play into Fundamentalist Mormon efforts to convert members of the Church). I also found that his pursuit of hobbies like rockhounding and jogging made McConkie feel more human.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, the book covers many of the most well-known incidents and controversies in Bruce McConkie\u2019s life. Among these are his publication of Mormon Doctrine<\/em> and subsequent efforts to have it go out of print by the First Presidency, followed by efforts to get a second edition printed on McConkie\u2019s part. (In covering this episode, the book does take the McConkie side of the story into account much more than Gregory Prince did in David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism<\/em>.) It also discusses McConkie\u2019s role in ending the priesthood and temple ban and his ongoing efforts to perpetuate the antiblack teachings that had supported the ban, drawing on the fantastic work of Matthew Harris in Second Class Saints<\/em> as it did so. Included in that discussion are the embellished accounts of the June 1, 1978 meeting in the Salt Lake City Temple that McConkie shared and then had to backpedal on. There are other examples of course, such as his interactions with BYU professors Eugene England and George Pace, but these are some of the major ones that came up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anderson felt fair and even-handed in his handling of Elder Bruce R. McConkie. As he noted in the book:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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However people choose to remember McConkie, it would be unfair to judge him strictly by the controversies surrounding him, as self-imposed and deeply impacting those turned out to be. Only family, friends, and colleagues really got to know him and experience the compassion and sense of humor that was such an integral part of him. This puts everyone else at a disadvantage, but even his harshest critics know that no one is one dimensional. It is therefore worth trusting the various assessments of McConkie by those who knew him intimately. \u2026 All can attest to the dedication to his church that led him to produce the large body of work nearly unmatched by anyone else in Mormonism. \u2026 There is sufficient reason to hold a charitable view toward a man who devoted the entirety of his life to a cause he loved so deeply.<\/p>\npp. 196\u2013197<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

While McConkie evokes strong reactions from people in all sorts of directions, he was a complex person and left a legacy of both good and bad. Devery Anderson has captured that well in Bruce R. McConkie: Apostle and Polemicist, 1915\u20131985<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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For more of my reviews and posts about Signature Books\u2019 Brief Mormon Lives series, see the following:<\/p>\n\n\n\n