John Matzko

JOHN MATZKO teaches history at Bob Jones University and is a member of Faith Free Presbyterian Church in Greenville, South Carolina. He holds a Ph.D. 211 from the University of Virginia and is the author of Reconstructing Fort Union (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2001). He expresses gratitude to the National Endowment for the Humanities for supporting the preparation of this essay and to the co-directors and participants in the 2005 NEH Seminar on “Joseph Smith and the Origins of Mormonism” for criticism of an earlier draft. Especially valuable were the comments of Richard Bushman, seminar co-director, and Mark Sidwell, the author’s colleague at BJU. Nevertheless, the views expressed are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of his colleagues or the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The Encounter of the Young Joseph Smith with Presbyterianism

Articles/Essays – Volume 40, No. 3

Of the Protestant denominations vying for converts in western New York during the early nineteenth century, Methodism is rightly regarded as having made the greatest religious impress on the young Joseph Smith. Oliver Cowdery claimed that Smith had been “awakened” during a sermon by the Methodist minister George Lane.