40 years ago today - Feb 7, 1982

NEWSWEEK article on the rift between LDS historians and Church leaders: "A major conflict is brewing between professional Mormon historians and a group of church elders who insist that LDS scholars write only `faith promoting' accounts of the church. . . . [Apostles Boyd K. Packer and Ezra Taft Benson] "have been harshly critical of the methods and motives of LDS scholars who attempt `objective' histories of the church. What particularly exercises Benson is the effort made by scholars to place what are supposed to be divinely inspired church doctrines in a relevant social and historical context. . . . According to the dicta of Benson and Packer, Mormon history should be presented as a sacred saga so that students can-in Packer's words-'see the hand of the Lord in every hour and every moment of the Church from its beginning till now.'" The article further quoted a lecture distributed to all Mormon educators in which Elder Packer denounced professional scholars who " write history as they were taught in graduate school, rather than as Mormons" and enjoined LDS historians to write selectively about "the faults and contradictions of church."