Joseph Smith biography does not shy away from historical scrutiny

This review was originally published in 2005 at StandardNET.

Today is the bicentennial of Joseph Smith’s birth. Two hundred years later, his claims of divine guidance are debated with as much ferocity — if not violence — as when he was alive. Unquestioned is the success of the church he established. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints claims more than 12 million members. Its influence stretches beyond the ecclesiastical, reaching into political, judicial and financial chambers.

What made Joseph Smith’s church so far-reaching? Columbia Professor emeritus Richard Lyman Bushman’s “Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling,” offers clues. Bushman’s Joseph (he prefers the first name throughout the biography) is a prophet who slowly realized his calling. Sophistication as a religious leader and understanding of his religious calling took years. Smith was prone to anger and forgiveness, fear and courage, capable of finding talented people and seriously misjudging others.

Bushman’s catholic interpretation of Smith’s gradually adjusting to being a prophet is refreshing. As a believing Mormon, I am tired of watching films or reading books where, if you squint your eyes and look hard enough, you can either see or imagine the halo just above Joseph Smith’s head. Latter-day prophets and other church leaders are too often regarded as perfect individuals, rather than sinners, who like anyone else, make mistakes in their lives, seek forgiveness and continue to learn.

This fanciful view can extend to LDS Church history. Bushman, a Mormon, does not dismiss uncomfortable topics: Smith’s dabblings in money-digging; differing accounts of revelations; vigilante operations that exacerbated problems with frontier neighbors; a failed bank that seriously harmed the early church; political grandstanding that threatened longtime settlers; the secrecy of early plural marriage. All are discussed and, at least, placed in a context more even-handed than, say, an anti-Mormon website or ministry.

Bushman writes, “Joseph Smith did not offer himself as an examplar of virtue. He told his followers not to expect perfection. Smith called himself a rough stone, thinking of his own impetuosity and lack of polish.”

Readers may be surprised to discover that Smith visited President Martin Van Buren in an unsuccessful attempt to seek reparations from Missouri. Also, the prophet was involved in early preparations to move the church to the Rocky Mountains.

Prophets claiming revelations were common in Smith’s time. So why do his claims endure today? One reason from Bushman: The prophet did not make himself the center of early prostlyting efforts. Missionaries promised latter-day revelation, priesthood authority and a gathering of Israel. These three themes are prominent in an early newspaper article by Oliver Cowdery, reprinted in “Rough Stone Rolling.” It was these doctrines that gathered converts by the thousands.

To Bushman, the temple-endowment session is another reason Mormonism did not disappear. To many converts, it provided a path to deity. “This transition gave Mormonism’s search for direct access to God an enduring form. … The Mormon temple’s sacred story stabilized and perpetuated the original enthusiastic endowment,” writes Bushman.

Bushman describes the isolation of early frontier America. The reader understands the perils Mormons faced from larger mobs. Law and order was controlled by the largest bloc. Groups howling for murder, rape and pillaging were not necessarily stopped.

Early Mormons were responsible at times for inciting anger, but “Rough Stone Rolling” relates the fear of being surrounded by hostile forces with no protection.

Politicians in a position to help were either opportunists, such as Missouri Gov. Lilburn W. Boggs, or appeasers like Gov. Thomas Ford of Illinois, who talked blandly of a nonexistent rule of law.

Comprehending the obsessive hatred that drove the murder of Smith still remains a mystery, though Bushman tries to explain it. What caused ordinary men, such as newspaper editor Thomas Sharp — perhaps most responsible for Smith’s murder — to call for killing?

Bushman writes, “It was fear of the familiar gone awry. … Joseph was hated for twisting the common faith in biblical prophets into the visage of the arrogant fanatic, just as the abolitionists twisted the principle of equal rights into an attack on property in slaves. Both turned something powerful and valued into something dangerous. Frustrated and infuriated, ordinary people trampled down law and democratic order to destroy their imagined enemies.”

After the Mormons left Nauvoo, Sharp lived a nonviolent small-town life, serving as mayor, justice of the peace and judge.

“Rough Stone Rolling” will not satisfy those who hate Mormonism or those who wish to shield the faith from historical scrutiny. But Bushman’s superior biography of an interesting life will leave most wanting to learn more.

-- Doug Gibson

Acid Test: LSD vs. LDS is an '80s Mormon punk conversion memoir

Review by Doug Gibson

"Acid Test LSD vs. LDS," 2020, Zarahemla Books, is a long-awaited memoir from Mormon writer, editor and publisher, Christopher Bigelow. At its foundation, it's a re-conversion tale. The author chucks away his Mormon faith -- proclaiming it bland and conformist -- after graduating high school, and re-converts after a short spell of trying to acclimate himself to what he describes as a "chaotic neutral" existence, to use a Dungeons and Dragons term.

The seeking-to-be-"chaotic-neutral" period involves sampling or observing modes of life his religion prohibits, or frowns on: including semi-communal living, a brief sojourn back to his childhood area, Southern California, drug use (particularly LSD), shunning higher education, scattered low-paying work life, attempts at a punk lifestyle, launching a punk 'zine that focuses more on critical thought than reviews and interviews,  fornication, mooching from parents, satanism, petty theft, and homosexuality.

At its heart though, "Acid Test," I suspect, is an homage to an era of Salt Lake City counterculture of the mid-1980s, when the city boasted an often unique punk and New Wave culture, with local bands, and musical venues and clubs filled with younger adults embracing a movement at odds with Mormon culture, and for that matter, Reaganism. Even readers, such as myself, with musical tastes that never approach punk, will smile with nostalgia as Bigelow recalls journeys to Cosmic Aeroplane shop or the Blue Mouse theater. This was also the era of Mormon conman/murderer Mark Hofmann, scamming gullible LDS Church leaders with fake memorabilia, and bombing people to death.

It really was a crazy time.

The very young Bigelow packed a lot of life into the short time this memoir covers. In Salt Lake area lodgings that eventually became packed with friends and squatters, he stayed in several locations. At times the reader forgets he's a youngster, 17 when the tale starts. He has an endearing immaturity mixed with an unfeigned quest to challenge conventions. At the beginning, nothing frightens him. Even the occult is a subject worth exploring.

The author's family history is etched in Mormon history, Heber C. Kimball, Brigham Young, and many more, all related to the author. The teenage Bigelow is perceptive enough to understand that the corporate-life LDS Church he shunned in 1984 was once a progressive, way-out-of-the mainstream religion when Joseph Smith and Brigham Young were its prophets. Many early church policies and doctrines we don't talk much about today fascinate Bigelow and his adventures in Acid Test seem an effort to connect with the spiritual bohemianism of his early-LDS ancestors

For someone who has never taken LSD, Bigelow's vivid descriptions of what the world appears like to an LSD user tripping is fascinating and almost, but not quite, tempts this reviewer to sample it. However, later in the memoir, Bigelow's enthusiasm for drugs is tempered, replaced by a fear that it's a tool of dark entities to lead souls away from spirituality.

Bigelow was already an accomplished 'zine publisher as a high school student. In Acid Test, he recounts efforts to start a 'zine, called Flourishing Wasteland. After a spotty start, he works very hard on issue 2. However, his interest wanes and then concludes as he begins a re-conversion to the LDS Church.

The author's effort to cast aside concepts of good, and evil start to shake a bit after he takes LSD a lot. He senses deception in his LSD experiences, questions how real they are. He is also fascinated with the Stephen King novel, "The Stand," which involves a near total loss of human life and survivors who gravitate toward locations with leaders who represent good and bad.

There is a central reason Bigelow returns to Mormonism, and this memoir (a trilogy is planned) ends with the author's mission approaching. I don't want to give away the distinct event that motivates Bigelow to give up an alternative lifestyle and return to staid Mormonism. Getting around that, reading Acid Test made me think about all those Bible-like quotes in the Book of Mormon that talk about a sinner being past the point of redemption and consigned to hell. I don't like any idea of a literal hell but Acid Test posits to me the possibility that those types of scriptures, in the Book of Mormon or The Bible, are talking not about a hypothetical lake of fire but instead a consistent state of wickedness that goes on too long, leaving the sinner devoid of grace, incapable of repentance, and redemption.

Another reason for the author's disillusionment for "chaotic neutral" is more simple. He loves a teenage girl. Her promiscuity causes him normal pain. He includes her in his re-conversion efforts. She joins in the effort but the relationship seems shaky as the memoir ends.

Bigelow is a very talented writer. I read a review that compared Tom Wolfe's "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" to the memoir. It's probably apt but I thought more of George Orwell's memoir/fiction when I was reading. Bigelow's conflicted thoughts, yearning for a meaning, and despair of a shaky love reminded me Orwell's "Burmese Days." His at-times narrative, matter-of-fact, without-self-pity accounts of unpleasant circumstances (including a date with middle-aged male "chicken-hawk" ) remind me of the style of Orwell's 'Down and Out in Paris and London."

Late in the book, Bigelow laments that, for the most part, he's not getting the spiritual charge he's led himself to believe that conversion to the faith promises. The Scriptures are a tough slog, church meetings are still regimented, even the Temple lacks the spiritual manifestations that others have talked of. It's a reminder that spiritual experiences are rare commodities for most of us, and that endurance is a more valuable tool toward church activity.

Bigelow grew up in a family with parents that represent an earlier generation follower of Mormonism, one that talked more of the Three Nephites, of Cain roaming the earth, of White Horse Prophecies, and demons struggling to lead us into darkness. Each life is a battle between good and evil. Spiritual manifestations seemed to be more common in "those days." Bigelow mentions his mother having several spirit observances. On a side note, my parents were that way. My late mother once told me she saw the Savior's profile in the temple.

Ultimately, these traditionalist Mormons serve as a catalyst for the author's return to his family's faith. They never abandoned their son, and were often ready to provide assistance. This underscores another strength of the memoir; that love is still a commandment, even if the recipient is not living as parents, or others, might wish they lived. Some of the characters in Acid Test had depressing futures and ends. Others had better futures. Some of them did not receive unconditional love.

You can buy Acid Test LSD vs. LDS via Amazon here.

Utah's first serious presidential candidate — Christensen, not Romney

Utah’s first serious presidential candidate was not Mitt Romney, of course, or even Sen. Orrin Hatch, who ran a weak race in 2000 that ended after he received 1 percent in the Iowa caucus. 

I’ll bet most have no idea that 90 years ago, Utah fielded a presidential candidate that many newspapers — incorrectly — thought might have a shot at winning a few states. His name was Parley Packer Christensen. The Salt Lake City resident was a bachelor, a Unitarian, a former Salt Lake County attorney, and former candidate for U.S. Congress. He was also the Farmer-Labor Party’s 1920 nominee for U.S. president.

A fascinating article by Gaylon L. Caldwell from the October 1960 Utah Historical Quarterly provides loads of great historical information on Christensen’s candidacy. The Salt Lake Tribune mostly criticized and ridiculed Christensen as a defender of labor unions. The Deseret News afforded him more respect. However, according to the article, the Tribune predicted Christensen would carry six states.

Of course, history records that Christensen carried no states. In a days when polls were nonexistent, third parties still under-performed. On election day, Christensen tallied 265,411 votes, finishing fourth behind Republican Party winner Warren Harding, 16,152,200 votes, Democratic Party nominee James M. Cox, 9,147,353 votes, and Socialist Eugene V. Debs, who was in prison, with 919,799 votes. Finishing fifth was Prohibition Party candidate Aaron S. Watkins with 189,408 votes.

As Caldwell points out, “the final tally ... reinforced the old axiom of American politics that new parties begin with a burst of enthusiasm only to fade away.” There is a parallel between the Farmer-Labor Party of 1920 and the post-H. Ross Perot Reform Party. Once a dynamic personality or symbol leaves a third party, the bloom is gone.

How Christensen grabbed the Farmer-Labor nod is really interesting. As Caldwell recounts, it was big news in the summer of 1920 in Chicago at the Farmer-Labor convention, which was populated by a smorgasbord of political movements — left and right — looking for an alternative to the two main parties.

Christensen was a convention leader. There was a “committee of 48” that tried unsuccessfully to recruit a consensus candidate. That’s not surprising since two major contenders were ultra-right-wing automobile maker Henry Ford and the Socialist Debs.

Christensen, a persuasive leader, saw his opportunity and arranged alliances with lesser candidates. He finished second on the first ballot, which eliminated all but the two top finishers. On the second ballot, Christensen easily garnered the nomination. 

Christensen ran an energetic campaign and attracted nationwide press. In the Aug. 1, 1920 New York Times, reporter Charles Welles Thompson wrote, “The Republicans are getting a little uneasy over the unlimited activity of Parley Packer Christensen, the candidate of the Farmer-Labor Party. He seems a most virile and extensive person. ...”

Christensen also criticized the imprisonment of Debs, saying, “Mr. Debs may be utterly wrong in his ideas as how best to conduct the affairs of society, and so may I be and so may you, but my conception of liberty includes the right to think wrong.”

After reading Caldwell’s excellent account, I think another reason Christensen under-performed is that he was too moderate for a third party. Although clearly a liberal, he was not socialist enough to take many votes from Debs, but he was too liberal for Ford supporters, who returned to the Republican Party in the general election.

Nevertheless, Parley Parker Christensen is an individual worthy of our respect. I doubt, however, that his name is mentioned in any school rooms below the college level.

-- Doug Gibson

This column was previously published at StandardNet.