ACT 2
Book of Mormon
Terryl Givens says what made Mormonism stand out among other prophets in the Burned Over District was the Book of Mormon.
The main difference in the case of Joseph Smith is that he had something concrete to show for it: It was the Book of Mormon. It always came back to the Book of Mormon. And the most important function that the Book of Mormon served in the early church was not that it introduced new teachings, not that there was any particular message or content which revolutionized the world; it was the mere presence of the Book of Mormon itself as an object, which was a visible, palpable object, that served as concrete evidence that God had opened the heavens again. So whether you believed or didn't believe it, at least there was something testable that you could look at. ...
So true! The other prophets were less testable, but also less vulnerable to exposure. Joseph Smith exposed himself to disproof to make his claims stand out. That is a very risky game. So, count this statement as a corrective to Bloom's musings.
Robin Fox, currently University Professor of Social Theory at Rutgers University, and author Simon Worrall, make statements about the Book of Mormon being rural American literature. Givens says that the main importance of the Book of Mormon for early Mormons was that it was a symbol that God was speaking again. True.
RESTORED CHURCH
Mouw gives a very interesting statement about what Joseph Smith's restoration meant.
What outraged traditional Christians of the day was that this guy comes along--Joseph Smith--and says push the deleted button on all the stuff you guys are arguing about, because we have to go back to the very beginning and restore a true, original, primitive Christianity that has been corrupted for eighteen hundred years and you are a part of the corruption . . . and that God has given me a new Urr-text -- that God has restored the office of prophet. . .
JOSEPH SMITH
Givens says that Joseph Smith "collapsed sacred distance that is general held to be an absolutely essential ingredient of our experience of the divine." Christians will no doubt cringe at this statement since that was Jesus' mission. Prophets are no longer needed to collapse the distance. Verdoia speaks about Joseph Smith's charisma and confidence.
KIRTLAND
There is quick mention of adopting the name "latter-day Saints," and the restoration of the apostleship and hierarchy.
The narrator states that the Kirtland temple was inspired by the Old Testament, and where "secret rituals" were performed--thus confusing this temple with the one in Nauvoo.
A voice says that hundreds of accounts report of rushing wind and angelic quires being heard at the temple's dedication in April 1836 and in the months following. Will Bagley comes on and hints a naturalistic explanation: "mass hallucinations . . . or mass visions."
Kathleen Flake comes on and says Joseph Smith wanted everyone to see God: "it's revelation or nothing for this people." Bagley gives a summary of the Kirtland Bank scandal, and Bushman describes Joseph Smith sneaking out of town to avoid his creditors and lawsuits.
ACT 3
PERSECUTION
Jeffery Holland says that the Mormons knew what it was like to be hated, and that "their blood had been spread across six states." Mormons have said these kinds of things so long that everyone assumes it's true. It's not. There may have been persecution, but martyrdoms are limited to Missouri and Illinois. Holland is correct that Governor Boggs' "Extermination Order" against the Mormons was unprecedented, but so were some other things that brought it about such as Sidney Rigdon's 4 July 1838 declaration at Far West, Missouri, that Mormons will wage a "war of extermination" against mobs, which in reality was the Missouri state militia (see Stephen C. LeSueur, The 1838 Mormon War in Missouri [Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1987], 49-52).
Truman Madsen mentions the raping, murdering, and plundering of Mormons--all true and deplorable acts. Yet there is little acknowledgement of the Mormon role in the conflict. Jon Butler comes on and expresses perplexity as to why the Mormons should be persecuted, and the best he can come up with is that the Mormons were feared by the Missourians because they didn't understand their new neighbors. I recommend Marvin Hill's Quest for Refuge: The Mormon Flight from American Pluralism (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1989), which discusses how the Mormon quest for theocracy ran sharply up against American ideals and sentiments. The prime irritant was the Mormon mass migration, which translated into political dominance in the region. The first settlers had little choice but to fight or lose everything to the Mormons. Another fear, not brought out in the documentary, was that the Mormons were meddling with the Indians. This fact, combined with Book of Mormon predictions that the Lamanites would unite with believing Gentiles and destroy the ungodly and unrepentant Americans and establish a New Jerusalem theocracy (3 Nephi 20), which Smith located in Independence, Missouri, created a very real danger. So, the idea of persecution merely for one's beliefs is an oversimplification that is made far too often.
Alex Baugh comes on to explain why Mormons were in Independence, Missouri, that it's the location of Zion, the place Jesus will return to. He also very unapologetically states that Jackson County is the location of the Garden of Eden. Non-Mormons will certain hear that will a great deal of skepticism. Bagley gives the important information of why the Missourians were upset with the Mormons.
The narrator states that in response to persecution, the Mormons formed their own Militia, known as God's Army. The documentary mentions the Mormons also destroyed property and attacked native Missourians. In October 1838, the Mormon army marched into Daviess County, driving non-Mormons from their homes, plundering and burning settlements in Gallatin, Millport, and other places.
HAUN'S MILL MASSACRE
It seems Terryl Givens and me are related. I'm sure his great-great aunt who described the massacre and its aftermath was my great-great grand mother Artemisia Myers, daughter of Jacob Myers, the mill's builder and, later the wife of Warren Foote. She wasn't at the mill when it was attacked on 30 October 1838, but by her own account, she had two of her brothers, George and Jacob, who were wounded. The following day she and her mother visited the horrific scene. She too described The part referred to my Givens is as follows:
After we went back to my brother's house my father [Jacob Myers], David Evans and Joseph Young, with one or two more came and gathered up the dead and carried them to my brother's place and put them on a wide board and slid them off feet foremost into a well which he had been digging, but had not yet come to water. Every time they brought one and slid him in I screamed and cried, it was such an awful sight to see them piled in the bottom in all shapes. (typed copy in my possession)
EXTERMINATION ORDER
It's difficult to imagine what could have brought on such a harsh solution, but one can't forget that it was Sidney Rigdon who only three months earlier had declared "a war of extermination" against the state militia.
And that mob that comes on us to disturb us; it shall be between us and tem a war of extermination, for we will follow them, till the last drop of their blood is spilled, or else they will have to exterminate us; for we will carry the seat of war to their own houses, and their own families, and one party or the other shall be utterly destroyed . . . (Oration Delivered by Mr. S. Rigdon on the 4th of July, 1838 [Far West: Printed at the Journal Office, 1838],12; reproduced in BYU Studies 14 [Summer 1974]: 527)
Note that the Mormons themselves printed Rigdon's incendiary oration. I'm not trying to place blame on the Mormons, but the situation that occurred in Missouri was much more complex than at first appears.
There is no mention of Joseph Smith's imprisonment in Liberty jail on charges of treason, his near execution, escape from custody, and fugitive status in Nauvoo.
NAUVOO
Ken Verdonia says Joseph Smith reveals that LDS "can baptize dead members," which might sound to outsiders like Mormons were baptizing dead people. His description of the volatile situation in Nauvoo is very good. However, his account of Joseph Smith fleeing Nauvoo but turning the horse around replaces the more familiar story of is crossing the Mississippi in a leaky boat at night, and returning to Nauvoo only very reluctantly and the insistences of his wife and some followers.