Lately there’s been some excitement online about the Church History Topic “Masonry” and the Gospel Topic “Book of Mormon Geography” (I wrote on the latter last week). In those discussions, I’ve noticed some confusion about what those entries are and where to find them. Both were sometimes incorrectly described as Gospel Topics Essays, which got people scratching their heads when they couldn’t find them in that section. I decided to put together some background on these three very important, and very different, topical resources. Since the Church has a proclivity to change things online without notice[1], I’m going into detail for the benefit of future readers (for a quicker read, skip the bullet points).
GOSPEL TOPICS
Note: for clarity, I’m going to refer to the shorter essays in the Gospel Topics section as entries to avoid confusion with the official Gospel Topics Essays.
The online Gospel Topics section first appeared with a major overhaul of the LDS.org website in January 2007 (the beta version was available six months earlier). Bloggers at the time (including our own Dave B) noted that entries in the Gospel Topics section were pulled directly from the 2004 publication True to the Faith: A Gospel Reference. The tiny True to the Faith handbook was published by the Church with little fanfare and immediately incorporated into the “approved missionary library.” (It was listed in Preach My Gospel, another significant publication released in 2004). True to the Faith contained 170 topical entries arranged alphabetically from Aaronic Priesthood to Zion.
Before the Gospel Topics website was ever created, the contents of True to the Faith received special attention in the bloggernacle due to Lavina Fielding Anderson’s presentation at the 2005 Sunstone Conference and an article in the Winter 2006 volume of Dialogue. She noted that in contrast with Elder Bruce R. McConkie’s unauthorized Mormon Doctrine or the restricted Church Handbook of Instructions, True to the Faith made “available an authoritative, correlated source upon which members [could] draw with complete reliance that ‘this is what we believe.'” The publication represented a “snapshot of authorized Mormon beliefs and behaviors…” The Gospel Topics section on LDS.org carries the same authoritative weight.
When the Gospel Topics website first went live, it included several new entries in addition to the original 170 True to the Faith topics. As of February 2007 (per the Internet’s Wayback Machine), they added:
- Baptisms for the Dead;
- Christ; Church Finances–Commercial Businesses[2]; Communication;
- Dating and Courtship;
- Food Storage;
- Grief;
- Internet;
- Media; Miracles; Movies and Television; Music;
- Ordination to the Priesthood;
- Parenting;
- Single Members of the Church; Single-Parent Families; Spiritual Experiences;
- Trials;
- Women in the Church.
In the intervening years, the Gospel Topics Section has significantly expanded. Topics added since 2007 (Gospel Topics Essays are noted in red):
- Accounts of the First Vision (See First Vision Accounts); Answering Gospel Questions; Apostate (See Church Disciplinary Councils); Are Mormons Christian?;
- Becoming Like God; Bible, Inerrancy of; Book of Abraham (See Translation and Historicity of the Book of Abraham); Book of Mormon and DNA Studies; Book of Mormon Geography[3]; Book of Mormon Translation;
- Christian (See Are Mormons Christian?); Christmas;
- Daughters in My Kingdom; Deification (See Becoming Like God); Disability; Dispensations; Diversity and Unity in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; DNA and the Book of Mormon (See Book of Mormon and DNA Studies);
- Easter; Emergency Preparedness; Emergency Response; Employment; Environmental Stewardship and Conservation; Excommunication (See Church Disciplinary Councils),
- Family Finances; Family Proclamation (See The Family: A Proclamation to the World); First Vision; First Vision Accounts;
- Gardening; Gay (See Same-Sex Attraction); Genealogy (See Family History); Gold Plates;
- Health; Heavenly Mother (See Mother in Heaven); High Council; High Priest; Humanitarian Service;
- Immortality; Inspiration;
- Jesus Christ Chosen as Savior; Joseph Smith’s Teachings about Priesthood, Temple, Women; Journal of Discourses;
- Latter-day Saints (See Are Mormons Christian?);
- Missionary Preparation; Missionary Training Centers; Mormon Church; Mormonism; Mormons; Mormons and Christianity (See Are Mormons Christian?); Mortality; Mother in Heaven; Mountain Meadows Massacre;
- New Testament; Noah;
- Old Testament;
- Patriarch; Peace and Violence among 19th-Century Latter-day Saints; Peer Pressure; PEF Self-Reliance; Physical Death (See Death, Physical); Plural Marriage in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; Polygamy (See Plural Marriage in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints); Postmortality; Pre-Earth Life (See Premortality); Premortality; Priesthood and Race (See Race and the Priesthood); Priesthood Blessing; Primary; Proxy Baptism;
- Race and the Priesthood; Religious Freedom;
- Same-Sex Attraction; Same-Sex Marriage; Sealing; Self-Reliance; Spaulding Manuscript; Spirit Children of Heavenly Parents; Spirit World; Stewardship; Study (See Answering Gospel Questions); Suicide;
- The Family: A Proclamation to the World; Transgression; Translation and Historicity of the Book of Abraham;
- Unwed Pregnancy; Urim and Thummim;
- Vicarious Work; Virtue;
- War in Heaven.
Topics deleted since 2007:
- Area Authority Seventy (see Church Administration);
- Body Piercing;
- Hot Drinks (See Word of Wisdom);
- Ordination to the Priesthood.
Members may have noticed that the Gospel Topics section on the LDS.org website doesn’t currently match the Gospel Topics section in the Gospel Library app. For one thing, none of the Gospel Topics Essays appear in the app’s Gospel Topics section (although a link is available in the Gospel Topics introduction). The essays have their own section in the Gospel Library app.
The vast majority of Gospel Topics entry deletions in the app are minor, usually the alternate wording associated with the paranthetical “See XYZ.” The topics of Home Teaching and Visiting Teaching understandably got the axe. Other entry omissions are not as easily explained (Church Organization, Disability, Family Home Evening, Humanitarian Service, Missionary Preparation, Missionary Training Centers, PEF Self-Reliance, Plan of Salvation, The Family: A Proclamation to the World, and Welfare). Perhaps they figured those topics are accessible in other areas of the app.
GOSPEL TOPICS ESSAYS
We now have better background on the creation of the thirteen Gospel Topics Essays thanks to Lisa Olsen Tait’s August 2018 FairMormon presentation, “Takeaways from the Gospel Topics Essays.” Tait, a Church Historian, was one of many collaborators on the project. She explained that the process “began around 2010 when leaders convened a committee and commissioned them with developing in-depth, accurate, balanced, and faithful answers to questions about difficult issues in church history.”[4] The Church “needed to do better in the Google wars” and topics were selected by the committee based on awareness of what was driving online discussions that could be “very damaging.”[5][6]
“Over the course of the project, historians in the Church History Department worked with a committee of Seventies to develop and write the essays. Scholars from outside the department also participated in the discussions, reviewed manuscripts, and in some cases contributed substantial material.”[7] Tait stressed the involvement of senior leadership in reviewing and approving the essays, including the Quorum of the Twelve and the First Presidency. “The Gospel Topics Essays are church statements.”[8]
Here are the titles and release dates of the thirteen Gospel Topics Essays:
- Are Mormons Christian? (20 November 2013);
- Becoming Like God (24 February 2014);
- Book of Mormon and DNA Studies (31 January 2014);
- Book of Mormon Translation (30 December 2013);
- First Vision Accounts (20 November 2013);
- Joseph Smith’s Teachings about Priesthood, Temple, and Women (23 October 2015);
- Mother in Heaven (23 October 2015);
- Peace and Violence among 19th-Century Latter-day Saints (13 May 2014);
- Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo (22 October 2014);
- Plural Marriage and Families in Early Utah (16 December 2013);
- The Manifesto and the End of Plural Marriage (22 October 2014);
- Race and the Priesthood (6 December 2013);
- Translation and Historicity of the Book of Abraham (8 July 2014).
This is the list as it appears in the Gospel Library app. On the Church’s Gospel Topics Essays website, all three plural marriage (polygamy) essays are nested in a single essay Plural Marriage in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Tait noted that the essays were originally placed in the Gospel Topics section of LDS.org in order for members to access them easily. Unfortunately, as I covered in a post a couple years ago, the Church didn’t publicize the release of these essays (the last two excepted), and there are still members who are unaware of them. Perhaps the separation of the essays from the rest of the Gospel Topics in the Gospel Library app may help. One of the most exciting details from Tait’s presentation is that the Gospel Topics Essays have now been translated into about 20 languages.
CHURCH HISTORY TOPICS
Many readers are less familiar with this new resource. With the publication of the new narrative church history Saints: The Story of the Church of Jesus Christ in the Latter Days several months ago, over 110 associated short essays related to church history were published by the Church History Department (released in 14 languages). These essays provide further details on subjects related to the first volume of Saints (I assume more will be added as subsequent volumes are published). Typically the footnotes in Saints alert readers to an associated Church History Topic essay, if available. Matt Grow, director of publications at the Church History Department, explained at a worldwide youth devotional that these essays go more in-depth on events, themes, people and places in Church history, and “they even point you to further reading, things not published by the church, that can help you increase your understanding.”
Like the much-longer Gospel Topics Essays, many of the Church History Topics essays cover subjects long considered controversial or uncomfortable. Generally, these are brief, accessible introductions to the topics with the expectation that readers will consult the recommended reading material if they desire more detail. Some of the Church History topics also include embedded bite-size videos of interviews with Church historians. In a few cases, the Church History topic essay goes more in-depth in a topic only briefly covered in an associated Gospel Topics essay. The Fanny Alger essay, for example, provides a few more details on her plural marriage with Joseph in Kirtland than what is found in the early plural marriage Gospel Topics Essay.
Although these Church History Topics essays were discussed in public venues, individual topics were rarely mentioned. That may be why even readers familiar with the Saints project are unaware of them. Because of that oversight, below is a complete list of all 118 Church History Topics essays currently available in the Gospel Library app and online (some titles of these essays seem to match those in the Gospel Topics section, but these essays are focused on historical context):
- Adam-ondi-Ahman; Amanda Barnes Smith; American Indians; American Legal and Political Institutions; Angel Moroni; Anointed Quorum (“Holy Order”); Awakenings and Revivals;
- Baptism for the Dead; Bishop; Book of Abraham Translation; Book of Commandments; Book of Mormon Translation;
- Canada; Christian Churches in Joseph Smith’s Day; Church Discipline; Church Periodicals; Common Consent; Consecration and Stewardship; Council of Fifty; Critics of the Book of Mormon;
- Daily Life of First-Generation Latter-day Saints; Danites; Deaths of Joseph and Hyrum Smith; Dedication of the Holy Land; Departure from Nauvoo; Dissent in the Church; Divining Rods; Doctrine and Covenants;
- Early Missionaries; Elijah Able; Emma Hale Smith; Endowment of Power; England; Extermination Order;
- Fanny Alger; Far West; Female Relief Society of Nauvoo; First Presidency; Founding Meeting of the Church of Christ; French Polynesia;
- Gathering of Israel, The; Gift of Tongues; Gifts of the Spirit; Gold Plates;
- Hawn’s Mill Massacre; Healing; High Council; Hymns; Hyrum Smith;
- Independence, Missouri;
- Jackson County Violence; Jane Elizabeth Manning James; Joseph and Emma Hale Smith Family; Joseph Smith and Plural Marriage; Joseph Smith Jr.; Joseph Smith’s 1826 Trial; Joseph Smith’s 1844 Campaign for United States President; Joseph Smith’s First Vision Accounts; Joseph Smith’s Leg Surgery; Joseph Smith Sr.; Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible; Joseph Sr. and Lucy Mack Smith Family;
- Kinderhook Plates; King Follett Discourse; Kirtland, Ohio; Kirtland Safety Society; Kirtland Temple;
- Lamanite Identity; Lectures on Theology (“Lectures on Faith”); Liberty Jail; Lost Manuscript of the Book of Mormon; Lucy Mack Smith;
- Martin Harris’ Consultation with Scholars; Masonry; Missouri Extradition Attempts; Mormon-Missouri War of 1838; Mother in Heaven;
- Name of the Church; Nauvoo (Commerce), Illinois; Nauvoo Expositor; Nauvoo Temple;
- Oliver Cowdery; Opposition to the Early Church; Other Latter Day Saint Movements;
- Palmyra and Manchester; Patriarchal Blessings; Printing and Publishing the Book of Mormon; Prophecies of Joseph Smith;
- Quincy, Illinois, Settlement; Quorum of the Twelve; Quorums of the Seventy;
- Religious Beliefs in Joseph Smith’s Day; Restoration of the Aaronic Priesthood; Restoration of the Melchizedek Priesthood; Revelations of Joseph Smith;
- Sacrament Meetings; Sacred Grove and Smith Family Farm; School of the Prophets; Sealing; Seer Stones; Sidney Rigdon; Slavery and Abolition; Solemn Assemblies; Succession of Church Leadership;
- Temple Dedications and Dedicatory Prayers; Temple Endowment; Thomas B. Marsh; Tithing; Treasure Seeking;
- United Firm (“United Order”);
- Vigilantism; Vision, The (D&C 76);
- Wards and Stakes; Washing of Feet; Witnesses of the Book of Mormon; Word of Wisdom (D&C 89);
- Zion/New Jerusalem; Zion’s Camp (Camp of Israel).
ACCESSIBILITY
There are a few different ways to access these different topic resources online. The traditional Gospel Topics website can be accessed from the main menu on LDS.org. Click on “Scriptures and Study” and then “Gospel Topics.” On the main Gospel Topics website, you can scroll down to access the Gospel Topics Essays.
For the Church History Topics, the easiest access is via the Saints website (saints.lds.org). Once you’re there, scroll down and click on “Topics.”
In the Gospel Library App, you can access all three of these resources (Gospel Topics, Gospel Topics Essays, and Church History Topics) via the “Topics” icon.
Both the Gospel Topics Essays and Church History Topics are also available via the “Church History” icon.
[1] For a recent example, see this post about Elijah Able’s ordination record suddenly popping up in a citation at the Joseph Smith Papers website.
[2] This entry about Church’s commercial business ventures may have been related to increased scrutiny around the Church’s involvement in downtown Salt Lake City revitalization efforts (like City Creek Center).
[3] I wrote last week that the “Book of Mormon Geography” entry was NOT available on the regular Gospel Topics website and put up a screenshot as evidence. It now appears to be available, except the link currently takes you to a replica of the Book of Mormon Translation Gospel Topics Essay page. Probably still a work in progress.
[4] About 2:23.
[5] From the Q&A. About 44:50.
[6] I’ve previously written about the November 2010 fireside in Sweden where two members of the Church History Department (including a general authority) were sent to allay widespread concerns about difficult church history topics.
[7] About 2:36.
[8] About 3:28.
Mary Ann, this is a very useful post, thanks.
I forgot to put one detail in the post. There were some title adjustments between the original entries and those which now appear on the Gospel Topics page. Most are inconsequential (like “Church Administration” to “Church Organization”). I found it curious that the title of the original 2007 entry (based on the True to the Faith topic) “Restoration of the Gospel” was at some point changed to the current “Restoration of the Priesthood.” It covers the same major 19th-century events of the Restoration, but there is much less talk of the Great Apostasy and prophesied “future destiny” of the church.
I liked the call out to Lavina Fielding Anderson. We need a guest post or an interview with her.
Very helpful, Mary Ann — and I know it was a lot of work setting up and populating those lists.
The remarks on how the Gospel Topics Essays were commissioned, drafted, and reviewed is very interesting. But why do we have to get this helpful information sort of under the table, so to speak? It would sure be nice if some of this background was posted at the Essays site. Everyone knows how tricky it can be to distinguish LDS doctrine from “folklore,” and what has come to be called “core doctrine” from just regular doctrine, whatever that is.
The Newsroom published an essay a few years back titled “Approaching Mormon Doctrine” (link below) trying to help journalists figure out what was LDS doctrine and what wasn’t. The way material is posted at LDS.org, with no notice, no date or authorship, and no context contributes to that problem. The way the Gospel Topics Essays are posted and highlighted at LDS.org suggests they are reliable statements, but never being mentioned in General Conference and not being integrated with the curriculum (this might change as it gets updated) suggests the Essays are not so official. So sometimes the Church creates the doctrinal confusion it then complains about.
https://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/approaching-mormon-doctrine
I agree 100% with Dave B. I find it very interesting that in a normal Sunday School, priesthood, or Relief Society class one could cause quite a stir by simply mentioning basic facts found in some of the Gospel Topics essays. Some members are very uncomfortable with these kinds of discussions, yet the source material can be found on the Church’s official web site. I applaud the Brethren for approving the publication of these essays but I still get the impression that they hope members don’t really bother to read them, much less discuss them.
I thought I was familiar with the gospel topics essays and related material, but I was unaware of a lot of the content here and the difference between the gospel topics entries and gospel topics essays. Actually, I’m still a bit confused, but I’m sure that’s not the fault of the OP. I’m quite impressed with the completeness of the post.
I’m still not convinced that church leadership actually wants people to know about some of the content here. But I will note that some of the controversial essays were referenced in the online version of last year’s gospel doctrine manual as supplementary(?) material, but it was never used it referenced in any class I attended.
I think the perceived failure to adequately publicize is a reflection of the outsized interest of this particular community rather than a desire to hide the essays. It’s human nature to assess that what’s important to me is important to everybody, but I just don’t think that the average member of the Church cares about the issues addressed in the Gospel Topics essays. I care. Everyone here cares. But I don’t think our priorities reflect the priorities of most people. You see this in a lot of blogs. Tech bloggers and their readers place outsized importance on things like whether iOS should have a robust file system like Android. The fact is that most people don’t care.
There’s a limited allotment of time in Sunday School (even less now), and that time is best spent on discussions of things other than academic crtiticisms of the Church and/or apologetics. I’m glad these resources are available for anyone looking for them. There’s a functioning search bar on lds.org, so even “buried” articles will surface for those interested in looking.
After the Sunday School Lesson, in my local Ward last Sunday, I would give anything to have ANY of these topics openly discussed among a group of adults. The lesson which was given was so boring, un-inspiring, and yes faithful to what we’ve always been taught, many of us were looking for any excuse to get out the door. Just imagine how stimulating and intriguing a lively discussion would be – if we gave ourselves license (and safety within the group) to talk openly.
Re: “perceived failure to adequately publicize” being a matter of interest “rather than a desire to hide the essays”
I’m not sure any desire to hide has been uniform over time or across the spectrum of Church leaders and employees, but still the following quoted comment can be instructive:
“… I was working short-term on a project at CHL [Church History Library] when the first Gospel Topics essays were posted. I knew they were going live about two hours before they did so, and asked if I could post a short announcement here on Keepa. You would have thought I’d proposed throwing a kegger in the temple: No way, no how, never, on pain of who knows what, could I say anything publicly about those essays. They were certain the essays would “fly under the radar” (the exact term they used), and I could not, repeat not, say anything. …”
Comment by Ardis E. Parshall — January 19, 2019 @ 2:10 pm
http://www.keepapitchinin.org/2019/01/18/guest-post-newly-discovered-document-provides-dramatic-details-about-elijah-able-and-the-priesthood/
Thanks, Mary Ann for the post and Ardis for that comment.
JR: Thanks so much for sharing. All I can say is “Wow”!
That [see comment quoted above from Ardis] was then. This is now: https://www.thechurchnews.com/leaders-and-ministry/2019-02-04/president-oaks-advice-to-young-married-couples-in-chicago-on-how-to-tackle-faith-threatening-questions-48930
This Church News report both mentions and links to the Gospel Topics Essays.
See also J. Stapley’s comments at BCC: https://bycommonconsent.com/2019/02/05/research-is-not-the-answer/#more-108153
For me they put the matter in a healthy perspective.
I agree with much in Dsc’s comment, with one caveat.
We had been using the same Sunday school manuals for my entire adult life, at least twenty years, maybe longer. I think that last year was my fifth time in the same Old Testament manual. I’m not going to fact check my numbers here; they are close enough. With this being the first year new material was added, I expected teachers to jump at the opportunity to include the new material if they felt comfortable teaching it. There has not been much effort to promote, publicize, or otherwise make members comfortable with that new material. The end result was a year of repeating the same classes for the fifth time. It was boring to me, but Dsc is right that it seemed to serve everyone else pretty well.
Note: When the 2013 Gospel topics essays were first introduced, all of the controversial ones had a picture on the right side of the page showing a person praying over their scriptures and the caption: “Seek ye learning even by study and also by faith”. This disappeared when the pages were updated around 2015-2016 or so.
I find this information exceedingly useful.Thank you Mary Ann. I did not know how the church history topics were different from the gospel topics.
As an experiment with a sample size of one, I picked one of my favorite hobby topics, the story of the very nice and comely young woman Fanny Algers. I read the entry in the church history topics (CHT). Then I read the entry in wikipedia on her.
Ok, I get it-that because plural marriage was a big secret, we don’t have the kind of evidence that might stand up in court for every detail. The GHT material gives me the impress that probably nothing happened between Joseph Smith and Fanny Algers. The wiki article gives me quite the opposite impression.Neither tells bold faced lies.
It is a sample of only one. But if it is repeated for many difficult topics, I see this project as a much more sophisticated effort to hide the history at a time the internet is making that very difficult..This is a problem with me. Plural marriage is a problem, Fanny is where it begins. (maybe Sally Chase?) I have a conversation with my orthodox brother. He has no respect for wiki, not worth his time. I maybe get him to read the CHT entry and he asks me what is your problem? I don’t see a problem. You are just looking for excuses to trash the Prophet.
This CHT does not adequately illuminate the answers to questions. It causes more discord and confusion. And the other problem I have is that I think most people know about wiki and that although not perfect, it is often thought to be pretty accurate. It is also easily self-correcting which near authorative sources are not. In a few decades these CHT entries will need to be gradually modified- which could be a good thing if they are improved and a bad thing if they find additional ways to cloud the issues.
Finally, I have a problem with the old people in the church. People like many of my relatives who gave their lives for orthodox Mormonism. In their last years they face terrible challenges. Loss of health, spouses, loneliness, digital confusion, increasing violence and disrespect, etc. .The church is all they have with which to cling. To read and discuss this CHT entry about Fanny Algers with most of them would be socially irresponsible. Let them die in peace. While their grand children quietly leave.
It is a real pickle. To say we have the answers. We are right and truth never changes. Then to be forced to make changes .Slyly and reluctantly. I just wish the previous generations had not been so dishonest about so many of these things.
Mary An n given your interest in Mike Stroud you may be interested in knowing he was excommunicated for “apostasy “ last week. It seems to me you better keep your mouth shut about things like calling and election etc or else. It is ironic because that doctrine use to be taught in General Confetence by apostles like Marion G Romney in the mid 70s.
Mike l am one of those “old people” (73) and would rather die knowing the truth than be saddled with lies.