BYU has banned caffeinated soft drinks on campus for years.  I work for a few large national cable tv networks, and when they come to BYU, they often rant that they can’t find a good cup of coffee in Provo, and they are especially perplexed by the soft drink restrictions.  Often these guys fly in on red-eye flights, and a boost of caffeine is very helpful to keeping them alert during football and basketball broadcasts.  (I took one of those red-eye flights just this weekend, and drank some cheap cola to keep me awake.)

So, Coke and Pepsi are sold on campus, but without caffeine.  I find it an odd situation, and I don’t have much to say when these non-LDS people rant about banning caffeine on campus.  But it appears that President David O McKay was a bit more liberal on some of these Word of Wisdom issues.  We all know the admonition to “avoid the appearance of evil”, yet President McKay was more liberal than some on the subject of Coke.  Prince describes a situation where President McKay actually requested Coke.  From page 23, (emphasis in book)

During the intermission of a theatrical presentation, his host offered to get refreshments: “His hearing wasn’t very good, and I got right down in front of him and I said, ‘President McKay, what would you like to drink?  All of our cups say Coca Cola on them because of our arrangement with Coca Cola Bottling, but we have root beer and we have orange and we have Seven-Up.  What would you like to drink?’  And he said, ‘I don’t care what it says on the cup, as long as there is Coke in the cup.”⁸⁷ McKay’s point was simple and refreshing:  Don’t get hung up on the letter of the law to the point where you squeeze all of the spirit out of life.

But that’s not all.  Prince describes an interesting story concerning rum cake that President McKay ate. Also from page 23,

At a reception McKay attended, the hostess served rum cake.  ”All the guests hesitated, watching to see what McKay would do.  He smacked his lips and began to eat.”  When one guest expostulated, “‘But President McKay, don’t you know that is rum cake?’  McKay smiled and reminded the guest that the Word of Wisdom forbade drinking alcohol, not eating it.”⁸⁶

Some people have tried to add chocolate as being prohibited by the Word of Wisdom.  President McKay chided an apostle about this stance.  From page 23,

he gently chided Apostle John A. Widtsoe, whose wife advocated such a rigid interpretation of the Word of Wisdom as to proscribe chocolate because of the stimulants it contained, saying “John, do you want to take all the joy of of life?’”⁸⁵

Is anyone else surprised by these stories?  Do you think Mormons will ever relax to President McKay’s position on the Word of Wisdom?  When I was first married, my wife surprised me and cooked with wine.  Do others cook with wine, or do you avoid it for “the appearance of evil”?

I really enjoyed the last day of Sunstone, since I was able to attend all day, rather than a session here or there.  Don Bradley gave a presentation titled “Dating Fanny Alger”, a bit of a play on words.  I remember he gave a funny line to the effect of “By all accounts, she was hot!”  Anyway, Bradley tried to pin down when the “affair” happened.  Apparently, Emma discovered Joseph and Fanny late at night in the barn.  According to Bradley, Alger appeared pregnant.  Emma threw a fit, and threw Alger out of the house.  (Apparently Alger had been working as a sort of nanny.)

The discovery of the relationship by Emma probably dates to the summer or fall of 1835.  Bradley recounted several people who have tried to pin down the date, and noted problems with each date.  Some authors have discussed an “embarrassing” incident of polygamy in August 1835.   Joseph left for Pontiac, Michigan possibly to avoid embarrassment for his role.  On Oct 14, 1835, Joseph describes “dealing with household issues”, possibly a reference to evict Fanny.  However, Mark Ashurst-Mcgee suggests this incident refers not to Fanny, but a problem with employees at the printing office.

Fanny left Kirtland in August or Sept 1836, so the incident must have occurred prior to that.  Bradley notes that dissenters condemned Joseph on July 24, and Joseph left for Salem, Massachusetts for a treasure trip the next day on July 25.  Bradley believes Joseph sent Fanny to Missouri at the same time.  William McLellin gave his famous quote about having “no confidence” in church leadership around this time as well.  Fanny soon married non-member Solomon Custer after just a 6 week courtship.  Bradley believes it may have been a cover of legitimacy if Fanny was indeed pregnant.

———–

Following Bridget Jack Meyer’s wonderful presentation on Women priesthood holders in early Christianity earlier in the week, I thought Joshua Gillon’s presentation called “Mormon Women Had the Priesthood in 1843: Examining the Claims” might be interesting.  I was greatly disappointed.  Josh is a PhD candidate of philosophy at Princeton, having completed a BA at BYU.  His talk was nothing more than a rant against the church.  He mis-characterized Michael Quinn’s discussion of women and the priesthood.  He employed tedious grammar exercises to make his points, and finished off with an F-bomb to end his presentation.  It was definitely the worst presentation I have ever heard at Sunstone, though there was another terrible one later in the day.

I wasn’t very excited to go the the panel called “Glenn Beck: Likely Mormon or Unlikely Mormon”, but there wasn’t anything else that sounded interesting at that time.  As I reviewed the list of panelists, I was looking forward to hearing Joanna Brooks of Mormon Matters, and David King Landrith of Mormon Mentality.  (I had met him earlier in the week.) Kathryn Hemingway, Eric Samuelson, and Robert Rees weren’t nearly so interesting as Joanna and David, though they all made good points.  Rees was the moderator and not a fan of Beck.  Landrith and Hemingway were supporters of Beck, while Brooks and Samuelson were not.

I really enjoyed Landrith’s presentation.  Landrith showed that Beck’s rhetoric is very similar to political discourse over the past 200 years.  Early founding fathers often compared each other to monarchists, and spoke about each other more harshly than Beck does of his opponents.  I thought it was an interesting presentation.  Brooks really wasn’t that antagonistic toward Beck.  She basically said we should ignore Beck because his ratings are going down and he knows it.  There is no need to feed into the frenzy–Beck will go away on his own.

Following lunch, I attended a fantastic presentation by Apostle Susan Skoor of the Community of Christ.  She discussed her personal faith journey, showing how she has moved among Fowler’s stages of faith.  Her talk was titled “Faith in the Midst of the Difficulties of Life.”  Baptized at age 8 into the RLDS church, she discussed losing her testimony in her 30s, nearly falling into atheism.  Receiving a blessing, and asked “Do you want to believe?”, as Alma says, she let this desire work in her.  She discussed her new found faith as a stage 5 person, and said she knew she was too selfish to reach stage 6.  As I listened to her story, I marveled at how open she was about her life’s journey.  I don’t think an LDS apostle would admit to losing faith as she did, and I don’t think an LDS apostle would discuss spirituality in such as “secular” way as she discussed Fowlers Faith Stage theory.  I was truly moved.

Clair Barrus discussed “Oliver Cowdery’s Rod of Nature.”  It was a bit too technical for me, but I know others enjoyed it.  Finally, I listened to a panel discuss “Men and the Priesthood: Taking on the Feminine.”  Tom Kimball discussed being an unorthodox Mormon.  His previous bishop did not want to let him baptize or ordain his children.  As the bishop got to know Tom better, he decided to allow it.  Tom has previously discussed his story on Mormon Stories.  Tom’s new bishop has taken a more hard line approach, and Tom’s boys have not progressed in the priesthood.  Tom compared his situation to the idea that women can’t ordain daughters in the LDS church as well.

Robin Linkart, President of the 6th Quorum of Seventy for the Community of Christ spoke next.  She gave an excellent presentation and discussed the new revelation in 1984 allowing women to hold the priesthood.  Many in the RLDS church broke off (they lost nearly 1/4 of their membership.)  She discussed the challenges the RLDS church went through, and her personal journey in the priesthood.  It was excellent.

Holly Welker spoke next.  She gave a rant that the priesthood should be abolished in the LDS church.  During Tom’s, Lisa’s, and the Q&A session, she made faces of disbelief and disagreement.  Honestly I believe a 5th grader would have better behavior than she exhibited.  She was incredibly rude and unprofessional.  Her behavior was embarrassing.

Lisa Butterworth finished up the panel.  She started the blog at FeministMormonHousewives.  Being a feminist and an unorthodox Mormon, she was asked to speak in support of the idea of an all-male priesthood.  She did the best she could, but it was evident that she didn’t fully support the topic she was asked to address.

Overall, I enjoyed most of the sessions.  If you missed my first post on Sunstone, click here.  I’m not sure why I attended so many feminist presentations, but I guess they sounded the most interesting.  So what is your take on women and the priesthood?  Do you see it happening in the LDS church in the next 20-50 years?  Would you support or oppose such a move if the prophet received a revelation allowing women to hold the priesthood?

Apostle Paul Savage of the Church of Christ with the Elijah Message

Sunstone has been going on since Wednesday here in Salt Lake City.  It ends tomorrow, and I thought I would give a few words about the conference.  I have been blogging here at Mormon matters for about a year and a half, and have never met any other bloggers here….until this week!  It has been nice to nice BiV and Stephen Marsh.  I hope to meet others tomorrow.  It was also nice to meet with a few apostles.

I met Paul at the MHA convention in May, and he gave a presentation titled “Why Elijah (or John the Baptist) must come before Christ’s Return”.  I wasn’t able to attend his presentation, but spoke with him for a few minutes.  I learned he is one of 6 apostles for his church, based in Independence, Missouri.  Their church believes apostles are the highest office in the church, and they believe that many people can be prophets.  He noted that the Ephesians 4:11 lists apostles before prophets, so apostles should be the top of the hierarchy.

And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;

Robin Linkart, President of the 6th Quorum of Seventy for the Community of Christ

It was fun talking to him.  I’ve been reading Scattering of the Saints by John Hamer and Newell Bringhurst, and plan to talk more about Paul’s church in the future.  I also enjoyed meeting with Apostle Susan Skoor of the Community of Christ, formerly known as the RLDS church.  (I already have a photo of her on my previous post–click here.)  She is always extremely friendly, and a treat to meet.  She introduced me to Robin Linkart, the President of the 6th Quorum of Seventy.  She lives in Colorado, and is in charge of missionary efforts in the western United States from the Canadian border to Mexico, California to Kansas.  (Sorry the photos are out of focus–I guess my $40 camera is only worth what I paid for it.)

CoC Historian Mark Scherer

Mark Scherer, is the historian for the Community of Christ.  He gave an interesting presentation on the latest revelation to be canonized in the Community of Christ, section 164 of the Doctrine and Covenants.  He said the revelation covers 4 main topics:  (1) open communion, (2) open baptism (don’t have to be rebaptized to join the RLDS church anymore), (3) moral and ethical behavior (allows countries to decide if they want to allow same sex marriage), and (4) the RLDS strives to collaborate more with evangelical Christians.

Bridget Jack Meyers, (aka “Jack”–she blogs at Clobberblog), gave a fascinating presentation called “Evidence for Women’s Priesthood in the Earliest Christianity.  She is a “never Mormon” that earned a BA degree from BYU and “seduced” (her words) a Mormon man there.  She is studying at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.  She outlined various scriptures showing early women Christian leaders, including a woman by the name of Junia in Romans 16:7.  Jack says Junia was a female apostle, and quoted early Christian theologian John Chrysostum discussing her.  Early Christian theologian Origen discussed a female leader by the name of Phoebe.  Jack gave many other examples, and it certainly deserves a blog post or two to discuss her research.

Yesterday, I was able to attend Stephen Marsh‘s session called “How an Unpleasant Truth Can Be More Inspirational than a Pleasant Fiction.”  I learned that the session was based on his post from October, titled The Stories We Tell.  Briefly, Stephen told the true story about his daughter standing up for a disabled classmate.  Often stories such as this end with a happy ending where everyone realizes that they shouldn’t tease a disabled person, but in Stephen’s story, his daughter becomes ostracized.  Often, we don’t have happy endings, and sometimes it is hard to understand why God doesn’t bless us for doing the right thing.  I also learned that Stephen has 5 daughters, but 3 of them have died, despite his prayers to have them live.  It was an interesting presentation.  Often we learn more from our trials than our triumphs.

I’m excited to attend tomorrow.  If you’re in SLC, I encourage you to attend.  It’s at the Sheraton Hotel on 150 West 500 South.  If you attended, what sessions did you enjoy?  Do you have any questions about the sessions I attended?

“Principles compatible with the gospel may be found in the platforms of various political parties.” (Emphasis mine.)

Why does it seem that many Mormons don’t seem to believe this, despite the church’s oft-quoted emphasis that the church is politically neutral?

On May 13, 1969, Elder Hugh B Brown of the First Presidency quoted John Gardner, former secretary of health, education, and welfare under Lyndon B. Johnson.  Gardner gave a very interesting definition of political extremism:

Political extremism involves two prime ingredients: An excessively simple diagnosis of the world’s ills and a conviction that there are identifiable villains back of it all. . . . Blind belief in one’s cause and a low view of the morality of other Americans–these seem mild failings. But they are the soil in which ranker weeds take root . . . terrorism, and the deep, destructive cleavages that paralyze a society.[John Gardner, No Easy Victories (New York: Harper and Row, 1969), 8, 9.]

The text of Brown’s speech can be found here.  Almost exactly one year prior to Brown’s speech referenced above, he delivered the Commencement Address at BYU in May 1968.  Most of you remember his now famous speech called “Profile of a Prophet.”  It’s a fantastic address as he outlines a legal argument to a Canadian judge on why Joseph Smith is a prophet.  I recently listened to the entire speech.

During the first 3 minutes of the speech, Brown gives a few jokes and advice, and then he gave a few words about Politics, before addressing his main topic of “Profile of a Prophet.”  I’d like to quote his words of advice to the graduating students.  I’d like to highlight some things I find particularly interesting.

“You young people are leaving your university at a time in which our nation is engaged in an increasingly abrasive and strident process of electing a president. I wonder if you would permit me as one who has managed to survive a number of these events to pass on to you a few words of counsel.

First, I’d like you to be reassured that the leaders of both major political parties in this land are men of integrity, and unquestioned patriotism. Beware of those who feel obliged to prove their own patriotism by calling into question the loyalty of others. Be skeptical of those who attempt to demonstrate their love of country by demeaning its institutions. Know that men of both major political parties who guide the nation’s executive, legislative, and judicial branches are men of unquestioned loyalty and we should stand by and support them, and this refers not only to one party but to all.

Strive to develop a maturity of mind and emotion and a depth of spirit which will enable you to differ with others on matters of politics without calling into question the integrity of those with whom you differ. Allow within the bounds of your definition of religious orthodoxy variation of political belief. Do not have the temerity to dogmatize on issues where the Lord has seen fit to be silent. I’ve found by long experience that our two-party system is sound. Beware of those who are so lacking in humility, that they cannot come within the framework of one of our two great parties.

Our nation has avoided chaos, like that is gripping France today, because men have been able to temper their own desires sufficiently, seek broad agreement within one of the two major parties, rather than forming splinter groups around their one radical idea.

Our two party system has served us well, and should not be lightly discarded. At a time when radicals of right or left inflame race against race, avoid those who teach evil doctrines of racism. When our Father declared that we, his children, were brothers and sisters, he did not limit this relationship on the basis of race. Strive to develop that true love of country, that realizes that real patriotism must include within it a regard for the people of the rest of the globe. Patriotism has never demanded of good men hatred of another country as proof of one’s love for his own. Require the tolerance and compassion of others and for them. Those with different politics or race or religion will be demanded by the heavenly parentage which we all have in common.

-Hugh B. Brown, Commencement address, Brigham Young University, May 31, 1968

I posted a slightly different version of this post on my blog.  The first few people commented that the politicians of the 1960′s must have been “Men of Integrity”, but our current politicians are not.  Let’s look at the 60′s for a moment.  Lyndon B Johnson’s ratings were so low, that he chose not to run for re-election.   Robert F Kennedy was shot and killed just 1 week after Elder Brown’s address, joining his brother John who had been shot and killed just a few years prior.  Martin Luther King Jr had been killed just 7 weeks prior to this address (on April 4.)

John F Kennedy had a reputation as a bit of a womanizer.  In 1968, Americans were quite sour on the VietNam War.  The sexual revolution was in full swing, and the Women’s Liberation movement was well under way.  The Bay of Pigs was a disaster in Cuba, and we had just gone through the Cuban Missile Crisis.  People were building bomb shelters for fear of Nuclear War with the USSR.  The Cold War was as cold as it ever was.  Suffice it to say, this decade was a time of tumult.

In the 1968 election that Brown referred to, Nixon won a 3 way race over D-Hubert Humphrey, and I-George Wallace. Let’s not forget that Wallace was later shot in 1972, and we all know what happened to Nixon. I didn’t know what happened in France in 1968, so I looked it up on Wikipedia. Apparently there were some big-time riots, strikes, and protests that almost brought the French government down.

I think it was a much more divisive time than today, though today is a very divisive time.  I don’t understand why our country has become so partisan, and why we don’t try to work together more.  People are gravitating to the extremes of MoveOn.org, and the Tea Party.  Brown saw a similar time of rancorous partisanship in the 60′s, and quoted Gardner:

As these antagonisms become more intense, the pathology is much the same. . . . The ingredients are, first, a deep conviction on the part of the group as to its own limitless virtue or the overriding sanctity of its cause; second, grave doubts concerning the moral integrity of all others; third, a chronically aggrieved feeling that power has fallen into the hands of the unworthy (that is, the hands of others). . . .

Politics can always bring out a lot of rants, and often both sides will have “grave doubts concerning the moral integrity of all others.”  I’m sure all of you have your pet political issues.  Can we avoid these antagonisms as we discuss the state of our country?

What say you?  Are you guilty of Elder Brown’s definition of political extremism?  Can you disagree with either President Bush or President Obama without questioning their integrity, just as Elder Brown did with Presidents Johnson, Kennedy, and Nixon?  Do you demean the institutions of the Congress or the Supreme Court because you don’t agree with particular legislation or court rulings?

The overall article is well worth reading to better understand current political debates, but that wasn’t what called my attention to it as a possible subject for Mormon Matters. Rather, the following paragraph toward the end of the Article startled me:

“Nothing has set the country class apart, defined it, made it conscious of itself, given it whatever coherence it has, so much as the ruling class’s insistence that people other than themselves are intellectually and hence otherwise humanly inferior. Persons who were brought up to believe themselves as worthy as anyone, who manage their own lives to their own satisfaction, naturally resent politicians of both parties who say that the issues of modern life are too complex for any but themselves. Most are insulted by the ruling class’s dismissal of opposition as mere “anger and frustration” — an imputation of stupidity — while others just scoff at the claim that the ruling class’s bureaucratic language demonstrates superior intelligence. A few ask the fundamental question: Since when and by what right does intelligence trump human equality? Moreover, if the politicians are so smart, why have they made life worse?” [Emphases added.]

When I read the bolded sentences above I almost sputtered to myself. “Of course, the intelligent should…” And then I remembered a series of conversations I had with my wife-to-be several decades ago when I was getting my baptism into the government policy environment in the DC area and she was free-lancing as a classical musician in New York City. When I visited her, it seemed her colleagues were always complaining about how little funding there was for the arts. When we were alone together, this conversation often continued as she noted that the government seemed to have plenty of money to pay me well for what I did. (I had enough spare cash at the time to fly back and forth between the two cities; she once, I found out later, had to walk home from seeing me off at the airport.) I had initially defended my privilege with exactly the same “Of course…” sputtering.

Well, true love triumphed, and we long ago moved on to debate other issues in our marriage, but my memory of those conversations stopped the sputtering, and I could start taking the article’s fundamental question seriously.

What trumps “the worth of all persons”, to use a Community of Christ terminology? Is it intelligence, which we now measure in our culture by having accrediting bodies grant us degrees that say we are intelligent? It is a very seductive idea, until I start to examine it closely. Why does a master’s degree in physics make me more intelligent than my wife’s masters degree in classical music makes her? She can play a piano; she gets calls to do that more often than I get called upon to solve third order differential equations (and she can still do it from memory, too). Who’s more useful? How many of me does society actually need?

Other cultures have believed (do believe?) that the basis of rule should be the ability to defeat enemy armies, to belong to a divinely-favored race or gender or ethnicity, or even a dubious claim to be sired by a previous member of the ruling class.  Shouldn’t I be willing to question the basis of my belief in the rule of “intellect”.

I am proud of my degrees and my connections to what Codevilla’s article calls the “ruling class”. My pride shows, no matter how hard I try to become conscious of it and question my cultural assumption. Oh, oh!

Ancient people of many cultures built monuments to their gods. Often, it became a little confusing about whether the monuments were built to the gods, or whether the people who built them believed they were gods. In places like Egypt or Meso-America there eventually was no mistaking that the pyramids were about the rulers.

I look at the great monuments in Washington. Some are monuments to political demi-gods of the past. But some seem clearly monuments to the present rulers themselves. Oh, oh! In fact, the places you see Senators or House Representatives being interviewed on TV are not the most ornate Congressional office buildings. The newest structures have multi-floor glass walled interiors that work poorly with reflections from TV lights, so they go unseen by most people without day-to-day business there. (And why did I bother to tell you that? Oh, oh!)

Other monuments are ideological. If you can’t get your name on a monument (or at least an office building in your local district), get your name on a law. In the sciences, get an effect, or a theory, or an equation named after you. Win a prize. Leave your mark on history.

In the Book of Mormon, the falling of people into the “pride cycle” is frequently thematically associated with the wearing of “costly apparel”. Those on the fringes of the ruling class could not build monuments, but they could signal their membership in that class to everyone by what they wore. If we take Meso-America as a model, they could make themselves into living pyramids of expensive cloth, jade, or shell.

And the more widely those signs spread (physically or metaphorically), the more ideas like “the worth of all persons” became illusionary self-deception. The more people were excluded from the ruling class, the more strongly those still on the fringe found it necessary to justify doing ever-more-questionable things to hang on to the symbols of status. The gulf between the classes widened into violence.

I am very much on the “fringe” of my culture’s ruling class. I can signal my membership in that class through my university affiliations, the reports I’ve co-authored, the conferences and advisory hearings I’ve attended, and the offices of the government officials who’ve passed me written “attaboys”. I can make my pyramid out of paper, and my mark on history can last digitally until the digital formats themselves become obsolete. Oh, oh!

Intellectualism is not a vice. Neither is being a member of any elite. But could membership in a ruling “intellectual” elite be the particular form of the pride cycle to which our modern Western culture can be tempted?

Trouble in Zion Poster

Kenny Ballantine is in the process of producing a documentary called Trouble in Zion.  The documentary discusses the events leading up to the 1838 Mormon War in Missouri.  It highlights the Extermination Order and Haun’s Mill Massacre, as well as events leading up to these terrible events.  Kenny showed a pre-release version of the film at the Mormon History Association in Independence, Missouri in May, and he is also showing the film at Sunstone here in Salt Lake City in August.  I really enjoyed the film, and highly recommend it.  I thought Kenny was pretty even-handed, and had experts discuss reactions by both Mormons and non-Mormons which escalated the violence.

Following the presentation at the MHA Conference, Ballentine explained that he didn’t want his documentary to look like a Ken Burns documentary.  A fan of comic books, Kenny found a comic book illustrator to show scenes depicting the conflict.  It took me a while to get used to the comic book art, but it is starting to grow on me.  Kenny was kind enough to give me an advanced copy, and I would like to offer some of my impressions about the film and the conflict.  I hope he stops by to answer questions too!

I was really impressed with the lineup of experts Kenny interviewed.  The most famous people include Richard Bushman, LDS assistant historian Richard Turley, CoC Apostle Andrew Bolton, Washington State University Religion and Sociology professor Armand Mauss, and BYU Church History professor Alex Baugh, among an impressive list of guests.  He outlined a series of events leading up to the Hauns Mill Massacre and the Extermination Order.  Here are some of the key events:

• July 20, 1833.  Bishop Partridge is told to leave Jackson County immediately.  He refuses and is tarred and feathered.  Three days later, he signs an agreement to leave the county.  Ballentine doesn’t really address the reasons why the Missourians were upset at the Mormons, though he does mention that the first Missourians wanted slavery to be legal, while the Mormons from the North were generally against slavery.  WW Phelps published an article in the Evening and Morning Star that Mormons wanted to welcome people of all color.  This is the reason the Missourians were upset, which is why they attacked Bishop Partridge, and destroyed the Mormon printing press.  (Joseph was living in Kirtland at this time.)
• July 4, 1838.  Rigdon issued another fiery patriotic sermon (following his “Salt Sermon”) stating that the Mormons and Missourians would wage a “war of extermination…one party or the other”.  It seems the subsequent Extermination Order by Governor Boggs wasn’t quite what Rigdon had in mind.
• Aug 6, 1838 – Mormons in Daviess County were prevented from voting.  The Whig candidate said Mormons were only supposed to live in Caldwell County and should be ineligible to vote.  He was concerned that Mormons would vote for the Democratic Candidate, because Mormons were overwhelming Democrats back then.  A big brawl broke out that has often been called a “battle”.  There were exaggerated rumors that Mormons were killed.
• Aug 19, 1838 – Mormons were expelled from DeWitt, in Daviess County.  Following the election, Missourians decided to expel Mormons.
• Oct 18, 1838 – The Mormons decide to retaliate.  Known as the Daviess Expedition, a group of Danites (a secret Mormon militia group) led an effort to expel Missourians from Gallatin, Millport and Grindstone Fork.   Mormons plundered the property and burned the stores and houses to the ground.
• Oct 24, 1838 – The Battle of Crooked River.  Mormons attack and scatter the Missouri Militia.  Many of the Missouri Militia erroneously believe all others are killed.  Only 1 Missourian was killed, but LDS Apostle David Patten (known as “Captain FearNot”), Danite leader Gideon Carter were both killed; 9 other Mormons were wounded.
• Oct 27, 1838 – Governor Lilburn Boggs issues the Extermination Order; “the Mormons must be treated as enemies, and must be exterminated or driven from the State if necessary for the public peace…”
• October 30, 1838 – The Hauns Mill Massacre; 18 Mormons are killed, ranging in age from 10-year old Sardius Smith, to 62 year old Thomas McBride.  I would like to quote directly from the film.

“On October 30, 1838, a large group of armed Missourians marched on the small and peaceful Mormon settlement known as Haun’s Mill, primarily in retribution for the Mormon gutting of Daviess County.

…

Amanda [Barnes Smith]’s two little boys, Sardius and Alma had followed their father into the blacksmith shop.  The men had hoped to use the shop like a fortress in the event of an attack.  Instead, it quickly proved to be a death trap.  Seeing no other alternative, the men made a desperate dash for the woods, nearly all of them being gunned down in the process.  Many of the attackers looted, humiliated, and brutalized the wounded and dying.  The oldest victim was 62 year old Thomas McBride who after surrendering his weapon was hacked to death with a corn knife.  And the youngest was 10 year old Sardius Smith.  An enraged Missourian leveled his gun against the small boy’s head, and after proclaiming that ‘nits become lice” pulled the trigger.

Amanda found her husband and 10 year old son Sardius dead, and her 6 year old son’s hip was “all shot to pieces.”Apostle Andrew Bolton of the Community of Christ said,

“Hauns Mill was a tragedy:  17 boys and men are killed and another one dies later from his wounds.  Hauns Mill was a peaceful settlement of Mormons: 15 miles from the main group in Far West, but therefore isolated and vulnerable in the sectarian war that was erupting around them.  Two days before the massacre they reiterated their commitment to live in peace with their neighbors.  This was a genuine, authentic group that didn’t want any part of the violence and suffered horrible tragedy.  The lesson from Haun’s Mill is the innocent get hurt whenever there is human violence.  It spills over, and there is tragedy.

So how does such a tragedy happen?  Why do neighbors turn so quickly on each other?  In my previous post, I discussed the Rwandan Genocide.  Armand Mauss describes the “Moral Panic” in Ballentine’s film.  He is professor emeritus of Sociology and Religious Studies at Washington State University.  He retired in 1999, but continues to be active on Mormon studies.  He is probably most famous for his book The Angel and the Beehive.  The Moral Panic explains how groups turn so quickly violent.

When a society is gripped by a moral panic, that society is apt to respond as though their facing matters of life and death.  That leads to violence that is considered justifiable in almost any extreme, because of what we see is at stake.  It makes it possible for people who yesterday felt very friendly toward another people, suddenly see those people not only as enemies, but as less than human.”

…

All of the restraints that people normally feel about the way human beings should treat human beings, those restraints gradually melt away, and people who are perfectly nice, decent people, find themselves doing things that they would have never thought that they could do….Under other circumstances a group of Mormons and a group of Missourians might have gone to dinner together and had a good time, but under these circumstances, they faced the Moral Panic.”

It is truly astonishing how quickly neighbor can turn against neighbor.  It is truly a tragedy when cooler heads do not prevail.

As I said before, I really enjoyed Ballentine’s film.  There is much more to the film than I have presented here.  If you get a chance to see this film at Sunstone, I encourage you to see it.  I know Ballentine is still trying to obtain financing to finish the film.  While it is not yet complete, I think it is an excellent film at this point.  If you would like a preview, click here to watch some clips from the official website.  I’ve invited Kenny to stop by, and I am sure he would welcome questions and comments.

Alice Cooper at the 2007 Scream Awards

If you’re Mormon, you’ve probably heard the myth that Alice Cooper was a Mormon.  Most of you have probably dismissed the myth as complete hogwash.  Well, it turns out there is an element of truth to the myth.  For example, his father’s middle name is Moroni and his grandfather was an apostle!  Yes it is true!

Alice Cooper was born with the name Vincent Damon Furnier in Detroit, Michigan.  His  father was a preacher by the name of Ether Moroni Furnier for The Church of Jesus Christ, based in Monongahela, Pennsylvania.  Cooper’s grandfather Thurman Sylvester Furnier served as an apostle for the church.  The church is also known as the Bickertonite church, and has roots with Sidney Rigdon.  According to Cooper’s biography, he was active in the church until the age of 11 or 12.  His family moved to Phoenix, Arizona when he was about 16 years old.

So, I thought it might be nice to give some information about his church.  As you may remember, just prior to Joseph Smith’s death, he was running for President of the United States.  His Vice Presidential candidate was Sidney Rigdon.  The US Constitution prohibits the President and Vice President from residing in the same state, so Joseph sent Sidney on a mission to his home state of Pennsylvania to establish residency.  Rigdon settled near Pittsburgh (the place of his birth) when he received the news of Joseph’s death.  Rigdon was there just a few weeks.

Rigdon returned to Nauvoo with the rest of the apostles.  There was a special meeting on August 8, 1844.  According to Richard Van Wagonner, Sidney Rigdon’s biographer, on page 338, Van Wagoner documents Rigdon telling Jedidiah  Grant

‘that he felt prepared to claim “the Prophetic mantle” and that he would “now take his place at the head of the church, in spite of men or devils, at the risk of his life.’  Rigdon seems to have underestimated Brigham Young, who had succession ideas as well.

…From page 339,

Hyde reported that Rigdon was just “about to ask for an expression of the people by vote; when lo! to his grief and mortification, [Brigham Young] stepped upon the stand… and with a word stayed all the proceedings of Mr. Rigdon.  Young, who later recalled the event in 1860, stated:  “[W]hen I went to meet Sidney  Rigdon on the ground I went alone, and was ready along to face and drive the dogs from the flock.”

Anyway, most of you know that Rigdon and Young excommunicated each other.  Rigdon went back to Pittsburgh and started his own church.  In the appendix is a reference to the Bickertonites on page 473.

Sidney’s Rigdon’s Church of Jesus Christ of the Children of Zion disintegrated within a decade after his death.  …  But the Church of Jesus Christ, a small sect organized in 1862 by William Bickerton, still venerates Rigdon.

Bickerton, an 1845 convert to Sidney Rigdon’s Church of Christ, found himself adrift after Rigdon’s failures in Pittsburgh and the Cumberland Valley.  For a brief period in the early 1850s Bickerton affiliated with a branch of the Utah Mormons at West Elizabeth, Pennsylvania, although he personally declared that “his testimony… is that the blessing he received came thru obedience to the restored Gospel in 1845 with Rigdon’s people.”

After the Utah church publicly announced its long-term practice of polygamy in 1852, Bickerton left that organization.  In 1854 he held a successful conference in West Elizabeth at which several persons were baptized.  By 1858 he had attained a following of nearly 100 persons and had organized them into branches in Wheeling, West Virginia; Pine Run, Allegheny; and Greenock, Pennsylvania.

In an 1859 conference Bickerton was acknowledged as a prophet by his followers.  Two years later he was sustained a “Prophet and President of the Church” with counselors Charles Brown and Beorge Barnes.  During a July 1862 conference at Greenock twelve apostles and a number of evangelists were ordained.  The church was officially organized during this conference although not legally incorporated until 10 June 1865.

The church, which maintains its world headquarters today in Monongahela, Pennsylvania, at last report numbered 10,000 members.  The current First Presidency is Dominic Thomas, Paul Palmieri, and Robert Watson.  The church is organized into seven districts in the U.S., and has missions in Canada, Mexico, Guatemala, Kenya, Nigeria, India, England, Italy, Holland, and Germany.

The Bickertonite Church is the 3rd largest Mormon sect, behind the LDS Church and RLDS Church (known now as the Community of Christ.)  Alice Cooper’s grandfather was an apostle of this church.  I think it’s pretty safe to say that Cooper was raised with a pretty firm knowledge of the Book of Mormon.

I’ve heard Cooper attends a Methodist Church, and an Assembly of God Church.  I don’t know if either of these rumors are true.  He has been interviewed and said,

Cooper has confirmed in interviews that he is in fact a born again Christian.  [World Net Daily article in which Cooper speaks of his wish to shun so called celebrity Christianity] He has avoided so called “celebrity Christianity” because, as Cooper states himself: “It’s really easy to focus on Alice Cooper and not on Christ. I’m a rock singer. I’m nothing more than that. I’m not a philosopher. I consider myself low on the totem pole of knowledgeable Christians.[Interview with Radio Talk Show HostDrew Marshall] So, don’t look for answers from me”.[Cooper speaking in a a World Net Daily article]

When asked by the British Sunday Times newspaper in 2001 how a rebellious shock-rocker could be a Christian, Cooper is credited with providing this response “Drinking beer is easy. Trashing your hotel room is easy. But being a Christian, that’s a tough call. That’s real rebellion!”[Cooper's response to The Sunday Times is quoted in an online Good News magazine article dealing with well known rock musicians who have a Christian faith]

So, what do you make of the Bickertonite’s most famous member?  I don’t believe Bickertonites like to call themselves “Mormons”, but they firmly believe in the Book of Mormon, so I think the label could apply in this case.  So no, Alice Cooper is not technically a Mormon, but I bet the rumors hold a bit more truth than you ever believed.  Am I right?

As I mentioned previously, I really enjoyed the Strangite session of the Mormon History Association meetings a few weeks ago.  Vickie Speek, John Hamer, and Mike Karpowicz gave some fascinating presentations on this little known group.  Following the session, they answered additional questions, and I thought it would be interesting to provide a transcript of the Q&A session.  But before I get into the transcript, I should tell you a brief history of the Strangite Church.

James Strang was baptized into the church just a few months before Joseph Smith was killed in 1844.  He said he had a letter from Joseph proclaiming that Strang was to lead the church.  The letter is currently owned by Yale University; in the past few decades, they have declared Joseph Smith’s signature on the letter a forgery.

Evidently Strang was a dynamic leader.  His church (officially known with slightly different punctuation as the Utah church: the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints [no hyphen, different capitalization]) rivaled the Brigham Young movement in size.  They had some well known converts too:  Martin Harris, William Smith (Joseph’s brother), William Cowdery (Oliver’s father), William Marks (stake president in Nauvoo), William McLellin (former apostle), Hiram Page, and some of the Whitmer brothers.

Strang claimed an angel visited him, appointing him as prophet.  As part of his calling, he translated the Brass Plates into a book of scripture called “The Book of the Law of the Lord” written by Moses, and in Laban’s possession.  Originally against polygamy, Strang translated the book (first published in 1851), which said polygamy was a godly commandment.

Strang originally moved his followers to Voree, Wisconsin, and then received another revelation to move to Beaver Island, Michigan.  He crowned himself king, and was assassinated there by disgruntled followers.  The Strangites still exist today.  The have a few hundred members in Kansas, New Mexico, Colorado, and Wisconsin.  Here is a website from a Strangite follower.  (It contains an online version of the Book of the Law of the Lord.)  John Hamer says the official website for the church is found here.

Independent historian Vickie Speek, John Hamer & Mike Karpowicz of John Whitmer Books, and Bill Russell of Graceland University (the CoC version of BYU) answered a few questions following their presentation on the past 160 years of Strangite history.

Newell Bringhurst, “I found it very enlightening too, but the one area I wanted to hear a little bit more about was the core teachings, the liturgy.  Did you get a sense, particularly John and Mike?  [Vickie] You went into the Law of the Lord in your paper and those tenets and teachings, but what core teachings were perpetuated to the make things that give them an identity as far as their Mormonism or moving beyond or in a different direction in terms of their Mormon teachings that we would identify with as Mormons, from a Latter-Day Saint tradition?”

John Hamer, “I identified in my paper that there is a remarkable continuity.  When we first looked into this, we weren’t sure how this church that had been on Beaver Island and in Wisconsin, how did it end up being in New Mexico?  So we wondered, ‘is this a Neo-Strangite Church?  Is this a bunch of people who got converted and started calling themselves Strangites that don’t have any actual continuity?’  But we found in the course of looking through the records–we had incredible access to all the church’s records, we interviewed a dozen of the oldest members of the church, the branch records going all the way back to the 19th century are all kept in the vaults and all maintained—there is a remarkable continuity of practice and teaching that occurs because these Beaver Island members taught this new generation.  The practices remain and all sorts of things remain.

Some of the things we mentioned were sealing—sealing continues to be done, so that is unusual for Midwestern Mormons for example.  Most of the other branches other than the Cutlerites don’t do that.  You don’t have that in the Community of Christ.  It’s not in the Hedrickites.  They’re sealed for time and all eternity.  This idea of adopting into a noble and a princely household, these kingdom powers—that was being done all the way up through the [19]60’s, especially members of the Flanders clan were sealed, adopting into this Ketchum household that they were intermarried with in the 19th century, but essentially had forgotten that they were inter-married with.  This was more or less forgotten.  Some of this history has been recovered from the records, this connection between Joseph Ketchum and Granny Flanders.  Remember that Granny Flanders was this matriarch who had done this.

I would just say there are an incredible number of practices, there are all kinds of Strangite practices.  The Book of the Law of the Lord is integral as scripture.  It is read.  The Voree Branch are 7th day Sabbath-tarians—that’s Strangite practice.  The Laws of Sacrifice so they would sacrifice first fruits so again a lot of Strangite practice, because they had a second prophet, there’s all sorts of things that they have that other branches don’t have.  So I think the continuity is actually remarkable and the amount of practice and preservation is remarkable.  There are just a few things that fall out, because they don’t have the top priesthood offices.  So some things they don’t feel are valid to do.  One of those is plural marriages for example, they’re not done.

Vickie Speek, “There’s something we didn’t mention is the fact that according to Strangite belief, the lesser cannot ordain the higher. So they’ve lost their prophet, they’ve lost their priesthood, because only God can make a prophet.  Man can’t.  Man can’t make another prophet, so when James Strang died, the prophet died.

John Hamer, “It’s simply invalid for a teacher to ordain a priest.  Likewise, you cannot have an apostle ordain a prophet.  So that’s why Joseph [Smith] III’s ordination is invalid.  William Marks, as great of priesthood or whatever as he had is not a prophet, he cannot ordain a prophet.  Likewise Brigham Young, the other apostles that ordain him—that’s simply invalid in Strangite view, because the lesser cannot ordain the greater.

Newell Bringhurst, “So then the highest priesthood office then is a high priest, is that correct?”

Hamer, “Yes, High Priest.”

Bill Russell, “Since prophets die, and  Joseph was killed, then how are you going to have a successor to Joseph?”

Hamer, “Angelic ordination.”

??? “Just the way Strang was ordained.”

Vickie, “James Strang could have, under the direction of God, laid his hands and ordained somebody before he passed, but he did not.”

Larry Foster, “I also commend the excellent papers.  I had a couple questions more to Vickie, and maybe I missed part of it, or maybe it was answered elsewhere.  On the Book of the Law of the Lord, that’s an extremely impressive book I think.  I looked at it, but the 1856 edition is much bigger than the original book which is only about 50 pages?  A lot of the best stuff in the 1856 edition is these extended explanatory notes, I don’t know if polygamy is in the original text of the edition, or is it part of that explanatory notes stuff that extends the length of the book so much?

The other question I had was an inevitable question about Strang—what does one make of him?  He didn’t ordain a successor even though he was alive for several weeks after he was shot fatally.  Going back, how does polygamy get in there?  How about John C. Bennett?  It seems like John C. Bennett is right there at the heart of Nauvoo polygamy and Strangite polygamy and it seems like he was equally destructive in both contexts.  [audience chuckles]

I also wondered, I read one of Strang’s articles.  Golly, he could sure write.  He almost convinced me that polygamy was a great thing to liberate women.  [audience chuckles]  It gives them all kinds of choices they don’t have and they’re not stuck with a bunch of dodos.  It would appear, and I’ve been criticized by one of the Strangites for saying this, that certainly his letter of appointment was a forgery, that it seems to reflect his own diary.  It is block printed, the name has no relationship to Joseph Smith.”

Bill Russell, “We talked about his appointment at the beginning.”

Foster, “Oh you did.  There’s a pretty clear cut case of forgery, or maybe did you find some other approach?”

Vickie, “The way that I have looked at it.  When I wrote my book about the Strangites, I approached it basically as a newspaper reporter.  I was not going to take a position either way, I was just going to tell the story.  Because to me, it doesn’t matter to me what my opinion of James Strang was, but I was doing the story of the people who believed him, so that’s the way I wrote my book, and that’s the way I still basically look at it.  I have a tremendous amount of respect for the people who followed James Strang, and the Strangites of today, because their [road] is not the main road.  Theirs has been a very hard, hard road with a lot of heartache.

Now I would like to make one comment.  As far as I know, there is only a few copies of the 1851 Book of the Law, and there is somebody here who is familiar with the 1851 Book of the Law, and I’d like to ask him if there is polygamy in it?”

John Hajicek, “Yeah, there is.”

Vickie, “It’s basically the same thing?”

Hamer, “It’s in the main text, right?  In other words, it just lacks the commentary, so it has the text, it just doesn’t explain it, right?”

John Hajicek, “Are you guys asking me?”  [audience chuckles]  “Yeah, I have an 1851 Book of the Law and it’s an 80 page preliminary version.  It was published as a pamphlet with colored, printed wrappers on it.  It doesn’t have the explanatory notes.  It has 95% of the sections.  He continued to translate some additional sections.  There are some interesting differences.  For example, the first edition doesn’t have a chapter on baptism for the dead, and Strang includes his earlier 1849 revelation on baptism for the dead instead, and then has a footnote that says baptism for the dead evidently didn’t exist in the Old Testament.  Later he translates a chapter after on baptism from this Mosaic period, allegedly Mosaic period record.  So his own views changed.  But on polygamy he didn’t change.  The laws on the number of wives a king could have and things like that are all in that first edition.”

Bill Russell, “That 1851 edition does have that you say?”

John Hajicek, “Right.

Mike, “Bill, is my assumption correct that with the assassination of Strang, that the tensions between the Strangites and the state and federal government kind of dissipated at that point.  It is interesting to me that whereas the army had a relationship with the Utah church for quite a while, Strang was shot virtually under the guns of the USS Michigan, a naval vessel on the Great Lakes.  I don’t know what the reports that were filed by the state of Michagan were, and how they were considered when they got back to Washington to the Navy Department in the Pierce administration, but were the tensions with the state governments of in Michigan and Wisconsin and federal government dissipated after the assassination?”

Hamer, “Yeah, because they also got expelled.  They picked up all the members.  They spoiled them of all their property.  They put them on rented boats and they dropped them off all along the coast line destitute in little tiny groups.  So it was the worst kind of persecution results than any other Mormons faced.”

Mike, “Did the navy play a part in that or was it all surveyance from Mackinaw City?”

Vickie, “There is no positive evidence.  However, you take all the circumstantial evidence together, and I say yes.”

Hamer, “Not in the dropping off of the people.”

Vickie, “Not in the dropping off of people, no.”

Hamer, “But like Mike said, the warship is there in the murder.”

Mike, “Does the USS Michigan ferry people from Mackinaw City to St. James as part of the mob?”

Hamer, “Yes.”

Vickie, “As part of the Mob?”

Mike, “Yes”

Vickie, “I don’t believe it was the Michigan.  There were 2 ships in Michigan.  There was a steamer and there was a warship.”

Mike, “I’m asking about the USS Michigan, the warship.”

Vickie, “I don’t know.”

Hamer, “Right, The warship left the dock though.”

Vickie, “Right, it left the dock when Strang was murdered and the murderers jumped on the ship and then left.”

Mike, “2 guys jumped on the ship.”

Vickie and Hamer, “Right.”

Mike, “They left on the USS Michigan?”

Vickie and Hamer, “Yes”.

Mike, “It’s an interesting parallel with the 2 churches: one with the army involved, and the other with the navy.” [audience chuckles]

Vickie, “I think the conflict was gone, because the Strangites were gone, they were scattered.”

Mike, “and the polygamy issue kind of faded away, then?”

Vickie, “Right.”

William Russell, “Here’s a question right here, and then our time is expired so maybe this should be our last one.”

Woman, “Why did they kill James Strang?”

Vickie, “That’s a good question.  Basically, people had become disillusioned with Strang.  Strang was caught trying to follow the Book of the Law and one of the tenets of the church is no alcohol, and basically the Strangites didn’t allow alcohol and they did not support the sale of alcohol to the Native Americans and there was a lot of conflict with the gentiles, and so forth who wanted to sell alcohol.  Strangites became thirsty and they left the fold for other reasons, and those are the ones that basically were in the conspiracy to kill Strang.”

Hamer, “That’s one of them.  That’s on ongoing conflict.  Whenever Mormons gather together in big numbers and took political control and things like that, they would have conflict with their neighbors.  There are all kinds of problems that result from that including the 2 groups don’t trust each other, they don’t feel they can get justice from each other.  The other Americans see Mormons gathering under one prophet as being un-American.  There’s a lot of tendency to go and kill that prophet.”

Bill Russell, “One other thing though, he did serve 1 term in the Michigan legislature.”

Hamer, “Two terms.”

Russell, “Well 2 years I think is all.  But anyway, he was considered very effective according to the Detroit Free Press.  It’s interesting that a prophet and king could be elected to the Michigan legislature and get along well.” [audience chuckles]  He was also a member of the farms.  Well thank you very much, this was an excellent session.”

Like I said, it was a fascinating question.  I’ve invited John Hamer and a few others to entertain questions if you have any.  Do you have any questions for them?

What’s interesting is that the leveraging of designs has really been going on since the 1950s. Prior to that, each building was designed and built from the ground up.  Looking at the Temples, one can see a similarity in each era of Temple building.

Temples

For example, the design of the Kirtland, Nauvoo and St. George Temples are similar, even if the interiors had a totally different configuration.

Similar Designs Examples

1. Logan, Manti
2. London, Hamilton, NZ, Bern, Los Angeles
3. Ogden, Provo (For now)
4. Tokyo, Seattle, Jordan River
5. Sao Paulo, Atlanta, Santiago, Tonga, Samoa (original), Tahiti, Sydney, Denver
6. Boise, Dallas, Chicago, Manila, Taipei, Guatemala City, Johannesburg, Stockholm, Seoul, Lima, Buenos Aries, Frankfurt
7. Small Temple Designs
8. Etc.

There, have of course, been some unique ones along the way:

Salt Lake, Oakland, Washington DC, Mexico City, San Diego, to name a few.

Meeting houses and Stake Centers

In the early days of the Church and in many parts of the world still, existing buildings were and are re-purposed for use as meetinghouses. In some cases, buildings are just rented for Sunday use. As the Church became established, starting in Utah and surrounding states, LDS Church buildings were built to match the specific use for the facility. Very ornate Tabernacles were the center of a Mormon town.

Here are a few examples:

Paris, ID ,  Provo , Box Elder (Brigham City) , Kaysville

As time moved on, standard designs began to become the norm.  As far back as 1950s, many meetinghouses and Stake Centers were based on the same design, with an occasional unique one.

1950’s

1960’s

1970’s

1980’s

1990s, 2000s

The 1990s brought the “California Plan,” a 42,000 sq foot 2-story building designed to hold an entire stake within it.  There are two of everything, Chapels, Primary, Relief Society rooms. Eight bishops and clerks offices and a complete set of Stake offices. Most of the buildings were and are not fully utilized except for short periods of time while other buildings were renovated. Take it from my personal experience, you’ve never experienced this kind of organized chaos when you have four wards in the building at once,  4 in the morning and 4 in the afternoon.

So, what do you think?  I’ve heard that they are even tearing down some of the older, unique buildings to put up more efficient, newer designs. Are we losing the character of our buildings by having the same designs? Or, is it easier to find a church building? I’ve always been able to spot our buildings by the spires out front.

Are you in a vintage building or a cookie cutter building? Which are your favorites?

The friendship between Sidney Rigdon and Joseph Smith is very fascinating.  Sidney was one of the earliest, and most impressive converts, joining the church in December 1830.  His training as a Baptist minister was especially helpful to Joseph, and he often preached many wonderful sermons.  As time wore on, there were some really interesting issues between Joseph and Sidney.  Richard Van Wagoner wrote a biography called Sidney Rigdon: Portrait of Religious Excess.  The Missouri and Nauvoo periods were especially tumultuous.

With Sidney running the church in Quincy, Joseph and others were still in the Liberty Jail.  Through the first 10 years of the church, Sidney Rigdon and Joseph Smith seem to be in lock step with each other.  However, the Nauvoo period seems to show a few cracks in the friendship.  Were they serious?  Well, Joseph called Sidney to be his Vice Presidential nominee–but I’ll get to that later.

The people of Quincy, Illinois took in many of the saints following the expulsion from Missouri.  In 2002, the Tabernacle Choir did a benefit concert for the town of Quincy, to thank them for their kindness.  With Sidney released from Liberty Jail, his mood improved greatly, and he worked to impeach the government of Missouri.  At this time, Joseph Smith chose to reverse himself on the work of gathering saints, as well as consecration (or “common stock”, as in the letter below.)  From Liberty Jail, Joseph wrote to the church in Quincy on Mar 25,1839, that the saints should settle “in the most safe and quiet places they can find” between Kirtland and Far West.  Additionally, there must be “no organization of large bodies upon common stock principals.”  Footnote 9 on page 273 of book expounds this.

No further common stock programs were established during Joseph Smith’s life.  The prophet shaded the truth during his 1839-40 trip to Washington, DC., when he stated that Mormons would not share property in common.  “‘It has been reported by some vicious or de[s]igning characters’, he said, ‘that the church of Latter Day Saints believe in having their pro[p]erty in common and also the leaders of sa[id] church controlls said propperty….This is a base fabrication,’ he insisted, ‘on the contrary no person’s feelings can be more repugnant to such a principle than mine[,] every person in this Church has a right to controll his own proppe[r]ty’” (Joseph Smith to Mr. Editor [of the Chester County Register and Examiner], 22 Jan. 1840.)

After 2 failed attempts to escape from jail, Joseph and others bribed some guards with a promise of $800.  They returned to Quincy, and made plans to settle in Commerce (later named Nauvoo.)  Smith and Rigdon bought (for the church) $18,000 worth of property in Nauvoo, and were swindled out of $80,000 in Iowa.  As the saints moved to Nauvoo, Rigdon contracted malaria, which would plague him for years.  While there are several true reports of Joseph healing people of malaria, Sidney was not one of them.

The leadership continued to press for redress of the wrongs in Missouri, and traveled to DC to speak with Pres Van Buren.  Due to Rigdon’s eloquence, he was selected to be the spokesman for the group.  Rigdon made a valiant effort to travel to DC, but was just too sick, so Joseph Smith became the spokesman.  Smith was not impressed with Van Buren, and the meeting was a disappointment to the saints.

Nauvoo was initially prosperous, but not for long.  From page 278,

Although Nauvoo’s population increased dramatically in the early 1840′s, much of its short-lived prosperity was based on the same perilous real estate speculation that brought down Kirtland’s economy.  Rigdon and the Smiths once again pinned their financial aspirations on the hopes that new converts, aware of the prophet’s dark visions of America’s future, would flee their homelands, gather to Nauvoo–proclaimed city of refuge–and purchase property from the real estate arm of the church.  But of the more than 3,000 British converts who arrived in Nauvoo before 1846, most were poverty-stricken refugees from the English working class.  Sobering to the First Presidency was that real estate sales fell far below their expectation, forcing the brethren to default on the promissory notes they had co-signed.  Because the church was not yet a legal entity in 1839, Ridgon, the Smith brothers, and their wives were personally liable for the organization’s nearly $150,000 debt.

…

To pay for the vast acreage, Mormon property owners were advised to sign their real estate over to the church, through agents Isaac Galland and William Smith, in exchange for an equivalent value of land in Nauvoo…  Overwhelmed by their obligations, Rigdon and the Smith brothers sought a way out of their financial problems: bankruptcy.  [which happened in 1842]

I’d like to address to an awkward episode between Rigdon and Smith.  In 1842, Smith tested Rigdon’s friendship when Joseph proposed plural marriage to Sidney’s 19-year old daughter, Nancy.  Nancy was summoned on two occasions to meet Joseph, and was repulsed by the idea, threatening to “raise the neighbors” if Joseph didn’t let her go.  Through his scribe Joseph wrote an apology to Nancy, which she handed to her boyfriend, Francis Higbee.  The letter got out, (and was published in John C. Bennett’s expose on Mormon Polygamy–more on Bennett later) and eventually got to Sidney’s attention.

At first, Joseph denied all to Sidney.  Nancy stormed into the room saying,

“Joseph Smith you are telling that which is not true[.]  you did make such a proposition to me, and you know it.”  Another unnamed person said, “Nancy are you not afraid to call the Lord['s] anointed a cursed liar[?]“  “No”, replied Nancy, “I am not for he does lie and he knows it.”

[Rigdon's son-in-law, George] Robinson wrote that Smith, after acknowledging his proposition, sought a way out of the crisis by claiming he had approached Nancy “to ascertain whether she was virtuous or not, and took that course to learn the facts.”  But Sidney found that rationalization feeble.  Convinced of Smith’s involvement in the “spiritual wife business,” as Sidney later termed it, Rigdon concluded that Smith had “contracted a whoring spirit.”  This is why, according to Wickliffe [Sidney's son], Rigdon told family members immediately after the prophet left their home that Smith “could never be sealed to one of his daughters without his consent as he did not believe in the doctrine.”

Chapter 21 is the first chapter to address polygamy in the book, though it does go back in time to address rumors of polygamy in Kirtland and other places.  Let me sidetrack to Emma for a minute.  At times the issue of polygamy…

left Joseph and Emma’s marriage hanging by a thread.  Emma spent the last three years of her husband’s life jealously battling his errant yearnings, more than once threatening to return to her family in New York.  On one occasion, according to Smith’s private secretary, she threatened that if he continued to “indulge himself she would too.”  [William Clayton Diary] Although Emma apparently countenanced two of her husband’s 1843 sealings–to Emily and Eliza Partridge–she recanted within a day and demanded that Joseph give them up or “blood should flow.”  Her change of heart came after she found Joseph and Eliza Partridge secluded in an upstairs bedroom at the Smith home.  The realization that the sealing represented more than a “spiritual marriage” or “adoptive ordinance” devastated her. [From page 293]

Some of the footnotes are very interesting on this subject.  Footnote 26 on page 305 quotes an 1844 expose of Mormonism.  I don’t know if this can be corroborated, but I found it interesting.

“Emma’s threat to “be revenged and indulge herself” may have been merely a warning to the prophet to give up his spiritual wives.  But Joseph H. Jackson, a non-Mormon opportunist who gained the confidence of the prophet in Nauvoo, recorded in an 1844 expose of Mormonism:  “Emma wanted [William] Law for a spiritual husband,” and because Joseph “had so many spiritual wives, she thought it but fair that she would at least have one man spiritually sealed up to her and that she wanted Law, because he was such a ‘sweet little man.’”

Although there is nothing to suggest that Law and Emma were more to each other than friends, Law later confirmed that Joseph “offered to furnish his wife Emma with a substitute for h im, by way of compensation for his neglect of her, on condition that she would forever stop her opposition to polygamy and permit him to enjoy his young wives in peace and keep some of them in his house and to be well treated, etc.” (Salt Lake Tribune, 3 July 1887.)

Faithful Dissident talks about a deathbed confession of Emma, where Emma again denies polygamy.  Footnote 30, page 304 ”In 1846, two years after Joseph’s death, Emma Smith, in a conversation with Joseph W. Coolidge, remarked that “Joseph had abandoned plurality of wives before his death.”  Coolidge indicated from personal experience that he knew otherwise.  After a heated exchange Emma retorted with exasperation, “Then he was worthy of the death he died.”  (Joseph F. Smith diary, 28 Aug 1870.)

Another crack in the Rigdon and Smith friendship occurred in relation to the post office.  Rigdon had secured the lucrative position, wherein he was paid for every piece of mail that passed through.  It was one of the more lucrative positions one could hold.  Smith suspected Rigdon may have been trying to undermine Joseph, and wrote several letters trying to get Rigdon fired from the post office, and have Smith installed as his replacement.

John C Bennett, a former close personal aide of Joseph Smith, was excommunicated for unauthorized polygamy.  He then became a virulent anti-mormon.  According to Van Wagoner, Bennett is responsible for instigating many Missourians to continue to try to extradite Joseph, and also may have had a role in organizing the mobs which killed Joseph.  Bennett wrote a letter to Rigdon, trying to get help with his plan to bring down the prophet.  On page 315,

In early January, however, Rigdon did receive a message from Bennett.  The 10 January 1843 letter, also addressed to Orson Pratt, incorrectly assumed that its recipients would sympathize with Bennett’s plan to orchestrate the prophet’s downfall.

“Dear Friends–It is a long time since I have written you, and I should now much desire to see you; but I leave tonight to Missouri, to meet the messenger charged with the arrest of Joseph Smith, Hyrum Smith, Lyman Wight and others, for murder, burglary, treason, etc., etc., who will be demanded in a few days on new indictments, found by the grand Jury of a called court, on the original evidence and in relation to which a nolle prosequi was entered by the district attorney.  New proceedings have been gotten up on the old charges and no habeus corpus can then save them.  We shall try Smith on the Boggs case when we get him into Missouri.  The war goes on, and although Smith thinks he is now safe, the enemy is near, even at the door.  He has awoke the wrong passenger….

P.S.  Will Mr. Rigdon please hand this letter to Mr. Pratt after reading?

After Rigdon read the letter he immediately handed it to Mr. Pratt, who then turned it over to Smith.  The prophet, initially dismayed that Rigdon has given the letter first to Pratt, took the dispatch to John Taylor, editor of Times and Seasons.  Smith instructed Taylor to publish the letter along with a statement condemning Rigdon’s actions.

….

Smith requested Taylor “to prefer charges against Sidney Rigdon before a court composed of twenty-four High Priests and three Bishops.”….  Before Taylor could publish the editorial or initiate action against Rigdon, the prophet approached Rigdon and “charged him with being leagued with [his] enemies to destroy him.”  Rigdon, according to Taylor, responded:  “I know it was wrong [not to give him the letter sooner]; but I darst not take upon myself the responsibility of making it known,” apparently because of his position as postmaster.  Rigdon’s explanation satisfied the prophet.  When Taylor asked him if he should proceed with the trial and publish the editorial, Smith replied, “I think you had better not, we will save him if we can.”

I want to mention one other footnote about Governor Boggs, which was alluded to in Bennett’s letter to Rigdon.  Governor Boggs had survived an assassination attempt.  Many people then and now believe Porter Rockwell, a body guard of Joseph Smith was responsible for the attempt.  Footnote 8 on page 325 says, ”The attempt on Boggs’s life took place on the night of 6 May 1842.  Orrin Porter Rockwell, one of Smith’s closest friends, was arrested later that year and charged with the attempted murder.  Although neither the prophet nor Rockwell was convicted of the crime, Rockwell never denied shooting Boggs.  General Patrick E. Conner reported that Rockwell told him, “I shot through the window and thought I had killed him, but I had only wonded him.  I was damned sorry that I had not killed the son of a bitch.”

I guess what is amazing to me is that Joseph continued to try to undermine Rigdon’s position as postmaster, and still suspected Rigdon was behind attempts to have Smith arrested.  Yet it seems they reconciled.  In 1844, dissatisfied with the current crop of presidential candidates, Joseph decided to run for President of the United States as a candidate of the Mormon Reform Party. He was nominated during a political caucus on January 29, 1844.

Joseph’s first choice for Vice President was James Arlington Bennett.  However, Bennett was ineligible due his Irish citizenship.  Joseph’s second choice was Solomon Copeland of Tennessee, who was not interested.  Sidney Rigdon was his third choice, and Rigdon enthusiastically accepted.  He gave a rousing address in General Conference on April 6 and 7, 1844.

The US Constitution states that the President and Vice President must be from two different states.  So, Sidney was called on a mission to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to set up residency.  (Rigdon was born in St. Clair Township which now consists of present-day neighborhoods in the City of Pittsburgh.)  He left for Pennsylvania on June 18.

Just prior to Rigdon leaving Nauvoo, William Law, a counselor in the First Presidency, Law’s wife and four others were excommunicated for opposing polygamy.  Rigdon informed Law that if they would “let all the difficulties drop” that Smith would restore Law and his friends back to their offices within the church.  Law refused, and helped print the Nauvoo Expositor on which came out on June 7, exposing polygamy.

Smith ordered the destruction of the press as a public nuisance.  On June 14, Rigdon sent a letter to Illinois governor Thomas Ford, asking for help, while denouncing the paper.  On June 18, Rigdon left Nauvoo, arriving in Pittsburgh on June 27.  Joseph and Hyrum were killed the next day, on June 28 in a hail of gunfire at the Carthage Jail.  Rigdon learned of the news five days later.

So, what is your reaction to all the events of Nauvoo?  Unlike the William Law (editor of the Nauvoo Expositor), Sidney was publicly silent on polygamy, though he was personally repulsed by the practice.  How would you have reacted if Smith had proposed marriage to your 19-year old daughter?  What do you make of the incident where Joseph tried to get Sidney fired from the post office?  It seems to me that this was a real life soap opera.  The Nauvoo period alone would make a great movie.

I always thought the United Order and Consecration were the same thing.  I’ve been reading a book called Great Basin Kingdom by Leonard Arrington (former church historian) and learned they are actually different.  The basic difference to me seems to be that with Consecration, one gave all they owned to the church, and then were given back “what they needed.”  With the United Order, it seems to have originated out of various economic cooperatives established to give fair, reasonable prices and jobs to the Mormons.  In some cases, saints could choose to consecrate all their possessions to the United Order, but usually it worked more in an economic cooperative, where fair prices were established for Mormons.  If they sold to gentiles, often the gentiles paid more.

The United Order movement was an extension of cooperatives.  These cooperatives began principally around 1868-1884, and were set up as a response to how current trading was accomplished.  In chapter 10 (page 193-194), Arrington says,

Structurally, most Mormon “cooperatives” were nothing more than joint-stock corporations, organized under the sponsorship of the church, with a broad basis of public ownership and support.  Functionally, however, most Mormon cooperatives appear to have been motivated principally by welfare rather than profit; patronage was an act of religious loyalty; the church participated  in the organization, operation, and financing of most o the important establishments; and the whole cooperative movement was permeated with an unmistakable pietistic zeal and feeling of religious obligation…

…most merchandising was in the hands of non-Mormons because of the stigma attached to “profiteering Saints,” and because of the inability of Mormon traders to refuse credit to their “brethren” and force payment of debts.

There was an interesting quote from Brigham Young explaining why Consecration didn’t work under Joseph Smith, and also why Joseph wasn’t a good, successful merchant.  From page  83,

Let me give you a few reasons…why Joseph [that is the church] could not keep a store and be a merchant….Joseph goes to New York and buys 20,000 dollars’ worth of goods, comes into Kirtland and commences to trade.  In comes one of the brethren, “Brother Joseph, let me have a frock pattern for my wife.”  What if Joseph says, “No, I cannot without the money.”  The consequence would be, “He is no Prophet.”…Pretty soon Thomas walks in.  “Brother Joseph, will you trust me for a pair of boots?”  “No, I cannot let them go without the money.”  “Well,” says Thomas, “Brother Joseph is not Prophet; I have found that out, and I am glad of it.”  After a while, in comes Bill and sister Susan.  Says Bill, “Brother Joseph, I want a shawl, I have not got the money, but I wish you to trust me a week or a fortnight.”  Well, brother Joseph thinks the others have gone an apostatized, and he didn’t know but these goods will make the whole Church do the same, so he lets Bill have a shawl.  Bill walks off with it and meets a brother.  “Well,” says he, “what do you think of brother Joseph?”  “O he is a first-rate man, and I fully believe he is a Prophet.  See here, he has trusted me this shawl.”  Richard says, “I think I will go down and see if he won’t trust me some.”  In walks Richard.  “Brother Joseph, I want to trade about 20 dollars.”  “Well,” says Joseph, “these goods will make the people apostatize; so over they go , they are of less value than the people.”  Richard gets his goods.  Another comes in the same way to make a trade of 25 dollars, and so it goes.  Joseph was a first-rate fellow with them all the time, provided he never would ask them to pay him.”  [sermon of October 9, 1851, JD, 1, 214-216]

Cooperatives turned out to be a real success, and there were several different implementations of them. Chapter 11 of the book gives some real interesting background as to these cooperatives turned into United Orders, as well as the different kinds of United Orders formed in Utah.  The nationwide Panic of 1873 affected economies in Utah as well as nationwide.  From page 323,

This co-operative movement,” said Brigham Young in 1869, “is only a stepping stone to what is called the Order of Enoch, but which is in reality the order of Heaven.” [See Brigham Young sermons in JH, October 6, 1850, October 8, 1855]  In 1869 and succeeding years, sermon after sermon played upon the theme to unify and the necessity of extending the principle of cooperation to every phase of life.

From page 324,

The resources of ward members were pooled, and an attempt was made under the aura of religious sanction, to root out individualistic profit-seeking and trade and achieve the blessed state of opulent self-sufficiency and equality.  This new order, recognized to be somewhat different from the law of consecration and stewardship, was called “The United Order of Enoch.”  [This idea is taken from the city of Zion in the Pearl of Great Price.]

Since these orders developed separately, about 4 different kinds of orders existed.  Page 330 starts talking about them.

First, there were St. George type orders in which persons in the community contributed all of their economic property to the Order and received differential wages and dividends depending upon their labor and the property contributed.  Gains were achieved through the increased specialization of labor and the rationalization of agriculture by cooperative farming.  However, in most of these communities a few residents failed to join, and this caused some practical problems which were not always satisfactorily resolved…

(page 331) A second type of United Order did not involve consecration of all of one’s property or labor, but contemplated an increase in the community ownership and operation of cooperative enterprises.  This is the Brigham City plan, and was introduced in communities where the cooperative system was already widespread.  Thus, the United Order was simply used as a device to reinforce and extend the cooperative network already in existence…

(page 332) A third type of United Order was essentially a modification of the Brigham City arrangement.  Designed for wards in the larger cities of the territory-Salt Lake, Ogden, Provo, and Logan-a single cooperative or corporation was organized in each ward to promote some needed enterprise.  All ward members were asked to participate in financing it.  The theory seems to have been that, if economic reorganization was impossible because of a considerable number of Gentile residents, the wards could still contribute toward territorial self-sufficiency by initiating an industry whose products had been imported previously.  Thus, while there would be little to create employment and develop the territory.

I mentioned this in my previous post, but let me summarize some ward projects:

• Hat factory
• Tailor’s shop
• Soap manufactory
• Boot and shoe shop
• Large foundry
• Machine shop
• Making agricultural tools
• Planning mill and woodworking shop

From page 333,

Perhaps the most interesting of the orders were those established on a communal plan.  In some quarters this plan was called the Gospel Plan.  Settlers contributed all their property to the community United Order, had no private property, shared more of less equally in the common products, and lived and ate as a well-established family.  The best known of these was established at Orderville, Utah, but others functioned in Price City, Springdale, and Kingston, Utah; Bunkerville, Nevada; and in a number of newly founded Arizona settlements.

I talked previously about the pants episode, which comes from Orderville, which came from this communal arrangement.  So, what do you think of these different orders?  What do you think of Brigham’s statement regarding Joseph Smith?  I honestly don’t think it would be any easier for us to live like this than it was for them.  When people talk about how the people weren’t righteous enough to live consecration, it seems to imply that we’re more righteous than they were.  I honestly don’t understand why we would make such an arrogant statement, because I think it would be extremely difficult.  I’m impressed with these ideals, and their attempt to live this higher law.

“the United Order was all about redistribution of wealth, so there would be no poor among us. Brigham went out of his way to lambast capitalism’s evils.”

Ken S replied that

It is a Celestial Law and Terrestrial or Telestial beings are not capable of living this law. It does not use dominion or compulsion. It is completely voluntary. Moreover, Socialism/Communism is counterfeit to the law of Consecration. They are of Lucifer. The fruits of these ideologies are evil.Please don’t compare them to a Celestial Law.

I did a post previously asking if you would recognize this church, because living in Utah in the 1860′s-1880′s was so different under the United Order. There was some coercion in helping ensure that there were no poor among the Utah saints.  There was pettiness.  Bored in Vernal recently posted that she would like to live the United Order, but I’m not sure most of us capitalists would enjoying living in a United Order, and I doubt that we would do any better than the early saints.  We don’t want to live equally; we’d rather be rewarded for our hard work.  I thought I’d review what I learned about the United Orders in Utah from the book Great Basin Kingdom.

These United Order enterprises were extremely effective in helping to create an efficient workforce, producing needed products, and keeping people employed.  It certainly was not the free market economy we’ve come to expect today.  Mormons were encouraged to be self-sufficient.  Brigham Young started many of these enterprises, but died in 1877.  John Taylor kept them going, and they were helpful.  Both Young and Taylor did not want to import anything if possible, which did create some hard feelings with non-Mormons.  Many of these anti-polygamy feelings and anti-polygamy legislation can be traced to non-Mormons wanting to break into the Mormon market, which was essentially a socialist-like monopoly.  There were price controls, and price discrimination between Mormons and non-Mormons.

There were some interesting dynamics with these United Orders.  There is an interesting story about a pair of pants.  From page 335,

Orderville had been founded in an atmosphere of dire poverty, and the common action which took place in the Order made it possible for members to eat and dress better than they had for years–better, in fact, than many residents in surrounding settlements where United Orders had not functioned successfully.  When the Utah Southern Railroad was completed to Milford, Utah, however, the rich mines at Silver Reef, not far from Orderville were exploited to the full.  Within five years, more than $10,000,000 worth of silver was extracted.  Orderville’s neighbors, profiting from this boom, suddenly found themselves able to buy imported clothing and other store commodities.  The Saints at Orderville became “old fashioned”….Orderville adolescents began to envy the young people in the communities….

A young man wanted a new set of pants, but the rules of Orderville said that all clothing must come from the same bolt of cloth.  (All were equal, and there was no inequality among them.)  His pants had no holes, and his request for new pants was denied.  His community raised sheep.  From page 336,

When the lambs’ tails were docked, the young brother surreptitiously gathered them and sheared off the wool which he stored in sacks.  When he was assigned to take a load of wool to Nephi, he secretly took the lambs’ tail wool with his load and exchanged it for a pair of store paints.  On his return, he wore his new pants to the next dance.  His entrance caused a sensation.  The story is that one young lady rushed to him, embraced and kissed him.  The president of the Order demanded an explanation, and when it was truthfully given, he said:  “According to your own story these pants belong to the Order.  You are requested to appear before the Board of Management tomorrow evening at half past eight, and to bring the store pants with you.”

At the meeting, the young brother was commended for his enterprise, but was reminded that all pants must be made of cloth from the same bolt.  However, to prove its good will, the Board of Management agree to have the store pants unseamed and used as a pattern for all pants made in the future, and further, the young man in question would get the first pair.

This story made me laugh, but I think illustrates well some of the problems we don’t think about in “utopian” societies.  As time went on these United Orders were dissolved in 1885 due to growing anti-polygamy prosecution.  From page 337,

With the disintegration of their collective institutions, after ten years of “cooperative living,” the older members began to reflect on the advantages of their previously enjoyed communal experience over the encroaching spirit of competitive individualism.  The chafing under restrictive regulation, the disagreements, the yearning for privacy were all forgotten, and their memories were sweet.  Almost every published reminiscence of life under the Order mentions it as the closes approximation to a well-ordered, supremely happy Christian life that was possible of achievement in human society.

While there will be no poor among us in a United Order, there will be no rich either.  Many people in these United Orders complained about people that didn’t work as hard being rewarded equally.  Here’s some questions to consider:

• Is that how you want to live?
• Do you agree with Ken that the United Order was completely voluntary?
• Was coercion used to make sure everybody wore the same type of pants?
• Do we really want equality in our society, where there are no poor AND no rich among us?
• Was Brigham Young’s experiment with United Order closer to socialism or (gasp) communism, than free-market capitalism?  (I’m not talking about Soviet communism, but rather communal living, and having true equality, or “no poor among us.”)

I attended the Mormon History Association meetings in Independence, Missouri this past week.  I thought I’d share some pictures.  If you’d like to read more about the conference, here are some links to my posts from Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3.

CoC Independence Temple at Sunset

All trip long, I have been looking forward to attending the Community of Christ Devotional at the Independence Temple.  The meeting began at 8:30 AM, and was a wonderful hour of singing and spoken word.  Professor Alex Baugh of BYU, and Apostle Susan Skoor of the Community of Christ

gave background on many hymns written or revised by WW Phelps.  It was a truly inspiring meeting.  I haven’t enjoyed singing that much since I was in the MTC!

Following the service, I went on a tour of the temple.  We visited the meditation chapel, as saw many beautiful sculptures inside the temple.  Unlike LDS temples, we were able to take photos everywhere except for the museum.  I was lucky enough to be led on a personal tour by Ron Romig, Community of Christ Director of the Kirtland Temple.

Displayed in the museum were actual copies of 1830, 1837, and 1840 copies of the Book of Mormon, along with facsimiles of the printer’s manuscript.  The famous oil painting of Joseph and Emma were also there, along with photos of the previous 6 or 7 prophet/presidents of the Community of Christ.  It was truly fascinating.

Following the tour, I wanted to visit some of the other Restoration churches.  There are quite a few Restoration churches in the vicinity.  When Joseph designed the city of Independence, he had allocated 63 acres for 24 temples to be erected on 3 city blocks.  The original plan called for 12 temples for the Melchizedek Priesthood, and 12 temples for the Aaronic Priesthood.  These temples apparently were supposed to serve a more administrative role than for worship.  As you can imagine, many followers of Joseph Smith, both inside and outside the LDS and RLDS churches have clamored for this land.

A group calling itself the Church of Christ (Temple Lot) actually owns the location for the spot where Joseph Smith said a temple should reside, and they have a church on that location now.  The RLDS owns a portion o fthe temple lot, where the Independence Temple resides, and the LDS church owns a visitor’s center and a stake center on part of the temple lot.

I really would like to attend some of these other Restorationist branches, so it was difficult for me to choose where to go.  I attended part of the service for the Church of Christ (Temple Lot), also known as the Hedrickites.  The group was founded by a man by the name of Granville Hedrick.  There is an article in the Journal of Mormon History outlining many legal battles between the Hedrickites and the RLDS church, with the Hedrickites prevailing.  I attended about 20 minutes of the service.  During the service, a baby was blessed, and I heard references to both the Bible and Book of Mormon.  I was late for the service, but I did not see a sacrament table, so I’m not sure if that was part of the service.

Wanting to visit a few other churches, I attended the Stone Church—the oldest church in Independence. The RLDS church began construction in 1873 and it was dedicated in 1888.  I arrived just in time for the last song and prayer.  The church had a balcony, similar to the Salt Lake Tabernacle.  The congregation stood during the last song, and I was so tall that I had to duck into the aisle to see the organist.  There were old wooden benches there, but they had cushions.

I asked if I could take photos, and they said I could.  There were 3 beautiful stained glass windows: one showing Moroni, Joseph Smith, and

the Golden Plates, another showing Moses, Jesus, and the resurrection, and a third symbolizing the Trinity.  The people were extremely friendly, and it was nice to have one of the members take me on a mini-tour.

Following that service, I noticed another Community of Christ church a short distance away.  I was surprised to learn that they had a Jazz band playing.  I recorded a few minutes of their last song!  (I tried to post it, but the file is too big–I’ll try to condense it somehow.)  They mentioned that the neighborhood was full of drugs and gangs, and they were trying to help citizens in the area avoid these problems.  They invited me back next week for a baby blessing, but I told them I had a plane to catch.

A friend told me that I really needed to attend the Cutlerite Church.  It was founded in 1853 by Alphaeus Cutler, who I believe is mentioned in the D&C.  On my way there, I mistakenly thought this was a Cutlerite church.

I knocked on the door, but nobody answered.

Just a few houses down was the real Cutlerite church.  My friend told me that the Cutlerites are the only group that still maintains an Endowment Ceremony, and it is conducted in the upstairs portion of this church.

Apparently they only have about 10-15 people meet on a weekly basis.  The MHA pre-conference tour flooded them with about 50 interested participants.

Unfortunately, I arrived too late: the doors were locked.  Here are a few photos, and I stuck my camera up to the door to peer into the chapel.

As I looked at my map, I decided to try to find Lilburn W Boggs house.  Unfortunately, I never found it, but I did find another interesting church: the Remnant Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  They meet across the street from the Independence Temple in a converted high school (formerly Crisman High School.)  I walked around the building, and discovered a man.  Apparently, they hold luncheons for the needy and homeless.  Their freezer had broken, so he was loading food into his van.  I asked him if I might be able to tour the building, and he reluctantly agreed.  His name is Arlo Stevenson.

I learned that he is not a member of the Remnant Church, but his church has partnered with them to help out the needy.  The Remnant Church is a break-off from the RLDS church.  Arlo is a former member of the RLDS church, but has joined the House of Aaron, and I learned that this church has a branch about 50 miles west of Delta, Utah on the Utah/Nevada border.  Arlo showed me the Remnant Church offices, and then I learned that the Remnant Church has rented a room for the House of Aaron to hold meetings.  I purchased a “Sunday School” manual, and I hope to do a future post on the House of Aaron.

I also ran into some interesting people.  I had a nice chat on Saturday night with Paul Savage, Apostle of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Elijah message.  He is from Independence as well, and has a small congregation.  I had recently purchased Scattering of the Saints by John Hamerand Newell Bringhurst, and he pointed to the cover to his name.  I said, “Wow, I thought these were all dead people.”

“I’m not dead!” he exclaimed.  He was a really interesting person.  We didn’t have much time to chat, but I got his email address and hope to discuss this group further as I learn more.

I also took my picture with 2 apostles from the Community of Christ:  Andrew Bolton and Susan Skoor.  Here is Elder Marlin Jensen, Historian for the LDS church.  I was pleased to meet many authors including John Hamer, Newell Bringhurst, Kathy Daines, Rick Turley (asst LDS Church Historian), and Greg Prince.  It was a real blast—I remarked to some that Independence felt a bit like Mormon Disneyland to me.

Everyone knows Superman.  He is simply the most powerful superhero ever created.  Invulnerable to almost everything, his list of abilities includes flight, speed, strength, heat vision, x-ray vision . . . the list goes on.  His private life also seems pretty sweet.  He was raised by two stead[y] parents (although in some versions Pa Kent dies when Clark is young), has a good career, and in recent years is married to the love of his life.  Director Richard Donner went so far as to present Supes as a Christ figure in the 1979 film, with Jor-El (God the Father?) sending his only son to earth to help mortals realize their potential for good.

As contrasted to:

Then there’s Spiderman, a decidedly less perfect hero.  Peter Parker’s parents are gone, and even his Uncle Ben dies early on, leaving him with only Aunt Mae.  He gets bitten by a radioactive spider and gains powers including strength, speed, agility, wall-climbing, and “spider-sense.” …Impressive abilities, to be sure, but nothing compared to Superman.  He also struggles with issues like unemployment, unpopularity, and girl problems to a much greater degree than his DC counterparts.  He’s a real person, dealing with real problems, plus he fights crime.

Hall addressed the way that, as different generations idealized different superheroes, different generations of church leadership idealized different parts of church history and doctrine. But now, as new generations are growing up in a new technological era, they discover not that there are new heroes to be found…but rather they discover that the old heroes — whom they had been raised to believe were larger-than-life like the DC superheroes — were always more akin to the down-to-earth Marvel counterparts. Such a discovery, rather than leading the way for a a blossoming of new understanding of the heroes, has led to a sense of betrayal for many.

Why is this the case? In an article I wrote discussing that elusive concept of “The Great Mormon Novel,” I had not anticipated making any connections to history. Yet, as I read one comment, I wondered:

One of the qualities that makes literature great is the ability to create nuance. Protagonists with serious flaws and antagonists with shiny centers. I don’t think Mormonism is very conducive to this view. There’s a lot of black and white thinking – take the typical LDS attitude toward coffee drinkers, for example.

In fact, an arument could be made that an individual Mormon writer could write a great novel, but a MORMON novel, by definition, is going to be flat and full of cariacture.

I immediately was taken aback by this. Sure, I could see what the point that the writer was trying to make…and I don’t think I can really deny some impact of what he had said. Yet, as I remarked then, and what I’ve been thinking about ever since, was this:

Even if we see the way correlated church history as taught as being somewhat…truncated…abbreviated…whatever term you will use, what we know (or what many of us soon discover, whether we want to or not), is that Mormonism does have nuance. The protagonists we have been raised with do have serious flaws, and many antagonists have shiny centers. In fact, even if we want to speak about Mormonism today, where it seems as if Mormonism is increasingly black and white and polarized, this status quo of, say, correlation, is itself an ongoing drama of nuance, as has been addressed at length in podcasts like this one on Mormon Stories.

Yet this doesn’t seem to evoke within many the “greatness” of the tradition, of the culture, of the religion. Instead, it seems to make many shrink. It seems to break down others, without offering any care package to start building them back up.

Why is this so? When we look for “truth” and “perfection”, do we eschew and disdain the qualities that make literature and art beautiful, real, and accessible? People say that art mimics life, but when life seems to have all the traits we appreciate in art, why does that disappoint?

“Smith was forced into politics by the abuse that the Mormons received. As soon as they were driven out of their first city site in Independence, Mo., he turned to the government for redress. He never obtained it. No level of government, from local justices of the peace to governors to the president of the United States – to whom he constantly appealed – ever came to the defense of the Saints. But Joseph Smith became a great devotee of constitutional rights because they seemed like his only hope. He said some very extravagant things about the Constitution being God-given because of those rights and became quite conversant in constitutional matters. He even visited the president of the United States, Martin Van Buren, in the White House in 1839.

Gradually, then, Joseph Smith backed into American politics. In the fall of 1843, as the 1844 campaign began to take shape, the authorities of the church wrote to all of the known political candidates asking them about their views of the Mormons, and none returned a satisfactory answer from the Mormon point of view. The Mormons wanted a pledge that these candidates would protect them if they were attacked again, and they couldn’t get it.

Joseph Smith was nominated as a protest candidate in February of 1844. Like other protest candidates, he began to warm to his work and got quite excited about it. He may have dreamed for a moment that through some strange concatenation of events, he would get elected. Every candidate has to dream such things.

His involvement in politics was manifested in a political platform of which he was very proud. He would bring it out whenever he had visitors and read from it. It is an interesting document because it represents a man whose world had been his own people, whose own project had been to create a kingdom of God, and who now had to turn his mind to politics.”

I want to address some really interesting parts of Joseph Smith’s platform that I found really interesting.  Regarding slavery, Joseph Smith came up with a solution that would have avoided the Civil War.  He advocated low taxes (just like conservatives do today.)  I found most of his points very appealing.  Let me quote from Quinn’s book, page 119,

“Smith’s Views revealed him as more than a one-issue candidate.  For the reform of government, he intended to reduce the size and salary of Congress.  In judicial reform, he advocated rehabilitation of convicts through work projects and vocational training and liberal pardoning.  In economic reform, he proposed less taxation, free trade, secure international rights on the high seas, and establishment of a national bank in every state and territory.  On the slavery question, he advocated compensated emancipation through the sale of public lands.  To cope with resulting social stress, he advocated the relocation of the several million freed slaves to Texas.  In keeping with the spirit of “Manifest Destiny” in the 1840s, he proposed annexation of Oregon and Texas and whatever parts of Canada wished to join the Union.  As a reflection of the Mormon expulsion from Missouri, Smith’s platform also advocated presidential intervention in civil disturbances within states.  As one author noted, this interventionist impulse ‘did not exist until the Civil War and Reconstruction.’”

So I want to address several points, and give my comments.

1.      Reduce the size and salary of congress.  Wow!  Congress continues to grow in size with each census.  I’d love to cut salary, but on the other hand, the only people who go to Congress are the rich.  Perhaps increasing salary would invite more middle class types.  I’m not sure how cutting the size of congress would impact the nation.  I need a constitutional scholar on this one.

2.      Rehab convicts – I like this idea.  While everyone likes to think they’re tough on crime and wants to throw ‘em all in jail and throw away the key, the reality is we can’t build prisons fast enough to keep pace.  And the prisoners we do have end up becoming more skilled at criminal activity.  It seems our current procedures are not working.  I’m with Smith on this one.

3.      Liberal Pardoning – Hmmmm, didn’t we go through that with Bill Clinton?  Mike Huckabee has some pardon problems of his own.  I’m not sure I like this one as it has the capacity for abuse, and possible risks to public safety.

4.      Less taxes – yes, but we need to balance the budget, not simply reduce taxes.

5.      Free trade – I guess he would support NAFTA

6.      Secure International Rights on high seas – It seems pirates are making another comeback.  I’m with Smith on this one.

7.      Establishment of national bank in every state and territory – Bad idea.  We are currently experiencing banking problems with banks getting too big and doing bad mortgages. Joseph has a bad record of running a bank.  See my post on the Kirtland Bank Failure.

8.      Sale of public lands for sale of slaves -  I like it.  That’s a much better solution than the Civil War was.  Richard Bushman commented about this at the Pew Research Forum,

He began by citing the Declaration of Independence, the famous passages about all men being equal and endowed by their creator with inalienable rights, which of course could be a lead-in to religious rights. But he didn’t use it that way. Instead, in the very next sentence, he talked about the obvious contradiction: “Some two or three million people are held as slaves for life because the spirit in them is covered with a darker skin than ours.” His platform called for the elimination of slavery, proposing that the funds from the sale of Western lands, a major source of revenue along with the tariff in those days, be devoted to purchasing slaves from their masters in order to avoid the conflict that would otherwise ensue.

Josiah Quincy, soon to be mayor of Boston, visited Joseph Smith in the spring of 1844 when this platform was in circulation. Much later, Quincy wrote about that visit, saying that Joseph Smith’s proposal for ending slavery resembled one that Emerson made 11 years later in 1855.

As Quincy put it, writing retrospectively in the 1880s, “We, who can look back upon the terrible cost of the fratricidal war which put an end to slavery, now say that such a solution of the difficulty” – Joseph Smith’s and Emerson’s – “would have been worthy a Christian statesman. But if the retired scholar was in advance of his time when he advocated this disposition of the public property in 1855, what shall I say of the political and religious leader who had committed himself, in print, as well as in conversation, to the same course in 1844?”

9.      Send all the freed slaves to Texas – Wow, what would Texas be like if that happened?  Remember at this time, Texas was trying to become independent nation from Mexico.  About 1848 came the Mexican-American War, freeing Texas from Mexico and establishing Texas as an independent nation.  (Texas was later annexed into the US.)

10.  Annex Texas, Oregon, and parts of Canada??? I know Canadians like the US, but I didn’t know they wanted to be part of our union!!!

11.  Presidential authority to get involved in state disturbances.  As I mentioned in my Sidney Rigdon post, Van Buren refused to get involved in Missouri because he didn’t feel that was a federal mandate.  Joseph was 20 years ahead of actions which resulted in the Civil War.  It’s interesting to see how Joseph would have wanted to handle the federal raid in Waco, and the state raid of the FLDS (both in Texas.)

Finally, let me conclude with Bushman again.

This part of his platform accords perfectly with what modern people like us would have liked a candidate in 1844 to say. But Smith went beyond our sense of political propriety in other parts of his platform: he blended his role as candidate with his role as prophet. He was already mayor of Nauvoo and lieutenant general of the Nauvoo Legion when he ran for the presidency. He seemingly had no sense that church and state should be separated. He gave no hint that he was going to give up his religious offices if he were to become president of the United States.

In the closing peroration of his platform, Joseph Smith indirectly, but I think clearly, offered himself to be the priest of the people, as well as the president. “I would, as the universal friend of man, open the prisons, open the eyes, open the ears, and open the hearts of all people to behold and enjoy freedom, unadulterated freedom; and God, who once cleansed the violence of the earth with flood, whose Son laid down his life for the salvation of all his father gave him out of the world, and who has promised that he will come and purify the world again with fire in the last days, should be supplicated by me for the good of all the people.” He would be the intercessor as priest as well as prophet.

Of course, that is point at which moderns part company with Joseph Smith. We don’t want a prophet with his authoritative words from God governing the nation. That seems to lead to the exclusion of unbelievers and the repression of naysayers. All the alarm bells go off when we see these roles merging.

But I would appeal to you, before you turn away completely from that idea, to pay heed to the underlying theme of that platform and that proposal. I think it can be argued that Joseph Smith actually felt he was fulfilling one of America’s dreams. We think of the American dream as the promise of ascent for the wretched refuse of the teeming shores – the promise that in America, everyone has a chance to prosper and to achieve respectability. That is a dream for the individual.

So, what do you think of Smith’s platform?

Perhaps the time has come in the church to recognize that some members want to openly espouse a non historical view of the Book of Mormon?

My daughter Bethany and her friend Clare have recently gone to the Community of Christ Church. They enjoyed it and said the members were very open and friendly but the church at least here in the UK didn’t seem anything like our Brighamite version of the church.

I understand that many of their high ranking members don’t view the book of Mormon as historical. Some members feel it’s historical; some feel it’s inspired, and some would like to see it jettisoned from the canon of scripture.

I thought it was quite courageous of their leaders to consult with historians and look at the facts as they see them and to seek and follow what they felt was God’s will, doing all of this by common consent with the members in their church.

One of their members Wayne Ham did a summary report (below) called Problems in Interpreting the Book of Mormon as History! But before you read his report please take the following quiz:

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Please read if you can all of Wayne Ham’s Problems in Interpreting the Book of Mormon as History from the Community of  Christ Web Page.  Below are some selections from Ham’s paper which I highly recommend you read if you have the time:

The origin and destiny of the [so-called] “Red Man” were among the chief topics for speculation and discussion on the early nineteenth century American frontier. The presence of many Indian burial mounds in the Great Lakes region was a constant source of curiosity for the settlers in that region. In 1823 Ethan Smith, a Vermont pastor, published a book entitled View of the Hebrews: or the Ten Tribes of Israel in America.

Those who received the Book of Mormon from the hands of eager missionaries were urged not only to assent to the narrative as a historical account of the Indians’ ancestory, but also to accept the book as evidence that God had broken the silence of centuries to restore his church to the earth by means of a young prophet. Many of the early Latter Day Saint believers took an all-or-nothing approach.  If the Book of Mormon was true, the religion expounded by its author and proprietor was true also. If the book should ever prove to be false, all validity for the restoration movement would necessarily have to be disclaimed.

The book immediately attained a canonical status in the minds of the Latter Day Saints that made literal acceptance of it as the revelation of God to the ancient Americans a matter of faith. As far as church members were concerned, the book was impervious to any kind of critical investigation and judgment.

As modern historical and textual scholarship in the realm of biblical studies became increasing appreciated and influential at the grassroots level in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and thus known to some extent to Latter Day Saints, a defensive reaction set in among some church members, resulting in some stiff resistance to allowing the tools of this scholarship to be applied to the church’s understandings of the Book of Mormon. Thus Book of Mormon studies in the past have been characterized by polemics, apologetics, and amateur archaeological surveys whenever the concern has moved beyond merely exploring the intricate details of the very complex narrative of migrations, wars, and religious revivals among the Book of Mormon peoples.

Because the temper of our times is such that no movement nor institution nor book can forever remain impervious to the searchlight of scholarly inspection, out times demand that all the rudiments of religious faith be subjected to the scrutiny of reason and empirical research.

As the Book of Mormon is examined without any intention solely to amass data to support preconceived notions about it, certain problems concerning traditional understanding of the books stand out. These problems include:

1. The story of its coming forth. The actual events culminating in the publication of the book are, as of now, quite irrecoverable in that it is impossible to distill a unified account from all the primary and secondary reports.

2. Identifying the book’s narrative with a particular time and space. Extravagant claims about ancient American archaeology supporting the Book of Mormon have been made. Toltec, Mayan and even Aztec ruins, all of a comparatively late period, have been unfortunately identified with Book of Mormon peoples.

3, The book’s propensity for reflecting in detail the religious concerns of the American frontier. Alexander Campbell in 1831 pointed out that every major theological question of the frontier was covered in the Book of Mormon, including infant baptism, ordination and ministerial authority, the trinity, regeneration, the fall of man, the atonement, transubstantiation, fasting, penance, church government, religious experience, the general resurrection, eternal punishment, and even the burning question of Freemasonry, republican government and the rights of man.

4. The Christological perspective of the book. To some students of theology, it would appear that there is a marked incongruity between the Christ Event of the New Testament and the Christ Event of the Book of Mormon.

5. The book’s ethical implications, when viewed as universally binding upon all men. Some Latter Day Saints, in talking of the Book of Mormon as the “fullness of the gospel” (D. & C. 17:2), believe that the book reveals the will of God more perfectly than any other resource we possess. Moreover they would assert that the transmission process involved in preserving and bringing forth the book would bypass many of the scribal errors to which the Bible was admittedly vulnerable.

6. The use of biblical scripture and ideas as sources. Several sizeable sections of the King James Version of the Bible are found in the Book of Mormon, including twenty-one chapters of Isaiah, the Sermon on the Mount, the Ten Commandments, Malachi 3 and 4, I Corinthians 12:1-11 and Acts 3:22-26. In addition to such full-fledged quotations, the Book of Mormon is replete with short biblical expressions. John Hyde counted 298 biblical snatches from the New Testament alone in the first 428 pages of the first edition of the Book of Mormon.

8. The matter of Book of Mormon anachronisms. Those who approach the Book of Mormon with the view of proving it to be essentially what it seems to claim to be–a record of the history of ancient Americans who lived between 2200 BC and AD 400–immediately find themselves having to deal with the problem of anachronisms.

9. The changes in the Book of Mormon. While the book itself confesses the possibility of errors, many claims concerning the verbal accuracy of the book have long been made by Book of Mormon adherents. Joseph Smith himself at one time state that “the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on earth.” Modern Microfilm Company of Salt Lake City has recently published a work documenting 3,913 changes in the Book of Mormon since its first printing.

Conclusions. None of the above problems areas “disprove” the Book of Mormon. They do, however, raise some questions about our traditional understandings concerning the book. Perhaps for some church members answers to the questions raised in this article would seem to be readily available. For others, however, quick and easy answers will not solve the dilemma. Perhaps the time has come in the church to recognize that some members want to openly espouse a non-literal view of the Book of Mormon, treating it as a non-historical treatise in much the same manner as modern critics view the books of Jonah, Ruth, Job, and Daniel in the Old Testament. Freed from some of the traditional hang-ups involved with having to accept unquestioningly the historicity of the Book of Mormon, these members could then read the book as a product of the Restoration movement in the nineteenth century, perhaps thus “enjoying” this fascinating piece of literature for the very first time.

This review should not be considered comprehensive.  I have reviewed their 60 page pdf file called “An Approach to Book of Mormon Geography“.  Since I downloaded and read a copy of this article, they have added a few more articles found on their Geography page, but I have not had time to review these.  I will invite David and Lynn to stop by and answer questions about their theory.

I have reviewed a few other theories in the past.  I reviewed BOMC’s Great Lakes Theory, Ralph Olsen’s Malay Theory, and Venice Priddis’ South American Setting.  My purpose in reviewing theories is to provide constructive criticism.  Some people have very thin skin, and I try to be charitable, providing both pros and cons to a theory.  I want someone’s theory to be right, so it is imperative to weigh the strengths and weaknesses of a theory.  I claim no allegiance to any theory–it’s just a topic I love to discuss.  I still plan to review two of the bigger heavyweights: Sorenson’s Theory, and Meldrum’s Theory.  Additionally, Theodore Brandley’s North American Theory, and Garth Norman’s MesoAmerican Theory are also future topics I plan to post on (lest anyone think I was running out of ideas.)  (Norman and Sorenson overlap quite a bit, but there are some important differences.)

Lynn Rosenvall is a geography professor at the University of Cardston, and received his PhD in geography from Cal-Berkeley.  His son David has an MBA from BYU and is Chief Technological Officer of Imergent Inc. (StoresOnline.com).  They’ve put together an impressive array of satellite maps using Google maps for their theory.  The Website dedicated to the theory is called A Choice Land.  I printed a copy of the Theory from Feb 2009–the current version on the website is from March 2009.  I’m not sure how long it has been published, but as I understand it, the theory is pretty new.

Strengths

I guess the first striking feature to me about this theory is the fact that the Peninsula is much more of a north-south orientation than Sorenson’s MesoAmerican theory.  Another strength of Baja is that the “narrow neck of land” is actually narrow–Sorenson’s narrow neck isn’t nearly as narrow.  Another bonus is the fact that the Baja Peninsula is much closer to the generally accepted Book of Mormon locations than say the Malay Theory.

In the overview article, the Rosenvalls go into great detail on showing how similar the climate of Baja California is to the Mediterranean.  Nephi says he brought seeds with him to the New World, and these seeds grew.  It is important for the climates to be similar.  (Another theory I reviewed shows Chile/Peru have Mediterranean climates as well.)  I think this is an important aspect of their theory.  The Rosenvalls point out that many of the fruits and vegetables we eat in America are grown on the Baja Peninsula.

The Rosenvalls seem to follow Sorenson’s methodology for calculating distances.  I view this as one of Sorenson’s greatest contributions to Book of Mormon research, and I’m glad to see that the Rosenvalls seem to follow a similar method for calculating distances.  It is pretty apparent to me that the Book of Mormon lands are much smaller than the hemispheric models that early Mormons (and many lay members) thought about the Book of Mormon.

The Rosenvalls make a case that the Uto-Aztecan language bears similarities to Hebrew.  I think this is both a strength and a weakness, but I’m putting this in the strength section.  Frankly, I think the Rosenvalls should really expand on this point.  I note that there is more information in the new PDF than the one I downloaded last year, but I think it should be expanded upon further.  This has the potential to be a big help with their theory.

Weaknesses

Since I mentioned languages, I ought to explain weaknesses as well.  While these language families are in the Southwestern US and mainland Mexico, I don’t believe there is evidence that Indians on the Baja Peninsula spoke in one of these language dialects.  Perhaps they traveled off the Baja Peninsula, but these ties need to be strengthened to really take advantage of this information.  Even if there are similarities between Uto-Aztecan languages, I’m not aware of any DNA evidence linking Uto-Aztecan tribes to the Mediterranean, which is another problem.

While I understand this is an introduction to the theory, there are many other aspects of Book of Mormon that are merely touched on, or completely missing.  The theory discusses flora and fauna extensively, but doesn’t discuss wheat, barley, or silk.  Animals aren’t mentioned either, such as the elephants or animals mentioned in the Book of Mormon.  What is the best candidate for cureloms and cumons?  Is there evidence for sheep, horses, or cows?

Additionally, does the archaeology date to Book of Mormon times?  Is there evidence that chariots existed?  Have swords, cimitars, or other weapons been found?  I will say as a general rule, that most North, Central, or South American theories cannot find any evidence archaeologically for many of the weapons mentioned in the Book of Mormon.  For a theory to really stand out, such evidence needs to be found.

Sorenson has found a sharp weapon that he is calling a sword: sharp obsidian triangular blades attached to a wooden club, but the Book of Mormon says the swords rusted, so however sharp and lethal Sorenson’s obsidian/wood weapon is, it certainly wont rust.  This type of evidence needs to be accounted for by any theory, and the lack of mention of these problematic parts of the Book of Mormon needs to be addressed in the overview.

Warfare

I’ve come across Morgan Deane, and I invited him to participate in this discussion on my blog previously.  Morgan has his own site called Warfare and the Book of Mormon.  Morgan has a Masters Degree in History, and has presented papers on Napoleonic warfare and published papers about Asian, Napoleonic and Book of Mormon Warfare.  Since the Rosenvalls included information about battles (roughly pages 36-50), I asked Morgan what he thinks of Baja geography in relation to some of these battles.  Here is what he said,

From a military history standpoint I only noticed one thing: They mentioned the rate of travel during a battle would be slower than normal. (p.54) I think the rate of travel would actually be FASTER if you were manuevering for survival. For example, one of Stonewall Jackon’s infantry units travelled 50 miles in one day when threatened with destruction.

They also make the claim that the Jaredites were destroyed down to a single person. Most scholars and scholarship suggest that a significant amount of Jaredites survived and influenced Nephite society. (Starting with Hugh Nibley in “The World of the Jaredites”) They also fail to mention the point made by Firetag. So they crossed the Pacific but never expanded across a small bay? I should mention that Nephi spent 7 years travelling in “the land of the north”, so its possible that some Nephite lands were farther away and simply never mentioned due to the Zarahemla-centric record keepers.

Finally, why would a victorious Lamanite nation abandon all of their cities, in addition to the newly conquered Nephite cities? Wouldn’t we expect to find a large and advanced tribe in the Baja area with a long history? If the land was so choice, why leave it?

Here is the link where I mention their site before. http://mormonwar.blogspot.com/2009/11/nephihah-in-google-earth.html

David clarified his position on the Jaredites here.

We never make the claim that the Jaredites were destroyed down to a single person. The Book of Mormon doesn’t even say that. We wrote an article you can read if you want to get our official stand on the Jaredites (http://www.achoiceland.com/jaredites). It has strong correlation to Baja California.

So, what do you think of this Baja Theory?

In a post at BCC, John Hamer gave a thorough history of Marsh’s disaffection with the Church and concluded:

“Thus, while the moral the Thomas B. Marsh fable, i.e., that faith can be shattered over something inconsequential, is true enough, it would probably make sense to tell a different, more appropriate fable to illustrate that moral.”

The same conclusion can be reached by considering additional aspects of Ryder’s story.  A talk in the Sunday morning session of General Conference by Donald L. Hallstrom titled Turn to the Lord referenced the Symonds Ryder story as follows:

Symonds Ryder was a Campbellite leader who heard about the Church and had a meeting with Joseph Smith. Moved by this experience, he joined the Church in June 1831. Immediately thereafter, he was ordained an elder and called to serve a mission. However, in his call letter from the First Presidency and on his official commission to preach, his name was misspelled—by one letter. His last name showed as R-i-d-e-r, not the correct R-y-d-e-r. This caused him to question his call and those from whom it came. He chose not to go on the mission and fell away, which soon led to hatred and intense opposition toward Joseph and the Church.

In such retellings of the Ryder fable, the misspelling of his name is often the only reason cited as the cause of his decision to then leave the church. (see B. H. Roberts in HC 1:260–61; Fawn M. Brodie in No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith the Mormon Prophet, 118; Donna Hill in Joseph Smith: The First Mormon, 143; Cannon and Cook in Far West Record, 286; Dean C. Jessee in Papers of Joseph Smith, Volume 1: Autobiographical and Historical Writings, 511.) Probably the origin of this story is his funeral sermon preached in Hiram, Ohio, August 3, 1870, by B.A. Hinsdale.

“Ryder was informed, that by special revelation he had been appointed and commissioned an elder of the Mormon church. His commission came, and he found his name misspelled. Was the Holy Spirit so fallible as to fail even in orthography? Beginning with this challenge, his strong, incisive mind and honest heart were brought to the task of re-examining the ground on which he stood. His friend Booth had been passing through a similar experience, on his pilgrimage to Missouri, and, when they met about the 1st of September, 1831, the first question which sprang from the lips of each was–”How is your faith?” and the first look into each other’s faces, gave answer that the spell of enchantment was broken, and the delusion was ended. They turned from the dreams they had followed for a few months, and found more than ever before, that the religion of the New Testament was “the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.” (A. S. Hayden, Early History of the Disciples (1875), p. 251.)

Perhaps the misspelling was a bother to Ryder, but this one incident was hardly the sole reason for Ryder’s departure. For one thing, spelling was more fluid in the 19th century and earlier. An attempt at standardized spelling in the U.S. did not begin until the appearance of Webster’s “American Dictionary of the English Language” in 1828, and for at least a half century many words continued to be vociferously debated. American census-takers varied quite a bit in their reporting of people’s names, showing that they were not asking people “How is that spelled?” but rather writing the name as they thought it should appear. Ryder’s name appears as following in the U.S. census:

1830 census Hiram, Portage, OH: Simonds Rider
1840 census Hiram, Portage, OH: Symonds Rider
1850 census Hiram, Portage, OH: Simonds Rider, wife Mahitabel
1860 census Hiram, Portage, OH: Symonds Rider, wife Mehitable
1870 census Hiram, Portage, OH: Symands Rider, wife Mahitable

Ryder’s commission with the misspelling of his name took place in June 1831 and may account for his not going to Missouri, but as noted he did not leave the church until Ezra Booth’s return in September. In the meantime, Ryder became concerned about other developments. In a letter to A.S. Hayden he wrote:

“But when they [Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon] went to Missouri to lay the foundation of the splendid city of Zion, and also of the temple, they left their papers behind. This gave their new converts an opportunity to become acquainted with the internal arrangement of their church, which revealed to them the horrid fact that a plot was laid to take their property from them and place it under the control of Joseph Smith the prophet. This was too much for the Hiramites, and they left the Mormonites faster than they had ever joined them, and by fall the Mormon church in Hiram was a very lean concern.” (Symonds Ryder, “Letter to A. S. Hayden,” February 1, 1868, cited in Hayden, op. cit., pp. 220, 221.)

It seems that the coming threat of enforced consecration might have been more of a problem for Ryder than the misspelling of his name. The influence of his disaffected friend Ezra Booth must have also had an effect upon Symonds.

The Religion 341 Church History manual states:

“From the outset the Church had an unpopular public image that was added to by apostates and nurtured by the circulation of negative stories and articles in the press. People gave many reasons for apostatizing. For example, Norman Brown left the Church because his horse died on the trip to Zion. Joseph Wakefield withdrew after he saw Joseph Smith playing with children upon coming down from his translating room. Symonds Ryder lost faith in Joseph’s inspiration when Ryder’s name was misspelled in his commission to preach. Others left the Church because they experienced economic difficulties.”

Such a view boils the disaffection of these individuals down to a single, easily dismissed anecdote rather than acknowledging the difficult and complex issues they faced. This practice encourages members today to dismiss the very real concerns confronted by members who question aspects of the Church. “If you have questions, you must be sinning,” the party line goes. In reality, there are multiple tangled and tortuous reasons why someone may develop a crisis of faith. Not only should we look deeper into the available documents to discover the motivations of historical figures, we should listen, and listen, and listen some more to come to a greater understanding of our friends and associates who question.

As for Symonds, poor thing.  If he was really so concerned about spelling, he must have rolled over in his grave when they placed this tombstone — with the name of the “Desciples” church spelled wrong!

This recording forms part of the many testimonies that are available from Wilford Woodruff concerning “the Last Charge,” a council meeting in Nauvoo where the Twelve were given authority to “bear off the kingdom,” and interpreted by President Woodruff to be the foundation of the succession policy of the Church.  Holzapfel’s announcement was that on one of the three wax cylinders upon which the recording was made, the rest of the First Presidency consisting of George Q. Cannon and Joseph F. Smith added their witnesses that they had heard Wilford Woodruff bear his testimony.  We thus have the early voice of another president of the Church, the only recording of Cannon, and the addition of “two or three witnesses” to respond to the succession question.

I guess you’d really have to be a Mormon history afficionado to consider this information a “bombshell.”  There were a select few in the audience who were moved by the revelation, but the majority took the news calmly.  Holzapfel, in contrast, could hardly restrain himself as he built up his presentation and delivered his revelation in the final moments.  He mentioned that he had difficulty waiting the few weeks before the symposium to tell anyone this exciting news.

Interestingly, a point was mentioned in passing which grabbed my attention far more than the recording.  Apparently Holzapfel and some other historians have recently collaborated on an article discussing for the first time the fact that Sidney Rigdon was not present in the morning meetings at the Nauvoo Temple on March 26, 1844, when the Last Charge was given.  This is stunningly important to Mormon history, because it implies that Rigdon was not given the same keys that the rest of the Twelve received at that time.  Not only did he lack the right to succession, but he may not have understood the pattern Joseph presented that day in the same way as the members of the Twelve who were present.

I’m enjoying the Symposium so far, and I’ll be back to summarize some more of the proceedings soon.

January 27th 2010 was the Holocaust Memorial Day for the UK, and with my family we attended a small service in Ilford, England at Valentines Park. Readings, prayers, poetry and experiences were shared. Moreover, the youth in our ward had their own Holocaust memorial were we discussed aspects of that tragedy and the meaning that it might have for us today. Participating in this type of memorialising has often made me feel uncomfortable; I feel that I am an outsider to a form of suffering that (part of me) wants to claim as my own.

Positioning oneself in relation to this kind of ‘tribal’ suffering is not an uncommon experience. For example, Hirsch argues that ‘Post-memory’ is a concept that can help thinkers understand the ways in which seminal experiences, specifically those that are traumatic and painful, are transmitted through subsequent generations in a way that re-creates memories in those later generations[2]. As an example Hirsch looks at Holocaust memory and how these events have been a source of mystery and pain for some survivor’s children, a prominent example of the type of literature that such experiences of post-memory produce is ‘Maus’ by Art Spieglman.

These ideas might be important for Latter-day Saints because they provide a possible way of explaining a deeply connection with many of the events of the restoration (but particularly the suffering of the Saints). These feelings can be evocked in a number of ways, they are often linked with images and/or stories. Avard Fairbank’s statue of the couple over a small grave is one such example which resonates with me. It might also explain the emphasis the Church has placed upon its pioneer heritage; for if people are able to connect with this history their conversion becomes one of community (both contemporary and historical) as well as spiritual.

The negative side to this dynamic is that once those connections are made they provide a particular emotional/spiritual relationship that is often based upon ‘truth’.  If someone finds out that the Auschwitz was really just a holiday camp then perhaps we would understand their feeling betrayed.  Is it possible therefore that this process of post-memory is a part of a wider dynamic that binds people to the Church and its heritage but which also rests upon a certain historical veracity. 

Another question this raises pertains to whether such experiences can be accessible to people outside of the blood lines of such early pioneers, is it accessible for non-Americans?

Are such experiences even common to Americans (specifically Mountain Saints)?

I sense that they are accessible, but that this is done in contradictory or conflicting ways.  A Scottish lady once described her first visit to Nauvoo to me. She vividly depicted the buildings and experiences she had seen there. This lady walked away from Nauvoo across the river toward Winter Quarters and her heart broke; she wept as she trod her way up the hill, surprised at her own emotion. Later, while discussing this with a sibling, the sister said “Of course you felt that way, These are our People!”

I am not sure why such connections happen and yet I sense that they are important in establishing our communities. However I also sense that traversing the boundaries that divide us can also create fractures in the way we relate to and negotiate these experiences.  Moreover I believe that creating these connections also means that they are able to be betrayed.  I wonder whether people struggle to connect with Latter-Day Saint history in the same way I have struggled to form a legitimate association with the Holocaust?

Notes:

1. Leonard J. Arrington & Davis Bitton, The Mormon Experience: A History of the Latter-day Saints, 2^nd ed. (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1992) 334.

2. Marianne Hirsch “Surviving Images: Holocaust Photographs and the Work of Postmemory,” Yale Journal of Criticism (Spring 2001).

“There is no place that can take away the happiness of a man, nor yet his virtue or wisdom. Anaxagoras, indeed, wrote on the squaring of the circle while in prison.”

-Plutarch

The basic puzzle is this: Using only a square, a compass, a straight edge and a writing stick, create a square with the same circumference or area as a circle. It has to be done in a finite number of steps.  You can not measure it numerically (with a ruler). It all has to be done through proportion and true principles using four unmarked tools.

It’s a geometry puzzle with meanings, here are some basic interpretations.

Right-Angled Square: This represents logic and law.  It is associated with the head and mind.  It is left thinking.

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Compass: Used for making circles.  This represents feeling and intuition, the emotional mind.  It is associated with the heart.  It is right thinking.

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Writing Stick: This represents our desire, our appetites, what we hunger for, the energy and will that drives action (like drawing and working a puzzle).  It could also be called faith in its verb form.  It is associated with the belly, the source of hunger and desire.

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Straight Edge: This represents precision, exactness and a division between opposites (good/evil, dark/light, etc.).  It represents a decision, a commitment and an action that separates thinking from doing.  The knee divides the upper leg from the lower leg, and the leg is symbolic of walking a path towards a destination.  A straight line represents boundaries..

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A square shape is symbolic of the “four corners” of the earth, the physical world, the tangible, the rational, our body, our material experience and the absolute of truth.  It represents that which is defined and the finite..

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A circle shape is symbolic of the heavens, the spiritual world, the intangible, the irrational or transcendental, that which surrounds and embraces our spirit and ideal potential.  It represents that which is beyond definition, the eternal and infinite..

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Squaring the Circle asks the initiate to reconcile the circle with the square, and through that process grow and receive wisdom. Can you reconcile the mind and the heart? Can you combine heaven and earth to find a place where they meet? Can you balance perfectly your intellect with your emotions to find a solution? How does your spirit and body combine to become one?  Where is the boundary between justice and mercy?  These are the questions answered through pondering and meditating on solutions to the puzzle.

It is said that all truth (a square) can be circumscribed (a circle) into one great whole (perfection and enlightenment).

The answers to Squaring the Circle will get you past the stumbling blocks, like gate keepers inside your soul, that prevent you from entering through the veil of mortality to your kingdom as a returning champion, a queen or king, the victorious hero from an epic quest.

Our contemporary modern society has moved away from metaphorical expression like this.  We are often not comfortable working in symbol when it comes to the spiritual.  If things aren’t factually true (such as the details of a myth), then they are false and should be discarded.  We find artistic and religious metaphor silly, even pointless in our materialistic, technician-oriented culture.  Left-brained labels and icons define all by putting things into neat boxes but leave out what the right brain intuits through relationship and proportion.  If only there was a way to preserve this exercise of Squaring the Circle in a new religious framework, a way to re-purpose it for the modern world, many could benefit from such a metaphorical hero’s quest in their life journey.  Someone would probably want to borrow from the ancients and from traditions handed down over the ages, since those that came before us already did so much work.  It would be wasteful to reinvent the wheel completely from scratch, I would think. *wink*

-Brian Johnston, www.staylds.com

Many of you in the bloggernacle thrive on having two opposing ideas at once in your head. I have always found that difficult. I have seen many who can’t cope with it at all and have to come to a conclusion one way or the other or their belief system will cave in and their minds will explode.

I have all the best intentions in the world to start a series on cognitive dissonance this year. To start off I have found some quotes from the brethren which seems to be in opposition to each other. I am sure some of you will figure out away in which they are not!

Don’t Think for Yourself!!

“Any Latter-day Saint who denounces or opposes whether actively or otherwise, any plan or doctrine advocated by the prophets, seers, revelators’ of the church, is cultivating the spirit of apostasy. One cannot speak evil of the lord’s annointed… and retain the holy spirit in his heart. This sort of game is Satan’s favorite pastime, and he has practiced it to believing souls since Adam. He {Satan} wins a great victory when he can get members of the church to speak against their leaders and to do their own thinking.”

“When our leaders speak, the thinking has been done. When they propose a plan–it is God’s Plan. When they point the way, there is no other which is safe. When they give directions, it should mark the end of controversy, God works in no other way. To think otherwise, without immediate repentance, may cost one his faith, may destroy his testimony, and leave him a stranger to the kingdom of God.”

Ward Teachers Message, Deseret News, Church Section p. 5, May 26, 1945
Also included in the Improvement Era, June 1945 (which was the official church magazine before the Ensign)

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“Always keep your eye on the President of the church, and if he ever tells you to do anything, even if it is wrong, and you do it, the lord will bless you for it but you don’t need to worry. The lord will never let his mouthpiece lead the people astray.”

LDS President Marion G. Romney (of the first presidency), quoting LDS President (and prophet) Heber J. Grant “Conference Report” Oct. 1960 p. 78

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“The Lord Almighty leads this Church, and he will never suffer you to be led astray if you are found doing your duty. You may go home and sleep as sweetly as a babe in its mother’s arms, as to any danger of your leaders leading you astray, for if they should try to do so the Lord would quickly sweep them from the earth.”

Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, Vol. 9, p. 289, 1862.

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“When the Prophet speaks the debate is over”.

N. Eldon Tanner, August Ensign 1979, pages 2-3

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“I sat in this tabernacle some years ago as President Joseph Fielding Smith stood at this pulpit. It was the general priesthood meeting of April 1972, the last general conference before President Smith passed away. He said: ‘There is one thing which we should have exceedingly clear in our minds. Neither the President of the Church, nor the First Presidency, or the united voice of the First Presidency and the Twelve will ever lead the Saints astray or send forth counsel to the world that is contrary to the mind and will of the lord’.”

L. Aldin Porter of the Presidency of the First Quorum of Seventies (Ensign, Nov. 1994, p. 63)

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“Follow your leaders who have been duly ordained and have been publicly sustained, and you will not be led astray.”

Boyd K. Packer (General Conference, Oct. 1992; Ensign, Nov. 1992)

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“The Lord will never permit me or any other man who stands as President of this Church to lead you astray.”

President Wilford Woodruff (considered scripture as it is canonized at the end of the D&C)

Think for Yourself!!

President Joseph F. Smith said, “We talk of obedience, but do we require any man or woman to ignorantly obey the counsels that are given? Do the First Presidency require it? No, never.” (Journal of Discources (JD) 16:248)

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Apostle Charles W. Penrose, who would later serve as counselor to President Smith, declared: “President Wilford Woodruff is a man of wisdom and experience, and we respect him, but we do not believe his personal views or utterances are revelations from God; and when ‘Thus saith the Lord’, comes from him, the saints investigate it: they do not shut their eyes and take it down like a pill.” (Millennial Star 54:191)

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“And none are required to tamely and blindly submit to a man because he has a portion of the priesthood. We have heard men who hold the priesthood remark, that they would do anything they were told to do by those who presided over them, if they knew it was wrong; but such obedience as this is worse than folly to us; it is slavery in the extreme; and the man who would thus willingly degrade himself should not claim a rank among intelligent beings, until he turns from his folly. A man of God… would despise the idea. Others, in the extreme exercise of their almighty authority have taught that such obedience was necessary, and that no matter what the saints were told to do by their presidents, they should do it without asking any questions. When Elders of Israel will so far indulge in these extreme notions of obedience as to teach them to the people, it is generally because they have it in their minds to do wrong themselves.” (Millennial Star, vol.14 #38, pp. 593-95)

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Brigham Young said:

“What a pity it would be, if we were led by one man to utter destruction! Are you afraid of this? I am more afraid that this people have so much confidence in their leaders that they will not inquire for themselves of God whether they are led by him. I am fearful they settle down in a state of blind self-security, trusting their eternal destiny in the hands of their leaders with a reckless confidence that in itself would thwart the purposes of God in their salvation, and weaken the influence they could give to their leaders, did they know for themselves, by the revelations of Jesus, that they are led in the right way. Let every man and woman know, themselves, whether their leaders are walking in the path the Lord dictates, or not. This has been my exhortation continually.” (JD 9:150)

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“How easy it would be for your leaders to lead you to destruction, unless you actually know the mind and will of the spirit yourselves.” (JD 4:368)

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“I do not wish any Latter-day Saint in this world, nor in heaven, to be satisfied with anything I do, unless the Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ, the spirit of revelation, makes them satisfied…Suppose that the people were heedless, that they manifested no concern with regard to the things of the kingdom of God, but threw the whole burden upon the leaders of the people, saying, ‘If the brethren who take charge of matters are satisfied, we are,’ this is not pleasing in the sight of the Lord.” (JD 3:45)

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“…Now those men, or those women, who know no more about the power of God, and the influences of the Holy Spirit, than to be led entirely by another person, suspending their own understanding, and pinning their faith upon another’s sleeve, will never be capable of entering into the celestial glory, to be crowned as they anticipate; they will never be capable of becoming Gods. They cannot rule themselves, to say nothing of ruling others, but they must be dictated to in every trifle, like a child. They cannot control themselves in the least, but James, Peter, or somebody else must control them. They never can become Gods, nor be crowned as rulers with glory, immortality, and eternal lives. They never can hold sceptres of glory, majesty, and power in the celestial kingdom. Who will? Those who are valiant and inspired with the true independence of heaven, who will go forth boldly in the service of their God, leaving others to do as they please, determined to do right, though all mankind besides should take the opposite course. Will this apply to any of you? Your own hearts can answer.” (JD 1:312)

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“President Joseph Smith read the 14th chapter of Ezekiel [see, for example, verses 9-10: 'If the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing...the punishment of the prophet shall be even as the punishment of him that seeketh unto him.']…said the Lord had declared by the Prophet [Ezekiel], that the people should each one stand for himself, and depend on no man or men in that state of corruption of the Jewish church — that righteous persons could only deliver their own souls — applied it to the present state [1842] of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — said if the people departed from the Lord, they must fall — that they were depending on the Prophet, hence were darkened in their minds, in consequence of neglecting the duties devolving upon themselves…” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith pp. 237-38)

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George Q. Cannon, Counselor to three Church Presidents, expressed it thus: “Do not, brethren, put your trust in man though he be a bishop, an apostle, or a president. If you do, they will fail you at some time or place; they will do wrong or seem to, and your support be gone;” (Millennial Star 53:658-59, quoted in Gospel Truth, 1:319)

Have you had experiences where you think you have genuinely had bad advice from following your leaders?

Later prophets and apostles trump older ones. How do you think the older ones feel about that?

Have you had times where you had so much on your plate you were glad to let someone think for you and it worked out for the best?

Should we think for ourselves in the church or should we let the Brethren think for us that is the question?

As some of you may know, the Community of Christ (formerly known as RLDS), canonizes revelations in their edition of the Doctrine and Covenants much more frequently than the LDS church does.  There is an upcoming World Conference (similar to General Conference) coming up in April, where they will discuss canonizing a new revelation.  I asked FireTag to write a series of guest posts discussing this process, and he has graciously agreed to do so.  Without further ado, here is his tourist guide to canonizing modern revelation:

Living prophets who add to the canon of scripture are a distinctive marker of the Mormon movement. In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the most recent such formal canonization was Official Declaration 2, added in 1978. The Proclamation on the Family could conceivably be submitted “for common consent” at some future date, the last step in its addition to the Doctrine and Covenants.

The next largest Restoration Movement body, Community of Christ, has added to its version of the Doctrine and Covenants far more frequently. Eleven new D&C Sections (153-163 in CofChrist numbering) have been added since 1978 under three prophet/presidents, and a proposed Section 164 is expected to be announced to the church by webcast on January 17, 2010 for consideration at the CofChrist’s April 2010 World Conference. Since World Conferences during the period have been held only seventeen times (counting 2010), adoption of new scripture is almost a “normal” World Conference activity.

The document is expected to deal primarily with two topics: (1) conditions of membership, as applied to converts from other Christian faiths; and, (2) with the rights to participate in and administer sacraments and ordinances of the church, including ordination and marriage, for those in non-heterosexual monogamous relationships where civil law allows.

Because the latter issues involved in the 2010 document will be very recognizable points of discussion in the bloggernacle, this post is offered as background for those Mormons who want to watch the process unfold. A later post nearer the time of the conference will focus more on events during the conference itself.

The CofChrist holds week-long Conferences that are far more legislation-oriented than are LDS conferences. Most of The Apostles or First Presidency are given no time to address the conference, for example, since only Sunday mornings and evenings are set aside for worship. Mornings and afternoons are devoted to consideration of legislation, whether in full conference, or in various quorums, committees, or delegate caucuses. Consideration of a revelation takes priority over all other matters.

In recent years, our Prophets have become increasingly uncomfortable with “springing” revelations on the people at the beginning of Conference for, literally, overnight consideration and adoption as had been the practice in earlier decades. It now seems to be standard practice for the Presidency to initiate a formal “discernment process” shortly after a Conference to call the church to participate in prayerfully considering the issues which will be the subject of action (and prospective revelation) at the following Conference 3 years later. Often, these are the very same issues which were referred back to the First Presidency for further study or direction (often through a standing or special committee that the Presidency creates) by the previous Conference. Of course, the Apostles, the Presiding Bishopric (chief financial officers, not pastors, in the CofChrist), the Presidencies of the various quorums, and others are closely involved in these considerations behind the scenes.

As a result of these practices, the general membership of the church has acquired some expanded opportunities to influence the theological and policy issues that the leading quorums of the church will seek to address during the periods between conferences. This power is not as explicit as in earlier times when the Prophet was directed to “inquire of the Lord”, and the Prophet has his own impresses regardless of what the Conference says, but there is definitely a notion that “common consent” is involved both in framing which questions the Prophet asks and in accepting the answers the Prophet receives as inspired.

Both of the major expected topics of proposed Section 164 are the result of pressures by significant portions of the membership to address issues of personal importance to them. The CofChrist draws a much smaller proportion of its active membership from North America and Europe than does the LDS church. In fact, conventional wisdom in the CofChrist holds that North American membership will soon be a minority in the church, if it is not already. As a result, views of the membership in places like Africa, India, and Haiti have major and growing influence on the church’s agenda.

These nations are less individualistic than Americans. They often have experienced great tension between teachings of Christianity and other great world religions accepted by their families and friends, and they are less likely to see differences among Christian denominations that loom large in American discussions as important. They often participate in the CofChrist while knowing or caring little about such things as the Book of Mormon or the early history of the Restoration movement. As a result, many of them deeply question the need for rebaptism, which seems to imply a rejection of the sacrifices they made to become Christian in the first place, as well as of the Christian families and communities around them.

The second largest demographic bloc in the church consists of relatively aged, relatively conservative members still very committed to the uniqueness of the Restoration and uncomfortable with any suggestion that their sacrifices would have been just as meaningful in another denomination.

Consequently, following the 2007 Conference, the First Presidency was left with an “action item” to address the issue of the “conditions of membership”, and has been directing a formal discernment process intended to lead to the January 17 guidance to the church. This issue is considered sufficiently divisive that the leading quorums had clearly indicated a desire not to deal with other divisive matters until the church has proven it can work through the issue. The schism that resulted in the church in the 1980’s over extension of priesthood to women has clearly instilled caution in the church leadership.

However, there is another divisive issue, the roles which gays living in monogamous relationships are to have in the church, which a third important demographic bloc, progressives in the Western nations, has forced onto the agenda despite the wishes of the leadership to defer consideration. Field jurisdictions which are roughly equivalent to LDS stakes (though they sometimes extend over several countries) have rights to pass legislation at their own conferences which then come to the floor of the World Conference for action. Ten such “mission centers” in the United States, Canada, and Australia passed overlapping resolutions which ask the church to change policies in various ways toward allowing gays to marry where civil authority permits, allowing our priesthood to perform such marriages as sacraments of the church, and/or to remove such relationships as barriers to holding priesthood. In response, four mission centers, in the southern US, Central America, and Africa passed proposed legislation that would reaffirm (either permanently or until further study) current policy. All proposed legislation is available for  reading here.

The significance of bringing these resolutions up at all should be understood. Their existence eclipses the Leading Quorums’ agenda for 2010 in a way that has not happened in perhaps 80 years, when the quorums were divided among themselves on the direction of the church.

The Presidency has been publicly studying these gay-rights issues without resolution since 1992. While Americans tend to view the issue through the lens of domestic politics, there is a major international church component in the CofChrist consideration. It took special deliberations among the 12 and Presidency to even publicly announce that the specific legislative proposals for 2010 existed, because of fears that members in some third world nations would be subject to physical persecution because discussion of homosexuality was culturally taboo.

It is these potentially divisive issues which form the background for proposed Section 164. The proposed revelatory document should be published on the Community of Christ website within 24 hours of President Veazey’s address to the church on January 17, and a link will be added to the comments of this post as soon as the document appears.

Do you have any comments or questions?

Gold is a gift for an earthly king, and holds obvious symbolic significance.  Frankincense is used in incense, for many religious observances.  Frankincense was used by Jews in the temple, as well as a great number of other religions of the day.  It is made from the resin of rare trees.  It was so precious that it was literally worth its weight in gold.  Myrrh also comes from a rare plant (in Arabia) and is worth 7 times more than frankincense.  It’s use was for annointing the dead, as well as for healing properties.  In modern day use, it has anti-fungal properties, and there is some anti-cancer research regarding myrrh as well.  It would have been a gift for a physician.  Obviously, Jesus was a master physician with all the healings he performed.

Astronomer David Hughes tells us “Myrrh is used to anoint the dead.  You get this Christian attitude that even as Jesus was born, they knew he was going to die on the cross.”  While none of us would have any idea what to do with frankincense and myrrh, when we uncover how the ancient people felt, it helps us realize how valuable these gifts were.

Matthew and Luke seem to have some differing accounts of Jesus birth.  In Luke, the shepherds visit a manger.  In Matthew, the Wise Men visit a house.   One tradition has it that the Wise Men visited 12 days after Jesus birth, but it could also be that Jesus may have been as old as 2, since Herod ordered all male boys killed under the age of 2.

The gifts may have been a test for Jesus.  There is evidence that the Jews expected as many as 3 different Messiahs:  a spiritual one, a great warrior, and a healer.  When presented with the gifts, the idea was that if Jesus chose gold, he would have been an earthly ruler.  If he had chosen frankincense, he would have been a spiritual leader.  If he had chosen myrrh, he would have been a healer and miracle worker.  Legend has it that he chose all three, showing that he was all of the above.

Of course, the magi sneaked out of Judea due to the dream not to return to Herod.  Joseph was also warned in a dream to leave for Egypt.  These gifts would have been very helpful for their flight into Egypt and would have helped pay their way.  Jesus going to Egypt follows previous precedents of Joseph and Abraham fleeing there to save Israel.

So, has anyone received gold for Christmas?

I talked previously about the Wise Men and their part in the Christmas Story.  Not much is known about them, but there are quite a few interesting legends.  For example, we assume there are 3 Wise Men, but some ancient paintings show as few as two, and sometimes as many as four.  Names and legends have even sprung up to provide more information about these men.

In the Greek church,  Gaspar (or Caspar), Melchior and Balthasar are their names.  Some artists have shown them to represent all of humanity: its youth, middle age, and elderly.  In the Renaissance, other artists sought to make the magi represent race, color and creed.  In one painting, one of the Magi is represented as coming from Ethiopia and was black.  The others came from Persia and India.

Syrian Christians have a 6th century tale naming them Horamistar, King of Persia; Yestigat King of Saba; and Perozad, king of Sheba.  Wikipedia lists some other names and legends, and has some footnotes to provide some sources to these legends.

According to this video, in the Spanish world, presents are not exchanged on Christmas, but 12 days later on 3 Kings Day, January 6.  Presents under the tree are left by the 3 Kings, not Santa Claus.  A special cake is prepared, representing good luck for the next year.  The one who finds a ring cooked into the cake gets the good luck.

Marco Polo in the 13th century, claimed that he was shown the three tombs of the Magi at Saveh south of Tehran in the 1270s:

“In Persia is the city of Saba, from which the Three Magi set out and in this city they are buried, in three very large and beautiful monuments, side by side. And above them there is a square building, beautifully kept. The bodies are still entire, with hair and beard remaining.”

Another legend says their bones were allegedly removed by Helena, mother of Constantine, who was looking for Christian artifacts in the 4th century.  She took them to Byzantium, and the bones have been moved a few times, finally ending up in Cologne, where they are today, sealed in a golden coffin in a cathedral.

So, can anyone verify that the Spanish celebrate 3 Kings Day?  It sounds like a very interesting tradition to me.  I really like the cake idea.  About 3 years ago, I was trying to explain to my then 4 year old that Christmas was more than just Santa Claus.  I told him that it was Jesus’ birthday.  My boy exclaimed, “We should make him a cake!”

As I thought of this 3 Kings Day tradition, I thought that might be an interesting addition to the holidays.  Perhaps we should all celebrate 3 Kings Day.  Perhaps we could save some money on the post-Christmas sales if we waited to buy presents after Christmas.  What do you think?  I like the idea of 3 Kings Day better than giving birds to my love (and I think she wouldn’t know what to do with all the birds either.)