Presidential Hopefuls

2021 ◽  
pp. 75-88
Author(s):  
Spencer W. McBride
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Church Leaders ◽  
Latter Day Saints ◽  
Martin Van Buren ◽  
Henry Clay

This chapter considers Joseph Smith’s attempts to get the men believed to be the likeliest candidates for president to commit to helping the Latter-day Saints gain their long-sought redress for their lost property in Missouri and to protect their civil rights to prevent a repeat of the Missouri conflict in Illinois. Accordingly, Smith writes to five potential candidates: John C. Calhoun, Lewis Cass, Henry Clay, Richard Mentor Johnson, and Martin Van Buren. Only Calhoun, Cass, and Clay respond. None of the three men commit to help the Mormons. Smith is frustrated by these responses and determines that there is no candidate for the presidency who will ensure the protection of the Mormons’ rights as American citizens. Accordingly, church leaders determine that they should support Smith as an independent candidate for president.

Aftermath

2021 ◽  
pp. 199-206
Author(s):  
Spencer W. McBride
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
The United States ◽  
Church Leaders ◽  
Latter Day Saints ◽  
Decision To Leave ◽  
Joseph Smith ◽  
The Church

This chapter describes the aftermath of the assassination of Joseph Smith. This aftermath includes mourning and a funeral in Nauvoo, debates over who should succeed Smith as the president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who the Mormons should vote for in the election, and the decision to leave the United States altogether. The Mormons were contemplating leaving the United States before Smith’s murder, but the violent act seemed to make this departure the only way forward in the minds of many church leaders. They had come to realize that without significant reform, the United States was incapable of protecting them. This chapter also considers the result of the presidential election of 1844 and what became of each of the candidates in the years that followed.

Rainbow Fault Lines

2019 ◽  
pp. 129-146
Author(s):  
Jana Riess
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Identity ◽  
American Culture ◽  
Rapid Change ◽  
Church Leaders ◽  
Latter Day Saints ◽  
Recent Past ◽  
Silent Generation ◽  
Widespread Acceptance ◽  
Lds Church ◽  
Fault Lines

This chapter details the evolving views on homosexuality within Latter-day Saints. For most younger Mormons now who are gay, acceptance is slightly more likely than it was even in the recent past. Their decision to make their sexual identity public has been aided by a more widespread acceptance of homosexuality—not only in American culture more generally, but also within the Mormon subculture. Indeed, Mormon views on homosexuality have undergone a rapid change just within the last decade. Although acceptance among Mormons has not reached majority status, it is double what it was in 2007. This movement is driven in large part by millennials; more than half of Mormon millennials say homosexuality should be accepted. By contrast, only 38 percent of the combined Boomer/Silent Generation feels homosexuality should be accepted by society—a view that is reinforced by many statements from LDS Church leaders, who are themselves of the Silent Generation or even older.

Twentieth- and Twenty-First-Century Apocalyptic Trajectories

2020 ◽  
pp. 217-270
Author(s):  
Christopher James Blythe
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Church Leaders ◽  
First Century ◽  
Latter Day Saints ◽  
The Face ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Final Group

This chapter documents the fracturing of end-of-world belief among Latter-day Saints in the twentieth century. Church leaders re-envisioned apocalypticism as a “moderate millenarianism.” At the same time, Mormon fundamentalists—deemed heretics by many church leaders—deployed apocalypticism to challenge the processes of Americanization, adding the church’s own apostasy as a distinctive part of their last days chronology. Finally, radical apocalypticism continued to find resonance with a contingent of committed Latter-day Saints. This chapter wrestles with how this final group has been able to negotiate their apocalyptic sentiments and LDS affiliation even in the face of continual criticism. Most importantly, it is in this chapter that the author demonstrates how apocalyptic ideas of any variety continued to be perpetuated in private and family circles.

scholarly journals Future-Day Saints: Abrahamic Astronomy, Anthropological Futures, and Speculative Religion

Religions ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (11) ◽  
pp. 612
Author(s):  
Jon Bialecki
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Outer Space ◽  
Speculative Fiction ◽  
Church Leaders ◽  
Latter Day Saints ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Church

In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, there is an intense interest in creating “speculative fiction”, including speculative fiction about outer space. This article ties this interest to a broader tradition of “speculative religion” by discussing the Mormon Transhumanist Association. An interest in outer space is linked to nineteenth and twentieth-century speculation by Mormon intellectuals and Church leaders regarding “Abrahamic Astronomy”. The article suggests that there is a Mormon view of the future as informed by a fractal or recursive past that social science in general, and anthropology in particular, could use in “thinking the future”.

More Conventions

2021 ◽  
pp. 171-180
Author(s):  
Spencer W. McBride
Keyword(s):  
Whig Party ◽  
Joseph Smith ◽  
Martin Van Buren ◽  
Henry Clay

This chapter follows the events of the contested Democratic nominating convention of 1844 in Baltimore, Maryland. Martin Van Buren entered the convention as the favorite but faced stiff competition from Lewis Cass. After several ballots, a third candidate rose above Van Buren and Cass: James K. Polk. Polk was eventually nominated to run on the Democratic ticket against the Whig candidate, Henry Clay. This chapter also considers the small convention held by supporters of President John Tyler, who had been expelled from the Whig Party two years earlier. Meanwhile, in Nauvoo, the Mormons had a nominating convention of their own and formally nominated Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon to be an independent ticket for the presidency.

Joseph Smith for President

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Spencer W. McBride
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Political System ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Latter Day Saints ◽  
Religious Minorities ◽  
White House ◽  
Joseph Smith ◽  
National Bank ◽  
The Church

In 1844, Joseph Smith, the controversial founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, had amassed a national following of some 25,000 believers—and a militia of some 2,500 men. In this year, his priority was protecting the lives and civil rights of his people. Having failed to win the support of any of the presidential contenders for these efforts, Smith launched his own renegade campaign for the White House, one that would end with his assassination at the hands of an angry mob. Smith ran on a platform that called for the total abolition of slavery, the closure of the country’s penitentiaries, the re-establishment of a national bank to stabilize the economy, and most importantly, an expansion of protections for religious minorities. Spencer W. McBride tells the story of Smith’s quixotic but consequential run for the White House and shows how his calls for religious freedom helped to shape the American political system we know today.

A Lesson in Political Negotiations

2021 ◽  
pp. 7-22
Author(s):  
Spencer W. McBride
Keyword(s):  
Federal Government ◽  
Political Support ◽  
The Political ◽  
Latter Day Saints ◽  
Important Lesson ◽  
White House ◽  
Joseph Smith ◽  
Martin Van Buren ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Church

In this chapter Joseph Smith, Sidney Rigdon, and Elias Higbee travel from Nauvoo, Illinois, to Washington, D.C., to petition the federal government for reparations for their lost property in Missouri. The chapter summarizes the history of the Mormons and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, including the violent persecution of Joseph Smith and his followers by mobs in Missouri, and their ultimate expulsion from the state under threat of state-sanctioned extermination. Smith and Higbee meet with President Martin Van Buren at the White House and request his assistance with their petition to Congress. Van Buren declines to assist the Latter-day Saints, losing the political support of the group. Joseph Smith learns an important lesson about political negotiations in Washington, D.C.

Christianity, Social Justice, and the Japanese American Incarceration During World War II

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne M. Blankenship
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Asian American ◽  
Church Leaders ◽  
Japanese Americans ◽  
Japanese American ◽  
Religious Experiences ◽  
World War ◽  
The Sixties ◽  
The Impact

Anne M. Blankenship's study of Christianity in the infamous camps where Japanese Americans were incarcerated during World War II yields insights both far-reaching and timely. While most Japanese Americans maintained their traditional identities as Buddhists, a sizeable minority identified as Christian, and a number of church leaders sought to minister to them in the camps. Blankenship shows how church leaders were forced to assess the ethics and pragmatism of fighting against or acquiescing to what they clearly perceived, even in the midst of a national crisis, as an unjust social system. These religious activists became acutely aware of the impact of government, as well as church, policies that targeted ordinary Americans of diverse ethnicities. Going through the doors of the camp churches and delving deeply into the religious experiences of the incarcerated and the faithful who aided them, Blankenship argues that the incarceration period introduced new social and legal approaches for Christians of all stripes to challenge the constitutionality of government policies on race and civil rights. She also shows how the camp experience nourished the roots of an Asian American liberation theology that sprouted in the sixties and seventies.

scholarly journals Rejecting Racism in Any Form: Latter-day Saint Rhetoric, Religion, and Repatriation

Open Theology ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas W Murphy ◽  
Angelo Baca
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
White Men ◽  
Church Leaders ◽  
Native People ◽  
Latter Day Saints ◽  
Tribal Sovereignty ◽  
Trade Networks ◽  
Everyday Practices ◽  
Lds Church

AbstractThe Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints issued an online statement in February 2012 rejecting all racism, in any form. The statement followed nearly two centuries of tortured struggles with racism promulgated by church leaders, instituted in everyday practices, and integrated into Latter-day Saint scriptures. While rhetoric renouncing racism from the LDS Church is a welcome step, religions need to compliment language undoing racism with concrete actions. This article examines ways that the LDS Church may work towards actually ending various forms of racism. It focuses attention on the role of settler colonial grave robbery, the loot from which was used in the production of Mormon scriptures advocating white privilege. These acts of violence against Native people continue into the present, as illustrated by the recent occupation of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge by Mormon militiamen, extensive trade networks in antiquities in Mormon communities, unethical uses of Native American DNA, and ongoing efforts by Utah legislators to undermine tribal sovereignty. Current rhetoric condemning racism appears to serve as a mask for the continued imbalance of power in a land-rich institution in which the highest positions of authority remain exclusively in the hands of white men. Reciprocal acts of repatriation, initiated but never finished by early LDS Church leaders, need to be re-activated if Mormons are to effectively repudiate racism in its many forms.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document