(Re)Interpreting Early Mormon Thought: Synthesizing
Joseph Smith’s Theology and the Politics of Religion
Formation in Antebellum America
Mormon history has slowly cut its way into
mainstream scholarship. What was once an insular topic
dominated by insider discourse has recently become a relevant
field of study and an apt lens through which to explore broader
issues. Mormonism, often heralded as the quintessential
American religion, is finally being recognized as an especially
fruitful framework to understand larger American tensions.
However, difficulty remains, especially when interpreting
dynamics relating to the first generation of the Mormon
Church. Joseph Smith’s revelatory claims and iconoclast
teachings, long diagnosed as the impediment to scholarly
discourse on Mormonism, still lingers as a stumbling block for
interpretation due to their malleable nature, the inchoate state
in which Smith left his corpus of theology, and the fact that
millions of Americans regard his words as scriptural
pronouncements. Moreover, the continued dominant attention
on Smith hides the fact that many early Mormons not only
believed his teachings but also interpreted, systematized, and
expanded his theology into what became the standard belief
for Latter-day Saints in the nineteenth century. 1
This article claims that in order to better understand
early Mormonism and situate it within its broader context,
focus must be shifted away from the movement’s founder and
toward his numerous followers. Looking at how Smith’s
successors interpreted, synthesized, and adapted Mormonism’s
theology, I argue that this adjusted focus allows several
benefits, including a portrait of a dynamic Mormon culture
that was as much rooted in as it was a reaction to its larger
American climate. Most especially, however, it provides a
vantage point from which to gauge the politics of religionmaking in the vivacious environment that was antebellum
America. Mormonism’s Quorum of the Twelve Apostles,
whom a majority of Joseph Smith’s converts eventually
followed, navigated a tenuous relationship with their
surrounding American culture in order to validate their own
succession rights and construct their own coherent Mormon
theology. Their success depended on their ability to offer both
resistance and accommodation to broader themes of the
period; their message struck a cord because it, at the same
time, both drew from and reacted against cultural tensions.
While there are many individuals and texts through
which to introduce these issues, I have chosen to use Parley P.
Pratt, perhaps Mormonism’s most prolific author of the
period, and a collection of his theological essays published
only months before Smith’s death. Pratt is not the focus of this
article, however; rather, his 1844 pamphlet is used as a
gateway text through which to explore four main themes of
the period: patriotic identity, democratic religiosity, religious
epistemology, and the nature of heaven. After examining how
Pratt sought to synthesize Smith’s teachings on each topic, the
paper will then examine broader implications of those themes
as they were debated in the immediate post-martyrdom period,
1
For the recent developments of Mormon
historiography, see Jan Shipps, “Richard Lyman Bushman, the
Story of Joseph Smith and Mormonism, and the New Mormon
History,” Journal of American History 94, no. 2 (September
2007): 498-516.
always keeping an eye on how they related to broader cultural
trends. Most especially, it will demonstrate how one unifying
rhetorical theme—the Kingdom of God—was utilized by
Brigham Young and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles to
strengthen their succession claims and, in turn, dominated how
Smith’s revelatory and theological legacy was to be
remembered. Indeed, the debates that followed Joseph Smith’s
premature death influentially tinged how Mormon theology
was to be understood for the rest of the nineteenth century.
This emphasis on theocracy drew on an important if often
overlooked tension in antebellum America over the dangers of
democracy’s excesses and resulting unrest. Taken together,
these religious developments are significant in that they
sought to both work within and against a largely tumultuous
cultural climate, bringing order to a remarkably unstable
religious and social marketplace.
I.
First, however, in order to engage the development of
early Mormon thought it is necessary to examine the primary
dynamic at work, and why that dynamic is important for
understanding both Mormonism as well as the culture in
which it was bred. This dynamic of interpretation and
synthesizing, though, was hardly unique to the LDS Church.
Three decades before the founding of Mormonism, and
thousands of miles across the Atlantic Ocean, a similar debate
raged over the interpretation of Immanuel Kant’s philosophy.
Romantic theologian Johann Gottlieb Fichte, in defense of his
interpretation of Kantian idealism, argued for a distinction
between “the inventor” of an ideological system, and “his
commentators and disciples.” Fichte explained,
The inventor of a system is one thing, and
his commentators and disciples are
another…The reason is this: The followers
do not yet have the idea of the whole; for if
they had it, they would not require to study
the new system; they are obliged first to
piece together this idea out of the parts that
the inventor provides for them; [but] all
these parts are in fact not wholly
determined, rounded and polished in their
minds…
Fichte continued: “the inventor proceeds from the idea of the
whole, in which all the parts are united, and sets forth these
parts individually…The business of the followers,” on the
other hand, “is to synthesize what they still by no means
possess, but are only to obtain by the synthesis.” In short, the
progression of an intellectual movement always includes a gap
between founder and disciple, and a pure continuity in
worldview is impossible when perpetuating a philosophical or
theological system. While the specifics of Kantian philosophy
that Fichte was debating hold little importance to the
interpretation of Mormonism, the tension he outlines between
an “inventor” and “disciple” plays an important correlating
role in the development of early Mormon thought, just as it
does with any movement that boasts an innovative founder.2
Johann Gottlieb Fichte, “Second Introduction to the
Science of Knowledge,” in J. G. Fichte, Science of
2
2
Students of the development of Mormon theology
have long focused on Joseph Smith, with good reason. As
prophet and founder of the LDS Church, his revelations and
teachings laid the foundations for the movement, and his voice
is considered most authoritative when considering early
Mormon beliefs. However, Smith’s theology is difficult to
determine on two grounds. First, his premature death at the
age of thirty-eight prevented the completion of his religious
revolution; though he had been the recognized prophet and
leader for nearly a decade and a half, the explosive theological
development during his last three years showed no signs of
relenting, and it can only be assumed that much of his
religious vision was left inchoate and unfulfilled. Indeed, it
wasn’t until the last three months of his life that Smith’s
sermons began piecing together what had previously been
only theological fragments.3
The second reason for this difficulty is the very
nature of Smith’s prophet persona, and relates to the Kantian
dynamic outlined above. Smith was by nature eclectic, rather
than syncretistic, and his teachings were emblematic of that
approach. His teachings were never presented in a systematic
order, but rather, as Richard Bushman aptly described, in
“flashes and bursts.” This collection of fragments has left
many historians bewildered at the difficulty of presenting a
coherent picture of his beliefs. For instance, one recent writer
waived the metaphoric white flag by describing Smith as
“simultaneously an eminent Jacksonian, a scion of the Yankee
exodus, a creature and critic of the Second Great Awakening,
a Romantic reformer, a charismatic utopian, a mystic
nationalist, and a hustler in the manner of Barnum.” Further,
Smith’s eclecticism has made it difficult to position him
among his antebellum contemporaries, because his teachings
are malleable enough to be considered emblematic of
numerous—and sometimes competing—cultural tensions.
Gordon Wood wrote that the principles Smith laid out
contained elements “mystical and secular; restorationist and
progressive; communitarian and individualistic; hierarchical
and congregational; authoritarian and democratic; antinomian
and arminian; anti-clerical and priestly; revelatory and
empirical; utopian and practical; ecumenical and nationalist.”
Other scholars have pronounced Smith as an example of the
American prophetic voice, the preeminence of modern
revelation, the climactic merging of folk-magic and religion,
the continuity of Renaissance mysticism, or merely as a
theological response to pluralism. Thus, just as Smith’s
religious successors inherited a dynamic theology with
countless possibilities, modern historians are left with a mesh
of innovative fragments from which to make a distorted
picture.4
Knowledge, translated by Peter Heath and John Lachs
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 57.
3
For the most incisive overview of Smith’s theology,
see Samuel M. Brown, In Heaven as It Is on Earth: Joseph
Smith and the Conquest of Death (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2011).
4
Richard Lyman Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough
Stone Rolling (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005), xxi. Walter
A. McDourgall, Throes of Democracy: The American Civil
War Era (New York: HarperCollins, 2008), 180. Gordon S.
Wood, “Evangelical America and Early Mormonism,” New
While attempts to articulate Joseph Smith’s vision
will—and should—continue, it might prove fruitful to look in
other directions for ways to contextualize early Mormonism.
First, it should be remembered that Joseph Smith’s was not the
only voice of the early LDS church. Indeed, the vast majority
of Mormon print came from the disciples who were still trying
to understand Smith’s theology even as they were explicating
it. Just as Fichte worked from the bits and pieces of idealism
he inherited from Kant, Mormon thinkers like Parley Pratt,
John Taylor, and William Phelps sought to synthesize the
prophet’s revelations into an intelligible dogma. Pratt
summarized this process in a proclamation written only
months after Smith’s death: “The chaos of materials prepared
by [Joseph Smith] must now be placed in order in the
building. The laws revealed by him must now be administered
in all their strictness and beauty. The measure commenced by
him must now be carried into successful operation.” Indeed,
especially after the Quorum of the Twelve took control of the
church in 1844, there was an acute anxiety to complete and
expand Smith’s vision even as ambiguity remained. The
diversity in these synthesizing attempts reveals not only the
pliable nature of early Mormon thought, but also the difficulty
in correlating eclectic ideas into a theological whole. 5
The process of the theological mantle shifting from
Smith to his successors is significant in its own right, as well.
Sociologists Rodney Stark and William Bainbridge, who in
turn were building off of the religious theory of Max Weber,
have argued that this very process of correlation is an
important moment in the development of a religious
movement. “Cult formation,” they argued, is “a two-stage
York History 61 (October 1980): 380. For other intellectual
frameworks for Smith, see John L. Brooke, Refiner’s Fire:
The Making of Mormon Cosmology, 1644-1844 (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1994); D. Michael Quinn, Early
Mormonism and the Magic World View (Salt Lake City:
Signature Books, 1987); Jan Shipps, “The Reality of the
Restoration and the Restoration Ideal in the Mormon
Tradition,” in The American Quest for the Primitive Church,
edited by Richard T. Hughes (Urbana: University of Illinois
Press, 1988), 181-195; Nathan O. Hatch, The Democratization
of American Christianity (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University
Press, 1989); Terryl L. Givens, “Prophecy, Process, and
Plentitude,” in Joseph Smith Jr.: Reappraisals after Two
Centuries, edited by Reid L. Neilson and Terryl L. Givens
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2008): 107-118.
5
Parley Pratt, “Proclamation. To the Church of Jesus
Christ of latter-Day Saints: Greeting,” Millennial Star 5
(March 1845): 152. The ascension of the Quorum of the
Twelve to authority was not the only option for succession
following Joseph Smith’s death. Indeed, Smith’s eclectic
nature left enough in question that numerous different
branches were formed in a continuation of what each
successor felt was Smith’s religious vision. See various
articles in Newel G. Bringhurst and John C. Hamer, Scattering
of the Saints: Schism within Mormonism (Independence,
M.O.: John Whitmer Press, 2007); Newel G. Bringhurst,
“Joseph Smith’s Ambiguous Legacy: Gender, Race, and
Ethnicity as Dynamics for Schism within Mormonism after
1844,” John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 27
(2007): 1-48.
3
process of innovation.” The first is “the invention of new
religious ideas,” while the second is “gaining social
acceptance of these ideas” through adaptation and expansion.
The latter stage is accomplished primarily by drawing from
cultural tensions and expectations in order to further
accommodate the movement’s religious goals. In other words,
those synthesizing the innovative ideas have a specific culture
in mind as their audience, and a distinct set of cultural
preconceptions as their tools. With regard to the theologians of
early Mormonism, their doctrinal formulations not only bare
the footprint of the religious innovator—in this case, Joseph
Smith—but also of the culture in which they interpreted the
innovator—in this case, antebellum America.6
Thus, the synthesizing of Joseph Smith’s theology
provides an opportunity to examine the procedure of religious
formation in a tumultuous intellectual climate. The first half of
the nineteenth century is known for being rife with religious
innovation, as numerous new religious movements emerged
from the fertile ground of the Second Great Awakening.
However, while many new sects sprung into existence, only a
few matured enough to last beyond the first generation.
Mormonism, being one of the movements that survived, is
then an important case study into the dynamics of religious
formation. The success of their maturation, this article will
argue, exists in the ability of Smith’s interpreters to merge
their prophets teachings with larger cultural trends, offer
enough of a critique of that culture to make the movement
relevant and necessary while still utilizing common cultural
fears and misgivings, and finally to provide broad enough
parameters to enable theological divergence while still
maintaining legitimate boundaries.
II.
“In the opening of this year [1844] I completed a
number of miscellaneous works, some of which were
published in pamphlet form,” reminisced Parley P. Pratt at
some point during the 1850s while penning his
Autobiography. Pratt, one of the original apostles chosen by
Joseph Smith in 1835, had crafted his own niche within
Mormonism as the religion’s chief defender and extrapolator.
He published numerous works during his apostolic career,
including theological treaties, apologetic pamphlets, books of
poetry, hymnals, and, posthumously, his own memoirs, all of
which served to spread and synthesize the Mormon religion.
His literary production was only halted by his death at the
hands of the ex-husband of one of his plural wives in 1856.
The year 1844 found Pratt at the height of his popularity, as he
just returned from a mission to the United Kingdom where he
had introduced Mormonism to thousands of converts and his
printed works were published in tremendous numbers. Once
back in America and made aware of Joseph Smith’s religious
developments of the 1840s—including human deification,
theological materialism, divine embodiment, temple rituals,
and the still secret practice of polygamy—Pratt was anxious to
6
Rodney Stark and William Sims Bainbridge, A
Theory of Religion (New York: Peter Lang, 1987), 156. For
more on this formation, see their chapter 8.
explore these intellectual possibilities in print and enter the
dialogue of what Mormon theology entailed.7
The first essay in the collection was “An Appeal to
the Inhabitants of New York.” Written in the context of the
LDS Church’s continued effort to obtain redress for expulsion
from Missouri five years previous, Pratt hastily composed the
text in less than a week. Joseph Smith, in a meeting on
November 29, 1843, encouraged all those willing and able to
“wield a pen write and address to his mother country” in
defense of Mormon rights and retribution. Pratt responded
promptly, presenting his “Appeal” to Smith and other leaders
of the Church on December 4. Staking his claim as a
descendent of the “early settlers of the colonies of Plimouth
and Sea-Brook,” and appealing to the “honest and patriotic
sons of liberty” and “lovers of your country,” Pratt positioned
the Mormon movement in a way that not only made the
movement appear worthy of the nation’s help but also posited
Mormon believers as acute representatives of America’s
promise and potential.8
The context in which Pratt wrote was equally vibrant.
The antebellum period was simultaneously a triumphant and
unsteady time for Protestant America. Religious
disestablishment led to the flowering of new religious
movements with variant expressions of faith claiming national
legitimacy, yet the relationship between religious belief and
American citizenship remained astoundingly tenuous.
Churches claimed not only theological validation but
American approval: just as citizens in the early republic
sought to distinguish their country as a “Protestant Nation,”
religious sects fought to prove their churches to be recognized
as an “American religion.” Heirs to the Biblical Christian
tradition was not enough—religionists had to prove that they
were also heirs of the American Revolution. Thus, in
constructing religious “Others” in attempt to validate one’s
own identity, competing faiths were depicted as not only
wrong, but un-American. The battle over the title of “citizen”
7
Parley P. Pratt, [Jr.], ed., Autobiography of Parley
Parker Pratt, one of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Embracing his Life, Ministry
and Travels, with Extracts in Prose and Verse, from his
Miscellaneous Writings (New York: Russell Brothers, 1874),
367. For an overview of the complexities of his
Autobiography, see Benjamin E. Park et. all, “Roundtable
Discussion: Perspectives on Parley Pratt’s Autobiography,”
Journal of Mormon History 36, no. 1 (Winter 2011): 151-205.
The definitive biography of Pratt is Terryl L. Givens and
Matthew J. Grow, Parley Parker Pratt: The Saint Paul of
Mormonism (New York: Oxford University Press,
forthcoming). For an overview on Pratt’s writings, see Peter
Crawley, “Parley P. Pratt: Father of Mormon
Pamphleteering,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought
15, no. 3 (Autumn 1982): 13-26.
8
Manuscript History of the Church, Book 1E, 1789
[November 29, 1843], 1791 [December 4, 1843], LDS Church
History Library. Parley P. Pratt, “An Appeal to the Inhabitants
of the State of New York,” in An Appeal to the Inhabitants of
the State of New York, Letter to Queen Victoria (Reprinted
from the Tenth European Edition,) The Fountain of
Knowledge; Immortality of the Body, and Intelligence and
Affection (Nauvoo: John Taylor, Printer, 1844), 1.
4
was just as important among American religious movements
as that of “Christian.”9
Mormonism’s relationship with the American nation
was consistently tenuous during the nineteenth century. Most
of those who joined the faith in its first decade were
descendents of the revolutionary generation and were raised in
a period of great national pride following the War of 1812.
This devotion was severely tested as Mormons were forced
out of their communities and were unable to secure restitution
from the local—and later, federal—governments. But even
through deep conflicts with competing religionists and
citizens, they still held on to what they believed to be the pure
patriotism of America in the face of being denigrated as
outcasts. Shortly after Mormons were kicked out of their
settlement in Independence, Missouri—the first of many
conflicts between Mormons and their neighbors—Joseph
Smith penned a revelation stating the God himself
“established the constitution of this Land by the hands of wise
men whom [he] raised up unto this very purpose.” Even in
Nauvoo, when external difficulties were drastically increasing
and a possible civil war seemed imminent, Joseph Smith’s
solution was not to dissent from the country altogether, but to
run for the American presidency himself and realign the nation
to its destined position. Just as Christianity had fallen into
apostasy and was in need of a restoration, so too did the nation
denigrate into a decrepit state that required divine recovery.10
Parley Pratt made it clear to his audience that the
current atrocities committed against Mormons were a rejection
of America’s founding virtue. “Here then is an end of our
9
For Christianity during the early republic period,
see Nathan O. Hatch, The Democratization of American
Christianity (New Haven, C.T.: Yale University Press, 1989);
Jon Butler, Awash in a Sea of Faith: Christianizing the
American People (Cambridge, M.A.: Harvard University
Press, 1992); Jonathan D. Sassi, A Republic of Righteousness:
The Public Christianity of the Post-Revolutionary New
England Clergy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001).
For the American depiction of competing religionists as “unAmerican,” see Benjamin E. Park, “Contesting Reason,
Constricting Boundaries: Thomas Paine’s Age of Reason and
the Battle of American Identities in the 1790s,” William and
Mary Quarterly (forthcoming).
10
Joseph Smith, Revelation, 16 December 1833, in
Robin Scott Jensen, Robert J. Wordford, and Steven C.
Harper, eds., Revelations and Translations, Volume 1:
Manuscript Revelation Books, Vol. 1 of the Revelations and
Translations series of the Joseph Smith Papers, edited by
Dean C. Jessee, Ronald K. Esplin, and Richard Lyman
Bushman (Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2009),
271. For the patriotic age in which Mormonism’s first
converts were raised, see Sam. W. Haynes, Unfinished
Revolution: The Early American Republic in a British World
(Charlottesville and London: University of Virginia Press,
2010), 24-50. For Joseph Smith’s run for the American
Presidency, see Richard Lyman Bushman, Joseph Smith:
Rough Stone Rolling (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005),
514-517. For the origins of Smith’s political thought, see Mark
Ashurst-McGee, “Zion Rising: Joseph Smith’s Early Social
and Political Thought” (PhD Dissertation: Arizona State
University, 2008).
western empire,” he bemoaned in typical grandiose
flourishing. “Here then is the consummation of all your labors,
toils and suffering.” The nation’s true enemies were found
amongst Mormonism’s adversaries, and the constitution—that
“sacred instrument”—was being “trampled under the feet” of
those who oppressed the LDS Church. Pratt urged Americans
to locate “that pure fire which animated the bosoms of our
fathers,” and to offer the help due “by the kindred ties of
citizen-ship” toward their fellow Americans. Indeed,
Mormons owned “a right to claim [America’s] aid and
assistance” due to being rightful heirs of American rights,
liberties, and patriotism.11 Writing even before Joseph Smith’s
own candidacy, Pratt implied that Mormonism’s cause was
central to the nation’s principles.
This appeal to American citizenship only became
more complex and vehement following Joseph Smith’s death.
To many Mormons, the killing of their prophet was an affront
to what they believed to be religious liberty in America, and
the fault was laid at the feet of the American nation. Eliza R.
Snow, Mormonism’s poetess and one of Joseph Smith’s plural
wives, penned, “Where are thy far-fam’d laws – Columbia!
Where / Thy boasted freedom – thy protecting care?” Yet their
allegiance to America became much more complicated: on the
one hand, they were fed up with the nation’s perceived
rejection of their liberties and were anxious to flee its borders;
on the other, they made certain the fact that if they left, they
were taking America’s pure tradition with them as the true
inheritors of the nation’s promises. 12
In one anonymous editorial written in 1845—the year
after Smith’s death—this connection was more than merely
implied:
When in the course of the divine economy it
becomes necessary for one people to
separate themselves from the religious and
political fellowship which has once bound
them with another, and to assume among the
powers of the earth that just and equal
standing to which God and nature has
designed them, a decent respect for the
opinions of others would seem to require
them to show the causes which impel them
to separation.
These words, appearing nearly seventy years after America’s
Declaration of Independence, were explicitly written to
demonstrate how Mormonism inherited its identity not only
from Joseph Smith but also, at least in a rhetorical way,
Thomas Jefferson. In depicting the battle between Mormons
and anti-Mormons, the former were not only God’s chosen
people but also the very representation of America’s promised
citizenship; Latter-day Saints were not only living out Biblical
narrative, but also the revolution of 1776. As Parley Pratt
wrote elsewhere, a Mormon was not only “a believer in
revealed religion,” but also “a patriot, who stands firmly for
the laws of his country, and for equal rights and protection”;
Pratt, “An Appeal,” 3-5.
Eliza R. Snow, “The Assassination of Gen’ls
Joseph Smith and Hyrum Smith…” Times and Seasons 5, no.
12 (July 1, 1844): 575.
11
12
5
an “Anti-Mormon,” by contrast, was not only a “mobber,” but
also “a man opposed to the laws of his country.” 13
This tension—rejecting America while still
preserving the “American” ideal—was a crucial paradigm in
constructing a cogent Mormon identity post-Joseph Smith, and
key to their creation of a stable religious movement. Even as
LDS theology became more kingdom-oriented, as discussed
below, the patriotic roots of Mormonism’s founding members
could not be easily dismissed. As a result, an important
emphasis that Smith’s successors turned to in systematizing
Mormon theology was a distinction between America the
nation and America the land. In doing this, they were able to
divorce the principles and potential associated with the ideals
of America from what they believed to be corrupted
government that had apostatized from those ideals. This was
accomplished through an emphasis and reinterpretation of the
Book of Mormon that placed the American continent rather
than the American nation at the center of God’s divine will.
Parley Pratt outlined this perspective in an editorial
nearly a year after Smith’s death. In contrasting the Bible and
the Book of Mormon, Pratt proclaimed that the latter held
more importance not only due to its “home production,” but
also the fact that the narrative took place in a more relevant
physical geography. “This point need not be argued,” he
wrote, “as all persons must admit that America, is a larger and
better country than Palestine, Egypt, Arabia and the
neighboring provinces generally encluded in the bible
history.” He then continued upon the importance of America
based entirely upon the actual land rather than the symbolic
nation:
It must be admitted on all hands to be a
country of vastly more importance, both as it
regards the history of the past, and its future
destiny.—Being larger in extent, and more
firtile and productive in mineral and
vedgitable wealth; consequently better
calculated to sustain a numerous population.
And this is the principle point in the
estimated value and importance of any
country. And judging from the antiquities
which are daily coming to light, we feel safe
in saying, that America has been more
densely populated than almost any country
in the world. And as to its future destiny all
are willing to admit, that it must stand
foremost, and take the lead of all other
nations and countries while time endures.
Pratt was essentially drawing upon a common cultural meme
of American exceptionalism that argued for America’s
prominence to extend even to its natural landscape. It was akin
Anonymous, “American Independence Declared
Over Again; with Amendments to Suit the Times,” The
Prophet, 22 March 1845, no pagination. Parley P. Pratt, “The
Science of Anti-Mormon Suckerology---Its Learned Terms,
and their Significance,” The Prophet, 10 May 1845, no
pagination. For Mormonism’s complex relationship with
American patriotism during this period, see Ryan G. Tobler,
“Parley Pratt and Evolving Views of the American Republic in
Early Mormonism.”
13
to Thomas Jefferson’s strenuous efforts to prove the American
continent better suited for vegetation, animals, and human
population than any other piece of land in the world,
repudiating the “regeneration” thesis that had previously been
popular amongst Enlightenment thinkers. Even the American
continent, it seemed, was destined for the climax of humanity.
Thus, for Pratt, America was unique not just for its
constitutional government—that very government that was
depriving Mormons of their rights—but also for their physical
location, something Mormons could still capitalize upon and
embrace. Yet rather than making the American nation the
fulfillment of the continent’s potential, it was just one more
temporary tenant.14
Further, Mormons emphasized America’s chosen
status through attachment with the Nephite civilization and the
future role in God’s kingdom. Apostle Wilford Woodruff
recorded how reading the Book of Mormon “teaches the
honest & humble mind the great things of God that were
performed in the land of promise now called America,” as
well as “the fate & Destiny of the American Nation.” The
scriptural text taught that there were expectations and
standards that must be met in accordance to possession of the
physical geography, and the failure to do so would invoke
dangerous repercussions. “Unless [the American nation]
speedily repent of there sins & humble themselves before
God,” Woodruff wrote, “they will be destroyed from the
land.” This separation between the promised Zion of the
American continent from the actual nation then in control
allowed Mormons to maintain loyalty to the ideals of
Americanism, for now those ideas transcended the American
nation.15
The year following Joseph Smith’s death,
immediately preceding the migration from Nauvoo, Mormon
newspapers were filled with disillusionment of America’s
failure to live up to its scriptural and principled mandates.
Particularly, they were obsessed over the injustices shown
toward God’s chosen people—not just the Mormons, but also
the Native Americans, whom they believed to be the
descendents of the Book of Mormon people. Importantly, the
native population symbolized the American continent’s other
chosen civilization, a group divorced from the American
nation. Mormons were especially critical of the government’s
treatment of Indians through westward imperialism, “shoving
these Lords of the soil ‘further west’” whenever the American
“gentiles” ran out of space. Smith had shown sympathy with
the nation’s manifest destiny before his death, but only once
“we have the red man’s consent.” But now Smith’s successors
determined that America had surpassed the moral line and was
unworthy of its geographic birthright. “It is a melancholy fact,
among all classes, sects, and denominations, (save the
Mormons only),” one Mormon editorial critical of America’s
dealings with the Oneida Indians summarized, “that there is
not virtue enough among the better to create a reverence for
Parley Pratt, “The Bible and the Book of Mormon
Contrasted,” The Prophet 1, no. 47 (April 12, 1845), no
pagination. See Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of
Virginia (London: John Stockdale, 1785), 71-111.
15
Wilford Woodruff, Journal, November 1, 1845,
Scott G. Kenney, ed., Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, 1833-1898,
9 vols. (Midvale, Utah: Signature Books, 1983-85), 2: 610
14
6
purity among the worse portions of community.” The
American land and its ideal principles were destined for the
House of Israel, and the government’s malpractice meant that
retribution was imminent. As a result, America’s fall and
degradation paved the way for Mormonism’s Kingdom of
God. Apostle Orson Hyde preached that while currently “here
is the United States…But we are told that the kingdom of God
shall come, and his will be done on earth, as it is done in
heaven.” The ideals and principles of America that Mormons
so cherished would transcend the decrepit nation and merge
into God’s kingdom.16
These Mormon apostles spoke not just for their
Mormon constituents, but also for a large—if often
overlooked—segment of antebellum society that struggled
with the juxtaposition of ideals and reality in American
culture. Political strife, growing consumerism, religious
intolerance, the continuance of slavery, and other dividing
factors served to weaken the faith of American citizens only
two generations removed from the Revolution. The events of
the 1840s and 1850s led many to question the nation’s
exceptionalism and wonder how, as one historian puts it,
“America should gain, or regain, its stature as an exemplar of
liberal democracy,” a position seemingly lost somewhere in
the previous five decades. By drawing on this cultural unrest,
Pratt, Woodruff, and Hyde were able to construct a dynamic
and compelling identity for Mormonism amidst the American
nation.17
Indeed, in the wake of Joseph Smith’s death,
Mormonism was forced to reinterpret what it meant to be
“Mormon” and “American,” and eventually determined that
an exodus to the West, leaving the confines of the American
republic, was the only option remaining. Ironically, however,
due to westward expansion in 1848, Mormonism would
remain within the confines of the United States and continue a
tense battle over citizenship and American-ness for the rest of
the century—a battle that began with but continued long after
Joseph Smith.
III.
16
“Indian Affairs,” Times and Seasons 5, no. 4
(March 1, 1845): 829. Joseph Smith, General Smith’s Views of
the Power and Policy of the Government of the United States
(Nauvoo, Ill: John Taylor, 1844), 8. “The Oneida Indians,”
Times and Seasons 5, no. 20 (January 1, 1846): 1080-1081.
“Speech of Elder Orson Hyde, Delivered Sunday, June 15,
1845,” Times and Seasons 5, no. 15 (August 15, 1845): 1002.
See also Parley Pratt, “The Remnants of Lehi,” The Prophet 1,
no. 47 (April 12, 1845), no pagination; “Indians in Canada,”
Times and Seasons 5, no. 13 (July 15, 1845): 964; “Ephraim
and Manasseh,” Times and Seasons 5, no. 13 (July 15, 1845):
965-966.
17
Timothy Mason Roberts, Distant Revolutions:
1848 and the Challenge to American Exceptionalism
(Charlottesville and London: University of Virginia Press,
2009), 185. See also Sean Willentz, The Rise of Democracy:
Jefferson to Lincoln (New York: W. W. Norton & Company,
2006), 425-455; John Corrigan and Lynn S. Neal, eds.,
Religious Intolerance in America: A Documentary History
(Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press,
2010), 99-124.
The second essay in Pratt’s collection was titled
“Letter to Queen Victoria,” the only text published previously
in a stand-alone format, having originally been written for a
British audience while Pratt was serving an ecclesiastical
mission in England. Millenarian in outlook and audacious in
tone, it was designed to warn foreign rulers of a forthcoming
“revolution, more wonderful in its beginning…and more
important in its consequences, than any which man has yet
witnessed on the earth”—a bold statement considering it was
only a generation past the Age of Revolutions. This
revolution, however, which encompassed things “both
religiously and politically—temporally and spiritually,” was
centered on the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, the very
kingdom prophesied in Daniel 2. “From [Daniel’s prophesy] it
appears,” Pratt proclaimed, “that this new kingdom will be
established over the whole earth, to the destruction of all other
kingdoms, by nothing less than the personal advent of the
Messiah in the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory.”
He then called on the world to repent, embrace the gospel of
Christ, and take part in the new divine kingdom destined to
take over the world.18
Though the millennialism of the tract promised to
resonate with audiences in both England and the United
States, parts of the letter appear odd within an American
setting. Most especially, the emphasis on “kingdoms” rather
than “republics,” the language of empire rather than
democracy—indeed, monarchical authority seemed to be
sacralized rather than contested, with only ecclesiastical
leaders replacing corrupt rulers—seems to have been out of
step in a Jacksonian America that rejected hereditary rights,
emphasized upward mobility, and sacralized personal
freedom. But Parley Pratt’s rhetoric demonstrates an important
undergirding—if at time silent—theme in antebellum
America: the fear of unfettered democracy and resulting
anarchy. When addressing the Constitutional Convention in
1787, Benjamin Franklin was speaking for an important
segment of Americans when he noted that when instability
surfaces, “there is a natural inclination in mankind for a kingly
government.” But this sentiment was not isolated to elite
federalists in the formation of a centralized government;
rather, it permeated American discourse as citizens became
concerned over the explosion of individual-based and
grassroots zeal. No less a figure than Ralph Waldo Emerson
quipped, “the spirit of our American radicalism is destructive
and aimless… Citizens of feudal states are alarmed at our
democratic institutions lapsing into anarchy; and the older and
18
Parley P. Pratt, “Letter to Queen Victoria,” in Pratt,
An Appeal, 7, 9. Pratt was far from alone in invoking Daniel 2
in antebellum America. See David J. Whittaker, “The Book of
Daniel in Early Mormon Thought,” in By Study and Also By
Faith: Essays in Honor of Hugh Nibley on His 80th Birthday,
edited by John M. Lundquist and Stephen D. Ricks (Salt Lake
City and Provo, UT: Deseret Book and Foundation for
Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1990): 155-99. For
Mormon millennialism, see Grant Underwood, The
Millenarian World of Early Mormonism (Urbana and Chicago:
University of Illinois Press, 1993). While the pamphlet’s title
claims that this reprint was taken from the “tenth European
edition,” it appears that this was Pratt being grandiose, as there
were only two previous editions.
7
more cautious among ourselves are learned from Europeans to
look with some terror at our turbulent freedom.” Indeed, as
historian Gordon Wood has claimed, the “experiment of
democracy” led many disillusioned to imagine the ideal of
society closer to kingdoms than pure democracies; the culture
that inherited the American Revolution was one “torn between
contradictory monarchical and democratic tendencies.”
Writing during the very decade Mormonism experienced its
first problems with American society, Alexis de Tocqueville
noted that the “tyranny of the majority” was the American
culture’s greatest threat.19
This paradoxical tension played out most poignantly
in a contrast found in the last year of Joseph Smith’s life. Even
as he was running for president of America’s democratic
government, he was anointed “Prophet, Priest, and King” of a
secretive organization titled “The Kingdom of God and his
Laws.” Nicknamed “The Council of Fifty,” this clandestine
Mormon group was designed to be a government-in-embryo,
prepared to govern the world’s population during the
millennium. Two years previous, Smith printed an editorial
explaining how all governments of men “have failed in all
their attempts to promote eternal power, peace and happiness.”
Even America, “which possesses greater resources than any
other, is rent, from center to circumference, with party strife,
political intrigues, and sectional interest.” The only solution
was to turn government into a divine kingdom, where divine
sovereignty manifested through ordained ministers could
execute pure justice; the voice of the people could never
compensate for the voice of God. The position of a prophet
was, at its heart, incompatible with democratic government.
As one historian remarked, while Joseph Smith “valued
democratic government, his revelations implicitly rejected
popular sovereignty.” God’s will trumped elected opinion and,
at least for those who believed in that will, brought stability to
a tumultuous world.20
This theme was only strengthened, if not
exponentially increased, when the Quorum of the Twelve took
control, primarily due to its potential to centralize authority
and validate succession claims. Challenged by competing
Mormon schisms, Brigham Young and the other apostles
sought to vindicate their authoritative positions by
demonstrating how salvation was only achieved through their
19
Benjamin Franklin, Address to the Federal
Convention, in James Madison, Notes of Debates in The
Federal Convention of 1787 (New York: W. W. & Norton
Company, 1987), 53. Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Politics,” in
Kenneth Sacks, ed., Emerson: Political Writings (Cambridge,
UK: Cambridge University Press, 2008): 21. Gordon S. Wood,
The Radicalism of the American Revolution (New York: A. A.
Knoft, 1992), 124. Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in
America, translated by Arthur Goldhammer (New York:
Library of America, 2004), 294.
20
“The Government of God,” Times and Seasons 3,
no. 18 (July 15, 1842): 856. Steven C. Harper, “‘Dictated by
the Words of Christ’: Joseph Smith and the Politics of
Revelation,” Journal of the Early Republic 26, no. 2 (Summer
2006): 276. For the Council of Fifty, see Andrew F. Ehat, “‘It
Seems Like Heaven Began on Earth’: Joseph Smith and the
Constitution of the Kingdom of God,” Brigham Young
University Studies 20, no. 2 (Spring 1980): 253-274.
ecclesiastical dominion. To accomplish this, focus was placed
on hierarchical authority rather than personal mobility. While
before Joseph Smith’s death the intimate details of the
Kingdom of God and their attachment to temple rites were
reserved for a select few and kept secret from the public, the
Twelve not only publicized much of that dialogue but also
made it central to their succession argument. In doing so, they
tapped into a deep cultural vein that sought social order
through unquestioned authority; only through a strictly
organized Kingdom of God could peace and structure be
maintained.
The most dramatic way in which the Twelve utilized
and adapted Joseph Smith’s soteriological teachings in the
succession crisis was the expansion of temple rituals and the
practice of a salvific rite termed “adoption,” thereby creating
literal familial kingdoms upon which the kingdom was built.
While Smith introduced sealing ordinances in his final years—
both monogamous and polygamous—at both an alarming rate
and in a “dynastic” tone, Brigham Young and his fellow
apostles furthered those rites and implemented a ceremonial
fosterage in which members of the church were “adopted” into
one of the leader’s sacerdotal families. These practices not
only established spiritual kinship but also fostered reliance
upon Young and the Twelve, developing the camaraderie and
obedience necessary to centralize authority. What Smith
originally introduced as esoteric rituals assuring eternal
salvation, Young expanded to also include a very practical and
temporal patronage system establishing an ecclesiastical
hierarchy in the present as well as the future. 21
Critically, Young drew on cultural themes and
misgivings of the day in order to bolster his ecclesiastical
claims. Specifically, he depicted his kingdom rhetoric as the
only alternative to anarchy and the excesses of radical
democracy. Beyond being merely a response to radical
pluralism, Mormonism also drew on the general unrest that
plagued all of American culture during the antebellum period.
One of the early leaders of the Church, Oliver Cowdery, wrote
that it was “certain the Gentile world, with all its parties, sects,
denominations, reformations, revivals of religion, societies
and association, are devoted to destruction.” Mormonism
offered refuge from the cultural ferment of Jacksonian
America. And when schismatic battles threatened
Mormonism’s cohesion during the aftermath of Joseph
Smith’s death, Brigham Young knew to capitalize on the
stability that his authoritative claims could demand.22
21
The best work on Mormon adoption rites is
Jonathan A. Stapley, “Adoptive Sealing Ritual in
Mormonism,” Journal of Mormon History 37, no. 3 (Summer
2011, forthcoming).
22
Oliver Cowdery, “The Millennium, No. 10,”
Messenger and Advocate 1, no. 3 (December 1834): 39. For
Mormonism as a critique of American pluralism, see Marvin
S. Hill, Quest for Refuge: The Mormon Flight from American
Pluralism (Salt Lake City, UT: Signature Books, 1989). For
the political and cultural tumult of the period, see Yonatan
Eyal, The Young American Movement and the Transformation
of the Democratic Party, 1828-1861 (Cambridge, UK:
Cambridge University Press, 2007); Daniel Walker Howe,
What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America,
1815-1848 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 411-
8
“I will first set in order before these [listeners] the
true order of the Kingdom of God,” Brigham Young
proclaimed a mere six months after Joseph Smith’s death,
“and I will shew how to make King of Kings and Lord of
Lords, and how they will be organized.” A key to Smith’s
message, Young explained, and one which was commonly
misunderstood, was a principle largely rejected in the early
American republic: hereditary authority through connected
bloodlines. “That blood was in [Smith] pure and he had the
sole right and lawful power, and he was the legal heir” to the
prophetic mantle of the restored gospel. This mantle and
authority was then passed from Smith to the Twelve, who
were then in possession of the only keys that could grant
eternal salvation. Exaltation was not an individual affair—it
required access to the hierarchical structure that was the
Kingdom of God, which only the Quorum of the Twelve could
grant. Smith possessed authority through his familial lines,
and that authority was then passed on to Brigham Young and
the apostles who were adopted into the sacerdotal family
through temple rites. “There is blood running in the veins of
the family,” Young exclaimed to a large gathering of saints,
many of whom would soon be “adopted” into his ecclesiastical
lineage, “and I know who has the blood and the Priesthood to
carry the keys to the world.” 23
Young posited his authority in direct opposition to
what he depicted as chaos in the overly democratic American
republic. “This Gentile race”—his terminology for nonMormons, as opposed to those adopted into Israelite lineage
through baptism and temple ordinances—“is devilism from
first to last, they are so far from being right that they would
have an infidel for a President.” The cause of their anarchy, he
explained, was their whiggish zeal. “They all cry out
Republicanism and that [it] is for the Sons to rule their
Fathers, Daughters to rule their Mothers…and abuse the very
authority that God has ordained for their salvation.” In
rhetorically creating a usable “other” against which to
establish the necessity of the Twelve’s ecclesiastical control,
Young attacked the very principles the American republic was
perceivably built upon.24
The extent to which Young succeeded in establishing
a milieu in which salvation could only be secured can be
demonstrated in a letter from George Dyke, a member of the
militia group the Mormon Battalion, addressed to Young
himself.
I am now an Orphan wandering through a
wicked world without a Father of promise
Shall my Days be numbered & my
445. Marshall Foletta, Coming to Terms with Democracy:
Federalist Intellectuals and the Shaping of an American
Culture (Charlottesville and London: University Press of
Virginia, 2001).
23
Brigham Young, Sermon, Brigham Young and
Willard Richards Family Meeting Minutes, January 8, 1845,
General Church Minutes, 1839–77, 4, in Selected Collections,
1:18. I sincerely appreciate Jonathan Stapley for bringing this
sermon to my attention.
24
Ibid., 9. See also Brigham Young, Sermon, May 4,
1845, in Richard S. Van Wagoner, ed., The Complete
Discourses of Brigham Young, 5 volumes (Salt Lake City: The
Smith-Pettit Foundation, 2009), 1: 84.
pilgrimage ended, & I go to the silent tomb
without a Father to call me forth from the
deep sleep of death? or Shall I enjoy in
common with other citizens of the common
wealth of Israel enjoy the legal rights of
adoption[?]…I know President Young it is a
great thing for an unworthy saint to ask at
the hands of the highest authority on Earth
& if you think it too great a condecention for
you to accept of me in your Family, then
place me if you please in the Family &
under the guarding care of [fellow apostle]
Amasa Lyman.
Dyke, like many others in the tumultuous period of antebellum
America, was seeking spiritual and temporal security in a
world filled with chaos and upheaval. Young’s message of
adoption and hierarchical structure resonated because it
offered stability and assurance. Even if Brigham Young’s
personal family was too high to grasp, a less prestigious figure
like Apostle Amasa Lyman would do. The Kingdom of God
offered an asylum from the religious, political, and cultural
uncertainty of the American republic.25
While similar sentiments could be found in Joseph
Smith’s own sermons and private teachings, nothing
approached the tenacity and consistency of kingdom-centered
discourse during the immediate post-martyrdom period.
Joseph Smith’s fragments of theology and temple rituals
introduced to his inner circle intended to anoint “kings and
priests” and extend exaltation to all those worthy followers—
Brigham Young and the Twelve adapted and expanded those
teachings to solidify their claims of succession and stabilize a
fledging faith within a tumultuous climate. Young repeatedly
mentioned how this aspect of Smith’s teachings was not fully
understood—demonstrating his awareness of the tensions
surrounding synthesizing the founding prophet’s theology—
and he was determined to clear up confusion. He drew on the
fears and misgivings of certain segments of American society
about the excesses of democracy and the dangers of the rising
“young American movement” during the period. Hesitant of
the new path upon which American culture was embarking,
Smith’s successors systematized the prophet’s theology as to
pave the way for the later Utah theocracy.
IV.
Part of what made Mormonism so scandalous was its
claim of new scripture in an age dominated by bible-centrism.
Joseph Smith’s entrance into the religious marketplace was
not with a theological treatise, published sermons, or even a
conversion-oriented pamphlet; rather, it was a book claiming
ancient origins, supernatural translation, and scriptural
authority, challenging the traditional—and staunch—views of
canonicity of the period. In his essay “The Fountain of
Knowledge,” Parley Pratt countered the accepted Protestant
epistemology of antebellum America by arguing that religious
knowledge stemmed not from the Bible, but from immediate
revelation from God. In doing so, he synchronized a Mormon
25
George Dyke to Brigham Young, August 17, 1846,
LDS Church History Library.
9
discourse that both embraced and adapted American notions
of common sensism.
America had long been a bible-oriented culture.
British subjects in colonial America and citizens in the newly
United States perceived themselves as members of the
modern-day House of Israel. Cities were named after Old
Testament Towns, children were named after biblical figures,
and rules of society were modeled closely after scriptural
laws. This emphasis only increased in the early nineteenth
century, as one book peddler described it as “the very
season…of the Bible” because “the crater of the public
appetite” was so large that it consumed anything bible-related.
But the bible was far from just a cultural symbol—it was also
the measuring stick for knowledge. Biblical common sense
was how Americans differentiated their rationality from those
like the deist Tom Paine, and, coupled with the Scottish
philosophy of common sense, provided an epistemology that
not only based human knowledge on revelation but also
allowed the bible to be the standard of truth. “Theistic
common sense”—as Mark Noll aptly put it—dominated
American religious discourse, as a religion’s validity
depended on if that movement could tether its belief system to
the biblical text.26
“Modern men have been traditionated to believe that
a sacred book was the fountain of Divine knowledge,” Pratt
wrote in “The Fountain of Knowledge.” “That the heights and
depths, and lengths and breadths of heavenly intelligence is
contained therein, and that the human mind must be limited
and circumscribed thereby, so as never to receive one particle
of knowledge except the small amount contained within its
pages.” Pratt challenged this quintessential Protestant notion,
arguing instead that divine truths were independent of the
written word; imagining the Bible as superior to independent
revelation was placing the buggy before the horse. Relying
entirely upon one book of scripture was stultifying to
humankind’s progress: “a sacred book could never be made to
contain a millionth part of the knowledge which an intelligent
being is capable of receiving and comprehending.” It would
not be until Christians “burst the chains” of Bible centrism
that they could fully comprehend Divine will. Biblical
common sense emphasized building on the foundation of
scriptural text—Pratt sought to attack and adapt that very
epistemology. “Does not common sense teach you,” he
reasoned, “that you must feast as well as [those in the past], or
perish forever.” In a similar rhetorical ploy as Ralph Waldo
Emerson and other American Romantics—though to a
26
Mason Weems, quoted in Nathan O. Hatch and
Mark A. Noll, eds. The Bible in America: Essays in Cultural
History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), 3. Mark
A. Noll, America’s God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham
Lincoln (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 93. For
the importance of the bible in the period, see various essays in
Hatch and Noll, Bible in America. For American religious use
of common sense rhetoric, see E. Brooks Holifield, Theology
in America: Christian Thought from the Age of the Puritans to
the Civil War (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003),
esp. 174-180; Leigh Eric Schmidt, Hearing Things: Religion,
Illusion, and the American Enlightenment (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 2000); Park, “Contesting Reason.”
completely different end—Pratt essentially proclaimed, “the
sun shines to-day also.”27
But in rejecting Biblical common sense, Mormon
thinkers were introducing a unique epistemology that worked
to merge empiricism and supernatural discourse. The cultural
context in which they lived was similarly at a crossroads. On
the one hand, while the American Enlightenment era was in
decline by the beginning of the nineteenth century, it had
inflicted a deep impact upon the intellectual climate. As E.
Brooks Holifield wrote, “never had the issue of rationality
assumed as much importance as it did in the early decades of
the nineteenth century,” which saw rise to what he titled
“evidential Christianity.” On the other hand, this era also saw
rise to what has been termed as Romantic thought. This
intellectual shift allowed more room for the sublime and
supernatural, and yearned to know the unknowable. Those
considered Romantics rebelled against the neo-classical
structure of the previous age that they found both stifling and
limiting to human potential, and they argued for an ideology
that placed no limits on the soul. But, while Romanticism
influenced many religious groups of the day—including the
Mormons—the requirement for a rational presentation and
defense still remained. What they needed was an intellectual
approach that could be seen as respectable while at the same
time still proving the reasonableness of religion, revelation,
and supernaturalism.28
Nowhere was this epistemological merging more
evident than in Joseph Smith’s accounting of how to
determine false from true angelic being. “If an Angel or spirit
appears offer him your hand,” Smith explained to his close
confidents, “if he is a spirit from God he will stand still and
not offer you his hand. If from the Devil he will either shrink
Parley P. Pratt, “The Fountain of Knowledge,” in
Pratt, An Appeal, 15, 19. Ralph Waldo Emerson, The
Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 5 vols., edited. by
Robert E. Spiller and Alfred R. Ferguson (Cambridge, Mass:
Belknap Press of Harvard University Press 1971–94), 1: 7. For
similarities and contrasts between Mormonism and American
Romantic critiques of Bible centrism, see Benjamin E. Park,
“‘Build, Therefore, Your Own World’: Ralph Waldo
Emerson, Joseph Smith, and American Antebellum Thought,”
The Journal of Mormon History 36, no. 1 (Winter 2010): 5964. Mormonism’s founding scripture denounced Bible
centrism as a perversion of religious devotion. “Thou fool, that
shall say, A Bible, we have got a Bible, and we need no more
Bible,” the God in the Book of Mormon bellowed. “Wherefore
murmer ye, because that ye shall receive more of my word?”
The Book of Mormon: An Account Written by the Hand of
Mormon, Upon Plates Taken from the Plates of Nephi,
translated by Joseph Smith (Palmyra: Printed by E. B.
Grandin, for the Author, 1830), 115 (current LDS edition: 2
Nephi 29: 3-11).
28
E. Brooks Holifield, Theology in America:
Christian Thought from the Age of the Puritans to the Civil
War (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005), 175. For an
overview of Romanticism and Mormon thought, see Terryl
Givens, “Prophesy, Process, and Plentitude,” in The Worlds of
Joseph Smith: A Bicentennial Conference at the Library of
Congress, edited by. John W. Welch (Provo, Utah: Brigham
Young University Press, 2006), 55-56.
27
10
back from you or offer his hand, which if he does you will feel
nothing, but be deceived.” Elsewhere, the instructions
included the addition that if the angel were a resurrected
personage, he would grasp the individual’s hand—literally
interlocking mortal flesh and blood with what Smith described
as immortal flesh and bone—and the physicality of the angel
would thus prove his pure intentions and divine authority. Not
only were supernatural, extra-canonical experiences possible,
but they were capable of withstanding empirical testing.
Similarly, Smith explained in an editorial that Mormons
believed in the supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit, but only
“rationally, reasonably, consistently, and scripturally, and not
according to the wild vagaries, foolish notions and traditions
of men.” Most importantly, these moments of knowledge were
available to all, and could be confirmed through individual
reason and revelation.29
Especially during the Nauvoo period, Joseph Smith
and other early Mormons fully employed this version of
common-sensical approach to color their theological
discourse. When Joseph Smith preached on the possibility of
salvific certainty, he prefaced his remarks by claiming, “it is
so plain & so simple & easy to be understood that when I have
shown you the interpretation thereof you will think you have
always Known it yourselves.” When he attacked the idea of
creation ex nihilo, he explained that it was not only on the
basis of revelation but also because “it is contrary to a
Rashanall [rational] mind & Reason. that something could be
brought from a Nothing.” It was this combination of reason
and revelation that Parley Pratt felt was the key to unlocking
theological truths: “Revelation and reason, like the sun of the
morning rising in its strength, dispel the mists of darkness
which surround him; till at length heaven’s broad, eternal day
expands before him, and eternity opens to his vision. He may
then gaze with rapture of delight, and feast on knowledge
which is boundless as the ocean from which it emanates.” 30
The dynamics and tensions between reason,
revelation, and tradition took center stage in the dialogue that
followed Joseph Smith’s death, but were now tinged with the
Twelve’s authoritarian zeal. With Mormonism’s founding
prophet gone and several competing factions struggling over
Smith’s authoritative mantle, the question of how truth was
obtained was a defining feature of one’s claim to legitimacy.
While the Quorum of the Twelve eventually took control and
moved a majority of the saints west, their approach to
revelation and epistemological authority were deeply affected
by the debates concerning Smith’s legacy and teachings. Most
importantly, they met a surprising challenger in James J.
29
Joseph Smith, December 1840, recorded in
William Clayton’s Private Book, in Words of Joseph Smith,
44. Joseph Smith, “Gifts of the Holy Ghost,” Times and
Seasons 15 June 1842, pg. 823. For Mormon angels, see
Benjamin E. Park, “‘A Uniformity So Complete’: Early
Mormon Angelology,” Intermountain West Journal of
Religious Studies 2 (2010): 1-37.
30
Joseph Smith Sermon, Howard and Martha Coray
Notebook, in Ehat and Cook, Words of Joseph Smith, 206.
Joseph Smith Sermon, Frank McIntire Minute Book, in Ehat
and Cook, Words of Joseph Smith, 61. Parley P. Pratt,
“Immortality and Eternal Life of the Material Body,” in Pratt,
An Appeal, 23.
Strang, a recent convert who claimed validation through
angelic visitations, a new book of translated scripture, and a
corpus of continued revelations that composed an impressive
prophetic mimesis in opposition to the Twelve’s claims.
Throughout the rhetorical battles waged between followers of
Brigham Young and James Strang, the dynamics of revelatory
authenticity and canonicity within a tumultuous American
climate remained paramount.
The most significant problem the Twelve faced when
combating Strangite missionaries was that the latter group
emphasized exactly what Mormonism had hitherto
highlighted: central to their claim was the necessity of a
prophet and immediate dialogic communication with God.
Brigham Young and the Twelve were at a theoretical
disadvantage as they lacked the prophetic figure that James
Strang fulfilled. Previously, Parley Pratt had adapted a
common American folk song to proclaim, “A church without a
Prophet, is not the church for me / It has not head to lead it, in
it I would not be.” However, now that they lacked that very
“head” celebrated in the hymn, the Twelve—according to one
amused Strangite observer—dropped the song “like a hot
potato.” Meanwhile, Strang’s followers embraced both the
song and its message, positing themselves as the true
successors to Mormonism’s revelatory claims and Joseph
Smith’s prophetic legacy.31
These tensions played out in a debate that took place
in Nauvoo on March 3, 1843, just as thousands of saints were
beginning their exodus out of America and into the West. John
E. Page, formerly an apostle in the LDS church but now a loud
and persuasive convert for James Strang, argued against the
Twelve’s authority because they lacked the power of
continuing revelation: “it is for the voice of God to say who
the [leader] shall be, & then the people shall say amen.” To
follow the tradition of Joseph Smith, a divine intervention and
bellowing voice from the heavens was the manifestation
needed for God’s chosen prophet. But, he bemoaned, now
there is only “talk of the people appoint[int] a [president],”
and by so doing, “we have to trample upon the Doc[trine] &
Cov[enants]”—the collection of Joseph Smith’s revelations,
and the tangible manifestation of Smith’s mantle and
expansion of the scriptural cannon. The problem with Brigham
Young was he “had no more power to give rev[elations] than
any of the other – it requires the ‘thus saith the Lord’ to put a
man in his place.” Page emphasized that his embrace of
Strangism and rejection of Young was a product of being a
faithful follower of Mormonism for over a decade. “If I have
erred,” he insisted, “it is because I placed too much confidence
in them that taught me.” Persuasively, Page sought to
demonstrate that the only possible interpretation of
Mormonism required a figure of continuing revelation—the
“thus saith the Lord”—and anything else was counterfeit.32
31
Voree Herald 1, no. 9 (September 1846): [37].
Robin S. Jensen, “Mormons Seeking Mormonism: Strangite
Success and the Conceptualization of Mormon Ideology,
1844-50,” in Bringhurst and Hamer, Scattering of the Saints,
100. Times and Seasons 5 (4 February 1845): 799.
32
Thomas Bullock minutes of a meeting held in
Nauvoo, March 3, 1846, LDS Church History Library, 2-3,
transcribed by Robin Jensen, emphasis mine. I appreciate
11
In response, Orson Hyde, one of the most prolific and
dynamic of the apostles, voiced what had come to be the
dominant rhetorical message of Twelve: Smith’s revelatory
position was not being “trampled,” but it had evolved into the
esoteric rituals of the temple—the climax, according to Hyde,
of Smith’s prophetic career. Through temple ordinances, the
church is still linked to Smith and the fountain of revelation.
“Joseph Smith is [still] the Hook in Heaven – the 12 [are] the
next link - & you [are] all linked on,” Hyde explained. Hyde
continued his sermon four days later, expanding the linkage
between Smith, gospel knowledge, and the Twelve’s
authority.
Recollect Jesus Christ was the president of
the Church he choose 12 Aposttles & they
were witnesses, to go to all the nations &
preach – by & bye the Lord was crucified &
ascended to heaven – did he take the keys
with him or leave them on the Earth – he did
both – he left knowledge on Earth & took
knowledge with him, & Knowledge is
power – says he to Peter, I give unto thee the
Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven.
Just as with Christ in the meridian of time, Smith passed on
the keys of knowledge to the Twelve. In the early years of the
Twelve’s leadership, “knowledge” and “priesthood keys”
became intrinsically connected, creating a cannon centered on
priesthood authority. Whereas with Smith the temple rites
were to be the apex of gospel learning, with the Twelve they
became the standard of all knowledge and validity. It was only
through the priesthood keys that the fountain of knowledge
could continue. Indeed, that the term “keys” came to be the
dominant descriptor for salvific truth demonstrates the lengths
to which the Twelve routinized epistemological authority.
Smith’s revelations had laid the foundation, but now the
temple ordinances ritualized and fulfilled that spirit and
message. “I asked Elder Page the other day,” Hyde mused,
“which is the greater, this Book (the D&C) or the Sprit that
gave it?” And for the previous year, the Twelve had
emphasized that the temple was the apex of this spirit of
revelation.33
Being that this debate between Hyde and Page took
place mere weeks after thousands of saints experienced these
salvific ordinances, and the fact that the discourse was given
in the shadow of the temple, would have underscored the
connection between “knowledge” and “priesthood keys,” and
further confirmed the apostles’ succession claims. Knowledge
could and would be gained through reason and revelation, but
it could only be solidified through priesthood rites. In this
sense, Mormonism’s canonicity expanded to include not only
recorded revelations but also ritualistic experience.
This rhetorical and strain of interpretation also
dominated the Twelve’s debate with another schismatic figure,
Sidney Rigdon. Previously, Rigdon was the First Counselor in
Smith’s First Presidency, perceivably placing him second in
Robin Jensen for alerting me to this and the following
document, and for providing transcriptions of both.
33
Ibid, 4. Thomas Bullock minutes of a meeting held
in Nauvoo March 7, 1846, LDS Church History Library, 1,
transcribed by Robin Jensen.
authority and power. But with Smith’s death and the Twelve’s
rise to leadership, Rigdon challenged their claims and argued
that he was to be the “guardian” of the movement. Similar to
Strang, Rigdon claimed a revelation that he felt validated his
authority. Thus, in their battles with Rigdon—and especially
his excommunication trial—the Twelve emphasized that the
former leader lacked the knowledge absolutely necessary for
church leadership, which could only be gained through the
highest temple ordinances. In the epistemological crisis in
which competing supernatural revelations are claimed as
support for practical concerns, the only determining factor was
priesthood keys—a development the Twelve emphasized they
obtained from Smith himself.
“There is a way by which all revelations purporting
to be from God through any man can be tested,” Orson Hyde
explained at the trial over Rigdon’s membership. “Brother
Joseph said, let no revelation go to the people until it has been
tested” in the highest councils. This interpretation of Smith’s
teachings emphasized order and authority in determining what
was truth, and made the Twelve gatekeepers for established
knowledge. Further, this precedent was especially relevant in
the months preceding Smith’s death, bolstering the Twelve as
the central figures in this epistemological hierarchy, because
they “were in council with Brother Joseph almost every day
for weeks” Smith had prepared them for this position by
“conduct[ing] us through every ordinance of the holy
priesthood and when he had gone through with all the
ordinances he rejoiced very much, and says, now if they kill
me you have got all the keys.” It was only then, Hyde recalled
Smith proclaiming, that “Satan will not be able to tear down
the kingdom” and corrupt the doctrines and ordinances of the
gospel. Parley Pratt added to Hyde’s testimony, explaining
that though “the quorum of the Twelve have not offered a new
revelation” since Smith’s death, that was only due to the fact
that “we have spent all our time, early and late, to do the
things the God of heaven commanded us to do through brother
Joseph”—most especially, building the temple and
administering the ordinances therein. Revealed truth had all
pointed to the temple and its consanguineous priesthood
sealings, and future knowledge depended on its completion.34
In placing the temple and priesthood keys at the
center of Mormonism’s epistemological claims, the Twelve
succeeded in establishing a theological framework in which
their claims triumphed over all others. By holding the keys to
the temple, Brigham Young and the apostles held the keys to
knowledge. But in doing so, they dictated that Joseph Smith’s
revelatory legacy would be understood in a way that led first
and foremost to the future temple rituals—ordinances that
were not introduced until two years before and not made
public until after shortly after his death. What had been a set
of secret rituals limited to a small circle of initiates—though
they planned to have larger participation once the Nauvoo
Temple was completed—was now the only path through
which one could gain salvific knowledge. Pratt’s “Fountain of
34
“Trial of Elder Rigdon,” Times and Seasons 5, no.
17 (September 15): 649-651, 653. For this trial and its
relevancy to the succession debates and temple ordinances, see
Andrew F. Ehat, “Joseph Smith’s Introduction of Temple
Ordinances and the 1844 Mormon Succession Question”
(M.A. thesis, Brigham Young University, 1982), 189-236.
12
Knowledge” of 1844 focused on Smith’s teachings of dialogic
revelation through personal connection to deity; now the
“fountain” was more to be experienced rather than merely
learned. While this adapted perspective of revelatory
knowledge threatened to routinize what had hitherto been a
dynamic understanding of truth, it succeeded in centralizing
epistemological power within Brigham Young and the Twelve
and attaching believers to a unified religious movement.
V.
The fourth and fifth essays found in Pratt’s
compilation focused on different topics yet are related in
significant ways. The first, titled “Immortality and Eternal
Life of the Material Body,” examined the eternal nature of
matter, the necessity and glory of a resurrected body, and the
potency of a God embodied with flesh and bones; it contains
many of the aspects critical to Mormonism’s unique
theological materialism. The second essay, “Intelligence and
Affection,” built on the former’s base principles and gloried in
the eternal nature of love and knowledge while defending the
natural affections of the body as both pure and divine. In
“Immortality,” Pratt wrote that traditional dualism was a
“mere [relic] of mysticism and superstition,” and that “all
persons except materialists must be infidels, so far at least as
belief in the scriptures is concerned.” In “Intelligence and
Affection,” he penned that the purpose of life is for all “power
and energy of your body and mind may be cultivated,
increased, enlarged, perfected and exercised for his glory and
for the glory and happiness of yourself, and of all those whose
good fortune it may be to associate with you.” Together the
essays offer a synthesis of Joseph Smith’s ontological collapse
of spirit and matter, exaltation of the physical body, and
redefinition of the Godhead.35
At the heart of this theological revolution was a
redefinition of the afterlife. Indeed, Mormonism’s unique
heaven—based on material possessions, exalted corporeality,
and deified humans—offers a succinct microcosmic view of
what some historians have termed a “divine anthropology.” It
also provides perhaps the most potent lens through which to
interpret the tensions surrounding Smith’s successors, as they
both drew from and reacted against their larger culture while
synthesizing their founder’s teachings.36
Mormonism appeared at the cusp of what historians
Colleen McDannel and Bernhard Lang described as the
“modern heaven.” This theological shift, most popular at the
folk level yet never officially accepted by clergy, emphasized
a continuation and fulfillment of material existence, an
increase in progress and activities occupying saved individuals
in a dynamic environment, and, most importantly, a focus on
human love and social relationships. The epitome of this
intellectual shift was the immensely popular novel The Gates
Ajar, a book that outsold every other novel in the 19th century
other than Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Written by Elizabeth Stuart
Pratt, “Immortality and Eternal Life of the Material
Body,” in Appeal, 21. Pratt, “Intelligence and Affection,” 39.
For the development of Mormon materialism, and how it
relates to other materialist theologians during the period, see
Park, “Salvation Through a Tabernacle,” 10-14.
36
For “divine anthropology,” see Brown, In Heaven
as It Is on Earth.
35
Phelps (1844-1911), the narrative boldly rejected the formerly
popular theocentric heaven in favor of one based in familial
affections, social relations, and the Victorian home. “Would it
be like [God] to suffer two souls to grow together here,”
exclaimed the fictional Aunt Winifred, “so that the day of
separation is pain, and then wrench them apart for all
eternity?” The answer from the proponents of this domestic
heaven was a resounding “no.”37
Aspects of this domestic heaven were acutely present
in Joseph Smith’s teachings. Smith at times appeared a
proponent of this eternal sentimentalism, which laid the
groundwork for celestial domesticity. “If I had no expectation
of seeing my mother, brother[s], and Sisters and friends
again,” he proclaimed in 1843, “my heart would burst in a
moment and I should go down to my grave.” Yet it would be a
mistake to characterize early Mormonism’s heaven as the apex
of the Victorian domestic heaven. Smith’s emphasis on the
continuation of relationships stretched further than the
immediate family: through the temple rituals of polygamy and
adoption, Mormonism sought to form a larger dynastic society
enabled by priesthood ordinances. Heber C. Kimball wrote
that these ordinances were meant “to bring us to an
organization,” and once this organization was in place, “we
have the Celestial Kingdom here [on earth].” Even more
revealing, close confidant Benjamin Johnson later
remembered Smith claiming the “great mission” for the Saints
was to “Organize a Nucli of Heaven” which would remain the
centerpiece of life after the grave. These rituals solidified
temporal relationships, celestialized the earthly existence, and
set the foundation for eternal glories. Smith (and a number of
his successors) was not as interested in the continuity of
domestic love as he was in the salvific rites connected to this
forged society. Even as the broader society was yearning for
sentimentalism, Mormonism placed limits on that
sentimentality and offered instead a world of order and
stabilization.38
Yet, more than just a continuation of earthly societies
and activities, the Mormon heaven emblemized a period of
unfettered democracy, upward mobility, and a culture
yearning for unlimited potential and individual progress. The
intellectual merging of Romantic individualism and radical
Whig politics during the early nineteenth century led to an
emphasis on self-reform and the self-made man. Emblematic
of the period was the success of Henry Fielding’s satirical
novel The History and Adventures of Joseph Andrews, which
37
Colleen McDannell and Bernhard Lang, Heaven: A
History (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1988), 183.
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, The Gates Ajar (Boston: Fields,
Osgood & Co., 1868), 75-76.
38
Joseph Smith, Sermon, April 16, 1843, in Scott H.
Faulring, ed., An American Prophet’s Record: The Diaries
and Journals of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Signature
Books in association with Smith Research Associates, 1989),
366-367. Heber C. Kimball Journal, in George D. Smith, ed.,
Intimate Chronicle: The Journals of William Clayton
(Signature Books in Association with Smith Research
Associates, 1995), 226. Benjamin Johnson remembrance,
quoted in B. Carmen Hardy, ed., Doing the Works of
Abraham: Mormon Polygamy: Its Origin, Practice, and
Demise (Oklahoma: Arthur H. Clark Company, 2007), 119.
13
mocked the aristocratic foundations of the eighteenth century,
particularly its “whole ladder of dependence.” This “kind of
ladder,” Fielding playfully, yet incisively, painted, was a mere
relic of the days of superstition and mythology. The book’s
numerous print-runs revealed a culture anxious to embrace the
democratic revolt against fixed social status while at the same
time desiring unlimited individual mobility. The era of
Jacksonian politics only solidified this all-too-American
notion of the “self-made-man,” cementing a democratic age of
individual reform and progression. 39
Nothing more epitomized this spirit of progress than
Joseph Smith’s formulation of the potential of man. “You
have got to learn how to make yourselves Gods,” he famously
proclaimed, “in order to save yourselves and be kings and
priests to God, the same as all Gods have done—by going
from a small capacity to a great capacity, from a small degree
to another…till you are able to sit in everlasting burnings and
everlasting power and glory as those who have gone before.”
William Phelps wrote that the temple empowered individuals
to progress “from heaven to eternity; and from eternity to
ceaseless progression,” allowing humankind to move “from
system to system; from god to god, and from one perfection to
another.” Parley Pratt’s “Intelligence and Affection” described
the Mormon heaven as “a field where, ambition knows no
check, and zeal no limits; and were the most ardent aspirations
may be more than realized.”40 In early Mormonism, the idea of
eternal “progress” was as audacious as it was literal.
However, kingdom rhetoric once again came to
dominate the post-martyrdom discussion, reinterpreting the
Mormon heaven as a counterbalance to whiggish zeal.
Revolving around temple rituals, the celestial order was to be
based on priesthood order, and a saints’ mobility was limited
to the ecclesiastical tree in which they were found, making
important both familial relations and ecclesiastical positions.
Explaining to Newel Whitney the importance of these
priesthood rites, Smith promised “honor and immortality and
eternal life to all your house…because of the lineage of my
Preast Hood,” implying that ecclesiastical chains were as
significant as personal merit. Utilizing this kingdom rhetoric,
disciple Joseph Fielding wrote that in order to “obtain all the
Glory I can… a Man’s Dominion will be as God’s is, over his
39
Henry Fielding, The History of the Adventures of
Joseph Andrews, and his Friend Mr. Abraham Adams, 2 vols.
(Philadelphia, PA: Henry Taylor, 1791), 2:157. For this larger
social transformation, see Joyce Appleby, Inheriting the
Revolution: The First Generation of Americans (Cambridge,
MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2000),
esp. 194-238; Daniel Walker Howe, Making the American
Self: Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln, 2nd edition (New
York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 107-135; Sarah Knott,
Sensibility and the American Revolution (Chapel Hill, NC:
The University of North Carolina Press, Published for the
Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture,
2009), 195-264.
40
Joseph Smith, Sermon, in Stan Larson, "The King
Follett Discourse: A Newly Amalgamated Text," BYU
Studies 18, no. 2 (Spring 1978): 201. William Phelps, sermon,
in Richard Van Wagoner and Steven C. Walker, “The
Joseph/Hyrum Smith Funeral Sermon,” BYU Studies 23
(Winter 1983): 11. Pratt, “Intelligence and Affection,” 40.
own Creatures and the more numerous the greater his
Dominion.” While progression is indeed possible, it would
only be within the larger celestial “kingdoms” of the afterlife;
this was a patronage based on priesthood that could not be
transcended, a heavenly social order that took precedence over
individual mobility.41
These comparisons to contemporary intellectual
themes do more than just connect early Mormon conceptions
of heaven to the larger antebellum context; they also
demonstrate the malleable nature of Joseph Smith’s religious
legacy, enabling multiple—and at times, seemingly
contradictory—interpretations of his theology. Different
Mormon thinkers in the late Nauvoo period—even those
amongst the Twelve—emphasized different themes and
cultural tensions in their individual formulations. Specifically,
they utilized Smith’s inchoate teachings as support for their
own theological and temporal claims or understandings. This
tension is most aptly demonstrated in the juxtaposition of
Brigham Young and Parley Pratt.
As leader of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, a
majority of Young’s teachings during 1844-1847 revolved
around centralizing Mormon authority and defending the
Twelve’s succession claims. As such, he emphasized the
hierarchical order of heaven as a blueprint for authority on
earth. “[We] have taken kingly power and grades of the
priesthood,” he proclaimed in 1847. “Those that are adopted
into my family and take me for their counselor, if I continue
faithful I will preside over them throughout all eternity.” Even
in the afterlife, “I will stand at their head, and Joseph will
stand at the head of this church and will be their president,
prophet of God to the people in this dispensation.” Though
Godhood was the eventual destination of valiant priesthood
holders, it was only achieved within an ecclesiastical hierarchy
of restraint and order.42
Young spoke out against individuals who were
“jealous” of the leaders above them and did not understand
their appointed role within the larger society. He verbally
warned about those “who would even try to pass right by me
and go to Joseph thinking to get between him and the
Twelve.” These warnings were an obvious product of the
succession crisis in which they were taught, and had a distinct
effect on the structure of the afterlife. “I have heard Elders say
they were not dependant upon any man,” he continued, which
is a mistaken position “for I consider that we are all dependent
one upon another for our exhalta-tion & that our interest is
insperably connected…I hold the Keys over them through
which they are to receive there [sic] exhaltation.” To Young,
41
Joseph Smith, Revelation, July 27, 1842, MS 4583,
Box 1, fd. 104, in Richard E. Turley, ed., Selected Collections
from the Archives of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints, 2 vols., DVD (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University
Press, [Dec. 2002]), 1:19. Joseph Fielding, Journal, in “‘They
Might have Known that He Was Not a Fallen Prophet’—The
Nauvoo Journal of Joseph Fielding,” transcribed and edited by
Andrew F. Ehat, Brigham Young University Studies 19, no. 1
(Winter 1979): 154.
42
Brigham Young, Sermon, February 16, 1847, in
Scott G. Kenney, ed., Wilford Woodruff’s Journal: 1833-1898
Typescript, 9 vols. (Midvale, UT: Signature Books, 1983),
132-133.
14
patronage and stewardship were the epitome of heaven, where
felicity and joy were to be achieved through dominions and
kingdoms. “If you wish to advance [in the afterlife],” he
concluded, “hold up the hands of your file leader & boast him
a head.”43 His heaven was more a defense of ecclesiastical
authority than it was an appeal for uninhibited progression,
more concerned with kingly government than democratized
exaltation.
Following Young’s lead, apostle Orson Hyde spoke
of “the kingdom of Jesus Christ” in the next world as a place
where individuals would be resurrected to their ordained
“stations” within that kingdom, according to their earthly
deeds, temple endowments, and adoptive sealings. “A man in
the Priesthood,” he explained, “has persons sealed to him in
his kingdom [who are] subject to him in the dominions of
God.” When Hyde later drew a diagram outlining “the order
and unity of the kingdom of God,” he depicted an
ecclesiastical tree where all who “received their [temple]
washings and anointings” were granted entrance to the
celestial heaven, but only within a hierarchical kingdom based
on stewardship and priesthood authority. “Many are called to
enjoy a celestial glory,” Hyde summarized, “yet few are
chosen to wear a celestial crown, or rather, to be rulers in the
celestial kingdom.” The celestial organization was not merely
based on personal merit or individual distinction, but on a
hierarchical setup of priesthood keys and genealogies. This
vision of the afterlife largely shaped temporal church structure
and polygamous relationships.44
On the other hand, while Pratt maintained
sensibilities to the symbolic Kingdom of God, he continued to
emphasize Victorian sentimentality and domesticity.
“Heaven,” as he succinctly defined it, was “a planetary system
where there is no death, sickness, pain, want, misery,
oppression, ignorance, error, doubt, fear, sin or sorrow.” In
Pratt’s heavenly utopia, the family, not just the priesthood,
was at the center of resurrected humanity, and even wives
played a crucial, if subservient, role. He wrote, “the celestial
order is designed not only to give eternal life, but also to
establish an eternal order of [the family], founded upon the
most pure and holy principles of union and affection.” In his
Autobiography, Pratt enthusiastically remembered learning
from Joseph Smith the principle of eternal sealings, and that
“the wife of my bosom might be secured to me for time and all
eternity; and that the refined sympathies and affections which
endeared us to each other emanated from the fountain of
divine eternal love . . . that we might cultivate these affections,
and grow and increase in the same to all eternity.” While
Brigham Young taught that the label “father” in the celestial
kingdom was merely a symbolic term for the priesthood
leader, Pratt still held that it was the literal family unit that was
the core within the larger kingdom and urged saints to be
sealed to their biological families. It is worth noting that Pratt
43
Ibid., 130, 135, 137.
Orson Hyde, Sermon, May 3, 1846, in Kenney,
Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, 45-46. Orson Hyde, “A Diagram
of the Kingdom of God,” Millennial Star 9 (January 15,
1847): 23.
44
was not among those who accepted adopted families into his
own familial kingdom.45
Even more than the Victorian family centrism, Pratt’s
heaven symbolized the perfection of domestic sensibilities like
love and joy. It was “intelligence, wisdom, goodness, love,
peace, [and joy],” he wrote, that “eminate from the fountain of
life and existance, and flow out through all the branches of
family organization both in heaven and earth.” In a sentiment
that would have been appreciated by many of the Victorian
authors of the day, Pratt summarized the afterlife as a place
where “the exalted throne of the celestial heavens…to the least
member of Christ’s family on the earth” are all a part of “a
kingdom without a jar or scism; a family of which all the
members are happy.” Further, eternal progression for Pratt
was not just about increasing dominions, but developing
human affections. When writing about love and affections, he
wrote that “the very germs of these Godlike attributes…only
need cultivating, improving, developing, and advancing by
means of a serious of progressive changes” in the next life,
until they finally “arrive at the fountain ‘Head,’ the standard,
the climax of Divine Humanity.” While for Young, heaven
was about kingdoms, dominions, and hierarchical structure, to
Pratt it was the continuation and unity of human relationships,
the physicality of love, and the exaltation of earthly
pleasures.46
These different viewpoints were not, of course,
mutually exclusive; indeed, Pratt took a major part in
establishing the symbolic kingdom that Brigham Young
emphasized, and Young at times echoed the celestial
sentimentality that was at the heart of Parley Pratt’s vision.
However, their differing paradigms of how to interpret,
expand, and synthesize the particulars of Joseph Smith’s larger
vision exemplify the dynamic nature of early Mormon
theology—or, more appropriately, Mormon theologies. The
idea of what the celestial kingdom entailed was a developing
concept, closely tied to broader intellectual currents, and
ambiguous enough to be interpreted within differing
theological frameworks.
This dynamic framework allowed Mormon theology
to flower in the second half of the nineteenth century. Because
it both drew on cultural themes while at the same time
critiquing a society many were growing disillusioned with,
Mormonism persisted long after many of the other antebellum
religious movements faded away. The Victorian
sentimentalism of the domestic heaven became latent as
theocratic rhetoric dominated the early Utah period, only to
45
Pratt, “Heaven.” Pratt, “Celestial Family
Organization,” The Prophet 1 (March 1, 1845): no pagination.
Pratt, Autobiography, 329. Parley P. Pratt, “Family
Government,” The Prophet (January 18, 1845): no pagination.
For Young on the role of a “father,” see Brigham Young,
Sermon, February 16, 1847, in Kenney, Wilford Woodruff’s
Journals, 137-138. For adoption statistics, see Stapley,
“Adoptive Sealing Ritual in Mormonism.”
46
Pratt, “Family Government.” Parley P. Pratt, Key to
the Science of Theology: Designed as an Introduction to the
First Principles of Spiritual Philosophy; Religion; Law and
Government; As Delivered by the Ancients, and as Restored in
This Age, For the Final Development of Universal Peace,
Truth and Knowledge (Liverpool: F. D. Richards, 1855), 32.
15
reappear with a vengeance at the turn of the twentieth century
as Mormonism sought a new religious identity. American
culture, then, served as a toolbox from with Joseph Smith’s
successors could pick and choose which elements to accept
and adapt, and which elements to reject and attack. This
dynamic—and at times, tenuous—relationship was at the core
of not only Mormon conceptions of heaven, but the thriving
Mormon movement in general.
VI.
Parley Pratt continued his prolific publishing career
for another decade after Joseph Smith’s death, only interrupted
by duties that ranged from leading Mormonism’s settlement in
Utah, various ecclesiastical missions including nearly a year
spent in South America, and, finally, death at the hands of the
ex-husband of one of his plural wives in 1857. His most
memorable works were largely composed in the 1850s—Key
to the Science of Theology (1855), considered his theological
magnum opus, and The Autobiography of Parley Parker Pratt
(1874), which was edited and completed by his son—and cast
a large shadow over Mormonism to the present day.
And the process of correlating and synthesizing
Joseph Smith’s revelations and teachings largely continued in
step with the new developments and evolutions in Mormon
history and culture: settlement in Utah introduced theocratic
dominance, frontier discourse, and sometimes violent
reformations; the end of isolation brought more spiritually
orientated boundaries; the stoppage of polygamy forced a
reformulation of what constituted “families” and “kingdoms”
in the Mormon cosmos; and finally, the twentieth century
brought a growth of fundamentalist and neo-orthodox thought
in reaction to an increasingly secular and skeptical world.
Indeed, the transformations in LDS thought during its first two
centuries offer in microcosm the larger intellectual trends of
the cultures in which Mormons acted within and reacted to. 47
And therein lies the significance of the
interpretation(s) and reinterpretation(s) of LDS theology. The
growth of and development of Mormonism from a frontier
faith to a Utah theocracy depended to a large extent upon
47
For theocratic thought in the early Utah period, see
Ronald W. Walker, Richard E. Turley, and Glen W. Leonard,
Massacre at Mountain Meadows (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2008): 6-40; Leonard J. Arrington, The
Great Basin Kingdom: An Economic History of the Latter-day
Saints, 1830-1900 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press, 1958). For more spiritually attuned boundary
maintenance, see Stephen C. Taysom, Shakers, Mormons, and
Religious Worlds: Conflicting Visions, Contested Boundaries
(Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 2010), 51-99.
For the transformation from polygamy to mainstream, see
Thomas G. Alexander, Mormonism in Transition: A History of
the Latter-day Saints, 1890-1930 (Urbana, Ill.: University of
Illinois Press, 1986); Matthew B. Bowman, “The Crisis of
Mormon Christology: History, Progress, and Protestantism,”
Fides et Historia 40, no. 2 (Fall 2008): 1-27. For the twentieth
century and fundamentalism, see Armand L. Mauss, The
Angel and the Beehive: The Mormon Struggle with
Assimilation (Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 1994);
O. Kendall White, Mormon Neo-Orthodoxy: A Crisis
Theology (Salt Lake City, Ut.: 1987).
Smith’s successors’ ability to both incorporate and challenge
broader cultural tensions in the process of synthesizing and
expanding the teachings of its founding prophet. This task
required innovation in sustaining—or recreating—a uniquely
Mormon and coherent theology with a tenuous and dynamic
relationship with the broader culture. As a result, the study of
how that theology developed reveals not only added light on
the movement itself, but also the American context in which it
constantly battled.