What Good Is Belief in Writing History?

A few years ago, Laurel Ulrich, then directing the Charles Warren Center at Harvard, asked me to give a talk on Mormonism. I chose to pose the question: Why was the Book of Mormon not taught more extensively in American literature and American cultural history courses? This work by an uneducated New York farmer won thousands of converts in his lifetime and millions since who read and study the book and is probably one of the most influential works by an American in the nineteenth century. It deals with powerful American themes including the place of native peoples in United States history. Yet it is covered in a few paragraphs in the Cambridge History of American Literature and figures only slightly in the syllabi of American cultural history courses. Charles Capper offered a few illuminating comments in response to the paper and then opened the floor to discussion. The first questioner asked: Is not the Book of Mormon in a class with Ron Hubbard’s Scientology and therefore obviously a hoax? It was a perfect opening query because it got into the open a question that many would be too polite to ask a Mormon. I want to address the question of how far belief limits the historical study of subjects that are believed in religiously, that is, historical events where believers think God acted. The Book of Mormon presents an extreme case of historical dissonance where it appears believer and unbeliever can never talk in the same key. But for that very reason, such texts are useful for asking how do we approach subjects charged with belief and skepticism. Can scholars with differing perspectives be of use to one another in such cases?