How Have Intellectuals Moved the Church? (Sara Patterson 4 of 4)

Have the Sept Six & other intellectuals nfluenced LDS Church leaders with their arguments? Dr Sara Patterson weighs in on that question. If you're not on our newsletter, sign up for free and I'll send you a secret link to listen to the conclusion at https://gospeltangents.com/newsletter



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How Intellectuals Have Moved the Church

Interview



GT  00:31  So you, with your book, you're way more expansive than just those six individuals who got "exed."



Sara  00:39  I am, yeah.



GT  00:40  And I noticed the subtitle is The Struggle for the Soul of Mormonism.



Sara  00:45  [Yes.]



GT  00:46  Can you talk about, has anything happened with regards to the September Six, that has changed the leadership as far as moving more towards them?



Sara  01:03  Can you say the end part of that question again? Moving the church leaders more towards?



GT  01:11  Yeah, so for example, I know with Mark Hofmann, and I know we don't want to  include him in there. But it does seem to many, I would say, that there's been a more openness to discussions of polygamy, and magic and seer stones. And so, it does seem like, even though Mark Hofmann was a terrible person, there has been first a closing and then an opening into church history. Do you see any of the same sort of things with feminism or these other issues, historicity of the Book of Mormon. Has it changed church leaders?



Sara  01:51  I see. So, have the ideas that were presented by the six become more mainstream?



GT  01:59  Mainstream.



Sara  01:59  Yeah. I think some of them have. And I think the historical arguments are probably the ones that have the most.



GT  02:10  As far as Church history.



Sara  02:12   Yeah, I think the role of the internet cannot be overplayed in that because the church couldn't manage in the ways that it had prior to the internet, people's access to documents and things like that. I think a lot of the history that Mike Quinn was excommunicated for is now history.



GT  02:40  Mainstream.



Sara  02:40  Yeah, that people accept. In that regard, I think there's definitely been a greater acceptance of the history. And there's also been, I think, from the Church hierarchy’s perspective, it doesn't need to be about document access though that is certainly still at play. But we have our own historians who can tell these stories in ways that we think are still faith promoting. And so the Gospel Topics Essays represent that.



GT  03:24  One place where there hasn't been a change, though, would you agree is scriptural historicity? We still believe in a literal Adam and Eve, Noah, Jonah. We still believe in a historical Book of Mormon. And so, anybody like Brent Metcalfe, or David Wright, that brings in historical criticism of the Bible, questions whether Noah was a real person, is that still a problem? We haven't embraced Brent Metcalfe kind of an idea or David Wright.



Sara  03:57  I haven't seen a lot of evidence of that, although there's still people, I think, talking about that. But, yeah, I haven't seen that a lot.



GT  04:06  Okay.



Sara  04:07  I think that there are still very firm boundaries. I think the historicity of the Scripture may be one. Women in the priesthood is certainly one. There hasn't been movement on that. There hasn't been a lot of movement on Heavenly Mother. I guess the question is how incremental we want to look at it?