C.S. Lewis' The Great Divorce and the LDS Spirit World

A couple of times a year, usually on a Sunday after church, I re-read C.S. Lewis’ marvelous post-mortal novella/fable “The Great Divorce.” It relates a journey of diminutive spirits (referred to as ghosts) to the outskirts of Heaven, where they are greeted by much larger, more powerful exalted spirits, eager to help them take a painful journey beyond the mountains to Heaven. The journey, and its accompanying pain, is a metaphor for repentance and shedding of sins.

Most of the “ghosts,” despite the mild persuasion of loved ones, friends and acquaintances who greet them, refuse the trip to Heaven. They prefer Hell because it allows them to retain their earthly passions and sins, obsessions, earthly pride, angers resentments, self-pity, manipulation, and narcissism. That is the foundation of what Lewis is teaching in his novella; that one must surrender the earth for Heaven.

As Lewis writes, “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ’Thy will be done,” and those to who God says in the end, ’Thy will be done.’“

”The Great Divorce“ can be called Dante-like. It’s a journey with many experiences, with a narrator and a teacher. Understand, I make no claim that C.S. Lewis saw any similarities between ”The Great Divorce“ and the Mormon concept of the post-mortal spirit world. In fact, Lewis — on more than one occasion — reminds readers that his story is a fantasy, and says, ”The last thing I wish is to arouse factual curiosity about the details of the after-world.“

Personally, I think Lewis had his tongue in his cheek with that remark, because of course ”The Great Divorce“ ”arouse(s) factual curiosity about the details of the after-world.“ And the concept of spirits retaining their weaknesses and more exalted spirits zealously attempting to teach them ”the right“ is a central tenant of Mormonism. But let me backtrack: From my earliest years in the LDS Church, I was taught that after we die, we either go to paradise or ”spirit prison.“ (For many childhood years, I envisioned ”spirit prison“ as a clean jail with bars, where orderly ”wicked“ spirits waited for good spirits to teach them the Gospel ...)

Instead, Mormon theology puts the spirits world as being on the earth. In the Book of Mormon, the prophet Alma taught that — like Lewis’ ghosts — what’s learned and appreciated on earth is carried to the spirit world. In the LDS post-mortal spirit world, there is no confirmation of any ”correct Gospel.“ Spirits congregate where they are most comfortable. The ”righteous“ spirits — like Lewis’ spirits — attend to spirits who need to learn the truth. I imagine much of the ”missionary work“ is without success. (As a lifelong Mormon, it’s impossible not to imagine these spirit ”missionaries“ as wearing dark suits and ties, or sisters in dresses, and carrying flip charts and Scriptures as they knock on doors in ”Spirit Prison.“)

In ”The Great Divorce,“ Lewis talks about many ghosts who are so obsessed with their earthly lives that they return to homes, places of work, etc., and ”haunt“ them. (Now, what I’m saying next is ”Doug doctrine“ and not LDS belief, but one reason I flinch at watching LDS football on Sunday is that I have this feeling a host of spirits — all obsessed with the Dallas Cowboys, etc., are also watching the game. If I turn the tube off and put on a CD of church music, they’ll take off! I also wonder about those kitschy reality ghost-hunting shows on TV. Are the malicious spirits having fun with us humans?)

(Yeah, I’m still being tongue in cheek now but what comes next is serious.) Lewis’s relating that the souls of purgatory/hell were handicapped by their earthly attachments parallels the LDS belief that missionary spirits are attempting to teach other spirits to shed those same attachments. A chief distinction, of course, is that Lewis considers his ”Hell and Heaven“ as the end result, while LDS theology sees the ”Spirit World“ as a far earlier part of our eternal existence. It is interesting, though, that ”The Great Divorce“ envisions active efforts to convert unbelievers after death; a concept that Mormonism can relate to. ”The Great Divide“ also places a person’s humility and true charity as more favorable than excessive religion and excessive charity, reminding the reader that these can become earthly obsessions which consume our other responsibilities.

As former Standard-Examiner cartoonist Cal Grondahl says, religion exists in one part to comfort us about our approaching death. C.S. Lewis, as a Christian, believed in life after death. To the righteous, his novella comforts, as the Mormon Spirit World comforts devout Mormons. I have no idea if Lewis regarded Mormons as Christians, but his novella — in which spirits find themselves more comfortable in dim, dreary, contentious surroundings and resist missionary efforts that offer a more exalted state — connects with LDS doctrine.

Also, it’s very interesting that in Lewis’ ”Hell,“ there are ghosts who have strayed so far away from the ”bus station“ that offers ghosts the opportunity to visit ”Heaven.“ As a result, they can’t go to Heaven’s outskirts anymore. This is similar to LDS doctrine, in which spirits in ”spirit prison“ are separated by those who are still teachable and those who are not. I recommend ”The Great Divorce“ to anyone, of course, but also to LDS readers who will find the unintentional similarities very interesting.

-- Doug Gibson

This column was previously published at StandardBlogs.

Frank J. Cannon a thorn in Mormonism's side 100-plus years ago

Frank J. Cannon, son of the LDS leader, George Q. Cannon, Mormonism’s most famous apostate, led the Salt Lake Tribune’s editorial assault on the LDS Church, Sen. Reed Smoot, and particularly President Joseph F. Smith from the years 1904 to 1907.

Historians Michael Harold Paulos and Kenneth L. Cannon II have done a great job preserving Cannon’s contributions. Even those Latter-day Saints who agree with his most fervent critics should acknowledge FJC’s many contributions to LDS history.

He was more than a writer and editor. FJC was a paradox: An educated, accomplished advocate and diplomat, editor and founder at the Ogden Standard, missionary to the Sandwich Islands, LDS Church authorities utilized his many talents to negotiate statehood for Utah. Later, FJC served as the Utah territory’s U.S. senator.

However, FJC also was a man of many personal weaknesses. His vices included drinking and patronizing brothels. These weaknesses in following LDS Church laws were tolerated, or at least partially forgiven, while his dad, George Q. Cannon lived. But after his father died, FJC saw his influence within the church’s hierarchy wane quickly. The result was an antipathy toward his longtime faith’s leaders that would last the rest of his life. In fact, his anger, while always eloquent, would sometimes be so over the top as to backfire and generate sympathy for his targets.

FJC’s editorials during the Smoot hearings, between 1904 and 1907, are masterful polemics, designed to amuse, humiliate, sneer, attack, moralize and infuriate LDS Church supporters. One who was very often infuriated was then-LDS Prophet Joseph F. Smith, who not surprisingly, seethed at the savage pen of FJC, which accused the LDS leader of being a traitor to the United States, a traitor to the original LDS Church, a dictator in Utah, and an unrepentant polygamist. In public, Smith mostly avoided mentioning FJC. In private, he called him many names, including a “son of Perdition,” which is an LDS term for those consigned to hell.

Besides attacking Senator Smoot, FJC also enjoyed taunting Deseret News editor — and LDS apostle — Charles W. Penrose, as a toady for the LDS Church. An example: “Probably the only person in Utah who doesn’t know the Mormon Church is in politics up to its very eyebrows, is Apostle [Charles W.] Penrose, of the Deseret News. The Church has to keep things secret from Penrose. He is a new apostle, and, like President Smith blats out everything he knows. … Penrose ought to wash windows. He takes to soapsuds.”

But FJC saved his harshest criticism for the prophet. He mocked the LDS leader’s claim on Capitol Hill that he had never received revelation and later called him “God’s Appointed Liar” after Smith justified his testimony to many perplexed Latter-day Saints as a way to avoid being trapped by hostile questioners. For example, FJC editorialized: “Gentiles and Mormons, you are front to front with the proposition. Either you must accept Joseph F. Smith as the prophet of God, ordained to speak falsehoods or truth at his pleasure, ratified by God as a liar or a truth teller to meet the prophet’s needs; or, you must consider him a false, deceiving, lying, hypocritical old man, who clings to his power with selfish hands, and who fain would live out the balance of his life with his five wives …”

Why FJC hated Joseph F. Smith so fiercely is still debated by historians. FJC’s father, George Q. Cannon, whom Frank loved, had a long in-depth business relationship with the prophet. Historians opine that JC may have blamed President Smith for cutting him off from the church’s hierarchy after his dad’s death.

I favor the theory that FJC blamed President Smith for the death of his brother, apostle Abraham H. Cannon, who died in the mid-1890s shortly after marrying another wife, years after polygamy was abolished. In FJC’s opinion, stress from the secret marriage harmed his brother’s health.

Cannon was excommunicated by the LDS Church long before the Smoot hearings concluded. His barbed editorials continued until Smoot was eventually cleared by the U.S. Senate. Soon afterwards, Cannon left Salt Lake City and worked at the Post and the Rocky Mountain News.

His sabbatical as an anti-Mormon crusader would resume soon, and “Round 2″ would continue for a generation, both as author of a best-selling “expose” on Mormonism and his longstanding gig at chautauquas, a series of lectures, dances, debates, plays and music offerings then popular across the country that Paulos and Cannon describe as the forefront to modern adult education. At one chautauqua event where Cannon lectured, he was confronted by a group of outraged LDS priesthood holders.  (To read more about FJC's editorials, read this Journal of Mormon History article by Paulos).

-- Doug Gibson

This essay was originally published at StandardBlogs.

From LDS apostle to spiritualist: the journey of Amasa Mason Lyman

By Doug Gibson

In the spring 1983 edition of Dialogue, author Loretta L. Hefner recounts a sermon Mormon prophet Brigham Young delivered in 1867. Young said that doctrinal deviancy was not limited to the church rank and file. In fact, Young continued, among the present 12 apostles, “one did not believe in the existence of a personage called God,” another “believes that infants have the spirits of some who have formerly lived on earth,” and the third “has been preaching on the sly ... that the Savior was nothing more than a good man, and that his death had nothing to do with your salvation or mine.” 

Young was a sometimes caustic, even sarcastic LDS president, who once said that he kept the apostles in his pocket to take out when needed. He was not shy of public denunciations. The first two apostles mentioned by Young were Orson Pratt and Orson Hyde. Although Young used his influence late in life to make sure neither would be in a position to lead the LDS Church, Pratt and Hyde remained apostles.

The third apostle Young mentioned, Amasa Mason Lyman, would not survive his “heresy.” Lyman, baptized by Orson Pratt at 18, served 16 missions, spent months in a filthy Missouri jail cell with Mormon founder Joseph Smith, and attained the rank of apostle, only to lose it all in the final decade of his life. 

As Hefner relates in the Dialogue article, “From Apostle to Apostate: The Personal Struggle of Amasa Mason Lyman,” the LDS apostle proved his commitment to Mormonism countless times, but never seemed to shake an eccentric interest in spiritualism. In the 1850s, while establishing a branch of the church in San Bernadino, California, Lyman participated in seances.

The apostle’s interest in spiritualism might have remained a tolerated hobby — and of no danger to his church standing — had he not embraced “what later historians have termed the golden age of liberal theology,” writes Hefner. During this time, Lyman seems to have embraced “universalism,” or a belief that man, being derived from God, was inherently good and did not need Christ’s sacrifice to attain salvation.

In separate speeches — in 1862 in Dundee, Scotland and 1863 in Beaver, Utah — Lyman preached that Christ was only a moral reformer, and that man could redeem himself by correcting his errors. In short, Lyman denied the need for a savior.

To continue reading this essay, go to the Standard-Examiner web article, where the essay was previously published. It was first published on the now-defunct StandardBlogs.

The 1917 anti-Mormon penny dreadful film that was a hit

"A Mormon Maid" is an intensely fascinating time-capsule silent melodrama. It is very. anti-Mormon, a filmed polemic against the unpopular religion. Remember its era: Professional anti-Mormon apostate Frank J, Cannon was peddling his book to magazine installments and big sales; he was also a draw on the Chautauqua circuit.

Even that more famous anti-Mormon silent, "Trapped By the Mormons," was still several years away. "Trapped ..." had played in SLC as an historical novelty. I saw it about 25 years ago at the Tower Theater. Frankly, "A Mormon Maid," -- a link to watch it is at the end of this post -- merits more ink than "Trapped ..." which was peddled more or less as an independent (meaning it was not a major release).

"A Mormon Maid" was a bigger release, with a major company of the time, Lasky. It has name stars in Noah Beery Sr. and then-popular starlet Mae Murray, who takes the title role. Murray's the type of silent star who prompted tens of thousands of teenage girls to dream about moving to Hollywood and being discovered.

"A Mormon Maid" jabs at the church are more personal and cutting. Some church avengers are styled after the Ku Klux Klan ("Birth of a Nation" seems to have been an influence.) The avengers, and faithful Mormons, wear garb that is distantly related to temple garb that Mormons consider sacred. Perhaps the most jarring sight is an apron with pictures of plants sown on the aprons. I'll leave things at that. The garb, though, also looks silly at times, with a large "all-seeing eye" in the middle and the men with cloaks over their heads.

Mormons who view this in 2016 will appreciate that the LDS Church 99 years ago was still very unpopular. The long 20th century effort to make Mormonism more palatable to the public, other churches and businesses, was in its early stages.

The church leadership did protest "A Mormon Maid" quite vigorously, and may have had some success. According to the AFI films page on "A Mormon Maid" it reads: "that Paramount decided not to distribute the film due to pressure from the Mormon Church. Papers in the Cecil B. DeMille Collection at Brigham Young University indicate that Lasky did not feel that the film was up to company standards." Also, AFI claims that its original 8-reel production was cut to six reels, which puts it a little over an hour.

One more thing is that the Director General of "A Mormon Maid" is Cecil B. DeMille. This was long before he became one of Hollywood's greatest directors. I'm not quite sure what a director general is, but his name is prominent in the credits. The director was Robert Z. Leonard.

A PENNY-DREADFUL MELODRAMA 

I'll provide a quick recap of the film: It's a classic "penny-dreadful" melodrama of the era, a dime novel translated to screen. There are virtually no characterizations; we don't get to know the characters beyond the faintest personalities. The only emotion effectively conveyed is lust, which Beery's evil apostle, Darius Burr, the power behind a surprisingly weak "Lion of the Lord, Brigham Young (Richard Cummings).

Burr lusts after the beautiful, non-Mormon tom-girl Dora Hogue (Murray). I'm digressing; the plot: We open with a faux book intro, accompanied by films of the Mormon pioneers. It's commendable at first, and there are some nice scenes of pioneer wagon teams. But eventually we learn the pioneers are exploited by Young (Cummings plays him as a constipated looking Puritan), the evil apostles, of which Burr is the most evil, and the avenging forces, which prevent any opposition and track down disillusioned members who want to leave.

In the middle of nowhere live the Hogue family, dad John (Hobart Bosworth), mom Nancy (Edythe Chapman) and Dora. A Mormon scout, Tom Rigdon (Frank Borzage) from Salt Lake City informs the Hogues, who are not members, that Indians are about to attack. Dad Hogue wants no help from the Mormons but after the Mormons save the family from an Indian attack (well filmed) they accept an offer to move to Salt Lake City.

Fast forward a couple of years. The Hogues are successful residents, and Dora and Tom are in love. But Apostle Burr wants Dora to be his polygamous bride, so oppression sets in. At a secret meeting with the avengers, family membership in the church is "offered" and Frank can either take a polygamous wife or Dora has to marry Apostle Burr. To save his daughter, Frank takes a second wife. A grief-stricken Nancy commits suicide (rather shockingly shown on screen).

Naturally, evil Burr still lusts for Dora and the remainder of the film involves the Hogues, and Tom, fleeing from, or fighting, the Mormon avengers and the leadership. I'll mention that in one scene Dora rather shrewdly avoids (for a time) coerced marriage with Burr by lying and saying she's not a virgin.

This is a fun film to watch because it shouldn't be taken seriously. It's a history lesson, a silent film polemic that focuses on an easy target. Church members should not be offended. It's a case of the film's theme revealing the vacuousness of its proponents. Because it's 1917, much of the film plays like a stage play; all of the action is comprised on a screen and the camera work is often static. However, there are impressive shots of wagon trains and the heroes trying to escape the Mormon avengers.

"A Mormon Maid" has not been ignored by recent scholars. LDS history blogger Ardis E. Parshall mentioned the film in the Keepapitchinin blog, Parshall writes: "1917’s A Mormon Maid was a rude introduction to popular motion pictures supposedly about Mormonism. Heavily advertised and extremely popular, it played for months in the United States, and was exported to Europe where it also played well."

Parshall's blog is worth a read. It includes newspaper ads for the film. I searched Google for similar ads and one is shared above this post. In 2009, Parshall also wrote about the film, and included a review of a 1987 scholarly appraisal of the film's propaganda value. It was titled "Commercial Propaganda in the Silent Film: A Case Study of 'A Mormon Maid,'" by Richard Alan Nelson, Film History, Vol. 1, No. 2.

A snippet: "The author examines why this particular film, of so many similar ones produced at approximately the same time, was even more successful than the rest and deserves special study. He describes the extremely high production values, the talents of the director, cinematographer, and editor – a powerhouse crew of early movie talent which included Cecil B. DeMille. The skillful direction, filming, and editing of A Mormon Maid created practically a new genre, the docu-drama, which made the tale it told especially believable to a national audience and especially distressing to the Saints. ..."

 So there's just about all you need to know about "A Mormon Maid." I'd like to learn more about it, what DeMille thought of the film, and it'd be fun to see it on the big screen; maybe Salt Lake Film Society or The Egyptian Theater might do that?


(This post by Doug Gibson was originally published at the Plan9Crunch film blog.)

Apostle Parley P. Pratt suffered a violent death at the hands of a cuckold

The murder of Mormon apostle Parley P. Pratt, slain by the husband of a woman Pratt had taken as a plural wife, was national news in 1857.

Hector McLean chased Pratt across much of the country before catching him and killing the LDS leader in Arkansas. The small Mormon media defended Pratt, pointing out that McLean was a drunk and wife-beater long estranged from his wife. However, defenders of Pratt also, not surprisingly, criticized the motives of murderer Hector McLean, who was never legally punished. The strongest published condemnation of McLean came from the wife who abandoned him for Pratt, Eleanor McComb Pratt. Her argument, shared by others, was that to kill Pratt, or to spend a long time seeking Pratt and finally murdering him, was the work of a brutal, godless man consumed by thoughts of revenge, hate and killing.

There is a certain irony to the Utah Mormons’ outrage over Pratt’s murder by the cuckold McLean, though. Through the latter half of the 19^th century in Utah, cuckolds who murdered seducers of wives were routinely found not guilty of murder, and in fact applauded by the Utah media. Historian Kenneth L. Cannon II has written an interesting history “Mountain Common Law: The Extralegal Punishment of Seducers in early Utah,” published in the fall 1983 issue of Utah Historical Quarterly. Two early cases researched by Cannon are noteworthy. In 1851, Manti resident Madison Hambleton discovered his wife was having an affair with Dr. John Vaughan. After learning of the affair, one Sunday Hambleton spent hours at his Mormon church meetings, then sought out Dr. Vaughan, and then shot and killed him. He immediately surrendered and was taken to Great Salt Lake City. At the court of inquiry, Hambleton was represented by Mormon prophet Brigham Young! Writes Cannon, “The supreme court of the territory heard the case and acquitted Hambleton. Those in attendance enthusiastically voiced their approval of the court decision.”

Defenders of Hambleton may have argued that he killed Vaughan in a fit of passion upon learning of the adultery. I have no idea if that is true but it was an argument for adultery-related murders of that era. However, a more publicized case of a cuckold murdering a seducer could not claim “heat of passion” as a defense. Also in 1851, Mormon leader Howard Egan, returning to the Salt Lake Valley after guiding gold miners to California, discovered his first of three wives, Tamson, had been unfaithful with a man named James Monroe. Indeed, Tamson had given birth to a child by Monroe. Monroe, aware that Egan would want to kill him, fled the area. Egan pursued Monroe, and around the territorial border, found him with a wagon train and killed him. As Cannon recounts, a church investigation cleared Egan. At his civil trial, “Egan’s defense was handled by W.W. Phelps, a prominent Mormon, and George A. Smith, a Mormon apostle.”

During final arguments, Smith’s words are important, as Cannon writes, “they display the sentiments of Mormon Utah society at the time.” Smith was blunt and to the point. Criticizing English law, that applied only civil damages to adultery, Smith said, “The principle, the only one, that beats and throbs through the hearts of the entire inhabitants of this territory, is simply this: The man who seduces his neighbor’s wife must die, and her nearest relative must kill him!” It took the jury only 15 minutes to acquit Egan of a murder, that not unlike McLean’s of Pratt, was clearly premeditated.

Later in his article, Cannon posits that acquittals of cases where men killed seducers of their wives and daughters may have been grounded in efforts to protect wives, mothers and daughters from seducers in rural areas. Also, it’s likely many Utah territory residents were dissatisfied with penalties for seductions, which ranged from one to 20 years, plus fines, for a crime that was difficult to prove. Cannon notes that there was no evidence that Egan’s wife, Tamson, resisted Monroe’s sexual advances. Utah Mormons, Cannon adds, heavily publicized the Egan murder case, perhaps as a warning for outsiders to stay away from Mormon women?

Back to the Pratt murder by McLean. Patrick Q. Mason, writing in the excellent book of essays, “Parley P. Pratt and the Making of Mormonism,” 2011, The Arthur H. Clark Company, notes the power of cultural context of “honor.” Honor “is a communally constructed characteristic, as opposed to virtue or integrity.” As a result, a father or husband lost his “honor” among the community if a wife or daughter was seduced. Legal remedies might imprison or fine the seducer, but they did nothing to restore honor to the father of cuckold.

To regain honor, the offended man had to murder the seducer. That law doomed Pratt, no matter his religious motivations or the evidence that McLean was a brutal, drunken wife-beater. As the Hambleton and Egan cases show, Utah shared traits of the honor’s cultural context.

Utah’s commitment to “mountain common law” would last for decades, long after Pratt’s similar murder in 1857. As mentioned, the media usually agreed with the harsh punishment. After the seducer of a restaurant owner’s daughter was shot by father William Hughes, the Deseret Evening News published this approbation, writes Cannon: “… Public opinion in these mountains declares that a man who seduces a woman ought to pay the penalty with his life; and her nearest kindred should bring him to account.”

“Mountain common law” as a legal remedy was first challenged by the anti-Mormon Salt Lake Tribune, probably due more to antipathy to the church than a real commitment to legal reform. However, as Utah, and the LDS Church leadership, sought better relations with the “gentile” world, mountain common law, as in other parts of the nation, started a slow, consistent fade legally.

By 1888, the Utah Supreme Court reject the arguments of a cuckold convicted of killing his wife’s seducer because the killer, Wilford H. Halliday, had waited 24 hours before murdering the seducer. The “Egan rule” no longer applied.

          doug1963@gmail.com

          Posts are authored by Doug Gibson. Cartoon is by Cal Grondahl. This post and cartoon was originally published on the now-defunct StandardBlogs website from The Standard-Examiner website, which this post is credited to.

Mormon Reformation included the highs, and lows, of religious fervor

The most interesting bits of news I garnered from one conference long ago was not news of a temple in Provo or disapproval at calling ourselves “Mormons.” It was the now-late Apostle Boyd K. Packer assuring young members of the LDS church that the second coming of Jesus Christ is a long time coming. 

That’s a big shift from the early years of 19^th century Mormonism, where blessings that promised recipients that they would witness the second coming of Jesus Christ were not uncommon.  The church Joseph Smith initiated was pure millennialist.  I recall my father telling me that I would likely see Christ’s return and – remembering that fondly – I’ve mentioned the same to my children.

One bit of history that underscored the Christ’s-return-is-near doctrine of the 19^th century LDS church was the Mormon reformation of the middle 1850s in Utah.  What began as an effort to re-energize the spirituality of Utah saints via “home missions” to members degenerated into harsh denunciations of local church leaders, blood atonement speeches, and accusations of adultery, fanaticism from guilt-obsessed members, and finally, a counter-productive surge of interest in polygamy.  It took the untimely death of a fire-breathing apostle to allow future church leader Wilford Woodruff to cool the Mormon Reformation down.

As Thomas G. Alexander recounts in the Summer 1992 Dialogue article, “Wilford Woodruff and the Mormon Reformation of 1855-57,” by 1855 the LDS prophet Brigham Young and other church leaders worried that “many Church members and leaders had fallen spiritually asleep, becoming more enamored of materialism and other trappings of Babylon than building the kingdom.” Besides Young, apostles Heber C. Kimball and Jedediah Grant preached that recent crop failures were punishment from God directed at the Saints. In the 1855 October general conference, Young proposed home missions – designed to bring members back to reactivity – rather than prostlyting to Utah non-members. The effort, Alexander explains, also broke with the church tradition of local congregations enjoying autonomy in many decisions. Instead, apostles were sent to direct the home missions effort.

By March 1856, Young realized that the home missions efforts had failed. At that point, Young, with the enthusiastic support of Kimball and Grant, decided to go “fire and brimstone” on Utah members.

Efforts to bring the Saints back to repentance evolved into fierce denunciation of church members as “working wickedness” by church leaders as they fanned out through the Utah territory.  Young preached in September 1856 espousing the now-discredited doctrine of blood atonement, which denied Christ’s atonement for certain sins. Other apostles, particularly Grant, preached the same during the reformation. As Alexander relates, it’s assumed that the murder of the Parrish family and some friends in Springville, Utah, in 1857 was in part due to local members’ diehard belief in the blood atonement doctrine that had been stressed. No one was ever punished for murdering the victims, who had apostatized and were seeking to leave Springville.

As is the case with many fundamentalist-type purges, the arts also suffered. Apostles Grant and Kimball dissolved the Polysophical Society, an arts and humanities appreciation group that met at the home of future church president Lorenzo Snow. In fact, apostles Woodruff, Amasa Lyman, and Parley P. Pratt, as well as poet and lyricist Eliza Snow were members. However, according to Alexander, Grant described the society as “a stink in my nostrils” and “filled with an adulterous spirit,” writes Alexander. The Polysophical Society was no more.

Church leaders during the Mormon Reformation accused members and lesser leaders of adultery and demanded their repentance. Again, Grant was a particularly enthusiastic accuser. However, even Woodruff, a far more milder man, joined in these attacks. The most prominent charge of adultery was leveled at several presidents of the First Council of the Seventy on Oct. 7, 1856, in the old Salt Lake Tabernacle. After a rancorous meeting, the presidents were urged by Woodruff to “repent”. Later, a prominent bishop, Abraham Hoagland, came under condemnation for his efforts to assist and serve non-members. Woodruff told Hoagland, writes Alexander, that “sending priesthood holders to them ‘was like casting pearls before swine.’” Although Hoagland defended himself for a while, he soon repented.

The unexpected death of Grant on Dec. 1, 1856 was the beginning of the end of the extreme stage of the Mormon reformation. Woodruff, who assumed greater responsibility from Young, moved the reformation into a third phase, which stressed love and forgiveness, writes Alexander. The emphasis turned to pleas for personal improvement, rather than severe denunciations and unfounded charges of adultery. Members were urged to better themselves before preaching to other members. A series of rebaptisms that indicted renewed covenants occurred.

Nevertheless, as Alexander writes, the effects of the fundamentalist, accusatory phase of the reformation took a while to ease. One effect was an increase in members wanting to enter polygamy. This was not necessarily a positive for church leaders, who were aware that increases in polygamy tended to up the divorce rate. Indeed, as Alexander accounts, “…the 65 percent increase in the new plural marriages during the Reformation led to a subsequent escalation in the divorce rate…” However, even Woodruff was caught up in the plural marriage rage. He married a plural wife during the reformation and even offered his 14-year-old daughter to Young, who prudently refused Woodruff’s offer. Alexander also writes of Young’s denying “Old Father Allred” permission to marry three girls, ages 12 and 13.”

The reformation probably did prepare the saints to unite against outside adversaries. By the mid-1850’s, it was clear that the federal government would soon be a part of Utah life, and for 35-plus years the LDS Church would face the threat the termination at the hands of the feds. Gentiles, and by extension the feds, were a target to call wicked.

Also, as Alexander writes, the church was successful, with the final emphasis on renewed love and charity, to bring members back to executive authority.

doug1963@gmail.com

Posts are authored by Doug Gibson. Cartoon is by Cal Grondahl. This post and cartoon was originally published on the now-defunct StandardBlogs website from The Standard-Examiner website, which this post is credited to.