LETTER: Documents should be open

Dear Editor,

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has a reputation – often undeserved – for being a cult, an obscure religion whose history of persecution has led to a mentality of inward-looking, exclusionary political, social and economic practices. There is a historical basis for this reasoning, although Mormons today are strongly patriotic, quintessentially American and far more liberal in their dealings with the outside world than they once were. Misunderstandings often have soured relations between the two groups; missionaries abroad know this all too well.

Historian Leonard Arrington, recognized the causes of these problems often emanated from within the church. Through his research, and as church historian, Arrington tried to establish a more open policy toward the documents of Mormon history. Arrington died in 1999, still a devoted Mormon, but his papers survive. They are currently available for research in Special Collections. But maybe not for long.

A movement, apparently sanctioned, if not actively pursued, by the LDS church, seeking to remove much of the Arrington collection from public view recently came to our attention. Visit Special Collections and you will see it in all its frenzied glory. You may be lucky enough to overhear the motives of these individuals rifling through several linear feet of manuscripts. Identify anything “embarrassing to the church” so we can “put it under wraps,” one instructed another on Tuesday. By Wednesday he was on the phone, presumably to Salt Lake, identifying some of the findings.

Ironically, upon hearing about the actions of these people, one Mormon commented, “That’s so embarrassing.” Indeed. What is sufficiently “embarrassing,” to the church, we ask, that it is willing to embarrass its members in order to quash it? Why is the church acting so frantically to suppress potentially enlightening documents about Mormon history?

But these questions are incidental; what is important is that these records remain public. Ergo, we call on the university, especially President Hall, to fight to keep Utah’s history open to inquiry. Each generation writes its own history. Do we really have the authority to reject future interpretations in favor of our own?

Robert Sidford and Ryan Swanson