Reed Connell Durham Jr. (born 1930) is a historian of the Latter Day Saint movement and former director of the Institute of Religion in Salt Lake City, Utah for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). Durham is remembered for a controversial speech given in 1974 about Freemasonry and the Latter Day Saint movement.
Biography Durham was born in Long Beach, California. He was one of the four children of Reed C. Durham Sr. and Violet E. Cottrell. His father was a professor at Utah State University in Logan, Utah, and served as bishop in the LDS Church three times. As a young man, Reed Jr. served as an LDS missionary for two years.
Durham married Faye Lenore Davis and they began having children while he attended college in Logan.
Education Having earlier attended school in California, Durham's higher education was in Utah. He received his M.S. from the Department of Speech at Utah State Agricultural College in 1957 (the year it became Utah State University), followed by his Ph.D. in history from Brigham Young University (BYU) in 1965, writing his dissertation on the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible. Historian Donald Q. Cannon considered Durham's dissertation part of the "major scholarly contribution to the study of Mormon history" that occurred during the 1960s.
Church Educational System Durham began teaching for the Church Educational System (CES) in 1955 while attending school in Logan. After receiving his master's degree, he stayed in Logan and in 1958 became associate director of the LDS Church's Institute of Religion adjacent to Utah State University. He was elected as a national vice president of Lambda Delta Sigma, the LDS fraternity, in 1959. By 1966 he was associate director of the Institute adjacent to the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, where he would serve for years as Institute Director and coordinator of Seminaries and Institutes throughout the Salt Lake Valley.
Durham has taught religion at BYU and in 1972 he was awarded the Division Faculty Teaching Award by the BYU Division of Continuing Education.
In addition to his church employment, Durham served in various ecclesiastical positions. For a time he taught Sunday school in his local ward (congregation) and he also was a member of the Sunday School General Board, planning and overseeing the church-wide Sunday School program. He also served in various auxiliaries and in two stake high councils.
Historical community Durham was active in the historical community. In the 1960s he was involved with the Organization of American Historians. In 1970 Durham was one of several prominent LDS historians forming a committee that consulted the creation of the LDS Church Historical Department. Durham was an early supporter of Sunstone magazine, which was founded in 1974 by a former student. In 1974 Durham took a year off as Institute Director to work on a book in the church's 16-volume sesquicentennial history to be published in 1980.
In the Mormon History Association (MHA) Durham served as its eighth president, from 1973 to 1974, and second executive secretary, from 1969 to 1971. While he was president, the MHA launched the Journal of Mormon History, whose inaugural issue received criticism from some CES personnel for an article by Jan Shipps about Joseph Smith. In 1974 he delivered a controversial presidential speech to the MHA which startled the LDS historical community, causing Durham to issue a letter of clarification and withdraw from future participation in the MHA.
Later life After his year of research ended, Durham was offered the choice of returning as the Director of the Salt Lake Institute or a promotion to area director of LDS educational programs. He turned both down so he could focus on research and full-time Institute teaching, which he did for years.
By 1991 Durham had been living in Logan, Utah where he still taught for CES. In 1994 and 1995 he taught at BYU's travel study program in Nauvoo, Illinois, and he was a service missionary at Brigham Young University–Hawaii from 1996 to 1999. In 2009 he taught a class on the Book of Mormon to single adults in Providence, near Logan.
1974 Nauvoo speech At the Mormon History Association (MHA) conference in Nauvoo, Illinois, on April 20, 1974, Durham delivered his presidential address on the connections of Mormonism and Freemasonry, entitled "Is There No Help for the Widow's Son?". During a thunder storm that day, Durham discussed Masonic parallels with the LDS priesthood, the Masonic Enoch Legend, the occultic Jupiter Medallion attributed to Joseph Smith, and Masonic elements in Mormon temple design and ceremony. About the temple ceremony, Durham famously stated:There is absolutely no question in my mind that the Mormon ceremony which came to be known as the Endowment, introduced by Joseph Smith to Mormon Masons initially, just a little over one month after he became a Mason, had an immediate inspiration from Masonry. This is not to suggest that no other source of inspiration could have been involved, but the similarities between the two ceremonies are so apparent and overwhelming that some dependent relationship cannot be denied.
Durham said he was attempting to raise questions and he appealed to the historical community to clarify Joseph Smith's relationship to folk magic and Masonry, rather than burying their heads "in the traditional sand"."Arrington's optimism regarding honest discussion of Mormon history was tested in 1974 when Reed Durham, director of the LDS Institute of Religion at the University of Utah, presented a presidential address at the annual conference of the Mormon History Association in Nauvoo, Illinois. In his paper, Durham explored Joseph Smith's links with Masonry and his possession of a magical Jupiter talisman. Negative repercussions following Durham's appeal for an open discussion of the influence of folk magic and Masonry on Mormonism led to his public apology and reaffirmation of faith. The backlash which caused some Mormons to question Durham's faith continued in a number of public speeches made by Ezra Taft Benson in 1976 during which he criticized efforts to revise traditional interpretations of the history of his church."
Reaction Jan Shipps said the speech ignited an explosion, leaving attendees in a "tension-filled aftershock". It was the only time she saw Leonard J. Arrington angry, who had worked for years to open the church archives and now feared they would be closed. The next day, the Nauvoo Visitors' Center removed a Nauvoo Temple weather vane display, which Durham had shown in slides for its Masonic symbols.Melvin B. Hogan wrote, "I have been informed that the particular [weather vane] illustration referred to, in the Visitors' Center, had been removed when the Center opened the next morning."
The speech seemed to support critics who wanted to discredit Mormonism."The anti-Mormon community was overjoyed at this presentation, while Dr. Durham's LDS colleagues were stunned and called his faith and good sense into question." The Tanners, LDS critics, wrote, "We feel that Dr. Durham's identification of Joseph Smith's talisman is one of the most significant discoveries in Mormon history and that he should be commended for his research." Durham's leaders were upset and he was rumored to have been disciplined. Durham denied that his church membership was ever threatened and he was even offered a promotion with CES, where he continued his career. The church had asked him "to do no more with the subject again" and "not to release information" and he declined public comment. His paper went unpublished and he ceased involvement in the MHA.
Letter After friends and colleagues criticized his conclusions and questioned his faith, Durham circulated a letter to all participants."Reed Durham was severely criticized by Mormon scholars and officials for giving this speech." He stated that he had been misunderstood by not incorporating his faith into the speech. He reasserted his belief in Joseph Smith, the temple ceremonies and divine revelation.
Many saw this as an apology.. Reprint of January 14, 2006 article.Durham "finally found it necessary to issue a letter in which he reaffirmed his faith in Joseph Smith and said that he was sorry for the 'concerns, and misunderstandings' that the speech had caused." LDS writer Matthew B. Brown asserted that Durham's letter admitted to limited research and insufficient skill and knowledge."From his letter we learn that (1) Dr. Durham had spent only a few months in researching his subject, (2) he was 'not skillful' in handling his material, and (3) he was not sufficiently 'erudite' in the matter. ... Erudition is defined as 'knowledge acquired by study or research,' in Random House Webster's Dictionary, 1996 ed., 221." "Reed Durham admitted that his misconceptions about the temple came from a lack of learning."
Legacy Durham's speech became famous and made him into "a kind of pivotal figure in the Mormon (LDS) Church". It is still cited by critics of the Mormon temple rites, though his colleague Gilbert W. Scharffs believes Durham's statements have been exaggerated."[The God Makers]' overdramatized account [of Durham's speech] is grossly exaggerated. In effect Durham merely said, 'Although we all know of Joseph Smith's association with Masonry, here's information that he was involved to a greater extent than what we have known.' ... Dr. Durham also told me he was trying to play the 'devil's advocate' in his Nauvoo speech, which is what many there, including myself, sensed. Unfortunately others took the words to further their purposes." While Durham didn't publish his paper, unauthorized transcripts were made and circulated as the "underground presidential address", though Durham's notes and citations were absent."Buerger gets this idea from Reed Durham's 'Widow's Son' lecture, but in his footnote he fails to tell readers exactly where Durham's quotation can be found. None of Reed Durham's transcribed comments are supported by any references, but they deserve to be scrutinized nevertheless."
Looking back during the 1980s, Durham privately wished he had presented some material differently, noting that the evidence for the Jupiter Talisman was actually quite weak. Matthew B. Brown claimed that Durham had abandoned his speech's claims."But in recent years a number of publications have sprung up on the fringes of Mormonism that champion the very same anti-Mormon theory abandoned by Dr. Durham."
The speech is seen as one factors in the LDS Church's waning tolerance toward open and revisionist history during the 1970s and 1980s. It is thought to be one reason CES began to discourage its faculty from involvement in the MHA.
Some Mormon historians, such as D. Michael Quinn, built upon the speech to argue that early Mormonism was heavily influenced by folk magic. Jan Shipps believed the speech was part of Mark Hofmann's inspiration in creating the Salamander Letter, a hoax document which seemed to support Quinn's and Durham's work linking Joseph Smith's religious experiences with "magic".
Historical approach Durham was known for his unorthodox approach and research into LDS history and controversy.Durham obtained a statement by Bruce R. McConkie, which was later circulated, about the physical conception and birth of Adam. Durham's description the contested 1886 John Taylor revelation on polygamy has been used by Mormon fundamentalists to defend the validity of that revelation. Scott Kenney, one of Durham's Institute students who would later found Sunstone magazine, was inspired to study theology and teach Institute because of Durham's classroom explorations of controversial issues in a historical context, which highlighted the humanistic elements of the church.