Anderson, “Bruce R McConkie: Apostle and Polemicist, 1915-1985” (Reviewed by Conor Hilton)

Review
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Title: Bruce R. McConkie: Apostle and Polemicist, 1915-1985
Author: Devery S. Anderson
Publisher: Signature Books
Genre: Biography/Religious Non-Fiction
Year Published: 2024
Number of Pages: 211
Format:  Paperback
ISBN: 978-1-56085-476-0
Price: $17.95

Reviewed by Conor Hilton for the Association of Mormon Letters

Devery S. Anderson’s Bruce R. McConkie: Apostle and Polemicist, 1915-1985 is a fascinating glimpse of the rich complexity of Bruce R. McConkie. Anderson concludes the volume by stating “But however people choose to remember McConkie, it would be unfair to judge him strictly by the controversies surrounding him, as self-imposed and deeply impacting as those turned out to be” (196). True to this parting injunction, Anderson works thoughtfully throughout the book to draw attention to a broader sense of McConkie and to refuse the villainization that may come easily to some readers (myself included). While Anderson does this, he certainly does not shy away from the controversial elements of McConkie’s life—both the controversies that he personally was a part of, and controversies that may be more the result of posthumous interpretations of his life and work.

The first piece I was struck by in this fuller picture of McConkie was Anderson’s observation that he was a jokester. Anderson demonstrates that this is attested to by many of McConkie’s contemporaries, in part by his wife, and his children. This is particularly striking to me because it reveals a more human and multi-faceted person beyond the stoic, absolutely certain, hardliner version of McConkie that I had imagined/inherited. Though particularly interesting to me is that these two McConkie’s exist side-by-side in Anderson’s book, not, for me at least, fully cohering into one great whole, but two parts of one person.

Relatedly, a couple of insights into McConkie’s relationship with his family strike me as of note, first, concerning the type of religious practice that was present in the home. Anderson says “Although the family held daily morning prayer together, surprisingly, McConkie never initiated any formal, structured gospel learning at home. The family never held scripture study together and rarely held family home evenings, as neither was heavily emphasized by the church at that time” (57). To me, this supports the assertions from Amelia and other family and friends that McConkie was not always the person he was behind-the-pulpit. Not in a hypocrisy way, but that he had a wide range of interests and saw his role as an apostle and general authority to be to focus more narrowly and sharply than he might at other times. It is also noteworthy to me for serving as another example of how the practices, policies, and culture of the institutional church have changed over time.

The other familial insight is that “He also made sure he showed affection. Daughter Vivian said ‘Whenever he met us, dad would kiss us on the forehead.’ It didn’t matter where they were. ‘It used to embarrass my sister Rebeca. But that changed as we got older'” (58). Anderson points out that McConkie was warm and affectionate with his children. Again, not something that I would have necessarily predicted, based on the flat version of him I had in my head. The book does a nice job of demonstrating the role that family played in McConkie’s life, frequently drawing on the words of McConkie’s wife and children themselves.

One of the most fascinating parts of the book is the way that Anderson narrates the various controversies that McConkie was a part of. Anderson takes care to present the information from the sources that he had available, and to let the experiences largely speak for themselves. Occasionally, Anderson will explicitly offer a gloss on some of McConkie’s actions or statements in light of earlier things that McConkie said or did. Still, typically, he lets them stand on their own. This is productive and fascinating because McConkie sometimes behaves in ways that I cannot fully understand, not to mention that I find troubling. I am glad for the complications that Anderson introduces, not because they fully redeem Bruce R. McConkie for me, but because they force me to recognize that I understand less than I thought and that historical figures are not just heroes or villains in stories that I have heard and told, but real, flesh and blood humans, with all the contradictions and complications that that entails.

I am still not quite sure what to make of Bruce R. McConkie—someone who consistently and frequently testified of Christ and the power of the atonement, who admitted that he had been mistaken on doctrines of race, who continued to teach some of those doctrines after admitting that, who devoted countless hours to the institutional church and community that he loved, who harshly and publicly condemned people he perceived as in error, who received private correction and had a mixed record on following that correction, and who believed that the scriptures and latter-day revelation had great truth that should be studied and shared and devoted countless hours to that study.

Bruce R. McConkie: Apostle and Polemicist, 1915-1985 by Devery S. Anderson is a slim, thoughtful, and deeply charitable view of Bruce R. McConkie. It offers a taste of the complex human that McConkie was, likely challenging the views of most readers, in one direction or another. May you find yourself as productively unsettled as I was.