Apostolic Comment on the 1911 BYU Modernism-Evolution Concern, and Three Associated Dream-Visions

 

by Dennis B. Horne

1911 saw the culmination of a grave problem at Brigham Young University between a few highly educated faculty pushing scientific and theological theories, and Church leaders and school administrators seeking stable gospel orthodoxy for students. A well-written overview of this episode, which really stretched from 1909 to early 1911, is found in Ernest L. Wilkinson, ed., Brigham Young University: The First One Hundred Years (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 1975), 4 vols, 1:412-435. The episode is not found in Saints, vol. 3, though mention of the Scopes Monkey trial is.

What is shared below are comments from Apostles who dealt with the BYU circumstances by formal committee assignment or later referred to it (plus a few dream-vision accounts of related interest).

Apostolic Reading (Correlation) Committee Comments on Elder B. H. Roberts’s Formerly Unpublished Book "The Truth, the Way, the Life"

 

Compiled and Arranged by Dennis B. Horne

The following are comments given by a reading committee made up of members of the Quorum of the Twelve in 1929, regarding questionable doctrinal assertions in Elder B. H. Roberts’s  book, The Truth, The Way, The Life.  These comments, made by the committee in their official responses to their reading of Elder Roberts’s book, are an exceptional example of the work done by these earlier Church reading committees.  Because Elder Roberts would not edit his book in conformity with their wishes, it was not published as originally planned by the Church and desired by Elder Roberts. Then, in the early 1990s, a group of scholars at Brigham Young University reviewed the recently made-available work and its history, and published it with their commentary and the reading committee’s comments as well.  Two papers were prepared by the reading committee, one titled, “Doctrinal points questioned by the Committee which read the Manuscript of Elder B. H. Roberts, entitled—The Truth, The Way, The Life.” and the other “List of Points on Doctrine in Question by the Committee in Relation to B.H. Robert’s Ms.” There were also notes included of a report made by the chairman of the committee, George Albert Smith, to the Quorum President, Rudger Clawson. The committee was made up of George Albert Smith, Joseph Fielding Smith, David O. McKay, Stephen L Richards, and Melvin J. Ballard. For a complete review of this committee’s work, see B. H. Roberts, The Truth, The Way, The Life: An Elementary Treatise on Theology, John W. Welch, ed. (Provo, Utah: BYU Studies, 1994). The following selected items are taken from this publication, the reading committee’s comments on Roberts’s statements coming from the footnotes. Page numbers are given after each excerpt. (See also James B. Allen, “The Story of The Truth, The Way, The Life” BYU Studies 33, no. 4 [1993], 691-741.)[1]