A Reasonable Approach to History and Faith | Richard D. Poll, History and Faith: Reflections of a Mormon Historian

Richard Poll’s to the study of Mormon history is significant. As a scholar and teacher, he has influenced many for decades. In this collection of ten essays, he reflects on his personal experience as a historian and the way that training has helped him interpret contemporary events. 

Many readers find in Poll’s work a rea sonable, flexible approach to both history and faith. Poll gained intellectual immortality with the seminal essay on religious tolerance, “What the Church Means to People Like Me,” first published by DIALOGUE in 1967. That essay, reprinted at least five times and still used as a touch stone of the Mormon experience, is reprinted in this volume as a foundation for what follows. Seven of the volume’s essays appear in print in their entirety here for the first time. 

Each offers readers opportunities to pause and reflect upon themselves and the way they view history. Poll’s central binding thread is that Mormon history needs to be open and available. Indeed, he argues that religious faith and conviction are personal; consequently Mormons should not fear proper, well-written, documented history. 

In essays entitled “Our Changing Church,” “Confronting the Skeletons,” and “The Challenge of Living with Change,” Poll reminds us that a dynamic, evolving organization cannot remain static nor does it achieve perfection. There is little room in either our religion or its history for fixed interpretations. These essays use concrete personal examples to document Poll’s view of history’s changing roles. He recalls a lengthy discussion with Joseph Fielding Smith concerning the relationship of faith to the historical and scientific method and concludes that neither gave ground. At another point, he discusses how he became a myth in Den mark. When Poll was recalled from his mission in Germany on the eve of World War II, he stopped in Denmark and spoke in a Danish branch. Because he spoke in Danish, some members concluded he had spoken in tongues. A legend was born. Poll’s point is that people base their faith on a variety of experiences, even some that never happened. 

This small volume merits close examination. Richard Poll knows the test of faith in history, and his journey can serve as a guidepost for many. However, the path is not straight, and there is always need for a Liahona as well as an Iron Rod. 

History and Faith: Reflections of a Mormon Historian by Richard D. Poll (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1989), 134 pp., $9.95.