Bitton kept his balance

From the inception of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, historians have drawn battle lines in the sand. One group puts the sunniest spin on events, hoping to encourage and ease the burdens of believers. Another group overplays the darker elements, hoping such revisionist texts will fill out the picture.

Historian R. Davis Bitton didn't play on that teeter-totter. In fact, he often was the fulcrum for it — one historian who saw it all but didn't let the faith, nor the folly, of those who'd gone before color his appreciation for the whole of LDS history.

Bitton died last Friday at age 77. And with his passing, the second half of the legendary Davis Bitton-Leonard Arrington historical tag team joins the ranks of history itself.

Bitton was an assistant historian for the church from 1972 to 1982. During that time he produced several seminal texts, including the watershed work, "The Mormon Experience," which he co-wrote with Arrington. He had an undergraduate degree from BYU, but a graduate degree from Princeton. He later taught at the University of Texas and the University of California at Santa Barbara, which helps explain how he was able to be dry-eyed, yet an insider, when it came to LDS ways.

Anecdotes abound about the man. A favorite is of the time he and the Rev. Francis Mannion, the rector of the Cathedral of the Madeleine, were set against each other in what was to be a saucy debate. Within moments, however, the two had set aside their differences and had gotten down to the task of understanding the historical divisions between their churches and looking for common ground.

When one prominent historian was about to publish a magazine piece critical of a church leader, Bitton never tried to dissuade the writer, but asked he hold onto it until the leader — then gravely ill — passed away.

Such ability to mediate goes beyond scholarship and becomes wisdom. Bitton took the high road, but he was not afraid to examine other routes as well.

He will be remembered as a true sage amid the sagebrush of LDS history.