In 1845, William Smith, Mormon apostles waged war in the LDS press

 

Originally published in 2013 at StandardBlogs

There’s an interesting article in the summer 2013 issue of the “Journal of Mormon History.” Christine Elyse Blythe has contributed a long article on the tenure of William Smith as church patriarch. William is generally considered in LDS history as a kind of “bad boy” of the Smiths, a “legacy apostle” who survived in the church while elder brother Joseph Smith was alive but was eventually kicked out of the church after he died.

There’s a lot of history in the article, “William Smith’s Patriarchal Blessings and Contested Authority in the Post-Martyrdom Church,” but what caught my interest was an intramural newspaper feud over who was best to lead the church a year after Joseph Smith had been murdered. William Smith, despite already shaky relationships with Brigham Young and the Quorum of the 12 Apostles, was named Presiding Patriarch of the LDS Church. It was a lucrative gig for Smith. Besides the high authority of being the church patriarch, William earned a buck per patriarchal blessing, according to Blythe. That doesn’t sound like much, but after 300 blessings over six months, William had earned roughly what a full-time laborer of that era would earn over half a year.

(I digress here to tell readers that receiving a patriarchal blessing is a rite of passage for faithful Latter-day Saints. Those born into an active LDS family usually receive a blessing, from a local patriarch, at the age of 15 or 16. The blessings are considered revelation from God. Indeed, many blessings are described as part of blessings one received in the pre-existence prior to birth. The blessings also provide a relationship to the recipient of their place in the House of Israel.)

In Smith’s time, the presiding patriarch of the LDS Church was considered an elite leader, comparable in rank to an apostle or prophet. Hyrum Smith had preceded William Smith as patriarch. As Blythe recounts, a careful reading of many of William Smith’s patriarchal blessings include words from Smith that assigned him as the LDS leader with the highest authority. As Blythe writes, “… in a blessing given to William A. Beebe, the patriarch concluded: ‘by the highest authority in the church of God I seal thee up to eternal life ...’ This phrase, ‘highest authority in the church’ appeared six times in William’s patriarchal blessings in just over one month.”

Patriarchal blessings, while recorded, are considered personal, and — as Blythe notes — it’s possible the subtle hints in William Smith’s blessings did not get much notice. However, William Smith made his intentions public with an essay in the LDS Church newspaper “Times and Seasons.” In the essay, “Patriarchal,” Blythe notes that William Smith cast himself as “a living martyr,” worthy of continuing in the same high, prophetic place in the post-martyrdom church as his slain brothers, Joseph and Hyrum.

William Smith’s essay was boosted by a testimonial to his claims by W.W. Phelps, an assistant editor at “Times and Seasons.” Phelps, who eventually followed Brigham Young to Utah, wrote that William is “governed by the spirit of the living God.” As Blythe notes, that phrase suggested an autonomy for Smith as patriarch. That was not a trial balloon that the LDS church’s leadership wanted out there.

So, as Blythe notes, Apostle John Taylor penned a rebuttal in the very next issue in the “Times and Seasons.” What Taylor focused on was the debate over whether William Smith was the “patriarch over the church” or “patriarch to the church.” Taylor was direct and to the point in letting church members know the answer. He wrote: “We have been asked, ‘Does not patriarch over the whole church’ place Brother William Smith at the head of the whole church as president? Ans. No. Brother William is not patriarch over the whole church; but patriarch TO the church, and as such he was ordained. The expression ‘over the whole church,’ is a mistake made by W.W. Phelps.”

Taylor, who of course was speaking for Brigham Young and the rest of the Quorum, made it clear what pecking order William Smith had to follow to remain in the Mormon faith. Nevertheless, William Smith remained in the church a while longer. Blythe notes that he gave nine “second blessings” as patriarch, an indicator that the publicity in “Times and Seasons” had boosted his claim.

But it was a matter of time before William Smith and the LDS Church, under Young and the Apostles, would have a divorce. Blythe relates that later in 1845, William Smith trumpeted a claim from Lucy Mack Smith, his mother, that she had had a revelation, with God saying “Thy son William he shall have power over the Churches …” and “… The presidency of the Church belongs to William ...” Soon afterward, Lucy Mack Smith clarified the “revelation,” saying it was just for her family. Around that time, William Smith threatened to leave the Mormons and take all the Smiths with him, adds Blythe. Smith later retracted that threat as well. By August, as Blythe notes, William Smith was complaining that “There seems to be a severe influence working against me and the Smith family in this place.”

Smith left the Mormons, was excommunicated and, like many other Mormon leaders who didn’t go to Utah, hopscotched among different branches of Mormonism. He tried a position with the James J. Strang “Strangites,” and later started his own church for a while, and had an alliance with the Lyman Wight branch in Texas. All that ended and improbably, William Smith was rebaptized as a Mormon in 1860. That failed to last as well. Eventually, Smith became a member of the Reorganized LDS church. Although the uncle tried to persuade his nephew, church leader Joseph Smith III to make him an apostle or presiding patriarch, he was unsuccessful. William Smith died in 1893.

The very short intramural newspaper battle between Smith, a sort of populist threat to the church led by Young and the apostles, and the rebuttal by John Taylor, which more or less ended Smith’s effort to become a Mormon leader, is fascinating to me as a journalist. Try to imagine today’s prominent Latter-day Saints waging a public relations battle — against each other — in “The Mormon Times,” “Church News,” or “The Ensign.”

It would never happen, of course. But it did 168 years ago, and it must have made for eager reading by Latter-day Saints.

Another excellent source for William Smith’s short tenure as LDS church patriarch is the summer 1983 issue of “Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought.”

-- Doug Gibson

Jimmy Stewart’s other Christmas film -- 40 years of Mr. Krueger's Christmas

    Most of the world associates the actor Jimmy Stewart and Christmas with the marvelous Frank Capra film, “It’s a Wonderful Life.”  And that is a classic tale, with everyman George Bailey learning, at his most depressed hour, how much a town needs him.

     But there is another Jimmy Stewart Christmas movie, “Mr. Krueger’s Christmas,” made by the Mormon Church in 1980. (Watch the film here) It used to be a fixture on TV stations across the nation during the holidays.  It is not an advertisement for the Mormon Church.  Rather, it’s a story of an elderly widower’s optimism and faith that carries him through life, particularly during times such as Christmas, when loneliness can be heightened.

     Stewart, who gives a great performance, plays Willie Krueger, an elderly widower who lives alone with a cat in the basement of an apartment house where he serves as janitor.  We don’t know anything about Mr. Krueger’s past, other than he is a widower and alone this Christmas Eve.  Mr. Krueger is a bit of a Walter Mitty character.  He likes to daydream.  His daydreams are mostly childlike.  He listens to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir on an LP and imagines conducting it.  He peers through a glass shop window at a fancy suit and imagines himself wearing it at a fancy function.  I’m sure most of us have similar daydreams.

    Just as Mr. Krueger is settling in for a lonely Christmas night, he hears carolers outside.  Pleasantly surprised, he shouts from the basement for them to join him for a cup of hot chocolate.  The carolers, who appear well off, are leery of Mr. Krueger, not in a mean way as much as a condescending “this is an odd, old guy” way.  Mr. Krueger excitedly prepares for their visit but they merely stand at his door, sing a song and leave.  All except for a little girl, Clarissa, who wanders into the small home and leaves her mittens.  This paves the way for a second encounter between Mr. Krueger and the carolers.

     I won’t give away the ending except to say that before the reunion there is a deeply moving daydream where Mr. Krueger, looking at a baby Jesus nativity piece, imagines he is at the birth of Christ.  He kneels before the baby Jesus and thanks his Savior for always loving him, no matter if he deserved it or not.  He thanks Jesus for being with him when his wife died and for reminding him to be compassionate to a lonely, cantankerous neighbor.

     This is a powerful scene that establishes Christ’s love – and its power to raise our spirits no matter what – as the main theme of Mr. Krueger’s Christmas.  In fact, it makes the final scene with the carolers seem almost an afterthought.  Mr. Krueger, we learn, can maintain his optimism, his childlike charity and love, no matter what life throws at him.

     Again, there is no proselytizing for the Mormon Church in this film.  That broadens its appeal and certainly helped more people see it.  It’s very popular on the Internet Movie Database, with an 8.0 rating out of a 10 high score.

     The 26-minute film has mostly disappeared from television.  Some people say it is hard to find.  In Utah, a quick trip to Seagulls or Deseret Book will find it easily. (That may not be so easy anymore. Deseret Book does not appear to sell the film today. Ebay has a lot of copies for sale.)  In 2005, it was re-released on DVD with a remastered musical score and sent to Ensign magazine subscribers.  My copy of it comes with three other LDS-filmed shorts, including the moving four-minute short, “The Nativity,” that recounts Christ’s birth.

     If you haven’t seen this film in more than a few years, hunt it down.  It’s worth another viewing.  In a press conference when the film was released, Stewart, succinct and to the point, summed up why he did the film:

     “I liked the script.  I liked the message.  I thought it was time we needed something like this.”

--

This review from long ago (10-plus years) did not even survive in Google Wayback. Glad we had a copy of the Standard Works page to transcribe and bring back Cal Grondahl's wonderful cartoon. (In the early Standard Works days, the cartoons were black and white.) Happy 40th anniversary for this iconic film. I last recall Mr. Krueger's Christmas being promoted at least 15 years ago. We were handed DVDs at church during a Christmas service. But today, I'm sure a healthy number of people watch the film during December.

--- Doug Gibson

--- Originally published at StandardBlogs

Review: Exploring Mormon Thought - God's Plan to Heal Evil

It's difficult to blend the "good news" of the Gospel of Christ with evil. Evil is the opposite of righteousness. Yet it will not discriminate the wicked from the faithful. Evil can cause us to doubt our creator's divinity, his powers and his consistency. Its residual effects can lead to permanent discouragement, bitterness, and apostasy. 

In contrast, others can use their faith to endure evil, and even strengthen their beliefs.

How can we explain evil? Or more so, how can we place evil in a plan of a benevolent God? Blake T. Ostler, author of the Exploring Mormon Thought series for Greg Kofford Books, has written the fourth volume, "God's Plan to Heal Evil," 2020, Salt Lake City. (Here are purchase links to Greg Kofford Books and Amazon.)

Examples of evil include the murder of a young child, senseless deaths due to accidents, and examples of disease causing lives to end prematurely. As a father who helplessly held his infant son as he died -- due to an imperfect heart -- soon after birth, I can understand this as evil. Evil moves from a theory to be discussed to a unique, deeply personal experience, when one suffers from it.

Ostler addresses this question: how powerful can God be if he allows evil? All of us have heard the phrase, "it's God's will." Or we have heard that "God respects natural law," so evil has to occur. These are well-meaning arguments that anyone who has experienced will hear. But are they are inconsistent statements, more platitudes than explanations? 

God's power may only be persuasive, and not definitive. If so, prayer is essential.

But how consistent is God if he allows countless innocents to suffer evil while sparing others the same fate through "miracles?" Some miracles are related in the Scriptures; others by well-meaning but insensitive individuals thanking God for providing a miracle that spared them death or other adversity. The question can develop: why are they favored, and not me or my family? Is that really God's plan?

Ostler's solution to these seeming inconsistencies -- which he does not regard as reasons to doubt God -- is to turn evil into love. As followers of the Gospel who are on a path to becoming like God, we must learn "the kind of love that commands us to love our enemies." We need to repay evil with love, the author asserts. It's part of our life-on-earth contract that we consent to suffer the consequences of evil and work to turn the adversity into love. 

Ostler writes: "... we must elicit love both for and from those who carry out such evils ..." He uses Christ's Sermon on the Mount as an example of this theology. "... Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; ..." 

God wants us to have a fulfilling and challenging life, Ostler writes. We are asked to progress spiritually through life. Turning evil into love is a challenge, but -- as the author notes -- we have divine assistance. Angels are on earth, ready to help us achieve the spiritual strength necessary to heal evil and turn it into a positive spiritual force.

This concept reminds me of C.S. Lewis' book, "The Great Divorce,' in which "The Teacher," guiding the narrator through his tour to the outskirts of heaven, says: "They say of some temporal suffering, 'No future bliss can make up for it,' not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory."

Turning "agony into a glory" captures the theme of Ostler's "God's Plan to Heal Evil." Placing that theme in the context of Mormonism provides an opportunity for that to be accomplished on earth. Learning to love like God loves is part of our learning process toward divinity.

A final note: There is a lot of valuable information in "God's Plan to Heal Evil." I recommend it. But be patient with the writing. It is dense, thick writing, to a fault. I fear that may stifle readers. But persevere through the text; perhaps limit reading to 10, 20 pages a day. And buy a dictionary. It's worth the read.

--- Doug Gibson

Wonder what happened to Marley's Ghost? Read this novella

 

Originally published at StandardBlogs in 2011

Have you ever wondered what happened to Jacob Marley, the tormented, consigned-to-eternal-punishment spirit who successfully warned miser Ebenezer Scrooge of the fate that awaited him if he did not change his evil ways? As someone who has read Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” at least 50 times, so have I. I’m sure others have pondered Marley’s fate as well, I give kudos to Alpine author R. William Bennett for writing, “Jacob T. Marley,” (Shadow Mountain, Salt Lake City, 2011) a very religious, albeit cumbersome, attempt to expand Marley’s “A Christmas Carol” cameo into a novella. As the book blurb mentions, “…Marley” hopes to be another “Wicked”-type sequel.

But homage sequels and prequels to classic works are mostly misses with rare hits. And they’re ubiquitous. There must be 100 homage sequels to Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice,” for example, and I wouldn’t be surprised if writers, before Alpine’s Bennett, have tackled Marley’s surmised life. What kills nearly all homage sequels is that they try to imitate — respectfully — the style of the master who penned the classic. Because the authors can’t write like the masters, the results are subpar.

And that’s the chief problem with “Jacob T. Marley”; too much of the writing is dull, a feeble attempt to copy Dickens. When Bennett goes beyond the Dickens’s story, it’s a little more interesting. He delves into Marley’s upbringing and even genealogy. Marley’s parentage is more admirable than Scrooge’s. He’s not warped by a father who deserts him. Instead, Marley is done in by too much praise as a child, which turns him proud, and eventually cold.

However, Bennett makes a mistake that many film adaptors have made with Ebenezer Scrooge. He makes his primary character more of a sociopathic sadist than a supreme egotist. Bennett’s evil Marley does not have a spark of humanity in him. He takes more pleasure in turning pregnant women out of homes than counting his money. In a twist that stretches credulity, Marley is responsible for Scrooge’s sister, Fan’s death at childbirth, due to his evicting her and her husband.

As Dickens’ creation, Ebenezer Scrooge is an unfeeling man, not an angry man. He chooses to ignore his ability to help others because he’s indifferent; it’s cruelty by omission. Scrooge possesses many talents. He can charm whom he wants to charm, when it comes to business. As Dickens’ writes, “He knew these men, also, perfectly. They were men of aye business: very wealthy, and of great importance. He had made a point always of standing well in their esteem: in a business point of view, that is; strictly in a business point of view.”

We must assume that Marley is like Scrooge. And Bennett writes, “There was a monotony of greed that laced every day, a monotony that both Marley and Scrooge worshipped as their assets grew.” It’s a good line, but lacking in the “bad” “Jacob T. Marley” is any potential for humanity.

Perhaps only a master storyteller such as Dickens could instill the right amount of tiny humanity into the miser Scrooge’s soul to make his reclamation believable. And there is humanity in Scrooge. He cries when he witnesses his past; he regrets; he is moved by Tiny Tim’s fate and the children of Want and Ignorance, But “Jacob T. Marley” lacks that. There is no literary reason to expect any reclamation of Marley’s soul. This makes Bennett’s “deathbed” conversion by Marley simply ludicrous. Worse, Bennett’s Marley’s soul is saved after death and chooses to walk the earth weighted down with cashboxes, etc. He waits for a heavenly opportunity to be seen by Scrooge as a spirit.

This plot twist by Bennett takes away the mystery of why Marley appears. In Dickens’ tale, Marley has no idea why he can be seen; his dreadful moans and regret are his way, powerful to the reader, of reacting to the sight of another human being after years of wandering ignored. Bennett takes the power of that moment away by changing Marley into a sort of heavenly missionary that has finally received his call to preach. It must be stressed that Marley cannot preach to Scrooge, only lament. He has no right, unless re-created inappropriately by Bennett.

Another poor plot twist initiated by Bennett is to have Marley accompany the three spirits on their journeys with Scrooge. Worse, Bennett changes Dickens’ tale by inserting the grim promise that Scrooge will die on Christmas morning if not persuaded to goodness by the spirits. I can understand this plot twist by Bennett. Frankly, there’s not much for Marley to do after he visits Scrooge. But, again it seems to clash with Dickens’ story. In any event, this is the worst of the novella, with Bennett’s Marley whining and being lectured to by spirits as they simultaneously attempt to reclaim Scrooge’s forsaken humanity.

The epilogue is better. Briefly, Bennett summarizes the remaining years of Scrooge’s life and skillfully weaves an earlier plot involving the late Fan’s necklace, coerced by Marley, finding its way back to Scrooge after scores of years.

As mentioned, homages are not your ordinary novels; they are labours of love. I’ve been harsh to Bennett’s homage not because I don’t appreciate the effort, nor because I think I would do better. I just love the classic and think, after reading Bennett’s effort, that it’s best left alone. The best sequels to “A Christmas Carol” that involve Marley, Scrooge, Fred or Tiny Tim are probably found in the imaginations of the readers who experience Dickens’ superb writings.

Having said that, I hope “Jacob T. Marley” sells well every holiday season. It has a good message. I would only urge that it be read with “A Christmas Carol,” and not instead of. As for its literary lifespan, it has the appeal of a Hallmark Channel movie. 

--- Doug Gibson

Smoot smites smut was LDS senator’s mantra in 1930 crusade against ‘Lady Chatterley,” and more

 

One of the interesting footnotes to the long career of Sen. Reed Smoot, the LDS apostle who served in the U.S. Senate from 1903 to 1933, was his successful effort to have the U.S. Treasury continue to ban books that were deemed “obscene.” It was a relentless effort by Smoot, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, to change an amendment to a tariff bill that had prevented customs officers “to seize ‘any obscene book, pamphlet, paper, {and} writing.” Historian Michael Harold Paulos presented a paper on Smoot’s 1930 effort to smite smut at the 2013 Mormon History Association conference in Layton.

According to Paulos, Smoot was outraged over the anti-censorship amendment, sponsored by Sen. Bronson Cutting, of New Mexico, like Smoot, a Republican. Over the next few months, Smoot would literally exhaust himself to get the book censorship returned, losing weight on an already thin frame, adds Paulos.

As Paulos notes, Smoot was an absolutist on the issue of banning what he observed as obscene books. In his paper, Paulos provides a short history of book banning in the 19th century, including efforts by LDS leader Brigham Young. In a footnote, Paulos recounts advice against reading novels that Young sent to his son. The Mormon leader “compared reading novels as tantamount to using poisonous herbs or berries to salve ‘a poor appetite. … it is a remedy worse than the complaint.’” (It was a rare moment of solidarity between evangelicals and Mormons, as both were opponents of inexpensive novels for the masses.)

It seems that Smoot’s belief that “obscene” novels must be banned was as firm, and likely strongly connected to his belief in the Mormon faith and its scripture, “The Book of Mormon.” In short, Smoot’s desire to ban books can be compared to a testimony, or adherence to a principle from God. He fiercely fought his many critics, relying on that era’s standard for obscenity, the Hicklin test, which “broadly defined obscenity within the context of protecting children, or in so many words, any material whose ‘tendency of the matter is to deprave and corrupt the morals of whose minds are open to such influence and into whose hands a publication of this sort may fall,’” writes Paulos.

Smoot made this emotional statement in support of the book banning: “I would rather keep out a thousand {books} than have one mistake made,” he said. Later, Paulos notes, Smoot said the “rotten” books are “worse than opium,” adding, “I would rather have a child of mine use opium than read these books.”

While these remarks may be surprising today, they were still a majority opinion, at least in the U.S. Congress, in 1930. Change was slowly occurring, though. However, Smoot had allies such as Senator James Thomas Heflin of Alabama, a Democrat, who “admonished the senate to use the Bible as a legislative guide, and added that senators “protect the boys and girls of America from the indecent, obscene, and immoral literature of foreign countries.”

Smoot had other supporters who provided outlandish rhetoric on his behalf. As Paulos writes: “GOP Senator Coleman L. Blease of South Carolina, that the ‘virtue of one little 16-year old girl is worth more to America than every book that has ever come into it from any other country.’ Moreover, Blease found it preferable to ‘see both the democratic form of government and the republican form of government forever destroyed if that should be necessary in order to protect the virtue of the womanhood of America.’” … Whew!

Smoot detested D.H. Lawrence’s “Lady Chatterley’s Lover,” describing it “written by a diseased mind and a soul so black that he would even obscure the darkness of hell. Nobody would write a book like that unless his heart was just as rotten and as black as it possibly could be.” Such hyperbole left Smoot open to derision from many of his colleagues, who pointed out that Smoot’s moralizing would exclude portions of the Bible and some of Shakespeare’s works from importation to the U.S. Other rebukes to Smoot pointed out that his own faith’s chief tome, “The Book of Mormon,” had once been a victim of censorship and scolding. Other detractors noted that under Smoot’s amendment, discourses by Brigham Young should be banned.

In obvious disgust for Smoot’s amendment, Paulos notes that Senator Cutting claimed that “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” was his favorite book. Cutting also expressed surprise that the Mormon faith, as depicted by Smoot, would evolve to oppose freedom of speech. Other opponents, including Time magazine and other media, regularly mocked Smoot. Another argument claimed that Smoot’s book banning was in opposition to Christ’s teachings.

Smoot used his seniority, Senate debating skills and sheer doggedness to survive the attacks on his amendment. However, one concession, made to Senator Hugo Black, a future U.S. Supreme Court justice, would prove fatal in the long-term to Smoot’s efforts to retain the Hicklin test and keep “obscene” novels banned. Smoot agreed to Black’s reasonable request to allow judicial interpretation to dictate whether specific books were banned. That concession likely helped Smoot’s amendment to pass easily despite fervent opposition from Cutter and others. The vote was 54-28 in favor of Smoot’s amendment being inserted in the Smoot-Hawley tariff bill.

On the Senate floor, Smoot emotionally defended his Mormon faith and its people, calling them “the most honest, industrious, and virtuous people if any ‘who ever lived in all the world.‘”  Smoot was “emotionally connected” to Mormonism, in my opinion, to the extent that he placed his religious and political beliefs into the same sphere he placed his religious beliefs. He saw opposition to his moral amendment in the same vein as he saw opposition to his faith. It must have offended him to have detractors in the Senate use Mormonism as a debating tool against him.

The Smoot-Hawley tariff bill passed and proved to be unpopular. As Paulos notes, Smoot’s career ended in 1932, when he was soundly defeated in a re-election attempt. Adding insult to injury, the courts took full advantage of Black’s successful insertion of judicial review into Smoot’s amendment. It wasn’t long before the court’s rejected the Hicklin test, thereby allowing the entrance of books such as James Joyce’s “Ulysses” access into the United States. In 1959, an unedited “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” would finally arrive legally into the U.S.

As Paulos writes, “a new legal framework for defining obscenity (replaced Hicklin), which was ‘that the legal test of obscenity must be a work’s effect upon persons of average sex instincts … rather than children or the particularly susceptible.’”

In other words, the ideals of Senators Smoot, Heflin, Blease and others were stymied. Smoot’s amendment was effectively ended by judicial review. One can picture Smoot, in his last years, lambasting himself for allowing judicial review.

Nevertheless, as Paulos notes, at LDS-owned institutions such as Brigham Young University and Deseret Book, there are still censorship decisions regarding books. “And if Smoot were alive today, he would in all likelihood be pleased with the work they are doing.”

--- Doug Gibson

--- Originally published in 2013 at StandardBlogs.

Book of Mormon Musical songs may be profane, but that profanity has heart

 

Originally published by StandardBlogs in 2012.

(Note: I never managed to see Book of Mormon Musical. But I still listen to the score often.)

I haven’t seen “The Book of Mormon Musical” but if it gets to Utah I’ll pay the scores of dollars it will cost to see it. I enjoy listening to the DVD. It’s profane but profane with heart. Jon Stewart reflects the positive vibes by noting that the play spoofs a religion, yet also celebrates it.

I’ve listened to the CD dozens of times. As a returned missionary, I’m impressed by how satirists Matt Stone and Trey Parker can channel — even through the obvious farce — the yet-to-mature enthusiasm, scattered spirituality and fear-masquerading-as-confidence that defines most new missionaries.

When I was at the Missionary Training Center, we were taught the slogan “Keep the Gospel Simple Stupid.” We focused on learning the language, memorizing the missionary discussions, and force-feeding our spirituality to a high level. We adapted to a regimen that began at 6:30 a.m. and ended at 10:30 p.m. We learned to work, pray and study with a companion. My culture class — I was sent to The Peru Lima North Mission, including time in the Amazon Jungle — was curiously lightweight. From what I recall, it consisted mainly of a husband and wife dressed in touristy traditional mountain garb and llama sweaters.

In “Book of Mormon Musical,” missionary companions Elder Price and Elder Cunningham are sent to Uganda, where they find themselves all alone amidst warlords, clitoris cutters and people suffering from AIDS. Under these conditions, Elder Price, the strong alpha companion, wilts and leaves. That forces Elder Cunningham, the slow-witted junior companion, to “man up” and teach the natives as best he can. With sheer bluster, he achieves success teaching an “off-the-cuff” ludicrously obscene version of Mormon doctrine that involves Joseph Smith having sex with frogs and Brigham Young’s nose being turned into a clitoris. Meanwhile, Elder Price ends his crisis of faith, decides to just believe and storms back into the warlord’s camp preaching with Old Testament fervor. The play ends with the natives, now missionaries, teaching the bastardized, profane, obscene “Gospel According to Arnold Cunningham.”

The more interesting character is Elder Price, played by Andrew Rannells. In at least two songs, “You and Me, But Mostly Me,” and “I Believe,” he captures aspects of the missionary experience. In the first song, sung with the amiable fool Elder Cunningham, Elder Price is full of the faux confidence that’s packed with equal parts cockiness and fear. With a passive, worshipful lesser companion, he’s ready to achieve missionary greatness.

“It’s something I’ve forseen.
Now that I’m nineteen,
I’ll do something incredible,
That blows God’s freaking mind!”

Throughout the song, Elder Cunningham chirps how pleased he is that he can play second fiddle to Elder Price’s greatness. It’s a sentiment Elder Price is wholeheartedly in agreement with, as he concludes with:

“And there’s no limit to
What we can do
Me and you.
But mostly me!”

After a spurt of arrogant, fear-driven bravado, Elder Price suffers culture shock and dismay at how unenthusiastic most are to his message — a reaction, albeit to a lesser degree, for missionaries. Again, this is farce. In the real world, an inexperienced Elder Price would not be tossed, along with Elder Cunningham, alone as a pair into a dangerous environment. His reaction: He decides to take off to Orlando, where he feels the Lord should have sent him in the first place. After undergoing some heavy-duty guilt — a shared feeling for many active Latter-day Saints who try to live a religion that assigns degrees of salvation based on works — he surrenders to faith, and achieves his best missionary success with a full-throated, skepticism-be-damned testimony of various LDS doctrines, conventional or otherwise. An example from “I Believe”:

“You cannot just believe part way,
You have to believe in it all.
My problem was doubting the Lord’s will
Instead of standing tall.

I can’t allow myself to have any doubt.
It’s time to set my worries free.
Time to show the world what Elder Price is about!
And share the power inside of me…

I believe that God has a plan for all of us.
I believe that plan involves me getting my own planet.
And I believe; that the current President of The Church, Thomas Monson, speaks directly to God.
I am A Mormon,
And, dang it! a Mormon just believes!”

Being a missionary is hard work. It involves something else that was drummed into us at the MTC — the slogan “Capture the Vision”: Elder Price’s transition to successful missionary is to eliminate doubt, for at least two years. His fuel is faith; he thrives on faith. His optimism is the sizzle that sells the faith. He’s captured the vision.

A lot of Mormons have criticized “Book of Mormon Musical”; it’s inaccurate to a fault, it makes fun of LDS beliefs; it spoofs, for very vulgar laughs, doctrines and characters in LDS history that are treated with reverence by faithful members. But, Jon Stewart is right. It’s a simple, stupid, but profound declaration of how faith, and just believing, can bring meaning into many lives.

“It’s so good it makes me $%^%*&^ hate it,” Stewart told Stone and Parker, describing the message as “sweet.”

It is; faith is sweet; to believe with enough faith to touch lives is a good thing. To gain courage to change lives for the better is sweet. And that’s why “Book of Mormon Musical,” proudly R-rated, is worth listening to.

-- Doug Gibson

A conservative argument to taking God out of The Pledge?

I was watching (the now late) Christopher Hitchens (at left) (a hero of mine) and Salman Rushdie (below at left) kick topics around for a while at Cooper Union in New York City, courtesy of C-Span2’s Book TV. Eventually, the topic meandered toward use of the word “under God” in The Pledge of Allegiance. There have been two recent efforts, rebuffed by courts, to have those words taken out.

Hitchens, a prominent atheist who has written, “God is Not Great,” offered what he described as a conservative, “constructionist” argument for striking out “under God.” His eyes were twinkling a bit, but I think there’s a chance he was serious. He pointed out that the original, 1892, author of the Pledge, a Baptist minister socialist named Francis Bellamy, never had the words “under God” in his original draft. Here’s what Bellamy wrote: “I pledge allegiance to my Flag and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

A true conservative would return to the original intent, argued Hitchens, and strike out “under God,” particularly since “under God,” Hitchens continued, was added in 1954, at the height of the McCarthy Era. Why would any conservative condone such social engineering be imposed upon something as sacred as The Pledge of Allegiance?

It’s worth thinking about, although there is a small inconsistency in Hitchens’ argument. The Pledge has been changed several times since Bellamy’s original draft. “To,” “the,” “of,” “United States,” and “America” were all added to The Pledge prior to “under God” in 1954.  

You can watch a lecture by Hitchens and then a chat between Hitchens and Rushdie here.

-- Doug Gibson

-- Originally published in 2010 at StandardBlogs.

The last year of Parley P. Pratt's life included a media-covered deadly hunt

On May 13, 1857, LDS Apostle Parley P. Pratt was murdered near Van Buren, Ark., released early in the day by a judge who feared Pratt would be lynched. About 12 miles from the jail, Pratt was caught by a small posse led by Hector Hugle McLean, the still legally-married husband of Pratt’s polygamous wife, Eleanor McComb McLean Pratt. McLean stabbed Pratt three times in the chest, then returned and shot him in the neck. Mortally wounded, Pratt was lucid for more than an hour. According to Zealey Winn, a blacksmith whose home was near where Pratt was slain, said the 50-year-old apostle bore his testimony of his faith in the LDS Church and Joseph Smith and proclaimed himself a “martyr to the faith."

To me, Parley P. Pratt is easily the most fascinating early LDS church leader. I’ve read the first scholarly biography of Pratt, “Parley P. Pratt: The Apostle Paul of Mormonism,” Oxford University Press, 2011, by Terryl L. Givens and Matthew J. Grow, and reviewed it.

In this article, I want to focus on Pratt’s death. Not only was it a martyrdom (Pratt died for what he believed in) it was also largely a justifiable homicide in the mores of that time period. There was barely an effort to try McLean, and he was quickly exonerated. More so, many U.S. newspapers that covered Pratt’s murder lauded McLean for killing Pratt and one even suggested that President James Buchanan appoint McLean as territorial governor of Utah.

There’s no doubt that McLean was a brutal man. He was an alcoholic, a wife beater and falsely tried to have Eleanor committed to an insane asylum. But he was also a cuckold. Pratt had married his wife, Eleanor, after McLean — angry that his wife had been baptized LDS while Pratt was supervising the San Francisco missionary efforts — had taken the couple’s children and returned to New Orleans to his in-laws’ home. They were as angry at Eleanor’s conversion as her husband was.

Eleanor wasn’t the first plural wife Parley had married who wasn’t divorced from her husband, but she was the first whose husband — an immigrant from Scotland — was a believer in the extralegal tradition of a husband being allowed to kill his wife’s seducer. As the authors write, this “right” received sympathy all over the nation (even Utah had codified it as “mountain common law”) but it was especially strong in the southern United States. Passion, spur-of-the-moment murders by cuckolds were generally legal. Planned murders were considered crimes, but as Givens and Grow write, “...juries generally acquitted a husband even if he had obviously planned the killing.” And, “as a southerner, McLean was deeply influenced by notions of honor and manhood.”

Whether one agrees that Pratt had a right to marry Eleanor McLean, it’s clear that he made a serious error in judgment in taking on this wife. He had made an enemy who would take any opportunity to kill him. Had Pratt stayed in Utah, he likely would have been safe. But that was not Pratt’s style. He was a missionary, and in late 1856 he began a trek east on another LDS mission. Eleanor traveled part way with him, then detoured to New Orleans to her parents’ home. By design, she deceived them, claiming she was now a disbeliever in Mormonism. However, as soon as she was alone with the children, she took off for Utah without telling her family.

But more on that later: In December 1856, as Pratt was on his mission, the New Orleans Bulletin published a widely distributed feature article on the Pratt/McLean love triangle. Not surprisingly, Pratt was the villain. As Givens and Grow relate, the Bulletin wrote that “Eleanor intended to take her children to Utah, ‘to be thrust into the opening throat of the grim visaged and horrible monster, who sits midway upon the Rocky Mountains, lapping his repulsive jaws, and eager to devour new victims as they become entangled in his foul, his leprous coils.’” 

Whew! As the authors relate, there’s little doubt that such rhetoric encouraged McLean to begin a cross country manhunt of Pratt, ostensibly to take him back to Missouri, where he was still officially a fugitive from justice. 

By March 1857, Pratt was on the run, just avoiding being caught by McLean in St. Louis. However, by mid March, LDS leaders thought Pratt had escaped detection and assumed he would return to Utah. That was not Parley’s intention, though. Reckless, he decided to go south and try to help Eleanor — who was on the lam with her children — get to Utah with him. It was a fatal mistake. There was realistically little chance Eleanor could make it to Utah with her three children and Pratt, who was being hunted by McLean with the help of the feds and major newspapers, was a walking target the closer he got to McLean and the south. On May 6, McLean caught Eleanor, the children, and later Pratt, in Creek territory, west of Arkansas.

Eventually they were taken to Van Buren for trial. The cases against both Pratt and Eleanor were weak. They were charged with stealing Eleanor’s children’s clothes. In fact, although the crowds outside the courthouse at times advocated lynching Pratt and Eleanor, Judge John B. Ogden, after interviewing Eleanor, found himself more disgusted with McLean than the two defendants. Ogden believed Eleanor’s account that McLean’s drinking and wife-beating — not Mormonism — were responsible for his marital woes.

Later, in court, McLean drew his pistol and pointed it at Pratt. Bailiffs prevented him from shooting the LDS apostle. At this point, Ogden postponed court proceedings. Aware that Pratt could very well be lynched, Ogden dismissed charges and released Pratt in the pre-dawn hours, hoping he could escape. Pratt was offered a pistol and knife from Ogden but refused, saying, “Gentleman, I do not rely upon weapons of that kind. My trust is in my God.” A few hours later Parley P. Pratt was dead at the age of 50.

Givens and Grow write that Pratt had a foreboding he would never return alive from his last mission. He told his plural wife, Ann Agatha in August 1856, exactly that. Pratt and Eleanor, who traveled part way with him, certainly planned her attempt to get her children from Hector. Perhaps Pratt was thinking of how dangerous that attempt would be when he spoke with his wife. Pratt’s refusal to arm himself as he was released from Van Buren may indicate that he had already accepted his pending martyrdom. 

The LDS apostle was a man from Acts, ready to preach the Gospel to the most hostile crowds and be stoned as Stephen if the Lord saw fit to have it happen. It is ironic, though, that prior to his last mission, LDS Prophet Brigham Young promised Pratt “he would return to the Saints.” He never did. A monument marks the area where Pratt was murdered although his remains have not been recovered.

Notes: Eleanor McComb McLean Pratt returned to Utah and taught school until her death on Oct. 24, 1874. She remained a Latter-day Saint. In 1870, her youngest son joined her in Utah and taught at her school. I often wondered what happened to Hector McLean, who for a while boasted of his deeds in the press. I did a Google search of “Hector Hugle McLean” and within a few minutes I believe I tracked him down. By following a link — discovered at an anti-Mormon website — to the 1867 New Orleans parish death archives (http://files.usgwarchives.org/la/orleans/vitals/deaths/index/1867dimo.txt) it reveals that a Hector Hugle McLean died on (ironically) Oct. 24, 1867 in New Orleans. The archive lists McLean as being only 30 when he died, but that is certainly an archival error. It’s possible that the death notice mistook McLean’s entrance into the United States as his birth date. McLean was born in 1816. The fact that one McLean son decided to visit his mother a couple of years after his dad’s death also seems reasonable. I’m convinced this is McLean, whose death remains unreported by virtually all accounts of Pratt’s life and murder. Despite the notoriety and even adulation that Hector McLean received for killing Pratt, today he maintains small part in a much bigger figure’s life story. Pratt’s great-great grandson, by the way, is Republican presidential candidate and current Utah U.S. senator, Mitt Romney.

--- Doug Gibson

--- Originally published at StandardNET.

Doubt, rather than knowledge is most compatible with faith

 

Michael Vinson, of Salt Lake City, a master’s graduate of the Divinity School of the University of Cambridge, has a fascinating essay in a past issue of Sunstone. Titled, “The Crisis of Doubt in the Church,” (read here) it offers the proposal that “we formulate a new view of faith and doubt, one that recognizes the latter as an integral part of testimony.”

As has been mentioned in media reports, there is a trend of apostasy in the LDS Church, including “some of the most educated and highest income earners,” as Vinson relates from anecdotal sources. I’d add, citing anecdotal evidence, that many others are young adults who spent their childhoods as active members of the church. Vinson notes that a misunderstanding between faith, knowledge and doubt can hinder efforts to counsel members whose faith is tried and are seeking questions relating to doctrine or LDS Church history.

To get to the nugget, Vinson is arguing that we need to give the acknowledgment of doubt more respect, and to regard it as a major component of faith, rather than a weakness. He writes, “The underlying problem is not the level of a member’s church activity but the fact that they have bought into a false dichotomy about the relationship between faith and doubt … suggesting that the effective exercise of faith requires that one have zero doubt.”

Vinson is on to something here. He quotes Alma 32:18, “for if a man knoweth a thing he hath no cause to believe.” In short, we are commanded to have faith, which is something not known. “As Vinson writes, “… if the truthfulness of the plan of salvation and the Church can actually be known, then faith is unnecessary. But since faith is the first principle of the gospel (and therefore necessary), we can conclude that it is certain knowledge, not doubt, that is the opposite of faith.”

Vinson suggests that members of the church embrace a union of faith and doubt, as a way to “believe something” via faith rather than “know something,” which really doesn’t take faith. He argues, convincingly in my opinion, that “it is our emphasis of testimony as a knowing experience rather than as a faith experience that causes our angst.”

The author also cites Mark 9:24, as an example of faith and doubt being in harmony. “And straightway the father of the child cried out with tears, ‘Lord I believe; help thou mine unbelief.’”

Knowledge, as well as perfection, are ends, not journeys. Faith is a journey that includes doubt and obedience. Christianity, and many other faiths, demand that we subject our will, and reason, to an unseen deity. In the LDS faith, we are asked to sustain men as senior representatives of Christ’s church. These are actions that cannot be proven. To say they can is deceiving. They demand faith. Even in times we may doubt there is a loving God or a man who speaks with God, I believe our faith in those things are more powerful than the rhetorical “I know” uttered for the same criteria.

If persons struggling with the claims of any religion, Mormon or otherwise, were told that these feelings are not a spiritual weakness, but a natural, and healthy, component of faith, there might be fewer apostasies. However, that requires tremendous patience, from parents, mentors, siblings and ecclesiastical leaders, such as bishops. Religious beliefs are so bedrock to many of us that to witness a loved one question those beliefs results in hostility. Even the late LDS prophet Spencer W. Kimball reached a point with his eldest son, Spence, a skeptic of Mormonism, where to maintain a relationship the father had to quit talking with the son about his church standing.

-- Doug Gibson

-- Originally published in 2013 at StandardBlogs.

'Man's Search for Happiness' goes from Temple Square to cult film

 This post was originally published at StandardNET:

Who remembers “Man’s Search for Happiness,” the 1964 LDS 13-minute film on the “plan of salvation?” That movie played constantly when I was a child and into my teens. It played at LDS visitors centers, in church, at firesides, as a missionary tool. I must have seen it 20 times.

And then it disappeared, replaced by a newer version. In the pre-Internet days, the original “Man’s Search for Happiness” became so scarce you couldn’t find it at a Deseret Industries. So, one day I was leafing through a catalog for Something Weird, a Seattle mail-order DVD and online cult film operation that traffics in everything from old 1930s melodrama to skin flicks. In the “Christian Scare Films” category at SW, Volume 14, surprise, you can buy “Man’s Search” (sic) for $10, $9.99 for an online download. Indeed, it is the old Mormon flick of my youth.

• RELATED: Watch the 1964 version of “Man’s Search for Happiness”

The catalog reads: “Man’s Search (color) actually shows us what Heaven looks like (well, actually, a glimpse of our “pre-life”) and, yup, it’s surprisingly psychedelic: lots of pretty colors and angels milling around. And this trippy, Mormon-made short shows us this pre-mortal life as a way of explaining where we came from and where we’re going in this “Earth life.” So don’t be distracted by the “Funland” amusement-park of sin (where you can zoom around on a cartoon ride, ogle women, and stare at distorted mirrors). Join the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints and keep things dull until your Spirit-Self can walk straight up to Heaven (yes, literally, we see it!) and hug lots of dead people.“

Part of me loves the irony of seeing ”Man’s Search ...“ literally go to out-of-date religious film purgatory (could you imagine what RiffTrax could do with this?) Part of me is sad to see a film I have an affection for being sold as a joke by SW. Another part of me relishes the irony of my faith’s big 1964 film, which premiered to millions at that year’s World’s fair in NYC, being sold by a ”dirty films“ seller during the same era of my faith waging a highly publicized campaign against pornography. Finally, I remain surprised that the LDS Church leadership allowed its copyright to expire so ”Man’s Search ...’ would enter the public domain. After all, it’s narrated by an apostle, Richard L. Evans. 

Or maybe it’s not in the public domain? Maybe a copy was dumped somewhere, or a print found its way into a SW buy of “old, obsolete film?” As mentioned, the LDS Church filmed a newer version in 1987 but retained Evans’ narration and the original script. Are those copyrighted? It would be amusing if SW received a “cease-and-desist” letter from LDS Church attorneys.

If you haven’t seen the 1964 version of “Man’s Search ...” in a long time, it’s easy to find. YouTube has a few copies, including a five-minute “teaser” from SW. I’ve watched it a couple times a year the past several years and was able to share it with my wife and children, who hadn’t seen it. If you grew up on this “Man’s Search For Happiness,” you’ll enjoy it. But, not surprisingly, it has become very dated. The BYU-produced film, directed by the late Disney animator Judge Whitaker, does use psychedelic screen-over colors to portray pre-mortal life, and that’s funny.

The film is very campy and unintentionally cultish. Given the many dysfunctions and sins to choose from, it’s pure camp that a mere carnival would symbolize “the evils of the world.” Viewers are advised to stay away from roller coasters, fun house mirrors, wheels of fortune and shooting galleries.

I’ve saved the most amusing camp for last, where a gaggle of men gaze hungrily at the ankles and calves of burlesque dancers dressed as modestly as Shirley MacLaine in “Can Can.” The late Russian leader Kruschev’s well-publicized objections notwithstanding, that was pretty old-fashioned “indecency” even for 1964.

The rest of the film, which involves the birth of one individual and the death of a grandfather, provides a pretty good overview of the LDS Plan of Salvation. Near the end, when grandpa walks slowly into the spirit world (SW has it wrong, he’s not in heaven) things get funny. A Facebook friend is on target when he compares the spirit world inhabitants that grandpa greets to the possessed souls in the old Brit shocker flick “Village of the Damned.”

Still, I’m glad that “Man’s Search for Happiness” lives on, whether on the Net or through a mail-order company. (The Salt Lake Tribune mentioned this post soon after its original posting in 2011.)

--- Doug Gibson

Traditional Mormon ‘Last Days’ theology similar to Bible Belt beliefs

Originally published in 2013 at StandardBlogs (I was prompted to re-post this, today, Sept. 7, 2020, after a Labor Day spirited discussion with a very pious and very old fellow member of the Church.)

There’s a 2007 clip video of Mitt Romney stumbling over the question, “Do the Mormons believe the Garden of Eden is in Jackson County, Missouri?” Romney was clearly annoyed by the question, alternating between incredulity and telling the interviewer that it was a question better directed to LDS Church leaders. Romney knows the answer is, “yes,” but he didn’t want to say so, fearing that it would make him look odd.

But really, how is believing that the Garden of Eden is in Jackson County, Missouri, any more incredulous than believing Noah stuck every animal in an ark and floated around with a few others while every person in the world drowned. Or even that Jesus Christ was resurrected? We are taught to believe things by faith, to suspend belief and trust a prophet or unseen-to-us deity. In fact, we’re also taught that to demand or need proof of the divine can be considered a liability. In the Book of Mormon, seeing an angel did little for Laman and Lemuel.

When I’m visiting a longtime family of church members, I head for “grandpa’s bookcase.” They contain mostly forgotten books filled with assumptions that we no longer hear and, as important, doctrine that we still may mostly believe but also don’t hear much about. One old book I spent the weekend reading was “Prophecy and Modern Times,” by W. Cleon Skousen. My copy, published by Deseret Book, appears to be from about 1950 but was first published in 1939. The edition I read also contains an approving foreward from LDS Apostle Ezra Taft Benson.

In the book, readers are reminded that not only was the Garden of Eden in North America, but that it was also where Noah built his ark, before it floated to Mesopotamia. Furthermore, places such as Euphrates, Canaan, Ethiopia, “were all names which originally belonged to geographical locations in America,” writes Skousen.

(What’s very interesting about these old books is that they serve as the sources for things I was taught as a young Latter-day Saint in the late 60s and 70s, either in family home evening or church classes. Today, about the only place you hear many of these beliefs is during a ward High Priest lesson that strays a  bit from the manual. I want to stress that I’m not making fun of these bits of doctrine. Indeed, I find them fascinating and my belief in some, by faith, is what makes being a Latter-day Saint so interesting.)

The last days, as described in “Prophecy and Modern Times,” is as dramatic in many parts as fundamentalist evangelicals describe the last days in books such as the “Left Behind” series. The Bible Belt really hasn’t got much on Skousen. The book teaches that the Mormon faithful (and this is a doctrine I’ve been told of countless times) will return to Jackson County, Missouri, which is where the headquarters of the Mormons will be. In fact, Skousen quotes early LDS leader Heber C. Kimball as providing prophecy that “Salt Lake City will be classed among the wicked cities of the world. A spirit of speculation and extravagance will take possession of the Saints, and the results will be financial bondage. Persecution comes next and all true Latter-day Saints will be tested to the limit. Many will apostasize and others will be still not knowing what to do. Darkness will cover the earth … The judgments of God will be poured out on the wicked ...” Skousen’s source for this is The Deseret News of May 23, 1931.

In fact, the book claims that a migration to Jackson County, Missouri, would not occur until much of the earth has already become desolate. “The Constitution will hang by a thread” argument for the last days is also part of the book, but it will be saved by LDS elders, the author adds.

The last-days scenario that Skousen creates contains many elements of evangelical beliefs. At times, one can be forgiven for thinking he has picked up the pop evangelical kitsch series “Left Behind.” He writes, “Lucifer’s church will cast its shadow over most of the earth so that outside of Zion all men, small and great, rich and poor, bond and free, will have the identifying mark of that church in their right hand or in their foreheads. No man will be able to buy and sell among them in that day unless he bears that mark in his body.”

Besides the mark of the beast, Skousen cites wars and pestilences, false prophets performing “miracles,” Satan raining down fire to destroy the faithful, plagues, starvation, thirst for water, stormy seas, Israel threatened, and being defended by two prophets, and America being a land that cannot be accessed by other nations until God allows it. From the book, citing the Doctrine and Covenants 61:15-16 as its source: “In that day the land of America will be cut off from the rest of the earth by violent seas. … No doubt millions would flee to America during these trying times if the Lord did not make it inaccessible to all except the righteous. This will be the most stringent immigration restriction ever imposed upon this land, and it will be enforced by the violent elements of the sea.”

Eventually, in “Prophecy and Modern Times,” remnants of the lost tribes of Israel will brave the elements and start migrating toward Jackson County, Missouri, to regroup. As they approach, colonies of the wicked will try to stop them. As Skousen writes, citing as a source, Doctrine and Covenants 133:28, “The scriptures plainly speak of the Ten Tribes being confronted by ‘enemies’ who will become their ‘prey’ as they march over them on the way to the capital city of New Jerusalem.”

In “Prophecy and Modern Times,” Skousen — as popular then as today’s Deseret Book favorites are today — preaches in a tone and style that seems to have mostly disappeared from LDS theology. It’s pessimistic, predicting most of the Latter-day Saints as falling into apostasy. It sets the LDS Church, as well as early Old Testament history, firmly in the United States, and echoes the “White Horse prophecy” of LDS priesthood holders gathering to save the Constitution. The Last Days, according to the book, are clearly inspired by the Bible’s Revelations’ chapters — and other Mormon scripture — and share many similarities to traditional evangelicalism.

The Mormon Church was established with the intention of preparing for the Second Coming of Christ. A casual reading of 19th Century patriarchal blessings includes many that promise the receiver will see Christ’s return to the Earth. It’s clear that through most of the 20th century this point of view was shared, and often preached by church leaders. I recall my father telling me that while he may not see Christ return, he expected that I would. (Ironically, I feel the same when I look at my children.)

As the church grew internationally, and correlation replaced distinct church departments as the authors of various church manuals, it appears the emphasis on the last days, and the heavily dramatic tones of last days gospel doctrines, were toned down considerably. Skousen is no longer a Mormon author that would be mentioned by current church leaders, although he has gained a renewed fan base, thanks to Mormon Glenn Beck.

How much of “Prophecy and Modern Times” is still considered acceptable church doctrine is a question that interests me. Some of it is unappealing. In one clearly racist part, Skousen writes that the American Indians, once they receive the Gospel, “will no longer be backward, mischievous and unattractive. They will become white like their brethren of Ephraim.”

However, as mentioned, it’s clear that Latter-day Saints do believe that the Garden of Eden is in the U.S., and that there will be a time when Mormons are called to return there. Yet, its emphasis level seems to have dropped considerably. In fact, in what can be construed as a direct warning to those who rely on the Beck/Skousen view of the last days, LDS Apostle Dallin H. Oaks recently cautioned members from associating with “right-wing groups who mistakenly apply prophecies about the last days to promote efforts to form paramilitary or other organizations.” Oaks suggested that members need to stock up on food, rather than ammo. (Read) I also recall a recent conference talk in which members were told that there is still much to be done on the earth before it ends.

--- Doug Gibson