Rise And Reckoning: New Biography Confronts The Myths And Realities Of Joseph Smith
(ANALYSIS) Considering the chaotic first 14 years before founding Prophet Joseph Smith, Jr., was assassinated, it is incredible that today his Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (nicknamed “Mormon” until 2018) is America’s fourth largest religious body.
The growing U.S. membership has reached 6.9 million, exceeding a United Methodist Church lately reduced by schism and ranking below only the Catholic Church, independent evangelical congregations (that collectively have 21 million followers) and the Southern Baptist Convention.
In a classic American saga, Smith, though a thinly-educated child of hardscrabble farmers, developed compelling dynamism and charm to establish the only major success among countless new religious faiths born in the U.S. Smith’s church has expanded to 17.5 million members worldwide, and the Book of Mormon, the first of the scriptures Smith added to the Bible, is said to be the most widely distributed writing originated in America.
All that and more underscores the significance of a long-awaited and definitive new biography, out now: “Joseph Smith: The Rise and Fall of an American Prophet” (Yale University Press) by historian John G. Turner of George Mason University. It is the first biography to benefit from official publication of the 27-volume Joseph Smith Papers.
Until now, the two most influential biographies have reflected contrasting viewpoints. “No Man Knows My History” (1945) was a pioneering and sour psycho-history by Fawn Brodie, a skeptical LDS dropout. “Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling” (2005) was the work of eminent Columbia University historian Richard Bushman, a devout LDS believer. Presbyterian Turner, by contrast, is an outsider who strives for fairness while stating that he does not accept Smith’s revelations (nor in candor does this writer).
“Whether it was religion, marriage, or politics, he burst through the conventions of his time,” Turner summarizes. He depicts Smith as variously “a day laborer, visionary, seer, money-digger, glass-looker, translator, revelator, prophet, elder, high priest, president, patriarch, merchant, banker, prisoner, wrestler, real-estate speculator, prolific polygamist, lieutenant general, Master Mason and mayor.” During Smith’s career climax in Illinois, he ruled a theocratic city-state, commanded a sizable militia for defense that alarmed neighbors, ran as an independent candidate for U.S. president in 1844 and was simultaneously proclaimed the cosmic “king” by his ultra-secret political arm, the Council of Fifty.
The ranks of top leaders appointed by Smith churned with dissent, defection, expulsion and restoration. And Turner says, “I wouldn’t trust him with my money, my wife, or my daughter.” That is, Smith took dangerous risks for his church with heedless debts, financial mismanagement and operation of an unlicensed bank that violated Ohio law. Riskier yet was his polygamy teaching, which led to mob assassination of Smith while in jail after ordering destruction of an anti-polygamy newspaper’s printing press. Though Smith was no more enlightened on racial difference than most contemporaries, his opposition to slavery had also roused suspicions.
Religion News Service reported last month that “many” LDS members are still asking “did he really practice plural marriage?” Answer: Yes. Lavishly and “recklessly.” To its credit, the church published the 2021 booklet “Let’s Talk About Polygamy,” which admits “most scholars” estimate Smith married “between 30 and 40 women.” Turner’s extensive research identified “more than 30 wives” and he tells the stories of 27, starting in 1836 with a teen working in Smith’s household. Others included wives already married to other men, a mother-daughter pair, and two as young as 14. He concludes some marriages were clearly sexual and others possibly platonic and charitable.
Polygamy showed this oft-inspiring figure at his worst. He was not above spiritual coercion to win a wife. He needed to deceive his long-suffering and loyal first wife Emma, many of his followers, and an American public that found the idea abhorrent. (In 1852, Smith’s successor Brigham Young finally proclaimed the polygamy teaching, which remains a revelation in LDS scripture but was suspended in 1890 when a federal clampdown endangered the church’s very existence).
The prophet taught that Jesus Christ directly commissioned him in these latter days to restore true Christianity, which had long died out so that the creeds of all existing churches “were an abomination in his sight.” Smith said he was then led to dig up metal plates buried near Palmyra, N.Y., that were ancient accounts by Native Americans, Jewish migrants to the New World who were visited by Jesus. Smith translated the plates as the Book of Mormon, dictating to scribes while he stared into a hat. The plates were then taken away by an angel but not before designated LDS witnesses testified in writing that they had envisioned or handled them.
Smith’s religious innovations included secret temple rituals and proxy baptism on behalf of those who died before the LDS restoration. In a particularly radical effort, the prophet rewrote 51 of the Bible’s 66 books, though the LDS church recognizes only the traditional King James Version. Other LDS scriptures include ancient funerary scrolls from Egypt that Smith conveyed as memoirs from Abraham.
Smith’s most dramatic revelations came late in his brief life. His scriptures taught the existence of plural gods, and concerning faithful LDS believers that “then shall they be gods” in heavenly exaltation. Smith’s final discourse added the belief that “God himself … is a man like unto one of yourselves.” Another unusual Smith teaching held that humans are spirit children of the Mother in heaven as well as the Father, though this was not defined doctrine until 1909.
Turner’s narrative portrays horrid waves of persecution against Smith’s followers that defied the Constitution’s Bill of Rights with impunity. Smith even pleaded for help face-to-face plea with President Martin Van Buren but was rebuffed.
The Saints were hounded out of upstate New York, then northern Ohio, then viciously attacked with government support in western Missouri. Finally, hostility toward his riverfront Illinois citadel provoked Smith to consider escape to Texas or Oregon before his death.
In the end, Brigham Young led the main flock to successful refuge at what became Salt Lake City. Widow Emma joined a remnant in Missouri, where Smith taught that Adam and Eve once lived, where Jesus would return to rule the New Jerusalem, and where Independence would be the site of the millennial Temple. The Missourians’ rival “Reorganized Church,” led by the prophet’s son Joseph III, not only denounced polygamy but denied that Smith had ever participated in such an odious practice.
Religion Unplugged columnist Richard Ostling is the co-author of “Mormon America: The Power and the Promise.”