Vogel responds to Brian Hales

[Kishkumen]

There's a form of survivors bias in viewing the church as having some special quality beyond what one observes in other communities with charismatic leaders. I'd argue the church's survival out of its organizational infancy is due to a combination of factors, of which Smith having the right person come along whose abilities proved essential being critical.

Organizations/cultural movements are subject to survival pressures akin to species being subject to environmental pressures that have similar evolutionary effects. In the case of organizations those pressures change much more quickly, requiring much greater adaptive agility for new organizations to grow to a size they can weather shocks.

In the case of Mormonism, the Book of Mormon project was dead in the water until Cowdery arrived. Without Cowdery and the Whitmer family there would have been no Mormon church, period.

But without the arrival of Sidney Rigdon the church wouldn't have survived, either. Smith dropped Cowdery as his right hand for Rigdon and the organization divided geographically and, in part, in leadership.

That split proved fortuitous when the Smith/Rigdon group in Kirkland imploded, allowing Smith/Rigdon to oust the Cowdery/Whitmer leadership of the other, more matured branch and assume sole leadership to see the organization survive.

Some would see Gods hand in that. I see history.

All great points, honor.