I have a
great deal of respect for Sidney Rigdon. A minister, he was a gold-standard
convert for the young Joseph Smith and quickly rose to a leading position in
the new Mormon Church. Rigdon walked the talk of early Mormonism. He was a
great orator and led many to Mormonism. He also suffered in jail cells with
Smith and others and the abuse caused him mental breakdowns.
And, like other
converts, he was deeply distressed over the secret polygamy doctrine, more so
after Smith allegedly attempted to make his daughter, Nancy, 19, a spiritual
wife. This led to severed stress on Rigdon and a rift with Joseph Smith that
was never fully healed before Smith was martyred in 1844.
After
Smith’s death, Rigdon attempted to take control of the LDS Church. Suffice to
say he failed in a power struggle with Brigham Young and was excommunicated in
September 1844.
Despite that
setback, he still enjoyed a following and in 1845 started the Church of Christ
in Pittsburgh, Pa., where most former Mormons there followed him. Despite that
positive beginning, within two years, Rigdon’s church would dwindle away,
finally dying in a scraggly farm/commune in Antrim Township, Pa. After that,
Rigdon, along with his wife Phebe, would live mostly in obscurity, resurfacing
late in his life with one more feeble effort to start a church that migrated to
Iowa and then dwindled away to nothing several years after Rigdon’s death in
1876,
Why did
Sidney Rigdon fail the leadership test? It’s very possible that Rigdon, despite
his knowledge of theology, the scriptures and church administration, suffered
from mental illness and depression. He was devastated by the death of his daughter,
Eliza, and quickly lost high-profile alliances with prominent Mormon
dissidents, including William McLellin.
When the
ailing church moved from Pittsburgh to Antrim Township, Rigdon tried to
organize a six-month religious conference, but history tells us that he
preached some bizarre doctrines, including a prediction Christ would return to
the earth. Before that occurred, the farm was seized.
Rigdon’s
last church was called The Church of Jesus Christ of the Children of Zion. The
church included female members of its priesthood. Rigdon wrote a pamphlet, an
appeal to the Latter-day Saints, but it was directed at members of the
Reorganized Church under Joseph Smith III, not the Utah Mormons.
Like many of
the original, early church members who apostasized, Rigdon never lost his
testimony of The Book of Mormon or the early visions that these church leaders
claimed. He spent much of his later life condemning Joseph Smith, Emma Smith —
who he called a she-devil — and the doctrine of polygamy. But even then, Rigdon
was such an enigma of contradictions. He denounced Smith and his wife
vociferously in letters late in his life, but sought Joseph Smith III’s
approval soon after leaving the main Mormon church. It’s likely that the
rejection he received from the Reorganized church hardened his animosity toward
the Smiths.
Another
fascinating contradiction of Rigdon’s is his feelings on polygamy. He condemned
it as “ruinous to society,” yet it appears that the 1840s’ church Rigdon
organized and conducted wife-swapping, according to some members’
recollections.
To a
faithful Latter-day Saint, there’s an easy answer to Rigdon’s decline: he
apostasized from the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But that’s a cheap answer that
requires no thought. He apostasized, but his future life was shaped by his
experiences as an early Latter-day Saint. The trauma and betrayal he thought he
received must have presented difficult contradictions for a man who shared what
he believed to be revelation from God and later saw him lust after his daughter.
That would be a tough dilemma to reconcile for anyone. The stress certainly
turned Rigdon into a man unfit to lead thousands. (Research for this article
includes Richard S. Van Wagoner’s “Sidney Rigdon: A Portrait of Religious
Excess,” and “Sidney Rigdon: Post Nauvoo,” by Thomas J. Gregory, BYU Studies,
Winter 1981.)
-- Doug Gibson
-- Originally published at StandardBlogs
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