Gary Bergera, an author, editor, scholar, and currently director of the Smith-Pettit Foundation, which supports Mormon studies, has compiled this single-volume "Statements of the LDS First Presidency."

Unless a potential reader would rather comb James R. Clark's six-volume "Messages of the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints," this would be a definite asset to any member of the church or student of Mormonism.

This easy-use volume is organized both alphabetically according to subject matter and in reverse chronological order. Bergera has culled all of the salient sources of these statements, then included the statement, or in the case of a lengthy one, the most relevant portions of it. Sometimes his sources include correspondence, private collections, and excerpts from the Church News supplement of the Deseret Morning News.

Dale LeCheminant, a respected, retired LDS Institute instructor from the University of Utah writes a useful foreword, and Bergera includes several pages of abbreviations for his sources.

Bergera declares his intentions to be "strictly educational," and he does not add any editorial comments whatsoever. It's possible, therefore, simply to thumb through the volume in search of a subject—abortion, baptism, cremation, exaltation, fasting, gospel, happiness, knowledge, marriage, music, obedience, prayer, politics, Puritans, reverence, Twelve Apostles, word of wisdom, etc.

The volume is small and easily transported and can be easily used as a reference tool. Some may enjoy reading it through from beginning to end, but that seems unnecessary. It is carefully documented, making it a rich, reliable source as to what LDS Church leaders have stated on multiple issues.

Bergera has performed an important scholarly service that virtually all Mormons and students of Mormonism are sure to appreciate.


By Common Consent, J. Stapley
In the game of Doctrinal Poker, First Presidency messages are aces. Back in the sixties and early seventies, James Clark compiled a six-volume set that reprinted many First Presidency messages chronologically with some commentary and historical context. While his analyses are sometimes mistaken, the volumes are a wonderful resource. When I heard Bergera was compiling Statements of the LDS First Presidency: A Topical Compendium, I was a bit confused as to what to expect. Bergera has worked on award winning documentary histories of Nauvoo Temple worship and is known as a guy with access to cool source material. Was he going to update Clark’s compilation and bring it into the 21st century? No.

Statements is a one-volume work intended to be a doctrinal reference. The introduction reads like Bergera’s other documentary histories but the body has a layout very similar to the Church’s own True to the Faith. Topics are arranged alphabetically and, within topics, excerpts from messages are arranged in reverse chronological order. Bergera states in the introduction that this book is intended to be educational and that it “is not a history of the development of LDS doctrine.”

Bergera selected statements from the Clark compendium, copies of the First Presidency Letter Press, First Presidency correspondence, various materials prepared under the imprimatur of the First Presidency, Church Handbooks of Instructions, and most recently the anonymous fruits of über-correlation (e.g., True to the Faith and Preach my Gospel).

Consistent with his introductory statement, there is no entry for Adam-God or other major historical doctrinal anomalies. Still, there are instances where the historical pull was too great a force for the editor to resist. You will consequently find anachronisms in several of the topics (e.g., letters about relative merits of decaf and hot chocolate in the Word of Wisdom section or almost the entire entries on birth control and capital punishment). In the case of labor unions, the last statement included was 1918–I think things have probably changed since then.

It is also interesting to look at the longest topics. Topics which have a rich and consistent focus like Family, Jesus Christ, Temple Work, Suffering, and Priesthood reflect their importance to the Church, or in at least one case betray an area of interest of the editor (Intellectualism). Bergera split several topics that if unified would have been quite long. For example, he separates Evolution from Adam and Eve. The consequence is that the Church comes off a lot more agnostic on evolution than may be otherwise apparent.

Many will celebrate this book because it does put a lot of information from the Church Handbook of Instruction into the hands of the reader (albeit the 1998 version). For example, it has the concise and official definitions for disfellowshipment, excommunication, and probation and has the Church Handbook of Instructions excerpts on sensitive topics like sterilization and divorce.

Overall, I find this a handy little volume. Reading the entries on War, Weapons, and Militarism is a moving testament to the Church’s commitment to peace. Entries like Politics and Stem Cell Research are timely and relevant. In many ways, this is a strong conservative work that in the majority of entries promotes the modern LDS doctrinal positions and provides either explicit or implicit First Presidency support. It is, however and obviously, not correlated. The only significant problem I see with the work is that when you don’t have the context of a historical treatment, but use historical materials, there is a large opportunity for readers to misinterpret the past and the present. Statements lists for $35, which for a paperback seems a little stiff.


Association for Mormon Letters, Jeffrey Needle
Back in 1921, Hermann Rorschach devised a series of inkblots which, when viewed and interpreted by individuals, would reveal some deep, dark secrets of the soul. The testing has been improved over the years, but the concept has pretty much stayed the same. A trained therapist would hold up a card with an inkblot and ask what the subject saw. From these answers, a trained Rorschach expert can, supposedly, diagnose the patient's situation.

Now with Statements of the LDS First Presidency, we have an LDS Rorschach test. Admittedly there are no inkblots, unless of course your copy suffered from production problems. But the idea is very much the same. Here's how it works: find an LDS friend and say, "Hey, I have a new collection of statements from the First Presidency of the Church!" A likely response: "Wonderful! Where can I get a copy?" Then say, "It's published by Signature Books."

Oh oh. The response will be immediate and likely negative. To many Mormons, the very thought of owning a book from Signature sends chills down the spine and brings feelings of acute nausea.

Now, try a different second statement. "It's published by Deseret Book." Squeals of joy! Hooray! Yet another book to purchase and let sit on the bookcase until the inevitable donation to Deseret Industries. You know how it works.

What a dilemma! Here are some underlying assumptions from this dispassionate reviewer. If the collection is from Deseret Book, many expect nothing but "more of the same," a faith-promoting discussion of current issues and the statements by General Authorities to support those views. If the collection is from Signature Book, many expect it to be filled with biased, contradictory statements, collected and published by a bunch of atheist, anti-Mormon bigots who want nothing more than to destroy the Church.

Sound familiar?

Here's the irony: this collection might very well have been published by Deseret Book. I looked and didn't find a single thing a good, believing Mormon would feel uncomfortable reading. As a test case, I looked up the entries under "Polygamy"—surely here would be a gold mine of contradictory statements, from Joseph Smith and Brigham Young to the current prophet, Gordon B. Hinckley. Instead the oldest citation in this section is from the year 2002! Each entry in this category represents the current views of the General Authorities, statements that may reliably be used to explain the Church's doctrines as they exist now.

This puzzled me a bit. Why would Signature publish such a collection? They must know that most members of the Church would not purchase the book, based solely on the publisher, and that those who purchase from Signature will likely not be so interested in such current statements. To be sure, other statements in other categories go back further in time, many direct quotes from the multi-volume Messages of the First Presidency. Others come from Church periodicals and other publications. But they have this in common—they are designed to provide quick and easy access to authoritative statements on a wide range of issues.

Some of the sections are rather extensive—the entries under the heading "Family" go page after page, offering a wealth of information for speakers and writers. Other sections, such as the entries under "Sexual Abuse," are careful to omit some of the more extreme sections from works like The Miracle of Forgiveness and prefer more humane, real-world counsel offered by the Church.

The result is an accessible, understandable, and portable guide to the Church's current teachings on a wide variety of issues. It seeks no confrontation with the Church and offers the skeptic little ammunition with which to attack the Church. It stirs no controversies and raises no difficult issues.

So who wants this book? Ironically, the very people who would not purchase a Signature title. The old Rorschach problem—look at the name "Signature" and see the words anti-Mormon. That this has never been a true picture of Signature's publishing work is beside the point. Old prejudices die hard.

To be sure, Signature Books is not Deseret Book. In Signature's catalog, you can always find some book that will feed your need for Mormon and Western studies. Believers and unbelievers alike have found a home there. And this, in my mind, is to be celebrated. When you are freed from the constraints of organizational discipline, you often have a better chance to present a full story, a more complete picture, and leave it to the reader to decide what to believe—the essence of agency. If there must be opposition in all things, it does no good to stifle the other side of the story! I have come to appreciate Signature's fine work and willingness to step outside official circles and present the reader some good alternatives.

The present volume, however, is a fine effort by Signature to present orthodoxy in an organized manner. To all my true believing Mormon friends, here's a chance to see the kind of quality Signature can offer the serious student. If you teach classes, or deliver talks, or home teach, this book is a very good resource for clear statements from those who declare doctrine in the Church. Statements of the LDS First Presidency will become part of my permanent collection.