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Methodists' 1828 Rejection of JSJr
Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2012 4:02 pm
by _sock puppet
Madison54 has pointed out in the Donny on "Anti-Mormon" Stories thread that JSJr's 1828 attempt to join the Methodist Church was rejected because JSJr was "a practicing necromancer, a dealer in enchantments and bleeding ghosts".
JSJr was told by Joseph Lewis and Joshua McKune (local Methodist preacher) that
his occupation, habits, and moral character were at variance with the discipline, that his name would be a disgrace to the [Methodist] church, that there should have been recantation, confession and at least promised reformation-. That he could that day publicly ask that his name be stricken from the class book, or stand an investigation. He chose the former, and did that very day make the request that his name be taken off the class book.
The Amboy Journal, June 11, 1879, p.1.
Granted, this was reported 51 years later. But does the LDS Church have any denials by JSJr or those close to him in June 1828 that he did not do this?
Seems quite congruent with then a year later writing his own scriptural text, and then a year after that starting his own church.
Re: Methodists' 1828 Rejection of JSJr
Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2012 4:07 pm
by _lulu
Question:
Willard Chase was a treasure hunter, Methodist Elder and Exhorter. As far as we know, without problems.
Joseph Smith, treasure hunter, was invited to leave his Methodist class.
Why?
Re: Methodists' 1828 Rejection of JSJr
Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2012 4:17 pm
by _sock puppet
lulu wrote:Question:
Willard Chase was a treasure hunter, Methodist Elder and Exhorter. As far as we know, without problems.
Joseph Smith, treasure hunter, was invited to leave his Methodist class.
Why?
Did Willard Chase's activities in hunting for treasure stop short of rising to the level of 'practicing necromancy' and 'dealing in enchantments and bleeding ghosts'?
Re: Methodists' 1828 Rejection of JSJr
Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2012 4:17 pm
by _Chap
I was going to ask what the Amboy Journal's source was for the statements made by Joseph Lewis.
But I find, by looking at the original (thanks Uncle Dale!), that the article published in 1879 was written by Joseph Lewis himself, recounting what happened when he was a young man of 21 - about 18 months younger than was Joseph Smith himself at the time the incident referred to took place,
http://www.sidneyrigdon.com/dbroadhu/IL ... htm#061179So this is first hand testimony.
Re: Methodists' 1828 Rejection of JSJr
Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2012 4:21 pm
by _lulu
sock puppet wrote:Did Willard Chase's activities in hunting for treasure stop short of rising to the level of 'practicing necromancy' and 'dealing in enchantments and bleeding ghosts'?
I've never found anything more specific about Willard Chase.
So I'm trolling for research help 
.
But I don't think you can exclude Chase's treasures from having guardian spirits.
But I think you've focused the issue SP
Re: Methodists' 1828 Rejection of JSJr
Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2012 4:47 pm
by _Joe Geisner
Madison did a great job with her source. This has been a real thorn in the side of apologists and they try an come up with nonsense answers: "Joseph was just doing this to make his in-laws happy." What nonsense. If God or angels tell you to not join a Church, you follow them. Throughout history we have religious figures give up their lives for less of a vision than Smith claims!
I think SP is correct. It was pretty disturbing to the folks in Harmony to have someone claim they had met with dead people who gave them gold plates. And these were not just any gold plates, these were plates that would replace the Bible.
At this point, Joseph had been asked to show the plates to Emma's relatives and he could not come up with the plates. So his trust worthiness with his own in-laws was not very high.
Re: Methodists' 1828 Rejection of JSJr
Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2012 4:57 pm
by _Cicero
Joe Geisner wrote:Madison did a great job with her source. This has been a real thorn in the side of apologists and they try an come up with nonsense answers: "Joseph was just doing this to make his in-laws happy." What nonsense. If God or angels tell you to not join a Church, you follow them. Throughout history we have religious figures give up their lives for less of a vision than Smith claims!
I think SP is correct. It was pretty disturbing to the folks in Harmony to have someone claim they had met with dead people who gave them gold plates. And these were not just any gold plates, these were plates that would replace the Bible.
At this point, Joseph had been asked to show the plates to Emma's relatives and he could not come up with the plates. So his trust worthiness with his own in-laws was not very high.
Joe: Do you find the source credible? It is a first-hand account, but the fact that it was 50 years after the fact gives me pause.
Note that I fully recognize that apologists tend to be wildly inconsistent in their treatment of sources (i.e., contemporary critical sources are often dismissed while later faith-promoting accounts are deemed more accurate).
Re: Methodists' 1828 Rejection of JSJr
Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2012 5:12 pm
by _Joe Geisner
Cicero wrote:
Joe: Do you find the source credible? It is a first-hand account, but the fact that it was 50 years after the fact gives me pause.
Note that I fully recognize that apologists tend to be wildly inconsistent in their treatment of sources (i.e., contemporary critical sources are often dismissed while later faith-promoting accounts are deemed more accurate).
I will have to do some checking, but I believe there is at least one other source of his attending Methodist school.
Even apologist have tried to minimize the damage this attendance has caused. I will see what I can find.
Re: Methodists' 1828 Rejection of JSJr
Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2012 5:40 pm
by _Madison54
Here are some of the other sources listed:
For more information on Joseph and Hiel Lewis and Michael Morse, relatives of Emma Smith, see Early Mormon Documents, compiled by Dan Vogel, Vol. 4, pp. 298-306; The Rise of Mormonism: 1816-1844, by H. Michael Marquardt, p. 61, 136-7; RLDS Saints Herald, Dec. 15, 1879, p. 376. Also see BYU prof. Marvin S. Hill's letter to the editor, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Spring 1983, p. 6. Another LDS historian, Richard L. Bushman, referred to Smith's involvement with the Methodists in his book, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling, Knopf, 2005, pp. 69-70.
I don't know if those are just sources restating what has already been posted, but I'll try and check too.
Re: Methodists' 1828 Rejection of JSJr
Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2012 5:51 pm
by _Joe Geisner
With just a bit of checking, I learned that we have three different people giving accounts of Smith being a member of the class.
We have two Lewis brothers, Hiel and Joseph who gave five interviews among the two. These are found in Dan Vogel's EMD vol. 3: 299-316
The third person is Michael Morse who also gave his in 1879.
It seems these 1879 statements happened because of two RLDS leaders who first did the interviews and then published rejoinders.
Mike Marquardt points out astutely in his Rise of Mormonism that it makes complete sense that both Emma and Joseph would seek comfort from the Methodists since they had just lost their fist child to a birth that produced a deformed child who died either at birth or was still born. This was the child who was supposed to translate the sealed portion of the Book of Mormon. Some speculate this is the child that was conceived the night Joseph and Emma went to the hill Cumorah in Joseph Knights buckboard to retrieve the plates. On many levels this was supposed to be a very special child.