Advice from Mormon Intellectuals to Mormon Intellectuals
Posted on May 31, 2014 by Trevor in Religion
Kathleen Flake, a historian on American religion and especially Mormonism, recently gave a lecture at the University of Utah billed as “The LDS Intellectual Tradition: A Study on Three Lives”. She talked about O. C. Tanner, Lowell Bennion, and Sterling McMurrin, three deceased intellectual giants. I’ve transcribed a portion of the video, beginning at 38:23, where she laid out the advice that these three men might give to present-day Mormons who take an intellectual approach to their faith.
Obert Tanner
Now, my list begins with Obert Tanner’s observation about the academy and the church, which was simply, “Know the difference between them.” He said, “It is no wonder that universities find religion a difficult problem, for it seems to defy or escape our intellectual categories. It is therefore also inevitable that universities are unable to deal with more than fringe of religion—those ideas about religion, not the personal and private experience of religion. It is no wonder, also, that churches and free universities are respectful but reserved toward each other.”1
We should likewise be respectful and reserved and know the difference, is what I would suggest.
Lowell Bennion
As for Bennion’s advice, I think he would tell us, as he told his students, “Be respectful of the distinction between the gospel and the church.” Or as he put it, “The church is the instrument, the vehicle, to inculcate the gospel into the lives of men and women. It was established by Christ to perfect the saints. The church is both divine and human.” Elsewhere, he expressed this as a matter of faith. “We who can honestly believe in God, believe that the things that matter most are not ultimately at the mercy of things that matter least.”2
That’s worth a sampler or a magnet on your fridge.
Sterling McMurrin
Finally, Sterling McMurrin. It’s a little more complicated and comes from a statement he made about himself, beginning with his days teaching seminary. “I had a genuine love for the church as an institution and its people. I was devoted to the church, really was, and am right now. I’ve always considered myself as Mormon as these orthodox Mormons, though I have been a confirmed heretic.”3
Now, there is some truth here about the relationship of love to criticism and self-knowledge–something that goes to the heart of the difference between heresy and apostasy, between loyal opposition and just plain opposition, and it’s worth remembering.
Summary
In each of these statements, I believe there is wisdom for any day, not just their own. It is the kind of wisdom that answers the dilemma that Bonner Ritchie posed about the same conflict. He said, “You can’t make institutions safe for people.” And as some of you may not know, he was a professor of organizational behavior. “You can’t make institutions safe for people, only people safe for institutions.”4 The wisdom of these three men that we have been talking about tonight can make people safe for institutions, I believe. Not the offenses they received, but the wisdom they have to give, is what I believe we should remember them for. I think they too would have it that way.
1Obert C. Tanner, One Man’s Search (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1989), 151.
2Lowell L. Bennion, The Things That Matter Most, p.59
3Matters of Conscience: Conversations with Sterling McMurrin on Philosophy, Education, and Religion. Signature Books.
4J. Bonner Ritchie, “The Institutional Church and the Individual: How Strait the Gate, How Narrow the Way?” Sunstone 6 (May-June 1981): 35. See also his “Let Contention Cease: The Limits of Dissent in the Church,” Sunstone 16 (Aug. 1992): 45-53.