Thoughts on Apologetics

[jayanna]

Perhaps just one concrete example (which should not be too provocative) could help. Juanita Brooks once wrote a landmark history book called The Mountain Meadows Massacre describing an incident in history and its aftermath.

Of course this met with apologetic denials and recriminations. However now the Church, after having noted that further enlightenment has entered the scholastic world, has agreed with the history put forth by Juanita Brooks in their own sanctioned work Massacre at Mountain Meadows, by Walker, Turley, and Leonard .

In between these two major history works was the opportunity to release many of Mrs. Field's Cookies into the Universe.

Thank you very much, Moksha, for letting us know about this...I was born in Harrison Ark. and I have relatives, the Dunlaps, that were killed in that massacre. When I joined the church, my family was very angry, and decided I was a traitor.

I work at a public library, I think I'll talk to the non-fiction selector about ordering a copy.

I am very interested to get that book and have a read. Maybe my mom will be willing to read it, too.

Edited September 19, 2010 by jayanna

[Faded]

Thank you very much, Moksha, for letting us know about this...I was born in Harrison Ark. and I have relatives, the Dunlaps, that were killed in that massacre. When I joined the church, my family was very angry, and decided I was a traitor.

I work at a public library, I think I'll talk to the non-fiction selector about ordering a copy.

I am very interested to get that book and have a read. Maybe my mom will be willing to read it, too.

It's an interesting event where everything that could go wrong apparently did go wrong. It is essential to consider one important factor when considering the Mountain Meadows Massacre: There was a very large US Federal Army marching towards Salt Lake City. As far as anyone knew, they would do what every other army did before them: Drive the Saints from their lands. Raping, pillaging, murdering. You know, the same things the Saints experienced in Ohio, Missouri and Illinois. Those memories were still very fresh. Nauvoo was still only a decade earlier. And here was an even bigger army come to do it all over again!

The effective hysterical state many saints were in should be born in mind when considering this tragedy. Of course it absolutely should not vindicate those that murdered those poor people.

Food for thought.

[jayanna]

One effect of the massacre,

I am the only member in my family and I went to the temple and helped in sealings for someone else's family, while I am waiting for my hubby to come around. The sealer looked at me and knew, just knew, that I had never seen a sealing before. He explained what to do, and said that I was doing a service for others that I could not yet do for myself. He was very nice and patient.

We talk while doing the sealings and the officiator, the sealer, says how his family was murdered, at the mountain meadows and how his father (who was a child at the time and survived) was adopted, and he is a member!

I told him after the session that I was also related to the Dunlap family. We chatted and occaisionally saw each other at the temple and waved.

A while later, when my hubby was ready and my kids were adopted, we scheduled our sealing. Our sealor was that brother, who was a relative of mine, turns out he had adopted and gotten sealed to his kids, too. So I did have extended family there. :)

Edited September 19, 2010 by jayanna