I do not have a testimony of the history of the Church. In making this declaration, I have no need to deny that our Church history is peopled with many inspiring individuals. What they preached and taught can be studied. In the course of enhancing my historical understanding I often find reinforcement for my faith. But I uncouple the two—testimony and history. I leave ample room for human perversity. I am not wed to any single, simple version of the past. I leave room for new information and new interpretations. My testimony is not dependent on scholars. My testimony in the eternal gospel does not hang in the balance.

One thing such a distinction does for me is to disencumber me from a crippling sense of the kind of history I must write. I can tell it as it is. More precisely, since none of us believe in completely "objective" reporting, I can give my best effort at presenting what I find. I don't have to be running scared all the time, fearful that I may say something or quote something that will shake up poor little Sister Blavatsky or new convert Brother Jones. I won't take delight in affronting them, but I should be able to study my subject and give my best effort in understanding the personalities and the events.

So I study the colonization of the Little Colorado in 1876. What a terrible assignment that was! The leader of the colonists was Lot Smith, a veteran of the Utah War. Tough and strong in his leadership, Lot Smith did not please everyone. He was no namby-pamby. But my history reports what I discover, trying to be fair to all. For, you see, I don't have a testimony of Church history.

I study marriage among the Mormons in the second half of the nineteenth century. Was there more polygamy than I had been led to believe? So be it. I report what the best evidence supports. Were there more than a few examples of unhappy plural wives and more divorces than we realized? So be it. I report what I find. I don't lean all the way in the other direction, mind you, but I report what I find. For, you see, I don't have a testimony of Church history.

Did many of Joseph Smith's neighbors sign affidavits describing him in unfavorable terms? Well, so be it. I report that fact. In order properly to evaluate these, I consider the agenda of the man who gathered them, compiled them, and often wrote them for the signature of people. I certainly weigh into the balance the testimony of others who describe Joseph in very different terms. We are trying to get at the truth here, or as close to it as we can. But I don't have a testimony of Church history.

What Kind of History Do We Need?

For practically all of the questions that seem to trouble people, or that are used in an effort to dislodge members from their faith, satisfactory answers are available. The sincere truth-seeker is not forced to accept the sensational allegations of enemies as the final word. Obviously The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has a number of informed, articulate defenders. I commend the members of the FAIR organization as well as others who have entered the fray.

In many instances, the answers they provide are decisive, leaving the critic with no leg to stand on. There is always work to do—new questions and some that require answers more profound than the initial defenders have come up with. But obviously we are not tongue-tied and helpless. The hope of the detractors, of course, is that they will reach people who are unaware of what the defenders have already made available. Sadly, when much of the population is made up of non-readers, a well-placed fiery dart of the adversary might be fatal.

When I was in graduate school, one of our seminars included a unit on the Counter-Reformation, or the Catholic Reformation, of the sixteenth century. For over thirty years of university teaching, I introduced undergraduate and graduate students to the subject. I am confident my students will agree that our approach was fair, for we tried to understand this complex subject from within, allowing those who participated in it to speak for themselves. I used this same perspective in the study of a variety of subjects. Would that those who teach and study the history of Mormonism would do the same.

As an undergraduate, I had read a reasonably good chapter in a standard textbook, where the Counter-Reformation was pretty much depicted as a belated response to the Protestant challenge. Some of its manifestations—the rise of the Jesuits, the Council of Trent, even the lamentable massacre of St. Bartholomew's Eve in France—could easily be interpreted as further evidence of the corruption of Roman Catholicism. The old Protestant historiography did this.

The popes were often presented as the "bad guys" of Christian history. Names like Alexander VI, Julius II, Leo X were well-known symbols of the immorality, corruption, and worldliness of the Renaissance papacy. In connection with my graduate seminar, I read Leopold von Ranke's three-volume history of the popes. On one level, it was an instructive example of the use of newly available sources such as the relazioni of the Venetian ambassadors. "Hmm," I thought. "Maybe things are not as simple as I had thought."

I also read several volumes in Ludwig von Pastor's History of the Popes, a huge work in eighteen volumes, the product of a lifetime of research and writing. Pastor's History of the Popes was a real eye-opener. I will not make the mistake of describing this work by a Catholic historian as "objective." What Pastor does is to use internal church documents to describe in detail the successive challenges confronted by the popes, the letters and reports they had to go on, the urging of different advisors, sometimes the false starts and backtracking of papal policy.

Studied in this way, some popes were good, some were bad, most were somewhere in between. Most were doing the best they could under the circumstances. The closer one gets to their minds, through careful scrutiny of the documents available to them and the letters and speeches that came from them, the less one is inclined to defame them. Studied in this way, the popes simply cannot be credibly portrayed in the cartoon-like terms of their adversaries. I don't recommend Pastor as the last word, but his great history is still instructive and must be known by anyone presuming to treat the subject.