“Who is the central figure in this story?” asked Elder Kyle S. McKay, historian and recorder of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, after recounting the story familiar to members of the church about Joseph Smith losing the 116 pages of translated pages from the Book of Mormon manuscript.
“I have always put Joseph Smith in the middle of it with Martin as a co-star, if you will,” he said. “Emma plays a compelling supporting role, and for most of us, Lucy Harris is lurking and suspicious, and of course, the Lord is watching over it all.”
But Elder McKay encouraged a re-narration or re-storying of this history, prompted by multiple occasions in scripture where the Savior is cited as saying, “I am in your midst.”
“By definition, midst means in the middle, at the center,” he said. “How shortsighted — maybe blind — it is of me to take him out of the center where God has placed him, and put him instead in some lofty (out of the middle) location where he simply oversees, observes and occasionally interjects.”
Elder McKay shared these remarks at the beginning of a two-day conference, “I Am in Your Midst”: Jesus Christ at the Center of Church History, held Friday and Saturday in Salt Lake City and sponsored by the Church History Department. The conference included explorations of “Methods to See the Redeemer in the Church’s Past” and “Helping Students Find the Savior in Church History” — as well as a focused discussion on navigating difficult questions.
Then on Saturday morning, Elder McKay joined three others who have previously held the position of church historian and recorder — Elder LeGrand R. Curtis Jr., Elder Steven E. Snow and Elder Marlin K. Jensen — for a discussion on “Seeing the Savior in Church History.”
‘Get the whole story’
When Latter-day Saints inadvertently remove Jesus Christ from the center of church history and replace him with someone else — Joseph Smith, Brigham Young or any other figure — “the mistakes and weaknesses of these people, perceived or real, take on undue significance, potentially causing us to panic, criticize, doubt or even depart,” Elder McKay said.
“If we will simply keep Christ at the center where God has placed him,” he said, “none of the noise in the periphery will distract or drag us down.
“If you know enough church history, if you dive into it, if you get the whole story, and not some little piece, it will cause your testimony to grow,” elaborated Elder Curtis on Saturday.
For young people today, he said, “what we really want is to get the gospel so deep in their hearts that whatever winds come, they can’t be blown off course. And I think a great way to do that is for them to see the hand of God moving through the other generations.”
Elder Snow similarly remarked on how much positive feedback he’d heard from people appreciating the chance to read stories in the “Saints” volumes with “all the warts in the history as well.”
“But in the context of the whole story, it makes a lot more sense than when one of these little matters is sensationalized on the internet.”
Jesus hard or easy to miss?
Anthony Sweat, professor of church history and doctrine at Brigham Young University, participated in another panel about “Helping Students Find the Savior in Church History.”
“If I told you we’re going to talk about the restoration” in a class or talk, he asked, “where does your mind go, or what do you think?”
“Most minds automatically go to Joseph in the past,” he said, before encouraging people to appreciate that “when we talk about the restoration, we’re not talking about Joseph in the past. We’re actually talking about Jesus and the future.”
This is an “ongoing work to make God’s will done on this earth like it’s done in heaven,” he said.
Lori Newbold, director of training services with Seminaries and Institutes, agreed. “It’s not Joseph’s restoration, it’s the Savior’s,” she said. “I don’t see church history without him anymore.”
Barbara Morgan Gardner, professor of church history and doctrine at BYU, said that “when I am focusing on the Savior, it’s hard to miss him.”
“When my life is aligned and I am praying to my Father in heaven in the name of the Savior, and I’m reading the scriptures, I don’t have to find him, because he’s so obviously there.”
“And it’s the same in church history,” she said, describing the importance of having her “eyes rooted on him” in her personal worship and teaching alike.
‘Organized religion is not my thing’
During the panel with former church historians, Elder McKay cited the common attitude, “organized religion is not my thing.” Then, he asked the others: “How do you respond to people who declare that they believe in Jesus, but not that church or a church, any church?”
Responding, Elder Curtis acknowledged that “if everyone in this world believed in Jesus, it’d be a much better place.” But he went on to ask what it means to believe in Jesus. If they don’t “also believe in the church that he had organized,” then people “miss a big chunk of what God has in store for them.”
For instance, he said, “you also separate yourself from his holy house and what he has waiting for you there.”
Elder McKay had noted earlier that “the most important part of this ongoing restoration is the restoration of people.”
“He planned for sin, sickness, unfairness, misery and injustice even planned for death,” he said.
“I would hope, first of all, that our lives would evidence” the benefit of faith, Elder Jensen added. “I worry about that — that people can live among us for years at a time and not sense something special.”
Citing Nephi’s remark that Jesus does “nothing save it be for the benefit of the world,” Elder Jensen said, but “there is a fullness that they don’t yet have.”
Referring to his years serving as a patriarch in his stake, he said, “Where else could you go up and have Heavenly Father look down on you in a given moment and tell you how he feels about you, what your possibilities are and what your life’s mission can be? That’s just an incalculable blessing.”
History pointing to a bright future
“What role does church history play in helping us prepare for the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ,” Elder McKay asked as a closing question — referring to President Russell M. Nelson’s teaching earlier this year, “The Lord is prompting me to urge us to get ready.”
In response, Elder Jensen pointed to President Gordon B. Hinckley’s “Summit of the Ages” talk right before the new millennium as an illustration of how church history can “give us the grand sweep and a view of the grand purposes of God how they’re being brought to pass in the various dispensations” — helping to trace the “Lord’s overarching hand over mankind through all those centuries.”
In the meanwhile, Elder Jensen noted, people who love church history and make time for it enjoy “a greater faith, a greater devotion to the Lord’s cause.”
That’s one of the reasons he personally loves church history, noting “the privileged position that history should hold in our church and in all that we do in the church.”