Nevo wrote:These are good questions, harmony.
Thanks. I'm not quite as poorly read as Daniel would have us all believe.
Generally speaking, most early converts were of modest means (i.e., poor). However, as Klaus Hansen points out, "though many [early Mormons], like the Smiths, were beyond the edge of successful, genteel society, they were on the whole better educated than their social or economic position might have suggested. The reason is that many of them were displaced persons whose families had known better times. An outpouring of early Mormon diaries, journals, and letters comprise a popular subliterature pointing to a high degree of literacy of a folk who for the most part made their livings as artisans and farmers" (Klaus J. Hansen, Mormonism and the American Experience [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981], 41).
But were they more gullible than the average?
Hansen also highlights the intellectual appeal of early Mormonism, which "had an internal consistency as well as a kind of common sense rationality that set it very much apart from much of the emotionally infused, nonintellectual emphasis of antebellum American revivalism" (41). More recently, Steven Harper has noted that "the writings of many early converts attest that, at its core, Mormonism owed its persuasive quality to the empirical and revelatory blend by which it simultaneously catered to the metaphysical, rationalistic, and democratic" (Steven C. Harper, "Infallible Proofs, Both Human and Divine: The Persuasiveness of Mormonism for Early Converts," Religion and American Culture 10, no. 1 [2000]: 112).
So it is fair to say they were more apt to be starstruck by a charismatic leader? More apt to abandon the familiar in a search for an easier way?
Returning to the question of the social origins of early Mormons, a recent study has observed that "though the issue of early Mormonism and class merits further study, no evidence yet suggests that poverty was a distinguishing characteristic among the converts, British or American." The author writes: "A breakdown of the British converts’ occupations indicates that the Mormons were quite similar to the general populace of the counties from which they principally came. While the data on the early British Mormons suggest that they were principally “working class,” the data do not indicate that the converts were lower class than British society generally" (Stephen J. Fleming, "The Religious Heritage of the British Northwest and the Rise of Mormonism," Church History 77, no. 1 [2008]: 74-75).
These were the converts who came after though, right? Not the earliest converts, who joined prior to missionaries being sent out?
[qutoe]Regarding the religious origins of the first Mormons, John Brooke has argued that "Mormon converts were drawn from a peculiarly prepared people, families that often had long stood outside the mainstream of New England orthodoxy. These family histories established a cumulative experience of sectarian inclinations, supernatural practice, and continuing migration that together shaped a predisposition to Mormon conversion in the 1830s" (John L. Brooke,
The Refiner's Fire: The Making of Mormon Cosmology, 1644-1844 [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994], 65; see also, Val D. Rust,
Radical Origins: Early Mormon Converts and their Colonial Ancestors).[/quote]
So they had a history of being gullible, of following wild hare ideas?
Also interesting is the remarkable youth of the first wave of converts: "Using Davis Bitton's Guide to Mormon Diaries and Autobiographies (Provo, Utah, 1977), Marvin S. Hill has estimated that 92 percent of those converted before 1846 whose birth and conversion dates are given (211 of 229) were under 40 at the time of baptism. The median age was between 20 and 25; more than 80 percent (182) were 30 or under" (Nathan O. Hatch, The Democratization of American Christianity [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989], 278n193).
So.. they were young.
Thanks, Nevo!
(Nevo, Jan 23) And the Melchizedek Priesthood may not have been restored until the summer of 1830, several months after the organization of the Church.
