Correlated from the beginning

[Culper Jr.]

I bought This is My Doctrine by Charles R. Harrell last night after seeing it on the recommended reading list. Great book; I'm only on chapter 4 and it has already torn down so many things I thought were unique to mormonism. The distinct doctrine of mormonism was one thing that kept my belief in the church somewhat intact. Well, it's not really so unique after all. It's more like a "greatest hits" of the religious thinking of the time.

One thing that really struck me is how the church has been correlated from the very beginning; I always thought the effort started in the 60's to sort of clean up the history and control the narrative. But in reality, from the inception of the church things have been swapped in, added, or simply tossed down the memory hole. It's like how they keep putting out special edition Star Wars movies where they change scenes, add stuff in, change out characters, make it so Han didn't shoot first. First vision, PH restoration... just added in years after the fact. They've just been making it up as they went and then retconning it to enhance the narrative all along.

[Corsair]

Please update this thread with some of the more interesting details of this book. I probably should read it next.

[MoPag]

It's more like a "greatest hits" of the religious thinking of the time.

"Now That's What I Call Religion" #1830

[fh451]

I bought This is My Doctrine by Charles R. Harrell last night after seeing it on the recommended reading list. Great book; I'm only on chapter 4 and it has already torn down so many things I thought were unique to mormonism. The distinct doctrine of mormonism was one thing that kept my belief in the church somewhat intact. Well, it's not really so unique after all. It's more like a "greatest hits" of the religious thinking of the time.

I've heard this is a decent book, and I've heard interviews from Harrell where he comes across as a pretty level-headed guy. Joseph was good at absorbing ideas and putting his own spin on them. Three Degrees of Heaven? Swedenborg. Word of Wisdom? Amalgamation of Sylvester Graham and the hot/cold drink controversy that was floating around. The entire Book of Mormon narrative is based on the racist idea that any complex civilization that existed in the Americas must have been the product of some white people somewhere, probably one of the lost tribes.

Anyway, maybe someday when I rekindle enough interest in reading about Mormon history and doctrine again I'll pick up Harrell's book .

fh451

[Korihor]

It's more like a "greatest hits" of the religious thinking of the time.

"Now That's What I Call Religion" #1830

HAHAHA - That one really made me laugh out loud.

Now thats what I call religion #1841

And I will always love you...and you and you and you (Whitney Houston)
I can't get enough, satisfaction (Rolling Stones)
Here I go again, Translating on my own
Money Money Money...Money

Now That's what I call religion #2016

Money Money Money...Money
Don't touch it (MC Hammer)
Somebody that I used to know
Another one bites the dust
All about those Gays (meghan Trainor)

[MerrieMiss]

I had an interesting encounter with this book several months ago. One of my TBM friend's husband saw me at the library. We began to chat about how we both have the library send away for really random titles (I actually had one in my hand from a Mennonite library in California about Faith Crisis in Evangelicalism, but I don't know that he saw it). He mentioned he couldn't get a copy of Harrell's book, so he bought it, and if I want to read it, to let him know. I see it sitting on the bookshelf in their front room every time I'm at their house. I wonder about him sometimes...