O would some power the giftie gie
Us to see ourselves as others see us.
It wad frae monie a blunder free us,
An’ foolish notion….

First, Skousen was never a church leader beyond the kind of local callings which, in a church with a lay ministry, come to tens of thousands of men sooner or later. His leadership in any formal sense ended with the management of his local congregation. Beyond that, he was a leader only in the sense that any person who claims or develops expertise in a given area can develop a voluntary following. Maybe I consider myself an authority on the correspondence of Brigham Young because of the time I have devoted to its study — that doesn’t mean anybody is bound to respect my claim (although some might), and it doesn’t give me any control over the materials. Ditto for Skousen’s status as a leader or authority.

There was no “falling from grace” in an ecclesiastical sense — I know of absolutely nothing that impugns Skousen’s character as a good man or a faithful follower of Jesus Christ.

I know from your comments elsewhere that you are familiar with Skousen’s politics. His politics appealed — still do appeal — to many Mormons, as well as to many, many others. His politics were no doubt informed by his religious beliefs, just as I feel my own politics are so informed. But Skousen’s politics were no more an official presentation of Mormon doctrine than my own politics are. At one point the church did have to issue a statement restricting Skousen’s Freeman Institute from using LDS churches as their meeting sites, and from having their political meetings announced during church meetings — NOT because Skousen or the Freeman Institute were under any sort of church censure, but because they were blatantly political and outside the mission of the church. The same restriction, I am absolutely certain, would have been called for by the church had any other brand of politics sponsored by any other personality been so popular that some church members — a limited number, but a vocal minority — had trouble distinguishing between religion and politics. The Freeman Institute was free to meet elsewhere, and all Mormons were free to join or not, without any repercussions from the church; they just couldn’t meet on church property.

Many Mormons continue to endorse to some degree the politics espoused by Skousen. Most commenters on this thread do not. The opinions expressed by commenters are purely personal ones and do not in any sense reflect an official church position, any more than Skousen’s own opinions did. Most of our commenters would likely have expressed the same opinion of Skousen and his politics in, say, 1970 as they do today.

WWW, while I don’t believe you mean any mischief, your comment shows a very faulty understanding of Mormonism’s relation to politics and what constitutes official behavior or authoritative positions. I hope this helps clarify that.

Most of all, in fairness to Skousen, I repeat that I know of NOTHING about his personal character or moral behavior that calls for speculation about some imaginary “fall from grace.”

I do not want to host further conversation along those lines, and am therefore closing comments. Thank you for your participation, all.

That would be enlightening, and instructive. I wonder if his fall from grace was political or ecclesiastical. Was there a specific incident? An affair, drug bust, or some other personal failing? Was it a variance from doctrine?

So what happened: did the Church change its view of Skousen or did Skousen stray outside the views of the Church?

If the Church could one day wake up and change course back then, it could happen again. That’s a happy thought.

-Wexler

(For the record, I’ve read Skousen’s “5000 Year Leap”, as well as significant portions of his “The Naked Communist.” And thus, I feel like I have the right to have an opinion on Skousen’s writings and claims, but that’s not what this post is really about, though, so I won’t threadjack any further.)

He was a complicated guy, with much of interest that he accomplished, but also scary in his pursuit of conspiracies. He has turned into a whole different case than President Benson, whose politics prior to becoming President of the Church really concerned me, but who I came to love and respect as Prophet for his commitment to the Book of Mormon, and his unique contributions to our faith.

President Monson spoke about anger in general conference just more than a week ago, expressing his concern over contention and the divisiveness we are experiencing these days. President Hinckley also spoke about anger at length in his last address in General PH Meeting in October of 2007. I may be reaching, but I see a fairly straight line from those two addresses to our current political climate, where many accuse Skousen disciple Glenn Beck of fostering hate and divisive contention. Heck, it’s been at least this bad for the last 17 years, and really only slightly more amped up than I have observed over my lifetime, which covers presidents from Kennedy down to the present.

I think it is good to look back and learn something from these things. And if that includes calling into question Skousen’s academic credentials as highlighted in these ads, I am okay with that.

I never did read much of Skousen’s writing and never shared the enthusiasm of some for it. A talk he gave at the Y in, oh, say, 1970 seemed valuable and candid when he discussed his own experience with habituation/addiction to prescribed pain medication. It was then that I decided I could not share what can only be called distain that many of my friends seemed to express for Br. Skousen.

The curious point about our present exchange is that most of the commentators stated that they had read nothing or very little of Skousen’s output, but were willing to share very negative opinions about him. I was reminded of something from Czeslaw Milosz wrote in his Unattainablre Earth –

“I don’t like the Western way of thinking. I could say: the way Western intellectuals think, but then I would pass over the transformation that has occurred during the past few decades. And the transformation (not a sudden one, though suddenly present, like pubescence or senility) consists in the disappearance of a distinction between the enlightened — the knowledgeable, the progressive, the mentally liberated — and the so-called masses. That great schism has ended and we are returned to a unified worldview, as was the case in the Middle Ages when a theologian, a cooper and a fieldhand believed in the same things. Schools, television and newspapers have allied themselves to turn minds in the direction desired by the liberal intelligentsia, and so the victory came: an image of the world which is enforced for all of us, under a penalty equivalent to the ancient penalties of pillory and stake: that is, ridicule.”

What is now “unmentionable” may desperately call out for public debate. But no one dares address certain areas of public life for fear of public and professional censure of a very real kind.

One is reminded of the Victorian aversion to public mention of sex or certain aspects of our bodies. One sometimes wonders if our own time is not much different in regards to many critical matters. Most of us have been so deeply indoctrinated in attitudes now considered proper that it now sometimes seems impossible for them to see the world through any other lens, or to shake the sense of moral superiority to nearly every aspect of the past.

Ridicule is indeed a powerful inducement to conformity and one that has shaped the public mind in a very powerful way. Like any other public fashion or trend (as, consider what seems to me to have been the speculative and smilingly dishonest optimism and chicanery which landed us in our current financial situation), we may be required to wade through what might be a bitter consequence before we can experience recovery.

I realized there was a risk of bashing when I posted this, especially with a title bearing on Skousen’s current events status, but am glad it was as mild as it’s been — really, it *has* been mild compared to other blogs, other threads. I don’t mind candid opinions. I am sorry, though, when a near uniformity of opinion makes it uncomfortable for some readers to express alternate views. I think #13 was a ginger step toward an alternate view, and of course Huston’s is.

For what it’s worth, although I share the general view of Skousen’s politics, I also remember as a young teenager reading the “thousand year” series and being very excited about it, especially that it was so readable and because he wove a single narrative from multiple scriptural sources. I haven’t looked at those books for 30 years and don’t know how they would appeal to me today, but I remember that it was an important contribution to my early gospel education.

I don’t know how any of that, along with anything else I’ve ever heard about Skousen, translates to ability as a tour guide, though. It’s that slight sense of the absurd that makes these ads interesting.

So his understanding of things wasn’t perfect. We get it. But is it appropriate or necessary to focus on that and apparently revel in venting our more “enlightened” spleens at him, and ignore his character and many good contributions? After all, for example, will American citizenship become better or worse with so many people reading The 5000 Year Leap? It may also be imperfect, but it points students of America’s founding in the right direction.

Might it be a reasonable unwritten rule of civil online discourse that when a thread tends towards universal evisceration of someone, that the redundant back-patting be thereafter kept to a minimum?

(Sorry for the threadjack, Ardis. Now I’m the one venting my spleen.)