Ezra Taft Benson saw communism inside American life and wrapped it in scripture. When an apostle’s politics arrive with a title, how was a Mormon member supposed to tell which one they were hearing?
In this What Do You Know Wednesday, Jess and Hannah trace Ezra Taft Benson’s anti-communism from the 1936 First Presidency statement to the John Birch Society, his link between the civil rights movement and a communist takeover, and a 1965 general conference passage missing from the published report. Hugh B. Brown and David O. McKay show how other Mormon leaders judged the same threat differently. The episode also reads Benson’s 1977 BYU devotional and his 1987 talk “Our Divine Constitution.” Sources include D. Michael Quinn, the Library of Congress, and the Congressional Record. When an apostle’s politics arrive with scripture, they get remembered as doctrine.
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