The. John Whitmer. Historical Association JOURNAL

Transcription

1 The John Whitmer Historical Association JOURNAL

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3 The John Whitmer Historical Association JOURNAL Edited by William D. Morain Spring/Summer 2013 Volume 33, Number 1

4 About This Journal The John Whitmer Historical Association Journal is published semi-annually by the John Whitmer Historical Association. The association s purposes are to create and encourage interest in Latter Day Saint history, especially the history of the Community of Christ, to promote communication, research, and publication in the field of Latter Day Saint history, and to provide vehicles for the dissemination of scholarly research to persons interested in Latter Day Saint history. For more information, visit the association website: Papers for consideration will be reviewed by the editorial committee and should be submitted in a digital file (preferably Microsoft Word) using the most current Chicago Manual of Style format. Send all submissions and queries to the editor via anplsurg@grm.net by the John Whitmer Historical Association Printed in the United States of America ISSN Copyright for articles and book reviews published in this issue of the John Whitmer Historical Association Journal is held jointly between the author and the association. The association reserves the right to publish an electronic version of the journal. Copies of articles in this journal may be made for teaching and research purposes free of charge and without securing permission, as permitted by sections 107 and 108 of the United States Copyright Law. For all other purposes, permission must be obtained from the author. Cover illustration and design by John C. Hamer.

5 The John Whitmer Historical Association Journal Spring/Summer 2013, Vol. 33, No. 1 Courtesy of Community of Christ Library-Archives John Whitmer (ca. 1870)

6 vi THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL EDITORIAL STAFF William D. Morain, Editor Erin B. Metcalfe, Associate Editor William D. Russell, Book Review Editor John C. Hamer, Production Director EDITORIAL BOARD Clyde Forsberg Craig L. Foster David J. Howlett Melvin Johnson H. Michael Marquardt Brent Lee Metcalfe William Shepard Steven L. Shields Barbara B. Walden Biloine W. Young OFFICERS OF THE ASSOCIATION R. Jean Addams, President Lachlan Mackay, President-Elect Steven L. Shields, Immediate Past President Cheryle Grinter, Executive Director Lewis Weigand, Treasurer Biloine W. Young, Endowment Fund Treasurer BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF THE ASSOCIATION Erin B. Metcalfe, William D. Russell, Christopher Blythe, Craig L. Foster, Jan Marshall, Barbara B. Walden, JOHN WHITMER BOOKS Jan Marshall, Executive Director Vickie Cleverley Speek, Editor Erin B. Metcalfe, Associate Editor John C. Hamer, Publisher and Production Director

7 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL vii Robert B. Flanders, Alma R. Blair, 1975 Kenneth E. Stobaugh, 1976 William D. Russell, 1977 Barbara J. Higdon, 1978 Paul M. Edwards, 1979 Clare D. Vlahos, 1980 W. Grant McMurray, 1981 Thomas J. Morain, 1982 Norma Derry Hiles, 1983 Paul M. Edwards, 1984 Richard P. Howard, 1985 Wayne Ham, 1986 Robert C. Mesle, 1987 Linda King Newell, 1988 Maurice L. Draper, Roger D. Launius, Isleta L. Pement, PAST PRESIDENTS Jessie L. Embry, Danny L. Jorgensen, Ronald E. Romig, Barbara J. Bernauer, Edward A. Warner, Alma R. Blair, Michael S. Riggs, Biloine W. Young, Mark A. Scherer, Jan Shipps, Newell G. Bringhurst, Alexander L. Baugh, Barbara B. Walden, William Shepard, Jeanne Murphey, John C. Hamer, Steven L. Shields,

8 Table of Contents Articles Editor s Note: Where Have You Gone, Thomas Jefferson? William D. Morain The editor remarks on a most endearing feature of the John Whitmer Historical Association. Community of Christ s Encounter with Asia: Challenges of Relevance, Pluralism, and Indigenization Steven L. Shields In his presidential address, Steven Shields traces the independent development of the Community of Christ s mission developments in Korea and Japan, highlighting the achievements and missteps while emphasizing the importance of cross-cultural understanding. Community of Christ Archives: A Richard Howard Legacy Barbara Hands Bernauer In the first Richard P. Howard Lecture, Barbara Bernauer chronicles the history of the Community of Christ Archives, describes the archiving process, and enumerates her own experiences in archival research. Observations about the JWHA and the Community of Christ Historical Department Paul M. Edwards On the fortieth anniversary of the JWHA, founding member Paul Edwards looks back upon the personal and institutional angst experienced when the Community of Christ faced its founding history with critical candor. xii

9 Table of Contents ix Facing Ahistory in the Community of Christ Richard P. Howard Richard Howard decries the pattern of false history that has permeated the Mormon movement since its founding. Included in this pattern have been The Book of Mormon, the Joseph Smith Bible Revision, parts of the Doctrine and Covenants, some RLDS historical literature, and the early RLDS denial of Joseph Smith s polygamy. Mormonism s Problematic Racial Past and the Evolution of the Divine-Curse Doctrine Matthew L. Harris Matthew Harris chronicles the evolving LDS doctrinal position on the status of those of African descent and characterizes the recent denials by the leadership concerning previous authoritative declarations. A Behaviorist Looks at Joseph Russell C. Osmond Behavioral psychologist Russell Osmond introduces a new perspective in the understanding of Joseph Smith s charisma his innate ability to bridge fluidly among the brain s four quadrants of understanding. Changing Revelatory Messages: A Mormon Example H. Michael Marquardt Michael Marquardt illustrates through numerous examples how many early Mormon revelations and key historical details were subsequently edited in order to reflect changing organization, doctrine, and practice in the church. Manchester as the Site of the Organization of the Church on April 6, 1830 H. Michael Marquardt Despite earliest accounts alleging Fayette, Seneca County, New York as the site of Mormonism s organization on April 6, 1830, the evidence is clear that the correct location was Manchester, Ontario County. Michael Marquardt describes a legal ruse subsequently used by the church s leaders in Kirtland to throw off creditors by falsely using the Fayette location in published documents

10 x THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL The Conquest of Humiliation: A Psychobiographical Inquiry into the Book of Mormon Characters and Chronology Robert D. Anderson Psychiatrist Robert Anderson describes how the humiliations and stresses of Joseph Smith s life were projected onto numerous characters he created in the Book of Mormon. Anderson also outlines parallel chronologies between events in Smith s life and those in the Book of Mormon. Joseph Smith Fantasies and their Origins William D. Morain William Morain describes numerous vignettes portrayed in the Book of Mormon, Book of Abraham, and Mormon lore as the author s fantasies that have arisen out of the stresses of his childhood surgery and brother Alvin s untimely death. Mixing Politics with Religion: A Closer Look at Electioneering and Voting in Caldwell and Daviess Counties in 1838 Steve LeSueur Steve LeSueur details the ways in which Danite-influenced voting patterns added to the Mormons difficulties in Missouri, especially in their uniformity of Democratic support against the Whigs in Daviess County. In addition, the near-unanimous victories of Democratic candidates in Caldwell County added to growing statewide fears of Mormon block voting. Book Review Article The Evolving Craft of Mormon Biography: Progress & Persistent Problems Edward Leo Lyman, Amasa Mason Lyman: Mormon Apostle and Apostate C. LeRoy Anderson, Joseph Morris and the Saga of the Morrisites John G. Turner, Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet Reviewed by Newell G. Bringhurst Book Reviews Alonzo L. Gaskill. Know Your Religions, Volume 1: Catholicism and Mormonism Reviewed by Anthony J. Chvala-Smith

11 Table of Contents xi Matthew Bowman. The Mormon People: The Making of an American Faith Reviewed by David J. Howlett Martha Bradley-Evans. Plural Wife: The Life Story of Mabel Finlayson Allred Reviewed by Anne Wilde J. Spencer Fluhman. A Peculiar People: Anti-Mormonism and the Making of Religion in Nineteenth-Century America Reviewed by William D. Russell Samuel Morris Brown. In Heaven as It Is on Earth: Joseph Smith and the Early Mormon Conquest of Death Reviewed by William D. Morain Paul C. Gutjahr. The Book of Mormon: A Biography Reviewed by William D. Morain

12 EDITOR S NOTE Where Have You Gone, Thomas Jefferson? William D. Morain When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. I will always be indebted to Canary Legs, as we called her outside of class. Her real name was Miss Fields, and she was my seventh-grade English teacher. She taught us how to diagram sentences, leading me to a lifelong enchantment with the wondrous structure of the English language what would become for me the foundation of a fortuitous adult avocation as an editor. But the period following English class was American history, where memorization of important documents from the nation s past was a bit less captivating. To make it more interesting one day, I decided to try to diagram that seventy-one-word Gordian knot of a sentence with which Jefferson brought the nation into being. Hunting amidst those sixteen adjectives, dozen prepositional phrases, and a handful of adjective, adverb, and noun clauses, there had to be a subject somewhere in there begging for a predicate. Before reading on, go try to find it. I was struck even then by the fact that the one-word subject Jefferson chose in that most confrontational declaration was respect and a decent one at that. Though he would follow up with twenty-eight grievances against the tyrannical nemesis across the pond, Jefferson introduced the nation to the other powers of the earth, first of all, with respect. One might hope that if the former president were to be reincarnated today, he might be spared the ownership of a radio or a Facebook account in deference to his respectful disposition. But I would hope that, were he oddly to seek membership in the John Whitmer Historical Association, he would feel as though he were safely xii

13 Editor s Note xiii ensconced in the haven of Monticello. For though there must be well beyond twentyeight points of disagreement among our own diverse membership, we are rarely impelled into separate corners. There have always been differences between American mountainfolk and flatlanders. Today s demographers could provide us megabytes of colored maps and charts to help us count the ways. Although geography doesn t define the totality of destiny, it does generate and cement heritage. And as clan is our anthropological birthright, our loyalties come with the territory. But against those separate heritages, what JWHA has unknowingly cultivated over its maturing decades has been the hybrid vigor of multifamily scholarship that has blended our purple mountains and amber waves under the same spacious skies of inquiry. This is a precious institutional birthright in itself and one that will long endure so long as our respect for accuracy in the pursuit of the historical record is matched by our respect for one another. Herein lies our pursuit of happiness.

14 Steven L. Shields, JWHA President

15 Community of Christ s Encounter with Asia: Challenges of Relevance, Pluralism, and Indigenization Steven L. Shields Presidential Address Fortieth Annual Meeting of the John Whitmer Historical Association Independence, Missouri September 22, 2012 Introduction Community of Christ s 1 encounter with Asia began in the aftermath of the Second World War with the influx of US military, government and diplomatic staff who took up residence in Japan as part of the American occupation of that country. 2 Giving ministry to expatriate church members was the initial focus. This extended to Korea with the explosion of the Korean War in 1950 and 1. Community of Christ was adopted in 2001 as the new name of the denomination formerly called Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and prior to that Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. For clarity, the current name of the denomination is generally used throughout, and quotes with the former name have been modified with brackets. 2. The US Army in Post World War II Japan, US Army, accessed August 13, 2012, For the specific authority given to General Douglas A. MacArthur in governing Japan, see Joint Chiefs of Staff, Basic Directive for Post-Surrender Military Government in Japan Proper, November 3, 1945, 1

16 2 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL the heavy American military presence afterward. 3 A 1953 census located seventy-six expatriate church members resident in Japan and Korea. 4 Eventually, local people joined the church 5 and congregations were organized. In the decades that followed, the church expanded beyond Korea and Japan, mainly through contacts between local citizens and church headquarters, beginning with India. 6 In Korea, and in the first congregation in India at Chennai, 7 the church looked much like that in America. The first members were baptized and the first worship services directed by American church members in an era when the church promoted itself as the one true church. Most leaders and members believed the model of worship, the polity, and the message of the church common in the United States was relevant in any cultural scenario. However, as the church expanded farther into India, a different model emerged. Charles D. Neff, 8 a member of the Council of Twelve Apostles, was responsible for organizing the church in Korea and India, but he took two different approaches. His first visit to Korea was in 1959 and to India in His experiences in Korea, in part, gave shape to his approach in India. However, achieving stable growth and developing broad-based and well-grounded indigenous 9 leadership continues to challenge the church on many fronts. Neff s work in both places also helped shape the work of the denomination s Basic Beliefs Committee, which was formed in 1960, the same year World Church appointees 10 were first sent to Asia. This paper will consider Community of Christ s 3. Bruce Cumings, Korea s Place in the Sun: A Modern History (New York and London: W. W. Norton and Company, 1997), 237ff. 4. Matthew Bolton, Apostle of the Poor: The Life and Work of Missionary and Humanitarian Charles D. Neff (Independence, MO: John Whitmer Books, 2005), The use of the word church in this paper will generally refer to Community of Christ as a denominational entity, but in some contexts may refer to the building in which a congregation meets for worship and other activities. 6. Ibid., 56ff. 7. Chennai was known from British colonial times to the late twentieth century as Madras. In 1996, the Indian government renamed many cities, dropping the colonial names for traditional Indian names. Contemporary accounts of the church s history in India use the names then in use. See Indian Place Name Changes, About.com, modified August 23, 2011, 8. Neff ( ) served in the Council of Twelve Apostles from 1958 to The term indigenous in this paper refers to citizens of Korea and India, and people of ethnic, cultural, and language groups in countries other than the United States. The principle of indigenizing the church refers to having a message and mission relevant to specific cultural, ethnic, or language groups, led by people of those same groups. 10. World Church is used by Community of Christ to refer to the denomination and its worldwide administrative function. An appointee is a full-time denomination-level staff member. Most appointees serve in administrative, educational, or consultative or mission-related roles; sometimes called missionary if the primary focus is setting up new congregations or working with developing the church cross-culturally.

17 SHIELDS: Community of Christ s Encounter with Asia 3 missiology as the church engaged in ministry in Korea and India. Experiences in both places had a significant impact on the denomination s understanding of itself and its approach to mission. Although several people were interviewed for the study presented in this paper, the perspective of indigenous leaders and members in India and Korea is lacking. The indirect nature of the cultures makes it difficult for many Indians and Koreans to candidly share their perspectives on the various issues raised. Further, comprehensive historical narrative about the church in India has yet to be gleaned from thousands of potential source documents and oral histories. After brief historical outlines, the paper will consider several issues of relevance, pluralism and indigenization. Finally, this paper will outline a possible strategy for the future. Korea Brief Chronology In the early 1950s William Bill Whenham, a young Aaronic priest 11 stationed with the US Army in Pusan, 12 Korea, shared his religious experiences with several Korean high school-aged students he met there. The group met regularly but informally. In November 1954, Whenham baptized seventeen young people in the sea not far from Pusan. He completed his military duty and returned to the United States in More baptisms followed, but the focus of the work shifted to Seoul, the capital city. Church members in the United States military continued to meet with the Korean church members and their friends. Meetings were held in homes, though holding regular meetings and finding a regular meeting place was difficult in 1950s Korea. The few expatriate church members in Korea were mostly active duty United States military members who were scattered among various bases throughout the peninsula. Several Korean young people attended Graceland College (now University) at Lamoni, Iowa in 1956 and 1957 with help from American church members. Many of them were baptized while at Graceland. 13 Historian Hiroshi Yamada wrote of the 11. Community of Christ typically ordains people to priesthood offices as adults. Whenham was in his early twenties when he was in Korea. 12. Two Romanization systems prevail in Korea. The city is also spelled as Busan. Throughout this paper, prevailing custom, with a preference for the McCune-Reischauer system will be used rather than the Korean government system, adopted in 2000, which in any event is often not applied consistently. For more about Romanization of the Korean language see Hiroshi Yamada, Japan Church History (Independence, MO: Temple School, 2000), 46. Some confusion on the timing of the baptisms in some sources resulted because as an Aaronic priest, Whenham could not confirm the new members. Confirmation took place several months later, in mid I can confirm the November 1954

18 4 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL Yonhidong Congregation and Korea headquarters building in Seoul, completed in 1963 Korean students, Their presence on campus became an object of attention to the Orient. Many people had already heard about the baptism of many young people in Korea, so when they saw the baptisms of those Korean students, the future possibility of the church in Korea seemed to be very affirmative. 14 In November of 1957, Cho Han-guk, 15 not yet baptized but a member in spirit, helped lead the small fellowship group in Seoul. Cho wrote church headquarters explaining that although there were no longer any expatriate church members meeting with them, members and friends still gathered for worship. He asked church leaders to send missionaries to give leadership and expand the ministry of the church. Finally, Charles D. Neff and D. Blair Jensen of the Council of Twelve Apostles traveled to Korea in December of During their visit, Cho and several others were baptized and confirmed. 16 By the time the apostles visit ended, membership in Korea was about eight times that of Japan, with fifty members compared to six or seven. 17 date based on personal conversations with Whenham during his month-long visit to Korea in April 2001, while I was there on church assignment. 14. Yamada, Japan Church History, This paper follows Korean naming conventions with the family name followed by the given name, unless a person otherwise adopted the Western convention. 16. Cho Han-guk and Steven L. Shields, History of Community of Christ in Korea (unpublished manuscript, 2009). Much of the narrative that follows is based on this document and personal conversations with principals. Manuscript and notes in author s possession. See also Bolton, Apostle of the Poor, Bolton, Apostle of the Poor, 28, 40.

19 SHIELDS: Community of Christ s Encounter with Asia 5 Yonhidong church under construction (left) and the sanctuary of Yonhidong church prepared for dedication service, September 1963 (right) William T. Bill and Jane Guthrie were the first missionaries 18 assigned to Korea. They arrived in the spring of 1960 and rented a house in the eastern part of the city at Mokdong, Seoul. Their temporary home became a gathering place for members and friends. A recreation program was started that included basketball and table tennis. Increasing numbers of young people took part; many were baptized. The church bought land in Yonhidong, a neighborhood of Seoul about five miles west of the city s center, and began construction of missionary houses and a church in The new church was dedicated on September 7, Cho Han-guk and Lee Hae-jun (one of the first people baptized in 1954 by Bill Whenham) were the first Koreans ordained to the priesthood. Early in 1961, Lee was ordained to the office of elder and Cho to the office of priest. Cho was installed as the first branch president and Lee was assigned to begin translating the Doctrine and Covenants. Cho was a professor of dentistry and taught at two of Korea s preeminent universities. 20 He served in many volunteer roles in the church in Korea, culminating in his ordination to the office of evangelist, the first in Asia, in Lee immigrated to the United States in the 1970s and died in Church membership continued to increase, and several congregations were organized in Seoul and other cities in Korea. Property was bought; buildings were either remodeled for church use or newly built. A medical clinic in a distant village was 18. The term missionary is applied generically to a full-time denominational staff member. Such a missionary provides leadership in administrative, educational, or consultative roles, as well as personally sharing the gospel with others, and helping members do the same. 19. Program booklet for the dedication in author s possession. 20. Cho graduated from, and later taught at, Seoul National University. In 1989, he moved to Kyhunghee University, also in Seoul, where he founded that university s dental school and served for several years as dean. 21. Community of Christ membership records. Until the mid-1980s, the office of evangelist was called patriarch. Community of Christ evangelists give special blessings as part of their ministry. 22. Author was personally acquainted with Lee and his family in Los Angeles, from 1987 to 1996.

20 6 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL opened in Basic medical and dental services were provided there until 1989 when Korea enacted a national health insurance program. 24 At its headquarters in Yonhidong the church ran a preschool and a middle school for girls for about ten years between 1974 and the mid-1980s. By the mid- 1970s, relief distribution had long ended and membership tapered off. Some of the girls from the school attended church and were baptized, but their participation was not long lasting. Though they had not lost interest, many had graduated from school, found jobs or husbands, and moved from the area. Strong denominational identity has not been traditional among most Korean Protestants, who entered the first comity agreements in Emigration to the United States decimated Community of Christ membership from the mid-1970s. Eventually, the various branches around the city were merged into the headquarters congregation at Yonhidong, with outlying branches closed. A succession of resident missionary families served in Korea until Except for a six-month residence of a volunteer missionary couple through the fall and winter of , the church in Korea remained in charge of indigenous leaders from 1977 to All the Korean church leaders were volunteers with secular employment. Their energy was spent dealing with the management of the medical clinic and school, leaving little time for the ecclesiastical elements of church work. Administrative leadership, however, was based mainly in the United States. Expatriate leaders, either members of the Council of Twelve Apostles or financial officers, made occasional short visits to Korea, coupled with duties in several other countries. Since 1996, resident expatriate missionaries have been assigned to Korea. The original property at Yonhidong was sold in 2003 with the final worship service held in the building almost forty years to the day from its dedication. New property was bought nearby, also in Yonhidong, about one mile from the original site. In the interim, the congregation met in rented facilities. The new building, dedicated in 2009, incorporates sanctuary, classrooms, offices, and residences in a single multistory facility For a brief background history of the clinic, see Maurice L. Draper, Isles and Continents (Independence, MO: Herald Publishing House, 1982), 118ff. 24. Jong-Chan Lee, Health Care Reform in South Korea: Success or Failure?, American Journal of Public Health 93, no. 1 (Summer 2003): Samuel Hugh Moffett, A History of Christianity in Asia, Volume II, (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2005), Author was personally involved, as Korea Church President, in both the sale of the property and the launching of the building program. He conducted the final service in the original building and took part in the dedicatory service of the new building.

21 SHIELDS: Community of Christ s Encounter with Asia 7 New Yonhidong church, dedicated May Relevance of Mission and Message The message of the church as it began its work in Korea was not noticeably different from that of the church in Western nations. Arthur L. Les Gardner 27 said the message was the simple restoration story that the Christian church had gone into apostasy, and Joseph Smith was the instrument of restoration. Further, since the early church was not well grounded when hit with a leadership crisis and per- 27. Gardner, his wife Ava, and their children were the second missionary family assigned to Korea. They served from May 1961 to February 1966.

22 8 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL secution, false doctrine crept in and the church had to be reorganized. 28 However, Gardner said the way he understood and taught the message was not that the church was the only true church, but that its message was truth based. The message was the traditional story of Joseph Smith without claims to exclusivity. He said, The important thing is not that all others were useless, but that our story happened, and we had confidence in the unique message of the church, and the church was true to its sense and understanding of God s call. 29 Despite Gardner s progressive approach to the idea of a true church, the literature of the denomination and the mindset of most of its members was still based on the dispensationalist model of its past. Church literature highlighted the differences between itself and other apostate churches. American-produced church literature was expressed in a cultural and historical frame of reference with socio-economic assumptions that were often irrelevant to the circumstances of Asia s peoples and their cultures. 30 For example, one of the first printed leaflets in Korea gave a comparison of basic beliefs between Community of Christ and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 31 It would take decades for the focus of the message in Korea and the denomination in general to shift from promoting adherence to a system of beliefs to promoting discipleship in community as a way of life. 32 In the earliest years in Korea, the Book of Mormon was not available, but sections of the Doctrine and Covenants that had been translated were used for study and priesthood training. 33 Korean-language versions of other church literature from the United States were also available and in use from an early date. 34 Traditional Community of Christ hymns from the United States were translated and used in worship. Sunday school curriculum produced by church headquarters was translated for use in Korea. The mission report for 1968 listed at least twenty-five different translated publications available in either manuscript or printed form A. L. Gardner, interview with author, March 16, Notes, audio recordings, and transcripts of all interviews and conversations cited in this paper are in author s possession. 29. Ibid. 30. Bolton, Apostle of the Poor, Kyori wa shinjo [Faith and beliefs], mimeographed leaflet, nd (ca. 1961). 32. Steven L. Shields, From System of Beliefs to Way of Life: Fifty Years of Transformation in Community of Christ (paper presented at the annual Sunstone Symposium, Salt Lake City, UT, August 7, 2010). 33. Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Seoul, Korea: Doctrine and Covenant [sic] Class of 1961 ( June 24, 1961), copy in author s possession. 34. Gardner notes that An Open Door by Athol Packer, which describes basic beliefs of the church, was one of the first translated books available for use. 35. Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Seoul, Korea, Mission Report 1968, copy in author s possession.

23 SHIELDS: Community of Christ s Encounter with Asia 9 Selected sections of the Doctrine and Covenants and the full text of the Book of Mormon were published in In 1980, the Korea church published a book that included explanations of basic beliefs, sacraments of the church, priesthood offices, and church administrative structure. Though Korean church members and leaders prepared the book, the contents were fully based on available church literature of the time. The book also included a translation of the first several chapters of Genesis from the Inspired Version ( Joseph Smith Revision) of the Bible, which had been prepared some years earlier. 37 The missionaries in Korea reproduced congregational life with priesthood offices and forms of worship that would have been familiar to most Community of Christ members in the West. Meetings of ministry groups for youth and young adults, such as Zion s League, were organized and held at the Yonhidong church in Seoul. 38 The general model of Community of Christ worship and congregational life was reasonably compatible with the prevailing understanding of Protestant Christianity in Korea, even though the percentage of Christians in Korea in the decade after the Korean War was still small. There was neither a uniquely indigenous Korean model of Christianity nor culturally adapted doctrines or polity. 39 Not long after the military government took power in Seoul in 1961, all churches were required by law to engage in relief work, be it welfare, medical, or educational. 40 The country had been devastated by almost forty years of brutal Japanese colonial rule followed by civil war. The economy and infrastructure were in shambles, there was no industry, and unemployment was high. The needs were great. 41 Bill Guthrie organized a welfare program in which church members in the United States collected used clothing to be sent to US military members in Korea (to take advantage of the US military postal system) for distribution to those in poverty. A November 22, 1961, letter from the Social Service Center in Independence asked if the center should continue to ship boxes of clothing. Guthrie was asked about the effectiveness of the program and the appropriateness of the clothing shipped. 42 Les Gardner recalled that most of the clothing was unusable and Korean church 36. Phillip M. Caswell, interview with author, March 12, Korean church leaders reviewed each section of the Doctrine and Covenants and selected about 80 percent of the total for translation and publication. The full texts of all sections canonized since 1973 have been translated and published. 37. Bokwongyohweeui Shinang [Faith and Beliefs of the Restored Church of Jesus Christ] (Seoul, Korea: Bokwon Yesu Kurisudo Gyohwe, Hanguk Seongyobu, 1980). 38. Zion s League Newsletter, nos. 2, 23 ( June 1963), copy in author s possession. 39. For more on the history of Christianity in Korea, see Samuel Hugh Moffett, A History of Christianity in Asia, v. II: (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2005), 528ff. See also Horace G. Underwood, The Call of Korea (New York, Chicago, Toronto: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1908), 100 ff. 40. Gardner, interview. 41. Cumings, Korea s Place in the Sun, 299 ff. 42. J. Paurot to Brother Guthrie, 22 November 1961, copy in author s possession.

24 10 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL members were embarrassed to share it, but the Korean culture of honor (sometimes called saving face ) made it difficult to say anything to the benefactors in the United States. 43 Welfare work consumed much of the missionaries time. Gardner estimated that half of his time was spent doing welfare projects with the balance being split between trying to learn Korean, training priesthood members, providing pastoral leadership, and teaching new converts. 44 Gardner noted especially that once the newly built church was opened in 1963, the nature of the mission in Korea changed. Crowds gathered at the entrance each morning seeking help. The church s efforts were so focused on relief distribution that people were joining the church not because of its spiritual message but because it was helping them in their day-to-day existence. Les Gardner said, People were not attracted to the message but to the giving we could do. Many were baptized, but their commitment was not to the ideals of the church. 45 He also reflected, I didn t see that there was a lot of understanding of what [Community of Christ] tradition and religion meant There were deep attachments, very deep feelings in response to love they d been shown but a lot of people, I think, knew very little about religion. 46 However, Gardner recognized that people needed first to be converted to the message of the church so that they would respond by doing the kinds of practical missional tasks that would make a difference in places where the church was located. This goal has remained elusive. 47 Years later Neff came to a similar conclusion. He declared, Church-sponsored social welfare ministry can actually retard the proper growth and development of the church, and advocated instead that affiliate organizations should handle social welfare work. 48 Phillip M. Phil Caswell 49 worked hard through the 1970s to focus the members in Korea on the church s message with a large library of church literature being translated into Korean. He found the manuscript of the Korean translation of the Book of Mormon and wondered about its relevance. Neff suggested he consult the members. The Korean members agreed that the scriptures and hymnody were important unifying elements for Community of Christ. 50 Caswell planned a curriculum for sev- 43. Gardner, interview; Les Gardner, oral history interview #3, interviewed by E. Keith Henry, 1990, Community of Christ Archives; William T. Guthrie to Steven L. Shields, undated (ca. 1998), copy in author s possession. 44. Gardner, interview. 45. Ibid. 46. Gardner, oral history. 47. Gardner, interview. 48. Bolton, Apostle of the Poor, Caswell, his wife Darlene, and their children served in Korea from 1968 to He later served in the Council of Twelve Apostles. 50. Caswell, interview, March 21, 2012.

25 SHIELDS: Community of Christ s Encounter with Asia 11 eral age groups, encouraged home worship, and tried to develop regular priesthood meetings for training. 51 The message of the church in Korea in the 1960s was thought to be clear: Help the poor. Simple as it was, helping the poor neither increased church membership nor grew a cadre of potential leaders. Goods and services were cheap compared with the US economy, so donations from America could readily be put to good use. When the 1988 Olympic Games were held in Seoul, the Korean economy had developed to a point that the church s social welfare work had become redundant. The church s clinic at Maigok was closed when Korea s national health care program was launched. Increased funding for public schools replaced the need for the church to run its school for girls. 52 The members of the church in Korea who saw their reason for existence caught up in these great missionary products of the past, which had gone away [the people of the church were] looking for an emotional tie to the past but needed a new sense of mission, a new focus. 53 By the late 1980s few members were attending. Well into the late 1990s, the church in Korea was still being funded from headquarters despite economic advancement in the nation and among the active members. Les Gardner recalled the difficulty of teaching about tithing and financial stewardship. Korean church members had become dependent on support from church headquarters and expected that financial support would continue into the future. 54 In fact, late in 1996, in a budget discussion at the Yonhidong church, a couple of older adult church members who joined in the 1960s and were now in long-established, well-paying careers recalled, Brother Gardner said we didn t have to pay tithing. 55 Clearly, they were remembering their high school years and the church s then-prevailing stewardship practices. 56 Issues of Pluralism One of the first challenges in Korea was to find a usable translation of the denomination s name. In 1960 Community of Christ was known as Reorganized Church 51. Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Seoul, Korea, Mission Report 1968, copy in author s possession. 52. James C. Cable, interview with author, March 5, See South Korea-Educational System Overview, accessed September 1, 2012, SYSTEM-OVERVIEW.html. 53. Cable, interview. 54. Gardner, interview. 55. Choi Hye-jin and Oh Eun-young, conversation with author, December 10, Until early in the twenty-first century, Community of Christ practice of tithing took into account a member s just wants and needs against income to determine increase, of which 10 percent would be contributed as tithing. As teenagers in high school would have no income, there could be no surplus to tithe.

26 12 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. 57 The name of the Utah-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had been previously registered in Korea. Therefore, in order not to cause confusion in name recognition and legal documentation, Guthrie decided simply to drop Latter Day Saints and call the church Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ. Unfortunately, the Korean words for reorganized (based on Chinese root vocabulary) inferred an internal restructuring of personnel or an external restructuring of something that had been lost or weakened. 58 Although reorganized might accurately express the church s historical view, it would not communicate a message and identity to people unaware of the church s history. Also, the Korean words (based on Chinese root vocabulary) for latter day saints inferred an end of the world dispensationalist meaning that had cult written all over it. 59 An interesting side note is that early in the twenty-first century, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints also changed its translated name in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, (and perhaps other languages) by dropping the Chinese root words that infer end of the world and replacing them with words that mean later time period. 60 Neff suggested the church in Asia adopt the name Restored Church of Jesus Christ, a change that was quickly accepted by the missionaries and members in Korea. He and others felt that this would clearly distinguish the church from the other American denomination. Many, however, including members of the First Presidency, felt the full name of the church must be used. A letter from church president W. Wallace Smith expressed his rejection of the suggestion. He insisted that the full name of the church could not be changed under any circumstance, regardless of the country in which the church might be operating, and criticized Neff for unilaterally making the name change. Actually, Neff had not suggested a change in the church s English-language name but only in the local languages where the church was operating. He recommended keeping the English-language name as the legal name alongside local languages when 57. From 1838 to 1872, the church was known as Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. However, because of the fragmentation of the original church following the death of founder Joseph Smith, other denominations were using the same name. Due to the need for distinction, especially over the issue of polygamy being practiced by at least one of those other denominations, church leaders in Illinois added reorganized as a prefix to the name, to express historical and doctrinal differences. 58. The same is true for most languages in Asia that use Chinese root words (including Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, and others). 59. See Yamada, Japan Church History, 125ff, for a discussion of the Japan church s version of this same struggle. 60. A new edition of the LDS Church s Korean language Book of Mormon was published in 2005, and carries the revised church name in Korean. Instead of Mal-il Sung-do Yesu Kurisudo Kyo Hwe, the name is now Yesu Kurisudo Hu-gi Sung-do Kyo Hwe. Changed signage on LDS church-owned buildings in Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Korea was observed by the author beginning in 2005.

27 SHIELDS: Community of Christ s Encounter with Asia 13 published. The dispute continued for several months until the First Presidency ultimately adopted Neff s view and granted permission for the new Korean name. 61 Although Neff and others thought that Restored Church of Jesus Christ (in Korean Bok-Won Yesu Kurisudo Kyo Hwe) would clearly distinguish Community of Christ from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, such was not the case. Well into the first years of the twenty-first century, people in Korea continued to confuse the two because of the inclusion of Jesus Christ in the denomination names. In fact, only those two denominations used Jesus Christ spelled out phonetically in the Korean alphabet rather than the Chinese root word for Christ that most Korean denominations used. 62 When Community of Christ adopted its new name, many believed that the denomination had found a universal name. 63 However in Asian languages using Chinese-based vocabulary, the words for community are either too generic (as in public, as might be used for a park or telephone) or too politicized (as in communism ). In Korea, the choice was made to use Community of Christ in English but to spell it phonetically in the Korean alphabet when necessary. 64 Although ordaining women to the priesthood did not pose any strong challenges to the membership in Korea, it was not performed until the early 1990s. 65 When Community of Christ began in Korea, the practice of close communion 66 prevailed, and church members there held to a strict interpretation of that practice. Korean priesthood members would serve only those they were certain were baptized members of Community of Christ, withholding it from people they did not know personally unless someone could vouch for their membership. Although the denomination decided in 1994 to adopt a policy of open communion and allow all Christians to share in communion, it took a few years for the church in Korea to adopt the new practice Yamada, Japan Church History, 129ff. 62. Personal experience and dozens of conversations by the author, beginning in In Korean, Jesus Christ is Yesu Kurisudo; most Protestant denominations use Yesu Kidok (Kidok is the Korean pronunciation of the Chinese word for Christ ). 63. Author s personal recollection and journal notes. Several private conversations and public discussion at World Conference 2000 in Independence, Missouri, dealt with the name change. 64. Getting this decision ratified by the apostle in charge of Korea, however, took several months with considerable conversation about language and translation challenges. The Korean language uses a twenty-four-letter phonetic alphabet. There are pure Korean words that can only be written in the alphabet, but much of the language s vocabulary is based on Chinese root words, which can be written using Chinese characters. 65. Women s ordination was permitted by Doctrine and Covenants 156, canonized in Although sometimes confused with closed communion, Community of Christ has always defined its pre policy as close communion, restricting service to baptized members of the denomination, even though they might attend and take communion in congregation other than where their membership was currently registered. 67. Gardner, interview, oral history.

28 14 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL Indigenization One of the first challenges of the emerging global church was to deal with a legal system in Korea that was very different from the United States or Europe, especially regarding the purchase of land. World Church policy, based on an American legal understanding, required property titles to be held in trust by the Presiding Bishopric. 68 However, for the church in Korea to own immovable assets and to benefit from the tax-free status granted to charitable organizations, a Korean corporation had to be set up. When told in 1963 that the corporate filing had been rejected and that neither Presiding Bishop G. Leslie DeLapp nor a member of the First Presidency could be included as members of the Korean corporation, DeLapp wrote to Les Gardner: We are therefore instructing you to again try to include my name as Presiding Bishop and Brother Draper s name as a member of the First Presidency. If the lawyer that you have is not competent to do this, then we think that you should investigate some other possibilities. It doesn t seem reasonable to us that there is not some way of getting this accomplished. DeLapp proclaimed that he would write to the US Senator from Missouri to help in the matter. 69 Legally, DeLapp was working to secure title to church properties and to protect church assets, assuming that church rules that functioned in the United States and Europe would be equally acceptable in Korea. 70 Correspondence between Neff, Gardner, DeLapp, and an attorney in Korea, S. G. Sohn, went back and forth for several months in Neff s biographer wrote: Since Korean law only allowed residents to be members of legal corporations, Neff was forced to be dishonest. On the official documents, Korean addresses were written for Neff and DeLapp. Luckily, Neff happened to be in Korea when officials came to verify the addresses, but because DeLapp lived in the United States, he was not allowed on the board. DeLapp must have felt it was more ethical to lie than to adapt to Korean objective culture World Conference Resolution 866, adopted April 14, 1926, Presiding Bishopric as Trustees World Conference Resolutions 2002 Edition (Independence, MO: Community of Christ, 2002). 69. G. L. DeLapp to A. Leslie Gardner, 11 June 1963, copy in author s possession. 70. Kees Compier (former bishop for Europe), conversation with author, October 1, Compier said that in most western European countries where the church was operating in the 1960s, the trustee-ship of the Presiding Bishopric had not been a problem. 71. G. Leslie DeLapp to S. G. Sohn, 7 November 1963; S. G. Sohn to G. Leslie DeLapp, 14 November 1963, copies in author s possession. 72. Bolton, Apostle of the Poor, 39.

29 SHIELDS: Community of Christ s Encounter with Asia 15 Eventually, the matter was sorted out to the satisfaction of Korean law and church policies a new approach to understanding the universality of church policy having been developed by the World Church leadership. In 1961 membership record-reporting forms asked for information about the race of each person who was baptized and confirmed. Several letters went between Korea and church headquarters on the matter, with Gardner pointing out that in Korea the people were Korean and not Mongoloid, the term being suggested by headquarters. The issue was resolved by a compromise in which non-koreans would have their race listed according to American custom at the time, while Koreans would be listed as Korean. 73 Concern was also expressed on the casualness by which Korean church leaders were filling in the blanks and identifying addresses. Gardner had to explain that Korean women did not take their husband s surnames upon marriage; headquarters had difficulty dealing with the custom. An added challenge was that for Koreans (and Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, and other neighboring cultures) the first name is the family name (or surname), while the last name is the given name just the reverse of Western naming culture. A historian was appointed with the clear expectation that the reports would be sent to headquarters in English rather than Korean. Therefore, the Korea church had to be sure that its historian was bilingual. 74 Neff s Japan-centric focus posed many challenges for the Korea church since his evident presumption was that Japan and Korea were essentially the same. Speaking of Neff and his missionary staff in Japan, Gardner recalled, It was all one lump sum as if we were all dealing with the Orient, and therefore, we all ought to develop a common strategy. 75 Yet the circumstances of the two countries could not have been more different. There were not only cultural and language differences but economic differences as well. The missionaries in Korea were spending their time dealing with welfare work, while the missionaries in Japan were spending time reading and discussing methods to evangelize. 76 Korea was less than ten years out from a war that had devastated the infrastructure and split the nation in half. Southern Korea was the country s breadbasket, while the paucity of arable land in the mountainous north had led to industrial development. 73. A. L. Gardner to James Lancaster, 25 July 1961; James Lancaster to Leslie A. Gardner [sic], 1 August 1961; James Lancaster to A. L. Gardner, 13 September 1961, copies in author s possession. 74. Charles A. Davies to Hyun Joong Shik, 23 August 1961, copy in author s possession. 75. Gardner, oral history. 76. Gardner, interview, oral history.

30 16 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL In contrast, by 1960, the Japanese economy had mostly recovered from the Second World War, which in any event had barely damaged the industrial infrastructure of the nation. Neff s plan was to have the church run businesses, such as preschools and English-language schools, to provide financial support for church operations. This worked well in Japan s stable economy, with the church in Tokyo centered in an upper-class neighborhood. 77 However, Yonhidong was an economically marginal neighborhood on the outskirts of the city. Korean society, particularly in the lower fringes of the economy, was transient well into the 1980s. Rental contracts were typically limited to between six months and a year. Renewing a rental contract for the same residence was rare, as rising real estate prices also meant that rents rose faster than incomes. Few in Yonhidong owned their own homes. The population often moved back and forth across the country in search of employment and affordable housing, making stable congregational participation difficult. 78 Indeed, a less Japan-centric understanding of the church in Asia by World Church officers has been needed all along. For example, in the 1980s, World Church assigned Japanese administrators to be responsible for some parts of the Korea church operation. Individually, although few Korean church members harbored ill will toward Japanese church members, the Japanese takeover of Korea in the first half of the twentieth century had left heavy tolls on the Korean psyche. (A decadeslong territorial dispute between Korea and Japan was in the news again in 2012.) The allegations that the Japanese government had whitewashed its nation s history in school textbooks and that an estimated two hundred thousand Korean high school girls 79 had been kidnapped as sex slaves for the Japanese army during the Second World War continued to cause great pain for the survivors and the Korean people. 80 In 2010 when Community of Christ president Stephen M. Veazey went to Japan and Korea, he visited the memorial at Hiroshima, Japan. One Korean church member wondered why Veazey was apologizing to the Japanese for the atomic bomb but was not scheduled to visit the shrine in Korea that memorialized the millions of Koreans who had suffered and died under Japanese brutality Bolton, Apostle of the Poor, This continued into the late 1970s, when the author first lived in Korea and experienced trying to find current addresses for church members. 79. This is about the same number estimated to have been wounded or died because of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasake. See Cumings, Korea s Place in the Sun, Lee: Japan s emperor should apologize if he wants to visit S. Korea, Yonhap News Agency, August 14, 2012; Japan under fire for denying responsibility for wartime sexual enslavement, Yonhap News Agency, August 28, 2012; Colonization anniversary haunted by fresh Japanese imperialism, Yonhap News Agency, August 29, Choi Mose, conversation with author, November 7, 2010.

31 SHIELDS: Community of Christ s Encounter with Asia 17 From a World Church perspective, Hiroshima serves today as a call to renounce nuclear war. In contrast, for the Korean people Hiroshima serves as a symbol of liberation because the bomb ended the Japanese colonial era, allowing the Korean people to once again use their language and their Korean names that had been outlawed under Japanese rule. 82 Having been denied participation in the International Military Tribunal for the Far East at the end of the Second World War and having been unilaterally divided by Western powers without Korean consultation, the Korean nation continues to seek justice. Unfortunately, few Westerners are aware of this side of the story. 83 The initial effort to put in place a broad-based leadership system of lay priesthood in the Korea church was a challenge. Priesthood offices and the administrative structure of Community of Christ were not familiar to most Koreans. Even with extensive training, early Korean members had difficulty understanding what priesthood meant to the church, how people were invited to priesthood office, and how the duties of the various offices were designed to create an effective volunteer local ministry. As Les Gardner recalled: The concept of lay priesthood and priesthood function was less convincing to them. They pretty much saw being a minister as an opportunity for economic security in a place where so many people were desperate for employment, it somehow didn t seem right to them that you were talking about a church with no paid ministry the whole idea of being a priesthood member and being self-supporting was continually a very difficult concept. The person called and ordained, after several months, would inevitably be talking about some kind of employment, and when you pointed out that that wasn t an anticipation, they would justify not being able to function as a priesthood member. And in many cases, they had a point, because in order to make a living [in Korea] it took an enormous amount of your time and energy. 84 Further, Gardner averred that Neff had unwittingly forestalled leadership development by allowing the few who could speak English to have direct access to him, in the process bypassing the authorized administrative line through the missionaries on the ground who were learning the language and living with the people daily. Neff would often overrule the missionaries, said Gardner, making frequent and sometimes dramatic changes in the administrative structure. As a result, indigenous 82. Michael Breen, The Koreans: Who They Are, What They Want, Where their Future Lies (New York: St. Martin s Press, 1998), Judgment International Military Tribunal for the Far East Indictment, November 12, 1948, rewi.hu-berlin.de/tokyo.anklageschrift.pdf. Also Susan Townsend, Japan s Quest for Empire , BBC, last modified March 30, 2011, See also Cumings, Korea s Place in the Sun, 185ff. 84. Gardner, oral history.

32 18 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL leadership became invested in one person rather than a cadre of potential leaders, thereby inhibiting long-term development. 85 Even though they understood that Neff could not speak Korean, non-englishspeaking church members and newer members could be put off by Neff s propensity to spend most of his time with English-speakers and older members who attended church only when Neff visited Korea. There was a sense on the part of the non-english speakers that Neff made no effort to associate with them. They began to resent his approach, worrying that Neff was getting advice from a limited group of people. Further, because he made only brief visits, Neff could get only a limited feel for the nature of the church or the people. 86 The missionaries found the situation frustrating because of their sense that Neff was naïve. One missionary said, He presumed that everybody would be as loving and genuine back to him as he was to them. And so it was beyond his imagination that the Koreans could have been uncharacteristic in their attitudes and behavior while he was there. So it was very difficult for him to believe that they would be putting on a show or catering to him or using a little flattery and putting on special treatment. 87 This general pattern is often seen when expatriate leadership is not conversant in the languages or cultures of the churches in their areas of service. A disagreement on leadership development emerged early in 1963 and festered for almost a decade. Les Gardner had contracted with a young Methodist minister, Pak Chi-song, to be his language tutor. Gardner recalled that Neff got very excited about this, hoping that Gardner would quickly convert Pak in order that the church might have a theologically trained indigenous church leader. Gardner wanted to take more time, feeling that consistent leadership development with more than one person over a longer period was more important. He was concerned about developing a team of leaders who could work well together. On one of Neff s visits, as Gardner recalled, Pak chose to announce dramatically that he wanted to join the church, having previously said nothing to Gardner or others. Soon after, Neff hired Pak and appointed him to a leadership role. 88 Feeling he had Neff on his side, Pak allegedly moved quickly to alienate the expatriate missionaries: first Gardner, then Ralph Ferrett, 89 and finally Phil Caswell. Pak seemingly wanted to make all the decisions for the church in Korea himself and to do it without any partnership or local oversight from other Korean leaders Gardner, oral history. 86. Gardner, interview. 87. Gardner, oral history. 88. Ibid. 89. Ralph E. Ferrett and his family served in Korea from1962 to Caswell, interview, March 21, 2012; Ralph E. Ferrett and Beryl Judd Ferrett, Memories of Korea , unpublished manuscript, copy in author s possession.

33 SHIELDS: Community of Christ s Encounter with Asia 19 Not only did Pak have difficulty working with the expatriate missionaries, he was also at odds with many of the Korean church leaders who had been members and ministers longer than he. Pak was accused of excluding all who did not automatically support his decisions. A petition to Neff from eight Korean priesthood members, dated October 7, 1966, outlined twelve charges against Pak, including embezzlement of church funds, maladministration of church affairs, favoritism, and functioning as an autocrat. 91 After some negotiation, Neff thought the problem resolved, and Pak was ordained to the office of seventy in However, leadership and personal conflicts with Pak would continue to plague the church in Korea. Finally, Phil Caswell chose to close the Yonhidong Congregation temporarily. The problem ended when Pak moved to the United States in Neff was mystified by his observation of some of the people who signed the 1966 petition opposing Pak. In a letter responding to one of the petitioners, Neff noted that when he had visited Seoul late in September 1966, that this man gave the appearance of sincere congeniality with Elder Pak. Neff wrote, Brother Yun, I must say that I am quite disappointed over the fact that you said nothing to me about any of these charges when I was there in September. You and the others had ample opportunity to do so I doubt that all these evidences of misconduct have become known to you in the brief period since my visit. Why did you not say anything about them? 94 Neff seems to have lacked an understanding that Koreans, and people in Asia in general, are reluctant to confront elders or higher-ranking leaders with issues of concern. This is connected to what many have called saving face, although that is an oversimplification of a multifaceted social construct. Saving face is based on honoring personal relations with others. All are sensitive to the behavior of others as well as themselves. Indirect communication may be valued over candid speech; direct criticism is considered rude; conflict is resolved when the two parties simply agree to pretend it never happened; direct confrontation is avoided. In business situations this may include not telling the truth about something, withholding bad news, or not 91. Hwang Chong Sik, et al., to Charles D. Neff, 7 October 1966 and Charles D. Neff to Yun Jun Gi, 14 November 1966, copies in author s possession. 92. Community of Christ membership records. 93. Cho and Shields, Korea Church History ; Guthrie to Shields, undated; Phil Caswell to C. D. Neff, 20 October 1969; Phil Caswell to Yon Hi Dong Congregation and Church in Korea, 5 December 1969; Phil Caswell to C. D. Neff, 29 December 1969; Phillip M. Caswell to Priesthood and Members of Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, 18 February 1970; Charles D. Neff to Pak Chi Song, 23 March 1970; Phillip M. Caswell to Members of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, 21 April 1970, copies in author s possession. 94. Charles D. Neff to Yun Jun Gi, 14 November 1966, copy in author s possession.

34 20 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL bringing up mistakes that have been made. 95 This may be one reason Koreans have said nothing over the years about their discomfort over the Japan-centric mindset of some of the expatriate leadership. When Phil Caswell was preparing to move to Korea early in 1968, Neff told him to identify where he thought the Spirit was at work, checking with others for confirmation, and then correcting course. Caswell sensed an intuition to focus on developing indigenous leaders. This would mean, in part, that with information and choices, the members and leaders could decide what needed to be done. He recognized that a key factor to be considered in leadership development was that Koreans are relational. They do not easily connect with others, but when they do, the connections are long term. However, the frequent rotation of missionaries in Korea has tended to disrupt relationships that are not readily transferrable to new leaders. 96 Whereas some church members were loyal to the expatriate missionaries, others felt more loyalty to Korean leaders. Whenever conflict erupted, however, most members would tend to side with the latter. 97 When expatriate missionaries were withdrawn from Korea in the late 1970s, leadership of the church passed to the hands of indigenous volunteer priesthood members. Cho Han-guk was asked to take charge of the church. He resisted for some time, knowing the difficulties and demands of church work. His career in dentistry, both in private practice and as a professor at the university, required most of his attention. With Korea s long workweek and time-consuming commutes across busy, congested metropolitan areas, Cho and a few other volunteers had difficulty doing more than keeping the doors open. But they were faithful servants and leaders for many years. John P. Jac Kirkpatrick 98 realized that for indigenous leadership to take hold fully, decades of training with a mentor would be required. Kirkpatrick said, In the beginning, expatriate leaders may need to be in charge, but they need to quickly make a transition to local leaders and become resource and training people, leading from behind. He also saw a continued need for some manner of full-time support staff, whether paid or volunteer. 99 As it was, resident full-time support staff were on a rotation schedule, and there had been a twenty-year absence of resident staff whose administrative duties extended beyond Korea. Longstanding mentors giving 95. Boye Lafayetee DeMente, NTC s Dictionary of Korea s Business and Cultural Code Words (Chicago: NTC Publishing Group, 1998), Phillip M. Caswell, interview with author, March 15, 2012; General Goals of Korea Mission, undated (ca. 1970), copy in author s possession. 97. Caswell, interview, March 21, Kirkpatrick was a member of the Council of Twelve Apostles. He was responsible for East Asia from 1996 to 2007, and all of Asia from 2000 to John P. Jac Kirkpatrick, interview with author, March 7, 2012.

35 SHIELDS: Community of Christ s Encounter with Asia 21 side-by-side leadership might have been more helpful in developing a stable cadre of indigenous leaders or a stable core of members. When Jim Cable and other leaders saw a need to reintroduce resident expatriate missionary leadership into Korea to find new ways to express the church s mission, some World Church leaders resisted the idea. They were justifiably frustrated that such economically developed places could not pay their own way and resisted the idea for several years. 100 The denomination recast its mission statement in 1994, giving the church the newly focused statement of purpose, We proclaim Jesus Christ and promote communities of joy, hope, love, and peace, 101 thereby expressing all the Enduring Principles of the church. 102 The statement underscored the call to the church discerned by Joseph Smith in the church s earliest years, both to share the fullness of the gospel throughout the world (Doctrine and Covenants 1:4/LDS 1:23) and to seek to bring forth and establish the cause of Zion (Doctrine and Covenants 6:3/LDS 6:6). This new articulation of the essential message of the church introduced new opportunities for evangelism when the World Church decided in 1996 to again assign expatriate missionaries to Korea. 103 Jac Kirkpatrick said that Community of Christ s message of the worth of all persons in a Christ-centered community reaching beyond society s boundaries was a message to which people would respond. He felt that in Korea the church did not want to compete with megachurches but wanted to develop a genuinely relational ministry to which some would respond. 104 The church s redefined mission statement helped create a newly focused approach in Korea that attracted several new young adults to the church in the first decade of the twenty-first century. One young man in Seoul recalled, I do not have much interest in church history, and I do not care about Joseph Smith. What I found in the Yonhidong Congregation at Seoul was a community where I could share my giftedness, bring my friends to share, and belong to a church where there was freedom for everyone to be leaders rather than a pastor taking charge and giving 100. Cable, interview The First Presidency, 1996 World Conference Reports, Sharing in Community of Christ: Exploring Identity, Mission, Message, and Beliefs, 3rd ed. (Independence, MO: Herald Publishing House, 2012), Author was assigned by church headquarters to move to Korea in September When his assignment was changed to be leadership development officer for Asia, Gary Logan was assigned to Korea, but he did not live there full time. Adam Wade and his family were assigned in They reside in Korea as of September Author knew Cho Han-guk from the mid-1980s, and spent many hundreds of hours in conversation with and receiving counsel from Cho between 1996 and Kirkpatrick, interview.

36 22 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL top-down restrictive leadership. The church is a special community, with a unique atmosphere and environment. 105 When Bill Guthrie and Bill Whenham visited Korea in 2001, they located about half of the original group of about thirty-five members Whenham had baptized. Guthrie had baptized several more during the two years he served in Korea. Of the members located, most were actively involved in a Christian church in their own neighborhoods. They still identified the beginnings of their Christian commitment with the church at Yonhidong but understood their affiliation congregationally rather than denominationally. 106 A high percentage of the stable core group of membership in the 1960s, many of whom were bilingual and more highly educated than the average population of their generation, had immigrated to the United States by the mid-1970s and most continued to be active in a Korean Christian church in their new communities. 107 India Brief Chronology A few people in India began writing to church headquarters in the 1950s. The first baptisms were in 1958, performed by W. E. Gene Connell, a high priest from Colorado who was a visiting professor at a university in Peshawar, Pakistan at the time. 108 Over the next few years, Connell would respond to occasional requests from church headquarters to travel to India to visit with inquirers. 109 In 1964, Connell and his wife Ruby, on another trip to India, met with William Samuel Jesudawson in Chennai. Jesudawson had been introduced to Community of Christ through his brother who had studied at a Protestant seminary in Kansas City and had encountered the denomination. Jesudawson went on to correspond with church headquarters for several years. Jesudawson had trained as a Presbyterian minister and started a small congregation in a poor part of Chennai. The Connells instructed Jesudawson and his congregation, baptized thirty people, ordained Jesudawson to the office of elder, and installed him as pastor of the first congregation of Community of Christ in India Choi Mose, interview with author, August 21, See note Author s personal notes. Author hosted Guthrie and Whenham on their visit Inez Smith Davis, The Story of the Church, 12th ed. (Independence, MO: Herald Publishing House, 1984), 607. The date of baptism of the Gideon family is reported as April 13, Bolton, Apostle of the Poor, Ibid., 62.

37 SHIELDS: Community of Christ s Encounter with Asia 23 First Community of Christ church built in India, at Chennai Connell, disturbed by the extreme poverty of the members there, arranged for the church to provide money and other support. 111 Apostles Charles D. Neff and Clifford A. Cole traveled to India in 1965 where they met with Jesudawson and the new congregation at Chennai. They also traveled to Berhampur, several hundred miles north of Chennai, where they met G. S. Chawla who had learned of Community of Christ in the early 1960s. G. S. Chawla, a Sikh, was an adult convert to a Pentecostal-leaning Baptist fellowship that was doing missions work in India. He had felt the need to work with people of the Sora and Kui tribes in Orissa. 112 He especially sensed the need for medical work and literacy training. Chawla promoted homeopathic medicine and set up a reading room at Berhampur. Although he was regarded somewhat as an expatriate among the Sora and Kui peoples, they accepted him and valued the educational work he did because government school programs were not available. When Neff and Cole arrived in Berhampur, Chawla explained he had more than one hundred people, all of them Hindus, ready for baptism. In fact, he informed 111. Draper, Isles and Continents, Orissa is one of the states of India, located on the east coast of the country.

38 24 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL them that about thirty people were then waiting for the two apostles at a nearby lake. Chawla was not yet a member. It is unclear just what kind of preparation Chawla and his congregants had, what books he may have used in his teachings, or how they understood Community of Christ. Nevertheless, immediately after baptism and confirmation, Chawla was ordained to the office of elder. 113 With Neff s help, Chawla developed a network of Bible teachers by recruiting teenage boys and teaching them to read and write using Bible stories. Each week the boys would gather for class and then return to their respective villages. On Sunday mornings they would teach the lesson to the villagers. 114 The two sites of the first Community of Christ efforts in India are different. Chennai, a large city and capital of the southeastern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, is developed with readily accessible educational and medical services. The majority population of the state is the Tamil people, one of the largest Indian ethnic groups with a long history and a richly developed sense of civilization. 115 James C. Jim Cable 116 suggested that the church in Chennai, in contrast to rural Orissa, could not and did not make much difference in the daily lives of the people of the city. 117 A third state where Community of Christ works is Andhra Pradesh. There the church consists largely of a network of formerly independent Christian congregations who have chosen to identify with Community of Christ. 118 There were many opportunities for the church to be helpful in Orissa. Chawla continued with his health ministry, and a clinic was built in the village of Antarba with financial support from church headquarters. An agricultural development project was started with support from the World Church. 119 In the village of Gumiguda the church built and staffed a primary school that is still running after more than forty years. However, medical services were lacking, life was at a basic survival level, and more advanced education was available only in distant cities. Not until the early twenty-first century had basic community infrastructure, such as electricity and roads, begun to be provided by the government. When Gene Connell had argued in 1965 for the church to expand its ministry beyond preaching the gospel and to deal 113. Draper, Isles and Continents, 130. See also Richard P. Howard, The Church Through the Years, vol. 2 (Independence, MO: Herald Publishing House, 1993), 335. Matthew Bolton has the story somewhat differently in his recitation of India s church history (see 61 62). From his narrative Chawla was acting independently of Jesudawson; Neff and Cole are said to have visited Berhampur first, then Chennai (Madras) Howard S. Bud Sheehy, interview with author, March 6, For a brief sketch see Wikipedia, s.v. Tamil People, last modified November 5, 2012, org/wiki/tamil_people James C. Cable, a member of the Council of Twelve Apostles from 1982 to 1996, was responsible for India, and other parts of Asia from 1982 to Cable, interview Andrew Bolton, interview with author, March 1, Draper, Isles and Continents,

39 SHIELDS: Community of Christ s Encounter with Asia 25 Typical village church, Orissa, India more with the practical needs of the people he had met in India, the church quickly responded to his suggestion. 120 Although Jesudawson died unexpectedly soon after Neff s and Cole s visit, the membership in southern India continued to increase. Within a couple of years from its official organization in 1965, there were four congregations meeting in Chennai and another congregation in Bangalore. The church in Orissa also continued to grow under Chawla s leadership until his death in Two young leaders emerged in the India church in the early 1970s, both of whose leadership expanded the church from its small beginnings. In Orissa was N. Ananda Rao, for whom Chawla had been a mentor. In Chennai was P. Samuel S. Kumar, who was baptized in 1970 by pastor J. W. W. Moses, the church leader who succeeded Jesudawson. Rao and Kumar were later ordained to the office of seventy (Rao in 1972 and Kumar in 1982), Kumar serving for several years as a president of seventy. Rao was ordained to the office of high priest in In addition, Indian church leaders have had roles in planting Community of Christ congregations in Sri Lanka and Nepal Ibid., Howard, The Church Through the Years, Community of Christ membership records Dale E. Luffman, interview with author, March 5, 2012.

40 26 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL Youth hostel in Berhampur, India, was opened in 2003 Kumar led the continued ministry of the church in Tamil Nadu, with new congregations being organized in several other cities of the state. Rao led the church s expansion from a few villages in Orissa in 1972 to almost two hundred congregations in two different tribal areas of the state and in the neighboring state of Andhra Pradesh. Both men retired from full-time church service in the first decade of the twenty-first century. Leadership has been passed to a new group of men and women who, in some cases, are third- and fourth-generation Community of Christ members. 124 In 2003, the church dedicated a newly built hostel for boys in Berhampur, Orissa, India. Middle school and high school-aged boys from the rural villages, most of whom began their schooling in the church s school at Gumiguda, have since had a safe place to live when they go to the city to further their education. In response to recognition of the importance of leadership development, a World Church program called Ministerial Education and Discipleship Studies (MEADS) was launched in Asia, with the first classes held in India in February MEADS was a direct outcome of the church s newly articulated mission statement. 126 The program s curriculum trains leaders in a systematic way that is in alignment with the identity, mission, message, and beliefs of Community of Christ. The program provides opportunities for church leaders in India to learn and to develop leadership skills This is based on my personal knowledge of the principals and circumstances in India, having worked with and trained many of the leaders for seven years between 2004 and Author was reassigned in the spring of 2004 from duties as East Asia Mission Center President (Korea, Japan, Taiwan, East Asia Development Area) to develop the training program for the Asia Mission Field The First Presidency, 1996 World Conference Reports, 71.

41 SHIELDS: Community of Christ s Encounter with Asia 27 Dale Luffman teaching a class in the first session of MEADS conducted in India, 2004 Relevance of Message and Mission Back when Neff arrived in India late in 1965, the congregation at Chennai had closely resembled a typical Community of Christ congregation in the United States, probably because of the influence of the Connells. Howard S. Bud Sheehy 127 said that when he first visited Chennai, he was surprised when the children sang a song about Joseph Smith. He learned that Ruby Connell had taught them the song. Another church member from the United States, Marilyn Sorden, who had been a librarian at Graceland University, also lived for a year in Chennai and worked closely with the congregation there. 128 When Neff first visited India, he had framed many of the key questions being addressed by the denomination s Basic Beliefs Committee. The committee s task had been to discover the central message 129 of the church and provide a more 127. Howard S. Bud Sheehy was the member of the Council of Twelve Apostles responsible for India and other parts of Asia from 1970 to He later served in the First Presidency Sheehy, interview Bolton, Apostle of the Poor, 40

42 28 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL Congregation leadership team in front of the church at Madurai, India. adequate statement of beliefs than the Epitome of Faith. 130 The committee was also to expand historical and traditional points of view based on contemporary religious experience and scholarship. 131 Questions confronting the efforts of the church in Asia helped the committee define its work more broadly and underscored the urgency of its task. 132 As such, the work of the committee would eventually give shape to a new articulation of the church s identity, mission, message, and beliefs. Historian Matthew Bolton said about Neff s experience in India, The Indian missions were unique because they were carried out largely by local leaders. Neff only served in an advisory role. 133 Bolton further explained that Neff felt emphasizing traditional Community of Christ distinctives would have been foolish. Instead he worked to combat the fatalism and low social esteem within the com This brief outline of points of belief was based on a letter Joseph Smith wrote to John Wentworth; published in 1842 in Times and Seasons 3:9 (1 March 1842), ; sometimes called Articles of Faith Exploring the Faith: A series of studies in the faith of the church prepared by a committee on basic beliefs. (Independence, Missouri: Herald Publishing House, 1970), foreword Howard, The Church Through the Years, Bolton, Apostle of the Poor, 62.

43 SHIELDS: Community of Christ s Encounter with Asia 29 munities by emphasizing that they were persons of worth and encouraging them to better their lives. 134 Neff s idea was to focus on the story of Jesus Christ and then let the church evolve as it would. Chawla s gospel workers had a basic New Testament understanding of priesthood, with an idea that elders would be senior individuals who would be respected by the people and that deacons would primarily be the workers. The heart of Community of Christ s message in India, according to Bud Sheehy was: the holding up of Jesus as the redeemer, as the son of God, as the one who forgives our sins, who guides our life, who sends his Spirit to be with us. We didn t get seriously involved with the Doctrine and Covenants and Book of Mormon because they re mostly illiterate the way in which we feel God s love for [people] puts on us an obligation to help them in their life. 135 Dale E. Luffman 136 said, Missionally it was an attempt to be responsible to peoples inquiry about the Christian faith and our pursuit of that. I would describe it as a minimalist response. Most of what I found was generic teachings of an evangelical kind of Christian faith with some trappings of our tradition. 137 Community of Christ s 1994 mission statement and the rearticulation of the church s essential message in We Share: Exploring Identity, Mission, Message, and Beliefs, 138 encompassed much of Neff s basic philosophy. Jim Cable said he felt that the core of Neff s views and the message of We Share were compatible. 139 Luffman agreed: Oh, how I would have loved to have that [book] when I was on the ground in India. What we have now done is articulate some of the critical foundational elements that are unique to the identity of Community of Christ as a part of a larger Christian identity. I think both of those are important. The historical heritage and tradition of Community of Christ is a framework, but it is not crucially at the center of the gospel Ibid., Sheehy, interview Dale E. Luffman, a member of the Council of Twelve Apostles, was responsible for India from 1994 to Luffman, interview First issued in 2009, this document includes statements of basic belief and an explanation of the denomination s core values, called enduring principles. The We Share document is published as the main content of Sharing in Community of Christ: Exploring Identity, Mission, Message, and Beliefs, 3rd ed. (Independence, MO: Herald Publishing House, 2012) Cable, interview Luffman, interview.

44 30 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL Issues of Pluralism As with the church s message, the polity of Indian congregations is also different from mainstream Community of Christ identity. There are few women ordained to priesthood offices in India, but the practice is not rejected. Of his years of working with the church in India, Jim Cable stated: As long as we stayed attuned to the Bible we could talk to people, we could teach people the resources that were available in their language and that is really all we were interested in. I was not over there to teach about one true church or the rightness of our particular headquarters organization and structure. As long as we had people that were willing to do the basic things, to preach and serve communion, it was certainly New Testament oriented and the church was complete. 141 Perhaps the biggest challenge for Community of Christ in India was an early confrontation with polygamy, a common but not widespread practice among the Sora tribes in Orissa. On one of Neff s visits to Orissa, a willing male convert approached him for baptism, but because the man was a polygamist, the baptism was deferred. Community of Christ had long had a fervent opposition to polygamy as one of its chief arguments for legitimacy in the American landscape. Church literature of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries probably spent more time on this single topic than any other doctrinal matter. Neff s biographer tells the story of the resulting policy adopted by the Council of Twelve Apostles in March There was a loud and prolonged outcry from church members in the West against baptizing polygamists of any nation or culture. However, World Church leaders felt the church ought to honor marriage covenants made before baptism in order not to damage the culture of the Sora people or disrupt family life. Still, the church believed it had a moral duty to teach people the traditional Christian practice of monogamy. The anger of many church members over the decision was expressed in letters to church leaders, often personally critical of Neff. Some jurisdictions in the United States voted to censure church leaders for permitting the baptism of polygamists. They feared a reversal of the long-held doctrinal position that legitimized the existence of the church for many. 142 In 1972 a message of inspired counsel from President W. Wallace Smith put the matter to rest for most. Smith counseled that the whole church ought to bear the sins of those who were ignorant of Christian belief, while teaching them to obey the practice of monogamy. 143 Today, polygamy is all but unknown among the Sora 141. Cable, interview Bolton, Apostle of the Poor, Doctrine and Covenants 150:10 11.

45 SHIELDS: Community of Christ s Encounter with Asia 31 people, though occasional instances have been reported. Bud Sheehy has reported that from the late 1960s local leaders have been intolerant of polygamy and that local church courts in Orissa have expelled male members who have continued to enter polygamous marriages. 144 Sora church leaders have sometimes raised questions concerning ministry to polygamous families. At a workshop for leaders in 2005, they asked whether it was appropriate to bless the children born into families of expelled polygamous men. The discussion centered on the practice whereby parents would bring the baby to the front of the congregation for blessing. While the wives of a polygamist might be welcomed, the husband as a backslid Christian who was expelled from the church would not be welcomed even to enter the building, let alone present his child to the congregation. After much discussion, the leaders resolved the question among themselves by deciding that baby blessing could be done in the family s home, thereby avoiding confrontation at church. 145 Worship in India is more emotional than is typically found in Community of Christ in the West, although worship style varies from region to region. The congregation in Chennai follows a style of worship that would be most familiar to Community of Christ members in the United States, including the use of Western hymnody. However, in Orissa, traditional forms of music and traditional instruments are used. Most members in India do not know of the Book of Mormon or the Doctrine and Covenants. Most church leaders have been taught what these two books of scripture are, how they might be used, and their relevance to Community of Christ identity and message. Except for the most recent sections of the Doctrine and Covenants, the church has not translated either book. World Church leaders working with India have often felt that the church there was not sufficiently developed to use the two added books of scripture effectively. 146 Some leaders in the past have felt the Book of Mormon would never be needed. 147 However, Dale Luffman felt it was important to introduce both books of scripture. He believed it was an integrity issue and felt that church leaders and members needed to be aware of the book and to use it in the denomination. He introduced some of its content in order that when faced with questions, members could give responsible answers. Luffman also introduced the Doctrine and Covenants, especially sections given by W. Wallace Smith and his successors, because those revelations came in the era of global expansion of the church s mission Sheehy, interview Author was the teacher at this training event, held in February 2005 at Bariabandha, Orissa Cable, interview Sheehy, interview Luffman, interview.

46 32 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL More recently, Andrew Bolton 149 said he wanted to begin to develop a relevant message from the Book of Mormon and the early sections of the Doctrine and Covenants. He stated: The Book of Mormon is a statement against the social inequalities of Joseph Smith and his family, and many others like him are experiencing it is a prophetic book in the manner of Amos and Isaiah. It is a book from the poor about the poor, and God is on their side. The early Doctrine and Covenants is the same it is still the proclamation of Jesus and the kingdom of God, with justice for the poor. 150 From the earliest years, expatriate church leaders consistently stressed a set of common points. Baptism by immersion was readily accepted, and efforts were made to have Indian priesthood members use prescribed wording from the scriptures. The blessing of children was introduced and readily adopted in India. Democratic approval of those called to serve in the priesthood was also upheld as an essential feature of Christian practice as understood by Community of Christ. 151 From the time he became responsible for India in 1970, Bud Sheehy tried to promote unity in the conduct of the sacraments. His insistence that official communion prayers be translated and used has been largely ignored, however, despite frequent reminders by World Church leaders. In a 2012 interview, N. Ananda Rao, who retired from full-time ministry in 2006, reported: that the three standard books are neither available nor the basis for the theology taught by the Indian church (the King James Version of the Bible is the recognized authority); neither baptismal prayer in the Book of Mormon nor the Doctrine and Covenants is used in the ordinance [the officiating minister improvises] and that the sacrament prayers for the bread and the wine are not used once again, the officiating minister improvises. 152 The provision of translated materials about the church has become an important development in recent years. The church employs a small staff of translators for several of the Indian languages. The translators produce a quarterly international edition of the denomination s English-language monthly Herald. Translated and pub Andrew Bolton, a member of the Council of Twelve Apostles, has been responsible for Asia since Bolton, interview, March 1, Richard P. Howard (Howard, The Church Through the Years, ) offers some insight about the particular appeal and relevance of the Book of Mormon to the people in early nineteenthcentury New York. To have relevance in other cultures, those specific cultural, religious and social aspects may need to be reframed to be able to find universal lessons Sheehy, interview Minutes of Joint Conference of Restoration Branches, General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ, April 16, 2012, 1, V4%3d&tabid=156&mid=695, accessed 2 September 2012.

47 SHIELDS: Community of Christ s Encounter with Asia 33 lished in the Oriya language, the international edition of the Herald is widely used in Orissa, where most Community of Christ members in India live. 153 Other developments include the publication, in three Indian languages, of an international edition of the priesthood handbook, which has details about priesthood offices and the sacraments of the church. Sharing in Community of Christ: Exploring Identity, Mission, Message and Beliefs 154 has also been translated. These books help to develop the foundations for a better understanding of Community of Christ. However, training and implementation of the principles may take many years. 155 Indigenization When the opportunity came to start the church in India, Neff did not want to embed resident expatriate missionaries. He hoped to develop a model of evangelism and congregational life that would be led exclusively by indigenous leaders and would develop without outside influence. In any event, because Indian law banned foreign missionaries in the 1960s, he would have had little choice in the matter. 156 Some believe that Neff s approach was an act of great faith. His experience in Japan and Korea, where church members wanted to be in charge of their own operation, had such a strong influence on his philosophy of church expansion that he was ultimately able to see it adopted by the Council of Twelve Apostles. 157 However, Neff s zeal for such a system of indigenous development was fraught with problems. With communication limited to a handful of English speakers, it continues to be difficult to understand fully the feelings of the people. Financial and administrative control remains in the hands of expatriate World Church leaders. Identifying the broader cadre of leaders critical for the church to develop the depth it needs for qualitative success continues to be difficult. World Church leaders had hoped that teaching the few English-speaking leaders in India the necessary information would permit dissemination to a widening circle of local leaders and members. However, the information has not been shared 153. Author is a member of the selection committee and has worked with translators in India. Because of differences in Romanizing the language script, sometimes the language is written as Odiya or Odia, and the state name as Odisha The third edition in English was published in Author was assigned to edit the English translation and prepare it for the translations staff. Author personally supervised the translation and editorial committees in India as they worked on the priesthood handbook for their respective language groups G. S. Chawla to Maurice L. Draper, 1961, quoted in Bolton, Apostle of the Poor, Sheehy, interview.

48 34 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL fully, leaving most leaders and members unaware of Community of Christ s basic teachings. 158 The fact that India is not a homogeneous nation often challenges expatriate church leaders understanding. Regional rivalries, both between and within different culture and language groups in India, continue to challenge administrative officers of the church. In a pastoral letter to church leaders in India, Jac Kirkpatrick counseled: We are called to build the kingdom of God, not the kingdom of a particular church leader nor the kingdom of a particular language or cultural group. All church leaders in India must work cooperatively with mutual respect and support. The identity, message and mission of the Community of Christ must be understood in the India context and must define what the church membership understands about discipleship and congregational life. 159 Kirkpatrick s counsel highlights the need for the church to develop leaders who can foster Christian community in the congregations in India. Helping the leaders settle down and establish a membership that was indeed interested in the Christian gospel has been the focus of those who have worked with the church in India since the 1960s. 160 For most of the congregations in India, the indigenous model imagined by Neff never developed. Leaders simply adopted the prevailing Protestant models from neighboring communities. In Orissa the model was the Canadian Baptist church, with the congregational leadership focused on the two roles of pastor and deacon. Some congregations in Tamil Nadu, especially at Chennai, have reflected the influence of the Church of South India. Christian discipleship and congregational life do not form in a vacuum. Except for the basic essentials of the Christian message, it is not surprising that there is little substantive connection between India s Community of Christ and the World Church s established identity, mission, message, and beliefs. 161 Andrew Bolton shared his concerns about Neff s approach, suggesting that because Neff had been raised in the Baptist tradition, that was the model he allowed to emerge in India. Members and leaders there were not given the whole Community of Christ. Bolton said, 158. David Gurteen, Creating a knowledge sharing culture, Knowledge Management Magazine, February 1999, Jac Kirkpatrick, Pastoral Letter on the Future of the Church in India, undated, copy in author s possession. Letter was distributed in July 2006; author was present at the meetings with India church leaders at which the letter was given ( July 18 28, 2006) Cable, interview Bolton, interview, March 1, 2012.

49 SHIELDS: Community of Christ s Encounter with Asia 35 I think it is a mistake. What is interesting is that we have 170 congregations. Some of the villages are 100% Community of Christ. The tribal people of Orissa live communally; people give 10% of their harvest to the church, which is kept in a storehouse in the village so that none of the villagers ever goes hungry. Christianity offers them a better deal than the Hindu caste system. I think we are selling them short if we don t give all the gifts that we have as Community of Christ: equality of men and women, human rights for all, worth of all persons, the idea that God is alive and the call of Zion. That is one of our strengths; it is very concrete for us. People get it. People are hungry for the kingdom of God. 162 Because traditional village life of the tribal people in Orissa has always been communal, it is a good fit with Community of Christ values. However, World Church leaders may see a disconnect when noting that this communal style of village life does not allow for decisions to be made toward personal sacred commitments. Rather, the community as a unit follows the lead of the village elders and joins the church as a group. 163 Even so, the church s message has had significant and positive impact on village life. Animism, human sacrifice, and the resulting climate of fear have been replaced by a more hopeful theology, emphasizing that the human struggle is dependent on natural and human causes. In addition, a new sense of personal and family responsibility has replaced the remnants of polygamy. 164 Andrew Bolton has expressed concern about creating the Community of Christ understanding of congregation-based priesthood offices. Because the prevailing Protestant model in India suggests that pastors should be salaried, the church has been limited in implementing its broad-based volunteer priesthood system. Bolton noted, That s one of the struggles. I am very keen on lay ministry, volunteer ministry. I think it is the strength of our movement. How we do that in these places, I am not sure. I get a lot of push backs from indigenous leaders already in place. 165 However, a 2006 assessment of the needs of the church in India, done by indigenous leaders, insisted that the church s administrative structure and congregational organization needed to remain the same as it had in earlier years. The assessment rejected the mission center idea and insisted upon the ability to operate independently in the various states, with World Church leaders visiting occasionally but not imposing denominational policies or theology Ibid Sheehy, interview. See also Y. S. Kusuma and B. V. Babu, An Ethnographic Note on Khondh, a Primitive Tribe and Valmiki, an Acculturizing Tribe from Andhra Pradesh, India, in Antrocom Online Journal of Anthropology 27, no. 2 (2011): and Christopher von Furer-Haimendorf, Tribes of India: The struggle for survival (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and Oxford: University of California Press, 1982) Draper, Isles and Continents, Bolton, interview, March 1, Typed agenda from N. Ananda Rao, Needs of Andhra Pradesh after 1 August 2006, copy in author s possession. Author was present at the meeting where Rao and his leaders from Andhra Pradesh presented the

50 36 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL At a recent leadership meeting at Community of Christ International Headquarters, leaders were asked to rank on a scale of 1 to 5 (5 being the highest) how much the church in a particular place was in alignment with overall Community of Christ identity. Andrew Bolton rated India as minus He recognized that the move from Hinduism to Baptist Christianity is a huge move for people in India. He said they have initiated the move well but have not yet made the move to full identity with Community of Christ. Bolton said that leaders in India are nevertheless committed to making that move, having been awakened to the possibilities given them through the leadership development program started in One reality for India is that many of the leaders and congregations who now identify as Community of Christ may not have long-term loyalty to the institution. For example, at his retirement interview in 2006, one of longest-serving leaders of the church in India declared that he never believed anything about Community of Christ only that the denomination offered a better paycheck than other mission funding agencies, so he professed agreement. 169 Bolton feels that some current church leaders will always be missionaries, whether with Community of Christ or another denomination. Moreover, the formerly independent congregations in Andhra Pradesh would probably continue to operate with or without support from Community of Christ. 170 Indigenous leaders have occasionally expressed frustration over the frequent rotation of World Church officers who come from outside the culture and spend short visits in the country. Such average service is four to six years, just long enough to begin to develop the trust in relationships foundational to future growth. Expatriate administrators have had to deal with an Indian church organization that stretches over thousands of square miles. Newly appointed officers often do not want to be restricted by previous local policies and procedures, as they have their own visions of mission. Visiting church leaders have expressed frustration that local leaders are often excessively concerned with making good impressions on the apostles or administrators. Accordingly, it may be difficult to get an objective understanding of the local circumstances and of what indigenous leaders are doing to develop groups of members who are truly interested in pursuing church objectives. Visiting church leaders must often report World Church Leadership Meeting, Independence, Missouri, September 27, 2012, notes in author s possession. At the same time, he ranked the church in Korea as Andrew Bolton, interview with author, September 27, N. Ananda Rao, interview with author, Vishakapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, July 27, Bolton, interview, March 1, 2012.

51 SHIELDS: Community of Christ s Encounter with Asia 37 travel alone, evaluate the financial situation, and encourage local leaders without the assistance of additional staff. 171 Jac Kirkpatrick has said that the biggest challenge to leadership development in India is the lack of effective mentors because apostolic assignments do not allow enough time in any one place. Most expatriate church leaders do not have the language or culture skills needed, and the number of languages used by church members in India makes the task of learning language and culture even more daunting. Kirkpatrick also noted that beyond the apostles involvement, the denomination has not had a simple model of reasonable expectations with a basic standard for accountability. At the same time, without a consistent training program the environment in the church in India makes it a challenge to bring the leaders into closer alignment with the denomination. 172 Older leaders in India have in the past blocked leadership development by rejecting efforts to recruit other leaders and by inaccurately characterizing what was said by expatriate missionaries. For example, in Andhra Pradesh, a lesson was taught introducing the four congregational priesthood offices (deacon, teacher, priest, and elder). The translator was a key Indian staff member, employed by the church for more than thirty years. He used only two words to translate the offices into the local language. When pressed on why he was not using four different words, he retorted that the church in India did not use those offices and no one would understand them anyway. He alleged that he had been told by Neff that the church in India would never have to do things as they are done by the church in America. 173 Is it possible that Neff was impatient? Perhaps he felt pressed by the demands of the funding base that expected immediate results and wanted to hear dramatic stories and see big numbers at every World Conference. 174 Developing stable indigenous leadership takes more than a generation, and new leaders need to be teamed with experienced mentors. But in India, leadership was often vested in the first person of contact who could speak English and was often only one person deep. Leader recruitment in India is different from Community of Christ s practice in Western nations and does not include the same lengthy application processes, interviews, health evaluations, and church leadership experiences prior to consideration for employment. Training has remained a significant challenge. Many church leaders in India have been educated at Bible colleges that are fundamentalist in theological orientation to the detriment of Community of Christ s development there. In the end, the development model in India, like that in Korea, has not tended to foster the development of leaders who could serve as traditional mission center 171. Cable, interview; Kirkpatrick, interview Kirkpatrick, interview N. Ananda Rao, conversation with author at a leadership-training venue in Madurai, India, October 11, Sheehy, interview.

52 38 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL presidents or financial officers. Indigenous leaders who have been employed by the church have had little such experience in the secular workplace. They were often ordained and hired immediately after baptism, sometimes with the only qualification that they also brought large numbers of people to the church. This method of leadership development and membership growth continues to be the norm in some parts of the world. 175 However, since 2007 Andrew Bolton has worked to remediate leadership development problems by taking leadership training to the village level. He is convinced that the church in Orissa is the most open to buying in to a fuller expression of Community of Christ identity and message because communal understanding is compatible with Community of Christ s message. The people of Orissa value the church s commitment to education as part of greater goals. They understand that the end result is both spiritual and material about both personal and village change. 176 Another issue regarding the methodology used in Korea and India has been the failure to develop local financial bases for the church to operate within the context of the local economies. Without an indigenous approach to funding, the future of the church will be tentative at best. It has been easy to assess poverty from a United States perspective and for the US donor base to fund projects and staff. With few exceptions, church buildings in Korea and India have been built with money imported from church headquarters. Salaries for indigenous staff have also been provided by church headquarters as well as funding for the various publishing and training programs. As Korea developed, leadership was turned over to local volunteers, who had difficulty keeping pace with the rapidly changing economy that was affecting the needs of the people. New vision was needed to refocus the mission in a society that was achieving a standard of living among the highest in the world. India s mushrooming economic growth may soon present a budgetary challenge that church leaders will not be able to meet. The zeal for missions abroad may soon outweigh what the membership in developed economies can support with tithing contributions. 177 Andrew Bolton has been working with church leaders in India to start developing a financial base, noting that church leaders in Orissa are coming to embrace the idea. He noted that tithing is already in place in Orissa with one bag of rice in ten 175. Author was present at a meeting in Madurai, India in February 2008, where a key church leader in that part of the country was proposing the hiring of two independent pastors who had developed several congregations, because they needed financial support and money to build buildings. See also Andrew Bolton, Community of Christ Welcomes 28 in Nepal, Herald 159, no. 10 (October 2012): Bolton, interview, March 1, Sheehy, interview.

53 SHIELDS: Community of Christ s Encounter with Asia 39 contributed to the church. 178 Hopefully, a broad implementation of Community of Christ s principle of giving fully to one s capacity will take root in Asia. 179 Neff s India methodology was so intensely personal that it was not successfully passed on to successive leaders who, in turn, have continued to be challenged by various disconnects on polity, practice, and theology in India. Added to this has been the challenge of understanding language and culture. Even when people of other cultures could speak English, communication has been skewed by the way culture shapes language patterns. 180 Expatriate leaders have had to rely on the few indigenous leaders who could speak English, knowing that they were most likely filtering what was being said. As Neff s personal experience fades farther into history, the institutional memory gets dimmer. The tension between the paradigms of church headquarters and places like India continues to challenge the church. 181 Conclusion and Strategy Community of Christ s relevance in different Asian contexts has come full circle in many respects. In the beginning, a message not far removed from the one true church as God s sole means of salvation, was normative for the church. However, confronted with the challenges of Asia and the superficial penetration of Christianity, the message of exclusivity was not a good fit. The people of Asia had other questions and problems that needed resolution at a different level and from a different starting point. Because the denomination was essentially working out of its traditional paradigm, the 1959 survey of Asia conducted by Neff and Jensen was more a response to interest expressed and excitement over expanding the church s boundaries, rather than a survey of how Community of Christ might give significant, long-term ministry and how that ministry could be sustained. For example, Neff s assessment that the church could be successful in Korea was based more on number of members than anything else. 182 However, qualitative rather than quantitative measurements of success may in the long run be helpful for World Church leadership to assess the 178. Bolton interview, March 1, Doctrine and Covenants 163:9 uses the phrase true capacity, but the principle has long been part of Community of Christ s understanding of stewardship and the disciple s generous response. See Mark 12:42 45 for the story of the widow. NRSV uses two copper coins, older translations call this the widow s mite See Richard E. Nisbett, The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently And Why (New York, London, Toronto, Sydney: Free Press, 2003), for an excellent study on how culture shapes language Luffman, interview Bolton, Apostle of the Poor,

54 40 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL impact the church has in Asia. A qualitative assessment is certainly a better fit with the Community of Christ s Enduring Principles, than a quantitative evaluation. 183 Although Neff recognized that cultural differences would pose several challenges, it soon became clear that some of them were more than the institution could bear. However, his evaluation that church literature did not speak to the Asian experience was perhaps truer of Japan than of Korea. Yet, efforts in both countries beginning in the 1960s focused more on translating existing church literature than on creating new or contextual solutions. Though relevance, pluralism, and indigenization are tightly intertwined, the question of indigenization is possibly the most important. This has to do with developing indigenous leaders and finding ways to acceptably adapt the denomination s identity, mission, message, and beliefs. Indigenization also has to do with understanding how to work cross-culturally in policy, legal issues, and language not just the words, but the cultural building blocks of how language is used and understood as well. A recurring frustration of early Community of Christ missionaries in Korea and for indigenous leaders now in Korea, India, and elsewhere is what is felt to be conflict between indigenization and World Church expectations. Some denominational leaders, as well as members in the West who support the church s mission financially, have expected to see a replicated church that resembles that in the United States. There was an early understanding by those who were first on the ground in Asia that to attempt to superimpose American culture and the way we do things in the church in the United States upon people who simply cannot respond because their traditions are so strong as to prevent their compliance was a serious stumbling block for the church to be effective in Asia. 184 Though there has been progress in some areas, this frustration continues to be a challenge and source of tension for those on the ground in various nations and those at church headquarters. 185 When the denomination places a high value on indigenization, it also needs to define its expectations. Does this mean simply having local, native leaders serving the congregations in their native cultures? How high can an indigenous leader go up the decision-making chain in the church s administrative and leadership structure? For example, in India, because a foundation for financial self-sufficiency was never put in place, most indigenous leaders have had little or no control over their budgets An interesting statistical calculation of the membership of the church in India and Korea shows that even though total India church membership on Community of Christ records is at least one hundred times greater than total membership in Korea, the ratio of membership to total national population in Korea is more than two hundred thousand times greater than India. Based on such a statistic, one might argue that the church has been more successful in Korea Bolton, Apostle of the Poor, Kirkpatrick, interview.

55 SHIELDS: Community of Christ s Encounter with Asia 41 Funding is controlled instead by the World Church because it is providing most, if not all, of the funding. How can either indigenous or expatriate leaders work in different cultural and legal environments when they are also expected to do things the American way? 186 Alternatively, does indigenization mean creating local programs to respond to local needs rather than adopting a denomination-wide model? Does indigenization mean allowing leaders and congregations within a specific culture, geography, ethnic, or language grouping to develop a theology that is not aligned with Community of Christ s general understanding? This has broad implications. For example, the First Presidency has shown discomfort with the International Leadership Council s 187 inability to resolve certain issues because of different theologies of scripture how scripture is interpreted and applied. 188 These and other questions have played out differently between Korea and India because the starting points were different. In Korea, it was expatriate members meeting local people, sharing stories, and forming linkages. The core group of members from the earliest years was reasonably well grounded in its understanding of the basic teachings of Community of Christ. In India, it was early correspondence that eventually resulted in requests for contact, to which the church responded. However, there was little or no opportunity for personal relationships with other Community of Christ members who could share ideas and foster religious connections. Leadership training and development of a sizable cadre of well-educated church leaders is critical for the future of the church in Asia. The problem of favoritism and premature elevation can be significantly reduced if more time is spent in training and mentoring and if ordination to priesthood office or employment is deferred until the candidate s effective leadership ability has been established. Such a scenario requires more staff, better funding, and longer-term connection by World Church leaders with potential indigenous leaders in places like India or Korea. Training and development are best carried out in local contexts, supported by teachers and mentors who are well schooled in Community of Christ theology and suitably sensitive to cross-cultural issues. Taking church leaders from the developing world to Europe or the United States for training has been disappointing because the leaders often refuse to return to their home countries When the author was president of the Korea church, he was told by World Church officers that the Korean way of doing business was unacceptable if it differed from standard American practice The International Leaders Council is a World Church leadership body, comprised of general officers (First Presidency, Council of Twelve Apostles, Presiding Bishopric, and others) and several dozen mission center leaders worldwide Becky L. Savage, conversation with author, June 8, 2012.

56 42 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL Community of Christ s efforts in Asia could be helped by applying the mission methodology developed by John Nevius, 189 as explained by sociologist Elizabeth Underwood: John Nevius, a Presbyterian missionary in Chefoo, China, had written a book on mission policy he developed after years of frustration with slow church growth in China. Nevius attributed the problems experienced in China to mission policies, which he argued to insincere and financially motivated church workers, the absence of a sense of ownership and responsibility in the Chinese churches, and a lack of knowledge of the Bible among Chinese Christians. He proposed a system whereby local Christians and churches, through self-support, self-propagation and self-government, and without the influx of foreign money in building and maintaining their churches, would assume the primary responsibility for the development of those churches. In addition, his policy advocated a systematic Bible study system under local leadership, leaving the primary responsibility for spreading the Christian message to the local Christians. To the missionaries he assigned the role of personal evangelism through wide itineration and the charge of training Bible study teachers through classes and institutes. 190 Native Presbyterian pastors were not ordained in Korea until about twenty years after the mission work began and a generation of well-grounded indigenous leaders was developed, through systematic training and capable mentor relationships. Within twenty-five years after adopting the Nevius Methods, the Presbyterians had about eight hundred congregations all locally funded, including pastors and other leaders, with more than 90 percent of the buildings built with local funding. However, as historian and missionary Allen D. Clark noted: The Nevius Methods are not merely a system of self-support and refusal to pay subsidies. Its real core was in the Bible study system, which encouraged every Christian to study his Bible and to be able to pass on to others what he found there. The little new groups were encouraged to grow in the faith under the best local leadership available. 191 After the Nevius Methods were adopted and Presbyterian Korean church leaders were empowered, the expatriates withdrew into their own congregations to allow the Korean churches to develop independently. They did not supervise the Korean churches and did not take the lead as pastors of Korean congregations. So-called 189. See a biography and description Wikipedia, s.v. John Livingstone Nevius, last modified May 9, 2012, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/john_livingstone_nevius Elizabeth Underwood, Challenged Identities: North American missionaries in Korea, (Seoul, Korea: Royal Asiatic Society, Korea Branch, 2003), Underwood is a direct descendant of the first Presbyterian missionary in Korea, Horace G. Underwood, who arrived in Some of Underwood s descendants still reside and work in Korea Allen D. Clark, History of the Korean Church (Seoul, Korea: Christian Literature Society of Korea, nd),

57 SHIELDS: Community of Christ s Encounter with Asia 43 welfare relief was not given as handouts of goods and services. Rather, the missionaries worked to educate and empower generations of men and women who could, if called to ministry, become church leaders but who nonetheless could build a stronger society and economy in Korea. 192 This was the chief reason the older denominations resented the new denominations that started up in Korea after the Korean War, including Community of Christ. The relief efforts of the new denominations were but temporary and did not foster participatory development. 193 With few experienced ministers to mentor the spiritual development of new members, a denomination that does not have a prepackaged program, but relies heavily on local initiative, may continue to have difficulty building stable and spiritually healthy congregations. This is even more important in the Community of Christ climate that values diversity but maintains a high-level expectation for alignment with denominational identity and fiscal transparency. Current training efforts are fortunately shifting the church in this direction. The denomination may need to make a stronger investment in expatriate leaders assigned to and resident in Asia in both funding and longer terms of service twenty to thirty years rather than five to six. A narrower focus on a single language and cultural group rather than a broad regional assignment would benefit growth as well. The church needs to plan for such leaders to focus on learning the language of their target areas with no other demands on their time until they achieve fluency. To be successful, expatriate leaders need a solid foundation in cross-cultural ministry. They need a clear understanding of methods of communication and the uses of language. Skill in languages and cultures in the areas where they will serve is mandatory not optional. Westerners need to be aware of and sensitive to the historical issues of colonialism and of Japanese, American, and European hegemony in the region. There is not a single church leader who has taken assignments in Asia who has not developed a deep love for the people there with a deep sense of commitment to the best interests and mission of the church. With a few adjustments in strategy for long-term development, Community of Christ could build fruitful and positive experiences in Asia to overcome some of the frustration experienced over the past half century. There are many fine members, leaders, and potential leaders in India, Korea, and other Asian countries where the church is engaged in mission. A strategy of empowerment and parity will be welcomed by these leaders in partnership with the World Church Michael J. Devine, ed., Korea in War, Revolution, and Peace: The Recollections of Horace G. Underwood (Seoul, Korea: Yonsei University Press, 2001). See also Underwood, Challenged Identities, for a history of the first fifty years of Protestant missionaries in Korea Guthrie, letter to author, undated (ca. 1998).

58 44 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL Steven L. Shields was president of John Whitmer Historical Association, He is an independent historian who is best known as the author of Divergent Paths of the Restoration. He has published widely and has served for several years on the editorial boards of Restoration Studies, John Whitmer Historical Association Journal. He also edited for several years the annual Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society-Korea Branch. He has lived or worked in several countries in Asia, including Korea for twelve years, where he was a missionary, pastor, and president of the Community of Christ East Asia Mission Center. Having served the church in full-time roles since 1987, he is currently assigned to the church s International Headquarters in Independence, Missouri.

59 Community of Christ Archives: A Richard Howard Legacy Barbara Hands Bernauer Richard Howard Lecture September 20, 2012 This is a very auspicious occasion. As you know, tonight is the very first Richard P. Howard Lecture to be presented to the John Whitmer Historical Association. It is my honor and privilege to have been chosen to present it. Since this is the first Howard Lecture, I have no precedent to follow or pattern to maintain. My presentation tonight will be more informal than the usual lecture. The published version will be much more scholarly and hopefully will have something useful to researchers in the future. I have been requested to speak to you about the Community of Christ Archives and the role this facility plays in the task of historical research. One of JWHA s purposes is to create and encourage interest in Latter Day Saint history, especially the history of the Community of Christ, to promote research and publication in the field of Latter Day Saint history, and to provide vehicles for the dissemination of scholarly research. This will not be a lecture about an event in history but one to encourage you to investigate history through responsible research. In this lecture I hope to encourage or mentor, if you will, members and associates of JWHA to consider the challenging task of inquiry into the history of the restoration movements primarily focusing on the years after 1844, and more especially into the 1850s and 1860s onward to the twenty-first century. I will pose some of the questions you may have pondered concerning this particular archive, its resources, what can be found there, and how it can be used. Many in this audience are experienced experts in archival research. The Community of Christ Archive is very small compared with those with which some of you may be acquainted. Many of you have worked in much larger repositories that have 45

60 46 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL Barbara Bernauer and Richard Howard many specialists and assistants to facilitate your search. It seems almost presumptive for me to give guidance to you. However, I have had over twenty-two years of experience with this archive, have assisted many researchers, and have prepared for patron use over sixty collections, hundreds of photographs, and other archival materials. I might add that their quality is not determined by the linear feet of shelf space. I am greatly indebted to all the archivists who have preceded me. What they have established, maintained, and improved over the years is what I represent here tonight. I just want you to know that all this is Dick s fault! Maybe fault isn t exactly the right word, but it s close! My meaning is certainly not that Dick made an error or mistake, nor does it imply any defect but rather Dick s responsibility, accountability, doing, or culpability for it all. I will tell you how I came to work here at church headquarters. That certainly is Dick s fault. It was in December of 1989 I had been working on my family genealogy and was in the library, which at that time was on the fifth floor of the Auditorium.

61 BERNAUER: Community of Christ Archives: A Richard Howard Legacy 47 Dick then Church was sitting at a table in the Library. I had found out that the staff assistant working with the historian, records management person, and the archivist was leaving, and someone was needed. So I turned to Dick and said, Should I apply for the job? What do you think? And he said, Sure, why not? Give it a try. So, I came for interviews and was hired. So my being here is somewhat Dick s fault also! The title I have chosen for this lecture is, The Community of Christ Archives: A Richard Howard Legacy. The word A means that the archives are only one of the many legacies that Dick has given to the church and history community. I want to share with you Dick s role in establishing it. I have been amazed in doing the research in the archives of course of his superb foresight, and his determination to preserve and make available to researchers the many historical treasures that are there. So, the archives are Dick s fault too! What is an archive? The author of the cartoon Shoe gave a description. This is NOT a dump it is an archive. An archive is a dump without the seagulls. Perhaps at times, our archives might resemble a dump to others. But of course the purpose of an archive is not disposal but preservation. Dick Howard wrote a definition for an article in the 1972 Saints Herald. 1 Archives are those records of an organization produced in the conduct of its day-today business records which, having enduring historical values, are permanently preserved and processed for accessibility to research. Archival materials are usually unique, original, and one-of-a-kind materials not available in any other form. The World Church Archives is the final repository of institutional records reflecting the history, growth and mission of the church from its founding. The archives is the Guardian of the Church s Memory as Dick once defined it, housing some of the treasures of the Restoration. How the Archives Came to Be In the early restoration movement, leaders knew the importance of keeping records, especially membership and finance, as well as the necessity of recording the minutes of conferences and various quorums. They came to realize that preserving at least for a while the correspondence of those in charge of various activities in the growing church was necessary. These records were generally kept in the office space of the particular person. Sometimes the records and files were taken home by persons involved in their use. For instance, Isaac Sheen was appointed RLDS Church Secretary and Recorder in Evidently it was his practice to keep many in his home. When he died in 1874, his widow, Drucilla Sheen, presented a bill to the church for her husband s back wages for about $300 in exchange for the records. The conference wrangled through 1. Richard Howard, Importance of Archives, Saints Herald 119, no. 11 (November 1972): 53.

62 48 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL three motions and finally approved not more than $200, to again obtain possession of the Church Records. 2 When the church headquarters moved from Plano, Illinois, to Lamoni, Iowa, in 1881, all the records went along. Church headquarters were associated with the publishing functions, and many of the church offices were located in the Herald Publishing building among them the historian and recorder s offices. The Herald House fire in 1907 destroyed the historian s office and library. Very little was saved. Probably many significant documents went up in flames. It was reported that the church membership records (including the ones from Drucilla Sheen) were in a fireproof vault, and were unscathed. The Herald building was rebuilt. Church headquarters officially moved from Lamoni to Independence in Evidently, during these moves and relocations the church records were generally kept with the originating office, sometimes in safes, vaults, file cabinets or even boxes. But personal correspondence and related papers were often removed and taken by retiring officials. The construction of the Auditorium was begun in the late 1920s but was halted because of the Great Depression of the 1930s. Many headquarters offices were moved into the unfinished building, including that of the church historian. Eventually, after the tenures of several historians, that office was located on the fifth level. In 1959 a closed-access research library was established, and microfilming of rare and fragile documents began. That same year old materials from various departments were brought to the history department for storage and use. This was a major step forward. Perks and Perils of Preservation Now we get to the pertinent part: Richard Howard s role in establishing the archives. In a 1961 conversation with church historian Charles Davies, Dick told him he had a degree in history and was teaching in a local school. Since summer employment always seems necessary for teachers, Davies offered him a job working with him, and Dick jumped at the chance, as he said in his oral history. 3 Dick worked that summer in the vault in the historian s office, cataloging and arranging materials. He described it this way: The situation was pretty deplorable from the standpoint of ensuring that these materials would be protected from the ravages of humidity and that sort of thing. The vault had no air circulation at all, and when you opened the door it was a dank, dark place, and there were the Inspired 2. Saints Herald, 21 no. 20 (October 15, 1874): Richard Perry Howard, interview by L. D. Harsin, 2004, Oral History Memoir, 74, Community of Christ Archives.

63 BERNAUER: Community of Christ Archives: A Richard Howard Legacy 49 Version manuscripts and all the letters and the valuable early publications of the church. 4 Despite this, Dick liked the work so well that he made application as a church appointee, thinking he might be assigned to the history department. Although no word came about his application, Dick continued his work with Davies the next summer. He described it this way: Boxes containing valuable historical documents and letters were on old iron shelves, stacked floor to ceiling in pasteboard boxes like you would get at the store some in file cabinets but nothing was filed in particular order no index. You just had to know where to look. 5 As for the research library, there were books on shelves in no particular arrangement for the use of the historian. Staff people could come in for research, and researchers could be admitted by the historian. Apostle Paul Hanson had gathered various original historical materials during the 1920s that included John Corrill s little fifty-page history written in 1839, John C. Bennett s 1842 history, and a copy of the 1844 Nauvoo Expositor s only issue. Hanson wanted them to be part of a library, but because there was no suitable place for them at the time, they were placed in the First Presidency s office vault and locked in a little steel box for years. Because of Dick s work improving storage space in the historian s office, church secretary Fred Young brought the box to the history office in the summer of 1962 with instruction to Historian Davies, whatever you do, don t show it to young Howard. 6 So, the first thing Charles Davies did after Fred left was to call Dick in, saying, I have something to show you! Brother Young thinks you shouldn t see this, but he doesn t know you as well as I do, so have a seat here and let s go through the contents of this box and see what s here. Dick later had those materials de-acidified and preserved in the archives. It wasn t until Dick had started teaching in September 1962 that approval finally arrived so that he was able to resign his position and come under church appointment. Dick reported to Charles Davies, saying, Well, Charles, I m under church appointment but nobody said where I am appointed to. What am I supposed to do? So Charles called down to the presidency s office and was told, Just have Howard work there until he hears from us. 7 Dick was later officially assigned to the history department. He could have been assigned an appointment to any one of the many missions of the church organization at the time, but his destiny was with the history of the church. Dick initially 4. Ibid., Ibid. 6. Ibid., Ibid., 86.

64 50 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL worked as assistant to Davies, but Charles s health became an issue and he retired in Dick then served as acting historian until April 1966 when he was officially named church historian. And the Rest is History! In his first years as church historian, Howard instituted professional practices and opened the facility to the public. He said, As soon as I became Historian, my goal was to open the library for people doing responsible research regardless of their church orientation, so Mormon scholars began to come in almost immediately. He assisted in the expanded scope of the library collection. At that time the library and historian s office were housed together. Dick began to get coverage in the Saints Herald and to write articles. His column Since Yesterday started in 1969 as he examined church history questions now with documented footnotes! Dick s article in the Herald on the Importance of Archives continued his relentless effort to show how research could result in new historical insights. 8 Dick went to the National Archives for archival and records management training, and in 1969 made a proposal to the Joint Council requesting that a records center be established. This resulted in underground storage space set aside in limestone mining caves in east Independence. 9 But it was only a storage place, for as Dick later noted, it took ten years to get anywhere like a records management system. 10 In 1972 Grant McMurray was added to the history office and was named the first records manager. The following year Grant became the first archivist and developed the first collections. During the 1970s the relocation of some headquarters offices from the building near the square on Lexington to the Auditorium provided opportunity for Howard to ask for the removal of inactive and semi-active files to the records center. But it was not until 1978 that temperature and humidity controls and security protocols were added to ensure preservation of the materials. In 1974 an agreement between the LDS and RLDS church officials resulted in the exchange of many primary-source original documents either copies or on microfilm. In 1975 a Library-Archives Study Committee was formed and presented its recommendations to church officials the following year. 11 Howard again made recommendations for a records management program. Also, it was suggested that in order to develop a more adequate research facility and information center for World 8. Saints Herald 119, no.11 (November 1972): Presiding Bishopric, RG18, f57, Community of Christ Archives. 10. Howard, interview, 185, History Department/Commission, RG 25, f76, Community of Christ Archives.

65 BERNAUER: Community of Christ Archives: A Richard Howard Legacy 51 Church leaders will involve recruitment and training of professional and technical staff in the various phases of information acquisition, storage and retrieval. 12 In 1976 the history Department became the History Commission with Madelon Brunson as the archivist and Grant handling administrative duties. A classification system was devised, and professional standards were implemented. The 1980s brought an expansion of space for the library-archives, permitting Dick to design new shelving space to fit exactly to the available wall space. To facilitate the preparation for the sesquicentennial of the church in 1980 and to prepare the needed resource kit, Dick s persistence in requesting access to historical materials resulted in a directive from the First Presidency establishing a records management protocol. All materials held in various offices and by individuals dating before 1930 were to be transferred to the history commission. This was a major achievement! 13 In 1982 there was an abrupt change when Grant McMurray was moved to the First Presidency as executive secretary of the church, later to become the president of the RLDS Church. 14 Madelon Brunson was then hired as Archivist and retired in Ronald Romig was named Archivist in In 1989 I was hired as staff associate for the records manager, archivist, and historian. The archives and library moved into the temple in August When Dick retired in 1994 and was named Historian Emeritus, Mark Scherer was appointed World Church Historian. Mark was designated historian and archivist in 2009 when Ron Romig left to become Kirtland Historic Site Director. The best news of all came in 2009 when Dick volunteered to help the archives work with local historian reports and archival duties. Perhaps he just couldn t stay away from what he had worked so long to establish, and he continues yet to provide his expertise, inspiration, and fellowship. By the way, he was named Headquarters Volunteer of the Month in June of 2012! We give credit to Dick Howard as the founding force for the establishment of the archives, but all archivists in turn have brought their interests and talents to strengthen the facility. The history community is greatly indebted to all of them. Guardian of the Church s memory Our task as an archive is to preserve and maintain both primary and secondary sources that have enduring historical value to this organization. Primary sources are those documents that originated as near to the time of the event as possible, such as a diary, letter, photograph, or interview. 12. Presiding Bishopric, RG 18, f75, Community of Christ Archives. 13. First Presidency Papers, RG 30-3, f44, Community of Christ Archives. 14. Howard, interview, 242.

66 52 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL Any historian could come up with a long wish list for primary sources regarding particular persons and events. For instance, it would be wonderful to have had fill in a name of your choice who, after participating in fill in an event of your choice would sit down immediately, or within a day or so, and completely write every detail as to where it was, who was there, what they said, what the reactions were, how they felt, and what the weather was, along with photographs or recordings of everything! Now that would be a primary source to have! Secondary sources are predigested accounts of the past, such as books, texts, published materials, second-hand accounts, etc. Sometimes these are the only sources there are. 15 Provenance Not to be underestimated is the importance of provenance the history of a document or artifact how and when created, by whom, for what reason, what happened to it since, and how did it come to be where it is now. Historians ask: Are the materials authentic? Are they reliable? Are they verifiable? These questions can t always be answered, though assumptions can be made on evidence that comes with the materials. There is thus an overlap of responsibility by archivists and historians. The archivist preserves and maintains the materials. It is up to the historian to evaluate and interpret the information. There are impeccable examples of provenance in the archives when the questions of creation and origin have been verified by their path through time. The importance of provenance is also shown when archival materials are arranged according to office (or person) of origin. The original arrangement is often crucial to the historical significance and interpretation of the documents. They are not to be intermingled or inserted into other collections just because they are from the same origin or have the same topic or persons. A rule of archivists is to maintain the original arrangement of materials if at all possible. Sources of Materials The documentary collections housed in the Community of Christ Archives are arranged into two major divisions. They are Record Groups and P Collections. The major source of materials is from the church institution itself, generated by all the divisions of headquarters organizations through the years. These are designated as record groups. Dick was instrumental in establishing the systematic reten- 15. Richard Howard, Policy Statement and Rules Governing the Use of Materials, Saints Herald 114 (August 15, 1967): 549.

67 BERNAUER: Community of Christ Archives: A Richard Howard Legacy 53 tion, scheduled retrieval, and review process within the records management system that continues. Usually record groups have come through the various steps in the records management program leading to final accession by the archives. There are thirty-three record groups so far, composed of thousands of documents. Some are restricted because of the sensitive nature of their content, i.e. church court trials, and might be opened after a period of time. The P Collections are the largest division and are catalogued by numbers indicating the order in which they were processed. The P stands for processed, and the number following indicates the order in which they were done. These include some official and jurisdictional records as well as other document accretions and donations. They are usually personal letters, diaries, journals, and materials generated by a particular person or organization within the church. P groups include many significant early letters and church documents. They may also be collections of materials that were physically taken away from headquarters jurisdiction and materials that did not go through the records management system. In both of these groups there are diaries and correspondence from various leaders and members that often show the drama, disagreements, policy differences, and even the tedium of working with other church leaders. Some of the donated materials may be in the archives due to Dick s instigation. In a Since Yesterday article titled, Wait! Before You Throw That Away, 16 Dick wrote, The Research Library of the Department of History is a guardian of the church s memory. He cites the practice of some officials and members to retain their church-related files and how the heirs faced decisions about what to do with them. Too often they were scattered to the winds. He suggested instead the donation of them to the church. He also gave suggestions as to how the church would receive the materials in various dispositions. Books would go to the library, while letters, notebooks, and sermon notes would be catalogued and made available for research. But if a group of letters and diaries were felt to be of a sensitive nature, they would be restricted for a period of years. A diary precious to the family might be microfilmed and returned. Some people look on the archives as the church s big attic, a place to put all that stuff they don t know what to do with or can t bear to dispose of so they donate it to the archives. By donating the material to the church, the decision about what to keep or toss can be passed off to someone else to determine its enduring historical value. We consider this part of our stewardship. 16. Richard Howard, Wait! Before You Throw That Away! Saints Herald 120, no. 1 ( January 1973): 53.

68 54 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL There is a Value of Information Module that I have used for a number of years that helps make those decisions as to archival retention. This chart is self-explanatory and can be useful in many situations. 17 Value-of-Information Module: Revised Significance of Topic Content Analysis Credibility Timespan Completeness Creator s Relationship to Topic Functional Characteristics Position in Organization Unit Activities Original Record Purpose Use User Interest Use Limitations Legal Value Administrative Value Current Clientele Potential Clientele Illegibility Use Restrictions Understandability Relationship to Other Documentation Physical Qualities Intellectual Qualities Scarcity Organization Original/Preferred Format Intellectual Duplication Record Group Intellectual Duplication Repository Intellectual Duplication Extra-Repository Our policy is an open archive. We have no secret documents hidden away although we do have some materials that are sealed until a specified date, such as oral histories and a small number of personal letters and quorum papers. If documents are too fragile for handling, the originals are reproduced in another form for research. 17. Frank Boles, Archival Appraisal (Neal-Shuman Publishers, Inc., 1991), 49.

69 BERNAUER: Community of Christ Archives: A Richard Howard Legacy 55 Generally, everything is open to legitimate examination, whether the researcher is a member of Community of Christ or not. Types of Records and Materials in Our Archives Published: The archives has shared with the library the stewardship of original copies of old and rare books, periodicals, tracts, etc. Many are available on microfilm and as scanned images. Unpublished Materials: The archives and library also share printed materials that are one-of-a-kind, e.g., theses, reports, autobiographies, family histories, articles, class materials, etc. Journals and Diaries: These primary sources recount the daily life of members, missionaries, and church leaders. These are usually the most sought-after references we have. Most are available on microfilm. Pictorial Archives: These include photographs of all kinds: glass slides, negatives, films, videos, DVDs and other images of church people in locations and activities around the world from the late 1800s to the present. Many are now available in digital form. Electronic Media: These kinds of holdings are virtually unexamined by researchers. They include videotapes, films, cassette and CD recordings of sermons, conferences, and even early JWHA lectures. They make it possible to hear actual voices from the past. Oral Histories: We owe our continuing oral history program to Dick Howard, who initiated this in Oral histories are seldom used by researchers, although most are open to examination. Over the years a methodology has been developed for taking oral histories to be included in the archives. Hours, days, and sometimes months are required to prepare a significant oral history in order to avoid recording unstructured ramblings. Then there is the transcription, editing, proofreading, binding and cataloging before the document is available for patrons. In 2010 Mark Scherer started video-recording short interviews of members, asking a set of questions and capturing responses visually. These are also open to research. Membership and Jurisdictional Records: Individual membership and branch records are some of the most-used historical documents in the archives. For many years the RLDS church kept handwritten membership records in very large ledgers. These date from 1859 to about 1922 when the church went to a different way of recording. These old records were brought to the archives at the instigation of Richard Howard and are available now on microfilm. There was also a set of record books kept in local branches and jurisdictions; many of those are now housed in the archives. They are treasure troves with unique

70 56 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL information not available in the large ledgers, such as branch minutes showing trivial and serious disagreements among the members as well as branch or elder s court cases where individuals were questioned concerning their conduct. The records often showed that reconciliation occurred or excommunication resulted. Someone could do a study of church disciplinary procedures using these branch minutes. They include, among others, the member who was excommunicated for playing croquet on Sunday and the elder who was disciplined because he was playing the violin for dances at Council Bluffs. 18 In the past the RLDS church has paid little attention to the pursuit of genealogical information. For years, when a request came for membership information, the routine was to provide bare facts with as few manpower hours as possible. This has changed through the years. In the early 1990s permission was given by the First Presidency to microfilm the membership and branch records books. 19 The instruction was also given that the words Membership Records Research was to be used instead of genealogy. Many are engaged in finding their ancestors membership in the LDS church, RLDS church or both. We have a very small collection of original LDS records. A how-to sheet of directions has been developed over the years and is used for onand off-site patrons. Local Jurisdictional Histories: These are reports from historians of various jurisdictions within the church that have been sent to the church historian as part of their responsibilities. These become legal documents and are protected and preserved by the church. Formerly they were microfilmed another Howard innovation but now are preserved digitally by systematically scanning and cataloging. Now and then these are consulted by researchers and can be a source of useful historical content. Dealing with Old Stuff and Dead People For the most part, I spend my day working with what dead people have left behind. Their private thoughts, opinions, plans and activities are preserved beyond their life s years outside my office. Some are of great historical importance to the church, others not. But all are a part of the church s journey through time. As a part of the archival staff, I often get access to the nitty-gritty of history. I actually possess the legal privilege to read letters that the writer never thought anyone else other than the recipient would ever read and to peruse diaries that might never have been seen by anyone other than the diarist. 18. Charles Jensen, History of Pottawattamie District, Journal of History 11 no. 3 ( July 1918): 356. Also, Council Bluffs, Local Jurisdictional Records, # These records were microfilmed in 1995 by the Utah Genealogical Society.

71 BERNAUER: Community of Christ Archives: A Richard Howard Legacy 57 Rather than being the goal per se, preservation is but a means to the ultimate objective: accessibility for scholarly research. Archival mission goes beyond acquiring records and making them available for research. Making records available for research can shorten their life, yet, preserving records in the ideal way means that they would never leave their climate controlled vault. 20 Historians need to understand the function of the archivist because there is a natural partnership between those who decide what evidence will be available and those who decide how to interpret it. For archivists, the challenge is to collect and preserve as many historically significant documents as possible. For historians, the challenge is to examine those documents, fill in holes in the overall story of the past, and correct inaccurate or incomplete versions. 21 How Are Materials Prepared for Patron Use? Boxes stored on shelves are unprocessed materials that await cataloging for ultimate preservation and preparation for use by researchers. This is the most time-consuming and detail-oriented work done in an archive. Some 80 percent of processed collections are never used. But which 20 percent is ultimately to be used can be determined only in the future and cannot be known by the processor. Unfortunately, the sorting process might determine that some items a researcher may want in fifty years aren t there. The archives can t keep everything. It is impossible for several reasons, including lack of physical space and staff. Perhaps the future will bring scanning of all documents into a searchable database what a dream! And it is precisely that which is being envisioned now by staff members. For now, we strive to preserve the significant items based solely on our own experience and training. There are often subjective decisions to be made during this process. These decisions are crucial, but the processor using best archival procedures and some prayer will make the best decisions. For instance, a controversial subject or event involving people in difficult or sensitive situations will require the archivist s judgment on a host of factors before making such documents available for research. A second decision is sometimes made at this point: Whether the collection merits immediate processing or whether such processing should be postponed by storage of the collection in the closed stacks for another year or maybe ten. When materials are accessioned, they are officially taken into the possession and stewardship responsibility of the Community of Christ through the archives. A record with an accession number is made, along with a short description of the 20. Historians and Archivists: Educating the Next Generation (Bloomington, IN: Organization of American Historians, 1993), Ibid., 31, 32.

72 58 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL materials, their source and their current location. In this way, a record is made of the provenance. Institutional records are usually in fairly good order upon arrival. They come from organized office files and are placed in the records management system. They are stored off-site and, depending on their retention schedule, eventually undergo an archival review before accessioning for retention in the archives. Other collections may or may not be in a discernible order or perhaps come smelling of basement mold with water damage and mouse nibblings! All materials progress through several stages during processing and preparation for patron use. Over the years I have developed a system of processing materials that follows archival procedures. The first step is the survey of materials as much as possible in their entirety. It is seldom that every item is retained, unless of particular significance, origination, persons associated, etc. What is to be retained in the collection? What should be separated to a better location or use? This is the area of processing that requires the greatest institutional and historical knowledge, skill, expertise and decision-making. It is also the most time-consuming. Materials are arranged in order original or imposed. Conservation of materials is done, along with the removal of foreign objects, such as paper clips and staples. After the survey, the sorting and the preliminary and final arrangement for cataloging, the materials are put into acid-free folders. Folder labels that detail the folder content are generated on the computer, printed and applied. Indexing is done on the computer, and index cards are printed. (Yes, we still do them!) The way names and topics are indexed can make items either readily available or hidden to all but the most determined researcher. The folders are placed into document boxes and labeled. Is the collection ready for use now? Not at all the finding aid must be done. The finding aid is the bridge between archivist and researcher. It is a description of the scope and content of the collection, its organization, the time period covered, the person or group that originated it, and a short biographical sketch or other useful information. The final step is placing the collection on the shelves, filing of the index cards, and putting the finding aid on the shelf. The preparation of materials for final retention and use is my own major contribution to the archives. At this point when I have been processing a collection, I sometimes wonder what the person whose materials I am going through so minutely would think if he/she knew that somebody like ME was holding that life s work in my hands, and making such decisions. It is an awesome responsibility and one not to be taken lightly. I hope my work will express this value as others see it. Some collections seem to reduce a person s life to several boxes of papers. You wonder: is that all there was to this life? Of course not, but the tangible evidence that remains becomes part of history.

73 BERNAUER: Community of Christ Archives: A Richard Howard Legacy 59 Without staff persons who have the knowledge and expertise with the collections to assist patrons, the archives becomes merely boxes on shelves, pictures in folders, journals, books locked away, and historical information in inaccessible records. So that you can really understand this vital process, I have prepared an instructional video for your viewing. It is a review of processing from the donation of materials to the final placement on the archives shelves using professional archival procedures. The video is available on as Barbara s Flight. It also injects a bit of levity. Methodology: Or How to Use the Nitty-gritty of History Now at last we come to the point of this whole lecture: How to use the Community of Christ Archives to facilitate research with the possible outcome of a lecture or an article in the John Whitmer Historical Association Journal or other venue. In 1967 Dick Howard wrote a Research Policy stating that research is open to all qualified scholars without reference to denominational affiliations. The question naturally arises, How is it determined whether one is qualified? The basic criterion is that the researcher is able to implement procedures of research on his/her own. 22 In other words, the staff does not do it for the researcher. We can guide the person to materials, but then the scholar is on her/his own. Remember that 99 percent of research is search. The staff is sometimes unable to give assistance to the unfocused researcher who says: Show me everything you have on Mormonism, or Joseph Smith, or missions to Africa or wherever. Research methodology is taught to history graduate students and is essential to anyone using a library or archives. But you don t have to have an advanced degree to be able to use the resources of the archives. You need to frame a question for historical inquiry what it is you are seeking. State your question or goal in precise terms. This becomes your thesis. Next, narrow the focus of your subject too wide a scope leads to frustration or poor research results. A researcher needs to learn how to handle many issues how to deal with biased and contradictory data, and how to handle gaps in the sources. 23 You need to develop a research strategy. Sound research involves not only a goal and a thesis to guide it, but also a strategy for efficiently locating and integrating a wide variety of evidential sources. A lack of strategy is one of the main impediments to effective use of any archive. You must consider the availability of sources. Remem- 22. Richard Howard, Research Policy Statement by Historian, Saints Herald 114, no. 16 (August 15, 1967): Research Skills, Historians and Archivists, See also, Mark A. Scherer, Standing on Strong Shoulders: Church Identity and Historical Consciousness, Restoration Studies X, (2009)137.

74 60 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL ber always to document sources with complete citations so that you or someone else can easily find them. The first step is to survey what has already been done on the topic or person you are going to research. There is no need to duplicate previous published or available research unless you have a new rationale or conclusion to argue. If you plan to present or publish your research, ask yourself if there is an interest in this person or topic. Does anybody besides you care? Is there a need to know? Is there a valid reason to investigate? Or is it merely idle probing of the past? Archival finding aids are the bridges between records and researchers. They have evolved over time from index card systems to complete written guides to today s digital lists. Our finding aid notebooks provide useful information, such as listing of source (provenance) of materials, contents, usage restrictions, index and arrangement of folders, and perhaps biographical information. Our index card files were started by historians and librarians working together. The library contains published materials, while most archival indexed references are primary sources and one-of-akind documents. Historians have begun not only to look at sources in new ways but also to look for new ways to document the past. Archival sources have widened beyond written records to include such items as photographs, oral histories, videotapes, computerized files even wiretap transcriptions and architectural drawings. 24 The explosive use of modern media sometimes presents a problem. Researchers, especially youth, expect retrieval of documents to be available instantly, online, or on easily accessible computers. They seem to expect the results to just be there without much effort on their part. The Community of Christ Archives is working toward updating the electronic retrieval of materials. There are many materials available in digital form in the archives, and more are being added almost daily. Thousands of documents are available on microfilm, and digital access exists for many sources. There are hundreds of typescripts and digital scans of early LDS and RLDS documents. The Saints Herald is microfilmed and in electronic format starting with the June 2004 issue. Many early periodicals and pamphlets are also available. Digital scans of glass-plate photography are available, including the glass slides and negatives by the former graphic arts department and other collections. For instance, there are digital scans of the Inez Smith Davis negatives collection that include many turn-of-the-century images never seen or published before. There is an inventory of all electronic media being compiled. This includes cassette tapes, reel tapes that have been transferred to CDs, films, videos, and audiovisual materials from former years. 24. Historians and Archivists, 33.

75 BERNAUER: Community of Christ Archives: A Richard Howard Legacy 61 Document Your Source Historical research of any kind demands documentation. It matters not whether it is for your personal interest, for a presentation or publication, or for any other purpose. JWHA Journal suggests that the most current Chicago Manual of Style format be followed for any paper. We also have rules about what you, as a researcher, can and can t do. Before starting to use archival materials, you must read our Rules of the Community of Christ Archives and agree to abide by them. And you must always be honest with the archival staff as to your purpose for research. You might be inclined to ask: Why can t I copy this? Depending on the condition, age, or content of the document, you might not be allowed to make copies in any form. However, most materials are available for you to view in either original form or as an exact reproduction, i.e. microfilm, scan, or typescript. We have necessarily learned to detect and deal with surreptitious scanning, photography, and other forbidden means of duplication. This is one reason we will ask that you sit at all times where staff can see what you are doing. We have permission forms for those wanting to publish documents or photographs and other materials. We will often stamp a document: Not for Reproduction in any form without permission. This means any form. We have permission forms for those wanting to publish documents or photographs and other materials. You will usually be charged for any duplicating, and you should clarify your intentions with the archival staff. Research is like an iceberg only a small part shows in your presentation or published paper. Most should remain below the surface but will support the whole. How I Used the Archives As part of this lecture, I was asked to tell how I have used archival materials and methods in my own research and writing. My first real archival research came when I audited a Temple School class on church history taught by Dick Howard. As a final assignment the students were required to do a research paper on a topic of their choice. So in thinking about what I could write on, it occurred to me that I had available the materials I inherited from my grandfather, William O. Hands, who had been asked by President Frederick M. Smith to locate the remains of Joseph and Hyrum Smith in Nauvoo in There was urgency as the Keokuk Dam built in 1913 was backing up the Mississippi River onto previously dry land. The exact location of the remains was not known and the fear was that they might be flooded and lost forever. W. O. (as he was called) was a civil engineer. He formed a plan and recruited a group of men to make a dig and locate probably the most venerated artifacts of the Latter Day Saint movement. During the process photos and notes were taken by

76 62 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL W.O. and given to the church with his final report. But he retained many duplicates and originals, and he would go on lecture tours with his lantern slide projector and recount how the remains were found. I grew up seeing them as my father continued the tradition. Our family also had W.O s. original notes, correspondence, drawings, and photographs of the time before and during the search, the very best of primary source materials, with impeccable provenance of a very significant event. I thought: I have many primary source materials I also have access to the archives I ll write about that. I wrote the paper and with Dick s encouragement, I polished it up a bit, and JWHA published it in the 1991 journal and honored it with the Best Article Award. Restoration Trails Foundation was interested in the subject of my paper, which led to my doing further research in archival materials and photographs. With layout help from my husband Norman, I published a booklet called Still Side by Side: The Reburial of Joseph and Hyrum Smith, that is sold at the Nauvoo and Kirtland historic sites. My use of archival materials is detailed in the footnotes. My Church Heritage I started coming to the library-archives to do family history research as well. Through research into the archives and library materials, I found that I had many ancestors six generations in several different lines who were early LDS and RLDS members. The archives held resources that helped me discover information about my ancestors that I would never have known otherwise. Among my family, the resources disclosed a recipient of a patriarchal blessing from Joseph Smith Sr., contacts during the first journey by RLDS missionaries to southern Iowa, some who worked on both Kirtland and Nauvoo temples, and one wanted by Governor Boggs of Missouri for stealing his horse after the battle at Crooked River in Not everybody has a horse thief in the family! Most of this I found from research done in our archives. I have found that several of these ancestors held enough interest not only for me, but who had a role as well in the history of the church that could be documented from the records, not just from family myth.. George Morey is my third great-grandfather. He was born in 1803 near Palmyra and was baptized into the LDS church about He came to Independence, had a home on the Little Blue, later owned property in Caldwell County at Far West, took part in the battle of Crooked River in 1838, and left with a group of men just before the arrest of Joseph Smith and others. He was wanted for treason and horse stealing in Missouri but wound up in Nauvoo where he lived until after the death of Joseph and Hyrum. He later moved to southern Iowa in 1852, south of Garden Grove, where he lived among other former members some Rigdonites and Strangites until 1859 when

77 BERNAUER: Community of Christ Archives: A Richard Howard Legacy 63 the first RLDS missionaries arrived to tell the group of the Reorganization under Joseph III. He became a high priest and president of the Little River branch and helped to foster the growth of Lamoni, the future headquarters of the RLDS church. From resources in the archives, I wrote an article, One in the Spirit: George Morey and the Pleasanton, Iowa Branch, which is biographical in nature, but centers on the early branch history. I gave this as an MHA presentation, following which it was published in Restoration Studies VI in Establishing the RLDS Church in Southwestern Iowa The research project I have now pursued for fifteen years documenting and writing about the establishment of the RLDS church in southwestern Iowa started when I read an MHA call for papers for the 1997 meeting in Omaha, Nebraska, on the 150th anniversary of the Mormon Trail. It has been said that the Mormon migration west was like a soaker hose, leaving a lot behind. For years the counties bordering the Missouri River were home for LDS members who either chose not to migrate to Utah or who returned and settled on the rich Iowa farmland. One of the topics suggested for the conference was, RLDS Beginnings in Southwestern Iowa. I looked outside my office door and saw the shelves holding the original branch records of what I knew were some of the very ones that played a part in this. There were all primary-source materials, plus the other archival records I knew about. This started the research and resulted in the MHA presentation. When I was elected as JWHA president in 1998, I expanded on my research into the early days of the RLDS church in southern Iowa. This research resulted in my presidential address, Gathering the Remnants: Establishing the RLDS Church in Southwestern Iowa. It was published in the JWHA Journal of 2000 for which the Mormon History Association honored me with the Edgar Lyon Award for Excellence. My Research Methods I spent lots of time surveying what had previously been done through a search for sources of information. Since my focus was to document early RLDS branches and members, I developed a research strategy to compile records of the early RLDS membership and branches in the area. I wanted to document the locations, dates of organization and membership information of branches from 1859 to about Some of the branches were organized before the official founding of the RLDS church in April My main source was membership and local branch record books, some dating from I also accessed the deceased membership file on microfilm. I read diaries

78 64 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL and journals of the first missionaries and early members who lived in the area and found many branch histories from local historians. I checked all the indexes of archival materials and those of all church publications. I found early maps and located the route of the Mormon Trail and the settlements that grew up along its route. I am grateful for the help from several LDS historian-friends in providing information on the LDS communities in the area and lists of both people and settlements. I also used the US census, Iowa census records, and Iowa county histories as well as Internet sites, e.g., GenWeb, where I was allowed to post several RLDS branch membership lists. In 2001 I did a presentation at the JWHA conference, Biography of a Branch: Galland s Grove. I treated the branch as if it were a person and related its ancestry, birth, growth, maturity, and eventual decline and death, along with memorials erected to its life. I liked the Galland s Grove story so well that I did another presentation at MHA in 2004 called Galland s Grove: Microcosm of an Early RLDS Branch in Southwestern Iowa. It was an illustrated talk that I never published. I eventually decided to compile all the data I was finding to make a permanent record of the branches and members. The membership information was entered into a database using genealogy software, a project that has taken over ten years. Since I am still refining and adding new information, I don t think the project will ever end! I have gathered information on seventy branches documenting the date and place of organization, who the leaders and members were, the location (if known), the duration, and other information discovered all with the source citations. There are thirty-six hundred names now in my database of RLDS members in this area to By 1890 membership in Iowa was five thousand, the largest concentration in the church. 25 There had been little documented research on the growth of the RLDS church in this area or any other area in the US up to the 1990s. This is a neglected topic of research that is still awaiting dedicated researchers in other geographical areas. My RLDS data is branch-centered not for individuals or extended families that were outside southwestern Iowa. I generally use only baptized persons. Why I did it this way represents a difference in philosophy between RLDS and LDS interests. My purpose was not, nor is it now, genealogy-centered. While the data can be an aid to genealogy, that was never my purpose. Since the results of my research have been branch-centered, they fit readily into the philosophy and theology of the Community of Christ. Over the years I have shared information and several presentations with Community of Christ and LDS historians and researchers and am very grateful for their interest and assistance. I am also appreciative of help from the history community in 25. Saints Herald 37, no. 37 (April 19, 1890): 252.

79 BERNAUER: Community of Christ Archives: A Richard Howard Legacy 65 Community of Christ, from former archivist Ron Romig, and especially for the unfailing support and encouragement I have received from Church Historian Dr. Mark Scherer. And of course, I am most grateful to Dick Howard, for without his efforts in establishing an archive open to research, none of this would have been possible. Challenge What I have done as an un-credentialed historian can be done by you. At the 2010 JWHA conference Mark Scherer issued a challenge to engage in historical research using sound methodology, It is time for the church history community to break out of its trance-like focus on the first fourteen years of the movement. Mark listed many topics that could be researched and explored for presentation in venues such as this. 26 I would add that there are many other geographical areas where branch histories can be researched to bring branch life and church membership to life. I urge you to search out what most interests you and follow the lead. I challenge you to look anew or, for the first time, how you might explore the areas of church history that call to you. Community of Christ president Stephen Veazey in a 2008 Herald article listed some church history principles. I call your attention to his affirmation, The church encourages honest, responsible historical scholarship. 27 When asked to give his philosophy of history, Dick once said, We have a history that needs to be understood, and it is the task of the historian to try to understand that to the best degree possible, and then to communicate that to the church in the best ways possible. We have nothing to fear from historical research. 28 This is echoed by Mark Scherer s comment that if historical truth creates obstacles in our journey, we are traveling the wrong road. 29 In his oral history Dick Howard said, I wanted to end up with a fellowship of people who were comfortable looking at all aspects of our history and not backing away from any of it. 30 I remind you that forty years ago the John Whitmer Historical Association was founded in the Howards living room! JWHA is still that fellowship of people. We give credit to Dick Howard as the founding force for the establishment of the archives and acknowledge our debt to him. Without the nitty-gritty of histo- 26. Mark Scherer, Beyond Nauvoo: Discovering the Reorganized Church Story Again for the First Time, John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 31, no. 2 (Fall/Winter 2011): Stephen Veazey, Church History Principles, Herald 155, no. 10 (2009): Howard, interview, Scherer, Standing on Strong Shoulders, Howard, interview, 376.

80 66 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL ry the documents, the evidence of persons interacting, the letters, diaries, minutes of meetings, photographs and recordings our history would be based on myth and supposition. I give thanks and appreciation to each archivist who in turn has brought his/her interests, and talents to strengthen the archives. The history community is greatly indebted to all of them. It has been my privilege to devote twenty-two years of my life to the continuing viability of the archives. The Community of Christ Archives is only one of the legacies from Dick Howard. It is a work in progress, an ongoing endeavor that holds many well-known treasures and countless more waiting to be discovered, or re-examined, to find what is there. Our thanks to you, Richard Howard, for a most precious legacy! Barbara Hands Bernauer was born in Independence, Missouri, graduated from Graceland College, Lamoni, Iowa, and received a B.S. degree from Iowa State University and a Master s degree in Education from Missouri University. As a seventh generation LDS-RLDS, she has done research in family history and extensive reading of early Mormon history. Since 1989 she has been employed by the Community of Christ in the history and archives areas. She was President of JWHA,

81 Observations about the JWHA and the Community of Christ Historical Department Paul M. Edwards I wish to acknowledge the fortieth anniversary of the John Whitmer Historical Association. The association was a project of my youth and has been a significant companion in my aging. Unlike so many other organizations with which I have been associated, the Whitmer has remained true to its calling and has provided good service to its members, the church, and the study of history. Born in a period of considerable controversy, nurtured by both love and resentment, it was formulated and has been maintained by honest men and women who were trying to understand them and their people. It has done so with integrity. It has in its rather dignified manner initiated study, analysis, and observation where few men and women had gone before. It has also served as a sounding board for some who have journeyed along less traveled roads and who soon learned, that despite Emerson s promise, the less traveled road has far fewer restrooms. For many, talk of the good old days must seem rather quaint. And like many, witnessing history after it has claimed its victims, there must be some wonder at the passion with which so many of those days are remembered. To them I would say this. Be kind: for many of those involved it was their greatest challenge; it was in fact their finest hour. When I came to the Community of Christ in 1982 as the president of Temple School, I came with the totally erroneous belief that religious politics could not be any more difficult, cruel, or less significant than academic politics. I was wrong; I had a great lesson to learn and perchance did not learn it well. But time and experience has taught me some things. Time, of course, is the great pacifier, and what was forty years ago the source of great controversy is not the pabulum of our youth. It was my favorite philoso- 67

82 68 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL pher, Schopenhauer, who said that All truth passes through three stages: First it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third it is self-evident. In so many cases that is true. It is true, as well, that time modifies the harshness with which we remember. Some years ago I got myself in some serious trouble with three highly respectable friends by suggesting that politicians, old buildings, and whores all become respectable with age. I don t want to compound my difficulty, but rather to draw your attention to the fact that this applies as well to religious beliefs and even church history; but not necessarily for church historians. Today many accommodations to our history, for which much blood was shed, have become the norm. But, unfortunately, a good deal of the damage along the way remains unrepaired. At the time of the long fast, as I have begun thinking of it, I am inclined to believe that some, if not most, of the ideological and historical confrontations faced during these many years can be explained by acknowledging that the very essence of the structure of the Community of Christ has created and maintained an inhospitable dichotomy. From the bottom to the top of its hierarchy the role of the pastor and the president are combined in such a way that neither can function adequately. From the bifurcation of the priesthood to the believer, from prophet to disciple, from faith to belief, the path of either/or has always maintained a disbelief in the credibility of comprehension. To simplify: we somehow expect the same man or woman who is called to be the shepherd of the flock to be the same one responsible for keeping them in line for the slaughter. Despite its dubious origin, it is an ungodly predicament into which to send men and women of good will. It was into one of the manifestations of this crisis that the association was born. Its significance, at least for me, is that it provided us the means by which we could choose, wisely or not, to take sides to be managers of our history, spokespersons for the as yet unspoken past, and to deal with the reality of our traditions as we saw them, more concerned with the legitimacy of our study than with the burden of other person s souls. This is not to say that there were no pastors among us that would be foolish for all were ministers in their own manner; lovers of persons as well as lovers of fact, and we each fought those battles day after day, study after study, conference after conference, late night bull session after bull session. But in its own subtle ways the association freed us as so many others could not be, were not, freed. On the one side of this dichotomy were men and women of good intent. I had the good fortune of doing the oral history of both President Wallace B. Smith and Alan Tyree. In both cases I came away with new insights and appreciation for the roles they played and the unmanageable situation in which they were placed each and every day. They coped with their divided roles; one as managers of the movement for who power was interpreted as responsibility for survival and the welfare, both economic and political, of the church. But at the same time and within this same

83 EDWARDS: The JWHA and the Community of Christ Historical Department 69 body and often within the same men were honest and well-meant individuals who saw the positions as shepherds whose defense of the flock was paramount. Just as every congregation in the movement is divided between the pastor who is supposed to love the sinner and the manager who silences them, their responsibilities as well as their inclinations were divided between initiating personal growth, integrity, and expectation while at the same time protecting them from themselves. It was a task that would make Solomon an existentialist. As historian turned amateur psychologist for just this moment, let me suggest that the problem faced was that while truth was paramount, it was also destructive. In fact it often came down to this: the church they were sworn to protect was not the church they believed in. In the minds of many many historians in fact the question was this: how can you acknowledge the fact that though you walk like a duck, talk like a duck, and try and act like a duck; you are really not a duck? That you have been swimming in the pond of restored truth for so long you think you belong there. Compound this with the realization that as you take on more and more of an apparent identity, you will surely sink to the bottom of the pond. How much can you acknowledge your lack of tradition and remain traditional. The years that followed reminded me very much of an old Swahili saying, When the elephants fight it is the grass that suffers. My father, a strong supporter of equal rights, nevertheless fought it in the congregations for years because he believed that the solution was to be found in duration rather than revolution. He believed that the situation would change for the better, but not if we killed off the church in the process. My argument, which as an aside was the same one that led my father to want to horsewhip Bill Russell, was that the church was not worth saving if it could only be saved by failing to stand up for what was right. The road Bill and I shared gave us an advantage; we had no obligation to preserve, we had taken no oath to restore, we had not dedicated our lives to the pastoral concerns of people who trusted us. We could take off our duck-like feathers and not worry nearly as much which of the other birds would sink into the mud. Recently while wandering through the net I came across a blog that quoted William Russell as saying that the JWHA was focused on liberalizing the RLDS Church away from its original beliefs and into the Community of Christ. 1 Somehow I am not convinced that Russell was ever that articulate. Besides, it is not true; he did not say it, and whoever did makes a claim in total contradiction to the reality. In the first place I am not sure any one of those persons involved in the Association s founding on September 18, 1972, could have told you what the original beliefs of the church were, let alone that they needed to be liberalized. I suppose the group was, 1. In Defense of Joseph, The New Attacks on Joseph Part 2, August 27, 2009, accessed October 8, 2012,

84 70 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL by definition, more liberal than Tom Atkins or Ray Zinser, but my reading of those good folks was that they wanted to understand the church and its beliefs through the honest study of its history and were willing to go where the study took them. As far as I am concerned, and with many thanks to the persons both liberal and conservative who are involved, it has done just that. Like an old dog chasing a juicy bone, I have allowed an interest in the Korean War to pull me away from a continued study of church history and am often very sorry about that. Not only because it has drawn me away from all of you for whom I have great affection, but because despite my passion to understand war, I miss the unfolding of new and ever-enlightening discoveries about my own tradition. Paul M. Edwards, a PhD from St. Andrews University, is the past president of the JWHA and the MHA and the founding director of the Center for the Study of the Korean War in Independence, Missouri. A former professor at Graceland University he is the author of several books on church history and the Korean War.

85 Facing Ahistory in the Community of Christ Richard P. Howard Introduction This paper urges the optimal use and role of history in the institutional church. In 1985 Robert Bellah and four colleagues wrote on the duty of healthy communities with reference to the uses of their history: Communities have a history they are constituted by their past For this reason we can speak of a real community as a Community of memory, one that does not forget its past. These stories of collective history are an important part of the tradition that is so central to a community of memory. but the stories are not all exemplary. A genuine community of memory will also tell painful stories of shared suffering that sometimes creates deeper identities than success [stories]. And if the community is completely honest, it will remember stories not only of suffering received but of suffering inflicted dangerous memories, for they call the community to alter ancient evils. The communities of memory that tie us to the past also turn us toward the future as communities of hope. They carry a context of meaning that can allow us to connect our aspirations for ourselves and those closest to us with the aspirations of a larger whole and see our own efforts as being, in part, contributions to a common good. 1 From this I infer the need for Community of Christ to nurture fearless uses of its past. Doing this would place the church in an ongoing quest for the truest possible self-image, arising in part from eager historical explorations and analyses. Holding nothing back, each generation would favor itself and the next with increasingly accurate understandings of the past. Enlightenment and empathy instead of judgment or denial would flourish. Leaders championing the pursuit of mission would 1. Robert N. Bellah, Richard Madsen, William M. Sullivan, Ann Swidler, and Steven M. Tipton, eds., Habits of the Heart (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985),

86 72 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL openly welcome and sponsor analytical historical inquiry. They would have learned how to build vital connections between mission and the contextual truth and diversity of their communal past. Consider an analog. Amoral means lacking moral consciousness, having only dim awareness of the rightness or wrongness of actions, values, and ideas. An amoral person is mostly unaware of the social consequences of his/her injurious personal choices and actions. Similarly, ahistorical persons and groups demonstrate amnesia. Their ahistorical stances create personal and group disinterest in making enlightened connections between the present and the past. Such persons and groups move through time lacking authentic historical moorings. For the church to develop a healthy sense of its history, it will deliberately develop strategies fostering awareness of vital historical reference points. This is an endless process. To ignore, deny, or sabotage this work due to feared or presumed negative consequences is only to prolong and deepen the ahistorical dilemma. A prime example of this was the adversarial approach taken by RLDS historic site tour guides at Nauvoo and Kirtland during the 1940s and 1950s. Their major goal was to elevate the RLDS image by demonizing LDS Mormons. Community of Christ leaders in today s world are proclaiming nine Enduring Principles and pursuing five strategic Mission Initiatives. 2 Not one of these fourteen items refers even indirectly to the place of church history in today s mission. This in itself indicates the subtle presence of an ahistorical perspective within the Community of Christ s top leadership. Furthermore, the current church historian, Mark Scherer, was kept waiting four years until the church leaders finally let go their fears sufficiently to authorize the release of The Journey of a People: The Period of Restoration, 1820 to 1844, the first volume of his new church history trilogy. Mark has even finished the second volume of the work, subtitled: The Period of Reorganization, 1844 to We were told in August 2012 that both volumes would be released for sale during the 2013 World Conference. One of the CofC general officers in 2011 told a church school class in Independence, Missouri that pastoral concerns were the reason for the leadership s long delay in publishing the first volume. Nearly all in that classroom suspected pastoral concerns to be a euphemism for the leadership s fears at offering analytical history to the membership. What if members, on reading it, should become irate, stop giving money, or leave? This fear illustrates the church s ahistorical culture it would be wiser to pursue false identities than to risk probing dangerous memories that might inflict pain or conflict within the faith community. Ahistoricism has manifested itself in two modes: 2. See the appendix, pp , for these two core value statements of Community of Christ.

87 HOWARD: Facing Ahistory in the Community of Christ the earnest embrace of a fancied History that bears little relation to any authentic, verifiable past; such is the case with Mormonism s foundational (sacred texts) period, to the denial of an authentic past that would offer dangerous memories too painful for the person or community to bear. This is most clearly illustrated in the post-kirtland decades of Mormon, RLDS, and Community of Christ ahistorical materials. I shall now comment on these two modes. When and how did this ahistorical dilemma begin? The systemic roots of this phenomenon date to the earliest days of Mormonism. To consider this requires thinking beyond comfortable foundational footings on which church tradition and structures have grown. To grasp the content and rationale of that foundation should help church leaders and members recognize and desire to overcome the heresy of ahistory. To move toward achieving this goal would put the church in a position to pursue more effectively its mission in the postmodern, ahistorical world. 1. Mormonism s Ahistorical Foundation, The Book of Mormon When Joseph Smith published the Book of Mormon in March 1830 he was designated on the title page and in the preface as its author. Soon a group of Smith s followers met to witness six leaders formally organize a religious society, the Church of Christ. These enthusiastic disciples held that the content of the Book of Mormon had been translated by divine revelation, from ancient reformed Egyptian language symbols inscribed on metal plates retrieved from a western New York hillside. They also affirmed that many Book of Mormon stories and teachings originated in biblical settings, and that several migrations of Hebrew colonies traversed oceanic waters from Bible lands to various places in the Western Hemisphere. They believed that by divine revelation their prophet-leader, Joseph Smith, had given the world a literal, pre-columbian history of aboriginal peoples in the Western Hemisphere. In doing so Smith was seer, translator, and prophet to the church. 3 The oft-used phrase, by the gift and power of God, meant the revelatory process producing the text of the Book of Mormon. By the force of his remarkable charisma, Joseph Smith did for his adherents what no subsequent prophet-leader of either the LDS Mormon church or the RLDS church/community of Christ has ever dared to do for theirs: create history by divine revelation. Those who soon fought against the emerging Church of Christ, however, held that Smith had in fact authored the Book of Mormon; its stories and teachings re- 3. These three words, plus revelator, describe Smith s relationship to his followers, declared to them on April 6, See Doctrine and Covenants, section 19:1a.

88 74 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL flected Smith s attempts to deal with the religious, social, and political values and issues of early nineteenth-century American society. 4 Their position in this regard has been strengthened by the more scholarly, less polemic work of experts in the fields of sociology, history, theology, archaeology, and linguistics. 5 Also, sustained efforts by LDS Mormon and RLDS church members archaeological (mostly, pseudo-archaeological) expeditions, active during much of the twentieth century, were unable to verify an ancient geographic setting for any of the places named in the Book of Mormon. 6 Speculative theories and presumptions still abound, but exact archaeological confirmations languish. LDS Mormon and RLDS/Community of Christ leaders have suspended their churches investments in archaeological efforts to vindicate the Book of Mormon. Any hoped-for but so far unverified ancient historical reality narrated in the Book of Mormon remains a mystery. The Book of Mormon, then, marked the beginning of Mormonism s long-enduring ahistorical stance. Joseph Smith s followers believed in divine revelation as the channel of Smith s ancient, aboriginal history book. They did not think to inquire whether the Book of Mormon represented verifiable ancient history early Mormons knew in their hearts that this sacred history from their young prophet required no further proof Smith had recovered it from the mists of time through divine inspiration. Thus the ahistorical stance in early Mormonism took root in the fertile soil of western New York s nineteenth-century milieu of enthusiastic religious fervor. Early Mormons trusted in a literal, ancient history that never was. Such a faith became an unshakable conviction of an assumed ancient history. Early Mormons merged faith with ahistory. That amalgam created a church in which its proclaimed, ancient history became its faith. Soon their own current history would also become a major dimension of their declared faith. Joseph Smith s Bible Revision ( JSBR) A second source of foundational ahistory occurred in June Joseph Smith saw problems: historical inaccuracies and doctrinal lapses in the KJV of the Bible. In the Book of Mormon Smith had recorded a prediction that in the final days of history, he himself was to be the prophetic agent to restore many plain and pre- 4. Eber D. Howe, Mormonism Unvailed [sic]; Or a Faithful Account of the Singular Imposition and Delusion from Its Rise to the Present Time (Painesville, OH: Printed and published by the author, 1834). 5. Thomas F. O Dea, The Book of Mormon, in his The Mormons (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957; Wayne Ham, Problems in Interpreting the Book of Mormon as History, Courage: A Journal of History, Thought, and Action 1, no. 1 (September 1970): John L. Sorenson wrote a comprehensive apology: An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City and Provo, UT: Deseret Book and the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1985). His verification claims, though heavily documented, are carefully hedged.

89 HOWARD: Facing Ahistory in the Community of Christ 75 cious parts of the Bible, lost through the centuries by carelessness or evil design. 7 Reminding his followers of this prediction, Smith dictated to his scribe the text of a new revelatory narrative, known since 1864 as section 22 in Community of Christ s Doctrine and Covenants. This document reads like a detailed chronicle a verbatim transcript of conversations and reflections. The fledgling Church of Christ embraced this text as an important slice of literal, sacred history. Originally titled, A Revelation Given to Joseph the Revelator, June 1830, paragraph 1 is its prologue: The words of God which he spake unto Moses when Moses was caught up into an exceeding high mountain and he saw God face to face and he talked with him, and the glory of God was upon Moses; therefore Moses could endure his presence. The rest of this document represents these four strands: Moses s three conversations with God, paragraphs 2 5 (LDS: 3 7); (LDS: 24 26); and (LDS: 30 41). In verse 24 (LDS: 41) God commissions Moses to write from God s dictation the story of the earth, and promises that in some [distant] time, when much of what Moses would write will have been removed by the children of men, God would raise up another [i.e., Joseph Smith] like unto you who would restore those lost words for the sake of faithful believers. Moses s encounter and debate with Satan, paragraphs 8 16 (LDS: 12 23) Moses s two reflections and affirmations, paragraphs 6 7 (LDS: 8 11); and 19 (LDS: 27 29) Joseph Smith s closing declaration, paragraph 25 (LDS: 42): These words were spoken unto Moses in the mount, the name of which shall not be known among the children of men. And now they are spoken unto you [elders in the newly formed Church of Christ, at Colesville, New York] Amen. If Joseph Smith and his first followers had been able to interpret this message as a metaphorical or mythical story related to ancient Hebrew Bible times, they might have emphasized some lasting theological insights into God s care for all of creation in an ever-expanding universe. They instead understood this record as literal historical fact. First the Book of Mormon, and now this revelatory record, became firmly planted in the hearts and minds of Mormonism s opening generation as ancient sacred history. Both leaders and followers were unknowingly immersed in creating and per- 7. Book of Mormon: I Nephi 3: (LDS: 13:26 36). See also II Nephi 2:10 35, later duplicated by Joseph Smith as Gen. 50:26 35, JSBR.

90 76 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL petuating several important narrative/sermonic paradigms, giving their descendants a literal, ahistorical framework that remains largely intact. During the autumn of 1830 Smith dictated another document entitled, A Revelation Given to the Elders of the Church of Christ on the First Book of Moses. This lengthy narrative ran very roughly parallel plus many interpolations to the first three chapters of Genesis, KJV, and formed the nascent origin of Joseph Smith s Bible revision JSBR) 8. Smith s literal grasp of the Genesis text offered the pre-historical part of Genesis (chapters 1 11, KJV) as bona fide history, emended and restored by divine revelation. His followers embraced his revised Genesis text as a perfectly restored scripture. They were forming Mormonism s views of scripture and history for generations to come. By subjective divine revelation as literal-history Joseph Smith generated ahistorical underpinnings that would shape, nurture, and vindicate Mormonism s self-image, purpose, worldview, theological grounding, and missionary message. Smith s literal view of the Bible could not have accounted for either ancient biblical, cultural settings, or the centuries-long processes of canonical formation. Smith s ahistorical presuppositions also shaped his December 1830 declaration of yet a third post-book of Mormon ( JSBR) revelatory message: A Revelation Concerning Adam after he had been driven out of the Garden of Eden. This document ultimately became Genesis chapters 4 7 of the JSBR. Smith followed the KJV, somewhat, but inserted much new material into the narrative. 9 For example, chapters 6:45 to 7:78 nearly four thousand words embody his most comprehensive Genesis gloss, wholly foreign to the KJV. There Smith amplified the KJV s cryptic references to Enoch, recording many of Enoch s sermonic teachings on Zion. Enoch s people, his city, were so righteous and obedient to Christian gospel truths that they were taken up into heaven (translated) to be with God. The JSBR story also promises that in the final days of history Enoch and his city would descend back to earth to greet and rejoice with the Saints of the Church of Christ. Those faithful disciples would be finishing Zion, the New Jerusalem (in Jackson County, Missouri, USA), in preparation for Christ s imminent second coming. Genesis 1 7 of the JSBR, then, was seen by Joseph Smith and his followers as the inspired restoration of much literal, biblical history. These chapters are replete with his extensive interpolations of Christian symbolism (e.g., the baptism of Adam with fire and the Holy Ghost, in the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of God; the atonement; and the salvation of humanity through the blood of Jesus Christ). These uses 8. The unfinished manuscript papers were edited and published in 1867 by the RLDS Church, at Plano, Illinois, as The Holy Scriptures, Translated and Corrected by the Spirit of Revelation. By Joseph Smith, Jr., the Seer. In 1936 the RLDS church added the polemical phrase, Inspired Version to the title page and spine of the book. See the LDS Book of Moses, chapters 2 4, in The Pearl of Great Price. 9. The most extensive additions to the KJV in these first seven chapters of Genesis of the JSBR are chapter 3:1 5; chapter 4; chapter 5:1 3, 10 16, 35 45; chapter 6:5 7, 23 24, 26 71; chapter 7:1 76,

91 HOWARD: Facing Ahistory in the Community of Christ 77 of Christian language and doctrine reveal Smith s concerted attempt to Christianize Genesis, as well as many other selected texts of the Hebrew Bible. The Book of Doctrine and Covenants Two Examples Section 7 (LDS: 7). This revelatory text recorded what was seen as a literal, historical encounter in ancient Palestine between Jesus and his beloved apostle, John. In its first form, dictated in April 1829, 10 John asks Jesus for permission to remain on earth to bring souls to Christ. Jesus responds by promising John perpetual life on earth until Jesus should come in my glory. The apostle Peter s desire to come speedily unto Christ in his kingdom, was approved; Jesus granted Peter s wish. Six years later, however, Joseph Smith expanded this record. This time Peter and James were named as apostles who would tarry with John to minister on earth until Christ s return to begin his millennial reign. Early Mormons understood this as literal history, including Jesus s assurances of the end-times. Section 104 (LDS: 107). The apostles of the first Council of Twelve in the young Church of Christ, now renamed Church of the Latter Day Saints, were ordained in February 1835 at Kirtland, Ohio. Looking toward launching their first mission together to the East Coast (USA), they met with Joseph Smith and asked him to seek God s will for their mission. Smith responded on March 28 by dictating a lengthy instruction which became a vital foundational document explaining the church s governing priesthood structure. Of its forty-four paragraphs, twelve (18 29; LDS: 107:40 57) leapt back into the pre-historical Genesis era to report, by revelation, the high priestly lineage from Adam to Noah, listing ten ordinands. Adam heads the list, having earlier been both baptized and ordained by the Holy Ghost to be a high priest. Adam is represented in this record as having ordained seven of his descendants to the high priesthood during a period of several hundred years. Doctrine and Covenants Section 104: (LDS: 107:40 57). 18. The order of this priesthood was confirmed to be handed down from father to son, and rightly belongs to the literal descendants of the chosen seed, to whom the promises were made. This order was instituted in the days of Adam, and came down by lineage in the following manner: 19a. From Adam to Seth, who was ordained by Adam at the age of sixty nine years, and was blessed by him three years previous to his [Adam s] death, and received the promise of God by his father, that his posterity should be the chosen of the Lord, 19b. and that they should be preserved unto the end of the earth, because he (Seth) was a perfect man, and his likeness was the express likeness of his father, insomuch that 10. Book of Commandments (BC), chapter 6 (Harmony, PA: April 1829), Sub-paragraph numbering: RLDS church edition, 1952.

92 78 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL he seemed to be like unto his father in all things; and could be distinguished from him only by his age. 20. Enos was ordained at the age of one hundred and thirty four years, and four months, by the hand of Adam. 21. God called upon Cainan in the wilderness, in the fortieth year of his age, and he met Adam in journeying to the place Shedolamak: he was eighty seven years old when he received his ordination. 22. Mahalaleel was four hundred and ninety six years and seven days old when he was ordained by the hand of Adam, who also blessed him. 23. Jared was two hundred years old when he was ordained under the hand of Adam, who also blessed him. 24a. Enoch was twenty five years old when he was ordained under the hand of Adam, and he was sixty five and Adam blessed him and he saw the Lord: 24b. and he walked with him, and was before his face continually: and he walked with God three hundred and sixty five years: making him four hundred and thirty years old when he was translated. 25. Methuselah was one hundred years old when he was ordained under the hand of Adam. 26. Lamech was thirty two years old when he was ordained under the hand of Seth. 27. Noah was ten years old when he was ordained under the hand of Methuselah. 28a. Three years previous to the death of Adam, he called Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, Jared, Enoch, and Methuselah, who were all high priests, with the residue of his posterity, who were righteous, into the valley of Adam-ondi-ahman, and there bestowed upon them his last blessing. 28b. And the Lord appeared unto them, and they rose up and blessed Adam, and called him Michael, the Prince, the Archangel. 28c. And the Lord administered comfort unto Adam, and said unto him, I have set thee to be at the head: a multitude of nations shall come of thee; and thou art a prince over them forever. 29a. And Adam stood up in the midst of the congregation, and notwithstanding he was bowed down with age, being full of the Holy Ghost, predicted whatsoever should befall his posterity unto the latest generation. 29b. These things were all written in the Book of Enoch, and are to be testified of in due time. This part of section 104 augmented many other genealogical data recorded earlier in the JSBR, 12 adding detailed information about ordinations, ages of the ordinands, faith in Jesus Christ, and in the Christian atonement. Joseph Smith, then, through revelation dictated what to his followers was sacred history. They readily accepted his narratives as literal, historical facts concerning what most scholars today agree are part of the pre-historical narratives of early Genesis 12. Genesis, chapters 5 6, JSBR (LDS: Moses 6 7).

93 HOWARD: Facing Ahistory in the Community of Christ 79 (i.e., theological stories inaccessible to historical verification as factual ). Thus the ahistorical perspectives of early Mormonism were firmly planted during its first six years. This compelling, multilayered foundation would profoundly touch thousands of minds and hearts, forming and strengthening personal and group ahistorical consciousness for generations. Even the force of more than half a century of the New Mormon History has hardly more than exposed the enduring impact of Mormonism s ahistorical foundations. A Metaphorical Corrective to the Ahistorical Foundation If the founding generation s faith in non-historical books and stories as literal, ancient history has helped create an ahistorical dilemma for Community of Christ, what can be done quit publishing them end their canonical tenure? Such a course unlikely as it might be would not fully dissolve the ahistorical foundational force in the church s tradition. To re-mythologize such power could require combined resources of parable, metaphor, and symbol. I now offer one example of this type of corrective from each of the Community of Christ s three standard books of indigenous scripture (Book of Mormon, the JSBR, and The Book of Doctrine and Covenants). These, plus many more, might incline the church to examine its ahistorical foundation and subsequent experience, and use scriptural and other resources to create more insightful metaphorical applications. This course would most definitely NOT be a pastoral strategy, but rather an exacting, inter-disciplinary journey, designed to challenge and correct the Community of Christ s ahistorical foundational dilemma. Book of Mormon: Ether 3: (LDS: 6:2 6). For it came to pass after the Lord had prepared the stones which the Brother of Jared had carried up into the mount, the Brother of Jared came down out of the mount, and he did put forth the stones into the vessels which were prepared, one in each end thereof; and behold, they did give light unto the vessels thereof. And thus the lord caused stones to shine in darkness, to give light unto men, women and children, that they might not cross the great waters in darkness. They prepared all manner of food, that thereby they might subsist upon the water, and also food for their flocks and herds, and whatsoever beast, or animal, or fowl that they should carry with them. When they had done all these things, they got aboard their vessels or barges, and set forth into the sea, commending themselves unto the Lord their God. The Lord God caused that there should a furious wind blow upon the face of the waters, towards the promised land: and thus they were tossed upon the waves of the sea before the wind. They were many times buried in the depths of the sea, because of the mountainous waves which broke upon them, and also the great and terrible tempests which were caused by the fierceness of the wind. 13. RLDS church edition, 1953 Printing, based on its authorized 1908 edition.

94 80 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL When they were buried in the deep, there was no water that could hurt them, their vessels being tight like unto a dish, and also they were tight like unto the ark of Noah; Therefore when they were encompassed about by many waters, they did cry unto the Lord, and he did bring them forth again upon the top of the waters. And the wind did never cease to blow towards the promised land while they were upon the waters: and thus they were driven forth before the wind. In Jungian analysis the stone is a metaphor for the soul, in this case the prime mover of the Jaredite migration story. Rather than to accept this ahistory as fact, the opportunity yet avails to make use of the image of a bright internal compass as a spiritual life conductor. Such usage could convey the text s essential message without requiring any affirmation of historical accuracy. 14 Genesis 2:4 12, 25 26, JSBR. 15 (Please note the following for ease of interpretation. Text in ordinary typeface is identical in both the KJV and the JSBR. Type in bold italics indicates JSBR additions to, or revisions of, the KJV text. Type with double strikethrough indicates KJV text deleted in the JSBR.) And now, behold, I say unto you, that these are the generations of the heavens, and of the earth, when they were created in the day that I the Lord God made the earth and the heavens heavens and the earth, and every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew. For I the Lord God created all things of which I have spoken, spiritually, before they were naturally upon the face of the earth; for I the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the face of the earth. And I, the Lord God, had created all the children of men, and there was not yet a man to till the ground, for in heaven created I them, and there was not yet flesh upon the earth, neither in the water, neither in the air. But I, the Lord God, spake, and there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground. And I the Lord God formed man of from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul; the first flesh upon the earth, the first man also. Nevertheless, all things were before created, but spiritually were they created and made, according to my word. And I the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he I put the man whom he I had formed. And out of the ground made I the Lord God to grow every tree naturally, that is pleasant to the sight of man, and man could behold it, and it became also a living soul; for it was spiritual in the day that I created it; for it remaineth in the sphere in which I, God, created it; yea, even all things which I prepared for the use of man; and man saw that it was and good for food; And I the Lord God planted the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and also the tree of knowledge of good and evil.and out of the ground I the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; 14. Rachel Naomi Remen, Epilogue, in her My Grandfather s Blessings; Stories of Strength, Refuge, and Belonging (NY: Riverside Books, 2000), is my source for the metaphorical truth in this Jaredite story from Ether 3. This Epilogue is not included in subsequent printings of her book printing of the 1944 New Corrected Edition, JSBR; (KJV: Gen. 2:4 9, 19; LDS: Moses 3:4 9, 19).

95 HOWARD: Facing Ahistory in the Community of Christ 81 and brought them commanded that they should come unto Adam to see what he would call them. And they were also living souls; for I, God, breathed into them the breath of life, and commanded that whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was should be the name thereof. In this text Smith describes a pre-existent, non-bodily, spiritual creation of every being. The Community of Christ has traditionally interpreted this literally and linearly, i.e., as historical fact. I suggest that a metaphorical reading could emphasize the essential union of physical and spiritual existence and the inter-relatedness of all beings. To appropriate this text metaphorically would be to strengthen personal and communal solidarity in accordance with the Community of Christ s evolving mission and message. 16 Doctrine and Covenants Sections 7, 26 and 104 (LDS: 7, 27, 107). The text of the amended section 26:2 3 is shown here. The original text is set in bold type; italics indicates new material added, (All of paragraph 1 was retained as first recorded in August 1830.) 2a. Behold, this is wisdom in me; wherefore marvel not, for the hour cometh that I will drink of the fruit of the vine with you on the earth, and with Moroni, whom I have sent unto you to reveal the Book of Mormon, containing the fullness of my everlasting gospel; 2b. to whom I have committed the keys of the record of the stick of Ephraim; and also with Elias, to whom I have committed the keys of bringing to pass the restoration of all things, or the restorer of all things spoken by the mouth of all the holy prophets since the world began, concerning the last days; 2c. and also John the son of Zacharias, which Zacharias he (Elias) visited and gave promise that he should have a son, and his name should be John, and he should be filled with the spirit of Elias; 2d. which John I have sent unto you, my servants, Joseph Smith, Jr., and Oliver Cowdery, to ordain you unto this first priesthood which you have received, that you might be called and ordained even as Aaron; 2e. and also Elijah, unto whom I have committed the keys of the power of turning the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to the fathers, that the whole earth may not be smitten with a curse; 2f. and also with Joseph, and Jacob, and Isaac, and Abraham, your fathers; by whom the promises remain; and also with Michael, or Adam, the father of all, the prince of all, the ancient of days. 3a. And also with Peter, and James, and John, whom I have sent unto you, by whom I have ordained you and confirmed you to be apostles and especial witnesses of my name, and bear the keys of your ministry; 16. Barbara J. Higdon s hymn, Creation Flows Unceasingly, lyrically and metaphorically reflects Smith s creation cosmology expressed in Gen. 2, JSBR, and in Doctrine and Covenants sections 22:23 and 90:5.

96 82 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL 3b. and of the same things which I revealed unto them; unto whom I have committed the keys of my kingdom, and a dispensation of the gospel for the last times; 3c. and for the fullness of times, in the which I will gather together in one all things, both which are in heaven and which are on earth; and also with all those whom my Father hath given me out of the world; 3d. wherefore lift up your hearts and rejoice, and gird up your loins, and take upon you my whole armor, that ye may be able to withstand the evil day, having done all ye may be able to stand. 3e. Stand, therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, having on the breastplate of righteousness, and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace, which I have sent mine angels to commit unto you, taking the shield of faith wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked; 3f. and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of my Spirit, which I will pour out upon you, and my word which I reveal unto you, and be agreed as touching all things whatsoever ye ask of me, and be faithful until I come, and ye shall be caught up, that where I am, ye shall be also. Amen. Joseph Smith s expansion of section 7 17 meshed well with his long interpolations in section 26 18, which described specific ministries of Adam, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Elijah; Moroni; Peter, James, and John. The last three named Peter, James, and John (vs. 3a), by the terms of the expanded 1835 versions of both sections 7 and 26 were becoming identified more precisely and literally with the founding of Mormonism and a rationale for its apostolic ministry. These and other scriptures, viewed metaphorically rather than historically, however, could symbolize the immediacy of spirituality. The presence of those familiar scriptural names Peter, James, and John, plus a company of Hebrew Bible and Book of Mormon figures would personalize the message further. Joseph Smith s context in 1835, however, was his vision of restoring what he called the ancient order of things, i.e., Christianizing the Hebrew Bible to reflect his concept of an emerging church with its growing cadre of high priests in leadership roles. Smith, to put the matter succinctly, was re-casting Genesis to buttress the image and authority of his own faith community. His preoccupation with numerology, coupled with his grasp of the Genesis stories as literal history, produced an unlikely data congruence among three ahistorical sources: JSBR Genesis, chapters 5 6; RLDS 17. Originally, in chapter 6, Book of Commandments, only John the beloved was to remain to minister on earth until Christ s Second Coming; The expanded text became Section 33 in the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants. Now, both Peter and James were to minister, alongside John, until the Parousia. 18. Chapter 28, Book of Commandments, August/September 1830 instruction on the Lord s Supper, promising that Jesus would soon share that sacrament with them in the end-times. Expanded as Section 50, 1835 Doctrine and Covenants, as shown above, this text reflects something of the ecclesiastical realities of the developing church and of its doctrinal evolution.

97 HOWARD: Facing Ahistory in the Community of Christ 83 Doctrine and Covenants sections 7 and 26 (as greatly expanded in 1835); and section 104:18 29, together with the Book of Mormon. These and other sources, however, could offer metaphorical and symbolic capacity to supplant ahistorical literalism. In a sense, skillful but light metaphors could introduce action figures with symbolic potential to elicit and nurture social ministries in and beyond the congregations of Community of Christ. 2. Post-Foundational Ahistory: RLDS Historical Literature The most widely marketed and read history of the RLDS church has been Inez Smith Davis s The Story of the Church; A History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and of Its Legal Successor, the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. 19 Daviss book was used as the text for many years at Graceland College in Roy A. Cheville s LDS history classes. While he enriched his daily lectures from other sources, Dr. Cheville assigned the Davis book as required reading for his church history students. Davis s subtitle is a clue to her strong missionary and polemical bias. Mrs. Davis was a daughter to former RLDS church historian Heman C. Smith, and granddaughter to Apostle Lyman Wight of the founding generation of Mormonism. Her husband, James C. Davis, was a traveling missionary (Seventy) for the RLDS church for many years. Evidence of the ahistorical bias in Mrs. Davis s narrative appears in nearly every chapter. For example: [Smith] was one of the first thinkers to associate temperance with religion (47). This assertion bears no substantive relation to historical reality. [Smith] was a man, had a man s faults, but his motives and ambitions were pure (48). Historians universally agree that determining the motives behind human actions and decisions is a difficult and arduous quest, fraught with many interpretive issues. Davis s generalization demands corroborating evidence. [Smith] seldom passed a group of boys playing ball on the green, but he took turn at the bat. After two or three rounds, batting the ball over the fence, he would say, Over the fence is out, and go on to his office or council meeting, with the adoring eyes of his small companions following him admiringly (45). Davis offers no supportive evidence, and it has the ring of implausibility, given what is known about boys playing baseball. Davis s treatment of the Nauvoo Temple was less than two pages (306 7), limiting the discussion to its exterior features and cost. She gives no reasons for why it was built. For example, she might have mentioned proxy baptisms for the dead, celestial marriage ceremonies, sealings, washings, anointings, and endowments th ed. (Independence, MO: Herald Publishing House, 1969), 660 pp., index. The first edition of this work, a much smaller resource, appeared in 1934.

98 84 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL These were instituted there, and later amplified and extended by LDS Mormons in their temples. Her temple narrative might as well have been omitted altogether. This is an apt illustration of ahistoricism, by omitting accessible details much needed for a responsible, contextual telling. The chapter on Nauvoo ( ) describes a gleaming, prosperous city largest in Illinois. At best Nauvoo s economy was precarious, and gleaming portrays a misleading view of the town. Davis uses five pages to mark the third edition of the Book of Mormon in There is no mention of the large Nauvoo Masonic lodge, built by church leaders and members affiliated with Freemasonry. Davis minimizes the Nauvoo Expositor affair ( June 1844), and justifies this dissident newspaper s destruction by city officials as typical of other press suppressions in the United States of that time. She describes the Expositor s affidavits blaming Nauvoo polygamy on Joseph Smith as unsigned. Each was in fact signed: Wilson Law, his wife Jane Law, and Austin Cowles. Davis also asserts that the city council persuaded Mayor Joseph Smith, against his will, to destroy the Expositor press. The city council minutes for June 10, 1844, as published in the Nauvoo Neighbor, are clear: Mayor Joseph Smith strongly urged the council to destroy that press. Davis mis-read those minutes, or read into them what she wanted her readers to understand. Was Joseph Smith Jr. a Polygamist? The RLDS Ahistorical Answer Robert B. Flanders s tome on Nauvoo 20 was rejected by many of his fellow church members. Most of them never read it but had heard scary things from some of those who had. Flanders s peers in the history craft welcomed his insights as a major corrective to the church s ahistorical view on Nauvoo and on the Joseph Smith of Nauvoo. But the RLDS church at large, including most of its top leaders, knew only the barest of reliable information about the final five years of Joseph Smith s life, and of Nauvoo, his political kingdom on the Mississippi. Ahistory about Nauvoo is still rampant in Community of Christ. The most extreme, chronic, and pervasive case of ahistory in the Community of Christ s story (not merely in Davis s Story of the Church) relates to how the RLDS church/community of Christ has handled Joseph Smith s teaching and practice of polygamy at Nauvoo. From RLDS church beginnings in 1852, interim leaders exposed polygamy as an abomination in the sight of God. 21 This soon became the chief 20. Nauvoo; Kingdom on the Mississippi (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1965). This was his PhD dissertation from the year before, at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. It is still in print. 21. The pamphlet, A Word of Consolation to the Scattered Saints (1853), written by Jason Briggs, Zenas Gurley, and John Harrington, affirmed the policy as inspired of God: Polygamy is an abomination in the sight of the Lord God: it is not of me; I abhor it and the men or set of men who practice it. Their works shall judge them at

99 HOWARD: Facing Ahistory in the Community of Christ 85 RLDS mantra in the church s proclamations of legitimacy vis-à-vis Utah Mormonism. From early 1879 until nearly the end of his life (1914), however, Joseph Smith III, RLDS church president, mounted a constantly recurring editorial campaign in the church s publications extended also into many of his personal letters aiming to 1) clear his father s name of any connection to Nauvoo polygamy and 2) blame Brigham Young for this heresy. 22 Joseph Smith III succeeded. His campaign imbued other leaders, mesmerizing the RLDS membership, thus forming a central feature of the church s identity to the present time. To be RLDS was to be anti-lds Mormon, deeply anti-polygamous, and most of all, utterly convinced that the founding prophet of Mormonism had had no connection with the advent of Mormon polygamy. Nothing could be farther from the truth on this matter. Joseph Smith III s long-enduring defense of his father s innocence regarding polygamy cast a century-plus shadow over the membership of the RLDS/Community of Christ. His prejudiced stance in this regard became the RLDS church s obsession. Church leaders through the years have nurtured this ahistorical tradition, fantasy, and self-image with a communal force far beyond the power of law. It is not surprising, then, in the light of these and many other major distortions, that the RLDS church membership has had mostly an ahistorical awareness of actual historical reality from the church s founding through the Nauvoo and early RLDS periods and beyond, even to this time. Another notable example of ahistory regarding plural marriage in RLDS church history demonstrates the enduring and pervasive power of this phenomenon, during the years The issue was the RLDS church leaders effort to protect the membership from disturbing disclosures implicating Joseph Smith Jr. in the inception of polygamy during the Nauvoo period. Here is a chronology of the events: 1. April 1977 Larry Foster, PhD candidate, University of Chicago, presents a paper to the Mormon History Association Meeting at Kirtland, Ohio. Foster documents to some degree Joseph Smith s involvement with plural marriage at Nauvoo. the last day. They seek to build up their own kingdoms, to suit their own pleasures, but I countenance it not, saith God. 22. See Joseph Smith III s editorial, Out of Their Own Mouths, Saints Herald 26, no. 6 (March 15, 1879): Myriad defenses of Joseph Smith Jr., appeared in the Herald and RLDS missionary and educational literature during the next century. A more comprehensive analysis of thirty-three plural wives of Joseph Smith Jr. is Todd Compton, In Sacred Loneliness: the Plural Wives of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1998). The most detailed and profusely documented treatment of Nauvoo polygamy and of Joseph Smith s pivotal role in establishing and practicing the plural marriage system is George D. Smith, Nauvoo Polygamy: but we called it celestial marriage (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2008). Appendix B, pp , Nauvoo Polygamous Families, lists 196 male polygamists wed to 717 wives at Nauvoo, including Joseph Smith and his thirty-seven wives (other than Emma Hale Smith). This comprehensive chart has its own supporting footnotes, numbering

100 86 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL 2. May 1977 an RLDS apostle, after hearing Foster s paper, returns to RLDS church headquarters, and arranges to meet with the First Presidency, the Presiding Bishop, the president of the Council of Twelve, the president designate (Wallace B. Smith), and the church historian (myself ). The consensus of this meeting was to direct the church historian to prepare an academic/pastoral paper, to prepare the membership for a more truthful, less polemic approach to the topic. 3. November 1982 his paper finished, the church historian consults with his immediate supervisor and with President Smith. Decision: make copies of the paper for consideration 1) by the historian s advisory commission, and 2) by the Joint Council of First Presidency, Council of Twelve, and Presiding Bishopric. Separate meetings are scheduled, in which the historian will present his paper before these two groups with the aim of getting feedback. 4. December 5, 1982 the advisory commission on history considers the paper, and critiques it generally as too conservative in its documentation, arguments and conclusions. 5. December 6, 1982 the Joint Council considers the paper, is mostly silent, but several arguments are voiced favoring the traditional approach of maintaining Joseph Smith s innocence. The same apostle who had started this process in 1977 says that there was no need for such a paper, because the people in his jurisdictions are neither interested in nor concerned with this issue. 6. January February 1983 an editorial process involving the First Presidency and the church historian has the effect of watering down the content and conclusions originally presented in the paper. The Presidency authorizes publication of the emended paper and encourages the historian to present it to the meeting of the John Whitmer Historical Association scheduled for September. 7. September 1983 the paper, The Changing RLDS Response to Mormon Polygamy, is given at the JWHA meeting in Independence and distributed to the session simultaneously in Vol. III of the JWHA Journal. Strong reactions by conservative elements present at that session are immediate, harsh, and emotional, featuring a full-page ad in the local newspaper, the Independence Examiner. They condemn the historian s paper and accuse the author of something like treason, or gross apostasy. 8. October November 1983 a press release from the First Presidency distances church leaders from any prior knowledge of or involvement with the historian s paper. The First Presidency also place a gag order on the church historian, prohibiting any comments to inquiring newspaper journalists.

101 HOWARD: Facing Ahistory in the Community of Christ 87 Along those same lines the current Community of Christ s church historian, Dr. Mark A. Scherer, was quoted quite out of context in a Newsweek article in 2006 regarding Joseph Smith s practice and teaching of polygamy at Nauvoo. This resulted in a damage control session among top church leaders with the historian, to which this writer was also summoned. The leadership s hope was to release a statement on the church s website aimed at accommodating, but avoiding the appearance of total agreement with, the voluminous scholarly evidence of Joseph Smith s central role in the inception of Mormon polygamy. Clearly today s Community of Christ leaders still live in the shadow of Joseph Smith III s lifelong but flawed conviction: his father had had nothing to do with the teaching or practice of polygamy at Nauvoo, Illinois. The time for Community of Christ leaders and members to emerge from that shadow into the light of historical truth is long overdue. Impact of Change on Institutional Historical Consciousness My first volume of The Church through the Years (to 1860) was published by Herald House (Independence, Missouri) in A member of the RLDS Council of Twelve Apostles told me then that the content of my book bore only a marginal relationship to the church he had grown up in. I was perplexed by his comment, but on further reflection have been grateful for a valuable insight conveyed: human groups and persons experiencing fundamental changes, either by choice or under the duress of external forces or events, know the grief and trauma attending radical transformation. The post World War II RLDS church has felt traumatic shakings of its perceived foundations. That baby-boomer apostle, along with many other church leaders of his generation, came to adulthood in the midst of radical cultural paradigm shifts. The force of those transitions has consigned much valid historical revisionism to the realm of quaint curiosity. The escalating rate of change since World War II has spawned three generations of children, youth, and adults deeply preoccupied with facing the challenges and opportunities of postmodern life. Postmodern persons understand the past largely on the basis of personal, subjective experience. Discovering ancient roots of current dilemmas seems almost irrelevant to the postmodern mind. The world of the last century has moved from one wave of crises to the next, with more than two hundred million persons slain in the most brutal series of wars in human history. Armed conflicts, wed to military/industrial/economic processes of the deepest technological sophistication and incalculable costs, continue to escalate. Leaders of many nations (especially the United States) since World War II have invested immeasurable tax moneys to create and maintain weapons systems thought to offer protection and advantage for their respective Security States. During this chronic weapons craze

102 88 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL there has been very little felt need for historical perspective; only the perpetuation of some fancied national interests that supersede all other considerations. Who, then, in this chaotic world of constant change and international obsessions with building Security States, has the energy, quiet time, interest, skills, and psychic resources required to supplant ahistorical ghosts with a genuine historical frame of reference? How can Community of Christ magnify its current, fourteen-point mission in a postmodern world without bravely, wisely coming to terms with its own ahistorical shadow? How can that coming to terms happen, and with what results? Conclusion Imagine that metaphorical correctives to the foundational (pre-1836) ahistorical dilemma would be conceptualized and applied. Image the likely fallout from these correctives as not only absorbed but also accommodated. Even so, the work would have only begun. Community of Christ leaders would still have to confront the longenduring, sanitized, fanciful, post-foundational ahistorical narratives (Kirtland, Far West, Nauvoo, Reorganization). There must come an end to denials and a renaissance of systematic historical revisionism. As stated at the outset of this paper, an honest, courageous community of memory must heal ancient self-inflicted wounds by embracing the whole truth of its past. This must be done in stages, for the whole truth of the past never emerges full-blown at any one stage; scholarship essentially is a never-ending process. The key to the flowering of scholarly historical inquiry lies in the collective will of Community of Christ to discover, mourn, heal, and celebrate all the diverse dimensions of its past. Enduring Principles Grace and Generosity Sacredness of Creation Continuing Revelation Worth of All Persons All Are Called Responsible Choices Pursuit of Peace (Shalom) Unity in Diversity Blessings of Community Appendix 1: Nine Enduring Principles Enduring Principles Series accessed March 15, 2013,

103 HOWARD: Facing Ahistory in the Community of Christ 89 Appendix 2: Five Mission Initiatives 24 Invite People to Christ Abolish Poverty, End Suffering Pursue Peace on Earth Develop Disciples to Serve Experience Congregations in Mission Richard P. Howard served as church historian of Community of Christ from 1966 to He is a founding member and past president of the John Whitmer Historical Association and past president of the Mormon History Association. He has published extensively in restoration history. The endowed lectureship of JWHA was recently renamed in his honor. 24. Mission Initiatives accessed March 15, 2013,

104 Mormonism s Problematic Racial Past and the Evolution of the Divine-Curse Doctrine Matthew L. Harris On February 28, 2012, Brigham Young University Religion Professor Randy Bott gave an interview with Washington Post reporter Jason Horowitz that ignited a firestorm in the Mormon church. Bott advanced some ideas about African Americans and Mormons that made his church leaders angry. Here are some highlights: According to Mormon scriptures, the descendants of Cain, who killed his brother, Abel, were black. One of Cain s descendants was Egyptus, a woman Mormons believe was the namesake of Egypt. She married Ham, whose descendants were themselves cursed and, in the words of many Mormons, barred from the Priesthood by his father, Noah. Bott points to the Mormon holy text the Book of Abraham as suggesting that all of the descendants of Ham and Eyptus were thus black and barred from the priesthood. God has always been discriminatory when it comes to whom he grants the authority of the priesthood, says Bott, the BYU theologian. He quotes Mormon scripture that states that the Lord gives to people all that he seeth fit. Bott compares blacks with a young child prematurely asking for the keys to her father s car, and explains that similarly until 1978, the Lord determined that blacks were not yet ready for the priesthood. What is discrimination? I think that is keeping something from somebody that would be a benefit for them, right? But what if it wouldn t have been a benefit to them? Bott says that the denial of the priesthood to blacks on Earth although not in the afterlife protected them from the lowest rungs of hell reserved for people who abuse their priesthood powers. You couldn t fall off the top of the ladder, because you weren t 90

105 HARRIS: Mormonism s Problematic Racial Past 91 on top of the ladder. So, in reality the blacks not having the priesthood was the greatest blessing God could give them. 1 The Mormon hierarchy was furious, not just because it invited scrutiny on Mitt Romney s presidential campaign but because it brought media attention to the church s problematic racial past a past that banned blacks from the Mormon priesthood from The Washington Post story also prompted questions about the unresolved issues surrounding LDS racial teachings and the ways in which Mormon leaders declare doctrine in the church. Furthermore, the church s response to the Bott interview demonstrates LDS leaders attempts to justify and/or rationalize the now-defunct practice of black exclusion from the LDS priesthood. Finally, it demonstrates the shifting nature of Mormon racial theology how the church has abandoned, in recent years, its doctrinal framework for the priesthood ban adopting a more conciliatory tone calling the divine-curse doctrine folklore. * * * The divine curse began in ancient Israel when Jews, Christians, and Muslims interpreted the Bible to suggest that God had cursed dark-skinned peoples for disobeying his teachings. After the emergence of the African slave trade in the sixteenth century, European Christians had taught it as a way to justify slavery. Rooted in the Bible, the fourth and ninth chapters of Genesis, Christians interpreted these passages to mean that God had placed a divine curse on Cain for slaying his brother, Abel. God continued the curse through Ham s posterity punishing him for making a mockery of his father s nakedness and for dishonoring his father s prophetic authority. The Bible makes no distinction of the skin color of either Cain or Ham, but European Christians had long identified this mark as a curse God had put on Africans to justify their enslavement Jason Horowitz, The Genesis of a Church s Stand on Race, Washington Post, February 28, The best treatment of this complicated subject is Newell G. Bringhurst, Saints, Slaves, and Blacks: The Changing Place of Black People Within Mormonism (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1981). Another authoritative study is Lester E. Bush, Jr., Mormonism s Negro Doctrine: An Historical Overview, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 8, no. 1 (Spring 1973): There is a rich body of literature on this subject. See David M. Goldenberg, The Curse of Ham: Race and Slavery in early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003); Colin Kidd, The Forging of Races: Race and Scripture in the Protestant Atlantic World, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006); David Brion Davis, The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1966); Stephen R. Haynes, Noah s Curse: The Biblical Justification of American Slavery (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002); Winthrop Jordan, White Over Black: American Attitudes Toward the Negro, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1968); Molly Oshatz, Slavery and Sin: The Fight Against Slavery and the Rise of Liberal Protestantism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012); Paul Finkelman, ed., Defending Slavery: Proslavery Thought in the Old South (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin s, 2003).

106 92 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL For Mormons, the mark meant that blacks came to earth under a divine curse, stained with a black skin because they lacked spiritual valor in a pre-earth life. In Mormon theology, this pre-earth life culminated in a cosmic struggle a war in heaven pitting the followers of Jesus against the followers of Satan in a battle over the souls of mankind. Mormon leaders taught that there were no neutrals in the war in heaven, but some were less valiant in their support for Jesus s plan. These spirits, born into the African race, became, as one leader wrote, the accursed lineage of Canaan because they were so indifferent in their support of the... Redeemer that they forfeited certain privileges and powers granted to those who were more valiant. 4 Consequently, LDS leaders drew a correlation between skin color and spiritual worthiness, disqualifying blacks from the priesthood and excluding them from full participation in Mormon liturgical rites. 5 Mormons followed the one-drop rule when determining who had Negroid blood. Codified into legal doctrine in the early twentieth century, the courts asserted that anyone with one drop of Negro blood was considered black. 6 The rule, solidified during the nadir of American race relations in the three decades after the Civil War, was part of a many-headed hydra, in which Southerners passed legislation separating the races in public accommodations and making it illegal for blacks and 4. Orson Hyde, Speech Given Before the High Priests Quorum n Nauvoo, April 25, 1845 (Liverpool, England, 1845), 30; B. H. Roberts, To the Youth of Israel, Contributor 6, no. 8 (May 1885): For Mormon scriptures on the war in heaven, see Moses 4:1 4; Abraham 3:24 28; Doctrine and Covenants 29: For an insightful examination on blacks in the war in heaven, see Boyd Jay Petersen, One Soul Shall Not Be Lost : The War in Heaven in Mormon Thought, Journal of Mormon History 38, no. 1 (Winter 2012): 1 50 (esp ). 5. Mormon leaders taught that blacks could receive the celestial kingdom, which is their Christian equivalent of heaven. They were only denied privileges in mortality. Henry D. Moyle, a counselor in the First Presidency, said that blacks enjoy all the privileges of the church, except for the priesthood. As recounted by J. Reuben Clark Jr., one of Moyle s fellow counselors in the presidency. See Clark to Mission Presidents, 30 March 1960, transcript, p. 7, April 1960 conference folder, box 169, J. Reuben Clark Papers, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University. See also Answers to Gospel Questions, vol. 2 (Salt Lake City: Desert Book, 1959), 185, in which Joseph Fielding Smith, an apostle and later church president, noted that If a Negro is baptized and remains true and loyal, he will enter the celestial kingdom. Joseph Smith, Mormonism s founding prophet, remarked that negroes have souls, and are the subjects of salvation. B. H. Roberts, ed., History of the Church, vol. 5 (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1980), In recent years, scholars have produced a stimulating and growing body of work on race. Prominent studies include Ariela J. Gross, What Blood Won t Tell: A History of Race on Trial in America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2008); Mark A. Noll, God and Race in American Politics: A Short History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008); Matthew Pratt Guterl, The Color of Race in America, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002); Thomas J. Sugrue, Sweet Land of Liberty: The Forgotten Struggle for Civil Rights in the North (New York: Random House, 2008); Edward J. Blum and Paul Harvey, The Color of Christ: The Son of God and the Saga of Race in America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012); Nell Irvin Painter, The History of White People (New York: W. W. Norton, 2010). Some of the best work on the one-drop rule has been done in articles. See Walter Johnson, The Slave Trader, the White Slave, and the Politics of Racial Determination in the 1850s, Journal of American History 87 ( June 2000): 13 38; Jennifer Hochschild and Vesla Weaver, The Skin Color Paradox and the American Racial Order, Social Forces 86 (December 2007): 1 28.

107 HARRIS: Mormonism s Problematic Racial Past 93 whites to marry. 7 Moreover, the one-drop rule became associated with the eugenics movement of the early twentieth century, supported and sponsored by proponents of racial purity who vowed to keep the races apart. More broadly, it was associated with an effort to disenfranchise blacks, by allowing the Ku Klux Klan to go unchecked, and by sanctioning poll taxes and literacy tests, in an effort to circumvent the promises of citizenship enshrined in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments. 8 For Mormons, the one-drop rule meant denying blacks the priesthood. If anyone in the church had African blood in whatever context, whether through a mixed marriage or African ancestry church leaders prohibited them from participating in the full rites of the church, including temple worship, which Mormons deem the culminating experience in their theology. If anyone has one drop of the seed of Cain, one leader observed, they cannot hold the priesthood. 9 Thus, Mormon leaders went to great lengths in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to exclude people of African descent from temple privileges, including marriage rites and the endowment For the beginnings of Jim Crow America in the late nineteenth century, consult C. Vann Woodward, The Strange Career of Jim Crow, 3rd ed. rev. (1955; Oxford University Press, 1974). For the Supreme Court s role in segregation, see Michael J. Klarman, From Jim Crow to Civil Rights: The Supreme Court and the Struggle for Racial Equality (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004); Williamjames Hull Hoffer, Plessy v. Ferguson: Race and Inequality in Jim Crow America (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2012). The best treatment of misogyny laws, passed in the two decades after the Civil War, include Peggy Pascoe, What Comes Naturally: Miscegenation Law and the Making of Race in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009); Fay Botham, Almighty God Created the Races: Christianity, Interracial Marriage, and American Law (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009); Peter Wallenstein, Tell the Court I Love My Wife: Race, Marriage, and Law An American History (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002); Werner Sollors, Interracialism: Black-White Intermarriage in American History, Literature, and Law (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000). 8. See, more generally, Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America s Unfinished Revolution, (New York: Harper Perennial, 1988) and Alexander Keyssar, The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States (New York: Basic Books, 2000). 9. See Wilford Woodruff journal, 4 January 1852, in Scott G. Kenney, ed., Wilford Woodruff s Journal, , Typescript, vol. 4 (Midvale, UT: Signature Books, 1983), 97. Several leaders taught this principle. See Bringhurst, Saints, Slaves, and Blacks. Mormons generally accepted the one-drop rule uncritically. One exception is Hugh Nibley, a prominent Mormon apologist and well-published scholar of Mormon studies. Although Nibley did not question the one-drop rule in public, in private he recorded that it was impossible for whites to prove [themselves] from such a taint. A little bit of genealogy soon shows how the lines branch out and intermingle, and how very many illegitimate members there are blocking the road to a perfect line. The most elementary calculations show us related to everyone in the Europe in the 11 th century. And during the Roman occupation and the Crusades, constant mixed marriages with Arabs, Syrians, etc., who for ages has married and consorted with the Habshi, the colored people. Nothing short of incest can avoid the most astonishing spreading and intermingling of lines of descent. And nothing short of a miracle could keep negro blood out of those lines. Hugh Nibley, scrap of paper, n.d., box 152, fd. 5, Hugh Nibley Papers, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University. 10. See Devery S. Anderson, ed., The Development of LDS Temple Worship, : A Documentary History (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2011), 82, 101 2, , 342, , 361, As church president, David O. McKay struggled with dark-skinned converts seeking baptism and temple privileges. He found it difficult to determine who had negro blood and who did not, especially when mission presidents and other ecclesiastical leaders importuned him on the matter. McKay s journals at the University of Utah demonstrate how widespread and difficult this issue became during his presidency. By the mid-1950s, the church modified its policy

108 94 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL In addition, leaders counseled against proselytizing in black neighborhoods, obtaining blood transfusions with African blood, or sharing public accommodations with blacks. 11 Above all, they counseled their flock not to date or marry blacks, fearing the bloodlines would become polluted. For Mormons, race mixing was incompatible with the gospel of Jesus Christ. It was wrong biologically and spiritually, one highranking leader asserted. 12 somewhat by stating that persons of African descent did not have to prove their lineage to hold the priesthood. Dark-skinned people were only denied the priesthood if it was accepted that they were of African descent. This slight modification in policy facilitated the church s missionary efforts in South Africa and South America, two countries with racially mixed populations. On these points, see Gregory A. Prince and William Robert Wright, David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2005), ch. 4; and Gregory A. Prince, David O. McKay and Blacks: Building the Foundation for the 1978 Revelation, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 35, no. 1 (Spring 2002): The policy appears to have been applied unevenly, especially in Brazil, where the change was not announced until See Mark L. Grover, Religious Accommodation in the Land of Racial Democracy: Mormon Priesthood and Black Brazilians, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 17, no. 3 (Fall 1984): 31n18. Mormon racial policy only applied to dark-skinned peoples of African descent. Skin color or other characteristics were not disqualifying factors only lineage through African bloodlines. See Bush, Mormonism s Negro Doctrine, 68n209; Armand Mauss, The Fading of the Pharaoh s Curse: The Decline and Fall of the Priesthood Ban against Blacks in the Mormon Church, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 14, no. 3 (1981): 36n There is no evidence to suggest that people of African descent were denied baptism. However, for much of the twentieth century, church leaders discouraged missionaries from proselytizing in black neighborhoods. In the J. Reuben Clark papers, located in the Special Collections Archives at Brigham Young University, there are several documents and memos instructing missionaries not to teach blacks. Clark, who served in the First Presidency in the middle half of the twentieth century, was also concerned about blood transfusions, because he wanted to protect the purity of the blood streams of the people of [the] church. See his letter of April 12, 1948, to Dr. Albin Matson, a Mormon physician at the University of Utah Medical School, who was engaged in a study of racial purity to determine how to detect negro blood. See box 378, fd. 1, J. Reuben Clark Papers, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University. In addition, Mormon leaders strongly supported segregation laws and were angry when the Supreme Court reversed the policy in Brown v. the Board (1954). For more on the church s response to the Brown decision, see the discussion below. Church leadership also supported the segregation of the Hotel Utah, a church-owned property, and they supported policies to segregate businesses, restaurants, and movie theatres throughout the Salt Lake valley. See Margaret Judy Maag, Discrimination Against the Negro in Utah and Institutional Efforts to Eliminate It (master s thesis, University of Utah, 1974) and Wallace R. Bennett, The Negro in Utah, Utah Law Review 3 (Spring 1953): Some of these discriminatory policies, particularly in housing with restrictive covenants, lasted well into the 1970s, as the Rev. France A. Davis and Nayra Atiya explain in France Davis: An African American Story (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2007), J. Reuben Clark Jr., Improvement Era 49 (August 1946): 492. Clark gave this address to the youth of the church in which he cautioned: You should treat them [blacks] as brothers and sisters, but do not ever let that wicked virus get into your systems that brotherhood either permits or entitles you to mix races which are inconsistent. Other leaders were equally vocal in their denunciation of interracial marriage. For a sampling of this literature, see Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, 26 vols. (Liverpool, ENG.: Latter-day Saints Book Depot, ), 10:109; Prince and Wright, David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism, ch. 4; D. Michael Quinn, Elder Statesman: A Biography of J. Reuben Clark (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2002), ch. 10; Harold B. Lee, Youth of a Noble Birthright (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1955), ; Edward L. Kimball, ed., The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1982), Also see Patrick Q. Mason, The Prohibition of Interracial Marriage in Utah, , Utah Historical Quarterly 76, no. 2 (Spring 2008):

109 HARRIS: Mormonism s Problematic Racial Past 95 When the Washington Post published the Bott interview, it reopened an embarrassing and painful racial theology that Mormons were trying to avoid. With some five hundred thousand members of African descent scattered throughout the world, it was no longer plausible to teach that God had cursed blacks, or that they lacked moral purity in a pre-earth life. 13 Likewise, the Bott interview had threatened to undermine all the good will the church had generated in recent years doing community outreach with people of color. It also threatened their missionary efforts around the world, most significantly in countries with a robust African population. 14 Lastly, it cast unwelcome light on Mitt Romney s presidential campaign, whose campaign was underway when the Bott story exploded across the national media. Not surprising, the church acted swiftly and harshly to the Post story. Within twenty-four hours of the interview the LDS public relations department fired off two statements repudiating Bott s views. The first titled Church Statement Regarding Washington Post Article on Race and the Church said that Bott s views absolutely do not represent the teachings and doctrines of the church. BYU faculty members do not speak for the Church. Then it noted: For a time in the Church there was a restriction on the priesthood for male members of African descent. It is not known precisely why, how, or when this restriction began in the Church but what is clear is that it ended decades ago. Some have attempted to explain the reason for this restriction but these attempts should be viewed as speculation and opinion, not doctrine. The Church is not bound by speculation or opinions given with limited understanding. 15 The second statement called Race and the Church: All Are Alike Unto God reaffirmed that People of all races have always been welcomed and baptized into the Church since its beginnings. The origins of priesthood availability are not entirely clear. Some explanations with respect to this matter were made in the absence of 13. Max Mueller perceptively observes that for many Mormons, reading Bott s words was like unearthing a theological dinosaur long thought extinct but suddenly rediscovered in the corner of an obscure BYU office. His positions seem radically out of place in a modern church with an international membership that includes probably some 500,000 Mormons of African descent. The church s expensive and ubiquitous I m a Mormon public relations campaign has been carefully and deliberately multiethnic; Mormon leaders want the world to view the religion as the diverse global community it has become. Unfortunately, Bott s beliefs, though arcane, represent a strain of Mormonism that has persisted well past the 1978 revelation. Is Mormonism Still Racist?, Slate, March 2, 2012, Armand Mauss explains the church s efforts at community outreach, as well as its missionizing efforts to people of color, in his well-researched study All of Abraham s Children: Changing Mormon Conceptions of Race and Lineage (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2003), Church Statement Regarding Washington Post Article on Race and the Church, February 29, 2012,

110 96 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL direct revelation and references to these explanations are sometimes cited in publications. These previous personal statements do not represent Church doctrine. 16 LDS scholars criticized Bott too. Daniel Peterson, a BYU professor of Arabic and outspoken church apologist, said he feel[s] sorry for Bott. Our speculations as to the reason[s] for the priesthood ban have been essentially worthless, and sometimes harmful, Peterson blogged. God has not seen fit to explain why he commanded or at least permitted the denial of priesthood to blacks. Margaret Young, a professor in the English department at BYU, echoed Peterson s views, asserting that Bott s teachings do not represent Church doctrine in any way. She called them extremely patronizing. 17 Similarly, sociologist Armand Mauss observed that it is not very reassuring if Bott has a reputation as a skillful and inspiring teacher if his teaching includes the kind of racist nonsense he was purveying in the Washington Post on Tuesday. Finally, Terry Ball, BYU s dean of religious education, emphatically stated that Bott s position does not reflect the teachings in the classroom at Brigham Young University. 18 If the Bott interview created a public relations headache for Mitt Romney and the church, as one writer acknowledged in the LDS-owned Deseret News, 19 it created an even greater hardship for the beleaguered BYU professor and his colleagues in religious education. We all taught what Randy taught, one of Bott s colleagues lamented. This could have happened to any one of us. We had no idea that the church s position had changed. 20 The latter point is instructive, for it raises a larger issue about Mormon doctrine and how the church disseminates its doctrine to the grassroots of the church. Moreover, it indicates a far more serious issue: How could the religion faculty at an LDS-owned institution not know that the church s position had changed on this fundamental topic? Nowhere is this quandary more evident than with Randy Bott himself. Now retired, Bott had been teaching religion at BYU for several years and almost forty years in the LDS Church Education system. He lists on his faculty webpage that he is an 16. Race and the Church: All Are Alike Unto God, February 29, 2012, article/race-church. 17. Peterson blog, Feb. 28, 2012, see also LDS Church condemns past racism inside and outside the church, Deseret News, February 29, Young quoted in Kate Bennion, Washington Post article on black priesthood ban spurs concern, outrage, The Universe, February 29, (The Universe is the BYU student newspaper.) 18. Mauss, guest blogger at the LDS blog site Common Consent, February 29, 2012, com/2012/02/29/from-armand-mauss/. Ball quoted in Bennion, Washington Post article. 19. Nathan B. Oman, Race, folklore and Mormon doctrine, Deseret News, February 29, A private conversation I had with Bott s colleague, September 22, Because this is still a sensitive issue, I have chosen to keep the professor s identity anonymous.

111 HARRIS: Mormonism s Problematic Racial Past 97 expert on the Doctrines of the Gospel. 21 He has spent the better part of his adult life immersed in the writings and teachings of his ecclesiastical leaders the general authorities of the church. Furthermore, he has held a number of positions in the church, including that of bishop (twice), high councilor, stake presidency member (twice) and a mission president. This popular religion teacher (he was once named National Professor of the Year on Rate My Professor, a prominent student website) has also authored several books and articles on a range of subjects relating to Mormonism, demonstrating his familiarity with church doctrines and practices. 22 How, then, did he misunderstand the church s position on this crucial theological point? Why couldn t he get it right? The answers to these questions are complex, in part because the church has sent mixed messages about its theological framework undergirding the priesthood ban. In fact, since church president Spencer Kimball lifted the ban in 1978, leaders have maintained that we don t know why God denied blacks the priesthood, offering a different view from earlier LDS leaders. Kimball and other leaders advanced this new position not in official church publications or in general conference talks but in interviews with the media and in private settings with interlocutors all the while, paradoxically, still affirming the divine-curse doctrine in their books and articles. 23 To Time magazine reporter Richard Ostling, shortly after the restriction was lifted in 1978, Kimball stated that Mormonism no longer holds to a theory that blacks failed God during their pre-existence. 24 That same year apostle LeGrand Richards explained in a private interview with Wesley Walters and Chris Vlachos that the Brethren decided that we should never say that the Negro was denied for being accessed September 27, For Bott s church service, see his webpage accessed September 27, For Bott s publications, see Wikipedia, last modified November 15, 2012, Randy_L._Bott. For Bott s teaching award, see Tad Walch, BYU Professor Sits Atop National Rankings, Deseret News, December 11, The 1979 edition of Bruce McConkie s Mormon Doctrine (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1979) still contains racist teachings under headings such as Caste System and Pre-existence. Even though the priesthood ban was lifted the previous year, McConkie s book still taught that Cain, Ham, and the whole negro race have been cursed with a black skin, the mark of Cain, 114. Though Mormon Doctrine went out of print in 2010, McConkie s other books are still in print and affirm this racist rhetoric. See, for example, his The Mortal Messiah (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1979), 1:23; The Millennial Messiah (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1982), and ch. 16; and A New Witness for the Articles of Faith (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1985), and ch. 4. As of 2012, two other books are still in print that advance the divine curse: see Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation: Sermons and Writings of Joseph Fielding Smith, ed. Bruce R. McConkie (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1954; repr. 1998), 61, 65 66, 279; and his Answers to Gospel Questions, 2:175 78, For the persistence of these racial myths, see Mauss, All of Abraham s Children, Richard Ostling, Mormonism Enters a New Era, Time, August 7, 1978, 55. Interview also recounted in Edward L. Kimball, Lengthen Your Stride: The Presidency of Spencer W. Kimball (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2005), 238.

112 98 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL less valiant in the previous existence, or that they were cursed with a dark skin. We just don t know what the reason was. 25 Church leaders continued these private pronouncements in the 1980s and 90s. Apostle Dallin Oaks explained in an interview with the Associated Press in 1988 that it s not the pattern of the Lord to give reasons. We can put reasons to commandments. When we do we re on our own. Some people put reasons to [the ban] and they turned out to be spectacularly wrong. There is a lesson in that. 26 Nine years later church president Gordon Hinckley, in an interview with a reporter in Australia, claimed he did not know what the reason was for denying blacks the priesthood but did not think it was wrong. In 2002, at a ceremony honoring Elijah Abel, one of the earliest blacks to hold the priesthood during Joseph Smith s era, apostle Russell Ballard explained to the audience that we don t know all the reasons why the Lord does what he does, referring to the priesthood ban. 27 By the twenty-first century, however, the church began a new defense of its problematic racial policies spurred, in part, by LDS scholars urging the church to denounce its theological rationale for the priesthood ban 28 and also by black members themselves, who became increasingly uncomfortable with the church s racial past. David Jackson, an African American convert was among those calling for a change. In 1995, Jackson wrote a letter to then-church president Gordon Hinckley stating that the Mormon church has taught that people of African descent are spiritually and morally inferior to whites. People of African descent, he lamented, are degraded by an assignment to their heritage to the lineage of Cain. Anyone of the lineage of Cain, according to Mormon Doctrine, is associated with iniquities and has been cursed with black skin, the mark of Cain.... People of African descent should not be held accountable for the deeds of others in the past. Jackson concluded the letter 25. Wesley P. Walters and Chris Vlachos, interview by LeGrand Richards, August 16, 1978, transcript in L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University. 26. Oaks s interview with the Associated Press, Daily Herald (Provo, UT), June 5, Hinckley interview in Australia, November 9, 1997, quoted in On the Record: We Stand for Something, Sunstone 21, no. 4 (December 1998): 71. For Ballard s remarks, see Lynn Arave, Monument in S.L. erected in honor of black pioneer, Deseret News, September 30, Sociologist Armand Mauss has been the most vocal critic of the church s doctrinal framework undergirding the priesthood ban. Though a practicing Mormon, Mauss believed the church would be better served if it denounced this framework and its associated baggage, including the doctrine of superior lineages. See his Dispelling the Curse of Cain: Or, How to Explain the Old Priesthood Ban Without Looking Ridiculous, Sunstone 134 (October 2004): and All of Abraham s Children, ch. 9. Two distinguished scholars of Mormon history and past presidents of the Mormon History Association, Newell G. Bringhurst and Lester Bush Jr., also called on the church to disavow its legacy of racism. See Larry Stammer, Mormon Plan to Disavow Racist Teachings Jeopardized by Publicity, Los Angeles Times, May 24, See also Lester Bush Jr., Writing Mormonism s Negro Doctrine: An Historical Overview (1973): Context and Reflections, 1998, Journal of Mormon History, 25, no. 1 (Spring 1999):

113 HARRIS: Mormonism s Problematic Racial Past 99 asking Hinckley to please set the members of the church free from this racist stigma so we can work together in God s great kingdom for the salvation of all. 29 It is not clear if the church ever considered denouncing the divine-curse doctrine, but Marlin Jensen, a general authority who also served as the church historian, 30 met with Jackson and a few others in 1997 to discuss Jackson s concerns. Jackson pressed the church to denounce its racial teachings and to cleanse its bookshelves of Mormon Doctrine and other racially offensive books that still associated skin color with spiritual worthiness. 31 As Jensen brought the matter to his superiors at church headquarters, the story leaked to the media the following year and all hell broke loose. Mormons May Disavow the Old View on Blacks, ran a headline in the Los Angeles Times. The Salt Lake Tribune noted Call for change: LDS Church Mulls Revoking Doctrine on Blacks. 32 The church immediately dismissed the claims declaring in a press release that the 1978 official declaration continues to speak for itself. Hinckley himself maintained that he saw no need to make further changes in reinterpreting historic Mormon teachings, rebuffing suggestions by some Mormon scholars to update church publications still in print to reflect the church s current understanding of race. I m not going to worry about it, he quipped. We are giving to our black brethren and sisters everything that we give to everybody else in the church. 33 Privately, though, Hinckley and other leaders were becoming increasingly uncomfortable with racism in the church, especially as the church expanded its missionary efforts in Africa. In 2000, LDS general authority Alexander Morrison, newly returned from an assignment in Africa, published a piece in the Ensign, an official 29. Jackson to Gordon Hinckley, 9 October 1995 (letter on file with the author). For other African American Mormon uncomfortable with the theological assertions linking blacks with a curse, see Darron T. Smith, Unpacking Whiteness in Zion: Some Personal Reflections and General Observations, in Newell G. Bringhurst and Darron T. Smith, eds., Black and Mormon (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2006), ; Jessie L. Embry, Black Saints in a White Church: Contemporary African American Mormons (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1994); Glen Burton, Living in the Beehive State Still a Challenge for Blacks, Salt Lake Tribune, January 11, 2004; Claudia Bushman, Contemporary Mormonism: Latter-day Saints in Modern America (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2006), In 2012, the church awarded Jensen emeritus status as a general authority while also releasing him as the church historian (see Deseret News, October 2, 2012). Mormon scholars credit Jensen for making research materials more open and accessible to historians. A good overview of Jensen s approach to Mormon history can be found in David Boone s interview with Jensen, A Historian by Yearning: A Conversation with Elder Marlin K. Jensen, Religious Educator 8, no. 3 (2007): of Jackson to the author, December 4, See also Richard N. Ostling and Joan K. Osling, Mormon America: The Power and the Promise (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1999), 103 5, and Armand L. Mauss, Shifting Borders and a Tattered Passport: Intellectual Journeys of a Mormon Academic (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2012), ch Los Angeles Times, May 18, 1998; Salt Lake Tribune, May 18, For the church s response to the story, see Los Angeles Times story on Blacks and the Priesthood: First Presidency Statement, press release from the LDS public affairs department, May 18, For Hinckley s response to the story, see Larry Stammer, Mormon Leader Defends Race Relations, Los Angeles Times, September 12, 1998.

114 100 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL church publication, expressing his gratitude that the church has from its beginnings stood strongly against racism in any of its malignant manifestations. He then quoted Spencer Kimball reminding members that racial prejudice is of the devil. 34 In 2006, Gordon Hinckley told the faithful at a priesthood gathering that he had heard members using racial slurs and making denigrating remarks concerning those of another race. Mormons, he cautioned, could not be in harmony with the teachings of the church if they made such disparaging remarks. 35 In this context, the church began offering a more conciliatory tone on the divinecurse doctrine. By 2006, in fact, the hierarchy began eschewing it altogether, calling previous explanations for black priesthood exclusion folklore, what one scholar defined as the shared beliefs and values of a community. 36 Apostle Jeffrey Holland and church historian Marlin Jensen perpetuated this claim in 2006 when Helen Whitney, who was then working on her PBS movie The Mormons, interviewed them. Both men used the word folklore when questioned about the priesthood ban, and both strongly intimated that the divine-curse doctrine was never part of the official church canon. 37 Similarly, another general authority, Sheldon Child and church spokesperson Mark Tuttle used the word folklore to describe the previous rationalizations earlier leaders gave for the priesthood ban. In 2008, on the thirtieth anniversary commemorating the extension of the priesthood to men of African descent, Child main- 34. Morrison, No More Strangers, Ensign (September 2000): 16. Morrison recounts his experience in Africa in The Dawning of a Brighter Day: The Church in Black Africa (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1990). 35. Hinckley, The Need for Greater Kindness, Ensign (May 2006): Darius Gray, an African American Mormon and president of Genesis, a support group for black Latter-day Saints, expressed to Hinckley his concerns about racism in the church. According to one account, Gray had received countless calls from men and women all over the United States who were still dealing with the ripples of racist folklore people whose children were told that they were cursed, or that all blacks had been neutral in the pre-existence; white members who pulled their children from Sunday school because they didn t want them in the same class as a black child; investigators or new converts who were addressed with racial epithets. Gray then recounted these experiences with Hinckley, who found them very disturbing. According to Margaret Blair Young, a BYU professor, this was the context of Hinckley s 2006 address denouncing racism. See Young, All God s Critters: Some Thoughts on the Priesthood Restriction and Differing Opinions Part III, in all-gods-critters-some-thoughts-on-the-priesthood-restriction-and-differing-opinions-part-iii/, accessed October 21, For the persistence of Mormon racial doctrine, see Eugene England, Are All Alike Unto God?: Prejudice against Blacks and Women in Popular Mormon Theology, Sunstone 15, no. 2 (April 1990): 21 31; Keith E. Norman, The Mark of the Curse: Lingering Racism in Mormon Doctrine? Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 32, no. 1 (Spring 1999): Tom Mould, Still, The Small Voice: Narrative, Personal Revelation, and the Mormon Folk Tradition (Logan: Utah State University Press, 2011), 4. Since the 1960s, LDS scholar Armand Mauss has called the church s racial theology folklore, but there is no evidence that the church accepted this nomenclature until the twenty-first century. See Mauss s two articles: Mormonism and the Negro: Faith, Folklore, and Civil Rights, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 2, no. 4 (1967): 19 39; Mormonism and Secular Attitudes toward Negroes, Pacific Sociological Review 9, no. 2 (1966): See also his memoir, Shifting Borders and a Tattered Passport, 97 98, Helen Whitney, interview by Jeffrey Holland, March 4, 2006, holland.html; Whitney, interview by Marlin Jensen, March 7, 2006, jensen.html.

115 HARRIS: Mormonism s Problematic Racial Past 101 tained, When you think about it, that s just what it is folklore. It s never really been official doctrine. That same year Tuttle boldly declared: the folklore is not part of and never was taught as doctrine by the church. 38 The church s position in the twenty-first century, then, seems to follow three tracks: 1) we don t know why God denied blacks the priesthood; 2) the curse of Cain explanation that Bott gave in his interview is folklore; and 3) a few misguided leaders offered opinions about the church s racial policies which were never binding on the church. This new position, however, is misleading on several levels. It belies how Mormon doctrine is created, gives the false impression that only a few renegade church leaders misspoke, and suggests that members should not fully trust what they read in their leaders books and articles, even if they have the word doctrine in the title. 39 Furthermore, when we consider how Mormon doctrine is created, the folklore position does not comport with the well-established procedures the church has put in place to define its theology. According to church dictum, the First Presidency, the highest ranking church body which consists of the prophet and his two counselors, has the exclusive right to authorize and interpret doctrine. The late Mormon president Ezra Taft Benson explained it this way: Doctrinal interpretation is the province of the First Presidency. The Lord has given that stewardship to them by revelation. James Faust, a First Presidency member said: Who is to declare the doctrine of the Church? The current President of the Church and his counselors have the keys to declare the doctrine of the Church. And First Presidency member Marion Romney opined, What they say as a presidency is what the Lord would say if he were here in person. 40 Apostle Tom Perry put it even more succinctly. In a general conference address in 1994 he explained: Even as General Authorities of the Church, we are instructed that In order to preserve the uniformity of doctrinal and policy interpretation, [we] are asked to refer to the Office of the First Presidency for consideration of any doctrinal or policy questions which are not clearly defined in the scriptures or in the 38. Child quoted in Carrie A. Moore, LDS Marking 30-Year Milestone, Deseret News, June 7, 2008; Tuttle quoted in Peggy Fletcher Stack, Mormon and Black, Salt Lake Tribune, June 6, Two prominent church leaders who taught the divine-curse doctrine include Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation and Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine. The rank-and-file of the church consider Smith and Mc- Conkie to be among the leading expositors of Mormon theology, a position both men relished. See Francis Gibbons, Joseph Fielding Smith: Gospel Scholar, Prophet of God (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1992); Joseph Fielding McConkie, The Bruce R. McConkie Story: Reflections of a Son (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2003). 40. Ezra Taft Benson, The Gospel Teacher and His Message, Address to CES Religious Educators, September 17, 1976, 6. Full text at eng.pdf. Faust, Conference Report, October 1985, 9. Romney, Conference Report, April 1945, 90.

116 102 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL General Handbook of Instructions. In this way, Perry suggests, conflict and confusion and differing opinions are eliminated. 41 More recently, LDS leaders added a new twist. In May 2007 the church posted on its website a nifty little article titled Approaching Mormon Doctrine. It states that Not every statement made by a Church leader, past or present, necessarily constitutes doctrine. A single statement made by a single leader on a single occasion often represents a personal, though well-considered, opinion, but is not meant to be officially binding for the whole Church. The article then added, With divine inspiration, the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles counsel together to establish doctrine that is consistently proclaimed in official church publications. 42 This change was reaffirmed in a recent church conference in April 2012 when apostle Todd Christofferson noted that Doctrinal exposition may also come through the combined council of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Council deliberations will often include a weighing of canonized scriptures, the teachings of Church leaders, and past practice. This new position highlights the evolving nature of Mormon practices and speaks to the apostles new role as collaborators in doctrinal exegesis with the presidency. 43 With this context in mind, it is important to ask if Bott misrepresented the church s teachings on the race issue. Did he circumvent the church s well-defined procedures for expositing and declaring its tenets? Put another way, did he deviate from the teachings of church leaders and past practice, to borrow Apostle Christofferson s words? Consider two First Presidency statements. The first was given on August 17, It was signed by church president George Albert Smith and his counselors J. Reuben Clark and David O. McKay and distributed to members throughout the United States and Canada. Lowry Nelson, a professor of sociology at the University of Minnesota and a life-long Mormon, 44 had prompted the letter by asking the First Presidency a series of questions in 1947 about race and how the divine-curse doctrine affected the church s missionary efforts in Cuba, a country with a significant 41. Perry, Conference Report, October 1994, Approaching Mormon Doctrine, May 4, 2007, Chistofferson, The Doctrine of Christ, April 2012, See also Peggy Fletcher Stack, Apostle says key to LDS beliefs is divine revelation, Salt Lake Tribune, April 2, Apostle Neil Andersen reiterated the church s doctrinal position in the October 2012 conference session. Said Andersen: Doctrine is taught by all 15 members of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve. It is not hidden in an obscure paragraph of one talk. See Lisa Schencker, Mormon apostle: Put children s needs above selfishness, Salt Lake Tribune, October 6, For the full text of Andersen s address, see Trial of Your Faith, accessed October 21, Leonard J. Arrington and Davis Bitton, The Mormon Experience: A History of the Latter-day Saints (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1979), , provide a brief biography of Nelson.

117 HARRIS: Mormonism s Problematic Racial Past 103 biracial population. For Nelson, it would be far better that we not go in [to Cuba] at all than to go in and promote racial distinction, he explained to Smith. The First Presidency responded to Nelson s letter informing him that some of God s children were assigned to superior positions before the world was formed. We are aware, they continued, that some Higher Critics do not accept this, but the Church does. In a follow-up letter, the presidency expressed hope that Nelson would fall in line with the doctrines of the church because he was too fine a man to be led off from the principles of the gospel by worldly learning. 45 In this context the First Presidency reaffirmed its teachings on blacks and the priesthood. In a letter of 1949 it noted: The attitude of the Church with reference to Negroes remains as it has always stood. It is not a matter of the declaration of a policy but of direct commandment from the Lord, on which is founded the doctrine of the Church from the days of its organization, to the effect that Negroes may become members of the Church but that they are not entitled to the priesthood at the present time. The prophets of the Lord have made several statements as to the operation of the principle. President Brigham Young said: Why are so many of the inhabitants of the earth cursed with a skin of blackness? It comes in consequence of their fathers rejecting the power of the holy priesthood, and the law of God. They will go down to death. And when all the rest of the children have received their blessings in the holy priesthood, then that curse will be removed from the seed of Cain, and they will then come up and possess the priesthood, and receive all the blessings which we now are entitled to. The position of the Church regarding the Negro may be understood when another doctrine of the Church is kept in mind, namely, that the conduct of spirits in the premortal existence has some determining effect upon the conditions and circumstances under which these spirits take on mortality and that while the details of this principle have not been made known, the mortality is a privilege that is given to those who maintain their first estate; and that the worth of the privilege is so great that spirits are willing to come to earth and take on bodies no matter what the handicap may be as to the kind of bodies they are to secure; and that among the handicaps, failure of the right to enjoy in mortality the blessings of the priesthood is a handicap which spirits are willing to assume in order that they might come to earth. Under this principle there is no injustice whatsoever involved in this deprivation as to the holding of the priesthood by the Negroes Nelson to George Albert Smith, 26 June 1947, First Presidency to Nelson, 17 July 1947, First Presidency to Nelson, 12 November 1947, all in box 4, fd. 2, Special Collections and Archives, Merrill-Cazier Library, Utah State University. 46. The full letter can be found in Lester E. Bush Jr. and Armand L. Mauss, eds., Neither White nor Black: Mormon Scholars Confront the Race Issue in a Universal Church (Midvale, UT: Signature Books, 1984), 221. (Italics added for emphasis.)

118 104 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL This was the clearest, most forceful exposition the church had ever given on the subject, and the first time the presidency had ever issued a joint statement. Several points are instructive here. First, contrary to the press releases cited earlier, the church s position on Negroes, as the statement reads, was given as a direct commandment of the Lord ; second, it was founded on the doctrine of the Church from the days of its organization ; third, the First Presidency declared that blacks devolved from the seed of Cain ; and fourth, they lacked moral purity in a pre-earth life. This unfortunate doctrine angered Nelson, prompting him to publish a letter in the Nation magazine. He called the church s position on blacks and the priesthood a source of embarrassment and humiliation to thousands of its members who find no basis for it in the teachings of Jesus [Christ], whom all Mormons accept as the Savior. 47 The presidency responded warning Nelson that when he sets himself up against the doctrines of the church he is moving into a very dangerous position for himself personally. 48 The First Presidency disseminated the pronouncement throughout the church, and it was reiterated on numerous occasions by Joseph Anderson, the First Presidency secretary, who was tasked by the presidency to respond to members questions about the church s racial policies. 49 Further, Henry Moyle, who served in the First Presidency for a short period in the early 1960s, appealed to the letter to teach missionaries in Geneva, Switzerland, about the challenges of teaching blacks the gospel. Moyle noted that This statement of the First Presidency on August 17, 1949, has been reaffirmed since I ve been in the First Presidency by President McKay, President Clark, and myself, so that it is the last official statement of the Presidency. Moyle then read parts of the statement to the missionaries, reaffirming that the church s race policy was founded on a direct commandment from God and that it was predicated upon blacks being the progeny of Cain, whose curse was revealed through revelation. For Moyle, that is all in this declaration by the First Presidency Nelson, Mormonism and the Negro, The Nation 174 (May 24, 1952): First Presidency secretary Joseph Anderson to Nelson, 23 May 1952, box 20, fd. 5, Lowry Nelson Papers, Marriot Library, University of Utah. Nelson had sent a copy of the article to the First Presidency before it was published and instructed Anderson to respond on their behalf. BYU religion professor Roy Doxey responded to Nelson s piece in the Nation. In a letter to the editor he reiterated that the Negro, because of action in the premortal life, may not receive the priesthood in mortality and that everyone receives his place in the world, as to race and color, because of the exercise of free agency in the pre-earth life. The Mormons and the Negro, The Nation 175 (August 16, 1952): Joseph Anderson to Herbert Ford, 10 April 1951, box 9, fd. 7, Adam S. Bennion Papers, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University; Joseph Anderson to Lowry Nelson, 23 May 1952, box 20, fd. 5, Lowry Nelson Papers, Marriot Library, University of Utah; and Joseph Anderson to Chauncy Harris, 4 May 1954, box 20, fd. 5, Lowry Nelson Papers, Marriot Library, University of Utah. 50. Moyle, address to French East Missionaries in Geneva, Switzerland, October 30, 1961, LDS Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah. Moyle s colleague, Alvin R. Dyer, made a similar statement to missionaries in Oslo, Norway, echoing the 1949 First Presidency proclamation. See For What Purpose, March 18, 1961, also in

119 HARRIS: Mormonism s Problematic Racial Past 105 The second First Presidency statement on blacks and the priesthood occurred in 1969 in the midst of the frenzy and whiplash of the civil rights era. In 1963, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People had threatened to march on Salt Lake City if the church did not produce a statement in general conference supporting civil rights legislation still pending in congress. 51 Hugh B. Brown, a First Presidency member and vocal advocate for racial equality, convinced David O. McKay, the church president, to allow him to read a statement in conference. McKay agreed, not because he favored racial equality he did not but because he feared the consequences of bad publicity if the church did not address the issue. Brown read a brief statement expressing the church s support for civil rights, 52 but the issue was far from resolved. Apostle Ezra Taft Benson, a vociferous critic of civil rights and a supporter of segregationist presidential candidate George Wallace, 53 had continued to champion right-wing causes, both in books and general conference addresses. His sermon in feneral conference in 1965 warned members how communists were using the civil rights movement to promote revolution and eventual takeover of this country. 54 In addition, student protests forced LDS leaders to confront the issue. the LDS Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah. In addition, Moyle and his fellow counselor in the First Presidency, Hugh Brown, both reaffirmed the church s racial policies by appealing to the 1949 letter. The appeal was a response to Stewart Udall, a Mormon serving as the Secretary of the Interior in the Kennedy administration. Udall had urged Moyle and Brown to reverse the church s priesthood ban citing that it was harmful to racial equality and minority rights. See Udall to Henry D. Moyle and Hugh B. Brown, 18 September 1961, and Brown and Moyle to Udall, 27 September 1961, both in box 209, fd. 3, Udall Papers, University of Arizona. 51. Sterling M. McMurrin, A Note on the 1963 Civil Rights Statement, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 12, no. 2 (Summer 1979): See also F. Ross Peterson, Do Not Lecture the Brethren : Stewart L. Udall s Pro-Civil Rights Stance, 1967, Journal of Mormon History 25, no. 1 (Spring 1999): For Brown s text, see Conference Report, October 4 6, 1963, 91; see also Give Full Civil Equality to All LDS Counselor Brown Asks, Salt Lake Tribune, October 7, For McKay and civil rights, see Prince and Wright, David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism, ch Wallace invited Benson to serve as his vice president during the 1968 election, and Benson would have accepted, but church president David O. McKay could not support it because it would inevitably cause public relations problems for the Mormon Church. See Dan T. Carter, The Politics of Rage: George Wallace, the Origins of the New Conservatism, and the Transformation of American Politics (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995), 356. See also Prince and Wright, David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism, Benson s speech as reported by the Salt Lake Tribune, April 7, 1965 (see also Conference Report, May 1965, ). The full text of Benson s address is in the David O. McKay Papers, Scrapbook, fd. 19, Marriot Library, University of Utah. Also see Benson s speech to the John Birch Society at Utah State University, in which he warned how the civil rights movement in the South had been formatted almost entirely by the Communists (Deseret News, December 14, 1963), and his conference address of 1967, in which he called for legislative investigating committees [to] launch an exhaustive study to expose the degree to which secret Communists have penetrated into the civil rights movement (Conference Report, October 1967, 38). Benson published two books that outlined his civil rights-communist conspiracy theory: The Red Carpet (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1962) and Jerreld L. Newquist, comp., An Enemy Hath Done This (Salt Lake City: Parliament Publishers, 1969). He also urged members to read Cleon Skousen s The Naked Communist (Salt Lake City: Ensign, 1961), which warned of the conspiracy. Benson was part of a small group of Americans who linked the civil rights movement to communism. Benson and like-minded Americans feared that Martin Luther King and his supporters championed racial equality which undermined the nation s Cold War policies. See Harvard Sitkoff, King: Pilgrimage to the

120 106 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL By the late 1960s dozens of African American athletes began protesting LDS racial policies which brought the church some unwelcome media coverage. In 1968, athletes on the UTEP track team expressed their desire to not compete against BYU in the Western Athletic Conference. In 1969, fourteen members of the University of Wyoming football team were suspended from school for protesting the church s racial policies. That same year Stanford University suspended athletic contests with BYU citing the LDS church s policies on race. Athletes at Arizona State, Colorado State, San Jose State, and elsewhere followed suit. 55 Journalists wrote scores of unflattering newspaper articles on the protests. 56 The negative public relations concerned Hugh Brown, who vowed to change the church s position. In an interview with New York Times reporter Wallace Turner, Brown intimated that a change in the church s racial doctrine was imminent. The top leadership of the Mormon church is seriously considering the abandonment of its historic policy of discrimination against the Negroes, Wallace wrote. 57 Brown also reassured the Stanford University president that a change was forthcoming. 58 According to one careful study, after he spoke with the Stanford president, Brown then secured a proposal from the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles to change the policy. David O. McKay, the church president, was ill and did not play a part in the discussions. Nor did Harold Lee, an outspoken apostle who had long opposed Mountaintop (New York: Hill and Wang, 2008), , 142; Mary L. Dudziak, Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), 11 12, 27 28, In addition, Benson and other conservative Americans feared that the American press corps had undermined American Cold War policies by broadcasting King s numerous marches. It showed discord at home which projected a sign of weakness abroad. See Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff, The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation (New York: Alfred Knopf, 2006). For Benson s influence on modern conservative political thought, see Sean Wilentz, Confounding Fathers: The Tea Party s Cold War Roots, The New Yorker, October 18, 2010, Clifford A. Bullock, Fired By Conscience: The Black 14 Incident at the University of Wyoming and Black Protest in the Western Athletic Conference, , Wyoming History Journal 68 (1996): 4 13; Craig Collisson, Manifestos, Bureaucracies, Race, and Identity: Black Student Protest at White Universities, (PhD diss., University of Washington, 2008); James Hansen II, Democracy s College in the Centennial State: A History of Colorado State University (Fort Collins: Colorado State University, 1977 ), ; Brian Walton, A University s Dilemma: BYU and Blacks, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 6, no. 1 (Spring 1971): 31 36; Gary James Bergera and Ronald Priddis, Brigham Young University: A House of Faith (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1985), See also O. Kendall White Jr., Mormonism s Anti-Black Policy and Prospects for Change, Journal of Religious Thought 29 (Autumn/Winter 1972): See, for example, Seven Negroes Plan Boycott, Miami Herald, April 12, 1968; Rivian Taylor, BYU Protest set Friday, Daily Trojan (University of Southern California), December 10, 1970; William F. Reed, The Other Side Of the Y : Mormon policy is one thing, the views of BYU s team are another, and the differences are quite surprising, Sports Illustrated ( January 26, 1970): See also stories in the Los Angeles Times, August 27, 1967, Arizona Daily Star, April 14, 1968, and San Francisco Chronicle, December 20, Turner, Mormons Weigh Stand on Negro, New York Times, June 7, A few years later Turner wrote a book on Mormons, critical of their race policies. See The Mormon Establishment (New York: Houghton, Mifflin, and Co., 1966), ch. 8 ( The Anti-Negro Doctrine ). 58. LDS Leader Says Curb on Priesthood to Ease, Salt Lake Tribune, December 25, 1969.

121 HARRIS: Mormonism s Problematic Racial Past 107 reversing the ban but was out of the country on a church assignment. When Lee returned, he immediately rejected it and forced the other apostles to recant their support. Then he pressured the seventy-nine-year-old Brown to sign a statement clearing up any confusion that had been caused in the national media regarding the church s position on blacks and the priesthood. 59 That statement became the second time the First Presidency addressed the race issue in an authoritative proclamation. Dated December 15, 1969, and signed by Brown and N. Eldon Tanner (McKay was ill), it read, in part: In view of confusion that has arisen, it was decided at a meeting of the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve to restate the position of the Church with regard to the Negro both in society and in the Church. It follows, therefore, that we believe the Negro, as well as those of other races, should have his full Constitutional privileges as a member of society, and we hope that members of the Church everywhere will do their part as citizens to see that these rights are held inviolate. Each citizen must have equal opportunities and protection under the law with reference to civil rights. However, matters of faith, conscience, and theology are not within the purview of the civil law. The first amendment to the Constitution specifically provides that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. The position of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints affecting those of the Negro race who choose to join the Church falls wholly within the category of religion. It has no bearing upon matters of civil rights. In no case or degree does it deny to the Negro his full privileges as a citizen of the nation. From the beginning of this dispensation, Joseph Smith and all succeeding presidents of the Church have taught that Negroes, while spirit children of a common Father, and the progeny of our earthly parents Adam and Eve, were not yet to receive the priesthood, for reasons which we believe are known to God, but which He has not made fully known to man. our living prophet, President David O. McKay, has said, The seeming discrimination by the Church toward the Negro is not something which originated with man; but goes back into the beginning with God The most comprehensive discussion of this episode is D. Michael Quinn, The Mormon Hierarchy: Extensions of Power (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1997), 13 14, but also useful is Edward L. Kimball, Spencer W. Kimball and the Revelation on Priesthood, BYU Studies 47 (2008): Alvin R. Dyer, a counselor in the First Presidency, indicated in the First Presidency minutes that apostle Harold Lee opposed Brown s efforts to rescind the priesthood ban. See First Presidency minutes, 26 December 1970, box 290, fd. 5, Sterling McMurrin Papers, Marriot Library, University of Utah. 60. Letter of First Presidency Clarifies Church s Position on the Negro, Improvement Era 73 (February 1970): 70 71; also in Bush and Mauss, Neither White nor Black, Brown signed the statement reluctantly, trying to keep a consensus with the Brethren ; but he opposed the statement and wept when he signed it. See Edwin B. Firmage, ed., An Abundant Life: The Memoirs of Hugh B. Brown (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1988), ; Richard D. Poll, Apostle Extraordinary Hugh B. Brown ( ), Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought

122 108 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL What is instructive here is that the presidency omits any discussion of the divinecurse doctrine, nor do they comment on black unworthiness in a preexistent state. 61 But they write that they are offering the position of the church and that God has not revealed why he denied blacks the priesthood, moving away from the divinecurse framework the First Presidency asserted in the 1949 letter. Furthermore, the presidency affirms that God is discriminatory that he favors certain lineages over others , no. 1 (Spring ): 70. Brown still believed that the policy would change in the not too distant future. See LDS Leader Says Curb on Priesthood to Ease, Salt Lake Tribune, December 25, In 1968, the First Presidency decided that church leaders should refrain from answering questions about the race policy by discussing the pre-existent unworthiness of Negroes in receiving the curse of Cain. Such statements only lead to confusion, they reasoned, and the more we said about the subject, the more we shall have to explain. Any future statements on the race issue should be clear, positive, and brief. There is no evidence, however, that the First Presidency abandoned the doctrinal framework for priesthood exclusion in What they abandoned were attempts to explain it in public because of criticisms in the press, but also because of Mormon intellectuals who did not think that the rationale for the exclusion could be defended. See First Presidency minutes, 1 March 1968, David O. McKay Papers, box 44, fd. 7, Marriot Library, University of Utah. Among the most vocal critics of the priesthood ban included Sterling McMurrin, a lifelong Mormon who taught philosophy at the University of Utah; he also served as the Commissioner of Education in the Kennedy administration. Though McMurrin remained cordial with David O. McKay and other members of the hierarchy, he had been highly critical of the church s race policies, both in public and in private. His most forceful denunciation came in a speech to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, delivered on June 21, 1968, in Salt Lake City. He blasted the church for its provincialism and bigotry and for its crude superstitions about Negroes (copy of the speech in box 289, fd. 2, Sterling McMurrin Papers, Marriot Library, University of Utah). Dozens of newspapers covered the story. See Mormon Race Practices Criticized, Phoenix Gazette, June 22, 1968; Mormon says church to lose thousands over Negro stand, Palo Alto Times, June 22, 1968; Bias Will Drive Out Members, Mormon Warns, Miami Herald, June 23, 1968; Mormon Negro Policies Called Harmful to Church, Middletown Journal (OH), June 23, 1968; Expert Says Racism Hurts Mormon Church, Bridgeport Post (CT), June 23, McMurrin sent a copy of the address to Nathan Tanner, who was then serving in the First Presidency (see McMurrin to Tanner, 18 September 1968, box 290, fd. 3 McMurrin Papers). Near the end of his life, McMurrin discussed his critical views of Mormon racial policy with Jackson Newell, a colleague at the University of Utah, who published the interview in a book titled Matters of Conscience: Conversations with Sterling M. McMurrin on Philosophy, Education, and Religion, ed. by L. Jackson Newell (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1996), The hierarchy of lineages is a recurring theme in Mormon thought. For a brief sampling of this literature, see McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 527; Joseph Fielding Smith, The Way to Perfection, 5th ed. (Salt Lake City: Genealogical Society of Utah, 1943), ; and especially Harold Lee, Youth of a Noble Birthright, 171, who reminded the young women of the church that they are a favored lineage to blacks and that they should avoid intermarriage with a race that would condemn your posterity to penalties that have been placed upon the seed of Cain by the judgments of God. See also B. H. Roberts, A Seventy s Course in Theology (Salt Lake City: Deseret News, 1907), 233, who wrote that the Negro is markedly inferior to the Caucasian The comingling of the inferior with the superior must only lower the higher. At least two high-ranking church officials, Hugh Brown and Howard Hunter, rejected the notion that God favored certain lineages over others. In Brown s Memoir he writes: The gospel of Jesus Christ teaches the universality of God s concern for all men and women and that obedience is a universal, fundamental law of progress, both temporal and spiritual. The aristocracy of righteousness is the only aristocracy which God recognizes. This leaves no room for self-righteous expressions in words or actions of being holier than thou. There is a real unity in the human race, and all men have a right to equal consideration as human beings regardless of race, creed, or color. See Firmage, ed., An Abundant Life, 130. To BYU students, Apostle Hunter explained: The gospel of Jesus Christ transcends nationality and color, crosses cultural lines, and blends distinctiveness into a common brotherhood. All men are invited to come unto him and all are alike unto him.

123 HARRIS: Mormonism s Problematic Racial Past 109 Considering the two First Presidency statements, and considering how Mormon doctrine is created in the church, it is disingenuous to conclude that Bott erred in his understanding of Mormon racial policy. When he averred that blacks had devolved from the seed of Cain, he drew upon the 1949 statement. When he said that God has always been discriminatory when it comes to whom he grants the authority of the priesthood, he drew from the 1969 teachings. Similarly, Bott learned this racialized language in church meetings, church literature, and in church training sessions. Indeed, much of nineteenth and twentieth-century Mormon culture was awash in the divine-curse rhetoric. When church president Brigham Young implemented the ban in 1852, 63 he taught that because Cain slew his brother the Lord put a mark upon him, which is the flat nose and black skin. He postulated that the curse will remain upon [blacks] and they never can hold the Priesthood until God sees fit to remove it from them. 64 More dramatically, Young s successor, John Taylor, charged that after the flood the curse that had been pronounced upon Cain was continued through Ham s wife, as he had married a wife of that seed. And why did it pass through the flood? he asked. Because it was necessary that the devil should have a representation upon the earth as well as God. 65 In a similar vein, apostle George Richards declared in General Conference, in 1939: The negro is an unfortunate man. He has been given a black skin. But that is as nothing compared with that greater handicap that he is Race makes no difference; color makes no difference; nationality makes no difference. As members of the Lord s church, we need to lift our vision beyond personal prejudices. We need to discover the supreme truth that indeed our Father is no respecter of persons. See Hunter, All Are Alike unto God, Ensign 9 ( June 1979): Mormon scholars have disputed when the ban started. Some argue that the ban began with Joseph Smith, a claim church leaders have supported over the years. See Ronald K. Esplin, Brigham Young and Priesthood Denial to the Blacks: An Alternate View, BYU Studies 19 (1979): ; Milton R. Hunter, Pearl of Great Price Commentary (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1951), ; Juan Henderson, A Time for Healing: Official Declaration 2, Out of Obscurity: The LDS Church in the Twentieth Century (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2000), Others point out that the ban began with Brigham Young, observing that several blacks were ordained to the priesthood under Smith s leadership. See Bush Jr., Mormonism s Negro Doctrine, 11 68; Bringhurst, Saints, Slaves, and Blacks, 97, ; and Richard Lyman Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York: Alfred Knopf, 2005), 289, who writes that nothing was done during Joseph s lifetime to withhold the priesthood from black members. Some conservative scholars seem to be moving away from the notion that Smith implemented the ban. See Steven C. Harper, Making Sense of the Doctrine & Covenants: A Guided Tour through Modern Revelations (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2008), 522, who writes that at some point Church leaders decided that black men should not be ordained to the priesthood, postulating that the evidence is inconclusive when the ban started. 64. Young sermon of October 9, 1859, Journal of Discourses, 7: For more on Young s racial views, see John Turner, Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2012), 207 8, ; and Christopher B. Rich Jr., The True Policy for Utah: Servitude, Slavery, and An Act in Relation to Service, Utah Historical Quarterly 80, no. 1 (2012): Leonard Arrington s prominent biography of Brigham Young is disappointingly thin on Young s racial views. See Arrington, Brigham Young: American Moses (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1985). 65. Taylor sermon of August 28, 1881, Journal of Discourses, 22:304.

124 110 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL not permitted to receive the Priesthood and the ordinances of the temple, necessary to prepare men and women to enter into the celestial kingdom. He explained that blacks were not valiant in the fight : they chose Satan s plan instead of God s in the preexistence. 66 During the civil rights era church leaders continued teaching a hardened racial doctrine. In 1954, just after the Supreme Court had desegregated schools in Brown v. the Board, apostle Mark Peterson gave an address to church education teachers at BYU in which he dubbed my little talk on the race question. 67 Segregation, he claimed, was divinely ordained. God s preferred lineage was white. Negroes would go to the Celestial Kingdom as servants to whites, not as equals. 68 That same year apostle and later church president Joseph Fielding Smith published an influential book titled Doctrines of Salvation articulating that there is a reason why one man is born black and with other disadvantages. Blacks had followed Satan s plan in a pre-earth existence, making them spiritually deficient to whites. Smith s son-in-law, apostle Bruce McConkie, offered the most emphatic rationale for Mormon racial policy. In his best-selling work Mormon Doctrine (1958), he affirmed that Negroes in this life are denied the priesthood and under no circumstances can they hold this delegation of authority from the Almighty. Negroes are not equal with other races, he posited. Because Cain slew his brother Abel, he was cursed with a dark skin and became the father of the Negroes who were not worthy to receive the priesthood. Then he took a swipe at the Brown decision: Cain, Ham, and the whole negro race have been cursed with a black skin, the mark of Cain, so they can be identified as a caste apart, a people with whom the other descendants of Adam should 66. Richards, Conference Report, April 1939, Petersen to J. Reuben Clark Jr., 9 September 1954, box 210, fd. Negro and the Church, J. Reuben Clark Papers, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University. 68. See Peterson s Race Problems As they Affect the Church, August 27, 1954, LDS Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah. Years later Petersen became embarrassed by the speech and threatened to sue anyone who distributed it (see Mark Petersen to Jerald and Sandra Tanner, 13 February 1965, in author s files). In 1975, he denied even giving it (see Mark Peterson to Lowry Nelson, 30 May 1975, box 20, fd. 11, Lowry Nelson Papers, Marriot Library, University of Utah). At least one church educator balked at Peterson s talk. See Mary Lythgoe Bradford, Lowell L. Bennion: Teacher, Counselor, Humanitarian (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1995), Church president David O. McKay also favored segregation. In the 1940s and 50s, he barred coloreds from singing in the church tabernacle, lodging in the church-owned Hotel Utah, and he believed that colored people are better off in the segregated south than other places in the United States. See his diary entries for February 25, 1949, September 30, 1952, February 20, 1953, box 44, fd. 6, David O. McKay Papers, Marriot Library, University of Utah. McKay s counselor, J. Reuben Clark Jr., expressed disgust at the Brown decision. A lawyer by training, Clark sneered that the Supreme Court decision made relations worse. You can t hand down a decision from above that people are preponderantly against. See Clarkana [1954], box 295, fd. Negro, J. Reuben Clark Papers, L. Tom Perry Special Collection, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University.

125 HARRIS: Mormonism s Problematic Racial Past 111 not intermarry. These are just a few of the many examples articulating the Mormon position. 69 Given this racially-charged rhetoric, it is easy to see why Bott told the Washington Post reporter that blacks were cursed his leaders had taught it for decades and it was never officially repudiated by them in church-sponsored venues. It strains credulity, then, to suggest that the divine-curse doctrine was folklore when the First Presidency taught it, the church president taught it, the apostles and other leaders taught it and that it was repeated time and again in church literature, church training sessions, and church manuals. Added to that, the rank and file understood it as doctrine, as revealed in church talks, missionary training meetings, and in face-to-face gatherings where general authorities instructed the Saints. And finally, the church never renounced its doctrinal framework for the priesthood ban when it ended in A careful reading of the revelation reveals no mention of the divine-curse doctrine, despite apostle Bruce McConkie s admonition to forget everything I have said or what other leaders said on the subject. We spoke with a limited understanding and without the light and knowledge that now has come into the world. 70 It is no coincidence either that presidential candidate Mitt Romney, like the church, has distanced himself from this racial past. Romney was first confronted 69. Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, 61; McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 527. For more on this subject, see Bringhurst, Saints, Slaves, and Blacks and Bush, Mormonism s Negro Doctrine. 70. McConkie, The New Revelation on Priesthood, in Priesthood (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1981), 132. Official Declaration 2, the formal revelation rescinding the priesthood ban, can be found on the church s website at Armand Mauss, Shifting Borders and a Tattered Passport, 232n 32, perceptively explains that McConkie s speech is in no way intended as a repudiation of all previous doctrine and policy relating to black members. Rather, it is primarily an argument that God bestows rights and blessings differentially on different peoples and that those of African lineage simply got their turn at the priesthood sooner than expected. Several leaders recounted their experience in general conference and elsewhere when the church rescinded the ban in 1978, but they never mentioned the rationale for the ban. See, for example, Gordon Hinckley, Priesthood Restoration, Ensign 18 (October 1988): 69 72; David B. Haight, This Work is True, Ensign 26 (May 1996): 23; Lucille Tate, LeGrand Richards: Beloved Apostle (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1982), ; Bruce C. Hafen, A Disciple s Life: The Biography of Neal A. Maxwell (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2010), 417; Sheri Dew, Ezra Taft Benson: A Biography (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1987), ; Eleanor Knowles, Howard W. Hunter (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1994), ; Lucile C. Tate, Boyd K. Packer, A Watchman on the Tower (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1995), ; Kimball, Lengthen Your Stride, ch. 23; McConkie, New Revelation on Priesthood, in Priesthood, Leonard Arrington, the church historian at the time of the revelation, did not mention the rationale for the ban, either. See The Long-Promised Day in his memoir, Adventures of a Church Historian (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998), ch. 11. LDS religious educators are also silent on the doctrinal underpinnings of the ban. See E. Dale Lebaron, Official Declaration 2: Revelation on the Priesthood, in The Heavens Are Open (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1993), ; Juan Henderson, A Time for Healing: Official Declaration 2, in Out of Obscurity; Joseph Fielding McConkie, Answers: Straightforward Answers to Tough Gospel Questions (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1998), 29 30; Mary Jane Woodger, Revelation Attitudes: The Coming Forth of Official Declaration 2, Religious Educator 3, no. 2 (2002): ; Richard E. Bennett, That Every Man Might Speak in the Name of God the Lord : A Study of Official Declaration 2, Religious Educator 4, no. 2 (2003): 41 56; Rachel Cope, Teaching Official Declaration 2, accessed December 23, 2012, Juvenile Instructor,

126 112 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL with the race question during his first presidential run in a 2007 interview with Tim Russert of NBC News Meet the Press. Here s an excerpt from the interview: RUSSERT: You, you raise the issue of color of skin. In 1954 the U.S. Supreme Court, Brown vs. Board of Education, desegregated all our public schools. In 1964 civil rights laws giving full equality to black Americans. And yet it wasn t till 1978 that the Mormon church decided to allow blacks to participate fully. Here was the headlines in the papers in June of 78. Mormon Church Dissolves Black Bias. Citing new revelation from God, the president of the Mormon Church decreed for the first time black males could fully participate in church rites. You were 31 years old, and your church was excluding blacks from full participation. Didn t you think, What am I doing part of an organization that is viewed by many as a racist organization? ROMNEY: I m very proud of my faith, and it s the faith of my fathers, and I certainly believe that it is a, a faith well, it s true and I love my faith. And I m not going to distance myself in any way from my faith. But you can see what I believed and what my family believed by looking at, at our lives. My dad marched with Martin Luther King. My mom was a tireless crusader for civil rights. You may recall that my dad walked out of the Republican convention in 1964 in San Francisco in part because Barry Goldwater, in his speech, gave my dad the impression that he was someone who was going to be weak on civil rights. So my dad s reputation, my mom s and my own has always been one of reaching out to people and not discriminating based upon race or anything else. And so those are my fundamental core beliefs, and I was anxious to see a change in, in my church. 71 Romney, not surprisingly, shunned Russert s question when asked why he is part of a religion many view as a racist organization. Instead, he sidestepped the issue and shared his convictions about the Mormon faith. Romney evaded the question again in the spring of 2012 when a questioner in Wisconsin read a passage from the Pearl of Great Price (Moses 7:8) indicating that God had cursed the ancient Canaanites with a dark skin. Romney cut him off and exclaimed: I m sorry, we re just not going to have a discussion about religion in my view. The questioner then asked another question: Do you believe it s a sin for a white man to marry and procreate with a black? No. Next question, Romney fired back. 72 These two exchanges and there are more demonstrate Romney s unwillingness to discuss his church s racial views toward blacks despite his involvement in 71. Mitt Romney interview with Tim Russert on NBC News Meet the Press, December 16, 2007, See also Michael Kranish and Scott Helman, The Real Romney (New York: Harper Collins, 2012), Philip Rucker, Romney Confronted Over Mormon Doctrines, Washington Post, April 2, See also Joanna Brooks, Romney Faces Sticky Questions about LDS Doctrines on Race, April 4, 2012, Religious Dispatches, lds_%e2%80%9cdoctrines%e2%80%9d_on_race.

127 HARRIS: Mormonism s Problematic Racial Past 113 a religion that has not always been kind to them. Romney s father faced a similar experience when he was running for the presidency in the 1960s. George Romney s progressive stance on race aroused the ire of both the party faithful and his church. In 1964, Delbert Stapley, an LDS apostle, wrote him a sharp letter rebuking him for supporting civil rights legislation then pending in Congress. Stapley called it vicious legislation and warned the elder Romney that it was not his job to remove what he called the Lord s curse upon the Negro. Like his son, Romney Sr. never had the courage to address his church s racial teachings, even though he claimed to support civil rights for blacks and even though it probably affected his chances of winning the presidency in These difficult racial questions show no signs of letting up either, not with the internet buzzing 24/7 about Romney s presidential run, bloggers with itchy fingers pouncing on the issue, or with the news media keeping it alive in their stories. Recently the New Republic declared: Has the Mormon church Truly Left Its Race Problems Behind? The Washington Post asked: Will Mormons racial history be a problem for Mitt Romney? The New York Times commented: Why Race Is Still a Problem for Mormons. And finally, the Utah-based newspaper, the Salt Lake Tribune, speculated: Mormon History with race could haunt Romney. 74 Mitt Romney lost the presidential election in 2012, and there is no reason to believe he did so because of the LDS church s checkered racial past. Still, these newspaper articles raise a larger issue. The church s two press releases distributed in the wake of the Bott debacle have not eased concerns among inquiring minds, especially among outspoken Americans still uncomfortable with Mormon racial history. As one African- American scholar noted, there are still lingering questions about what LDS faithful believe about those with black skin. 75 In a very vivid way, then, Mormonism s problematic racial past is still alive and well and it shows no signs of going away, even with the election over. The church 73. Delbert L. Stapley to George W. Romney, 23 January 1964, George Romney Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. Stapley repeated these claims three years later to Stewart Udall, a Mormon serving as the Secretary of the Interior in the Kennedy administration. Udall published an article calling for racial equality which promptly drew a rebuke from two apostles, Delbert Stapley and Spencer W. Kimball. See Stapley to Udall, 26 May 1967, and Kimball to Udall, 25 May 1967, both in box 209, fd. 5, Udall Papers, University of Arizona. A fine treatment of Romney s presidential run in 1968 can be found in Newell Bringhurst and Craig L. Foster, The Mormon Quest for the Presidency (Independence, MO: John Whitmer Books, 2008), ch Max Perry Mueller, Has the Mormon Church Truly Left Its Race Problem Behind?, New Republic, November 15, 2011; Daniel Burke, Will Mormons Racial History Be A Problem for Mitt Romney, Washington Post, January 31, 2012; John G. Turner, Why Race Is Still a Problem for Mormons, New York Times, August 18, 2012; Mormon History with Race Could Haunt Romney, Salt Lake Tribune, April 10, See Valerie Cooper s interview in the Salt Lake Tribune, October 4, Cooper is an African American scholar of religious studies at the University of Virginia. For some Mormon bloggers, the issue has not been resolved, either. See Responses to Mormon Girl Asks: How did the LDS Black priesthood ban impact you?, accessed November 2, 2012,

128 114 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL would be well served to confront this ugly racial history, acknowledge it, repudiate it in the harshest terms, and move on. Leaders can do this, not in some whimsical, reactive fashion as they did with the press releases during the Bott crisis. Rather, they should dispel their racial theology in the same venue in which they promoted it: in a general conference address, an Ensign article, a First Presidency statement, or all three. In addition, they should purge their devotional literature of all racially charged books books that are still sold at the BYU bookstore, the church-owned Deseret Book and online at the Deseret Book website. 76 And finally, in the absence of a formal creed, they should take more ownership of the doctrines they teach instead of relying on the members to determine whether their words are inspired or opinion. When Mormon leaders have the courage to do this, there will be less confusion about the doctrines they teach and more clarity about their beliefs and practices. Only then will the church begin to break free from its problematic racial past, and only then will the Mormons move ahead to a brighter day when all races, colors, creeds, and ethnicities are welcome in a community of brotherhood. Matthew L. Harris is the Director of Graduate Studies in History at Colorado State University-Pueblo. He received his BA and MA at Brigham Young University and his MPhil and PhD from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. His documentary history of Mormons and Blacks, cowritten and coedited with Newell G. Bringhurst, will be published in 2014 by the University of Illinois Press. 76. Joseph Fielding Smith s Doctrines of Salvation and his Answers to Gospel Questions are among the most influential books still in print perpetuating the divine-curse doctrine. In 2010, Deseret Book removed Bruce Mc- Conkie s Mormon Doctrine from its bookshelves, marking an end to a book that had an enormous influence on Mormon thought and practice. See Peggy Fletcher Stack, Landmark Mormon Doctrine goes out of print, Salt Lake Tribune, May 21, 2010.

129 A Behaviorist Looks at Joseph Russell C. Osmond Numerous paradigms have been introduced to try to explain the uniqueness of Joseph Smith, Jr. what Jan Shipps has notably defined as the prophet puzzle. 1 These have included family dynamics theories, various pathophysiologic diagnoses, imposture characterizations, and the pious fraud schema, among others. All of these seem to be responding to the single question, What was wrong with Joseph Smith? In short, they all ultimately suggest a measure of abnormality by portraying Smith as having a deviant or disordered personality in one way or another. But based upon the enormous historical impact that Smith has left in his wake, perhaps a more important question should be, What was right about Joseph Smith? What enabled this one man to create a fundamentally new religious paradigm and to bring thousands of strangers into his discipleship? If we abjure any faith-based or mystical notions at the outset, is there yet a non-pejorative secular model that might assist in answering this question? Fortunately, modern behavioral theory offers such a schematic, and this paper will outline how it can demonstrate a composite of the personality strengths by which Smith was able to accomplish his remarkable feat and why no one who followed could fully replace him. The tool kit that will be used in the analysis is known as the Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument, developed in 1970 and based on the perception that there are four quadrants of the mind s communication styles. 2 As described by Eric Hoffer in his classic book, The True Believer, 3 individuals who hold an inflexible and intensely focused belief system also harbor inherent blind spots that block a full picture of reality. Using this Herrmann four-quadrant model, it can be readily understood why the blind spots exist. In addition, an expanded use 1. Jan Shipps, The Prophet Puzzle: Suggestions Leading Toward a More Comprehensive Interpretation of Joseph Smith, Journal of Mormon History 1 (1974): See Herrmann International, accessed January 30, 2013, 3. Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1951). 115

130 116 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL of the model can assist in resolving the part of the puzzle relating to Joseph Smith s remarkable success as charismatic leader. At the outset it is important to recognize that all words have four discrete meanings. From birth, humans cope with the world by sorting it into four questions, namely: WHAT? WHY? HOW? WHO? It is also typical that individuals tend to show communication and behavioral dominance in one quadrant in preference to the other three. The Why is all about PURPOSE: the context, the idea of something. For this discussion, we will identify this as the Visioning quadrant. The What is all about LOGIC: the fact base, linearity, and sterile accuracy of something the Factual quadrant. The How is all about PRACTICALITY: applications, utilities, organization, and measurement the Practical quadrant. The Who is all about FEELINGS: emotions, interactions, relational dimensions the Relational quadrant. In examining Joseph Smith s behaviors through each of the four lenses, the historical record tends to portray a highly functioning Joseph in each quadrant. He was a Visionary (Ideas/Why) leader, clearly establishing the ideal of what individuals and his movement should become. He was a Factual (Details/What) leader, establishing rules, processes, and sanctions to manage his church. He was a Practical (Control/How) leader, being pervasively involved in a hands-on way in every function of the complex organization. He was a Feelings (Compassionate/Who) leader, joyfully playing games and enjoying the social life of his people. Regardless of the communication quadrant that dominated each follower, there was a Joseph that fit that preference. He could communicate and behave fluidly in all four quadrants. It was the essence of his charisma. We need look no further than the diverse accounts that exist of many of Smith s sermons, especially during the Nauvoo period. It is noteworthy that different scribes

131 OSMOND: A Behaviorist Looks at Joseph 117 have portrayed his sermons in specific ways using different language. Each was hearing Smith through his/her own prismatic quadrant not all four. To understand why, a more detailed explanation of the behavioral model is required. An expansion of the basic diagram demonstrates how communication may connect and/or disconnect among the four quadrants: Cerebral WHAT? WHY? Left Brain Fact-based Analytical Precise Literal Logical Bottom line HOW? Visioning Strategic Conceptual Purposeful Contextual Big Picture WHO? Right Brain Practical Control-based Applied Action-oriented Organizational Relational, Trust me Emotional Relational Feeling-based People-focused Limbic As can be seen, the approach to a question, problem, belief, etc., will depend upon where one predominantly functions within this topology. Each individual s perspective is significantly slanted by whether he/she tends to be right-brained or left-brained and whether there is preferential functioning from the cerebral or the limbic segment of that particular brain hemisphere. The matter is further complicated by the fact that each of these perspectives has both a thinking/speaking dimension and a feeling/sensing dimension how each receives and interprets input and how each shapes the output sent to others. While some of these perspectives/dimensions are complementary to one another, some are inherently antagonistic, creating friction in perception as well as behavior. Accordingly, we can predict what will happen when people occupying different quadrants try to communicate with each other and why they sometimes don t get what was intended.

132 118 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL Ordinarily there is little problem for interpersonal communications between persons functioning within the same quadrant because the words spoken are understood to carry the same meanings, the same rhythms, the same focus, and the same momentum on the receiving end. Two people living in the same quadrant typically connect with one another very well. The two right-brain quadrants (vertically oriented on the diagram) tend to be complementary in communication; Visionaries understand Relationals and vice versa. Similarly, the two left-brain quadrants are compatible; Factuals understand Practicals and vice versa. In the same fashion, the two cerebral quadrants (horizontally oriented on the diagram) are complementary; Visionaries understand Factuals and vice versa. And the two limbic quadrants are sympathetic; Practicals understand Relationals and vice versa. In contrast, the challenges arise in attempts at diagonal cross-quadrant communication, almost invariably leading to Dis-Connections. The Factuals and Relationals tend to distrust each other because the Factuals will want to parse things into smaller details of precision, while the Relationals will try harder to keep things imprecise and as open as possible. They are trying to accomplish antithetical things: One wants lots of details, while the other is trying to avoid nailing things down. Each sees the other as violating what each considers the best way to get things done. The Factual thinks the Relational illogical, and the Relational feels that the Factual is mean. Similarly, the Practical and Visionary are often in conflict. Practicals want to bring everything to completion as fast as possible, while Visionaries tend to want everything open and unfinished. Neither wants to interact with the other and will prefer to avoid the discomfort of attempting conversation. Using the Hermann behaviorist model, the key to countering these natural Dis- Connects among the four quadrants lies in using a process called the Walk-Aroundthe-Brain technique. 4 In clinical practice this tool enables each person in a conversation to review the four quadrant-specific definitions of key terms in order to develop a common understanding of what those words mean in the context of the conversation. The meanings are addressed in a specific order as follows: WHY? WHAT? HOW? WHO? 4. This tool enables each person in a conversation to review the four quadrant-specific definitions of key terms in order to develop a common understanding of what those words mean in the context of the conversation. This practice makes certain that all quadrants are covered, that the rhythm satisfies each quadrant in successive building-block order, and that no one gets discounted unintentionally.

133 OSMOND: A Behaviorist Looks at Joseph 119 Joseph Smith s own behavior tended to mimic this process as he developed a cohesive connection among his followers unifying their vision, drawing them together, and keeping them within the same conversation. In fact, the very foundation of his movement followed the order described in the technique: Vision First: Smith s early revelations were oriented toward directing his followers to do at least two things: to return to the truth and to prepare for the millennium. Facts Next: He introduced new doctrines, new answers to old questions, and new inspired texts to make certain that the successful establishment of his own vision was what would prevail. Practical Next: With the vision and doctrine in place, Smith gathered those around him using a complex degree of organization to mold them into a cohesive social unit. Relationships Last: With the rapid gains in membership and the inevitable personal interactions that would follow, Smith would use his warmth and perceptiveness to keep his one-on-one loyalties firm and cordial. Though some would fall out of favor, most would soon rejoin the fold. It is significant that Joseph Smith managed to keep all the Dis-Connectable conversations unified in spite of their natural tendency to fragment in the face of rapid change. He could achieve fluidity in keeping individuals from each of the four quadrants in the same conversation despite the natural tendency toward Dis-Connection. In the face of accusations that Joseph Smith changed and contradicted his own doctrine, we must examine the evidence through all four lenses instead of the sole lens most comfortable to the examiner. When all four lenses are applied, it is readily apparent that something is missing from the transcribed records in existence today. The Joseph Smith Papers Project is doing an excellent job of expanding our awareness of what was said by Joseph Smith, especially under critical examination using this four-quadrant model. When such analysis is applied to actual words and writings of Joseph Smith, it becomes immediately apparent that he was neither changing his doctrines nor making expedient justifications for his behavior. As his audiences changed, so did he tell his message in seemingly contradictory dialects. And he almost always offered these varying explanations in smallish group settings where he could adapt his messages for the hearers at that moment. Joseph Smith s ministry was effectively communicated because he could readily adapt his vocabulary into better alignment with the words and ideas of others. He could discern the common vocabulary that would be efficient, clear and unified. Within arm s length of his listeners he seemed able to see/hear/feel what was

134 120 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL resonating as he adapted to the ebb and flow of their reactions to create a sense of safety and stability. Though his Big Picture never changed, he repeatedly tailored his description of it. Again, referring back to the Herrmann model, we can describe this unusual ability of Smith s by saying that he was using terms that resonated with the different brain dominances of his audiences by moving fluidly among the quadrants to explain apparently contradictory messages. But he did more than merely speak the brain s four languages. He also maintained a rhythm of parallel behavior modifications with his followers a significant factor in his charisma. Much of Smith s evolving doctrine came together fully near the end of his life in his seminal King Follett Discourse concerning the congruence of men and gods. The novel paradigm covered all four of the quadrants in order by creating: First the Vision, second the Factual specificity, third the Actions that the theology demanded, and finally what would be the win/win for his listeners. When Smith was killed, the scramble to replace him in the resulting power vacuum was filled with people who lacked his innate capacity to function in all four quadrants to make their cases. Strang argued the Visionary quadrant, Rigdon the Theological quadrant, Young the Practical quadrant, and William Smith (and many others) the Relational / Trust-Me quadrant. Understandably, the differing languages of these contenders led to factionalism as the listeners began to coalesce around the leaders who reflected their own individual quadrant dominances. And thus began the schisms that have continued ever since. Much attention has been devoted to trying to explain the seemingly wide variety of apparently contradictory Joseph Smiths. There are some who see him as impaired when what actually exists are merely cross-quadrant communication conflicts with the observers. His biographers have studiously argued the life of the Visionary Joseph (Bushman), 5 the Doctrinal/Factual Joseph (Vogel), 6 the Practical/ Polygamous/Expedient Joseph (Brodie), 7 and the Compassionate/Caring Joseph (Hill). 8 But none of them has argued for all the Josephs in one place except Shipps in her essay The Prophet Puzzle. 9 The fact is that there is no prophet puzzle; there is instead a prophet pie four Josephs combined into one a whole-brained, compellingly magnetic and charismatic leader spending his energy touching all of his audiences to help all of them understand all of the time. 5. Richard Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005). 6. Dan Vogel, Joseph Smith: The Making of a Prophet (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2004). 7. Fawn Brodie, No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1966). 8. Donna Hill, Joseph Smith: The First Mormon (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1999). 9. Shipps, The Prophet Puzzle.

135 OSMOND: A Behaviorist Looks at Joseph 121 If one examines the data through Herrmann s four-quadrant lens, it should no longer be difficult to realize the brilliance of Smith s keep everyone within arm s reach capability. One need not choose between charlatan and prophet when Smith may instead be seen as a strategic thinker of the first order who invested all his energy into making sense to as many people as possible as often as possible. But in the end, his church s growth simply outpaced his ability to keep touching all of them often enough and long enough. No man knew how to replace him. Russ Osmond, PhD, is founder and president of Change Strategies International, Inc., founded in 1987 in Atlanta, Georgia. An internationally published author in three disciplines, his lifetime focus has been why people do what they do, believe what they do, and change what they do. Behavior modification how to is his primary focus.

136 Changing Revelatory Messages: A Mormon Example H. Michael Marquardt Introduction This article makes clear that there were changes in Joseph Smith s revelations and early story. Messages were later amended and redacted. First, a brief review will be made of the 1835 changes in Smith s revelations and how they related to a new condition. Second, an examination will be made of Smith s history and how modifications occurred in the story of his visions. Behold, this is mine authority, and the authority of my servants, and my Preface unto the Book of my Commandments, which I have given them to publish unto you, O inhabitants of the earth. 1 These words were uttered by Mormonism s founding prophet Joseph Smith on November 1, 1831, at a conference held at the John Johnson Sr. home in Hiram, Ohio. 2 Though the printing of Smith s revelations was disrupted in July 1833, there were enough copies put together in makeshift bindings that indicate that copies were sold and referred to as late as Divine revelation is usually characterized as the imparting of truth to men and women through mystical means that are distinct from ordinary human thought. But for Joseph Smith, revelation seemed to come from day-to-day experience, from in- 1. A Book of Commandments, for the Government of the Church of Christ (Zion [Independence, MO]: Published by W. W. Phelps & Co., 1833), chap. 1:2, hereafter cited as Book of Commandments; also in The Doctrine and Covenants of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City, 1981), section 1:6, hereafter cited as LDS D&C; and Book of Doctrine and Covenants (Independence, MO: Herald Publishing House, 1990), Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, section 1:2 (hereafter cited as RLDS D&C). Subparagraph letters of RLDS D&C not included. 2. The Conference Minutes, and Record Book, of Christ s Church of Latter Day Saints, 15 16, Church History Library, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah, hereafter cited as Church History Library. See Donald Q. Cannon and Lyndon W. Cook, eds., Far West Record: Minutes of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1983), The minutes were recorded in this record book in See for example 1835 D&C, Lecture of Theology, Lecture 3:

137 MARQUARDT: Changing Revelatory Messages: A Mormon Example 123 teractions with other people, and from the study of biblical texts. Richard Van Wagoner explained, Upgrading [of ] revelations and retrospective editing the past are hallmarks of early Mormonism. 4 On December 31, 1833, twenty-nine-year-old Wilford Woodruff was baptized into the Church of Christ. 5 In August 1834 he purchased a copy of the Book of Commandments from John Whitmer in Clay County, Missouri. 6 Woodruff recalled two decades later, I saw the book of commandments or revelations given through Joseph Smith, and I believed them with all my heart, and rejoiced therein. 7 A few smaller organizations, such as the Church of Christ (Temple Lot) and churches of Christ (with the Elijah Message) use the Book of Commandments as part of the Restoration story. Early Texts of Revelations On April 6, 1830, at Manchester, New York, a revelation regarding Joseph Smith Jr., and the Church of Christ, declared: Wherefore, meaning the church, thou shalt give heed unto all his words, and commandments, which he shall give unto you, as he receiveth them, walking in all holiness before me. 8 By comparing early texts, one can often reconstruct the original wording. Smith s revelations did not have to be revised since early copies were available for examination. But by examining the messages that were changed, we may gain insight into why these revisions were made. The sacred word, relayed through fallible prophets, was neither inerrant nor static in Joseph Smith s view so as the need arose, he revised the Bible, the Book of Mormon, and his autobiography and revelations. Smith revised his revelations in accordance with his developing theology. Clare Vlahos, among others, questioned this approach: That Joseph Smith in general made changes in the written revelations can tell us only one thing: that he did not believe the particular words he put down on the page were literally God s. 9 Changes were made in many of the revelations. They reflected Smith s theology, modifications in church government, recognition of former discrepancies, 4. Richard S. Van Wagoner, Sidney Rigdon: A Portrait of Religious Excess (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1994), 129n5. 5. Scott G. Kenney, ed., Wilford Woodruff s Journal, typescript, , vol. 1 (Midvale, UT: Signature Books, 1983), John Whitmer Account Book, under the date of August 12, 1834, Church History Library. Wilford Woodruff was ordained a priest on November 5, 1834, his license being signed by John Whitmer. See Kenney, Wilford Woodruff s Journal, 1: History of Wilford Woodruff (From his own pen), Deseret News, July 7, 1858, Fillmore City, Utah Territory. 8. Book of Commandments 22:4; LDS D&C 21:4; RLDS 19:2. 9. Clare D. Vlahos, A Question of Methodology, Courage: A Journal of History, Thought and Action 2, no.3 (Spring 1972): 465, emphasis in original.

138 124 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL and sensitivity to criticism engendered by the originals as reconstructed in early The modified wording departed from what was expressed at the time the revelations were written, representing ideas current at the time the revisions were made. Such clear-cut redactions indicate ideas out of their proper timeframe and may be characterized as anachronisms. In 2009 a handwritten manuscript book titled A Book of Commandments & Revelations (hereafter cited as BCR), which had been in the possession of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints since the 1830s, was published by the Church Historian s Press. 11 The record contains handwritten modifications to the prophet s revelatory messages. This is the earliest known compilation of Smith s revelations or commandments. As Richard L. Bushman explained, He revised his own revelations, adding new material and splicing one to another, altering the wording as he saw fit. He felt authorized to expand the revelations as his understanding expanded. 12 Through textual criticism, scholars may determine what the early wording of texts contained and may thereby confirm that revelatory documents have been modified subsequent to their reception. As in the case of scholars who compare biblical texts, this method can be used in comparing handwritten manuscripts and printed works to deduce the early text. Joseph Smith was authorized to make simple corrections for the forthcoming Book of Commandments. Historical research indicates that there were modifications in Smith s revelations beyond simple copying errors. Theologians can evaluate which changes were made on purpose and how such changes relate to differing concepts of revelation in the Latter-day Saint community. Individuals involved in the printing of Smith s revelations included Oliver Cowdery and William W. Phelps, whose handwritten notations are contained in the BCR. Cowdery worked on printing the Book of Commandments and also the Evening and the Morning Star. Cowdery s copy of the Book of Commandments contains notations for the new edition of the revelations for the forthcoming work titled Doctrine and Covenants of the Church of the Latter Day Saints. Many of the revisions by Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery were made during the months of January through June 1835, nearly a year before John Whitmer and W. W. Phelps brought the BCR back to Kirtland from Missouri. 13 A reprint of the Star contains the revised text for a few revelations that were used for the Doctrine and Covenants. 10. See Robert J. Woodford, How the Revelations in the Doctrine and Covenants Were Received and Compiled, Ensign, January 1985, and Karl F. Best, Changes in the Revelations, 1833 to 1835, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 25, no. 1 (Spring 1992): Robin Scott Jensen, Robert J. Woodford, and Steven C. Harper, eds., Revelations and Translations: Manuscript Revelation Books, Facsimile Edition (Salt Lake City: Church Historian s Press, 2009). 12. Richard Lyman Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005), This includes the Kirtland reprint of the Evening and Morning Star for the issues printed from January through June 1835.

139 MARQUARDT: Changing Revelatory Messages: A Mormon Example 125 In preparing the revelatory messages for the new publication, Smith wanted to include in this work a better image of his organization. By this means he could provide new meaning to his messages. Revising prior revelations gave him new interpretation with clearer understanding to the church he founded. The 1835 Doctrine and Covenants contained the doctrine as presented in a series of lectures on the theology of faith authored by Sidney Rigdon, who was the church theologian. 14 The second part of the Doctrine and Covenants was the Covenants and Commandments. As the preface explains, it contains items or principles for the regulation of the church. 15 This helps explain why the locations where many of the revelations were received were omitted with only a month and year included. Omitting that information focused the universality of the message. The church s changing situation is reflected in the 1835 alterations of the revelations. Knowing the historical background of the revelations makes it is easy to understand why Smith wanted to alter the original rendering to a new situation because most of the revelations were given during the primitive period of the church s development. The altered format helps us understand the doctrinal, historical, and theological shifts made in the modified 1835 text. 16 Oliver Cowdery was blessed in April 1834 to assist brother Sidney [Rigdon] in arranging the church covenants. 17 In September Cowdery was selected to join Joseph Smith, Frederick G. Williams, and Sidney Rigdon in the formation of a committee to arrange items of doctrine and revelations for the church. 18 In the September 1834 issue of the Evening and the Morning Star printed in Kirtland a PROSPECTUS FOR RE-PRINTING THE FIRST AND SECOND VOL- UMES OF THE EVENING AND THE MORNING STAR appeared. According to the editor, the twenty-four numbers were to be reprinted with typographical corrections. 19 Cowdery further explained to the reader: 14. Sidney Rigdon s contribution included a number of series printed in the Evening and the Morning Star and Latter Day Saints Messenger and Advocate, Kirtland, Ohio. The titles of a few of the articles were Millennium, Faith of the Church, and The Gospel. Readers were informed about the articles, they are from the pen of our worthy brother and friend, S. RIGDON, one of the Presidents of the church of the Latter Day Saints. Messenger and Advocate 1, no. 2 (November 1834): 26. On the authorship of the lectures on faith see Noel B. Reynolds, The Case for Sidney Rigdon as Author of the Lectures on Faith, Journal of Mormon History 31, no. 2 (Fall 2005): Doctrine and Covenants, iii. 16. The 1835 Doctrine and Covenants is the text that the following works are based upon: John Whitmer History, History of Joseph Smith, Lucy Mack Smith History, Joseph Knight Sr. History, Newel Knight Autobiography, Joseph Knight Jr. History, and John Murdock Autobiography. 17. Joseph Smith journal, 78, 19 April 1834, Church History Library; Dean C. Jessee, Mark Ashurst-McGee, and Richard L. Jensen, eds., Journals, Volume 1: (Salt Lake City: Church Historian s Press, 2008), Kirtland Council Minute Book, 76, Church History Library. Minutes of a meeting held on September 24, Prospectus dated Kirtland, Ohio, September 26, 1834, in the Evening and the Morning Star 2, no. 24 (September 1834): 192. The prospectus was dated two days after the September 24 high council meeting.

140 126 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL On the revelations we merely say, that we were not a little surprised to find the previous print so different from the original. We have given them a careful comparison, assisted by individuals whose known integrity and ability is uncensurable. Thus saying we cast no reflections upon those who were entrusted with the responsibility of publishing them in Missouri, as our own labors were included in that important service to the church, and it was our unceasing endeavor to have them correspond with the copy furnished us. We believe they are now correct. If not in every word, at least in principle. For the special good of the church we have also added a few items from other revelations. 20 Careful study shows that if any original manuscripts (previous to 1835) were used, their exact wording was not adhered to. Issues reprinted between January and June 1835 contained altered texts, deleted previously published material, and inserted editorial comments by Cowdery. As stated in a recent publication, Despite the implications of Cowdery s statement, very few of the changes in the reprint represent a restoration back to the earliest text, though Cowdery consulted early manuscript sources when reprinting some of the revelations. Because the revelations were meant to be used as a guide for the current operations of the church, they were edited in 1835 to reflect current organization, doctrine, and practice, which had continued to develop since the revelations were first dictated. 21 When the typesetting was completed as far as it could go, a hastily called general assembly was called together on August 17, The assembly voted on the book as a whole, thereby canonizing the Doctrine and Covenants. There was no indication that anyone realized that the text of some of the revelations had been revised, deleted, or enlarged. The revelations were accepted in their altered form without comment, apparently in the belief that they were identical to those originally given to the church. No explanation was made by the committee, either in the preface or within the text of the revelations, as to why alterations had been made. Contrary to Oliver Cowdery s editorial comments, it seems that revelatory texts differing from those that had been previously published were changed without regard to the wording of those earlier documents. It is a well-established canon of textual criticism that in order to uncover the original text, one must follow the earliest and best manuscripts available. 22 The biblical textual critic works with versions from various scribes in an attempt to determine which reading is most likely closest to the original. 20. Evening and Morning Star (Kirtland reprint) 1, no. 2 ( June 1832): 16, reprinted January Robin Scott Jensen, Richard E. Turley Jr., and Riley M. Lorimer, eds., Revelations and Translations, Volume 2: Published Revelations (Salt Lake City: Church Historian s Press, 2011), For text critical methods, see Kurt and Barbara Aland, The Text of the New Testament, An Introduction to the Critical Edition and to the Theory and Practice of Modern Textual Criticism (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans/E.J. Brill, 1987); Bruce M. Metzger, The Text of the New Testament, Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration, 3rd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992); and Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, 2nd ed. (Stuttgart, Ger.: German Bible Society, 1994).

141 MARQUARDT: Changing Revelatory Messages: A Mormon Example 127 In applying these principles to the revelations of Joseph Smith, two distinctly different approaches must be applied to the texts themselves. The first approach involves comparing among the various versions of the printed texts. Instead of peeling back layers of scribal variations, as one would do with the biblical texts in an attempt to restore the original, the critic in this case peels back various layers of editing in an attempt to restore the original text of the revelation. The second step of textual criticism regarding Joseph Smith s revelations is similar to biblical text criticism. Various extant scribal manuscripts of the revelations are compared in an attempt to uncover the text of the revelation as Joseph Smith originally stated it. These principles would allow the re-creation of the original text of the Smith revelations and to understand better the revelations in the context in which they were given. In recent years there has been a growing willingness on the part of some LDS writers to admit the existence of variant readings of the early revelations. 23 This has been evident even though in the past there has been reluctance by some to accept this possibility. For example, Parley P. Pratt gave the impression that the words Joseph Smith used while dictating remained the same. 24 My study will focus on three areas. First, revelations not contained in the Book of Commandments; second, examples of textual changes starting in January 1835 for the Doctrine and Covenants; and finally, how the redactions in the revelations have significance when considering the manuscript history of Joseph Smith. Previous to the BCR publication one could determine that there would be some textual revision to LDS sections D&C 17 and 57 since they were not published in the Book of Commandments. LDS section 17 states that the three witnesses to the Book of Mormon would see the plates by faith. The text was modified by adding the biblical term Urim and Thummim, which had not been in use in LDS section 57 had a note, Not to be printed at present. 25 This is the revelation that designated Independence, Jackson County, Missouri as the center place location for the New Jerusalem and its temple. The redactions made are not consistent with the prospect of bringing the gospel to the Native Americans. The original wording contained instructions on taking the gospel to the Lamanites: See, for example, Robert J. Woodford, How the Revelations in the Doctrine and Covenants were Received and Compiled, Ensign, January 1985, and Melvin J. Petersen; Preparing Early Revelations for Publication, Ensign, February 1985,14 20; Marlin K. Jensen, The Joseph Smith Papers: The Manuscript Revelation Books, Ensign, July 2009, 47 51; Robert J. Woodford, Introducing A Book of Commandments and Revelations, A Major New Documentary Discovery, BYU Studies 48, no. 3 (2009): 7 17; and Grant Underwood, Revelation, Text, and Revision: Insight from the Book of Commandments and Revelations, BYU Studies 48, no. 3 (2009): Parley P. Pratt [ Jr.], ed., Autobiography of Parley P. Pratt (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1994), Book of Commandments & Revelations, 93, Church History Library. 26. Lamanites is a Book of Mormon term for Native Americans.

142 128 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL let my servent Sidney [Gilbert] obtain a license (behold here is wisdom & whoso readeth let him understand) that he may send goods also unto the Lamanites even by whom he will as clerks employed in his service & thus the gospel may be preached unto them 27 The 1835 revision reads in part: let my servent Sidney gilbert obtain a licence... that he may send goods also unto the people even by whom he will as clerks, employed in his service & thus provide for my saints, that my gospel may be preached unto those who sit in darkness and in the region and shadow of death 28 Three manuscripts then exist of the July 20, 1831, revelation regarding the gathering to Missouri and concerning A. Sidney Gilbert. The thrust of the passage was altered. First, all the goods were now to be sent to the people, which obscures the meaning. Second, the people are more specifically designated as being the saints. And third, the purpose was to provide means for preaching to the lost anywhere. Examples of Textual Revision, Starting in January 1835 What follows are some examples of revisions in the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants. They are presented in numerical order of the sections. Section 1; source: Oliver Cowdery s Book of Commandments, chapter 1. Section 2 (LDS D&C 20); source: Evening and Morning Star ( June 1832), reprinted January By January 1835 there were references to offices instituted after their acceptance at the conference held in June Included in the revision were bishops, high counselors, high priests, and president of the high priesthood. The 1835 office of apostle was not added. 29 Instructions on Priesthood Section 3 (LDS D&C 107) How much of section 3 was presented in its 1835 form to the twelve apostles is not known. The citation to a revelation given on November 11, 1831, but not printed as a separate message in the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants, illustrates how textual redactions of 1835 could give the impression that the wording used is what the original 27. Book of Commandments & Revelations, 94, reading before modification, Church History Library. Here it is understood that clerks will be employed under license in the Gilbert store to bring goods to the Native Americans and thereby obtain entrance and do missionary work among them. 28. Book of Commandments & Revelations, 94, revised text, Church History Library; 1835 D&C 27:4; LDS D&C 57:9 10; RLDS 57: Evening and Morning Star 1, no. 1 ( June 1832): 4, reprinted January 1835; 1835 D&C 2:16 17; LDS D&C 20:65 67; compared with Book of Commandments 24, between verses 44 and 45.

143 MARQUARDT: Changing Revelatory Messages: A Mormon Example revelation contained. The early text says that a bishop must be chosen from the high priesthood, meaning from those who hold the office of high priest. The idea of a bishop being a descendant of Aaron was added to the November 11 revelation and is also repeated in section 22 (LDS D&C 68), which is another November 1831 revelatory message. Who Baptized John the Baptist? Section 4 (LDS D&C 84); source Kirtland Revelations Book (hereafter cited as KRB): To go into th[e] covenents. The early text said that John the Baptist was to be raised up being fillid [filled] with the holy ghost from his Mother[ ]s womb, for he was baptised while he was yet in the womb. 30 For this section the words the womb were omitted and replaced with his Childhood. 31 High Council of the Church of Christ Section 5 (LDS D&C 102); source KRB: To go into the coven[an]ts. The minutes of the February 17, 1834, meeting of the Kirtland High Council were read at least twice two days later. Joseph Smith was authorized to make corrections at the time. The minutes were corrected and recorded in the KRB. Eight months later, after April 28, 1835, a reference was added to the minutes about a distinction between the high council of travelling high priests abroad, and the travelling high council composed of the twelve apostles. 32 Laws of the Church Section 13 (LDS D&C 42); source: Oliver Cowdery s Book of Commandments; Book of Commandments chapters 44 and 47; Evening and Morning Star ( July 1832): 9, reprinted February 1835; and (October 1832): 34, reprinted June This section is a revision of instructions given four years previously. When this section was first reprinted in February 1835, changes were made to the law of consecration. The words high council, not in the revelation of 1831, were added; wording relating to Joseph Smith s Bible revision was again modified, and the office of high priest inserted. 30. Newel K. Whitney Collection, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah. 31. Kirtland Revelations Book, 23. See revision in 1835 D&C 4:4; LDS D&C 84: Kirtland Council Minute Book, 32 35, corrected minutes of February 17, 1834, Church History Library. A copy of the minutes was made by Orson Hyde in Book of Commandments Law and Covenants, book C, Church History Library, and Kirtland Revelations Book, , both recorded August 27, See 1835 D&C 5:13; LDS D&C 102:30 32.

144 130 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL Firstborn son of Aaron Section 22 (LDS D&C 68); source BCR, , Evening and Morning Star (October 1832): 73, reprinted June The 1831 text stated that other bishops could be set apart and they would need to be an high priest who is worthy and be appointed by a conference of high priests. The conference is changed to being appointed by the first presidency of the Melchizedek priesthood, except they be literal descendants of Aaron. A descendant of Aaron would have legal right to the bishopric. In this addition there is further clarification than what is found in section 3. Again the incorrect impression is that this is the identical revelation given on November 1, 1831, to Orson Hyde, Luke Johnson, Lyman Johnson, and William McLellin. The early wording gave the instructions, These sayings are true and faithful: wherefore transgress them not, neither take therefrom. In the revision words like conference and high priests were omitted and replaced. The reason why these words were changed is that since March 1832 there had existed a new council known as the presidency of the high priesthood and designated in 1835 as the first presidency, usually composed of three high priests. This redaction was done after May 16 and near the end of June 1835 with the publication of the reprint of the Evening and Morning Star. 33 May the Kingdom of God go Forth Section 24 (LDS D&C 65); source BCR, 112. Another revelation of interest is a prayer that was revealed and copied in the BCR, KRB, and printed with the same wording in Independence, Missouri, in 1832 and in Kirtland, Ohio, in The BCR contains the minor change which helps us determine that the words crossed through hewn from and replaced with cut out of would have been done shortly after May 16 in time to set the type for the Doctrine and Covenants Book of Commandments & Revelations, Book of Commandments & Revelations, 112; Kirtland Revelations Book, 87; The Evening and the Morning Star 1, no. 4 (September 1832): 26; Evening and Morning Star 1, no. 4 (September 1832): 62, reprinted April 1835 before John Whitmer and W. W. Phelps arrived in Kirtland with the Book of Commandments & Revelations. The text is the same before revisions in Book of Commandments & Revelations. William E. McLellin s copy contains the same early text. See Jan Shipps and John W. Welch, eds., The Journals of William E. McLellin, (Provo, UT: BYU Studies/Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994), Book of Commandments & Revelations, 112.

145 MARQUARDT: Changing Revelatory Messages: A Mormon Example 131 Restoration of All Things Section 50 (LDS D&C 27); source: Book of Commandments, chapter 28; with additional wording. The shortest text supports the basic wording that was printed in the Book of Commandments. Of all of the revision this one was very important since the organization of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles was completed at the end of April The names of those who would partake of the fruit of the vine with Jesus were added to the early text. The 1835 revision lists Moroni, Elias [Gabriel], John the Baptist, Elijah, and other patriarchs. Also mentioned were Michael (or Adam), Peter, James, and John. The New Testament apostles Peter, James, and John, who held the keys of your ministry, now first appear in a church record. Although there is no known account of the Peter, James, and John being sent to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery, the names of the three apostles were added to an 1830 revelatory message after May 16, The redaction makes sense in advancing the idea of priesthood keys. Moroni holds the keys of the record of the stick of Ephraim, and others having their keys committed to men on the earth. Each key would help in the anticipated restoration of all things. The 1835 printed text is not the message presented by an angel in the voice of Jesus given in September No church member is known to worry that this revelation represented a new tradition of changing earlier messages in the light of new understanding since the church had its own Quorum of Twelve Apostles. Book of Commandments, chapter 28 was greatly expanded when it was printed in the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants. The material added to the 1835 version included updated and expanded doctrine on priesthood keys that was not known at the time the revelation was originally dictated 36 Michael, Your Prince Section 75; (LDS D&C 78); source: BCR, , in part. This revelation given in Kirtland, Ohio, on March 1, 1832, included pseudonyms, so the heading for the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants said: The order given of the Lord to Enoch, for the purpose of establishing the poor. This was not a revelation given to ancient Enoch although it gave the impression in the heading that it was. The words Jesus Christ to were changed to the Son Ahman. The largest insertion mentioned the Lord God who hath established the foundations of Adam-ondi-Ahman; who hath appointed Michael, your prince, and established his feet, and set him upon high; and given to him the keys of salvation under the counsel and direction of the Holy One, who is without beginning of days or end of life. 37 It is possible that 36. Jensen, Turley, and Lorimer, Revelations and Translations, Volume 2: Published Revelations, xxxi D&C 75:3; LDS D&C 78:15 16.

146 132 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL the addition was on a pinned note in the BCR. This addition is of interest regarding the place of Adam in Latter-day Saint theology. The above historical examples help establish the original texts and show us how changes were made to those revelations. The textual history of the revelations as a living document shows them changing and expanding. Every stage of the development provides us with valuable insights. However, the earliest texts are essential in uncovering the original intentions and meanings of the revelations and of the historical circumstances surrounding them. A better text leads to a greater appreciation of the early history of the Restoration movement. Revelations have been changed as has the Joseph Smith Story Besides revising his own commandments and revelations, Joseph Smith also revised the Bible and the first edition of the Book of Mormon. It should not come as a surprise that Smith revised the early story of his visionary experiences. This is evident in the accounts of a number of persons who heard him tell about his early life. At times events were modified, omitted, and expanded. There are basically four accounts of the visions known to have come from Joseph Smith: account, recorded in a record book by Frederick G. Williams and Joseph Smith Oliver Cowdery letters, containing information that came from Joseph Smith, as printed in the Messenger and Advocate. (The letters were later copied into Smith s large journal.) account, written into Joseph Smith s Journal, recorded by his scribe History of Joseph Smith, commenced in 1838 and copied by a clerk in 1839 (also considered Smith s journal). 38 Revival and First Vision Joseph Smith told in his history about an excitement on the subject of religion (a revival) taking place before his first vision. He placed it in the spring of He said that he was told that all churches were an abomination. Members of his family joined the Presbyterian Church because of this religious excitement while he was drawn to the Methodists. 39 Later, according to Smith, an angel appeared to 38. In the last number, Times and Seasons 3, no. 10 (March 15, 1842): 726, Nauvoo, Illinois. Joseph Smith s direct involvement in the history includes from his birth to July 1828, as copied in Manuscript History, book A-1:1 10, Church History Library. This would include the History of Joseph Smith published serially, Times and Seasons 3, no. 12 (May 16, 1842): The fact that the names of Smith s mother and brothers appear later as members of the Palmyra Presbyterian Church, who were dropped for nonattendance, is further evidence that the revival Joseph Smith had in view

147 MARQUARDT: Changing Revelatory Messages: A Mormon Example 133 him and gave him instructions, leading eventually to the discovery of a religious and historical record written on plates of gold. Like the revelatory messages that were changed, the early story was also revised. The first published history of early Mormonism was written by Oliver Cowdery and printed in the Latter Day Saints Messenger and Advocate. This consisted of a series of eight letters to W. W. Phelps. The third letter explained what occurred in the fifteenth year of Joseph Smith s life in 1820: One Mr. Lane, a presiding Elder of the Methodist church, visited Palmyra, and vicinity. Elder Lane was a tallented man possessing a good share of literary endowments, and apparent humility. There was a great awakening, or excitement raised on the subject of religion, and much enquiry for the word of life. Large additions were made to the Methodist, Presbyterian, and Baptist churches. Cowdery continued, In this general strife for followers, his mother, one sister, and two of his natural brothers, were persuaded to unite with the Presbyterians. 40 In his fourth letter Oliver Cowdery said there was an error in the type and corrected the date to Smith s seventeenth year which, he said, would bring the date down to the year Peter Crawley wrote, Whatever was intended in Letter III, certain problems persist. Joseph Smith s seventeenth year was 1822, not And Rev. George Lane was most prominently in the Palmyra area in It is conceivable that Cowdery shifted the date after realizing he had introduced Lane at the wrong time. 42 In Lucy Mack Smith s draft of her history, she added details that also suggest an 1824 date for the revival. She began by linking the revival to the death of her son Alvin, who died in November 1823 (subsequently crossed out), About this time their [there] was a great revival in religion and the whole neighborhood was very much aroused to the subject and we among the rest flocked to the meeting house. 43 An examination of newspaper accounts, religious periodicals, church records, and personal narratives show that there were no significant gains in church memberships or any other signs of excitement or revival in Palmyra in There was a stirring and momentous revival there with all the features that Joseph Smith s history affected the local Presbyterian Church. See Records of the Session of the Presbyterian Church in Palmyra, vol. 2:11 12, Western Presbyterian Church of Palmyra, Palmyra, New York; microfilm, film 900, reel 59, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah. Volume 1, which may have listed the Smiths as members, has been missing since at least Dear Brother, Messenger and Advocate 1, no. 3 (December 1834): 42 43, Kirtland, Ohio. 41. Dear Brother, Messenger and Advocate 1, no. 5 (February 1835): A Descriptive Bibliography of the Mormon Church, Volume One (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1997 [1998]), Lavina Fielding Anderson, ed., Lucy s Book: A Critical Edition of Lucy Mack Smith s Family Memoir (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2001), 357.

148 134 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL mentions during the fall and winter of At the beginning of his manuscript history Joseph Smith stated: In this history I will present the various events in relation to this Church in truth and righteousness as they have transpired, or as they at present exist, being now the eighth year since the organization of said Church. 44 The Palmyra excitement or revival was the backdrop for Smith s first vision. This history was a theological or faith-oriented account telling the events as they have transpired, or as they at present exist. David Thelen wrote concerning memory, What is important is that the memory be authentic for the person at the moment of construction, not that it be an accurate depiction of a past moment. 45 Another historian, Marvin S. Hill, concluded that the account was streamlined for publication, making the story more logical and compelling. 46 In the account written by Smith in 1832, a revival was not the motivating factor for his first vision and receipt of absolution. 47 Likewise, in his 1835 telling he mentioned that a personage had told him thy sins are forgiven thee. 48 Once it is realized that the revival and the first vision are two separate events, we begin to get closer to the personal experience of Joseph Smith in his religious quest. How much of Smith s account recalls his feelings around the time of this vision is hard to determine. But when other events are taken into consideration, it appears that using the word abomination 49 in reference to the creeds is language too strong for that time period, especially since members of Smith s family joined the local Presbyterian Church after Second Vision Smith s second vision about an angel revealing to him the location of the gold plates included words of the messenger that must have been post Using Joseph s story as a guide, we can see more clearly how the words in his history fit 1838 rather than pre The reason for this is that in 1836 Joseph Smith and Oliver 44. Manuscript History, book A-1:1, Church History Library; Jessee, Papers of Joseph Smith 1: David Thelen, Memory and American History, Journal of American History 75 (March 1989): 1, Marvin S. Hill, The First Vision Controversy: A Critique and Reconciliation, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 15, no. 2 (Summer 1982): account, A History of the life of Joseph Smith Jr., Church History Library, in Jessee, Papers of Joseph Smith, 1: Joseph Smith journal, 24, 9 November 1835, Church History Library, in Jessee, Ashurst-McGee, and Jensen, Journals, Volume 1: , 88. Smith also told about the gold plates, When I was about 17 years old I saw another vision of angels. 49. Manuscript History A-1:3; Jessee, Papers of Joseph Smith, 1:273; Joseph Smith-History, 1:19, Pearl of Great Price.

149 MARQUARDT: Changing Revelatory Messages: A Mormon Example 135 Cowdery reported a vision of the Old Testament prophet Elijah. The messenger quoted the following for Malachi chapter 4, verse 5: Behold I will reveal unto you the Priesthood by the hand of Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. 50 Would the personage have spoken these words in 1823? If not, then their absence would confirm that we are dealing with a theological story. It means that those actual words would not have been spoken during the visionary experience. The official account, the latest redaction, is currently what the majority of believers accept. It becomes a story of faith if critical analysis remains absent from Smith s story. A simple examination makes it clear that the words attributed to the angel would not have been used in 1823 but at a time after the publication of the Book of Mormon. 51 There would have been no reason to quote the passage differently. Sidney Rigdon in 1830 was looked upon as a preparer, like John the Baptist, to prepare the way before Elijah which should come. 52 When Joseph Smith made his revision of Malachi in July 1833, he considered the book Correct. 53 When one of the early commandments received on September 4, 1830, was prepared for the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants, wording was added relating to biblical individuals who would drink wine with the returned Savior, indicating that Elijah held priesthood keys with the words, and also Elijah, unto whom I have committed the keys of the power of turning the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to the fathers, that the whole earth may not be smitten with a curse. 54 On April 3, 1836, it was recorded that Elijah the prophet appeared in a glorious vision to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery and committed to them the Keys of this dispensation. 55 Looking back to 1836, Smith later explained that the promise of Elijah coming to reveal priesthood keys was a fulfillment of a promise made in connection to the time he first learned about the Book of Mormon plates. The added words relating to the future promise of obtaining the priesthood from the hand of Elijah are an anachronism. Joseph appeared to perceive his 1823 experience as an important indicator of his prophetic role. As he retold the story to family, acquaintances, and eventually to church members, the initial experience took on special characteristics. 50. Manuscript History A-1:5; Jessee, Papers of Joseph Smith, 1:278; LDS D&C 2; Joseph Smith-History 1: Malachi 4:5 6 (KJV) is quoted in the 1830 Book of Mormon, 505; LDS 3 Nephi 25:5 6; RLDS 3 11: Book of Commandments & Revelations, 46; LDS D&C 35:4; RLDS D&C 34:2 (December 7, 1830). 53. Old Testament Manuscript 2, 119, Community of Christ Library-Archives, Independence, Missouri D&C 50:2; LDS D&C 27:9; RLDS D&C 26: Joseph Smith journal, 193, Church History Library, in Jessee, Ashurst-McGee, and Jensen, Journals, Volume 1: , 222; LDS D&C 110:16.

150 136 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL The hill in the township of Manchester, Ontario County, New York In Smith s longest account he stated that in September 1823 a vision was opened to his mind, he saw where gold plates were deposited, and he would go on to remove them from the ground four years later in September One of the earliest persons who heard the story from Joseph Jr. was Joseph Knight Sr., a resident of Colesville, New York. Knight, for whom Smith worked briefly in , recounted elements of the early story, as related to him in the fall of Joseph Smith while at the hill was told by the personage: you Should have took the Book and a gone right away you cant have it now Joseph Says when Can I have it[?] the answer was the 22nt Day of September next if you Bring the right person with you Joseph Says who is the right person[?] the answer was your oldest Brother 56 Joseph Smith s mother Lucy added her own recollections about the gold record in her memoir. She dated Joseph s first trip to the nearby hill as just before the death of Alvin, who died in November 1823, and emphasized Alvin s place in these events. In the excitement of the moment he laid the record down in order to cover up the box least some one should come along and take away whatever else might be deposited there. When he turned again to take up the record it was gone but where he knew not nor did he know by what means it was taken away. 57 Mother Smith reported that Alvin was especially interested in the record. She stated that on his deathbed he had told Joseph, I want you to be a good boy & 56. Joseph Knight, Reminiscences, written between 1835 and his death in 1847, Church History Library. See Dean C. Jessee, ed., Joseph Knight s Recollection of Early Mormon History, BYU Studies 17 (Autumn 1976): Lucy Mack Smith, draft manuscript, Church History Library. See Anderson, Lucy s Book,

151 MARQUARDT: Changing Revelatory Messages: A Mormon Example 137 do everything that lays in your power to obtain the records be faithful in receiving instruction and keeping every commandment that is given you. 58 In his redaction Joseph Smith omitted laying the record on the ground, I made an attempt to take them [the gold plates] out but was forbidden by the messenger. 59 He also did not mention being told on that occasion to bring Alvin with him next time to the hill. Six years earlier, in 1832, Smith said he attempted but did not remove the plates as he straightway made three attempts to get them. 60 The early story told by his mother Lucy, and friend Joseph Knight, Sr., indicated that Joseph said he removed the record and laid it down. At the hill in 1827 and the fallen treetop Another redaction as revealed by Joseph Knight Sr. was the time when Joseph Smith finally asked when he could have the book and was told again to bring the right person. Joseph Says who is the right Person[?] the answer was you will know then he looked in his glass and found it was Emma Hale. 61 According to Lucy Smith s narrative, on September 20, 1827, Joseph Knight Sr. and his friend Josiah Stowell arrived at the Smith family frame house. Knight said that he had heard that Joseph was to get the record on September On the morning of the twenty-second, according to the narrative, Joseph and Emma left the Smith home, taking Mr. Knight s horse and wagon without his knowledge, to travel to the hill about two miles away. 63 When they arrived at the hill, Joseph left Emma with the wagon while he went to the side of the hill. Joseph said he then took the plates out of the box in the ground and hid them in a fallen treetop, concealing them with the bark of the tree. 64 He then reportedly returned to Knight s wagon where Emma was waiting, and they started back to the house. The plates were now, according to Joseph, hidden in a fallen treetop, but a better place to deposit them was needed. According to Lucy, Joseph asked my advice what it was best to do about getting a chest made. They decided to have one made but lacked the money to pay for it Ibid., Manuscript History A-1:7; Joseph Smith-History 1:53 in Pearl of Great Price. 60. Jessee, Papers of Joseph Smith, 1: Joseph Knight, Reminiscences, Church History Library. Jessee, Joseph Knight s Recollection, Anderson, Lucy s Book, 376. See Jessee, Joseph Knight s Recollection, Anderson, Lucy s Book, This follows Martin Harris in Tiffany s Monthly 5 (August 1859): 165 and Affidavit of Willard Chase, December 11, 1833, in E. D. Howe, Mormonism Unvailed (Painesville, OH: privately printed), Anderson, Lucy s Book, 379. Lucy stated, There was not a shilling in the house.

152 138 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL It was nine days later when Joseph ostensibly walked by himself to where he said he hid the gold plates. Several people remember the story they heard of how he brought the plates back to the Smith home. According to Lucy s version, Joseph: took the plates from their [hiding] place and wrapping them in his linen frock put them under his arm and started for the house. he concluded it would be safer to go across through the woods. He had not proceeded far in this direction till, as he was jumping over a log, a man spran[g] up and gave him a heavy blow with a gun. Joseph <leveled> him to the ground. 66 Smith claimed he knocked down several men as he ran home, arriving out of breath. When all the commotion settled, Joseph showed those present his dislocated thumb, which his father put back in place. After this Joseph went to Willard Chase s house and talked with him. Chase recalled the story that Smith told him, which is similar to the accounts of Smith s mother and Joseph Knight: On his return home, he said he was attacked by two men in the woods, and knocked them both down and made his escape, arrived safe and secured his treasure. He then observed that if it had not been for that stone, (which he acknowledged belonged to me,) he would not have obtained the book. 67 This interesting story was not included in any of Smith s accounts. Whatever was under his work smock or in the chest was concealed. Other members of the Smith family did not see a physical object. None of the scribes indicate that Smith used the gold plates during the dictation of the Book of Mormon. The Gold Plates How necessary the gold plates story was to the process of writing the Book of Mormon is a valid question for further study. A recent author, Brant A. Gardner, stated that the translation process did not include the physical examination of the plates as part of the translation. 68 Over time Joseph Smith omitted certain elements and expanded the words said to have been told him, thereby changing the story from how it was first told. From the visionary instructions originally told in a treasureseeking context Smith transformed that initial story into a religious saga featuring an angel guiding him into a prophetic ministry. The prophetic saga from the earliest days of the movement reinforced his followers belief that he was a prophet. This story was that important. 66. Ibid., Affidavit of Willard Chase, December 11, 1833, in Howe, Mormonism Unvailed, Brant A. Gardner, The Gift and Power: Translating the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2011), 134. In note 37 Gardner explains: The number of testimonies about the face-in-the-hat method indicate that, even if the plates were nearby, Joseph was not consulting them during the translation.

153 MARQUARDT: Changing Revelatory Messages: A Mormon Example 139 A great way to understand how a story can change is to know that the Smith family was considered visionary. That is, through the eyes of their understanding or second sight, they perceived hidden treasures underground, in the mountains, and in caves. This perception was the mindset of their treasuring-seeking projects and also their religious thinking. While the Book of Mormon was being printed, Solomon Chamberlain visited members of the Smith family. He recounts his first contact with them: I soon arrived at the house, and found Hyrum [Smith] walking the floor; as I entered the room, I said peace be to this house; he looked at me and said I hope it will be peace. I then said is there any one here that believes in visions and revelations. He said yes, we are a visionary house. 69 Summary on Revelations and Story In Joseph Smith s history he omitted his use of a stone in locating buried treasure, in finding the gold plates, in interpreting Egyptian writing, and in receiving revelatory messages. He added in that he was using the Urim and Thummim in translating and also in receiving revelations for his followers. Joseph Smith, like many other leaders, showed development in expressing his ideas. As the recollection of events in his early life took on a more theological bent than historical reality, his story grew in the telling. The words that he said an angel had spoken to him about Elijah in 1823 became of primary significance as he looked back to his early life. It was not an issue to him that some of his ideas had changed or contradicted what he had said at an earlier time. Joseph was able to reinterpret events as he presented new ideas in a revelatory manner. As an oracle to his followers, he came to see his theological development become the word of God. And as he developed his thought, he introduced new meaning and understanding to church members in his newly adopted role as prophet and seer. These two Mormon examples, on revelatory messages and storytelling, usually have negligible impact on the believer because critical studies play minimal roles in the final authorized text. To the faithful all that is important is how the official story is told. H. Michael Marquardt (research@xmission.com) is an independent historian and research consultant. He is on the editorial staff of the Journal of Mormon History, and on the editorial board of the John Whitmer Historical Association Jour- 69. Recorded in John Taylor journal, in Dean C. Jessee, ed., The John Taylor Nauvoo Journal: January 1845 September 1845, BYU Studies 23 (Summer 1983): 45.

154 140 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL nal. He is the compiler of Early Patriarchal Blessings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Smith Pettit Foundation, 2007) and the author of The Joseph Smith Revelations: Text and Commentary (Signature Books, 1999).

155 Manchester as the Site of the Organization of the Church on April 6, 1830 H. Michael Marquardt In studying Latter-day Saint history, we encounter an interesting question regarding the location where the newly organized Church of Christ was organized. Traditions in Restoration studies converge on two locations in the state of New York: Manchester, Ontario County, and Fayette, Seneca County. The date of April 6, 1830, has long been established in the histories of churches associated with the movement established by Joseph Smith Jr. ( ). The events that occurred on that day include baptisms in a small brook or creek, confirmations, revelations, ordinations, and partaking of the sacrament of the Lord s Supper. There is no mention of travel from one location to another. This article will present various historical recollections and examine them in the context of where the baptisms and April 6, 1830, organizational meeting occurred. This becomes important as historians revisit their assertions and evaluate their otherwise established traditions. Where a religion started is usually one of the first questions asked by investigators. Consistent with previous studies, the strongest evidence is that the Church of Christ was formally organized on April 6, 1830, at one location only: Manchester, New York. Introduction to Manuscript History A draft history was composed in 1839 by church scribe James Mulholland. He then worked a fuller version in the Manuscript History of Joseph Smith, book A-1. This history notes that believers met together on Tuesday, April 6, 1830, in the house of Mr. Whitmer (Peter Whitmer Sr.). The Whitmers lived in the township of Fayette, Seneca County, New York, about twenty-five miles southeast from Manchester. 141

156 142 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL Lake Ontario N NEW YORK W E Area Enlarged S Erie Canal Creek W A Y N E Erie Canal kilometers miles 10 Ganargua Palmyra Smith Farm Hill Cumorah Newark Lyons Manchester Canandaigua Canandaigua Canandaigua Lake River O N T A R I O Geneva Seneca Lake S E N E C A Waterloo Seneca Fayette River Whitmer Farm Seneca Falls Cayuga Lake The vicinity of Palmyra, Manchester, and Fayette, New York (Map courtesy John Hamer). What occurred on April 6 was that Joseph Smith ordained Oliver Cowdery an elder of the church, immediately after which Cowdery ordained Smith an elder. Baptisms were performed for Joseph Smith Sr., Lucy Mack Smith, Martin Harris, and a Rockwell that is, Sarah Rockwell. The location of Fayette, in the Whitmer home, is in error since the baptisms took place in Crooked Brook near the Smith Sr. home in the township of Manchester. It should be no surprise that some mistakes were made in compiling the history. For example, the dates of the first two church conferences are incorrect. The Manuscript History has On the first day of June. 1 This should be June 9. For the second 1. Manuscript History, bk. A-1:41, Church History Library, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah, hereafter cited as Church History Library.

157 MARQUARDT: Manchester as the Site of the Organization of the Church 143 conference the history says As a conference meeting had been appointed for the first day of September. 2 The conference actually commenced on September 26, a twentyfive-day difference. Revelations were either listed or copied into the history, citing as the source the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants (D&C). This book compressed five revelations into one and omitted the day of the month the revelations were stated. The revelation regarding performing the ordinations of Cowdery and Smith contained no location in the 1835 D&C, section 46 (LDS section 21). The version of the revelation found in the Manuscript History when the revelation was copied included the addition of Fayette, Seneca County. Another revelation (LDS section 22) which previously was listed as stated in Fayette was reported in the Manuscript History to have been stated in Manchester. Though this portion of the history does not indicate the role Joseph Smith played in its production, it does follow the first printed location of Fayette that was mentioned in a May 1834 meeting. 3 Book A-1 of the Manuscript History was first published starting in March 1842 as the History of Joseph Smith in the Times and Seasons, a newspaper printed in Nauvoo, Illinois. Over time the Fayette branch of the church in the Whitmer home took on a more important role. The first three church conferences were held in the Peter Whitmer home. That history is the source for the baptisms that were performed on April 11 and 18 in the township of Fayette. No source is given regarding who provided the names of those baptized on these two dates. The Whitmer family and friends had about thirteen baptisms performed in April. On April 11 Oliver Cowdery delivered the first discourse of the newly founded church as the first preacher (LDS D&C 21:12). Joseph Knight Sr. s Recollection Joseph Knight Sr. ( ), who arrived with Joseph Smith at his father s home in Manchester, was present at the meeting where the church organization took place and wrote his account prior to his death in Knight cites two revelations related in Manchester, pages 174 and 177 in the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants (now LDS sections 19 and 21). He was present at the baptisms of Joseph Smith Sr. and Martin Harris. The following is an excerpt from Knight s account: Now in the Spring of 1830 I went with my Team and took Joseph out to Manchester to his Fathers when we was on our way he told me that there must be a Church formed But Did not tell when. we went home to his Fathers and Martin with us Martin Stayed at his Fathers and Slept in a bed on the flore [floor] with me. in the after part of the Day Joseph and oliver Received a Commandment which is in Book of Covenants Page. 2. Ibid., bk. A-1: Communicated, The Evening and the Morning Star 2, no. 20 (May 1834): 160.

158 144 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL 174 I stay[e]d a few Days wa[i]ting for Some Books to Be Bound. Joseph Said there must Be a Church Biltup [Built up] I had Be[e]n there Several Days old Mr Smith and Martin Harris Come forrod [forward] to Be Babtise [Baptized] for the first they found a place in a Lot a Small Stream ran thro and they ware Babtized in the Evening. there was one thing I will mention that evening that old Brother Smith and Martin Harris was Babtised Joseph was fild [filled] with the Spirrit to a grate [great] Degree to See his Father and Mr Harris that he had Bin [Been] with So much he Bu[r]st out with greaf [grief ] and Joy and Seamed [Seemed] as tho the world Could not hold him he went out into the Lot and appear[e]d to want to git [get] out of Site [Sight] of every Body and would Sob and Crie [Cry] and Seamed [Seemed] to Be So full that he Could not Live oliver and I went after him and Came to him and after a while he Came in But he was the most wrot [wrought] upon that I ever Saw any man But his Joy Seemed to Be full I think he Saw the grate [great] work he had Begun and was Desirus [Desirous] to Carry it out. on the Sixth Day of April 1830 Begun the Church with Six members and received the following Revelation Book of Covenants Page 177 they all kneel[e]d down and prayed and Joseph gave them instructions how to B[u]ild up the Church and ex[h] orted them to Be faithfull in all things for this is the work of God 4 The correct location of the church s formal organization was the meeting held in the Hyrum Smith/Joseph Smith Sr. home (not owned by the family) in Manchester. Hyrum Smith was taxed in 1830 for fifteen acres on Manchester lot number one. 5 Individuals who resided in Manchester, and who did not associate with the church, but who witnessed the baptisms performed would not have traveled to Fayette a fifty-mile roundtrip to attend a baptismal rite. The reason is that the four baptisms were performed near the Smith home in what was locally known as Crooked Brook or Hathaway Creek. A history of Ontario County describes the stream in terms congruent with the accounts of those who claimed to be present: Crooked brook, of Mormon fame, runs through the northwest part of the town[ship of Manchester], and it was in the waters of this stream that the Mormons baptized their early saints. Dr. [ John] Stafford, an old resident of the village of Manchester, was present at the first baptism. 6 John Stafford, oldest son of William, knew the Smith family well, and was present at the first baptism, when old Granny Smith and Sally Rockwell were baptized Joseph Knight, Reminiscences, ca , Church History Library; first published in Dean C. Jessee, ed., Joseph Knight s Recollection of Early Mormon History, BYU Studies 17 (Autumn 1976): Assessment Roll, of the Real and Personal Estate in the Town of Manchester in the County of Ontario, July 5, 1830, Ontario County Historical Society, Canandaigua, New York. 6. John H. Pratt, in Charles F. Milliken s A History of Ontario County, New York, and Its People (New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Co., 1911), 1: Shortsville Enterprise (Shortsville, NY), March 18, 1904.

159 MARQUARDT: Manchester as the Site of the Organization of the Church 145 Crooked Brook on Smith Farm, Manchester, New York. Photograph by George E. Anderson, August Published in Birth of Mormonism in Picture (Salt Lake City: Deseret Sunday School, ca. 1909). The Stafford and Rockwell families were residents of the township of Manchester and lived within a mile of the Smith home. 8 In the early years of the church only the date of the church s organization was given in licenses for those holding offices. At the conference held in Fayette on June 9, 1830, licenses were written out by Oliver Cowdery. None of the three surviving licenses contain mention of any location for the April 6 meeting but does include Fayette and the June 9 date for each individual so ordained. Early Church Confirms Meeting of April 6, 1830, at Manchester During preparations for publishing Joseph Smith s revelations, locations were provided where each revelation was spoken and systematically included. We find in the first church periodical, The Evening and the Morning Star, the earliest brief history dealing with the month of April US Census, Manchester, Ontario County, New York,

160 146 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL Soon after the book of Mormon came forth, containing the fulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the church was organized on the sixth of April, in Manchester; soon after, a branch was established in Fayette, and the June following, another in Colesville, New York. 9 Below is a small sample of publications that mention Manchester as the location for revelations on April 6, 1830, and/or the site of the church s organizational site. Each of the following individuals attended the meeting. The revelations were published in A Book of Commandments, for the Government of the Church of Christ (in press 1833). Book of Commandments, chapter 17 (1833), A Revelation to Oliver, given in Manchester, New-York, April 6, [Oliver Cowdery] (LDS section 23:1 2) Book of Commandments, chapter 18 (1833), A Revelation to Hyrum, given in Manchester, New-York, April 6, [Hyrum Smith] (LDS section 23:3) Book of Commandments, chapter 19 (1833), A Revelation to Samuel, given in Manchester, New-York, April 6, [Samuel H. Smith] (LDS section 23:4) Book of Commandments, chapter 20 (1833), A Revelation to Joseph, the father of Joseph, given in Manchester, New-York, April 6, [ Joseph Smith Sr.] (LDS section 23:5) Book of Commandments, chapter 21 (1833), A Revelation to Joseph (K.,) given in Manchester, New-York, April 6, [ Joseph Knight Sr.] (LDS section 23:6 7) Book of Commandments, chapter 22 (1833), A Revelation to Joseph, given in Manchester, New-York, April 6, [ Joseph Smith Jr.] (LDS section 21) The Book of Commandments and Revelations manuscript, the source of chapter 22, recorded Fayette when it was copied by John Whitmer. This was corrected in the 1833 Book of Commandments to Manchester. Oliver Cowdery assisted William W. Phelps in preparing the Book of Commandments for publication in Independence, Missouri (LDS D&C 55:4 and 57:13). The church organization location site of Manchester was clearly reported at this time. When the Evening and Morning Star was reissued in Kirtland, Ohio, the location of Manchester was retained in the following issues: 9. Rise and Progress of the Church of Christ, The Evening and the Morning Star 1, no. 11 (April 1833): 84. Oliver Cowdery, present at the April 6 meeting, where he received his ordination as second elder, assisted in the printing of the Star. In a prior article titled Prospects of the Church, The Evening and the Morning Star 1, no. 10 (March 1833): 76, it was stated It will be three years the sixth of April next, since the church of Christ was organized in Manchester, New York, with six members.

161 MARQUARDT: Manchester as the Site of the Organization of the Church 147 Prospects of the Church, Evening and Morning Star 1, no. 10 (March 1833): 151, Kirtland reprint, May Rise of Progress of the Church of Christ, Evening and Morning Star 1, no. 11 (April 1833): 167, Kirtland reprint, June The assertion of a Fayette April 6 meeting as first claimed in 1834 was continued when the Manuscript History was being worked on in The draft history written by James Mulholland, with its deletions and insertions, demonstrates how it was not an easy process to write a history that expressed not only what happened but also the church s current position. While the April 1830 portion of the History of Joseph Smith, printed in the Times and Seasons in October 1842, has the Fayette location, it did not prevent publications before and after that date from presenting where Smith actually organized the church and held its first meeting. The names of church members belonging to the United Firm, one of the church s early business ventures, were still concealed in The names were concealed to avoid being sued for church debts. Willard Richards, as official church historian, copied revelations and letters into the Manuscript History and continued efforts at concealment that were established when the Doctrine and Covenants was published in Orson Pratt, an early 1830 convert, wrote: And on the sixth of April, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and thirty, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was organized, in the town of Manchester, Ontario County, State of New York, North America. 10 Joseph Smith knew the correct location of church organization, and authorized the printing of the compiled Church History (based upon Pratt s pamphlet) for the Times and Seasons: On the 6th of April, 1830, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, was first organized in the town of Manchester, Ontario co., state of New York. 11 In 1844 Jedediah M. Grant wrote, the rise of said church, which was organized in the town of Manchester, Ontario county, State of New York, on the 6th day of April, A.D In an article printed in Honolulu, those Mormon passengers on the ship Brooklyn understood the origin of the restoration church when it was reported: Church of Latter Day Saints -- This is the name of the society founded by Joseph Smith, Jr. It was organized April 6, 1830, at Manchester, N. Y. Six members originally composed 10. A[n] Interesting Account of Several Remarkable Visions... (Edinburgh: Ballantyne and Hughes, 1840), 23 24; changed to Fayette in an 1848 printing. 11. Church History, Times and Seasons 3, no. 9 (March 1, 1842): 708; known as the Wentworth letter. 12. A Collection of Facts, relative to the course taken by Elder Sidney Rigdon... (Philadelphia: Brown, Bicking & Guilbert, 1844), 5.

162 148 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL the body, viz. Joseph Smith, senior, Hiram Smith, Samuel Smith, (father and brothers of the leader,) Joseph Smith, Jr., Joseph Knight and Oliver Cowd[e]ry. 13 In Utah Territory the Manchester location was still being discussed. Church historian George A. Smith wrote Church History, which was printed in the Deseret News, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was organized in Manchester, New York, on the 6th of April Remarks By President Heber C. Kimball, Bowery, Sunday morning, July 7, 1861, included, When the Church was first organized in Manchester, in the State of New York, the people rose up against us. 15 In 1884 Benjamin Saunders, fifteen years old in 1830, said that the <Smiths> held meetings at their house. I was there when they first baptized. Oliver Cowdery did the baptizing. Old brother <Smith> was baptized at that time and I think old Mrs. Rockwell. 16 A Utah Gazetteer confirmed, April 6. First Mormon Church regularly organized at Manchester, New York. 17 While the above sources demonstrate that Manchester was the location where the church was formally organized, it is equally important to examine why, when, and how the Fayette location became ingrained into the story of the church. Economic obligations were a factor in determining what occurred during that led to changing the name of the church but also the site of its organization. The United Firm Deeply in Debt As early as June 1833 Joseph Smith was concerned about the loans that were obtained from individuals or businesses by the United Firm. The United Firm was an organization that consisted of high priests who were called to serve and conduct business in behalf of the church. The following are extracts from documents regarding the situation: Say to Bro[ther] Gilbert that we have no means in our power to assist him in a pecuniary point, as we know not the hour when we shall be sued for debts which we have contracted ourselves in N[ew] York 18 In a letter from Kirtland 13. Arrived, The Friend 4 ( July 1, 1846), Honolulu, Oahu, Sandwich Islands [now Hawaii]. Joseph Knight Sr. was not baptized until late June Church History, Deseret News, September 5, Deseret News, March 19, 1862; also printed in the Journal of Discourses, 26 vols. (London and Liverpool: LDS Booksellers Depot, ), 9: Benjamin Saunders, interview by William H. Kelley, ca. September 1884, Community of Christ Library- Archives, Independence, Missouri. Angled brackets indicate writing above the line. 17. Robert W. Sloan, ed. and comp., Utah Gazetteer and Directory of Logan, Ogden, Provo and Salt Lake Cities for 1884 (Salt Lake City: Herald Printing and Publishing Co., 1884), Joseph Smith, et al to Brethren, Jackson County, Missouri, 25 June Church History Library.

163 MARQUARDT: Manchester as the Site of the Organization of the Church 149 on December 5, 1833, Smith wrote, our means are already exhausted and we are deeply in debt and know of no means whereby we shall be able to extricate ourselves. 19 On January 11, 1834, Smith and his associates prayed, That the Lord would provide, in the order of his Providence, the bishop of this Church with means sufficient to discharge every debt that the Firm owes, in due season, that the Church may not be braught [brought] into disrepute, and the saints be afflicted by the hands of their enemies. 20 Jacob and Sarah Myers sold their land and mill, with water rights, in Richland County, Ohio, on March 27, 1834, for $10, Joseph Smith wrote to leaders in Missouri: we have run into debt for the press, and also to obtain money to pay the New York debt for Zion. 22 Frederick G. Williams ( ) wrote in Joseph Smith s journal: on the 7th day of April [1834] Bros Newel [K. Whitney] Oliver [Cowdery] Frederick [G. Williams] Heber [C. Kimball] and myself meet in the councel room and bowed down befor the Lord and prayed that he would furnish the means to deliver the firm from debt. On April 10 the United Firm met and it was agreed that the first be desolvd [dissolved] and each one have their stewardship set off to them. 23 The Newel K. Whitney and Company borrowed funds the next week: We owe Eight Thousand dollars, which must be paid by the first of Sept next. but if we can get 4 or 5 Thousand this month I can pay our debts here & so much of our debts in New York that they will wait till Sept for the balance & I also shall be able to purchase some goods this Spring for to make my assortment more compleet [complete] through the summer At any rate we must have 4 thousand dollars this month [blank space] The bearer hereoff [sic] Joeph Smith Jr is authorised by us to borrow from One to Eight thousand dollars & sign a note for the same in the name of N. K. Whitney & Co which note we will hold ourselves bound to pay Kirtland 18 apl 1834 N. K. Whitney & Co Joseph Smith to Dear Brethren, Jackson County, 5 December A copy of the letter is in Joseph Smith Letterbook 1:68, Church History Library. 20. Joseph Smith journal, 11 January 1834, Church History Library. 21. Deed Book, vol. 11:464, Richland County Recorder, Recorder s Office, Mansfield, Ohio. 22. Joseph Smith to Edward [Partridge], William [Phelps], and others of the firm, 30 March 1834, Oliver Cowdery Letterbook, 34, Henry E. Huntington Library, San Marino, California. 23. Joseph Smith journal, 7 and 10 April 1834, Church History Library. 24. Joseph Smith Collection, Financial Papers, bx. 5, fd. 3, Church History Library.

164 150 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL A revelation instructed, pay all your debts humble yourselves write spe[e] dily unto New York, I will soften the hearts of those to whom you are in debt, that it shall be taken away out of their minds to bring afflictio[n] upon you. 25 The revelation continues: Inasmuch as you obtain a chance to loan money by hundreds, or by thousands, even until you shall loan enough to deliver yourselves from bondage, it is your privilege, & pledge the properties which I have put into your hands this once by giving your names by common consent, or otherwise as it shall seem good unto you. I give unto you the privilege this once 26 Oliver Cowdery recorded for April 23, 1834: Assembled in council with breth[r] en Sidney [Rigdon], Federick [G. Williams], Newel [K. Whitney], John Johnson, and Oliver [Cowdery] and united in asking the Lord to give bro. Zebedee Coltrin influence over our bro. Jacob Myres [Myers Sr.], and obtain from him the money which he has gone to borrow for us, or cause him [Myers] to come to this place & give it himself. 27 Zebedee Coltrin was to see only one person, viz. Jacob Myers. 28 The plan was to borrow money from Myers to pay the debts. Another revelation gave instruction on what to do: Kirtland 28 April 1834 Verily thus saith the Lord concerning the division and settlement of the United Firm: Let there be reserved three Thousand Dollars for the right and claim of the Firm in Kirtland for inheritances in due time, even when the Lord will; and with this claim to be had in remembrance when the Lord shall reveal it for a right of inheritance, Ye are made free from the Firm in Zion and the Firm of in Zion is made free from the firm in Kirtland: Thus Saith the Lord Amen Copied from the original by Orson Hyde 29 The United Firm was dissolved and separated into two firms; one in Missouri and the other in Kirtland. The firm in Kirtland was to divide up property as instructed in an April 23, 1834 revelation (LDS D&C 104). 25. Book of Commandments, Laws and Covenants; book C, Church History Library; LDS D&C 104:78 79, 81, April 23, Book of Commandments, Laws and Covenants; book C; LDS D&C 104: Joseph Smith journal, 23 April 1834, Church History Library. 28. This was brought to my attention by Rick Grunder. 29. Book of Commandments, Laws and Covenants; book C, Church History Library.

165 MARQUARDT: Manchester as the Site of the Organization of the Church 151 Kirtland Firm printed change to Fayette location Members of the Kirtland firm attended a conference and published the following in the May 1834 issue of The Evening and the Morning Star (Kirtland, Ohio). Communicated. Kirtland, Ohio, May 3, MINUTES of a Conference of the Elders of the church of Christ, which church was organized in the township of Fayette, Seneca county, New-York, on the 6th of April, A. D The Conference came to order, and JOSEPH SMITH JR. was chosen Moderator, and FREDERICK G. WILLIAMS and OLIVER COWDERY, were appointed clerks. After prayer the Conference proceeded to discuss the subject of names and appellations, when a motion was made by SIDNEY RIGDON, and seconded by NEWEL K. WHITNEY, that this church be known hereafter by the name of THE CHURCH OF THE LATTER DAY SAINTS. Appropriate remarks were delivered by some of the members, after which the motion was put by the Moderator, and passed by unanimous voice. Resolved that this Conference recommend to the Conferences and Churches abroad, that in making out and transmitting Minutes of their proceedings, such minutes and proceedings be made out under the above title. Resolved that these Minutes be signed by the Moderator and Clerks, and published in The Evening and The Morning Star. FREDERICK G. WILLIAMS, Clerks. OLIVER COWDERY. 30 JOSEPH SMITH JR. Moderator. Those at the conference who had been members of the Kirtland firm were Joseph Smith Jr., Frederick G. Williams, Oliver Cowdery, Sidney Rigdon and Newel K. Whitney. Although there was no longer a church United Firm, the changes to the name and founding location of the church, as stated in the minutes, nonetheless have prevailed in tradition. The change to Fayette is also reflected in a copy of a deed from John Johnson to Joseph Smith Jr., May 5, 1834: Made 5 th Day of May 1834 John Johnson to Joseph Smith Jr President of the Church of Christ organized on the 6 Day of April 1830 in the township of Fayett[e] and was 30. Communicated, The Evening and the Morning Star, 160; emphasis in original, Oliver Cowdery, editor.

166 152 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL called the Church of Latter Day saints by a Conference of the Elders of the said Church Assembled in the township of Kirtland on the 3 d day of May The idea of breaking up the United Firm, changing the name of the church, and the April 6, 1830, location, functioned to steer creditors away from suing the church or firm members, if only for a short time. The use of pseudonyms in the 1835 D&C, including changing United Firm to United Order, (1835 D&C sections 93 and 98; LDS D&C 92 and 104), show the continued concern regarding debts after the firm was divided in The sections were said to be a Revelation to Enoch and a Revelation given to Enoch but were actually proclaimed by Smith. Publishing that the church was organized in the township of Fayette, Seneca county, New-York, on the 6th of April, A. D created an elusive location for the April 6 meeting. This may have been done intentionally to throw creditors off. In fact, this seems evident since Manchester was still printed in church works after the 1835 D&C was printed. The Manuscript History followed the 1834 designation. There was no organizational meeting in Fayette because the May 3, 1834, conference was using this location as a distraction to its actual place. In compiling the draft and final Manuscript History in 1839, Peter Whitmer Sr. s home was said to be the place where the meeting occurred. When the writing continued in 1843 Willard Richards copied the 1835 D&C pseudonyms of the United Firm members into the history. The impression that the April 6, 1830, meeting was held at the Whitmer home took hold in the tradition of the Latter-day Saints. But the real location Manchester was still known. 32 Summary A church was not formed at Fayette, Seneca County on April 6, The first two elders, Joseph Smith Jr. and Oliver Cowdery, were not at that location. Also no member of the Whitmer family was in attendance at the Smith home in Manchester on April 6 as there were no revelations included for them. No solid evidence has been produced of a meeting in Fayette, New York on that day. The majority of early sources do not suggest that there was a meeting establishing the Church of Christ at Fayette on April 6, The only sources that affirm a Fayette meeting are intentionally calculated to conceal the real location. The Kirtland firm met on May 3, 1834, and made changes to protect the church from creditors and from being sued for debts not paid. They stated that the April 6, 1830, meeting occurred in Fayette, New York. This was done for the same reason 31. Lyman Cowdery Collection, Church History Library. 32. For more information on the Manchester location see Mormon PDF Web Site, accessed January 11, 2013,

167 MARQUARDT: Manchester as the Site of the Organization of the Church 153 pseudonyms were used in revelations published in the 1835 D&C: to protect the church. We have the correct names of individuals mentioned in the revelations for the firm. We know the original name of the church, and can appreciate having individuals think the church was organized at a different location for the above reason. I hope that by exploring this topic in greater detail it will make it easier for future historians to use the correct location of Manchester as the place where the organizational meeting was held and where the baptisms were performed. H. Michael Marquardt (research@xmission.com) is an independent historian and research consultant. He is on the editorial staff of the Journal of Mormon History, and on the editorial board of the John Whitmer Historical Association Journal. He is the compiler of Early Patriarchal Blessings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Smith Pettit Foundation, 2007) and the author of The Joseph Smith Revelations: Text and Commentary (Signature Books, 1999).

168 The Conquest of Humiliation: A Psychobiographical Inquiry into the Book of Mormon Characters and Chronology Robert D. Anderson, M D Introduction In the search to understand the origins of the Book of Mormon from a secular viewpoint, one s focus must center on the mind of its author. A serious psychobiographical inquiry, for all of its limitations, is therefore the most likely to yield fruitful assistance. It is my thesis that the origins of the Book of Mormon once lay within the cerebral neocortex of its author, Joseph Smith Jr., and nowhere else. Insofar as I can determine from the historical record, I wish to outline how and why this is the case, especially as it relates to the people and events that were a part of Smith s life and to their specific timeline as reflected in the book. The Beginnings of Psychobiography Psychobiography began with Freud s 1910 attempt to analyze Leonardo da Vinci and has since found an expanded and respectful place in contributing to the understanding of individuals and group movements over the past century. 1 Freud s paper 1. A useful overview and summary of psychobiography (with examples) may be found in Alan C. Elms, Uncovering Lives: The Uneasy Alliance of Biography and Psychology (New York: Oxford Press, 1994). Freud continued psychobiography with other subjects, and his followers quickly saw the value of depth inquiry into the biographies of historical individuals, especially writers. Elms discusses Freud s errors in his Leonardo paper on pages 1 50 and discusses Freud s paper in connection with his unsatisfactory marital sex life. For an updated discussion of Freud s paper, see Wayne V. Anderson, Freud, Leonardo Da Vinci an the Vulture s Tail: A Refreshing Look at Leonardo s Sexuality (Boston: Other Press, 2001). For Sigmund Freud, see Leonardo da Vinci and a Memory of his Childhood, and Psychoanalytic Notes on an Autobiographical Account of a Case of Paranoia, in James Strachey, ed., The Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud (London: Hogarth Press, 1955), 11:59 137, 12:9 82. See also The Claims of Psycho-Analysis to Scientific Interest. Part II (C), (1913); The Interpretation of 154

169 ANDERSON: The Conquest of Humiliation 155 was partly based on an erroneous translation of an important word, and thereby demonstrated both the promise and problems with psychobiography. Freud continued psychobiography with other subjects, and his followers quickly saw the value of depth inquiry into the biographies of historical individuals, especially writers. The Challenge of Joseph Smith to the Psychobiographer For those who have an absolute testimony of the divinity of the Book of Mormon or of the prophetic calling of Joseph Smith, the psychobiography of Joseph Smith can be of little interest or use. At best, psychobiography purveyors are portrayed as raising fraudulent questions about the divinity of the Mormon story. The orthodox institution objects to any suspicion that Joseph Smith may have been responding to internal psychological or emotional issues, or even to outside public factors. 2 In the simplest of terms, it allows no argument or alternate against a fixed idea. Those of a more questioning spirit may feel challenged with the cognitive dissonance between their secure beliefs and the contradicting external evidence concerning the Book of Abraham or the Book of Mormon. The canonized autobiography of Joseph Smith 3 also contains claims and dates that contradict external documentation. Psychobiography may expand these doubts. For those with even greater doubt concerning these two books of scripture, puzzlement may remain for how they were created. Here psychobiography may provide useful explanations. Background In the late 1960s, new historical information developed concerning the Book of Abraham, the date of the Palmyra revival, earlier versions of the First Vision story, and added information concerning the 1826 pre-trial of Joseph Smith. During that period, I focused on the practice of psychiatry and psychoanalytic studies. In the late 1980s, I wondered if I had the ability to understand the Book of Mormon as a disguised autobiography. Further, would this history qualify for a formal psychiatric diagnosis of Joseph Smith? I returned to the study of Mormonism. Dreams, 4:263 66; Delusion and Dreams in Jensen s Gravida, 9:3 95; and other writings in 13:181 82; 18:7 64, 20:231; Letter #71 (October 17, 1897), 1: Lavina Fielding Anderson, The LDS Intellectual Community and Church Leadership: Contemporary Chronology, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 26, no. 1 (Spring 1993), 23 80; and D. Michael Quinn, On Being a Mormon Historian (and Its Aftermath) in Faithful History: Essays on Writing Mormon History (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1992), , esp Extracts from the History of Joseph Smith, the Prophet, now in the Pearl of Great Price, canonized as scripture by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1880, and continuously published by the Church. The Pearl of Great Price also contains the Book of Abraham, the Book of Moses, and the Articles of Faith. See footnotes 9 and 12 below.

170 156 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL What I did not know was that Dr. William Morain, during the same period of time, was working on the same issue. Independently, we both realized that in the first story of Laban and his sword, Joseph Smith was reworking, in fantasy and conquering form, his childhood leg surgery. The surgeon s knife became Laban s sword, the surgeon became the evil Laban, and wine appeared to be part of both the real and fantasy stories. Joseph Smith destroyed the surgeon who gave him more physical pain than he had ever experienced in his life. Dr. Morain, 4 along with Dan Vogel, 5 has made substantial contributions to the psychology of Joseph Smith. Fawn Brodie s deservedly honored biography of Joseph Smith is frequently labeled psychobiography but contains little depth inquiry into his personality. She entered depth considerations in a supplement in her second edition with a discussion of psychoanalytic thinking, including Phyllis Greeacre s discussion of the concept of pseudologica fantastica wherein the individual lives out a delusion, yet intellectually is aware of his falsehood. Evidence for this lifestyle will be presented later in the testimony of Peter Ingersoll who witnessed the confrontation between Smith and his new father-in-law. Brodie surprised the Mormon establishment with her original sources and the depth of her research, and forced all Mormon history to a higher level of quality. Her brilliance, I think, was demonstrated in her statement, The basic inner conflict in Joseph Smith s life was not, I believe, a conflict between his telling the truth or not telling the truth, but rather between what he really was and what he most desperately wanted to be. 6 Assumptions The usual explanation for difficult behaviors or verbal interactions in the documented history of Joseph Smith is that they were the result of supernatural commandments to him. But the supernatural can be used to explain and justify anything. Therefore, the only way a serious attempt at psychobiography could be made was by excluding all considerations of supernatural input into his life insisting on a relent- 4. Dr. Morain, a retired plastic surgeon, became interested in Joseph Smith because of Smith s childhood horrendous leg surgery, and used his experience and knowledge of children who have experienced trauma in his psychobiography of Smith, The Sword of Laban: Joseph Smith, Jr., and the Dissociated Mind (Washington, D C: American Psychiatric Press, 1998). Dr. Morain has since made substantial contributions to understanding the reflection of Smith s surgery in the Book of Abraham and added knowledge to our understanding of the book of Ether in the Book of Mormon, and in The Prophet and the Papyrus, Restoration Studies 10 (2009): Dan Vogel is a prolific and prize-winning author of over ten volumes and dozens of papers on early Mormonism. His detailed knowledge is probably unequaled by any other historian, partly as a result of his background multivolume Early Mormon Documents, 5 vols. (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, ) and his magisterial Joseph Smith: The Making of a Prophet (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2004) a superb reference work as well as a prize-winning detailed history. Vogel discusses Joseph Smith s pathology as pious fraud throughout his works, thus putting his opinion into understandable non-psychiatric terminology. 6. Fawn M. Brodie, No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith, the Mormon Prophet (1995; repr. New York: Vintage Books, 1945 [1971]), , on

171 ANDERSON: The Conquest of Humiliation 157 less search for naturalistic origins, even of supernatural claims and scripture. I took as a strict hypothesis that his life and the Book of Mormon could be understood altogether naturalistically. This is the position of science and academic history, for the supernatural cannot be studied scientifically; history built on supernatural claims disallows communication between scientists of varied religious beliefs. 7 First Requirement The first requirement for doing psychobiography is to get facts, facts, and more facts. The first fact is that Smith s claim to supernaturally translate ancient Egyptian has been countered by the rediscovered papyrus, 8 and the second is that there is no physical evidence anywhere for the Book of Mormon story. No psychobiography of Smith could have been done without the corrected history that has been provided mostly by nonbelievers. These include the delayed creation and variations of the First Vision Story; 9 knowledge about Smith s involvement in the world of magic and accounts of his devastating 1826 court pre-trial; 10 his confession to his father-in-law 7. See the letters from Michael T. Walton, a historian of science, in Whose God in History?, Sunstone 8, no. 6 (November December 1983): 2 and God in History, Not History Books, Sunstone 11, no. 1 ( January 1987): 6. Michael Grant, historian of classic history and Christianity concurs: It is true that words ascribed to the risen Christ are beyond the purview of the historian since the resurrection belongs to a different order of thinking.. Accordingly, therefore, to the cold standard of humdrum fact, the standard to which the student of history is obliged to limit himself, these nature-reversing miracles did not happen. Jesus: An Historian s Review of the Gospels (New York: Collier Books, 1977), 13, 39. Both quotes and further discussion may be found in my Inside the Mind of Joseph Smith: Psychobiography and the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1999), xi xiii, xviii xxviii and also in William D. Morain, The Sword of Laban, ix xxv and passim. 8. See the grouping of articles by Egyptian scholars and others in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 3, no. 2 (Summer 1968): ) and a comprehensive review in Charles M. Larson, By His Own Hand Upon Papyrus: A New Look at the Joseph Smith Papyri (Grand Rapids, MI: Institute for Religious Research, 1992). The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, headquartered in Salt Lake City, has handled the embarrassment between the science of valid Egyptian translation and the canonized scripture of revelation by silence. 9. There is no account of the 1820 First Vision story before the 1830s. Dean C. Jessee, The Early Accounts of Joseph Smith s First Vision, BYU Studies 9 (1969): ; also in Dean C. Jessee, ed., The Papers of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1989), 1:6 7, 127, Jerald and Sandra Tanner, a Mormon couple turned evangelical, and founders of Utah Lighthouse Ministry, spent over a decade challenging church authorities to find an early (before 1830) account of the First Vision. Their story is now in the memorial issues to Jerald Tanner in the Salt Lake City Messenger, 108 (May 2007) and 109 (October 2007), available on the internet at Utlm.org. See also Oliver Cowdery s description of the first version of the First Vision in the Latter Day Saints Messenger and Advocate 1, no. 2 (October 1834): 13, 40, In this account, we are told that Joseph Smith prayed in 1823 to know if God existed, and that he was acceptable to him. In response, he was visited by the angel telling him of the gold book. Cowdery explains his collaboration with Smith: That our narrative may be correct, and particularly the introduction, it is proper to inform our patrons, that our brother J. Smith jr. has offered to assist us. Indeed, there are many items connected with the fore part of this subject that render his labor indispensable. Letter III, 1, no. 4 (December 1834): 42 43, starts the description of the First Vision; it continues in Letter IV, 1, no. 5 (February 1835): 78, and Letter VII, 1, no. 10 ( July 1835): The records of the trial of Joseph Smith Jr., are so injurious to his claim as a prophet of God that their rediscovery met with firm opposition from the Mormon establishment. This led to further investigation and discoveries, so that the provenance of the records can now be established with a high degree of assurance. Wesley

172 158 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL that he could not see in [his magic] stone, and never could and that he would stop his magical claims; 11 his claim to translate the Egyptian language; and the evidence that the Palmyra revival was in , not Smith seemed to be creating his own history for his supernatural persona. Repetitive Conflicts Psychobiography is speculative but is cumulative in evidence and is certainly better than a history that has no evidence, such as the Book of Mormon narrative. Most writers who are the subjects of psychobiography have written fiction or non-fiction about people and history that have some basis and background in known history. But neither the Book of Abraham nor the Book of Mormon has any known basis in historical fact. Both are creations of fantasy built on a fantastical background, thus allowing the psychobiographer to probe more deeply into the psyche of Joseph Smith. The first skeptics to Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon did not have the psychological tools for such an investigation, yet could not believe he could have created it. They accepted the theory that he stole the fantasy writings of a dead Protestant minister. This theory remained prominent for fifty years but lost ground with evidence rediscovered in 1884, though it still has some adherents. 13 But I also believed that Smith s method of dictation had some similarities with the technique of psychoanalysis. Looking at blackness inside a hat is as factually empty as looking at P. Walters, Joseph Smith s Bainbridge, N.Y., Court Trials, Westminster Theological Journal 36 (Winter 1974): , including nn. 1 23, and his From Occult to Cult with Joseph Smith, Jr. Journal of Pastoral Practice 1 (Summer 1977), published together by Utah Lighthouse Ministry. See also Marquardt and Walters, Inventing Mormonism: Tradition and the Historical Record, (San Francisco: Smith Research Associates, 1998), 63 87, unnumbered pages between , W. D. Purple, Joseph Smith, the Originator of Mormonism: Historical Reminiscences of the Town of Afton, Chenango Union 20 (May 3, 1877): 3, reprinted in Francis W. Kirkham, A New Witness for Christ in America: The Book of Mormon (Independence, MO: Zion s Printing and Publishing Co., 1951), 2:362 68; The docket book summary is in Mormonism, New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge (New York, 1883), 2:1576, also in Kirkham, 2:359 62; also quoted in Fawn M. Brodie, No Man Knows My History, 2nd ed., Anderson, Inside the Mind, 86; E. D. Howe, Mormonism Unvailed (Painesville, OH: privately printed, 1834), Wesley P. Walters, New Light on Mormon Origins from the Palmyra Revival, 59 81, and response by Richard L. Bushman, , in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 4, no. 1 (Spring 1969). Orthodox Mormon attempts to keep the 1820 date may be found in Milton V. Backman, Joseph Smith s First Vision (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1980), and Richard L. Anderson, Circumstantial Confirmation of the First Vision through Reminiscences, BYU Studies 9 (Spring 1969): Devout Mormon historian Marvin S. Hill accepts the 1824 date in The First Vision Controversy: A Critique and Reconciliation, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 15, no. 2 (Summer 1982): For a careful review of the theory, see my Toward the Naturalistic Roots of the Book of Mormon: The Solomon Spalding Manuscript, William H. Whitsitt, the Book of Ether, and Psychological Considerations, John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 20 (2008):

173 ANDERSON: The Conquest of Humiliation 159 the same ceiling tiles for months and years on end. Both methods allow expansion of the internal world of feelings and fantasy. Patients on the couch return to periods of conflict and despair, struggle with a painful issue for months, leave it, and then return again and again over the years in treatment. Given free reign, patients talk about their areas of conflict. I could expect the same from Joseph Smith that he would return again and again to periods of conflict, despair, and fury, and that these issues would become the central issues in the Book of Mormon and repeat again and again. The known issues of physical and emotional pain and humiliation in Smith s young life are eight in number: First, he came from a dysfunctional and disreputable family, described by various people as lounging and idle, slovenly, an illiterate, whiskey-drinking, shiftless, irreligious race of people, and absent in respectability. 14 Then came his terrible leg surgery when he was probably seven years old (he remembered being five years old), 15 followed by the painful and humiliating wagon trip to upstate New York when he was eleven and still lame. Six years later would bring the death of his beloved brother by possible medical quackery, 16 followed by his humiliating court trial and imprisonment at the age of twenty. 17 He then endured the humiliating confrontation with his father-in-law who hated him, and the eye-witness observation of this dialogue provided by a simple farmer/neighbor 18 informs us of 14. Anderson, Inside the Mind, 33 40, 61n72. Three years after the Book of Mormon was published, an antagonistic ex-mormon, D. P. Hurlbut, gathered testimonies from acquaintances of the Smith family, which were included in the first serious anti-mormon book, Eber D. Howe s Mormonism Unvailed, Even allowing for bias and distortion, the numbers and consistency of their severely negative opinions are extremely impressive. These legal affidavits have been challenged by Mormon apologist Hugh Nibley in The Myth Makers (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1961) and Mormon religious professor Richard L. Anderson in Joseph Smith s New York Reputation Reappraised, BYU Studies 10 (Spring 1970): Both sides of the argument were responsibly reviewed by a non-mormon, Rodger I. Anderson, in Joseph Smith s New York Reputation Re-examined (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1990), who concluded that the massive number of negative opinions were on firm ground. Examples: fifty-one Palmyra neighbors signed a group affidavit stating the Smith family was, among other things, destitute of moral character ; a group of eleven others states they were a lazy, indolent set of men, but also intemperate; and their word was not to be depended upon ; twenty others provided individual lengthy affidavits accusing the Smith family, separately and together, of alcoholism, dishonesty, indolence, foolery, falsehood, addicted to lying, nonpayment of debts, duplicity with their neighbors, absence or respectability, quarrelsomeness, etc. Many of these affidavits confirm and detail the Smith family s involvement in their magical money-digging delusions and deceptions. 15. Lucy Mack Smith in Vogel, Early Mormon Documents, 1: , esp ; LeRoy S. Wirthlin, Nathan Smith ( ), Surgical Consultant to Joseph Smith, BYU Studies 17 (Spring 1977): and Joseph Smith s Boyhood Operation: An 1813 Surgical Success, BYU Studies 21 (Spring 1981): ; Anderson, Inside the Mind, 23 30; Morain, The Sword of Laban, Lucy Smith in Vogel, Early Mormon Documents, 1: See footnote 9 above. 18. See footnote 10 above. Smith had eloped with Isaac Hale s daughter in January 1827, and took her to his home in Palmyra/Manchester. Six months later Emma wrote to her father requesting her possessions, including furniture, and cows. Her father agreed, and Smith hired a neighbor, Peter Ingersoll (with his wagon) to go to Harmony for Emma s possession. This was the first meeting between Smith and his new father-in-law. Ingersoll reported the confrontation in Mormonism Unvailed six years later. He wrote, In the month of August, 1827, I

174 160 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL Smith s own awareness of his corruption. The final two known episodes of humiliation were the stillborn death of his malformed firstborn son who he had told others would have supernatural abilities, 19 and his attempt to join his wife s church leading to direct confrontation and rejection, but with the option of his repentance and public confession of his magical claims. 20 These painful incidents are behind the miraculous stories in the book and repeat again and again with their reversal into fantasy and conquest. But it is the violence of blood and swords that characterize the book. Focuses of Attention in the Book of Mormon Psychobiographers know that the first product by an author is usually the closest to autobiography and extremely important. Who was Laban in the first story? Both Dr. Morain and I realized that the story of Laban and his sword reflected his childhood leg surgery performed by surgeon Nathan Smith. The sword was an important clue, but so was the family makeup. Change his older sister, Sophronia into Sam; and change his next younger brother, Samuel Harrison, into Zoram (Laban s servant), who joined the family and went to the New World with them, and all nine Smith children are represented in the story. All the while, Smith gives us some clues as to how he worked. He could use his family as a skeleton outline, but he would change their personalities anyway he wanted. For example, his quality surgeon, beloved brother Alvin, and Hyrum became the wicked Laban, Laman and Lemuel, respectively. He might change a person s sex, such as with Sophronia/Sam. On occasion, he might slip, and some of his fantasy representations might have the first letter of their real-life counterparts. Sophronia/Sam is an example; but so was Isaac Hale who was represented by Nephi s father-in-law, Ishmael, in the first story. And he demonstrated that he would destroy those who caused him pain, whether physical was hired by Joseph Smith, Jr. to go to Pennsylvania, to move his wife s household furniture up to Manchester, where his wife then was. When we arrived at Mr. Hale s, in Harmony, Pa. from which place he had taken his wife, a scene presented itself, truly affecting. His father-in-law (Mr. Hale) addressed Joseph, in a flood of tears: You have stolen my daughter and married her. I had much rather have followed her to her grave. You spend your time in digging for money pretend to see in a stone, and thus try to deceive people. Joseph wept, and acknowledged he could not see in a stone now, nor never could; and that his former pretensions in that respect, were all false. He then promised to give up his old habits of digging for money and looking into stones. Mr. Hale told Joseph, if he would move to Pennsylvania and work for a living, he would assist him in getting into business. Joseph acceded to this proposition. Joseph told me on his return, that he intended to keep the promise which he had made to his father-in-law; but, said he, it will be hard for me, for they will all oppose, as they want me to look in the stone for them to dig money: and in fact it was as he predicted. They urged him, day after day, to resume his old practice of looking in the stone. He seemed much perplexed as to the course he should pursue. 19. Howe, Mormonism Unvailed, , 264, 267, 269; Anderson, Inside the Mind, 89 90; Linda King Newell and Valeen Tippets Avery, Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith (New York: Doubleday, 1984), Newell and Avery, Mormon Enigma, 25, article Mormon History Amboy [Illinois] Journal, March 30, April 30, May 21, June 11, This was history provided by Emma s cousins, Joseph and Hiel Lewis, who had been officers in the church in Harmony fifty years earlier. Anderson, Inside the Mind,

175 ANDERSON: The Conquest of Humiliation 161 or emotional. He decapitated the surgeon, but he also killed his father-in-law who hated him when Isaac Hale/Ishmael died early in the story. In psychobiography, we are interested in how the subject writes his real-life story, including what he doesn t tell us. Nowhere does he tell us about his 1826 trial, and his version to Oliver Cowdery made it inconsequential. 21 This is omission, and we are clued that what he omitted might be tremendously important. In this case, we have good reason to believe that it was. In this pre-trial he was found guilty of fraud and deception in claiming to be able to see underground where buried treasures lay. After one night in jail, a full trial was scheduled, but he was designedly allowed to escape because of his age (not yet twenty-one years old) with the agreement he would leave town. 22 We are also interested in negation, that is, when he tells us what he is not. In his canonized biography, he emphasized that malignant sins were never part of his nature. He was guilty, he said, of only levity and jovial friendships. Yet we know he lied and deceived others because of his confession to his father-in-law and the transcript of his 1826 trial. In psychobiography, themes are important, and Smith presents his main theme in his very first story about Laban and his sword: Smith will reverse his helpless and inferior position, exaggerate, conquer and destroy those who cause him pain, and he will include miraculous supernatural abilities. His stories are not just compensatory, but over-compensatory. There is an immediate confirmation of this theme in the migration part of the story. In his real-life wagon trip to Palmyra, he was humiliated, in pain, knocked down in blood and mud, and treated contemptuously while the wagon master flirted with the girls of another family. 23 The story repeats in Book of Mormon fantasy on the boat to the Americas. Nephi is bound and beaten, and his joints are in pain while others rudely dance, sing, and make merry. Then God 21. The closest he would come would be having his later assistant write that some very officious person complained of him as a disorderly person, and brought him before the authorities of the country; but there being no cause of action he was honorably acquitted. Oliver Cowdery, with Joseph Smith s review, in the monthly church periodical, Messenger and Advocate 2, no.1 (October 1835). 22. Anderson, Inside the Mind, Joseph Smith dictated, I went on crutches till I started for the State of New York [where] my father had gone [and sent] a man by the name of Caleb Howard, who, after he had started on the Journey with my mother & family spent the money he had received of my father in drinking & gambling &c We fell in with a family by the name of Gates who were travelling west, & Howard drove me from the wagon & made me travel in my weak state through the snow 40 miles per day for several days, during which time I suffered the most excruciating weariness & pain, & all this that Mr. Howard might enjoy the society of two of Mr. Gates Daughters which he took on the wagon where I should have Rode, & and thus he continued to [do] day day after day through the Journey, & when my brothers remonstrated with Mr. Howard for his treatment to me, he would knock them down with the butt of his whip. [after Utica] I was knocked down by the driver, one of Gate s son, & left to wallow in my blood until a stranger came along, picked me up, & carried me to the Town of Palmyra. Dean C. Jessee, Papers of Joseph Smith, 1:268n1. Lucy supports the disreputable treatment by Caleb Howard in Vogel, Early Mormon Documents, 1: , esp. 1:271 75; Anderson, Inside the Mind

176 162 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL intervenes and threatens the voyage with storms. They release Nephi, who saves the trip because of his faithfulness and supernatural ability with the magic compass (I Nephi 18). Once we understand his technique of reversal of humiliation, failure and pain, we can quickly interpret the meaning behind his stories. As another example, we know that his real father-in-law hated him, and Isaac Hale stated his wish that he and his daughter had died rather than her marrying Joseph. Around 70 BC, his fantasy representation, Ammon, the son of King Mosiah, goes to preach in the land of Ishmael where Ishmael s descendents had settled and joined the Lamanites (Alma chap. 17 and 18). We can immediately suspect that this story might have something to do with his father-in-law, Isaac Hale, who had been represented by Ishmael in the first story. Ammon is brought before the King Lamoni, who is favorably impressed by Ammon, wants to know if he will live with them, and then offers Ammon one of his daughters to wife. Ammon replies, Nay, but I will be thy servant. He then protects the King s flocks by slingshot and sword, cutting off the arms of the thieves, and they were not a few in number. He behaves heroically, and his real-life fatherin-law s hatred of him is reversed in fantasy as he pleads with Ammon to marry his daughter. Further, although never named, recall that Ammon s sword would have been the sword of Laban, inherited from Ammon s father, King Mosiah. I reviewed the history of the United States occurring during the time Joseph Smith was dictating the Book of Mormon and ended up focusing on Andrew Jackson. Smith will repeat the election conflicts of 1824 and 1828, when the common folk believed that the King Man, John Quincy Adams was about to return us to a monarchy, but the world was saved in Book of Mormon fantasy by Moroni and his Title of Liberty (Alma 46), so similar to the hickory pole raised in astonishing number around the country in support of Old Hickory, the nickname for Andrew Jackson. 24 Smith would exaggerate and Christianize the topics of the day, and would practice telling these stories so repetitiously over four years to his family that he could adapt them to the daily incidents that were occurring around him. One example was the story of Martin Harris taking the caractors copied from the gold plates to Charles Anthon at Columbia University. Joseph worked this into a prophecy about a learned man who said he couldn t read a closed book (2 Nephi 27:15 20). Another incident was the third sailing of the missionaries leaving for Hawaii in November of 1827, carrying forty thousand copies of Bible pamphlets that had been printed at nearby Utica. He imaginatively worked this into the story of the curious explorer, Hagoth, who sailed away, returned, took more Nephites, and sailed away never to be heard of again (Alma 63). When Mormon missionaries arrived in Hawaii in 1850, they were 24. B. Davis, Old Hickory: A Life of Andrew Jackson (New York: Dial Press, 1977), esp Reference to the hickory pole on page 223.

177 ANDERSON: The Conquest of Humiliation 163 able to use this story as an explanation to the natives as to their probable origin. They were successful in converts throughout the South Pacific by telling the natives of their supposed origin. An Emphasis on Emphasis We need to pay special attention to what Smith emphasizes. In general, the Book of Mormon is a book of terror, hatred, and destruction, filled with swords and fighting and relentless wars that bring in the supernatural. It is the childhood surgical trauma that provides the central part of his relentless imagery of violence in the book. Adults with this mental illness from trauma want the driving images to stop for they cause distress, sometimes to the point of suicide. Lucy describes the family meeting nightly for four years to listen to young Joseph s tales. 25 Even allowing for exaggeration, he still had the advantage of hundreds of such practice sessions that made it easy for him to adapt and insert happenings that were occurring around him. In his case, perhaps with the help and encouragement of his family toward his fantasies and having them accepted as fact, the distress of the images would become acceptable to him and thereby less distressing. They could then be used to develop his claim of supernatural persona. Reflections of his surgery include the creation of a foundry in the New World to make many copies of the Sword of Laban (2 Nephi 5:14), the many individual sword battles of righteous heroes versus personified evility, the relentless wars that end in ultimate destruction, and the decapitations that begin and end the book. Dates in the Book of Mormon In addition to these general examples, there are times of specific emphasis that deserve our attention. The Book of Mormon is chronological, and general years and decades are fairly easy to follow. But in the story of the crucifixion of Christ, Smith gives a specific date for the crucifixion, and I wondered how many times he makes this emphasis in the book. There are eight times he gives not just a year, or a month and a year, but also a specific day. I felt challenged to see if I could discern at least some of the reasons for some of these dates of special emphasis. Three of these dates have to do with the destruction of the city of Ammonihah Lucy Smith in Vogel, Early Mormon Documents, 1: There is a fourth specific date (Alma 49:1) concerning an unsuccessful attack by the Lamanites on this city about ten years later, after Moroni had rebuilt it with fortifications. The other three specific dates in the book are in Alma 52:1, when righteous warrior Teancum stole into the tent of evil Amalickiah and killed him while he slept; the date (Alma 56:1) Moroni received a letter from Helaman concerning the two thousand Lamanite youths that volunteered to fight their kinsmen; and the date of the Lamanite youths first battle (Alma 56:42) against their kinsmen, described in a letter from Helaman to Moroni. These last two incidents of two thousand

178 164 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL Around 82 BC, in chapter 8 of the book of Alma, Alma leaves Zarahemla to preach in the land of Melek, which is on the west of the river Sidon, on the west by the borders of the wilderness. Knowing how Joseph Smith had created his fantasies from the first stories in the Book of Mormon, we can suspect that he is telling us about leaving Palmyra/Manchester and traveling to near the river Susquehanna, called Sidon in the book. (We have a clue since both names begin with an S.) He comes to the wicked city of Ammonihah, and we are told that it was the custom of the people in that area to name their villages, yea, even all their small villages, after the name of him who first possessed them. A look at a careful map confirms the little villages and towns surrounding South Bainbridge that are named after their founders such as Colesville, Harpersville, Taylortown, Masonville, Doraville, etc. He is reviled and spit on and leaves the town, but an angel sends him back. One person, Amulek, receives him because of an angelic vision he experienced on the fourth day of this seventh month in the tenth year of the reign of the judges (Alma 10:6) and invites him into his house to eat and recover. Together, they go to preach and are cast into prison. Our speculation is enhanced, and we are in the town of South Bainbridge where he spent one night in jail, and went to a pre-trial examination, and had only one supporter Josiah Stoal with whom he stayed for months. Alma and Amulek preach and threaten the wicked people, gain a few converts, including a lesser judge by the name of Zeezrom. The people bind Alma and Amulek and take them before the chief judge in the land. Their converts are thrown into fire and killed, and they are struck and spit on, bound, put into prison, stripped naked, and starved for weeks. They were again struck by the teachers and lawyers, who challenge them to have their God save them. Finally, on the twelfth day, in the tenth month, in the tenth year of the reign of judges (Alma 14:23), God does, and brings an earthquake, demolishes the prison, releases Alma and Amulek, and kills all the wicked who had been demeaning them in the prison. They continue preaching in nearby towns, heal the converted judge, Zeezrom, from an illness, and wealthy Amulek abandons all his wealth and moves to Zarahemla with Alma. Then, in the eleventh year of the reign of the judges on the fifth day of the second month there was a cry of war heard throughout the land (Alma 16:1). The Lamanites had arrived and the people of Ammonihah were destroyed; yea, every living soul was destroyed, and also their great city in one day was left desolate; and the carcasses were mangled by dogs and wild beasts of the wilderness. And now so great was the scent thereof that the people did not go into possess the land of Ammonihah for many years. And it was called Desolation (Alma 16:9 11). youths that can be wounded but cannot be killed are probably fantasy exaggerations of his own childhood surgery mixed with compensation for the death of his first (stillborn and malformed) son.

179 ANDERSON: The Conquest of Humiliation 165 Once again, this is a story of reversal of humiliation and compensatory conquest. We are reminded of Joseph Smith s claims of supernatural magic and Stoal s belief in him; that Joseph Smith was brought before Judge Albert Neeley by Josiah Stoal s family who were fearful of his giving his wealth to Smith; that he spent one night in jail, was found guilty in this pre-trial, humiliated and threatened with a full trial before a panel of judges, but instead was released because of his age and agreement that he would leave town. But we are also warned not to humiliate Joseph Smith or put him in jail, for his fantasies include ultimate destruction of his enemies. Will this story help us understand that specific date given for the crucifixion of Jesus? Parallel Chronology of Smith s Life Events and the Book of Mormon The years around the time of the crucifixion are in more detail than other sections of the book. Begin by a focus on one verse wherein righteous Nephi casts out devils and unclean spirits in the name of Jesus, and even his brother did he raise from the dead, after he had been stoned and suffered death by the people (3 Nephi 7:19). 27 This story of the resurrected brother should alert us, for the death of Joseph Smith s brother was one of the eight painful incidents I listed from his young life. This resurrection is in the sixth of seven verses covering the year AD 31 that is, toward the end of the year. This is exactly right, for Joseph Smith s brother died in November This is a central incident to date real-life happenings in the story, and we can begin by correlating the Book of Mormon year of AD 31 with Smith s real life year of Keeping those correlating dates in mind, go back fifteen years and work forward to that date. We are in the middle of the Gadianton wars, and it is AD 16, parallel, we are guessing, to the year 1808 that is, fifteen years before the death of Alvin. The year 1808 befuddles us, for we know of no important happening in that year to Joseph Smith. But that year of AD 16 in the Book of Mormon keeps us alerted, for there was an unusual interaction between the head robber, Gaddianhi and the good Lachoneus. In a letter, Gaddianhi offers Lachoneus two terrible choices: join the Gadianton robber band, or die by warfare (3 Nephi 3:1 20). There are two issues that deserve our attention: the name Lachoneus is Latin in form and has no place in a book of supposed Hebrew and Egyptian roots. Further, the choices Gadianhi gives reminds us of the two terrible choices the surgeons gave Lucy concerning Joseph s surgery swift leg amputation or painful bone surgery. Recall that during those years before and after the surgery, the Smith family moved frequently and was living day-to-day, suggesting at least some periods of hunger. The central issue in the Book of Mormon s parallel fantasy was food and starvation the Nephites had 27. This resurrection might trouble some believers in the New Testament, for it occurs before the resurrection of Jesus who was to be the first fruits of them that slept (1 Cor. 15:20).

180 166 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL cleared the land of food, and tens of thousands of them had gathered together in one place in the land of Zarahemla (3 Nephi 3:21 4:4). Our speculative thinking is that Lachoneus might be Lucy and that Joseph might be reflecting his surgery. This gets some confirmation when the war starts three years later in AD 19, seemingly corresponding to the real-life year of We recall that as the year Joseph Smith remembered having his surgery, as he thought he was five years old or thereabouts. Our speculation is enhanced by the description of the war in graphic bloody terms as the greatest slaughter in their six-hundred-year history (3 Nephi 4:7 11), suggesting the post-traumatic stress disorder violent fantasies in the mind of a small child. From this point on, the Book of Mormon account and Palmyra history correlate year for year. The war and siege last seven years, and finally the Nephites kill the head robber, win the war, and can travel back to their homes. The year is AD 26, and we might think of the corresponding year of After almost a decade of struggling day-today with probable periods of hunger, the Smith family has immigrated to Palmyra and settled in the farm in Manchester around that time. These are the peaceful and expansive years of the presidency of James Monroe ( ), called by historians the era of good feeling. In the United States, roads and cities are built, and the West is opened up all clearly described in the Nephite account, which stated that There were many cities built anew, and many highways cast up, and many roads made, which led from city to city, and from land to land, and from place to place (3 Nephi 6:1 10). The next four years of Monroe s presidency was filled with strife and conflict: states versus federal government, inequity in class and financial living, inequity in education, slavery conflicts, etc. In the exaggerated Nephite account, the secret evil of the people leads to division and potential destruction of the government (3 Nephi 6:10 7:17). It is AD 30, representing 1822, and Andrew Jackson is campaigning fiercely but will be denied his apparent right to the presidency. In the Book of Mormon strict laws are instituted, and the government is barely saved, but the evil people were stoning the prophets. After seeing angels the prophet Nephi arrives the next year, and begins to preach, bringing us back to his resurrecting of his brother who had been stoned to death (3 Nephi 7:15 22). It is AD 31, corresponding to 1823; the year Joseph Smith, similar to Nephi, said he saw an angel two months before his brother died. The Book of Mormon story and corresponding real-life history becomes clearer and unified. A revival began that year, but there were few that were converted to the Lord, a real-life historically accurate statement. Year AD was similar, but as was recorded, in AD 33 there were many in the commencement of that year 1825 that were baptized (3 Nephi 7:21 26). This is a correctly documented history of the Palmyra revival, paralleling the revival story in the Nephite account.

181 ANDERSON: The Conquest of Humiliation 167 The Crucifixion of Christ occurred in the thirty and fourth year, in the first month, on the fourth day of the month (3 Nephi 8:5). This is about twenty-seven months after the death of the brother. Twenty-seven months after November 1823 puts us into the spring of 1826, corresponding to his South Bainbridge trial in March of The real-life guilty verdict of Joseph Smith in this pre-trial has become the fantasy guilty verdict of the Nephites, and Jesus acts as Joseph Smith s judge in destroying everyone in sixteen cities and great cities, including babies, children under eight years of age, and pregnant mothers. We learn once again that his South Bainbridge trial humiliated him, and that Joseph Smith cannot tolerate humiliation well. His retaliation in fantasy is to kill almost everyone. We are forced to make some beginning and unattractive opinions about the morality of Joseph Smith and, perforce, realize that Joseph Smith has changed the New Testament Jesus of love and forgiveness to the author of mass destruction. We must wonder at his furious response to being humiliated. 28 Conclusions Smith knew what he was doing every step of the way. He suffered no mental illness as such. He twisted the violent images of his surgical trauma to his advantage in intentionally creating stories to convince others of his miraculous powers, and the stories in the Book of Mormon are largely compensatory for the eight painful episodes in his tragic life. His personality was the result of three factors. First, he was a child in a dysfunctional family, characterized by poverty, alcoholism in the father, delusional beliefs and rituals in the world of ceremonial folk magic, and practice in deception of himself and others. He learned how easily others could be misled and how easily he could enhance their deception. The deplorable description by others of the family was centered on absence of respectability, shiftlessness, slovenly farm work, failure in upkeep of home and farm, and suspicions of thievery. The model of his family became the outline of his conscience. Second, I believe he experienced childhood post-traumatic stress disorder, and his fantasies were partly driven by this experience. As an adult, the violent fantasies persisted, but he had reversed them from their original alien and disturbing nature. Instead he unified himself with the fantasies and used them purposefully to deceive others and magnify himself. 28. The chronological similarities between the real incidents in Joseph Smith s life and Book of Mormon fantasy stories (with miraculous changes and reversals) continue with incidents following the South Bainbridge trial. He reverses the humiliating death of his firstborn son (3 Nephi 17:21 24); has Jesus chastise his wife s family s church for their rejection of him (3 Nephi 18:28 32); has Jesus chastise Nephi for not writing down scriptures, similar to Smith s failure to make a copy of the destroyed 116 foolscap pages (3 Nephi 23:6 14); and has fantasy children do miracles, exaggerating the miraculous claims he had made concerning his firstborn son (3 Nephi 26:16).

182 168 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL Third, he was the result of his followers. Psychologist Jerrold M. Post has written that All leaders especially charismatic leaders are at heart the creation of their followers. 29 In this specific case, Dale Morgan, a nonbelieving Mormon historian, wrote: It was emotionally impossible for the Saints to challenge the integrity of their prophet, in the matter of his early life or anything he chose to tell them. If deceived in anything, it might be they were deceived in everything. Yet their own responsibility in the make of their prophet is not to be dismissed. Their hunger for miracle, their thirst for the marvelous, their lust for assurance that they were God s chosen people, to be preserved on the great and terrible day, made them hardly less than Joseph, the authors of his history. His questionable responsibility is the faithful image of their own. 30 His personality failure was not the product of a specific mental illness such as manic-depressive illness or schizophrenia. His disorder was of a general personality disorder, or character-disturbance, and there are two possibilities the narcissistic personality and the anti-social (psychopathic) personality. Vulnerability in self-esteem makes individuals with Narcissistic Personality Disorder very sensitive to injury from criticism or defeat. Although they may not show it outwardly, criticism may haunt these individuals and may leave them feeling humiliated, degraded, hollow, and empty. [In addition] The Narcissistic Personality diagnosis consists of a pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy a grandiose sense of self-importance preoccupations with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, etc.; believes that he or she is special and unique [and] has a sense of entitlement; is interpersonally exploitative; lacks empathy; is often envious of others. 31 With Smith s claim to magical and then Christian miracles to win people to belief in him and to gain power over them, he qualifies for this diagnosis and demonstrates all characteristics. The fantasies of power within the Book of Mormon add to the diagnosis. His envious development of an alter ego was demonstrated in the book by his killing of Laban and putting on his garments. His lack of empathy is demonstrated by his lack of care for the consequences of his acts on his followers. In comparison, contrast or addition: 29. Jerrold M. Post, Narcissism and the Charismatic Leader-Follower Relationship, Political Psychology 7 (1986): Dale Morgan, Chapter three of A[n Incomplete] History, in Dale Morgan on Early Mormonism: Correspondence and a New History, ed. John Phillip Walker (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1986), This is a slightly abbreviated description from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th ed. (Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association, 1994), A majority of the nine symptoms must be present to make the diagnosis.

183 ANDERSON: The Conquest of Humiliation 169 The diagnosis of Anti-Social Personality Disorder ( Psychopathic Personality ) consists of a Pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others with the following: failure to conform to social norms [by] repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest; deceitfulness, as indicated by lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another. 32 These are official diagnoses from the standard source book for classification of mental disorders. Smith qualifies for both diagnoses as well as the unofficial term, malignant narcissism, which is somewhere on a sliding scale between the two. 33 Perhaps there was a time earlier when his path of deceit could have been reversed, and the testimony of Peter Ingersoll who witnessed the confrontation between Joseph Smith and his father-in-law suggests this possibility. But the path of supernatural claims was reinforced by his family and later by others. This artificial, superimposed self became who he was, not only to others, but to himself. Over time, his followers had an important hand in cementing his personality as a prophet of God with unlimited power over them. And then nothing would have reversed it. Dr. Robert D. Anderson (DrBobAndy@aol.com) retired from full-time psychiatric practice, Dr. Anderson now does temporary assignments with inner-city mental hygiene clinics and Native Americans. He is the author of Inside the Mind of Joseph Smith: Psychobiography and The Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1999), and of articles in the American Journal of Psychiatry; Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought; John Whitmer Historical Association Journal; and articles on Mormonism in the psychoanalytic journal, Clio s Psyche. A shorter version of this paper was presented at the John Whitmer Historical Association meeting in Rockford, Illinois, in September He has presented a half-dozen times at the Salt Lake City Sunstone Symposia. He characterizes himself as a non-believing Mormon, desiring to assist the Church in its continuous and necessary evolution. 32. Ibid., , again, very slightly condensed. 33. Otto Kernberg, The Narcissistic Personality Disorder and the Differential Diagnosis of Antisocial Behavior, Psychiatric Clinics of North America 1 (September 1989):

184 Joseph Smith Fantasies and their Origins William D. Morain, MD As secular persons seeking to understand Joseph Smith s unusual creativity, Dr. Robert Anderson and I have been independently drawn to several stressful events in Smith s life as his prime behavioral motivators instead of the mystical ones that Smith himself alleged. Indeed, my own surgical experience parallels psychiatrists observations of children s reactions to pain and suffering in ways that eerily mimic Smith s biographical record. Further explorations along this line of inquiry have led to an internally consistent paradigm of understanding for much that has been puzzling about this historical figure. 1 This paper will summarize some of this paradigm through the interconnectedness of Smith s childhood surgery, his brother Alvin s untimely death and exhumation, the Book of Mormon, the Book of Abraham, the Anthon Caractors, and baptism for the dead. Post-traumatic Effects of Childhood Surgery Some have characterized my surgical profession as a splendid fusion of art and science, of hand and mind, and of right and left brains. As such, surgeons today may ordinarily offer patients outcomes that are both therapeutic and relatively comfortable because of the merciful triad of anesthesia, antisepsis, and analgesia. But in truth, these moderating factors serve merely as disguises to obscure a hidden reality that a surgical operation is at its core a violent act performed by one person upon another. Only when those disguises fail does the true reality shatter through as was invariably the case in centuries past. While an adult may interpret a painful surgical misfortune in terms suggesting an assault, a child will not. For in the mind of a small child, pain deliberately inflicted by an adult male can register only as punishment, for that is the only data that has 1. William D. Morain. The Sword of Laban: Joseph Smith, Jr., and the Dissociated Mind (Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Press, 1998). 170

185 MORAIN: Joseph Smith Fantasies and their Origins 171 Figure 1. Present-day surgical scalpel (above) vs. nineteenth century amputation knife (below). ever been entered into the young cerebral software. That s where the why comes in for the bewildered child as he/she desperately struggles to come to terms with the horror of a painful surgical misadventure when that triad of disguises is not present. And that why for one particular surgical victim is ultimately why Mormon historians return to their annual meetings year after year. Today s surgeon bears a scalpel with barely an inch of blade a tiny shadow of the fifteen inches of broad steel that Dr. Nathan Smith brandished over the fetid, infected left leg of fully conscious seven-year-old Joseph Smith Jr., two centuries ago (Figure 1). As his mother fled the scene, his father abetted a handful of medical students in restraining the surely bound and spread-eagled boy while Dr. Smith slashed, sawed, pried, and wrenched out chunks of dead tibial bone, the blood splashing over them all and onto the bedclothes and floor. And in the critical aftermath when he needed the reassuring comfort of his parents the most, they would instead send him away to recuperate at his uncle s seaside home. Indeed, wartime combatants and injured adults often suffer equivalent pain from traumatic injuries and may go on to develop classic post-traumatic stress disorders if overwhelming emotional stress accompanies the event. This adult form of PTSD is not unlike the surreptitious entry of a virus into the software wherein an external trigger relating to the event can set off a terrifying flashback with predictable temporary symptoms. But when a small child experiences such a horrible physical and emotional trauma, the result is very different. Instead of the introduction of a sporadic viral intruder, the event effectively reboots the developing brain and reinstalls the entire system software, with the trauma becoming an integral part of the psyche that can permeate all corners of the mind forever. Dr. Robert Anderson and I agree that this was the case with Joseph Smith. It is doubtful that the event was responsible for his narcissism since that diagnosis is believed to spring from the very earliest childhood years in the pre-oedipal period. But Joseph s efforts to come to terms with his awful trauma gave the narcissism its

186 172 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL charismatic voice through the unique and colorful eruption of fantasy and metaphor that flowed out of that awful event. For it was ultimately the narcissistic impulse that drove him to use those fantasies to deceive and manipulate those around him to his personal advantage in the creation of his grand metaphysical superstructure. Dr. Lenore Terr, the child psychiatrist whose pioneering studies have revolutionized our understanding of childhood trauma, has written, A whole life can be shaped by an old trauma, remembered or not. 2 She emphasizes that traumatized children act out their troubles in many ways, including dreams, play, re-enactments, and brightly colored visualizations, all carrying recognizable elements of the original event. In addition, such children characteristically believe they are psychic and have paranormal gifts of clairvoyance. For some reason, surrounding playmates (and later, adults) seem to be magnetically attracted to the games that the traumatized child creates. One remembers, for example, the elaborate moonlit money-digging rituals that Joseph led, including the one in which a messenger was then sent to Palmyra to procure a polished sword: after which, Samuel F. Lawrence, with a drawn sword in his hand, marched around to guard any assault which his Satanic majesty might be disposed to make. 3 One can easily follow the direct progression from these little pageants to Joseph s temple rituals in which initiates are washed clean from the blood and sins of this generation, their arms instructed to be strong to wield the sword, their attention drawn to a sword waving through the curtain, and a pure white garment applied (one which had at the beginning been trimmed in turkey red ). And in his original ritual the officiant slashed the garment across both knees so deeply that it drew blood and left a scar. Such were Joseph s thinly disguised games and re-enactments of his operations. While the matter of dream content will be discussed later, it is worth recalling Joseph s final dream the night before his murder. He described being in an old barn when a group of men rushed in, brandishing knives and threatening him with the destruction of his body. He struggled to get out of the barn but was up to his ankles in deep mud so that his immobilized legs could not run. Remembering the aftermath of Joseph s surgery when he was sent away to the seashore, it is notable that the initial storyline of both sections of his magnum opus was about families who encounter chaos in their lives, which they resolve by traveling down to the seashore. In addition, one of Joseph s favorite metaphors was that of blood on garments, his own representation of sin, with the accompanying need to expunge the evil blood to restore whiteness in an act of atonement. And it is also worth remembering that the very first ritual that Joseph introduced was that of foot 2. Lenore Terr, Unchained Memories: True Stories of Traumatic Memories, Lost and Found (New York, Basic Books, 1994), xiii. 3. Joseph Capron, Affidavit, in Eber D. Howe, Mormonism Unvailed (Painesville, OH: privately printed, 1834), 259.

187 MORAIN: Joseph Smith Fantasies and their Origins 173 washing. Of course, this act of obeisance dates from the antiquity of the arid Middle East and Levant where soothing relief from the hot sand was a great comfort. 4 But in the long history of foot-washing rituals, there was never any metaphorical reference to washing away blood until Joseph introduced it in the mid-nineteenth century. And finally, there is Joseph s recurring dream of the angel with the drawn sword that appears over and over as his personal justification for the institution of polygamy. It is axiomatic in psychiatry that recurring dreams, unlike sporadic ones, always have a referent in real life (as those of us know who must periodically face the nighttime terror of a college examination for which we are unprepared). In Joseph s case, the angel in the recurring dream invariably demanded that he take some woman to wife lest some feature of his potency be taken away. While this seems paradoxically puzzling at first, it fits perfectly with the diagnosis of a defensive counterphobic reaction 5 if one assumes that the original operation occurred during Joseph s late Oedipal phase of development with its age-specific fantasy of eroticism toward mother. Thus, whereas he was originally punished for experiencing eroticism, he is in his recurring dream now threatened with punishment if he avoids it. For Joseph Smith, eroticism would forever be linked with the threat of violence. It is as though he is living out a compulsion to conquer that threat by insatiably seeking out the feared eroticism if only he can relive it often enough that it will no longer be fearful. Since Dr. Anderson and I agree that Joseph Smith s autobiographical references to the childhood surgery appear frequently in his writings, I wish to highlight two in particular, one each from the Book of Mormon and the Book of Abraham. The Laban Story The first occurs at the very outset of the Book of Mormon where righteous father Lehi instructs his young, heroic son Nephi to return to Jerusalem from the seashore with his brothers to obtain important records. The records are in the hands of the quintessentially evil Laban whose only virtue appears to be his possession of a wondrous sword of exceedingly fine workmanship with a hilt of pure gold and a blade of the most precious steel. After the brothers are cruelly rebuffed by Laban in their request, Nephi returns alone at night to find his nemesis lying drunk in the street. Nephi unsheathes the sword from Laban s scabbard and decapitates him with it. He then puts on Laban s clothes and girds the sword about his own loins to trick the guardian of the records into releasing them so that he may return triumphantly to his father at the seashore. 4. See W. L. Fleming, The Religious and Hospitable Rite of Feet Washing (Sewanee, TN: University Press at the University of the South, 1908). 5. See Otto Fenichel, The Counterphobic Attitude, International Journal of Psycho-Analysis 20 (1939):

188 174 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL In this vignette Joseph Smith, portraying himself as the hero, acts out his fantasy of revenge against his surgeon in a classic overthrow event. In truth, the act is against a fused surgeon-father image since Joseph Sr., had been a willing accomplice in the painful operation by helping to restrain his son. As is typical of fantasies of such victims, Joseph reverses the original roles as he himself now brandishes the knife and dismembers his original assailant. The fact that the event occurs at night suggests that the deed was not a noble one, and Laban s comatose state assures that the hero will not have to look him in the eye. By Nephi s disguise in wearing Laban s clothes and sword, Joseph demonstrates his identification with the evil one through his act of cold-blooded murder. There are many layers to this story, one of which is Joseph s use of the psychological defense of splitting wherein he has divided father/surgeon into two divergent personages righteous Lehi and evil Laban a reflection of the ambivalence that typifies the Oedipal stage of development. But while father must not be destroyed, if the odious part may be split off, that half is fair game so that the beloved half may be permitted to endure. Laban s sword, of course, represents Dr. Nathan Smith s amputation knife, the fearsome instrument of Joseph s childhood pain. As the iconic symbol of his operation, the sword will thus become reborn as the chief talisman of the Book of Mormon, reappearing often through the narrative as a symbol of invincible strength and later reappearing in the fantasied box of gold plates in upstate New York. An admirer would later report Joseph even to be carrying it himself in triumphant battle against his Missouri enemies. Transformed from the amputation knife into the Book of Mormon s talisman, the imagery of the sword would come to symbolize absolute power as it permeated Joseph s speeches and writings throughout his life. As a final note, the setting of the Laban story in the Book of Mormon is critical to its fullest understanding. For it occurs not in the promise of the New World but in the unresolved disarray of the Old. Nephi must leave the safe harbor of the seashore and return to the site of inland chaos to settle an old score before life can go on. The parallelism to Joseph s convalescent exile at his uncle s seaside home transparently suggests that it was there that this revenge fantasy began to fester in the wounded corners of his freshly traumatized mind. The child that returned from the seashore would forever be a very different Joseph Smith than the one who had sensed a bit of soreness in his left leg a few weeks before with scars on his psyche matching those on his leg. The Book of Abraham The second autobiographical reference to Joseph s surgery is largely a pictorial one. It arose out of an ancient Egyptian papyrus that was purchased by Joseph s fol-

189 MORAIN: Joseph Smith Fantasies and their Origins 175 Figure 2. Photograph of a portion of the original papyrus (Charles M. Larson, By His Own Hand Upon Papyrus: A New Look at the Joseph Smith Papyri [Grand Rapids: Institute for Religious Research, 1992]). Reproduced by permission. lowers in Kirtland, Ohio, after he had announced the ability to translate its hieroglyphics. One particular picture on the scroll caught Joseph s eye (Figure 2), a portion of a typical funerary document, as contemporary Egyptian scholars have uniformly confirmed. In the center of the original picture (Figure 3), according to Egyptologists, had been a supine figure representing Osiris with his right hand held over his face in a sign of grief. Osiris s left hand had held his phallus to impregnate his wife Isis, depicted as a hovering falcon. Above Osiris s head had been a human-headed bird, representing the soul awaiting entrance to his body. And standing over Osiris s legs was the jackal-headed god Anubis, preparing to embalm him. But not all of the picture remained when Joseph encountered it because marginal portions of the papyrus had fragmented off in handling (Figure 4). The missing pieces included the jackal s head and outstretched arm; Osiris s trunk, phallus, and left upper extremity; and all of falcon-wife Isis except the tip of one seven-feathered wing. When the original unrolled papyrus was rediscovered in 1966, it was found to have been glued onto stiff backing very early, and some crude sketches had been added (Figure 5). A man s head now replaced the jackal s, and a raised right hand was brandishing a knife in a threatening posture. Instead of the falcon, the remaining feathers had become Osiris s extended left hand. The supine figure now evinced a defensive posture attempting to ward off a bodily attack. There could be little doubt who had done the sketching, not only for the content of the additions but for who could have possessed the authority to disfigure a document that had been prophetically declared sacred.

190 176 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL Figure 3. Line drawing of likely full reconstruction of original Facsimile 1 (Larson, By His Own Hand Upon Papyrus). Reproduced by permission. Figure 4. Original portions of Facsimile 1 (Larson, By His Own Hand Upon Papyrus). Reproduced by permission.

191 MORAIN: Joseph Smith Fantasies and their Origins 177 Figure 5. Facsimile 1 with some added sketches of uncertain origin (Larson, By His Own Hand Upon Papyrus). Reproduced by permission. Figure 6. Hedlock s drawing of Facsimile 1 with missing pieces added under Smith s direction ( A Fac-simile from the Book of Abraham: No. 1, Times and Seasons 3, no. 9 [March 1, 1842]: 703).

192 178 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL Joseph would later sit with local artist Reuben Hedlock, giving precise instructions to reproduce the illustration in woodcut format (Figure 6) to be published in Times and Seasons on March 1, 1842, with numbers added for clarification. Those numbers identified Osiris as Abraham, the oddly Caucasian-headed former jackal as an idolatrous priest with a large knife in his outstretched hand poised to offer up Abraham as a sacrifice, and the human-headed bird as the Angel of the Lord ready to rescue Abraham from his fate. Now concentrate on the body language. The assailant with his threatening blade is positioned over his victim s legs as the prostrate figure helplessly raises his arms in mortal defense of his body. Is this a scriptural depiction of an attack against a Hebraic patriarch? Or is it the tortured memory of a seven-year-old boy screaming in desperation against the impending cruelty of a heartless surgeon? For Joseph Smith Jr., the horror of an awful event yet remained a haunting presence even after three decades. Dr. Lenore Terr s observation was correct. A whole life can be shaped by an old trauma, remembered or not. The Role of Alvin Smith s Death There can be no question that the Book of Mormon teems with the themes of Smith s childhood operations as well. But after reading 713 pages of repetitive and tedious prose, I was at once astounded to encounter a brand new character in the book neither the typical diminutive-but-righteous young hero nor his rivalrous evil king not even a rare woman. The young hero was there all right but was for the first time subordinated in rapturous awe to his superhero brother who, like Yahweh, was too exalted even to have his name voiced. This brother talked to God, interceded for the young hero, saw Jesus Christ in the flesh millennia before his birth, and viewed the future of all humanity. He would also receive two seer stones and ecclesiastical instructions to write a historical record to be passed to the gentiles through a prophet in the latter days. Again, discounting the possibility that the book of Ether was demonstrable history, I concluded instead that Brother of Jared must represent a clue to someone very important to Joseph Smith Jr., and it took little time to resolve this mystery. Alvin Smith was the firstborn of Joseph Sr., and Lucy. Available descriptions of him suggest that he was his parents favorite, the one with the special gifts, and also a seer and treasure-seeker. Joseph Jr., evidently worshipped his big brother as well, describing him as, one of the noblest sons of men. He lived without spot from the time he was a child. 6 But the feature that most sanctified Alvin for Joseph Jr., was 6. Joseph Smith, The Book of the Law of the Lord, August 23, 1842, pp , First Presidency s Vault, LDS Church Archives, Salt Lake City. See also Dan Vogel, ed., Early Mormon Documents, vol. 1 (Salt Lake City, Sig-

193 MORAIN: Joseph Smith Fantasies and their Origins 179 undoubtedly his untimely death in the family home at age twenty-five, perhaps from an appendiceal rupture. Joseph was seventeen at the time. My reflections on this incident suggested that the book of Ether, rather than a mere paean to Alvin, carried a much deeper message. It was clear from the text that Brother was older than the Joseph-Smith-Jared character. Brother acted as righteous leader of the family through the escape from the Old World to the New. But when it came time to pass the leadership to a new generation, the transfer was not to Brother s own offspring but instead to Jared s youngest son. Both through this succession of the mantle of leadership and through the foreshadowed transfer of the seer stones, Joseph Smith has clearly described his usurpation of Alvin s firstborn position in the Smith family. This passage of the torch is the hidden message of the book of Ether. And the importance of this message is exemplified by the fact that it occupies the full opening twelve pages of this novelette, relegating the subsequent rise and fall of the entire Jaredite civilization to just twenty-three more. In searching the psychiatric literature for reactions to sibling death, I found the most comprehensive clinical work to be that of a University of Michigan researcher aptly named Cain. 7 His work described the principal and near-universal reaction of surviving siblings to be that of overwhelming guilt for in some way having caused or having failed to prevent the sibling s death, regardless of whether there was any rational basis for this emotion whatever. Assuming, then, that this applied to Joseph, I began to look for possible pieces in Joseph s personal story that might support this suggestion and was hardly disappointed. I had long assumed, for instance, that the so-called coming forth of the Book of Mormon saga of annual visits to Hill Cumorah was an elaborate fairy tale but could not understand why it was such an unusual fantasy. Typical treasure-seeking stories like that of Aladdin and his lamp carry the identical theme in which a clever boy needs to discover some secret, usually carrying sexual symbolism, in order to outwit the evil father representation that possesses the treasure. But why five annual visits on September 22 each year from 1823 to 1827 with repeated punishing rejections by the treasure guardian until the secret could be found? Why not just march up the hill and claim the treasure at once or in a brief series of encounters? To review the details of this annual fantasy sequence, Joseph first is forbidden to take the treasure in 1823 but is advised that if he brings his oldest brother the following year, he will be rewarded. But since Alvin will die two months hence, the 1824 visit is unsuccessful, and some form of Alvin substitute must be provided the following September 22. Joseph cannot do so on each annual occasion until 1827 nature Books, 1996), Albert Cain and Barbara Cain, On Replacing a Child, Journal of the American Academy of Child Psychiatry 3 (1964):

194 180 THE JOHN WHITMER HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL when a fitting Alvin substitute, his new wife Emma, becomes the sexually symbolic key to the quest, and the treasure is obtained. She immediately becomes pregnant. Notably, Joseph goes on to tell his father-in-law and others that the first person to see his newfound gold plates would be a young child, and Emma delivers their baby boy on schedule. Unfortunately this infant promptly named Alvin is terribly deformed and expires within three hours. Seemingly, Joseph has made his deceased oldest brother the central figure a veritable talisman in the treasure quest. To assist in understanding why, it is worth noting that the historical record shows no evidence that any of Joseph s cohorts in his nefarious money-digging schemes over those four years knew anything at all about those alleged visits to the hill until shortly before the final 1827 event itself. In addition, the family members later recollections merely parroted back conflicting parts of Joseph s own fabrications for the first four visits, suggesting a hypothesis that the whole idea of the gold plates originated only in 1827, none of the previous annual visits to any hill ever having occurred at all. If so, there is a tantalizing clue to understanding this quandary that lies in an obscure historical sequel to Alvin s death. It seems that Joseph Smith Sr., went out to the gravesite with some neighbors on September 25, 1824, and dug up his firstborn s corpse. It is not known if Joseph Jr., was along, but the sight and smell of the unembalmed ten-month-old carcass would have been hideous to any who remembered the young man in his prime. One can only imagine the unnecessary recrudescence of grief and accompanying emotions that the exhumation would have stirred. The date of Alvin s exhumation was the fourth Saturday in September The date of Joseph s acquisition of his treasure in 1827 was also the fourth Saturday in September when Joseph had by now reached his twenty-fifth year and become Alvin s chronological equal. Thus these doubtful hilltop visits in Joseph s fantasy world, backdated to a point prior to the exhumation in order to make Alvin the key figure in the story, are consistent with what psychiatrists term an anniversary reaction, often seen clinically in cases of victims of stressful rapes, family deaths, accidents, and the like. Thus, Joseph s post-traumatic personality seems to have created an elaborate fantasy to memorialize the grief and guilt of his assumption of Alvin s mantle. And the content of that fantasy digging up a box whose priceless and longed-for treasure evokes punishment for attempting to bring it home is probably not unlike Joseph s own ruminations over his brother s exhumation (the only time the family s shovel work ever found what it was digging for). Joseph would go on to fuse his identity with Alvin s in the creation of the consummate literary hero of his novel by cleverly bracketing the last three letters of his own name with the last two of Alvin s in the invention of the name Nephi, thereby assuaging a burden of his guilt over his brother s tragic death. And he would inscribe on the inside cover of Manuscript History of the Church, Book A-1, his own personal

195 MORAIN: Joseph Smith Fantasies and their Origins 181 Figure 7. Caractors with four loci highlighted for closer inspection. (Courtesy Community of Christ Archives). J O S E O J A L V V L A Figure 8. Close-up perspective of the four loci. (Courtesy Community of Christ Archives). notation, In memory of Alvin Smith, Died the 19 th Day of November, In the 25 th year of his age year And one final holographic source further suggests the centrality of Alvin in Joseph s fantasy narrative. The Caractors of supposed reformed Egyptian that Joseph scribbled for Martin Harris to take to the learned are intriguing on close inspection of four discrete loci (Figure 7). 8. Vogel, Early Mormon Documents, 1:55.