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international journal of mormon studies volume 4 2011

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publication details editor david m morris editorial board zachary r jones kim b Östman the international journal of mormon studies is a european based internationally focused peer-reviewed online and printed scholarly journal which is committed to the promotion of interdisciplinary scholarship by publishing articles and reviews of current work in the field of mormon studies with high quality international contributors the journal explores mormon studies and its related subjects in addition ijms provides those who submit manuscripts for publication with useful timely feedback by making the review process constructive to submit a manuscript or review including book reviews please email them for consideration in the first instance to submissions@ijmsonline.org international journal of mormon studies print issn 1757­5532 international journal of mormon studies online issn 1757­5540 published in the united kingdom ©2011 international journal of mormon studies all rights reserved http www.ijmsonline.org

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international journal of mormon studies volume 4 2011 contents publication details ii editorial david m morris v fraud philandery and football negotiating the mormon image terryl l givens 1 the infallibility trap the sacralisation of religious authority walter e a van beek 14 seal cross and nautilus rlds/community of christ art and architecture bryan r monte 45 a home for the saints developments in lds worship accommodation in lancashire england matthew lyman rasmussen 66 we do not make fun of any religion in my newspapers the beaverbrook press coverage of mormon stories in britain 1912­1964 peter vousden 108 one-hundred years of solitude mormonism in italy 1867­1964 eric r dursteler 119 review ­ the book of mormon a very short introduction mauro properzi 149

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review ­ innocent blood essential narratives of the mountain meadows massacre bernadette rigal-cellard 154 review ­ in the whirlpool carter charles 162 review ­ mormonen und staatsburger ingrid sherlock-taselaar 169 review ­ on zion s mount mormons indians and the american landscape irén annus 173 review ­ southern paiute a profile zachary r jones 175 review ­ svoboda sovesti v rossii istoricheskii i sovremennyi aspekty vol 6 jeffrey s hardy 181 article contributors 185

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editorial david m morris editor once again it is with great pleasure that we publish another issue of the international journal of mormon studies ijms this issue brings together a combination of scholars from different parts of the world and academic disciplines drawn from mormon and non­ mormon perspectives the articles found herein provide interesting insights to mormonism globally encouraging further attention and examination following on from the successful european mormon studies association emsa conference in tilburg the netherlands 2010 we publish a number of the papers that were presented during that conference as well as publishing direct submissions these include papers from walter e a van beek eric r dursteler terryl l givens bryan r monte matthew l rasmussen and peter vousden accompanying these articles is a number of reviewed books including those of non-english publication which supports the expanding international dimension of mormon studies we as always extend our appreciation to those who took time to blind peer-review articles that have been submitted for publication we hope as an editorial board that you will enjoy the contents of this issue.

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fraud philandery and football negotiating the mormon image 1 terryl l givens speaking of that new religious phenomenon known as mormonism charles dickens gave his opinion in 1851 that `what the mormons do seems to be excellent what they say is mostly nonsense 2 with those two lines dickens managed to succinctly capture the contemporary perception of mormonism but he also provided a cogent key to understanding the public s engagement with this religion that continues to the present day his observation has proven relevant through three fairly distinct phases of public perception that mormonism has passed through which we could roughly demarcate as fraud philandery and football after surveying those phases i will conclude by considering how mormonism might conceivably break free of the stage it has been stuck in for one hundred years and forge a new relationship to the public eye phase i fraud e b howe/spaulding theory 1830­1850s in 1834 eber d howe published mormonism unvailed a faithful account of that singular imposition and delusion it was the first and one of the most widely circulated and influential of all nineteenth century books published on the church of jesus christ of latter-day saints this was the book that laid out two related theories that would dominate discourse about mormonism for the first few decades joseph was a fraud and the book of mormon was a theft from solomon spaulding his book chronicles `the fooleries and forgeries and lies of 1 this article was originally delivered at the emsa 2010 conference in tilburg the netherlands and later presented at the byu mormon media studies symposium in the present form 2 charles dickens `in the name of the prophet smith household words 19 july 1851 p 385.

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2 international journal of mormon studies jo smith in order to expose in a becoming manner the falsehoods which have been interwoven for the purposes of fraud and deception an entire line of books and pamphlets followed suit several stories circulated in confirmation of smith s fraudulence warren foote recorded in 1835 that a methodist preacher in greenwood new york related the following story `on a certain occasion j smith proclaimed that he would perform a miracle the next sabbath by walking on the water accordingly he went to work and fixed some planks on some posts just under the water of a pond after all things were arranged some fellows went in the night and sawed his planks nearly in two when sunday came a multitude came to gather to witness the miracle when the hour appointed arrived joe smith walked boldly into the water and on reaching the middle of his last plank down he went and came nearly being drowned before he could be got out 3 both the new york times and the chicago tribune later reprinted the story another fable circulated by henry caswell had it that smith upon being shown a greek psalter pronounced it to be a dictionary of egyptian hieroglyphics before being told the real nature of the book so smith was a fake and the victims of mormonism were gullible and credulous by means of such representations the content of smith s message was effectively rendered unworthy of serious consideration the labels invalidated the message without a hearing even otherwise good historians long bought into the scenario of mormonism as largely appealing to bumpkins and the uneducated in actual fact recent scholarship has shown that is not an accurate characterization for instance of the first 80 converts to the fledgling faith identified by profession eleven were schoolteachers and fifteen were doctors or lawyers.4 to counter this pervasive image latter-day saints initially did very little by way of published response this was in large measure because an 1831 revelation had declared `wherefore confound your enemies call upon them to meet you both in public and in private and inasmuch as ye are faithful their shame shall be made manifest d&c 90:2 [1835 so mormons did a lot of public debating with mixed results 3 autobiography of warren foote 3 vols mesa dale arnold foote 1997 vol 1 pp 5­6 4 improvement era 53 1950 no 12.

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fraud philandery and football 3 in parley pratt s 1832 mission with william mclellin for example he boasts of demolishing in debate a baptist minister by the name of dotson who opposed his work in greene county illinois dotson apparently finding himself out of his league as a debater appealed to the baptist missionary extraordinaire john mason peck for support against mormon inroads as pratt admitted in the aftermath of the debate `we baptized only a few of the people 5 in 1840 on the isle of man john taylor was challenged to debate by one reverend thomas hamilton who had accused the mormon of dishonesty and blasphemy taylor accepted the invitation and the market hall where the debate was held was filled to capacity according to the manx liberal a local newspaper as soon as the reverend hamilton proceeded it soon became apparent that he was a mere braggadocia possessing no qualifications save ignorance and presumption he made not even the most distant allusion in reference to the gross and unfounded charges he had pledged himself to prove 6 but the mormons didn t always come off victorious jump back to 1838 and pratt s new york mission he had arrived in the city the previous summer in the aftermath of the kirtland implosion six months of labor and precious few converts to show for his work he wrote from july to january we preached advertised printed published testified visited talked prayed and wept in vain to all appearance there was no interest or impression on the minds of the people in regard to the fulness of the gospel we had hired chapels and advertised but the people would not hear and the few who came went away without being interested 7 there may have been some connection between his lack of success and a well-attended public encounter pratt had in these months with the redoubtable origen bachelor usual adversaries of mormon missionaries were local relatively untrained and ordinary clergymen bachelor was a pro having for example debated religion in ten letters with robert dale owen the freethinking son of robert owen in 1831 more recently he had parley p pratt autobiography ed by scot facer proctor and maurine jensen proctor salt lake city deseret book 2000 p 109 6 john taylor letter to the editor february 27 1841 millennial star 1 march 1841 pp 276­280 7 pratt autobiography pp 211­212 5

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4 international journal of mormon studies been writing articles for alexander campbell s millennial harbinger.8 bachelor was soon to be known in fact as `the great goliath and champion of the cross 9 and was invested enough in debunking mormonism to publish a book on the subject in 1838.10 pratt did not record the results most likely because he did not come off very well but the detroit tribune did they reported that in this celebrated discussion mr bacheler proved two contentions first that solomon spaulding was the true author of the book of mormon having written a work that sidney rigdon plagiarized and attributed to joseph smith second that professor charles anthon of columbia college had discredited the book of mormon plates as having been so arranged and engraved for the purpose of deception and confusion to these various facts and charges the journalist declared poor parley p pratt made a feeble reply and utterly failed to controvert the proofs produced by mr bachelor 11 bachelor himself gave more details in his subsequent exposé of mormonism alarmed at the degree of public attention pratt s preaching had excited he challenged the elder to a public discussion which turned into a marathon debate pratt withstood bachelor s attacks for three consecutive days but on the fourth he tried to withdraw protesting that his adversary was ridiculing the book of mormon under pressure from the audience pratt agreed to continue but objected again on the sixth evening when bacheler impugned the character of smith rigdon and others they sparred a while longer but in the very heat of the battle pratt beat a retreat and left poor old mormon to take care of himself not wanting to lose the momentum he had gained bacheler origen bacheler and robert dale owen discussion on the existence of god and the authenticity of the bible london james watson 1853 9 charles knowlton speech of dr charles knowlton in support of materialism against the argument of origen bacheler the great goliath and champion of the cross philadelphia 1838 10 origen bacheler mormonism exposed internally and externally new york 1838 11 the debate was described only long after the fact in `the mormon church the detroit tribune 1 february 1872 excerpt cited in rudolph etzenhouser from palmyra to independence 1894 pp 269­70 article republished in full in chicago tribune xxv.180 4 february 1872 both cited in `uncle dale s readings in early mormon history http www.sidneyrigdon.com/dbroadhu/il/mischig.htm 8

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fraud philandery and football 5 continued to regale the crowd for two more evenings pratt had neither the experience nor the popularity of an origen bacheler and found himself outmatched this incident is illuminating because it so perfectly illustrates this first phase of mormonism s public image pratt realized that he couldn t win against ridicule and defamation he too succumbed to the tried and proven technique of mocking the man and evading the message time and again this was a winning strategy for the antimormons the lesson would not be lost on pratt as we will see later but one might say that it was on his fellow mormons phase ii coercion white slavery and brainwashing ­ 1850­1890s a second phase of the public relations battles opened up in the 1850s with the advent of publicly acknowledged polygamy polygamy like the charge of fraud was a tremendously powerful distraction like smith s alleged con gimmicks plural marriage was good for ribald humor cartoons continued the tradition of reducing mormonism to a simple joke from brother brigham in bed with a dozen mrs youngs to an eager polygamist who saves himself arduous courtships by making a collective proposal to the collective widow gloverson mormonism was not to be taken too seriously the image of the mormon polygamist like the image of the prophet-fraud allowed a facile dismissal of the religion in its entirety but there was another more malevolent side to popular depictions of polygamy which took two forms first once the laughter of initial depictions faded a stream of literature linked plural marriage to various forms of coercion the evil eye mesmerism hypnotism the administration of drugs and blatant violence all became the modus operandi of fictive polygamists the psychology was fairly transparent mormons could achieve conversion like plural marriages only be circumventing the will to put it in other terms popular portrayals assured american readers that mormonism had no power to persuade them it could only take its victims by coercion physical or mental thus the american public preserved a comforting sense of moral distance from this viper on the hearth as a cosmopolitan article denominated the religion once again the end result was a lack of serious engagement with mormon theology with mormon scripture or with mormon practices that extended beyond the marital system mormon resort to coercion was proof that they too recognized their

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6 international journal of mormon studies message was not really worthy of thoughtful consideration by the public a second pattern was to further insulate the public from the fear of this viper on the hearth by depicting mormons in ways that created a false sense of radical difference they dressed different like caped cavaliers or klansmen they talked different like elizabethan gentlemen and they looked different ­ usually like orientals the illusion of their radical otherness created the comforting fiction that mormons were different enough to be easily recognized and safely avoided that they would never get close enough to the american hearth to contaminate or seduce even science joined in the attempt to construct mormons as distinctively even racially different in a meeting of the new orleans academy of sciences in 1861 dr samuel cartwright and prof c g forshey gave a paper using parts of a report made by assistant surgeon roberts bartholow of the u.s army on the effects and tendencies of mormon polygamy in the territory of utah 12 the findings described characteristics of a new racial type at least as reported by bartholow attached to the army corps sent to utah from fort leavenworth in the expedition known as the utah war bartholow was charged with reporting on diseases and topography incident to their travels once in the territory he turned his attention from local flora and fauna to the mormon of all the human animals now walking this globe the most curious in every relation isolated in the narrow valleys of utah he observed and practising [sic the rites of a religion grossly material of which polygamy is the main element and cohesive force the mormon people have arrived at a physical and mental condition in a few years of growth such as densely-populated communities in the older parts of the world hereditary victims of all the vices of civilization have been ages in reaching this condition he continued was characterized by what he saw as evidence of general debilitation high percentage of female births and infant mortality more surprisingly perhaps he insisted that the morstanley ivins `note on mormon polygamy western humanities review 10 summer 1956 pp 238­39 12

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fraud philandery and football 7 mons shared numerous physiological features so much so in fact as to be constitutive of a new human type and while bartholow was not as confident as the new orleans physicians that polygamy was the culprit he was as certain as they that a new race had evolved this condition is shown by the large proportion of albuminous and gelatinous types of constitution and by the striking uniformity in facial expression and in physical conformation of the younger portion of the community the yellow sunken cadaverous visage the greenish-colored eyes the thick protuberant lips the low forehead the light yellowish hair and the lank angular person constitute an appearance so characteristic of the new race the production of polygamy as to distinguish them at a glance the older men and women present all the physical peculiarities of the nationalities to which they belong but these peculiarities are not propagated and continued in the new race they are lost in the prevailing type 13 ironically what strikes a modern audience as transparent and ridiculous attempts to create a new ethnicity actually worked today mormons have their own entry in the harvard encyclopedia of ethnic groups one surprising fact about these early phases of mormon representation is that mormons have been complicit with their public portrayal in the first and second phases they largely played defense missionaries fanned out to counter what they perceived as misrepresentations of joseph smith the book of mormon was not read on its own terms or for its doctrinal content instead it was largely subordinated to the task of serving as visible emblem of joseph s prophetic calling little effort was made to plumb or communicate the content of the scripture itself and in 1852 brigham young dispatched the foremost intellect of mid-century mormonism orson pratt to defend and debate the practice of plural marriage it was hard to move on to other topics when the mormons agreed to focus their intellectual energies on the topic of greatest prurient interest to other americans surgeon general s office statistical report on the sickness and mortality in the army of the united states washington d.c george w bowman 1860 pp 301­302 13

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8 international journal of mormon studies but there were ironically two principal advantages which mormons derived from all the negative publicity first the depiction of the mormons into an alien people with distinctive cultural mores and practices played into mormon aspirations to forge a community with a powerful sense of its own identity a covenant nation a people apart second the narrative of perpetual persecution has always served as an index of god s special favor victimhood and blessedness have always been close companions phase iii triumph of culture 1890s the decisive turning point in mormonism s contemporary image occurred with such suddenness that we can trace it to the very week and year it came about toward the end of 1893 in that year the mormons were persuaded to participate in the great columbian exposition at the chicago world s fair the result of the lds church s participation was to set in stone a dual public consciousness regarding mormonism the world s fair was unprecedented in scope it covered 600 acres involved hundreds of specially constructed buildings and exhibition halls and was attended by over 27 million people a major incentive for mormon participation was a much heralded choral competition organized by the welsh called an eisteddfod the tabernacle choir was relatively young and unpracticed in choral competitions but their director evan stephens was eventually persuaded that they had a real chance at a medal the obtained first presidency approval raised funds and made the trip to chicago it was a historic return to the east for the first time in 50 years a mormon delegation accompanied by their mormon prophet walked among fellow americans east of the rockies the mormons were transitioning out of their polygamous phase but still a few years away from securing statehood public sentiment was still generally adverse to mormons in chicago on friday september 8 in front of packed crowds the tabernacle choir dazzled the audience and the judges alike to win the silver medal in the grand choral competition the general consensus of mormon and gentile was that they had actually earned the gold overnight they were the recipients of rapturous acclaim suddenly they became america s sweetheart they were invited to provide the patriotic music for the placement of the liberty bell at the chicago exposition their farewell concert was standing room only,

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fraud philandery and football 9 journalists raved to a receptive public about the singing sensation and concert promoters lobbied the choir to tour the east suddenly mormons were not just legitimate they were popular and then a funny thing happened on the way to the festivities in conjunction with the grandiose columbian exposition organizers had planned a world s parliament of religion for september 11­22 1893 in order to promote and deepen the spirit of human brotherhood among religious men of diverse faiths over three thousand invitations had been sent worldwide to bring together representatives of every world faith and christian denomination in a momentous gesture of interfaith respect and dialogue many faiths were underrepresented but only one group was deliberately and conspicuously left out altogether and that was not unpredictably the mormons learning of the parliament feisty mormon intellectual and seventy b h roberts began to lobby church members and leaders to demand a seat at the table initially they were reluctant they were rather used to not being invited to the party and felt protest would be futile and undignified finally mere weeks before the event the first presidency petitioned the parliament chair charles bonney they then dispatched roberts in person roberts was ready for a brawl and he got one he learned that the lds proposal did not have committee support but persistently appealed to basic principles of fair play a bare two weeks before the parliament convened the organizers relented and granted the mormons provisional representation conditional on acceptance of a paper proposal as the opening ceremonies approached they gave permission the parliament began on monday the 11th of september taoists and zoroastrians unitarians and swedenborgians and more than a hundred others made presentations over ensuing days then without warning roberts was informed that he could not present his paper on mormonism in the conference hall he could if he wished do so in a small room off a side street away from the main event justifiably indignant roberts refused what i am most interested in from the perspective of a history of the mormon media image is the lesson church members and officials gleaned from this decisive week in chicago one minute mormons won silver medals and were america s darling the next minute in the same venue they were once again demeaned marginalized silenced reid neilson in his forthcoming history of the chicago exposition frames the lesson learned this way lds administrators realized the importance from a public relations perspective of

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