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S U N S T O N E
Study of Jesus the Christ and Articles of Faith by Elder James
E. Talmage.” Readers today sometimes have trouble locating
Understanding Talmage because it’s commonly referred to as
“The Talmage Dictionary.” Also, Understanding Talmage has
been long out of print, but copies can occasionally be found
at used and rare bookstores or for sale on the Internet.
Another difficulty in using Jesus the Christ as a reference
guide is that Talmage provided no scripture index. Thus, if
you wanted to find out what Talmage had to say about Amos
8:11–12, you would have to do some research. In 1963, a
couple by the name of J. Marlan and Christina Vella sought
to remedy this lack by compiling the “Scripture Index to
Jesus the Christ.” Their index may have been meant for publication,
but it never got that far. For those interested in obtaining
one, Special Collections at BYU’s Harold B. Lee
Library has been willing to make reprints available for purchase
on demand.
F ro m t h e p e w s
A two-sentence version of this piece appeared as Aaron C.
Brown’s 9 February 2011 Facebook status update.
LEADERLORE
NOTHING DRIVES ME CRAZIER THAN HEARING
a well-meaning Latter-day Saint earnestly explain
how some popular Mormon teaching doesn’t count
as official—or as a “doctrine”—because it belongs to some
other—supposedly inferior—category of teaching:
“Culture.” “Policy.” “Speculation.” “Folklore.” It’s not that I
object to drawing distinctions between central gospel teachings
and their lower-class cousins. It’s not that our terms
can’t have concrete, useful meanings. It’s that more often
than not, they don’t. They’re just empty words. And this is a
problem. For if we Mormons are going to draw distinctions
between “doctrine” and “non-doctrine,” we need to make
sure we’ve thought hard about the contours of these categories.
We need to carefully define our terms, and then use
them in concrete, principled ways. Otherwise, we’re just employing
clever rhetorical tricks to downgrade LDS teachings
we don’t like, without doing the work of showing why these
teachings should be viewed as less authoritative than teachings
we do like.
Perhaps no term for “non-doctrine” irks me so much as
“folklore,” because, to my ears, it implies that the “lore”
being disparaged originated with the common Mormon
“folk”—in other words, that some idea is the weird invention
of rank-and-file Mormons from yesteryear who had too
much time on their hands and too much zeal in their heads.
But many of the embarrassing, awkward, even shameful,
ideas that have circulated among the Mormon populace
have no such lowly origins. Many were either promulgated
by the senior leadership of the LDS Church (often in official
fora), or were at least promoted and popularized by them.
We really need a term that reflects this reality. We need a
word that helps us confront the necessary task of reflecting
on the origin of our teachings.
I understand the perceived need to employ a term that
can safely disown outdated Mormon teachings and practices
without gratuitously embarrassing the LDS leadership. But
our collective failure to properly identify the origins of false
Mormon teachings has costs. It prevents many of us from
recognizing where destructive religious notions often come
from. It dissuades many of us from learning from these historical
episodes, and from raising constructive questions
about how we should approach the teachings of authorities
we want to view as inspired.
So here’s my suggestion: Let’s jettison “folklore,” at least
when we discuss Mormonism’s past racial teachings or any
other outmoded teachings the LDS leadership once promoted.
Let’s save it for instances where we’re supremely confident
that the Mormon “folk” really are the authors of the
“lore.” If we want to employ the term in reference to a
sighting of the Three Nephites, a UFO story, or some other
tale of dubious provenance, fine. But teachings once viewed
as authoritative by Mormon leaders deserve a different
term—one that doesn’t mask important questions about the
origin and authoritativeness of our “lore.”
Let’s stop talking about “folklore” and start talking about
“leaderlore.”
AARON C. BROWN
Seattle, Washington
Nex t Pag e: Wr it t eN by Mar k JeNs eN, il l u s t r at ed by JeaNet t e at Wo o d
PAGE 14 OCTOBER 2011