View source for Question: Did Elder Dallin H. Oaks say that it’s wrong to criticize leaders of the Church, even if the criticism is true?

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==Question: Did Elder Dallin H. Oaks say that it’s wrong to criticize leaders of the Church, even if the criticism is true?==
===Elder Oaks' comment is taken out of context: he is not saying that one should accept anything a Church leader says as true===

Elder Dallin H. Oaks is claimed to have made the following comment at a Latter-day Saint Student Association fireside in the Salt Lake Tabernacle on 4 May 1986:
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It’s wrong to criticize leaders of the Church, even if the criticism is true.<br>
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This quote is taken out of context by critics of the Church to imply that one should accept anything a Church leader says as true, even if it is not.

===Elder Oaks responds to this claim directly in an interview with Helen Whitney for the PBS special "The Mormons"===

Elder Oaks answers this claim himself in an interview with Helen Whitney for the PBS special "The Mormons." {{link|url=http://www.pbs.org/mormons/view/}} In the following transcript, "HW" is "Helen Whitney" and "DHO" is "Dallin H. Oaks":
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HW: You used an interesting phrase, “Not everything that’s true is useful.” Could you develop that as someone who’s a scholar and trying to encourage deep searching? 
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DHO: The talk where I gave that was a talk on “Reading Church History” — that was the title of the talk. And in the course of the talk I said many things about being skeptical in your reading and looking for bias and looking for context and a lot of things that were in that perspective. But I said two things in it and the newspapers and anybody who ever referred to the talk only referred to [those] two things: one is the one you cite, “Not everything that’s true is useful,” and that [meant] “was useful to say or to publish.” And you tell newspapers any time (media people) [that] they can’t publish something, they’ll strap on their armor and come out to slay you! [Laughs.] 
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I also said something else that has excited people: that <span style="color:blue">it’s wrong to criticize leaders of the Church, even if the criticism is true, because it diminishes their effectiveness as a servant of the Lord. One can work to correct them by some other means, but don’t go about saying that they misbehaved when they were a youngster or whatever.</span> Well, of course, that sounds like religious censorship also. 
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But not everything that’s true is useful. I am a lawyer, and I hear something from a client. It’s true, but I’ll be disciplined professionally if I share it because it’s part of the attorney-client privilege. There’s a husband-wife privilege, there’s a priest-penitent privilege, and so on. That’s an illustration of the fact that not everything that’s true is useful to be shared. 
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In relation to history, I was speaking in that talk for the benefit of those that write history. In the course of writing history, I said that people ought to be careful in what they publish because not everything that’s true is useful. See a person in context; don’t depreciate their effectiveness in one area because they have some misbehavior in another area — especially from their youth. I think that’s the spirit of that. I think I’m not talking necessarily just about writing Mormon history; I’m talking about George Washington or any other case. If he had an affair with a girl when he was a teenager, I don’t need to read that when I’m trying to read a biography of the Founding Father of our nation.  (See [http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/elder-oaks-interview-transcript-from-pbs-documentary "Elder Oaks Interview Transcript from PBS Documentary" ] on mormonnewsroom.org)
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{{endnotes sources}}


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[[Category:Letter to a CES Director]]

[[es:Pregunta: ¿Hizo Elder Dallin H. Oaks decir que está mal criticar a los líderes de la Iglesia, incluso si la crítica es cierto?]]
[[pt:Pergunta: O Élder Dallin H. Oaks dizer que é errado criticar os líderes da Igreja, mesmo que a crítica é verdadeira?]]