As I slowly get additional interviews completed (I’ve got some that are scheduled for as far away as December right now), I decided to fill in the gaps with a new series. I’ll write some of the entries and other posters are welcome to join in and add entries of their own.
Before I begin, I want to quote a first presidency statement from 1910.
Diversity of opinion does not necessitate intolerance of spirit, nor should it embitter or set rational beings against each other. … Our religion is not hostile to real science. That which is demonstrated, we accept with joy; but vain philosophy, human theory and mere speculations of men, we do not accept nor do we adopt anything contrary to divine revelation or to good common sense.
With that as a starting point, I thought I’d address things that I thought everyone knew — but it appears that they do not. I’m starting with the LDS Church and its official position on evolution. Here it is:
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has stated that it “has no official position on evolution, and each member is entitled to his or her own personal views on the subject”
Now, there have been people who have spoken in strong terms on both sides of the subject. The most famous used to be Elder James E. Talmage who the LDS Church sponsored to speak in favor of evolution in order to make it clear that there was not an official position in either direction. More recently, the most famous was Bruce R McConkie who was more well known for advocating that Blacks would not receive the priesthood until after Christ had returned and the millennium was completed.
Those who are said to have favored the theory (with a great deal of nuance) include B.H. Roberts, James E. Talmage, John A. Widtsoe, Henry B. Eyring, and Gordon B. Hinckley (which is a long stretch. See the footnote). Those who have opposed it included Joseph Fielding Smith and Bruce R McConkie. Hugh Nibley was well known for considering it rather petty and ungracious to deny the existence of pre-Adamic man, but also felt that the theory of evolution as it was at the time he looked at it (around 1950ish) failed to be complete.
Those who have told people to knock it off and just look at the prior statements include the late Boyd K. Packer. He was following in the footsteps of an earlier first presidency who had told people to knock it off and quit arguing the point:
Upon the fundamental doctrines of the Church we are all agreed. Our mission is to bear the message of the restored gospel to the people of the world. Leave Geology, Biology, Archaeology, and Anthropology, no one of which has to do with the salvation of the souls of mankind, to scientific research …. We can see no advantage to be gained by a continuation of the discussion … but on the contrary are certain it would lead to confusion, division and misunderstanding if carried further. Upon one thing we should all be able to agree, namely, that Presidents Joseph F. Smith, John R. Winder and Anthon H. Lund were right when they said: “Adam is the primal parent of our race.”
The latest CES manual has the following conclusion:
While it is interesting to note these various theories, officially the Church has not taken a stand on the age of the earth. For reasons best known to Himself, the Lord has not yet seen fit to formally reveal the details of the Creation. Therefore, while Latter-day Saints are commanded to learn truth from many different fields of study (see D&C 88:77–79), an attempt to establish any theory as the official position of the Church is not justifiable.
So, in case you were wondering, the Church’s official position on evolution is that there isn’t one and there is not any benefit in arguing over it, but we should instead learn the truth by study.
Footnotes:
On Talmage: I’ll just quote from a better source:
Another of the apostles, geologist James E. Talmage, pointed out that Smith’s views could be misinterpreted as the church’s official position, since Smith’s views were widely circulated in a church magazine but Roberts’s views were limited to an internal church document.[7][21] As a result, the First Presidency gave permission to Talmage to give a speech promoting views that were contrary to Smith’s.[7] In his speech on August 9, 1931, in the Salt Lake Tabernacle, Talmage taught the same principles that Roberts had originally outlined in his draft manual.[25] Over Smith’s objections, the First Presidency authorized a church publication of Talmage’s speech in pamphlet form.[7] In 1965, Talmage’s speech was reprinted again by the LDS Church in an official church magazine.
On David O McKay:
There is a perpetual design permeating all purposes of creation. On this thought, science again leads a student up to a certain point and sometimes leaves him with his soul unanchored. … For example, evolution’s beautiful theory of the creation of the world offers many perplexing problems to the inquiring mind. Inevitably, a teacher who denies divine agency in creation, who insists there is no intelligent purpose in it, will impress the student with the thought that all may be chance. I say, that no youth should be so led without a counterbalancing thought. … God is at the helm. God is the Creator of the earth. He is the Father of our souls and spirits. No question about it. You have your testimony—if you haven’t you shouldn’t be on the faculty—that God lives and Jesus is the Christ, and the purpose of creation is theirs.”
On Gordon B. Hinckley (or why I consider listing him a long stretch):
People ask me every now and again if I believe in evolution. I tell them I am not concerned with organic evolution. I do not worry about it. I passed through that argument long ago.
Also in 1997, Hinckley published his earlier teachings wherein he contrasts “organic evolution” with the evolution and improvement of individuals:
None of us … knows enough. The learning process is an endless process. We must read, we must observe, we must assimilate, and we must ponder that to which we expose our minds. I believe in evolution, not organic evolution, as it is called, but in the evolution of the mind, the heart, and the soul of man. I believe in improvement. I believe in growth.
On Dallin H. Oaks:
He approved the Encyclopedia of Mormonism entry that states:
“[t]he scriptures tell why man was created, but they do not tell how, though the Lord has promised that he will tell that when he comes again.”
Want to read more:
http://en.fairmormon.org/Mormonism_and_science/Evolution/Official_stance
So, what else do you wish that someone would have told you?
Wheat & Tares 
Hmmmmmm……
I guess I miss your point.
BTW, the Church teaches us to search the truth by study and prayer.
Nothing is going to be revealed by God unless we ask.
Infinite Atinement (Tad R. Calaster) puts Organic Evolution in an eternal prospective which us Humans sometimes forget to do.
The idea of evolution is an interesting one because it goes to the great divide between religion and science – in a very practical way.
Non religious people have sought from me an answer to whether I believe in evolution or not, given the significant scientific evidence in favour of it.
I think the reluctance of us to make any official comment seems odd (for whatever reason) as it seems so fundamental to our core beliefs. I don’t agree that all things non-religious (biology, anthropology etc) should be left to others – we have entered the social, political and, dare I say it, anthropological argument surrounding homosexuality and gay marriage without too much of s second thought….
Perhaps the other areas could use some thought too.
The state of the question has certainly changed since 1910, both in terms of what we know about biology and genetics, as well as what we know about how we should understand the early chapters of Genesis. That’s beyond the scope of my book, but I hope to write an article about it sometime in the not too distant future.
Eagerly awaiting R. Gary’s appearance in the comments…
Despite this supposed lack of stance, lds.org is full of erroneous examples implying that we are young earth creationists who reject evolution. http://www.wheatandtares.org/4963/evolution-vs-creationism-in-seminary/
And to quote Pres. Hinckley out of context when he said “I don’t know that we teach it” – when it comes to evolution we absolutely DO teach it at BYU in the Biology department, and it is not up for debate. If it were, a Biology degree at BYU wouldn’t be worth the paper it was printed on.
We may as well say: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has stated that it “has no official position on gravity, and each member is entitled to his or her own personal views on the subject.” Sure, but not believing in gravity doesn’t mean you can fly.
I have to push back on Pres. Packer encouraging any sort of neutrality. Every religion teacher I’ve had that used Packer quotes with talk of evolution always slanted them towards Packer going against the theory of evolution. If Pres. Packer was truly neutral, he was not very good about making it clear. Packer, McConkie, and Fielding Smith were the authors behind almost every authoritative quote thrown at me to prove I was a sinner for believing evolutionary theory from my youth Sunday School classes through adulthood.
Luckily only one BYU religion teacher went so far as to say the biology and anthropology professors were servants of Satan, but I was a senior by that point and had matured to a point where I could just roll my eyes.
“For reasons best known to Himself, the Lord has not yet seen fit to formally reveal the details of the Creation.”
Yet He has revealed many details, in the Bible, in the Book of Abraham and Moses, and in the temple endowment. And some of those details seem in complete conflict with organic evolution. It’s God’s own fault if His saints are blind to what the rest of the world can easily see. He has blinded the Gentiles to the gospel, and He has blinded His saints to science.
Btw, were you really wanting responses to the question of what we should have been told, or just soliciting posts?
Would it really be too difficult for the Church to come up with an official position on evolution? How about an unsigned gospel topics article that admitted that evolution, including human evolution, has been scientifically established beyond any reasonable doubt? All I can conclude by the continued non-position of the Church is that it holds some other values above truth. Holding no position on evolution is anti-science, just like holding no position homeopathy is anti-science.
Hawkgrrl, to the contrary, with enough faith, one could fly, or at least, walk upon water 😉
Mary Ann, I very much want suggestions.
In a completely different area, people seem to be constantly amazed that I actually write about what they say they would like to see.
Thane: I would love to test this theory with the Biology bashers in the CES department.
Refreshing view point, thanks for posting it Stephen!
I’m either just curious or just plain dumb and I don’t mean to start a firestorm. There seems to be some here that believe in organic evolution to the point that homosapirns evolved from monkeys. Whatever.
Since there is so much evidence has there been any eye witness accounts of any new species?
hoffbegone, check this out.. Or even this for a more narrative-based discussion.
I am completely unqualified to comment, but have often wondered if Adam was the first truly sentient homo sapiens, and that he and Eve were up until the point of communication with Deity, unconscious of their own consciousness. My attempt at squaring the circle. And I for one have always been taught that evolution should be of no interest, since I have the temple and Genesis as sufficient explanation. Both narratives, whilst very beautiful, tell me a different story-Eve, spare rib or dust of the earth?
I also remember being in a GD class with a guy studying geology who maintained that the earth had been smooth up to the point of the Saviour’s death. So I welcome a little modesty in the face of science, not something I’ve grown up with.
Those of you who think the temple doesn’t teach evolution, clearly have not been through the Manti temple; the only temple, as far as I know, with dinosaurs in it. And now, someone has told you.
However, the biggest takeaway from this topic has nothing to do with evolution. No, the biggest takeaway is the fact that anyone, from lowly sunday school teachers to bishops to apostles, can disagree with the official position of the church and just because somebody says something is true or says that “this is what the church teaches” doesn’t make it true no matter who it is who says it.
I always hate it when church leaders give wishy-washy answers on topics like this. Here we are saying “we just don’t know what God is doing”, like we’re not a church that believes God can literally talk to humans and answer their very specific questions.
The problem with the church not getting on the forefront of such issues is that science will. We now know how species diversify over time, and unfortunately it’s been no thanks to any religious revelations on the matter.
I think the church needs to actually come out with things that God has told them — because so long as they play this soft, “lawyerese” and “inspired counsel” with their statements, we’ll always lose out in the long run.
In all fairness DB [#18], dinosaurs being in the temple don’t demonstrate a damn thing with regards to whether we teach evolution or not. For example, Ken Ham believes in dinosaurs — the guy even puts them all over his “creation museum”, but that doesn’t mean anything with respect to his understanding of evolution.
Maybe this isn’t super on topic (other than discussing how religions can incorporate evolution into their theologies), but one thing I’ve thought of (maybe I read about it somewhere, but I can’t recall) is — are there any religions/denominations that map their creation stories to the data we have about human evolution (and its impact on human psychology, etc.,)
For example, I do not really connect well to the story of the garden of eden, the fall, etc., as it is traditionally (and literally) espoused. I just don’t identify with it. I don’t identify with the “sin nature” that Christians talk about, and it doesn’t make sense that God would make something perfect that could fall apart and it would be our fault for that. (Granted, a lot of that is responding to the traditional Christian narrative, not the LDS narrative where the fall is a positive thing.)
However, I can agree with the idea that humans are, in some sense, evolved beings who are struggling between our higher order thinking skills and consciousness on the one hand…and our origins/history/provenance of being emotional, irrational animals on the other hand.
It makes sense to me that, in the imperfect and fitful narrative of evolution, that we therefore have lots of struggles.
Therefore, the tree of knowledge can represent the evolution of said consciousness that places us apart from most animals…but at the same time, it is not a perfect consciousness, so we still have bad habits, still have a lot of automatic patterns, still lash out, etc.,
Does any group really develop that idea?
Neutrality allows the range of generations–from the older (McConkie indoctrinated) to the younger (freshly aware of the overwhelming evidence)–to hear what they want. It’s not reassuring. But it helps avoid the issue becoming a stumbling block to membership.
When I submitted by DNA to National Geographic for testing, they came back and said I, along with all the rest of the world population, emanated from north central Africa umpteen thousands of years ago. I now identify as African American.
Andrew– well said.
You left out my favorite quote, concluding the First Presidency message of 1909 on the Origin of Man:
“Man is the child of God, formed in the divine image and endowed with divine attributes, and even as the infant son of an earthly father and mother is capable in due time of becoming a man, so the undeveloped offspring of celestial parentage is capable, by experience through ages and aeons, of evolving into a God.”
Evolving into a God. That is not a concept found in most creationist circles.
I was fortunate to take the biology class on Evolution at BYU with Duane E. Jeffery, back in the day. One of the things I got out of it was that LDS teaching is NOT creationism.
I don’t see a need for a stronger position. We have so many other concerns that are more central to the church’s mission.
I understand that the Church’s current neutral position is likely due to the leadership being divided in their opinions and/or because taking a position one way or the other would damage some people’s testimonies and there are more important things to worry about. My response to that is that where is the spirit of revelation in the church? This is a question with an answer, it has implications for our theology, and it is a stumbling block for many people trying to reconcile science with faith. According to our revelation tradition, the Holy Ghost should be able to manifest the true position on evolution to both the leadership and the general membership. Yet everyone pretty much is left to come up with their own position. Joseph Smith never would have let this happen.
“I don’t see a need for a stronger position. We have so many other concerns that are more central to the church’s mission.”
I’m told by a good source (sorry) that evolution is the largest single doctrinal reason that members remove themselves from the LDS Church in England. I know several people whose children have left the Church due to that and related issues of science that many of us consider settled, e.g. age of the earth and so on. In many cases, it’s down to the idea that prophets (whether 50 years or 2500 years ago) should be scientists, and God should speak in scientific terms.
Joel,
” Yet everyone pretty much is left to come up with their own position. Joseph Smith never would have let this happen.”
True. I think the answer is for people to tamper there expectations of revelation.
I agree that Joseph would have given a district answer with an air of complete confidence. He was younger and more impetuous than today’s leaders. I believe Joesph had some genuinely revelatory moments. But I also think the man had difficulty distinguishing between revelation and his intuition and rich imagination. (See,e.g. Zelf.)
Other Joel, why does it seem we have gone from prophets who boldly declared the mind of God, yet had a hard time distinguishing their thoughts from God’s, to prophets that hedge their bets and don’t take a firm position? And what good is either? Former leaders boldly declared positions of anti science, including creationism, and have backed off as they have been proven wrong. So much of what our leaders have declared as “eternal truth” has been proven fiction, it makes me question either their call or their value.
#21 Andrew, this Wikipedia entry has a pretty decent overview of how some religions have responded favorably to the idea of evolution and tend to resolve it (at varying degrees) with their beliefs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acceptance_of_evolution_by_religious_groups)
Basically, a lot of groups (Catholics and Jews among them) take a more allegorical view of Genesis eliminating the science/religion conflict that literalists encounter. I suspect the Catholic Church has had enough bad experience fighting large-scale scientific discoveries.
What I wish someone told me earlier:
-Gender – we’ve made up a lot of stuff in this church about gender. Most of the explanations we give for gender role differences are speculation and based heavily on the culture of the time. We’ve put forth many contradictory ideas which have become embedded in our cultural psyche and it’s had a serious psychological and emotional toll on both men and women. Recognize what (little) is doctrine and when it’s best to say, “I don’t know.”
-Polygamy – no sane woman likes polygamy. A lot of women who practiced polygamy didn’t like polygamy. Those who publicly spoke favorably of it were defending the church and it’s doctrines, so recognize there is some bias. Having difficulty reconciling it? Congratulations, you’re normal. (Keep in mind that it’s *because* of polygamy we get the belief that there will be more women than men in the celestial kingdom. Don’t mix it around and think that because women will outnumber men in the celestial kingdom due to their obvious superior spirituality that polygamy is therefore inevitable.)
-Early church doctrine vs. now – early church leaders were creating a new church structure, constantly adjusting that structure in reaction to new revelations (which weren’t always very clear), and dealing with political issues of the 19th century. They thought and spoke very differently than we do today. They freely speculated on a LOT of stuff. If anyone tries to sell you that they understood doctrine the same way we do today, run. You will encounter crazy quotes from early church leaders. Always get the context. You’ll likely figure out that the entire sermon is on the disturbing side and it’s much easier to recognize that we think about things very differently now.
-The Good Samaritan – the parable of the Good Samaritan is an allusion to an OT event in 2 Chronicles 28. It’s not particularly deep, but it has a powerful message. Christ was reminding a Jewish guy that the ancestors of the Samaritans had showed mercy to the ancestors of the Jews in a moment when mercy was not expected or deserved. Truly anyone can be a neighbor, even your worst enemy. Why I had to find this out in a Jewish commentary on the New Testament after decades of being taught this story in church and college classes is beyond me.
To follow up on Mary Ann’s short list…
Let me characterize my disdain for all the baloney and untruths I have been taught at/in/through the church with two quotes: (one derived from the other)…
“Butch Cassidy: You’re from the east? I didn’t know that.
Sundance Kid: The total tonnage of what you don’t know is enough to shatter…”
“The West Wing: The Stackhouse Filibuster (2001)
Vice President John Hoynes: Toby, the total tonnage of what I know that you don’t could stun a team of oxen in its tracks. ”
We, years ago, have entered an era of readily-available information evidencing the actual truths on many topics of doctrine and history. Yet, our leadership continues to dissemble, dissimulate, obfuscate, and carefully parse their words of apology (the essays) as they change to more “transparency.” Add to that the near impossibility for one to confront that and try to “work through” it (“faith transition?”) via discussions with the clueless and mindless brothers and sisters locally, only serves to fuel my disillusionment and sense of betrayal.
Did God, who supposedly can see the future, plan and intend this. Or, is He leaving our so-called prophets, seers, and revelators to their own devices? On the other hand, somehow all their bungling over the past 200 years has still developed (which, after eliminating revelation, one can understand via, dare I say, anthropology, sociology, and psychology) a relatively highly effective “baby in the bath water.”
Thor,
“… it makes me question either they’re call or their value.”
Me too.
Mary Ann, I love the list!
Although the church states it has “no position” on evolution, this is really disingenuous. If you look at official statements and countless teachings from the prophets and apostles, you find that the church disagrees with evolution, they just won’t come out and say it.
There have been multiple First Presidency Messages (that have not been revoked) that state the man was a direct descendant of god (no room for millions of years of other species slowly developing into man). You have quotes from Brigham Young, John Taylor, Ezra Taft Benson, Bruce R. McConkie and plenty of others teaching that Darwin’s teachings were wrong, to put it lightly. The Old Testament Student Handbook probably said it best: “In the world another theory of how things began is popularly held and widely taught. This theory, that of organic evolution, was generally developed from the writings of Charles Darwin. It puts forth different ideas concerning how life began and where man came from. In relation to this theory, the following statements should help you understand what the Church teaches about the Creation and the origin of man. … [quoting Joseph Fielding Smith:] “Of course, I think those people who hold to the view that man has come up through all these ages from the scum of the sea through billions of years do not believe in Adam. Honestly I do not know how they can, and I am going to show you that they do not. There are some who attempt to do it but they are inconsistent—absolutely inconsistent, because that doctrine is so incompatible, so utterly out of harmony, with the revelations of the Lord that a man just cannot believe in both…. I say most emphatically, you cannot believe in this theory of the origin of man, and at the same time accept the plan of salvation as set forth by the Lord our God. You must choose the one and reject the other, for they are in direct conflict and there is a gulf separating them which is so great that it cannot be bridged, no matter how much one may try to do so.”
Now, as I have said 100 times, I do believe the church will eventually combine evolution and the gospel by saying, god used evolution to create all the forms of life. But they will have to get over some hurdles first. And as far as I am concerned, I agree with Joseph Fielding Smith, just as he believed there was a huge gulf between the origin of man and the plan of salvation, I believe there is a huge gulf between science and religion.
Why doesn’t the church have an official position on evolution?
The same reason it doesn’t have an official position on the literalness of the bible, and the same reason it has backed off teaching where the people of the BOM lived, and so on and so on.
The church doesn’t want to be painted into a corner and proven wrong by science. If the church said evolution is false, it would have already been proven wrong. If the church says the bible is literally true, it could be proven wrong. If the church says the Jaredites’ final battle took place in Santa Fe, it could be proven wrong. If you never take a position on anything that can be proven to be false: you can never be proven false. If you stick to things that can’t be proven to be false, like moral issues: x and y are wrong, well, science can’t really prove things like that wrong, at this point. But it can check the DNA of the ancient inhabitants of the Americas to see if they could have come from Israel.
Churches have (slowly) learned to avoid claiming the earth is at the center of the universe only to be proven wrong. Churches avoid taking scientific positions because they don’t like to be proven wrong, especially by non-believers! If you look at history, religion used to claim to know so much, but science has chipped away and chipped away so that religion is constantly claiming to know less and less.
To be fair, it is only recently that we as humans have divorced scientific exploration and discovery from it’s religious roots. Religion in pretty much every culture made sense of how the world worked and our place in it. As science has become more secular, it has usurped a role that religions still believe they should be performing.
It’s not necessarily that current leaders are afraid of being proved wrong (although I’m sure that plays a role), but that they are better recognizing their limits. For millennia a literal interpretation of the Bible was a given. Any attack on that literal interpretation was an affront to God, therefore religious leaders were well within their rights to defend their parishioners from heresy. We are still reconciling an increasingly secular understanding of natural processes with gleaning eternal truths about God from texts whose writers assumed nature was controlled by the whims and fancies of capricious deities. Add to that the ability for any statement by a church leader to be publicized worldwide in a matter of minutes and it makes sense why they might be treading more delicately on matters that are now generally understood to belong to science.
“I’m told by a good source (sorry) that evolution is the largest single doctrinal reason that members remove themselves from the LDS Church in England.”
It wouldn’t surprise me. I’ve come across more than a few hardline longtime members who insisted evolution was against church teachings, growing up here. Big readers of the works of Joseph F Smith and Bruce R McConkie.
It was refreshing, to say the least to be introduced to the more disparate views as a student in London, when our CES Institute director handed out what I think he described as a student pack containing a variety of quotes and indicating that the church did not take a stand on the subject. He said BYU used the same set of quotes, though I don’t know how true that was. This would have been the late 80s.
This is all so silly. Christ’s true church on Earth “doesn’t want to be painted into a corner”, “revelation should be tempered” “Joseph Smith was sometimes a prophet and sometimes just pulling stuff out of his nether-regions, depending on if the ‘revelation’ happened to come true or not”, science could eventually prove God’s prophet WRONG. Doesn’t anyone see the problem with this??? If this were Christ’s actual one true church wouldn’t the prophets be getting revelation from God on important questions about where we came from? That’s one of the three questions this church claims to solve and yet when asked directly they run away from it. Sorry everyone, Occam’s Razor applies to you just like it does everyone else. Even if it happens to mean that the religion you were indoctrinated into is not the “one true church”, like all the other “one true churches” in the world that other people are indoctrinated into and defend to the death. Be objective, think beyond what you were taught, draw logical conclusions based on reason and not on keeping your status quo in tact.
#38 Hedgehog: The “student pack” you refer to was eventually published as a small book and was required reading for all biology classes at the Y through the 1990’s at least (and maybe today?) In any case, it’s available through Amazon.
That’s interesting TOC. Thanks.
Helen, if you don’t ascribe to prophets as dictaphones then your criticisms are off base.
Though your indoctrination shows through. The other Clark — thanks for the link!
I’m still on vacation. Was stranded on the Slovak / Hungarian border for a bit.
Should be home ok though.
A short quote to add to things.
“The origin of life, whether human or inferior, must be lodged in some character whom I have not seen! Follow it back, no matter whether it be for six thousand years, six millions, six million millions, or billions of years, the figures and numbers are immaterial, I must have come from some source; my natural philosophy teaches me this. But, leaving the natural philosophy of the child free from false tradition, let us inquire. What does the philosophy of the Christian sects, or many of them, not all, teach? “God made the world in six days, out of nothing!” This is very wrong; no child should be taught any such dogma. God never did make a world out of nothing; He never will, He never can!” (Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, 13:248 [25 September 1870])