The Earth as “Mother of Men” in Latter-Day Saint Theology

Following the completion of work on the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith began his work on expanding the Bible’s scope. Unlike many of his contemporary Bible thinkers who were also working on translations of the Bible, Smith expanded the text in unique ways, breathing life into archaic and mysterious figures and developing themes far beyond the Biblical scope. Within the first year of the Church of Jesus Christ, Smith introduced significant information concerning a vision of the pseudepigraphical character of Enoch and additional information concerning the creation narrative. These additions give insight into Smith’s understanding of his theology and his views on the environment. These additional writings connect environmental care and social injustice. The unique theological implication is that the treatment of the marginalized and downtrodden is closely related to the environment.

Religion and Revolution: Joseph Smith, Abraham Lincoln, and the Book of Mormon

The name Joseph Smith, b. 23 December 1803, d. 27 June, 1844 invokes words like heretic, false prophet, con artist and fruitcake. No stranger to con artistry or the interior of a prisoner cell, Smith was arrested numerous times on legitimate charges, he also accomplished something no other Prophet did: developed the character and strategies for First Citizen of Humanity, Abraham Lincoln and helped start a War Between the States that enslaved men might be free. Though he never lived to see his Book of Mormon accomplish its ends, he, along with the Latter Day Saints were never given recognition, not even informally for this, humankind’s the most important task. The most important in human history. In this paper I detail important elements of Smith’s and his Church’s work and also illuminate his ties to Mr. Lincoln, and mourn the wayward Church of today. Perhaps revisiting Mister Smith’s Vision will reignite all of us and cause us to rise up and wage one more War against tyranny, weaponry, waste, abuse, neglect, and utter ignorance of our innate spiritual principals.

Continuing Revelation and Institutionalization: Joseph Smith, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Charismatic Leadership in Antebellum America

Nineteenth-century North American religious history is filled with divinely inspired people who received and recorded new revelations. This article presents Joseph Smith Jr and Ralph Waldo Emerson as charismatic prophets who promoted the idea of continuing revelation. Drawing on Max Weber's concept of charismatic authority, it will contrast their forms of new sacred writing with one another to show how both had experienced encounters with the divine. The second part will then explore how different conceptualizations of revelation led to opposing concepts of religious authority, with consequences for the possibility of institution-building processes. While Smith would reify revelation in hierarchy, Emerson eventually promoted extreme spiritual individualization by rejecting the idea of an exclusive institution as the centre of revelatory authority.

Aftermath

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.

Conclusion

The Conclusion of the book considers the extent to which Joseph Smith was correct that the states’ rights doctrine condoned mob violence against religious minorities and that the United States would never experience universal religious freedom without a federal government empowered to protect religious minorities. The Missouri militia’s invocation of the violent expulsion of Mormons from the state as their plan to expel abolitionists in the 1850s is examined as a telling example. Joseph Smith’s presidential campaign and its tragic end encapsulate the failure of nineteenth-century Americans to establish universal religious freedom. Many Americans championed states’ rights as a way to maintain race-based slavery in the Southern states, but few acknowledged that this philosophy also disadvantaged religious minority groups. The Conclusion also considers the role of systemic religious discrimination in federal policy for the management of Utah Territory and the multiple denied applications for Utah statehood.

More Conventions

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

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

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.