Equally important is Mormonism's complex and embattled relation to both the society from which it emerged and to the evangelicalism that was such a dominant force in the society. It was launched in with the publication of the Book of Mormon, the sacred text which became the foundation for new religion. As Smith told the story, seven years earlier the angel Moroni had appeared before him and told him of a book written on gold plates and buried in a hill outside Manchester, New York.
Then, on September 22, , after other visitations from Moroni the plates were turned over to Smith. Over the next twenty-four months, Smith and a few trusted associates, using special, ancient, "seer" stones, "translated" the Egyptian hieroglyphics of the plates into English.
When they had finished this arduous task, Smith reported, as arranged, he delivered the plates back to the angel. The Book of Mormon was not simply an arresting and powerful spiritual treatise like John Fox's Book of Martyrs, which became the foundational text of Quakerism.
Rather, Smith promulgated it as a new, sacred and canonical text, a wholly new dispensation of scriptural truth that God, working through the angel Moroni and his chosen earthly vessel, Joseph Smith, delivered to humankind. As such, for Mormon believers, the Book of Mormon possesses the same canonical standing as the old and new testaments do for Protestants and Catholics. In fact, just as early Christians saw the New Testament, with its narrative of Christ as the fulfillment of Old Testament prophesies, as the completion of God's delivery of scriptural truth, so too did Mormons see the Book of Mormon, with its prediction of a new prophetic figure, as God's third and final dispensation.
To believers, in fact, the Book of Mormon built directly on the promises and predictions of the earlier texts: it was the "sealed" book, described in the Book of Isaiah, the appearance of which would signal the coming of the "end-times" predicted in the Book of Revelation. Thus did the Mormons identify themselves as "saints," the new Israelites called out from the Gentiles to usher in the millennium. Finally, the Book of Mormon revealed that on the day it "spoke out of the ground," a prophet, named Joseph like his father, would appear and, with the aid of revelations delivered to him directly from God, establish the Godly kingdom on earth that would prepare the way for Christ's Second Coming.
From the beginning, Joseph Smith and his followers provoked ridicule for Mormonism's seemingly magical if not superstitious origins, and opposition as a heresy that dared to claim itself "the only true and living church upon the face of the whole earth.
Kirtland was the seat of the prophet where in l the Mormons built and consecrated an elaborate temple. In both places, they isolated themselves from their neighbors, and, much as other nineteenth-century religious communitarian groups like the Shakers or the Amish, set up cohesive, economically self-sufficient and largely self-governing communities, setting themselves up not simply as a group of worshipers but as a people apart.
Neither Ohio nor Missouri provided adequate refuge against the hostility of neighbors suspicious of Mormon belief and fearful of Mormonism's growing numbers and economic prosperity and power.
In their Missouri neighbors attacked the settlement, forcing the Mormons to abandon Independence. Opposition also intensified back in Ohio and by early l most of the Kirtland Mormons, led by the prophet, had departed for Missouri, where they joined forces with their Independence coreligionists who had resettled in a county organized especially for them. Still, the tension between the Mormons and their Gentile neighbors escalated into armed conflict, and the saints were forced to flee once again.
In the spring of , nearly 15, Mormons crossed into Illinois, where they purchased the town of Commerce, which they renamed Nauvoo. Granted a charter that made Nauvoo virtually an independent municipality with its own court system and militia, the Mormon settlement by l had become the largest city in the state. In Nauvoo, Smith completed the process of organizational and doctrinal consolidation begun in Kirtland.
What had begun as an effort to recover the clarity and simplicity of early Christianity and the pure and authoritative forms of the apostolic church, developed into a more doctrinally complex and more elaborate and hierarchical religious structure. With the consecration of the temple in Kirtland, Smith turned away from the example of the early church and embraced more ancient Hebraic models of organization.
In addition to deacons, elders, priests and bishops, he instituted a "First Presidency," composed of Smith as president and two counselors, a high counsel, a special Quorum of Seventy, a Council of Twelve Apostles, and a patriarch, the first of which Smith ordained his own father. Finally, revelation granted the Lord's "servant, Joseph Smith, jun. In addition to this revelation securing the ultimate authority of the prophet and president , Smith announced the key revelation concerning "celestial marriage" under which saints' marriages were "sealed" for eternity.
This doctrine became the basis for the revelation disclosed to a chosen few saints in l for the practice of "plural marriages," under which select and worthy Mormon men could take multiple wives. Upstate New York?! Krakauer's book is mainly about the horrific killing of a mother and her baby by two "Fundamentalist" Mormons in Utah, who believe that God ordered them to do it.
These fundamentalists don't have much to do with mainstream Mormonism, in the same way that fundamentalists in most religions don't have much to do with the mainstream in those religions. But Krakauer's book also tells the story of Mormonism in general, with several chapters devoted to the founding of the religion, the "exodus" that took the early Mormons west, the current church, and one of the favorite Mormon topics of non-Mormons, polygamy more on this soon, I promise.
Anyway, on the assumption that many of you might also be interested in Mormonism—and, importantly, with what the Mormonism of our President might mean for the rest of us non-Mormons—I'm going to tell you some of what I've learned. Krakauer is obviously only one source albeit, I think, a neutral one.
Does Krakauer get it right? Is there an important other side to these stories? What should people know about Mormons and Mormonism? Please share your thoughts in the comments below or email me at hblodget businessinsider. First, although one's first instinct is obviously to howl with laughter at the fact that an entire religion is based on a book written by a self-professed psychic staring into a hat, this "genesis" story probably isn't all that much more ridiculous than the stories and texts involved in the founding of many other religions.
Third, Joseph Smith would later be called a "religious genius," and if the history of Mormonism reveals anything it's that the religion would never have had a leg to stand on if it weren't for his vast powers of persuasion and promotion. Most entrepreneurs have to scratch and claw and wheel and deal to get their enterprises off the ground, and the power to persuade others to drop their skepticism and pick up the torch is often critical to success.
The Church was founded in and soon attracted members. From the start it actively tried to convert people and sent missionaries out to win members. The Church also attracted enemies and was persecuted by mainstream Christian church members. Smith himself was imprisoned more than thirty times for his faith. In the first Mormon Temple was dedicated at Kirtland in Ohio. The church continued to grow, many of its members being converts from England. But the persecution also continued and eventually the Mormons moved to Illinois, where they built a new city, where they could live and worship in peace, on the banks of the Mississippi.
The Mormon hope that they would find peace at Nauvoo was disappointed and the persecution continued. Joseph Smith was arrested on several occasions, and in a jail where he and his brother was being held was attacked by an armed mob, and both men were shot and killed.
Because the family was so poor, Joseph received very little education - learning only basic maths and literacy. But he did spend much time in Bible study. Later the family moved to Palmyra in New York. It was a time of religious revival and the teenage Joseph was not sure which version of Christianity he should follow. He found a Bible text that told him to ask God what to do. Joseph went out into the country and prayed for guidance, and he had a vision of God the Father and Jesus Christ.
Joseph wrote:. I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head, above the brightness of the sun, which descended gradually until it fell upon me. Two beings appeared within the light "whose brightness and glory defy all description". One of them spoke his name, pointed to the other, and said,.
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