I thought this paragraph interesting and agreeable.
Some of us might deplore the fading of church history from the curriculum. In the meantime, of course, you can still read on your own, individually or in study groups. To my knowledge, no one is forbidding such study.
I remember in my history of Mormonism class at USU this was a sentiment that my instructor shared. Of course he was happy that he could be teaching a university class that included Church History, but I could see the desire that he had that it be a subject for a class somewhere inside of the church...probably preferably a sunday meeting, but at the very least a institute class. And actually I did have a class in institute in which we talked about Church History in such a fashion, but it was the type of class that only had 5 or 6 people in it.
BUT, I see this article is nearly 8 years old, and I feel the church is moving in a direction of promoting more church history with projects like the Joseph Smith papers and whatnot. So I am happy to see that. Why has it taken the church so long to promote more church history? Well, besides the things mentioned in the article below I also have come to realize that this is a Church made up of humans. Humans shy away from things that are embarrassing or don't make sense. I don't believe the Church was hiding anything or trying to be sneaky or dishonest. They were just acting like rational human beings by focusing on what they do understand.
I enjoyed how the author talked about how Church history can be shocking because it doesn't meet our expectations. I have been exposed to quite a bit of "shocking church history" in my life. Most were obviously mis-statements or out of context, but sometimes not. But they have never been faith-destroying....but more along the line of interesting or different. I believe if members of the church discussed the history of the church before an "anti" person discussed it with them, it would help many members to not 'fall away'. In fact it would be funny how it would frustrate the "antis". I hope 5 years from now the Church will have produced so many volumes of histories that the "antis" will have to find another purpose in life.
I wish the article was a little more concise but it drags a little around the middle, so if you get bored in the middle and must skip ahead, jump to the heading "How Important Is History?" and read the rest from there.
