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.

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?

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.

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.

Note: The Dialogue Foundation provides the web format of this article as a courtesy. There may be unintentional differences from the printed version. For citational and bibliographical purposes, please use the printed version or the PDFs provided online and on JSTOR.

[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.

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.

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.

Note: The Dialogue Foundation provides the web format of this article as a courtesy. There may be unintentional differences from the printed version. For citational and bibliographical purposes, please use the printed version or the PDFs provided online and on JSTOR.

[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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Note: The Dialogue Foundation provides the web format of this article as a courtesy. There may be unintentional differences from the printed version. For citational and bibliographical purposes, please use the printed version or the PDFs provided online and on JSTOR.

[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.

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 had not been officially adopted by conference action of the church before the death of Joseph Smith and therefore should not be binding on the church. As a result, some church officials advocated removing these sections from the Doctrine and Covenants (Question 1967, 195-96; Draper 1989). 

George Njeim and the Prophet/Theologian Dichotomy 

Also at center stage in this reevaluation of the legitimacy of baptism for the dead was George Njeim, a president of seventy and full-time mis sionary. Njeim published what was, after Russell Ralston's writings, the most comprehensive analysis of the subject. His work, like Ralston's, dealt not only with baptism for the dead, but with the personality and doctrinal thinking of Joseph Smith as well. In a serialized article appearing in the Saints' Herald during the first three months of 1970, Njeim analyzed what he called the two sides of Smith's religious personality: the prophet and the theologian. Using a complex argument—and ultimately one that may satisfy only those looking at the issue through the lens of the Reorganization—Njeim argued that during the latter 1830s Smith began to rely less on revelatory power and more on his own instincts and doctrinal ideas. He emphasized the Prophet's early visions as central to the divinity of the movement and offered the decrease of visions in the latter 1830s and of revelations published in the Doctrine and Covenants after 1838 as evidence of Smith's spiritual deadening. The theological innovations especially of the Nauvoo period—the temple endowment, the progressive nature of God, the Book of Abraham, plural marriage, and others highly prized by some Mormon factions—Njeim credited to Joseph Smith's theological speculation, prompted by Smith's attempts to rationalize the various scriptural passages he studied. Njeim explicitly included baptism for the dead in his list of speculative doctrines introduced in Nauvoo and urged its outright rejection by the Reorganized Church. 

Njeim repeated many of Ralston's arguments and concluded that baptism for the dead had been a "theological accident" which arose only because the church's particular circumstances, the prophet, and the place came together to create an environment ripe for doctrinal speculation. His conclusions summarized this basic belief: 

I must admit that teachings of Joseph during this period (1839-1844) have concerned me greatly and nearly caused me to leave the church. Once I began to see the theological background, my concern was eased. My faith is in the God who gave Joseph his visions resulting in the Book of Mormon and convincing me of the divinity of Christ, who is my Savior.... That Joseph may have made mistakes in trying to find explanations for vexatious verses in the scriptures does not bother me now. He was a man such as I am, and I have found myself wrong many a time in my interpretation of a doctrinal issue. (Njeim 1970b, 26) 

By creating the dichotomy of prophet and theologian in Joseph Smith, Njeim was thus able to offer Reorganization leaders a rational vehicle, even if it was a bit rickety, to bury baptism for the dead. Several others seconded his position (Ashenhurst et al. 1970, 22-23, 25). 

The Pivotal 1970 World Conference 

From whatever perspective we view it, the 1970 World Conference of the Reorganized Church was one of the most difficult in the movement's history. Racked with controversy over issues of peace and war, religious education, liberalism and conservatism, and racism, the pivotal meeting will affect the Reorganized Church indefinitely ("Conference Resume" 1970, 3-6; Russell 1970, 769-71). One action of this conference moved several sections of the Doctrine and Covenants from the main body of the work to a "Historical Appendix" at the back of the book. Among the five documents consigned to this appendix were the three on baptism for the dead, which had been so recently reinterpreted. This decision culminated years of study about the doctrine, which had evidently led the majority of church members to believe that baptism for dead was a non-Christian concept deserving of rejection. 

The desire for change, of course, had been fermenting for years. In 1967 when the First Presidency considered revising the prefatory mate rial for each section in the book, a logical question arose about the propriety of deleting certain sections with seemingly no relationship to the current church. At the April 1968 World Conference, delegates from the Utah District proposed including in a new edition of the Doctrine and Covenants only those revelations "attested by Joseph Smith, Jr., or by one of his lawful successors," and "presented to and acted upon by the presiding quorums of the church . . . as revelation authoritatively binding upon the whole church." Other sections not considered revelatory and binding on the Reorganization were to be placed in a historical appendix. This resolution, which passed on 6 April 1968, did not designate which sections of the Doctrine and Covenants might be relegated to an appendix, but there was little question that those relating to baptism for the dead were to be among them (World Conference 1968, 283; Draper 1989). 

On 7 April 1970 the First Presidency offered a lengthy resolution to the World Conference creating the historical appendix. Innocuously named "New Doctrine and Covenants Format," this resolution presented, in addition to the historical appendix, a new introduction to the Doctrine and Covenants, a new order for sections in the book, and a new set of introductions to individual revelations (World Conference 1970, 286). The issue caused heated debate. The first controversy involved an amendment to the resolution, offered by Earline Campbell of Los Angeles, California, providing for the deletion from the book of all sections to be placed in the historical appendix. 

Melvin Knussman spoke for those still holding to the legitimacy of baptism for the dead: 

In view of the long historical tradition of the Doctrine and Covenants as we have it today, I feel it would be tragic if we would at this time seek to make these changes. I feel that we better let well enough alone, for by making changes at this time I feel it will in the long run raise more problems than it would solve ("World" 1970, 84). 

Even more eloquent was the argument of Madalyn Taylor, a delegate of Santa Fe Stake near Independence, Missouri. "I would vote an emphatic no to this whole resolution," she said, then continued: 

There was a time as recorded in I Nephi when scholars in the vision of then removed many precious things that were plain from the Bible and after these plain and precious things had been removed by theologians this book went forth among the Gentiles and because of the lack of revelations, due to the tampering of men, Nephi was shown that many should stumble until in the latter days, they should be had again If ever there was a time in the history of the restoration when people have itching fingers and desire to tamper with things, it is now. Change the Book of Mormon, change the revelations, change the name of the church, change the ordinance. This is all that the word apostacy in the Greek language means. Apostacize, abandoning of that which is a faith of belief. I beg the delegates to consider well before they vote on this resolution. ("World" 1970, 86) 

For Melvin Knussman and Madalyn Taylor as well as for a minority of other church members, removing the sections concerning baptism for the dead represented a serious departure from the church's "tried and true" system of belief. 

C. Robert Mesle, then a theology student and now on the faculty at Graceland College, silenced some of this dissent with research he and some associates had conducted concerning the place of baptism for the dead in the theology of selected church appointee ministers. In describing a survey he had sent to these individuals he noted: 

We received somewhere in the area of 90 replies. Of these, 56 percent agreed strongly that baptism for the dead was not valid, 42 percent agreed, 11 percent were undecided, and no one felt that it was valid. Two, we asked, how do you view the concept of baptism for the dead? 12 percent felt that it was an ordinance requiring revelation through the present prophet to be considered valid, 32 percent felt that it was invalid on scriptural grounds, and 56 percent felt that it was invalid on all grounds. Third, we asked, what would you like to see done to sections 107, 109, 110? 18 percent said remove all three sections entirely from the D. and C; 66 percent said place all three sections in an historical area of the D. and C; 5 percent said place sections 109 and 110 in an historical section of the Doctrine and Covenants and leave 107 remain as it now stands, and 11 per cent were undecided. We feel that this might give the Conference some idea how the men involved with the question feel about it. ("World" 1970, 88) 

It should be noted that a portion of Mesle's research on baptism for the dead had been strategically published in the Saints' Herald in April 1970 to coincide with the convening of conference. This article challenged in no uncertain terms the scriptural foundation of the practice and was one more means of building the case for placing the baptism for the dead sections in a historical appendix (see Ashenhurst et. al 1970). 

In the end the delegates passed the First Presidency's resolution. In spite of the minority opinions expressed, the conference did not seem to have been seriously divided on the issue. Votes at these conferences are usually taken by raising hands. If the vote had been close, the house would have been divided and an actual count taken; this was not done (see Troeh and Troeh 1987). After a lengthy debate, the conference deferred to the hierarchy and easily passed the resolution. Indeed, this action was typical of many conference episodes when considerable debate and wrestling among the members over a particular issue ended in approval of the leadership's original position. Robert Slasor, from the unorganized section of eastern Ontario, voiced the basic trust most members have for the church hierarchy when he remarked: "I think the First Presidency and those that have been involved with them have done such an excellent job of improving this .. . I for one would like to see it [the First Presidency resolution] accepted just as it now is and then look toward the future with the possibilities that if change is needed it then could be made" ("World" 1970, 85). 

Although this decision did not silence all discussion of the subject among church members, it represented for most the implicit rejection of baptism for the dead. Church officials offered several explanations for relegating the scripture to the appendix where it no longer had the force of commandment. All were firmly rooted in the historical development of the Reorganization's understanding of the practice. First, the action recognized the long-standing position that the doctrine was only permissive but allowed for its future practice if God directed its implementation. Second, since the original revelations had never been approved for publication in the Doctrine and Covenants by formal church vote during Joseph Smith's lifetime they never should have been placed there in the first place. Thus, placement in a historical appendix simply corrected a past error. Finally, the questionable sections were of historical value and in an appendix they would still be available for study by the church members {World 1970, E-4; RLDS D&C 107: Introduction). 

These were excuses, not the real reasons. Most of the church hierarchy and many of the members openly questioned the legitimacy of baptism for the dead. Israel A. Smith had been opposed to the doctrine as early as the 1940s and was the first to propose the idea of ousting the Doctrine and Covenants sections dealing with it (Ralston 1989a; 1989b). His younger brother and successor as president of the Reorganized Church, W. Wallace Smith, was even more adamant. He and his counselors in the First Presidency in 1970 opposed the concept and were in favor of ultimately exorcising the sections from the Doctrine and Covenants. 

The First Presidency's position concerning baptism for the dead was clearly expressed two years earlier at the 1968 World Conference. On that occasion W. Wallace Smith's revelation about the building of a temple in Independence was returned by the priesthood quorums for clarification about the nature of temple ministries, particularly about provisions for endowment rituals akin to those practiced by the Latter day Saints. Smith considered this issue and prepared a second inspired statement which concluded that "there is no provision for secret ordinances now or ever" in any temple to be built by the Reorganization (RLDS D&C 149, 149a; Draper 1989). These "secret ordinances," Smith explained, included baptism for the dead. That the statement was easily accepted by the conference body also indicated a consensus among the membership of the church. 

This is not to say, however, that there was complete agreement; and at least to some, the 1970 action to place the baptism for the dead sections in the historical appendix represented a compromise allowing all parties to escape with an acceptable solution. Vivien Sorenson, a member of the Seventy and a full-time appointee minister, for instance, has said that he believed in baptism for the dead and looked forward to the day that it would be practiced again, but he voted for the "appendix" decision so that the issue would be settled. If he had not done so, he was convinced that at a later conference sufficient votes would have been mustered by the First Presidency to remove the sections from the Doctrine and Covenants entirely. To do so, he believed, would have wrongfully closed the door to the potential of baptism for the dead. For Sorenson and others of a similar minority view, that half a loaf could be accepted until God spoke on the subject again (Sorenson 1989). 

Conclusion

At present a few church members still cling to the older permissive rite position and await the time when baptism for the dead can again be practiced. This number, however, is declining with almost every passing year. Once again, to ignore (and that has been the Reorganization's policy) is to reject (see Whenham 1970). The decision to relegate baptism for the dead to the back of the book represents, I believe, a decision also to relegate it to a limbo world of church theological consideration (see also Holm 1970, 156-64; "Question" 1970, 1978; Williams 1978; Madison 1988). 

At this time, with plans for building a temple well underway in Independence, it would seem the ideal moment to reintroduce the practice, if ever that is to occur. Joseph Smith III certainly believed that baptisms for the dead would be practiced in the Independence temple, yet there are no plans for a baptismal font in the building's basement. Perhaps the ultimate moment of rejection for the practice will be at the dedication of the Independence Temple. When Wallace B. Smith opens the temple to the public sometime in the 1990s and there is still no provision for baptisms for the dead, the Reorganized Church will have officially relegated the concept to theological speculation, some thing it did tacitly more than twenty years ago. For good or ill, the Reorganization will have finally abandoned one of the most unique practices arising from early Mormonism. 

Note: The Dialogue Foundation provides the web format of this article as a courtesy. There may be unintentional differences from the printed version. For citational and bibliographical purposes, please use the printed version or the PDFs provided online and on JSTOR.

[1] See the works of Richard Price, Decision Time, (1975); The Saints at the Crossroads (1975); Action Time (1985). Price is a Reorganization conservative who interprets redirections in the church's policy and doctrine as evidence of apostacy from the truths of the Restoration. He has become the chief spokesman for Reorganization fundamentalists, and a rival church organization is now developing around him. For a similar discussion without the criticisms of the institutional church see Howard J. Booth, Recent Shifts in Restoration Thought (1980).

[2] In my biography of Joseph Smith III I argued that by the 1890s the prophet was more comfortable with his position in the church, that the peculiar circumstances of his presidential position, his time in office, the successes of his policies-particularly against polygamy-prompted greater shifts in his administration than at any previous time. This may help explain what appears to be a subtle and tentative, but nonetheless important, reexamination of the doctrine of baptism for the dead by the Reorganization prophet (see Launius 1988, 296-311).

[3] In addition to Briggs, Apostle Zenos H. Gurley, Jr., also questioned the necessity of the doctrine. Both withdrew from the church in 1886 over theological issues (see Smith and Smith 1967, 4:524-28; Vlahos 1971; Blair 1980; Russell 1987). 

[4] In the 1880s Huntley asked for and received back the money he had donated for a trust fund to publish the remainder of the Book of Mormon.

[5] There are only nine articles on the subject listed in the card file index for the Saints' Herald at the Reorganized Church Library-Archives for the period between 1900 and 1960. In addition, such influential tracts as A. B. Phillips, Latter Day Saints and What They Believe (n.d., 203-6) has a lengthy discussion of baptism and resurrection, but no commentary on baptism for the dead.

[6] Hield and Ralston, Baptism for the Dead, p. 9. This tract was incorporated into a larger publication by Ralston, Fundamental Differences (1963, 209-65). An earlier edition of Fundamental Differences had been published in 1960, but its discussion was much circumscribed from that of the 1963 edition because of a fear that it would preempt the sales of the Hield and Ralston booklet on Baptism for the Dead, published in 1960 (Ralston 1989a).

The preceding articles by Roger Launius and Guy Bishop give us a clearer view of how and why two churches sharing a common beginning and espousing belief in virtually the same extra-biblical scripture can end up far apart 150 years later. Tracing these different trajectories of thought across time takes us from a beginning point of mutual belief in baptism for the dead to the Reorganization's complete rejection of it as. nonessential and even non-Christian or to the Latter-day Saints' enshrining of it as the third leg of their tripartite mission statement to proclaim the gospel, perfect the Saints, and redeem the dead. While both churches have retained allegiance to the early period, what each considers normative from that period is significantly different. In a very real way, though many who would later join the Reorganization lived in Nauvoo, they never held truck with the theological and liturgical developments of the 1840s. For them what was worth preserving in Mormonism was pre.-Nauvoo. Latter-day Saints, on the other hand, look back to those years as the precise period when Mormonism really came into its own.

Roger Launius's essay whisks us along a fascinating tour of how for well over a hundred years the RLDS have attempted to come to grips with baptism for the dead. Launius provides more than just the history of a doctrine; he explores a larger struggle for identity, baptism for the dead merely being the case study. In the years following World War II, as the Reorganization moved increasingly toward ecumenical Christianity, it became obvious that something had to be done with Joseph Smith's theology, which was altogether too exclusivistic and, by mainstream Protestant standards, too speculative. Yet, RLDS leaders had no desire to throw the baby out with the bath water. Consequently, a certain amount of intellectual tension prevailed. The inevitable resolution was perhaps most creatively expressed by George Njeim with his "prophet-theologian" dichotomy: doctrine that strayed too far from the new theological path being pursued could be designated "mistaken speculation” without damaging respect for and faith in Joseph Smith's truly "prophetic" insights.

In the earliest years, though, Launius "could find no evidence . . . that anyone questioned [the] truthfulness" of baptism for the dead. Instead, Reorganized Church members simply acknowledged it as a rite requiring divine revelation to be reinstituted and debated when and under what circumstances such an event would take place. By the 1950s, however, the winds of thought were blowing in a different direction. No longer was it just a question of "when" but "whether" it would be restored. RLDS apostle Russell E Ralston challenged the very foundation upon which baptism for the dead was based—the essentiality of baptism itself. Like many Protestant theologians, he argued that to require the rite of all humans who have ever lived regardless of circumstance would be “unjust.” Besides, had not Christ promised salvation to the unbaptized thief on the cross? Moreover, Ralston was bothered by baptism for the dead's seeming dependence on human saviors rather than on a divine one. He even attempted to exorcise the doctrine from New Testament Christianity by arguing that the one explicit mention of the practice (1 Cor. 15:29), was actually describing pagan rather than Christian behavior.[1]

If to Mormons, such thinking seems a betrayal of some of Joseph Smith's most precious teachings, to the RLDS it represented a deliverance from ideas that had grown uncomfortable. As leading thinkers in the Reorganization increasingly fell under the influence of twentieth-century liberal Protestant ideals, a more fundamental reworking of the early period, something beyond simply denying polygamy and promoting lineal succession, was needed. Ecumenism and "incarnational theology" began to replace sectarianism and speculative theology. If there were no longer a "one and only true" church, if "the Apostasy" and "the Restoration" were not specific events that happened at a particular time in history but rather processes continually at work among God's children, then the crucial need for baptism for the living or dead was no longer apparent.

The matter came to a head at the 1970 RLDS World Conference. There, the body of the church rejected as revelations the three sections of the Doctrine and Covenants dealing with baptism for the dead (RLDS l07, 109, 110; LOS 124, 127, 128) and placed them in the back of the volume as part of a historical appendix. So important, actually and symbolically, was this conference that one wonders to what degree it should be considered the Vatican II of the Reorganization. Despite dissent from within some priesthood quorums and church jurisdictions, the trajectory toward ecumenical Christianity continued unabated. Today, on the eve of the construction of the RLDS temple in Independence, Launius points out that there are no plans for a baptismal font in the temple basement and that support for the vicarious ordinance has virtually disappeared. In short, he says, it has been relegated to "the nether world of church theological consideration."

A fascinating story indeed! And whether it be labeled the "Protestantization" or the "liberation" of the Reorganization, it certainly indicates a sea change of attitude during the twentieth century. But has it been universal? Launius acknowledges a few dissenting voices along the way, though he minimizes their number and influence. However, I would like to know more about the Vivien Sorensons of the Reorganization who still hold, with Joseph Smith III, that baptism for the dead will be restored. Are these dissenters basically traditionalists who represent a primitivist reaction to ecumenical trends? If so, in what other areas do they seek to retain the early heritage? Beyond that lies the broader question about the nature of heterodoxy in the Reorganization generally. Do various factions exist? What theological or ideological orientations do they espouse? How much opposition emanates from those uncomfortable with picking and choosing which portion of Joseph Smith Ill's (or his father's) teachings will be considered doctrine and which will be labeled speculation? What is the relative size and strength of opposition groups, and how does the RLDS Church handle dissent? Whatever further research may reveal, Launius has demonstrated skill both in relating his particular subject to broader developments within the Reorganization and in whetting our appetite for more of the same.

What strikes me as the major contribution of Guy Bishop's paper is his careful analysis of the Nauvoo Baptisms for the Dead Book A. From it we learn that in the early years nearly half of the baptisms for the dead were cross--gender, that more aunts and uncles were baptized than either parents or grandparents, and chat the ceremony was widely participated in by ordinary residents of Nauvoo. Bishop introduces us, for example, to the otherwise unknown Nehemiah Brush, who was vicariously baptized 111 times in 1841. Particularly revealing is the fact that in addition to relatives, enthusiastic Saints were also baptized for a number of "friends," among them certain of the Founding Fathers. It no doubt interests Latter-day Saints to learn that George Washington had already received several vicarious baptisms in Nauvoo before Wilford Woodruff was baptized for him again as part of the full ordinance work for the dead performed in the St. George Temple.

Bishop's survey of the early history of baptisms for the dead piques interest and invites further research at a number of points. For instance, he lists leading figures in Nauvoo who participated in the ordinance, including members of the Prophet's own family, and notes thereby that baptism for the dead was "an ordinance of the hierarchy as well." But what of Joseph Smith himself? Why is there no record of him being baptized for the dead, not even for Alvin? Was it because he preferred to let others have the experience? Or, why does there appear to have been such a dramatic drop-off in baptisms for the dead after 1841? No records exist for 1842, and baptisms for 1843 were down by two-thirds. Does this reflect simply a lapse in record-keeping, or was it because once the Nauvoo Temple font was finished in November 1841 performance of the ordinance was restricted to that site? And what is, the connection with the epistles of September 1842 (LDS D&C 127, 128; RLDS Appendices B, C)? How should their timing and content be accounted for?

Questions also surface with regard to the relationship between tithing and baptisms for the dead. Bishop states that "access to the font" required "approved compliance with church dictates." This is intriguing in light of the current LDS practice requiring individuals to have a worthiness certifying "recommend" in order to enter the House of the Lord. Then, as now, did one have to be a tithepayer, as Bishop suggests, in order to participate in the temple ordinances? Bishop cites as evidence a copy of a "temple receipt" signed by William Clayton and a statement by John Taylor that "a man who has not paid his tithing is unfit to be baptized for his dead." Since both date from the post-martyrdom period, we will need more evidence from the earlier years to establish this as a practice during the Prophet's lifetime. Moreover, the Taylor statement needs to be placed in perspective. An LDS Church leader today might remark that a man who does not do his home teaching is unfit to enter the temple. But that is quite different from having home teaching performance written into the official temple recommend questions.

Following the Prophet's death there was a great push to finish the temple, and tithing was stressed as the crucial way to accumulate the labor and resources necessary to complete the task. In that climate, one might expect some attempt to see that those who received from the temple gave to the temple. While an effort to link tithing to temple participation is certainly understandable, the comprehensiveness of its application remains to be demonstrated.

Another tantalizing tidbit is Bishop's remark that "during the first two years of its practice" there was a ''lack of institutional control'' over baptisms for the dead. What did this mean? What discussions did it prompt? Did Saints merely accept without question the theology of baptism for the dead and argue only over procedures, or did they wrestle with the concept as well? While the answer would provide a fascinating footnote to Mormon intellectual history, there is an even more fundamental lacuna in this story that needs to be addressed: doctrinal development between Joseph's 1836 vision of his brother Alvin in the celestial kingdom and the 1840 announcement of baptism for the dead. The unexamined assumption is that the 1836 vision was "the genesis" of the practice of baptism for the dead. No doubt it played a role, but what about the Prophet's reflections on scriptural passages such as 1 Peter 3:19 or 4:6 and Isaiah 24:22? Were there "lingering questions in 1836 about how” the worthy dead would "receive" the gospel, as Bishop suggests? Or, did some people, like later RLDS from Russell Ralston on, perceive the vision as an answer in itself, merely proclaiming that all those who "would have received” the gospel had they had the chance in this life will automatically inherit the celestial kingdom?

A thorough exploration of these matters would also include such items as an editorial that appeared in the March 1837 Messenger and Advocate arguing that it would be unjust for God to condemn those who had not lived where and when they could hear the gospel. Admitting that God has "no other scheme of saving mankind but the gospel," the editor asked what was to be done. The answer lay in the text for the editorial—1 Peter 4:6, with its declaration that the gospel was "preached to them that are dead." Thus, "all who do not have, or have not had, the privilege of embracing or rejecting the gospel here in the flesh, have that privilege in God's own time before the judgment day." In this way "will the character of God be vindicated" (Smith and Rigdon 183 7, 470-71). How representative was this article of the soteriological thinking that was developing in the later 1830s?

Also relevant would be a history of Mormon beliefs about the post-mortal spirit world. In Wilford Woodruff's diary entry for 3 January 1837, the day he was ordained a seventy, he remembered Zebedee Coltrin saying "that I should visit COLUB & Preach to the spirits in Prision & that I should bring all of my friends or relatives forth from the Terrestrial Kingdom (who had died) by the Power of the gospel" (in Jessee 1972, 380). By modern Mormon standards, this is an odd conjuncture of concepts, yet, rudimentary notions of salvation for the dead are clearly evident. Where did these ideas come from and how were they sorted out in subsequent years? In short, we stand to benefit from a careful study of the period leading up to 1840.

Such a study should also be sensitive to the intellectual milieu in which these ideas were worked out. Universalists had long reacted against traditional notions of damnation by trumpeting God's salvific benevolence toward his children, and ideas about the spirit world had been given an elaborate boost in the eighteenth century by the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg. Even more interesting is the fact that "Mother Ann's Work" began among the Shakers in 1837. Through spiritualist phenomena, Shakers were informed that bands of Indian spirits as well as spirits of people from all over the world who had died long ago were being converted to Shakerism. Artaxerxes was only one famous figure from the past whom they singled out as having embraced the Shaker gospel in the spiritual world (Reese 1987). Future research will no doubt ferret out many fascinating details of doctrinal development, but regardless of who now picks up the baton, Bishop and Launius have done a fine job of introducing us to the topic.

Taken together, these two articles provide an excellent example of how thought-provoking it can be to compare doctrinal developments within the RLDS and LOS churches. At the very least, they remind us that even Mormon scripture is not so perspicuous as to compel uniform interpretation. Let's hope to see more of this kind of work in the future.

Note: The Dialogue Foundation provides the web format of this article as a courtesy. There may be unintentional differences from the printed version. For citational and bibliographical purposes, please use the printed version or the PDFs provided online and on JSTOR.

[1] From any perspective, this is highly irregular exegesis. I have been unable to find a widely used commentary on Corinthians which denies that baptism for the dead, however understood, was a practice among at least some Christians in Corinth. In the new Harper’s Bible Commentary, Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza notes chat "more than thirty interpretations have been proposed co explain chis practice, but none is satisfactory." At the very lease, it seems to be saying that Corinthian believers would "undergo baptism vicariously for their dead in the hope of saving them." Moreover, Paul "does not question the merits of it but refers to it to elucidate his point" (1988, 1187).

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