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