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The Young Seeker

Terryl L. Givens and Matthew J. Grow

in Parley P. Pratt: The Apostle Paul of Mormonism

Parley Pratt’s Puritan ancestry prefigured his own life of religious conflict and independence, with Anne Hutchinson and John Lathrop among his forbears. His immediate background was impoverished and ... More

Parley Pratt’s Puritan ancestry prefigured his own life of religious conflict and independence, with Anne Hutchinson and John Lathrop among his forbears. His immediate background was impoverished and itinerant, as his father Jared Pratt traversed the state of New York trying to secure a living. He left home at a young age, first boarding out, then unsuccessfully seeking his fortune on the frontier. He fell in love with Thankful Halsey, began a religious quest, joined the Baptists, and built a cabin in the Ohio wilderness. Pratt then married, and joined the Reformed Baptists or Campbellite movement, under Sidney Rigdon’s influence, attracted to its millennialism and Primitivism. Forsaking his farm, he embarked on a freelance mission, happened upon a Book of Mormon, and was converted to the Latter-day Saints, or Mormons. Almost immediately, he was called by Joseph Smith as a missionary to the “Lamanites” (Native Americans) in the Indian Territory.Less

 “The Glory of God Is Intelligence”: Mormons and the Life of the Mind

Terryl C. Givens

in People of Paradox: A History of Mormon Culture

Education is fundamental in Mormonism. Joseph Smith studied Hebrew, and established a School of the Prophets and the University of Nauvoo. Print culture was central to the Mormon church, and early ... More

Education is fundamental in Mormonism. Joseph Smith studied Hebrew, and established a School of the Prophets and the University of Nauvoo. Print culture was central to the Mormon church, and early leaders like Orson Pratt and Parley Pratt laid the foundations for an intellectual tradition. Early Mormon intellectual culture was capacious enough to accommodate Darwin and evolution, though that would change.Less

Introduction

Terryl L. Givens and Matthew J. Grow

in Parley P. Pratt: The Apostle Paul of Mormonism

The introduction argues for Pratt’s significance in shaping early Mormon thought, culture, and history. In addition, it makes the comparison between Pratt’s role in early Mormonism and Paul’s role in ... More

The introduction argues for Pratt’s significance in shaping early Mormon thought, culture, and history. In addition, it makes the comparison between Pratt’s role in early Mormonism and Paul’s role in early Christianity. Just as Paul systematized and popularized the teachings of Christianity, Pratt’s extensive writings served the same function for Mormon theology. In addition, like Paul, Pratt’s extensive missionary travels helped put his movement on the path from small sect to worldwide religion. Finally, like Paul, Pratt reveled in opposition and persecution, and in his own eyes and the beliefs of the Latter-day Saints, met a martyr’s death much like the original apostle.Less

Epilogue

Terryl L. Givens and Matthew J. Grow

in Parley P. Pratt: The Apostle Paul of Mormonism

Of Pratt’s many roles, he considered his apostleship paramount. He clearly felt an affinity with Paul. His Autobiography was a self-conscious construction; his late sermons provide a different window ... More

Of Pratt’s many roles, he considered his apostleship paramount. He clearly felt an affinity with Paul. His Autobiography was a self-conscious construction; his late sermons provide a different window on the man Parley Pratt. He never fully reconciled his life’s many tensions: liberty and religious persecution, militancy and meekness, millennialism and pragmatism, spiritual richness and relentless poverty, and finally, honor killing and martyrdom. His legacy was unambiguous: Paul-like in his elaboration and systematizing of Mormon doctrine, through Voice of Warning and Key to Science of Theology. Ultimately, he was more motivated by his loyalty and love than his sense of duty.Less

Mormon Overreach? Brigham Young and Parley Pratt

Stephen H. Webb

in Mormon Christianity: What Other Christians Can Learn From the Latter-day Saints

Mormons were known in their early years for mixing religion and politics and for polygamy. This chapter analyses the roots of those two sets of belief.

Marketing the Book of Mormon to Noah’s Three Sons

Max Perry Mueller

in Race and the Making of the Mormon People

This chapter traces the different ways the Book of Mormon was marketed to “red,” “white,” and “black” Americans during the first three years after the church was founded in 1830. Because Native ... More

This chapter traces the different ways the Book of Mormon was marketed to “red,” “white,” and “black” Americans during the first three years after the church was founded in 1830. Because Native Americans (“Lamanites”) were seen as the Book of Mormon’s true heirs and the prophesied leaders of New Jerusalem, and because most American Indians did not belong to America’s English-language based print culture, Joseph Smith sent Mormonism’s first official mission to Delaware Indians on the frontier, west of Missouri where the Mormons hoped to build their New Jerusalem. Because most were literate in English, early Mormons attempted to reach white “Gentile” Americans of European descent through newspapers and other media produced and published through their own printing operations. Though the Book of Mormon’s past or future does not include people of African descent, early Mormons did allow, and even encouraged, some free black Americans to join the church.Less

“Except among that Portion of Mankind”: Early Mormon Conceptions of the Apostasy

Christopher C. Jones and Stephen J. Fleming

in Standing Apart: Mormon Historical Consciousness and the Concept of Apostasy

This chapter examines the multifaceted discourse about the apostasy of Christianity in early Mormon sermons and conversion narratives. It categorizes two prevailing attitudes in this discourse—an ... More

This chapter examines the multifaceted discourse about the apostasy of Christianity in early Mormon sermons and conversion narratives. It categorizes two prevailing attitudes in this discourse—an exclusive perspective that rejected other religious traditions as inadequate and an inclusive perspective that perceived other religious traditions as inspired yet insufficient. Latter-day Saints’ perceptions about apostasy were conditioned by their previous religious background, by the cultural context in which they wrote, and by ongoing developments within Mormonism.Less

Mormonism and Theology

Terryl L. Givens

in Wrestling the Angel: The Foundations of Mormon Thought: Cosmos, God, Humanity

In the modern era, Mormons have considered the very enterprise of theology to be largely a secular activity, a sign of true religion’s failure, and not an activity worth pursuing with any energy. But ... More

In the modern era, Mormons have considered the very enterprise of theology to be largely a secular activity, a sign of true religion’s failure, and not an activity worth pursuing with any energy. But early Mormons did not exhibit such an unqualified bias. One of Joseph Smith’s earliest projects was to organize a School of the Prophets and deliver there a series of “Lectures on Theology.” For Mormons in the nineteenth century and beyond, the fortunes of the term “theology” shifted from period to period and leader to leader. Though Mormon Church authorities have been loath to propound creeds or catechisms to establish a baseline for orthodoxy, numerous authoritative sources serve to found a theological tradition, including four canonical scriptures, apostolic pronouncements, various church publications, and unofficial writings of a host of influential LDS leaders.Less

“I Lead the Way, Like Columbus”: Joseph Smith, Genocide, and Revelatory Ambiguity

Zachary McLeod Hutchins

in Americanist Approaches to The Book of Mormon

Readers of The Book of Mormon have long identified Christopher Columbus as the “man among the Gentiles” whose divinely prompted journey to the Americas is foretold therein; Columbus thus became a ... More

Readers of The Book of Mormon have long identified Christopher Columbus as the “man among the Gentiles” whose divinely prompted journey to the Americas is foretold therein; Columbus thus became a model for the prophetic leadership of Joseph Smith. But if Columbus was inspired to discover the New World, that inspiration was imprecise, as the admiral sailed for China, suggesting that revelation is necessarily an ambiguous, messy process whose conclusions are uncertain and provisional, subject to correction or revision. Because his arrival in the Americas precipitated the genocide of Native peoples, identifying Columbus as a prophetic figure has forced faithful readers of The Book of Mormon to grapple with the question of theodicy. Some, like the novelist Orson Scott Card, have suggested that the Amerindian genocide is compatible with the justice of a loving God, while others have argued that The Book of Mormon celebrates prophetic weakness and promotes hermeneutic humility.Less

Orson Pratt’s Enduring Influence on The Book of Mormon

Paul Gutjahr

in Americanist Approaches to The Book of Mormon

First published in 1830, over the next half-century The Book of Mormon appeared in some dozen new editions. Perhaps the most important edition of the nineteenth century appeared in 1879 and was ... More

First published in 1830, over the next half-century The Book of Mormon appeared in some dozen new editions. Perhaps the most important edition of the nineteenth century appeared in 1879 and was edited by Orson Pratt. When this edition appeared, Pratt had served as a member of the original Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, a mission president in Britain, and was a member of Brigham Young’s “Vanguard Company” that crossed the Western plains to select a site for Mormon colonization. More important, he was one of early Mormonism’s premier educators and theologians. His edition bore all the marks of a lifetime of study, presenting the book in a highly systematized format and including footnotes that incorporated theological glosses on Mormon history, archaeology, and geology. This essay explores the origin of many of the textual changes found in the 1879 edition and the enduring influence of these changes.Less

Monism

Terryl L. Givens

in Wrestling the Angel: The Foundations of Mormon Thought: Cosmos, God, Humanity

Mormonism maintains that matter and spirit are not just similarly eternal—they are ultimately two manifestations of the same reality or substance. The consequence in Smith’s thought is a collapse of ... More

Mormonism maintains that matter and spirit are not just similarly eternal—they are ultimately two manifestations of the same reality or substance. The consequence in Smith’s thought is a collapse of the radical divide between body and spirit, the earthy and the heavenly. This contravenes the dualism prevalent in Western metaphysics, from Plato through Paul, to Descartes. Some notable exceptions have occurred from the ancients to the present, including John Milton and the Cambridge Platonists. Smith propounded cosmological monism in 1833, and it was first elaborated by Parley P. Pratt, who wrote that “God the Father, is material. Jesus Christ is material. Angels are material. Spirits are material. Men are material. The universe is material. . . . Nothing exists which is not material.” One important effect of this conflation is to eradicate materiality’s inferior or subordinate status to the spiritual. A still disputed implication is the imputation of intelligence to all matter.Less

Apostleship and the Authority of Change

Michael Hubbard MacKay

in Prophetic Authority: Democratic Hierarchy and the Mormon Priesthood

In addition to baptism, a second foundational narrative that demonstrates Joseph Smith’s authority was the establishment of the Mormon apostleship. His translations and revelations called for major ... More

In addition to baptism, a second foundational narrative that demonstrates Joseph Smith’s authority was the establishment of the Mormon apostleship. His translations and revelations called for major initiatives that required increasing amounts of commitment from his adherents, but with these major initiatives, the revelations also required a certain amount of malleability. Smith established certain forms of authority, such as priesthood and sacraments, through his revelations and then molded and reformed them through additional revelations to meet the evolving needs of his church. In doing this, Smith demonstrated his ability to control the narrative and shape his authority. As his theology developed and his lay ministry expanded, his prophetic leadership adapted. It was the malleability of his leadership that enabled the relationship between hierarchy and democracy to adjust and find stasis on the waves of change. To demonstrate this point, this chapter explores one of Smith’s most radical concepts of authority—namely, apostleship—in its nearly superfluous beginnings and its ultimate importance within Mormonism.Less

I Heard Him Relate His First Vision

Steven C. Harper

in First Vision: Memory and Mormon Origins

Joseph Smith’s reluctance to tell of his first vision ended in the 1830s. This chapter revises the old conclusion that Smith did not tell his vision until the 1840s. Research presented for the first ... More

Joseph Smith’s reluctance to tell of his first vision ended in the 1830s. This chapter revises the old conclusion that Smith did not tell his vision until the 1840s. Research presented for the first time in this chapter reveals that he began telling the vision to small, trusted groups in the 1830s, giving him confidence to tell it more widely in the 1840s. These tellings created a transactive memory—the beginnings of the saints’ collective memory of the vision—in which several of Smith’s followers shared a detailed story with rich emotional reactions. These experiences created intimacy between Smith and the believers who heard him and those who heard them.Less