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In our Church, we often see continual revelation and innovation. For years, we have watched men expand their roles in leadership callings. It comes as no surprise that there are LDS women who feel called by God to practice pastoral care in ways that go beyond what is currently defined and expected for women in our religion. Here we define pastoral care as a model of emotional and spiritual support; it is found in all cultures and traditions. In formal ways, we see women provide this type of care when they teach and lead in the auxiliaries, serve as ministering sisters, and serve missions. We also see this when a sister holds the hand of another during a difficult sacrament meeting or brings a casserole to a home where tragedy has struck. Women are well-trained to provide service as one of the ways to minister to their ward and stake community.

As these women show, ministry can be so much more. The path of ministry sometimes means going to divinity school, working as a lay minister, or even seeking ordination in a Christian tradition outside of the LDS Church where women can be ordained. We have asked the following women to share their stories about how they have expanded their ability to minister through theological education and their chosen pastoral vocations. As pioneers who are expanding the roles of ministry for Mormon women today, we also ask how the Church can enhance the traditional model of women’s ways of ministering and how this can be shaped by future generations.

Katie Langston converted to orthodox Christianity after struggling with Mormonism’s emphasis on worthiness. She is now a candidate for ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and works at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Brittany Mangelson is a full-time minister for Community of Christ. She has a master of arts in religion from Graceland University and works as a social media seeker ministry specialist.

Rachel Mumford is the middle school chaplain at the National Cathedral School, an Episcopal school for girls in Washington, DC. She is an active participant in both Episcopal and LDS communities of faith, reflecting her Mormon heritage as well as the resonance she finds in Episcopal tradition.

Jennifer Roach is a formerly ordained pastor in the Anglican tradition. She is a recent convert to the LDS Church and had to walk away from her ordination in order to be baptized. She works as a therapist in Seattle.

Nancy Ross is a professor and ordained elder and pastor for the Southern Utah Community of Christ congregation.

Fatimah Salleh began life as Muslim, converted to the LDS Church as a teenager, and was recently ordained a Baptist minister after attending Duke Divinity School. Her call to ministry is part of a colorful journey into finding a God for all and for the least.

How do you think members of the Church traditionally define the role of women as ministers?

Brittany: “Ministry” or “ministers” are not words I heard much growing up LDS. Traditionally in the Church, the work of women is largely confined to what they can do to serve the youth, children, and other women. Women do not lead men and are expected to serve as a helpmeet to offer support. Women in the LDS church take great pride in being part of the Relief Society and do a fabulous job of networking with other women in compassionate services and ministries to their local congregations. As we have seen, however, women’s voices and spiritual gifts have virtually no place in major decision-making conversations. Most members do not seem overly bothered by this.

Rachel: I see this Church definition to be grounded in the idea of service to God through service to others. This draws from the meaning of “minister” as an agent acting on behalf of a superior entity. Until recent direction from Church leadership, members didn’t refer to the idea of “ministry” often, at least in my generation. What I have heard in the last year has been focused on developing a personalized relationship with other members of the ward, particularly those assigned through the ministering program, through attention to their various needs. It’s essentially visiting and home teaching, but with a more flexible, open-ended approach to connecting with others.

Katie: I’m not sure that “ministry” in general is a term that Mormons use very much; even the new home and visiting teaching programs are referred to as “ministering,” which connotes a particular action people take, as opposed to a “minister,” which confers a kind of identity. Having said that, my experience growing up in the 1980s and ‘90s was that women’s contributions to the community were expressed in terms of nurture and charitable service, with motherhood being extolled as the highest expression of this role.

How do you see your role as a minister? How is it different and how is it similar to the traditional Church model?

Nancy: A few months ago, I became the pastor of my congregation. I have had a lot of mentorship leading up to this and support now that it is my role. Being a pastor is very different from being a bishop, whose job it is to give counsel. My job as a pastor is mostly to listen and affirm that people are loved by God—that they are whole and worthy regardless of whatever brokenness they feel. I organize meetings and events, but I do so with the help of everyone in my congregation.

Fatimah: I view my role as a minister as being more expansive and deeper than the role in the LDS tradition. I am ordained to be present in hard circumstances, and I have to learn the skill set of presence work: how to show up at hospitals, prisons, at places of pain, and be emotionally and spiritually prepared to help others carry their pain.

In the hospital where a mother was saying goodbye to her son, who was killed in a drunk driving accident, I was called to the bedside, and I was called to walk with this mother in deep rage and grief. I wasn’t there to defend God but to hold grief and deep sadness with a mother. My job is not to fix or defend God and not to try to make hard situations okay.

Rachel: I carry the person-to-person ministering role in my LDS Church community, seeking to care for others in a way that feels genuine on both sides, to know one another and care for each other on the long journey of life. In addition, I also have a specific role in the spiritual leadership of my Episcopal school community. This is being a “minister” in the other sense, as a member of the clergy with a calling and responsibility to serve in an official capacity in the community. While I do not officiate in some aspects of the Episcopal liturgy that necessitate an ordained priest, I do work hand in hand—and heart in heart—with my fellow chaplains to plan and lead our services and offer pastoral care to our community.

Brittany: Along with three other women, I lead the entire congregation in worship, fellowship activities, community outreach, and education and development of our congregants. My ordination and status as a minister are pivotal to this work. I see my role as a pastoral presence in moments of crisis and in the midst of debilitating faith transitions. My job as a minister is a promise I have made to my church, to God, and to the people I serve that I am committed to peacemaking and reconciliation. I will be there to listen, to walk with, and to hold out an invitation to know a God who loves unconditionally.

Katie: I’m very Lutheran in the sense that I believe strongly in the priesthood of all believers and that all baptized Christians are called to ministry. My particular call as a public leader in the church makes me no more or less a minister than the nurse, teacher, entrepreneur, service worker, or garbage collector in the pews. The call of public leadership is to preach the gospel of grace, to administer the sacraments of baptism and communion to the people, to speak to contemporary matters of justice and morality, and to be present at the threshold moments of people’s lives: birth, death, and transitions of all kinds.

What are your spiritual gifts?

Brittany: I think my spiritual gifts are the ability to be fully present in the moment, to have true empathy, and to find a point of connection with almost anyone I meet. I am able to make people comfortable almost immediately, and that is simply an aspect of my personality. In many ways, I feel that our spiritual gifts are simply an extension of who we are. I use them constantly, not simply at church or when I’m engaged in church work. Developing them has benefited me in just about every aspect of my life.

Fatimah: One of my spiritual gifts is a love of the scriptures. I work with both other pastors and congregants to understand the scriptures in a way that shows them God and helps them hear God’s voice. In these works, I can see how social justice is carved out in the word of God.

Rachel: I have a seeking, hopeful heart. I find joy in asking questions about the nature of life, humanity, and divinity, and I marvel at the many ways that people have explored these questions over time and place. I can find existential wonder in the contour of a line, the dialogue of an ancient story, or the burst of sound. I can listen and I can love. I feel with others the range of joy through sorrow. I love the craft of words, I find spiritual expression in writing, and I revel in the spiritual tension and expanse of scripture, poetry, and story.

I feel most alive spiritually when I am teaching, writing, planning worship with others, or in one-on-one conversation. My work as a school chaplain feels truly like a vocation, being called through experience to the work where I can give with a whole heart. When I was applying to divinity school, I heard the quote from Frederick Buechner that “the place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”[1] I have felt this as I have learned the work of a school chaplain, where I can celebrate the diverse gifts of my students and colleagues and affirm the creative work of making worship authentic. Mary Oliver wrote, “My work is loving the world.”[2] I feel this work deeply in my calling to sit with colleagues, parents, and young people, to listen, to hold with them what needs to be held, to laugh, to grieve, and to embrace life.

Nancy: I am still trying to figure this out. I give a lot of blessings, both in writing and in person. I can also organize stuff and get things done. This is really useful in church work. A few years ago, I had the idea that I wanted to create an interfaith service for Pride in my city. The main organizer for Pride was initially hesitant about a religious service, but he attended our event and had a good experience. Since that first event, I have been asked to coordinate a similar event for Pride every year. My get-stuff-done gifts have allowed me to build relationships of trust in the community. My congregation looks forward to demonstrating support for our local LGBTQ+ community each year. Pride has become an essential outreach event for our group.

Katie: I think I have spiritual gifts of communication and teaching. I have always been interested in writing and gravitated naturally toward a career in marketing and communications after college, where I’ve worked for about the last fifteen years. To a large extent, my current position in communications and innovation at Luther Seminary is a very meaningful expression of my ministry because I have a chance to help leaders develop more life-giving practices of forming Christian community and faith. I feel called to help reshape the public conversation around Christianity so that we can repent of what often amounts to petty and destructive tribalism in order to live into the liberating and world-expanding gospel of Jesus.

Jennifer: I think gifts change over the course of one’s life, and the kinds of gifts I previously needed, I don’t have much interest in anymore. These days I see my gifts in three areas. First, I know how to be with people in their grief. I will mourn with those who mourn. Second, I can help people escape from shame. Shame always destroys. Somehow, I see people’s shame and know how to help them out of it. I think Jesus did this a lot—helped people to see the God-given goodness in them. Third, I am on the lookout for the ones who are alone, lonely, left out, and sad. I find ways to include them and let them know the joy of feeling part of a group that accepts them.

What has most surprised you about finding your ministry?

Brittany: I’m continually surprised at how inadequate I feel, and yet when I show up prepared and open to God’s Spirit, things seem to work out exactly how they need to be. Sometimes, I feel like I need to have all the answers or to have all my “stuff” figured out, but the work I do wrestles with and sits in the uncertainty. God always shows up in those gray areas and I’m not sure that will ever stop surprising me.

Fatimah: I am a minister at a local Baptist church. When I first began this work, local pastors from many different Christian traditions would ask me to come preach to their congregations. At first, I was concerned as I tried to explain to a kind Pentecostal pastor that I was Baptist and couldn’t preach to his congregation because we weren’t from the same denomination. He looked at me like I had two heads. It was then that I realized pastoral vetting is very different outside of hierarchical churches like the LDS Church or the Roman Catholic Church. Most Christian pastors want to know a couple things: “Is this pastor engaging and thoughtful?” and “Do they know the word of God?” The religious tradition one belongs to doesn’t really matter to them.

Katie: I’ve been surprised at how hard it is. People are difficult everywhere you go, and church people are no exception. Ministry—and, ultimately, faith itself—is about wading through human brokenness and hoping against hope that God is somehow present in the midst of it, and that God’s promises of grace, forgiveness, and bringing life from death are real, even when it seems as if there’s only chaos and despair.

If you are ordained, how did you decide to take that step? Do you see that as a break or an enhancement of your religious life as a Latter-day Saint?

Fatimah: I attended divinity school because I didn’t know what to do with the call that was rumbling inside of me. I attended divinity school to wrestle with God. So, I went, and I wasn’t on ordination track. I considered myself a religious refugee. Then, I found a place through my internships as part of my program where I shadowed two pastors, one Methodist and one Baptist. Both of those pastors would inculcate me with a vision of ordination. I cannot thank those two men enough for seeing ordination in me and speaking life of ordination into me.

Jennifer: I was previously ordained and gave it up when I joined the LDS Church. I am a recent convert (baptized six months ago) and of all the things I had to give up, my ordination was probably one of the easiest because of what I believe the nature of ordination actually is. For me, ordination is a community’s way of naming the gifts that already exist in a person. I had been displaying the gifts of a pastor for many years before my ordination. My community simply decided to make it official. Walking away from my ordination doesn’t take those gifts away from me. I am still every bit the minister that I was before, it just looks different in the cultural context of the LDS world.

I had to seriously re-contemplate this about a month after my baptism when a new LDS friend told me, rather angrily, that I had made a mistake in giving up ordination, “You walked away from what we are all fighting so hard to obtain! What have you done?!” But as I sought to discern what this could mean for me, I knew that all the gifts I have been given are still intact: compassion, a non-judgmental approach, and the ability to diffuse someone else’s shame. Those are gifts God gave me, not a church system, so no church system can take them away.

Brittany: I would not consider myself a Latter-day Saint any longer and see my ordination as a complete break from my former religious life. Ordination in Community of Christ comes as a response to the needs of the community, the giftedness of the person, and the needs of the community they will be serving. Calls are initiated by church leadership, and to be honest, I have struggled deeply with my call. I had twenty-six years of baggage, damage, and insecurities I was working through when my call came, and it came unexpectedly. I had to work through a new understanding of what ordination meant and decide if it was a responsibility I wanted to take on. Being ordained in Community of Christ in Utah means working with people who are seeking spiritual refuge. It’s difficult to completely break away from the culture here, and by being ordained, I was saying I was willing to stand in those moments of faith deconstruction with the hope of being a help and support in the reconstruction. Although I no longer consider myself a Latter-day Saint, I very much consider myself to be a disciple and follower of Jesus. My ordination has enhanced my understanding of Jesus’ message of good news to the poor and downtrodden. My ordination has taken me down a path of learning to set my own ego aside and be fully present in the moment for others. It’s given me more empathy and patience and has expanded my understanding of the importance of intention and finding a holy rhythm in life. I am more holistic and self-aware than I was before, and I try a lot harder to hold myself accountable to protect the rights and voices of the most marginalized. These things were important to me before, but through ordination, the purpose of Jesus’ mission has come alive.

Katie: It’s not possible to simply un-Mormon myself, so I’m sure my Mormon-ness will always be an important part of my pastoral identity. There are times I’m shocked at the ways in which white mainline Protestants struggle to speak about their faith even within their own families. In meetings with colleagues I’m always saying things like, “This must be my inner Mormon coming out again, but seriously?” Mormons do such a powerful job of instilling identity. And while not all of the tactics they employ to do so are healthy, there’s something very admirable about that, and I want to bring that commitment to identity and community forward into my ministry. I think that’s a gift of my Mormonism that I can share with the broader church.

How has your faith and/or spiritual practice deepened as a result of your chosen vocation?

Fatimah: I had to endure my own faith shattering. As I result, I have learned to hold my faith very tenderly; I allow it to fall apart, to grow, and to morph in ways that are unexpected because I have learned that I don’t want to hold it so tight that I can’t grow it with God. A faith that never undergoes shattering and wounding, I don’t know if that’s really faith. It’s that process that helps you to know that God is still in the midst and with you.

Jennifer: Ordination can be a real trap when it functions as a belief-limiting scenario. While I was ordained there was no freedom to explore belief beyond what was already prescribed. There were black-and-white limits to what I was allowed to believe. Ordination can be a blessing, but it also can be a straitjacket. You sign on the dotted line and must believe these things and never change. But I like to change and grow. I know how to recognize God’s leading in my life, and the day came when following truth was more important than clinging onto my ordination.

Nancy: As an LDS woman, I prayed, fasted, and read the scriptures almost obsessively. I felt that my connection to God was limited to those activities. I now engage in a lot of different spiritual practices and recognize that spiritual practice is more about intention and connection to God and self rather than any particular action. I think that this allows me to see that many activities can have a spiritual dimension. All of this has made my spiritual life richer and more fulfilling to me.

Brittany: I am much more mindful of how God moves in and through the everyday. I am not worried about being found worthy of God’s love or presence, I now understand that it is all around me and others with whom I come into contact. My ministry has become part of me. I do not stop being a minister once my workday is over. It has also shown me just how little I actually know about life and how much I rely on God and my community for support.

Katie: Leaving Mormonism and discerning a call to ministry was a decade-long series of existential crises. There were times I couldn’t bring myself to open a Bible or pray because it hurt so much. There were times that all I could do was fall on my face and cry out to God because it hurt so much. There were moments of revelation, moments of struggle, moments of anger, moments of healing. “What the hell are you doing with me?!” were words I shouted to God more than once. Through it all, God has drawn me closer, even when I wanted nothing to do with God and resisted the pull. God is faithful—even when it drives me crazy and I wish God wouldn’t be quite so faithful, God is faithful.

What do you hope to see in future generations of LDS women when they feel called to ministry?

Brittany: I hope women feel empowered to answer the call in whatever way feels best and most natural to them. Listen and trust the voice inside of you, even if it scares you. Whether that is staying in the LDS Church or finding opportunities to serve outside of the Church. I hope the LDS Church opens up more doors of ministry, but my hope is that women do not let closed doors stop them from answering God’s call.

Fatimah: My hope is that more and more women are able to live out their calls in the Church, and that the Church will grow to hold women’s calls with greater depth, expansiveness, and inclusivity. I believe in a God who can part the Red Sea and who sits with people in their greatest pain with love. I believe in a God who is a promise keeper.

Rachel: Allow yourself to feel and follow that call. Feel confident that as you are seeking God, and seeking good, that you will find comfort and joy in that journey. In the Gospel of Luke, when Mary unexpectedly found herself closest to the divine, she heard the words, “Fear not.”[3] I hope that LDS women will feel free to be as creative as they want to be, and that they will share their gifts of a passionate mind, open spirit, and loving heart. Be the voice you want to hear. God is with you.

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^[1] Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC (New York: Harper & Row, 1973), 119.

^[2] Mary Oliver, “The Messenger,” Thirst (Boston: Beacon Press, 2006).

^[3] Luke 1:30.

[post_title] => Mormon Women in the Ministry [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 53.1 (Spring 2020): 129–142
Interview with Brittany Mangelson who is a full-time minister for Community of Christ. She has a master of arts in religion from Graceland University and works as a social media seeker ministry specialist. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => mormon-women-in-the-ministry [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-04-30 15:08:43 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-04-30 15:08:43 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=25888 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

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[1]World War I was the founding disaster of the twentieth century. It began for Britain on August 4, 1914. Nobody at the time realised how serious it was going to be. Ultimately, the Great War involved many nations and their empires and resulted in over 8.5 million military deaths and between 6.6 and 13 million civilian deaths.[2] It ended empires, added to others, and redrew maps beginning in Europe. The maps redrawn in the Middle East still plague us with consequences today. About fifty million or more died from a devastatingly destructive Spanish flu epidemic, incubated in the wartime trenches in France and spread worldwide among many populations weakened by wartime conditions.[3] In sunny August in 1914, many young would-be soldiers and their families, in an explosion of patriotism all over Europe, were blind to the coming devastation and carnage of industrialized, mechanized, and chemicalized warfare. By Christmas 1914, 177,000 British soldiers had been killed, more than one thousand every day.[4] The romantic illusion of war was fading everywhere in Europe. Much worse was to come. After pursuing an initial policy of neutrality under President Wilson, the US entered the war on April 6, 1917, over one hundred years ago. Ironically, it was also Good Friday.

Response of Latter Day Saints in World War I

What of the Latter Day Saint movement that claimed to prophetically discern the times and seasons of these latter days and also boldly proclaimed that they were the restoration church? The founding heart of the restoration vision was restoring Jesus Christ to the very centre of our attention: “This is my beloved Son. Hear Him!”[5] In the Book of Mormon, Jesus taught again the Sermon on the Mount in all its uncompromising and radical love of enemies.[6] According to the story told in 4 Nephi, the Nephite people responded to the ministry of Jesus by conversion. With the love of God in their hearts, they lived for two hundred years in a form of peaceful Zion that parallels Acts 2:36–47. There is economic justice, the abolition of classes and “ites,” and the joy of strong families. This time ends with these words: “And they did smite upon the people of Jesus; but the people of Jesus did not smite again.”[7] The founding, original vision of non-violent Zion is in response to the crucified Christ, who taught and practiced the love of enemies.

So how did believers in the Book of Mormon’s message respond to World War I? For Latter Day Saints, conscientious objection (CO) would have been a faithful response to the founding vision of non-violent Zion, notwithstanding their earlier violence in Missouri, Illinois, and Utah.

David Pulsipher explains in an essay how criticism and suspicion of the war by LDS Church leaders changed after the US actually entered the war.[8] Larry Hunt in his biography of Frederick M. Smith, RLDS president from 1915 to 1946, describes Smith’s belligerent nationalism.[9] So after April 6, 1917, most American leaders of both churches urged a patriotic response to World War I by their members. This was done to gain acceptance by the wider American society. Enlisting, obeying the draft, and buying war bonds demonstrated that they were loyal Americans. The gospel of peace was displaced by American nationalism as old men sacrificed their young men for acceptance by the wider American society.

There are now known to be four British Latter Day Saint COs in WWI. Francis Henry Edwards from Birmingham was the youngest. He was apprenticed as an articled clerk, unmarried, and RLDS. It was his seventeenth birthday when Britain entered the war on August 4, 1914. He was nineteen when he was court-martialled at the Norton Army Barracks, Worcester, in December 1916 as a CO and sentenced initially to 112 days’ hard labour. Edwards served this punishment in Wormwood Scrubs prison, London before going before the central tribunal and being judged as an authentic CO. He then opted to be transferred to do work of national importance in Dartmoor Prison in Princetown—converted to a work centre for COs during WWI.

The other three conscientious objectors were all LDS. William Brad ley was thirty-five, married, a cotton spinner from Oldham, Lancashire, and secretary of the Lancashire congregation of the LDS Church. He went before the Oldham military service tribunal on July 7, 1916 and was exempted from combatant service and recommended for hospital work—work judged to be of national importance. George Snook, a clerk to an egg and butter merchant, was from Portsmouth, Hampshire, aged forty and married with three children when he was posted to Aldershot in the Non-Combatant Corps[10] on January 16, 1917. He was demobilised on April 30, 1919. Edmund Wilfrid Wheatley was a clerk to a road board in Richmond, Surrey, aged forty-two and married with five children. He followed the difficult path taken by Francis Henry Edwards. He too was court-martialled, though in Wimbledon, London, and sentenced on November 4, 1917 to two years’ hard labour. He was also sent to Wormwood Scrubs prison in London. He too came before the central tribunal and was finally adjudicated to be a genuine CO on January 4, 1918, and then sent to the Wakefield work centre in Yorkshire.[11]

More Latter Day Saint COs have come to light recently thanks in part to the tireless work of Jay Beaman, who, like Cyril Pearce in England, is compiling a database of all COs in the US and Canada. Charles Dexter Brush was twenty-eight and married with one child in 1917, RLDS and a farmer, with a fifth-grade education, living in Buffalo, Missouri.[12] British-born LDS member Albert White had migrated to Salt Lake City in 1909 at the age of eighteen. He was a conscientious objector in 1917, aged twenty-six, married with two young children.[13] George Amos Grigsby was a Canadian LDS member in Toronto and married when he called up in January 1918 and sent to France as a non-combatant.[14] In Germany there are no visible COs. Five hundred LDS men in Germany were immediately conscripted in 1914 and eventually seventy-five were killed. However, Karl Eduard Hofmann, former Social Democrat, was a reluctant soldier who had no intention of killing anyone. He was able to do medical work until he lost a leg from a lobbed grenade while tending a patient.[15] Until September 2017, there was only one known Latter Day Saint CO: RLDS F. Henry Edwards. Now, if we include Grigsby and Hoffman, there are eight, with still more perhaps to be found.[16]

Why so many British Latter Day Saint COs from small national churches? Leaders of both churches were critical of WWI before the United States entered it. Edwards, Bradley, and Snook all took their CO stand before the US entered the war on April 6, 1917, when they notionally still had the support of their American church leaders. It is important to remember that the war in Europe lasted over four years, but for the US it was over in one-and-a-half years. The hellish reality of the war was well understood by ordinary British working people. In the US, many people still had romantic ideas about the war. The WWI conscientious objection story of Francis Henry Edwards is the best known and documented at this time. It is Edwards’s story that I now want to tell, leaving competent LDS historians to work on the newly discovered British, American, German, and Canadian LDS conscientious objectors. Patrick Q. Mason, in his 2018 Mormon History Association presidential address, has already made a helpful beginning. Telling the story of F. Henry Edwards will also help others know where to begin looking for more information on the other British LDS and RLDS conscientious objectors.

The Conscientious Objection Story of Francis Henry Edwards 

Unlike continental armies in Europe and elsewhere at the time, the British Army was a volunteer force. The British Army up to this point had always been small, since the English Channel and the greatest navy in the world protected the British Isles from possible invasion. Initially there were plenty of volunteers responding to the patriotism and nationalism of WWI to supply the army, and conscription was not introduced until early 1916.

Francis Henry Edwards was a member of the Birmingham RLDS congregation. He was familiarly known as Frank. Later, he adopted F. Henry as his formal name. Frank, a serious seventeen-year-old, wrote a letter dated February 13, 1915 to his church’s international magazine, The Saints’ Herald.[17] After sharing his conviction about the church, he continued to write: “I think that in this work we cannot do too much. My fellow countrymen are making great sacrifices for their king and country, and I want to be willing to give my life, if need be, for my King, the King of kings, and for the establishment of his kingdom—to be a patriot in the great sense.”[18] In his first recorded statement of conscience, he stresses his commitment to a greater patriotism. He wrote this a year before conscription was introduced in Britain.

Edwards was born into an RLDS family in Birmingham. His father had been an inactive Mormon, or Latter-day Saint. His parents were baptised into the RLDS Church on April 6, 1883. Their church life was central to the family and shaped F. Henry as he grew up. He was baptised November 3, 1905 at the age of eight years old. He fell and broke his teeth at the age of eight or nine and did not get dentures until he was a teenager. He suffered in school and was very self-conscious about how he looked.[19] Perhaps this gave him a greater sense of empathy for others as victims. His faith included teachings about the worth of all souls in the sight of God and the kingdom of God on earth, or Zion.

The RLDS Church had an international presence in nine countries at this time and had just officially been established in Germany in 1914.[20] To consider killing a German soldier who was possibly a church member would be a grave difficulty given the close, loving fellowship enjoyed by RLDS Church members. Every communion service included a re-covenanting to keep the commandments of Jesus Christ. Love your neighbour as yourself and love your enemy could be considered such commandments. F. Henry’s motivation for being a CO is stated to be religious in his records. However, his faith included an international patriotism, and he was as strongly for economic justice as any member of the democratic socialist Independent Labour Party of his time. F. Henry grew up in a working-class home, and he had to be very careful with money later in life as well. He was always in solidarity with other working-class people. His son Paul described how he was very generous in his tips to restaurant staff and anyone doing work on his home—something he and his brother Lyman also inherited as a practice.[21]

F. Henry was called to the priesthood the next year and ordained a priest on April 27, 1916.[22] He could preach, teach, and was pastorally responsible for families. He had as much sacramental authority as a priest in the Church of England or Roman Catholic Church. However, in the tradition of his denomination, he earned his livelihood not by ministry but by employment in another job. F. Henry was an articled clerk (apprentice) in a chartered accountants’ office, training to be an accountant.

Road to Conscription in WWI Britain

The road to conscription was in stages. In July 1915, Parliament passed the National Registration Act, requiring all people between fifteen and sixty-five to be registered. This enabled the government to identify men who had not yet volunteered. Military recruiting officers then visited the homes of all men aged eighteen to forty to put pressure on them to enlist. This, however, was still not enough. On January 27, 1916, conscription was introduced in Britain through the Military Service Act. Implementation started February 3, 1916. From March 2, all unmarried men aged eighteen to forty-one could be called up for military service,[23] including F. Henry Edwards. Married men were included a few months later.[24]

There was opposition to both the National Registration Act and the Military Service Act, but people were imprisoned for speaking out or for refusing to be conscripted. Any publication that might dissuade men from joining the armed forces was liable to be seized, even biblical materials. As Leyton Richards notes, “Twenty thousand copies of the Sermon on the Mount (printed without comment as a leaflet) were ordered by a magistrate in Leeds to be destroyed as seditious literature, and their would-be distributer was committed to jail under a sentence of three months’ hard labour.”[25]

The Military Service Act contained a provision for conscientious objection, and F. Henry was one of around twenty thousand British conscientious objectors in WWI.[26] Of this number he was also one of about six thousand sent to prison.[27] Although many COs were treated quite well in civilian prisons, those in the hands of the army suffered terribly. Seventy-three British COs died either in prison or as a direct result of their incarceration. Thirty-one went insane from their treatment.[28]

In May 1916, forty-two resisting COs, later called the “Frenchmen,” were sent to France to serve in the army without first being able to tell their relatives or friends.[29] They were warned that if they continued to resist, they would be shot. Suffering intimidation, harsh treatment, and continuing threats, this group of COs did not yield. Messages arrived to family and questions were raised in Parliament by sympathetic members of Parliament. A Quaker journalist and Baptist pastor F. B. Meyer were able to investigate what was happening in France and interviewed the men. In the period of June 7–24, 1916, thirty-five of the men were tried by the field general court martial. On Thursday, June 15 on a large parade ground, the sentences of the first four were announced: “The sentence of the court is to suffer death by being shot.” Pause. “Confirmed by the Commander in Chief.” Long pause. “But subsequently commuted to penal servitude for ten years.”[30] The other thirty-one had their sentences announced in two later similar ceremonies.[31]

Facing Tribunals, Court Martial and Prison] 

So in going down the path of conscientious objection, F. Henry Edwards was not choosing an easy way. He did not know if he might be shot in France by British soldiers. First, F. Henry faced a borough council tribunal in Birmingham in order to present his case for being a conscientious objector. He was not successful in demonstrating he was genuine. Second, there was an appeal tribunal, but again F. Henry was not successful.[32]

The Military Service Act 1916, making conscription legal, was fair in its intentions about protecting the rights of sincere conscientious objectors. The implementation of the tribunal system, however, was not well done. Tribunal members were often biased against COs. Hearings were brief. The tribunals, though a form of court, usually did not have experience in following legal procedures or understanding due process. A military representative, a retired army officer or a recruitment officer, was also party to the tribunal, and his role was to argue against any CO claim and, if necessary, appeal the decision of the tribunal if CO status were granted. So, it is no surprise that F. Henry was twice refused conscientious objector status.[33] We do not know the tribunal details for F. Henry Edwards, since all records were destroyed after WWI (with the exception of the county of Middlesex).[34] We do know, however, that he chose not to yield to the tribunals’ denial of CO status but to resist. 

F. Henry was likely arrested at home in December 1916 by a local policeman. He would normally have come before a magistrate’s court and be fined forty shillings (two pounds), nearly two weeks’ wages in a working-class job. We also know that he was handed over to the army—the Worcester Regiment, 96 Training Reserve Battalion, at the Norton Army Barracks, on December 10, 1916.[35] On the same day, as a conscientious objector, he refused both to sign and submit to a medical examination to determine whether or not he was fit for service.[36] Two days later on December 12, he was charged with the offence of “disobeying a lawful command given by his superior officer.” His army records show that F. Henry’s offence was witnessed by Sergeant J. Smith and Sergeant B. Haul. He was kept in the guard room for eight days. On December 21, 1916, F. Henry was court-martialled and sentenced to 112 days’ imprisonment with hard labour (see Fig. 2).[37] The sentence was confirmed two days later, and he was committed to the Wormwood Scrubs prison in London.[38]

Prison and Afterwards: Wormwood Scrubs and Princetown

In Wormwood Scrubs prison, many prisoners sewed mail bags alone in their prison cells. With some six thousand COs in prison by mid-1916, largely because of tribunals’ arbitrary refusal of exemption, there was a scandal in Parliament and the press. This led to devising the Home Office Scheme for COs. All imprisoned COs would be specially interviewed by the central tribunal, which was originally set up under the Military Service Act as a final court of appeal for exceptional cases. This tribunal would have the discretion to decide whether a particular CO was, after all, “genuine.” For this purpose, the central tribunal would convene in Wormwood Scrubs prison (to which COs imprisoned elsewhere would be brought), and those COs found “genuine” would be offered the opportunity to perform civilian work under civilian control in specially created Home Office Scheme work centres.[39]

On January 30, 1917, Edwards appeared before the central tribunal, a panel of two: Lord Richard Cavendish and Sir Francis Gore—two aristocrats to judge whether a working-class boy from Birmingham was a genuine CO. It would have been intimidating. Edwards successfully persuaded them that he was a genuine CO.[40] One option then before F. Henry was to accept the Home Office Scheme of doing work of national importance at a work camp like Dartmoor or Wakefield. To serve the purposes of the Scheme, those two prisons had legally been decommissioned. COs had freedom to go out in the evenings and on Sundays and to wear ordinary clothes. It meant, however, continuing on the list of the army reserve. Absolutists, refusing any cooperation with the army, did not accept the Home Office Scheme and suffered repeated court-martials and imprisonment and could have a very difficult time.

Edwards, however, was not an absolutist, and he accepted the offer of the Home Office Scheme. On March 9, 1917, he was transferred for employment by the Brace Committee at the work centre in what had been His Majesty’s Prison Dartmoor but was now Princetown Work Centre.[41] The Dartmoor prison was originally set up to hold French prisoners during the Napoleonic War and then Americans during the War of 1812.[42] Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes book The Hound of the Baskervilles is set in Dartmoor and refers to the prison. At 1,430 feet and surrounded by the gloomy moor, it is a fitting, dismal place for a prison. However, for the COs, conditions were much better here than in prison. Edwards’s contribution to work “of national importance” was serving in the kitchen, making cocoa, and baking bread and fruit pies for his fellow inmates.[43] Paul Edwards, his son, said that his cocoa was awful and the fruit pies not much better, so he did not become a skilled cook during his time at Dartmoor.[44] Others moved stones out of fields, worked in a granite quarry, gardened to feed the inmates, and other tasks. Classes were available in the evenings, taught by qualified COs, after a nine-hour work day and included English, French, shorthand, logic, and many others. F. Henry was proficient in shorthand—perhaps he learned it at Dartmoor.[45] There were about one thousand COs at Dartmoor, one quarter of whom were religious, while the rest were socialist and political objectors. In some ways, it was almost a university for COs. The Bishop of Exeter, however, would not let any of the COs use the chapel. If they had been normal criminals or murderers they would have enjoyed the grace of the Church of England, but COs were rejected. There were only a few work centre warders. The COs basically ran the work centre themselves.[46]

F. Henry Edwards went to the RLDS congregation in Exeter on Sundays on a bicycle bought by the congregation.[47] It was about twenty seven miles each way, downhill going to church, uphill on the way back. The whole ride would have taken five-and-a-half to six hours. His family reported two difficulties for him during this time. On one occasion when visiting a nearby town, perhaps Plymouth, from the work centre, he and a few other conscientious objectors were apparently taunted and beaten up by some sailors in an attempt to compromise their nonviolence. He did not fight back. At another time, while out of the work centre on a pass, he was asked to leave a cinema because several people strongly objected to his presence.[48]

Support by Community, Quakers, and No-Conscription Fellowship 

Cyril Pearce describes the communal support of COs in the industrial Yorkshire town of Huddersfield.[49] In Leicester, less than an hour from Birmingham, Malcolm Elliott also tells the same story of communal resistance to the war and conscription.[50] There were over six hundred COs from Birmingham, and no doubt Edwards also found local communal support. 

On August 28, 1917, Edwards was visited by a group of Quakers in Dartmoor, and in brief notes held in the Quaker archives at Friends House in London the visitor reported dates of Edwards’s court-martial and his 112 days in Wormwood Scrubs prison. The Quakers also noted that Edwards was currently being held at Princetown, Dartmoor.[51] F. Henry’s son Lyman reported that F. Henry had said he would have been a Quaker if he had not been RLDS.[52] 

The No-Conscription Fellowship was the leading anti-conscription organization in Britain. It is likely that F. Henry had contact with the No-Conscription Fellowship.[53]

Compromised Support by the RLDS Church 

What support did Edwards’s church give him? His motivation was, after all, religious.[54] John Schofield, district president, went with Edwards to support his claim of CO status at the tribunals.[55] Edwards’s family and friends supported him, although there were issues in the Edwards’ home congregation in Birmingham. However, what did RLDS Church leaders think of the war? 

At the outbreak of the war in 1914 the RLDS First Presidency had supported US President Wilson’s positon of neutrality twice in The Saints’ Herald magazine editorials.[56] Joseph Smith III had taken the RLDS Church in a peace direction in his fifty-four-year ministry from 1860–1914.[57] The RLDS Church had members of British and German heritage in the US, and the church in Germany had officially begun in 1914. After Joseph III’s death in December 1914, Frederick M. Smith became president of the church the next year and his administration led the church through both World War I and World War II. He, like many other religious leaders, was caught up by the nationalist feelings of the time. As Sydney E. Ahlstrom wrote about the United States: “The simple fact is that religious leaders—lay and clerical, Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant—through corporate as well as personal expressions, lifted their voices in a chorus of support for the war.”[58]

Frederick M. Smith believed that if a man were conscripted he should go and do his duty. In both World Wars he was a vigorous US nationalist. He disparaged pacifists as “cowardly slackers” and would not allow them to speak their position from the pulpit.[59] His ethic about war was a nationalist ethic. This is arguably an inadequate ethic for a world war and an international church. He did not see that obeying it could result in German and British church members killing each other, but most other Christian leaders at the time did not see that as a problem either. So, from the president of the RLDS Church, Edwards would have had no moral support. Regardless, Frederick M. Smith did not articulate his position on COs until after the United States had entered the war, and by that time, Edwards was already in the Princetown Work Centre in Dartmoor. 

Back in Britain, in his home congregation in Birmingham, some members harassed the Edwards family when they sat down to worship by singing “God is marshalling his army” and adding the line, “We will have no cowards in our ranks.” This created some tension at the time.[60]

After Princetown Work Centre 

The Great War ended on November 11, 1918. Edwards was in the Princetown Work Centre, Dartmoor for around two years from March 1917 until the Home Office Work Scheme ended and the work camp was closed in April 1919.[61] He was released from the army reserve as part of

the military demobilization a year later on March 31, 1920.[62] Edwards went back to work at the accountants’ office. However, some clients did not like that he had been a conscientious objector in the war, and his employment ended. Continuing to be involved in volunteer church work, he became secretary of the RLDS British Isles Mission. Sometimes, when preaching, congregational members would walk out in protest against his CO stand. However, in the end most came to accept his ministry.[63]

RLDS Church Leader 

In April 1920, Edwards was ordained an elder and also entered general church appointment as a missionary elder in the Birmingham and London districts. Practically, he spent most of his time at St. Leonard’s, London. He supported leaders as a secretary, continued his work as British mission secretary, served as historian, and kept church statistics.

Then RLDS President Frederick M. Smith came to Britain on a long missionary visit. He needed secretarial help, and F. Henry was asked to serve. He could, after all, do shorthand. Conscientious objector Edwards and American nationalist President Frederick M. Smith met. One imagines it could have been a very awkward encounter for both of them. Edwards tells the story of how it began: “I went to his room the first time in fear and trembling, but soon found that he was kindness personified. When I ‘settled in’ a little, I even ventured a question or two. . . . For me, it was like a course in church administration.”[64]

A warm relationship developed between the two. Edwards went to the United States in September 1921 and studied at the church’s Graceland College for a year in the religious education program.[65] Then a year later, at the age of twenty-five, he was called by Frederick M. Smith to the Council of Twelve Apostles and ordained at general conference on October 13, 1922. He immediately became secretary to the Council of Twelve and served in this role until 1946.

Edwards was then called to be a president of the church and counsellor to the new Prophet-President, Israel A. Smith, until the latter’s tragic death in 1958.[66] Edwards continued this role for W. Wallace Smith, who took over as Prophet-President after the death of his brother. Edwards left the First Presidency in 1966 after serving in a very significant way as an RLDS Church leader for over forty-four years. He finally retired in 1972 after serving over fifty years in full-time church ministry. He spoke French, Spanish, and passable German.[67]

Edwards was a very able administrator and perhaps the most prolific writer in the whole Latter Day Saint movement—penning over five hundred articles and over three dozen books and texts.[68] Paul Edwards called his father “articulator for the church” and used this phrase as the title for the short biography that he wrote about him.[69] F. Henry’s last book, The Power that Worketh in Us, was published when he was over ninety years old. His writing was accessible, well-expressed, and deeply Christian. Edwards did not have a college degree, was largely self-taught, and his writing contributions, which he continued in retirement, were significant.

One of his last Saints Herald articles, published in September 1985, was titled “Let Contention Cease” and written just after the RLDS Church had made the decision to ordain women.[70] There was uproar from conservatives. Edwards was clear that he did not intend to end debate. Debate was important. However, what was also important was how the debate about this, and other issues, was carried out. Was it done in love and with mutual respect? To the end, Edwards still believed in peacemaking. 

Edwards became a US citizen with some reluctance at the beginning of World War II so he could continue to serve on the board of the church’s radio station.[71] Alexander Smith, younger brother of Frederick M. Smith, was a federal judge and enabled F. Henry to take a modified citizenship oath in a private ceremony so he would not be promising to take up arms against Britain or others. Despite losing a good friend on the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor, he objected to selling defense stamps in Sunday School.[72]

It is interesting that Edwards was careful not to go out on a limb publicly on causes like pacifism or civil rights for Blacks, although he believed strongly in both. As a minister he wanted to have long-term influence with people, to keep the door open for further conversation. It could be argued that it was a strategy with integrity.[73]

Edwards’s Korean War veteran son, Paul, summed up his dad’s stand on peace in these words: “A particular note should be taken of Frank Edwards’s lifelong advocacy for peace. But, in all fairness, it was more than that: it was the abhorrence of war. Edwards not only disagreed with the concept of war as a political tool among nations, he condemned the absurd waste of human potential and the destruction of both human life and human values as well.”[74]

Family 

In 1924, F. Henry married Alice Smith, President Smith’s daughter. Alice, a Stanford graduate, was more than equal intellectually, and her own inner strength tempered Edwards’s “in-charge” tendency. They were married for forty-nine years and had two sons, Lyman and Paul, and an adopted daughter, Ruth. Edwards was a good husband and a loving father, and both his sons speak with affection about their dad. He missed Alice terribly when she died. When his daughter, Ruth, died, he also took that very hard. Both sons affirm that F. Henry never changed his mind about the folly of war or regretted the rightness of his WWI conscientious objection stand.[75]

The Significance of F. Henry Edwards’s Stand as a Conscientious Objector 

In his book The First World War, British military historian John Keegan writes, “The First World War was a tragic and unnecessary conflict.”[76] Unnecessary because the conflict between Austria and Serbia was a local conflict and because the war could have been prevented. Tragic because more than seventeen million people died, and it set up the conflict that would result in World War II. If ever a war was unjust and stupid, it is the First World War. It was fueled by nationalisms that practiced human sacrifice on a huge, industrialized scale. Is it apostasy for patriotism to displace the gospel, for the president or prime minister to nullify the voice of Jesus, for national laws to replace the commandments of Jesus? 

So, with hindsight, F. Henry Edwards’s stand, and that of the three other British LDS conscientious objectors, looks prophetic, courageous, and righteous. He did not worship at the altar of British nationalism, nor later at the altar of American nationalism. He did not run away. He did not hide. He was upfront in his witness of resistance. It was an act of civil disobedience for which he suffered the consequences as did Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.[77] In faithfully seeking to follow the ways of Jesus, his stand was later vindicated. In Britain, more RLDS men followed Edwards in WWII as COs even though President Frederick M. Smith in the US was against this position. Perhaps Edwards, as more people learn about his story, can also inspire the growing peace mission of Community of Christ today.

The lives of F. Henry Edwards and subsequent British RLDS COs in WWII—most of whom I personally knew—also say something very important to me. They were not only against an evil, that of killing a fellow human being, they were for something more—a world where every family could live “beneath their own vine and fig tree and live in peace and unafraid.”[78] Their later years of loving, skilled, dedicated service testifies to the authenticity of their earlier witness. If they were against war it was because they were for the peaceable kingdom of God on earth, and in baptism they had given their lives fully to that. Their lives were also poems of a just spirit, lived out, incarnated. Their witness should not be dismissed. 

How are we to be COs today? I look to a day when there will be enough conscientious objectors to not only close down war as a way of solving conflicts but to abolish nuclear weapons, end climate change, poverty, racism, sexism, and injustice of all kinds. Believers in Zion can do no less. Am I willing to be a conscientious objector against evil in my day as I live for the King of kings and the kingdom? Love of country is too small a love, and that is why it is a form of idolatry. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.”[79]

---

The author would like to acknowledge: Peter Judd for finding and sharing key primary source documents on Edwards and for an unpublished essay, “RLDS Attitudes Toward World War I.” Bill Hetherington, archivist for Peace Pledge Union in London, who through an interview and lengthy emails very generously helped me understand conscientious objection in WWI Britain and helped me make important corrections. Cyril Pearce and Jay Beaman for their generosity of time, expertise, and CO databases for Britain and the US and Canada, respectively. I very much enjoyed the conversations with Paul and Lyman Edwards, sons of F. Henry Edwards. Finally, the author is grateful for the collegial sharing, encouragement, and good fellowship with LDS scholars David Pulsipher and Patrick Mason. 

[1] Before changing their name to Community of Christ in 2001, the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS Church) stylized this term as “Latter Day Saint,” while The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) stylizes it as “Latter-day Saint.” The references throughout this paper will be consistent with whichever organization is being discussed, and “Latter Day Saint” will be used when referring to both. 

[2] “Source List and Detailed Death Tolls for the Primary Megadeaths of the Twentieth Century,” Necrometrics, http://necrometrics.com/20c5m.htm#WW1. There is a consensus around 8.5 million military deaths. Civilian death estimates range from 6.6 million to 13 million depending on whether the Russian Civil War and the Armenian massacres are included.

[3] Jeffery K. Taubenberger and David M. Morens, “1918 Influenza: The Mother of All Pandemics,” Emerging Infectious Diseases 12, no. 1 (Jan. 2006): 15–22, available at https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/12/1/pdfs/05-0979.pdf. 

[4] Oliver Haslam, Refusing to Kill: Conscientious Objection and Human Rights in the First World War (London: Peace Pledge Union, 2014), 16. 

[5] Joseph Smith—History 1:17. See also The History of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, vol. 1, 1805–1835 (Independence, Mo.: Herald, 1951), 9.

[6] LDS 3 Nephi 12:19–26, 38–48; RLDS III Nephi 5:66–75, 84–92. Compare with Matthew 5:21–26, 38–48. 

[7] LDS 4 Nephi 1:34; RLDS IV Nephi 1:37. 

[8] J. David Pulsipher, “‘We do not love war, but . . .’: Mormons, the Great War, and the Crucible of Nationalism,” in American Churches and the First World War, edited by Gordon L. Heath (Eugene, Ore.: Pickwick, 2016), 129–48. 

[9] Larry E. Hunt, F. M. Smith: Saint as Reformer, vol. 2, 1874–1946 (Independence, Mo.: Herald, 1982), 438–43.

[10] The Non-Combatant Corps (NCC) was a corps of the British Army comprised of conscientious objectors. 

[11] Credit for the discovery of these three LDS conscientious objectors belongs to Cyril Pearce, a premier scholar of British World War I conscientious objectors. 

His database “CO Register VII Access 2010.mdb” was sent to me Sept. 20, 2017, and all four Latter-day Saint COs are included. As of that date he had 18,328 entries. However, Pearce continues to add to the database. An older version of Cyril Pearce’s registry is available online through Imperial War Museums. This version is now out of date by two years. It has 17,426 documented conscientious objectors and includes Francis Henry Edwards and Edmund Wilfrid Wheatley but not William Bradley or George Snook. This older public registry is available at https://search.livesofthefirstworldwar.org/search/world-records/ conscientious-objectors-register-1914-1918. 

Edmund Wilfrid Wheatley came before central tribunal with Lord Richard Cavendish and Lord Hambleden on Jan. 4, 1918. Lord Richard Cavendish was a member of the central tribunal who reviewed Francis Henry Edwards a year earlier. See the central tribunal minutes for the meeting held on Jan. 4, 1918. These minutes can be downloaded from First World War Military Service Tribunals, National Archives, http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/conscriptionappeals. See also National Archives MH-47-2-2. 

[12] Draft Registration Card for Charles Dexter Brush, form 314, no. 18. It is held under the volume label 25-32 A at the NARA (National Archives) in Morrow, Georgia, for the draft board ledger for Brush’s home county in Missouri in 1917.

[13] Patrick Q. Mason, “‘When I Think of War I Am Sick at Heart’: Latter-day Saint Non-Participation in World War I” (presidential address, Mormon History Association 53rd Annual Conference, Boise, Idaho, Jun. 9, 2018). 

[14] Jay Beaman, email to author with documents, Sept. 5, 2018.

[15] Mason, “When I Think of War,” 3, 10–11. 

[16] Arguably, Canadian George Amos Grigsby, as a non-combatant, was a CO. German Karl Eduard Hofmann did not have a legal right to be a CO in Germany, unlike Britain, Canada, and the US. He, like a number of others in the German army, were closet COs in WWI, quietly refusing to hurt anyone, and demonstrated by Hoffman in getting medical duties. 

[17] The publication was called The Saints’ Herald from 1877–1953. It changed to Saints’ Herald in 1954, then to Saints Herald in 1973. Since 2001, the publication's official name is Herald. References to the periodical throughout this paper will use the name that was in use at the time. 

[18] Francis Henry Edwards, letter to the editor, Birmingham, England, Feb. 13, 1915, published in The Saints’ Herald, May 12, 1915, 40.

[19] Paul M. Edwards, interview, Jun. 29, 2017. 

[20] Council of Twelve Apostles, “Establishing the Church in New Nations,” Official Policy, revised May 4, 2014, 11. 

[21] Paul M. Edwards, interview, Jun. 29, 2017. 

[22] Summary in F. Henry Edwards’s biographical file in Community of Christ Archives, Independence, Mo. See also Paul M. Edwards, Articulator for the Church (Independence, Mo.: Herald, 1995), 17.

[23] In American English, drafted. However, the US term “drafted” is never used in Britain. Bill Hetherington, Peace Pledge Union Archives, email to author, Jun. 20, 2017. 

[24] This paragraph draws from Haslam, Refusing to Kill, 21–27. 

[25] Leyton Richards, The Christian’s Alternative to War, 4th ed. (London: SCM, 1930), 89. 

[26] The online Cyril Pearce registry hosted on the Imperial War Museums’ “Lives of the First World War” has 17,426 documented conscientious objectors, including F. Henry Edwards; see https://search.livesofthefirstworldwar.org/search/world-records/conscientious-objectors-register-1914-1918. Note that access to the full records requires creating a free account. Bill Hetherington, interview, Mar. 13, 2017. He estimates that there are around twenty thousand COs altogether.

[27] Haslam, Refusing to Kill, 38. 

[28] David Boulton, Objection Overruled: Conscription and Conscience in the First World War (Hobsons Farm, Dent, Cumbria: Dales Historical Monographs, 2014), 11. See page 266 for a list of names of the seventy-three who died. For a longer discussion of those who went insane, see page 258.

[29] Earlier, Bill Hetherington had estimated fifty in this group. Since then he has been able to identify by name all the “Frenchmen” and he is satisfied the number was exactly forty-two (email to author, Jun. 20, 2017).

[30] Felicity Goodall, A Question of Conscience: Conscientious Objection in the Two World Wars (Stroud, Gloucestershire: Sutton, 1997), chap. 3.

[31] Bill Hetherington, email to author, Jun. 20, 2017 

[32] Bill Hetherington, interview, Mar. 13, 2017. After the war, tribunal records were destroyed for the sake of space. Tribunal records for Middlesex (the county west of London) were kept in order to demonstrate how the system worked. So, while F. Henry Edwards’s tribunal records are not available, the system that he went through is well understood.

[33] Haslam, Refusing to Kill, chap. 3. 

[34] Bill Hetherington, interview, Mar. 13, 2017. 

[35] “New Soldier’s Record,” Francis Henry Edwards 17120: Record of Service, 3. I am grateful to Peter Judd for finding this on the internet: http://www.greatwar. co.uk/research/military-records/british-soldiers-ww1-service-records.htm. 

[36] Ibid. See also Francis Henry Edwards’s records (specifically, the war service comments) in the Conscientious Objectors Register, 1914–1918, hosted by the Imperial War Museums, https://search.livesofthefirstworldwar.org/search/ world-records/conscientious-objectors-register-1914-1918. 

[37] “New Soldier’s Record,” Regimental Conduct Sheet, 7. 

[38] “New Soldier’s Record,” Statement of the Service of No. 17120, 9.

[39] Bill Hetherington, email to author, Jun. 20, 2017. I am grateful to Bill Hetherington for this paragraph.

[40] See the central tribunal minutes for the meeting held on Jan. 30, 1917. These minutes can be downloaded from First World War Military Service Tribunals, National Archives, http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/conscription-appeals. See also National Archives MH-47-1-3. 

[41] “New Soldier’s Record,” Statement of the Service of No. 17120, 9. 

[42] Wikipedia, s.v. “Princetown,” last modified Apr. 4, 2018, https://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/Princetown.

[43] Edwards, Articulator for the Church, 17. 

[44] Paul M. Edwards, interview, Jun. 29, 2017. 

[45] Felicity Goodall, A Question of Conscience, 48. 

[46] Ibid., 44. 

[47] I heard this from Frank Wilson, an eighty-four-year-old church member with whom I stayed as an RLDS missionary in 1977. 

[48] Keith Allen, interview, Mar. 4, 2017. Paul M. Edwards told me about the cinema story in an interview in Aug. 1997. 

[49] Cyril Pearce, Comrades in Conscience: The Story of an English Community’s Opposition to the Great War (London: Francis Boutie, 2001). 

[50] Malcolm Elliott, “Opposition to the First World War: The Fate of Conscientious Objectors in Leicester,” Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society 77 (2003): 82–92. 

[51] David Irwin, email to author, Mar. 2, 2017. Case No. 3610 held in the Visitation of Prisoners Committee files (YM/MfS/VPC, box 3, file 4) at Library of the Religious Society of Friends, Friends House, 173–77 Euston Road, London NW1 2BJ. 

[52] Lyman Edwards, interview, Jul. 3, 2017. 

[53] Conscientious Objectors Report LXII, Jan. 5, 1917 (Information Bureau, 6, John Street, Adelphi, London, WO). This was a publication of the No-Conscription Fellowship. Edwards is reported as one of nine arrested from Birmingham.

[54] See the Conscientious Objectors Register, 1914–1918, hosted by the Imperial War Museums, https://search.livesofthefirstworldwar.org/search/world-records/ conscientious-objectors-register-1914-1918. 

[55] Franklin Schofield told me this story about F. Henry and his father, John Schofield, in the early 1990s. 

[56] “Neutrality Enjoined,” The Saints’ Herald 61, no. 37, Sept. 16, 1914, 873; “Caution Enjoined—A Second Warning,” The Saints’ Herald 61, no. 45, Nov. 11, 1914, 1065. 

[57] Lachlan Mackay, “A Peace Gene Isolated: Joseph Smith III,” John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 35, no. 1 (Spring/Summer 2015): 1–17. This is a good overview of Joseph Smith III’s peace direction.

[58] Sydney E. Ahlstrom, A Religious History of the American People (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1972), 884. 

[59] Frederick M. Smith was a strident nationalist in World War I like many other leaders and members in other denominations in this period. At the outbreak of World War II, Frederick M. Smith’s editorial “Our Attitude to War” (The Saints’ Herald 86, Nov. 18, 1939, 1443) argues an ethic of obeying the law of the land in terms of conscription. He also argued against conscientious objection in this editorial and other writings. Peter A. Judd in an unpublished essay, “RLDS Attitudes Toward World War I” (Saint Paul School of Theology, Feb. 24, 1975) describes well the change within the US church from “a position of strict neutrality in 1914 to a position of unqualified support for the United States and allied nations by 1918” (9). For a good overview of Frederick M. Smith’s nationalist attitudes from WWI to WWII, see Hunt, F. M. Smith: Saint as Reformer, 438–48.

[60] Ida Dix of the Leicester congregation told me about this trouble in the Birmingham congregation around 1996. She was a girl at the end of World War I. The hymn was by Joseph Woodward. 

[61] Bill Hetherington, interview, Mar. 13, 2017. 

[62] “New Soldier’s Record,” Statement of the Service of No. 17120, 9.

[63] Edwards, Articulator for the Church, 18.

[64] Naomi Russell, “Sixty-nine Years of Ministry,” Saints Herald 132, no. 15, Sept. 1985, 384. 

[65] F. H. Edwards’s naturalization card. 

[66] The First Presidency of Community of Christ consists of three people, the Prophet-President of the church and two counsellors or assistants. Each is called a president and it is together that they have authority to preside over the church. So, F. Henry Edwards was not the Prophet-President but a counsellor to the Prophet-President. 

[67] Paul M. Edwards, interview, Jun. 29, 2017. 

[68] Edwards, Articulator for the Church, 88–123. Paul lists here F. Henry Edwards’s books and articles. 

[69] Ibid., 85.

[70] F. Henry Edwards, “Let Contention Cease,” Saints Herald 132, no. 15, Sept. 1985, 381–83. 

[71] According to his naturalization card, Edwards became a naturalized citizen on Dec. 19, 1938. 

[72] Paul M. Edwards, interview, Jun. 29, 2017. 

[73] Ibid. Lyman Edwards, interview, Jul. 3, 2017. Lyman Edwards stated that his dad was not obsessive about his conscientious objector stand but was comfortable in what he had done.

[74] Edwards, Articulator for the Church, 44. 

[75] Paul M. Edwards, interview, Jun. 29, 2017 and Lyman Edwards, interview, Jul. 3, 2017. Phil Caswell told me that F. Henry had told Clifford Cole that he had revised his view of conscientious objection, but this is contradicted by Paul and Lyman. Phillip Caswell, interview, May 22, 2017.

[76] John Keegan, The First World War (London: Hutchinson/Random House, 1998), 3.

[77] Henry Thoreau in his essay on Resistance to Civil Government (Civil Disobedience), published in 1849, described his act of refusing to pay a war tax during the Mexican-American War, 1846–1848. He opposed the slavery implications of this war and was imprisoned for this act of civil disobedience. This essay was a very important influence on Mohandas K. Gandhi and his non-violent resistance campaigns in South Africa and later in India. It is important to remember that Gandhi was a lawyer who respected law, but drew the important distinction between civil disobedience and criminal disobedience. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Letter from Birmingham Jail, written Apr. 16, 1963 also articulates the moral responsibility to non-violently break unjust laws that were defending racism and segregation. Both Gandhi and King suffered imprisonment for their civil disobedience. British Latter Day Saint conscientious objectors like Edwards, Bradley, Snook and Wheatley were also acting in this tradition of civil disobedience—by refusing to be conscripted and thus refusing to kill in war.

[78] Song based on Micah 4:4. 

[79] John 3:16 NRSV.

[post_title] => British Latter Day Saint Conscientious Objectors in World War I [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 51.4 (Winter 2018): 49–76
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Most scholars of Mormonism focus on The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah and currently presided over by Thomas S. Monson. However, according to Massimo Introvigne, a specialist in new religious movements, “six historical branches”[1] of Mormonism developed after the death of the founder, Joseph Smith, in 1844: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints led by Brigham Young; the Reorganized Church/Community of Christ; the Church of Christ (Temple Lot); the Church of Jesus Christ organized around the leadership of William Bickerton (1815–1905); the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints that accepted James J. Strang (1813–1856) as prophet and king; and the Church of Jesus Christ that followed the leadership of Alpheus Cutler (1784–1864). I like to refer to these denominations as the “six historical Mormonisms.”[2]

As Mark Lyman Staker has shown, the terms “Mormons,” “Mormonites,” and “Mormonism” originally referred to believers in the Book of Mormon and their religion.[3] I thus argue that Mormonism exists wherever there is belief in the Book of Mormon, even though many adherents reject the term “Mormonism” to distance themselves from the LDS Church headquartered in Salt Lake City. 

The plural term “Mormonisms” may have been used for the first time by Grant Underwood in 1986.[4] Since then, it has been used by sociologist Danny Jorgensen in a 1995 article on Cutlerite Mormonism[5] (following discussion with Jacob Neusner, a scholar of “Judaisms”[6]), by David Howlett in his 2014 book on the Kirtland Temple,[7] and by Chris tine Elyse Blythe and Christopher Blythe, who are editing a forthcoming book on Mormonisms.[8] My interest in the various denominations claim ing Joseph Smith as their founder came after I read Steven L. Shields’s groundbreaking book Divergent Paths of the Restoration.[9] I first used the term “Mormonisms” in 2008, while writing my master’s dissertation under the direction of Professor Jean-Paul Willaime, a sociologist of Protestantisms. Taking into account the plurality in Mormonism, I simply pluralized “Mormonism” as my professor pluralized “Protestantism.” 

This paper focuses on the Community of Christ (hereafter referred to as “CoC”), known as the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Days Saints (hereafter referred to as “RLDS Church”) prior to 2001. Headquartered in Independence, Missouri, the CoC has nearly 200,000 members worldwide and is the second largest movement whose roots go back to Joseph Smith. I argue that the CoC today is an American progressive Christianity with Mormonism as an option. 

Research on the RLDS Church/CoC has been fruitful, though not as prolific as research on the mainstream LDS Church. Whereas nineteenth-century RLDS history tended to be defensive against other Mormonisms, especially toward the LDS Church,[10] since the 1950s it has opened itself to a more neutral academic approach, with groundbreaking studies such as Robert Flanders’s book on Nauvoo,[11] Roger Launius’s non-hagiographic biography of Joseph Smith III,[12] and the sociological studies of Danny Jorgensen.[13] The work of Richard Howard should also be mentioned, as he was the first professionally trained RLDS Church historian.[14] Mark Scherer succeeded Howard in 1994 and continued until 2016. Scherer’s three volumes on RLDS/CoC stand among the must-read books in Mormon studies because of their clarity and use of archival material, and Scherer’s research on RLDS/CoC globalization and its most recent history is groundbreaking.[15] Furthermore, the John Whitmer Historical Association, founded in 1972, publishes historical research on the RLDS/CoC by authors from diverse backgrounds (academics, amateur historians, and institutional historians that some might sometimes consider as apologetics). 

This paper is based on historical and sociological research grounded in observations made during several field research trips between 2009 and 2013 in Independence, Kenya, Malawi, Haiti, France, Germany, England, and The Netherlands (while working as a translator for the CoC), the consultation of historical resources (both primary and secondary sources) at the CoC library and archives in Independence, Missouri, as well as a survey distributed to the Colonial Hills congregation (in Blue Springs, Missouri, near the Independence headquarters) on October 12, 2010.

CoC leadership does not seem to consider academic studies to a significant extent. Thus, the works of scholars Roger Launius and Danny Jorgensen on the impact of the liberalization of the RLDS Church on the membership and its decline have been largely disregarded by the RLDS/CoC leadership. This shows that a religious institution does not have to be conservative to be somewhat anti-intellectual (or at least indifferent); a liberal religious institution can be too. In the case of CoC, one might wonder if this is not due to Mormonism’s original populist theology. Even though I think religious institutions should benefit from faith-promoting and apologetic history, they should also take advantage of critical studies and observations from social scientists, and I would argue that the CoC’s lack of doing so might also partly explain its current decline.

This article intends to show the theological evolution of the RLDS Church/Community of Christ in the larger US religious culture and under the direction of American leadership. The CoC has gone through three stages: first, it became a moderate, apophatic, and respectable Mormonism, then it evolved toward liberal Protestantism following World War II, and today it could be defined as an American progressive Christianity with Mormonism as an option. Because my paper is not apologetic, I want to make it clear that I do not give positive or negative meaning to words such as “liberal,” “conservative,” “progressive,” or “fundamentalist.” I use these words as a social scientist, not to judge or as a form of name-calling, but to describe what I observe. 

A Moderate, Apophatic, and Respectable Mormonism in Modern America 

Following Joseph Smith’s death in 1844, many charismatic leaders claimed the right to succession. But even though most Mormons were attracted by one of the charismatic leaders claiming to be the true successor of the founding prophet, some Mormons remained unconvinced or unsatisfied by those leaders.

Such was the case with Jason Briggs (1821–1899), pastor of the Mormon congregation in Beloit, Wisconsin. The Beloit congregation joined with other congregations and founded the New Organization in June 1852. In 1860, Joseph Smith III (1832–1914), son of the founding prophet, finally accepted the leadership of the New Organization, which became the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS Church) in 1872. 

The RLDS Church claimed to be the one true Mormonism, faithful to Joseph Smith and early Mormonism. Thus, it believed in the Bible, the Book of Mormon, and the Doctrine and Covenants. Early on, the RLDS Church rejected polygamy, arguing that Joseph Smith never practiced nor taught it, but that the apostate Brigham Young was its innovator. It was also the proud owner of the Kirtland Temple. The RLDS Church’s chief argument for being the one true Mormon church was its being led by a descendent of Joseph Smith; thus, Frederick M. Smith (1874–1946) succeeded his father Joseph Smith III as RLDS Church president-prophet in 1860, followed by his brother Israel A. Smith (1876–1958) in 1946.[16]

From its birth in 1860 up to World War II, the RLDS Church could, then, in fact, be described as a moderate, apophatic, and respectable Mormonism in modern America. Historian Alma Blair called the RLDS Church a “moderate Mormonism” in a 1979 article, arguing that it did not endorse the most radical theological innovations of early Mormonism such as the secret temple rituals, the plurality of gods, and the plurality of wives.[17] Methodist theologian W. Paul Jones later argued that the RLDS Church was an “apophatic” denomination that tended to define itself by what it was not: it was “not Mormon” (for fear of confusion with the Utah Mormons) and it was “not Protestant” (considering itself not as a part of the Reformation, but as a restoration of the primitive Christian church).[18] And as a respectable Mormonism in modern America, the RLDS Church did not try very hard to flee away from modernity by building God’s kingdom on earth, as sociologist Danny Jorgensen has shown.[19] Even though Church leaders have for a time encouraged the “gathering” of Church converts to Independence, Missouri from North America, Europe, Australia, and French Polynesia in Zion, the RLDS Church did not create a separate, politically-organized community, as did followers of Brigham Young in the Rocky Mountains and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints led by James J. Strang on Beaver Island, Michigan. RLDS Mormonism was very much integrated into US society from its inception. As such, it consistently denounced polygamy, as historian Roger Launius has shown, and even collaborated with US officials in its fight against plural marriage in Brigham Young’s Rocky Mountain theocracy.[20]

The Post-Second World War Internationalization and Liberal Protestantization of the RLDS Church 

Three essential aspects define liberal Protestantism: a critical, non literalist reading of the Bible that began with nineteenth-century higher criticism;[21] a refusal of timeless and universal creeds and dogmas coupled with a desire to adapt theology to its contemporary world;[22] and a positive outlook on humanity and the world.[23]

While sociologists may draw a distinction between liberal Protestant ism and fundamentalist/conservative Protestantism,[24] theologians and believers might argue that such a dichotomy does not describe the more complex reality of Protestantisms. Thus, Protestant neo-orthodoxy tends to accept higher criticism while being somewhat faithful to traditional Christian dogmas such as the Trinity and the incarnation.[25] Historian and sociologist David Hollinger distinguishes between ecumenical Protestantism and evangelical Protestantism.[26] Hollinger underlines how American mainline Protestantism’s encounter with diversity triggered “the intensity and range of the self-critique carried out by the intellectual leadership of mainstream liberal Protestantism during the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s.”[27] As part of this self-critique, Methodist missionary Ralph E. Dodge argued in his 1964 book The Unpopular Missionary that “missions had been too closely connected to colonialism and had tried to impose on indigenous peoples denominational distinctions that made no sense abroad.”[28] The same call to cease imposing “denominational distinctions” abroad was voiced by some RLDS Church leaders after the Second World War, as Matthew Bolton has shown.[29]

Prior to World War II, the RLDS Church had a small presence in only a few countries outside the United States, such as Canada, Australia, French Polynesia, and Great Britain. The RLDS Church was indeed a Midwestern denomination: it had built an auditorium as its headquarters in Independence, Missouri and established Graceland College in Lamoni, Iowa. Like other American denominations, the RLDS Church often took root where US military bases were built following the war. Thus, the moderate Midwestern Mormonism established itself in Japan, South Korea, and South America. But as the RLDS Church grew outside of the Mormon promised land, it also progressively lost core aspects of its particular, moderate Mormon identity. Some RLDS apostles, such as Charles Neff (1922–1991) and Clifford Cole (1915–2004), argued that the Reorganized Church’s theology was too American and could not be understand across cultures. According to Neff, Japanese people not accustomed to Christianity could not understand the differences between the many Christian denominations, on the one hand, and between the Mormon denominations, on the other. It was difficult for them to grasp that the Reorganized Church was neither Catholic nor Protestant, and not even Utah Mormon. The Apostle concluded that only a simple Christianity, without the particularities of the RLDS branch of Mormonism, must be promoted by the institution during its missionary endeavors. A 1965 survey conducted by the Church leadership among 225 Church employees came to the same conclusion. The institution thus decided to define its objectives and theology more clearly. At the First Presidency’s request, apostles wrote a statement on objectives that was presented in the 1966 world conference. The first objective called for a definition of a clear theology that might unite Church members from different cultures. The second objective asked for the adaptation of Church practices to individual cultural practices. The next objective called for a decentralization of Church administration. Finally, the last objective reinterpreted Zion as being the kingdom of God among all nations, and not only in Missouri.[30]

In order to respond to those objectives, especially the first one (definition of a clear theology), Church leaders and employees from the Department of Religious Education decided to gain some academic theological training from Saint Paul School of Theology, a Methodist school, between March and December 1967. Some members from the Department of Religious Education had already received serious academic training in religious studies. For example, Verne Sparks studied at the Union Theological Seminary (New York), a liberal Protestant academic institution where liberal Protestant theologian Paul Tillich (1886–1965) taught.[31]

Following courses at Saint Paul and/or graduating from other Protestant seminaries, RLDS leaders then tended to focus on traditional Christian dogmas and to apply Protestant scholarship and theology to their particular tradition, as one can see in the works of RLDS theologians Harold Schneebeck and Roy Cheville. After gaining a bachelor of divinity degree from Union Theological Seminary, Schneebeck taught religion at Graceland College. In his book The Body of Christ,[32] Schneebeck presents an ecclesiology that might be considered somewhat Protestant, defining the Church not as an institution but as a community: “the Church is unified, not by institutional structure but by the experience of the presence of Christ’s Spirit in the common life of the fellowship.”[33]

Whereas Joseph Smith defined the Mormon Church as the sole salvific institution, Schneebeck presents the Church as a community of believers. As Schneebeck emphasizes, since this community is founded on the memory of Christ as a servant, its members should also be servants,[34] working for justice and peace.[35] Schneebeck did not consider the RLDS Church to be the only true church, and his theology promotes ecumenism: “Our mission as disciples of Jesus Christ is to work in the world for its redemption. . . . To effectively attain this goal, we are becoming aware of the need for cooperation with other Christian groups, the necessity of ecumenical cooperation.”[36] Thus, Schneebeck invited the RLDS Church to work toward the betterment of the world alongside “other Christian groups.” This echoes the positive vision of humanity promoted by Protestant liberal theology. 

Schneebeck was not the only RLDS educator whose theology seemed to have been influenced by (liberal) Protestant theology. Roy Cheville, a convert to the RLDS faith, got a PhD in religion from the University of Chicago Divinity School and wrote a book published by the RLDS Church entitled The Field of Theology.[37] Cheville argues that a “worthful theology must be up to date. It may not cling to the words and concepts of yesterday if these do not speak the language of today.”[38] Cheville here echoes Protestant liberalism and its intent to adapt theology to the contemporary world. 

The First Presidency’s foreword to the book Exploring the Faith, first published in 1970 to present RLDS beliefs, is a good summary of the liberal Protestantization of the RLDS Church: “In more recent times it has been recognized that a more adequate statement of the beliefs of the church should be developed. Historical and traditional points of view needed to be expanded in view of the contemporary religious experience and scholarship. Recognizing that the understanding of religious experience is always qualified by the human nature of those involved, the church has traditionally avoided creedal statements.”[39] In openly saying that RLDS theology was reviewed in light of the contemporary world and that no creedal statements would be presented, the RLDS First Presidency follows the trend of liberal Protestantism, which is adogmatic and adapts itself to the contemporary world.

As the RLDS Church was distancing itself from its Mormon roots and engaging with mainline American Protestantism, some big changes happened. In 1984, president-prophet Wallace B. Smith (great-grandson of Joseph Smith) gave a revelation to the Church, adding to its Doctrine and Covenants and opening the priesthood to women. The most conservative members—who refer to themselves as “Restorationists”—could take no more, and thousands left the RLDS Church or were excluded from it.[40] The liberalization of the Church thus had an impact on its membership. Sociological studies have shown that conservative churches tend to experience membership increases while liberal denominations tend to lose members.[41] In a study published in 1998 in the John Whitmer Historical Association Journal, George Walton showed the decline experienced by the RLDS Church in terms of membership, financial resources, and numbers of individuals ordained to the priesthood that “point to a loss of about one-half of the active membership in North America in the last fifteen years.”[42] Since 1951, the number of baptisms has been declining in North America (US and Canada): there were an average of 4,877 baptisms between 1951 and 1965; 3,785 between 1966 and 1980; and 2,375 between 1981 and 1995. This membership decrease is not only due to a lack of baptisms, but also to a growing disaffection in North America: the RLDS Church experienced an average of 294 disaffections per year between 1951 and 1965; 335 average per year between 1966 and 1980; and 578 average per year between 1981 and 1995.

The decline of membership in North America has had an impact on the financial resources of the institution as “the general fund went from a regular surplus before 1983 to mostly deficit since.”[43] The diminishing of financial resources seems to have continued until today, as it has led to the sale of historic properties in Missouri to the LDS Church,[44] to the sale of the Book of Mormon printer’s manuscript for 35 million dollars to the LDS Church, and to numerous lay-offs of employees in recent years. 

This loss of financial resources and members did not stop the RLDS Church from carrying on with its liberalization. The institution was actually able to carry on more freely with changes, as it was free from its most conservative members. In 1996, Canadian W. Grant McMurray became the first president-prophet of the RLDS Church who is not a descendant of Joseph Smith. Thus, one of the RLDS founding principles and identity markers, hereditary succession to the Church presidency, was given up. Under W. Grant McMurray’s leadership, the RLDS Church became the Community of Christ, thereby somewhat increasing the gap between them and “Latter Day Saintism” (Mormonism). McMurray resigned from the presidency in 1996 and was succeeded by Stephen M. Veazey, who serves today. During Veazey’s presidency, the CoC became part of the National Council of Churches, a US ecumenical Christian organization largely composed of mainline and liberal progressive Protestantisms. As the ecumenical CoC was radically departing from exclusivist Mormonism, it was thus also bringing itself nearer toward progressive Protestantism. 

American Progressive Christianity with Mormonism as an Option 

American progressive Christianity finds its roots in the social gospel movement that was part of the larger progressive movement.”[45] Between 1896 and 1916, the Progressive movement flourished as a reaction to US industrialization and urbanization. Journalists and writers denounced social and economic misery, both rural and urban, often seeing it as a consequence of capitalism.[46] The Progressive ideology had some influence on both the Democratic and Republican parties, and a Progressive Party even shortly appeared in 1912 and 1924.[47] The Progressive ideology also had some influence on American Christianity, through the proclaiming of the social gospel. Finding its roots in the abolitionist movement and in diverse socialist movements, the social gospel movement was motivated by the establishment of the kingdom of God through social reform.[48] At the beginning of the twenty-first century, progressive Christianity reappeared in the US as the “Christian left,” partly in reaction to the conservative Christian right.[49] Progressive Christianity focuses on peace and justice issues such as women’s rights, ecology, and abolishing poverty. As a particular brand of American Christianity, progressive Christianity is trans-theological and trans-denominational: progressive Christians are present among liberal, neo-orthodox, and evangelical denominations.

In the Community of Christ, progressive Christianity is mostly expressed by neo-orthodox theologians, whereas in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, liberal theologians—such as process theology specialist Bob Mesle[50]—had much more influence. For example, American theologian Tony Chvala-Smith is CoC scripture and theology consultant. A graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary (Presbyterian) and Marquette University (Jesuit), Chvala-Smith is an assistant professor of theology and scripture at the Community of Christ Seminary (at Graceland University’s Independence campus). His book Understanding the Way: Exploring Our Christian Faith reflects Protestant neo-orthodoxy as it “echoes” the work of theologians like Karl Barth and Daniel Migliore.[51] Reflecting Protestant neo-orthodoxy, Chvala-Smith’s theology is very much bound to the Bible:

The church keeps grounded in revelation through the witness of the Bible. Apart from the Bible we would know little of the sacred story and have little access to the knowledge of God. For the church, then, Scripture [with a capital s] is indispensable. . . . We sometimes call the Bible the “canon.” The word comes from a Greek term for a “yardstick.” To speak of the Bible as canon means that we use these texts to measure how faithfully we are walking in the Way.[52]

Even though Chvala-Smith briefly mentions the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants as scripture[53] (without a capital s), in this passage he only considers the Bible as being the “canon.” The recent “Reliable Tools for Serious Scripture Study”[54] presents a list of scripture resources offered by Tony Chvala-Smith and Charmaine Chvala-Smith in order to facilitate CoC individual and congregational use of scripture. Scriptural resources listed solely focus on the Bible, almost only from an American Protestant perspective. A mainline Protestant use of the Bible seems to be upheld by Chvala-Smith as he insists on the importance of scripture—focusing mostly on the Bible—while refusing the fundamentalist principle of scriptural inerrancy: “The claim that scripture is inerrant (without any kind of error) has never had place in Community of Christ. . . . Sound interpretation therefore requires both scholarship and faith.”[55]

Among the forty-nine CoC respondents to the survey I conducted during my PhD research, eighteen answered that the authority of the Church lies mostly in the Bible and personal revelations or those of other individuals, whereas ten answered that it lies mostly in the Bible and Church leaders. As in Protestantism, individual reading of the Bible seems here to take precedence. Only ten respondents considered the Book of Mormon as one of the two primary sources of authority. To the question “Do you believe in the Bible literally?” forty respondents answered “no,” while only six answered “yes” (three did not answer the question). 

Community of Christ theology reflects other traditional Protestant dogmas such as the Trinity. It is thus not surprising that forty-seven respondents to the survey answered “yes” to the question “Do you believe in the Trinity?” (one answered “no” and one did not answer).

While CoC progressive Christianity could be considered Protestant due to its emphasis on the Bible (sola scriptura), it likewise stresses the importance of grace (sola gratia). CoC’s first enduring principle states: “God’s grace, especially as revealed in Jesus Christ, is generous and unconditional.”[56] One respondent to our survey (female, aged 51–70, ordained to the priesthood) mentioned grace as she answered the question “Why are you a member of the Church?”: “I believe in the Grace of God and his acceptance of us all.” 

CoC theology is also progressive due to its emphasis on peace and justice. Its Basic Beliefs proclaim the reign of God as “the coming triumph of love, justice, mercy, and peace that one day will embrace all of creation.”[57] In 2010, President Stephen M. Veazey presented to the institution its five “Mission Initiatives,” among which are “Abolish Poverty, End Suffering,” and “Pursue Peace on Earth.” Progressive theology is also reflected in the CoC’s “peace theology” embodied in the Independence Temple, consecrated in 1994. The Independence Temple serves as CoC headquarters and is considered by the institution as a symbol of peace open to all. A ten-minute daily prayer for peace takes place in its sanctuary.

CoC promotes progressive Christianity through various organizations such as the National Council of Churches in the USA (NCC) and Sojourners. The NCC often lobbies in the United States on issues such as war, immigration, gun control, and poverty. On November 17, 2016, the NCC issued a call to the president-elect Donald Trump, stating: “Now is the time for Mr. Trump to cease employing racist, misogynist, and xenophobic rhetoric. Great responsibilities rest on his shoulders.”[58] Sojourners is a progressive Christian organization founded in 1971 by progressive evangelical author and activist Jim Wallis. In a study on the Christian Left, sociologist Charles Hall defines Sojourners’ mission: 

Eschatologically, Sojourners envision an ideal world where social structures and institutions will no longer be necessary—a complete destruction of the old order, characteristic of transformative movements. Beyond the apocalyptic rhetoric, however, is a more practical goal of reforming existing political and ecclesiastical structures a characteristic of reformative movements. Sojourners also emphasize the conversion of individuals. The need for spiritual conversion and a personal identification with Jesus are prerequisites for social and political change. This reflects the movement’s evangelical roots.[59]

In 2006, Sojourners issued the document “Covenant for a New America.” Quoting from Old Testament prophetic books, the document calls America to strive for the abolition of poverty, arguing that military conflicts in the world distract the US from real social issues. The Community of Christ signed the document, along with other US progressive denominations and organizations such as Evangelicals for Social Action, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Protestants for the Common Good, the Presbyterian Church (USA), and the United Methodist Church. 

Even though the CoC promotes progressive Christianity through its publications and its mission initiatives, not all members seem to agree with that particular brand of Christianity, and CoC is what Jean Paul Willaime defines as a “pluralistic church”[60] having yet no official creed. Thus, even though CoC top leadership reflects progressive neo-orthodox Protestantism—with emphasis on such traditional Christian dogmas such as the Trinity[61]—other theologies can be found within its membership.

Pluralism is also present in the diverse acceptance of the Book of Mormon among the membership. The CoC First Presidency stated during the 2007 world conference that “belief in the Book for Mormon is not to be used as a test of fellowship or membership in the church.”[62] Thus, the Book of Mormon is only optional in the CoC. Currently, official Church publications barely refer to it. Even though it is used somewhat in congregations of some of the first countries where the RLDS Church was established (US, Canada, French Polynesia), it is almost never mentioned in other countries. 

The Book of Mormon tends to not be used by CoC membership and leadership in Africa, Haiti, and South America. As many Community of Christ members and local leaders in those countries consider themselves Evangelical or Pentecostal Protestants, they tend to have a conservative interpretation of the Bible alone. Thus, progressive Protestantism also seems to be optional in the pluralistic Community of Christ. Whereas Communities of Christ in the US, Australia, and Canada mostly support gay marriage and ordination in the name of a theology of peace and justice—following the trend of current American progressive the ology—Community of Christ practitioners in South America, Africa, and Haiti tend to strongly oppose it. 

How, then, can the institution unite members who are not bound by a common creed, common scriptures, a common ethics, or even a common history?[63] Like other mainline and liberal Protestantisms and Christianities, the Community of Christ strives at uniting its diverse membership through rituals. Sociologist Steve Bruce writes about how the revival of rituals helps to unify a diverse membership lacking common identity in some parts of ecumenical liberal Christianity: 

It is interesting that the rise of liberalism and ecumenism has also been accompanied in places by a revival of interest in liturgy. The last days of the SCM [British and American Student Christian Movement], when its relativistic impulses had to be taken to the logical conclusion of having no restriction of membership, were accompanied by a revived interest in worship. The Wick Court commune, which housed the central office and conference centre, had a small bare room set aside as a chapel, and adorned, I recall, with only a Celtic cross. Two staff members wrote an “Order Book” before going off to join a single-minded religious community (another example of bridge-building defection). For an organization that was almost devoid of shared ideology, there was a considerable interest in shared acts of worship. There was also an interest in reinventing “traditional” forms of worship. There were even “services” with parts in Latin. The value of this renewed interest in archaic, if ersatz, forms of liturgy seems to have been that it allowed participants to avoid recognizing and confronting their lack of consensus. The rediscovery of Celtic Christianity allowed young Protestants and Catholics to overlook the Reformation and to ignore the fact that, if they believed anything at all, they believed different things. Similarly, the avoidance of the vernacular allowed them to evade the problem of stating clearly, in a language they could all understand, what it was they believed. To have faced that would have been to discover that there was little or nothing shared.[64]

Such a phenomenon is observable in the ecumenical Community of Christ. The institution emphasizes the importance of its eight sacraments (baptism, confirmation, communion, laying on of hands for the sick, marriage, blessing of children, ordination, and evangelist blessing). According to CoC apostle emeritus Andrew Bolton, these sacraments are the “international language of the Church” binding its diverse membership through common rituals.[65] As part of mainline/traditional US Christianity, Community of Christ uses a lectionary for its Sunday worship, based on the Revised Common Lectionary conceived by US mainline Protestant churches and translated into French and Spanish for non-English-speaking CoC members. Following a current American ecumenical Protestant trend,[66] Community of Christ leaders encourage members to be involved in “ancient spiritual practices” such as the lectio divina, the practice of scripture reading, meditation, and prayer. 

An American Identity Despite a Promoted Multiculturalism (Exoticism?) 

As records show, CoC membership in the Western world is currently still on the decline.[67] The British Isles Mission Centre counted 1,318 members in 2007 and 1,274 in 2016. The Western Europe Mission Center numbered 864 members in 2009 and 817 in 2016. In the Central USA Mission Center, where the headquarters of the institution are located, membership declined from 15,299 (2009) to 14,608 (2016). Despite these declines in the Western world, global CoC membership has experienced a modest growth: 195,517 members in 2007, 197,069 members in 2012, and 199,097 members in 2016. This growth could partly be explained by the growth the CoC experiences in Africa. Nigeria counted 5,831 CoC members in 2009 and 6,172 in 2016, while Kenya’s CoC membership went from 2,948 in 2009 to 3,658 in 2016. 

With membership in every continent, today’s Community of Christ tends to project a multicultural image of itself. “Unity in Diversity” is one of its mottos. During Community of Christ’s world conference, held every three years, delegates from many countries gather in Independence, Missouri for a big multicultural show. During the opening flag ceremony, flags from the various countries where the institution is present are unfurled, often by indigenous people from those countries wearing “traditional” clothing. A Tahitian choir, clothed in colorful traditional Tahitian dresses, sings hymns in the Tahitian language, while people in the assembly (most of them from North America) take pictures. 

With almost 200,000 members worldwide and unbound by a common creed (although recent attempts have been made to define its beliefs and practices more systematically), the Community of Christ today is indeed a pluralistic church, the identity of which tends to change from one country to another. That is to say, CoC looks somewhat like a fundamentalist Protestant church in Haiti, while it often looks like a liberal Protestant church in Canada and Australia, as recent debates on homosexuality have shown. In light of such pluralism, Communities of Christ may be a much more appropriate name. 

But is Community of Christ truly an international church? Are flags, traditional songs, and colorful traditional clothing enough to make a church truly international? Isn’t the big multicultural show mere exoticism? 

True, there is multiculturalism and pluralism in CoC. As already underlined, multiculturalism is promoted by the institution, which wants to appear as a “world church,” an “international church.” Cultural/ theological pluralism in CoC is also due to a progressive/liberal theology, which is non-creedal, and thus admits different theological views. Finally, pluralism is also a result of a lack of centralization, which might be due to a lack of financial resources.[68]

However, despite this pluralism, CoC remains a US denomination. Whereas the institution claims on its website that it has nearly 250,000 members in more than 60 nations,[69] and whereas I have often heard from members and leaders that the majority of the membership is outside of America, official membership numbers show that nearly 60 percent of the almost 200,000 CoC membership is from the United States.[70] Most of the leadership is American-born and/or has US citizenship. True, the Council of Twelve Apostles of the Community of Christ presents some multiculturalism with the presence of apostle Bunda Chibwe (born in Zambia and raised in the Democratic Republic of Congo), apostle Richard James (from Wales), apostle Carlos Enrique Mejia (from Honduras), apostle Mareva Arnaud Tchong (a woman from French Polynesia), and apostle Arthur Smith (from Canada). Thus, five of the twelve apostles are not originally from the US. But the president of the Council of Twelve Apostles, Linda Booth, is from Independence, Missouri, and members of the First Presidency and Presiding Bishopric are all from the US.

Official Community of Christ institutional discourse and corporate identity are thus primarily defined and managed in the US by US leaders. The editors in chief of the Herald, the official periodical of the Community of Christ, are all Americans. The CoC scripture and theology consultant is American, as well as the whole faculty of Community of Christ Seminary (Graceland University, Independence) who teach CoC leaders from the US but also from Germany and Tahiti (even though cheaper and higher quality education would be available in the lands of Luther and Calvin). All Church historians have been white Americans. In January 2017, US prophet-president Stephen M. Veazey chartered a Church History and Sacred Story team. Whereas the official announcement emphasized that the team was composed of “three world church historians,” all of the team members are white Americans and only one is a female.[71] Thus, the past and the present is still institutionally defined by white Americans, and CoC membership outside the US receive training and literature produced in Independence, Missouri by an American leadership/authorship/teaching staff. 

So even though CoC embraces multiculturalism, indigenization is in fact limited. There is indeed cultural diversity, as the institution and its American leadership allow and promote multiculturalism as part of CoC identity. But the product is still defined and managed mostly by white Americans. The delivery of the product from Independence to other places of the world might not be very effective, as CoC has no proactive missionary strategies and no correlation/centralization. Thus, one might see different Communities of Christ from one country to another. But the uniqueness of Community of Christ’s identity and history—its Restoration identity—seems to have not been indigenized outside the US. Whereas in French Polynesia, Protestant Tahitian theol ogy is present in the Maohi Protestant Church and its theologians,[72] no such trend exists in the Tahitian Community of Christ, whose theology depends on what is developed in Independence, Missouri by white US theologians, themselves influenced by the current trends of American progressive Christianity. Communities of Christ around the world are still mainly made in the US. 

Conclusion 

“The only true and living Church upon the face of the whole earth.” 

Doctrine and Covenants 1:5e

In 1830, Joseph Smith and his associates established the Church of Christ as the only true church on earth, partly as a reaction to American Protestant pluralism. The RLDS/CoC clearly departed from this exclusivist ecclesiology, as it is today fully part of the ecumenical movement through the NCC. While doing so, it seems that RLDS/CoC might have also melted down some of the specificities unique to its Mormon legacy, and even might have given up some specificities unique to its particular brand of moderate Mormonism.

And yet, whereas this was done partly in order to globalize itself more effectively, the RLDS Church/CoC did not succeed as well as the 15.8 million-member LDS Church, which kept strong unique Mormon identity markers (such as the Book of Mormon and temple worship) while adapting itself to modernity (abandonment of polygamy and of the political kingdom of God after 1890).[73]

While the LDS Church is not yet a world religion, it is a global denomination that presents itself in all places of the world with the same identity defined in Salt Lake City.[74] Did the CoC meet more success in its pluralization? Whereas the ecumenical Community of Christ left behind its Mormon exclusivist Americanized Christianity, it is still very much an American denomination. Even though the CoC does not promote the Book of Mormon and does not wait for Christ’s Second Coming to take place in Independence, Missouri, it follows American theological trends—contemporary progressive Christianity—and its theology is defined in Independence primarily by an all-white, all-American leadership, even though no corporate identity is strictly shared by Communities of Christ around the world. 

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[1] Massimo Introvigne, Les Mormons (Maredsous: Brepols, 1991), 19–22.

[2] Chrystal Vanel, “Des Mormonismes : une étude historique et sociologique d’une fissiparité religieuse américaine, 1830-2013” (PhD diss., École Pratique des Hautes Études–Sorbonne, 2013), 23.

[3] Mark Lyman Staker, Hearken, O Ye People: The Historical Setting of Joseph Smith’s Ohio Revelation (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2009), 72–73, 87. 

[4] Grant Underwood, “Re-Visioning Mormon History,” Pacific Historical Review 55, no. 3 (1986): 420. 

[5] Danny L. Jorgensen, “Conflict in the Camps of Israel: The 1853 Cutlerite Schism,” Journal of Mormon History 21, no. 1 (1995): 64. 

[6] Danny Jorgensen, e-mail message to author, Oct. 5, 2010. 

[7] David J. Howlett, Kirtland Temple: The Biography of a Shared Mormon Sacred Space (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2014). 

[8] Christine Elyse Blythe and Christopher James Blythe, eds., Mormonisms: A Documentary History, 1844–1860 (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, forthcoming). 

[9] Steven L. Shields, Divergent Paths of the Restoration, rev. ed. (Independence, Mo.: Herald Publishing House, 2001). 

[10] Inez Smith Davis, The Story of the Church, rev. ed. (Independence, Mo.: Herald Publishing House, 1955). 

[11] Robert Bruce Flanders, Nauvoo: Kingdom on the Mississippi (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1975). 

[12] Roger D. Launius, Joseph Smith III: Pragmatic Prophet (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988). 

[13] Danny L. Jorgensen, “Beyond Modernity: The Future of the Reorganization,” John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 18 (1998): 4–20. 

[14] Richard P. Howard, The Church Through the Years, vol 1., RLDS Beginnings to 1860 (Independence, Mo.: Herald Publishing House, 1992); The Church Through the Years, vol. 2, The Reorganization Comes of Age, 1860–1992 (Independence, Mo.: Herald Publishing House, 1993).

[15] Mark A. Scherer, The Journey of a People: The Era of Restoration, 1820 to 1844 (Independence, Mo.: Community of Christ Seminary Press, 2013); The Journey of a People: The Era of Reorganization, 1844 to 1946 (Independence, Mo.: Community of Christ Seminary Press, 2013); The Journey of a People: The Era of Worldwide Community, 1946 to 2015 (Independence, Mo.: Community of Christ Seminary Press, 2016).

[16] For the history of the RLDS Church from the succession crisis in 1844 to World War II, see Scherer, Journey of a People: The Era of the Reorganization. 

[17] Alma R. Blair, “Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints: Moderate Mormonism,” in The Restoration Movement. Essays in Mormon History, edited by F. Mark McKiernan, Alma R. Blair, and Paul M. Edwards (Independence, Mo.: Herald Publishing House, 1979), 207–30. 

[18] W. Paul Jones, “Theological Re-Symbolization of the RLDS Tradition: The Call to a Stage Beyond Demythologizing,” John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 16 (1996): 4. 

[19] Jorgensen, “Beyond Modernity,” 7.

[20] Launius, Joseph Smith III, 247–72. 

[21] André Encrevé, “Libéralisme théologique,” in Encyclopédie du protestantisme, edited by Pierre Gisel (Paris-Genève: Puf/Labor et Fides, 2006), 763. 

[22] Laurent Gagnebin and Raphaël Picon, Le Protestantisme: La foi insoumise (Paris: Flammarion, 2000), 189. 

[23] Jean-Paul Willaime, La Précarité protestante: Sociologie du protestantisme contemporain (Genève: Labor et Fides, 1992), 78.

[24] Steve Bruce, A House Divided: Protestantism, Schism, and Secularization (London: Routledge, 1990), 30–37.

[25] Peter L. Berger, L’Impératif hérétique: Les possibilités actuelles du discours religieux (Paris: Van Dieren, 2005), 88; Robert M. Montgomery, “Liberalism and the Challenge of Neo-orthodoxy,” Journal of Bible and Religion 15, no. 3 (1947): 139–42. 

[26] David A. Hollinger, After Cloven Tongues of Fire: Protestant Liberalism in Modern American History (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2013), xiii–xiv. 

[27] Ibid., 23. 

[28] Ibid., 26. 

[29] Matthew Bolton, Apostle of the Poor: The Life and Work of Missionary and Humanitarian Charles D. Neff (Independence, Mo.: John Whitmer Books, 2005), 35–56.

[30] Bolton, Apostle of the Poor, 48–49.

[31] Richard B. Lancaster, “Religious Education and Change in the Church: 1954–1966,” John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 25 (2005): 118. 

[32] Harold N. Schneebeck Jr., The Body of Christ: A Study of the Nature of the Church (Independence, Mo.: Herald Publishing House, 1968). 

[33] Ibid., 37. 

[34] Ibid., 38. 

[35] Ibid., 52.

[36] Ibid., 82. 

[37] Roy A. Cheville, The Field of Theology: An Introductory Study (Independence, Mo.: Herald Publishing House, 1959). 

[38] Ibid., 19. 

[39] The First Presidency, “Foreword” to Alan Tyree, ed., Exploring the Faith: A Series of Studies in the Faith of the Church Prepared by a Committee on Basic Beliefs, Independence, Mo.: Herald Publishing House, 1987 [1970], 5

[40] William Russell, “The Fundamentalist Schism, 1958–Present,” in Let Contention Cease: The Dynamics of Dissent in the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, edited by Roger D. Launius and W. B. “Pat” Spillman (Lamoni, Iowa: Graceland University Press, 1991), 125–51.

[41] Roger Finke and Rodney Stark, The Churching of America, 1776–2005: Winners and Losers in Our Religious Economy (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2007); Laurence R. Iannaccone, “Why Strict Churches Are Strong,” American Journal of Sociology 99, no. 5 (1994): 1180–211; Dean M. Kelley, Why Conservative Churches Are Growing (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 1995). 

[42] George N. Walton, “Sect to Denomination: Counting the Progress of the RLDS Reformation,” John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 18 (1998): 39.

[43] Ibid., 45. 

[44] Jamshid Ghazi Askar, “LDS Church Buys Farmland, Haun’s Mill, Far West, Kirtland property from Community of Christ,” Deseret News, May 5, 2012, https://www.deseretnews.com/article/865555292/LDS-Church-buys-farmland Hauns-Mill-Far-West-Kirtland-property-from-Community-of-Christ.html.

[45] Klauspeter Blaser, Le Christianisme social: Une approche théologique et historique (Paris: Van Dieeren, 2003), 37–40. 

[46] Jean-Michel Lacroix, Histoire des États-Unis (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2010), 317–20. 

[47] Yves-Vincent Nouailhat, “L’Amérique, Puissance Mondiale, 1897–1929,” in Histoire des États-Unis, edited by Bernard Vincent (Paris: Flammarion, 2008), 219. 

[48] Blaser, Le Christianisme social, 37–40. 

[49] James Davison Hunter, To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 132–49.

[50] A professor of religion at Graceland University, Mesle wrote on process theology. See C. Robert Mesle, Process Theology: A Basic Introduction (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 1993); Process-Relational Philosophy: An Introduction to Alfred North Whitehead, with a concluding chapter from John B. Cobb (West Conshohocken, Pa.: Templeton Foundation Press, 2008). Mesle’s theology seemed to have acquired some influence in the RLDS Church as some of his books were published by the institution. See, for example, C. Robert Mesle, Fire In My Bones: A Study in Faith and Beliefs, with a foreword by the First Presidency (Independence, Mo.: Herald Publishing House, 1984). 

[51] Anthony J. Chvala-Smith, Understanding the Way: Exploring our Christian Faith (Independence, Mo.: Herald Publishing House, 2011), 14.

[52] Ibid., 25–26. 

[53] Ibid., 27. 

[54] “Reliable Tools for Serious Scripture Study,” Community of Christ, accessed Sept. 17, 2017, https://www.cofchrist.org/some-reliable-tools-for-serious scripture-study.

[55] Ibid.

[56] “Enduring Principles,” Community of Christ, accessed Sept. 17, 2017, http:// www.cofchrist.org/enduring-principles. 

[57] “Basic Beliefs,” Community of Christ, accessed Jan. 24, 2017, http://www. cofchrist.org/basic-beliefs.

[58] “A Call to the President-Elect,” National Council of Churches, Nov. 17, 2016, http://nationalcouncilofchurches.us/a-call-to-the-president-elect. 

[59] Charles F. Hall, “The Christian Left: Who Are They and How Are They Differ ent from the Christian Right?,” Review of Religious Research 39, no. 1 (1997): 29. 

[60] Willaime, La Précarité protestante, 114.

[61] As stated on the CoC website, “We affirm the Trinity—God who is a community of three persons” (“Basic Beliefs,” Community of Christ, accessed Jan. 23, 2017, http://www.cofchrist.org/basic-beliefs). 

[62] Official Minutes Business Session, Wednesday, Mar. 28, 2007, http://www. cofchrist.org/wc2007/minutes/032807.asp. (URL no longer active; quoted in Chrystal Vanel, Des Mormonismes, 203.)

[63] The history/memory of the Restoration (beginning with Joseph Smith’s presidency in 1830) and the Reorganization (beginning with Joseph Smith III’s presidency in 1860) are not equally accepted by American members. Whereas leaders and official historians tend to be very critical of their Mormon past (1830–1844), they tend to celebrate the Joseph Smith III legacy (beginning 1860). 

[64] Steve Bruce, A House Divided, 145–47.

[65] Andrew Bolton and Jane Gardner, eds, The Sacraments: Symbol, Meaning and Discipleship (Independence, Mo.: Herald Publishing House, 2005), 16. 

[66] Brian D. McLaren, Finding Our Way Again: The Return of the Ancient Prac tices (Nashville, Tenn.: Thomas Nelson, 2008). 

[67] The World Church Recorder sent me membership records for 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2013 (e-mail message to author, Jan. 22, 2013). As I was doing research on the CoC in Haiti, I had access to world membership records as of April 25, 2016 (e-mail message to author, May 16, 2016).

[68] Despite an enthusiastic desire to share the faith, the small presence of CoC in the world compared to the more important presence of other American denominations might be due to a fragile missionary program. For example, in 2012, whereas the LDS Church had around three hundred full-time missionaries in France alone, CoC has only around one hundred full-time missionaries worldwide as of 2014. Also, whereas missionaries from various denominations (evangelical, Seventh-day Adventists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, LDS) tend to learn the language of the countries they proselytize, CoC missionaries seem to lack language studies before they are sent out. 

[69] “A Worldwide Church,” Community of Christ, accessed Dec. 2, 2016, https:// www.cofchrist.org/a-worldwide-church. 

[70] According to the World Church Membership Enrolment Summary, as of April 25, 2016, the “enrolment grand total” is 199,097, with 21,812 members in the Southeast USA Mission Field; 27,919 in the Central USA Mission Field; 22,561 in the Northeast USA Mission Field; 11,268 in the South Central USA Mission Field; 17,665 in the North Central USA Mission Field; 18,111 in the Western USA Mission Field (e-mail message to author, May 16, 2016). 

[71] “New Community of Christ Team Includes Three World Church Historians,” Community of Christ, Jan. 13, 2017, http://www.cofchrist.org/ official-announcements.

[72] Bruno Saura, Tahiti Mā’ohi: Culture, identité, religion et nationalisme en Polynésie française (Pirae, French Polynesia: Éditions au vent des îles, 2008), 178–201, 391–402. 

[73] Thomas G. Alexander, Mormonism in Transition: A History of the Latter-day Saints, 1890–1930 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1996).

[74] Douglas J. Davies, An Introduction to Mormonism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 248; Matthew Bowman, The Mormon People: The Making of an American Faith (New York: Random House, 2012), 221–22.

[post_title] => Community of Christ: An American Progressive Christianity, with Mormonism as an Option [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 50.3 (Fall 2017): 89–115
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This interview was conducted on July 4, 2013, in Community of Christ’s Kirtland Temple Historic Site Visitor and Spiritual Formation Center, located next to the temple.

A third generation Mormon from La Plata, Argentina, Hugo Olaiz has a degree in Letters from Universidad Nacional de La Plata and a Master’s in Spanish from Brigham Young University. Hugo has published both fiction and scholarly pieces in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, and miscellaneous articles in Sunstone magazine. He recently completed an 11-year stint as news editor for Sunstone and lives with his family in Oxford, Ohio.

David J. Howlett is a visiting assistant professor of religion at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York where he teaches about American religious history. He is the author of Kirtland Temple: The Biography of a Shared Mormon Sacred Space (University of Illinois Press, 2014).

Of all the Mormon historical sites that ended up in the hands of the RLDS Church (today known as the Community of Christ), none is more significant for the LDS Church than the Kirtland Temple. Despite its contrast, both in form and function, with all other LDS temples, the Kirtland Temple is still claimed by the LDS Church as the first temple of this dispensation and the setting of glorious visitations that form a crucial part of Mormon history, ritual, and doctrine. Although the building is not owned by the LDS Church, over 90 percent of visitors are LDS. This means that members of the Community of Christ, acting as hosts and guides, find themselves sharing this space with visitors who may interpret it differently than they do. LDS visitors are sometimes baffled that their church doesn’t own this sacred site, and some are confused by the differences between current LDS temples and their Kirtland precursor, which doesn’t even have a baptismal font.

How is it that the RLDS Church ended up owning the Kirtland Temple?

The ownership goes back to a broken chain of title in the 1830s. Over the course of the 1840s and 1850s, many different Latter Day Saint denominations occupied the Kirtland Temple. By 1862, the Kirtland Temple was auctioned off to settle outstanding debts of the early Church in the area, and it was bought by a man named Russell Huntley for $150. Huntley put a new roof on the temple, he painted it, re-stuccoed it, and re-plastered it. If he hadn’t done that, the temple would have fallen into ruin. By 1874, Huntley had associated himself with the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and he sold the temple to Joseph Smith III for $150—the same price that he had paid in 1862.

Because of the broken chain of title, Joseph Smith III was advised to simply wait until 1883, when Ohio law would grant legal possession after having used a property for twenty years. Joseph Smith III, however, wanted to get the Reorganized Church recognized as the true successor of his father’s church in a court of law. So in February 1880, the Reorganized Church fi led a lawsuit in a small county court over the possession of the temple and named John Taylor as one of the defendants. Of course John Taylor was not going to show up—he was in hiding and never even heard about the case. The RLDS Church got the judge to say almost everything they wanted him to say—that the Reorganized Church was the true church because of its continuation of the original Mormon doctrines, etc. The judge’s statement was published in The Saints Herald—except for the last two sentences, which actually threw out the case!

So for over 100 years RLDS historians in good faith thought of the 1880 lawsuit as the reason why the RLDS Church owned the Kirtland Temple. Then in the early 2000s, Kim Loving, president of the then Kirtland Stake of the Community of Christ, conducted research for his master’s thesis and discovered that the process had been more or less propaganda by Joseph Smith III, and that the lawsuit had been thrown out.[1]

So the real reason the Community of Christ today owns the Kirtland Temple is what is called “adverse possession”: They were here for the longest period of time as the continual possessor of the temple, having a local congregation and meeting in the building.

I’m sure the LDS Church, and possibly other branches of the Latter Day Saint movement, would like to be seen not only as the legitimate successor of Joseph’s church but also as the owner of the Kirtland Temple.

For nineteenth-century Community of Christ members, the Kirt-land Temple legitimized them in their own eyes and, they hoped, in the eyes of other Americans. By the 1880s, there was a sign on the second fl oor of the temple which literally said, “We are not the Mormons.” “We, 30,000 [members of the RLDS Church], are not associated with that Utah group whose doctrines are an abomination to us, working all manner of iniquity,” and went on and on distancing the RLDS Church from Utah Mormons. Then by 1899, the RLDS painted an inscription on the front of the temple that said, “HOUSE OF THE LORD—BUILT BY THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER DAY SAINTS, 1834.” They added: “REORGANIZED CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER DAY SAINTS IN SUCCESSION BY DECISION OF COURT, FEB. 1880.” That same sign stayed on the Kirtland Temple until 1986.

Let’s talk about what the early Reorganized Church did in the Kirtland Temple. What would they use the building for?

They used it a variety of purposes. By the 1880s, there was a congregation that met every Sunday and on Wednesdays for prayer meeting. This went on until 1959. There were also conferences. In 1883, for example, there was a general conference, during the period when the RLDS were holding general conferences once a year. Priesthood conferences were also held at different times, all the way to the present.

Starting at least in the 1910s, continuing into the 1950s, traditional RLDS “reunions” or “family camps” were held on the temple’s property. This is a tradition that LDS don’t have. The origins go back to the 1880s, out of a desire to have general conference twice instead of once a year. These reunions were regional conferences that functioned similarly to a week-long revival: There was preaching, praying, and testifying all day long, with services in the evening. By the early twentieth century, it took on more of a recreational feel. Imagine the Kirtland Temple, by 1911, surrounded by people camping out in tents—that’s the scene you would have seen in the summer. Worship services were held during the day in the temple, and the cooking was done in the yard. Eventually the reunions lost some of their rural feel when showers were built across the street, in a building that is today part of the local congregation.

I like the image of the temple surrounded by tents. Yet I assume the RLDS Church never saw Kirtland as the central place of the church?

It was seen as it was in the 1830s: a stake of Zion, but not as Zion itself or its capital. Kirtland was a center for the people of this particular region, but not the center to which people would be encouraged to gather. The RLDS followed the LDS doctrine of gathering into the 1970s, and for many families even into the 1980s. The RLDS were encouraged to gather in Independence, Missouri, because that was the place for the New Jerusalem.

That meant moving your family to Independence?

For twentieth-century RLDS, it meant exactly that. For nineteenth-century RLDS, it may have meant moving to Lamoni, Iowa, which was seen as “on the edge of Zion” because it’s near the border between Iowa and Missouri. Then in the 1880s, RLDS started slowly moving back into Independence itself. The Church of Christ (Temple Lot) had been the first group to gather back to Zion, but they were so small that they did not make a major impact. The RLDS were the first ones to make a major impact in terms of numbers. By the early twentieth century, they were by far the largest church in Independence, and that continued all the way into the 1980s.

Who were some of the early Utah visitors who toured the Kirtland Temple?

One of the most famous Mormon visits in the early twentieth century was a group of LDS leaders who came through in December 1905. They had been to Sharon, Vermont, to dedicate a granite obelisk to Joseph Smith Jr. on the centennial of his birthday, and on the way back they stopped in Kirtland and took a tour of the temple.[2] And since they kept journals, there are at least four or five accounts that I’ve read of what they experienced on their tour.

The visitors showed different levels of politeness as they described what happened on that visit. I think they had a good time, but there was definitely tension. They visited the unheated temple on December 27, and Edith A. Smith said that it was evident there were two types of coldness in the building: “One the result of the temperature and the other a lack of [God’s] Spirit.”[3] There was already tension when Edith walked in, and I think she was looking in part to be offended. At the same time, they felt that the RLDS guide, who was an RLDS apostle, was a jovial individual, and they seemed to get along fi ne with him. They tried to get pictures in the temple with their Kodak Brownies, and their guide asked them to desist. But “before Brother B had been discovered,” Edith writes, “the Kodak had already got its work.” So even then there was tension about the control of that space and what happened inside the temple as the RLDS tour guides were taking you through.

The LDS guests who went through in the nineteenth and early twentieth century had the notion that this temple was used much as they understood their temples. So as they listened to the RLDS guide explain the use of the temple in the 1830s, they thought he had no idea what he was talking about. “To hear their [RLDS] explanations,” wrote Anthon H. Lund in his journal, “it was easily understood that they had no conception of the real uses of a Temple.”[4] Actually, what LDS visitors didn’t understand was the evolution of the temple space. So there was that misunderstanding as they were going through the tour. They were polite about it, but there was definitely this sense of ecclesiastical rivalry between the two groups.  That had happened throughout the nineteenth century as well.

And as the twentieth century progressed, more and more LDS guests would visit the temple—not just leaders. By the 1930s, there were groups of average LDS people coming to the Kirtland Temple in big tours. And that really increased after World War II, when the number of people coming on bus tours and with their families on family vacations just exploded.

It seems to me that generations of Mormons have visited the Kirtland Temple wondering, “Where the heck is the baptismal font?”

I think any person who has guided tours through the Kirtland Temple has been asked that at a certain point. LDS temples have baptismal fonts to perform proxy baptisms for the dead, and this is something which was done in Nauvoo in the 1840s, i.e., after the Kirtland period. In the 1830s, this was not yet part of their theology.

An increasing number of guests, though, are informed enough to realize that didn’t happen here. In part they know that because since the 1980s the LDS Church canonized a vision that Joseph Smith had in the temple of his brother Alvin, who died in the 1820s (D&C 137). In the vision, Joseph sees Alvin in resurrected glory in the celestial kingdom and wonders how this could be, given the fact that his brother hadn’t been baptized. Joseph is told that those who would have received the gospel, had they been given a chance to hear it, will be heirs of the celestial kingdom.

So Joseph Smith is assured that you don’t need baptism, which kind of undercuts the whole reason for this ordinance of the baptism for the dead. But it is re-interpreted, of course, in contemporary LDS belief, as meaning that Joseph Smith was coming to understand that there would be a future time in which these ordinances could be administered. So Mormons have this idea that Joseph had this experience early on as an intimation of something that would come later. To that extent, they may be aware that there were not baptisms for the dead in the 1830s in the Kirtland Temple.

In terms of contemporary LDS temple rituals, my understanding is that there was a hint of starting washings and anointings in the Kirtland Temple.

That is correct. Washings and anointings are part of LDS temple rituals today, and there is a hint of that in what these early Saints were doing in Kirtland. They didn’t anoint different parts of the body and say prayers or blessings over them—that wasn’t happening in the same way as in LDS temples today, as a liturgical or set form. The Kirtland washings and anointing were less structured. Here they were washing feet, and they were washing their bodies with whiskey mixed with cinnamon, to give some aromatic scent to it, and the feel of the whiskey evaporating from the body produced a bodily sensation, too. The Holy Spirit was in that way felt, experienced, and ritually mimicked. Mormons felt they were re-living the ancient order of things, so they were trying to re-create priestly anointings described in the book of Exodus.

Even before the temple was finished, they performed these washings and anointings in the print shop, which was close to the temple. And when the temple was completed, the washings and anointings became part of the Kirtland endowment ceremony, which was not a secret ceremony. There were no parts of that ceremony which anyone took a covenant not to reveal, and they didn’t regard these rites as something they couldn’t talk about. They certainly talked and even sang about them! In the hymn “The Spirit of God like a Fire Is Burning,” one of the verses says,

We’ll wash, and be wash’d, and with oil be anointed,
Withal not omitting the washing of feet.
For he that receiveth his penny appointed
Must surely be clean at the harvest of wheat.[5]

What was the Kirtland endowment?

In the broadest sense, it seems to me that the Kirtland endowment was a recapitulation or reenactment of the Passion narrative and Pentecost.[6] So during the ceremony you had the washing of feet, as Jesus did with his disciples, and you had communion, which was a reenactment of the Last Supper.

This ceremony, by the way, was for priesthood holders, and it happened between the Sunday dedication and the second dedication that happened the following Thursday, so probably March 29–30, 1836. Leaders went through it first, and then all the priesthood holders who were in Kirtland went through it. It consisted of a kind of mass revival meeting where they prayed and prophesied. During the day they performed the rituals of washing of feet, anointing with oil, and laying on of hands to bless people, to “seal” them, as they used to say. The older notion of sealing was the salvation of the assured, but now there’s this assurance that you have this extra gift of power from the Holy Spirit.

For the Kirtland Saints, this endowment was what other Protestants would have called a second work of grace—something beyond baptism, what Methodists would have called sanctification. The Saints were looking for something similar. They felt that as priesthood, as ministers, they needed more of the Holy Spirit to go out to preach with power and authority, evangelize the entire world, and redeem the kingdom of God on earth into these gathered communities that they would create with just relationships, and bring to pass the wrapping up of the world before the Second Coming, which they whole-heartedly believed would happen in their lifetimes.

Tell me more about what happened during the Kirtland endowment.

The ceremony mimicked the high point of Christian redemption. It even included the Methodist-like practice of a “watch night” or vigil: they stayed up all night on the third floor of the Kirtland Temple. Staying awake all night in prayer and resisting sleep is, in a sense, a re-enactment of Gethsemane. They had been up already twenty-four hours when the gathering ended at four or five in the morning. And as they were in prayer, they spoke in tongues and felt that they had this Pentecostal power. They did the Hosanna Shout, which now LDS do at the dedication of all their temples. The early Saints performed it frequently in the Kirtland Temple, both around the dedication and in the Kirtland endowment. “Sealing up a covenant with Hosanna and Amen,” they would say.

These covenants were not the set promises that would develop later in Nauvoo, but were more informal. For instance, one of the darker things that they promised was to avenge themselves on their enemies in Jackson County if anyone should come against them again. This is biblical vengeance, Psalms-like vengeance; this, too, was part of the Kirtland endowment. I’m not sure if this carried over as they repeated the endowment subsequently, but it was certainly part of the 1836 ceremony.

The chorus of “The Spirit of God like a Fire Is Burning” was an approximation of the Hosanna Shout: “Hosanna, Hosanna to God and the Lamb.” And that’s an intimation of Jesus coming into Jerusalem, riding in, and the people greeted him with, “Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”[7]

More radical Methodists shouted Hosanna when the Holy Spirit fell upon them. A radical Methodist thought that, any time the Spirit was present, a person couldn’t be quiet and had to shout Hosanna. So this was part of the worship experience that many of the Kirtland Saints were already familiar with, since maybe half of them had been Methodists at one point in their life. And this in a way is ritualized in the new Kirtland Temple.

In our day, when someone gets sick, we anoint them with oil and pray for them. In the Community of Christ we call this an administration, and in the LDS Church you may call it a blessing. And that began to occur with much more frequency after the Kirtland endowment, which included so much washing and anointing. So a whole sacrament in the Community of Christ, or an ordinance in the LDS Church, was born out of this experience. After the Kirtland endowment, elders everywhere were anointing the sick with oil and praying. So it became routinized, a regular part of their worship life.

A lot came out of the Kirtland endowment in terms of ritual. Some parts evolved in some inchoate form into the first part of the LDS endowment as administered in Nauvoo, but other parts were never performed again in the same exact way.

Was the Kirtland endowment performed only once?

At fi rst they intended to do it once. But then they realized that not everyone was there, so they repeated the endowment several times in 1836. And by 1837 they realized that they had new people who weren’t around in 1836, or who weren’t yet part of the Church, so they went through this endowment again. Wilford Woodruff, who was at that time ordained to be a Seventy, wrote in his journal that the Kirtland endowment was to be practiced every April 6 until the Second Coming of Jesus.[8] So they anticipated doing this over and over again, almost like an annual revival meeting.

Christopher Jones has done some great work in comparing the Kirtland endowment to what Methodist ministers experienced in revival meetings.[9] Methodist ministers would often go to revival meetings to be themselves renewed, and in some ways the Kirtland endowment was a rough equivalent to that: priesthood holders could come to be renewed again through this ceremony. So what the early Saints did was to take the Methodist revival meeting and add a heavy ritual emphasis,  in this way making it their own.

Let’s move forward to the history of Kirtland since the 1950s. What are some of the developments worth mentioning?

As the number of LDS traveling to historic sites increased, the LDS Church started thinking about buying sites in Ohio. They first purchased the John Johnson Farm, which is about thirty miles from Kirtland. With that purchase, they were slowly re-establishing their historical presence. Then in the 1960s a private LDS investor, Wilford Wood, bought the Newel K. Whitney store, located about a quarter of a mile north from the temple. Wood kept that property in trust for the LDS Church until a certain point in time when they wanted to interpret Kirtland as a historic site.

The RLDS Church also moved toward expanding its interpretative center in Kirtland. In the late 1960s, the RLDS Church built its first visitors center. It was tiny, but it meant that they could show a film and display some artifacts. They were trying to mimic what you see across America. Visitors centers were growing everywhere. With the expansion of the interstate system, many middle-class families who owned automobiles were going on vacations. All of these factors set Kirtland as a destination not only for Latter Day Saints, but also for people interested in Ohio history.

So people continued to flock to Kirtland. By the 1970s LDS members had established a presence in Cleveland, with probably several thousands in the Greater Cleveland metropolitan area, and they decided that they wanted an LDS visitors center in Kirtland. That started a process that eventually resulted in Historic Kirtland, an LDS campus around the Newel K. Whitney Store, which was dedicated in 2003.

It was a fascinating case: The impetus started with local members clamoring for a visitors center, rather than top-down instructions from the hierarchy. The hierarchy had to agree, of course, but it was the local people who convinced the hierarchy that the Church needed a presence in Kirtland.

What is the “Kirtland Curse”?

It’s a complicated story. By the 1970s, key LDS local leaders began believing that Kirtland had been cursed in the 1840s by the Lord. This group included Karl Anderson, a well-known local LDS leader who became stake president. They based this belief on statements by Joseph and Hyrum Smith. One of the statements by Joseph Smith is in the current LDS Doctrine and Covenants (D&C 124:82–83). It was canonized by the LDS Church in 1876, so it’s not part of the Community of Christ’s Doctrine and Covenants. Verse 83 declares that the Lord has “a scourge prepared for the inhabitants” of Kirtland.

Hyrum Smith’s statement is an 1841 letter that he wrote to the Saints who were living in Kirtland. British converts stopping in Kirtland were being persuaded by local Saints that Kirtland was a great place to live. So they were settling there, instead of going to Nauvoo. The problem was that the Church at the time had invested an enormous amount of money in land in Nauvoo, and if they were not going to default on their loans, they needed Church members to buy that land. So Hyrum Smith issued a “thus saith the Lord” statement in which he commanded all the Saints living in Kirtland to go to Nauvoo, adding that their Kirtland properties would “be scourged with a sore scourge” and that many days would pass before they could possess them again in peace.[10]

The Saints in Kirtland wrote back and said to Hyrum, “Actually, we’ve organized ourselves quite well here. We’re taking care of the poor. We’d like to continue on here in Kirtland.” Hyrum wrote back and said “O.K., you can stay, but don’t expect Kirtland to rise on the ruins of Nauvoo.”[11] So the matter was at the time more or less settled. But if you don’t have the rest of the story, if all you have is the Hyrum Smith letter, and if you think that it was literally a revelation from God, instead of being part of this drama of trying to convince the Saints to move to Nauvoo, then you’re going to look back and read that letter and say, “Kirtland is cursed!”

In 1974 Karl Anderson read these and other Mormon writings and became convinced that Kirtland was cursed. I think for local LDS members this worked as an explanation as to why the LDS Church didn’t own the Kirtland Temple, i.e., because the Lord cursed it in the 1840s. And they thought, “If the temple is cursed, but we will possess it in the future, maybe then we are part of redeeming Kirtland.” So suddenly these Mormons felt they were an important part of God’s redemptive action in the world.

What did Karl Anderson and other Mormons do to “redeem Kirtland”?

Karl Anderson came up with a three-fold solution for how to redeem Kirtland from the curse. First, they would bring missionaries so that the gospel would be preached in Kirtland for the first time since the 1840s (which of course was an insult for the RLDS because they had been there continually). Second, they decided that they needed to establish a ward and a stake in Kirtland. Third, they concluded that they needed to establish a visitors center. Karl believed that this plan would be an integral part of lifting the curse on Kirtland—helping God reclaim the place and, if you read between the lines, eventually redeem and get back the Kirtland Temple for the LDS Church, with everything in its own order and in its own due time.

This story of the curse was not widely known by LDS members, but Karl began talking a lot about it. In 1976, Donald Brewer, president of the LDS Cleveland Ohio Mission, arrived here, heard Karl talk, and got really worried. He read and prayed about it, and he was convinced! “There’s a curse, there’s a scourge here in Kirtland, and we need to lift it.” So he was totally on board, and Karl and President Brewer worked together to try to lift the curse. They got missionaries to walk around Kirtland, evangelizing again. And when they got an RLDS family to convert, they were ecstatic and believed that the curse was indeed lifting!

When LDS General Authorities were in the area, Karl would take them to Kirtland on tours, show them around, and if they hadn’t known about the scourge before coming to Kirtland, they certainly knew by the time they left. By 1979, Karl and other local LDS members had a local architect draw plans for a visitors center, and they printed a brochure about it that looked very professional. But it got lost in the bureaucracy of Salt Lake and never got the attention of the apostles.

Did they eventually get the attention of Salt Lake leaders?

Because of his unique access to General Authorities, Karl eventually managed to get the proposal on the desk of the right apostle, who then brought it to the Quorum of the Twelve. Some of the apostles were opposed. “We’ve already put so much money into Historic Nauvoo,” they complained. “We should be spending more money on the missionary program—not historic sites and buildings.”[12] But Ezra Taft Benson, who was at that time president of the Quorum of the Twelve, had become a great advocate for the project and broke the deadlock. “We will not have another Nauvoo,” he said, “but we will have a Kirtland, and it will be as it should be.” And that’s how they authorized the construction of the visitors center.

By October 1979, the last part of Karl’s plan to lift the curse was in place: they broke ground in Kirtland for a new LDS chapel that would become a stake center. Ezra Taft Benson attended the ceremony. “The curse that the Lord placed on Kirtland,” he told the congregation during his speech, “is being lifted today.” And during his prayer, he formally lifted the scourge that was on Kirtland. Latter-day Saints saw this as a redemptive process of remaking Kirtland.

By 1984, the Whitney Store was restored and re-dedicated, becoming a more prominent historic site for the LDS Church. Ezra Taft Benson and Gordon B. Hinckley attended the dedication, and they talked about the spiritual visions and dreams that happened there: John Murdock seeing Jesus in the Whitney Store, and Joseph Smith organizing the School of the Prophets.[13] Thus Church leaders were starting to assure LDS that they may not have the temple, but they did have a place where Jesus appeared in Kirtland.

I think this was part of the greater narrative in which people believed that the curse was being lifted. It wasn’t just Karl Anderson who believed that this was happening—it was widespread at that time among Cleveland LDS members who had heard Karl talk about this and now felt part of God’s redemptive plan in Kirtland. The RLDS were vaguely aware that LDS held this belief, and yes—the notion that their own activities were part of a curse was mildly insulting to them. It implied that they were on the wrong side of God! But it seems to me that this was a way for LDS to attempt to explain why they were not in control of the temple.

And then as time went on, I believe Karl himself began thinking. “Maybe also the RLDS have been part of lifting the scourge on this place.” So he eventually included them as part of this process by which God was redeeming Kirtland and making it into a holy place again, thus creating a more generous narrative of curse and redemption.

Could another factor have been the process by which the RLDS Church has become less obsessed with its past?

I think that happened only in the 1990s. Through the 1980s, the RLDS focused heavily on its past. And then in the 2000s there was a reinvigorated emphasis on Church history in Community of Christ. As much as LDS would like to think that Community of Christ no longer values Church history (and at least some LDS believe that), if you look on the ground, people are still interested in the history of their church, and there was even a greater emphasis in the 2000s. This visitors center in Kirtland, where we’re having this interview at, is one of the results of that—it was built in 2007 after a long process of raising money. Community of Christ is small, it’s not even as large or financially powerful as it was in the 1970s, so I think this visitors center is a statement that they still value the heritage—in a different way. They can’t value it in the same way—no one ever does!

So there’s a renewed emphasis on history in Community of Christ. If Nauvoo represents a problematic, uncomfortable time period for Community of Christ—because of issues such as militarism, theocracy, and plural marriage—Kirtland, even with the conflicts that happened here, with the breakup of the bank and arguments around that,[14] is seen much more positively. People can still rally around and think of the dedication of the first worship building, the first temple in Community of Christ tradition, and what it means to them, and almost universally they have a positive image of Kirtland. And that’s true whether you’re talking about Saints in Independence, Missouri, or Saints in Manihi, French Polynesia. They universally think of the Kirtland Temple as a sacred place.

In 1994, the Community of Christ dedicated a temple in Independence. How does that edifice relate to the historic Kirtland Temple?

The modern temple in Independence was built on a portion of the land dedicated by Joseph Smith Jr. in Missouri in the 1830s for a temple site. When they drew up the plat for the City of Zion in 1833, they placed twenty-four temples in that plat—they drew up the plans right here, in Kirtland, probably only a few yards away from where we’re having this interview. And the Independence Temple is on the footprint of at least three of those planned temples, so it’s literally on land that was intended for temples in the 1830s, for that redeemed city of New Jerusalem.

The Independence Temple functions in some ways like its Kirtland ancestor. For instance, the Kirtland Temple had Church administrative space—an office for the Church president. The Independence Temple has the offices for the president and the apostles who live in that area. (Some apostles now live in their fields, which could be as far away as Honduras, French Polynesia, or Zambia.) The Independence Temple, like the Kirtland Temple, also has a space for education: the Community of Christ Graduate Seminary, which amounts to a Masters of Arts and Religion, where people gather for classes. And we also have the Peace Colloquy, which happens every October in Independence.

The Independence Temple is also a place of worship. The Daily Prayer for Peace happens in the Independence Temple. (By the way, we also do the Daily Prayer for Peace in Kirtland, but we do it in this visitors center, instead of the temple, in part because we light candles and we don’t want to create a fire hazard in the historic temple.) So doing the Daily Prayer for Peace in the Independence Temple is a continuation of the notion that the temple is a special worship space. Also from the Independence Temple, Steve Veazey, Community of Christ prophet, gives an annual address to the Church that is then broadcast via the web.

So I mentioned three areas of correspondence between the Kirtland and the Independence temples: administration, education, and worship. And even though we don’t do a Kirtland-style endowment, all the sacraments of the Church, except for marriage, can be performed in the Independence Temple. People may go there for their evangelist blessing, which is the equivalent of an LDS patriarchal blessing, or an administration (health blessing), or communion, which in the Community of Christ consists of bread and “wine” (grape juice).

And the Kirtland Temple here is also used today much as it was in the 1830s, minus the Kirtland endowment. In the 1830s the temple was a space for public worship, and they also had tours of the temple—not only before it was dedicated but also after; at that point we did not yet have the notion that only people who have made certain covenants should be allowed in. In the 1830s they charged 25 cents, which was actually pretty expensive for just a tour! And you saw everything in the temple, they took you floor by floor. And on the third floor, which is the top floor, they had the Egyptian mummies associated with the Book of Abraham. By 1837, tourists were going through the Kirtland Temple, and some published their accounts.

Let’s move to the recent past. What was the process by which Community of Christ started to share the Kirtland Temple with the other branches of the Restoration?   

That process happened in the 1990s. In the era before that, the Kirtland Temple was basically a worship space for the RLDS congregation. In 1959 the congregation moved across the street to their present space, but even at that era the temple continued to be used at Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter for community services in which the entire Kirtland community came together in ecumenical worship. Through the 1940s, the temple was the center and the symbol of the community, and in the 1940s most of that community was RLDS—though there were also Catholics, Congregationalists, and other faiths. So at least since the 1940s, all those groups traditionally have come together for community services in the Kirtland Temple.

Then in the 1990s, the building was opened up for the LDS also to have services there. That was in a sense a community outreach by the Community of Christ. At first they allowed it on a limited basis, but now they allow it a lot more frequently. In the course of a year, there might be fifty services in the Kirtland Temple; a couple dozen will be sponsored by the Community of Christ, but another couple dozen are going to be LDS.

We always have staff to accompany LDS groups, and LDS would probably use it more if we could schedule more staff to be there. LDS can have a sacrament meeting there, but we ask the groups not to perform any sacrament or ordinance other than the Lord’s Supper. Testimony meetings are very popular—especially with LDS youth groups. The temple is scheduled for both local LDS groups and cross-country pilgrimages that come through Kirtland by bus all the time, especially in the summer.

What percentage of the visitors you receive are LDS?

A realistic estimate is that 90–95 percent of our visitors are LDS. The official number is 50 percent, but that’s calculated only from those who fill out a comment card and indicate their religious affiliation. In any given year we have approximately 25,000 people going on a tour of the temple, although the year Historic Kirtland (the LDS site) opened, we had close to 40,000. Even in the 1920s, a significant percentage of visitors, though less than half, were LDS. In the 1970s, a larger percentage of visitors were Community of Christ, because there were more RLDS in this area and there was an extensive program of weekend retreats which every year would bring as many as thirteen RLDS congregations to Kirtland. That ended in the mid-1970s, when the local congregation who was sponsoring these visits got burned out on the program.

After having been through several tours of the Kirtland Temple, my perception is that LDS visitors tend to be very gracious guests, but on occasion they cannot help it and they have to ask a question that attacks the Community of Christ.

Most people going to historic sites across the country know relatively little about them when they step in the door. At the Kirtland Temple, we generally have the opposite. LDS visitors might not know the views of current historians, but they know stories about the temple, and it’s already part of a narrative that they have of their spiritual past and their spiritual ancestors. This makes it a different experience—this is a pilgrimage site for many people. That generates a sense of reverence and sometimes discomfort—especially around the fact that this is a pilgrimage site that they, the LDS, don’t own.

Add the fact that this is not exactly like the tour they would experience at an LDS site. Some LDS frankly don’t like LDS historic site tours; some love them. I think the majority love them and a growing minority don’t like them. The majority of LDS tourists who come have been through an LDS tour where someone is testifying along the lines of “I know this happened, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.” LDS visitors will notice that this doesn’t happen in our tours. So that already creates a sense of tension. Many of them may feel that it’s more like a historical tour, so they may not get exactly the religious experience they were looking for.

And at times there’s adversarial tension too, along the lines of, “Let’s see if we can trip up the guide.” A few visitors may think, “These Community of Christ guides don’t really know Church history—let’s see if we can make them look silly.” That occasionally happens. But the vast majority are very gracious and very kind. And even if they have questions, sometimes they don’t even ask them: they hold back or they ask the LDS tour director—and who knows what the tour director answers! I think it’s a way of being polite and saying, “OK, we have our differences, and I won’t try to make my discomfort public and make the guides uncomfortable.” So I think there’s a good deal of graciousness that happens, too, in these interactions.

I was once touring the temple with an LDS family, and they were all very polite—except for the Grandpa! As soon as we sat in the lower court, he asked the guide in an accusatory tone, “Why is it that you guys no longer tell the story of Jesus Christ appearing to Joseph Smith in the temple?”

Some guests will come out and say that, but the vast majority won’t. When I was a regular temple guide, I sometimes guided junior high groups. As you know, junior high kids sometimes believe they know everything! And some of these kids would treat me harshly. Maybe that had to do with the way their leaders prepared them, too. The entire time they were asking me questions like, “Why don’t you believe in the First Article of Faith?” Apparently the intent was to rebuke me for not believing that God the Father has a physical body, which of course is not what the First Article of Faith says.

And these kids went through all the hot-button social issues and made me defend the Community of Christ on women, and LGBT issues, and peppered me with questions. So I finally said, “You know—I’m happy to answer these questions, but I would like to talk about the temple, too. So let’s go downstairs and talk about the 1836 dedication.” And things ended a lot better on that tour. So on occasion we have tours where people want to argue.  And I understand that, because when I was a teenager, I was a very conservative RLDS member raised in a very conservative RLDS home, and I would go with my youth group friends down to the LDS Visitors Center in Independence to argue! So I can be empathetic when people sometimes come at me—I can imagine what I was like, too, at a certain point in my life.

You describe the Kirtland Temple not only as a place of contestation, but also cooperation.

That’s right. Besides the services where LDS worship on their own, there are cooperative services through the year. Since the 1980s, the LDS staff of Historic Kirtland will help out with the Christmas and Easter services.

In a few days, we’ll have the Emma Smith Hymn Festival that began in 2004, on the 200-year anniversary of Emma’s birth, which is July 10. The hymn festival has a little script, and some parts are read by sister missionaries from Historic Kirtland. These missionaries are also part of the choir that sings “The Spirit of God like a Fire Is Burning” and “Redeemer of Israel.” The congregation, which is mostly LDS and local Community of Christ folks, is invited to join in singing these hymns. So it’s another example of those ecumenical traditions of cooperation that have grown up at the Kirtland Temple.

Certainly the relationship with the LDS has grown less adversarial over time, and the points of contention have changed over time, too. I think that shift reflects the changes in American denominations. Some sociologists and religious studies scholars talk about religious realignment, not just over denominational differences, but differences along a liberal/conservative social divide. And since the 1980s, the Community of Christ has been squarely on the progressive side, and the LDS Church has been on the conservative side, so that produces a new set of tensions. I do not think many Community of Christ members today care too much about arguing over nineteenth-century issues such as presidential succession, but they would really care about social issues. This provides a new area of contestation on temple tours—although not as frequently as in the mid-2000s.

So there’s still a sense of construction of otherness, not only by LDS visitors but also on the part of the Community of Christ guides giving the tour. If LDS missionaries go on missions and come back converted, a Community of Christ guide who gives tours every day in the Kirtland Temple comes back from that experience thinking that the Community of Christ is awesome, and probably thinking they never want to be LDS!

After a while, a sense of difference develops in these guides. And I’m sure that happens as well to some LDS who go through the temple tour. They may end up thinking, “No doubt the Community of Christ has lost the authority and gone off on this apostate road,” etc. Other LDS visitors come out thinking, “These guys are our friends.” So it’s a way for them to make kinship with the group, or extend a more limited notion of ecumenical encounter, even if brief. And I think, for a lot of LDS, the Kirtland Temple tour experience is a combination of both—a way of making friendship while at the same time establishing difference.

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[1] Kim L. Loving, “Ownership of the Kirtland Temple: Legends, Lies, and Misunderstandings,” Journal of Mormon History 30, no. 2 (2004): 1–80.

[2] See Proceedings at the Dedication of the Joseph Smith Memorial Monument (Salt Lake City: 1906), 68–69; see also Kathleen Flake, The Politics of American Religious Identity: The Seating of Senator Reed Smoot, Mormon Apostle (Chapel Hill & London: University of North Carolina Press, 2004), chap. 5.

[3] Edith Ann Smith, “Journal,” December 27, 1905, MS 1317 FD.1, LDS Church Archives.

[4] Anthon H. Lund, Danish Apostle: The Diaries of Anthon H. Lund, 1890–1921, edited by John P. Hatch (Salt Lake: Signature, 2006), 328.

[5] Fourth verse of 1835 LDS hymnbook. Most of the twentieth-century editions of this six-verse hymn, both in the LDS and RLDS traditions, present the hymn in shortened versions that skip this verse.

[6] See Gregory A. Prince, Power from On High: The Development of Mormon Priesthood (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1995), 115–49 and David John Buerger, The Mysteries of Godliness: A History of Mormon Temple Worship (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2002), 11–34.

[7] Matthew 21:9, Mark 11:9, and John 12:13. See Jacob W. Olmstead, “From Pentecost to Administration: A Reappraisal of the History of the Hosanna Shout,” Mormon Historical Studies 2 (Fall 2001): 7–37; Steven H. Heath, “The Sacred Shout,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 19 (Fall 1986): 115–23.

[8] Susan Staker, ed., Waiting for World’s End: The Diaries of Wilford Woodruff (Salt Lake City, Utah: Signature Books, 1993), 13.

[9] Christopher C. Jones, “‘We Latter-Day Saints Are Methodists’: The Influence of Methodism on Early Mormon Religiosity,” MA thesis, Brigham Young University, 2009.

[10] Times and Seasons 3 (November 1, 1841): 589.

[11] Andrew H. Hedges, Alex D. Smith, and Richard Lloyd Anderson, eds., Journals, Volume 2: December–April 1843 in THE JOSEPH SMITH PAPERS, edited by Dean C. Jessee, Ronald K. Esplin, and Richard Lyman Bushman (Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2011), 340.

[12] The LDS Church had been investing heavily in Nauvoo since the 1960s by buying land, restoring historic properties, and building many new structures. See Julie Dockstader Heaps, “Nauvoo ‘Beautiful’ Once Again,” Church News, June 29, 2002.

[13] “Restored Whitney Store Dedicated in Kirtland,” Ensign 14, no. 11 (November 1984): 110–11.

[14] The 1837 failure of the Kirtland Bank, with its ensuing conflict and dissent, is widely considered the main reason why Joseph moved Church headquarters from Kirtland to Nauvoo.

[post_title] => The Kirtland Temple as a Shared Space: A Conversation with David J. Howlett [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 47.1 (Spring 2014): 104–123
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WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 10244 [post_author] => 2116 [post_date] => 2018-03-21 18:13:45 [post_date_gmt] => 2018-03-21 18:13:45 [post_content] =>

Members of the Community of Christ were shocked when our president, W. Grant McMurray, announced that he had resigned on November 29, 2004, effective immediately.[1] He cited some health problems but clearly the main reason was his admission of having made some "inappropriate choices." He declined to name a successor,[2] as called for in the Doctrine and Covenants: "None else shall be appointed unto this gift except it be through him, for if it be taken from him he shall not have power, except to appoint another in his stead."[3]

I got quite a few emails and calls from LDS friends from Sunstone and the Mormon History Association expressing shock and sadness. Lavina Fielding Anderson wrote: "It's heart-breaking for us personally. Paul and I were trying to think last night of a time when we ever saw Grant when he wasn't kind, funny, sensitive, self-deprecating, and articulate about really important things. We couldn't. He's one of the finest human beings I know, and the dignity and courage of his letter of resignation are all of a piece with that."[4]

Speculation about the nature of those "inappropriate choices" naturally circulated, but it seems clear that Church leaders have kept a tight lid on the personal reasons for Grant's resignation. His resignation without naming a successor, however, created a unique problem for the Church. 

We of the Community of Christ tradition (until April 2001 the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) have always said that our priesthood, from the deacon to the president-prophet, are called by God. Through most of our history, three additional expectations have governed the office of Church president: (1) the president has been a lineal descendant of Joseph Smith Jr.; (2) he served until his death; and (3) he named his successor. We have now abandoned all three of these expectations. In my view, these are all welcome changes. 

When Brigham Young and the Twelve began the westward exodus in 1846, Emma Smith and many other Mormons declined to follow them. But it does seem to me that it was logical for the Twelve to lead the Church after the martyrdom of our founding prophet. After all, they were the "second Presidency"; and since Hyrum Smith had also been murdered, the only surviving member of the First Presidency was Sidney Rigdon, who was not in very good standing at that time. While members of the Reorganized Church have often asserted that Joseph Smith Jr. had made it clear that his son should succeed him as Church president, Grant McMurray in a 1980 article stated: "Joseph Smith, Jr., himself was largely responsible for the tremendous sense of confusion that followed his martyrdom in 1844."[5] When the Saints in Nauvoo in August 1844 showed their preference for Brigham Young and the Twelve as leaders, their decision should not be perceived, McMurray continued, "as it has in much apologetic literature issued by the Reorganization, as a bald usurpation of power by Brigham Young, jostling young Joseph out of his rightful place."[6]

I can understand Emma's decision not to move to Utah with the Twelve. Her life had been uprooted enough. And she shared the overwhelming consensus of the western Christian world that polygamy was an abomination in the sight of God. Her decision was a good one, and certainly in some ways Lewis Bidamon was a better husband and father than Joseph. Emma's sons appreciated him as a stepfather.[7]

After the majority of the Saints relocated in Deseret in 1846-47, several men tried to assert Mormon leadership in the Midwest. According to Lawrence Foster, the most dangerous challenge to Brigham Young's leadership in the wake of the martyrdom came from "the brilliant and charismatic prophet, James J. Strang."[8] Strang, who gathered followers in Wisconsin and later at Beaver Island in Lake Michigan, was probably the most promising alternative to Brigham Young and the Twelve in the short run. However, the Reorganized Church emerged from an 1851 religious experience of Jason W. Briggs, leader of the Church in Beloit, Wisconsin. Briggs had followed Strang until Strang embraced polygamy. Clearly the new church would oppose polygamy. But the other issue included in Briggs's religious experience, and perhaps just as important, was the idea that the new president should be of "the seed of Joseph." Emma had four sons and naturally the eldest, Joseph III, would be the first choice to fill that role. Although Joseph refused to discuss the matter when first approached by members of the new church, eventually he accepted the call to be its president. At age twenty-seven, he was ordained at the conference in Amboy, Illinois, on April 6, 1860. Mormonism valued lineage, so it was natural that a faction that did not support the Twelve would look to lineal succession as a sound alternative to apostolic seniority.[9]

Lineal succession in the presidency was very important in the early years of the Reorganization, as the authority-conscious church in the Midwest contended with its equally authority-conscious cousins in the West.[10] McMurray notes that lineal priesthood was the primary focus in the early years of the True Latter Day Saints Herald,[11] which began publication in January 1860, three months before young Joseph's ordination. According to McMurray, during the new publication's first three years, "thirteen major essays are included with titles such as 'Lineal Priesthood,' 'The Pre-eminent Birthright of the Tribe of Joseph,' and 'The Lineal Transmission of the Priesthood from the Days of Adam to the Last Days,' and these do not include the countless references to the subject in other articles and in conference addresses."[12] As it turned out, both of our churches made that initial succession their precedent for the future, although there was some uncertainty when Brigham Young died. I have long argued that both churches selected very bad principles of succession.[13]

Joseph Smith III served as president of the Reorganized Church for nearly fifty-five years, from April 6, 1860, until his death on December 10, 1914, at age eighty-two. He understood two principles with respect to succession: the president should be called by revelation and he should be a worthy, lineal descendant of Joseph the Martyr. By the 1890s, Joseph understood the need to prepare younger men to lead the Church when he was gone. His oldest son, Frederick, was ordained an elder in Lamoni in 1897 when he was twenty-three.[14] But "Freddy," as his father affectionately called him, had not shown a lot of interest in church work up to that time, and he was not very active after his new ordination either. Apostle J. R. Lambert expressed opposition to Frederick's ordination on the basis of his poor record "in the past" and lack of promise for the future.[15] But Frederick showed enough interest by 1902 that he was called into the First Presidency along with a very capable Canadian named Richard C. Evans.[16] According to Roger D. Launius, R. C. Evans clearly desired to become the next president and saw the prophet's son as a rival.[17]

By 1906 Joseph had decided that God was calling Frederick to be the next prophet, and in Doctrine and Covenants 127, approved at the general conference on April 14, 1906, he said: "It is now declared that in case of the removal of my servant now presiding over the Church by death or transgression, my servant Frederick M. Smith, if he remain faithful and steadfast, should be chosen, in accordance with the revelations which have been hitherto given to the Church concerning the priesthood." If Frederick should "prove unstable and unfaithful, another may be chosen, according to the law already given" (D&C 127:8). 

As Joseph Smith III neared death, he knew he needed to assure a clear pattern for future succession beyond Frederick's presidency. After consulting with Church leaders, he drafted a long document entitled "Letter of Instruction," intended to establish the principles upon which succession in the presidency would be based. Joseph knew how difficult the issue had been in 1844 when his father died without naming a clear successor and must have worried during the 1902-06 period that, if he died leaving succession vague, the Church might well split between followers of Frederick and followers of Evans. The "Letter of Instruction," published in the Saints' Herald in 1912, proved useful in determining succession thirty-four years later, when Frederick died in 1946, in 1995 when Wallace B. named the first non-Smith, and again in 2004-05 after Grant McMurray's resignation.[18] Launius notes, however, that in 1912 the Quorum of Twelve specifically refused to endorse the "Letter of Instruction," and the general conference also did not take the action of endorsing it as Church policy.[19] But it became precedent nevertheless. 

Each presidential succession in the RLDS Church has been unique in some ways. Joseph Smith III died on December 10, 1914; Frederick was ordained on May 5, 1915. Frederick died thirty-one years later on March 3, 1946, without having followed his father's example of making a clear public statement about his successor. But on October 20, 1938, he had verbally instructed members of the Twelve and the Presiding Bishopric, according to the minutes of that meeting, that "in the event of his passing, Israel would be in line for the office of president." The minutes went on to say that by joining the First Presidency now, Israel "would have the advantage of the additional experience which this appointment would give."[20] After Frederick M. Smith's death, the Twelve took the leadership, as suggested in the "Letter of Instruction," and asked the Presiding Patriarch, Elbert A. Smith, to seek the will of the Lord on this matter. Elbert reported to the conference that he had sought the will of the Lord over a period of time and received an increasing conviction that Frederick's choice of Israel should be approved.[21] Elbert was the son of David Hyrum Smith and Israel's first cousin. 

Israel A. Smith was a lawyer and very familiar with the history of the Church, which he interpreted legalistically. He did not want to have uncertainty about succession troubling the Church after his death, as had occurred when his grandfather was murdered in 1844 and when his brother, Frederick, died. So he wrote a letter, dated May 28, 1952, in which he declared that "in the event of my death, whenever it shall occur, my brother, William Wallace Smith, should be selected to succeed me as president of the high priesthood of the Church, this having been manifest to me by the Lord at the time he was chosen and set apart as an apostle and again when he was called to be a counselor and member of the Quorum of the First Presidency, at the General Conference of 1950."[22] The letter was witnessed by F. Henry Edwards of the First Presidency and Presiding Bishop G. Leslie DeLapp. After Israel's death in an auto accident in June 1958, the letter was presented to the general conference held in October 1958. The conference voted to approve the letter and include it in the Doctrine and Covenants (now Section 144). W. Wallace Smith was ordained Church president at that conference on October 6, 1958.[23]

The first three RLDS presidents served a total of ninety-eight years and died in office, like royalty. LDS prophets have also continued to serve until death. The RLDS tradition was terminated in 1976 when W. Wallace Smith brought a revelation calling for his retirement two years hence, and for his son, Wallace B. Smith, to be "prophet and president designate" during those same two years, "after which time, if he remain faithful, through the process of common consent of the body of my church, he is to be chosen as president to succeed his father" (D&C 152:1). 

Eighteen years later, Wallace B. Smith also chose to retire rather than serve until death but he departed even further from tradition—that of lineal descent in the office of the president—by naming W. Grant McMurray to be his successor. McMurray is not related to the Smith family in any way. He had been World Church secretary for ten years (1982-92) and a counselor in the First Presidency for four years (1992-96) prior to being ordained as president of the Church on April 16, 1996.[24] W. Wallace was seventy-six when he retired; Wallace B. retired at sixty-seven. 

During the week of the 1996 world conference, some people passed out pamphlets on the streets outside the Auditorium opposing McMurray's calling; but their action made no visible impact. There was relatively little dissent in the Church regarding this break in the tradition of Smith descendants. Possibly most of those who think the president should be a lineal descendant of the founding prophet had already left the Church a few years earlier after Wallace B.'s 1984 revelation calling for the ordination of women. 

McMurray served as president of the Church for eight and one half years, from April 16, 1996, until his November 29, 2004, resignation. He was not only the first non-Smith in the office, but he was also the first president of any Latter Day Saint church to have a graduate degree in religion from a theological seminary or a graduate school of religion.[25]

W. Grant McMurray was born in Toronto on July 12, 1947, the son of William and Noreen McMurray. Grant firmly embraced the RLDS tradition as he grew up, seeing his church as "the one true church." He moved to Independence in 1959 with his mother and sister, Donna, after his parents divorced. His father had been a full-time Church appointee minister who lost his job when it became known that he had an alcohol if, problem.[26] Grant graduated from William Chrisman High School in In dependence in 1965 and attended RLDS-sponsored Graceland College from 1965 to 1969, graduating with a major in religion and a minor in English.[27]

During his high school and college years, there was a growing recognition that some Church leaders and members were rethinking many of the Church's traditional teachings in areas of scripture, history, and theology. This theological ferment was becoming very visible at Graceland, where some of the faculty were among the leading advocates of the new ideas that were emerging.[28] Grant recalls noticing quite a contrast in the faculty during his freshman year when he had "Introduction to Religion" from Donald D. Landon, a major leader of the liberalizers at that time, and "Introduction to Sociology" from Raymond D. Zinser,[29] a charismatic individual whose conservative approach to religion included an ability and willingness to give prophecies in church meetings rather frequently. While McMurray majored in religion, he always had an interest in journalism and wrote articles for the student newspaper, the Graceland Tower. The late 1960s were turbulent times, and student protest at Graceland and around the country was at its peak.[30]

One of the six religion courses that Grant took from me was "Latter Day Saint Scriptures," a course that focused on the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants. No one in Graceland's religion department wanted to teach this course. Indeed, none of the three faculty members at that time had ever read the Book of Mormon.[31] Perhaps foolishly, I volunteered. I was about halfway through the book when the course started. On the first day I asked the students—fourteen in all—why they were taking this course. Most of them said something like they were taking it for their spiritual growth, and so forth. When I came to Grant, he said, with an embarrassed look, "I am taking this course because I have never read the Book of Mormon and this course will force me to read it." My response was, "Don't worry, Grant, I haven't read it myself."[32]

The students and the professor learned together, so the class was very discussion-oriented. I look back at this class as one of the most enjoyable I have ever taught in my forty years at Graceland (1966-2006). Two major conclusions reached by many of the students (and their instructor) were: (1) it is difficult to support the idea that the Book of Mormon is a historical account as claimed[33] and (2) there are significant problems with the RLDS practice since 1878 of instantly canonizing revelations from the prophet, because the faith community has not had an opportunity to consider the document at length and see if it meets the "test of time." One of my students, Kathy Olson (now Sharp), took this class later and stressed this idea in a 1972 article in Courage: A Journal of History, Thought, and Action, a journal published and edited mainly by faculty at Graceland College.[34]

After McMurray's graduation from Graceland in 1969, he enrolled in Saint Paul School of Theology, a Methodist seminary in Kansas City, Missouri, which was conveniently located about fifteen minutes from the RLDS headquarters in Independence. A significant number of RLDS leaders in the 1960s and 1970s attended Saint Paul, including five who were later called to the Council of Twelve and the First Presidency.[35] McMurray recalls siding with the theological revisionists during those years, but he did not have a "faith crisis" as some seminary students did.[36] In Independence, McMurray and his wife, Joyce, attended congregations clearly identified with the liberal wing of the Church.[37] In the 1970s they attended the Presence Mission which included many prominent Church liberals.[38] When the Presence Mission folded at the end of the decade, many of its liberals transferred to the Walnut Gardens Congregation, which soon became known as the most liberal congregation in Independence.[39]

The RLDS Church practiced closed communion, meaning that only baptized members of the RLDS Church could take the sacrament at the monthly service of the Lord's Supper. In 1971, while still a seminary student, McMurray was hired by the Church to work for Paul Booth, director of the Division of Program Planning. Booth put McMurray to work researching the issue of closed communion.[40] As a result, his first published scholarly article, "Closed Communion in the Restoration," appeared in 1971 in Courage.[41] Whether to open the sacrament to Christians baptized in other denominations became a major issue in the Church throughout the 1970s and 1980s until finally, the 1994 world conference voted to approve a policy of open communion.[42]

After fifteen months working for Paul Booth in program planning, McMurray, still a seminary student, was offered a part-time position in the History Department at Church headquarters, with the possibility that it would become full-time after a year. He would be working under the direction of Church Historian Richard P. Howard, one of the leading liberal thinkers in the Church. Howard had recently published Restoration Scriptures: A Study of Their Textual Development, which won the Mormon History Association's 1969 "best book" award.[43] Howard's meticulous research into the evolution of the texts of the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and Joseph Smith's "New Translation of the Bible"[44] subtly challenged the literal interpretation of scripture that many members held. Perhaps as important as the textual reconstructions was Howard's introduction which explained and argued for a liberal interpretation of scripture.[45]

Early in 1972, the first year that McMurray was employed in the History Department, he joined with Howard and others in founding the John Whitmer Historical Association,[46] and he authored some significant historical articles in the years that followed. Three years after he became president of the Church, he gave a paper at the annual meeting of the John Whitmer Historical Association in which he reflected that it was interesting to note the subjects he had chosen to research, since they often had relevance for the presidential position he would ultimately assume.[47] One of John Whitmer's early presidents, he chose for his presidential address, "The Reorganization in Nineteenth-Century America: Identity Crisis or Historiographical Problem?"[48]

In 1978 McMurray was invited to give the John Whitmer banquet address which is held in Independence the night before the world conference begins. Wallace B. Smith, the man who seventeen years later would call him to be the president-prophet, was being ordained at that conference. McMurray's lecture was, very appropriately, on the subject of succession: "'True Son of a True Father': Joseph Smith III and the Succession Question."[49] Wallace B. Smith had been an ophthalmologist in Independence for fourteen years prior to 1976. He had served only as a local leader in the Church and as a member of the Church's Standing High Council, which advises the First Presidency, when requested, on sensitive issues. 

Prior to the 1982 world conference, McMurray was approached by Howard S. ("Bud") Sheehy, then a counselor in the First Presidency, inviting him to become the World Church secretary, replacing Roy Stearns, who was retiring in August. The World Church secretary is the executive secretary in the office of the First Presidency. McMurray recalls: "The First Presidency had wanted to upgrade the role of church secretary, so he or she would truly be the executive secretary and sit in on the weekly meetings of the First Presidency and the meetings that were held with the Executive Committee of the First Presidency, the President of the Twelve, and the Presiding Bishop."[50] Wallace B. Smith's other counselor was Duane E. Couey. Grant accepted the offer, with the change becoming effective in August, four months later. However, at the conference Couey retired from the First Presidency and was replaced by Apostle Alan D. Tyree, which caused McMurray to wonder if the offer was still good. "Personally I looked forward to working with Duane, whom I admired greatly," he told me in an interview. "But Alan said he supported the appointment, too, so the Presidency said the job was still mine."[51]

McMurray's first conference as World Church secretary was the April 1984 conference which split the Church. President Smith introduced the document that became Section 156 of the Doctrine and Covenants, approving the ordination of women and also announcing plans to build the temple. After a long debate, delegates approved it by a vote of approximately 80-20 percent. Some thought Wallace B. Smith—having three daughters and no sons—had introduced women's ordination to allow one of his daughters to succeed him. But since Wallace ultimately recommended a male successor outside the family, it appears that Section 156 was not based on this motivation. Although Wallace has never, to my knowledge, publicly discussed the background to this revelation, he clearly believed the male-only priesthood was based on culture and tradition, not divine will. 

The controversy over the ordination of women was not handled well by Church leaders, and more than one-fourth of the active Church members withdrew their support over the next six years. Wallace B. Smith's counselors, Howard Sheehy and Alan Tyree, were both former apostles with significant experience in Church leadership. Possibly Wallace delegated too much authority to his counselors. At any rate, Sheehy was known for being rather autocratic, and Tyree was known for being certain of his opinions. Many Church members believe that too many leaders—from the World Church level down to the local congregations—were too punitive in responding to the critics of Section 156. Churches are voluntary associations which thrive only if their adherents willingly participate with their time, talents, and financial resources. Hundreds of priest hood members were silenced (removed from the priesthood) for their opposition to new Church policies, particularly the ordination of women. Understandably they left and joined with other like-minded Saints to form restoration branches totally independent of the RLDS Church. 

Thus, McMurray became president in 1996 after Church-shaking changes had been introduced by Wallace B. Smith: (1) the ordination of women,[52] (2) the dedication of the temple in Independence to the pursuit of peace,[53] (3) a policy change from closed to open communion for the sacrament of the Lord's Supper,[54] and (4) a break with the long-standing tradition of lineal succession in the presidency. As a historian, I would add a fifth change: a new era of historical professionalism and honesty, as seen especially in Church Historian Richard Howard's 1983 article cautiously admitting that Joseph Smith Jr. was a polygamist—a conclusion we had rejected since the presidency of Joseph III (1860-1914). That article was published in the independent John Whitmer Historical Association Journal with the quiet support of the First Presidency, who wanted it to be published but not in an official Church forum like the Saints' Herald.[55]

It appears that by 1992 Wallace B. Smith had made at least a tentative judgment that Grant McMurray was to be the next president, since sixty-two-year-old Tyree was released at that conference and replaced by McMurray. Three years later in September 1995, Smith issued a pastoral letter announcing that, at the April 1996 world conference, he would recommend that McMurray be approved as the new president and prophet. In that letter, he said, "The principle of lineage in the calling and choosing of a successor is important but not overriding."[56]

McMurray was well grounded, both in the Christian tradition as a result of his undergraduate and graduate studies in religion and in the history of the movement he was about to lead by virtue of his decade working in the History Department. But certainly some veteran Church leaders would have preferred a president with extensive background in Church leadership outside the headquarters bureaucracy in Independence where McMurray had spent his entire career. 

At the time McMurray became president, Gustav Niebuhr of the New York Times wrote that "McMurray's election was the latest move within the 250,000 member church as it struggles to redefine its identity and broaden its appeal." Niebuhr noted, "Even in small matters, differences are apparent. A visitor to Mr. McMurray's office is offered coffee, a drink shunned by Mormons." McMurray said to Niebuhr, "When you think about it, the Mormon Church and the R.L.D.S. Church share about a 14-year history in the early 19th century... and since then, we've developed on very different tracks."[57] Three months later the Christian Century observed, "McMurray's accession seems certain to accelerate the move of the RLDS Church away from Mormon tradition."[58] These observations were accurate. 

During the eight and a half years that McMurray was president, he continued the direction that Wallace B. Smith had taken and, with skill and wit, effectively articulated an expanded vision for the Church. His writing and speaking skills were remarkable. Many Church members were highly impressed with McMurray's messages to the Church, finding them inspirational and motivational. 

McMurray brought greater diversity into the presiding quorums. Wallace B. Smith had been president for twelve years after the approval of women's ordination in 1984, but he did not call any women to these high offices. No doubt time was needed to give women experience in other priesthood callings. When McMurray became president, some women had been in the priesthood for a decade, constituting a core of experienced women now available for openings in the presiding quorums. McMurray called the first three women apostles (Linda L. Booth and Gail E. Mengel in 1998 and Mary Jacks Dynes in 2002) as well as the first woman to the Presiding Bishopric (Stassie Cramm in 2002). He also called the first African to the Council of Twelve, Bunda W. Chibwe from Zambia, in 2000.[59]

Barely one year into his presidency, McMurray initiated a three-year program called "Transformation 2000," which sought to invigorate the Church over the following three years. Its goals were to develop a Christ-centered theology of peace and justice, to engage 20,000 youth, children, and young adults in peacemaking, to locate 200 model congregations committed to youth outreach and peace ministries, to create 200 new congregations, and to obtain 200 new full-time ministers in the Church.[60] "Transformation 2000" as it was called, was a modest success. In 2003 McMurray said that Transformation 2000 had "led to the addition of almost 200 new field ministers and that "more than 200 new congregations" had been planted. The World Church budget grew from approximately $18 million to a figure that approached $30 million."[61]

Under McMurray's leadership the Church finally established a theological seminary. When Church members began to go to theological seminaries in reasonable numbers in the 1960s and 1970s, they usually attended Protestant seminaries. Many Church people thought seminary education was unnecessary, if not counter-productive. One delegate to the 1970 world conference stated emphatically. "These other schools have nothing to teach us."[62] But over time Church members began to see the value of seminary education, probably in part because of the contribution made in a variety of ways by people with graduate degrees in religion. Early on many of these students were headquarters staff members who attended Saint Paul School of Theology in Kansas City, Missouri. But as time went on, RLDS members were attending a wide variety of seminaries: Protestant, Roman Catholic, and even state universities. Finally the Church established the Community of Christ Seminary located at the In dependence campus of Graceland University, less than a mile from Church headquarters.[63] When the 2000 world conference approved this seminary, the delegates and observers responded with a vigorous applause, a marked contrast to the world conference held thirty years earlier when much hostility to theological education had been expressed and when a suggestion by a delegate that we should move toward ordaining women was greeted with loud expressions of shock. Conservative critics are right when they say the Church has changed significantly over the past three or four decades.[64]

McMurray also engaged in scholarly debate with some of the Church's leading scholars when he was asked to give a paper replying to Paul M. Edwards, Roger D. Launius, Danny L. Jorgensen, and George Walton at the 1999 John Whitmer Historical Association meeting, held that year at Excelsior Springs, Missouri. These four had critiqued the Church at the 1997 Whitmer meeting in Kirtland. McMurray reviewed his own historical writings prior to becoming a member of the First Presidency, critiqued each of the four previous papers, and discussed the tension between the roles and goals of the historian and the ecclesiastical officer.[65]

Over the past several decades, the RLDS Church has become more sensitive to various issues of Christian social concern. During McMurray's time in the presidency, the world conferences have passed resolutions on war and peace, military service, land mines, earth steward ship, globalization, children's rights and advocacy, the developmentally disabled, sexual abuse, homosexuality, discrimination based on race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation, gun control, capital punishment, and organ and tissue donation.[66]

One major issue in America as well as many other places around the world is the matter of homosexuals and their place in church and society. In the Community of Christ, this issue has been widely seen as significant for at least a decade. McMurray included very supportive statements on the topic—briefly in his 1998 world conference sermon and extensively in his 2002 world conference sermon. Gay and lesbian members and their families, listening to this message, felt they had received unprecedented support. But the 2002 statement created a backlash, possibly because McMurray honestly admitted that he had been aware of and agreed with ordinations that were approved for homosexuals in committed relationships, which is currently contrary to Church policy.[67]

McMurray also acknowledged the guilt of white Americans in their treatment of Native Americans over the years. A Native American Conference was held at the temple in Independence, February 15-18, 2001. At that conference McMurray stated: "We must acknowledge our culpability in the vast mosaic of abuse, violence, disinterest, and insensitivity that have marked the experience of Native peoples in America."[68]

After the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon, McMurray wrote "Faith Overcoming Fear: Pastoral Reflections on the Events of September 11." He noted that national pride was very high in the United States as a result of the terrorism. "But this awful act is not an attack on one country but rather is an assault on the human family." Reminding his readers that the major religions of the world share a commitment to peace, he wrote, "We must stand firmly against ethnic stereotypes and religious persecution." He also mentioned that the Church had become signatory to a statement by religious leaders in the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States titled, "Deny Them Their Victory."[69]

And finally, during McMurray's presidency, the Church's name was changed to Community of Christ, reflecting the shift from being a sect-type to a denomination-type church. As a sect the Church focused heavily on convincing others—and probably ourselves—that the RLDS Church is the "one true church." Now the Community of Christ is clearly focusing more on Jesus and less on Joseph Smith. Theologian-in-Residence Anthony Chvala-Smith and Peace and Justice Ministries Coordinator Andrew Bolton are two examples of Church leaders who clearly see this shift and welcome it. In 2003 McMurray told the Mormon History Association that, on the one hand, "I believe he [Joseph Smith] was brilliant and visionary, probably a religious genius, certainly the founder of the most significant indigenous religious movement to be birthed on American soil," but on the other hand, "I also believe he was deeply flawed, with profound human weaknesses, inconsistencies, and short-comings.”[70]

After McMurray resigned in November 2004, his two counselors, Kenneth N. Robinson and Peter A. Judd, continued to lead the Church until the special world conference held in June 2005. In his resignation letter, McMurray had specifically declined to name a successor, so the two-member First Presidency announced a process of "discernment," attempting to ascertain the will of God as to who should lead the Church.[71] The Council of Twelve, in consultation with the First Presidency and the leaders of the other major Church quorums, and inviting the response of all members, led this process,[72] which relied heavily on Joseph Smith Ill's 1912 "Letter of Instruction," dealing with the issue of succession in the presidency.[73] Sunday, February 27, 2005, was designated as a special day of prayer and preparation throughout the Church.[74] The Twelve reported that, after an extended period of prayer and fasting culminating in a March 2 meeting, "God graced our efforts and gave to each of us a testimony that Stephen M. Veazey is called to lead the Church as prophet-president."[75] At that time Veazey, forty-eight, was barely one-half the age of Gordon B. Hinckley, ninety-five. 

The choice was not a surprise because Veazey, the second youngest apostle, had been chosen by his eleven colleagues to be president of the Council of Twelve at the 2002 world conference. The Twelve's recommendation that Veazey be ordained Church president was approved by the delegates at the special June 2005 world conference. When the vote was taken, it appeared that from among more than two thousand delegates, fewer than ten delegates voted in opposition.[76]

The McMurray presidency completed the elimination of the three expectations cited in the beginning of this paper. His two predecessors had retired rather than serve until death, McMurray was not a Smith, and he declined to name a successor when he resigned. The Church had to find an alternative to the tradition of one person (the prophet) naming his successor. In my view, this was the most positive side to McMurray's resignation. Hopefully this precedent will continue. 

Many who knew Grant and Joyce McMurray thought Grant's role as "prophet" would be an uncomfortable one for both of them. At world conference the week he was ordained, McMurray said, "But to sit and listen while one is described as 'prophet, seer, and revelator' creates within me unimaginable turmoil.... We need to talk, my friends, about the way we have begun to move our identity as a people with a prophet to our calling as a prophetic people."[77] In McMurray's 2003 address at the Mormon History Association meeting at the Kirtland Temple, he recalled that a Salt Lake reporter had called him uncomfortable in that role. "Indeed I was," responded McMurray. "Seeking to discern God's will for us in our own time ... is a shared task of religious inquiry, not a duty for one person locked in a closet."[78]

As a personal comment, I will say that I would have been uncomfortable if McMurray had been comfortable in his role as prophet. Therefore, in my view, McMurray made an important contribution to the Church when he proposed that we should think of ourselves not so much as a "people with a prophet" but as a "prophetic people."[79] This perspective involved much more than a natural feeling of human inadequacy. The concept of revelation as occurring through a prophet, resulting in specific directions to a Church the prophet presides over, seems vastly inferior to the concept that God's people will act in prophetic ways when they see the poor, the suffering, and the marginalized, or when they see people making gods of their possessions, or people killing others in the name of their gods. The God of Israel portrayed in the Hebrew Bible is certainly not one who communicated his will for Israel through one person who spoke for Yahweh to the community of faith. The prophets of Israel were not official Church spokesmen. 

In his prayer at the high priests' quorum meeting at the special 2005 conference, Don Compier, dean of the Community of Christ Seminary, said, "We thank God for our growing recognition of the fact that discernment of calling is a collective responsibility of the entire body of Christ."[80] If God can make his preference known about who should lead the Church to one person, it seems to me that the divine mind can just as well move a group of people to choose the right leader. Since all such human judgments are fallible, it also seems to me that the collective wisdom of the general officers of the Church is to be preferred to the judgment of one person, no matter how spiritually gifted that person might be. And when that happens, it has the advantage that more people have taken ownership of the decision. 

McMurray made a valuable contribution to the Church by declining to submit for the Doctrine and Covenants his letters to the Church recommending men and women for ordination as general officers of the Church. He began this with his first "letter of counsel" calling people to the higher quorums, at the world conference of 1996.[81] Throughout the presidencies of Frederick M. Smith (1915-46), Israel A. Smith (1946-68), W. Wallace Smith (1968-78), and Wallace B. Smith (1978-96), every revelation approved for the Doctrine and Covenants included, at least in part, calling men to the presiding quorums of the Church. McMurray changed that tradition, and his successor, Stephen Veazey, followed suit when he became president. During his eight and a half years as president, McMurray did submit two documents for consideration, both of which were pastoral letters which the world conference approved for inclusion in the Doctrine and Covenants (now Sections 161 and 162). It has been my observation that these two pastoral statements have resonated very well with Community of Christ members, as they are quoted frequently in Church meetings. Kansas City Star reporter Mara Rose Williams described these documents as "major statements calling for the inclusion of people of all races, cultures, ethnicities and socioeconomic backgrounds in the church."[82]

At first glance, it may seem that the Community of Christ has adopted the LDS Church's method of succession in the office of president. However, there are important differences. First, Church members outside the Twelve were eligible for the office. Second, Veazey was not the senior apostle and, by chronological age, he was the second youngest apostle. Veazey called the youngest apostle, David D. Schaal, age forty-seven, to be one counselor in the First Presidency and retained as his other counselor Kenneth N. Robinson, who had served in the First Presidency throughout McMurray's tenure. Thus, the two youngest apostles in the Community of Christ were chosen to be the president and a member of the new First Presidency. And finally, Veazy's selection occurred only after a period of "discernment" in which not only the Twelve and other leading officers, but the entire Church membership was encouraged to submit names and to pray for divine guidance in the discernment process. Therefore, it was not an automatic appointment of the senior apostle, but an un-predetermined choice by the Twelve. It was an open process which Community of Christ members see as being guided in significant ways by the Holy Spirit.[83]

The new president of the Community of Christ was raised in Paris, Tennessee, a city where a young Wilford Woodruff spent some time on a mission to the South.[84] Despite his comparative youth, Veazey has had a more extensive and varied career in full-time ministerial service to the Church than any of his predecessors. The Smith presidents and McMurray had mainly headquarters assignments in their pre-presidential careers. Veazey was a pastor at age twenty and has been deeply involved in missionary work for the Church at various levels. He has been the apostle in charge of the Church's work in Africa, in the American South, and in large portions of the Midwest, in addition to directing African American Ministries, and other assignments. In 1990 he was ordained a president of Seventy and an apostle in 1992, at age thirty-five. Before his calling as an apostle, his work had been entirely outside of Independence. In 2002 his colleagues in the Council of Twelve Apostles chose him as their quorum president. 

As a gracious and much-appreciated gesture, the opening worship service of the June 2005 conference that approved Veazey's ordination included a video highlighting major events in McMurray's presidency. He had been very well-liked by many Church members, and this recognition of his contributions provided a graceful transition to the new presidency. The Twelve presented their recommendation of Veazey to meetings of the various priesthood quorums and caucuses—the bishops, evangelists, high priests, elders, Aaronic Priesthood, the non-priesthood delegates,[85] the children and youth caucus, and the French, Spanish, and Tahitian language caucuses.[86] Each group discussed the Twelve's recommendation, then voted whether to approve or reject it. 

In the high priests' quorum, former President Wallace B. Smith, who had called Veazey to be an apostle at the tender age of thirty-five, rose to say that few have exhibited the leadership qualities that he has seen in Veazey. "I can say unqualifiedly that Steve is called to this office," he stated.[87] In the elders' quorum, Paul DeBarthe from Lenexa, Kansas, advocated separating the two roles of prophet and president, arguing that these two are difficult for one person to achieve. This point has been raised in private discussions in the Church for many years, but rarely in public. In the delegates' caucus—intended for conference delegates who are not members of the priesthood,[88] two people objected to the fact that "seer and revelator" had been left out of the statement by the Twelve recommending Veazey to be "president of the high priesthood, prophet and president of the church."[89] They cited the language of "prophet, seer and revelator" in Doctrine and Covenants 104:42 (LDS D&C 107:92). Apostle Dale E. Luffman, presiding over the meeting, suggested that the word "prophet" pretty well covers "seer and revelator" also, then later noted that "seer" and "revelator" connote "images of magic and folklore" that, he suggested, no longer serve us well.[90]

When all the delegates gathered for a business session to hear the reports from the quorums and caucuses, Veazey gave his testimony regarding his call. He quoted Joseph Smith Ill's statement to the 1860 general conference when he became Church president: "I have come in obedience to a power not my own." Then he left the chamber while the conference took up the matter of his call. All of the quorum and caucus meetings then reported, each supporting the call. Then individual delegates had the opportunity to discuss the recommendation. Finally, the conference voted on whether to approve Veazey for ordination. The vote was overwhelmingly in the affirmative, and Veazey was ordained at a special worship service on the Friday of the world conference, June 3, with six thousand in attendance.[91]

On the last full day, the conference considered and approved President Veazey's recommendations for ordination for various vacancies in the presiding quorums. In addition to calling Robinson and Schaal as his counselors, he also called four new apostles—two women and two men—and called R. Paul Davis to fill a vacancy in the Presiding Bishopric.[92] There was concern expressed from both the French Language Caucus and the elders' quorum that all of the new officers are English-speaking Americans, even though the Church is becoming more international. Of the twenty-one men and women who are the presiding officers of the Church, only three are not U.S. citizens: First Presidency member Kenneth Robinson from Australia, Apostle Bunda Chibwe from Zambia, and Presiding Evangelist Danny Belrose from Canada.[93] The outgoing First Presidency of McMurray, Robinson, and Judd were all born outside the United States, but McMurray's family moved from Canada to Independence when he was in the upper elementary grades, and Judd has lived in the United States since he came to Graceland College from his native England in 1961. 

Two other apostles were released prior to retirement. Outgoing Apostle Ken McLaughlin had asked to be relieved of his place in the Twelve, which was unusual given his comparatively youthful age of fifty-three. In his statement to the conference, he said, "I have long believed that people ought to sit at the table of leadership for various periods of time and then serve in other ways. Indeed, it is my sincere hope that such movement will become increasingly common in the life of the Church—so common that we fully embrace the understanding that the needs of the Church require the on-going alignment of individual giftedness and interests with new ministries important to the well-being of the church."[94]

McLaughlin was raising a fundamental question for the future, not only for the Twelve but for the president: Would the Church be better served if general officers—including the president-prophet—were released after a decade or so to pursue other spiritual gifts and callings, making way for younger leadership? It will be interesting to see if Veazey serves until retirement—about seventeen years from now—or moves on to other ministries in later years. 

Gail Mengel, one of the first two women called to the Twelve in 1998, was released so she could spend more time as the Church's officer concerned with ecumenical relations. She is currently serving a four-year term as president of the ecumenical Church Women United.[95] President Veazey indicated that Mengel would concurrently serve as the Church's Ecumenical and Interfaith Officer.[96] Thus, her release illustrated the model that McLaughlin was suggesting. 

A major theme of Veazey's conference sermon was "the cause of Zion," which is "one consistent theme at the heart of our journey as a people of faith." He stated: "At this point in our journey, we now understand that the cause of Zion cannot be separated from the message of reconciliation and peace brought by Jesus Christ."[97] Noting that Jesus "opposed the dominant religious and political trends of his day that were counter to God's purposes," Veazey said, "That is why he ate with sinners, healed the unclean, reconciled the guilty. That is why he tended to the needs of the poor and called people from all walks of life to a new kind of compassionate, peaceful community grounded in the love of God, self, and neighbor." The new president said: "We need to be especially aware of the condition of the most vulnerable in our midst: the aged, the young, the sick, the poor, the marginalized, and the oppressed. How are they doing? Are they experiencing well-being? . . . Are they unfairly hindered by the attitudes and actions of others who have a more secure or powerful place in the society?"[98] His concluding thought on the subject was, "If our vision of Zion does not promote the well-being of children throughout the world it is not the Zion to which God calls us."[99]

Aware of the tension all Christians face between the message of the gospel and the influence of the surrounding culture, Veazey lamented, "Too often the church withdraws from its prophetic role in the world, reflecting biases and prejudices of the larger society, rather than impacting society with a vision of the gospel and the values of the Restoration, such as the worth and giftedness of all people."[100] This message, a renewal of the much-cherished Zionic vision, was enthusiastically received by the membership. 

What are the implications of President Veazey's ordination for the future of the succession process in the Community of Christ? Two and a half months after he resigned and four months before Veazey was selected, Grant McMurray told a newspaper reporter, "I don't think the present situation necessarily establishes a precedent for the future at all. Churches live in the moment, and at this moment the very best step ... is for a very good-sized group of leaders to reflect on the needs of the church and to discern through prayer and reflection the best way to respond."[101] Certainly future presidents could revert to early tradition and name their successor before they retire. But I don't think it will happen for three reasons. 

First, many rank-and-file members will not approve of going back to choice by one person. I think many Church people are happy to see the appointing power broadened as it was in the 2005 selection of Veazey. Second, Veazey is known as a humble man, so I doubt that he will want to reclaim that power for the prophet. Third, it seems likely that the Twelve, having chosen the new president in 2005, will not yield that power back to the Church president without a struggle. So I disagree with McMurray on this point. What happened in 2005 will be seen as a precedent in the future, just as the 1912 "Letter of Instruction" became a precedent in 1946, 1996, and 2005, even though neither the Twelve nor the conference endorsed it at the time. As in any democracy, there will be pressure to expand the number of people involved in the selection. That might be the hard part, as the Twelve might resist giving up their central role to a larger group of decision-makers. 

McMurray's achievements as leader of the Community of Christ were considerable. His resignation further reflects our perception that all prophets are human and fallible, as Joseph Smith Jr. demonstrated so well. McMurray may have chosen not to designate his successor merely because of his "inappropriate choices." However, I think it is more likely that he believes it is not a good idea for one person to choose the president, just as he feels that the prophetic role is not exclusive to one person. In resigning, McMurray forced the Community of Christ to come to terms with an inadequate tradition that expected one person to name the next leader of the Church. In that sense, his resignation was a blessing. 

---

[1] Peggy Fletcher Stack, "Head of Former RLDS Church Unexpectedly Steps Down," Salt Lake Tribune, December 3, 2004, A-l, A-9; Carrie A. Moore, "Leader Resigns Presidency of Ex-RLDS Church," Deseret Morning News, December 3, 2004, B-l, B-2; David Tanner, "McMurray Resigns Church Presidency," Independence Examiner, December 3, 2005, A-l; Mara Rose Williams, "McMurray Resigns as Church President," Kansas City Star, December 3, 2004, E-2. 

[2] W. Grant McMurray, "Dear Peter and Ken" (official letter of resignation), Herald, January 2005, 6.

[3] Community of Christ Doctrine and Covenants 43:2a. Unless otherwise noted, all D&C citations are to this edition. The parallel quotation is LDS D&C 43:4. 

[4] Lavina Fielding Anderson, email to William D. Russell, December 3, 2004. 

[5] W. Grant McMurray, "True Son of a True Father': Joseph Smith III and the Succession Question," A in Restoration Studies, Vol. 1, edited by Maurice L. Draper and Clare D. Vlahos (Independence, Mo.: Herald Publishing House, 1980), 131. 

[6] Ibid., 132. 

[7] Valeen Tippetts Avery, From Mission to Madness: Last Son of the Mormon Prophet (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998), 31.

[8] Lawrence Foster, Religion and Sexuality: The Shakers, the Mormons, and the Oneida Community (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981), 186-87.

[9] David Hyrum Smith, the youngest child born to Emma and Joseph Smith Jr., was in the First Presidency from 1873 until 1885; his older brother Alexander was in the First Presidency from 1897 until 1902. The other son, Frederick, died in 1862 without having joined the Reorganization.

[10] For the standard RLDS understanding of succession in the Church presidency, see Elbert A. Smith, Restoration: A Study in Prophecy (Independence, Mo.: Herald Publishing House, 1925), chap. 5; Russell F. Ralston, Fundamental Differences between the LDS and RLDS Churches (1960; rpt. Independence, Mo.: Price Publishing Company, 1998), chap. 1; and Aleah G. Koury, The Truth and the Evidence: A Comparison between Doctrine of the Reorganized Church ofJesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Independence, Mo.: Herald Publishing House, 1965), chap. 5. For a scholarly understanding of the succession of Joseph Smith III, see McMurray, "True Son of a True Father,'" 131-45. 

[11] The title True Latter Day Saints Herald clearly contains the implication that there are some false Latter Day Saints out there somewhere.

[12] McMurray, "True Son of a True Father," 140. 

[13] Many years ago, I made this argument in, "Needed: A New Method of Succession," Courage: A Journal of History, Thought, and Action 2, no. 1 (September 1971): 326-27. 

[14] Roger D. Launius, Joseph Smith III: Pragmatic Prophet (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988), 31. 

[15] "Conference Minutes: Decatur District," Saints' Herald 44 (June 22, 1897): 401-2, qtd. in Roger D. Launius, "R. C. Evans: Boy Orator of the Reorganization, "John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 3 (1983): 50 note 28.

[16] The revelatory document calling these two as counselors to President Joseph Smith III is in D&C 126:8, April 18, 1902. 

[17] Launius, "R. C. Evans," 40-50, and his Joseph Smith III: Pragmatic Prophet, chaps. 14-15. After Evans's disaffection, he wrote Why I Left the Latter Day Saint Church: Reasons by Bishop R. C. Evans (Toronto: n.pub., 1918). 

[18] Joseph Smith III, "Letter of Instruction," Saints' Herald, March 13, 1912, 241-48; also published in Joseph Smith III and Heman Hale Smith, History of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, 1805-1890, 4 vols.; continued by F. Henry Edwards, Vols. 5-8, 1903-15 (Independence, Mo.: Herald Publishing House, 1970), 6:575. 

[19] Launius, Joseph Smith III, 349. Indeed, Launius notes that the letter "was not binding on the church, and the Quorum of Twelve responded to it by resolving that 'we do not commit ourselves to the terminology nor all the conclusions contained in the "Letter of Instruction."'" Council of Twelve Minutes, 1865-1928, April 12, 1912. McMurray, "True Son of a True Father,'" 131, also notes that the letter "never did receive official conference approval." 

[20] Quoted in the Official Minutes of General Conference 1946, Business Session, Saturday, April 6, 1946, 2:00 P.M., Saints' Herald, April 27, 1946, 473. 

[21] Ibid.

[22] D&LC 144:1. W. Wallace Smith was ordained an apostle in 1947. In the third and last paragraph of the letter, which became Section 144, Israel A. Smith erred by dating the "Letter of Instruction" as having been published in the Saints' Herald for March 12, 1913; it was actually published in the March 13, 1912, issue. 

[23] The 1958 general conference was delayed from April until October so that the Auditorium could first be completed. Because of Israel's death in June 1958, there was only a four-month interim before the next conference; if the conference had been held in April, twenty-two months would have passed before the next scheduled conference. This 1958 conference was the last designated "general conference." From 1960 on, they have been called "world conferences." 

[24] W. Wallace Smith was the third son of Joseph Smith III to serve as Church president. His son, Wallace B. Smith, succeeded him. W Wallace Smith lived in retirement for eleven years before his death in 1989; Wallace B. Smith is still alive and active in the Church. He chairs the Church's World Hunger Committee, and he serves as a volunteer chaplain at the Independence Regional Health Center. He and his wife, Anne, attend the Pleasant Heights Congregation in Independence. 

[25] Richard Ostling and Joan Ostling, Mormon America: The Power and the Promise (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1999), 342.

[26] The 1954 general conference reported William McMurray's assignment as being "Unorganized Ontario, Ottawa objective." At the next (1956) conference, McMurray was no longer on the appointee list. 

[27] W. Grant McMurray, interviewed by William D. Russell, Lamoni, Iowa, July 31, 2003, 1. 

[28] The religion and philosophy faculty—Lloyd Young, Leland Negaard, Robert Speaks, and Paul M. Edwards—were very involved in this effort, as were the two historians—Robert B. Flanders and Alma Blair. Flanders's Nauvoo: Kingdom on the Mississippi (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1965) was a blockbuster that humanized Joseph Smith. Flanders's conclusion that Joseph Smith Jr. was a polygamist shocked RLDS members. Lloyd Young's article on the virgin birth in the February 1, 1964, Saints' Herald was disturbing to many members of the Church, as was Leland Negaard's study of the problem of Second Isaiah and the Book of Mormon, published in the Church's magazine for college and university students. Negaard, "Literary Issues and the Latter Day Saint," University Bulletin 18, no. 4 (Spring 1966): 21-24.

[29] McMurray, interview. Landon was a Church appointee on loan to Graceland for 1965-66. 

[30] For student protest at Graceland during these years, see David Anthony Tyeeme Clark, "This Side of the Cornfield: Reform Activism at Graceland College, 1965-1973," Annals of Iowa 59, no. 1 (Winter 2000): 35-69. This article was originally Clark's Senior Seminar in History project at Graceland College. 

[31] During the 1966-67 academic year, my two colleagues in the religion department were R. Robert Speaks, then in the last of his seven years teaching religion at Graceland, and Harold N. Schneebeck, who was teaching on a one-year internship as part of his program at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. 

[32] I previously told this story in my presidential address for the Mormon History Association in 1983: "History and the Mormon Scriptures," Journal of Mormon History 10 (1983): 60.1 got the impression that some of my LDS colleagues were quite surprised that none of the three religion professors then at Graceland had read the Book of Mormon and that I would volunteer to begin teaching it without having read it completely. 

[33] Ibid. I also presented some of my conclusions in my 1977 presidential address to the John Whitmer Historical Association meeting in North Kansas City, which was combined with a 1982 paper at the Mormon History Association meeting in Ogden and published as a "A Further Inquiry into the Historicity of the Book of Mormon," Sunstone 7, no. 5 (September-Octo ber 1982): 20-27. 

[34] Kathy Olson, "A Reappraisal of Canonization in the Doctrine and Covenants," Courage: A Journal of History, Thought, and Action 2, no. 2 (Winter 1972): 345-52. 

[35] In addition to McMurray, who became Church president, his counselor Peter A. Judd, who previously served as an apostle, and three other apostles—Paul W. Booth, Lloyd B. Hurshman, and Geoffrey Spencer—graduated from Saint Paul. The earliest RLDS graduates were Richard B. Lancaster and Clifford P. Buck in 1965. Both had served as the director of the Church's Department of Religious Education. In 1967 I became the third RLDS graduate of Saint Paul. 

[36] McMurray, interview, 1. 

[37] RLDS members have always had the option of choosing which congregation they attend, irrespective of their proximity to the congregation chosen. 

[38] In addition to Grant and Joyce McMurray, others attending the Presence Mission were future apostles Joe Serig, Geoffrey Spencer, Jim Cable, and Peter Judd (who also served in the First Presidency), and other prominent Church people such as Richard and Barbara Howard, Bruce and Carol Lindgren, Lyman and Nancy Edwards, Joe and Helen Pearson, Larry and Carol Cavin, Anita and Arthur Butler, and Bob and Carol Smith. 

[39] Among the well-known Church leaders who attended Walnut Gardens, in addition to the McMurrays, were past or present First Presidency members Maurice L. Draper, Alan D. Tyree, and Peter Judd, Apostle Geoffrey Spencer, Church Historian Richard P. Howard and his wife, Barbara (she was editor of Herald House), and Paul M. Edwards, president of the High Priests' Quorum. 

[40] McMurray, interview, 2. 

[41] W. Grant McMurray, "Closed Communion in the Restoration," Courage: A Journal of History, Thought, and Action 2, no. 1 (September 1971): 277-84. 

[42] World Conference Resolution 1240 (April 15, 1994); 1994 World Conference Bulletin, 437-38. A current issue in the Community of Christ is the related matter of whether Christians should be allowed to join the Community of Christ on the basis of their baptism in another Christian denomination. 

[43] Richard P. Howard, Restoration Scriptures: A Study of Their Textual Development (Independence, Mo.: Herald Publishing House, 1969). A revised and enlarged edition was published by Herald House in 1995. 

[44] The RLDS people have traditionally referred to Joseph Smith's "New Translation of the Bible" as the "Inspired Version." 

[45] One reviewer, a conservative Church leader fairly well-read in biblical scholarship, wrote a very negative review of Howard's book, focusing his attack almost entirely on Howard's first chapter. Alfred H. Yale, Review of Howard, Restoration Scriptures: A Study of Their Textual Development, in Courage: A Journal of History, Thought, and Action, pilot issue (April 1970): 59-60. For a favorable review, see my "Somewhat Revisionist," Christian Century, April 17, 1970, 454, which called Howard's book "the most scholarly work ever published" by the RLDS Church. 

[46] William D. Russell, "A Brief History of the John Whitmer Historical Association," John Whitmer Historical Association 2002 Nauvoo Special Edition, 147-52. 

[47] W. Grant McMurray, "History and Mission in Tension: A View from Both Sides," John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 20 (2000): 34-47, and reprinted in Restoration Studies VIII, edited by Paul M. Edwards and Joni Wilson (Independence, Mo.: Temple School, Herald Publishing House, 2000): 17-25; and in Religion and the Challenge of Modernity: The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in the United States Today, edited by Danny L. Jorgensen and Joni Wilson (Binghamton, N.Y.: Global Publications, 2001). 

[48] W. Grant McMurray, "The Reorganization in Nineteenth-Century America: Identity Crisis or Historiographical Problem?" John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 2 (1982): 3-11. 

[49] McMurray, "True Son of a True Father,'" 131-45. Two additional articles that McMurray published in the John Whitmer Historical Association Journal prior to becoming a member of the First Presidency were '"As Historians and Not as Partisans': The Writing of Official History in the RLDS Church," 6 (1986): 43-52, and "American Values for a New Jerusalem: Formations of the First United Order of Enoch, 1860-1871," 8 (1988): 30-44.

[50] McMurray, interview, 3. 

[51] Ibid. 

[52] During the ten and a half years between the first ordinations of women on November 17, 1985, and Wallace B. Smith's retirement in April 1996, women were ordained to every office from deacon to high priest, with the exception of the three top administrative quorums: the First Presidency, the Council of Twelve Apostles, and the three-member Presiding Bishopric. 

[53] Both of these ideas were contained in Doctrine and Covenants 156, approved at the 1984 world conference, with approximately 20 percent of the delegates voting against accepting the document as revelation. Fifteen years later, McMurray recalled his response after typing up what became Section 156 from Wallace's hand-written notes. He told President Smith: "But Wally, I truly believe that in the long term the most important phrase in this in spired counsel is the one that says, 'The temple is dedicated to the pursuit of peace.' That sentence will transform the church." W. Grant McMurray, "Envisioning Our Future: A Call to Transformation," Saints' Herald, August 1997, 314. 

[54] World Conference Resolution 1240 (April 15, 1994). 

[55] Richard P. Howard, "The Changing RLDS Response to Mormon Polygamy: A Preliminary Analysis," John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 3 (1983): 14-29. Some later writers have cited the republication of Howard's article in Restoration Studies III, edited by Maurice L. Draper and Debra Combs (Independence, Mo.: Herald Publishing House, 1986), rather than the original 1983 publication. Howard had been assigned to write the article by the First Presidency. McMurray, then Church secretary, later commented that Howard's article was "thoroughly sanitized by the First Presidency, mainly by Alan [Tyree]." McMurray, interview, 3.1 summarize the history of this article in my "A Brief History of the John Whitmer Historical Association," 147-52. 

[56] Wallace B. Smith, "A Pastoral Letter," Saints' Herald, November 1995, 456. 

[57] Gustav Niebuhr, "New Leader for Church with Mormon Roots," New York Times, May 12, 1996, 16. 

[58] Jan Shipps, "Nonprophet Organization," Christian Century, August 14-21, 1996, 787. 

[59] Prior to 1984 I had thought that President Smith would begin women's ordination by naming a prominent woman like Barbara Higdon, then president of Graceland College, to become an apostle. Then calls for women to other priesthood offices would follow after the ground had been broken at the top. Needless to say, I was wrong. 

[60] W. Grant McMurray, "Envisioning Our Future: A Call to Transformation," Saints' Herald, August 1997, 313-20.

[61] W. Grant McMurray, "A Statement from President McMurray," Herald, February 2003, 5. 

[62] William D. Russell, "Reorganized Mormons Beset by Controversy," Christian Century, June 18, 1970, 770. 

[63] The seminary prepares people for full-time paid ministerial positions in the Church. Full-time ministers are expected to have a graduate degree in religion, although it does not have to be from the seminary. Many members also attend the seminary to enhance their skills as nonpaid, parttime ministers. 

[64] One response on the Church's webboard the day after the announcement of McMurray's resignation was: "I am glad he is stepping down. He once said he didn't consider himself to be a prophet—amen to that. When a new leader is chosen they should automatically disqualify anyone who has attended the St. Paul School of Theology or any other liberal seminary." The same day another respondent wrote: "Certainly, the failure to name a successor has scuppered any possibility of claiming correct succession procedures. . . . The Lord does not expect his prophets to be selected by a committee." Webboard quotations provided courtesy of Richard K. Lindgren. 

[65] McMurray, "History and Mission in Tension." 

[66] See these items in World Conference Resolutions (Independence: Her ald Publishing House, 2003), cited by resolution number and date: "Peace in El Salvador," 1234, April 11, 1992; "World Peace Committee," 1267, April 5, 2000; "Our Pursuit of Peace," 1227, April 10, 1992; "Participation in Military Service," 1249, April 19, 1996; "International Ban on Land Mines," 1258, April 1, 1998; "Earth Stewardship," 1224, April 9, 1992; "Globalization," 1284, April 3, 2004; "Children's Advocacy," 1235, April 11, 1992; "Practical Peace and Justice for Youth and Young Adults," 1272, April 8, 2000; "Out reach to the Developmentally Disabled," 1220, April 7, 1992; "Sexual Abuse of Children," 1276, April 12, 2002; "Dialogue on Homosexuality," 1279, April 1, 2004; "Human Diversity," 1226, April 10, 1992; "Personal Use of Firearms," 1270, April 8, 2000; "Healing Ministry and Capital Punishment," 1273, April 8, 2000; "Organ and Tissue Donation-The Gift of Life," 1281, April 2, 2004. 

[67] W. Grant McMurray, "The Vision Transforms Us," Saints' Herald, June 1998, 227-34; W Grant McMurray, "Called to Discipleship: Coming Home in Search of the Path," Herald, June 2002, 8-21. In April 2001, accompanying the name change of the Church to Community of Christ, Saints was dropped from the title of the magazine.

[68] W. Grant McMurray, "They 'Shall Blossom as the Rose': Native Americans and the Dream of Zion," Herald, May 2001, 14.

[69] W. Grant McMurray, "Faith Overcoming Fear: Pastoral Reflections on the Events of September 11," Herald, November 2001, 13.

[70] W. Grant McMurray, "'A Goodly Heritage' in a Time of Transformation: History and Identity in the Community of Christ, Journal of Mormon History 30, no. 1 (Spring 2004): 65-66. 

[71] Jim Hannah, "Called to Discernment: Interview with Kenneth Robinson, Peter Judd, and Steve Veazey," Herald, March 2005, 18-19.

[72] The leaders of other quorums involved in these meetings were the three members of the Presiding Bishopric, the seven Presidents of Seventy, the Presiding Evangelist, and the president of the High Priests' Quorum.

[73] Joseph Smith III, "Letter of Instruction," Saints' Herald, March 13, 1912, 241-48; also published in Edwards, The History of the Reorganized Church, 6:560-75. 

[74] First Presidency, "Official: Selection of New Church President," December 16, 2004, Herald, February 2005, 6. 

[75] James E. Slaughter et al, "Official," Herald, April 2005, 6. See also "Report of the Council of Twelve to the Special World Conference of June 2-5 in the Matter of the Selection of a New Prophet-President for the Community of Christ," 2005 World Conference Bulletin, 43-46, a historical survey of succession issues, read to the conference by Apostle Leonard M. Young. 

[76] This estimate of the negative votes is based on observations by Church Archivist Ronald E. Romig, New York lawyer Don Allen, and me. We were sitting in the first row of the balcony, near the front of the Auditorium chamber. 

[77] W Grant McMurray, "A Prophetic People," Saints' Herald, June 1996, 226. 

[78] McMurray, '"A Goodly Heritage' in a Time of Transformation," 66.

[79] McMurray, "A Prophetic People," 226. 

[80] William D. Russell, personal notes. At the 2005 world conference, I had press credentials because I was preparing this article for the Dia logue-sponsored session of the 2005 Salt Lake City Sunstone symposium. Al though I am an elder, I attended the High Priests' Quorum because I thought it might be where the action would be. Hence, I was present to take notes on Don Compier's prayer. Friends informed me of the proceedings in the elders' quorum, which I later verified by consulting the participants themselves.

[81] W. Grant McMurray, "A Letter of Counsel Regarding the Presiding Quorums," Saints1 Herald, June 1996, 233-34. 

[82] Mara Rose Williams, "McMurray Resigns as Church President," Kansas City Star, December 3, 2004, E-2. 

[83] For major differences between the LDS Church and the Community of Christ, in the early years as well as the new differences that have emerged in the past generation, see my "The LDS and the Community of Christ: Clearer Differences, Closer Friends," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 36, no. 4 (Winter 2003): 177-90, an expansion of a paper of the same title read at the Sunstone Symposium in Salt Lake City, August 14, 2003 (audiocassette SL03-163). 

[84] Thomas G. Alexander, email to William D. Russell, June 9, 2005. Alexander is the author of Things in Heaven and Earth: The Life and Times of Wilford Woodruff, a Mormon Prophet (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1993). 

[85] The delegates' caucus is for nonpriesthood members who are elected delegates at the conference. 

[86] Several years prior to the ordination of women in 1985, the leadership became sensitive to the fact that many women are elected delegates to the conferences but are not eligible to attend any of the priesthood quorums, which consider inspired documents for possible inclusion in the canon of scripture. A delegates' caucus was added to meet this need. It was very large at first but shrank when women began to be ordained. Similarly, in time a sensitivity developed to the need for children and young people to be heard. There was also a recognition that those who speak other languages would be better served by attending a same-language caucus rather than the caucus of their particular priesthood group. 

[87] Russell, personal notes, 2005 world conference. 

[88] Delegates to the world conference are allocated to each jurisdiction based on its population of members. Nonpriesthood members are just as eligible as those in the priesthood for election as delegates, although those in the priesthood probably have a greater chance of being elected. 

[89] Slaughter et al., "Official," 6. 

[90] Dale E. Luffman, email to William D. Russell, June 28, 2005.

[91] Helen T. Gray, "Community of Christ Quickly Selects New Leader," Kansas City Star, June 4, 2005, B-l, B-4. 

[92] The new apostles were Stassie D. Cramm, Ronald D. Harmon Jr., Rick W Maupin, and Susan D. Skoor. Skoor is assigned to the Western United States. Her territory includes the Utah congregations in Ogden, Salt Lake City, St. George, and Orem. She attended and presented at the Sunstone Sympsium, August 2006, Salt Lake City. 

[93] The international representation in the presiding quorums was reduced when Presiding Evangelist Danny A. Belrose retired in the spring of 2006. In addition, Kenneth N. Robinson is nearing retirement age. 

[94] Kenneth L. McLaughlin, June 4, 2005, Statement to the World Conference. At my request, McLaughlin gave me a copy of his statement.

[95] "Council Oversees Work Done around the World," Independence Examiner, June 1, 2005, 10. 

[96] Stephen M. Veazey, "A Letter of Counsel Regarding the Presiding Quorums," 2005 World Conference Bulletin, June 4, 2005, 70-71.

[97] Stephen M. Veazey, "Share the Peace of Jesus Christ," 2005 World Conference Sermon, World Conference Bulletin 2005, 86, also published in the Herald, July 2005, 11-21. 

[98] Ibid., 87. 

[99] Ibid. 

[100] Ibid. 

[101] Associated Press, "Church Breaks New Holy Ground," Columbia (Missouri) Daily Tribune, February 13, 2005.

[post_title] => Grant McMurray and the Succession Crisis in the Community of Christ [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 39.4 (Winter 2006): 67–90
Members of the Community of Christ were shocked when our president, W. Grant McMurray, announced that he had resigned on November 29, 2004 , effective immediately. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => grant-mcmurray-and-the-succession-crisis-in-the-community-of-christ [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-05-07 22:56:56 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-05-07 22:56:56 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=10244 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 10248 [post_author] => 2493 [post_date] => 2018-03-21 18:14:43 [post_date_gmt] => 2018-03-21 18:14:43 [post_content] =>

In the spring of 2005 Newell Bringhurst asked me to participate in a session of the Mormon History Association's annual meeting. Because it was the bicentennial of Joseph Smith's birth and we were meeting in Vermont, his birth state, our session was titled "In Pursuit of the Elusive Joseph Smith." He asked each panelist to consider the process of investigation and interpretation that has been made over the past forty years in terms of the most significant works produced, what significant areas of Joseph Smith's life remained to be explored, and whether a reasonably "definitive portrait” of Joseph Smith is more possible today than it was forty years ago. I agreed to participate in this session, along with four senior scholars in Mormon studies, D. Michael Quinn, Glen M. Leonard, Dan Vogel, and Grant Underwood. The session proved both stimulating and provocative, and hopefully useful to the audience in attendance. The following essay is a slightly revised draft of my remarks.

I spoke as a member of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints/Community of Christ. As a result, I had a decidedly different perspective on Joseph Smith than my co-panelists. In addition, with the peculiarities of the history of my faith community, Joseph Smith Jr. has enjoyed a place in this religious tradition strikingly different from that he has attained among the Utah-based Latter-day Saints. Without question, he is much less revered and less legendary than among the Latter-day Saints, for whom Joseph Smith is significant, not just for his life but for his religious innovations. l have heard this assertion many times and in many places. As Ronald K. Esplin commented in an important essay about Nauvoo, "Nauvoo was, and is, and will be important to Latter-day Saints because it was the City of Joseph. It was the city he built, where he lived and acted, where he died. Above all, it was the city where he fulfilled his religious mission. . . . In a very real sense, his other labors were prologue.”[1] Clearly Smith's religious innovations are central to the LOS reverence for the founding prophet.

I would compare this perspective to one debated among various other Christian groups. Which is more important: the life of Jesus or the death and resurrection of Christ? Allowing that both are significant, the relative importance that one would place on these events tells us much about the group's perspective. To emphasize the life of Jesus is to embrace an entity fully human who had to come to grips with the duality of his humanity and divinity and did so only with great difficulty and strength but ultimately with acceptance. To emphasize the death and resurrection of Christ is to accentuate divinity while too often giving short shrift to the struggle that Jesus engaged in throughout his life. Utah-based Latter-day Saints tend to emphasize the triumphant Joseph Smith (at least as they conceive of him) who "completed" his work of restoring the gospel before his assassination at age thirty-nine.

For the Community of Christ, Joseph Smith's place is much less as­sured and certainly far less triumphant. Indeed, I know of no one in the organization who would conclude that Joseph Smith "completed" his work of restoration, and I could poll many who would question the totality of what he accomplished. I would contend that Joseph Smith's activities represented a conflicting set of ideals for those identified with the Community of Christ. Such was the case from the time of Joseph Smith III, first president of the Reorganization, in the nineteenth century, and it has remained so to the present, becoming even more problematic in the last twenty-five years or so. Over the course of many years, the Church has cast aside any belief in plurality of gods, baptism for the dead, and temple ceremonies as understood by Latter-day Saints. From the beginning of the Reorganization movement, it rejected celestial marriage and the tendency toward militarism and official involvement in most political activities that were prevalent in Nauvoo. While some in the Reorganized Church refused to believe that these had any place in the organization of Joseph Smith's day—and this has been a source of tension for those inside the Church—the reality is that, in a demythologization of history, many have come to accept that not everything Smith did was appropriate. At a fundamental level, the lifetime of contradictions that Joseph Smith lived represented both a triumph and a tragedy, the backlash of which the Community of Christ’s adherents have been seeking to understand and in some cases to live down ever since.[2]

At the same time, there is a dichotomy between what some of the Church's historians might understand about the past and what the average member believes, so while there is some consensus there is certainly not unanimity in the construction of a faith story about Joseph Smith. This came home to me quite pointedly in the context of a request recently from the junior high Sunday School teacher. She asked, "What should I tell my students about Joseph Smith?" I asked her what was in the curriculum, and she told me that it was completely silent on the subject. Accordingly, her class was asking questions for which she had no resources. This situation raised a critical question. What might we say about the founder? Having deconstructed his life and mission, how might we work to reconstruct a meaningful story that celebrates his legitimate accomplishments while remaining honest to the historical record? I had no answer for this instructor, and I still do not.

Few of the major incidents that have been a part of the Community of Christ faith story remain salient. These include the translation of the Book of Mormon, the restoration of the priesthood and the gospel in its fullness, the development of a uniquely useful theology, the concept of Zion, belief in the Second Coming of Christ and the millennium, and several others. What remains is a deeply flawed character at the center of the Church's origins.

How might a re-enchantment of Church history be accomplished? Might we do so by asking the question: "Could any other person have been the founder of the restoration movement?" No doubt, historical developments are important to the identity of the Community of Christ, but how might members accept the historical record "warts and all" but still see Joseph Smith as unique in some respects? lt remains a puzzlement.

There are many difficult examples of what the Community of Christ has been seeking to deal with. The quest for Zion was an attractive idea for the Church for more than a century, and the success of Smith in such places as Nauvoo has often been viewed as the closest approximation the Church has to the ideals of Zion carried in scripture and doctrine. At the same time, the Reorganized Church/Community of Christ has been repelled by the darker side of political power—corruption, influence-peddling, and the difficulty of political choices. Much the same was true when considering Smith's truly weird theological experimentation.[3] Many in the Community of Christ today are certainly uncomfortable with Smith's authoritarianism, with his militarism, and with his sense of being God's chosen. I know of no one in the leadership of the Community of Christ who accepts the Book of Mormon as a work of history, even if they view it as scripture. Of course, some rank and file members still accept it as such. As to the many doctrinal idiosyncrasies that emerged from the mind of Joseph Smith, those are sometimes viewed as the ramblings of a misguided fanatic.[4] That he became increasingly egocentric and power hungry is a given for virtually all Community of Christ members.

But I suspect that many members still view his early structuring of the Church and its basic doctrines as prophetic. Even so, their view of his prophetic role in the Church is severely limited when compared to the view of the LDS Church and perhaps to early RLDS views. By distancing itself from many of his actions and selectively emphasizing his prophetic role, the Community of Christ views him as more human than he is in the LDS tradition. His Nauvoo innovations are an "embarrassment," but many still view him as a figure of significance in the formation of the Church.

Accordingly, the Community of Christ has walked a fine line in interpreting the legacy of Joseph Smith. From a theological perspective, the Reorganized Church essentially rejected Smith's radical ideas. Between 1830 and 1844, and especially in the latter years, Smith promulgated a series of unique ideas on eternity, the multiplicity of gods, the possibility of progression to godhood, celestial and plural marriage, baptism for the dead, and other ideas associated with Mormon temple endowments—none of which found a place in the Reorganized Church.[5] A few of these innovations were simply considered quaint by non-Mormons; others, such as plural marriage, aroused volatile emotions and became rallying points for opposition to the movement.[6]

For many reasons, the Reorganization for over a hundred years desired to remain faithful to the stories, symbols, and events of early Mormonism, on the one hand, even as it sought respectability among Christians of other denominations.[7] To a remarkable extent, it was successful in doing so. These tensions were held in creative balance until a theological reformation in the last quarter of the twentieth century. Its success was largely due to the unique heritage of the Reorganized Latter Day Saints as the people in the middle, seeking to steer between the Scylla of excessively authoritarian, speculative, Nauvoo Mormonism and the Charybdis of creedal, congregational, Protestant sectarianism.[8]

The recent broad-based reformation has resulted in the virtual abandonment of most of the vestiges of Mormonism that informed the movement for a century and in their replacement by more mainline Christian conceptions.[9] In the process of that reformation, the character ofJoseph Smith has become an embarrassment. He is often viewed as a skeleton in the closet of the Community of Christ. After all, he was a cult leader who preached doctrines anathema to many Christians, engaged in sexual hijinks of the worst order, sought to cake over the United States and make it into a theocracy with him in charge, and, failing that, allowed himself to be martyred as a rallying point for his followers.

In this context, attempts to understand and explain the life and activities of Joseph Smith Jr. for the Community of Christ membership are not particularly necessary or valued. At this point, I can no more envision the preparation of a new biography of Joseph Smith usable by the Community of Christ than I can foresee the centrality of a new biography of Charles Darwin to the current debate over evolution/intelligent design. Joseph Smith is not truly germane to the current Community of Christ direction.

Having offered this lengthy preamble, let me address the questions that Newell Bringhurst suggested that we consider in relation to Joseph Smith.

1. How much progress has been made over the past forty years in terms of the most significant works produced?

This is an interesting question and one that I wish I had a better answer to, but the reality is that, while we now know much more about the details of Smith's life than in the past, I'm not sure that we have more un­derstanding. Fawn Brodie laid out the major parameters of the questions most people pursued concerning Smith in her 1945 biography, and it is still by far the best work on the subject.[10] Few have moved far from the re­search agenda she laid out.

In No Man Knows My History Brodie systematically dealt with five basic issues that have challenged Mormon historians ever since.

1. Joseph Smith's First Vision.
2. Treasure seeking and its relationship both to Smith and Mormon origins.
3. The origins and content of the Book of Mormon.
4. The origins of plural marriage and other theological innovations.
5. Joseph Smith, theocracy, and authoritarianism.

Because of our pursuit of these major issues, we have learned an enormous amount about Smith's work. We are all indebted to the historians who have explored these issues in depth and broadened our knowledge. Donna Hill's 1977 biography tried to deal with these issues comprehensively and was largely successful but failed to replace Brodie's book as the standard account of Smith's life, at least among the larger community of historians and observers.[11] Perhaps Richard Bushman's new biography of Smith will accomplish that task, but such a determination comes only with time.[12]

The reason a definitive biography of]oseph Smith is such an elusive goal is because Mormon historiography has become such a battleground in the last twenty years. I'm uncertain if believing LOS scholars can write anything but "faithful history" any longer, emphasizing exclusively the sacredness of the story of Mormonism. From John Whitmer to the present, most writing on the Mormon past has been oriented toward producing a narrative of use to the membership. The result was a thrust of historical interpretation that overwhelmingly emphasized God's word as defined by the Mormon prophets, spreading throughout the world in a never-ending advancement of the Church. Most LOS historians have accepted this interpretation because, as Klaus J. Hansen has suggested, most of them are members of the Latter-day Saint faith community, and they must overcome years of religious training that predisposes them to view the Church, its leaders, and its institutions as righteous and just.[13] LDS Apostle Boyd K. Packer has even invoked an espousal of the progress of Mormonism as a religion as the primary purpose of historical investigation, telling Church educators in 1981: "Your objective should be that they [those who study Mormon history] will see the hand of the Lord in every hour and every moment of the Church from its beginning till now."[14] With such a perspective, Church-mandated interpretations of the Mormon past are not easily overcome. And while Bushman is certainly an able and elegant historian with special skills in presenting the faith story, his book will be acceptable mostly to believing Mormons.

2. What significant areas of Joseph Smith’s life remain to be explored?

There is one huge area in Joseph Smith's life that I would like to see explored. It relates to his place in the myth and memory of the Latter-day Saints. No area in historical study has been more significant in the recent past than the study of memory. The reality of what happened in the past—which in any event is unrecoverable—is decidedly less important than what the population who values the story believes about it. So what do the Mormons believe about Joseph Smith? How did they come to believe this, and why? How have these beliefs morphed over time and in response to what triggering events? Of course, Joseph Smith is a legend. He is a legend in the same way that Wyatt Earp, Jesse James, Daniel Boone, Alvin York, Henry Ford, and a host of others in American history are legends. Unpacking the legend and exploring his myth and memory offer a new understanding on his place in the development of this important American-originated religion.

3. Is a reasonably “definitive” portrait of Joseph Smith more possible today than it was forty years ago? Why or why not?

I would suggest that there is no such thing as a definitive work of history. At some level, this question depends on the concept of "truth"—whether it exists and, if so, whether it is "knowable." I question both assumptions, although I would never argue definitively about them since I don't really know.

What we think of as truth has changed fundamentally with time. I am reminded of a scene from the classic comedy, Men in Black, that is really a commentary on the nature of modern society. The Tommy Lee Jones character, K, tells the Will Smith character about the reality of aliens in America. He adds, "Fifteen hundred years ago, everyone knew that the sun revolved around the Earth. Five hundred years ago, everyone knew the world was flat. Yesterday you knew that we were alone on this planet. Imagine what you'll learn tomorrow."[15] Imagine how truth has changed over time! Truth is inexact and difficult to pin down, always changing in relation to other events, perceptions, and countervailing ideas, especially over time.

Indeed, truths have differed from time to time and place to place with reckless abandon and enormous variety. Choice between them is present everywhere both in the past and the present; my truth dissolves into your myth and your truth into my myth almost as soon as it is articulated. This pattern is reinforced everywhere, and the versions of truth espoused by various groups about themselves and about those excluded from their fellowship are often misunderstood. Perhaps Pontius Pilate framed the dilemma best two millennia ago when he asked Jesus, "What is truth?"[16] But he never got an answer from Jesus. That silence says much about the nature of truth.

So, having followed this divergent trail about the nature of truth, let me suggest that there is no chance whatsoever of any historian producing the definitive biography of Joseph Smith. But that is because I reject the premise of definitiveness, not because excellent works will not emerge. Indeed, I hope they do—and soon.

---

[1] Ronald K. Esplin, "The Significance of Nauvoo for Latter-day Saints," Journal of Mormon History 16 (1990): 72.

[2] This was one of the themes of my dissertation, published as Joseph Smith III: Pragmatic Prophet (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988). On the RLDS reformation, see Larry W. Conrad and Paul Shupe, "An RLDS Reformation? Construing the Task of RLDS Theology," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 18, no. 2 (Summer 1985): 92–103; Roger D. Launius, "The RLDS Church and the Decade of Decision," Sunstone 19 (September 1996): 45-55; Roger D. Launius, "Coming of Age? The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in the 1960s," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 28, no. 2 (Summer 1995): 31–57; Roger D. Launius, "Neither Mormon nor Protestant? The Reorganized Church and the Challenge of Identity,” in Mormon Identities in Transition, edited by Douglas Davies (London: Cassell, 1996), 52–60; W. B. "Pat" Spillman, "Dissent and the Future of the Church," in Let Contention Cease: The Dynamics of Dissent in the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, edited by Roger D. Launius and W. B. “Pat” Spillman (Independence, Mo.: Graceland/Park Press, 1991), 259-92.

[3] I deal with this topic in relation to Nauvoo in "The Awesome Responsibility: Joseph Smith III and the Nauvoo Experience,” Western Illinois Regional Studies 11 (Fall 1988): 55–68.

[4] See my explorations of these topics in "The RLDS Church and the Decade of Decision," Sunstone 19 (September 1996): 45–55; and “An Ambivalent Rejection: Baptism for the Dead and the Reorganized Church Experience,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 23, no. 2 (Summer 1990): 61–84.

[5] The literature on many Nauvoo theological developments is extensive. For general introductions, see T. Edgar Lyon, "Doctrinal Development of the Church during the Nauvoo Sojourn, 1839-1846," BYU Studies 15 (Summer 1975): 435–46; Marvin S. Hill, "Mormon Religion in Nauvoo: Some Reflections," Utah Historical Quarterly 44 (Spring 1976): 170–80.

[6] See Richard P. Howard, "The Changing RLDS Response to Mormon Polygamy: A Preliminary Analysis," John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 3 (1983): 14–29; Alma R. Blair, "RLDS Views of Polygamy: Some Historiographical Notes," John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 5 (1985): 16–28; Launius, Joseph Smith III, 190–272; Roger D. Launius, "Methods and Motives: Joseph Smith Ill's Opposition to Polygamy, 1860-90," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 20, no. 4 (Winter 1987): 105–20; Roger D. Launius, "Politicking against Polygamy: Joseph Smith III, the Reorganized Church, and the Politics of the Anti-Polygamy Crusade, 1860-1890," John Whitmer Historical Association 7 (1987): 35–44.

[7] Alma R. Blair, "The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints: Moderate Mormonism," in The Restoration Movement: Essays in Mormon History, edited by F. Mark McKiernan, Alma R. Blair, and Paul M. Edwards (Lawrence, Kans.: Coronado Press, 1973), 207-30; Clare D. Vlahos, "Moderation as a Theological Principle in the Thought of Joseph Smith III," John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 1 (1981): 3-11.

[8] Clare D. Vlahos, "Images of Orthodoxy," in Restoration Studies I, edited by Maurice L. Draper and Clare D. Vlahos (Independence, Mo.: Herald Publishing House, 1980), 184. See also Conrad and Shupe, "An RLDS Reformation?” 92–103; W. Paul Jones, "Demythologizing and Symbolizing the RLDS Tradition," Restoration Studies V, edited by Darlene Caswell (Independence, Mo.: Herald House, 1993), 109–15; Larry W. Conrad, “Dissent among Dissenters: Theological Dimensions of Dissent in the Reorganization," in Let Contention Cease, 199–239.

[9] One may debate whether this is a good thing. W. Grant McMurray criticized several scholars for pointing up the problems of this reformation in his address, "History and Mission in Tension: A View from Both Sides," in Religion and the Challenge of Modernity: The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in the United States Today, edited by Danny L. Jorgensen and Joni Wilson (Binghamton, N.Y.: Global Publications, Academic Studies in the History of Religion, 2001), 229-49. It is a paper filled with his characteristic wit. But more important, it should also be deeply troubling for those who pursue historical knowledge, for it demonstrates serious anti-historical and, in some instances, anti-intellectual attitudes.

[10] Fawn M. Brodie, No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith, the Mormon Prophet (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1945). A revised and expanded second edition appeared in 1971.

[11] Donna Hill, Joseph Smith: The First Mormon, (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1977).

[12] Richard Lyman Bushman with the assistance of Jed Woodworth, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005).

[13] Klaus J. Hansen, "The World and the Prophet," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 1, no. 2 (Summer 1966): 106.

[14] Boyd K. Packer, “‘The Mantle is Far, Far Greater than the Intellect,’” BYU Studies 21 (Summer 1981): 262.

[15] Men in Black, feature film, starring Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones (Universal Studios, 1997).

[16] The Holy Scriptures (Independence, Mo.: Herald Publishing House, 1944 ed.), John 18:38.

[post_title] => Is Joseph Smith Relevant to the Community of Christ? [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 39.4 (Winter 2006): 58–67
I spoke as a member of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints/Community of Christ. As a result, I had a decidedly different perspective on Joseph Smith than my co-panelists. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => is-joseph-smith-relevant-to-the-community-of-christ [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-01-28 19:39:09 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-01-28 19:39:09 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=10248 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 10416 [post_author] => 2116 [post_date] => 2018-03-22 17:23:24 [post_date_gmt] => 2018-03-22 17:23:24 [post_content] =>

At the april 1970 world conference of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS)[1] in Independence, Missouri, one of the delegates, A. H. ("Bud") Edwards, rose to offer a substitute to a motion on the floor which called for the First Presidency to appoint women to Church committees more in proportion to their numbers in the Church. Edwards's substitute went further than the main motion and called for an end to "discrimination on the basis of sex in the life of the Church," clearly suggesting that women should be ordained.[2]

As Edwards read his substitute motion, a loud, collective gasp re sounded through the conference chamber, foreshadowing the negative reaction that would come fourteen years later when Church President Wallace B. Smith endorsed women's ordination in a statement to the 1984 World Conference that the delegates accepted as a revelation from God. "The uproar from the conference was a shock and a little frightening," recalls Edwards, thirty-two years later.[3] The 1984 revelation became Section 156 of the RLDS Doctrine and Covenants.[4] But the 1970 substitute motion suffered an instant death, as the delegates laid the matter on the table indefinitely.[5]

When the 1984 conference approved Section 156, which also indicated that the soon-to-be-built temple in Independence would be dedicated to the pursuit of peace,[6] it became clear that the largest "schism"—separation from the unity of the Church—in the history of the RLDS Church was in the making.[7] In the six years following the approval of Section 156, at least one-fourth of the active RLDS members terminated their involvement in the Church. Many of these people formed separate splinter groups in their local areas.[8] Others simply grew tired of the bickering and stopped attending church.[9] The only comparable division in the Church had occurred in the 1920s during the early years of the presidency of Frederick Madison Smith, the grandson of Joseph Smith, Jr. The issue then was the centralization of power in the office of the President of the Church, which came to be called "Supreme Directional Control."[10] This paper will examine the most recent and most successful attempt, so far, to organize a new general Church, with a prophet, apostle, and other high Church officials. 

The debate over women's ordination had been simmering in the Church since the early 1970s. The feminist movement had made some RLDS people aware of how patriarchal culture limited women's opportunities to use their talents in ways that would benefit themselves as well as the Church and the larger society. The first published, sustained argument for greater recognition of women's giftedness in the RLDS Church, including advocacy of ordination, appeared in a short-lived quarterly journal published by liberals on the faculty at the RLDS Church's Graceland College, beginning in 1970. Courage: A Journal of History, Thought, and Action published only eleven issues in three years, before ceasing publication in 1973 for financial reasons. In a December 1970 editorial, the nine-member Editorial Committee advocated ordination for women.[11] The most articulate spokesperson on behalf of feminist causes in Courage was co-editor Carolyn Raiser. Others who advocated the cause included Chris Piatt, Marge Troeh, and Barbara Higdon. 

Theological tension had been simmering in the Church since the early 1960s; but during that decade, the ordination of women had not yet surfaced as a significant issue. The feminist movement was not highly visible in American society until the end of the 1960s. The issues debated in the Church during the 1960s revolved around the nature and interpretation of scripture and of the Church's sacred story. Some people in the Church—usually called "liberals"—challenged the traditional interpretations on a variety of issues. At the beginning of the decade, challenges to orthodoxy were coming from some professors at Graceland College in Lamoni, Iowa, and from the three departments at Church headquarters in Independence: Religious Education, directed by Clifford P. Buck; History, directed by Charles A. Davies; and Herald Publishing House, directed by Roger Yarrington.[12] Those who challenged traditional RLDS orthodoxy might be called "New School" thinkers. Various terms like "fundamentalist," "conservative," and "traditionalist" have been applied to those who opposed the New School thinking that eventually led to the schism of 1984. I will refer to the traditionalists as advocates of the "Old School" way of thinking. They favored returning the Church to the traditions that were slipping away as the leadership embraced more and more of the New School ideas. 

The ordination of women was merely the last straw for many Old School Saints who had been concerned about the Church's deemphasis of many beliefs that had been central tenets of the RLDS faith for more than a century. It was clear by the end of the 1960s that some highly placed Church leaders no longer regarded the Book of Mormon as history and did not believe that the RLDS pattern of Church organization and doctrines constituted a restoration of the forms and beliefs that Jesus had established during his mortal ministry. Some no longer believed in the interpretation of Christian history regarding apostasy and restoration that had long been taught in the Church nor, indeed, believed that the RLDS Church was "the true Church of Jesus Christ." 

While Old School Saints were shocked and angered over approval of Doctrine and Covenants 156, many held out hope that the World Conference of 1986 might rescind Section 156 and correct the error which they felt had been made by the prophet, Wallace B. Smith, and the delegates at the World Conference of 1984. Therefore, after the 1984 World Conference, a "wait and see" attitude was common among traditionalists, and only a very few local RLDS splinter groups emerged between the biennial conferences of 1984 and 1986.[13] But when a resolution to rescind Section 156 came to the floor at the 1986 World Conference, President Smith ruled the motion out of order, reading a long statement to explain his reasoning. Essentially, his position was that, since only the prophet can bring a purported revelation to the World Conference for consideration, only the prophet can bring a motion to rescind a revelation.[14] A leader of the Old School faction among the delegates appealed the chair's decision. Eighty-eight percent of the voting delegates (2,265 to 323) supported Smith's ruling.[15]

Interestingly enough, some of the New School revisionists who strongly supported Section 156 were disappointed with President Smith's ruling. Clearly the 88 percent support for his ruling demonstrated that an overwhelming percentage of the delegates supported Section 156 and were prepared to vote against the motion to rescind it. But the ruling prevented a vote on the merits of the motion to rescind. As Church Historian Richard Howard expressed it, the chair's ruling "closed off the possibilities of jurisdictions, quorums, or even the World Conference initiating measures that seek in any way to modify the modern Church canon." Howard characterized it as a "radical shift in canonization principle and procedure."[16] Others have noted that President Smith's ruling means that the only person who can correct a mistaken revelation is the very person who made the mistake in the first place. 

As a result of this failure to rescind Section 156, many Old School Saints decided it was time to begin forming separate groups. In the nineteen years since the World Conference of 1986, Old School Saints have organized more than 200 local splinter groups, the vast majority in the United States, and most of them in the Midwest. Several types of schismatic groups have emerged, and the divisions can be seen as natural, possibly even predictable ones. Most of the local groups are independent of any higher authority at the present time. 

Ten years before the 1984 conference, Richard Price, an employee of Bendix Corporation in Kansas City, living in Independence, Missouri, had published Saints at the Crossroads, warning the RLDS people of what he regarded as "liberal heresies" being espoused by Church officials at headquarters.[17] Saints at the Crossroads might appropriately be seen as a 250-page critique of "position papers" authored by staff in the Department of Religious Education as they developed new curriculum materials for Church school classes. Their papers were not intended for distribution outside their curriculum committee, but Old School Saints surreptitiously secured copies and circulated them widely. The Old School Saints were shocked at the contents of the papers, which expressed liberal positions on many issues of history and theology. Price's book achieved a wide readership, with 12,000 copies having been sold or given away by 2001.[18] Price's book and an earlier newspaper, Zion's Warning (1970-76), published by Barney Fuller and Glen Stout, were the first two extensive, widely circulated published warnings issued by Old School thinkers trying to alert the Saints about the New School "heresies" being introduced by Church leaders. Their warnings were for the most part accurate. The Church and its leaders have embraced many of those New School ideas in the three decades since Fuller and Price issued their warnings. 

During the period of uncertainty between the conferences of 1984 and 1986, Price offered a very effective strategy for the Old School Saints, at least in the short run. It recognized the turmoil experienced by Old School Saints who were torn between their commitment to the restored gospel in general and of the RLDS Church in particular and their resistance to the new ideas. That strategy, published in a book, Action Time, and a pamphlet, The Restoration Branches Movement,[19] proposed that whenever and wherever the local RLDS congregation is controlled by "the liberals" (which typically meant that the congregation's leaders supported the World Church leadership or had ordained women), then the faithful Saints should withdraw from participation and establish an "Independent Restoration Branch" controlled by local elders who were ordained by proper authority and who adhered to the traditional RLDS doctrines. Price advised the Old School Saints not to resign from the RLDS Church, but to await the opportunity to help return the RLDS Church to its traditional doctrines and practices. Over the years, Price has remained optimistic that this will eventually happen.[20]

By "Independent," Price meant branches independent of control from the RLDS hierarchy and their appointees. "Restoration" meant that the independent branches would preach the original gospel restored in 1830. "Branch" meant they would establish only a local branch (congregation) and not create a general Church organization—that is, they would not organize beyond the local level. Each branch would do what a local branch does: conduct worship services and Sunday School classes, elect its own officers, and conduct other business, such as calling and ordaining priesthood members who are "local" rather than "general Church" in nature. Such local officers are deacons, teachers, priests, and elders, but not seventies or any of the various types of high priests who are regarded as "general Church officers." 

He based his ideas to a great extent on the historical precedent of the 1850s when the Saints in various locations in Wisconsin and Illinois kept what might appropriately be called "the Kirtland gospel" alive until a new prophet, Joseph Smith III, was called and accepted the office. "The Kirtland gospel" seems an appropriate term because those who joined the "New Organization" (later the Reorganization and now the Community of Christ) ultimately rejected all of the innovations associated with the Nauvoo period in the history of the Saints. The RLDS Church through the years sought to retain a faith that is roughly approximate to the faith held by the Saints at the end of the Kirtland period in 1838. Old School Saints today often contend that they seek to return to the original faith of 1830, failing to notice that many important RLDS doctrines and practices were introduced in Kirtland during the 1831-38 period and were therefore not part of the original faith held by the Saints in 1830. But because of their strong emphasis upon restoring the New Testament Church and restoring the faith of the early Latter Day Saints, the term "restorationists" has been commonly used by the Old School Saints. 

A majority of the local schismatic congregations established by Old School Saints followed Richard Price's strategy. Outsiders have often thought of Price as the leader of the Restoration Branch Movement, because his publications on the subject were early, frequent, widely circulated, and certainly influential. But he has never been the pastor of a Restoration Branch or held any formal leadership position in the Restoration Branch Movement. He has been strongly criticized both by people who have remained in the RLDS Church and by a variety of Restoration Branch members. RLDS Church Historian Richard P. Howard characterizes Saints at the Crossroads as a "bitterly angry book" whose style "sacrificed truth and accuracy to the rage of its author." W. B. ("Pat") Spillman terms Price a "self-appointed strategist of the fundamentalist cause" whose "view is no doubt extreme, and stated more for its propaganda effect than for serious analysis."[21] At the same time, some Old School Saints have criticized Price for his sometimes harsh tone in criticizing others. Some see him as too negative and attacking. Others challenge his belief that ultimately the Old School Saints will be able to restore the true gospel under the traditional name, "The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints." His views constitute a stricter interpretation of the scriptures and Church traditions than most restorationists have. 

Given Price's strict, literalistic interpretation of the RLDS heritage, people on all sides should be able to understand the harsh tone in some of his writings. Price's "Independent Restoration Branch" strategy seems to have been an effective policy, certainly in the short run.[22] And he has consistently articulated that strategy in the pages of a magazine he has published since 1989, Vision.[23]

One effect of the "Independent Restoration Branch" strategy was that men who held the Melchisedec Priesthood could exercise leadership in local branches where they could preach, teach, pray, and testify in the Old School manner, and sing the old familiar hymns without any hindrance from World Church apostles, regional administrators, stake presidents, or other career Church appointees hired and evaluated by the RLDS hierarchy in Independence. These World Church appointees were the very men who had been guiding the Church down the dark path that led toward acceptance of the New School ideas that were so troublesome to the Saints of the Old School. Church officials had pressured reluctant congregations into using the "new curriculum" materials in the 1970s and the new hymnbook of 1981. They could block priesthood calls initiated by local fundamentalists and initiate calls for New School thinkers and others who supported the new World Church policies. And they could often control who got elected or appointed to stake or district offices and who preached the sermons and taught the important classes in local congregations. 

In the long run, the difficulty for the independent branches will be the need to eventually create a general Church structure in conformity with the requirements of the RLDS Doctrine and Covenants. A major obstacle will be achieving agreement on the identity of who God has called to be the true Prophet, Seer, and Revelator for the Church, divinely commissioned to set the Church in order in the aftermath of the "liberal heresies." Unfortunately, it appears to be difficult for a large group of men to achieve consensus regarding the thoughts of God. 

In the long run, difficulties might arise because of the lack of ordained men in the higher offices of the Church. In the short run, the Restoration Branches have had the benefit of the ministry from men ordained to the higher offices (e.g., seventies, high priests, patriarchs, and bishops) by RLDS authorities before they affiliated with the Independent Restoration Branches. Obviously these men will all grow old and die. The numbers of active seventies and patriarchs are both in single digits at this point. So the Old School schismatics will eventually need to create a general Church structure and ordain new seventies, high priests, patriarchs, bishops, and of course, twelve apostles and a prophet. If not, they will forever remain local independent branches. 

For many of the Old School Saints, the prophet must be a descendant of Joseph Smith Jr., as has every RLDS prophet until 1996, when the prophet who gave the Church Section 156 called a non-Smith to be his successor. To remain independent restoration branches forever would leave the restoration branches in the position of being, in effect, Southern Baptists with two extra books of scripture to defend. 

Richard Price has cautioned the traditionalists not to "run before the Lord," that is, not to proceed with organizing beyond the local branch level without genuine revelation calling the Saints to do so. Here again, he uses the 1844-60 model, when the "true Church" remained alive in, for example, the Beloit and Yellowstone branches in Wisconsin and Illinois. Independent of the "Brighamite heresy," these branches awaited a son of Joseph the Martyr to lead them. Price says that those who moved too quickly to fill the higher quorums during that period were rejected by God, their revelations were false, and they taught false doctrines which led to further apostasy.[24] He correctly recognized, early on, that men would inevitably step forward who had either seen themselves as God's prophet to save the Restoration or who would claim divine light revealing that some personal friend or relative had been called to that task. It is probably inevitable that various claims to the prophetic mantle would be brought forward in this climate, where Old School Saints thought that Wallace B. Smith was not now nor never had been truly a prophet. 

Keenly aware of this strong probability, Richard Price in the August 1999 issue of his Vision magazine, identified twelve contemporary groups or individuals who had "run before the Lord" by organizing beyond the local level or proclaiming themselves the prophet without authentic revelation to proceed. The groups he identified were led by: (1) Stanley King, (2) Barney Fuller, (3) Eugene Walton, (4) Bud Ormsbee, (5) Lee Abramson, (6) John Cato, (7) Robert Murdock, (8) Bob Baker, (9) Norman Page, (10) Bill Whenham and Glen Hendrix, (11) Doyle Launius and Jack Ferguson, and (12) David Bowerman and Lee Killpack.[25] He could also have included groups led by Ron Livingston and Jeff Lundgren.[26]

But many Old School Saints think Richard Price is too cautious, even naive, to continue hoping that the RLDS Church (now the Community of Christ) will someday come to its senses and reaffirm the traditional gospel.[27] Inevitably, as the years pass, the number of these optimists has declined. Since the early days after the schism of 1984, Old School Saints have been divided between those who, like Richard Price, do not want Old School Saints to resign from the RLDS Church and are therefore "nonseparatists," and those who do withdraw and are "separatists." The separatists do not believe that the RLDS Church will one day reaffirm the Old School beliefs, so there is no reason to hope that the Church will ever turn from its present apostasy. Like seventeenth-century Puritans in England, some believed the Church of England could not be reformed and therefore became "separatists." Others believed that there was still hope for the Church of England and were therefore "nonseparatists." 

In the RLDS schism, the division between the optimists (nonseparatists) and the pessimists (separatists) was probably inevitable. However, the optimism of the nonseparatists has gradually gotten more and more difficult to maintain as the RLDS Church continues to move further away from past traditions. The revelation on women in 1984 began the formal schism.[28] But gradually it became clear that, by calling in the same revelation for the Independence Temple to be dedicated to the pursuit of peace, Wallace B. Smith was calling for an important new direction in the Church's mission. 

Then in 1994 the Church changed its policy on the sacrament of the Lord's Supper from closed to open communion, which was a big issue for the Old School Saints. The next year Wallace B. Smith announced his recommendation that W. Grant McMurray be ordained his successor. Finally, at the 2000 World Conference the delegates voted to change the name of the Church to the "Community of Christ." While McMurray was president at that time, the idea goes back to a suggestion made by Wallace B. Smith at a leadership retreat in Colorado in 1994. These five changes, initiated by Wallace B. Smith, have created a gulf so wide between the RLDS Church and its Old School schismatics that it appears impossible to close. James Rogers, a restorationist who has chosen the separatist camp, reflected on this debate: "There is a sense of hurt and frustration in the struggling Restoration Branches today. Some are hoping that the Lord will turn the institutional [RLDS] Church around and correct the breaches. To this we must ask, 'Did God turn Brigham Young around, and those who followed him?'"[29]

It was probably predictable that some Old School Saints believed that the elders should take the lead in restoring the wayward Church, while others thought the seventies or high priests should perform that task. Understandably, elders tended to believe that the elders should lead, while at least some of the seventies and high priests looked to their particular quorums. The elders could cite a historical precedent: the early conferences of the Church up into the Kirtland period were elders' conferences. 

At present, the separatist group that seems to be posing the most serious challenge to the unity of the Old School schismatics is the recent movement by certain high priests, initially led by David W. Bowerman and V. Lee Killpack, to reestablish the original church under the name, "The Remnant Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints." This movement, however, follows an earlier serious effort by Old School seventies to build a new general church structure. Most of them had affiliated with the Church of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, led by A. Lee Abramson. These Seventies noted support in the Doctrine and Covenants for the idea that, if the First Presidency and the Twelve Apostles are in apostasy, it is the duty of the Seventies to set the Church in order, if the Seventies are unanimous. The Seventies cited Doctrine and Covenants 104:llf-j; 122:9a, 10a, and 124:4 in support of their position. 

The effort to get a unanimous quorum of Seventies, however, failed; and on October 1, 1989, a meeting of only five Seventies convened. All five agreed that the Church needed to be "set in order," which, they affirmed, meant they were "unanimous."[30] The result was the formal organization of the "Restoration Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints" in 1991. This group numbered about a thousand by the end of its first year. Two years later in 1993, Marcus Juby became its prophet, seer, and revelator. By 2002, its membership had dwindled to about two hundred members, due to endless internal schisms. The future looks dim for the Restoration Church.[31]

After the restorationist Seventies failed to accomplish their mission of setting the RLDS Church "in order," some of the Old School high priests felt that scripture and historical precedent suggested that they take the lead temporarily in guiding the Church. One of these high priests, Roger Gault, from Blue Springs, Missouri, noted that according to the 1852 "Word of Consolation," the original statement of what became the Reorganized Church, the highest authority always presides.[32] Therefore in the absence of the First Presidency and the Quorum of Twelve, the high priests preside. Other scriptures and the historical record offered what they considered corroborating evidence. Three documents authored by Church prophets seem particularly important. 

The first is Doctrine and Covenants 122:10a, presented by Joseph Smith III in 1894. "Should the Church fall into disorder, or any portion of it, it is the duty of the several quorums of the Church, or any one of them to take measures to correct such disorder; through the advice and direction of the Presidency, the Twelve, or the Seventy, or a council of high priests, in case of emergency."[33]

The second is Joseph Smith Ill's March 4, 1912, "Letter of Instruction," naming his son, Frederick Madison Smith, as his successor. Al though the conference accepted this letter and sustained Frederick M. as the next Church president, Joseph Ill's biographer, Roger D. Launius, notes significantly that Joseph Ill's Quorum of Twelve resolved that "we do not commit ourselves to the terminology nor all the conclusions contained in the 'Letter of Instruction'" and the General Conference did not endorse it and has never endorsed it as the official policy of the church with regard to succession in the office of President of the Church.[34]

This precedent became important in November 2004 when Grant McMurray resigned as Church president, citing personal reasons and declining to name a successor. The Quorum of the Twelve took on the task of heading the "process of discernment" by which the Lord's choice for McMurray's successor would be revealed. In consultation with the other headquarters quorums, including the still-functioning First Presidency, they called for the entire Church to engage in this discernment process. The Council of Twelve announced in a letter dated March 4, 2005, signed by all of the Twelve except its president, Stephen M. Veazey, that "God graced our efforts and gave to each of us a testimony that Stephen M. Veazey is called to lead the church as prophet-president."[35] This recommendation would be proposed at a specially called World Conference, June 2-5, 2005. Veazey's selection was sustained by that conference. 

A third key document was President Israel A. Smith's statement at general conference in 1952, the centennial year of the creation of the "New Organization," which became the "Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints." Roger Gault cites Israel as saying: "The testimony of all concerned was that it was not a new organization; that was not necessary. For the original body has perpetual existence in and through its faithful adherence .. . for the name of the church had no legal significance whatsoever—The whole controversy was in the domain of doctrine and tenets.”[36]

These high priests concluded that, given the apostasy of the First Presidency and the Twelve, and given the Seventies' inability to act in unanimity, then they should exercise leadership. Gault quoted Joseph Smith III: "If the Melchisedec priesthood is present in any of its offices, the right to organize or to reorganize, the power to establish, to build up and to confirm the Church is there; and if directed by command of God, to perform all the work necessary."[37] In the view of Gault and Killpack, the current situation constitutes a clear emergency. The Remnant Church leaders push further than Richard Price in using the 1844-60 period as precedent because they believe that God has established a pattern (Heb. 8:5; D&C 52, 91) which he follows, thereby allowing Saints to be able to discern what to do in difficult times.[38] In Hebrews 8:5, God admonished Moses to "make all things according to the pattern showed to thee in the mount." In Doctrine and Covenants 52:4b, Joseph Smith announced a revelation in June 1831: "I will give unto you a pattern in all things, that ye may not be deceived; for Satan is abroad in the land, and he goeth forth deceiving the nations." Two years later, in Section 91: la, referring to creating the Kirtland Stake, Joseph wrote, "Behold, it must be done according to the pattern which I have given you." Therefore, concludes Lee Killpack, "the scriptural record is clear that the Lord provides a pattern in all things."[39]

Killpack believes that the RLDS Church has ignored the pattern and that doing so has had dire consequences for the Church: "The evidence of rejected patterns and the law of lineage [in the office of President of the Church] established by the Law Giver himself as well as the pollution of the ordinances occurring in the RLDS Church indicate that the Church as represented by that institution is in apostasy."[40] Breaking with the lineage tradition for the Church president, which occurred in 1996 when W. Grant McMurray succeeded Wallace B. Smith, was evidence of abandonment of the Lord's pattern. Open communion admitted to the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper persons who had not made a baptismal covenant in the Reorganized Church, seen as pollution of the ordinances. Ordaining women was another. Not only was the sacrament of priesthood ordination polluted by the ordination of unauthorized persons (i.e., women); but women's ordination corrupted all other sacraments, since women who administered the sacraments corrupted those sacraments because they lacked authority. Also, the male elders who called them lack God's authority for their action, as the Old School Saints see it. Killpack stated the essence of what many Old School Saints have said: "The power and authority of a presidency is diminished and eventually decimated by a continual and willful departure from the law."[41]

Many Old School Saints have echoed the statement of Joseph Smith III who said: "The Church is the faithful remnant, the body remaining true to the doctrine of the Church." Between the disorganization of the Church in 1844 and the Reorganization under Joseph III, the Church was "the remnant scattered abroad, who remained true to the principles first given as to the gospel of Christ; and with any body of such remnant."[42] These high priests also drew on another of Joseph Smith Ill's statements for assurance that they are the legitimate Church: "The body has perpetual existence in and through those people who still ad here faithfully to the original tenets and doctrines."[43] Smith's definition of "the Church" is conservative because it implies that the true Church should not undergo change or evolution in doctrine. This is consistent with the concept of the true Church as the restoration of the New Testament Church. But it appears to be in conflict with another central tenet of Latter Day Saintism, which holds that humankind needs continued revelation as a source of further light and truth. The existence of continued revelation implies that current concepts are fallible and that, therefore, change is needed to move closer to the fullness of the gospel.

The two key high priests who took the lead in creating the Remnant Church were David W. Bowerman and V. Lee Killpack. Bowerman retired from RLDS World Church appointment in 1991 after thirty-two years, twenty-four of which he served as president in four stakes—Omaha-Coun cil Bluffs, Kansas City, Tulsa, and Blue Valley (Independence, Missouri area).[44] Lee Killpack retired in 1999 as a science teacher at Tri-Center Community Schools in Neola, Iowa, and moved to the Independence area. Bowerman made a presentation to the Restoration Branch pastors in Independence (the "Pastors in Zion") on June 2, 1992, suggesting that a conference of restorationist elders be called for April 1993. James Daugherty, historian for the Conference of Restoration Elders, reports that on July 18, 1992, approximately two hundred elders met in Independence and approved Bowerman's plan. 

The first Conference of Restoration Elders (CRE) convened in In dependence, April 5-9, 1993, attended by 406 Melchisedec and 23 Aaronic priesthood men, along with 99 nonpriesthood members. They affirmed belief in the three standard books of scripture, the "Epitome of Faith" (the RLDS version of The Articles of Faith), and various pre-1984 RLDS General Conference resolutions on membership, priesthood, the sacraments, and tithing. It tabled proposals involving marriage, divorce, and remarriage, probably because the Church's resolutions on these sensitive subjects, adopted in the 1960s before the dramatic rise in divorce rates in America, are too conservative even for Old School Saints, some of whom have been divorced themselves.[45]

At that first conference in 1993, Bowerman was chosen as chairman of the CRE. The elders elected a Coordinating Council and other committees. The conference also began publishing a magazine, Tidings of Zion. Sixty-nine issues had appeared by the end of 2004. While Bowerman was leading the organization, the conference approved for publication various documents of "inspired counsel" that had been presented through J. J. Basse, David Bowerman, Warren Chelline, Vernon F. Darling, Conrad R. Faulk, C. Houston Hobart, and Robert R. Murie Sr., and published in Tidings of Zion.[46] The content of these "counsel" messages tended to point in the direction that Bowerman was advocating. Thus, it is no surprise that, as of this writing, all of these men have affiliated with the Remnant Church except Vernon Darling. 

David Bowerman was concerned that the autonomous local branches were too independent of each other, with each of the local Restoration Branches going its own way. Bowerman looked at the two hundred plus local splinter groups that had proliferated between 1984 and 1993 and concluded that, without guidance, these groups might diverge too sharply to be unified again.[47] He hoped that guidance could come from the Conference of Restoration Elders that he had created in 1993. He also believed that Church law and tradition supported the leadership of the high priests, given the apostasy of the higher quorums. But over the next five years, 1993-98, resistance to Bowerman and his associates increased. Finally, at the annual Conference of these Restoration Elders held in April 1998, those who opposed the direction Bowerman seemed to be going elected William ("Vim") Horn as chairman of the conference. Horn served in this capacity for four years, until April 2002, when Seventy Richard Neill—possibly Bowerman's strongest opponent within the organization—became its chair. In April 2005, Paul Gage replaced Neill. 

A major point of contention between the two factions in the Conference of Restoration Elders had been over evangelism in distant parts of the world. It came to a head between the 1997 and the 1998 conferences. Bowerman was concerned because various members of the CRE's Evangelism Council had created independent organizations for missionary work in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. He and others felt that foreign missions should not be operating outside the authority of the conference. But Neill noted that the Center Place Missionary Council, which created such agencies as the African Restoration Ministries, predates the establishment of the Conference of Restoration Elders in 1993.[48] Bowerman supporters, a majority in the Coordinating Council, voted by a 7-4 majority to dismiss Richard Neill from their council. They also dismissed several members of the Evangelism Council, which also included Neill. The men of the Evangelism Council have undertaken missions to Nigeria, Kenya, the Congo, Nepal, Honduras, Australia, Germany, and Great Britain.[49] Neill, expelled in 1997 from two leadership roles in the CRE, became its chair in 2002. 

This situation captures the two decades of tension between Old School Saints who would have their congregations remain autonomous as Independent Restoration Branches and those who want some centralized leadership. In 1994 Richard Neill published a pamphlet expressing regret that so much criticism has gone on within the Restoration Branches. In 1996, Jack Basse, a prominent high priest from Sperry, Oklahoma, gave a prophetic message at the end of that year's meeting of the Conference of Restoration Elders: "I, the Lord, . . . have not been well pleased with this Conference.... I have heard the murmurings and the backbiting in your discussions, both privately and in your meetings."[50] Tom Beil from Blue Springs, Missouri (now deceased), worried that "two hundred independent Restoration branches are becoming similar to the Baptist congregations. Each branch is independent and autonomous, with unique rules, incorporation papers, and/or bylaws."[51] Lane Harold, from Lees Summit, Missouri, lamented, "The Lord's Latter Day Church is not to be permanently expressed as a collection of fiercely independent congregations existing in a very tentative alliance, and which association is subject to cancellation any time our feelings become hurt. We get no scriptural encouragement from our Lord when we allow ourselves to grow resentful of any outside influence, even from neighboring brothers and sisters."[52] Roger Gault of the Remnant Church deplored the fact that the many independent branches "are mostly separate entities unto themselves" and suggested that they all need to "pray for one another, instead of preying on one another."[53] Lane Harold commented early in 2000: "Much valuable time has been lost in endless debate and acrimony since 1993."[54]

There is a natural tendency to assume that God is displeased with such debates, since the Saints are admonished in all three RLDS standard books to be "of one heart and one mind."[55] Lane Harold wrote that the anger and impatience of the Lord is not limited to those who have continued to support the RLDS Church, but extends also to those who formed independent congregations and then grew comfortable when much more work was needed to rectify the problems.[56] It is understandable that people would be disturbed about such contention because the issues for them are extremely important. If God is unchangeable and wants the Saints to be of one heart and one mind, and if He has established a pattern of true doctrine and organization and that pattern is the New Testament Church, then deviation from it is a serious matter. But since Old School Saints sometimes differ about exactly what "the pattern's" essential elements are, internal disagreements should not be a surprise. 

Most of the local schismatic groups have remained independent branches, with complete local autonomy, even though the RLDS Church has always been a hierarchical church with considerable authority vested in its general officers at headquarters. (This is even truer of the much larger LDS Church headquartered in Salt Lake City, thanks in large part to the revelations of Joseph Smith Jr. in the Doctrine and Covenants which assert considerable centralized authority.) The centralized hierarchical authority in the Latter Day Saint churches is somewhat similar to the centralized authority of churches which are "episcopal" in their form of government. The opposite is the "congregational" form of church government which preserves local autonomy. In the United States, the Baptists are the best example of the congregational form. For the RLDS, "Church law," found primarily in the Doctrine and Covenants, views this centralized hierarchical authority as being part of "the pattern" required by God. In light of the hierarchical nature of the "true Church," as RLDS members have traditionally viewed it, one might wonder why many of the Restoration Branches have become protective of their autonomy as local branches. 

David Bowerman thinks that the misuse of authority in the past by the RLDS leadership caused the people in the Restoration Branches to be too cautious about vesting authority beyond the local level.[57] Certainly, the caution of men like Richard Price and many others is understandable. Price has often warned against creating another hierarchy. "I have opposed doing so because I believe that only God can call leaders to the high Church offices. I believe He has not yet done so, but I believe He will in His own due time."[58]

But if God calls a prophet to lead the schismatic members, will the Old School Saints recognize him? In the five years that Bowerman led the Conference of Restoration Elders, he advocated going forward with some organizing beyond the local branch level, even though no prophet existed as yet. But he was not able to get the conference as a body to agree to it. However, one project he began, early on, did later have an important role in the creation of what became the Remnant Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. 

In 1994 Bowerman began to encourage "Prayer and Study Groups" across the United States, led by Old School elders. The only serious group that developed was in the "Center Place"—in and around Independence—when nine men began holding monthly meetings of six hours' length. The original group included Bowerman, Conrad Faulk, Roger Gault, James Rogers, Ron Turner, Jake Simmons, Vernon Darling, Jack Basse, and the late C. Houston Hobart.[59] The group expanded until eventually about forty Melchisedec Priesthood men were meeting twice a month. Some men developed papers on a variety of topics and discussed them with the group. Of considerable importance is the fact that Frederick N. Larsen, a grandson of Frederick M. Smith and great-grandson of Joseph Smith III, took an active part in the meetings, beginning in 1996.[60]

At a meeting of the prayer and study group held in May 1999, a document entitled "A Proclamation and Invitation to the Faithful" was presented for discussion.[61] Its writers realized that a study group has no formal authority in the Church, a fact that critics were quick to point out: "There is no provision in the law for a study group to function in the ad ministrative affairs of the Church," wrote one dissenter. "A study group has no authority to conduct legislation."[62] Recognizing this point, supporters of the proclamation called a meeting of restorationist high priests for July 17, 1999, to consider this document. Lee Killpack invited all known restorationist high priests to this gathering, using as his data base the mailing list of high priests in the Conference of Restoration Elders as well as that of an earlier group known as "The High Priests' Assembly," begun by Dr. Milo Farnham. 

Twenty-four high priests attended the meeting.[63] They believed that the restorationist high priests were "the appropriate administrative" body to take whatever action they believed to be consistent with the "'law and covenants' of the Church."[64] They chose V. Lee Killpack to chair their temporary council. He had earlier been elected chair of the high priests group within the Conference of Restorationist Elders. According to Bowerman and Killpack, when the vote was taken on the "Proclamation and Invitation to the Faithful," only one high priest voted against it.[65] Killpack chose Roger Gault and Jim Rogers as his two counselors. Then the three selected nine other high priests to complete a "Council of High Priests." They were Jack Basse, David Bowerman, Albert Burdick, Carl VunCannon, Lane Harold, Dale Miller, Joe Ben Stone, Harold Tims, and Melvin Zahner.[66] Critics like Richard Price immediately charged that Bowerman's people were setting up a new church, seeing these men as likely its apostles and leading officers. 

In language much like that of Joseph Smith III when he accepted the presidency of the Church on April 6, 1860, the writers of the proclamation declared that they felt "compelled by a Higher Power" in preparing it.[67] The proclamation asserted that none of those men who so far had claimed succession and authority had divine sanction, meaning the self-proclaimed prophets discussed above, and the churches that resulted from their work. The proclamation further asserted that the Conference of Restoration Elders had strayed from its founding purposes. It resolved to stand firmly behind the statement of faith that the Conference of Restoration Elders had approved in its first conference in 1993,[68] on succession, reorganization, and the role of the Melchisedec Priesthood. The proclamation urged "recognition of the lawful role of faithful High Priests to select a temporary council to provide interim leadership for guiding and renewing the Church" (emphasis in original). And the "Proclamation and Invitation to the Faithful" acknowledged various "inspired messages" that had been published in the Tidings of Zion, the magazine of the Conference of Restoration Elders.[69]

Once the high priests group had approved the proclamation, they decided to call a Melchisedec Assembly, which was held on October 30, 1999, at the Blue Springs, Missouri, Restoration Branch, to see if the elders approved the proclamation and the procedures advocated. At this meeting, the elders voted to accept the proclamation and the Council of High Priests and its leaders. They also authorized the calling of a conference to be held in April 2000.[70] The General Conference held in Independence on April 8-9, 2000, voted "nearly unanimously" to continue the original church of 1830 under the name "Remnant Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints."[71]

When Bowerman had been defeated as chairman of the Conference of Restoration Elders in 1998, he and his supporters lost control of that organization's bi-monthly magazine, Tidings of Zion, and created their own magazine, The Hastening Times. Its first issue appeared in October 1999. In this magazine, the proclamation's supporters continued expressing their need for some centralized leadership under the direction of the high priests. The "Proclamation and Invitation to the Faithful" was published as the lead article in that first issue, followed by a list of 123 signers.[72]

In the Latter Day Saint tradition, evidence of the presence of the Holy Spirit has normally been seen as an important sign of God's favor for a Church or any religious group. This is especially true for Old School Saints. Marylyn Gosling of Kansas City, Missouri, was frightened when she first read the proclamation. "Oh, dear, something else to divide us even more," she wrote in the Hastening Times. But she visited the conferences of both groups and reported finding the Spirit lacking at the Conference of Restoration Elders, in contrast to the abundance of the Spirit she felt at the Remnant Church's conference.[73]

Remnant Church member Warren Chelline has written that the test of veracity lies in these three areas: scriptural support, historical precedent, and spiritual verification.[74] Chelline and the others of the Remnant Church believe it has satisfied all three tests. Clearly the Remnant people found scriptural support and historical precedent for their position. But they also believed that they need revelation from God directing them to proceed with the process of restoring a legitimate general Church structure. That occurred when High Priest Lee Killpack presented a revelation that he had received on March 23, 2000, two weeks before the April conference. This revelation instructed the elders to proceed with organizing the Church at the higher levels by appointing a committee of three patriarchs, the late C. Houston Hobart, E. D. ("Dan") Gough, and Conrad R. Faulk. After fasting and praying for guidance, these three would then name seven apostles. The revelation also called for a conference to be held on September 23, 2000, to deliberate on whether to approve the calling of the seven men recommended by the three patriarchs. The revelation concluded: "Be faithful little flock, and in My time I will send you one mighty and strong, again, to be your President, Prophet, Seer, and Revelator."[75] The conference held in April approved the revelation, authorized the three patriarchs to recommend seven apostles, and called for the conference to be held in September. 

More than 500 people registered for that conference. The three patriarchs reported that the seven men called to be apostles were: Gary L. Argotsinger, David W. Bowerman, P. James Buchman, Steve R. Church, V. Lee Killpack, Robert E. Ostrander, and James L. Rogers. The conference approved their calls, and they were ordained.[76] The seven apostles chose Bowerman as president and Killpack as secretary of the Quorum of Apostles. The apostles have since divided the United States and Canada into seven regions, with each apostle taking charge of the work in one particular region.[77]

A second conference was held a year later on September 21-23, 2001, at William Chrisman High School at Noland Road and Highway 24 in Independence.[78] It was attended by 138 priesthood from several states. At that time, there were only 205 priesthood members in the Remnant Church.[79] The evening preaching services and the Sunday morning service were open to nonpriesthood and attended by several hundred people. At the sessions exclusively for priesthood holders, the conference gave tentative approve for the budget for 2002 of over a quarter of a million dollars.[80]

Since the Remnant Church has placed a lot of faith in the idea that God has established a pattern for organizing the true Church, it would follow that the person chosen by God would be a direct descendent of Joseph Smith Jr. This dream was fulfilled when Frederick Niels Larsen, a great-grandson of Joseph Smith III, stepped forward with an affirmation of his conviction that God has called him to be president of the high priesthood and of the Church. Larsen was born January 15, 1932, the son of Ed Larsen and Lois Smith Larsen, the daughter of Frederick M. Smith, the second president of the RLDS Church. This grandfather, for whom Frederick Larsen was named and whom he resembles, blessed him and later confirmed him a member of the RLDS Church. He was ordained a priest in 1956 by his great-uncle, RLDS President Israel A. Smith, and an elder in 1960 by another great-uncle, the recently ordained RLDS President W. Wallace Smith. In 2001 he was ordained a high priest by David Bowerman, under the auspices of the Remnant Church. 

He had stopped attending his RLDS congregation in Independence after Section 156 in 1984 and did not affiliate with any of the restorationist schismatic groups until 1996 when he was invited to attend Bowerman's Prayer and Study Group. He was one of the twelve men who met in Carthage, Missouri, and drafted the "Proclamation and Invitation." He testifies that on two occasions in November of 2000 "the Lord revealed to me very clearly that the mantle of leadership would fall on my shoulders." When he awoke on March 5, 2001, "the voice of clear inspiration" came to him, further confirming his call. So on February 27, 2002 Larsen wrote a letter to the members of the Remnant Church. In it he said: "It is my intention to present to the Quorums and the General Conference in April an Inspired Document responding to a call to the Presidency of the High Priesthood and of the Church of Jesus Christ."[81] The April 5-7, 2002, General Conference approved Larsen's document, which became Section R-145 of the Doctrine and Covenants of the Remnant Church.[82] The revelation called David W. Bowerman to be Larsen's counselor in the First Presidency. Since then, Larsen has submitted four more revelations, the most recent, R-149, was approved at the April 2002 General Conference. Wayne Bartrow of Blue Springs is the third member of the First Presidency. The conference also approved other officers, including members of the Standing High Council.[83]

As President of the Church, Frederick M. Smith had been very interested in the teachings of his great-grandfather, Joseph Smith Jr., on Zion and those of his grandfather, Frederick Madison Smith. Fred Larsen shares his grandfather's enthusiasm for the Zionic ideal and told the Salt Lake Tribune how he sees his role: "to prepare this people for what might come spiritually and physically. We do believe in the literal gathering of Zion. This is the center place, the promised land. This will be the starting point for spreading the gospel," and Independence is where "the Lord will return.”[84]

At the time Fred Larsen assumed the prophetic office, he was seventy years old. His great-grandfather had been twenty-seven when he assumed the presidency in 1860. At the time of the 2002 General Conference, there were nearly a thousand members and seventeen branches had been organized: five in Missouri (Carthage, Ava, and three in the Independence area): and four in Oklahoma (Blackgum, Muskogee, Sperry, and Texoma). The others were in Delta, Colorado; Missouri Valley, Iowa; Lake Elsinore, California; Marlin, Texas; Magic Valley, Idaho; Floyd's Knob, Indiana; Jackson, Mississippi; and Toronto, Ontario, Canada.[85] Recently two branches have been organized in Bella Vista, Arkansas, and Garden City, Michigan. As of March 31, 2005, the Church had 1,244 members.[86]

It is common among Restoration Branch and Remnant Church members to assert that they did not leave the RLDS Church. Rather, "The RLDS Church has left us," as Conrad Faulk wrote in the Tidings of Zion.[87] Therefore, the Saints of the Remnant Church take the official position that they did not start a new Church. Remnant Church Historian Raymond Clough says the Remnant Church is a renewed Church "reborn with all the spiritual truth of the primitive gospel and hope of salvation that was returned to earth in 1830." By the same token, Clough asserts, the Reorganized Church of 1860 was not a new Church but merely the rebirth of the restoration of 1830.[88] Marjorie F. Spease writes that, when the RLDS Church came into being, it "was simply a setting in order of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints—the original church exactly as it had been restored in 1830."[89] Old School Saints typically hold that the test of truth is to be found in holding to the New Testament doctrines and practices that were restored by Joseph Smith in 1830. 

It appears that about half of the active restorationist high priests in the Independence area have affiliated with the Remnant Church, although a much smaller percentage of the elders and other restorationists joined. Clearly its greatest appeal so far has been to high priests. Paul Gage of Independence, a high priest who did not join the Remnant Church, contends that they represented less than 35 percent of the restorationist high priests. "By this action it would seem that they have separated themselves from the quorum of high priests, which for the past seven or eight years has worked with and through the CRE."[90] Even if Gage's estimate is accurate, however, it seems that the Remnant Church has made a good beginning. 

The Remnant Church attracted a significant number of well-known Church leaders from the ranks of elders and high priests in the Independence area. By way of contrast, the Restoration Church, launched in 1991 and led by the Prophet Marcus Juby, attracted very few leaders from the headquarters area. Rather, their leaders were widely scattered geographically. Also, Fred Larsen does not appear to be a person who alienates those who work closely with him, as did Marcus Juby. Time will tell if their numbers will grow and ultimately win a majority of the restorationists to their cause. 

During the last four decades of the nineteenth century, the RLDS Church became by far the largest Mormon splinter church for at least two reasons: First, the son of the founding prophet became their leader, and Mormons have always valued lineage. Second, Joseph Smith III was an effective leader—a "pragmatic prophet," as Roger Launius characterized him in the subtitle to his biography of the Church president. 

Frederick N. Larsen is a direct descendent of Joseph Smith, Jr., but through his mother, Lois Larsen, who was not in the priesthood. That is not satisfactory for some fundamentalists, while others accept the idea. If Larsen proves to be an effective leader, the Remnant Church may well become the historical parallel to the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which became the largest Latter Day Saint splinter group after Joseph Smith III became its president in 1860. Just as the RLDS Church rejected the Nauvoo innovations of Joseph Smith Jr. and hearkened back to the brand of Mormonism preached in the Kirtland era, so the Remnant Church and other restorationists reject the innovations introduced during the W. Wallace and Wallace B. Smith period (1958-96) and hearken back to the faith articulated during the presidency of Israel A. Smith (1946-58) and before. 

---

[1] The RLDS Church formally changed its name to "Community of Christ" on April 6, 2001. 

[2] 1970 World Conference Bulletin, 329; "A Transcript of the Business Sessions: The 1970 World Conference," 404-8. These official documents and others in the same series are all available in the Community of Christ Library-Archives, Independence. See also Richard P. Howard, The Church Through the Years, 2 vols. (Independence, Mo.: Herald Publishing House, 1993), 2:396-97.

[3] Bud Edwards, email to Bill Russell, March 15, 2002. 

[4] 1984 World Conference Bulletin, 308-9; "Doctrine and Covenants 156," Saints' Herald 131, no. 9 (May 1, 1984): 3; "A Transcript of the Legislative Sessions: The 1984 World Conference," 113-54. 

[5] 1970 World Conference Bulletin, 329. 

[6] D&C 156:5a. Unless otherwise noted, all scriptural citations are from the Community of Christ Doctrine and Covenants (Independence, Mo.: Herald Publishing House, 1990). In addition to citations to section and verse, the Community of Christ tradition designates parts of verses with alphabet letters. 

[7] The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd ed., edited by E. A. Livingston (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 1462, defines schism as: "formal and willful separation from the unity of the Church." 

[8] William D. Russell, "Defenders of the Faith: Varieties of RLDS Dissent," Sunstone 14, no. 3 (June 1990): 14-19; and "The Fundamentalist Schism, 1958-Present," in "Let Contention Cease": The Dynamics of Dissent in the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, edited by Roger D. Launius and W. B. "Pat" Spillman (Independence, Mo.: Graceland/Park Press, 1991), 125-51, and the following essays in the same volume: Larry Conrad, "Dissent Among Dissenters: Theological Dimensions of Dissent in the Reorganization," 199-239; W. B. ("Pat") Spillman, "Dissent and the Future of the Church," 259-92, and Roger D. Launius, "Guarding Prerogatives: Autonomy and Dissent in the Development of the Nineteenth-Century Reorganized Church," 17-58. See also Paul M. Ed wards, Our Legacy of Faith (Independence, Mo.: Herald Publishing House, 1991), 282; Howard, The Church Through the Years, 2:409-32; Roger D. Launius, "The Reorganized Church, the Decade of Decision, and the Abilene Paradox," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 31 (Spring 1998): 47-65. 

[9] For a somber look at the decline in active membership in recent years, see George N. Walton, "Sect to Denomination: Counting the Progress of the RLDS Reformation," John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 18 (1998): 38-62. 

[10] On the Supreme Directional Control controversy, the most thorough study is that of Larry E. Hunt, F. M. Smith: Saint as Reformer (Independence, Mo.: Herald Publishing House; 1982), 233-345. See also Kenneth R. Mulliken, "The Supreme Directional Control Controversy: Theocracy Versus Democracy in the Reorganized Church, 1915-1925," in Let Contention Cease, 91-124; Paul M. Edwards, The Chief: An Administrative Biography of Fred M. Smith (Independence, Mo.: Herald Publishing House, 1988), chap. 9; Howard, The Church Through the Years, 2:227-42.

[11] See the following articles and editorials in Courage: A Journal of History, Thought, and Action: Editorial Committee, "Sex Roles in a Changing World," 1, no. 2 (December 1970): 81-84; Carolyn Raiser, "All Animals Are Equal: But Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others," 2, no. 3 (Spring 1972): 413-20; The Editors, "Interview with Marge Troeh," 3, nos. 2-3 (Winter/Spring 1973): 71-80; Barbara Higdon and Larry Moffett, "Women's Lib in Print," 3, nos. 2-3 (Winter/Spring 1973): 109-13. See also Howard, The Church Through the Years, 2:381-408. I edited Courage throughout its short three-year life. The other members of the editorial committee were Barbara Higdon, Paul Edwards, Roger Yarrington, Clifford Buck, Joe Pearson, Roy Muir, Lome White, and Judy Schneebeck. Carolyn Raiser soon joined the editorial committee and became co-editor. 

[12] Church Statistician James E. Lancaster Jr. was closely associated with Church Historian Charles Davies and the men in the Religious Education Department of Religious Education. He published what may have been the most controversial article in the Saints Herald during that period: "By the Gift and Power of God: The Method of Translation of the Book of Mormon," Saints' Herald 109, no. 22 (November 15, 1962): 798-802, 806, 817; reprinted with some revisions as "The Method of Translation of the Book of Mormon," John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 3 (1983): 51 -61, and as "The Translation of the Book of Mormon," in The Word of God: Essays on Mormon Scripture, edited by Dan Vogel (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1990), 97-112. 

[13] One of the few that started during the inter-conference period was Center Branch in Independence, led by Rudy Leutzinger, who subsequently was expelled from the Church. Only about a dozen fundamentalist splinter groups' leaders were expelled—which is the RLDS equivalent of LDS excommunication. Several hundred men were "silenced"—removed from the priesthood.

[14] 1986 World Conference Bulletin, 288-89. 

[15] Ibid., 289. The Nebraska District has also sent a resolution to the 1986 World Conference calling for the removal of Section 156. I986 World Conference Bulletin, 233. The World Conference acted only on the Central Missouri Stake resolution, published in the 1986 World Conference Bulletin, 230-31. 

[16] Howard, The Church Through the Years, 2:53. Recently, Howard has called for the creation of a "Task Force on the Canon," composed of a learned and diverse group of scholars, who would make recommendations to the Church, thus opening the canonization process. Richard P. Howard, "A Proposal for a Task Force on the Canon," Theology Colloquy, Graceland University, February 2, 2002. Photocopy in my possession.

[17] Richard Price, The Saints at the Crossroads (Independence, Mo.: Price Publishing, 1974). 

[18] Richard Price, "Saints at the Crossroads," Vision, Issue 37 (June 2001): 14; Richard Price, Letter to Bill Russell, November 6, 2001. 

[19] Richard Price, Action Time: The Problem of Fundamentalism Versus Liberalism in the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and Suggestions for Coping with That Problem (Independence, Mo.: Price Publishing, 1985) and The Restoration Branches Movement (Independence, Mo.: Price Publishing, 1986), both written with the assistance of Larry Harlacher.

[20] Price, "The Restorationists Will Regain Control of the RLDS Church," Vision 7 (September 1991): 18, cites as evidence the growth of the Restoration Branches and the decline in membership and vitality of the institutional (RLDS) church. He believes that, if the restorationists will remain in independent branches, the time will come when the Lord "cleanses the RLDS Church (Doc trine and Covenants 105:9-10) and replaces those New Agers with righteous ser vants." Price's son David noted that the name "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints" was given by revelation at Far West on April 26, 1838, and re corded in the Eiders' Journal, August 1838, 52, and in Joseph Smith III and Heman Hale Smith, History of the [Reorganized] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, 1805-1890, 4 vols.; continued by F. Henry Edwards as The History of the [Reorganized] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Vols. 5-8 (Independence, Mo.: Herald House, 1970): 2:151. David Price stressed that Joseph Smith III and Heman C. Smith had declared that the 1838 revelation "settles definitely the name of the church." David M. Price, "What's in a Name?" Vision, Issue 11 (No vember 1992): 5-6. The Prices apparently feel that, since God gave the name by revelation, he will not allow the name to be desecrated for long. However, the Utah church carries the same name given in the 1838 revelation, without a quali fier such as "Reorganized," or "Restoration," or "World," or "Remnant," as has been added by some recent factions. But Price would reply that Joseph Smith III was told by revelation to "join the Reorganized Church" (Saints' Herald, October 24,1936,1, 330), "which indicates that the Lord approved of that addition." Rich ard Price, "The Name of the Church Was Given by Revelation," Vision, Issue 12 (March 1993): 10. Community of Christ Historian Mark A. Scherer, '"Called by a New Name': Mission, Identity, and the Reorganized Church," Journal of Mormon History 27, no. 2 (Fall 2001): 45, notes that this 1838 revelation at Far West became Section 115 of the LDS Doctrine and Covenants but was never canonized by the RLDS Church. Perhaps Scherer was suggesting that it was all right to change the name of the church since the traditional name is not in the RLDS Doctrine and Covenants. Scherer also suggested that the "Church of Jesus Christ" part of the name would have likely pleased the Missouri Saints while "Latter Day Saints" would have pleased the Kirtland Saints "because it acknowledged their strong dispensationalism."

[21] Howard, The Church Through the Years, 2:31 note; Spillman "Dissent and the Future of the Church," 263-64. While Howard discusses the schism over the ordination of women in his two-volume history, published in 1992-93, Paul M. Edwards, in his official one-volume history, Our Legacy of Faith: A Brief History of the Reorganised Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Independence, Mo.: Herald Publishing House, 1991), does not mention that the conflict over women's ordination led to schism nor does he include Section 156 in his chronology of important events in Church history. The only entry for that year was Barbara Higdon's inauguration as president of Graceland College. 

[22] On Richard Price's career in the Church, see William D. Russell, "Richard Price: Leading Publicist of the Reorganized Church's Schismatics," in Differing Visions: Dissenters in Mormon History, edited by Roger D. Launius and Linda Thatcher (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994), 319-42. 

[23] Vision is published by Price Publishing Company, 915 E. 23rd Street, In dependence, MO 64055, which is also the site of the Restoration Bookstore. Vision is a very useful source for news about the Restoration Branches and for the publisher's critique of other restorationist factions and of the RLDS Church.

[24] Richard Price, "Running before the Lord," Vision, Issue 2 (Fall 1989): 12. 

[25] Richard Price, "High Priests' Group Organizes Twelfth Restoration Church," Vision, Issue 32 (August 1999): 8-10. 

[26] Ron Livingston, who no longer claims his given name, is the prophet and high priest for a group of about fifty people who claim to be Essenes (a pre-Christian Israelite sect) who live on more than two hundred acres of land between Lamoni and Davis City, Iowa. Jeffrey Don Lundgren was the prophet and seer of a group of twenty-nine people in Kirtland, Ohio, until April 1989 when he murdered a family of five, who were part of his group. Lundgren is currently confined to death row in the state prison at Mansfield, Ohio. Only three members of Lundgren's group retain any allegiance or contact with their former scriptural mentor. =

[27] On the recent RLDS name change, see Scherer, "'Called by a New Name.'" 

[28] Two self-proclaimed prophets arose prior to 1984—Stan King in Owen Sound, Ontario, Canada, and Eugene Walton in Independence. Both movements were short-lived.

[29] James Rogers, "The Name of the Church," The Hastening Times 1, no. 2 (February 1,2000): 17-18. 

[30] R. Ben Madison, "The History of the Restoration Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints," 104, unpublished book manuscript, photocopy in my possession, used by permission. Madison was Church Historian for this group. 

[31] R. Ben Madison, interviewed by William D. Russell, April 8, 2002, In dependence. The Restoration Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is headquartered at the former Alton School, 801 W. 23rd Street, Independence, MO 64055. Its official publication has been Restoration Advocate, copies of which are in the Library-Archives, Community of Christ Temple, Independence.

[32] Roger Gault, "Scriptural and Historical Evidence of Church Reorganization," The Hastening Times 1, no. 3 (May 1, 2000): 12. 

[33] Quoted in Lee Killpack, "By What Authority a Council of High Priests?" The Hastening Times 1, no. 2 (February 1, 2000): 14.

[34] Roger D. Launius, Joseph Smith III: Pragmatic Prophet (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988), 349-50. The "Letter of Instruction" was published in the Saints' Herald 59 (March 13, 1912): 241-48, and in History of the Reorganized Church, 6:560-75. 

[35] "Official," Herald, April 2005, 6. 

[36] Israel A. Smith, "The Return: Conference Address of the President," Saints' Herald: Conference Daily Edition, Monday, March 31, 1952, 36.

[37] Joseph Smith III, RLDS Church History, 5:538, quoted by Roger Gault, "Scriptural and Historical Evidence of Church Reorganization," The Hastening Times 1, no. 3 (May 1, 2000): 9. 

[38] The Conference of Restoration Elders, a group of several hundred elders who still adhere to the Independent Restoration Branch strategy, included in its organization a "Pattern Committee." However, not all restorationists believe that the Lord always uses a single set structure. For example, William ("Vim") Horn, chairman of the Conference of Restoration Elders, 1998-2002, recently stated: "It is hard to say a singular event is 'the pattern,'" but "over time there have been different structural forms. There is the New Testament structure, the Book of Mormon structure, the 1830 structure, and the 1850s structure." He was guest speaker at the adult Sunday School class, Lamoni Community of Christ, Lamoni, Iowa, March 3, 2002; notes in my possession. 

[39] Lee Killpack, "'Succession in Presidency:' Presented to the Center Place Prayer and Study Group," The Hastening Times 1, no. 1 (October 1, 1999): 9.

[40] Ibid., 8. 

[41] Ibid. 

[42] Roger Gault, "Scriptural and Historical Evidences of Church Reorganization," The Hastening Times, 1, no. 3 (May 1, 2000): 10. 

[43] Ibid., 9.

[44] David W. Bowerman, interviewed by William D. Russell, November 28, 2001, Independence. 

[45] The Church's resolutions on divorce began in the nineteenth century. Until 1962, the only legitimate grounds for divorce were acts of adultery (World Church Resolution 1034 [1962], replaced by World Church Resolution 1182 [1984]).

[46] "Inspired Counsel," Tidings of Zion, no. 22 January-February 1997): 9-14. Tidings of Zion's address is P.O. Box 4085, Independence 64057. 

[47] David Bowerman thinks this figure is high. Bowerman, interviewed, November 28, 2001, Independence. In contrast, I regard it as a conservative estimate.

[48] Richard Neill, interviewed by William D. Russell, November 27, 2001; see also William ("Vim") Horn, "What Are You Being Asked to Accept?" Tidings of Zion, no. 38 (September-October 1999): 5. 

[49] Ibid. 

[50] "Admonition and Counsel to the 1996 Conference: Message through High Priest Jack Basse," Tidings of Zion, no. 20 (September-October 1996): 1.

[51] Tom Beil, "Are We Becoming 200 Different Churches?" Tidings of Zion, no. 17 (March-April 1996): 1.

[52] Lane Harold, "Scouting Out the Kingdom As We Leave the Nineties," The Hastening Times 1, no. 2 (February 1, 2000): 30. 

[53] Roger C. Gault, "The Role and Duty of the High Priest," The Hastening Times 1, no. 2 (February 1, 2000): 4, 7. 

[54] Lane W. Harold, "When All Else Fails-Read the Directions," The Hastening Times 1, no. 2 (February 1, 2000): 12. Basse, Beil, Harold, and Gault all joined the Remnant Church when it was created in September 2000. 

[55] The RLDS Book of Mormon, 2 Nephi 1:36, admonishes: "Arise from the dust, my sons, and be men, and be determined in one mind, and in one heart united in all things, that ye may not come down into captivity; that ye may not be cursed with a sore cursing." Both RLDS Doctrine and Covenants 36:2h and Genesis 7:23 of the Inspired Version include this statement: "And the Lord called his people Zion, because they were of one heart and one mind, and dwelt in righteousness." RLDS Doctrine and Covenants 45:12 also contains this advice: "With one heart and with one mind, gather up your riches that ye may purchase an inheritance which shall hereafter be appointed unto you, and it shall be called the New Jerusalem, a land of peace, a city of refuge, a place of safety for the saints of the most high God." These passages are all from the Joseph Smith Jr. contribution to the Latter Day Saint canon of scripture, not in standard versions of the Bible. 

[56] Harold, "When All Else Fails," 29.

[57] David W. Bowerman, "The Hastening Time," Tidings of Zion, no. 26 (September-October 1997): 1. 

[58] Richard Price, Letter to Bill Russell, April 5, 2002.

[59] All but Turner and Darling joined the Remnant Church when it was organized in September 2000. David W. Bowerman, interviewed, November 28, 2001, Independence. 

[60] David W. Bowerman and V. Lee Killpack, interviewed by William D. Russell, September 17, 2001, Independence. 

[61] "A Proclamation and Invitation to the Faithful," The Hastening Times 1, no. 1 (October 1999): 2-4, with the names of 123 signers of the Proclamation on p. 5. 

[62] Dale Crown, "By What Authority?" Tidings of Zion, no. 38 (September-October 1999): 9. This issue of the Tidings contains rebuttals to the Proclamation written by William ("Vim") Horn, James Daugherty, John Henderson, Paul Gage, and Milo M. Farnham, in addition to Crown's.

[63] V. Lee Killpack, interviewed by William D. Russell, November 28, 2001, Independence. 

[64] Roger Gault, "The Center Place Prayer and Study Group," The Hastening Times 1, no. 1 (October 1, 1999): 17. 

[65] David Bowerman and Lee Killpack, interviewed by William D. Russell, November 29, 2001. 

[66] The names of the Council of High Priests are listed in a sidebar, The Hastening Times 1, no. 2 (February 1, 2000): 16. 

[67] Joseph Smith III said on that occasion: "I have come in obedience to a power not my own, and I shall be dictated by the power that sent me." Quoted in Launius, Joseph Smith III, 117.

[68] "Statement of Faith," Tidings of Zion, no. 16 (January-February 1996): 15-19. 

[69] "A Proclamation to the Faithful," The Hastening Times 1, no. 1 (October 1999): 3, 2. 

[70] V. Lee Killpack, interviewed by William D. Russell, November 28, 2001; "Report of the Council of High Priests," The Hastening Times 1, no. 1 (October 1999): 6. 

[71] "General Conference," The Hastening Times 1, no. 3 (May 1, 2000): 3. The Remnant Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is headquartered across the street from the Community of Christ Temple in the former William Chrisman High School, 700 W Lexington Avenue, Independence, MO 64050.

[72] "A Proclamation and Invitation to the Faithful," The Hastening Times 1, no. 1 (October 1999): 2-4, with the names of 123 signers of the Proclamation on p. 5. One of the 123 was Paul Edwards, a retired dentist, of Independence, not to be confused with Paul Madison Edwards, a grandson of RLDS President Freder ick M. Smith, and longtime president of the RLDS Church's Temple School. He and Frederick Niels Larsen, discussed below, are first cousins. 

[73] Marylyn Gosling, "Testimony of Marylyn Gosling," The Hastening Times 1, no. 4 (August 1, 2000): 29-30. 

[74] Warren H. Chelline, "A Great and Marvelous Work," The Tidings of lion, Issue 29 (March-April 1998): 14.

[75] V. Lee Killpack, "Inspired Message—General Conference—April 8-9, 2000," The Hastening Times 1, no. 3 (May 1, 2000): 4. 

[76] "Report of Fall General Conference," The Hastening Times 1, no. 5 (November 1, 2000): 3. 

[77] In choosing seven, they were perhaps following the historical precedent of the Reorganized Church, which, in its early stages, also by conference decided to ordain seven apostles and gradually build up the numbers. Seven apostles were ordained on April 8, 1853. The number had grown to nine by the time Joseph Smith III was ordained as Church president on April 6, 1860, and was finally completed to twelve on October 6, 1860. For a list of general Church officers, see Edwards, Our Legacy of Faith, 313-25. 

[78] "Priesthood Conferences" (announcement), The Hastening Times, 2, no. 3 (August 1,2001): 8. 

[79] Bowerman interview, November 28, 2001.

[80] V. Lee Killpack, email to Bill Russell, September 24, 2001.

[81] Frederick N. Larsen, "Letter to the Membership of The Remnant CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST of Latter Day Saints," The Hastening Times 3, no. 2 (May 2, 2002): 4.

[82] The Remnant Church, along with many of the leaders and members of the independent restoration branches, reject the revelations of W. Wallace Smith (1958-78), Wallace B. Smith (1978-96), and W Grant McMurray (1996-2004). Therefore they accept only Sections 1 -144 of the RLDS Doctrine and Covenants. 

[83] See the post-conference issue of The Hastening Times 3, no. 2 (May 1, 2002): 4-19. The eleven high priests who form the Standing High Council are Albert V. Burdick, Ralph W. Damon, Samuel R. Dyer Jr., James E. Gates, Paul R. Gress, James L Ross, Richard T. Scott, Gregory A. Turner, David R. Van Fleet, Frederick L Williams, and Melvin Zahner. 

[84] Peggy Fletcher Stack, "Joseph Smith Descendant at Helm of LDS Remnant Church," Salt Lake Tribune, April 20, 2002, C-2. Larsen also stated in this interview that he is the "one mighty and strong" foretold in latter day scripture.

[85] V. Lee Killpack, interviewed by William D. Russell, September 24, 2001. 

[86] Wayne A. Bartrow, telephone-interviewed by William D. Russell, April 11, 2005. Bartrow is a member of the Remnant Church's First Presidency.

[87] Conrad Faulk, "Our Dilemma," Tidings of Zion, no. 28 (January-February 1998): 1. 

[88] Raymond Clough, "Why a Remnant Church of Jesus Christ7" The Hastening Times 1, no. 4 (August 1, 2000): 21. 

[89] See also Marjorie F. Spease, "A Pattern from History," The Hastening Times 1, no. 2 (February 1, 2000): 23.

[90] Paul Gage, "Why I Cannot Accept the 'Proclamation,'" Tidings of Zion, no. 38 (September-October 1999): 10.

[post_title] => The Remnant Church: An RLDS Schismatic Group Finds a Prophet of Joseph's Seed [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 38.3 (Fall 2005): 26–54
When the 1984 conference approved Section 156 , which also indicated that the soon-to-be-built temple in Independence would be dedicated to the pursuit of peace, it became clear that the largest “schism”—separation from the unity of the Church—in the history of the RLDS Church was in the making. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => the-remnant-church-an-rlds-schismatic-group-finds-a-prophet-of-josephs-seed [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-05-07 18:16:27 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-05-07 18:16:27 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=10416 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

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The Book of Mormon is controversial, both in stories of its miraculous origin and in its claims to be scripture, a second witness to the Bible. Evangelical Mennonites, like many Protestants, are likely to be suspicious of extrabiblical scripture. However, Mennonites and Latter Day Saints may be spiritual cousins. A sympathetic comparison of the origins of both movements may illuminate their past and also assist in contemporary living of the gospel of shalom. While scholars from both traditions have established distinctive parallels between sixteenth-century Anabaptists and nineteenth-century Latter Day Saints, what remains to be explored is the presence of Anabaptist themes in the Book of Mormon, a text intimately associated with the founding experiences of Latter Day Saintism. After reviewing the evidence for such themes in the Book of Mormon, I will reflect on how Latter Day Saints might more wholeheartedly embrace its criticism of violence. 

Parallels Between Anabaptists and Latter Day Saints 

Although their origins were separated by three hundred years and the Atlantic Ocean, Anabaptism and Latter Day Saintism have distinct parallels. A number of writers have commented on these parallels, beginning in 1832 with Alexander Campbell, who attacked the Book of Mormon as Anabaptist "tomfoolery" just two years after it was published.[1] In recent decades, Mennonite William Juhnke and Mormon Michael Quinn have both written excellent papers describing the parallels between the two movements.[2] John Brooke has also reviewed the Anabaptist influence on the development of Mormon cosmology.[3] Clyde Forsberg recently wrote a comprehensive review of the literature comparing the two movements and reviewing Mormon missionary efforts among the Dunkers around 1841.[4] I have also written on the subject in the context of the Community of Christ's developing peace mission.[5]

What are some of the parallels between Anabaptism and Latter Day Saintism? Both are restitution or restoration movements arising from the left wing of the Reform/Puritan tradition, aiming at restoring the New Testament church in spirit and practice. Beginning with the day of Pentecost and ending with all things in common, Acts 2 is arguably the template of both Anabaptism and Latter Day Saintism. The coming of the Pentecostal Holy Spirit is connected with systems of economic justice for the poor. Anabaptist Hutterianism began as a communal movement in 1528, and its descendants still own farming colonies in the prairie states and provinces of the United States and Canada. Hutterianism is paralleled by the communalism and mutual aid exhibited within early Latter Day Saintism. Both movements emphasize the kingdom of God, where there is no split between faith and life; all of life is sacred. There is also a distinct theology of holiness enabled by close community support and of ten disciplined rigorously by the ban in Anabaptism and excommunication in early Latter Day Saintism. 

The Great Commission (Matt. 28:16-20) is taken seriously by both movements, which are diligently missionary.[6] Both movements practice believer's baptism, and faith and works are important to both traditions. Both are lay movements suspicious of professional clergy, with early Latter Day Saints characterizing the abuses and deceptions of clergy as "priestcraft." Robert Friedman's assertion that Anabaptist theology is not so much explicit as implicit—an existential and a realized Christianity, where Christ is encountered directly—also applies to early Latter Day Saintism.[7]

Both movements experienced conflict with their surrounding societies and suffered a great deal of persecution. Although Latter Day Saints initially chose a pacifistic path, they became increasingly belligerent after 1833 in response to their enemies.[8] During violent conflicts in northern Missouri in 1838, their leaders were nearly executed and were lucky to escape from prison after about six months. The rest of the Mormons fled from the state during the winter of 1838-39 following an extermination order issued by Governor Lilburn H. Boggs.[9] Subsequently Joseph Smith Jr. and his followers founded the city of Nauvoo in Illinois beside the Mississippi River. As converts poured into Nauvoo, including many from Canada and the British Isles, Nauvoo's growth in the early 1840s was second only to Chicago's. 

Nauvoo invites comparison with sixteenth-century Anabaptist Muenster in Germany. The five thousand-man Nauvoo Legion led by Lieutenant General Joseph Smith Jr. and the introduction of secret polygamy and other practices resemble Muenster's violence, authoritarianism, and polygamy.[10]

Muenster, in Westphalia, Germany, was a significant exception to Anabaptist pacifism, although its notoriety would define Anabaptism as violent and dangerously heretical for the next three hundred years. Muenster was to be the "New Jerusalem" in the context of the restitution of all things in the last days. An Old Testament rather than New Testament ethic permitted both violence and a kingship modeled after that of King David. Bernhard Rothmann was the leader of the reforming party in Muenster whose efforts enabled the Anabaptists to gain control of the city through elections on February 23, 1534. The subsequent events included the institution of forced rebaptism, the forcible practice of community of goods, the institution of polygamy, and—in response—an immediate siege against the city by the Catholic bishop. In September 1534 Jan van Leiden was proclaimed the "King over the New Israel and over the whole world" and a call was made to other Anabaptists to gather to Muenster. The siege against the city was successful by June 1535, resulting in a two-day blood bath followed by the public torturing and eventual execution of the leaders.[11] In Europe there wasn't any escape to the equivalent of the Salt Lake valley for the Muensterites. 

Fortunately for the Mormons, there was. Brigham Young instructed Latter Day Saints to emigrate from Nauvoo to the Great Basin after the assassination of Joseph Smith Jr. in June 1844. However, not all Latter Day Saints embraced the Nauvoo stage of Mormonism or followed Brigham Young. Some, including Joseph Smith Jr.'s widow, Emma, and her children, joined with those that formed the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. This was an antipolygamy, nonmilitant, and moderate form of Latter Day Saintism. In 1860 Joseph Smith Jr.'s son, Joseph Smith III, was chosen to lead this group, and he served as prophet for the next fifty-four years. An approximate parallel can be made between Joseph Smith III and Menno Simons, who, after the Muenster debacle, gathered the pacifistic Anabaptists in Holland and northern Germany and began the Mennonite movement. Since 1984, the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has sought to develop a comprehensive peace and justice mission. On April 6, 2001, this organization adopted a new name, Community of Christ, and now has a presence in over fifty nations with a membership of about one quarter of a million. Its international headquarters is in Independence, Missouri. 

How can these parallels between Anabaptism and Latter Day Saintism be explained? Anabaptism arose on the left wing of the Reformation that began in Zurich in the 1520s. Three centuries later, Mormonism arose on the left wing of Puritan America, albeit in a highly sectarian context. The genes of Anabaptism can likewise be followed through the offspring of John Smyth's congregation and its association with Mennonites in Amsterdam in the early 1600s. From this congregation came Thomas Helwys, founder of the English Baptists, and John Robinson of Mayflower fame.[12] Quakers—who could be described as Anabaptists of the heart and life without the ritual of baptism—founded the colony of Pennsylvania and encouraged Mennonites and Dunkers, with their similar peace witness, to settle there in significant numbers.[13]

The connection between Anabaptism and Mormonism becomes even more evident when one examines the religious background of the Three and Eight Witnesses who testified to the truth of the Book of Mormon and whose accounts have appeared in every edition including the first. Five of these eleven witnesses were from the Whitmer family, who came from Pennsylvanian Mennonite stock and had Mennonite social relationships.[14] It was in the Whitmer home where Smith completed the translation of the Book of Mormon. Witnesses Hiram Page and Oliver Cowdery, Joseph's cousin and one of his scribes, both married into the Whitmer family. Another witness, Martin Harris, and his wife were Quakers, although he was not satisfied with that faith.[15] The Smith family also had Quaker neighbors. When the Smiths were losing their farm, a Quaker neighbor negotiated a friendly buy-out that let them continue to live on the farm for another three years.[16] Three Smiths were also Book of Mormon witnesses. Thus, all eleven witnesses, as well as Joseph Smith Jr., had some kind of personal Mennonite or Quaker association. 

Books on Quakers and Mennonites were available to Joseph Smith Jr. in the library in Manchester, New York, five miles from the Smith home in Palmyra. The holdings there included a two-volume work on William Perm, a three-volume work on Quakerism, and the Memoirs of George Fox. The lending library in Palmyra might also have had such works. Finally, Smith owned a copy of Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History and could have become aware of the Anabaptist story from this source.[17]

Admittedly, documenting possible Mennonite or Quaker influences on Smith does not prove that they were dominant in Joseph's mind during the period he worked on the Book of Mormon. Nonetheless, Ana baptist and Quaker themes were available and were contending perspectives among the other theologies in the "burned-over district" in which Smith was raised.[18]

Anabaptist Themes in the Book of Mormon

I will consider next how Anabaptist and peace church themes play out in the narrative of the Book of Mormon. Specifically, I will examine the themes of believer's baptism, questions of the sword, mutual aid and community, salvation, grace, and works, keeping the commandments of Jesus, and church order and discipline. 

Believer's Baptism 

Anabaptist means "rebaptizer." Anabaptists followed the principle of believer's baptism and were highly critical of infant baptism as practiced by Catholics, Lutherans, and the Reformers in Zurich and later Geneva. Believer's baptism is also a key theme throughout the Book of Mormon. Soon after leaving Jerusalem (600-592 B.C.), Lehi had a vision in which the future Messiah set an example by being baptized by John (1 Nephi 3:11; LDS 10:9).[19] Repentance and baptism are the way to receive the atonement suffered for the sins of all by the Holy One of Israel (II Nephi 6:45-48; LDS 9:23). Generations later, the prophet Abinadi was burned at the stake for proclaiming the coming incarnation of God in the humanity of Jesus Christ (Mosiah 8:28-9:27; LDS 15:1-17:20). Abinadi did not die in vain for his high Christology: Alma, a priest who attended the trial of Abinadi, repented in response to the martyr's witness and began to secretly teach Abinadi's message to the people. As his followers gathered in secret in the wilderness by the waters of Mormon, Alma asked: 

If you are desirous to come into the fold of God and to be called his people, and are willing to bear one another's burdens that they may be light, and are willing to mourn with those that mourn, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and to stand as witnesses of God at all times, and in all things, and in all places that you may be in, even until death, that you may be redeemed of God, and be numbered with those of the first resurrection, that you may have eternal life; I say to you, If this be the desire of your hearts, what have you against being baptized in the name of the Lord, as a witness before him that you have entered into a covenant with him that you will serve him and keep his commandments, that he may pour out his Spirit more abundantly upon you? 

Mosiah 9:39-41; LDS 18:8-10

The people responded: "This is the desire of our hearts." Alma then immersed himself with the first candidate, Helam. Here are echoes of those first Anabaptists, Conrad Grebel and George Blaurock, who baptized each other in Zurich in January 1525 and began an underground believers' church.[20] This scene was replayed when Joseph Smith Jr. and Oliver Cowdery baptized each other in May 1829 during the writing of the Book of Mormon.[21]

Nearly two centuries later, Jesus appeared on the American continent following his crucifixion and resurrection in Jerusalem and taught the ritual of baptism by immersion with a trinitarian formula so that there would not be more conflict about the details of the ordinance (III Nephi 5:22-29; LDS 11:21-28). 

At the end of the Book of Mormon, in Mormon's final message to his son, Moroni, he thoroughly condemned the practice of infant baptism: 

Little children cannot repent; wherefore it is awful wickedness to deny the pure mercies of God to them, for they are all alive in him because of his mercy. And he that says little children need baptism denies the mercies of Christ, and sets at naught the atonement of him and the power of his redemption. 

Moroni 8:20-21; LDS 8:19-20

The Question of the Sword 

The legitimacy of the sword is a major question throughout the Book of Mormon narrative.[22] Two myths about violence in Western culture are relevant to this discussion. The best known and most influential myth is that violence saves and is redemptive in the hands of the righteous. The second and less well known myth is that violence is inevitably destructive no matter how "right" it appears to be; violence begets violence in a devastating and ongoing spiral. 

This second myth may be truest to the gospel. Here the work of New Testament scholar Walter Wink is particularly important. Wink contrasts brilliantly the endemic violence of the Babylonian creation myth—the "myth of redemptive violence"—with the gentle creation story of Genesis. Violence enters the Genesis account only through the Fall; violence is not endemic or unavoidably implicit in the biblical view of creation as it is in the Babylonian creation myth.[23] When we come to the Gospels, the evil of human violence in the service of empire is revealed in all its shocking brutality in the crucifixion of Jesus. The response of Jesus is not violent retaliation but rather the words, "Father forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing" (NRSV Luke 23:34). Jesus breaks the spiral of violence without giving up on the pursuit of justice evidenced in the cleansing of the temple a few days earlier when he upset the tables of the money-changers exploiting the pious faithful. 

These two story lines—"violence by the righteous saves" and "violence is inevitably destructive"—have contended with each other throughout U.S. history. The violent revolutionary ideology of 1776, for instance, was in tension with pacifistic Quaker Pennsylvania. However, the myth of redemptive violence is the one which dominates Western consciousness. Just see the movies or watch children's cartoons or review the teachings of Christianity after Constantine became the first Christian emperor in 312 A.D. The Mennonite position that the sword is "outside the perfection of Christ"[24] is a minority perspective despite its claim of fidelity to the truth about violence implicit in the revelation of Christ and held to by the pacifistic Christian church in the first three centuries before Constantine. 

The myth of redemptive violence dominates the Book of Mormon story. Violence, when commanded by God and used by the righteous, is portrayed as justified. Both Puritanism and the rationale of the American Revolution support this justification. Yet the witness of Quaker and Mennonite Pennsylvania is also present in the Book of Mormon story, subtly and progressively questioning the legitimacy of violence as the narrative develops. 

The Book of Mormon begins unpromisingly for the pacifist. Nephi in the first few pages of the Book of Mormon is justified by the Spirit in killing Laban to obtain the brass plates so that the family can have their genealogy and the scriptures to take with them to their promised land. After two unsuccessful attempts to obtain these materials, and after being robbed and threatened by Laban in the process, Nephi discovers Laban drunk. He is "constrained by the Spirit" to kill Laban by his own sword. Nephi shrinks from this task, but eventually obeys (1 Nephi 1:110-120; LDS 4:10-18). 

Following this horrendous beginning, much of the Book of Mormon narrative includes accounts of wars and rumors of wars. A just war theology with revolutionary American undertones is articulated in Alma, in the middle of the Book of Mormon, and is the dominant melody in this part of the narrative: 

Nevertheless, the Nephites were inspired by a better cause; for they were not fighting for monarchy nor power. But they were fighting for their home, and their liberties, their wives and their children, and their all, and for their rites of worship and their church. And they were doing that which they felt was the duty which they owed to their God; for the Lord had said to them, and also to their fathers, "Inasmuch as ye are not guilty of the first offence, neither the second, ye shall not suffer yourselves to be slain by the hands of your enemies. 

Alma 20:50-51; LDS 43:45-46

In other words, one should turn the other cheek twice, but on the third offense, one may retaliate. This instruction keeps the letter of the Sermon on the Mount but not the spirit of it. 

A few chapters earlier in Alma, however, tell another story of some Lamanites who were responsive to the missionary work of Nephites Ammon and Aaron. After being initially imprisoned for preaching, Ammon and Aaron were released and found favor with both King Lamoni and his people. Many Lamanites were converted. One fruit of this conversion was that they buried their weapons of war and "covenanted] with God, that rather than shed the blood of their brethren they would give up their own lives" (Alma 14:44; LDS 24:18). Shortly afterward, this resolve was put to the test by fellow Lamanites who resented their conversion and began to attack them. The converted Lamanites prostrated themselves on the ground and prayed, offering no resistance at all. One thousand and five were killed, but the slaying Lamanites could not continue in the face of such pacificism. They threw down their weapons and over a thousand were converted (Alma 14:48-54; LDS 24:20-26). Ammon later declared: 

Now, behold, I say to you, Has there been so great love in all the land? Behold I tell you, There has not, even among the Nephites. For behold, they would take up arms against their brethren; they would not suffer themselves to be slain. 

Alma 14:119-121; LDS 26:33-34

Thus, within a few chapters of Alma, nonresistance confronts just war, early Christian Tertullian challenges St. Augustine, Anabaptism/Quakerism confronts Puritanism, and early Pennsylvania questions the rest of the young republic. How is this tension resolved?

With the coming of the crucified and resurrected Jesus, the narrative passes from "Old Testament" to "New Testament," from the law of Moses to first-hand experience of Jesus, including physically touching him. The first teaching of Jesus includes a reworked but still fully radical Matthean Sermon on the Mount, including the concepts of nonresistance and loving one's enemies (III Nephi 5:84-85, 89-92; LDS 12:38-39, 43-48). The Sermon on the Mount has been part of the inner canon of both Mennonites and Quakers from the beginning. Latter Day Saints have it twice in their canon of scripture. 

In an account with clear echoes of Acts 2, the response of the people is, for over two hundred years, to live in peace and hold all things common through repentant, faithful lives empowered by the Holy Ghost. This idyll is portrayed as normative Christianity, made possible because of the "love of God which dwelt in the hearts of the people" (IV Nephi 1:17; LDS 1:15). As previously noted, Hutterians are the communal expression of Anabaptism, and no Hutterian community could be pictured as more fulfilled than in IV Nephi. There are also echoes here of the Quaker Holy Experiment in Pennsylvania, where pacifists ran a colony for nearly eighty years, from the 1680s to 1756. When this golden age of the Nephites begins to dissolve, with the less righteous persecuting the faithful remnant, nonresistance still operates: "And they smote the people of Jesus; but the people of Jesus did not smite again" (IV Nephi 1:37; LDS 1:34). 

As the fall continues and apostasy deepens, violence and inequality increase in the Book of Mormon. The story is then told of Mormon, abridger of the thousand-year record, who serves his people as a general. A parallel to the Constantine/Augustine shift is played out with tragic results. At one point, Mormon obeyed an implicit just war ethic, refusing to continue as military leader because of his army's atrocities (Mormon 1:76-81; LDS 3:11-16). Then as the tragedy deepened, Mormon goes back to help them, although it is without hope (Mormon 2:25-27; LDS Mormon 4:23-5:2). In the end, he and his people were completely destroyed, except for his son Moroni, as guardian of the plates and the historian (Mormon 2:26-4:4; LDS 5:1-8:4). 

During the years before his own death, Moroni added another history to the violent tragedy of his people. This account was of the Jaredites, an earlier group who had migrated to the Americas 3,000-2,000 B.C. Completely misplaced chronologically, it appears that Moroni added the Jaredite story as an appendix to reinforce the theme of destructive violence by an unrepentant, disbelieving people. Despite prophetic warnings, the Jaredite civilization ended with even greater tragedy—the destruction of both sides (Ether 5-6; LDS 12-15). 

Thus, the golden age of the Nephites in IV Nephi is a positive Utopian story followed immediately by two accounts of negative Utopias in Mormon and Ether. The message is clear: Live according to the words of Christ and you will be blessed by equality and peace. Refuse the words of Christ and you will destroy yourselves through a descent into violence. This conclusion has chilling prophetic relevance today. The Book of Mormon ends with a radical critique of the myth of redemptive violence and the spiral of violence it engenders. In the end, the terrible destructiveness of the sword is fully revealed. Whether Mormon is a genuine historical personage or a literary cover for Joseph Smith Jr., the result is the same. 

Finally, from the preface onward, the Book of Mormon consistently speaks up for both Jews and native peoples. Both are God's people who are to be blessed by the Gentiles, not cursed or hated, for "I, the Lord have not forgotten my people" (II Nephi 12:47-52; LDS 29:4-5). The Gentiles cannot be superior; their Christianity is also fallen, and they stand in equal need of restoration. Jews, Gentiles, and native peoples will all be saved together by the mighty acts of God, and they will learn from each other. There is thus no support for genocide in the Book of Mormon. It is a pro-Semitic, pro-native-people book. 

Mutual Aid and Community 

Both Anabaptism and the Book of Mormon see the covenant of baptism with vertical and horizontal dimensions. The believer covenants with brothers, sisters, and with God. The baptismal challenge of Alma cited earlier begins: "If you are desirous to come into the fold of God and to be called his people, and are willing to bear one another's burdens that they may be light, and are willing to mourn with those that mourn, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort" (Mosiah 9:39-40; LDS 18:8-9). 

Many passages speak of mutual aid and concern for the poor. For example, Alma alludes to them in remarks following the baptisms in the wilderness: 

Again, Alma commanded that the people of the church should impart of their substance, everyone according to that which he had. If he had more abundantly, he should impart more abundantly; and of him that had but little, but little should be required; and to him that had not should be given. Thus they should impart of their substance of their own free will and good desires towards God ... to every needy, naked soul. 

Mosiah 9:60-62; LDS 18:27-28

Religion that betrays the poor is also condemned, especially priest craft—paid clergy who prosper, ignore the poor, and do not teach the gospel fully (II Nephi 11:90-91, 106-113; LDS 26:20, 29-33). Rather, those who serve as ministers should humbly labor with their own hands (Mosiah 9:59; LDS 18:26). There is also a clear warning against encroaching capitalism and individualism. The teaching that "every man prospered according to his genius and every man conquered according to his strength" is condemned (Alma 16:18; LDS 30:17). 

The climax of the Book of Mormon, the already mentioned golden age, begins with the inauguration of all things in common: 

And as many as came .. . and truly repented of their sins were baptized in the name of Jesus; and they also received the Holy Ghost... and there were no contentions and disputations among them, and every man dealt justly with one another. And they had all things common among them, therefore they were not rich and poor, bond and free, but they were all made free and partakers of the heavenly gift. 

IV Nephi 1:2-4; LDS 1:1-3

Here is a reworking of Acts 2 in a New World setting. This Utopian state lasts for nearly two hundred years, which suggests that it is normative Christianity. As historian Nathan Hatch of Notre Dame University argues, the Book of Mormon "is a document of profound social protest, an impassioned manifesto by a hostile outsider against the smug complacency of those in power and the reality of social distinctions based on wealth, class, and education."[25] There is no ambiguity anywhere in the Book of Mormon about economic justice. It is essential for any real peace. 

Salvation, Grace, and Works 

The Book of Mormon is thoroughly Arminian: Christ's atonement enables all humans to be "free to choose liberty and eternal life through the great mediation of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil" (II Nephi 1:120; LDS 2:27). Justification is dependent entirely on the unmerited love of God through the atonement of Christ whose "mercy . . . overpowers justice and brings about means to men that they may have faith unto repentance" (Alma 16:216; LDS 34:15). Sanctification, however, requires both grace and works: 

Come to Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and if you shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace you may be perfect in Christ. 

Moroni 10:29; LDS 10:32

Keeping the Commandments of Jesus 

Richard Hughes points out that early Anabaptist leaders Dirk Philips and Balthasar Hubmaier stressed the importance of keeping the commandments of God.[26] For instance, Philips stated that one of the ordinances "which Christ has instituted for his congregation is the keeping of all his commandments."[27] This understanding is based on Jesus's words in the Great Commission to teach the newly made and newly baptized disciples "to obey everything that I have commanded you" (Matt. 28:20). A similar emphasis on keeping the commandments of God is found in the Book of Mormon. For example, Abinadi at his trial argues for the importance of keeping the commandments and restates the Decalogue to his accusers, asking if they have taught and kept it (Mosiah 7:94-8:2; LDS 12:33-13:26). Also, Alma says in counsel to his son Shiblon that "inasmuch as you shall keep the commandments of God you shall prosper in the land" (Alma 18:1; LDS 36:1). The communion prayer on the bread states that disciples promise among other things to keep Christ's commandments, "that they may always have his Spirit" (Moroni 4:4; LDS 4:3). There is no antinomianism in the early mainstream of either tradition; the fruit of genuine faith is the fulfillment of the moral law of the kingdom. 

Church Order and Discipline 

Church discipline, a key Anabaptist practice, was also practiced among the baptized in the Book of Mormon (Alma 4:3-4; LDS 6:3-4). At the end of the Book of Mormon, Moroni 2-6 provides clear guidelines for the ordination of elders, priests, and teachers, for the prayers of blessing on the bread and wine for communion, and for faith and repentance leading to baptism. The church is to meet often. Of church discipline, the following is written: 

They were strict to observe that there should be no iniquity among them; and whoever was found to commit iniquity, and three witnesses of the church condemned him before the elders, and if they repented not and confessed not, their names were blotted out, and they were not numbered among the people of Christ; but as often as they repented and sought forgiveness with real intent, they were forgiven. 

Moroni 6:7-8; LDS same

The Significance of Anabaptist Themes 

Believer's baptism means that birth in one's nation is not the final loyalty. Patriotism is not enough; the freely chosen international fellowship of those who follow Jesus is the ultimate commitment of those re born of water and spirit. Mutual aid should be given in the spirit of Acts 2, a cooperative sharing so that no one is in need. Justification by grace reminds us that God loves us even when we are God's enemies. Sanctification through grace and works indicates the importance of full conversion, of being remade in the pattern of Jesus. To this end, taking seriously the commandments of Jesus and church discipline is important. The abandonment of the sword, of violence, is perhaps a critical test of genuine conversion, the true measure of an authentic follower of the crucified Christ. 

Conclusion

Is the Book of Mormon a Latter Day Anabaptist text? An initial survey suggests it might be, although it would be helpful to have sympathetic Mennonite scholars make their own judgments after studying the text. I have argued that clear Anabaptist themes appear in the Book of Mormon, set in an idealized projection of radical left-wing Protestantism in an ancient American story spanning a thousand years. Whether the Book of Mormon is read as genuine ancient history or as a mythical parable with an early nineteenth-century context and authorship, its story en ables the seeker to imagine a new kind of future—the peaceable kingdom of God on earth through faith in Christ and acting on the Sermon on the Mount. Hope for a new world begins through inspired imagination of its possibility. The Book of Mormon story is arguably a sacrament for the coming of the kingdom of God here and now, through faith in Christ and repentance from the fallen systems of this world. 

The Book of Mormon could also be characterized as the prophetic peak of Joseph Smith's ministry; he was just twenty-four years old when it was published in March, a few days before the organization of the Church on April 6, 1830. Initially Smith seemed to follow its teachings, along with those of the New Testament, by responding to violence through turning the other cheek. His followers imitated his example. Tragically, Joseph descended into a legitimation of violence from 1833 forward.[28] Campbellite preacher Sidney Rigdon joined Smith in 1830, becoming a close associate. Rigdon brought with him a strong restitutionism and the example of Alexander Campbell, who was a convinced pacifist from his New Testament primitivism.[29] Rigdon could have decisively reinforced Smith's initial pacifism, but he became a bellicose advocate of justified violence in response to Latter Day Saint persecution, perhaps because his own treatment at the hands of the mob debilitated an already unstable mind.[30] Along with Rigdon, Jesse Gause was also ordained Smith's counselor on March 8, 1832. Gause, ten years Rigdon's senior, had been a convinced Quaker for twenty-three years and a Shaker for three years before joining the Latter Day Saints. Perhaps his influence would have supported Smith's and Rigdon's initial pacifism through later and more difficult provocations, but by December 1832, Gause had left the Church.[31]

Smith is in the tradition of sixteenth-century Anabaptist Melchior Hoffman, a last-days' visionary, dreamer, and publisher of extrabiblical prophecy. Hoffman opened the door for Jan Matthijs, Jan Van Leiden, and Bernhard Rothman, who in Muenster, 1534-35, turned to the Old Testament to justify both sword and polygamy.[32] In a strikingly unfortunate parallel in Nauvoo, Smith was able to justify in the early 1840s a five thousand-man armed militia and the secret practice of polygamy, al though polygamy is condemned three times in the Book of Mormon (Jacob 2:33-38, 55-56; LDS 2:24-29, 3:5-6; Mosiah 7:1-10; LDS 11:1-7; Ether 4:48; LDS 10:5). Militarism can indeed lead to more extreme forms of patriarchy, and women are the ones who are threatened and suffer the most from violence. 

The struggle between nonresistance and just war, early Quaker Pennsylvania and the revolutionary republic, was clearly in the soul of young Joseph as he wrote/translated the Book of Mormon. In the Book of Mormon narrative, Jesus wins, but the myth of redemptive violence was not fully vanquished in Joseph's heart. In the end, Smith was first of all American rather than Anabaptist, and his violent response to the violence of his culture finally captured him in Nauvoo, the Mormon Latter Day Muenster. His assassination on June 27, 1844, was a sad but perhaps inevitable end. Those who live by the sword shall indeed die by the sword (Matt. 26:52). Though Smith saw the promised land of nonviolent Zion, like Moses he could not live in it. Moses was still caught by Egypt, and Smith was still caught by his violent American culture. 

For new generations there are new possibilities, including the peace church option. Paralleling Menno Simons, Joseph Smith III, son of the Prophet, led the Reorganization in a moderate, nonmilitant Latter Day Saintism that today has evolved into a movement with a new name, Community of Christ. The Community of Christ seeks to be an international, multiracial people who continue to affirm the equality of women and who now more intentionally seek to pursue peace, reconciliation, and healing of the spirit. Some want the Community of Christ to repentantly join the historic peace churches. Others, perhaps caught by the myth of redemptive violence clothed in patriotism, are resistant.[33] Yet Anabaptist themes in the founding scripture of the Book of Mormon may still help all Latter Day Saints more fully find the way of Jesus. After all, Jesus is portrayed in its pages preaching the Matthean Sermon on the Mount with nearly two hundred years of peace and equity as the result. The fact that the Sermon on the Mount appears twice in our expanded canon of scriptures means that Latter Day Saints should take it twice as seriously as other Christians. Finally, continuing dialogue between Mennonites and Latter Day Saints might help draw us toward a more courageously nonviolent pursuit of justice in the light of the cross. Restorationism is not a set of final conclusions drawn in the nineteenth century; it is rather a method of always returning to Jesus of Nazareth. The peace church option is still before us. 

---

[1] Alexander Campbell, Delusions: An Analysis of the Book of Mormon, with an Examination of the Internal and External Evidences (Boston, MA: Benjamin Green, 1832). Campbell's restitutionism movement and his personal pacifism represent yet another early nineteenth-century parallel to sixteenth-century Anabaptism. See Richard T. Hughes, "A Comparison of the Restitution Motifs of the Camp bells (1809-1830) and the Anabaptists (1524-1560)," Mennonite Quarterly Review 45 (October 1971): 312-30. Nevertheless, Campbell distanced himself from sixteenth-century Anabaptists, particularly Muensterites. In one debate, he asked, "What have we to do with Anabaptists?" See Harold L Lunger, The Political Ethics of Alexander Campbell (St. Louis, MO: Bethany Press, 1954), 19. 

[2] William E. Juhnke, "Anabaptism and Mormonism: A Study in Comparative History," John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 2 (1982): 38-46; D. Michael Quinn, "Socioreligious Radicalism of the Mormon Church: A Parallel to the Anabaptist," in New Views of Mormon History: A Collection of Essays in Honor of Leonard J. Arrington, eds. Davis Bitton and Maureen Ursenbach Beecher (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1987), 363-86. 

[3] John L. Brooke, The Refiner's Fire: The Making of Mormon Cosmology, 1644-1844 (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1994).

[4] Clyde R. Forsberg Jr., "Are Mormons Anabaptists? The Case of the Mormons and Heirs of the Anabaptist Tradition on the American Frontier, c. 1840," in Radical Reformation Studies: Essays Presented to James M. Stayer, eds., Werner O. Packull and Geoffrey L Dipple (Brookfield, VT: Ashgate, 1999). Forsberg has a Mormon heritage and significant contact with Hutterians and Mennonites; Mennonite scholar James M. Stayer supervised his Ph.D. work. 

[5] Andrew Bolton, "Learning from Anabaptism: A Major Peace Tradition," in Restoration Studies V, ed. Darlene Caswell (Independence, MO: Herald House, 1993), 13-24. The two largest branches of the original Latter Day Saint movement are the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (frequently called Mor mon), based in Salt Lake City, Utah, and the Community of Christ (until April 2001 called the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints), headquartered in Independence, Missouri. The Community of Christ has, since 1984, embarked on a serious peace and justice mission. 

[6] Darren Blaney, "Anabaptists and the Great Commission," Anabaptism To day 30 (2002): 2-8.

[7] Robert Friedman, The Theology of Anabaptism: An Interpretation (Scottdale, PA: Herald House, 1973). 

[8] D. Michael Quinn, "National Culture, Personality, and Theocracy in the Early Mormon Culture of Violence," John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 22 (2002): 159-86. See also Quinn, The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1994), 81-86 and appen. 2. 

[9] A good account of this period has been given by Stephen C. LeSueur, The 1838 Mormon War in Missouri (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1987).

[10] For the development of early Latter Day Saint theocracy under Joseph Smith Jr., see D. Michael Quinn, Origins of Power, chaps. 3 and 4. Robert Flanders has written the most comprehensive and critical account of Nauvoo in his Nauvoo, Kingdom on the Mississippi (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1965); see chap. 4 for a review of the Nauvoo Legion. For Emma Smith's perspective on polygamy as the vigorously dissenting wife of Joseph Smith Jr., see Linda King Newell and Valeen Tippetts Avery, Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994).

[11] C. Arnold Synder, Anabaptist History and Theology: An Introduction (Kitchener, ON: Pandora Press, 1995), 145-50, 205-207. Synder argues that the Anabaptist movement had a number of separate beginnings, some of which were militant and some pacifist. The pacifistic groups survived.

[12] James R. Coggins, John Smyth's Congregation: English Separatism, Mennonite Influence, and the Elect Nation (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1991).

[13] James R. Coggins and Carol M. Hunter, The Missing Peace: The Search for 'Nonviolent Alternatives in United States History (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 2001), 54-56. See also John H. Yoder, Christian Attitudes to War, Peace and Revolution (Goshen, IN: Goshen Biblical Seminary, 1981); see chap. 13, "Quakerism in Early America: The Holy Experiment." 

[14] The Whitmers, of German extraction, were raised in Harrisburg, Penn sylvania, in a Mennonite environment, according to Ronald E. Romig, Community of Christ archivist, who gave me notes on the Whitmers as well as the following reference: Horatio Gates Spafford, Gazetteer of the State of New York (Albany, 1813), 187. Whitmer is a common Mennonite name, according to Jim Juhnke of Bethel College, Kansas (e-mail, December 17, 2001; also Steve M. Nolt, Goshen College, Indiana, e-mail, January 28, 2002). Although there is no documentation of a Mennonite baptism, the family was of Mennonite descent and had Mennonite in-laws and social ties. Steve M. Nolt, e-mail, February 5, 2002. Nolt cites Richard W. Davis, Emigrants, Refugees, and Prisoners, vol. 2 (Provo, UT: Author, 1997), 421-22. 

In 1808, the Whitmer family moved to Fayette, in Seneca County, New York, twenty-six miles from Palmyra, where the Joseph Smith family moved in 1816. In Fayette, the Whitmers found neighbors also "principally of German ex tract, who came from Pennsylvania." According to the German Rev. Diedrich Willers, their Reformed congregation pastor, the Whitmers had previously belonged to a Mennonite congregation, among others. See D. Michael Quinn, ed., "The First Months of Mormonism: A Contemporary View by Rev. Diedrich Willers," New York History 54 (1973): 333. 

David Whitmer left the Latter Day Saint movement during the violence of 1838 in northern Missouri, along with his brother John and other moderates. They were driven out by the militant Danites. Although he participated in retaliatory violence in Missouri in 1833, David Whitmer appears to have later regretted it. Toward the end of his life, he argued against Mormon theocracy and militarism and for a Mennonite-like church polity and pacifism. See David Whitmer, An Address to All Believers in Christ (Richmond, MO, 1887). Most Book of Mormon witnesses left the movement or were excommunicated (some were later reinstated), but all appear to have maintained their testimony of the truth of the Book of Mormon. See Richard Lloyd Anderson, Investigating the Book of Mormon Witnesses (Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book, 1987). However, note the reservations made by Grant H. Palmer, An Insider's View of Mormon Origins (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2002), chap. 6. 

[15] Martin Harris explored other faiths before becoming a Mormon. See G. W. Stoddard, Statement, November 28, 1833, in Dan Vogel, ed., Early Mormon Documents, 5 vols. (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1996-2003), 2:29. In 1808, Martin Harris married his first cousin Lucy, who was also "a Quakeress of positive qualities" (2:34). Lucy Harris's brother, Peter, also lived near Palmyra during the 1820s where he became a Quaker minister (2:31). 

[16] Lavina Fielding Anderson, ed., Lucy's Book: A Critical Edition of Lucy Mack Smith's Family Memoir (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2001), 171, 365-72.

[17] Robert Paul, "Joseph Smith and the Manchester (New York) Library," BYU Studies 22, no. 3 (Summer 1982): 333-56. See also Kenneth W. Godfrey, "A Note on the Nauvoo Library and Literary Institute," BYU Studies 14 (Spring 1974): 386-89. Joseph Smith Jr. donated one volume, which number is unknown, of Mosheim's six-volume Ecclesiastical History to the Nauvoo Library. Mosheim, a Dutch scholar, included an excellent and generally sympathetic account of Anabaptism and Mennonite history. John Laurence Mosheim, An Ecclesiastical History Ancient and Modern, trans. Archibald MacLaine (London, 1826), 379-421. 

[18] Whitney R. Cross, The Burned-Over District: The Social and Intellectual History of Enthusiastic Religion in Western New York, 1800-1850 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1950), 3-17.

[19] Editions of the Book of Mormon published by the Community of Christ and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Utah Mormons) use different systms of chapters and verses but the same book titles. I give the Community of Chirst reference, followed by the LDS edition. I am using the 1966 revised authorized Community of Christ edition, which modestly updates sentence structure and punctuation. 

[20] C. Arnold Synder, Anabaptist History and Theology, 54. 

[21] Times and Seasons, 3, no. 19 (1 August 1842): 865-66. See also The History of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, 8 vols. (Independence, MO: Herald House, 1951), 1:34-37. 

[22] For a fuller account, see Andrew Bolton, "Is the Book of Mormon an Asset or Liability for a Becoming Peace Church?" John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 19 (1999): 29-42. 

[23] Walter Wink contrasts the concept of the "myth of redemptive violence" with the myth that violence is destructive in Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1992): 13-31. 

[24] Based on the quotation, "The sword is an ordering of God outside the perfection of Christ," from John H. Yoder, trans, and ed., The Schleitheim Confession (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1977), 14.

[25] Nathan O. Hatch, The Democratization of American Christianity (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989), 115-16. For a comparison of IV Nephi with Acts 2, see Andrew Bolton, "Realized and Fallen Zion: A Look at the Nineteenth-Century Context of IV Nephi," in Theologies of Scripture, eds. Don H. Compier and Shandra Newcom-Wolsey (Independence, MO: Graceland Press, 2002), 54-70.

[26] Hughes, "Comparison of the Restitution Motifs," 320. 

[27] Philips, "The Church of God," in ibid., 230.

[28] LeSueur, The 1838 Mormon War in Missouri. Quinn, "National Culture, Personality, and Theocracy," does an excellent job of tracing Smith's journey of pacifism and violence in its early nineteenth-century cultural context. 

[29] Lunger, Political Ethics of Alexander Campbell, chaps. 1, 2,15. See also David Edwin Harrell Jr., Quest for a Christian America: The Disciples of Christ and American Society to 1866 (Nashville, TN: Disciples of Christ Historical Society, 1966), chap. 5; and Alexander Campbell's Popular Lectures and Addresses: No. XV (1886) Address on War, downloaded October 2003 from www.mun.ca.rels/restmov/texts/acampb ell/pla/PLAl5.htm. 

[30] Rigdon's mental stability was not helped by a fall as a seven-year-old from a horse or when he was dragged by his heels by a Campbellite mob over frozen ground on the night of March 24, 1832 in Kirtland, Ohio, before being tarred and feathered. Smith had the same treatment but was not badly hurt. Rigdon took several days to recover. Richard S. Van Wagoner, Sidney Rigdon: A Portrait of Religious Excess (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1994), 115-16.

[31] D. Michael Quinn, "Jesse Gause: Joseph Smith's Little-Known Counselor," BYU Studies 4 (Fall 1983): 487-93. 

[32] Synder, Anabaptist History and Theology, 165-72.

[33] I argue for using the peace churches as an example of what the Community of Christ should become, while Scott Jobe argues from a U.S. military career perspective. See Bolton, "Learning from Anabaptism"; Bolton, "Developing a Theology of Peace: Tough Questions and Hard Decisions," and Scott A. Jobe, "United States Military Chaplaincy: A Peaceful Vocation with RLDS Historical/Theological Precedents," all in Joni Wilson and Ruth Ann Woods, eds., Restoration Studies VII (Independence, MO: Herald House, 1998), 13-19, 47-59. See also Scott A. Jobe, "A Church That Pursues Peace: Learning to Support Those with Different Ideas of Peace," Saints Herald (March 1997): 102-103. For a text which promotes discussion over five possible positions on war and peace within the Christian and Community of Christ traditions, see David Anderson and Andrew Bolton, Military Service, Pacifism, and Discipleship: A Diversity of Callings? (In dependence, MO: Herald House, 2003).

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Hurtling out of the sky in a tight corkscrew spiral—the so-called "Mogadishu Landing"—our U.N. Humanitarian Air Service (UNHAS) C-130 cargo plane bumped unceremoniously onto the runway of "Hawler International Airport," consisting of an airstrip, two forty-foot containers, a gravel parking lot and, evidently, big ambitions. 

I was finally in Iraq. Reality hit me as I stepped onto the asphalt, blinking in the brightness of the subtropical sun. U.N. trucks bustled around like ants, although it was unclear what exactly they were doing. A couple of sand-colored Humvees, guided by unshaven American soldiers sporting Ray-Bans and deep tans, whizzed by while I clutched my back pack, feeling sheepish and out of place. 

The flight had carried the same motley bunch of expatriates I have seen as an aid worker in other "transition countries" like Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Clad in "aid worker chic"—khakis and shirts with thousands of pockets—smoking heavily, and carrying kit bags decorated with U.N., donor, or NGO (nongovernmental organization) logos, they exhibited the humanitarian's uniquely odd mode of conversation as they compared the myriad stamps in each other's passports: cynically dark humor mixed with world weariness and earnest idealism. 

Gathering our belongings, we all boarded a U.N. bus and drove to Ainkawa, a suburb of Erbil, the de facto capital of the primarily Kurdish northern Iraq. Ainkawa is home to a massive complex of U.N. buildings that has taken over whole city blocks and cordoned off roads with barbed wire, concrete planters, and armed guards. Sitting on the bus, surrounded by such surreality, I began to reflect on the life journey that had brought me thus far. 

It was as I waded through the sewage, stagnant in the streets of one of Africa's biggest slums—Mukuru, Nairobi, Kenya—while on an assignment with the Community of Christ-sponsored WorldService Corps in summer 2000, that I was first struck by the enormity of the world's prob lems and the horrifying conditions faced by the majority of its inhabitants. It was a deeply troubling and difficult summer for me, but I was seized by the challenge, the intensity, and the adventure that is aid work. Since then I have worked with nongovernmental aid organizations in Nicaragua, the Philippines, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Zambia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and now Iraq. 

My work itself is quite mundane. I am, in effect, a writer, and my job is to conduct social research and assessments of the situation within the country. I also do a great deal of public relations writing—compiling reports for donors, writing press releases, and assisting with webpage development. However, while my day-to-day tasks are not so different from those of a writer in any other part of the world, the places in which I am situated confront me with many disconcerting realities. 

One of my recent assignments was researching disability issues here in the north. Iraq has a disproportionate number, caused largely by combat and a mine-riddled landscape, of disabled persons. Less dramatic, but also key, was the deterioration in nutrition and health care caused by the economic sanctions. As a result, many humanitarian organizations have set up prosthetic limbs centers, often staffed primarily by patients themselves. I have visited several. It was haunting to see rows and rows of plastic limbs and leg braces lined up on work benches, waiting for their new owners. 

Recently, I visited Koya District, one of the earlier towns to suffer the use of chemical weapons in the Ba'ath regime's 1988 "Anfal" ("spoils") campaign—a systematic effort to destroy Kurdish society, which left over 100,000 persons killed or "disappeared." This campaign culminated in the horrific gas attack on Halabja, but chemical weapons had been used earlier in the campaign in places like Koya on a smaller, but equally brutal, scale. All the villages surrounding Koya had been razed to the ground. Hundreds of males of military age were "disappeared." 

I visited several "Anfal families," as they call themselves, as part of a study of the conditions for displaced persons in the region. Some mothers still make the bed of their missing son, hoping that one day he will return. One man had been driven insane after watching his brother snatched away, never to be heard from again. Another family told the story of an infant who survived the massacre of a whole village. They said she lay in the midst of dead bodies for three days until people from a neighboring town rescued her and took her to a mosque in Kirkuk. Putting her arm around the girl, who is now a teenager, her aunt told me she had visited the mosque and recognized the necklace around the infant's neck as a gift she had given the family. Since then she has raised the girl as her own. 

And Iraq is not the only place I have confronted such heartbreaking situations. In my work I have seen children a knife's edge from death at the cruel hands of malnutrition, knelt at the bed of an emaciated woman dying of AIDS, become friends with a former guerilla, shaken the hand of a former hitman, looked into the eyes of men bent on killing each other as they fought with machetes and jumped over trenches next to a mined airfield—seeing the discarded boots of soldiers and the "artillery roses" filled with shrapnel. 

While these experiences have helped me to grow and mature as a human being, they have also been profoundly disturbing. I am angry that people still have to live and die this way. I am angry that any child must learn to survive in such a terrifying and morally ambiguous world. Throughout my childhood, my parents, educators, and Sunday School teachers all taught me the values of truth, integrity, honesty, fairness, justice, morality, and ethics. And I feel cheated when I see that these values are more often the exception than the rule. 

It deeply disturbs me that known war criminals run free while people are executed then posthumously found innocent. It infuriates me that the former concentration camp in Breko, the town where I used to live in Bosnia, remains unmarked, while there is an enormous monument to the troops who were at least partly responsible for the town's "ethnic cleansing" and while graffiti on my apartment building extolled the greatness of the vicious gangster, war criminal, and profiteer Arkan. 

This anger sometimes surfaces at the most unexpected times. I will be sitting typing in my office and suddenly a lump stops up my throat, and I am filled with utter hatred for the people who allowed thousands of Kurds, Shia, and other minorities to die over the last two bloody decades in Iraq—especially while Saddam was still considered a "friend" of the United States and Britain. I want to imagine a world where we really, genuinely, believe that we have the power to change things. Where warlords, criminals, and corrupt politicians do not seem invincible. Where the poor, the refugee, the sick, and the dispossessed hold their heads high with the dignity that comes only from controlling one's destiny. Where the strong do not rub salt into the wounds of the weak, and where the embittered weak do not lash out in furious vengeance at any symbol associated with their oppressors. 

I want to imagine a world where people live without the gut-wrench ing fear that comes when whole villages are razed to the ground, where disturbed minds no longer prey on the naivete of innocents, where airplanes don't smash into buildings. But sometimes, in the midst of the world's complexity, I forget how to hope. I lose the will to love the world in spite of its problems. We aid workers almost inevitably become hardened to the terrible suffering we see on a daily basis. Sometimes I am horrified to realize that I am no longer emotionally affected when I see a malnourished child. Instead of letting my anger out (which would not be wise, given the political contexts in which I work), I bottle it up inside. It manifests itself in a lack of empathy for people's "lesser problems." I don't like the person I am becoming at these moments. 

This emotional toll has cost me my faith—at least in the sense that most would see it. Theodicy—the problem of evil that I have faced so starkly in my work—has shaken my belief in God to its very core. This was a painful process, for the Church meant a great deal to me. I grew up a devout member of the Community of Christ, my formative years shaped and molded by its stories, doctrines, and concepts. My grandfather is a former Church leader; my father is a Church employee. I was baptized at the age of eight and studied religion at the church-sponsored college, Graceland University. 

It is perhaps because of this background that I cannot deny that I still find a mustard-seed-sized flicker of hope in the stories and myths that shaped my childhood. I would describe myself as a religious agnostic rather than an atheist. I find the stories of Jesus's birth and death particularly moving. 

Although it is traditional to read the whole of Luke's Christmas narrative during the advent season, we often seem to forget the context Luke gives. This baby boy, Jesus, was born in the context of a brutally repressive regime—and at the bottom of its pile. Ponder for a moment the familiar words at the beginning of Luke 2, "In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered.... All went to their own towns to be registered." Can you imagine everyone in the whole country going back to the town of their ancestors? Just think of the chaos that would have caused. What do you think would happen if President Bush decreed that all the people in the United States should go back to the hometowns of their great-great-great-great-grandfathers to be "registered"? There would be a public outcry. Clearly this Augustus was not concerned about "people-centered governance." Or consider the brutality of Herod, who, upon discovering that a new king was born in his territory, ordered the slaughter of all the young boys in the land. Or finally, the injustice of Mary having to give birth in a dirty cattle shed with no birth attendant or midwife. 

From these passages, we see that the Christmas story is not a sugary fairy tale. It is a story that cries out from the depths of a people's despair, "Enough is enough!" This story does not focus on the comings and goings of the celebrities of the day. It is a story about a God who so loved the world, who so cared for the lowly, the poor, the forgotten invisible people of this world that s/he took on their wretched form and dwelt among them—among us. It is the story of the King of All Creation, the Most High God, being born into a humble family in a dirty stable, next to the animals, and being put to sleep in a feed trough. It is the story of a poor humble teenage girl, visited by angels, chosen by an Almighty God to bring into the world its greatest hope. She sang of a love so sublime that her words would echo through the ages from the mouths of story-tellers, preachers, mystics, and poets. It is the story of three great wise men, the mysterious Magi of the East, kneeling before this child. 

The story of the end of Jesus's life is just as powerful. Once again, having heard the story so many times, we tend to decontextualize it and gloss over its deeply disturbing nature. 

Here is a story of an innocent man, thrown to the will of the mob, whipped viciously, nailed to a wooden frame, and left to hang until he dies. This treatment makes the electric chair appear humane. Implicit in this story is a stinging condemnation of torture and the brutality of un checked empire. It is an indictment of state terror, a cry for justice from the downtrodden. 

Left at that, the story would be very depressing. We have all heard stories of the innocent crushed by the powerful, but what makes the gospel so unique is that the victim rises again—shattering the cold chains of death. In a world where militaries paint skulls on their airplanes, where paramilitaries collect vulgar trophies from their victims, and where we put our faith in the hope of our enemies' demise, the resurrection calls us away from the worship of death and toward an embrace of life's fullness. 

On the main road out of Kirkuk, Iraq, a disabled tank stands in the central meridian. Children have painted it with bright flowers and messages of peace—a powerful symbol that, though their formative years were racked by poverty, conflict, and displacement, they may be the new generation that can lead this country out of the years of oppressive rule and foreign intrusion to a new life. 

In scenes like these, I see the hope embodied by children, like the baby Jesus, and the possibility of societal resurrection. It is this hope that acts as a beacon, guiding me through the moral twilight of our fallen world. The gospel—that great ode to the humble—tells me that it is possible to rise from the ashes of war, poverty, and moral depravity and begin again, bringing reconciliation to those torn by division and healing the wounds of conflict. My dream is that, through my work, I can play my small part in ensuring that this flicker of hope does not go out.

[post_title] => Postscript from Iraq: A Flicker of Hope in Conflict's Moral Twilight [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 37.1 (Spring 2004): 180–187
It was as I waded through the sewage, stagnant in the streets of one of Africa’s biggest slums—Mukuru, Nairobi, Kenya—while on an assignment with the Community of Christ-sponsore  WorldService Corps in summer 2000, that I was first struck by the enormity of the world’s problems and the horrifying conditions faced by the majority of its inhabiants. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => postscript-from-iraq-a-flicker-of-hope-in-conflicts-moral-twilight [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-05-07 17:28:59 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-05-07 17:28:59 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=10579 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 10602 [post_author] => 2116 [post_date] => 2018-03-26 15:25:49 [post_date_gmt] => 2018-03-26 15:25:49 [post_content] =>

At the biennial world conference of the RLDS church in April 2000, the delegates voted to change their name to "The Community of Christ." In this paper I will refer to the "RLDS church" rather than the new name because virtually everything I write about happened before April 6, 2001, the date on which the name change became official. Clearly one reason for the change was to end or limit the comparison and confusion with our Utah-based cousins. As President W. Grant McMurray said at the Mormon History Association meeting in Kirtland last May, over the years we have tended to identify ourselves as belonging to "The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. We're Not the Mormons."[1] Historically we denied we were Mormons, but we couldn't shake the label. When the church name proposed by the First Presidency was debated at the conference, one delegate from Tennessee reported being kicked off of ball teams for supposedly being Mormon. In our sports-crazed culture, that is the ultimate rejection. The First Presidency's proposed name change passed with only 22 percent of the delegates voting against it.[2]

It used to be that we "prairie Mormons" outnumbered "mountain Mormons"[3] in parts of the country, especially Missouri, Iowa, and Michigan. I grew up in Flint, Michigan, and attended the RLDS-sponsored Graceland College in Lamoni, Iowa, for four years. I never in my life consciously met a Mormon until a year after my graduation in 1960. Granted, I probably had met a few Mormons along the way, but they were all "in the closet" as far as I was concerned. In Flint, we prairie Mormons had two branches with well over one thousand members while there was one small LDS branch at the edge of town. 

Since I met my first Mormon at the Liberty Jail in 1961, the Utah church has grown dramatically and spread all over the country as well as to many parts of the world while RLDS U.S. membership has leveled off and declined slightly. Our growth has largely been in Third World countries. In recent decades, the Utah church has become more conservative while we have taken a giant step to the left in our theology. The greater theological divide may have made many prairie Mormons anxious to avoid being confused with the mountain Mormons. This has carried over into politics as well. Many of our members and leaders are Democrats who abhor the "Christian Right," with which so many Mormon politicians are aligned. 

In this paper I will briefly discuss what I see as the six major differences between the two churches during the first century of their existence, and then I will look at eight new differences that have emerged over the past forty years or so. I make no claim that either is a complete list. 

Part I—The First Century

The two major issues that divided us in the beginning, in the 1850s and 1860s, are no longer issues between us. Polygamy was probably the major issue at the outset. One reason for RLDS success in rallying dissident Mormons in the Midwest from the 1850s onward was the fact that we were the only significant Mormon splinter group which did not embrace polygamy at one time or another, in one way or another. Many of the early RLDS members had been Strangites when James J. Strang was monogamous. But when he met 17-year-old Elvira Field and was inspired to revise his theology of family, many of his followers ended up RLDS, including our founder Jason W. Briggs. After their defection, Briggs and others followed William Smith until they discovered that, like Strang, William didn't live the monogamous ideal either.[4]

Polygamy is no longer an important issue dividing the churches because about a century ago most Utah Mormons quit practicing "the principle." How ever, Wilford Woodruff only suspended the practice. If Gordon B. Hinckley announced today—in a new manifesto—that the LDS church would be restoring the practice of polygamy because the Supreme Court would uphold it now, I believe the reaction of many Mormons would be to vomit. The public image of Mormon family values would be down the tubes. It would destroy the fragile political alliance between the Religious Right and many Mormon politicians. The LDS church might have to enter into a political alliance with the gay rights people to defend against the attacks of religious conservatives! 

For years we RLDS insisted that Joseph Smith did not practice polygamy, nor did he write Section 132.[5] We said Brigham wrote it and published it under Joseph's name in 1852, eight years after Joseph died and could no longer defend himself. But by the 1980s, RLDS opinion shifted dramatically, partly stimulated by Church Historian Richard P. Howard's article on polygamy in the 1983 John Whitmer Historical Association Journal, which cautiously admitted Joseph's involvement.[6] Current Church Historian Mark A. Scherer suggests another shift in thinking has occurred since the 1980s: "In the past, polygamy has been viewed [by the RLDS] in the historical context as a controversial belief associated with the newly emerging Nauvoo Temple theology. But today let us view polygamy as an issue of human worth, peace and justice, and ministerial abuse."[7] Our Director of Peace and Justice Ministries in the church, Andrew Bolton, has said publicly that today we would refer to at least some of Joseph Smith's marriages as "clergy abuse." 

It should be noted that for the past thirty-five years our policy has allowed the baptism of polygamous men in the Third World—if they promise to accept our policy of monogamy and not take additional wives—while the LDS policy does not allow for the baptism of polygamous people in non-western cultures.[8] Or in Utah, of course. 

Lineal succession in the presidency was the other major issue for the RLDS in the beginning. On November 18, 1851, Jason Briggs had a spiritual experience in which he concluded it was God's will that a son of Joseph the Martyr should lead the church, succeeding his father.[9] Clearly, for Briggs—and probably most early RLDS—these were the two major issues: polygamy and lineal succession in the presidency of the church. However, lineal succession in the presidency is also no longer a difference separating us. When President Wallace B. Smith called W. Grant McMurray to be president of the church after 136 years of Joseph Smith's descendants leading the Reorganized Church, he discarded the position enunciated by Briggs and many other church leaders. One principle of succession remains unchanged: Each prophet names his successor, indicating divine guidance in the choice. There were five Smith presidents in all: Joseph Smith III and his three sons, Frederick, Israel, and W Wallace, and then finally W. Wallace's son, Wallace B. Smith, who retired in 1996. 

Lineal succession in the presidency was very important in the early years, with an authority-conscious church in the Midwest contending with their authority-conscious cousins in the West.[10] But we can't brag about that anymore. I suspect there were a reasonable number of saints like my late father—a loyal church appointee—who complained that he had never liked the idea of "the divine right of kings" and implied that was a factor in his move from Canada to the United States in 1923 when he was 25.[11]

In addition to the two issues of polygamy and succession in the presidency, at least two other differences became important although they were not issues when 27-year-old Joseph Smith III assumed the presidency of the prairie Mormons on April 6, 1860. One of these matters was the plurality of gods. Most notably enunciated in the Book of Abraham and in the King Follett sermon, this doctrine was clearly assumed by some RLDS members, in our early years at least, to be part of church doctrine.[12] But over the years we abandoned and then denounced the idea.[13] Sometimes we simply noted that the Book of Abraham is not in the RLDS canon of scripture. It is possible that the 1878 General Conference resolution establishing the Bible, Book of Mormon, and Doctrine and Covenants as the "standard of authority on all matters of church government and doctrine"[14]was, in part, a decision to exclude the Book of Abraham from our RLDS canon of scriptures. 

The other key source for this doctrine, the King Follet sermon, was not published until after Joseph Smith was martyred, and not from Joseph's own notes, but from notes taken by listeners who were present.[15] We have argued that the text of the sermon cannot be trusted, suggesting—sometimes not too subtly—that the Mormon editors who published the King Follett sermon shortly after Joseph's death no doubt changed the text, like the monks of the Middle Ages who removed "plain and precious truths" from the Bible (except the Mormons were adding falsehoods, rather than removing truths). On both polygamy and the plurality of gods, we took the position that you can't trust "Utah sources." Once those Nauvoo diaries were hauled across the plains and the mountains to the Great Basin Kingdom, they had somehow been corrupted. 

While the mountain Mormons held to the plurality of gods and eternal progression to godhead, the prairie Mormons maintained fairly orthodox Protestant concepts of God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit. When I went to the Methodist seminary in Kansas City[16] to study Systematic Theology, I did not find any real disconnect between what the Methodist theologians were teaching about the Trinity and the teachings of my RLDS upbringing or my studies as a religion major at RLDS-sponsored Graceland College. We prairie Mormons believed in an unchangeable God, and we have spilled a lot of ink condemning the notion of progression to Godhood. 

Another issue—the fourth on my list—was baptism for the dead and the even larger matter of secret temple rituals. Many early RLDS members and leaders assumed we would baptize for the dead once we had an appropriate temple. As late as 1960, one of our Presidents of Seventy, Russell F. Ralston (later an apostle), suggested we didn't baptize for the dead because we didn't yet have a temple built for that purpose.[17] He anticipated that eventually an Independence Temple would be built and include this ritual. I remember being a bit shocked when I read this in Ralston's book not long after it came out. I couldn't imagine our church conducting proxy baptisms. 

When President W. Wallace Smith announced in his 1968 revelation (Section 149 of the RLDS Doctrine and Covenants) that we would proceed to build the long-awaited temple in Independence, Graceland professor Paul M. Edwards was concerned that we might include baptism for the dead and other secret temple rituals in our temple. Paul scheduled a meeting with Duane Couey of the First Presidency, traveling two hours from Lamoni, Iowa, to Independence for the discussion. President Couey assured Paul that the temple would not have secret rituals and certainly not perform proxy baptisms—in secret or in public. Paul returned to Graceland only somewhat reassured. Unbeknownst to him, the general authorities[18] were already well into the process of revising their interpretation of some of the major doctrines of the church.[19]

Russell F. Ralston, the author of the 1960 book, Fundamental Differences between the LDS and RLDS Churches, had been our missionary seventy in Salt Lake City, one of our full-time paid appointee ministers hired by the general authorities in Independence. Another missionary seventy, who followed Ralston to the Salt Lake City assignment, was Aleah G. Koury. He also wrote a book on the basic differences between our two churches and also was later ordained an apostle. Koury's book, The Truth and the Evidence, was published by the church in 1965.[20]

I have often used the title of Koury's book, The Truth and the Evidence, as a model for the research methods we used in dealing with the Utah Mormons. We began with the truth, then marshaled the evidence to support what we already knew was the case. Koury deals with various topics—polygamy, succession in the presidency, the plurality of gods, etc. Miraculously, when one reaches the end of each topic, the prairie Mormons "win." Our position was the right one on every count! Ironically, Koury told me the reason he wrote his book, just a few years after Ralston, was that he wanted to be more objective about "the Mormons" than Ralston had been. It was to be a friendlier book, so I expected Koury to concede that the Utahns were right about something. By then I realized that as long as the focus was on Kirtland, the prairie Mormons held the advantage, but whenever the debate turned to Nauvoo, the mountain Mormons would win. 

Part of the RLDS criticism was directed to the fact that baptism for the dead and other LDS temple rituals were conducted in secret. Against this "abomination," we could cite the denunciation of secret societies in the Book of Mormon, then build upon the general antipathy in American society toward other secret societies such as the Masons. 

These four issues were the central ones debated between our two churches for at least a century: polygamy, succession in the presidency, the plurality of gods, and baptism for the dead and other secret temple rituals. We also debated other matters such as differences on tithing and Brigham Young's views on Adam-god. In addition, there were two other early differences that may not have been so apparent to many RLDS members during the course of that first century. One resides in the fact that the RLDS church rejected the close church-state relationship that developed in Nauvoo and continued in Utah. Living among the more numerous Methodists and Baptists and other Gentiles in the Midwest, and remembering the hostility of the larger society in Nauvoo and elsewhere, we did relatively little gathering to central locations, and we did not often meddle in politics. (Unless, of course, an issue like liquor reared its head.) 

The other issue often overlooked in our first century was race. Very early in RLDS history, the ordination of African Americans was affirmed by way of a revelation from Joseph Smith III in 1865 at the end of the Civil War.[21] As is well known, it was not until 113 years later that the LDS church changed its policy to acceptance of the ordination of black men. The fact that we made little polemical use of this difference until the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s changed public attitudes toward blacks is a sign of the racism in both American culture and the RLDS church. One would think we would have beaten our Utah cousins over the head with this issue. We had Joseph Smith on our side, the "good prophet" who ordained Elijah Abel. You had the "bad prophet," Brigham Young with his strict prohibition on ordination. But for ninety years we were largely silent until the inclusion of blacks as equals in America became somewhat popular, at least in the North.[22] Even then we were cautious, fearing to offend racist church members. We were not prophetic on race. 

Interestingly enough, one Seventy assigned to Salt Lake City did make a major issue of race. John W. Bradley served in Salt Lake City in the 1960s—after Ralston and Koury—and wrote a series of three articles in the 1963 Saints' Herald, making the case for racial equality and defending our scriptures as preaching racial equality.[23] Likewise, in his 1960 book, Ralston made a five-page statement on race at the end,[24] reflecting the rising American consciousness on race. Writing five years later, toward the end of the civil rights movement in 1965, Koury ignored the difference on race as an issue between the two churches. Perhaps this difference in the Ralston and Koury books merely reflected differing personal views held by the two men toward the civil rights movement. When the ministers of the Kansas City Council on Religion and Race asked people in the Kansas City area to sign a pledge that they would not discriminate on the basis of race in selling their homes, Ralston signed the pledge while Koury, when I personally solicited his support, explicitly declined. Five days later, at our World Conference, he was called to be an apostle. Only six of the eighteen "General Authorities" in the First Presidency, the Presiding Bishop, and the Council of Twelve signed the good neighbor pledge.[25] All were asked to sign it, but our leadership was very cautious. 

The differences between the churches that I have enumerated here lead me to agree with Alma Blair and others who have long contended that we RLDS rejected the Nauvoo innovations and developed a theology that was fairly consistent with Mormon theology in the Kirtland period, 1831 -1838.1 refer to our traditional doctrines as the "Kirtland Theology." I believe the theology that we finally settled on by about 1880 was essentially the theology of the church at the end of the Kirtland period in 1838. This is also pretty much the theology of the LDS "Articles of Faith," since Joseph Smith didn't enlighten John Wentworth about the more exotic Nauvoo doctrines that had already developed by the time he wrote to Wentworth in 1842. As such, the LDS Articles of Faith comprise a far-from-complete statement of the LDS faith. They make no mention of the Doctrine and Covenants or the Book of Abraham or Pearl of Great Price. Nor do the articles mention baptism for the dead or other temple rituals, plurality of wives or of gods, or progression to godhead. There is also no mention of temples. It sounds like a rather orthodox doctrine of the Trinity, with no mention of Jesus as our Elder Brother. Joseph avoided giving undue offense to the readers of the Chicago Democrat. 

Presumably we could say that in 1842, when Joseph wrote to John Wentworth, the Nauvoo innovations were not fully developed. Joseph had married plural wives, but "the principle" was still a secret. Writing to the outside world, Joseph deleted the more exotic parts of Mormon theology. Interestingly, much of what he left out was what the RLDS church, organized a decade later, rejected. We attempted to be more normal or legitimate to our Midwest neighbors, just as I presume Joseph was putting on the best face of Mormon theology when writing to newspaper editor John Wentworth, leaving out what our kids today might call "the weird stuff." Weird at least to Gentiles. Four of the six issues of differentiation are closely associated with Nauvoo—polygamy, the plurality of gods, secret temple rituals (most notably baptism for the dead), and the close church-state tie. 

Using the analysis of "sect" employed by Jan Shipps, who describes a sect as a religious group trying to recover a lost tradition,[26] we can make certain observations. In its early years the RLDS church was a sect. We agreed with the Palmyra and Kirtland doctrines but rejected the later Nauvoo doctrines. We accepted the early part of the Mormon tradition but rejected the later, more extreme Mormon doctrines. Clare Vlahos has said that we RLDS tried to balance our desire to be both "reasonable to gentiles and legitimate to Mormons.[27] We tried to be seen as legitimately Mormon and legitimately Christian. Hence, Alma Blair has characterized the RLDS version of the restoration as "moderate Mormonism."[28]

Between about 1880 and the 1960s, the theological differences between our two churches changed very little, except for the mainline LDS abandonment of polygamy in the 1890s. However, in the 1960s the prairie Mormons began to shift from being a sect, trying to recover or preserve the "Kirtland version" of Mormonism, to becoming a denomination more in the mainstream of American Protestantism. By "mainstream denomination" I mean the more liberal and generally longer-established denominations, not the evangelical fundamentalist denominations. As Philip Barlow has suggested, the accident of a liberal Methodist seminary—the Saint Paul School of Theology in Kansas City—locating itself only a fifteen-minute drive from RLDS headquarters in Independence may have affected the church's move toward mainstream Protestantism. Many RLDS attended Saint Paul, including Grant McMurray and Peter Judd of the First Presidency, and several apostles. If either of the Kansas City seminaries operated by the Southern Baptists or the Church of the Nazarene had been closer to RLDS headquarters, the church today might be closer to evangelical Protestantism.[29]

Part II—Recent Differences

It seems incongruous that during the past four decades, as we RLDS moved toward mainstream Protestantism and farther from traditional Mormon doctrine, closer friendship ties have developed between the two churches. Possibly the largest influence in this direction has been the meetings of the Mormon History Association, the John Whitmer Historical Association, and Sunstone Symposiums, where RLDS and LDS scholars have interacted in a friendly, respectful manner. There have also been more frequent contacts between the leaders of the two churches during that time. And meetings of the Smith family have brought people together across denominational lines. 

Let us now look at the new differences that have developed in recent years, considering first the founding document of Mormonism, the book which Joseph Smith modestly called "the most perfect book ever written," a book which he said—by way of revelation—contains the fullness of the gospel.[30] For more than a century, mountain Mormons and prairie Mormons agreed that the Book of Mormon was true in every sense of the word. It was a true history, its doctrines were true, and it was a fundamental sign of the truthfulness of Joseph Smith's prophetic role.[31] Most of us hadn't read it, but we knew it was true. 

In recent years, however, most of the RLDS leaders, and many of the rank-and-file members, have come to doubt the Book of Mormon's historicity as well as some of its doctrinal affirmations. For example, Leland W. Negaard wrote his thesis at Union Theological Seminary in New York in 1961 on the problem of Second Isaiah. He noted that most scholars conclude that many of the later chapters of Isaiah were written in the mid-sixth century BCE rather than in the eighth century. Thus, the Book of Mormon contains passages from the book of Isaiah which had not yet been written when Lehi and family departed from Jerusalem, in 600 BCE. Negaard taught religion at Graceland College, and the RLDS church's publication for college and university students, the University Bulletin, published an article by Negaard on Second Isaiah in 1966.[32]

In the late 1960s, Wayne Ham wrote a paper for the church's Department of Religious Education on "Problems in Interpreting the Book of Mormon as History."[33] He outlined nine problems with the orthodox view which holds that the book is history. Today it seems that although the Book of Mormon is still part of our canon of scriptures, it is not revered as highly as it used to be. It is used less in worship services and is cited far less in church publications than previously. Most leaders and many members doubt its historicity. Those who doubt can be grouped into two camps. One group finds little value in the book and would just as soon it were not in our canon of scriptures. The other camp, which I believe is much more numerous, regards it as scripture because of its message and its place as the founding document of the movement. 

Two months after W. Grant McMurray was ordained president of the church in April 1996, he was interviewed on Martin Tanner's religion talk show for a Salt Lake City radio station. In response to a caller, Grant said that historical research simply doesn't give us the tools to determine whether the Book of Mormon is historical or not. When pushed by another caller, who asked, "Do you believe it is historical?" Grant gave the same response: Historical research simply doesn't give us the tools to determine whether the Book of Mormon is historical or not. So historicity of the Book of Mormon is a recently developing difference between us. 

We have also recently developed significant differences with our LDS cousins over the nature of revelation and prophecy. Both the mountain Mormons and the prairie Mormons have historically tended to view revelation as "propositional," as retired RLDS Church Historian Richard P. Howard has suggested.[34] We have viewed God as issuing commands to prophets or to disciples, with specific directives such as, "Martin, pay the printer's debt," or, "Spencer, kill the ERA!" However, we prairie Mormons are now more inclined to see revelation as the disclosure of the person of Jesus Christ and what it means to be a disciple in our particular time and culture. Maybe the problem in the Mormon movement lies in the language used, when from the beginning we affirmed that human beings are touched by the divine in all ages. To express this in the phrase "God speaks today" was understandable in the biblical culture in which our movement was born, but it implies that God's disclosure to humans normally takes the form of words uttered. The RLDS are now asking themselves whether that model really describes the nature of the most profound religious experiences. 

A third emerging difference is that we have recently come to view Joseph Smith and succeeding prophets quite differently. During that first century of RLDS history, we felt the need to defend the prophet, assuming his doctrines were true and his character consistently virtuous. Where we differed doctrinally with the LDS, we often defended our position on the basis of Joseph's canonical writings. We considered polygamy immoral, so rather than accepting the idea that the prophet yielded to temptations of the flesh, we denied that he had polygamous wives. Incredibly, we blamed it on Brigham. Today we view Joseph Smith as a very flawed human being, but most of us still see him as a legitimate prophet. 

The fourth issue is women in the priesthood. In the first century, priesthood eligibility for African Americans was a difference, but since 1984, priesthood eligibility for women has become a more significant difference between the churches. In 1973 Dialogue published my letter-to-the-editor on the subject: 

Members of the Reorganized Church like to point out that there are black men in its priesthood. However, we Reorganites tend to overlook that we deny a much larger segment of the human race the opportunity to hold the priesthood. I see no difference between denying the priesthood to women and denying it to blacks. Both practices seem absurd today.[35]

Eleven years later the priesthood ban on women was lifted at the World Conference of 1984. The issue had been festering in the church for about fifteen years. The debate was heated, and roughly one-fourth of our active members left the church as a result of Section 156 of the RLDS Doctrine and Covenants, which makes women eligible for priesthood ordination. 

The fifth recent issue is homosexuality. In the 1950s and 1960s, racial discrimination was a big issue for the RLDS church, but in the 1970s and 1980s the issue was gender. In the 1990s, the church began to address the issue of homosexuality. In that debate, the church leadership began to recognize an organization of church members called GALA (Gay and Lesbian Acceptance), allowing the organization to have a booth and to sponsor special worship services at conference. In 1997, Graceland College added "sexual orientation" to the list of categories in which it promises "non-discrimination," and more recently the college applied that policy to domestic partner benefits for employees. Church President Grant McMurray made affirming statements at the 1998 and 2002 World Confer ences.[36] However, as of this writing, the official policy remains that a homosex ual can only be in the priesthood if she or he is celebate. In practice this policy is sometimes ignored, and President McMurray admitted in his 2002 conference address that he has sometimes ignored it.[37] There has been strong conservative resistance to President McMurray's 2002 conference address. 

A sixth difference in recent years has to do with our views about apostasy and restoration. In the last generation, many RLDS leaders and rank-and-file members have drastically revised their understanding on this matter. During the first century, RLDS views on apostasy and restoration were pretty much the same as LDS. We held that Christ established his church and it later fell into apostasy, only to be restored again after more than 1000 years in darkness. (We also saw a modern wave of apostasy brought about by Brigham Young.) The person who did the most to debunk this concept among the RLDS was Roy A. Cheville, the first RLDS to receive a Ph.D. in religion (University of Chicago, 1942). Cheville taught at Graceland College for nearly four decades, then served for nearly two decades as the presiding patriarch of the church. In his book, Did the Light Go Out?, Cheville argued that there was much good in medieval Christianity and thus "the light" was never extinguished.[38] Cheville and others in the church also concluded that "restoration" is a relative term with a variety of meanings.[39]

Most significantly, RLDS scholars came to the conclusion that it is not historically accurate to say that Jesus established a church during his earthly ministry, with various priesthood offices and sacraments. If Jesus did establish something like a church, it was a far cry from the church which Joseph Smith established eighteen centuries later. These days you will not hear the concepts of apostasy and restoration mentioned as often in church meetings as they were in the past. Many of the local splinter groups organized after we began to ordain women chose the name "Restoration Branch," because they strongly affirm the traditional doctrines about apostasy and restoration. 

A seventh recent difference is that we prairie Mormons used to be very much focused on the next world, on life after death: Repent, be baptized, do your church duties, and upon your death you will be ushered through the pearly gates, possibly with a ticket to celestial glory. Today there seems to be very little concern about life after death in the Community of Christ. Many don't have the foggiest idea what happens after death—or before birth, for that matter. We just try to muddle through this life without messing up any more than we have to. If my observation is accurate, the mountain Mormons still retain a strong emphasis on life after death. For example, when I delivered a paper at the Mormon History Association meeting in Ogden in 1982, my good friend Bob Matthews commented that I ought to consider my eternal status when choosing topics for research and publication. While it had occurred to me that my choice of controversial topics could get me in trouble with church officials on this side of the grave, I had never thought of having to answer to St. Peter about my publications. Maybe that will be the ultimate disciplinary hearing! 

Finally, the Community of Christ interest in this world more than in the next is reflected in our current attempt to be a "peace church." In the 1984 revelation calling for the ordination of women, Section 156 also stated that the temple "shall be dedicated to the pursuit of peace. It shall be for reconciliation and for healing of the spirit."[40] In 1994, RLDS church leaders developed the following mission statement: "We proclaim Jesus Christ and promote communities of joy, hope, love, and peace." 

Community of Christ Theologian-in-Residence Tony Chvala-Smith sums up the recent shifts by saying that "the Community of Christ no longer treats the Joseph Smith story as the normative lens through which it interprets the Christian message."[41] Or, as our Coordinator for Peace and Justice, Andrew Bolton, has put it: "We used to see Jesus through the eyes of Joseph; now we see Joseph through the eyes of Jesus." Church leaders now see their task as developing a Christ-centered theology of peace. Some critics of these theological shifts say, "Why don't you all just go join the Methodist Church?" But what could be more challenging and worthwhile than to develop a Christ-centered theology of peace, making use of elements of our Mormon tradition? While we were once focused on an inward, self-absorbed attempt to prove our own worth as "the one true church," we are now trying to be a "community of Christ." The new name focuses our attention on the Zionic ideal of community and the desire to be authentically Christian. It is a reminder that our best glimpse into the kind of people God would have us becomes from the life of the humble carpenter from Nazareth whom we see portrayed in the four gospels rather than in the revelations of modern church prophets or the legislative enactments of ecclesiastical conferences. It remains to be seen whether a church born into a culture of violence in the American frontier[42] can transform itself into a community of Christ seeking peaceful solutions to the conflicts of today's world. 

---

[1] W. Grant McMurray, "A 'Goodly Heritage' in a Time of Transformation: History and Identity in the Community of Christ." Address given at the Mormon History Association, Kirtland, Ohio, May 22, 2003, p. 3. Copy in the possession of author. 

[2] 2002 World Conference Bulletin (Independence, Mo.: Community of Christ, 2002), 424.

[3] I am indebted to Jan Shipps for the labels "mountain Mormons" and "prairie Mormons."

[4] Alma R. Blair wrote the best single article history of the origins of the RLDS church in his "The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints: Moderate Mormonism," in F. Mark McKiernan, Alma R. Blair, and Paul M. Edwards, The Restoration Movement: Essays in Mormon History (Lawrence, Kan.: Coronado Press, 1973), 207-230; James J. Strang is covered in the same book by William D. Russell, "King James Strang: Joseph Smith's Successor?" (231-56), recently reprinted with slight revision in John Sillitoe and Susan Staker, eds., Mormon Mavericks: Essays on Dissenters (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2002): 131-57.

[5] See the following three classic twentieth-century RLDS books on the basic differences in the two churches' treatment of polygamy: Elbert A. Smith, Differences That Persist between the RLDS and LDS Churches (Independence, Mo.: Herald Publishing House, 1959), ch. 3; Russell F. Ralston, Fundamental Differences between the LDS and RLDS Churches (Independence, Mo.: Herald Publishing House, 1960), chs. 5 and 6; Aleah G. Koury, The Truth and the Evidence: A Comparison between Doctrines of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Independence, Mo.: Herald Publishing House, 1965), ch. 4. 

[6] Richard P. Howard, "The Changing RLDS Response to Mormon Polygamy: A Preliminary Analysis," John Whitmer Historical Association Journal, 3 (1983):14-29. 

[7] Mark A. Scherer, "Re-visioning Our Church Heritage," Saints' Herald, September 2001, 16.

[8] Maurice L. Draper of the First Presidency wrote a defense of the new policy in "Polygamy among Converts in East India," Courage: A Journal of History, Thought and Action 1, no. 2 (December 1970): 85-88. Verne Deskin wrote a strong critique of the new policy in the same issue, pp. 89-92. The Editorial Committee of Courage wrote an editorial more liberal than the church leaders' policy, pp. 107-08. 

[9] Blair, "The Reorganized Church," 214.

[10] See Smith, Differences, ch. 5; Ralston, Fundamental Differences, ch. 1; Koury, Truth and Evidence, ch. 5. 

[11] R. Melvin Russell (1898-1982). Possibly reflecting my father's negative views with regard to succession, I wrote an editorial in which I argued that the question is not which method of presidential succession is best—the RLDS or the LDS—but rather, which method is worst—succession or seniority? (Courage: A Journal of History, Thought and Action entitled "Needed: A New Method of Sucession," 2, no. 1 [September 1971]: 326-27). 

[12] Blair, "The Reorganized Church," 222-23. 

[13] Smith, Differences, ch. 2; Ralston, Fundamental Differences, ch. 3; Koury, Truth and Evidence, chs. 2-3. 

[14] RLDS General Conference Resolution 215 (September 13, 1878). 

[15] Ralston, Fundamental Differences, 53-55.

[16] Saint Paul School of Theology Methodist. 

[17] Ralston, Fundamental Differences, ch. 7. 

[18] I have used the LDS term "general authorities" even though the RLDS Church used the term "The Joint Council of the First Presidency, Council of Twelve Apostles, and the Presiding Bishopric," which could be shortened by referring to "The Joint Council."

[19] In 1968 the Council of Twelve, after consultation with the First Presidency, approved the idea of baptizing polygamous men in third-world cultures who understood that monogamy is our ideal. By that year, the general authorities were being taught by Methodist seminary professors Paul Jones, Carl Bangs, and Dale Dunlap in what were called the "Joint Council Seminars." Staff members at the church's Religious Education Department during the late 1960s were drafting quite liberal position papers for the new church school curriculum, and the church's Basic Beliefs Committee began publishing in the Saints Herald that year a new faith statement, published in book form in 1970 as Exploring the Faith (Independence, Mo.: Herald Publishing House). 

[20] Both books cited previously.

[21] RLDS D&C 116. 

[22] William D. Russell lists forty-eight articles and editorials on the issue of race published in the official church publication, the Saints' Herald, the church's youth magazine Stride, and the church's magazine for college and university students, The University Bulletin ("A Priestly Role for a Prophetic Church: The RLDS Church and Black Americans," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 12, no. 2 [1979]: 37-49, esp. 48n36). See also Arlyn R. Love, "The First Presidency's Response to the Civil Rights Movement," John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 4 (1984): 41- 50, and Roger D. Launius, Invisible Saints: A History of Black Americans in the Reorganized Church (Independence, Mo.: Herald Publishing House, 1988). 

[23] John W. Bradley, "Race in Restoration Scriptures," Saints' Herald 110 (November 15, December 1, December 15, 1963): 772-75; 812-13, 816; 850-51, 862. 

[24] Ralston, Fundamental Differences, 230-34.

[25] Four of the apostles signed it, as did Maurice L. Draper of the First Presidency and Walter N. Johnson of the Presiding Bishopric. President W. Wallace Smith specifically declined my invitation to sign the Good Neighbor Pledge. 

[26] Jan Shipps, Mormonism: The Story of a New Religous Tradition (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1985), 48.

[27] Clare D. Vlahos, "Images of Orthodoxy: Self-Identity in Early Reorganization Apologetics," in Maurice L. Draper and Clare D. Vlahos, eds., Restoration Studies I (Independence, Mo.: Herald Publishing House, 1980), 176. 

[28] Blair, "The Reorganized Church," 210. 

[29] Philip Barlow, "Transformation in Context: Mormonism, the Community of Christ, and Religion in America," address given at the John Whitmer Historical Association World Conference Banquet, Independence, Mo., April 6, 2002. 

[30] See RLDS Book of Mormon I Nephi 3:19; 4:16; III Nephi 7:34-37; 9:66, 69 (LDS Book of Mormon I Nephi 10:14, 15:13; III Nephi 16:10-13; 20:28, 30).

[31] A. Bruce Lindgren, "Sign or Scripture: Approaches to the Book of Mormon," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 19, no. 1 (Spring 1986): 69-75. Reprinted in Dan Vogel, ed., The Word of God: Essays on Mormon Scripture (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1990), 55-62. 

[32] Leland W. Negaard, "The Problem of Second Isaiah in the Book of Mormon," unpublished thesis, Union Theological Seminary, New York, 1961. An abbreviated version was published later as "Literary Issues and the Book of Mormon," University Bulletin 18 (Spring 1966): 21-24. 

[33] Wayne Ham, "Problems in Interpreting the Book of Mormon as History," published with slight revisions by the author in Courage: A Journal of History, Thought and Action 1, no. 1 (September 1970): 15-22.

[34] Richard P. Howard, "Latter Day Saint Scriptures and the Doctrine of Prepositional Revelation," Courage: A Journal of History, Thought and Action 1, no. 4 (June 1971): 209-25.

[35] Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, 8, no. 2 (1973): 10.

[36] W. Grant McMurray, "The Vision Transforms Us" (1998 World Conference Sermon), Saints'Herald, June 1998, 232. 

[37] W. Grant McMurray, "Called to Discipleship: Coming Home in Search of the Path" (2002 World Conference Sermon), in 2002 World Conference Bulletin, 182. 

[38] Roy A. Cheville, Did the Light Go Out? (Independence, Mo.: Herald Publishing House, 1962). 

[39] See also Geoffrey F. Spencer, "The Spirit and the Forms: Church Life and Order in the First One Hundred Years," Courage: A Journal of History, Thought and Action, 2, no. 2 (Winter 1972): 353-67, and C. Robert Mesle, "The Restoration and History: New Testament Christianity," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, 19, no. 2 (Summer 1986): 55-68, and "The Development of the New Testament Church," Courage: A Journal of History, Thought and Action 3, no. 1 (Fall 1972): 23-35.

[40] RLDS D&C 156(1984). 

[41] Tony Chvala-Smith, email to Bill Russell, July 10, 2002.

[42] See D. Michael Quinn, "National Culture, Personality and Theocracy in the Early Mormon Culture of Violence," The John Whitmer Historical Association 2002 Nauvoo Conference Special Edition (The John Whitmer Historical Association, 2002): 159-186.

[post_title] => The LDS Church and Community of Christ: Clearer Differences, Closer Friends [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 36.4 (Winter 2003): 177–192
In this paper I will briefly discuss what I see as the six major differences between the two churches during the first century of their existence, and then I will look at eight new differences that have emerged over the past forty years or so. I make no claim that either is a complete list. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => the-lds-church-and-community-of-christ-clearer-differences-closer-friends [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-05-07 17:02:16 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-05-07 17:02:16 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=10602 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

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Over the past forty years the top leadership of the Community of Christ church (until recently the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) has gone through significant changes in religious thought. I have contended elsewhere that the decisive changes occurred in the 1960s.[1] In the 1970s the rank-and-file members became increasingly aware of the fact that the church leadership was moving away from traditional sectarian positions. W. Wallace Smith's son Wallace B. Smith became President of the church in 1978[2] and soon it was clear that the new president and his top leaders were committed to this new worldview. In January, 1979, the First Presidency invited all of the church's fulltime appointee ministers and their wives to Independence where the new president and his counselors read theological papers which clearly showed the presidency to be in a liberal camp.[3]This change involved the transformation of the RLDS church from a fundamentalist sect—that is a religious body predominantly focused on "restoring" a lost "authentic" form of worship—to a contemporary Protestant denomination. As long as the church was a fundamentalist sect, the focus was on "correct" doc trines and organization that characterized the "true" church. As the church moved from sect to becoming a denomination, we naturally have focused more on themes which we have in common with other Christians whether we consciously intended this or not. As a sect we had focused on Joseph Smith; as a denomination the focus is much more on Jesus than on Joseph. 

The first widely circulated publication against the new liberalism in the church was a newspaper begun in 1970 by an RLDS fundamentalist named Barney Fuller. It was appropriately entitled, Zion's Warning—warning the saints in Zion of trouble at the gates. At this point it should be noted that "fundamentalist" in the RLDS context has nothing to do with polygamy. RLDS fundamentalists are those who believe that their faith should be based entirely or almost entirely on the scriptures, which they view as fully trustworthy sources for formulating religious beliefs. They believe the RLDS church was the one true church until it turned its back on many of these scriptures. RLDS liberals, by contrast, are those who see the scriptures as important sources for the faith but nevertheless as conditioned by culture. Therefore the scriptures must be tempered by reason and human experience. 

During Wallace B. Smith's presidency several major changes were instituted in the RLDS church that were manifestations of the transformation from sect to denomination. The first and most dramatic of these was one that caused a major split in the church. The debate over women's ordination had been simmering in the church since the early 1970's. The feminist movement in the United States and other parts of the world had made some RLDS people aware of how the strongly patriarchal culture that exists in most of the world has limited women's opportunities to use their talents in ways that would benefit themselves and the larger society. The issue first came to the attention of the church's biennial World Conference in April, 1970, when a resolution was offered which called for including women in more significant roles in the church. A substitute motion was offered by A. H. (Bud) Edwards, which clearly suggested that women be ordained. It was shocking to many delegates—a loud collective gasp was heard throughout the conference chamber as Edwards read his substitute motion—and the motion was quickly tabled.[4]

Over the next fourteen years people in the church debated the issue, often with great feeling, pro and con. In the 1970s, the initial strategy of those favoring ordination, which included many church leaders, was to use women more extensively in leadership roles that did not require ordination. It was decided that church committees at all levels should include more women. In local worship services, some congregations moved toward letting women perform ministries previously restricted to priesthood men, including preaching the sermon on Sunday morning. This writer recalls being one of the dozen priesthood men who served the bread and wine at the monthly communion service in the Lamoni, Iowa congregation in 1972, with the communion sermon delivered by Dr. Barbara Higdon, a professor of literature and speech at Graceland College. The un-ordained Higdon could not have served the communion, but she delivered the Word on the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper. 

In April, 1970, the same month that the World Conference tabled the substitute motion calling for women's ordination, a group of professors at Graceland College, along with some friends elsewhere, began publication of a quarterly journal entitled Courage: A Journal of History, Thought and Action. Editorials in the journal were sometimes signed by one editor, and some were printed under the signature of the nine-member Editorial Committee. The Editorial Committee published an editorial in their December, 1970, issue that called for the ordination of women, nearly four teen years before the church's policy would change.[5] The feminist theme was frequently articulated in the pages of Courage during its brief three year existence, 1970-1973.[6]

The issue of women's role in the church continued to surface at the remaining World Conferences during the 1970s[7] and was finally resolved at the April 1984 World Conference when President/Prophet Wallace B. Smith presented a revelation which called for the ordination of women. That revelation was accepted by the delegates at the conference as a revelation from God and became Section 156 of the RLDS Doctrine and Covenants, but with 20% of the delegates dissenting. It soon became clear that the largest schism in the history of the Reorganization was in the making. In the six years following the approval of Section 156, about one-fourth of the active RLDS members ceased their involvement in the church. Many of these people formed separate splinter groups in their local areas.[8] Others simply tired of the bickering and quit attending church in any branch of the restoration. While old school saints were shocked and angered over the adoption of Section 156, many held out hope that a subsequent World Conference would rescind the decision and correct a serious error. But when in 1986 a motion to rescind Section 156 came to the floor of the Conference, President Smith ruled it out of order, and 88% of the delegates upheld his ruling. Meanwhile, this and other important changes have turned the church's attention to developing a more Christ-centered theology and toward matters of more significance than those issues which focused on our uniqueness or differences with the Utah Mormons. 

---

[1] "The Decade of the Sixties: The Early Struggle in the RLDS Shift from Sect to Denomination," Sunstone Symposium, Salt Lake City, August 4, 2000. 

[2] W. Wallace Smith was president of the church from 1958 until he retired in 1978, at which time his son Wallace B. Smith became president, serving until his retirement in 1996.

[3] The First Presidency, Presidential Papers (January 1979). Photo-reproduction available through the Restoration Bookstore operated by Richard Price in Independence, Missouri.

[4] 1970 World Conference Bulletin, 329 and "A Transcript of Business Sessions: The 1970 World Conference, 404-408," in Community of Christ Library-Archives; A. H. (Bud) Edwards email to Bill Russell, March 15, 2002.

[5] Editorial Committee, "Sex Roles in a Changing World," Courage: A Journal of History, Thought and Action. 1, no. 2 (December 1970): 81-84. 

[6] William D. Russell, "The Rise and Fall of Courage, an Independent RLDS Journal," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, 11, no. 1 (Spring 1978): 115-119. 

[7] See Richard P. Howard, The Church Through the Years, Volume 2, The Reorganization Comes of Age, 1860-1992 (Independence, Mo: Herald Publishing House, 1993), chapter 35, "Expanding the Arenas of Service for Women," 381-408. 

[8] William D. Russell, "Defenders of the Faith: Varieties of RLDS Dissent," Sunstone 14, no. 3 (June 1990): 14-19; and "The Fundamentalist Schism, 1958-Present," in Roger D. Launius and W.B. "Pat" Spillman, eds., Let Contention Cease (Independence, Mo: Graceland/Park Press, 1991), 125-151. See also the essays in Let Contention Cease by Larry Conrad, "Dissent Among Dissenters: Theological Dimensions of Dissent and Reorganization," 199-239; Pat Spillman, "Dissent and the Future of the Church/' 259-292; and Roger Launius, "Guarding Prerogative: Autonomy of the Nineteenth Century Reorganized Church," 17-58. See also Paul M. Edwards Our Legacy Faith (Independence, Mo: Herald Publishing House, 1991), 282; Richard P. Howard, The Reorganization Comes of Age, 409-432, and Launius, "The Reorganized Church, the Decade of Decision, and the Abilene Paradox," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 31, no. 1 (Spring, 1998), 47-65.

[post_title] => Ordaining Women and the Transformation from Sect to Denomination [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 36.3 (Fall 2003): 61–64
Over the past forty years the top leadership of the Community of Christ church (until recently the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ o f Latter -Day Saints) has gone through significant changes in religious thought. I have contended elsewhere that the decisive changes occurred in the 1960s. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => ordaining-women-and-the-transformation-from-sect-to-denomination [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-04-28 14:46:56 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-04-28 14:46:56 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=10622 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

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Introduction

What does the march of historical events mean? I would argue that this is the fundamental question of all historical study. But like unto it is a corollary question that I have been asking more and more often of late and struggling to discover an answer or answers. Why do reasonably intelligent, well-meaning, and commonsensical people make decisions that bring ruin upon themselves, on others, and on the ideals they embrace? In addition, once they have determined courses that lead to the collapse of their goals, why to do they persist in them to their (il)logical conclusions? 

These are, I believe, important questions that are neither neatly con templated nor readily answered. For the history of the Reorganized Church, a field of study where I have invested considerable effort, I keep puzzling over the developments of a theological and cultural reformation that began to be apparent in the 1960s and what it has meant for the church and its membership at the end of the twentieth century. In this essay I intend to build on my earlier work on the Reorganized Church and the decade of decision it faces in the 1990s.[1] Among other points I make, I believe this reformation in the church has undercut the traditional belief system that had pretty much held sway for more than one hundred years. While one can debate the necessity of some type of transformation of that RLDS consensus, it has led to an identity crisis of capital significance. Furthermore, the loss of a traditional RLDS identity has precipitated important changes in the demographics of the Reorganized Church, as many wedded to ideas of traditional RLDS uniqueness left the movement behind and ripped out a key source of institutional strength. I will relate declines in membership, contributions, and priesthood ordinations to show the demographic shift over time. Finally, I will explore the response of church leadership when faced with these declines and use organizational dynamics theory to form possible explanations for the course of the church's policy from the mid-1980s to the present. 

The Theological Reformation and the Problem of RLDS Identity

It has become something of a truism to suggest that during the period since the 1950s, but especially since the 1960s and with rising thrust thereafter, Reorganization liberals relentlessly demythologized church history, theology, and assorted traditions, and in the process overturned the church's traditional ideological consensus.[2] Using a variety of tactics, those committed to modernity in the RLDS church fought a series of internecine battles with the forces of tradition and in virtually every instance succeeded in gaining the upper hand. In no small measure this resulted from a coopting or coercing of the leadership of the church, who allowed it to take place. In the end this broad-based reformation struck at the very core of the Reorganized Church's origins and reasons for existence since the 1850s.[3]

The collapse of the Reorganized Church's philosophical synthesis, and the failure to create another, led to crisis in the organization. It created a problem of church identity not present to any real degree before the 1960s, and since the 1980s it has become more and more apparent that the church as an institution is adrift, without mission, ideal, or hope for the future. This crisis ensures that the Reorganized Church is facing a decade of decision in the 1990s as it seeks to find a place for itself in the larger religious community that will be compelling for its membership. 

Numerous church officials have cast the evolution of the RLDS church in the context of a transition from sect to denomination, as described in sociological theory, suggesting that this process was a happy metaphor for what had been taking place during the past forty years. "As it once saw its mission and destiny apart from, and in many respects, inimical to society as a whole," wrote W. B. Spillman in 1991, "the church in the latter twentieth century began to see the benefits of cooperation and increased accommodation to societal standards and demands." Spill man specifically argued in favor of the sect to denomination model to explain what had been taking place in the Reorganization, and his analysis was both understanding and complimentary of that transition.[4]

Not using the sect/denomination terminology, though certainly accepting it as a positive development, Apostle Clifford A. Cole told a gathering of high priests in 1971 that "we are shifting from an emphasis on distinctives—that is, on the ways we are different from other [Christian] churches—to a concern for teaching the whole gospel of Jesus Christ and winning persons to committing themselves to Him."[5] Other church officials, such as former apostle and member of the First Presidency Maurice L. Draper, explicitly employed the sect-to-denomination explanation to justify the transformation of the church in the latter half of the twentieth century.[6]

Some warned of the problems this transition enjoined, however, and advocated caution in embracing the mainstream. Theologian W. Paul Jones from Kansas City's Saint Paul School of Theology, a liberal Methodist seminary, for instance, cautioned Reorganization leaders in the 1960s that this transition to mainstream Protestant denominationalism heralded important consequences for the organization as it would face a difficult identity crisis.[7] After admitting that he valued the Reorganization's historical uniqueness more than did some senior church officials, Jones more recently lamented the reformation that has taken place in the church. In 1993 he asked the pithy question, "Will the movement dis cover in a new way an acceptable uniqueness or will it continue to mellow into the ethos of general Protestantism as still another denomination?" He was not sanguine about that prospect, and concluded, "My own uneasiness about the Saints continuing in this direction is that we have no need for another mainline Protestant denomination."[8]

No less than current Reorganized Church president W. Grant Mc Murray sculpted the contours of the present RLDS identity crisis in stark relief as early as 1981 when he gave his John Whitmer Historical Association presidential address on the RLDS church's presumed identity crisis in the nineteenth century. This has been a theme of historians of the Reorganized Church since the 1960s, but rarely before that decade, and numerous essays have attempted to plough that fertile field from the vantage point of more than one hundred years beyond.[9] McMurray, however, insightfully concluded "that the identity crisis is not theirs, but ours." He noted that "the earliest interpreters of the Reorganization gave no indication that they were confused about the nature of the movement." This is not apparently as true of present-day RLDS, he intimated, and modern explorations would do well to recognize that the present crisis of identity emanates from current trends.[10]

The crisis of identity enveloping the Reorganized Church at the end of the twentieth century has ensured that the decade of the 1990s is a period of crisis. Church members have to reshape the intellectual underpinnings of the religion or fold their tents and go home. The time left to complete that task is short, for the very real warning signals of a church on the verge of collapse are present even today. They will become even more prominent in the next score of years as the stalwarts supporting the present institution depart the scene and are not replaced with a younger generation of RLDS members bent on sacrificing for the ideals, however they might be interpreted, of the Restoration. Indeed, failure to forge a new dynamic identity will spell the doom of the Reorganization. It is not impossible to view the Reorganized Church of one hundred-plus years from now as an exceptionally small group of adherents linked mostly by kinship and revolving around the Independence temple as the reason for their being. In that respect they could become something akin to many of the other Mormon factions still in existence such as the Cutlerites, Bickertonites, and Hedrickites. They might be interesting and have worthwhile positions on many issues, but they would hardly represent major movements for good in the world. 

The Magnitude of the Present Crisis

The theological confusion and thereby lack of identity that have been present for the last twenty years have been manifest in numerous ways for some time. By every quantitative measure one can reasonably use— and those measurements are buried in a mass of data that make it difficult to make an analysis independent of church leaders—the Reorganized Church is on course for extinction. For example, the church has entered a negative growth track in North America and projections for the future are dismal. As shown in Table 1, in all of North America membership peaked at almost 173,000 in 1982; it has dropped 10 percent to about 156,000 since then. At no time in that period has the North American membership been higher than the year before. Membership in stakes, areas where the greatest concentrations of Saints lived and all of which were in North America, peaked at just over 60,000 in 1977 and has dropped 13 percent since then. 

An important measure of health in any church is the number of new members gained. In this regard note that there were over 4,500 baptisms in North America in each year from 1960 through 1964, while there were just over 1,500 baptisms in both 1994 and 1995. North American baptismal rates exhibited a steady decline from over 3 percent in 1960 to just under 1 percent in 1995. Since the church leadership report total member ship most of the time, and refrain from breaking it down, total numbers for the church still look about the same as they have been for a generation, hovering at the quarter of a million mark worldwide because of larger numbers of baptisms in the Third World.[11]

Table 1. 

Year	N. America	% Total	Abroad	% Total	Unknown	% Total	% Growth
1950	122,909	85.1%	9,058	6.3%	12,168	8.4%	9.0%
1955	133,749	83.6%	9,566	6.0%	15,671	9.8%	10.8%
1960	146,520	82.5%	10,129	5.7%	20,249	11.4%	11.0%
1965	155,800	81.4%	11,198	5.9%	23,749	12.4%	7.8%
1970	163,707	80.8%	13,581	6.7%	24,791	12.2%	5.9%
1975	169,066	79.2%	16,752	7.9%	27,039	12.7%	5.3%
1980	171,467	76.7%	20,923	9.4%	30,313	13.6%	4.8%
1985	171,219	73.0%	29,245	12.5%	33,302	14.2%	5.0%
1990	164,094	67.2%	41,742	17.1%	37,521	15.4%	4.1%
1995	155,913	62.7%	51,465	20.7%	40,636	16.3%	1.9%

Source: Compiled by George Walton from World Conference Reports, 1950-96. 

Instead of the selected years presented above, however, another way to look at the membership numbers is shown in Table 2. 

Table 2. Average Annual Increase in Known Membership 

	1951-65	1966-80	1981-92	1993-95
No. America	2,192.7	1,044.5	-1,036.9	-1,894.7
Abroad	142.7	648.3	2,036.1	1,777.0
Total	2,335.4	1,692.8	999.2	-117.7

Source: Compiled by George Walton from World Conference Reports, 1950-96. 

But total membership numbers are basically trailing statistical indicators, rather than leading ones. They depict all individuals whose names are still formally on the church's rolls. Very few people upset over the direction of the church have taken action to remove their names from RLDS roles. Indeed the chief strategist for the traditionalist dissent in the church, Richard Price, specifically recommended that members not formally withdraw from the church so they could remain in a position, among other reasons, to affect Reorganization policy.[12] The Reorganization's leadership also emphasized that "Withdrawals from church membership are at the initiative of the member. Recorders and pastors should avoid letters or phone calls that have the effect of suggesting to inactive members that they should consider withdrawing."[13] With both sides of the debate favoring retention of members on RLDS rolls, it is probable that the total official membership is significantly inflated above the number active in the church. If so, the strength of the RLDS church in North America has declined even more precipitously than the real numbers demonstrate. 

In general, however, formal RLDS membership numbers tell us very little about the health and vitality of a church since there is no correlation between membership and participation. There is anecdotal evidence, unfortunately statistics do not exist to confirm this, that declines of participation in North America have been much more monumental than the formal membership declines. For instance, former Reorganized Church Historian Richard P. Howard commented, "We have lost nearly 25,000 members to the schism arising over the implications of this [paradigm] shift."[14] Other observers of the RLDS scene, some of whom are senior church officials, contend that the losses are much greater. Perhaps they approach 50,000, according to one former member of the RLDS Quorum of Twelve Apostles who asked for non-attribution. Those are not formal withdrawals, which can be tracked using the membership statistics, but individuals who have "walked" out of RLDS houses of worship and are now attending church elsewhere or not at all. The exact numbers are virtually impossible to ascertain. Worship attendance, Sunday school attendance, numbers of members supporting special events, and the like tell us the most. Questions yet to be explored involve: (1) Are more or less people participating in the North American RLDS church? When and why? (2) Are some geographical areas growing, some declining? Where? (3) If there is regional growth, what are the factors that best explain it? We await further research to learn the answers to these important questions. 

Another measure of significant change can be found in the amount of contributions to the RLDS church over the last quarter century. The declines have been dramatic, as shown in Table 3, signalling the near collapse of the RLDS church during this period and portending catastrophe for the future. The general fund went from a condition of regular surplus to mostly deficit in 1983. In the thirteen years from 1970 through 1982, there was an average surplus of $1,313,000 each year, whereas from 1983 through 1995 there was an average annual deficit of $690,000. The loss of contributions in real terms is certainly related to the decline in North American membership from where the overwhelming bulk of income has come over the years. The Reorganization's Presiding Bishopric, the chief financial officers of the church, has repeatedly commented on the declining number of contributors. It admitted in 1996 to a 40-percent decrease in the number of contributors between 1984, when there were approximately 62,000 contributors, and 1994 when the number had fallen to about 37,000. Interestingly, the difference between those two numbers (25,000) is almost twice as large as the number of North American members lost during the same period.[15]

Table 3. RLDS General Fund Contribution Trends, 1950-95 (Actual Dollars) 

Year	Accounting Stewards		Contributors General Fund		Contributors to All Funds		N. American Members
1950	14,049	11.43%	32,335	26.31%	not reported		122,909
1965	32,395	20.79%	61,459	39.45%	72,758	46.70%	155,800
1980	31,689	18.48%	60,540	35.31%	65,908	38.44%	171,467
1985	27,133	15.85%	55,496	32.41%	59,764	34.91%	171,219
1990	21,451	13.07%	39,671	24.18%	47,210	28.77%	164,094
1995	14,227	9.12%	32,167	20.63%	36,047	23.12%	155,913

Source: Compiled by George Walton from World Conference Reports, 1950-96. 

The church's monetary losses are also even more striking if adjusted for inflation. Using constant dollars, the contributions available for church programs have declined by essentially 50 percent since 1978. In 1978 the RLDS income was just over $16 million from all sources, using 1970 constant dollars. By 1993 that had declined to $9 million when adjusted for inflation to the 1970 constant. A fifteen-year downward trend between 1978 and 1993 is readily apparent when annual income is adjusted for inflation using the consumer price index. 

Other measures also demonstrate a general decline in the health of the Reorganized Church during the period between 1980 and 1995. The number of congregations in stakes and metropoles, all in North America and which should be considered the largest and most stable local jurisdictions in the church, has decreased from 276 in 1986 to 251 in 1995, a 9- percent decline.[16] Anecdotal evidence also confirms this trend. In virtually every congregation in the Reorganized Church in the United States, significant attendance losses have been registered in the last few years. Numerous congregations have been closed and their members merged with others in the same geographical area. Houses of worship have been put up for sale all over the North American church because they are surplus to the present needs of the organization, and in areas around Independence, Missouri, where there is a concentration of RLDS several of those chapels have been purchased by groups of dissident Restorationists to house their worship services.[17] More to the point, new RLDS president W. Grant McMurray acknowledged in January 1997 that only about 40 percent of the total membership "engage meaningfully in the church's life, splashed and scattered throughout about 35 nations, ...”[18]

Possible Reasons for Measurable Decline

If the present Reorganized Church hierarchy was the leadership team of a market-driven corporation, its shareholders would have thrown it out of power by this time. For more than a decade using every significant quantitative measure of merit available—and I fully recognize that there are also non-quantitative measures that might mitigate this statement— the RLDS leadership has failed to oversee successful organizational development much less spiritual growth on the part of the Saints. At the first signs of decline, any responsible chief executive officer would have begun efforts at corporate restructuring and product research to deter mine what had made the commodities marketed by the organization less attractive. I must ask if similar developments happened in the case of the RLDS leadership, for if it did its efforts were both unknown to the majority of the membership and alterations in response to it transparent to the rank and file. This failure to make meaningful product alterations has ensured the continued decline of the church as a viable force for more than a decade, with no end in sight. 

Perhaps some will object to my using a corporate metaphor to describe the Reorganized Church. I admit that I have my own problems with this model, but the fact is the church is essentially a corporation and it has a product it offers to the world. Would that the product were more spiritual than tangible, but that too has been one of the negative trends during the Reorganization's theological reformation! As I wrote elsewhere of the present RLDS situation: 

[T]oo many people have not understood the experiential nature of its rich tradition. The Reorganization is not just right thinking and doing; it is feeling that God is with us just as God was with the prophets and apostles of old. To be RLDS is not just to accept a set of books, a priesthood system, a bureaucracy, a theology, though those have been important symbols for the Saints. To be RLDS is to feel the burning in one's bosom, to personally ask of God and to pray for greater light and wisdom, to hear inspiring preaching, to sing with heartfelt thanks "I have found the glorious gospel that was taught in former years," to feel the warmth of the Holy Spirit as the elders anoint and lay hands for healing, to hope that the love and peace one felt during administration would someday pervade the entire world community as the kingdoms of this world are transformed into the kingdom of God. To be RLDS is to feel deep within one's being that one is linked with God's people from every age and to know the guidance and power of the Holy Spirit in one's own life and journey.[19]

And the corporate model was one adopted by the RLDS hierarchy in the aftermath of a Booz, Allen, and Hamilton, Inc., study completed in the late 1960s. In this context the First Presidency literally became the counterpart to the president and CEO of a corporation, with the Quorum of Twelve acting as the head of the sales force and the Presiding Bishopric serving as corporate treasurer.[20] If the RLDS leadership wishes to be thought of in terms of corporate counterparts, then they should be judged by corporate standards. Unfortunately for them, using those standards one can find only utter failure in North America for nearly the last twenty years. 

Numerous causes for RLDS decline have surfaced over the years, many of them advanced by RLDS leaders seeking to explain away their failures to provide viable leadership. Any analysis of why the RLDS North American membership is declining, however, must center on the collapse of the RLDS theological consensus and the resultant decline in activity of those choosing to worship elsewhere. Choosing not to discuss the losses of active members, however, the hierarchy has offered a few explanations for the abysmal rates of baptism in North America. Former second counselor in the First Presidency Alan D. Tyree suggested four possible reasons in a 1991 editorial.[21] His most significant reason was, and he chided the membership for this, too few rank-and-file members witnessed to friends and neighbors. He complained that "we don't know how to share [our testimonies], with whom, when and where, with what wisdom and courage, and how to do so without embarrassment." Of course, Tyree failed to comment on the RLDS church's lack of the basic prerequisite for effective salesmanship/witnessing, a valued product for which there is enthusiasm on the part of the sales/missionary force. 

Tyree also laid some of the problem at the feet of a general demographic trend in the United States toward families having fewer children. This rationale, of course, points the finger for any responsibility for these trends away from the RLDS leadership. It's no one's fault, the general population portends this change. Unfortunately for Tyree, this does not come close to explaining the problem for two important reasons. First, if the trends can be explained on the basis of demographics, then all religious groups should be experiencing the same trends. They are not! Only those that seem to be the most radical in their perspectives, those with strong ideological commitments and beliefs in their own legitimacy as holders of moral and spiritual truth, are growing quickly. Second, through 1983 the baptismal rate tracked the birth rate reasonably well. It averaged 0.6 percent higher from 1960 through 1965 and 0.3 percent higher from then to 1982. However, since 1985 the baptismal rate has been less than the birth rate, reaching 0.6 percent less in 1995. Accordingly, since at least 1983 the baptismal slouch has not been demographic as the church as a whole has not even been baptizing its own offspring. 

Tyree also blamed the problem on "western civilization" as a whole. He concluded that society as a whole "has been experiencing an erosion of the importance of Christianity. This is usually referred to as the growth of secularism." This theme has been repeated many times by church officials. Once again this points the finger of responsibility away from the RLDS leadership. Again it's no one's fault, the population portends this change. As recently as January 1996 President Wallace B. Smith said essentially the same thing. "There is considerable indication of a decline of interest in participation in organized religion in general. This decline in the First World is predicted not only to continue but to accelerate," he noted. "We are already beginning to see some of the effects of this pattern in our own movement as our baptismal rates go up in our missions abroad, and stay flat or decline in the United States and Canada."[22] Again acceptance of this argument requires an explanation of why the Christian churches with neo-orthodox positions are growing so rapidly. Indeed, while it may have other difficulties such as overbearing rigidity, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has clearly defined what it believes and is growing exponentially by emphasizing those distinctives. 

Tyree and other church officials have also sought to explain away the recent trends with an argument that does not seem born out by the evidence, that low baptismal rates are the result of "a general attitude in Western nations that all authority and authorities are subject to question, challenge, and skepticism." However, this explanation not only fails to take into consideration the experience of the less liberal Christian churches in America, but it does not allow for differences on the international scene. Radical egalitarianism was what Aaron Wildavsky called it, and such rampant individualism does seem to be more the norm in the United States, but that does not mean it is also present in other western nations.[23] Such ideology bemuses and entertains Europeans and horrifies many in the Hispanic world, as they wonder how a society can succeed when near anarchy seems to rule. As a legitimate explanation of the state of the church, therefore, it is suspect. 

All of these explanations have also been voiced by mainline Christian churches in America, and perhaps it should not be surprising that RLDS leaders use the same rationalizations. They wholeheartedly identify, for good and ill, with that segment of the religious landscape. After all, many RLDS leaders have tried to identify the church with mainline Protestant ism for more than a quarter century. This has been less than successful, however, as mainline churches still view the RLDS church as a Mormon sect with a prophet who receives messages from God, the Book of Mormon as scripture, and a religious tradition that cannot be fully overcome even if desirable. Nevertheless, I see the repeated references to the decline of the mainline Protestants and rising secularization and other larger trends in society as rather heavy-handed and hypocritical attempts to formulate excuses for what has taken place rather than as an honest search for reasons. They are essentially ways of saying we are not really doing so badly, or it's not our fault. 

Instead, at the center of the problem is a loss of RLDS identity that prompts the membership to ask hard questions about continued RLDS activity. For example, if the Reorganized Church has nothing more to offer than the local Methodist or Presbyterian or Unitarian or other church, why should I drive long distances to worship in small groups struggling just to keep the doors open on Sunday morning? Why not go to any of the many other larger churches in my community where my spiritual needs could be met and my contributions valued? 

Sociologists Roger Finke and Rodney Stark made some pointed observations about this general issue as churches have moved from sect to denomination in American history, and suggested that seeds of decline rest with that transformation. Their discussion about the decline of adherence to the so-called mainline Christian churches in America revolves around exchange theory. Instead of accommodating to modernity, something that has been a central part of what has happened to all the major established churches in this century, Finke and Stark argue that a costly faith that refuses to accommodate to secularism is more valued and helps ensure its viability.[24] They conclude: "People tend to value religion according to how much it costs—and because 'reasonable' and 'sociable' religion costs little, it is not valued greatly."[25]

Exchange theory carries real weight for all aspects of human endeavor and for religion it is critical. Without it, no one would bother. It is another way of saying that boundary maintenance, a very common sociological term, is critically important in the health of any religious organization. There must be something that sets the group off from the remainder of society. Without it there is no reason to be a part of the group. The more that is demanded in crossing that boundary, the more it is valued by the members. The event of the exodus of the followers of Brigham Young from Nauvoo to the Great Basin, for instance, with its requirement to work together to survive and the strong sense of shared misery in it, proved to be a kairos experience, an intense, compressed period of great and life-altering events, for those who participated. In doing so the Mormons erected the greatest boundary setting off followers and others that could be fathomed, to be a member in good standing people had to forsake all that they held dear and journey for an unknown time, over an unknown distance, to an unknown land. Mormons have maintained their boundaries carefully since that time. The Reorganized Church has not done so, although reasonable ones did exist until at least the early 1980s, and the result is that there is at present no compelling reason that I can determine to be an RLDS member.[26]

The RLDS and the Abilene Paradox

With the present crisis in full swing, and unacceptable explanations for it circulating among the hierarchy, at least in my view, what explains the persistence of the course presently being pursued by senior officials? It would seem that rather than persisting along the path that has brought near ruin, the First Presidency would stop and ponder alterations to the church's present course. Not to do so appears foolhardy, especially at present when a decade of negative trends has demonstrated amply the bankruptcy of the present direction. The reasons why the Reorganization seems to be going full throttle on its present path are complex. One explanation, however, seems to offer some understanding. I now turn to an explanation of organizational dynamics based on the model of Jerry Harvey, a professor at George Washington University, first developed in 1974.[27]

Harvey described what he referred to as the "Abilene Paradox." Stated succinctly it is: "Organizations frequently take actions in contradiction to the data they have for dealing with problems and, as a result, compound their problems rather than solve them."[28] He prefaced his observations with an anecdote about his family's horrendous trip from Coleman to Abilene, Texas, on a hot, sticky Sunday afternoon in July 1971 to eat at a down-at-heels cafeteria. His hilarious rendition of this truly hair-raising incident was punctuated by the realization after the fact that no one in the family had really wanted to do it. All had supported it because they believed the others wanted to go. Thus was born the Abilene Paradox. 

Harvey noted that an organization's inability to manage "private agreement" proved "a major source of organization dysfunction." He outlined six major symptoms of the paradox at work in organizations; all are presently at work in the Reorganized Church. These include: 

1. Organization members agree privately, as individuals, as to the nature of the situation or problem facing the organization.... 

2. Organization members agree privately, as individuals, as to the steps that would be required to cope with the situation or problem they face....

3. Organization members fail to accurately communicate their desires and/or beliefs to one another. In fact, they do just the opposite and thereby lead one another into misperceiving the collective reality.... 

4. With such invalid and inaccurate information, organization members make collective decisions that lead them to take actions contrary to what they want to do, and thereby arrive at results that are counterproductive to the organization's intent and purposes.... 

5. As a result of taking actions that are counterproductive, organization members experience frustration, anger, irritation, and dissatisfaction with their organization. Consequently, they form subgroups with trusted acquaintances and blame other subgroups for the organization's dilemma. Frequently, they also blame authority figures and one another.... 

6. Finally, if organization members do not deal with the generic issue— the inability to manage agreement—the cycle repeats itself with greater intensity.[29]

Harvey concluded that these dysfunctions were rife in the boardroom, the bedroom, and political institutions. He did not specifically offer comments on this phenomenon in religious institutions, but the Reorganized Church presents a tailor-made case study of the Abilene Paradox run rampant and uncontrolled for two decades. 

The bus to Abilene with the RLDS hierarchy aboard departed at least by the early 1980s and it has been careening over the potholes toward a cliff approaching the town ever since. I will develop this case study based on the data already presented and the symptoms Harvey offered. Regarding Harvey's first point, there is little question but that the senior officials of the Reorganized Church, as well as a vast majority of rank-and-filers, agree that the church is presently in disarray and has to face up to a set of circumstances that if not dealt with effectively will bring destruction to the institution. Although not discussed in official church publications except in the most oblique terms, as when the leadership admits that income is down and that the budget will run a deficit for the year, there is ample evidence that the nature of the problem is fully understood.[30]

E-mail discussion lists and informal communications are rife with discussions of portents of disaster. For instance, one senior official in In dependence commented privately when presented with the data shown above that the story is well known among the hierarchy, having been presented several times a year for the past several years to senior church officials. He also admitted that some puzzlement existed exactly as to why these losses had occurred in the last few years and it is the central objective of church officials to resolve this issue.[31] The new RLDS president, W. Grant McMurray, confessed in an interview in the Saints Herald that one of the really important tasks of the church in the short term is coming to grips with the "impact of significant changes and looking for answers to questions about the importance to them as individuals and their participation as members." How to accomplish that was unclear from McMurray's remarks, but he recognized the problem.[32]

A lot of RLDS leaders and many rank-and-file who remain active in North America privately agree on a general course that will help to resolve the slide, the second bullet in Harvey's Abilene analysis. I have enjoyed close relations with many people inside the RLDS hierarchy and heard them complain privately for years of church policy on various issues and even criticize seriously the leadership of the Joint Council, but remain publicly silent for a combination of reasons ranging from friendship to job security. To his credit, McMurray has said publicly that the hierarchy must rebuild trust with the membership, and vice versa. As he put it, the RLDS must strike in the future "a delicate balance between a historic Restoration faith centered in prophets, revelations, and sectarian community and a contemporary faith centered in Jesus Christ, peace, and global community." He asked the poignant question, "In the divisive religious climate of our time, is it possible to be both a modern-day Chris tian, respectful of a variety of faith traditions, and at the same time lay claim to a religious and historical community that included Joseph Smith, golden plates, a lay priesthood, modern-day revelation, and a Temple spiraling into the heavens?" McMurray's answer was that with allowance for individuality such was not only possible but necessary.[33] Many people inside the church agree that this is a correct course for the future. 

With a basic agreement on the type of problems encountered and the means of addressing them, Harvey contends in bullet three that communication of this information is often ineffective and change does not result. There may be reason for optimism here, especially with the encouraging public statements made recently by Grant McMurray, but a concerted campaign of communication will be required to resymbolize the Restoration and to recover viability. This was the basic argument of Paul Jones's recent article mentioned earlier, and as an outsider he perhaps sees the opportunities and challenges more clearly than those in the fray.[34] Lawrence Foster, an historian of new religious movements at Georgia Tech, agrees. In a 1994 comparison of the paradigm shifts in the Reorganized Church and the Nation of Islam during the last generation, Foster sees an important point of comparison. In contrast to the Nation of Islam, which methodically shifted its radical black separatism of Malcolm X to a more embracing Islam over the course of twenty-five years through a well-conceived and directed communications effort, the Reorganized Church, in Foster's view, has failed to move from something to something. "The fundamental failure of the RLDS leadership today," he wrote, "is that it is talking about paradigm shifts when it has not articulated and popularized among its members any compelling new paradigm!" He noted that "the current RLDS leadership has shown considerable political astuteness during the past decade in getting what it wanted approved by the membership. Now it is time to clearly articulate and defend the deeper spiritual and prophetic message without which any political manipulation, however skillful, is ultimately simply an empty shell." Communication is the heart of that effort, but it has not taken place as yet and the result is Harvey's fourth item, decisions continue to be made that propel the bus toward Abilene.[35]

Jerry Harvey's fifth and sixth items are also operative. Blame, mis trust, resentment, anger, and ultimately the building of subversive sub groups have all taken place in abundance. Can even the casual observer of the Reorganized Church deny that we have been engrossed in these elements for the last quarter century? It is obvious to everyone! While we can place the best face on this, as church officials routinely do, the fact is that discord has been rife and blame spread to everyone in leadership at every level of church governance. In the end we have seen the cycle repeated again and again with ever greater intensity and escalating repercussions. 

Stopping the Bus to Abilene

There is no easy fix, no quick solution, to challenges facing the Reorganized Church at the end of the twentieth century. The first step is obvious—although Jerry Harvey would caution that it requires real leadership quality and a commitment to excellence to take it—gather a group of decision-makers in the organization and openly confront them with the problems of the institution. Not being one of those leaders, I do not know what has taken place inside the Joint Council Chamber at Reorganization headquarters. My suspicion is that such frank discussion is few and far between and exploration of causes of crisis mitigated by defensiveness and excuses. "Working within the context of a group is important because the dynamics of the Abilene Paradox involve collusion among group members," Harvey wrote; "therefore, to try to solve the dilemma by working with individuals and small subgroups would involve further collusion with the dynamics leading up to the paradox." For any progress to emerge from a meeting, however, the person in charge has to admit that a crisis exists and "own the problem." 

In such a predicament, the responses to be expected come at two levels. The first is technical. A set of "fixes" can be readily identified and dispensed with. Certainly that is true of individual parts of the problem. For instance, in the case of the Reorganized Church the fact is that the total numbers of members on the rolls have remained about 250,000 for some time, yet in terms of income available for church efforts when adjusted for inflation the amount is about half of what it was in 1978. How might the church address that problem from a technical level? My answer is enormously simple: publish articles in church periodicals, send letters to all church officers, and emphasize the magnitude of the problem in gatherings of the Saints. Explain what has taken place and admit that a crisis exists, asking for sacrifice and charity to expand the mission and program of the church. I believe the Saints would respond to the sense of emergency such a call would suggest. I would think that the crisis documented in these numbers would serve as a vehicle for drawing the membership together and helping to restore a sense of mission and identity. 

More critical, nonetheless, are the existential issues raised in the Abilene Paradox and the method of dealing, or not dealing, with them. "The real meaning of that existential experience," according to Harvey, "and its relevance to a wide variety of organizations, may lie, therefore, not in the scientific analysis of decision-making but in the plight of Sisyphus." In mythology Sisyphus was condemned to an eternity of pushing a large boulder to the top of a mountain, whereupon reaching the summit the boulder returns to its original position at the bottom. Was the perpetual task absurd and devoid of meaning? Camus suggested that it was, and that Sisyphus recognized it upon occasion as such. Perhaps the RLDS as an organization is in the same category, and its leadership occasionally recognize it as such? As Harvey concluded, "Confronting the absurd paradox of agreement may provide, through activity, what Sisyphus gained from his passive but conscious acceptance of his fate." Perhaps not, but it offers a tantalizing possibility.[36]

And what of the brakes on the bus as the twentieth century is near an end? I certainly believe that the present crisis of RLDS identity, necessitated by the theological reformation, has been a more severe issue in church history than even the supreme directional control controversy of the 1920s.[37] As one Methodist minister with ties to the Reorganization notes, "[F]or all the moves the Reorganization has made toward the mainline, no one who calls himself a high priest, reads a Book of Mormon, and worships in a temple in Independence, Missouri, will ever be able to convince the average Protestant or Catholic cleric that he belongs in the Christian mainstream."[38] From my perspective, in the last quarter century Reorganized Church officials have led the church to a point where it really has almost nowhere to go. And yet the Reorganization seems to hurtle full steam ahead to accomplish something that it cannot accomplish. 

The RLDS church has always had a challenge of balancing a certain faithfulness to its Mormon origins on the one hand and yet remaining palatable to Protestants on the other. That created a tension as a people in the middle, and that was a reasonably viable place. The only viable option that I see is a recapturing of that middle ground. That, coupled with a spiritual reawakening, has some hope for the future. Without it the church will continue to drift. Grant McMurray has recently made public statements to the effect that he understands that crisis exists and that the best means of dealing with it is to seek a place on the religious landscape that embraces the best of the Restoration and the best of Protestantism but is really embroiled in neither. An emphasis on core values might emerge in this context that could reaffirm some distinctives that will be reinterpreted for a new age as well as incorporate larger Christian perspectives in a new way. Time will tell, but the clock is ticking. 

---

[1] Roger D. Launius, "The RLDS Church and the Decade of Decision," Sunstone 19 (Sept. 1996): 45-55.

[2] The first scholars to use the term "RLDS Reformation" and to chart the contours of the subject were Larry W. Conrad and Paul Shupe, "An RLDS Reformation? Construing the Task of RLDS Theology," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 18 (Summer 1985): 92-103. 

[3] I have discussed this process in "Coming of Age? The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in the 1960s," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 28 (Summer 1995): 31-57; "RLDS Church and the Decade of Decision"; and "Neither Mormon nor Protestant? The Reorganized Church and the Challenge of Identity," in Douglas Davies, ed., Mormon Identities in Transition (London, Eng.: Cassell, 1996), 52-60.

[4] W. B. Spillman, "Dissent and the Future of the Church," in Roger D. Launius and W. B. Spillman, eds., Let Contention Cease: The Dynamics of Dissent in the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Independence, MO: Graceland/Park Press, 1991), 277. 

[5] Clifford A. Cole, "Theological Perspectives of World Mission," Saints' Herald 118 (July 1971): 11. 

[6] See Maurice L. Draper, "Sect-Denomination-Church Transition and Leadership in the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints," M. A. thesis, Kansas University, 1964; Maurice L. Draper, Isles and Continents (Independence, MO: Herald Publishing House, 1982); Howard J. Booth, "Recent Shifts in Restoration Thought," in Maurice L. Draper and Clare D. Vlahos, eds., Restoration Studies I (Independence, MO: Herald Publishing House, 1980), 162-75. 

[7] Donald D. Landon, A History of Donald D. Landon While Under General Conference Appointment, 1951-1970: An Oral History Memoir (Independence, MO: Department of History, Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, 1970), 94.

[8] W. Paul Jones, "Demythologizing and Symbolizing the RLDS Tradition," in Paul M. Edwards and Darlene Caswell, eds., Restoration Studies V (Independence, MO: Herald Publishing House, 1993), 109-15, quote on 110. 

[9] See, on this score, Richard P. Howard, "Themes in Latter Day Saint History," John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 2 (1982): 22-29; Richard P. Howard, "Protective and Learning Images in Latter Day Saint Revelation," John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 6 (1986): 3-9; Richard P. Howard, "The Reorganized Church in Illinois, 1852-82: Search for Identity," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 5 (Spring 1970): 63-75; Thomas J. Morain, "Mormons and Nineteenth Century Iowa Historians," John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 1 (1981): 34-42; Alma R. Blair, "The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints: Moderate Mormonism," in F. Mark McKiernan, Alma R. Blair, and Paul M. Edwards, eds., The Restoration Movement: Essays in Mormon History (Lawrence, KS: Coronado Press, 1973), 207-30; Clare D. Vlahos, "Images of Orthodoxy: Self-Identity in Early Reorganization Apologetics," in Maurice L. Draper and A. Bruce Lindgren, eds., Restoration Studies I (Inde pendence, MO: Herald Publishing House, 1980), 176-86; Clare D. Vlahos, "Moderation as a Theological Principle in the Thought of Joseph Smith III," John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 1 (1981): 3-11; Alma R. Blair, "Tradition of Dissent—Jason W. Briggs," in Draper and Lindgren, eds., Restoration Studies I, 146-61; Norma Derry Hiles, "Lamoni: Crucible for Plu ralism in the Reorganization Church," in Maurice L. Draper and Debra Combs, eds., Restora tion Studies III (Independence, MO: Herald Publishing House, 1983), 139-44; Richard P. Howard, "The Changing RLDS Response to Mormon Polygamy: A Preliminary Analysis," John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 3 (1983): 14-29; Alma R. Blair, "RLDS Views of Po lygamy: Some Historigraphical Notes," John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 5 (1985): 16-28; Roger Yarrington, "Changes in the Church," Saints Herald 137 (Sept. 1990): 10; Charles D. Neff, "The Problem of Becoming a World Church," Saints' Herald 121 (Sept. 1974): 554-57; Position Papers (Independence, MO: Cumorah Books, 1975); Clifford A. Cole, "The World Church: Our Mission in the 1980s," Commission, Sept. 1979, 39-44; Paul M. Edwards, "Leadership and the Ethics of Prophecy," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 19 (Winter 1986): 77-84; Richard P. Howard, "New Currents in Mormon History," Saints Herald 135 (Nov. 1988): 483.

[10] W. Grant McMurray, "The Reorganization in Nineteenth-Century America: Identity or Historiographical Problem?" John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 2 (1982): 3-10.

[11] These statistics were compiled by George Walton of Washington, D.C., in 1996 from reports to the RLDS World Conference for the period since 1970.1 wish to thank George for his work.

[12] Richard Price, assisted by Larry Harlacher, Action Time (Independence, MO: Price Publishing Co., 1985), 162-71. For information on Price, see William D. Russell, "Richard Price: Leading Publicist of the Reorganized Church's Schismatics," in Roger D. Launius and Linda Thatcher, eds., Differing Visions: Dissenters in Mormon History (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994), 319-42. 

[13] Leonard M. Young, ed., Church Administrator's Handbook, 1995 Edition (Independence, MO: Herald Publishing House, 1995), 55. 

[14] In Richard A. Brown, ed., Theology—Volume 2: Authority, Membership, and Baptism (Independence, MO: Graceland/Park Press, 1994), 108.

[15] World Conference Report, Apr. 1996,131,165, copy available in Library-Archives, Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Independence, MO.

[16] Again, these statistics were compiled by George Walton of Washington, D.C., in 1996 from reports to the RLDS World Conference for the period since 1970.1 wish to thank George for his work. 

[17] The Restoration Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, for example, purchased from the RLDS Presiding Bishopric in 1996 the historic "Second Church" in downtown Independence, Missouri. This building now houses that Restorationist group's "central congregation." 

[18] G. Grant McMurray, "The State of the Church," 2, unpublished address to the Theology Colloquy-Graceland College, Lamoni, Iowa, 19 Jan. 1997.

[19] Launius, "The RLDS and the Decade of Decision," 51. 

[20] Clifford A. Cole, "An Oral History Memoir," 1985,179, unpublished manuscript, Library-Archives, RLDS church; W. Wallace Smith, "An Oral History Memoir," 1981,196, unpublished manuscript, Library-Archives, RDLS church. The report, Booz, Allen, and Hamilton, "Study of Organization and Management Practices," is available in Library-Archives, RLDS church.

[21] Alan D. Tyree, "Why Are Baptisms Down?" Saints Herald, May 1991, 3-5.

[22] Wallace B. Smith, "Current Missional Issues," Saints Herald, Jan. 1996, 7.

[23] Aaron Wildavsky, The Rise of Radical Egalitarianism (Washington, D.C.: American University Press, 1989).

[24] On the question of modernity, see Martin E. Marty, Modern American Religion: Volume 1, The Irony of It All, 1893-1919 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986), flyleaf.

[25] Roger Finke and Rodney Stark, The Churching of America, 1776-1990: Winners and Losers in Our Religious Economy (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1992), 250.

[26] On this subject, see Elliot Aronson and Judson Mills, "The Effect of Severity of Initiation on Liking for a Group," Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 59 (Sept. 1959): 177- 81; Harold B. Gerard and Grover C. Mathewson, "The Effects of Severity of Initiation on Liking for a Group: A Replication," Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 2 (1966): 278-87; Jacob E. Hautaluoma and Helene Spungin, "Effects of Initiation Severity and Interest on Group Attitudes," Journal of Social Psychology 93 (1974): 245-59; Jan Shipps, Mormonism: The Story of a New Religious Tradition (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1985), 121-23; Roger D. Launius, '"Many Mansions': The Dynamics of Dissent in the Nineteenth Century Reorganized Church," Journal of Mormon History 17 (1991): 145-69. 

[27] The following paragraphs are based on the analysis contained in the classic study by Jerry B. Harvey, "The Abilene Paradox: The Management of Agreement," Organizational Dynamics, Summer 1974,17-34. 

[28] Ibid., 23.

[29] Ibid., 20. 

[30] This was stated without explanation in the "World Church Budget Fiscal Year 1997," Saints Herald 143 (Nov. 1996): 535-37, when the First Presidency noted that the approved budget for FY1997 was $18.55 million while the FY1996 budget had been $20.82 million, a greater than 10-percent reduction between the two years.

[31] Private communication to author, 12 Mar. 1996. 

[32] Jim Cable, "New President Looks Beyond Horizon," Saints Herald 144 (Jan. 1997): 5-8. 

[33] McMurray, "State of the Church," 1-2.

[34] Jones, "Demythologizing and Symbolizing the RLDS Tradition," 109-15.

[35] Lawrence Foster, "The RLDS Paradigm Shift: Some Lessons from the Transformation of the Nation of Islam (Black Muslims)," 19,24, unpublished paper presented at the Mormon History Association Annual Meeting, Park City, Utah, 21 May 1994.

[36] The foregoing is based on the work of Harvey, "Abilene Paradox," 23-34.

[37] This crisis has been written about extensively in Paul M. Edwards, "Theocratic-Democracy: Philosopher-King of the Reorganization," in McKiernan, Blair, and Edwards, Restoration Movement, 341-57; Larry E. Hunt, F.M. Smith: Saint as Reformer, 2 vols. (Independence, MO: Herald Publishing House, 1982); Paul M. Edwards, The Chief: An Administrative Biography of Frederick M. Smith (Independence, MO: Herald Publishing House, 1988); and Kenneth R. Mullikin, "The Supreme Directional Control Controversy: Theocracy Versus Democracy in the Reorganized Church, 1915-1925," in Launius and Spillman, Let Contention Cease, 91- 124. 

[38] E-mail message, Larry Conrad to George Walton, 1 Feb. 1997, copy in my possession.

[post_title] => The Reorganized Church, the Decade of Decision, and the Abilene Paradox [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 31.1 (Spring 1998): 47–65
In this essay I intend to build on my earlier work on the Reorganized Church and the decade of decision it faces in the 1990s. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => the-reorganized-church-the-decade-of-decision-and-the-abilene-paradox [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-05-07 16:52:00 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-05-07 16:52:00 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=11199 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 11294 [post_author] => 2493 [post_date] => 2018-04-03 01:04:13 [post_date_gmt] => 2018-04-03 01:04:13 [post_content] =>

Born into a poor Canadian family living in St. Andrews, Ontario Province, on 20 October 1861, Richard C. Evans rose to fame and power experienced by few other members of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.[1] In this process he spent over forty years in the leadership of the Reorganization, working for two church presidents, Joseph Smith III (1832- 1914) and Frederick M. Smith (1872-1946), as a seventy, apostle, member of the First Presidency, and bishop of Canada. Yet he left the Reorganization in 1918 over a complex set of issues that reflected the problems of both his own consuming ambition and the unusual administrative and procedural policies in the Reorganized Church's method of choosing its leaders.[2] Evans struck out on his own, denounced the Reorganized Church and its leader, and founded his own church organization. His dissent represented an important episode in the development of both the Reorganized Church and the Mormon dissenting tradition. 

A large number of studies has explored the nature of dissent and schism in twentieth century religion. They suggest that dissent may arise from any one or a combination of four factors. First, dissent and schism have often been fostered by underlying social, cultural, economic, and other disparities among groups. In this environment differences among groups in an institution are reflected ideologically and lead to conflict as each group seeks to win approval for its conceptions. Second, dissent might be engendered when members perceive that they lack meaningful involvement in setting doctrines, administering organization, and participating in leadership capacities. Third, conflict may result when certain people, beliefs, rituals, and myths are defined as heretical from the standpoint of religious authority. Finally, some dissent might be accidental, un intentioned on the part of the dissenter but defined as such by church leadership.[3] Charisma, of course, due to its volatile nature, has always been a potent source of dissent and schism.[4]

The dissent of R. C. Evans from the Reorganized Church in 1918 was a combination of several of these factors. Intensely charismatic, highly capable, and exceptionally ambitious, Evans was stymied in his personal and professional goals by a system that did not, from his perspective, recognize and reward his talents. His personality was viewed as obnoxious and his actions were interpreted as heretical by other Reorganization leaders, especially President Frederick M. Smith who saw him as a rival. The sociocultural and political differences between Evans and his supporters in Canada and the American church under Smith also fostered dissent. Evans's complaints about church policy and doctrine also inserted an intellectual component into the conflict. All of these came together to create a rift in the Reorganization that was both significant and irreconcilable. 

The seeds of Evans's dissent were planted early in his life. Evans was not raised a Latter Day Saint, and his conversion probably fueled his zeal to preach to others about his belief in the Restoration. When Evans was fourteen years old, his father attended one of the church's periodic missionary series in Toronto and joined the Reorganization, but at the time no other members of the family seemed to care about religion. Evans's conversion came two years later while attending a series of meetings held by J. J. Cornish, a Canadian convert to the Reorganized Church who was revered as one of the great missionaries of the movement. Evans was so taken by his preaching that on the last night of the series he asked Cornish for baptism.[5] His mother, who had also been attending these meetings, decided on baptism a few days later. The two went together into a frozen river on 5 November 1876 and joined the Reorganized Church.[6]

Evans was an especially precocious youth who used his natural abilities to advantage in his church service. He studied the scriptures, Latter Day Saint history, and skills that would make him an outstanding minister. He was especially moved, he later wrote, by the experiences of the youthful Joseph Smith, Jr., and also came to respect the courage and forthrightness of the early leaders of the Reorganization, all of whom at one point or another in their careers had dissented from the larger Mormon movement to strike out on their own spiritual course. Evans freely admitted that he held men such as Jason W. Briggs, Zenos H. Gurley, Sr., and Joseph Smith III as heroes whom he wished to emulate.[7]

In addition, Evans began early to hone his oratory skills and to develop a system for effectively preaching the Reorganization's gospel. By the time he was twenty years old, he was preaching vigorously and serving in a variety of leadership capacities in the local Reorganized Church district. Because of his commitments and capabilities, Evans quickly drew the attention of Apostle John H. Lake, the institutional leader in charge of the missionary program in Canada. Evans was the type of man he needed to work in the expanding Canadian missionfield of the 1880s and he put him to work. In 1886 Lake ordained Evans a seventy and sent him into the field as a general church appointee minister. He was not yet twenty-five years old. 

Evans did not disappoint. No one, not even the greatly respected J. J. Cornish, was more effective that R. C. Evans in the preaching arena. For instance, Evans developed to its highest form in the Reorganized Church the art of missionary revivals.[8] He gave considerable attention to the special techniques of obtaining an audience for his services. He used sophisticated, at least for his time and church organization, newspaper advertising, handbills, door-to-door invitations, and even sandwich boards worn by willing supporters to promote his preaching series. For his time and circumstances, Evans was as effective at drumming up an audience as any revivalist on the circuit.[9] Were he a late-twentieth-century minister, Evans would have employed radio and television to reach his audiences. 

While the advertising campaign might have brought people to the first meeting, Evans kept them coming back with his riveting homiletics. Night after night his powerful preaching persuaded his audience. Evans typically wore a tuxedo at his presentations, after opening hymns and prayer he would walk briskly onto stage, so briskly some have remembered his coattails flapping behind him. He always spoke without notes, making it possible for him to dispense with a podium of any type. He marched around the stage, speaking all the while, using flailing arm motions and other body language to make his points. He always asked his audience to write on slips of paper any questions they had and place them in baskets used in the offertory. At various points in his sermons he would walk over to the baskets and draw questions which he would then answer off the cuff. He had a masterful command of the scriptures and a tremendously charismatic personality which shone in these settings. By the end of his series Evans had convinced many listeners of the Reorganization's claims, and he always ended his preaching with an offer to baptize anyone who desired in what could only be compared to an evangelical Protestant altar call. Many converts to the Reorganization came from these missionary services in Canada.[10]

In a small church like the Reorganization, it was natural that such a gifted preacher would come to the attention of ecclesiastical officials. John Lake had recognized his talents very early and ensured that Evans received the proper encouragement and advancement in the Canadian missionfield. The Saints in the region also showered him with attention and praise. Joseph Smith III, RLDS president, began to follow Evans's activities at least by the mid-1880s and in 1897 called him to the Quorum of Twelve Apostles, when he was only thirty-six years old. Evans's ordination to the Twelve extended his ministry beyond Canada for the first time. Again he impressed those with whom he came in contact.[11] Joseph Smith III initiated a special friendship with Evans during this period, in part because Evans introduced Smith to Ada Rachel Clark whom he married in 1898 after having been a widower for a little over a year. Evans performed the wedding ceremony for the couple in January 1898.[12] Gradually, Smith came to think of Evans as almost another son. 

By all standards Evans acquitted himself well in the public ministry required of an apostle. His devotion to the church was probably at least as great as other stalwart members, and his abilities as a preacher were unparalleled in the Reorganization. When it came time to reorganize the First Presidency in 1902, Evans was a logical choice to serve Smith, now a man of seventy years, as one of two counselors. To accomplish this purpose Smith gave a revelation to the church during the April 1902 general conference that called Evans as one of his counselors, and he ordained him on 20 April 1902. Smith also called into the presidency the heir apparent to the prophetic office, Frederick Madison Smith, his oldest son.[13]

As a member of the First Presidency, Evans's widened stage and administrative responsibilities allowed even more church members to meet him. Evans impressed all with his public speaking gifts, and he apparently enjoyed the resulting praise. It appears, however, that he never fully controlled his ego. As the years passed and Evans's fame and power grew, he came increasingly to see himself as superior to those around him. Evans's ego was a two-edged sword. His need for aggrandizement pushed him to excel so that his ego would be fed by praise from others. The praise for his successes also created the need for more praise. It was a cycle. In balance it was a healthy dynamic, out of balance it degenerated into egomania. Increasingly, as the years passed, the ego in Evans turned into a monster that fed on public approval and grew increasingly dysfunctional.[14]

Very early Evans began to demand public approval and boasted of his successes to those around him. One such demonstration of this came in 1888 when Evans wrote to presiding bishop George A. Blakeslee bragging that he did not need to draw travel and living expenses from the church treasury as did other full-time appointee ministers. He was held in such high esteem by the Saints, he said, that they gladly contributed to his welfare on their own. "You will observe," he pointed out to the bishop, "I have not had to draw one cent from your agent, for my own expenses since April [1887] conference."[15]

Little signs of conceit gave way to larger displays of egotism, and church officials worried that Evans might become so vain that his success as a minister might be impaired. Joseph Smith III expressed his concern when writing to Evans's wife in May 1896, asking her to help R. C. maintain a proper perspective. She told Evans about the prophet's concern. In irritation he wrote a sharp reply to Smith explaining that he fully understood his limitations and that there should be no fear of his acquiring what Smith had called a "bighead." Smith wrote back a long, fatherly letter explaining his concern. He said, "My intent was only to put you on your guard against the insidious approach of self-esteem degenerated into pride." He added: 

Pride is the most potent factor toward a useful man's overthrow, ever used by the adversary; hence my anxiety to see you free from even the appearance of personal vanity—even in well doing. Hence my charge to Sr. Lizzie, that if she saw you endangered by the flattery of the unwise, kind-hearted saints, she might by wifely regard and counsel help you. 

The prophet went on to suggest that all men, including himself, suffered from egotism at times, but that all should work to overcome it. "I know that few men are so constituted so as to withstand the encomium of their followers lavishly bestowed/' Smith added. He then told Evans: "And, there is awakement of danger in your natural makeup; that is, you like to stand well with your friends and incidentally with others; especially men of note. You are not necessarily jealous because others shine, or please, but you like to please." Smith closed with this advice: "Do not permit the praise of your followers to make you vain is the injuncture, in better expression. And I know that so long as you keep in mind the sources where all strength and truth comes, you will not. For this I pray for you and myself."[16]

Because of Evans's talents as a speaker and administrator, as well as his popularity, Reorganized Church officials overlooked his egotistic excesses most of the time. There can be no doubt, however, that Evans was easy to dislike and that he irritated his fellow appointees repeatedly. Some of that was motivated by jealousy, for Evans was beloved by the Saints, was exceptionally gifted, and had the ear of Joseph Smith III, but much of it was brought on by Evans's own sense of self-importance and other problems that circulated around him. He was haughty and proud when the strictures of the church called for leaders to be humble and self-effacing. It was an especially difficult role for him and his failure to contain his sense of self-importance created many small irritations among the other members of the church's leading quorums.[17]

Gradually, these egotistical tendencies began to outgrow his ability to control them. He boasted in 1919 about how he had done so much for the Reorganization: 

I have been honored by the Latter Day Saint Church as no other minister of the church has been honored. No man living ... has ever preached more than three sermons at a General Conference. Many have not preached one, but for years they have selected me to preach from fifteen to twenty-one sermons, during the conference. Every night R. C. was on the platform. Every fence announced my subject. New bills were out every day telling what R.C. was going to say at night. Did they ever do that with any other man? Never. 

Evans's message was clear: he had been insufficiently appreciated for all of this excellent work.[18]

Evans's egotism led to actions that created additional difficulties between himself and other church officials. These took a variety of forms. He began to view himself as different from others, the normal rules did not apply to him, and with that decision, whether conscious or not, he created additional ill-will. Evans, for example, had constant scrapes with church leaders over contributions. There is a well-known story still told in Evans's hometown of Toronto of how he had extra deep pockets sewn into all of his trousers to hold money given to him by admiring followers. Whether that money was for his personal use or for the benefit of the church was a sore point on numerous occasions. Evans said that it had been contributed to him personally and not as part of an offertory in a service. There were also charges of impropriety with women. None of these complaints, however, could be substantiated to Joseph Smith Ill's satisfaction and no action was taken against Evans until after 1905.[19]

Besides these incidents contributing to animosity between Evans and other church leaders, one larger problem surfaced after 1900 that in time led to the orator's estrangement from the Reorganization. It arose over the nature and practice of succession in the church's presidency. When Evans entered the First Presidency in 1902, there is evidence to believe that he thought it possible that he might one day aspire to the prophetic office because of his many talents, his longstanding service in the church, and his close relationship with Joseph Smith III. The Reorganization had long held the belief that the prophet chose his successor through revelation, and that there were no formal restrictions on who that might be.[20] Smith told the Reorganized Church membership at the time of his ordination, for instance, that some had suggested that the presidency "came by right of lineage, yet I know that if I attempted to lead as a prophet by these considerations, and not by a call from Heaven, men would not be led to believe who do not believe now."[21] Therefore, while most members recognized that lineal succession could take place, they also understood that nothing in church law excluded others from obtaining the presidency. Evans reasoned that such a restriction would be humanity's attempt to limit God and, consequently, saw no reason to refuse the office should he be called into it upon the death of the elderly Joseph Smith III. Smith fueled this conception with statements such as that offered in an 1894 general conference Resolution, "the President [of the Church] is primarily appointed by revelation."[22]

Although convinced that his successor should be chosen by revelation, Joseph III was also convinced that God would call his son. Such a position had a longstanding tradition in the movement. An 1835 revelation to Joseph Smith, Jr., proclaimed lineal priesthood: "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 see, to whom the promises were made."[23] In 1841 he announced another revelation making a direct statement about the favored position of his own descendants: "In thee and in thy seed shall the kindred of the earth be blessed."[24]

These beliefs came together in an 1897 revelation which called the sons of key leaders into priesthood offices. It dictated: 

The sons of my servant the President of the church, the sons of my servant William W. Blair, whom I have taken to myself, the sons of my servant the Bishop of the church, and the sons of my servants of the leading quorums of the church are admonished, that upon their fathers is laid a great and onerous burden, and they are called to engage in a great work, which shall bring them honor and glory, or shame,... These sons of my servants are called, and if faithful shall in time be chosen to places whence their fathers shall fall, or fail, or be removed by honorable release before the Lord and the church.[25]

This enabled the immediate ordination of Frederick M. Smith and several other leaders' sons to the office of elder, much to the chagrin of some longstanding members of the movement. Joseph R. Lambert, an apostle at that time, offered some pertinent comments about Frederick's call. He questioned his ordination on the grounds that Frederick "had not been an active worker in the church."[26] Evans, who had ambitions of his own, wrote about this issue in 1918. He remarked that there had been no evidence of divinity in the younger Smith's priesthood call and "said ordination [was] contrary to the law. ... But, to say the least, this young man was ordained to the Melchisedec priesthood, the order said to be after the order of Son of God, without a call, being the prophet's son, he won out as against the protest of the Apostle."[27]

In 1902, at the same time that Evans entered the First Presidency, Frederick M. Smith did so too, and it was clear that Joseph III considered this a primary move toward his eventual succession. But the president sent mixed signals to Evans and the rest of the Reorganization. He told the general conference of 1902: 

I have been importuned to settle the question as to who should be my successor. We have advanced upon the hypothesis of lineal priesthood in this regard, and while I believe in it, I believe it is connected with fitness and propriety, and no son of mine will be entitled to follow me as my successor, unless at the time he is chosen he is found to be worthy in character,... for he should be called to serve in the church who has proved himself to be worthy of confidence and trust.[28]

Smith, therefore, left open the possibility that his son might not be found worthy and that another could be called. Evans always recognized this possibility. 

In spite of this, during the rest of Smith's life he increasingly relied on Frederick Smith for counsel, and as his father's health failed Frederick increasingly ran the church's bureaucracy. The younger Smith began pre siding at general conferences and quorum meetings, attending to routine administrative matters, and handling most of the church's publishing decisions. The first evidence of this came in 1903 when Joseph Smith III requested that Evans accompany him on a missionary trip to the British Isles. Evans misread this action as a sign of favoritism and a recognition that he would receive the nod as successor.[29] What he failed to understand was that Smith left his son at home to run the church, a sure sign of the prophet's faith in Frederick's abilities and an indication of how the succession issue would be settled. During this lengthy trip Frederick took over daily control of the reins of church government. At the 1906 general conference, furthermore, Smith left no doubt that his son would succeed him by using his revelatory authority. Smith directed: "in case of the removal of my servant now presiding over the church by death or transgression, my servant Frederick M. Smith, if he remain faithful and steadfast, should be chosen, in accordance with the revelations which have been hitherto given to the church concerning the priesthood."[30]

While Evans made no public comments about the younger Smith's designation at the time, he clearly resented it. Frederick had been little more than a schoolboy before 1903, pursuing graduate studies at the University of Missouri and leaving many of the presidency's duties in Evans's hands. Evans believed that the prophet's poor choice was attributable to family ties alone. He wrote later, "I had a thousand times more experience in church work, for I had been ordained and labored for years as a Priest, Seventy, and an Apostle."[31] Evans even considered resigning from the presidency and taking another position in the hierarchy. He planted the seed for this action in 1907 when he suggested to Frederick M. Smith that he had experienced a dream in which he should be released from the First Presidency and ordained as bishop of Canada.[32] When Evans talked to Joseph Smith III, however, he reported that the prophet "wept over me and begged me not to insist, to wait till the Lord would speak."[33] Nothing came of this proposal for another two years. 

Evans's ambition was trapped in a bureaucratic structure that denied the possibility of acquiring the top position to all except a select few, and all avenues of entry into that group were blocked regardless of how committed and talented anyone might be. For all the church's comments about revelatory calling, no one but a member of the Smith family and then only those in the direct line, have ever entered the prophetic office. Even as late as 1996, when W. Grant McMurray became the Reorganized Church president, no one but a member of the Smith family had ever ascended to that office. In an environment where a royal family controls power so thoroughly as this, such men as Evans could never be satisfied. It was and continues to be a very undemocratic method of operation that ensures that capable, committed, and ambitious people will be cast aside and ultimately frustrated. Whether the church would have been better for taking a different approach toward succession is debatable, but obviously the 1906 designation of Frederick Smith embittered Evans and set him on a course which led him in later years to withdraw from the church. 

Instead of outright resignation, the chagrined Evans returned to Canada and halted much of his ministerial work, confining his religious endeavors to preaching at local meetings in Toronto. He became a dissenter, if not outright, at least in a thousand small ways. While working locally, he spent part of his time writing letters and building his personal following, possibly with the intention of engineering a popular movement among the Saints for his succession to the presidency. A notable example was the publication of an image-enhancing autobiography heroically describing his religious exploits. The book, Evans hoped, would boost his following in the church, although he recognized that some would see it as a bald-faced attempt at self-aggrandizement. He defused this criticism in advance, explaining that he wrote the book only "because the people in and out of the church have requested ... a history of MY LIFE."[34]

In addition, Evans used his preaching services in Toronto to further his image among the public. In 1904 he inaugurated an impressive series of winter meetings in the 2,500-seat Majestic Theatre. He used his well organized advertising campaign to make the meetings his most successful ever and decided to make the series an annual event.[35] After Evans's estrangement from the church, however, he used the meetings more and more as a personal forum for his dissenting church views. Evans left the impression that he opposed many church policies and that he wanted to change several aspects of church functioning.[36]

Increasingly, after it became clear that Evans was not on the best of terms with church leaders, his old rivals and enemies emerged to take advantage of his fall from grace. They saw an opportunity to strip the egotistical Evans of his position and influence in the Reorganization hierarchy. These bureaucratic games of chance took a variety of forms and were relatively unimportant, except those efforts sponsored by the Quorum of Twelve Apostles. Some of Evans's rivals saw an opportunity to chastise the First Presidency for overstepping its jurisdictional authority about administrative control at the local level, while also punishing Evans for real and perceived abuses of power and position. 

The issue came to a boil in 1907 when the Twelve suggested that Evans, while serving as chief Reorganization officer in Canada, conducted his duties in a capricious and improper manner. They asserted that his administrative records were poor and questioned his use of church funds.[37] More important, however, and a throwback to the problems that had been present over the management of local jurisdictions, was Evans's continuing service as director of the missionary program in Canada. He had held this responsibility as a member of the Quorum of Twelve before 1902, but when he entered the First Presidency, he continued to serve in this capacity. Joseph Smith III had left him in charge of the region in spite of an agreement that had been reached in the early 1890s which allowed the Twelve only to preside over missionary activities in the church's regional jurisdictions. This had been done as a compromise to remove the Twelve from the administrative management of organized jurisdictions.[38]

The Quorum of Twelve met on 5 April 1907 to consider this issue and prepare a written statement condemning the continued assignment of R. C. Evans as minister in charge of Canada. They cited supporting evidence on organizational structure, especially a key phrase from an 1875 resolution—"It is the duty of the Twelve to take charge of all important missions"—and concluded that "all missions should be under the active oversight of the members of the Quorum of Twelve or members of the Quorums of Seventies by the Quorum of Twelve."[39] It was payback time, to both the First Presidency and Evans, and the Twelve moved swiftly to gain the membership's acceptance of their position. 

The effort to embarrass Evans backfired. Joseph Smith III, who might have been more sympathetic, believed that in criticizing Evans, the Twelve was also questioning his own authority. He moved quickly to defeat the apostles' efforts.[40] This controversy set the stage for the most extensive analysis of relationships among the presiding quorums ever conducted in the Reorganized Church. In addressing this issue, Smith completely removed Evans from consideration. The result was a document, "The Right of the Presidency to Preside," prepared by the members of the First Presidency and presented to a Joint Council of the Presidency and the Twelve on 18 April 1907. It was an involved document, explaining the First Presidency's position on governing revelations, resolutions, and other pronouncements on relations among the First Presidency, the Twelve, and other ruling quorums.[41] Following the reading of the document, the Joint Council discussed it briefly and then the First Presidency withdrew from the meeting. Discussions among apostles led to the approval of Evans as missionary in charge of Canada for another year and deferral of the status of "The Right of the Presidency to Preside" until the 1908 council meetings. 

In the ensuing year Smith marshaled supporters for a showdown with the Twelve. The apostles did the same. Smith did not question the motives of the apostles in this controversy, although he should have done so, for many of their efforts were not aimed at reaching a just decision but at punishing Evans. On 16 March 1908 the Twelve issued a detailed critique of "The Right of the Presidency to Preside" which nitpicked at many of its points. The apostles reported: 

We are desirous of reaching an amicable solution of any apparent differences existing between us, and if there be none we see no reason why there should be a continuation of official jealousy, or latent fear that the Quorum of the Presidency is seeking to subvert the rights and privileges of their coworkers in the quorums. We concur in the idea that there are legitimate bounds to the duties, rights, prerogatives, and privileges of the quorum of the presidency. We desire to act in our office and calling in harmony with the Quorum of Twelve, the Seventy, and all other quorums of the church, more especially with the Twelve and Seventy, for the reason that these hold in some respects concurrent jurisdiction, and a serious antagonism between them must inevitably work to the injury of the cause.[42]

Apostolic ascendancy could not be thwarted with these words, however, and the Twelve resolved that "henceforth all missions be placed under the presidency of one of more members of the Quorum of the Twelve, or the Seventy," rather than under anyone, especially Evans, in the First Presidency.[43]

The issue might have ended this way except that in 1909 the Twelve again complained about Evans and Smith made a bold move. By revelation Smith honorably released Evans from the First Presidency, appointing his nephew, Elbert A. Smith, in his place. Smith wrote: 

The voice of the Spirit to me is: Under conditions which have occurred it is no longer wise that my servant R. C. Evans be continued as counselor in the Presidency; therefore it is expedient that he be released from his responsibility and other be chosen to the office. He has been earnest and faithful in service and his reward is sure. 

Smith had followed up on the suggestion Evans had made two years earlier about ordaining him bishop of Canada. Evans made sure that this possibility was brought to Smith's attention again before the 1909 general conference. He told Frederick Smith that "I believe God has called me to do the Bishop work and that he had blessed me along that line."[44] Accordingly, Evans received new administrative duties on the day of his release from the First Presidency. Smith ordained him a bishop and assigned him to Canada. With one swift move, buttressed by the authority of revelation—perhaps cooked up to reassert authority, as has also been done both before and since—Smith resolved the matter by moving Evans outside the First Presidency and into a significant and just as unnerving position as Evans had been lobbying for during the previous two years.[45] The action essentially established a semi-autonomous church in Canada and placed Evans at its head. If he could not govern the entire Reorganization, perhaps he could lead the Canadian church. With the protection of the Union Jack, Evans could now establish for most purposes independence from the larger U.S.-based movement. 

From his headquarters in Toronto, Evans began to exercise greater control over the Canadian national organization. For the rest of his life Joseph Smith III tried to breech the chasm separating Evans from the rest of the church's leadership, but without success.[46] Smith wrote to him in July 1909 that he thought Evans had what amounted to a persecution complex: "It almost seems to me while thinking about it, that this 'enemies' idea has grown upon you, until it is an obsession; and that it poisons nearly everything you say or write in reference to that which some of them [apostles] have had to do."[47] He refused to carry out the duties of the bishopric as dictated from church headquarters in Independence, Missouri, and many people complained of his aloofness from the "advice and support" of other officials. Evans's conduct in Canada after 1909 was akin to a medieval vassal rebelling against his lord.[48]

Increasingly after being set up in a semi-autonomous position in Canada, Evans had little contact with the church's hierarchy except for Joseph Smith III, who also had his share of troubles with the wayward bishop. In February 1910 Smith wrote to Evans: "I really feel sorry for you Brother Richard, that you have grown too peculiarly sensitive, that if you meet a remark in a letter or hear of one from somebody that you do not clearly understand, you are apt to put an unfortunate meaning to it."[49] Smith added in December, "Pardon my blindness, I cannot see how you can preach so fervently about the efficacy of kind words and kind deeds as I have heard you do, and the peace destroying character of saying unkind things and using harsh words" and still act so mean toward others.[50] A year later Smith wrote in exasperation, "Under the circumstances surrounding our correspondence for the last year and one-half, or two years, I feel considerable diffidence in writing you, as I hardly know at what point I may give offense. It is a painful condition for me. I wish it were otherwise."[51] After this Smith apparently gave up trying to win Evans back into the church's fold until he was about to die. For his part, Evans continued to ignore church headquarters and to do what he wanted in Canada. He complained about continued persecution of him by other church officials. At the same time his egotism and obnoxiousness made him an easy person to dislike. All of these concerns fed on each other and created an especially difficult environment in which church officials had to operate.[52]

A significant incident relating to this touchy situation took place in December 1914 as Joseph Smith III lay on his deathbed in Independence, Missouri, and asked Evans to visit him before he died. Evans came immediately and spent an afternoon with Joseph. It was a closed session and no one knows what they said. Perhaps Smith took one last opportunity to counsel Evans about his ego, which appeared in odd ways and on unfortunate occasions, and to defuse Evans's obvious irritation about the direction of the church.[53] Clearly, in spite of their disagreements, Evans still respected the old Reorganization prophet. Smith apparently also still felt great affection for Evans—perhaps the special affection a father feels for an erratic son—but there is every reason to surmise that Smith wanted to help Evans understand and agree with church policy. 

When Joseph Smith III died on 10 December 1914, the last vestiges of loyalty Evans felt toward the church hierarchy died with him. Smith had kept the hostility between his son and Evans from coming to the surface. Now that safety valve was gone, and a feud between the two soon began to take up much of their time. Evans was jealous of Frederick's power and authority as the successor; he thought Smith received the position solely because of his lineage. Smith thought Evans a pompous egotist who did not understand the burdens faced in church leadership and who bucked legally-constituted authority. Letters between the two demonstrate the hostility each felt. For instance, Smith wrote to Evans in January 1915 complaining about rumors Evans had spread about the new prophet's lack of qualifications. He challenged Evans's assessment that he possessed no credentials more impressive than being "only a Smith."[54]

Much of the controversy was personal, extending back over years of disagreement, and not motivated by anything more significant than ambition and dislike. While Evans was certainly motivated by personal concerns, he also seems to have been directed by conscience and concern for the higher ideals of the movement. He complained, for instance, about the undemocratic method of succession that brought Frederick to the presidency in spite of other leaders' qualifications. This was partly self serving, but Evans had a valid complaint. After Frederick became president in his own right, Evans began publicly challenging what he considered the growing authoritarianism of the Reorganized Church's leadership. Frederick's autocracy, Evans thought, was becoming increasingly repressive and required opposition. Evans also complained repeatedly of Smith's "espionage" on his activities. Smith responded to such charges by writing to Evans in 1917: "I resent the imputation that our office is the lodging place of the fruits of any spy or spies."[55] "Since his advent to that high station," Evans recalled, Frederick M. Smith "has been the chief cause of changing much of the church rules. Rule after rule has been changed to give him almost absolute power over everything in the church, Sunday School Religion, Ladies' Auxiliary, and he had the first and last word in the appointment of every office in the church."[56]

Evans even argued that since becoming president Smith had methodically and subversively maneuvered the affairs of the church with the intention of assuming dictatorial power. He presented what could only be called a declaration of war against Smith early in 1918: 

I may be super sensitive, I may be hot headed. If so I am sorry, but when I think of the way I have submitted to injustice in the years ago, and crushed my feelings and kept my mouth closed, lest I would hurt the work I love, and have given forty years to buildup, I think I have both hurt myself and the church in so mildly submitting to the wrongs imposed, and in so doing both the church and myself have suffered. 

He promised to do all in his power to ensure that perceived wrongs would not go unchallenged.[57]

Evans became so convinced of this latent authoritarianism that he formally listed forty incidents where Frederick Smith had exercised control outside his proper jurisdiction. Most of these dealt with the appointment or removal of general church officers. One instance cited by Evans was the passage of a General Conference Resolution in 1917 granting the president of the church power to pronounce administrative silences over any priesthood member without the right of review by a church court. Evans opposed the measure with the argument that it gave Smith the absolute power to stop the priesthood functioning of anyone without benefit of trial. It was, he claimed, a violation of liberty every bit as great as the suspension of habeas corpus.[58]

Evans's complaints were not without foundation. There was a greater degree of control from above in the Reorganized Church during Freder ick Smith's presidency than earlier. Joseph Smith III had sensed a latent authoritarianism in his son and on his death bed had warned Frederick about it. On 29 November 1914 he called Frederick into his chamber to offer him advice about church administration. Taking his son's hand, Joseph asked him to exercise patience in his relationship with the church members. "Be steadfast and if the people are heady, if the church is heady, the eldership are heady and take the reins in their hands as they have done a little especially on the rules and regulations, rules of representation," he told Frederick, "don't worry, let it pass, let the church take the consequences and they will after a while grow out of it. ... It is better that way than to undertake to force them or coerce. That would be bad trouble."[59] It seems probable that Joseph III recognized the potential for trouble in his son's personality. 

In hindsight Evans's arguments, while they may have been somewhat self-serving, foreshadowed the turbulence in the Reorganized Church during the "Supreme Directional Control" controversy of the 1920s. This was a serious rebellion by some members of the church's leading quorums against overburdening control from Frederick Smith which resulted in the withdrawal from the movement of approximately one-third of active members.[60] Evans was also right that certain people in Toronto watched his activities and reported them to Smith.[61] Against this backdrop, Evans was not so much an egotistical crank as a forward-looking prophet of disaster. 

The difficulties between Evans and the Reorganization hierarchy reached a climax not long after the April 1918 conference when Smith announced that he and some colleagues were going to Toronto to investigate allegations of misconduct against Evans. Just after Smith and his retinue arrived in Toronto, Evans announced that he would not allow anyone to poke into his business. He asked Smith for a letter granting completely autonomous status to a Canadian church under Evans's leadership.[62] Smith refused to discuss the issue with Evans, but after a series of smaller altercations Smith allowed Evans on 2 June 1918 to give his side of the story: "He spoke for more than an hour, making a bitter attack on the church and particularly on some of the leading officials, and dis played such a bitterness and antagonism, that only one course was left for the [visiting] committee, and that was to place him under official silence."[63] Thus Evans fell victim to the 1917 resolution he had opposed. 

The next day Evans presented a letter of resignation to the church, commenting that it was necessary "because I can no longer endorse many of your rulings and the many changes you have caused to be made in the faith and practice of the church."[64] A few days later Smith formally accepted this withdrawal during a business meeting at the Toronto church. During these proceedings several of Evans's supporters, and he had many in Toronto, tried to introduce resolutions to readmit him, who was present, or to allow the branch to secede from the Reorganization. When Smith declared these resolutions out of order, Evans walked out of the meeting, followed by about 200 local Latter Day Saints. They met at a nearby house where Evans declared the necessity of a new church that would correct the apostasy of the Reorganization. Reports of numbers and commitment vary, but Evans was popular and drew a large following into his newly formed Church of the Christian Brotherhood from among the Ontario Saints.[65]

While Evans ventured into the new church claiming to be a dissenter seeking to purify the church, he quickly rejected some of the cherished principles of the Reorganization and moved more toward the mainstream of American Christianity. He attacked not just the abuses that he had complained about in the presidency of Frederick M. Smith but also the very foundations of the Latter Day Saint movement. He published two major works that could only be called exposes—Forty Years in the Mormon Church and Why I Left the Latter Day Saint Church—which detailed his reasons for withdrawal. Evans wrote in these of the great hoax of Mormonism, of how he had been duped into it and only later, after much study and prayer, did he perceive its essential "evils." He commented that only after coming into contact with the writings of Edward M. Tullidge, a rebel Mormon historian of the late nineteenth century, did he begin to question the church. At the same time, Evans was not fully truthful in offering Tullidge's work as the source of his questioning. He had studied the church's history and doctrine for years, and had debated with other ministers over its viability. It seems impossible that he could have been unaware until the 1910s of Tullidge's work, especially since one of the historian's books had been published by the Reorganized Church in 1880.[66]

More likely, Evans was following the well-tested tradition of Mormonism by former members writing exposes. From John C. Bennett to Sonia Johnson, many ex-Mormons have found it therapeutic and lucrative to write horror stories about their former religion.[67] Evans's two books possess the necessary hyperbole and tenor to fit well into this genre. The reasons why he took this route can only be surmised. He probably thought he could gain greater acceptance for himself and his church in the non-Mormon religious community. He could possibly court sympathy from those same religious groups because of the "ordeal" he had suffered. Outsiders might perceive him as an upstanding person who, as soon as he realized all the bad things many thought about Mormonism were true, left the movement for more orthodox religious pursuits. Most important, the real reasons Evans left the Reorganization were probably not dramatic enough to elicit much public support and Evans chose not to emphasize them. In the end, and this was apparently something Evans did not want to admit, his administrative entanglements with Frederick Smith led not just to Evans's rejection of the church as a legitimate institution but of the entire framework of the Latter Day Saint faith.[68]

Evans was never the same after leaving the church. The Reorganization hierarchy sparred with him during the remaining three years of his life, even taking him to court over alleged misappropriation of church funds, but these disagreements served no useful purpose other than to build solidarity within the institution against Evans and to exact revenge. The church was judged to be sound, the dissenter was defective. This process served as a defense mechanism for members and especially for the hierarchy.[69] Evans continued to hold his dynamic preaching series and to build a following in Toronto. Many of his followers were not ready to reject Mormon ideals, especially when Evans announced that he had spurned the Book of Mormon, and soon drifted off. He was also concerned about the individual rights of members, it should be mentioned, and his organization made it difficult for priesthood licenses to be taken away and for leaders to engage in arbitrary actions like those Evans believed he had suffered. When Evans died suddenly of pneumonia on 18 January 1921, it was a shock to those who knew him in Toronto. Most of the Reorganized Church, however, looked upon the death as a divine retribution for the recent misspent years.[70]

R. C. Evans was a complex person who cannot easily be placed into any particular category. In one sense, he was an ecclesiastical leader who desired some of the right things for mixed reasons. In another, he was an ambitious egotist who alienated those who had any real association with him. In yet another, he was a talented preacher and committed church leader who was squeezed out of positions which he could and perhaps should have filled. This talented, egotistical, ebullient, elegant, and erratic man enriched, infuriated, and challenged the Reorganized Church by his presence. It felt his loss keenly. Evans did not live to see some of his complaints about Smith's leadership expressed by others during the 1920s, but his spiritual presence was there nonetheless. Evans was a person whose ambitions and needs extended beyond what the faith, doc trine, and community would tolerate, but one who served as a precursor of impending conflict. His dissent was motivated by a complex process within specific sociocultural and historical contexts. Evans's dissent can not be understood apart from the personalities and interrelationships of the time, yet those same personalities and interrelationships cannot be understood apart from Evans's legitimate dissent over church policy and doctrine. 

Ironically, Evans lived a century too soon to achieve the full measure of his ambition in the church. Had he been a member of the First Presidency in the early 1990s, there is little doubt that his capabilities would have realized his succession to the presidency. As it is, W. Grant McMur ray—another talented, ambitious, ebullient, elegant, and erratic man— became the first non-member of the Smith family to lead the Reorganized Church in April 1996. Would Evans have been a good choice as president in 1914? No one knows. Will McMurray be a good choice at the end of the century and millennium? We will soon find out.

---

[1] Basic information on the life of R. C. Evans can be found in Roger D. Launius, "R. C. Evans: Boy Orator of the Reorganization," John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 3 (1983): 40-50; Roy A. Cheville, They Made a Difference (Independence, MO: Herald Publishing House, 1970), 258-67; F. Henry Edwards, The History of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Independence, MO: Herald Publishing House, 1973), 5:605-607; W. Grant McMurray, '"His Reward is Sure': The Search for R. C. Evans," Restoration Trail Forum 11 (May 1985): 5-6. 

[2] The current succession of W. Grant McMurray to the Reorganized Church's presidency, the first non-Smith to hold the office, points up the importance of this earlier controversy.

[3] These reasons have been advanced by numerous students of sociology. Sociocultural differences have been emphasized in the writings of Gus Tuberville, "Religious Schism in the Methodist Church: A Sociological Analysis of the Pine Grove Case," Rural Sociology 14 (1949): 29-39; Christopher Dawson, "What About Heretics: An Analysis of the Causes of Schism," Commonweal 36 (1942): 513-17; Anthony Oberschall, Social Conflicts and Social Movements (En glewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1973); and H. Richard Neibuhr, The Social Sources of Denominationalism (New York: Meridian Books, 1929). James S. Coleman, "Social Cleavage and Religious Conflict," Journal of Social Issues 12 (1956): 44-56; William Gamson, Power and Dis content (Homewood, IL: Dorsey Press, 1968); and Rodney Stark and William S. Bainbridge, A Theory of Religion (New York: Peter Lang, 1987) stress a lack of participation, power, or influ ence as determinative of dissent. The primacy of intellectual or ideological reasons for dissent have been accentuated by Edwin Scott Gaustad, Dissent in American Religion (Chicago: Uni versity of Chicago Press, 1973); John Wilson, "The Sociology of Schism," A Sociological Year book of Religion in Britain (London, Eng.: SCM Press, 1971), 4:1-21; and Mary Lou Steed, "Church Schism and Secession: A Necessary Sequence?" Review of Religious Research 27 (1986): 344-55. For a discussion of dissent in the context of Mormonism, see Roger D. Launius and Linda Thatcher, eds., Differing Visions: Dissenters in Mormon History (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994). 

[4] On this subject, see S.N. Eisenstadt, ed., Max Weber on Charisma and Institution Building: Selected Papers (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968), and Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements (New York: Harper and Row, 1980).

[5] R. C. Evans, Autobiography ofElder R.C. Evans, One of the First Presidency of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (London, Ont.: n.p., 1907), 6-9; John J. Cornish, Into the Latter-day Light: An Autobiography (Independence, MO: Herald Publishing House, 1929), 59; Alvin Knisley, Biographical Dictionary of the Latter Day Saints Ministry from the Rise of the Church to 1948 (Independence, MO: Herald Publishing House, 1948), n.p. 

[6] Evans, Autobiography, 35-41. 

[7] Cheville, They Made a Difference, 259-65.

[8] Examples of his sermons can be found in R. C. Evans, "Baptism is Immersion," Saints' Herald 36 (19 Oct. 1889): 684-86, 36 (26 Oct. 1889): 704-706, 36 (2 Nov. 1889): 719-22; "Lecture by Elder R. C. Evans," Saints' Herald 39 (9 July 1892): 447-49; R. C. Evans, "Ideas of Hell. As Taught by Both Catholic and Protestant Ministries. Also a Few Thoughts on Probation, Fore ordination, and Unconditional Election," Autumn Leaves 6 (July 1893): 297-301; R. C. Evans, "The Mother of Harlots and Her Daughter: A Picture as Painted by the Artistic Brush of the Historians now Reposing in My Library," Saints' Herald 49 (9 Apr. 1902): 334-37, 49 (16 Apr. 1902): 356-59; R. C. Evans, "What Shall I Do with Jesus?" Saints' Herald 49 (3 Dec. 1902): 1172- 77; R. C. Evans, "The Eleventh Hour Dispensation," Saints'Herald 51 (20 Jan. 1904): 53-59; R. C. Evans, "An Examination of 'Campbellism'," Saints' Herald 51 (25 May 1904): 478-84, 51 (1 June 1904): 484-508. 

[9] Edwards, History of the Reorganized Church, 5:606-607.

[10] Interview with Larry W. Windland, 15 Sept. 1991, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Some of Evans's published sermons have been collected and show something of his unique preaching style. See R. C. Evans, The Songs, Poems, Notes and Correspondence of Bishop R. C. Evans, and Some Addresses Presented to Him, from Many Parts of the World (London, Ont.: n.p., 1918). 

[11] Evans, Autobiography, 166-67; "The Canadian Press on President Smith's Visit," Saints' Herald 44 (27 Oct. 1897): 677-79; "The Editor Abroad," Saints' Herald 44 (10 Nov. 1897): 709-11; London (Ontario) News, 8 Oct. 1897. 

[12] For a fuller discussion of this episode, see Roger D. Launius, Joseph Smith III: Pragmatic Prophet (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988), 333-35. 

[13] Book of Doctrine and Covenants (Independence, MO: Herald Publishing House, 1970 ed.), Sec. 126. Biographical information on Frederick M. Smith can be obtained in two fine studies: Larry E. Hunt, F. M. Smith: Saint as Reformer (Independence, MO: Herald Publishing House, 1982), 2 vols.; and Paul M. Edwards, The Chief: An Administrative Biography of Frederick Madison Smith (Independence, MO: Herald Publishing House, 1988).

[14] For a discussion of such issues, see Peter Gay, Freud for Historians (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983). 

[15] Evans to George A. Blakeslee, 22 May 1888, R. C. Evans Biographical File, Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints Library-Archives, Independence, Missouri.

[16] Smith to Evans, 22 May 1896, Joseph Smith III Letterbook #6, 486-87, Reorganized Church Library-Archives. 

[17] Some of these specifics have been discussed in Launius, "R. C. Evans," 42-43.

[18] T. W. Williams, "A Darkened Mind," Saints' Herald 66 (6 Mar. 1919): 318.

[19] Interview with Larry W. Windland, 15 Sept. 1991; Cheville, They Made a Difference, 263-64; Williams, "Darkened Mind/' 318; R. C. Evans, Why I Left the Latter Day Saint Church: Reasons by Bishop R.C. Evans (Toronto, Ont.: n.p., 1918), 52. 

[20] Book of Doctrine and Covenants, 43:2; Russell F. Ralston, Fundamental Differences (Independence, MO: Herald Publishing House, 1963), 14-75; Aleah G. Koury, The Truth and the Evidence (Independence, MO: Herald Publishing House, 1965). 

[21] "The Mormon Conference," True Latter Day Saints' Herald 1 (Apr. 1860): 103. See also "Testimony of Joseph Smith," in Complainant's Abstract of Pleading and Evidence in the Circuit Court of the United States, Western District of Missouri, Western Division, at Kansas City, Missouri (Lamoni, IA: Herald Publishing House, 1893), 79-80.

[22] Rules and Resolutions (Independence, MO: Herald Publishing House, 1964 ed.), Res. 386.

[23] Book of Doctrine and Covenants, Sec. 104:18. 

[24] Ibid., 107:18c. 

[25] Ibid., 124:7. 

[26] "Conference Minutes: Decatur District," Saints' Herald 44 (23 June 1897): 401-402.

[27] R. C. Evans, Forty Years in the Mormon Church: Why I Left It (Shreveport, LA: Lambert Book House, 1976 ed.), 77. Admittedly, this book was written several years after Evans had publicly broken with the Reorganized Church, but it seems likely that he was always bitter over this action.

[28] Quoted in Edwards, History of the Reorganized Church, 5:558. 

[29] This is discussed in detail in Launius, "R. C. Evans," 43. 

[30] Book of Doctrine and Covenants, 128:8.

[31] Evans, Forty Years in the Mormon Church, 137. 

[32] Evans to Smith, 20 May 1907, Evans Papers. 

[33] Evans, Why I Left the Latter Day Saint Church, 42; Evans to Frederick M. Smith, 20 May 1907, 24 June 1915, 5 Jan. 1918, Evans Papers.

[34] Evans, Autobiography, 270. 

[35] Ibid., 224-25; "Bro. Evans in Toronto," Saints' Herald 53 (28 Feb. 1906): 195-96; Evans to E. L. Kelley, 28 Nov. 1910, Evans Papers. 

[36] Evans to E. L. Kelley, 9 Mar. 1911, Evans Papers; Cheville, They Made a Difference, 261-62. 

[37] Evans to E. L. Kelley, 21 Jan., 18 Nov. 1907,5 Jan., 6 Jan., 28 Apr., 6 June, 19 Oct. 1908, all in Evans Papers.

[38] See Maurice L. Draper, "Apostolic Ministry in the Reorganization," in Maurice L. Draper and Clare D. Vlahos, eds., Restoration Studies I (Independence, MO: Herald Publishing House, 1980), 219-31; Joseph Smith III, "Pleasant Chat," True Latter Day Saints' Herald 9 (1 May 1866): 129-30; F. Henry Edwards, A Commentary on the Doctrine and Covenants (Independence, MO: Herald Publishing House, 1967 ed.), 411-12; Quorum of Twelve Minutes, 1865-1928, 4 Apr. 1890, Reorganized Church Library-Archives; Joseph Smith III, William H. Kelley, and E. L. Kelley, "Epistle of the Council," Saints' Herald 44 (21 July 1897): 257, as quoted in Edwards, History of the Reorganized Church, 5:403-406. 

[39] First Presidency Minutes, 5 Apr. 1907, 180-81, Reorganized Church Library-Archives. 

[40] Ibid., 9 Apr. 1907,190-91. 

[41] Joseph Smith III, "A Letter of Instruction," Saints' Herald 59 (13 Mar. 1912): 241-48.

[42] This material is in the First Presidency Minutes, 16 Mar., 26 Mar. 1908.

[43] Quoted in Edwards, History of the Reorganized Church, 6:266-67.

[44] Evans to Smith, 22 Feb. 1909, Evans Papers.

[45] Book of Doctrine and Covenants, 129:1. 

[46] Smith to Evans, 26 Apr. 1909, Evans Papers. 

[47] Smith to Evans, 12 July 1909, Evans Papers. 

[48] "The Work in Toronto," Saints' Herald 57 (2 Feb. 1910): 125-26; Evans to Joseph Smith III, 16 July 1909; Evans to E. L. Kelley, 7 Oct. 1909,12 Jan. 1915, all in Evans Papers.

[49] Smith to Evans, 15 Feb. 1910, Evans Papers. 

[50] Smith to Evans, 7 Dec. 1910, Evans Papers.

[51] Smith to Evans, 17 May 1911, Evans Papers. 

[52] Evans to E. L. Kelley, 28 Nov. 1910, 9 Mar. 1911; Evans to Joseph Smith III, 6 Nov. 1912, 12 Jan. 1915; Evans to Frederick M. Smith, 10 Dec, 28 Dec. 1914; Evans to Elbert A. Smith, 15 Dec. 1914, all in Evans Papers. 

[53] R. C. Evans, "My Acquaintance with Pres. Joseph Smith, At Home and Abroad," Saints' Herald 57 (6 Apr. 1910): 356-59; Evans, Songs, Poems, Notes and Correspondence of Bishop R. C. Evans, 23,125; Joseph Smith III to Evans, 12 July 1909,15 Feb. 1910,17 May 1911; Evans to Joseph Smith III, 6 Nov. 1912; Evans to Elbert A. Smith, 15 Dec. 1914; Evans to Frederick M. Smith, 10 Dec. 1914, all in Evans Papers. 

[54] Smith to Evans, 24 Jan. 1915, Evans Papers.

[55] Smith to Evans, 12 Feb. 1917, Evans Papers. 

[56] Evans, Forty Years in the Mormon Church, 79. 

[57] Evans to Smith, 5 Jan. 1918, Evans Papers.

[58] "General Conference," Saints' Herald 64 (18 Apr. 1917): 365; Evans, Why I Left the Latter Day Saint Church, 40-42. 

[59] Joseph Smith Ill's Last Remarks to his Family, 29 Nov. 1914, Joseph Smith III Papers, Reorganized Church Library-Archives; "Statement of President Joseph Smith to his Son, Frederick M. Smith, Sunday, November 29,1914," Zion's Ensign 26 (11 Feb. 1914): 1. 

[60] The "Supreme Directional Control" crisis has been analyzed in Paul M. Edwards, "Theocratic-Democracy: Philosopher-King in the Reorganization," in F. Mark McKiernan, Alma R. Blair, and Paul M. Edwards, eds., The Restoration Movement: Essays in Mormon History (Lawrence, KS: Coronado Press, 1973), 341-57; Hunt, F. M. Smith, 254-65; Edwards, Chief, 153- 96. 

[61] See, for example, the large series of letters from James A. Wilson to Frederick M. Smith, beginning 15 June 1917 and ending 22 April 1918, Evans Papers.

[62] Evans, Why I Left the Latter Day Saint Church, 45-48; Evans to Smith, 22 Apr., 13 May, 17 May 1918; Evans to Benjamin R. McGuire, 22 Mar., 10 June, 13 June 1918, all in Evans Papers. 

[63] Frederick M. Smith, "R. C. Evans Leaves the Church," Saints' Herald 65 (19 June 1918): 589. 

[64] Evans, Why I Left the Latter Day Saint Church, 50-51; Evans to Frederick M. Smith, 3 June 1918; Smith to Evans, both in Evans Papers. 

[65] Smith, "R. C. Evans Leaves the Church," 605; Walter W. Smith, ed., Purported Angelic Visitation to R. C. Evans (Independence, MO: n.p., 1918).

[66] McMurray, "'His Reward is Sure/" 6; Edward W. Tullidge, The Life of Joseph the Prophet (Piano, IL: Herald Publishing House, 1880); Wayne Ham, "Truth Affirmed, Error Denied: The Great Debates of the Early Reorganization," John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 7 (1987): 3-11. 

[67] Many of these books were published in the nineteenth century. As examples, see John C. Bennett, The History of the Saints, or an Expose of Joe Smith and the Mormons (Boston: Leland and Whiting, 1844); and Fanny Stenhouse, Tell It All: The Story of a Life's Experience in Mormonism (Hartford, CT: D. Worthington and Co., 1874). 

[68] Stan L. Albrecht et al., "Religious Leave-Taking: Disengagement and Disaffection Among Mormons," in David G. Bromley, ed., Tailing from the Taith: Causes and Consequences of Religious Apostasy (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications, 1988), 62-80, argues that doctrine plays little part in individual decisions to leave Mormonism, but it is often the most discussed reason.

[69] Gordon D. Pollock, "In Search for Security: The Mormons and the Kingdom of God on Earth, 1830-1844," 292-93, Ph.D. diss., Queen's University, 1977. 

[70] Elbert A. Smith, "The Death of R. C. Evans/' Saints'Herald 68 (26 Jan. 1921): 76; "Vi sion Related by I. N. Wight, Talk with Richard C. Evans in the Spirit World," 23 Dec. 1921, Evans Biographical File.

[post_title] => Pretender to the Throne? R.C. Evans and the Problem of Presidential Succession in the Reorganization [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 30.2 (Summer 1997): 47–65
Born into a Canadian family living in St. Andrews, Ontario Province, on 20 October 1861 , Richard C. Evans rose to fame and power experienced by few other members of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => pretender-to-the-throne-r-c-evans-and-the-problem-of-presidential-succession-in-the-reorganization-dialogue_v30n02_93 [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-05-07 16:25:28 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-05-07 16:25:28 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=11294 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 11532 [post_author] => 2493 [post_date] => 2018-04-07 15:18:00 [post_date_gmt] => 2018-04-07 15:18:00 [post_content] =>

The 1960s in the United States was a decade probably best described as tumultuous, confrontational, bewildering, but also uniquely exalting. During the period a long-standing national culture appeared to crumble, and conflict on a myriad of levels became common. At virtually every level of human interaction—political, economic, social, cultural, military—proven formulae were cast aside in favor of other, although not necessarily better, approaches.[1] In many respects the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints of the 1960s mirrored the general tumult, if not the details, of the larger American society. For reasons similar to those prompting change in the United States, the Reorganization also wrestled, seemingly for the first time, with questions which fundamentally altered its structure and pattern of behavior. It was for the Reorganized Church a coming of age whose impact will be permanently embedded in the core of the movement. It represented a growth of maturity as well as a loss of innocence. As such it was both the best and worst of episodes through which the Reorganized Church has passed. This essay explores some of the themes and trends that are representative of the transformation of the Reorganization during this era. 

Perhaps the central theme of American religion in the twentieth century has been its encounter with modernity—the changes to the sets of priorities, assumptions, and values present in recent society largely in cultural response to emerging concepts in science, technology, economics, politics, philosophy, and the overall Weltanschauung. The response to modernity, according to Martin E. Marty, fundamentally changed the landscape of American religions. He wrote that religious institutions changed depending on how they "embraced, rejected, or cautiously accepted the modern world—by aggressively advocating modernity or uneasily accepting it, by self-consciously preserving older ways in the context of modernity or by transforming traditions through a stance of antimodernism, or, finally, by attempting to pass beyond or through the modern to a more basic religious stance unaffected by it."[2] While Marty was concerned specifically with reactions in the early twentieth century, the Reorganized Church began to wrestle seriously with the issue of modernity in the 1960s. This concern took several twists in the decade, but by the end of the period the Reorganized Church had embraced modernity and was beginning to make a home for itself as a denomination among and not apart from the nation's mainline Christian churches. 

Fundamentally, the Reorganized Church's changes of the 1960s were a response to and in many ways an embracing of developments of American society after World War II.[3] The experience of war, the acceptance of responsibilities on the world stage, the rapid development of technology in the form of communications and other benefits, the economic good times of most Americans, the breakdown of traditional ideas and the development of new paradigms, and a host of less tangible events all fundamentally affected the Reorganization.[4]

American Social Ferment

The unrest in the United States during the 1960s has been discussed in detail in many places. The Reorganized Church participated in this process probably as fully as most other religious institutions. Indicative of the recognition of social concerns, at the 1964 World Conference the body of Saints passed a resolution directed toward affecting the world around them: "Resolved, That this Conference urge the First Presidency with such assistance as they may require from the quorums, councils, and orders of the church, to prepare or cause to be prepared statements of principle to submit to future World Conferences for the guidance of church members in meeting current social, economic, and moral problems . . ."[5] Although concern for the wider issues at play in society was present before this time, this action focused more fully than ever before the church's attention on the issues of inequality inexactitude, and incoherence in American society. That it was, at least in part, a response to the turmoil around them seems apparent. Apostle Clifford A. Cole remarked that this "was a period when many persons were becoming disillusioned with the idea that science could solve humanity's problems. Many felt that the economic, political, and social structures of society were no longer adequate." In this environment it was incumbent upon the church to seek a new balance, and Cole and other leaders moved out on several fronts to do so.[6] The church expended resources and used its publications to consider these issues and how the Saints might make the world a better place. The decade was probably the most enlightened period in the church's recent history for concern about moral and social issues, and activism in all manner of concerns among the Saints, albeit with mixed results, became increasingly common. 

In March 1966 the First Presidency published a statement on "The Church and the Social Order," which responded to some of the issues of the era and offered a guide for the actions of Latter Day Saints. A moderate statement, it nonetheless suggested that "The church exists among men and for men. It can never shut the world out," and that the members must be about good works to raise the level of society. It also noted that "the social order is the kingdom of God: the realm in which the will of God is done on earth as it is done in heaven, where the will of God becomes the will and directing force of men." The presidency suggested that the Saints should work to eliminate such "spiritual disorders as greed, jealousy, and resentment." It commented on several specific areas then being considered in the social ferment of the era: the responsibilities of the church and members in the social order, guidelines for Christian social action, the importance of the family not just as an entity but as a place where critical needs of both a spiritual and physical nature can be met in total safety, sexual ethics, the responsibilities of citizens to support the government, the rule of law, the issue of war and peace, and the racial crisis.[7] At every point the presidency recommended greater efforts to educate rather than legislate on social issues, calling "for maturing of understanding through study and service under the guidance of the Holy Spirit."[8]

The church's periodical, the Saints' Herald, continued to discuss many of these important social issues throughout the remainder of the decade.[9] W. Wallace Smith, president of the Reorganization, really began this effort in his World Conference sermon of 1966, "Our Hope and Our Salvation." Typically a "State of the Church" address, in this presentation he devoted considerable attention to the social questions being raised and urged the church to meet the needs of the generation. "Platitudes and pleasantries are not sufficient to meet the needs of our generation," he said, and commented that the Saints must offer leadership in bringing good to the world.[10] Thereafter a series of articles on "Social, Moral, and Religious Issues" began appearing in the Saints' Herald to consider specific problems in society: inequality, welfare, civil rights, science, and a multitude of other topics drawing the church into the larger debate taking place in America.[11] In addition there were numerous special issues treating various aspects of the social issues of the world.[12] These and other efforts of a less tangible nature helped reorient the church by the end of the decade from what it had been called by a Time reporter, "a fossilized, forgotten sect," into a more dynamic institution that was concerned with much more than just itself.[13] While the strides made were always moderate, without this gradual reorientation there is some question that the organization would have been able to survive the tumult pressuring it from without and within. 

Economic Development

During the years following World War II the Reorganized Church's membership, at least in North America where more than 90 percent of members still reside, participated in a rapid rise in economic status. This advance in economic position was especially manifest in the 1960s. In large measure, however, this resulted from the general growth of the American economy and the changes this wrought in society. Because of this, the years since World War II marked a period of gradual transition of the institutional church from a largely rural and working-class constituency to a more white collar, urban, middle-class membership. Prior to this time the Reorganized Saints particularly appealed to the poor and working classes of industrial Western civilization as "have nots" were attracted to its zionic message and its socially egalitarian system. R Henry Edwards summarized this historic position in the Reorganization: 

Because the church was poor, proselyting was chiefly among the poor. Local missionary enterprises were almost never adequately financed, and in many urban situations the best housing that could be secured was a home, an up- per room, or a storefront. Hundreds of honest, thrifty, and industrious but poor people joined the church but, with few exceptions, neither their re- sources, their education, nor their experience elsewhere qualified them to manage the business of the church as a means to freedom and power.[14]

As a result those serving the church on a full-time basis had been virtually destitute, with the church providing to appointee families exceptionally small allowances to supplement what the family could produce for itself. This approach had tended to reinforce itself as poor appointee ministers from the general church's devout but economically poor rank-and nle worked largely among people they knew best, other economically disadvantaged individuals. Poor begat poor in a seemingly endless circle. This was an uncomfortable if generally tolerable situation as long as the Saints, the appointee missionaries, and the church's missionary prospects, and expectations remained pretty much equal.[15]

This situation had obviously changed by the 1960s. Even as the church tried to maintain the image of a working-class institution it was an increasingly inaccurate assessment as time passed. For instance, a study in the late 1960s revealed that 56.65 percent of all church families sampled had a gross income of $8,000 or more—43.63 percent had in comes over $10,000—when the comparable median family income for the United States in 1970 was only $8,734.[16] This placed the United States' membership firmly in the middle class. Moreover, in the early part of the twentieth century most Reorganized Church branches met in rented quarters or in members' homes. By the 1960s most branches in the United States had their own facilities, many worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. In addition, the church's budgets in the period, even when adjusted for inflation, show remarkable growth, as shown in Table 1. Table 2 contains a list of the rise in tithes and offerings for the 1960s. From these observations, it is apparent that by the 1960s the church in North America was no longer constituted largely of lower- and working-class families. 

Table 1. Reorganized Church Expenditures 

Category	1960 Amount	1960 %	1970 Amount	1970 %
Ministerial	1,480,130	61.86	2,945,003	61.11
General Admin.	670,115	28.01	1,189,373	24.68
Education	193,600	8.10	581,446	12.07
Historical Properties	22,900	.95	54,000	1.12
Miscellaneous	21,850	.91	49,200	1.02
Total	2,392,655	100.00	4,819,023	100.00

(Source: Statistics Department and Data Records reports in World Conference Reports and Minutes published for conferences, RLDS Library-Archives.) 

Table 2. Reorganized Church Tithes and Offerings 

Year	Contributions	Percent Increas Over Previous Year
1960	$2,709,750.02	—
1961	$2,871,804.85	6.0
1962	$3,225,958,50	12.4
1963	$3,387,413.45	5.0
1964	$3,566,290.11	5.3
1965	$3,829,069.46	7.4
1966	$3,940,925.17	2.9
1967	$4,407,145.89	11.8
1968	$4,565,122.70	3.5
1969	$3,928,214.03	-15.3

(Source: First Presidency to Appointee and others, 26 Mar. 1969, First Presidency Records, RG9,f77, RLDS Library-Archives; World Church Conference Reports, 1970.) 

As the church membership transitioned from the lower to the middle class during the latter half of the twentieth century, it brought a similar transition into the ranks of the full-time ministry. Through the 1950s even in the rare instances when they could afford to do otherwise the church's appointees were expected to live miserly. To emphasize its thrifty use of contributors' tithing the church published by name all appointee expenses and family allowances in the Conference Daily Bulletin until 1958. Not even the general officers, including the First Presidency, were immune from such publicity.[17]

During the 1960s, however, the church began making significant efforts toward providing more substantial support for its leadership and their families. As contributions permitted, and they permitted better than ever before in the decade, the institutional church gradually improved its appointee family allowances and instituted attractive fringe benefits such as excellent medical care, college tuition reimbursement for dependents, and a generous retirement plan. The effect of these actions was to place the standard of living of appointee families squarely into the American middle class. To demonstrate the rise in the appointee standard of living, between 1956 and 1964 full-time church personnel salaries and other stipends rose 43 percent per appointee, as shown in Table 3. In addition, in 1968 church appointees received an average annual allowance per family of $7,746.72, near the national average, with another $3,448.28 paid by the church for travel, moving, retirement, and other expenses. This meant that the church paid an average of $11,195 per appointee.[18] Moreover, if the wife was employed, an increasing likelihood of modern life, her earnings began to be considered during the decade on top of the husband's church allowances, giving many appointee families a family income well into upper-middle-class standards. 

Table 3. Reorganized Church Cost Per Month for Appointee Allowances, 1956-64 

1956	$341.91
1957	$383.99
1958	$375.99
1959	$367.17
1960	$402.08
1961	$413.08
1962	$442.84
1963	$456.72
1964	$488.80

(Source: "Appointee Compensation and Policies," n.d. [1965], Walter N. Johnson Papers, P67, f6, RLDS Library-Archives.) 

A change in appointment policy was accelerated by and in turn probably itself accelerated this trend. For the first time employment with the church was economically rewarding enough to attract the best educated and most capable men the church had in its ranks. Always before the necessity of earning a living for a family prohibited some exceptionally talented people from serving full time. Increasingly, better educated and more capable people began to fill the appointee ranks. They brought a wider perspective to their work than had earlier generations. Many also came into appointment with considerable financial resources to augment their church incomes. The result placed the church's appointee leaders in a position of substantial financial health, with a concomitant stake in maintaining stability and respectability in the surrounding society. In addition, it set in motion a rise in careerism in the institutional church, and since that time the development of full-time bureaucrats has expanded with all the attendant advantages and drawbacks of such a system. 

This new-found wealth perhaps did not cause but certainly abetted a greater openness to Protestantism and accommodation to modern society than was ever present in the church before. As W. B. Spillman wrote, 

The more wealth one has, the less likely one is to promote policies that may threaten it; the more integrated one is within society, the less motivation one has to radically alter it. As the church and its leaders moved securely into the North American middle class, it naturally began to see tension and apartness from society as potentially damaging to its newly acquired status and bureaucratic stability. The church found itself with an increasing interest in maintaining stability and peace with the surrounding culture.

In short, the Reorganized Church moved from a sect to a denomination as it reconsidered its place in the world. Whereas "it once saw its mission and destiny apart from, and in many respects, inimical to society as a whole, the church in the latter twentieth century began to see the benefits of cooperation and increased accommodation to societal standards and demands." The church as a body began to be more open to the influences of the society around it, and in the process it moved into the mainstream secular world of the United States. That is not to say that this was an inevitability, only that it was the course the Reorganization chose for itself. It also does not say that other factors were not at work which prompted the church in that direction as well, a subject to which we now turn our attention.[19]

Theological Reformation

Concomitant with the economic development issue in the church, and closely related to it, was a radical theological reformation in the Reorganization. Beginning in the 1950s and truly felt in the 1960s, Reorganization liberals emerged to engage in the steady dismantling of what had been a traditional Reorganized Church theological consensus. That consensus had been built on the tensions between the desire to remain faithful to the stories, symbols, and events of early Mormonism, on the one hand, and the yearning for respectability among and hence openness to Protestantism, on the other.[20] These tensions had been held in creative balance prior to the 1960s when leading church members began to challenge all manner of beliefs about the movement's history and theology and steadily moved from a position which argued that the Reorganized Church was the only true church to one asserting that the Reorganization was only one true church among many.[21] This theological and historical reformation struck at the very core and essence of the Reorganized Church's origins and reasons for existence since the 1850s. 

The theological reformation was initiated long before it began to be apparent in the Reorganization, and in some respects it paralleled developments in many American Protestant churches with mainly a difference in timing. For instance, Frederick Madison Smith, president of the Reorganization between 1915 and 1946, set in motion policies that eventually helped diminish the church's historic sense of theological uniqueness by encouraging the use of the tools of modern behavioral science and management theory in church work. His emphasis on education, training, and professionalism undermined the fundamentals on which the church was based. Under his successor, Israel A. Smith, president between 1946 and 1958, the church increased reliance on secular education as a path to greater professionalism. Israel Smith accepted the Department of Religious Education's plans to broaden the preparation of its staff and Sunday school teachers. He also created the School of the Restoration to provide specialized leadership training for ministry, but this school offered much more than pastoral training and leadership seminars as its students were encouraged to study seriously church history and theology in light of outside scholarship.[22]

This set the stage for the same type of debate over authority, structure, and theology that had been played out in the mainline Protestant denominations in the early decades of the twentieth century.[23] The seeds of theological debate were harvested during the presidency of W. Wallace Smith, 1958-78, the time during which these questions began to emerge in a serious way in the Reorganization. But although Wallace Smith did not begin the theological reformation, clearly his policies allowed it to prevail. One of these actions was his choice of key leaders in the Reorganized Church's quorums. For example, at the October 1958 General Conference when Smith was ordained prophet, he named a well-read and thoughtful apostle, Maurice L. Draper, as his second counselor. At the same time Smith called men of similar characteristics, Clifford A. Cole and Charles D. Neff, to the Quorum of Twelve Apostles, and Roy A. Cheville, a University of Chicago-trained theologian, as Presiding Patriarch.[24] All were important agents of change. 

The educational impetus present in the church brought by these men, as well as by others who entered the appointee force near the same time who were generally better educated than the church's rank-and-file, clearly set the stage for radical reformation in Wallace Smith's presidency. Increasing numbers of key staff members had graduate, usually theological, degrees, and they encouraged others to broaden their vistas in similar fashion. For instance, several staff people at church headquarters in Independence began to take graduate courses at the Saint Paul School of Theology, a Methodist seminary in Kansas City, when it began operation in 1959.[25]

Formal theological training of church staff members had a liberalizing effect on the materials developed for Sunday school and on the articles published in the Saints' Herald.[26] These trends were apparent at least as early as the fall of 1960 when the Religious Education Department published an Old Testament course for senior high students. Written by Garland E. Tickemyer, the course embraced an evolutionary and mythological view of the Old Testament. Tickemyer, who had written a master's thesis on Joseph Smith's process theology at the University of Southern California and was then president of the High Priests' Quorum, approached the subject from the standpoint of higher criticism, and this publication excited controversy in the church. Some congregations re fused to use them, and certain members of the Quorum of Seventies vocally opposed Tickemyer's interpretation of the Bible.[27]

A change in editorship at the Saints' Herald, the church's official periodical, also opened a new channel for the expression of intellectual ferment. The outgoing editor had fully exercised his license and rejected articles if they were "not in harmony" with traditional Reorganization teachings. The new editor, Roger Yarrington, did not see his editorial role as that of a protector of the traditional faith and allowed a much wider divergence of ideas to be presented. Because of this there were several liberal articles in the Saints' Herald in the early 1960s. Probably the two most controversial were written by James E. Lancaster and Lloyd R. Young. Lancaster, in an historical article called "By the Gift and Power of God," concluded that the Book of Mormon was translated by Joseph Smith through a "seer stone," which Smith used by looking into it in the bottom of a hat while the plates were under cover on a nearby table.[28] This was contrary to what many Reorganized Latter Day Saints believed about Joseph translating the golden plates through a spectacle-like Urim and Thummim.[29] Lloyd R. Young's theo logical article, "Concerning the Virgin Birth," questioned the historical evidence for Mary's virginity at the time of Jesus' birth using the tools of modern scholarship.[30] Letters protesting these articles streamed into Herald House, the church's publisher. In similar fashion and with equally provocative reactions, several book-length publications from the church's press began to reflect more liberal ideas during the early 1960s as well.[31]

In the same period the church's only institution of higher learning and a traditional place of Restoration theological inquiry, Graceland College, hired new faculty members to teach religion, philosophy, and history. Each of these new faculty was young, had been trained in secular educational institutions, and was somewhat liberal in his beliefs. They began to reexamine Latter Day Saint theology and history critically with the tools of their disciplines, and their more liberal emphases quickly showed in their teaching. Church officials often heard criticism of these faculty for undermining the faith of students in the 1960s.[32]

All of this would have come to nothing had not the broadened approach to understanding the Reorganization's theology and history found an audience among the church hierarchy of the 1960s. This was especially manifest in three important developments in the latter part of the decade. The first was a series of three private seminars in 1967 with the eighteen members of the church's Joint Council of the First Presidency, Quorum of Twelve Apostles, and Presiding Bishopric conducted by theologian Paul Jones and religious historian Carl Bangs, both of whom were members of Kansas City's Saint Paul School of Theology. These individuals gave a new slant to familiar problems in the Reorganization by defining them in the context of Protestantism.[33] The seminars incorporated symbols and explanations from the larger Christian community rather than emphasizing traditional concerns of the Reorganized Church. One important part of these men's emphasis was the lessening of the standard "true church" concept of the Reorganization, stressing that any church was "true" only to the extent that it reflected the spirit and personality of Jesus Christ.[34] Some church members, not surprisingly, were appalled by these seminars which contradicted the Doctrine and Covenants (34:4) direction to go forth into the world and to "teach" and not "to be taught." As one delegate told the 1970 World Conference: "These other schools have nothing to teach us" since the Reorganization already possessed the "fullness of the gospel."[35]

Second, the development and presentation of a set of theological papers, called "Position Papers," in 1969 for use in developing new Sunday school curriculum sources also signaled a theological shift among the church's leadership. Most of these papers had been written by Department of Religious Education staff members, but some were the products of members of the First Presidency and the Quorum of Twelve Apos tles.[36] They annihilated many of the traditional theological conceptions of the Reorganization and presented an interpretation of the church as a mainline Protestant denomination. As one example, in a paper on the Book of Mormon the author viewed the book as a work of fiction written by Joseph Smith as an expression of religious speculation.[37]

Third, in 1970 the Reorganized Church published its most significant theological work of the reformation era, Exploring the Faith. Written by committee over a ten-year period, an interesting development in itself, Exploring the Faith placed the Reorganization squarely within the mainstream of American religion. It deemphasized the Reorganization's most unique aspects and stressed those more characteristic of "orthodox" Christian denominations. The foreword to the book pointed up the central concern of the authors: "Historical and traditional points of view needed to be expanded in view of contemporary religious experience and scholarship." It particularly played down the Reorganization's historic "one true church" claim. In so doing, it pointed out how the Restoration fit into a larger Christian mosaic. Without question, this book was a significant attempt to systematize the theological reformation taking place in the church.[38]

No doubt the exposure of young men of influence in the church's hierarchy to seminary education had a significant and perhaps unplanned effect. In undertaking advanced training a whole new world of religious inquiry was opened to these church officials, and, like the frog who jumped from a well into the sea, they realized after a lifetime of experience limited to the Reorganization that a broader vision was possible and probably necessary for the advance of the church. A schism among the membership developed at that point as educated elites began to move the church in a direction not understood by some of its appointees and by many of its members. For instance, a church survey of appointees conducted in the late 1960s confirmed that broad theological training created a serious rift between these people and others without the background. The study concluded that there was "a very clear difference between appointees in general and those persons in the church who are seminarians or who hold a seminary degree. Generally the B.D. and seminarians are more liberal in theological orientation and overall perspective. They tend to be more critic[al] of the institutional church, see a greater need for education, particularly of appointees, and are more ecumenically oriented."[39]

This dichotomy began to be seen quickly in the church's appointee force in the latter 1960s. Many field ministers, especially members of the Quorum of Seventy, began to rebel against what they perceived as a de-emphasis of Restoration distinctiveness, the very things that made the Reorganization what it was, and the resultant drift toward ecumenism. Al M. Pelletier, one of the most dynamic Seventies in the church during the decade, was an old school Reorganization member. Most of his education and training had been independent or under one of the church's other appointee ministers. He had no use for the shift from exclusivity within the institutional church that he began to see in the 1960s. In 1967 he complained in an open letter to the Joint Council about "several items in publications and church school materials which are unscriptural." He continued: 

As far as the liberals, it is most unfortunate that we are divided into schools of opposition today. The church I joined years ago was comprised of Latter Day Saints. I still try to be one. I believe and teach and preach what is in our Church History, The Inspired Version, The Book of Mormon, and the Doctrine and Covenants. Every time I teach these things I'm speaking out against any liberal who denies the authenticity of some of these things. I cannot help this but can only follow the admonition given in scripture, to teach the fullness of the gospel as taught within the scriptures which are to be a "law unto the church." These teachings accompanied by my personal testimony will continue to consume my time and energy. I believe in this church and tell it to the world. I do not preach any doubts. I am sorry that some both preach and write about their doubts.[40]

Significantly, Pelletier left the church in the early-1970s in part over the theological reformation taking place. In one explanation of this theological reformation, Saints Herald editor Roger Yarrington recently commented, "The church has changed, is changing, but not its central beliefs which, when addressed to a changing world, are still vital and are still being taught, believed, and lived.”[41]

The International Context

It would be inappropriate to suggest that the theological reformation of the 1960s was executed entirely by well-educated "young turks" who wanted to remake the Reorganization into a Protestant denomination, although I would suggest that such individuals were largely responsible for it. In part, however, it was fueled by the church's expanding missionary work in non-Christian cultures. Church leaders sent into those areas in the post-World War II years determined that traditional Reorganization missionary techniques were ineffective. The usual missionary approach, they argued, was to demonstrate how the Restoration brought about by Joseph Smith, Jr., was correct and true to God's dictates and then to convince investigators that the Reorganized Church was the "true" successor to Smith's prophetic legacy. It was a defensive approach built on the destruction of other religious claims, especially those of the Utah Latter-day Saints. Apostle Clifford A. Cole and other appointees asserted, however, that these techniques were next to meaningless in societies where people were not already converted to Christianity.[42] Cole explained that a refocusing of ideals was necessary to meet these new conditions. He told a meeting of High Priests in 1971 that 

we are shifting from an emphasis on distinctives—that is, on the ways we are different from other [Christian] churches—to a concern for teaching the whole gospel of Jesus Christ and winning persons to committing themselves to Him. Prior to the last two decades our missionary emphasis was high- lighted by ... [an approach toward explaining that we were not Mormons and on materials] on such subjects as apostasy, stories of Joseph Smith and the founding experiences of the Restoration movement, and life after death. Since that time ... [the emphasis has shifted] indicating a concern for minis- try to people and a desire to bring them not only to the church but to Jesus Christ.[43]

Because of its increased financial resources brought on by the economic well-being of its North American membership and because of the general movement of Americans beyond national boundaries in large numbers in the post-World War II period for the first time, during the 1960s the Reorganized Church opened mission work in twelve new non English speaking countries, more than doubling the number of those nations in which the church was operating (see Table 4). Previously, the church had not opened work in a non-English speaking nation since 1875, when it sent missionaries to Scandinavia. This effort took place following the creation in 1958 of a Missions Abroad Committee to foster international activities. This committee used contacts with American Reorganization members serving overseas with the military, other government agencies, or businesses to build small enclaves of Saints. Virtually all of the foreign missions of the Reorganized Church were founded as a result of an individual member's contact with people of the area.[44]

Table 4. Reorganized Non-English Missions Opened in 1960s

Nation	Year Mission Opened	Membership After First Year	Membership in 1970
Japan	1960	0	96
Okinawa	1960	0	46
Korea	1960	0	254
Mexico	1964	244	340
Peru	1965	41	62
Brazil	1965	27	42
Nigeria	1966	5	762
India	1966	186	607
Philippines	1966	44	198
Haiti	1968	154	221
New Caledonia	1968	46	87
Fiji	1968	7	7
Total			2,720

(Source: Statistics Department and Data Records reports in World Conference Reports and Minutes published for conferences, RLDS Library-Archives.) 

Without question, the Reorganization's structure and belief system was altered as a result of its contact with non-Western civilizations but probably not to the extent that many have asserted. What changes that came about were mostly incremental and generally of a minor nature, such as the adoption of symbols and slogans aimed at recognizing the world role of the institution. For illustration, in 1960 the church officially adopted the term "world" in place of "general" for identifying its conferences, headquarters, etc., because it "is more meaningful and descriptive in our world-wide evangel than the term 'General' . . ."[45] Some influences were more substantial to be sure, but genuinely significant non-western influences are difficult to uncover. The most obvious case in this category was the change the church had to make in 1966 when the first baptisms of polygamists in India took place. From its inception the Reorganized Church had staunchly opposed plural marriage. When Reorganization missionaries began baptizing polygamists in India they raised a paradox to this time-honored resistance and created a huge controversy.[46] The hotly debated official position on this issue hammered out in the late 1960s allowed polygamists membership in the church, provided they took no additional wives after baptism.[47]

This issue was only formally resolved through a 1972 pronounce ment of "divine will" by W. Wallace Smith, which said in part: 

Monogamy is the basic principle on which Christian married life is built. Yet, as I have said before, there are also those who are not of this fold to whom the saving grace of the gospel must go. When this is done the church must be willing to bear the burden of their sin, nurturing them in the faith, accepting that degree of repentance which it is possible for them to achieve, looking forward to the day when through patience and love they can be free as a people from the sins of years of their ignorance (D&C 150:10). 

Even with this declaration many Reorganized Church members hesitated accepting polygamists into the movement. More than a hundred years of religious belief mitigated against it and probably the matter died down after a while only because the polygamists were halfway around the world. If they had been living in Independence, Missouri, and remained an active part of the church the issue might not yet be settled.[48] Clearly the missionary effort beyond the west forced change upon the church. 

Even so, the nature and extent of the change attributed to non-west ern contact far outweighed what can be justified by the evidence. First, it was not a foregone conclusion that the Reorganization would be funda mentally altered because it moved into foreign missions. Other churches have made that same move before and their bedrock religious distinctives have remained intact. The most obvious example from the modern era would be the Utah Latter-day Saints who, while having their own difficulties on the international scene, have retained their distinctive identity in spite of interaction with other cultures. Second, many of the early converts to the Reorganized Church in these new areas were already Chris tian and entered membership in the Reorganization because of the traditional "true church" argument made by the movement's missionaries. This has been repeated in numerous accounts of baptisms overseas, as the candidates were disgruntled over answers provided in their various Christian churches and began searching for alternative positions. Indeed, many of the people joining the church in such places as Latin America and Africa during the decade were former Latter-day Saints who had become disenchanted with Mormonism; it was a replay of the Reorganization's traditional source of converts. In this environment there was little impetus for basic theological change. Third, if the church changed fundamentally because of the conversion of non-western members, as many members of the leading quorums have suggested, the numbers of converts have been so insignificant—only 2,720 in 1970—that it is rather like the tail wagging the dog. It raises a question about the validity of democracy and the principle of "common consent" in the church for such a small number to restructure the church so thoroughly. It seems, instead, that the church was already in the process of theological change as it entered the foreign mission field in a substantive way, and this missionary endeavor provided added impetus and a rationale for the changes already at work.[49]

The Organizational Imperative

All other factors affecting the Reorganized Church in the 1960s led logically to the expansion of the organizational structure of the church. The increasing budgetary base of the era made possible the expansion of missionary and other service efforts, but the structure to oversee this effort also had to be devised. This involved the creation of new offices, the development of new procedures and materials, and the management of the overall activities of the organization. It also brought a proliferation of career church officials and a resultant bureaucracy with all the attendant pluses and minuses of this approach. This process can be traced in any developing organization, as it moves from a simple "vest-pocket" operation run by a handful of people who have an intimate knowledge and wide latitude to accomplish goals to a large organization with rules and procedures. It is essentially the process of bureaucratization and the Re organization experienced it par excellence in the 1960s. 

The increasing complexity of the organizational structure of the movement during the era bespeaks the rapid development of the institution. For example, moving from a relatively small and simple organization at the beginning of the decade by 1969 the church had established eight commissions reporting to the Quorum of Twelve—Ministerial Personnel, Cultural Crisis, Research in Evangelism, Communications, Congregational Life, Zionic Community Development, Education, and Field Organization—many of them with several departments beneath them. All were located at the church headquarters and staffed with personnel working on a variety of projects. The Presiding Bishopric also had six financial management offices, some also with subdivisions: Building Management, Accounting, Administration, Legal, Central Development Association, and Farm Management. Outside the headquarters were field jurisdictions divided into missions abroad, stakes, metropoles, regions, and districts, each with several congregations. Many of the larger jurisdictions had full-time appointees serving in them as administrative officers or missionaries.[50] Not surprisingly, during the decade the amount of funds dedicated to administration and overhead for church functions grew. In 1960 34 percent of the church's budget was directed toward administration, education, and other overhead expenses. The rest went to missionary work. A decade later 41 percent went to overhead.[51]

In addition, there were significant efforts on the part of the First Presidency to reorient the church in new directions from an administrative perspective. In 1966 it sponsored the preparation of a study which eventually was issued as the Objectives of the Church. It was a six-point statement of long-range objectives involving clarification of theology, evangelism, stewardship, the zionic quest, pastoral care, and, most important for this discussion, administrative decentralization.[52] The First Presidency commented to the leadership of the church that those objectives had been adopted because it had "become evident that in many ways the church had become ingrown, and the spirit of the evangel had weakened. Growing out of these tendencies, there were definite indications that the church was not really addressing itself to the needs of the world." The presidency added that "it appeared that our thrust had become quite defensive in view of the problems arising out of the martyrdom of 1844, and the subsequent fragmentation of the church."[53] While one must be careful not to see this as the sum total of the road map for the future, in retrospect many of the theological and organizational issues that later emerged were raised in it. 

Although the issue of administrative decentralization was later dropped as a long-term objective, presumably because it was truly a procedural rather than a basic part of the church's mission, it had serious repercussions in the church of the 1960s. At its core was a desire, especially resulting from expansion into new foreign regions and the sometimes far reaching cultural differences that were involved, to allow local and regional leaders a wide range of freedom to make program and execution decisions. This approach supposedly allowed administrative officers close to the situation to respond more effectively to current issues.[54]

Along with this decision went the formulation of a single-line authority structure for the church, which established the First Presidency as the counterpart to the president and CEO of a corporation, with the Quorum of Twelve acting as the head of the sales force, and the Presiding Bishopric serving as corporate treasurer.[55] This reorganization was validated by a study of church organization and management completed under contract for the church by the Booz, Allen, and Hamilton Corporation. President W. Wallace Smith recalled in 1981 that the study accomplished its goal by helping "to streamline administrative responsibilities in the church."[56]

This decentralization effort led to a serious battle in the church hierarchy during the era, one in which the repercussions are still being felt. One central issue revolved around the responsibilities of the Presiding Bishopric to manage the financial affairs of the church. The Reorganization had nearly been forced to declare bankruptcy during the Great Depression of the 1930s and in that crisis had given virtually unrestricted power to the bishopric to manage resources as it deemed appropriate. Over the years this power of the purse also allowed the Presiding Bishop ric to control the program of the church, a usurpation of authority chaffed under by the First Presidency and the Twelve. This began to be especially ticklish when the church moved into foreign missions in the early 1960s. The president of the Quorum of Twelve recalled that "There was some little strain between the members of the Council of Twelve and Bishopric at that time because the Presiding Bishopric was still trying to find ways in which they could even remotely . . . hold title to property"[57] The bishopric held a virtual veto power over the expenditure of funds for missionary activity, although the Twelve were charged with conducting the missionary program. Wallace Smith recalled that on some occasions when the bishopric did not agree with a specific program activity, it would tell its financial officers in the field: "Well, don't pay any attention to the Stake President; he's just an administrator, and you can work independently in regard to the finances."[58] Several apostles, especially Cole, Neff, and William E. Timms, all of whom were heavily involved in foreign missions, pushed throughout the early 1960s for the assignment of specific sums to various missionary fields—a decision which the Presiding Bishopric would be consulted in—and then to allow the apostle in charge of the field to disburse it as needed. These men were joined in this effort by Maurice L. Draper and Duane E. Couey of the First Presidency.[59]

Throughout the latter 1960s this controversy was played out inside the church's bureaucracy. While the details of the political process are almost impossible to ascertain presently because critical sources are restricted, the Joint Council meetings of the 1960s were lively as these issues were discussed. Harold W. Cackler, a member of the Presiding Bishopric at the time, recalled that his order underwent a systematic assault by the Twelve and Presidency, indicating that the other quorums would decide issues in advance and at the Joint Council meetings "the vote would be twelve to three on issues left to the Twelve and Bishopric." He also believed that consistent efforts were made to lessen the importance of the Bishopric through the appointment process of men who were more in sympathy with the other quorums or were of less ability in the political process.[60]

This administrative issue, truly a part of the decentralization effort as well as a more common bureaucratic turf battle, came out publicly in the World Conference of 1968 when the bishopric rebelled over a document presented as divine will and refused to accept it in its present form. Al though the revelation had many nuances, its most controversial section involved the designation of the office of bishop as a "necessary append age" to the high priesthood and that holders of that office were to administer temporalities in support of the spiritual leadership of the church for the accomplishment of its mission. Clearly implied was an assumption that the bishopric was not to define program and policy but to finance it after defined by the presidency and the Twelve.[61] The opposition was vocal and adamant. The quorum of bishops refused to accept the document as inspired will because, among other critical concerns, it "relegates the office of bishop to that of a financial secretary."[62] In an unprecedented move W. Wallace Smith presented a clarifying revelation on the section which mitigated partially the earlier statement. This was accepted as God's will and both documents were included in the Doctrine and Covenants as sections 149 and 149A. It clarified the issue somewhat, but the problem was not finally resolved until the 1970s (some would say that it is still unresolved) when new personnel in the quorums agreed to bury the hatchet. 

In the process of this administrative and organizational transformation the Reorganized Church established a reasonably well-defined bureaucracy. A transformation of headquarters and field structure in the church made the institution somewhat more efficient, although there have been valid criticisms of these efforts as a layering process removing senior leadership from the rank and file membership. Presiding Patriarch Roy A. Cheville pointed up this concern in 1969 in a letter on communication in the church to the Quorum of Twelve Apostles' secretary, Reed M. Holmes: 

Many [Saints] feel the "big boys" are quite apart and only come in for large gatherings. Some feel that some of us are now involved in committees and commissions that will hold us in Independence except for occasional sallies into the field. The needed and wanted contacts are calling for more than hand-shaking, for more than attending a reunion or an institute or a dedication meeting. Our people are needing to converse and communicate. They need to feel that they may inquire freely and state their concerns and be heard.[63]

He urged a conscious effort to return to some of the informality of an earlier era when the system was not so complex and access was directly available to all. This was not a successful effort, and it became increasingly clear as the 1960s progressed that the Reorganized Church was becoming a modern, far-flung, complex institution.[64]

From Sect to Denomination

All of these factors accelerated a dynamic that had been present in the Reorganized Church for many years, the shift from a sect to a denomination. Although definitions of "sects" and "denominations" are debatable, most agree that sects represent relatively small religious groups sharing beliefs and practices in relative contradiction to the majority of society. The principle ingredient in the definition of a sect is not size, but rather its tension with the prevailing culture. It tends to attract people who, for one reason or another, do not feel part of the larger society. But it can be a richly rewarding experience for its members as they find a fullness in worship and social interaction with people of like perspectives. Denominations, on the other hand, have largely made peace with society and share its overarching values. While most religious entities have begun as sects, they cannot remain so forever. Indeed, 

over time, the privileged faction will tend to get its way. It will use its control of the religious organization to reduce tension with the surrounding society, for such tension will tend to hamper the privileged. That is, to the degree that the religious group is in tension with the external society, it will limit powerful members' ability to realize their full potential for success in secular life and it will reduce the supply and value of the direct rewards the religious group supplies to its members.[65]

In the Reorganized Church of the 1960s evidence of reduced tension and increased accommodation to society was not as dramatic, but it was present as never before. The First Presidency's support of ecumenical efforts was only one of many theological indicators of social accommodation. The issues wrestled with, the positions developed, the increase in economic and corresponding social status for the church membership all fostered a move in the direction of greater incorporation into society. To a very real extent, during the 1960s the Reorganized Church made a shift from religious sect to denomination.[66]

The move from sect to denomination has not been an easy or especially pretty process. Early on it created a rift in the church that has only widened in the years since that time. The first serious challenge to the shift from sect to denomination came at the 1970 World Conference when those members unwilling to consider a broader vision for the work of the organization attempted to circumscribe the effort. Operating through the church's political process they mounted a campaign to defeat what they believed was creeping ecumenism in the movement in the name of the traditional conceptions that they believed had been restored to Earth through Joseph Smith, Jr. From their perspective, the restored "truth" could not be changed. On every score the conservatives lost that contest. As reported in the Christian Century: 

In the '60s the RLDS Church seemed to move slightly closer to mainstream Protestantism. Greater contact with Protestant scholarship has led to a de emphasis in some Mormon teachings and greater stress on central Christian themes. At the 1970 conference in Independence those who favor the trend won an important test—for the Old Jerusalem Gospel faction tried hard to reverse that trend and failed.[67]

While transitioning from sect to denomination was a logical and probably a necessary step for the Reorganization, signaling as it did a move into a more mature state for the church, it also bespoke the ambivalence of modern society and the casting away of traditional spiritual uniqueness. The movement from sect to denomination, accordingly, also brought with it a corresponding loss of traditional identity.[68] Although present to some degree before, because of the alterations and shift from sect to denomination in the 1960s there was a loss of that trajectory that linked present with past and propelled the church into the future. At the risk of oversimplifying, the Reorganization has never been just right thinking and doing; it has been most importantly feeling that God was with it just as God was with the prophets and apostles of old. To be a Re organization member was not just to accept a set of books, a priesthood system, a leadership structure, a theology, though those have always been important symbols for the Saints. To be a Reorganization member has meant feeling in one's bosom the spirit of God's power. It has been deeply experiential. The members have personally asked of God and prayed for greater light and wisdom, have heard inspired preaching of miracles and God's promises to his faithful, have sung with heartfelt thanks "I have found the glorious gospel that was taught in former years," have felt the warmth of the Holy Spirit as elders anointed and laid on hands for healing, have hoped that the love and peace felt during administration would someday pervade the entire world community as the kingdoms of this world were transformed into the kingdom of God. To be a Reorganization member has been most of all to feel deep within that one has been linked with God's people from every age and to know the guidance and power of the Holy Spirit in one's own life and journey.[69]

The deep sense of spiritual vitality that has enjoyed such a strong tradition in the Reorganized Church winnowed away during the transition from sect to denomination in the 1960s. While the generation of Reorganization members who brought forth these changes did so for good and just and Christian reasons, it has been unable to replace the Reorganization identity of the pre-1960s period with any other that can be agreed upon by the membership. Looking at the experience from twenty or more years later, the coming of age of the movement meant that the church both gained and lost at the same time. It was an episode very much like the larger transformations of society during the same period. During the 1960s in the United States a younger generation of people filled with high expectations set out to remake the world. They were partly successful, but somewhere in the process lost their innocence and their vision of the future and their efforts degenerated. Instead of remaking the world most ended up accommodating to it and trying to beat it by its own rules. 

Conclusion

The movement of the church into foreign missions, its rise in income and economic position, the development of an organized bureaucracy, the increasing ecumenism, the concern with social issues beyond the church as never before, and a series of other changes arising during the decade all suggest a coming of age for the Reorganized Church. It progressed from a sect to a denomination with a vision broader than itself and it has rarely looked back. Whether the age drove the changes, prompting the church to react, or whether the church took the initiative and could have chosen to ignore what was taking place around it is a moot point. The Reorganization's traditional openness to Protestant religious influences probably aided in its willingness to move toward greater ecumenism. Several years ago Clare D. Vlahos described what could only be considered a tightrope upon which the Reorganized Church had tread since the 1850s as it both sought "to be reasonable to gentiles and legitimate to Mormons."[70] In the 1960s the church began to abandon its traditional goal of "legitimacy" to Mormons in favor of a greater reasonableness to other elements of Christianity. That step was probably not conscious and undoubtedly those who began the process did not anticipate that it would extend as far, too far according to some, as it has. The turbulent era of the 1960s set the stage for the continuation of the shift from sect to denomination that has been so much a part of the Reorganization in subsequent years. For good or ill, the course marked in the 1960s has been followed into the 1990s. It was a critical decade in the maturation of the movement, a tumultuous, confrontational, bewildering, and also exalting time in which the Reorganized Church fundamentally altered its structure and pattern of behavior. 

---

[1] Anyone wishing to pursue the reorientation of American society in the 1960s should read Milton Viorst, Fire in the Streets: America in the 1960s (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979); Allen J. Matusow, The Unraveling of America: A History of Liberalism in the 1960s (New York: Harper and Row, 1984); William L. O'Neill, Coming Apart (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1971); and Godfrey Hodgen, America in Our Time: From World War II to Nixon, What Happened and Why (Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Co., 1976).

[2] Martin E. Marty, Modern American Religion: Volume 1, The Irony of It All, 1893-1919 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986), flyleaf. 

[3] A useful discussion of how the Reorganization has developed in the twentieth century can be found in Barbara Higdon, "The Reorganization in the Twentieth Century," Dia logue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 7 (Spring 1972): 94-100; Roger D. Launius, "A New Historiographical Frontier: The Reorganized Church in the Twentieth Century," John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 6 (1986): 53-63. 

[4] This shift has been demonstrated in numerous cases. See Harvey Cox, The Secular City (New York: Macmillan, 1965); Will Herberg, Protestant, Catholic, Jew: An Essay in American Religious Sociology (Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Co., 1955).

[5] Rules and Resolutions (Independence, MO: Herald Publishing House, 1980), World Conference Resolution (WCR) 1045. 

[6] Clifford A. Cole, "World Church: Our Mission in the 1980s," Commission, Sept. 1979, 43.

[7] First Presidency, "The Church and the Social Order," Saints' Herald 113 (15 Mar. 1966): 186-89,198-99. 

[8] First Presidency, "Editorial Comment on the Church and the Social Order," ibid. 113 (15 Mar. 1966): 185. 

[9] This had been present before 1966, but it took off after the First Presidency's emphasis. See Roy A. Cheville, "Mormonism on the Move," ibid. Ill (1 Jan. 1964): 10-12; Richard B. Lancaster, "The Contemporary Christ: The Relevance of the Doctrine of the Resurrection," ibid. Ill (15 Mar. 1964): 186-87; Raymond R. Broadfoot, "The Restoration Church in the Space Age," ibid. Ill (1 Apr. 1964): 221-22,235; First Presidency, "Our Position on Race and Color," ibid. 110 (1 Aug. 1963): 506; Paul A. Wellington," The Restoration Attitude Towards Race," ibid. 110 (15 Nov. 1963): 770; William D. Russell, "Martin Luther King: Satan or Saint?" ibid. 110 (1 July 1963): 434. 

[10] W. Wallace Smith, "Our Hope and Our Salvation," ibid. 113 (15 May 1966): 330-33, 343. 

[11] James Tice, "The Poverty Program—Its Relationship to Zionic Ideals," ibid. 113 (15 Apr. 1966): 260-62; G.R. Westwood, "The Dilemma in Human Values," ibid. 113 (1 Aug. 1966): 522-25; Cecil L. Eubanks, "The God of History Is on the Move," ibid. 113 (15 Aug. 1966): 548- 49; Gerald Gabriel, "Inequality in a World of Plenty," ibid. 113 (15 Sept. 1966): 618-20; Mark Dievendorf, "Welfare—Boon or Burden?" ibid. 113 (1 Oct. 1966): 659, 670; Verne Sparkes, "Sinful Man and the Civil Rights Dilemma," ibid. 113 (15 Oct. 1966): 690-91, 701-702; Jack Soldner, "The Importance of Purpose," ibid. 113 (15 Nov. 1966): 766-67,780; Eldon S. Ratcliffe, "Change," ibid. 113 (1 Dec. 1966): 801, 813. 

[12] As examples, see "The Vietnam Involvement" issue, ibid. 113 (1 Feb. 1966); "The War on Poverty" issue, ibid. 113 (15 Apr. 1966); "The Church and the World" issue, ibid. 113 (1 Aug. 1966).

[13] "The Other Saints," Time, 29 Apr. 1966, 74. 

[14] F. Henry Edwards, The History of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Independence, MO: Herald Publishing House, 1973), 6:614.

[15] This circumstance is pointed up in Albert L. Loving, When I Put Out to See: The Autobiography of Albert Loving (Independence, MO: Herald Publishing House, 1974), the recollections of a longtime appointee minister. 

[16] Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Report of the Commission on Education, Apr. 1970, 64, Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints Library Archives, Independence, MO; Information Please Almanac (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1980), 42.

[17] I can recall appointee missionaries in the American southeast in the early 1960s visiting our area and my father taking them out to buy a new suit or paying to have their automobile repaired and especially slipping them a $20 bill with the instruction that this was extra and should not be reported as contributions to the church. 

[18] "Appointee Compensation," 1968, Walter N. Johnson Papers, P67, f6, Reorganized Church Library-Archives.

[19] W. B. Spillman, "Dissent and the Future of the Church," in Roger D. Launius and W. B. Spillman, eds., Let Contention Cease: The Dynamics of Dissent in the Reorganized Church (In dependence, MO: Graceland-Park Press, 1991), 276-77. 

[20] Alma R. Blair, "The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints: Moderate Mormonism," in F. Mark McKiernan, Alma R. Blair, and Paul M. Edwards, eds., The Restoration Movement: Essays in Mormon History (Lawrence, KS: Coronado Press, 1973), 207-30; Clare D. Vlahos, "Moderation as a Theological Principle in the Thought of Joseph Smith III," John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 1 (1981): 3-11. 

[21] Howard J. Booth, "Recent Shifts in Restoration Thought," in Maurice L. Draper and Clare D. Vlahos, eds., Restoration Studies I (Independence, MO: Herald Publishing House, 1980), 162-75. For further evidence of these changes, compare the Position Papers (Independence, MO: Cumorah Books, 1975), or Exploring the Faith (Independence, MO: Herald Publishing House, 1970), with William H. Kelley, Presidency and Priesthood: The Apostasy, Reformation, and Restoration (Lamoni, IA: Herald Publishing House, 1908), and Joseph F. Luff, The Old Jerusalem Gospel (Lamoni, IA: Herald Publishing House, 1903). On the Reorganized church's reformation, see Larry W. Conrad and Paul Shupe, "An RLDS Reformation? Construing the Task of RLDS Theology," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 18 (Summer 1985): 92-103.

[22] On the careers of these men, see Larry E. Hunt, F. W. Smith: Saint as Reformer (Independence, MO: Herald Publishing House, 1982); Paul M. Edwards, The Chief: An Administrative Biography of Frederick M. Smith (Independence, MO: Herald Publishing House, 1988); and Norma Deny Hiles, Gentle Monarch: An Administrative Biography of Israel A. Smith (Independence, MO: Herald Publishing House, 1991). 

[23] See Norman F. Furniss, The Fundamentalist Controversy, 1918-1931 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1954); Ernest R. Sandeen, The Roots of Fundamentalism: British and American Millenarianism, 1800-1930 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970); Willard J. Gate wood, Jr., ed., Controversy in the Twenties: Fundamentalism, Modernism, and Evolution (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1969); Martin E. Marty, Modern American Religion, Volume 1; George R. Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture: The Shaping of Twentieth-Century Evangelicalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980).

[24] Book of Doctrine and Covenants (Independence, MO: Herald Publishing House, 1970 ed.), Sec. 145. This revelation was given in April 1958. On the personalities of these men, except Cheville, see their Oral History Memoirs in the Reorganized Church Library-Archives. On the historical development and responsibilities of the Presiding Patriarch, see Reed M. Holmes, The Patriarchs (Independence, MO: Herald Publishing House, 1978). 

[25] Richard B. Lancaster and Clifford Buck graduated from Saint Paul School of Theology, Kansas City, Missouri, in 1965, the first Reorganization graduates of the Methodist-sponsored seminary. Both men were church appointees assigned to the Department of Religious Education at the Auditorium, Independence, Missouri. 

[26] This issue, and the fundamentalist backlash from it, is explored in an outstanding article: William J. Knapp, "Professionalizing Religious Education in the Church: The New Curriculum Controversy," John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 2 (1982): 47-59. See also, Donald D. Landon, "A Question of Means or Ends: The Debate over Religious Education," Sunstone 10 (1986): 21-23, which provides a defense of efforts to modernize the church's curriculum by a key participant in the process. 

[27] Garland E. Tickemyer, The Old Testament Speaks to Our Day (Independence, MO: Herald Publishing House, 1960-61), four quarterlies for senior high students. On Tickemyer's theological ideas, see his "A Study of Some Representative Concepts of a Finite God in Contemporary American Philosophy with Application to the God Concepts of the Utah Mormons," M.A. Thesis, University of Southern California, 1954. These ideas have been boiled down and perhaps added to in Garland E. Tickemyer, "Joseph Smith and Process Theology," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 17 (Autumn 1984): 75-85.

[28] James E. Lancaster, "By the Gift and Power of God," Saint's Herald 109 (15 Nov. 1962): 798-802, 806, 817; reprinted with minor revisions in the John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 3 (1983): 51-61. 

[29] An example of the traditional Reorganization understanding is that of Clair E. Weldon, "Two Transparent Stones: The Story of the Urim and Thummim," Saints' Herald 109 (1 Sept. 1962): 616-20, 623. 

[30] Lloyd R. Young, "Concerning the Virgin Birth: Comments on the Doctrine," ibid. Ill (1 Feb. 1964): 77-78, 94. 

[31] See, as examples, F. Henry Edwards, For Such a Time (Independence, MO: Herald Publishing House, 1963); Roy A. Cheville, Spirituality in the Space Age (Independence, MO: Herald Publishing House, 1962); William R. Clinefelter, The Covenant and the Kingdom (Independence, MO: Herald Publishing House, 1964).

[32] These younger faculty included Lloyd R. Young, Paul M. Edwards, Robert Speaks, Leland Negaard, Robert Bruce Flanders, and Alma R. Blair. Speaks and Negaard had graduate degrees from two of the leading Protestant theological seminaries in the United States, the University of Chicago and Union Theological Seminary in New York respectively. Robert Flanders, a Ph.D. in history from the University of Wisconsin, especially excited the ire of the more traditional Saints by suggesting that, among other things, Joseph Smith, Jr., had instituted the Mormon practice of polygamy. See Robert Bruce Flanders, Nauvoo: Kingdom on the Mississippi (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1965). Seventy A. M. Pelletier wrote an open letter to the Joint Council of the First Presidency, Quorum of Twelve Apostles, and Presiding Bishopric in 1967 which said that "The only book I have every openly criticized is Flanders's Nauvoo, The Kingdom on the Mississippi. I have heard of some of our leaders praising it and a couple even going so far as to say, 'This book will do more to break the Smith Dynasty than anything ever written.' I take objection to such statements" (Pelletier to All Members of the Joint Council, 29 May 1967, Walter N. Johnson Papers, 1905-80, P67, £17, Reorganized Church Library-Archives). 

[33] Donald D. Landon, A History of Donald D. Landon While Under General Conference Appointment, 1951-1970: An Oral History Memoir (Independence, MO: Department of History, Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, 1970), 94. 

[34] Knapp, "Professionalizing Religious Education," 49. 

[35] William D. Russell, "Reorganized Mormons Beset by Controversy," Christian Century, 17 June 1970, 770.

[36] Many members of the Department of Religious Education were liberal, especially for the Reorganization in the 1960s. Most had also been educated in Protestant seminaries. Verne Sparks was a graduate of Union Theological Seminary in New York; Geoffrey F. Spencer and Wayne Ham were graduates of Saint Paul School of Theology, Kansas City. They had already begun to comment on the theology of the church and press for a more non-Mormon interpretation. See Verne Sparks, The Theological Enterprise (Independence, MO: Herald Publishing House, 1969). Ham did much the same by taking seriously the claims of other religions in Man's Living Religions (Independence, MO: Herald Publishing House, 1966).

[37] Wayne Ham, "Problems in Interpreting the Book of Mormon as History," Courage: A Journal of History, Thought, and Action 1 (Sept. 1970): 15-22. 

[38] Exploring the Faith (Independence, MO: Herald Publishing House, 1970). This book's individual chapters had been published in the Saints' Herald in the 1960s as a means of informing the church membership about the ideas it contained.

[39] Report of the Commission on Education, Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Apr. 1970,116. See also Knapp, "Professionalizing Religious Education."

[40] Pelletier to Joint Council, 29 May 1967.

[41] Roger Yarrington, "Changes in the Church," Saints Herald 137 (Sept. 1990): 10.

[42] Charles D. Neff, "The Church and Culture," ibid. 119 (Dec. 1972): 13-14, 51-52. See also Cole, "The World Church: Our Mission in the 1980s," 42; "The Joseph Smith Saints," Life, 2 May 1960, 63-66; Charles D. Neff, "The Problem of Becoming a World Church," Saints Herald 121 (Sept. 1974): 554-57. 

[43] Clifford A. Cole, "Theological Perspectives of World Mission," Saints Herald 118 (July 1971): 11.

[44] This expansion has been best described in Maurice L. Draper, Isles and Continents (Independence, MO: Herald Publishing House, 1982).

[45] Rules and Resolutions, WCR1021. 

[46] On the Reorganization's traditional approach to polygamy, see Richard P. Howard, "The Changing RLDS Response to Mormon Polygamy: A Preliminary Analysis," John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 3 (1983): 14-28; Alma R. Blair, "RLDS Views of Polygamy: Some Historiographical Notes," John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 5 (1985): 16-28. 

[47] See Maurice L. Draper, "Polygamy Among Converts in East Asia," Courage: A Journal of History, Thought, and Action 1 (Dec. 1970): 85-88, which contains a positive statement of the Reorganization's approach to the issue by a member of the First Presidency; Verne Des kin, "You Are Involved in Polygamy," Courage: A Journal of History, Thought, and Action 1 (Dec. 1970): 89-92, a critique from a conservative church member; and Editorial Board, "The Polygamy Debate in the Church Today, "Courage: A Journal of History, Thought, and Action 1 (Dec. 1970): 107-109; Draper, Isles and Continents, 136,191-95,258. 

[48] This was one of the many volatile issues that came up at the Reorganization's 1970 World Conference. Russell, "Reorganized Mormon Church Beset by Controversy," 769-71.

[49] Accounts of these missionary conversions, demonstrating that many were from Christian non-westerners, can be found in Draper, Isles and Continents.

[50] Booz, Allen, and Hamilton, "Study of Organization and Management Practices," Oct. 1969, unpublished study located in Reorganized Church Library-Archives; Garland E. Tickemyer, "The Regional Administrator," 25 Nov. 1963, unpublished paper located in Reorganized Church Library-Archives. 

[51] Statistics Department and Data Records reports in World Conference Reports and Minutes published for conferences. These are available at the Reorganized Church Library Archives. 

[52] Objectives of the Church (Independence, MO: Herald Publishing House, 1966).

[53] First Presidency to Elders of the Church, Jan. 1968, Walter N. Johnson Papers, P67, fl9. 

[54] Maurice L. Draper, "The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints Before and After 1960," unpublished address delivered at Graceland College, Lamoni, Iowa. This approach toward management was codified in a 1970 World Conference Resolution. See Rules and Resolutions, WCR 1097. See also Phillip M. Caswell, "The Methods and Benefits of Decentralization," 4 Nov. 1966, unpublished paper written for a class in Church Administration offered by the School of the Restoration, copy available in Reorganized Church Library-Archives. 

[55] Clifford A. Cole, "An Oral History Memoir," 1985, 179, unpublished manuscript, Reorganized Church Library-Archives. 

[56] W. Wallace Smith, "An Oral History Memoir," 1981, 196, unpublished manuscript in the Reorganized Church Library-Archives. The report, Booz, Allen, and Hamilton, "Study of Organization and Management Practices," is available in the Reorganized Church Library Archives.

[57] Cole, "Oral History Memoir," 165. 

[58] Smith, "Oral History Memoir," 175. 

[59] Interview with L. D. Harsin, 15 Jan. 1991, Independence, Missouri; E. Boyce Rogers, "Sections 149 and 149A: Conflict and Compromise," unpublished paper in my possession.

[60] Harold W. Cackler, quoted in Rogers, "Sections 149 and 149A." 

[61] Doctrine and Covenants 149; World Conference Transcript, 1968,106, Reorganized Church Library-Archives. 

[62] World Conference Transcript, 1968,107.

[63] Roy A. Cheville to Reed M. Holmes, 14 June 1969, Walter N. Johnson Papers, P67, f22. 

[64] Some of this complexity can also be grasped in the makeup and organization of the church's World Conferences. See M. Richard Troeh, "Divisions of the House," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, 19 (Fall 1986): 59-83; M. Richard Troeh and Marjorie Troeh, The Conferring Church (Independence, MO: Herald Publishing House, 1987). 

[65] Robert E. Park and Ernest W. Burgess, Introduction to the Science of Sociology (Chica go: University of Chicago Press, 1921), 104, 872.

[66] Booth, "Recent Shifts in Restoration Thought"; Maurice L. Draper, "Sect-Denomination-Church Transition and Leadership in the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints," M.A. Thesis, Kansas University, 1964; Douglas D. Alder and Paul M. Edwards, "Common Beginnings, Divergent Beliefs," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 11 (Spring 1978): 18-29. 

[67] Russell, "Reorganized Mormon Church Beset by Controversy," 771. 

[68] This analysis is based on a critique of Reorganization theology written by Larry W. Conrad, whom I thank for his insights into this area. See Larry W. Conrad, "Dissent Among Dissenters: Theological Dimensions of Dissent in the Reorganization," in Launius and Spill man, Let Contention Cease.

[69] Larry W. Conrad to Roger D. Launius, 15 Jan. 1990.

[70] Clare D. Vlahos, "Images of Orthodoxy: Self-Identity in Early Reorganization Apologetics," in Maurice L. Draper and Clare D. Vlahos, eds., Restoration Studies I (Independence, MO: Herald Publishing House, 1980), 176-86, quote on 176.

[post_title] => Coming of Age? The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in the 1960s [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 28.4 (Winter 1995): 31–55
In many respects the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints of the 1960s mirrored the general tumult, if not the details, of the larger American society. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => coming-of-age-the-reorganized-church-of-jesus-christ-of-latter-day-saints-in-the-1960s [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-05-07 15:53:34 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-05-07 15:53:34 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=11532 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

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Much has been made recently of the apparent deceleration of historical inquiry into Mormonism. When I first became interested in Mormon studies nearly twenty years ago I was an undergraduate at Graceland College. Encouragement and an inescapable excitement pervaded the domain, and new windows of discovery seemed to be opening everywhere. Almost certainly my own lack of knowledge contributed to that sense of discovery, but the decade of the 1970s was without question a heady time for Mormon historical studies. Leonard J. Arrington, the LDS Church Historian, was modernizing LDS archives and sponsoring varied and far-reaching research. Richard P. Howard, as RLDS Church Historian, was doing the same for the Reorganized church.[1] An impressive level of historical output, both in terms of numbers and quality, was appearing every year.[2] The 1973 publication of the cooperative book The Restoration Movement: Essays in Mormon History, with six RLDS and seven LDS essayists, was without question a watershed event.[3] So was the trade—nothing like it will come close to happening again in this century—of historic documents on microfilm between the two largest Mormon churches in 1974.[4] There was also an important and refreshing esprit de corps and common purpose forged at gatherings of organizations oriented toward Mormon history. Davis Bitton, one of Arrington's associates in the LDS historical department, designated the decade between 1972 and 1982 a golden age, "a brief period of excitement and optimism— that someone has likened to Camelot."[5]

Those heady days are gone, and while we might mourn their loss we are constrained to carry on. Some blame short-sighted and anti-intellectual church officials who have neither the forbearance nor the vision to understand the historical quest. Some condemn restrictive archival practices, while others charge that the aging of professionals working in the field is detrimental to the study. Some bemoan other factors that have adversely affected aspects of historical inquiry. Any or all of these issues are legitimate contributors to the apparent malaise currently present in the field. 

My own analysis of the state of Mormon history suggests that the field, while other factors have also been at work, suffers from some of the exclusiveness and intellectual imperialism that were nurtured during the glory days of the "New Mormon History" in the 1970s. In a recent essay Charles S. Peterson described what he called the exceptionalist nature of the "New Mormon History" and its isolating effect on intellectual inquiry. He charted the course of Mormon historiography from the 1958 publication of Leonard Arrington's Great Basin Kingdom, arguing that it rapidly evolved into an "isolating interest in what might be referred to as [the] 'cult of the Prophet/ and in Church beginnings, persecutions, and conflicts both internal and external." Questions, issues, and perspectives were sometimes narrowly defined without incorporating larger contexts that informed contemporary developments in other historical disciplines. Mormon historians found themselves talking and writing for each other and for a small community of people who were mostly interested in the subject because they shared some aspect of Mormonism's religious heritage. While more Mormon historical articles were being produced, few outside the immediate sphere of Mormonism took much notice of them.[6]

This is not unlike what happened in the study of western American history during the recent past. I was trained as a frontier historian in graduate school because it seemed to fit best with my interests in Mormonism, but at that time the American West was considered a backwater of historical study. No one seemed to care much about cowboys and native Americans, and by the late 1970s the Turnerian construct of the "Frontier Thesis," itself an exceptionalist perspective on the past, had been demolished by later historians. The community hashed and rehashed the minutiae of the battle of the Little Bighorn, or debated the location of the ford where Jedediah Smith crossed the Colorado River on his 1826 expedition, or any of several other abstract and antiquarian concerns.[7] I soon realized the irrelevancy of much of what was taking place in the name of western American history. Indicative of this, in the 1970s few history departments at colleges and universities throughout the nation replaced western historians when they retired. 

Western history began to climb back out of the doldrums in the late 1970s, and the field has now reemerged as a central part of scholarly inquiry led by what has been popularly nicknamed the "gang of four"—Patricia Nelson Limerick, Donald Worster, William Cronon, and Richard White.[8] The reasons for this change are complex. First, the "New Western History," as it is being called, has finally thrown off the yoke of Frederick Jackson Turner and moved beyond the exclusivistic questions he posed.[9] Second, it has embraced the idea of regionalism and no longer defines the West and the frontier as one and the same. Third, those involved in reinterpreting the West have benefitted from the infusion of new methodologies and especially new questions borrowed from the "new social history." Those new questions, taken from the larger concerns present in this multi-cultural American society in which we participate, have yielded truly exciting results. They all revolve largely around issues of power and influence and how they are played out in the themes of race, ethnicity, class, and gender. A sense of anticipation presently permeates Western history as its practitioners use these four building blocks to construct a largely new perspective on the development of the region. 

Contrast those activities with that of the Mormon historical community, which seems to be in more of a holding pattern than in the past. In spite of the amount of historical research and writing being done, and there remains a prodigious output in the 1990s, there seems to be little new in "New Mormon History." To further understanding I suggest it is time to abandon the simple, celebratory, non-analytical narrative that has characterized too much writing on the subject and form a new research agenda. In so doing, historians might be able to overcome the inherent progressivism in the "New Mormon History," arguing as it does that God's word is spreading to the world and that this is a positive development, when there are other appropriate ways to view the church's past. Historians must be prepared to stand at the edge of forever and peer into the abyss, reorienting perspectives and recasting ideals and constraints beyond anything imagined before. It is a risk, for it may lead to a grimmer, harsher perspective on the Mormon past rather than to a kinder, gentler history, but it is time to move beyond the present plateau of historical inquiry. 

One of the central perspectives that must be reconsidered in this process is the preoccupation with a priori assumptions about what is good and bad in Mormon history—that have been so carefully defined—and to jettison the interpretive framework prearranged to lean in specific pro institutional directions. While there has, of course, been some room for permutations of interpretation, the Mormon churches have essentially drawn a line in the sand about what may and may not be considered as an interpretive framework and most historians have accepted it (or perhaps have never even considered going beyond it because of their religious convictions). As an example of this, despite its other qualities, the recent book Zion in the Courts assumed without serious discussion the viability and justification of a Mormon theocracy, i.e., Zion. The authors asserted that the zionic goal inevitably led to persecution endured by an innocent church through both legal and extralegal means. They wrote: "The story of the persecution Mormons suffered through the institutions of the legal system, and of their efforts to establish their own legal system—one appropriate to Zion . . . illustrates democracy's potential to oppress an insular, minority community;. . ."[10]

The authors apparently believed that theocracy is both possible and desirable, but it seems to me that such a quest for empire would always run against the grain of the American mainstream and that legal institutions by definition would oppose it. Far from democracy's "oppression" of a minority, I surmise, the nation's legal system would assert itself to defend the cherished principles of the Constitution against a perceived threat to liberty from a theocracy bent on taking control. Debate over whether liberty was really threatened by Mormon theocracy is moot, but certainly non Mormons considered the church's secular power a threat to the Constitution. The authors failed to appreciate the inherent tension between democracy and theocracy. They also seemed not to appreciate that there might be other equally valid approaches toward Mormonism's zionic quest. For some it represented a spiritual condition where righteousness and justness were partners with goodwill and charity, a position that eschewed the secular, theocratic aspects that always created ill-will between Mormons and other Americans. Unfortunately, the authors of Zion in the Courts did not consider criticisms of Mormonism's quest for empire: criticisms that were coherent, internally consistent, and deserving of serious consideration. They accepted at face value the Mormon dialectic. As a result, Zion in the Courts represented both the worst and the best of the recent writing on the Mormon past.[11]

What has resulted because of this type of historical writing, as well as other problems not mentioned here, is a ghettoization process that has isolated Mormon history from broader questions that should be informing it. Like a nautilus shell, or the Reorganized church's new temple in Independence, Missouri, Mormon historical studies have spiraled inward farther and farther away from relevance to anything beyond themselves. Fortunately, if historians can spiral inward we can also spiral back outward. Although we have treated it as such, Mormon history is not a discipline separate from broader historical study; it is at best only a specialty describing a minuscule part of the overall human experience. Our treating it otherwise is a form of Mormon imperialism, and it is time to move forward into the mainstream of historical studies. 

Many "New Mormon Historians" have for too long approached their studies backwards. The focus has too often been on how the religious institution has affected society—positive affects, of course—when it seems more appropriate that it should be on how society has affected Mormonism. This would allow a break from the vertical study of Mormon history emphasizing hierarchical, institutional studies and toward more horizontal studies that are much broader in form and content. There are, of course, notable exceptions to this preoccupation with the organizational setting, but they largely prove the validity of the overall observation.[12] Indicative of this historiographical problem, in 1982 W. Grant McMurray delivered a presidential address to the John Whitmer Historical Association that called for a turn "to the social and cultural life of the saints." He said that "Our historiography has for too long illustrated the sectarian exclusiveness that has frequently characterized the church."[13] I suggest that his call is still clearly resonating in the discipline and few, not even McMurray, have heeded the summons. 

To broaden the horizons of Mormon history, some of the questions prompted by the modern American multi-cultural civilization being asked elsewhere are also appropriate for this field. In this essay I want to consider, perhaps in some cases to reconsider, some of the themes and ideas that I believe are important in our quixotic quest for understanding. I hope that others will investigate these themes in a more authoritative manner. In my opinion, we can expand our perspectives by investigating the really interesting questions of power: who holds it, why, and how do they use it? To examine these issues in the context of Mormonism I recommend borrowing from the social constructionism taking place in other historical specialties, especially the work being done on race, ethnicity, class, and gender.[14] An interest in these subjects would involve, of course, a commitment to the broad scholarly understanding of the nature and meaning of oppression and the inequalities of power as manifested in relation to these four axes.[15]

Race and Ethnicity

Some of the most significant questions about Mormonism's past revolve around the issues of race and ethnicity. Consideration of these themes in Mormon history has important ramifications for an understanding of group identity and development. Broad questions of assimilation and cultural pluralism could offer intriguing possibilities for students; as could studies of what groups assimilated to, to what degree there has been homogeneity in the institutions of Mormonism, and the nature and extent of differences sustained or synthesized. These questions are all linked with change, organizational boundaries, and group relationships, and make such studies rewarding in expanding an understanding of how Mormonism reached its present form. 

Mormon historians have pursued some of these questions, but only in the case of black Americans have they approached the level of investigation required to bring significant illumination. Most of the time, furthermore, what has been produced has been oriented toward explaining the development of institutional policy. For all of the important insights acquired in this manner, this has not gotten at the larger racial and ethnic issues that would open new worlds of inquiry. I will use my own work as an example. When I wrote Invisible Saints, a study of African-Americans in the RLDS church, I focused on questions of institutional policy and not so much on larger questions about the creation and preservation of specific cultures and their interface with the larger body of church members.[16] Those issues await future investigation. Similarly, hardly anyone looking at blacks in the Latter-day Saint church have gone far beyond the issue of priesthood denial, which is a policy issue. While these considerations are important, additional work must be undertaken.[17]

There are many other racial and ethnic groups that require concerted study in Mormon history. One of the most important of these has been Mormon relations with native Americans. While there have been many articles published on this subject, almost all of them are policy studies on Mormon/Indian relations in the Great Basin during the nineteenth century. There is a real need for research and writing exploring attitudes toward and relations with native Americans in either the early church or in the various Mormon movements that emerged from it.[18] There are a multitude of questions that need to be considered in any worthwhile study of relations with native Americans, not the least of which is an honest attempt to understand attitudes and actions on the part of people belonging to each ethnic heritage and how they related. 

Mormonism was largely on the frontier in the nineteenth century and had ample contact with aboriginal peoples. It also had a special connection because of its peculiar scriptural record. Why, then, was there not more emphasis on mutually beneficial relations with American Indians over the history of the movement? Equally important, in what manner have native ideals and conceptions become a part of the movement? How have these peoples been accepted into the power centers of the various Mormon churches? Most important, David Whittaker has called for "more anthropologically sensitive studies on the cultures that predate Mormon contact, and we need to follow these up with continuing analysis of changing cultures once contact was made."[19] His suggestion is just as valid today as when first made in 1985. 

The influences and acculturation process, if it exists, would be especially useful in other aspects of ethnic groups in Mormon history.[20] Are their specific congregations which run along ethnic lines? For example, there are in the RLDS some largely Hispanic branches in the Southwest that use Spanish as their language of worship, but beyond their existence we know little about them. When were they created, how have they evolved over the years, and what interactions with the larger church membership have taken place over time? Additionally, perhaps the definition of ethnicity should be broadened to look at regional differences between Americans and to trace how these differences have been played out in the various ecclesiastical systems. 

There is also an exciting prospect awaiting students interested in ethnicity and foreign missions, both relative to congregations established overseas and to foreigners who immigrated to the United States and began worshipping in American congregations.[21] As one example, Dean Louder's challenging study of Anglo/French ethnic relations affecting the LDS church in Canada has no parallel for the Reorganization, although it is needed. Using sociological tools and a perspective sharpened by personal as well as scholarly experience, Louder analyzed the church's relations with French Canadians, criticizing the institution for its neglect and over arching emphasis on the Anglo-American aspects of its religious culture. He concluded that "the official church and, by extension, its membership deny the cultural specificity of Canada and the existence of an international church within that country."[22] Indeed, this type of effort for the RLDS has not progressed beyond a cursory examination provided by Maurice L. Draper in his sociological analysis of foreign missions, the goal of which was much different from that of ethnic history.[23]

There are also interesting questions about ethnicity and the smaller Mormon factions. Certain churches of the dispersion, or so it seems without concentrated research either to confirm or to deny, were magnets for specific ethnic groups. The Church of Jesus Christ that Sidney Rigdon founded in Pennsylvania and that was continued by William Bickerton had remarkable success among Italian immigrants of Philadelphia. At least by the 1870s this group had made many converts among the Italian ethnic population of Pennsylvania, and it has remained an important element of the institution to the present. Early in its history, for instance, Bickerton's followers translated the Book of Mormon into Italian to share it with friends and relatives. What made the church attractive to Italians, and how has it developed over the years within this segment of the population? This and other questions would prove fruitful for historians of Mormonism.[24]

Class

One of the most significant areas affecting the reinterpretation of American history in the last generation has been the defining, interaction, and conflict of various classes in the nation.[25] There should be no question, furthermore, that social, economic, educational, institutional, and other types of classes have always existed in Mormonism just as they do in the larger world. Mormon historians have mostly failed to identify and explore this concept in the church.[26] I think it probably has something to do with our longstanding fascination with individuals and elite—that is, priest hood—groups. Howard Zinn's statement is also appropriate for Mormon history: "There is an underside to every Age about which history does not often speak, because history is written from records left by the privileged. We learn about politics from the political leaders, about economics from the entrepreneurs, about slavery from the plantation owners, about the thinking of an age from its intellectual elite."[27]

While it is a labor intensive exercise, demographic research would be vital in learning more about class structure and its role in the development of every level of church organization from local congregation to general conference. It would also be helpful in understanding the priesthood structure of the institution, for many questions about how the church has operated would be illuminated by a reasonable exploration of the class dynamic. While the LDS movement is better off in this regard—historians Dean May, Ben Bennion, Larry Logue, and a few others have been involved in demographic studies for years—there are for the RLDS virtually no demographic portraits of its members and therefore it is difficult to generalize about class structures in the organization. There is not even a demographic portrait of Lamoni, Iowa, the only town founded by the RLDS, and such work is critical to this issue.[28]

There are many other exciting questions relating to class in Mormonism. In addition to the common economic class problems that are so much a part of American history but which have been largely ignored, one revolves around what I like to call the royal family and the court aristocracy of families of longstanding church leadership. How did members of these elite families obtain and sustain high offices in the various factions of Mormonism? How have individual members of these families fared in their ecclesiastical systems? How did other families once with members in positions of power fall from grace? What have been the interrelations of this aristocracy and how have they been played out in the history of the church? Moreover, what are its relationships vis a vis other leaders and the rank and file? In an article I wrote many years ago on the RLDS church's ambitious R. C. Evans—who achieved power and high church office solely on the basis of merit since he was so personally obnoxious—I argued that he was frozen out of the positions he really coveted and blamed the RLDS aristocracy.[29] Have there been other instances of this type of class conflict? 

Also, I would like to see an investigation of the class of bureaucrats in the history of the church. What defines that status in the LDS, the RLDS, how did its members enter into it, and why have they been able to maintain that special role in the movement? Are these people essentially in agreement on most issues and engage in "groupthink" or is conflict an important part of the decision-making process?[30] What does the group mean to the culture of the churches they serve? How have these groups interacted with the membership and each other over the years? How have all these groups evolved? An interesting question concerning the RLDS bureaucracy, for instance, is how changes in the church bureaucratic structure, and especially the standards and expectations of those in it, changed after World War II. It seems that a rising middle class of church bureaucrats emerged in the late 1950s and early 1960s, middle-level managers who had advanced education and some economic power, to reorient the movement along more liberal lines.[31] I suspect there was a similar development in the bureaucracy of the Latter-day Saints but it seemed to have an opposite outcome. 

G. Edward White has described the formation of an eastern establishment in the late nineteenth century as a male order in which the progression from brahmin stock, to prep school, to Ivy League college, to men's clubs played a central role in defining an elite core of American leaders.[32] Similar LDS and RLDS elites might have been formed in the twentieth century with a progression from strong ancestry in the church, to education at the church schools, to perhaps some exposure to graduate school, to full-time church employment in some capacity as a member of the priesthood. This elite structure needs sharp and incisive historical investigation and would go far toward helping to explain the role of class in the development of the various organizations. 

Finally, Paul M. Edwards recently made an intriguing point about Mormonism's middle class that deserves further study: 

This class is not so much economic or family-oriented (even though in both the Reorganization and LDS organizations these are important). Rather it consists of persons who are tasting both power and influence—as well as professional acceptance and understanding—outside the church. And thus, who are increasingly aware of their own authority by virtue of knowledge and ability. At the same time more aware of their lack of power within the institution. This group includes the intellectuals, and closet skeptics, as well as those faithful to the tradition but not necessarily the doctrine. It also includes persons who have come to believe their opinions reflect an honest minority. These persons considered themselves challenged—and usually blocked—by those who control the majority and who are conservatives (prescriptivists) of the Edmund Burke variety. They feel excluded from power because they are neither rich enough (in terms of holding authority) nor poor enough (willing to trade obedience for protection).[33]

A similar development has probably been the case for the Latter-day Saints and comparison of the two offers intriguing possibilities for historians interested in class structures. 

Gender

Finally, there can be no question that gender is a significant area requiring concentrated historical effort. One of the early emphases of the "New Mormon History" has been women's history. Many articles about Mormon women both individually and collectively have appeared over the years, but few get at the kinds of questions that hit the mark in the larger context of gender history.[34] They are usually more celebratory than should be the case, focusing on elites, the benevolent nature and work of the Relief Society, or the faith and perseverance of individual women. This area of study has not sparked the interesting explorations that could be undertaken by those working in the field.[35] More illuminating than most of what has been done are the questions of gender: how and why the two sexes have interacted together on a broad front beyond normal bounds. Joan N. Scott recently noted that historians have been slow to ask questions of gender in many areas, thinking that they bear little relationship to "war, diplomacy, and high politics." Scott challenged historians to move beyond the connotation of linking gender to women's history and to expand the investigation to broader concerns.[36]

Scott's plea has exciting possibilities for Mormon historians. All the elements of Mormon historical inquiry could be illuminated by a sophisticated use of gender-related questions and themes. Historians of nineteenth-century America have developed three general themes concerning gender roles, all of which could be applied in Mormon studies. First, the doctrine of separate spheres for men and women suggested that women should work in and exercise control over the home while men should have dominion over the world outside.[37] Second, justifying this division of spheres was the cult of true womanhood—an idealized image of women as pious, pure, domestic, and submissive.[38] Finally, there has developed the idea of the predatory male, a thesis that demands that middle-class men exhibit traits of self-control, economic aggressiveness, Christian kindness, worldly authority, and emotional attachments to family.[39]

Each of these themes suggests enticing prospects for historians of Mormonism. Take as one example the development of temple rituals incorporated into the church in the 1830s and 1840s. How many of the theological conceptions that emerged in Mormonism's temple ceremonies resulted from efforts to secure traditional gender roles in a society in flux in Jacksonian America? Was the all-male priesthood headed by Joseph Smith instituting these ceremonies because of status anxiety?[40] During the era, owing to the accelerated change resulting from the Industrial Revolution, virtually all cherished ideals about life and home and family were altered in some way.[41] Mark C. Carnes has argued that the popularity of fraternal lodges in the Victorian era was motivated at a rudimentary level by the desire to restore order and to resecure patriarchal authority lost in the Industrial Revolution and its attendant social upheavals. He commented that the centrality of women in the home, and their encroachment into a variety of male social and political concerns, prompted the creation of lodges as a haven from women. "Fraternal members built temples from which women were excluded," Carnes wrote, "devised myriad secrets and threatened members with fearful punishments if they should 'tell their wife the concerns of the order/ and created rituals which reclaimed for themselves the religious authority that formerly reposed in the hands of Biblical patriarchs."[42]

The Mormon temple concept as it emerged in Kirtland and Nauvoo seems to have possessed many of the ingredients that Carnes identified with lodges. The priesthood, of course, was an all-male club from the founding of the church, but beginning with temple rites initiated in Kirt land it took on special connotations. The secrecy, the ritualistic washings and anointings, the incantations, and the all-night vigils in the Kirtland temple's upper rooms bear a striking resemblance to the lodge experiences Carnes analyzed.[43] These commonalities were even more apparent in Nauvoo. The rituals became more complex; the emphasis on secrecy; the preoccupation with Old Testament images, especially those associated with biblical patriarchs; and the elaborate rites all share linkages to the religion of lodges so prominent in larger American society.[44] Could similar concerns for status and security have prompted the development of temple rituals? 

One fundamental difference between the lodges and Mormon temple rites bears directly on the study of gender in Mormon history: Joseph Smith admitted women into the temple. His was a selective admittance, however, and came only after sixteen months of all-male activity. Entrance to the temple was expanded after his death, but it might have not gone so far had he lived. After all, there is good reason to believe that Smith always thought in terms of setting up hierarchies where he was supreme, with a select few disciples placed just beneath him. He was never interested in equality, regardless of gender.[45] Indeed, the idea of eternal exaltation where faithful Mormons would "inherit thrones, kingdoms, principalities, and powers, dominions, all heights and depths" implies that others must be subservient (D&C 132:20).[46] Temple rituals, I would argue, always mandated a second-class position for women beneath their priesthood-holding husbands. The mother in heaven concept and the assertion that Mormon women would be queens and priestesses to their husbands that was explicit in Nauvoo temple ceremonies might well have been attempts to secure a patriarchal hegemony vis a vis female Mormons. Temple ceremonies of sealing, secret names, and entrance into celestial glory only if the husband calls were an effort to reenforce traditional gender roles and to ensure the place of the male as the dominant member of society. 

Even in instances where practitioners have tried to demonstrate the equality of both sexes in the temple, the argument is unconvincing. LDS apostle Franklin D. Richards made a convoluted attempt to show that men and women were equal before the Mormon God in 1888. He said: 

I ask any and everybody present who have received their endowments, whether he be a brother Apostle, Bishop, High Priest, Elder, or whatever office he may hold in the Church, What blessings did you receive, what ordinance, what power, intelligence, sanctification or grace did you receive that your wife did not partake of with you? ... I hold that a faithful wife has certain gifts and blessings and promises with her husband, which she cannot be deprived of except by transgression of the holy order of God.”[47]

The important aspect of this is the necessary linkage of women to men. A faithful wife had gifts and promises and blessing with her husband, not in her own right, and this helped ensure her subservience. Although most Mormon women were pleased with this position—after all it placed them in a much higher position than non-Mormons—there is little question that the sexes were not equal.[48] Melodie Moench Charles concluded that Mormon theology allowed women "no authority nor power; she gets no acknowledgment for her distinctive contributions, whatever they are. She has no self apart from her husband."[49] Did this position emerge ambivalently over time or was it deliberately fostered by status anxiety or other more subtle factors? Future research should look into these questions and be willing to put forth new interpretations. 

The gender issue relates to a wide body of other subjects in Mormon history. For instance, how would questions of gender relate to the development of plural marriage in the 1840s? Can polygamy be explained as a collective mid-life crisis of Mormon officials in the 1840s? Could the religious connotations associated with it have been a way to legitimize lascivious behavior? "Perhaps polygamy," Newell G. Bringhurst speculated, "was the product of a so-called 'middle-age crisis' that Smith, along with other Mormon leaders, experience by the late 1830s and early 1840s. The taking of plural wives, particularly young, attractive ones, represented an effort to recapture youthful vigor and vitality."[50] Of course, such a suggestion requires considerably more research before being raised as a legitimate theory, but it is certainly something worth exploring. Also, what about the priesthood as an all-male club, a fraternity as in college or more appropriately in men's clubs of elites, and what did this mean for the various Mormon institutions? What was maleness all about in the nineteenth century and how was that translated into Mormonism? The same question could be asked of maleness in the twentieth century. Or even of heterosexuality and homosexuality. What male rituals have been part of the all-male Joint Council of the RLDS or Quorum of the Twelve meetings of the LDS? Why are they present and how would they have to be changed if women were admitted into those meetings? I contend that gender, as opposed to women's, history is an important area of consideration in Mormon history. 

Conclusion

These are some of the possibilities that are present for students of Mormon history in the 1990s and beyond. This is not a complete list, but it is a starting point. Themes of race, ethnicity, class, and gender hold promise for historians of the movement, and many can be undertaken using sources that are not restricted since they do not depend on the papers of high church officials. Their study could restructure our understanding of the church and its evolution. While new perspectives might shake up the discipline and offer different conclusions from those presently accepted, they should also instill a wider appreciation of the diversity and complexity of the religious movement we seek to understand. I appreciate that too few people, myself included, ask hard epistomological questions. This is the beginning of an attempt to frame some new ones. Of course I realize that simply asking questions is not sufficient. What is required is sustained questioning by those with differing viewpoints and a willingness to move beyond the boundaries of convention. Twenty-five years ago Mormon writer Sam Taylor described characteristics required of those who would produce great literature. With apologies and allowances for the male chauvinism in his characterization, I suggest the same attributes are required of historians who seek to explain Mormonism of all varieties. That person 

is someone ridden and driven by a consuming passion that has been called the divine discontent. He is not a reporter but an interpreter; he is eternally a crusader; he is a non-conformist and a dissenter who cries out the faults of his world in his attempt to make a better one. His integrity demands that he search his environment honestly, whether he writes of the contemporary scene or of an historical setting. His drive compels him to present the essence of things as they are and were and not as positive-thinking apolo- gists have decided they should be. He is abrasive to the organization man because no organization is perfect; most good and great creative writing is basically the literature of protest.[51]

Our present effort should be one that builds on the "New Mormon History"; it must move beyond it into new interpretive frameworks and totally different structural ideas. New questions, new conceptionalizations, and new priorities reflecting the multi-culturalism of the United States offer a unique potential. 

---

[1] On these efforts, see Leonard J. Arrington, "Historian as Entrepreneur: A Personal Essay," Brigham Young University Studies 17 (Winter 1977): 193-209; F. Henry Edwards, "Historians and the Department of History of the Reorganization," Saints' Herald 120 (Aug. 1973): 19-21, 120 (Sept. 1973): 24-25, 37; W. B. Spillman, "The Historian Looks at Church History," Saints' Herald 112 (15 Aug. 1967): 546-50; Richard P. Howard, "Philosophy, Problems, and Opportunities in Church History," Saints' Herald 117 (Feb. 1970): 31, 32, 117 (Mar. 1970): 22-24; W. Grant McMurray, "'As Historians and Not as Partisans': The Writing of Official History in the RLDS Church," John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 6 (1986): 43-52; Paul M. Edwards, "The New Mormon History," Saints' Herald 133 (Nov. 1986): 13. 

[2] As an example, see "History Division Publications," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 16 (Fall 1983): 20-33.

[3] F. Mark McKiernan, Alma R. Blair, and Paul M. Edwards, eds., The Restoration Movement: Essays in Mormon History (Lawrence, KS: Coronado Press, 1973); Richard P. Howard, "A New Landmark in Latter Day Saints Historiography," Saints' Herald 120 (Sept. 1973): 55, 58. 

[4] Richard P. Howard, "Churches Exchange Copies of Historic Documents," Saints' Herald 122 (Feb. 1975): 22-23. 

[5] Davis Bitton, "Ten Years in Camelot: A Personal Memoir," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 16 (Autumn 1983): 9-20, quote from p. 9. A good overview and sampling of historical efforts emanating from the "New Mormon History" can be found in D. Michael Quinn, ed., The New Mormon History: Revisionist Essays on the Past (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1992).

[6] Charles S. Peterson, "Beyond the Problems of Exceptionalist History," in Thomas G. Alexander, ed., Great Basin Kingdom Revisited: Contemporary Perspectives (Logan: Utah State University Press, 1991), 133-51, quote from p. 146. 

[7] The literature, and the debate, over Custer is brutal. See Robert M. Utley, Cavalier in Buckskin: George Armstrong Custer and the Western Military Frontier (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1988); Brian W. Dippie, Custer's Last Stand: The Anatomy of an American Myth (Missoula: University of Montana Publications in History, 1976); Paul A. Hutton, "From Little Bighorn to Little Big Man: The Changing Image of a Western Hero in Popular Culture," Western Historical Quarterly 7 (Jan. 1976): 19-45; Brian W. Dippie, "Of Bullets, Blunders, and Custer Buffs," Montana: The Magazine of Western History 41 (Winter 1991): 77-80. On Smith, see Dale L. Morgan, Jedediah Smith and the Opening of the West (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1953); John G. Neihardt, The Splendid Wayfaring: The Exploits and Adventures of Jedediah Smith and the Ashley-Henry Men (New York: Macmillan Co., 1920); Alson J. Smith, Men Against the Mountains: Jedediah Smith and the South West Expedition of 1826-1829 (New York: John Day Co., 1965); Maurice L. Sullivan, Jedediah Smith: Trader and Trail Breaker (New York: Press of the Pioneers, 1936). 

[8] Each of these individuals has contributed exciting interpretive studies of the American West that did much to rescue it from irrelevance. See Patricia Nelson Limerick, The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West (New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 1987); Donald Worster, Rivers of Empire: Water, Aridity, and the Growth of the American West (New York: Pantheon Books, 1985); William Cronon et al., eds., Under the Open Sky: Rethinking America's Western Past (New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 1992); Richard White, "It's Your Misfortune and None of My Own": A New History of the American West (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991). 

[9] Turner's approach toward the frontier has been summarized in Frederick Jackson Turner, The Frontier in American History (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1920), which collects many of his essays. There are numerous recent articles in the Organization of American Historians' Newsletter and the American Historical Association's Perspectives that demonstrate the emerging importance of the West as a theme in American history.

[10] Edwin Brown Firmage and Richard Collin Mangrum, Zion in the Courts: A Legal History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1830-1900 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988), xiv-xv. 

[11] This is an unfortunate occurrence because Firmage is a thoughtful, liberal Mormon who has challenged the Latter-day Saint status quo on more than one occasion, standing up for minority and women's rights, speaking out against war and the excesses of patriotism, and generally appreciating the pluralism of American culture.

[12] For example, Ron Roberts, "A Waystation from Babylon: Nineteenth-Century Saints in Lucas, Iowa," John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 10 (1991): 60-70, and Thomas J. Morain, "Mormons and Nineteenth-Century Iowa Historians/' John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 1 (1981): 34-42, have raised fundamental questions beyond the confines of the institutional church and offered some interesting observations on the effect larger issues in society held. 

[13] W. Grant McMurray, "The Reorganization in Nineteenth-Century America: Identity Crisis or Historiographical Problem," John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 2 (1982): 3-11, quote from p. 9.

[14] On social constructionism, see John E. Toews, "Intellectual History after the Linguistic Turn: The Autonomy of Meaning and the Irreducibility of Experience," American Historical Review 92 (Oct. 1987): 879-907; David A. Hollinger, In the American Province: Studies in the History and Historiography of Ideas (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985); Dominick LaCapra, Rethinking Intellectual History: Texts, Contexts, Language (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1985). 

[15] Joan Kelly, Women, History, and Theory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), 51-64, esp. 61. 

[16] See Roger D. Launius, Invisible Saints: A History of Black Americans in the Reorganized Church (Independence, MO: Herald Publishing House, 1988). I have tried to broaden my horizons in "A Black Woman in a White Man's Church: The Odyssey of Amy E. Robbins in the Reorganization." In it I grapple with the issue of race and gender and how they affected and were affected by the church at the local level. 

[17] Newell G. Bringhurst, Saints, Slaves, and Blacks: The Changing Place of Black People Within Mormonism (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1981); Lester E. Bush and Armand L. Mauss, eds., Neither White Nor Black: Mormon Scholars Confront the Race Issue in a Universal Church (Midvale, UT: Signature Books, 1984); Stephen G. Taggart, Mormonism's Negro Policy: Social and Historical Origins (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1970). Jessie L. Embry has completed a manuscript, "Black Saints in a White Church," that asks some of the questions about blacks in the LDS movement that are critical to the development of a fully-rounded interpretation of the subject. 

[18] On early Mormons and Indians, see Ronald W. Walker, "Seeking the 'Remnant': The Native American During the Joseph Smith Period/' Journal of Mormon History 19 (Spring 1993): 1-33; G. St. John Stott, "New Jerusalem Abandoned: The Failure to Carry Mormonism to the Delaware," Journal of American Studies 21 (Apr. 1987): 79-82; Keith Parry, "Joseph Smith and the Clash of Sacred Cultures," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 18 (Winter 1985): 65-80; Leonard J. Arrington and Davis Bitton, The Mormon Experience: A History of the Latter-day Saints (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1979), 145-60; Richard L. Bushman, Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1984), 115-21,133-39,168-75; Floyd A. O'Neil, "The Mormons, the Indians, and George Washington Bean," in Clyde A. Milner II and Floyd A. O'Neil, eds., Churchmen and Western Indians, 1820-1920 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1985), 77-107; Warren A. Jennings, "The First Mormon Mission to the Indians," Kansas Historical Quarterly 31 (Autumn 1971): 288-99. For example, I found Aleah G. Koury, "The Church and the American Indian," Saints' Herald 123 (Apr. 1976): 212-16, 241; and Rebecca E. Haering, "A Prophecy: Revealed and Fulfilled," Restoration Trail Forum 4t (Feb. 1979): 1, 5, the only historical publications on the Reorganization experience with native Americans. On this whole question, see David J. Whittaker, "Mormons and Native Americans: A Historical and Bibliographical Introduction," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 18 (Winter 1985): 33-64.

[19] Whittaker, "Mormons and Native Americans," 46. 

[20] This question has been explored in three brief, suggestive essays: Jessie L. Embry, "Ethnic Groups and the LDS Church," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 25 (Winter 1992): 81-97; Jessie L. Embry, "'Separate but Equal': American Ethnic Groups in the RLDS and LDS Churches, A Comparison," John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 12 (1992): 83-100; and Robert Ben Madison, "'Heirs According to the Promise': Observations of Ethnicity, Race and Identity in Two Factions of Nineteenth Century Mormonism," John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 12 (1992): 66-82. 

[21] There has been some work done on this subject concerning the LDS church, although much remains to be done. See Marjorie Newton, "'Almost Like Us': The American Socialization of Australian Converts," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 24 (Fall 1991): 9-20; Jessie L. Embry, "Little Berlin: Swiss Saints in the Logan Tenth Ward," Utah Historical Quarterly 56 (Summer 1988): 222-35; Douglas D. Alder, "The Mormon Ward: Congregation or Community?" Journal of Mormon History 5 (1978): 61-78; Ronald W. Walker, "'Going to Meeting' in Salt Lake City's Thirteenth Ward, 1849-1881: A Microanalysis," in Davis Bitton and Maureen Ursenbach Beecher, eds., New Views of Mormon History: A Collection of Essays in Honor of Leonard J. Arrington (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1987), 138-61; Richard L. Jensen, "Mother Tongue: Use of Non-English Languages in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the United States, 1850-1983," in Bitton and Beecher, eds., New Views of Mormon History, 273-303; Dian Saderup and William Cottam, "Living Histories: Selected Biographies from the Manhattan First Ward," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 25 (Winter 1992): 58-79. 

[22] Dean R. Louder, "Canadian Mormon Identity and the French Fact," in Brigham Y. Card et al., eds., The Mormon Presence in Canada (Logan: Utah State University Press, 1990), 302-27, quote from p. 322. This article, fittingly, received the Mormon History Association's Best Interdisciplinary Article Award in 1991. 

[23] Maurice L. Draper, Isles and Continents (Independence, MO: Herald Publishing House, 1982). 

[24] Steven L. Shields, Divergent Paths of the Restoration (Bountiful, UT: Restoration Research, 1982), 89-98; William H. Cadman, A History of the Church of Jesus Christ Organized at Green Oak, Pennsylvania, in 1862 (Monagahela, PA: n.p., 1945).

[25] There is a massive historiography associated with this study in American history. See, as only a few examples, Barton J. Bernstein, ed., Towards a New Past: Dissenting Essays in American History (New York: Random House, 1967); Mario S. DePillis, "Trends in American Social History and the Possibilities of Behavioral Approaches," Journal of Social History 1 (Fall 1967): 38-60; Stuart Blumin, "The Historical Study of Vertical Mobility," Historical Methods Newsletter 1 (Sept. 1968): 1-13; Stephen Thernstrom, Poverty and Progress: Social Mobility in a Nineteenth Century City (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1964); Stephen Thernstrom and Richard Sennett, eds., Nineteenth Century Cities: Essays in the New Urban History (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1969); Philip J. Greven, Jr., Four Generations: Population, Land, and Family in Colonial Andover, Massachusetts (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1970); Karen Haltunen, Confidence Men and Painted Women: A Study of Middle-class Culture in America, 1830-1870 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1982); Michael Kamman, ed., The Past Before Us: Contemporary Historical Writing in the United States (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1980); David Levine, Family Formation in an Age of Nascent Capitalism (New York: Academic Press, 1977); Bernard and Lillian Johnpoll, The Impossible Dream: The Rise and Demise of the American Left (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1981); Herbert G. Gutman, Work, Culture, and Society in Industrializing America: Essays in American Working-Class and Social History (New York: Vintage Books, 1977); Eugene D. Genovese, Roll Jordan Roll: The World the Slaves Made (New York: Random House, 1972). 

[26] Exceptions to this statement include D. Michael Quinn, "The Mormon Hierarchy, 1832-1932: An American Elite," Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 1976; Frederick S. Buchanan, A Good Time Coming: Mormon Letters to Scotland (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1988). The Quinn study, especially, explores most of the themes discussed in this arena.

[27] Howard Zinn, The Politics of History (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1970), 102.

[28] A premier example of LDS historical demographic research is Dean L. May, "A Demographical Portrait of the Mormons, 1830-1980," in Thomas G. Alexander and Jessie L. Embry, eds., After 150 Years: The Latter-day Saints in Historical Perspective (Provo, UT: Charles Redd Center for Western Studies, 1983), 40-57. 

[29] Roger D. Launius, "R. C. Evans: Boy Orator of the Reorganization," John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 3 (1983): 40-50. 

[30] On groupthink, see Irving L. Janis, Groupthink: Psychological Studies of Policy Decisions and Fiascoes (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1983).

[31] I take a stab at this subject in an article, "Coming of Age? The Reorganized Church in the 1960s," forthcoming in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, but my comments are exploratory and need much refinement. 

[32] G. Edward White, The Eastern Establishment and the Western Experience: The West of Frederic Remington, Theodore Roosevelt, and Owen Wister (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1968), 11-30. 

[33] Paul M. Edwards, "Ethics and Dissent in Mormonism: A Personal Essay," in Roger D. Launius and W. B. Spillman, eds., Let Contention Cease: The Dynamics of Dissent in the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Independence, MO: Graceland/Park Press, 1991), 249-50.

[34] For a discussion of the development of women's history, see Carol Cornwall Madsen and David J. Whittaker, "History's Sequel: A Source Essay on Women in Mormon History," Journal of Mormon History 6 (1979): 123-45; Patricia Lyn Scott and Maureen Ursenbach Beecher, "Mormon Women: A Bibliography in Progress, 1977-1985," Journal of Mormon History 12 (1985): 113-28. 

[35] An exception to this has been Maureen Ursenbach Beecher and Lavina Fielding Anderson, eds., Sisters in Spirit: Mormon Women in Historical and Cultural Perspective (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987), and a few other studies. 

[36] Joan N. Scott, "Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis," American Historical Review 91 (Dec. 1986): 1053-75, quote from p. 1073. 

[37] Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, "The Female World of Love and Ritual: Relations Between Women in Nineteenth-Century America," Signs 1 (Autumn 1975): 1-29; Nancy F. Cott, The Bonds of Womanhood (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1977). This approach's dualism has been challenged. See Linda K. Kerber, "Separate Spheres, Female Worlds, Woman's Place: The Rhetoric of Women's History," Journal of American History 75 (June 1988): 9-39; Karen Lystra, Searching the Heart: Women, Men, and Romantic Love in Nineteenth-Century America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989).

[38] Barbara Welter, "The Cult of True Womanhood, 1820-1860," American Quarterly 18 (Summer 1966): 151-74; Charles Rosenberg, "Sexuality, Class, and Role in 19th-century America," American Quarterly 25 (May 1973): 131-53. 

[39] Anthony E. Rotundo, "Body and Soul: Changing Ideals of American Middle-Class Manhood, 1770-1920," Journal of Social History 16 (Summer 1983): 23-38; Rupert Wilkinson, American Tough: The Tough-Guy Tradition and American Character (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1984); G. J. Barker-Benfield, The Horrors of the Half-Known Life: Male Attitudes Toward Women and Sexuality in Nineteenth-Century America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976). 

[40] This theme has been explored in Joseph R. Gusfield, Symbolic Crusade: Status Politics and the American Temperance Movement (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1963); Rowland Berthoff, An Unsettled People: Social Order and Disorder in American History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1971). 

[41] This is a theme of longstanding development. See the classic statements of Whitney R. Cross, The Burned-Over District: The Social and Intellectual History of Intellectual History of Enthusiastic Religion in Western New York, 1800-1850 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1950); Alice Felt Tyler, Freedom's Ferment: Phases of American Social History from the Colonial Period to the Outbreak of the Civil War (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1944); Lawrence Foster, Religion and Sexuality: The Shakers, the Mormons, and the Oneida Community (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1984 ed.); C. S. Griffin, The Ferment of Reform, 1830-1860 (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1967); Alan Dawley, Class and Community: The Industrial Experience in Lynn (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1976); Paul E. Johnson, A Shopkeeper's Millennium: Society and Revivals in Rochester, New York, 1815-1837 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978).

[42] Mark C. Carnes, Secret Ritual and Manhood in Victorian America (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989), 79. 

[43] Roger D. Launius, The Kirtland Temple: A Historical Narrative (Independence, MO: Herald Publishing House, 1986), 63-65. 

[44] The explicit connection between the Mormon temple ceremonies and lodges, especially Masonry, has been made in numerous publications. See David John Buerger, "The Development of the Mormon Temple Endowment Ceremony," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 20 (Winter 1987): 33-76; Reed C. Durham, Jr., "'Is There No Help for the Widow's Son?'" presidential address to the Mormon History Association, 20 Apr. 1974, Nauvoo, IL; Mervin B. Hogan, Mormonism and Freemasonry: The Illinois Episode (Salt Lake City: Campus Graphics, 1980); Carnes, Secret Ritual and Manhood in Victorian America, 6-7; Roger D. Launius and F. Mark McKiernan, Joseph Smith, Jr. 's, Red Brick Store (Macomb: Western Illinois University Monograph Series, 1985), 28-32.

[45] Ronald E. Romig has demonstrated this in relation to the Three Witnesses to the Book of Mormon. See Ronald E. Romig, "David Whitmer: Faithful Dissenter, Witness Apart," in Roger D. Launius and Linda Thatcher, eds., Differing Visions: Dissenters in Mormon History (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, forthcoming), chap. 1. See how this has been played out in the larger scheme of American religion in J. Milton Yinger, Religion in the Struggle for Power: A Study in the Sociology of Religion (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1946). 

[46] Verse 19 is explicit: "Then shall they be gods, . . . then shall they be above all, because all things are subject to them. Then shall they be gods, because they have all power, and the angels are subject unto them." 

[47] Woman's Exponent 6 (1 Sept. 1888): 54.

[48] The celebration of this position has been expressed in Carol Cornwall Madsen, "Mormon Women and the Temple: Toward a New Interpretation," in Beecher and Anderson, Sisters in Spirit, 80-110. 

[49] Melodie Moench Charles, "The Need for a New Mormon Heaven," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 21 (Fall 1988): 73-87, quote from pp. 84-85.

[50] Newell G. Bringhurst, Brigham Young and the Expanding American Frontier (Boston: Little, Brown, 1986), 54.

[51] Samuel W. Taylor, "Peculiar People, Positive Thinkers, and the Prospect of Mormon Literature," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 2 (Summer 1967): 17-31, quote from p. 19.

[post_title] => The "New Social History" and the "New Mormon History": Reflections on Recent Trends [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 27.1 (Spring 1994): 109–123
My own analysis of the state of Mormon history suggests that the field, while other factors have also been at work, suffers from some of the exclusiveness and intellectual imperialism that were nurtured during the glory days of the “New Mormon History ” in the 1970s. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => the-new-social-history-and-the-new-mormon-history-reflections-on-recent-trends [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-05-07 15:23:33 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-05-07 15:23:33 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=11708 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 12143 [post_author] => 2823 [post_date] => 2018-04-13 21:05:42 [post_date_gmt] => 2018-04-13 21:05:42 [post_content] =>

"We believe in the gift of tongues, prophecy, revelation, visions, healing, interpretation of tongues, and so forth" (Seventh Article of Faith). While over five million people in the United States today speak in tongues (Noll 1983, 336), very few, if any, are Latter-day Saints. However, during the mid-1800s, speaking in tongues was so commonplace in the LDS and RLDS churches that a person who had not spoken in tongues, or who had not heard others do so, was a rarity. Journals and life histories of that period are filled with instances of the exercise of this gift of the Spirit. In today's Church, the practice is almost totally unknown. This article summarizes the various views of tongues today, clarifies the origin of tongues within the restored Church, and details its rise and fall in the LDS and RLDS faiths. 

There are two general categories of speaking in tongues: glossolalia, speaking in an unknown language, usually thought to be of heavenly, not human, origin; and xenoglossia, miraculously speaking in an ordinary human language unknown to the speaker. When no distinction is made between these two types of speech, both types are collectively referred to as glossolalia. 

On the day of Pentecost, Christ's apostles were gathered together. "And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. . . . Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language" (Acts 2:4, 6). The apostles were given the power to speak in languages they did not know, an example of xenoglossia. In contrast, the Saints in Corinth practiced glossolalia, speaking in unknown tongues (1 Cor. 14). 

While speaking in tongues was accepted, practiced, and sometimes abused in New Testament times, modern researchers disagree about its validity as a religious experience. One group discounts the religious aspect of tongues and considers it aberrant human behavior. In the 1920s, psychologist Alexander Mackie concluded that glossolalists exhibit such symptoms as unstable nervous systems, disturbed sex lives, perversions, and exhibitionism. He claimed that speaking in tongues is a symptom of an emotionalism or a pathological dissociative process (in Mills 1986, 20-21). George Cutten, author of psychological and religious books, whose 1927 writings denned the standard view of glossolalia for many years, suggested that glossolalists experience a state of personal disintegration in which the verbo-motive centers of the brain become obedient to subconscious impulses. He linked glossolalia to hysteria, catalepsy, ecstasy, schizophrenia, and an underdeveloped capacity for rational thought (Cutten 1927). 

A second group of investigators also discounts the religious aspect of tongues but considers it a normal, although uncommon, human behavior. L. Carlyle May has shown that glossolalia and xenoglossia are not limited to Christian churches but are almost universal in time and place. Glossolalia occurs frequently among the Eskimos of the Hudson Bay area. The priestesses of North Borneo speak incantations in a language known only to the spirits and themselves. The tribal doctors of the modern Quillancinga and Pasto groups of the Andes recite unintelligible prayers as they heal their patients. Glossolalia occurs during seances on the Japanese islands of Hokkaido and Honshu. Even Herodotus and Virgil wrote of priests speaking strange languages while possessed (May 1956). 

Xenoglossia is also widespread. During the Later Han Dynasty in China (approximately 200 A.D.), the wife of Ting-in would suddenly become ill and speak in foreign languages she could not speak when normal. Today's Haida shaman of Alaska can speak Tlingit when inspired. East Africans who neither understand nor speak Swahili or English speak these languages when possessed by spirits (May 1956). Virginia Hine, another researcher of speaking in tongues, concluded, "Quite clearly, available evidence requires that an explanation of glossolalia as pathological must be discarded" (1969, 217). 

A third group of investigators recognizes the religious aspect but accepts the legitimacy of tongues only in New Testament times. They argue, first, that speaking in tongues had no significant place in the post-apostolic church A.D. 100-400; second, that the Middle Ages offer no evidence that the apostolic gift of tongues was meant to be perpetuated; third, that the reformation period gives no evidence of the continuance of speaking in tongues; and fourth, that the history of the church in modern times does not support the validity of tongues as a scriptural manifestation in today's church (Unger 1971, 136-45). According to these investigators, "the extensive evidence of church history and the effects of tongues on human experience — the emotional extremism, the unhealthy prophetism often manifest, the doctrinal ignorance and confusion, the divisive nature of the movements, the pride and empty conceit generated by erratic unscriptural 'experiences' — all these point to the truth of Paul's inspired Word, 'tongues shall cease' " (Unger 1971, 146). 

A final group of researchers recognizes the religious aspect and accepts the legitimacy of tongues in modern times. Stressing the following points, they argue that speaking in tongues is a unique spiritual gift within the church of Jesus Christ: 

• Speaking in tongues was ordained by God for the church (1 Cor. 12:28). 
• Speaking in tongues is a specific fulfillment of prophecy (Isa. 28:11; 1 Cor. 14:21; Joel 2:28; Acts 2:16). 
• Speaking in tongues is a sign of the believer (Mark 16:17).
• Speaking in tongues is a sign to the unbeliever (1 Cor. 14:22).
• Speaking in tongues is an evidence of baptism with the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:4, 10:45, 46, 19:6). 
• Speaking in tongues is a spiritual gift for self-edification (1 Cor. 14:4). 
• The Apostle Paul desired that all would speak in tongues (1 Cor. 14:5) and that speaking in tongues should not be forbidden (1 Cor. 14:39; Jorstad 1973, 85-86). 

Although speaking in tongues is the subject of intense and highly emotional discussion among Christians today, these differing viewpoints did not influence the early Latter-day Saints. There was no question in their minds about the legitimacy of speaking in tongues. Their leaders spoke in tongues, their scriptures approved of the practice, and a great many of them exercised this gift. 

The Beginnings

Each of the numerous sources describing the origin of speaking in tongues in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints credits Brigham Young with introducing the practice to Joseph Smith in Kirtland (HC; Watson 1968; Esplin 1981; Gibbons 1981; Newell 1987; Bushman 1976). 

Brigham Young recalled these events in his journal:

In September, 1832, brother Heber C. Kimball took his horse and wagon, brother Joseph Young and myself accompanying him and started for Kirtland to see the Prophet Joseph. We visited many friends on the way, and some Branches of the Church. We exhorted them and prayed with them, and I spoke in tongues. 

We proceeded to Kirtland .. . to see the Prophet. We went to his father's house and learned that he was in the woods, chopping. We immediately repaired to the woods, where we found the Prophet. . . . We soon returned to his house, he accompanying us. 

In the evening a few of the brethren came in, and we conversed together upon the things of the kingdom. He called upon me to pray; in my prayer I spoke in tongues. As soon as we arose from our knees the brethren flocked around him, and asked his opinion concerning the gift of tongues that was upon me. He told them it was the pure Adamic language. Some said to him they expected he would condemn the gift brother Brigham had, but he said, "No, it is of God." 

Watson 1968, 2-4

Joseph Smith described an evening in November 1832: "At one of our interviews, Brother Brigham Young and John P. Greene spoke in tongues, which was the first time I [Joseph Smith] had heard this gift among the brethren; others also spoke, and I received the gift myself" (HC 1:296-97). Even though these records seem reliable, there is ample evidence that speaking in tongues had already been preached and practiced openly by the Saints in Ohio for two years before Young arrived there late in 1832. 

To understand the actual introduction of tongues into the Church, we must first become familiar with the background of its chief advocate, Sidney Rigdon. Rigdon moved to the Kirtland area from Pittsburgh in the fall of 1826, taking a position as a Campbellite preacher. The Campbellites were dedicated to restoring Christianity to its "primitive" New Testament state. The movement's founder, Alexander Campbell, called for a restoration of "the ancient order of things" emphasizing a lay ministry, baptism by immersion, and blessings of the Spirit. Campbell and Rigdon disagreed over the manifestation of these spiritual blessings. Rigdon claimed that "along with the primitive gospel, supernatural gifts and miracles ought to be restored" (Campbell 1868, 2:346). These gifts included speaking in tongues, prophecy, visions, and revelation. Campbell argued that these gifts belonged only to the apostolic period {Public Discussion 1913, 11). 

In June 1830, Rigdon attended the annual meeting of the Mahon ing Association, a loose confederation of Campbellite congregations organized to "protect their groups against heresy, to devise better ways to spread the gospel, and to provide fellowship among the ministers" (McKiernan 1971, 18). The Association rejected Rigdon's views about the restoration of spiritual gifts, most likely because Campbell opposed them and controlled a large part of the audience. Rigdon left the meeting a bitter man; later that year, he and his congregation withdrew from the Campbellite movement. 

In the fall of 1830, Joseph Smith received revelations that would change the course of the fledgling Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Through Joseph the Lord said to Oliver Cowdery, "And now, behold, I say unto you that you shall go unto the Lamanites and preach my gospel unto them" (D&C 28:8). On 26 September, while the Saints were assembled in conference, Peter Whitmer received a charge to join Oliver in this mission to the American Indians (D&C 20:5); and a few days later, Parley P. Pratt and Ziba Peterson were called to go with them (D&C 32). In mid-October these four "commenced their journey, preaching by the way, and leaving a sealing testimony behind them, lifting up their voice like a trump in the different villages through which they passed" (HC 1:120). 

Rigdon and Pratt were not strangers to each other. In the fall of 1829, a curious Pratt had heard Sidney Rigdon preach near Pratt's farm. "I found he preached faith in Jesus Christ, repentance towards God, and baptism for remission of sins, with the promise of the gift of the Holy Ghost to all who would come forward" (Pratt 1961, 31). Pratt accepted Rigdon's gospel and a year later sold his farm to take up the life of an itinerant preacher. During his travels, he was introduced to the Book of Mormon and subsequently joined the Church. Sidney Rigdon had inspired Pratt to seek for the "ancient gospel." Now Pratt could repay his friend by sharing his newly found knowledge, the miraculous restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

Arriving in Kirtland, Pratt first called on Rigdon, who though initially skeptical, became converted and was baptized on 14 November 1830. Before the four missionaries left the area, they had converted approximately 130 people, most from Rigdon's flock. By the summer of 1831, one thousand new members from the Kirtland area had united with the Church (Pratt 1961, 48). 

Kirtland was not the final destination of these missionaries, however; and after spending some time with Rigdon, Pratt was ready to resume his journey westward. He looked forward not only to converting the Indians, but to the gift of xenoglossia. Pratt "knew, for his Heavenly Father had told him, that when they got among the scattered tribes, there would be as great miracles wrought, as there was at the day of Pentecost" {Painesville [Ohio] Telegraph, 14 Dec. 1830). 

John Corrill, who, although not a Campbellite, held Rigdon in high regard, heard of Sidney's leanings toward Mormonism and planned to go to Kirtland "to persuade Elder Rigdon to go home with me, on a preaching visit; for I thought, if I could get him away from them until his mind became settled, he might be saved from their imposition" (1839, 8). But before he arrived, Corrill learned of Rigdon's baptism. Now even more anxious to see his friend, he continued on to Kirtland, arriving in December 1830. "I attended several meetings," he later noted, "one of which was the laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost, which, I thought, would give me a good opportunity to detect their hypocrisy. The meeting lasted all night, and such a meeting I never attended before. They administered the sacrament, and laid on hands, after which I heard them prophecy [sic] and speak in tongues unknown to me" (Corrill 1839, 9). 

The 15 February 1831 Painesville Telegraph describes the speaking in tongues among the Saints the previous December: "At other times they are taken with a fit of jabbering that which they neither understand themselves nor anybody else, and this they call speaking foreign languages by divine inspiration." 

In February 1831, Thomas Campbell, Alexander's father, announced his plans to expose Mormonism's "feigned pretensions to miraculous gifts, the gift of tongues, &c." proposing to "afford them an opportunity of exhibiting in three or four foreign languages" their supposed supernatural abilities {Painesville Telegraph, 15 Feb. 1831; Hayden 1876, 219). Campbell did not press the issue, nor did the Saints respond to his challenge. 

Sidney Rigdon had now learned all he could from the missionaries and decided to go to New York to meet the Prophet Joseph Smith. In December 1830, he traveled there with Edward Partridge, another young man interested in the Church, and they found the Prophet at Waterloo, New York. During the next six weeks, Joseph, Sidney, and Edward discussed the restoration of the gospel. Surely Sidney asked about "the ancient order of things" and the gifts of the Spirit, including speaking in tongues. 

The Church was growing slowly in New York but rapidly in Ohio. The successes there, coupled with the persecutions in New York, made the Kirtland area very attractive. In December 1830, Joseph received a revelation that the Saints "should assemble together at the Ohio" (D&C 37:3). Obediently Joseph and Sidney left New York, arriving in Kirtland on 1 February 1831. On 8 March 1831, Joseph received the only revelation in the Doctrine and Covenants dealing specifically with gifts of the Spirit: "And again, it is given to some to speak with tongues, And to another is given the interpretation of tongues. And all these gifts come from God, for the benefit of the children of God" (D&C 46:24-26). Given the instances of speaking in tongues before this time, this revelation did not reveal a new practice, but rather legitimized an already existing one.

In Kirtland, Alpheus Gifford heard Joseph Smith teach the doctrines of the restored Church and was baptized in June 1831. Returning to his home in Pennsylvania, he taught these new doctrines to his friends and neighbors and so impressed them that Elial Strong, Eleazar Miller, Enos Curtis, Abraham Brown, and his brother Levi Gifford traveled with him to Kirtland to meet the Prophet. There they were baptized, and Alpheus was ordained an elder (HC l:109-10m). Back home in Pennsylvania, they preached and baptized many, including Brigham Young in 1832. It was only after their visit to Kirtland that this group spoke in tongues, and it was from them that Brigham Young first heard this phenomenon (HC 4:110). Describing their missionary labors in 1831, Strong and Miller noted that "signs followed them that believed, . . . some spoke with tongues and glorified God" (Evening and Morning Star, May 1833). 

On 19 June 1831, Joseph Smith, Sidney Rigdon, and others left Kirtland for Missouri to begin the settlement of Zion. Ezra Booth, an early convert who later left the Church, recalled that "those who were ordained to the gift of tongues, would have an opportunity to display their supernatural talent, in communicating to the Indians, in their own dialect" ([Ravenna] Ohio Star, 10 Nov. 1831). 

Reporting on the Saints' activities in Missouri in 1831, Reverend Benton Pixley, previously "sent by the Missionary Society to civilize and Christianize the heathen of the west" (HC 1:372-73), noted that "they declare there can be no true church where the gift of miracles, of tongues, of healing, &c. are not exhibited and continued" {The [Cincinnati] Standard, 30 Nov. 1832). 

Wilford Woodruff recorded in his autobiography that in the spring of 1832 he had read of a new sect called Mormons "that professed the ancient gifts of the gospel they healed the sick cast out devils and spoke in tongues" (Woodruff, 15). 

Only then did Brigham Young enter this sequence of events. In September 1832, he first spoke in tongues; and on 8 November 1832, he met with Joseph Smith in Kirtland and spoke in tongues. On 14 November 1832, Zebedee Coltrin recorded in his journal that he "came to Kirtland to Brother Joseph Smith and heard him speak with Tongues and sing in Tongues also." Within a matter of days, others in Kirtland were also speaking in tongues. Statements by Campbell, Pratt, Howe, Corrill, Gifford, Booth, and various newspaper articles in 1830 and 1831 make it clear that speaking in tongues was an accepted part of the LDS experience long before Brigham Young "introduced" it into the Church.

The Glossolalic Period, 1833-36 

From 1833 to 1836, speaking in tongues became a church-wide phenomenon. The "language" spoken was often identified as the language of Adam. Because speaking in tongues was generally regarded as a sign of the truthfulness of the restored gospel rather than as a tool to be used in spreading the gospel in foreign lands, it generally took the form of glossolalia rather than xenoglossia. 

During a conference on 22 January 1833, Joseph Smith, Zebedee Coltrin, and William Smith spoke in tongues "after which the Lord poured out His Spirit in a miraculous manner, until all the Elders spake in tongues, and several members, both male and female, exercised the same gift" (Kirtland High Council Minutebook, 22-23). The conference continued late into the evening. The next day, when the conference reconvened, these gifts were again manifested. On 17 January 1836, while the First Presidency, the Twelve, the Seventy, and the [High] Councilors of Kirtland and Zion were gathered together in conference, "the gift of tongues came on us also, like the rushing of a mighty wind" (HC 2:376). Five days later the gift of tongues again came to this group "in mighty power" (HC 2:383). 

In May 1833, Gideon Carter reported to the Saints in Missouri that "the church at Kirtland is sharing bountifully in the blessings of the Lord, and many have the gift of tongues and some the interpretation thereof" (Evening and Morning Star, July 1833). Many exercised this gift in their homes (Gates 1883, 21-22; "Early Scenes" 1882, 11; Stevenson 1894, 523). 

At the dedication of the Kirtland Temple in March 1836, speaking in tongues was abundant. Joseph Smith pled in his dedicatory prayer, "Let it be fulfilled upon them, as upon those on the day of Pentecost; that the gift of tongues be poured out upon thy people, even cloven tongues as of fire, and the interpretation thereof" (D&C 109:36). "Hundreds of Elders spoke in tongues, but, many of them being young in the Church, and never having witnessed the manifestation of this gift before, some felt a little alarmed" ("Gems" 1881, 65). Joseph prayed to the Lord to withhold the Spirit and then instructed the congregation on the nature of the gift of tongues. Later, Brigham Young gave an address in tongues which David W. Patten interpreted. Patten then gave a short exhortation in tongues himself (HC 2:428). That day many others spoke in tongues and prophesied. 

Adults were not the only ones to speak in tongues. According to David Pettigrew, "The gift of tongues, I think, was the cause of the excitement of the opponents of the Church in Missouri. When they heard little children speaking tongues that they did not themselves understand," the people became alarmed at the Saints' presence (Pettigrew n.d., 15). 

Along with the gift of tongues came excesses and abuses. Some members of the Church "would speak in a muttering, unnatural voice and their bodies be distorted" {Times and Seasons, 1 April 1842). In a July 1833 letter to the Saints, Sidney Rigdon counseled: "Satan will no doubt trouble you about the gift of tongues, unless you are careful" (HC 1:369). Fredrick G. Williams wrote in the 15 April 1845 Times and Seasons, "Many who pretend to have the gift of interpretation are liable to be mistaken, and do not give the true interpretation of what is spoken; therefore, great care should be had, as respects this thing." 

In September 1834, Joseph Smith redefined the legitimate use of this gift —"It was particularly instituted for the preaching of the Gospel to other nations and languages, but it was not given for the government of the Church" —and advised that "we speak our own language in all such matters" (Kirtland High Council Minutebook, 40). Until this time, the Saints had viewed speaking in tongues (glossolalia) as a sign from God of the truthfulness of the restoration. Joseph's statement now emphasized only its utilitarian value (xenoglossia). 

The gift of tongues and the problems encountered by the Saints in exercising it provided ample fodder for anti-Mormon writers. E. D. Howe's Mormonism Unvailed was the first to take aim at this spiritual gift, and other writers quickly followed. "It appears," wrote one such individual, "that by 1833, the numerous failures at guessing right, in the shape of prophecies, had become so disheartening to the faithful, and so disgusting to the Gentiles, as to render some new device necessary. Hence the gift of tongues, which, on a previous occasion, had been denounced as a work of the devil, was now officially resumed" (Kidder 1842, 85). At the same time, the 15 August 1833 Western Courrier in Ravenna, Ohio, wrote that, "the 'unknown tongues' are getting out of fashion. Their prophecies, like signs of rain, fail in dry weather." 

In spite of these problems, however, speaking in tongues played a vital role in the faith of the Saints. Orson Pratt noted: 

The members of the church were confirmed and strengthened in their faith by the enjoyment of this gift. . . . They would have had reason to doubt whether they were true believers; but when they received tongues, together with all other promised blessings, they were no longer in doubt, but were assured, not only of the truth of the doctrine, but that they themselves were accepted of God.

Pratt 1884, 100

The Xenoglossic Period, !837-99

Between 1837 and 1899, though the Saints continued to speak in the Adamic language, Church leaders emphasized the utility of speaking in foreign languages, or xenoglossia. In June 1837, Joseph Smith called Heber C. Kimball to preside over the Church's first foreign missionary efforts in England. The announcement of this mission met with enthusiastic support; and within a year, fifteen hundred converts had been made in England. William Clayton's 1840 missionary journal is filled with instances of speaking in tongues (Allen and Alexander 1974, see entries for 7 Feb., 29 May, 12,13,14, 27 June, and 6 Oct. 1840). 

In the mid-1840s, as the Church sent missionaries for the first time into non-English-speaking lands, the utilitarian value of speaking in tongues was underlined. The following statement by Orson Pratt is characteristic: "If a servant of God were under the necessity of acquiring in the ordinary way a knowledge of languages, a large portion of his time would be unprofitably occupied. While he was spending years to learn the language of a people sufficiently accurate to preach the glad tidings of salvation unto them, thousands would be perishing for the want of knowledge" (1884, 99). 

In 1847 in Merthyr, Wales, Elder Dan Jones reported that a Hindu from Bengal, India, called at his door "seeking charity." Jones taught him the gospel and took him to church the following Sunday. There the gift of tongues was manifest, and the Saints taught the Indian in "eight different languages of the east," astonishing him by singing in Malabar and Malay. On 21 July 1847, Jones baptized this man, probably the first Indian convert (Millennial Star, 1 Aug. 1847). Brigham Young often used this gift to speak with the American Indians in their own language (Hardy 1934, 432-33). In 1888 Elder Gearsen S. Bastian was sent on a mission to Denmark. Shortly after he arrived there, without an adequate understanding of the Danish language, he "arose, and under the influence and power of God he preached the gospel with much plainness in the Danish language for an hour and twenty minutes" (Lambert 1914, 93). 

In addition to speaking in tongues, the phenomenon of singing in tongues became quite common in England and the United States. Louisa Barnes Pratt recalled: "One afternoon I attended a prayer meeting. The sisters laid their hands upon my head and blessed me in a strange language. It was a prophetic song. Mrs. E. B. Whitney was interpreter. She said that I should have health, and go to the valleys of the mountains, and there meet my companion and be joyful" (in Carter 1947, 243).

In a 5 May 1842 British Mission conference in Manchester, Loren zo Snow sang a hymn in tongues (Romney 1955, 59). Wilford Woodruff, writing about a visit from Eliza R. Snow and Elizabeth Ann Whitney in 1854, recalled: "We passed a pleasant evening together, and before they left they sang in tongues in the pure language which Adam and Eve spoke in the Garden of Eden" (Cowley 1909, 355). Whitney sang in the Adamic language throughout her life, the last time on her eighty-first birthday, two months before she died in 1882 (Jenson 1920, 3:563). In 1867, Matilda Robinson King pacified several marauding Indians by singing "O Stop and Tell Me, Red Man" in the Indians' own language (Hartshorn 1975, 2:147). Previously, Jane Grover had saved her own and others' lives by chastising a roving band of Indians in their own tongue (Tullidge 1877, 475-77). In 1898 at a conference of the Davis Stake, one of the stake patriarchs first spoke in tongues and then began to sing in an unknown tongue. When he concluded, another patriarch rose and gave the interpretation. Others at the conference also experienced this gift (Cowley 1899, 447). 

Throughout this period, the spontaneous and uncontrollable nature of tongues caused difficulties. Parley P. Pratt warned the Saints: "Never give out appointments for speaking in tongues, . . . neither speak in tongues to an assembly who have come together for the purpose of hearing you thus speak; neither speak to any one for a sign, on any 

occasion, for this is not pleasing in the sight of heaven" {Millennial Star, Sept. 1840). Speaking in tongues was to be used for the benefit of the Saints in preaching the gospel, not as a sign to unbelievers. Pratt emphasized the utilitarian nature of this gift. "This is the great and important use of tongues, that the Elders of Israel may preach the gospel to the nations of the earth, so that all men may hear in their own tongue or language of the wonderful works of God" {Millennial Star, Sept. 1840). 

When the Relief Society was founded, Joseph Smith warned the sisters in April 1842: "If any have a matter to reveal, let it be in your own tongue. Do not indulge too much in the gift of tongues, or the devil will take advantage of the innocent. You may speak in tongues for your own comfort but I lay this down for a rule that if anything is taught by the gift of tongues, it is not to be received for doctrine" (in Ehat and Cook 1980, 119). 

The Revisionist Period, 1900-57 

The new century brought a change in the acceptability of speaking in tongues. Before 1900, both glossolalia and xenoglossia were common, but these extremely personal experiences did not fit into an evolving church which emphasized order, authority, permission, and control. Speaking in tongues could be done by anyone, at any time, privately or publicly, without the approval of priesthood authority. Tongues simply did not fit into the "corporate worship experience" twentieth-century Latter-day Saint leaders were trying to establish. In the April 1900 general conference, President Joseph F. Smith warned: 

There is perhaps no gift of the spirit of God more easily imitated by the devil than the gift of tongues. When two men or women exercise the gift of tongues by the inspiration of the spirit of God, there are a dozen perhaps that do it by the inspiration of the devil. 

So far as I am concerned, if the Lord will give me the ability to teach the people in my native tongue, or in their own language to the understanding of those who hear me, that will be sufficient gift of tongues to me. 

CR April 1900, 41

In this address, Smith began the process of redefining speaking in tongues. No longer were tongues an acceptable "sign of the believer" or "sign to the unbeliever"; now speaking in tongues was legitimate only for missionary work. The following year, the Juvenile Instructor printed an article by Benjamin Goddard on the gift of tongues that echoed this position: "This gift has probably, been most beneficial when exercised by humble Elders in the missionary fields" (1901, 489). Speaking in Blackburn, England, five years later, Joseph F. Smith continued to de-emphasize speaking in tongues as a spiritual manifestation and blessing: "I also want to say to you who are in the habit of desiring to hear the gift of tongues and the interpretation thereof, to seek better things." Instead, he emphasized tongues as a legitimate gift only for missionaries. "There is where the gift of tongues comes in, and where it is very useful" (Millennial Star, 15 Nov. 1906). 

This attack on speaking in tongues caught some Church members by surprise. James X. Allen, an early Utah physician, expressed his concerns in an Improvement Era article entitled "Passing of the Gift of Tongues": 

I was somewhat startled a few days ago, while in conversation with a young brother who had just returned from a mission to Scandinavia, by hearing him remark that he had never in his life heard anyone speak in tongues. . . . He has filled an honorable mission, and is today strong in the faith, and yet, he has never heard and experienced one of the most common gifts of the gospel, as enjoyed years ago. 

The remark was somewhat of a shock to me; because in the early days of the Church —where I was reared —there were so many of the Saints who enjoyed the gifts, and there were none among my acquaintances who had not heard the sweet sound of the gift of tongues. Many times there would be both speaking and singing in tongues, in the same sacrament meeting. The interpretation of tongues was equally as common as the tongues themselves. In fact, we were wont to regard the speaking in tongues, the interpretation of tongues, the relating of dreams and prophesying, as an essential part of the latter-day gospel. 

Dr. Allen then asked a most important question: 

If men now think they can get along without the gifts of the gospel, may not the time come when they may believe they can get along without its ordinances? 

Allen 1904, 109, 111

Curiously, in the same conference in which Joseph F. Smith first redefined the role of tongues, Anthon H. Lund voiced his concern about losing the gifts of the Spirit: "If there ever came a time when these gifts were not in the Church it would be on account of unbelief. . . . The Church whenever it is upon the earth must have the Holy Spirit within it; the members of the Church must have this Spirit, and the spiritual gifts must be manifested; otherwise it would be a dead church (CR April 1900, 32). Orson Pratt also believed that if the Latter-day Saints were not in possession of the gifts of the Spirit, they were not in possession of the gospel and were "no better off then the Baptists, Methodists or Presbyterians" (JD 14:185). 

However, these brethren were not effective in altering the new direction denned by Joseph F. Smith. Problems with order and control helped justify the change. Apostle Rudger Clawson recorded the following incident in his journal on 11 February 1901: 

I arrived at Idaho Falls, and put up at Bp. Thomas'. Before going to meeting Bp. Thomas, informed that a peculiar and somewhat serious condition prevailed in the ward, and he wanted counsel regarding it. He said that one of the sisters had been speaking in tongues at their fast meetings, and he feared that it was not done by the Spirit of the Lord. A very unpleasant and unsatisfactory feeling prevailed in the meeting whenever she spoke or sang in tongues. 

As further evidence that the tongue was not from the Lord one of the sisters in the congregation immediately upon hearing the tongue was visibly affected and went into spasms. 

The bishop took occasion to point out to the saints the evil resulting from the exercise of this strange tongue, and warned them against it. This greatly angered a young man, who was related to the sister who had spoken in tongues, and who had just returned from a mission to the world, and he arose in the meeting and cursed the bishop in the name of the Lord. 

While opposition to the practice grew, speaking in tongues continued in the Church, although at a substantially reduced level. Thomas Briggs attended a meeting of patriarchs in Farmington, Utah, in December 1905 where Edwin Pace spoke in tongues (Stevenson 1968, 149). In 1916, a young American missionary spoke in tongues for over an hour to a group of German Saints (Hahn 1983, 30-31). Pace's speech was apparently an example of glossolalia while the young missionary's was xenoglossia. 

Heber J. Grant told of an experience with tongues in 1919 between Karl G. Maeser, a German convert, and Franklin D. Richards, president of the European Mission. While returning home from his baptism, Maeser asked Richards a question about the resurrection. Wil liam Budge, acting as Richards' interpreter, proceeded to translate. "Brother Budge," Maeser responded, "you do not need to interpret those answers to me; I understand them perfectly." As the men walked on, Maeser spoke in German and Richards replied in English, each understanding the other completely without a knowledge of the other's language (Grant 1920, 329). 

While his audiences were often blessed with the interpretation of tongues, David O. McKay followed the course set by Joseph F. Smith and did not encourage speaking in tongues, although on one occasion he desired the gift himself. "I have never been much of an advocate of the necessity of tongues in our Church, but today I wish I had that gift. But I haven't" (McKay 1953, 552). In February 1921 in Hawaii (Cox 1967, 7-8) and April 1921 in New Zealand (Middlemiss 1976, 73-74), President McKay's audience received the gift of interpretation of tongues; and in June 1922 in Rotterdam (Morrell 1966, 110-11), President McKay temporarily received this same gift. 

To minimize glossolalia, Church leaders redefined speaking in tongues to mean the ability to quickly learn a foreign language. In this way, speaking in tongues could again be made legitimate, but only under this new definition. In an October 1948 general conference address, Matthew Cowley said: "They do speak with new tongues, those who accept the call to the ministry of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I have seen young missionaries in New Zealand and in Hawaii who, within six months' time could deliver sermons in the languages of the people among whom they were laboring" (CR October 1948, 156). Joseph Fielding Smith solidified this revisionist position in 1957 with an article entitled "The Gift of Tongues" in the Improvement Era: 

Question: In the early period of the Church the gift of tongues was practiced, but for many years we have heard nothing of this gift. Has it ceased to be in the Church, and if so, why? 

Answer: There has been no cessation of the gift of tongues. . . . The true gift of tongues is made manifest in the Church more abundantly, perhaps, than any other spiritual gift. Every missionary who goes forth to teach the gospel in a foreign language, if he is prayerful and faithful, receives this gift. 

1957, 622-23

Speaking at a Munich Area Conference in 1973, Joseph Anderson, an assistant to the Quorum of the Twelve, reminisced about his missionary service in Germany in 1937. He described how he had memorized one new sentence each day for over four months and felt that he "was given the gift of tongues, so to speak, in that it came to me not suddenly, as sometimes happens, but it came to me after sincere and fervent prayer and determined work and effort" (p. 31). As recently as March 1975, the New Era reiterated Joseph Fielding Smith's views, stating that speaking in tongues is manifest in the ability of missionaries to learn foreign languages quickly (Carr 1975, 48). This is the "speaking in tongues" that most Church members know today. 

The RLDS Position, 1844-1987 

The history of speaking in tongues in the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS) is similar to that of the LDS Church. On several occasions during the difficult days following the death of Joseph Smith, manifestations of spiritual power confirmed and directed the work of the Reorganization. Zenos H. Gurley wrote that in 1851, while he and others were concerned about who was the legal successor of Joseph Smith, Reuben Newkirk "arose and spoke in tongues." Shortly thereafter, Newkirk's wife received the same gift and blessing (RHC 1967, 3:207). A few days later, Gurley's daughter spoke in tongues; and as the Reorganization proceeded, many others spoke and sang in tongues. At a conference in Zarahemla, Wisconsin, on 7 April 1853, thosapresent united in prayer seeking divine guidance. "It was at this meeting that [there was] an exhibition of power, light, and unity of spirit, above any ever before witnessed among us. Tongues were spoken and interpreted; hymns sung in tongues and the interpre tation sung; . . . Many sang in tongues in perfect harmony at once, as though they constituted a well practiced choir" (Draper 1969, 100). 

Unlike LDS leaders who attempted to minimize tongues because of the potential for impropriety or abuse, RLDS leaders believed that the benefits outweighed any associated problems: "But not withstanding the possibility of unwise and unfaithful Saints being led astray by Satanic power, it nevertheless remains a privilege, nay, a duty for the Saints to seek for spiritual gifts" ("Tongues" 1885, 446). RLDS leaders shared the vision that "without such evidences of the dwelling of the Holy Spirit, the Church would be lifeless and dead to Christ" ("Question" 1951, 1070). Joseph Smith III remarked that "by such remarkable manifestations in the early days of the Reorganized Church was our faith in the ministering of the Holy Spirit fed and kept alive, and our hearts comforted and encouraged" (in Anderson 1935, 1008). 

RLDS missionary experiences with xenoglossia were similar to their LDS counterparts. Emma Burton recalled that "the gift of tongues rested upon me again, and I exercised it freely and joyously. Many of the Saints present knew that it was a Polynesian tongue, but only one understood it. A man by the name of Taiai after the meeting said, 'That was the language of my island' " (1908, 539). In 1919, Hubert Case wrote of an event in which he preached to the natives on the island of Rarotonga in their own language for five consecutive nights, but after each night's service was over, he could not speak the language (Draper 1969, 105). 

In 1908 Apostle J. W. Wight spoke in tongues and gave the interpretation in an RLDS general conference. Fifty years later, RLDS leaders continued to encourage, rather than discourage, speaking in tongues (Reid 1958, 438). Apostle Evan Fry's 1962 book, Restoration Faith answered the question "Do Latter Day Saints speak in tongues?": 

The gift of tongues is a spiritual gift. It is given not by the will of men, but by the Spirit of God and the will of God. That gift is not a mere emotional upheaval or ecstatic excitement within the person speaking but is a definite manifestation of power from outside himself. 

There is still a place in the church for the gift of tongues, for the edifying of the church, for the conviction of the unbeliever, for the warning, encouragement, and strengthening of the members of the body of Christ. 

p. 147

Opposing the LDS position that limited speaking in tongues to the ability to quickly learn a foreign language, Fry wrote that tongues was more than mere fluency or facility in speaking unknown languages; it was literally a supernatural gift. In 1968, F. Henry Edwards, member of the RLDS Quorum of the Twelve and First Presidency, reiterated this idea: "The gift of tongues and the interpretation of tongues are specific gifts made to meet emergencies, and to demonstrate the power of God. When the emergency passes, the gift is withdrawn" (1968, 249). 

During the next ten years, major changes occurred in RLDS doctrine that further separated it from its origins and from the Latter-day Saint position (Booth 1980). Throughout the first hundred years of its history, the RLDS Church had framed its message in terms of its differences from the LDS Church. As the RLDS Church became an international denomination, attempting to convert those who had never heard of either LDS or RLDS, they were forced to reevaluate the con tent of their message and the foundations of their faith. In doing so, RLDS doctrines took on a mainstream Protestant orientation ("Identity" 1979). In 1979 Alan Tyree, writing in the Saints Herald, abandoned the 1962 position regarding the source of speaking in tongues. Rather than a spiritual gift given through the will of God, he denned speaking in tongues as "an emotional experience of ecstasy, by which a person gives vent to pent-up tension in the voicing of nonsense syllables that do not represent a genuine language" (1979, 29). 

In 1987 Tyree, then a member of the RLDS First Presidency and editor of Exploring the Faith, a study of RLDS beliefs commissioned by the Committee on Basic Beliefs, abandoned the original Church position and brought the RLDS view in line with the LDS position regarding tongues as the ability to quickly learn foreign languages. "Some persons are found to possess more than an ordinary facility in language. This too is a gift although it seems to be more developmental than spontaneous. Although it may not seem so dramatic, it is in fact a very real assistance in carrying the revelation of God to other cultures" (Tyree 1987, 73-74). Although it had taken a few years longer, the RLDS hierarchy had now redefined speaking in tongues as had their LDS brethren. 

Conclusion 

Speaking in tongues confirmed to the early Saints that they were an important part of the actual restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ. They wanted to know that God approved of their actions. They wanted to commune with him and to feel his power in their lives. Speaking in tongues, both glossolalia and xenoglossia, was part of that communion.

Armand Mauss, referencing Ernst Troeltsch (1931), notes that new religions "tend to be characterized at the beginning by many mystical and spiritual experiences, and by much 'charismatic' fervor" but that they tend to become "tamed" with the passage of time (1987, 81). Describing these institutionalizing trends in his own church, the Assemblies of God, David Womack provided a description that could easily be applied to today's Latter-day Saint church: 

An increasing formality, a decreasing emphasis on the spontaneous moving of the Spirit, a growing emphasis on pulpit-centered rather than congregation centered worship, the development of the audience-performer complex of church services, a gradual de-emphasis on personal experience in prayer, the limitation of religious activities to within the walls of the church building, a shift in purpose from evangelism to serving the movement, .. . all these and many other such problems are symptoms of .. . [the] separation of the Church from its apostolic sources. 

1968, 90

Speaking in tongues succumbed to the forces that Womack describes — decreasing spontaneity in worship, de-emphasis of personal spiritual experiences, and strong pressures toward activities only within the framework denned by Church leaders. In addition, tongues simply became irrelevant to the vast majority of the Saints. By the turn of the century, most Church members were second, third, and fourth generation members whose faith did not require the spiritual confirmation that speaking in tongues provided to their parents and grandparents. 

Today, the relevancy of the gifts of the Spirit is returning. An increasing number of Church members are troubled by the sterility of their own personal worship. Lacking fulfillment within the Church, they are searching for the spiritual experiences that were common in previous generations. Philosophies like the New Age movement with its crystals, channels, and seances are attracting many Church members. These groups promise a link to the spiritual world that block scheduled meetings, correlated lesson manuals, and ward dinners cannot. It is unfortunate that so many must seek spiritual experiences outside the Church when these experiences were once legitimately available within it. 

[post_title] => Speaking in Tongues in the Restoration Churches [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 24.1 (Spring 1991): 13–35
However, during the mid-1800s, speaking in tongues was so commonplace in the LDS and RLDS churches that a person who had not spoken  in tongues, or who had not heard others do so, was a rarity. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => speaking-in-tongues-in-the-restoration-churches [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-05-07 15:06:57 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-05-07 15:06:57 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=12143 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 12151 [post_author] => 2824 [post_date] => 2018-04-13 21:11:59 [post_date_gmt] => 2018-04-13 21:11:59 [post_content] =>

Bewilderment etched the man’s face. “You mean, there will be absolutely no rites or special ordinances at all in your temple? Well, then, why build it?”

Such comments may be typical of LDS responses to the RLDS temple in Independence, Missouri—the place Joseph Smith, Jr., designated as the "Center Place of Zion." I am not surprised that Latter-day Saints have a tough time understanding what we "Reorganites" are doing with a temple. A good many RLDS—all along the spectrum from rigid traditionalists to ultra-progressives—are struggling with the idea, too. This is perhaps inevitable when divergent faith communities (both within the Reorganized Church and between the RLDS and LDS) take different paths. The task of understanding each other's religion then becomes ever more difficult.

Even though we frequently share a common vocabulary, scriptures, and a mutual historical starting point, the RLDS and LDS churches now offer radically different expressions of what Joseph Smith, Jr., began more than a century and a half ago. Yet I believe that both churches are true Latter Day Saint churches. Historically, we have equated "true" with "only," thereby failing to accept that different communities can exist in a relationship with God without forcing each to deny the validity of others. Therefore, without lapsing too deeply into a critical compare-and-contrast format ( old habits are, after all, very hard to break), I shall attempt the difficult task of explaining to a predominately Mormon audience why I believe we RLDS are building a temple. Of course, as a faithful member of the Reorganized Church, I cannot speak for the LDS—I can offer only what I understand they believe. And I can offer also only my perspective on the Reorganized temple, not the official perspective, belief, or doctrine of the Reorganized Church, for there are perhaps no such things. A definition of our faith can be elusive; we have no equivalent to the Articles of Faith that Mormon children learn in Primary.

It is just as difficult to pin down exactly what the temple experience will be like and how it will change the Reorganized Church and its members' spiritual lives. We won't begin to know until after it is built and being used. Why, then, do we choose to build the temple in Independence, Missouri? It is not simply because we have been commanded through divine revelation to do so. It is true that our founding prophet, Joseph Smith, Jr., first issued the call in 183 3 that "an house should be built unto me [God] in the land of Zion" (RLDS D&C 94:3a; LDS D&C 97:10),[1] and the prophetic vision was updated in recent years by two of his prophetic successors in the Reorganized Church. W. Wallace Smith recorded this revelation in April 1968:

The time has come for a start to be made toward building my temple in the Center Place. It shall stand on a portion of the plot of ground set apart for this purpose many years ago by my servant Joseph Smith, Jr. The shape and character of the building is to conform to ministries which will be carried out within its walls. . . . It is also to be noted that the full and complete use of the temple is yet to be revealed but that there is no provision for secret ordinances now or ever. (RLDS D&C 149:6a and 149A:6)[2]

Sixteen years later, in April 1984, Wallace B. Smith received revelation that further clarified the purpose of an RLDS temple:

The temple shall be dedicated to the pursuit of peace. It shall be for reconciliation and for healing of the spirit. It shall also be for a strengthening of faith and preparation for witness. By its ministries an attitude of wholeness of body, mind, and spirit as a desirable end toward which to strive will be fostered. It shall be the means for providing leadership education for priesthood and member. And it shall be a place in which the essential meaning of the Restoration as healing and redeeming agent is given new life and understanding, inspired by the life and witness of the Redeemer of the world. Therefore, let the work of planning go forward, and let the resources be gathered in, that the building of my temple may be an ensign to the world of the breadth and depth of the devo­tion of the Saints. (RLDS D&C 156:5-6)[3]

Obviously, building a temple at the literal and figurative center of our faith community requires more than simply "doing what we're told," even if the source of our instructions is divinity. After all, we are not automatons marching in lockstep to an intelligence separate from our own. God in Christ is "in us" as co-creators and fellow sojourners in the redemptive plan of the world's salvation. The eternal purpose in RLDS temple building is related not to an other-worldly realm but to the redemptive, healing, peacemaking, reconciling ministry of Christ in this world. We hope to glorify the one God of the universe through participation in the divine plan of the cause of Zion.

Let me explore some reasons why we are building this temple.

Encounter Christ

When I .was a boy, I learned about the second coming of Jesus Christ through the perspective of my grandmother and my very traditional Reorganized Church congregation in eastern Jackson County, Missouri. My understanding was completely literal: The resurrected Jesus would come floating down out of the clouds and land at the front door of the temple on the temple lot—a small acreage separating the RLDS Auditorium (a structure similar to the Salt Lake Tabernacle) from the Reorganized Church's largest congregation, the Stone Church. ,(For those unfamiliar with the area, the Mormon Visitors' Center is directly to the southeast; the RLDS Temple is being built directly north of the visitors' center.)

I envisioned this millennial Independence Temple as a near clone of the Kirtland Temple with, of course, its main entrance facing east. After entering through that east door, the resurrected Jesus would take up physical residence for a thousand years while the world beat a path to his door. The heathen nations would recognize, finally, that the RLDS should rightfully be put in charge because we possessed the one true and now restored faith with the priesthood power and authority lacking in all other churches. I can clearly remember my grandmother gently persuading me to reconsider my dream of becoming a doctor—you see, there wou]d be no need for medical practitioners during those thousand years, and there was no question that the temple would be built in my lifetime.

She was at least right about the latter, but my late-1950s world view has undergone some changes. I no longer look for the Second Coming in such a narrow, literal way. My beliefs have changed, partly because I have since rejected that apocalyptic and millennialist panorama. It conflicts with too many basic scientific realities. As well, firsthand experience with religious pluralism has tempered my belief in the One True Church. I have developed a respect for the beliefs and "temples'' of others, and in doing so have reexamined the meaning of a temple for me and for my faith community. But if I no longer expect a resurrected, returned Jesus to walk into the Independence Temple, how then do I connect that holy place with the idea of a Second Coming?

The temple is becoming a symbol for the Reorganized Church of its relationship to the Creator and creation. But that relationship, that connection with our roots, is not based primarily on our past—or humankind's past. (This may be an essential difference between the temple experience for our two churches. I am told that some LDS members faithfully attend the temple for that sense of connectedness, even though they have set aside the more official theological meanings of the vicarious ordinances.) I am beginning to sense that the temple for us RLDS will be a touchstone of the way we understand our being; in other words, it will be the central symbol of the cosmic Christ incarnating or coming in us. That's the sort of thing that is tough to channel into ritual, and I hope we never try. But it is appropriate to have a place of special renewal and empowerment where our lives can change direction and begin to more fully reflect the ministry of Jesus, who provides us a pattern. Therefore, I cannot see the "millennial ministry of Jesus Christ" as coming from one individual in the temple. Rather, "one body in Christ" will honor the temple as its soul.

Also, I no longer expect Christ to "come again" to the temple because I realize that in one sense, the Second Coming has already happened: I have encountered Christ in many different people—Anglicans, Catholics, Presbyterians, Mormons, Jews, Canadians, Americans, Africans, women, children, men, and (dare I say it) a secular humanist or two. Why limit the spirit of Christ to a single body, human or divine? As a Reorganized Christian, I reject the notion that Divinity has a body just like mine; along with the idea that Christ has a specific gender, race, or nationality.

Jesus of Nazareth was a Jew who lived in ancient Palestine. But I do not believe that Jesus of Nazareth is the fullness of Christ. Neither is the resurrected Jesus encountered by Saul on his way to Damascus. And, of course, the central theological message of the Book of Mormon narrative is that Christ cannot be limited by time or space but can find expression in all cultures, in all lands. God wears many faces. It is something like actors in a Greek drama who use different masks to change quickly from one persona or character to the next; yet the being behind the mask is the same, even though the audience perceives a separateness and uniqueness. This same idea was the original intention of early Christian theologians who spoke of the three "personas" of the Godhead. Over the centuries, the word "persons" was substituted, and that means quite a different thing. Perhaps the most important element here is the human perception involved rather than the essence of the being behind the mask.

At the Edge of Our Frontier

The frontiers of the l 990s and beyond are far different from those of the early to mid-1800s. A century and a half ago, the frontier meant the edge of unexplored or unsettled land masses, the end of civilization and the beginning of wilderness. Our frontiers today, however, are not so much matters of space and time as of being, of discovering the unknown within us, both as individuals and communities.

Joseph Smith, Jr., challenged the Saints to begin building the kingdom of God on earth by building a New Jerusalem first in Kirtland, Ohio, then in both Independence and Far West, Missouri, before the Saints finally settled along the Illinois banks of the Mississippi River in Nauvoo. Unquestionably, the rough yet bustling trading town of Independence represented the American frontier in 1831 when Joseph first visited it. But like Kirtland, that fatter-day New Jerusalem was set amid gentile neighbors. Joseph dreamed of a new order, yet the vision paid scant attention to gentile wishes and realities. The Saints eventually left both Kirtland and Independence after more than a little prodding by neighbors. Caldwell and Davies counties in northern Missouri allowed a little more isolation. However, gentiles were there, too, and strife was not long in coming.

But the more isolated Nauvoo setting was different, coming as it did after years of persecution and religious experimentation. It provided an opportunity for further evolution of Church practices and kingdom building. The Kirtland Temple had been primarily a place of public worship, a school for priesthood and members, and the headquarters for Church administration. Joseph's plans for the Independence Temple were similar, but they expanded the single, Kirtland-like structure to twenty-four buildings that included space for the First Presidency and other leading quorums, for what was to become the Relief Society, and for a storehouse. Of course, those buildings were never built, even though the Saints purchased and dedicated about sixty-three acres of land before they were driven out of the county in late 1833. Even though Joseph's vision of a frontier Zion—the New Jerusalem—changed, a temple always remained central in his plans.

The variety of historical models for the temple may lead us to wonder which will be the "right kind" of temple for the Reorganization in the 1990s. Should we copy the pattern for Kirtland, Independence, Far West, or Nauvoo? But the question is fundamentally wrong; all were right for their time and place. Therefore, the Independence Temple built by the Reorganized Church in the 1990s should not seek historical precedent, even though it will incorporate historical elements. Above all, it must be a temple for its time and place and institution—to actualize the dreams of the Saints. As a sacred space where all cultures can be at home, the temple must be at the figurative center of its faith community and must offer a vision of the cause of Zion appropriate for its day.

A New Jerusalem today must take into account more than a single city. It certainly cannot be limited to just one religious group, nor can it attempt the kind of economic, political, social, and theological separateness of Nauvoo, Joseph's "City Beautiful," which served as the forerunner for the nation/state of Deseret. Even the LDS Church was forced, eventually, to scale back the political scope of what was left of Deseret by accepting the 1890 Manifesto.

Our perspective today is much like that of the astronauts who first walked on the moon more than twenty years ago. Until that time, our horizons had been limited by how far up the side of the mountain we climbed or how far into the atmosphere our planes soared. But when we stood on the moon with those astronauts and looked out on a new horizon, we saw for the first time our beautiful blue-and-white planet hanging in the darkness of space. In a spiritual sense, we saw Zion for the first time, too, encompassing the entire globe. And we finally realized (notwithstanding the work of scientific pioneers like Galileo, Copernicus, and Newton) that it is the Creator and not creation that provides the axis of the universe. This expanded and glorious vision of Zion shall have a temple at its center, serving as the crossroads of divine grace and human experience.

Empowered for Service

Old Testament imagery of the Israelites' wilderness tabernacle and the New Testament concept of human beings as temples of the Holy Spirit are equally important in the RLDS temple. In Moses' time, the Hebrew tribes reserved a special place, the Tabernacle or Tent of Meeting, for their prophet's deliberate encounters with Yahweh, the God of their forebears. When Moses entered the tent, the pillar of smoke and fire, which hovered over the Israelite encampment day and night as a symbol of divine presence, descended. Hidden within the smoke, Yahweh spoke to Moses, then ascended into the heavens. With his face covered to protect his people from its brightness, Moses left the tent to let the Israelites know just what Yahweh wanted them to do. His experience with Yahweh was not so much a weighing in the balance of the good and evil deeds of his people but rather a realization that through all the Israelites' experiences, they were still God's chosen ones with a particular mission.

God is no longer hidden within smoke and fire as in Old Testament times but is revealed in the light of a new day—in the persona of Jesus Christ—without the need for a structure in which God could temporarily "tabernacle." As the writer of John's Gospel wrote (drawing upon the same Greek words used in the Septuagint version of the Exodus story), "The Word was made flesh [and] lived among us" (literally, "pitched his tent among us") (John 1:14).[4] The New Testament writers extended the idea that the presence of God in Christ would "encamp" within believers as they assumed the function of temples. Most orthodox Christians therefore no longer see a need for any kind of structural temple.

Yet perhaps because we Latter Day Saints have always drawn upon Old Testament symbols, we have been temple builders. Like Moses, we sense the need to approach Divinity to discern what we are to do. But we in the Reorganized Church should not depend on our prophet to represent us for those deliberate encounters, although in some cases that may happen. As a prophetic community, we must go to the temple in unity for insight and empowerment. Perhaps our temple experience will challenge us to grow beyond our reliance on the prophet. This new perspective can offer expanded spiritual horizons, stretching us to see the world's need for God's community, which offers compassionate, humble service in the name of Jesus Christ.

I don't expect to "see Jesus" in the literal sense in the temple. However, I am confident that we will "experience Christ" in ways and forms heretofore unimaginable. That experience cannot come through mere ritual or reenactment of someone else's story, nor can it originate in our own efforts. It must come through grace as God's involvement in the world is met by our selfless service to other human beings and to all of creation. We can "feel good" (awed, inspired, thrilled, challenged, humbled, lifted up) in the holy setting of the temple, but unless we return to our homes empowered with an expanded testimony of God's love and purpose for creation, the experience serves no lasting purpose. We are like Apostle Paul's Corinthian cymbals and gongs.

Keys of the Kingdom

The term "keys of the kingdom" is used frequently in our movement, often in regard to priesthood ministry and responsibility. The Kirtland Saints were the first to think of their "House of the Lord" as the place of endowment of such keys. The Nauvoo Saints also used similar terminology in regard to their temple, although the theological underpinning had evolved dramatically by that time to become the ritual observances virtually guaranteeing celestial glory through a step-by-step process, perhaps borrowed in some way from Masonic rites. Perhaps we in the Restoration movement have been impoverished, though, by thinking of these "keys of the kingdom" almost solely as mechanical devices to open doors. While the symbolism is appropriate, it has limitations. Used only in this way, keys lose their metaphorical power, becoming things to acquire by doing all the right acts in front of the proper authorities.

Several other metaphors can inform RLDS temple practice in a much broader sense. The keystone of an arch is the one stone that not only completes the arch's shape but gives strength to the entire structure. Seen in this way, the temple in Zion is what has been missing in the Reorganized Church; it will give shape, character, and strength to everything we do in proclaiming the gospel of Christ to a world that groans for redemption. To extend the metaphor, the key in a musical score is vital to keep all the various instruments and voices in harmony. The church is neither a choir singing in unison nor a jumble of miscellaneous noises, each straining to be heard above the din. Members of the body of Christ do not all do the same things or make the same sounds, yet the mysterious blend of our combined efforts achieves the desired end. The temple could provide the key to unify the church the same way that music written in the same key for different instruments can transform mere sound into Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. Scientists refer to this as synergism; I call it temple ministry.

One of the obvious characteristics of ministry in the early decades of the Restoration movement—in general and specifically related to temples—was male dominance. The authority, power, and control of an all-male priesthood played a major role in theology and church administration. Perhaps we should accept that dominance merely as part of nineteenth-century American culture. But it is not at all appropriate at the dawn of the twenty-first century. Therefore, the Reorganized Church's temple ministry, I contend, must not be based on such blatantly male images but should reflect the empowerment that flows from mutuality and equality. The church needs to follow the inspired counsel of a prophetic community more than the accepted authority and control of a male-dominated hierarchical structure which, in turn, supports its leading role with scripture that arises from an even more patriarchal era.

In 1984 our RLDS prophet, Wallace B. Smith, made a crucial step to bring the will of God to the Reorganized Church by extending the call of priesthood ministry: "I say to you now, as I have said in the past, that all are called according to the gifts which have been given them. This applies to priesthood as well as to any other aspects of the work. Therefore, do not wonder that some women of the church are being called to priesthood responsibilities. This is in harmony with my will" (RLDS D&C 156:9b-c).

Some RLDS members contend that God would not or could not do such a "new thing" and have separated themselves from the main body of the Reorganized Church. At the same time, the more than two thousand women who have been ordained have added a new and vital aspect to the church's ministry as Christ's servants and burden-bearers. For those who "have eyes to see," that should be ample evidence that God does do new things". Sadly, some choose not to see; and there is division, brokenness, and enmity in our midst.

Center of Healing and Reconciliation

When you are sick, you go to a doctor, who prescribes treatment (medicine, bed rest, exercise, change of habits), and you are "cured." Remember, though, that Jesus didn't cure everybody who came to him. He frequently told even those he did heal not to tell anybody else. They rarely obeyed, however, and so he often was inundated with curiosity seekers who hampered his other ministry.

If the temple became a "healing shrine," there is a risk that hordes of the curious as well as the sick might prevent it from offering other kinds of vitally important service. Perhaps those with chronic, rather than acute, illnesses might be served better in the temple. But should they expect to be "cured" according to the acute-disease model, especially considering that the nature of their illnesses is completely different?

I have a friend who has multiple sclerosis. He is in his thirties, faced with a chronic condition that is also progressive. We don't get to see one another much because we now live more than two thousand miles apart. Some time ago I visited his home for the first time in nine years. Although I could stay only one night, he gently reminded me after greeting me warmly that it was time for his afternoon rest. If he did not lie down for about forty-five minutes, our planned evening get-together at a mutual friend's home would undoubtedly place a strain on his health and well-being. In short, his MS might Hare up if he did not take the time to recharge his energy.

I marveled at his self-discipline. It was a poignant reminder of the different meaning health and wholeness has for him. I wish I had the same level of self-discipline in dealing with my own chronic medical condition. In the twenty years I have lived with Crohn's Disease, an inflammatory bowel syndrome, I have experienced numerous valleys and peaks. Slowly I have come to realize the relativity of healing and wholeness. I don't expect to walk into the temple in Zion someday to have my Crolm's Disease healed any more than I'd expect to have the lengthy, surgically removed portions of my small intestine suddenly grow back. Yet the discipline of the temple may open new vistas of the meaning of healing and reconciliation as inner qualities and outward activities.

One aspect of reconciliation is peace. The RLDS temple is dedicated to the pursuit of peace. This neither supplants the gospel of Jesus Christ, nor is it an end result. A pursuit implies an ongoing process. My grandmother was not alone in believing the peaceable era envisioned by Isaiah and others to be an absence of sickness and discord. But Christ's kingdom on earth will have continual need of healers, reconcilers, and advocates. Can we not see that kingdom as an "end" without placing everything on a time line? The temple could transcend such time/space limitations. Peace, in Christ's kingdom, will become more akin to the Hebrew shalom and less an existence to look forward to in "the sweet by and by."

Inclusive Ministry

Certainly we RLDS may be tempted to take pride in our efforts, especially once the magnificent spiral-shaped sanctuary begins to rise three times the height of the auditorium across the street. RLDS members and friends will come to Independence by the thousands to view this unique structure, built by a relatively small group that frequently is racked by internal dissention and disagreement. The temple is sure to become many things to many people. We have just begun to explore its role as a planetary symbol, facilitator, sacred space, and advocate for peace in the twenty-first-century church and world. We have a long way to go before all of God's children will feel welcome in the temple.

The temple may encourage many to respond to the call to follow Christ. After all, this temple belongs to Christ and shall stand as a beacon of Christ's way, which, as scripture tells us, is the way to know God. But it is not a roadmap owned exclusively by Latter Day Saints. It is not marked by specific rituals guaranteeing celestial glory. Jesus, always open to divine grace as healer, reconciler, peacemaker, witness, and humble servant, offers us a glimpse of God's way. He shows us that God is willing to lift us from our human brokenness because of the unmeasurable mystery of divine love. And we are to be like Jesus. At the temple in Independence, we will learn to do that.

Focal Point for Our Future

More than 150 years ago, Joseph Smith prophetically called his people to build the temple in Zion. We have begun the task of raising the temple as an "ensign of peace" on the very spot from which he spoke. Is it mere coincidence that this spot now also represents something quite the opposite from what he envisioned? A few miles from Jackson County, Missouri, some 150 underground missile silos sit amid the fertile farmland of western Missouri. At ground level, they appear to be nothing more than fenced enclosures about 150 feet square containing a large concrete slab and a protruding doorway. Beneath each enclosure, however, sits a gigantic intercontinental missile armed with multiple nuclear warheads, each many times more potent than those dropped on Japan in 1945.

The missiles are aimed at targets in the Soviet Union, ready to be fired, our political and military leaders tell us, in response to nuclear attack. The command center for these missile silos is at Whiteman Air Force Base about fifty miles southeast of Independence. Additional preparations are underway these days to house the newest, most controversial, and most expensive ($525 million apiece) weapon in U.S. military history: the B-2 (Stealth) Bomber. Unfortunately, the Persian Gulf crisis may keep the B-2 from being cancelled or cut back.

What all this means is that Jackson County, Missouri, sits essentially at "ground zero" for the start of World War III and the possible end of humankind as we know it. But the site for the temple can also become the starting point for Christ's kingdom and the peaceable era that prophets have envisioned for centuries. By building the temple, we can respond positively to the choice offered first to Joshua: "I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live" (Deut. 30: 19).

At the Crossroads

Israel, the promised land for Yahweh's chosen people, was at the center of several ancient trading routes. A cosmopolitan mix of merchants and warriors interacted with a people that otherwise may have remained a tiny and obscure footnote to history. But instead Israel has profoundly influenced at least the Western world's religious, moral, ethical, and philosophical thought. It rose to its greatest political and economic glory during a brief interval between the dominant eras of ancient superpowers. Who would have thought that a quarrelsome band of ex-slaves who took forty years to complete a three-week trek from Egypt to Canaan would end up influencing the world. as it did? But, of course, their influence came not from business or political acumen, but because they remained, by and large, faithful to their divinely appointed task.

Our calling today is not to be an updated version of ancient Israel. There is no need for such an elitist notion of divine chosenness. As well, there is no need to turn the world's peoples into clones of rich, success-oriented Westerners. The easy answers and rituals that can turn attention away from human need and misery provide the wrong path. And of course it is time to abolish subservient roles for women along with autocratic hierarchies (usually patriarchal) which spawn oppression.

The world today does need Christ. And that, in brief, is why I believe God has challenged us to do a new thing by building this temple. It is the response of the Reorganized Church to God's grace as well as a symbol of God's divine love. It is a way to connect the people of the Third World with those in the First and Second without oppressing or corrupting anyone. It is a place to encounter God in Christ and then to go forth to build and transform communities which express that incarnation. It is a place to carry our past with us as we look to the future. It is God's sacred place and our sacred place and, most important of an, the world's sacred place. Joseph Smith, Jr., first issued the call to build the temple. But we can transcend his vision as we are touched by Divinity and challenged by our world's needs. Our task will be to do what Apostle Paul counseled long ago: "By the mercies of God, . . . present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world; but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God is" (Rom. 12:1-2).

And so, I look forward to the day which is coming soon when I can stand in the temple in Zion with my sisters and brothers to encounter Christ, who will then send us away a changed people. We then shall be, finally, a temple people—the people of God.

---

[1] This revelation was given through Joseph Smith, Jr., on 2 August 1833, in Kirtland; word had not yet reached Ohio of the 23 July agreement forced upon the Saints in Independence to leave Jackson County.

[2] This was the first direction in recent times to the Reorganized Church to build a temple in Independence. It caught a good many church members by surprise, because the Conference that year had been embroiled in a controversy over the role of the bishopric, a debate that greatly overshadowed any thought of building a temple.

[3] This revelation is best remembered for opening priesthood roles to women.

[4] See especially the Jerusalem Bible.

[post_title] => The Temple in Zion: A Reorganized Perspective on a Latter Day Saint Institution [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 24.1 (Spring 1991): 86–98
In preparation for the Independence Temple that was dedicated in 1994, an RLDS member shares ideas about temples in general. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => the-temple-in-zion-a-reorganized-perspective-on-a-latter-day-saint-institution [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-05-04 13:12:04 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-05-04 13:12:04 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=12151 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

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The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has often been characterized in recent historical scholarship as a "moderate Mormon" movement seeking to develop an identity somewhere between the more radical Mormonism of the Great Basin and the main stream of American Protestantism (Blair 1973; see also Launius 1988b). While midwestern and mountain Mormonism sprang from the same historical roots, their theological development took such different courses that today they probably diverge to a greater degree than do the doc trines of the Reorganization and many other contemporary American Christian churches. While some have suggested this is a recent development, it is more likely a consequence of a course charted in the earliest years of the Reorganized Church's history.[1]

Tracking the development of the doctrine of baptism for the dead within the Reorganization demonstrates this fundamental point. Although baptism for the dead had been adopted by the early Latter Day Saint movement, it did not relate well to the peculiar mindset and theological bent of the Reorganization and seemed to do so even less over time. Gradually, without overt action or explicit discussion, it moved from general, albeit cautious, acceptance to essential, albeit unofficial, rejection. Why did this evolution take place? What theolog ical and historical considerations within the Reorganization made this possible, or even probable? As the Reorganized Church enters a new age with the building of a temple in Independence, how will it deal with this critical doctrine? 

Baptism for the Dead and the Early Saints 

Baptism for the dead first appeared in the early Mormon church in Nauvoo. Predicated on the double assumption that God loves all people and grants each an opportunity for salvation and that salvation cannot be granted without baptism, the doctrine provided for the baptism of dead people by proxy. Those who had died without accepting the gospel would be taught after death, and others could be baptized on earth in their stead. It was an extremely attractive concept for many Latter Day Saints, because it allowed for the salvation of all and signified the justice and mercy of God. It answered the fundamental question of what would happen to those who did not embrace the gospel as the early Saints understood it, particularly ancestors who had already died. This concern was registered by members of Joseph Smith, Jr.'s, family for the soul of his oldest brother, Alvin, who had died suddenly in 1823 without baptism. 

Years of persecution and the loss of loved ones also made the issue attractive to the church membership. The Saints' desire to understand the nature of the hereafter, particularly as revealed in obscure passages of scripture, also prompted the doctrine's ready acceptance. As Richard P. Howard observed: 

All these developments—the Smith family's grief over Alvin, the intense persecution of the Saints, the speculative theological propensities of church leadership—produced a milieu in which baptism for the dead came into focus as a means of sealing the deceased ancestors and relatives of the living Saints into the promises of the Mormon kingdom (celestial glory). (1983,20) 

Joseph Smith apparently first considered the propriety of baptism for the dead after reading the only biblical reference to it: "Else what shall they do, which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? Why are they then baptized for the dead?" (I Cor. 15:29). His consideration led to the full-fledged development of the doctrine. He made the first public disclosure of it on 15 August 1840 in Nauvoo at the funeral sermon of Seymour Brunson. Simon Baker later remembered that Joseph Smith told the congregation that although baptism was necessary for salvation, "people could now act for their friends who had departed this life, and . . . the plan of salvation was calculated to save all who were willing to obey the requirements of the law of God" (in Ehat and Cook 1980, 49). At the October 1840 conference the Prophet instructed the Saints of Nauvoo about baptism for the dead and called for the construction of a temple, in part to accommodate the ritual which was then being conducted in the Mississippi River (see Ehat and Cook 1980, 38, 71, 76-79, 209-14, 333, 363-65, 372; Cook 1981, 242- 51, 284-85; Smith 1843, 82-85; Lyon 1975, 435-46; Hill 1976, 170-80; Howard 1969, 224-27). 

The Nauvoo Saints began enthusiastically incorporating the doc trine into their belief system. A 19 January 1841 revelation formalized the practice and was included in the 1844 edition of the Doctrine and Covenants, along with two 1842 letters on the same subject. With this undisputed revelatory instruction, the practice was codified as a temple ritual and recognized as such by the Nauvoo Saints. There can be no doubt about the doctrine's importance in church theology to Joseph Smith and the early church members. The Reorganized Church could never claim, as it did with some other religious conceptions of the period, particularly plural marriage, that Joseph Smith, Jr., was not its originator (LDS D&C 124, 127, 128; RLDS D&C 107, 109, 110). 

The Development of an Official Position 

Very early in the movement's history, the Reorganized Church adopted an official position about baptism for the dead. This official pronouncement denied neither the possibility nor the viability of baptism for the dead. Instead, it took a cautious position acceptable to all in the early Reorganization: the doctrine was a permissive one, which God had allowed to be practiced for a time in Nauvoo during the 1840s; but without additional divine guidance, the Reorganized Church was not prepared either to teach or practice the temple ritual. It was, in official church parlance, a doctrine of "local character," directed by God to be practiced at a specific time and specific place under strict control of the church leadership. The fundamentals of this position were suggested in an 1884 General Conference Resolution which stated "that the commandments of a local character, given in the first organization of the church are binding on the Reorganization, only so far as they are either reiterated or referred to as binding by commandment of the church" (Rules 1980, Resolution 282). In other words, unless the Reorganization specifically reaffirmed a particular questioned doctrine, it had no force in the church's official theology. Two years later the April 1886 General Conference passed a resolution especially singling out baptism for the dead as one of those "commandments of a local character" that would not be practiced until reinstated by divine revelation (Rules 1980, Resolution 308). 

This stand has never been officially rescinded. But the institution's official position tells less than half the story, for the movement has walked a torturous path during the past one hundred years as it sought to deal with the legacy of baptism for the dead. From a general acceptance of the policy—a position that recognized it as a permissive but legitimate rite, to be executed at the specific redirection of God—in time the Reorganization gradually drifted away from the doctrine. At the present, I suspect that while the doctrine still has some support, the overwhelming majority of Reorganized Church members no longer accept, even theoretically, baptism for the dead. Until recently, although the church has continually suggested that baptisms for the dead be carried out only by divine direction in a temple built for the purpose, with no prospect for the building of such an edifice in the immediate future, the doctrine was shunted into a limbo between belief and practice. To ignore, as Alma R. Blair has appropriately remarked, was ultimately to reject (1973, 222). 

The Early Reorganization's Conception 

The Saints making up the early Reorganization never questioned the propriety of baptism for the dead. It had been introduced by Joseph Smith, it was contained in their Doctrine and Covenants, it was a part of the early Latter Day Saint belief system, and it had been promulgated rapidly and with enthusiasm during the Prophet's lifetime. Whether to accept it into the Reorganization was never of the slightest concern to the earliest members of that dissenting church. The new organization, Richard Howard commented, "had no basis, either in sentiment or in public deliberations, to make a departure from such a firmly established doctrine as baptism for the dead had been since 1840" (1969, 228).

This doctrine was such a distinctive part of the Reorganized Church that it contributed to the conversion of Alexander H. Smith, a son of the founding prophet and the brother of Reorganized Church president Joseph Smith III, who had affiliated with the Reorganization in 1860. Emma Smith had joined at the same time, and the youngest brother, David H., united with the church shortly after. Alexander, however, hung back, unwilling to make a commitment to the Reorganization even though he was interested in its message and generally agreed with its position. 

In April 1862 the second-oldest son, Frederick G. W. Smith, took ill and died without baptism. This greatly troubled Alexander, who was concerned that Frederick would be consigned to hell. Vida E. Smith, Alexander's daughter, remembered a turning point in this perplexity: 

That his beloved brother was lost was a horror such as has filled many hearts; but to him there came a balm, the testimony of the Spirit, the first communication direct from that Comforter, saying, "Grieve not; Frederick's condition is pleasant; and the time shall come when baptism can be secured to him," admonishing him to do his duty and all would be well. Satisfied of the necessity of baptism for the living, and comforted by the evidence of its possibility for the dead, on May the 25th of the same year [1862], his brother Joseph baptized him in the grand old Mississippi. (1911, 13-14) 

Alexander Smith, of course, went on to serve as an apostle and later Presiding Patriarch in the Reorganized Church. 

If baptism for the dead was a true principle, then it was incumbent on the Reorganization either to practice it or to explain why it could not do so. The reasons varied depending upon the era; but throughout most of the nineteenth century, Reorganized Church leaders argued that the doctrine had to be executed under a rigid set of conditions at the specific direction of God. They tied this closely to the rejection of the church when Brigham Young accepted leadership and moved its administration to Utah. "Baptism for the Dead was also rejected," stated an unsigned article in the True Latter Day Saints' Herald in March 1860, "and yet this doctrine was believed in and practically observed by the church in the days of Paul." The author went on to make the case that it had been explained to Joseph Smith "before the Book of Mormon was revealed." Even so, the author wrote that Smith did not institute the practice until commanded to do so by God, and then only within a well-defined set of parameters. When the Saints withdrew from Nauvoo, the author continued, the opportunity to practice it had passed, and Young's followers should have stopped. Because they did not do so, the writer concluded, their church was "rejected" ("The Early Revelations" 1860, 67).

An endorsement of baptism for the dead also emerged from the Reorganization's Joint Council of ruling quorums in May 1865. During the meeting, William Marks, the one man in the Reorganization to have been "in the know" about doctrinal ideas of the Nauvoo period, stated at this meeting that the doctrine had originally been considered a permissive rite, to be practiced only under the most restricted conditions in a temple built especially for the purpose. Marks asserted that Joseph Smith "stopped the baptism for the dead" in Nauvoo, at least for a time, and Marks "did not believe it would be practiced any more until there was a fountain built in Zion or Jerusalem" (Council of Twelve Minutes 1865, 12). At the conclusion of this meeting, the Joint Council affirmed a cautious policy, resolving "that it is proper to teach the doctrine of baptism for the dead when it is necessary to do so in order to show the completeness of the plan of salvation, but wisdom dictates that the way should be prepared by the preaching of the first principles" (Council of Twelve Resolutions 1865, 3). 

The ensuing years saw considerable discussion of the reinstitution of baptism for the dead. In virtually every instance Reorganization leaders endorsed the idea but withheld practice awaiting a divine mandate. They usually coupled this stance with a condemnation of Utah Mormonism for continuing the ritual without God's sanction (see "The Rejection" 1861, 17-18; J. Smith III 1883; "Building" 1894; "Baptism" 1864). 

The Reorganization condemned the Mormon method of conducting baptisms for ancestors without direct and individual revelation. "It is not commonly known that President Young taught and administered baptism for the dead in a very different way than Joseph did," stated a July 1880 article in the Saints' Advocate, published by the Reorganization at Piano, Illinois. "Joseph taught that baptism for the dead could be done, properly, only by revelation, . . . Have President Young and his followers observed this essential restriction?" Of course, the article answered with a resounding no, and the author concluded that the Utah faction had "departed away from the teachings of the 'Choice Seer,' however much they may have claimed to follow him" ("Baptism" 1880). 

Perhaps the clearest expression of the Reorganized Church's concept of baptism for the dead can be found in an 1874 True Latter Day Saints' Herald editorial: 

For the Doctrine of Baptism for the Dead, we have only this to write; it was by per mission, as we learn from the history, performed in the river until the font should be prepared. The font and the temple which covered it are gone, not a stone remains unturned, the stranger cultivates the soil over the places where the corner stones were laid; and when memory paints in respondent hues the rising light of the glorious doctrine, the mind should also remember how sadly sombre and dark are the clouds lying heavily over the horizon where this light was quenched; "You shall be rejected with your dead, saith the lord your God." 

The practice of "Baptizing for the Dead" was made a part of the practice of the Church only after years of suffering and toil; and not taught nor practiced until a place of rest was supposed to have been found; does not add to, nor diminish the promises made to the believer in the gospel proclamation; and while it was permitted, was of so particular form in its observance, that a settled place, and only one, was essential to the keeping of the records of baptism.... 

Baptism for the dead is not commanded in the gospel; it is at best only permitted, was so by special permission, and we presume that should we ultimately prove worthy, it may be again permitted.... 

In conclusion on this subject, let those who are most anxious for the reinstating of the doctrine and practice of baptism for the dead remember, that there is but little of direct scriptural proof that can be adduced in support of the doctrine; and that left mainly to the direct institution of it among the Saints, we must be fully prepared to meet all the consequences attendant upon its introduction, or we shall rue the mooting of the subject. ("Editorial" 1874,434) 

The anonymous author went on to say that the Saints should live justly and not concern themselves with such practices as baptism for the dead until such time as God should direct. 

Joseph Smith III and the Doctrine

Joseph Smith III, who became Reorganized Church president in April 1860, played a critical role in developing the church's policy concerning baptism for the dead. Smith never questioned the doctrine publicly and only hesitantly considered its propriety in private late in his long career. Too much religious background from Nauvoo eliminated any serious reconsideration of the issue the early Reorganization, and I doubt that he had either the will or the inclination to deal with the issue. Smith's mother, Emma, had been a proxy in the baptism for the dead rituals in Nauvoo. His lone counselor in the First Presidency in the 1860s, William Marks, had been stake president in Nauvoo and had participated in the proxy baptisms (Bishop 1990, 7). And, as already mentioned, the doctrine was particularly comforting to his brother Alexander. 

Even if Smith had been willing to challenge the ritual on theological grounds, he probably still would not have done so early in his presidency because he was generally unwilling to take strong and forceful action publicly that might needlessly upset the harmony of the church (see Launius 1988, 361-74). Throughout his life, Smith recognized the doc trine as legitimate, at least in principle, and allowed the door to remain open to its eventual practice or possible rejection in the Reorganization. Smith wrote to Alfred Ward on 9 May 1880 about this issue. "Baptism for the dead, temple building, and gathering are not rejected," he wrote, "and what you may deem laying on the shelf, remains to be seen." He added, however, that baptism for the dead was at best a per missive doctrine that might or might not be practiced again. In a similar manner, he wrote to Job Brown on 5 January 1886 that he believed in the principle of universal salvation and that baptism for the dead was one means of achieving it, "but [I] do not teach it; having as I understand it no command to do so." 

Apparently, Joseph Smith III began to modify some of his ideas concerning baptism for the dead at least by the early 1890s.[2] He still positively regarded it, but his comments on the subject show inconsistency. His 3 May 1894 letter to Mrs. N. S. Patterson shows that he still stressed its permissive nature:

We do not feel at liberty to baptize for the dead yet, though we believe it. It is a permis sive rite, and the church was forbid the practice in about 1844, until the Temple was fin ished. The temple was not finished in the time alotted sic, and the privilege ceased. It will be renewed soon we believe, when we can practice that ordinance. 

On 5 May 1894 he even defended the doctrine against charges that it was unscriptural by pointedly asking a correspondent: "Will you please state wherein the doctrine of baptism for the dead is contrary to the Book of Mormon?" 

At the same time, he began asking more questions about the doc trine. Perhaps it was challenges from others, or the completion of the Salt Lake Temple, or his own personal feelings that by the 1890s resulted in a subtle shift in his willingness to reexamine the issue. In an intriguing 26 May 1893 letter to L. L. Barth of Rexburg, Idaho, Joseph Smith III described his basic position about baptism for the dead and the Mormon concept of the eternity in general. "Personally, I would not value going through the temple a dollar's worth," he wrote, "and then only as a matter of curiosity, I cannot see anything sacred or divine in it." Smith also suggested that baptism for the dead might be rejected at some date in the future, arguing that God could either "enjoin" or "permit" it to suit his purposes, and it was not humanity's concern ("Baptism" 1893, 115). 

There can be no doubt, however, that Joseph Smith III held at least a tangential belief in baptism for the dead until his death in 1914. Usually in the latter years of his presidency, he alluded to it in connec tion with the temple in Independence at some distant future time. He wrote to J. W. Jenkins in 1902, "We believe that when the temple is built baptism for the dead will be practiced, and we are in hopes that perhaps permission may be given before that." But Smith never implored God for revelations and guidance about the practice of the ritual. The abstract principle, without any tangible expression and with fewer and fewer people concerned with it, began a path toward rejection. 

Early Challenges 

There were opponents of the doctrine of baptism for the dead from the earliest period of the Reorganization, and they vocally disagreed with the Reorganized Church's cautious official position about its legitimacy as a permissive rite to be practiced at the express command of God. A few—notably Reorganization founding father Jason W. Briggs, who was admittedly such a liberal element in the movement that he withdrew from it in 1886 because of irreconcilable doctrinal differences—even advocated that the church reject the premise outright as unscriptural and adopt a more "Christian attitude."[3]

Russell Huntley, in most instances an orthodox church member (he demonstrated as much by donating significant funds to the church to provide for the publication of the sealed portion of the Book of Mormon when it came forward), also thought the doctrine ridiculous (Launius 1985).[4] In a February 1875 article in the True Latter Day Saints' Herald 

Huntley challenged the concept: "Then we find the believer and the doer saved; the unbeliever that has the law and will not keep it, lost; and the little children and those without the law redeemed by the atonement, the blood of Christ. Now where does the baptism for the dead come in, as all are saved that can be saved? I see no place or need for that ordinance." Huntley's position, as might be expected, relied heavily on Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon's 1832 vision of the three glories, which indicated that salvation would come to a much broader category of human beings than most Christian churches accepted but did not mention baptism as a necessary prerequisite to this redemption (D&C76). 

For several years thereafter, baptism for the dead was discussed in church meetings and periodicals, but mostly in noncommittal ways (Stebbins and Walker [1888], 166, 216-18; Griffiths n.d., 139-40; Parsons 1902, 114-20). For instance, the author of a 5 January 1889 statement in the Saints' Herald debated the wisdom of baptism for the dead, declaring that even though the doctrine could be rectified with the existing body of scripture and then practiced, there was little reason to believe it would be reinstituted any time soon and perhaps never. Joseph Smith III was in Utah when this appeared, and it seems unlikely that he had approved its publication. At the preconference meeting of the Quorum of Twelve in 1892 the apostles voted "that as a Quorum we put ourselves upon record as being ready to promulgate the doctrine as soon as the Lord shall so direct us as to time, place, and conditions for observance" (in Edwards 1969, 5:145). There was, however, little enthusiasm for the pronouncement from most of the quorum members, and nothing came of the exercise, not even a request to Joseph Smith III that he prayerfully consider the matter, a common action in other cases of doctrinal interpretation. 

A Time of Withdrawal 

During the early years of the twentieth century, Reorganization leaders withdrew further from considering baptism for the dead as a legitimate doctrine. The official position remained constant throughout this period; the doctrine was "permissive," to be practiced at some future, unspecified time. Questions about the doctrine were much less common during the first half of the century than before 1900. Discussion in the Saints' Herald dropped drastically.[5] Most discussion, both in church periodicals and elsewhere, involved debate with the Utah Saints about the issue (see Phillips 1904; H. Smith 1907; J. F. Smith nd; E. Smith 1943; Ralston 1950; Carpenter 1958; Hield and Ralston 1960). This debate became not so much about when to implement the doctrine—the old "permissive" position—as about whether it was necessary at all. Russell F. Ralston, a member of the seventy assigned to full-time missionary service in Utah in 1948, was one of the most important students of the issue (Ralston 1989a; 1989b). In his work in Utah, Ralston needed answers to doctrinal questions about the Restoration churches but found very little quality information. To rectify this deficiency, he enlisted the aid of Charles R. Hield, the apostle in charge of the region, and prepared a series of study papers on the various doctrinal dissimilarities of the Latter-day Saint and Reorganization churches. They found that most of the Reorganization's doctrinal materials placed too much emphasis on the subject of plural marriage to the exclusion of other critical issues. Accordingly, they began by studying each church's concept of God. That led naturally into a consideration of temple rituals, one of which was baptism for the dead. 

Ralston approached baptism for the dead from a fresh perspective. By the late 1940s no one in the church remembered Nauvoo and the practice of baptism for the dead. Since the doctrine had no practical application in the Reorganization, there was no body of knowledge sur rounding it from continued practice, as in the case of the Latter-day Saints. Ralston was free, therefore, to consider the issue without defending or condemning it. While Ralston denied that he was consciously departing from previous approaches to the subject, he articulated well the shifting position oi many Reorganized Church members during the immediate postwar era as the church began to struggle with broader questions. Having moved beyond the borders of western culture, the Church was also forced to consider anew its role within the broader context of Christianity. Baptism for the dead was apparently one of the issues reviewed (see Booth 1980; Potter 1980; Cole 1979). 

He quickly found that baptism for the dead had a very strong pedigree in the early Mormon church, although he thought its scriptural support was suspect. In spite of this, he began by asking, "Was baptism for the dead as now understood and practiced a false doctrine?" That was, of course, a remarkably different premise from one that recognized the doctrine's viability but argued its restrictive nature. Ralston reasoned that baptism for the dead was only legitimate if baptism was essential for salvation. His studies all indicated that baptism was not essential to salvation and therefore that baptism for the dead was a false doctrine deserving of rejection. Israel A. Smith, the Reorganization's president from 1946 to 1958, supported Ralston's conclusions and asked Ralston to prepare his studies on Restoration doctrines for publication (Ralston 1989a). 

The 30 October 1950 Saints' Herald contained the first of several pathbreaking articles by Ralston on baptism for the dead. This article accepted the basic church position that the practice of baptism for the dead in the early church had been formally directed, circumscribed, and governed by revelation. Ralston suggested that the practice was strictly limited for a time to the Mississippi River and to the Nauvoo Temple when it was completed. He also concluded that "the ordinance of baptism for the dead was only to be permissible in Zion, her stakes, and Jerusalem." Without a temple specifically for the purpose, "there is no place on earth where this ordinance can be legally practiced" (1950, 1047). Ralston was here taking at face value an argument he had heard from Elbert A. Smith, a longtime church official currently serving as presiding patriarch, who believed that in spite of the doctrine's strangeness, it might have to do with a special relationship between some of the living and their dead, even though it had nothing to do with their salvation (Ralston 1989a). 

After reaffirming the standard church position, Ralston next considered whether baptism for the dead was essential "to the salvation of either the living or the dead." He suggested, "I believe that if baptism for the dead is essential to their salvation, then God is unjust." He argued that those who had died without a knowledge of the gospel should not be penalized and that Joseph Smith, Jr., had learned as much in a 1836 revelation when he saw his brother Alvin in the celestial kingdom, even though he had not been baptized. Ralston used several scriptural citations to show that baptism was not essential, including Christ's promise of paradise to the thief on the cross. "Considering the above fact," Ralston commented, "we can but conclude that baptism for the dead is not essential to the salvation of the dead" (Ralston 1950, 1048). 

Ralston also used the Book of Mormon, asserting that while it contained the fullness of the gospel, it made no mention of baptism for the dead. He also invoked the Doctrine and Covenants 34:3, dated December 1830, to demonstrate that God had "sent forth the fullness of my gospel by the hand of my servant Joseph Smith" by that early date, apparently without any consideration for the historical evolution of the church after that period. 

Ralston also used the only biblical reference to baptism for the dead in 1 Corinthians 15:29 to demonstrate the doctrine's error. In the first instance I have found of this particular argument, Ralston asserted that in this scriptural passage "Paul was not talking about Christians." He wrote: 

In this fifteenth chapter, Paul is expounding the truth of the Resurrection. Talking to the saints (members of Christ's church) at Corinth, he says, "Else what shall they do, which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? Why are they then baptized for the dead?" You will note carefully that Paul does not say, "why are you (members of Christ's church) baptized for the dead," but specifically talks about they. Who are the}? There is no indication that they are Christians. (1950, 1048) 

This last argument has become a standard in Reorganized Church efforts to discredit the practice of baptism for the dead. Based on this assessment of scripture—and the discrediting of the biblical reference to baptism for the dead had to take place before the Reorganization could reject the doctrine—Ralston concluded that "we feel the only logical conclusion is that baptism for the dead is not a basic principle of the doctrine of Christ" (1950, 1048). 

Having cast doubts on the biblical sanction of baptism for the dead, it was now easier for Ralston to challenge the latter-day revelations of Joseph Smith on the subject. Ralston suggested that the sections in the Doctrine and Covenants concerning baptism for the dead were deficient as scripture: one was a cautious revelation that limited the practice, and the other two were 1842 letters that Ralston cast aside as nonrevelatory writings. He also offered an entirely different interpretation of the scripture in Malachi 4:6 about turning the hearts of the children to their fathers, using a statement from the first vision that reads: "And he shall plant in the hearts of the children the promises made to the fathers, and the hearts of the children shall turn to the fathers" (Ralston 1950, 1049; Smith and Smith 1973, 1:13). 

At the end of this article, Ralston offered six basic conclusions about baptism for the dead: (1) baptism for the dead at best is very strictly limited; (2) there is no temple on the earth where baptism for the dead can be practiced according to the limitations of God; (3) baptism for the dead is in no way essential to the salvation of either the living or the dead; (4) baptism for the dead is not a basic principle of Christ's gospel, for the Book of Mormon, which contains the fullness, does not teach it; (5) the doctrine is at best permissible, and this only under very specific conditions; and (6) "members of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints cannot feel justified [either] in accepting or rejecting it, nor can we rightfully do so unless God in his wisdom shall reveal it in such a way and with such a purpose that it will be completely consistent with him, his Son, and his gospel" (Ralston 1950, 10-49). 

In the next few years, Ralston followed this article with several essays on baptism for the dead in church periodicals, each laying waste to the practice. In a 1952 article in the Saints' Herald, he commented: 

The whole matter of baptism for the dead is so very indefinite that it would be difficult to come to any conclusion as to just what did occur. There are no records of any revelation of God coming through the prophet telling any one individual to be baptized for any spe cific dead person. Since there are no records of such, I feel it is safe to assume that there was no such revelation. 

When questioned about the possibility of proxy baptism for someone on the verge of converting to the church at the time of death, Ralston asserted that "God has a way by which he offers celestial salvation to those whose hearts' desire is worthy and who through no fault of their own had no opportunity to be baptized in this world." He did not allow, however, for any requirement for baptism at any time, considering it an unnecessary act (Question 1955, 224-26; Ralston 1955, 525). 

In 1960 Russell Ralston and Charles R. Hield published an expanded tract on the subject, which laid out in detail the official Reorganized Church position but firmly defended the nonpractice of the rite by the movement. They asserted that "while the Reorganized Church does not completely reject the principle of baptism for the dead, it does very strongly deny any concept which makes baptism for the dead essential to the salvation of either the living or the dead."[6] Interpreting scripture and restoration history, the authors' case against the practice was similar to, though more detailed than that offered in Ralston's earlier writings. 

One of Ralston and Hield's most interesting and original arguments for the rejection of baptism for the dead is that the doctrine makes humans the saviors of those for whom they are baptized, rather than Jesus Christ. "If salvation for the unbaptized people on the other side must depend upon frail mankind today, then judgment depends upon the works of the living and not upon one's own life," they wrote. "Any doctrinal concept that makes man a savior is obviously false" (1960, 11). 

This has become an especially important rationale for members of the Reorganization and has been used repeatedly in recent years to dis credit baptism for the dead (see Elefson 1984, 12-14). James D. Wardle, a Reorganized Church member living in Salt Lake City who operates the only combination barber shop/theological seminar that I know of, echoed this position in an unpublished study in the early 1960s: "To trust in baptism for the dead is to prefer the interference of men over the redemptive power which is already assured through Jesus Christ." During the 1960s the Church moved even further from the doc trine. Instead of explaining that baptism for the dead was a permissive doctrine that would be practiced upon further revelation from God, several church leaders publicly challenged and then overturned, at least to their satisfaction, the doctrine's theological underpinnings. Charles Fry, long a leading figure in the church's hierarchy, concluded in a 1963 study: 

1. The doctrine of Baptism for the Dead was never revealed of God; never commanded of Him; and never endorsed of Him. 
2. Its entrance into the church was irregular and illegitimate, and in disregard of the law. 
3. It came out in due season and was no part of the "Restoration" of latter days
4. It is based upon false promises including an erroneous interpretation of scriptural baptism. 

Another argument at this time commented that the sections in the Doctrine and Covenants mandating baptism for the dead