Letter to the Editor: LDS church doesn’t have official postion
Editor,
This letter is written for the sole purpose of discrediting statements written in the latest version of the Statesman. One of those statements is quoted below:
“…your guest columnist, Jesse Walker, was completely wrong when he claimed that, “the LDS church has no official position on evolution.” In 1909, the First Presidency of the Church issued a proclamation titled, “The Origin of Man” debunking the theory of evolution…”
While this statement was declared by the Presidency, it does not suggest that the church has a position against evolution. These editorials failed to include the follow-up statement to the 1909 column in response to the numerous questions about what the Presidency meant. In 1910, the following statement was published:
“In just what manner did the mortal bodies of Adam and Eve come into existence on this earth? Whether …man evolved in natural processes to present perfection… whether they were born here in mortality, as other mortals have been, are questions not fully answered in the revealed word of God (Improvement Era, 13:570, April, 1910).”
Clearly, one cannot conclude from the 1909 statement that the church ‘debunked’ evolutionary theory. Further support for this claim is given in a letter to Dr. Kent Christensen in 1959 from President David O McKay answering his question of the church’s position on evolution:
“The Church has issued no official statement of the theory of evolution. Neither ‘Man, His Origin and Destiny’ by Elder Joseph Fielding Smith, nor “Mormon Doctrine” by Elder Bruce R. McConkie, is an official publication of the Church… any conflicts which may seem to exist between the theory and the truths of revealed religion can well be dealt with by suspending judgment as long as may be necessary to arrive at facts and at a complete understanding of the truth.” These letters can be found at: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~akc/evolution.htm
I think it is important for students reading the Statesman at USU to have this information. The previous letters to the Editor contain harmful misinformation. Evolutionary theory was never ‘debunked’ by the Presidency. The official church position on evolution is that there is no official position.
Chesley J. Christensen