I plan on attempting to expose my dad to as much sketchy Mormon history info as possible. This is difficult because he may not be open to reading literature that is not LDS approved. I know that he has read "Rough Stone Rolling" so has already been exposed to some of the churches shocking history. For those of you that have read it is everything sugarcoated and biased? What damaging information does the author include and what does he leave out? I have read a little bit of the book and noticed that he leaves out quite a bit of important JS bio and history that might cause readers to question their faith too much.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/03/2012 01:26AM by turnonthelights.

I read about 1/2 of it. I was still an active member at the time. I had the feeling that anytime the subject got a little sticky the topic kind of came to an end, with a half hearted lame excuse. I also felt like it was sugar coated.

He brought up a lot of things I didn't know about at the time. But then he attempted to shut down your thinking any further on the topic.

It's been a while since I read it, so can't remember the specifics. I would recommend it to a TBM just because it brings up things they don't know about. If they accept the lame explanations though, that could be the end of the conversation.

After that I listened to john dehlins podcast about why mormons leave the church. He brought up all of the problems. I made a list and then went to mormonthink to read about each one. That was it for me.

A critcal analysis of Richard L. Bushman's "Rough Stone Rolling" may be found in the Main Index of the Post-Mormon Scrapbook.

I read the majority of it. It helped with my exit out of church. I remember some other people reading it were confused and needed to speak to the bishop after.
I would suggest reading it first so you can pull out important parts and discuss it with your Dad.

-S



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/03/2012 02:38AM by mywayback.

You must not have been on the board a few months back when every other thread was about that book.

I was disappointed by that book. I read the whole thing, and by the end I didn't feel like I knew who Joseph Smith was any better than when I had started.

Probably the most annoying thing for me was that Bushman would step right up to the edge of some of the more problematic things but never take that last step. For example, he explains Joseph's treasure-seeking peepstone activities and then abruptly says that Joseph left such things behind and focused on spiritual matters. Another example is when he says that Joseph approached Heber C. Kimball to ask for Helen Mar Kimball's hand in marriage, just like an old-fashioned proposal. WTF? Joseph told Heber and his wife that they could only secure a place in the celestial kingdom if they gave him their daughter. Helen says her mother wept over having to sacrifice their daughter. Some old-fashioned proposal.

Ironically, you get a better understanding of Joseph's personality and character from "Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith" than from Bushman's book.