Review: Parley P. Pratt: The Apostle Paul of Mormonism

Review by Doug Gibson

It’s been a long wait for the biography of Parley P. Pratt, the irascible, in-your-face 19^th century Mormon apostle who, like the man he idolized, LDS founder Joseph Smith, met his end via assassination.  Not even a Deseret Books hagiography has been published.  Mass market accounts of Pratt’s complex life have been relegated to his autobiography, an exciting first person account that is selectively edited, mostly omitting his marriage and family life and providing virtually no details of his death at the hands of a cuckold whose wife Pratt had added to his polygamous family.  A mediocre biography, published 75 years ago, is forgotten.

Hopefully, “Parley P. Pratt: The Apostle Paul of Mormonism” (Oxford University Press, 2011) will restore Pratt to the prominence he enjoyed during Mormonism’s first 100 years.  Scholars Terryl L. Givens and Matthew J. Grow have provided a well-researched, unbiased account of his life that includes a detailed look into his personal life, including his 12 marriages, his near apostasy in 1837 after a church bank failure and his estrangement and reunion with his equally gifted brother and fellow apostle, Orson.

The biography reads well enough to be enjoyed by the casual consumer.  However, perhaps the most valuable contribution the biography offers is that Givens and Grow have had translated –from 19 century shorthand – a collection of previously unavailable discourses that Pratt delivered in the last decade of his life.  It is not an exaggeration to say that very few Latter-day Saints comprehend how much of their church’s complex doctrine regarding eternal life, pre-existence, and the existence of matter and spirit, derives from Pratt’s teachings, pamphlets, and two books, “Voice of Warning” and “Key to the Science of Theology.”  Now largely forgotten, those books were once ubiquitous in LDS homes.  As Givens and Grow relate, Pratt wrote, “The individual thinking being never ceases to live and think and act.  (It) never ceases those sympathies and affections which are … the inherent principles of their eternal existence.”

Pratt reveled in and adored the doctrines that today’s LDS Church – while not repudiating – is shy to discuss.  Pratt spoke often of the eternal existence of matter, the existence of countless gods furiously working on as many planets, and, of course, Pratt was a staunch defender of polygamy.  The authors theorize that as much of Pratt’s inspiration for these complex doctrines likely derived from private, unrecorded, conversations he had with Joseph Smith over 14 years.

Pratt was a product of his times, born poor in the midst of a religious awakening in the early 19^th century.  Long before he was a Mormon, he sought New Testament-type active religion, with revelations, spiritual gifts and proper authority of God.  Pratt was part of a growing faction of pre-millennialism believers who believed that Christ’s coming would occur to overcome evil, rather than as a complement to a world that had achieved righteousness, which was the more popular post-millennialism belief of that era.

The authors concede that Pratt was an extremely valuable convert.  He was also likely the first Mormon convert swayed by the Book of Mormon, rather than the charismatic Smith.  The Book of Mormon, Pratt believed, confirmed his belief in latter-day revelation.  Pratt’s baptism paved the way for tens of thousands of converts, including brother Orson, renowned preacher Sidney Rigdon and future LDS Prophet John Taylor.

The subtitle “The Apostle Paul of Mormonism” fits Pratt, as he clearly identified himself and his calling with those of the apostles in The Book of Acts.  Like Paul, Pratt was willing to confront poverty, persecution, disgust, disbelief, and sacrifice to preach what he believed.  He relished debate, and despite his lack of schooling, was rarely defeated by opponents.  He also was not afraid of death.

Although his recurring poverty frustrated him at times, he would end all profitable business on a moment’s notice when called to a new mission by Smith or Brigham Young.  Indeed, it is hard to imagine Pratt fitting in with today’s staid, public relations-conscious LDS Church, with its compensated, elderly, well-attired apostles.

Pratt’s value to the young church’s survival was critical in the couple of years after Smith was martyred.  Through visits to the East Coast, Britain, and preaching in the Church’s center of Nauvoo Ill, Pratt solidified Young’s claims to lead the LDS Church, eliminating such rivals as William Law, James L. Strange, Rigdon, David Whitmer, Samuel Smith, and Samuel Brannan.  Pratt also played a key role in the migration of LDS members to the Salt Lake valley and later led an exploratory mission to Southern Utah and headed missions to San Francisco and even South America.

Pratt’s single-mindedness sometimes caused clashes with Young, who reproved the apostle for rash behavior that included rushed marriages.  Pratt was at time intemperate, fleeing debts, ignoring Young’s directions, taking wives in secret and not bothering with securing divorces for two.

The practice of polygamy led to a divorce from his second wife, and another abandoned him shortly after arriving in the Salt Lake Valley.  By all accounts though, the authors write that Pratt’s relations with his children and remaining spouses were loving and cordial.

Givens and Grow have produced a triumphant biography that gets as close to knowing the enigmatic Pratt as any biographer has.  There will always be gaps in Pratt’s life that invite speculation: his private conversations with Smith; his relationship with his much older first wife, Thankful, who died after childbirth; and what motivated him to recklessly help his last wife, Eleanor, try to escape to Utah with her children.  That failed attempt guaranteed Pratt’s death at the hands of her first husband and an enabling extralegal culture that condoned murder as a penalty for adultery.

Pratt’s legacy extends far beyond his 50 years.  Love him or hate him, Givens and Grow have provided readers with a biography worthy of their subject’s talents.

Originally published in 2011 at StandardNet