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Ordering Antinomy: An Analysis of Early Mormonism's Priestly Offices, Councils, and Kinship

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 June 2018

Kathleen Flake
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Abstract

Mormonism's founder Joseph Smith created a complex and hieratic priestly structure within a radically democratizing nation. His stated goal was to convey to all the faithful what he believed to be his own powers of prophecy and priestly mediation of divine presence. Thus, out of historiographic arguments about where to place Mormonism within the narrative of antebellum religious polity there arises a potentially more essential question: how did early Mormonism sustain any structural coherence, much less the order it was famous for? This essay argues that Smith avoided the atomization of his movement by creating three power structures and assigning every believer a status in each. Thus, status was not absolute or static: it shifted as the person moved among the three sites of power. Or, in other words, the degree and nature of the authority held by anyone at any give time was particular to the locus of the power – office, council, or kinship – not the person. These shifting status relationships stabilized Mormonism's potentially self-destructive antinomianism and, as a historiographical matter, have been mistaken for populism. The power struggles this occasioned within his movement, particularly over Smith's inclusion of women in his priestly hierarchy, weakened his vision of reciprocal authority and shifting jurisdiction. Compromised by romanticized gender norms, but not abandoned, this power structure continues to constitute the governing structure of Mormonism, leaving it still republican in style, not substance. Historiographically, it is hoped that this closer analysis of Mormonism's polity illuminates the existence of alternatives to regnant tropes on the nature of antebellum religion and contributes to better understanding of the means by which at least one perfectionist religion has survived notwithstanding its radically antinomian tendencies.

Keywords

MormonismpowergenderDemocratizationpolygamy
Type
Research Article
Information
Religion and American Culture , Volume 26 , Issue 2 , Summer 2016 , pp. 139 - 183
Copyright
Copyright © Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture 2016

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References

Notes

I am indebted to Bradley Kime and Jared Halvorson for their critical reading of and very able editorial contribution to this article. I am indebted also to Brigham Young University's Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for a 1997 student research grant that resulted in the initial articulation of some of the ideas basic to this essay and collected in Archive of Restoration Culture: Summer Fellows’ Papers, 1997-1999 (Provo, Utah: Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Latter-day Saint History, 2000), 1-8.

1. Matthew 18:20 (KJV).

2. Hatch, Nathan O., The Democratization of American Christianity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989).Google Scholar

3. Smith, Timothy L., “Righteousness and Hope: Christian Holiness and the Millennial Vision in America, 1800–1900,” American Quarterly 31, (Spring 1979): 21–45 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. While this “multi-faceted perfectionism” was often overtaken by more realistic visions of institutional change and even exploited to serve economic interests, it remained a characteristic force in certain elements of mainline Protestantism into the twentieth century. See Wacker, Grant, “The Holy Spirit and the Spirit of the Age in American Protestantism, 1880–1910,” Journal of American History 72, (June 1985): 45–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4. Sermon, 62, “The End of Christ's Coming,” in Wesley, John, The Essential Works of John Wesley, ed. Russie, Alice (Uhrichsville, OH: Barbour Books, 2011)Google Scholar. Of course, to the list of perfectionists must be added such communal movements as the Shakers, Oneidans, and several Pietistic groups of the mid-Atlantic region.

5. Others have countered Hatch's characterization of Mormonism without displacing its interpretive dominance, most substantively, Hill, Marvin S., Quest for Refuge: The Mormon Flight from American Pluralism (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1989)Google Scholar, and most recently, Park, Benjamin E., “Early Mormon Patriarchy and the Paradoxes of Democratic Religiosity in Jacksonian America,” American Nineteenth-Century History 14, (2013): 183–208.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Hill believes Mormonism was perhaps the most fundamental chiliastic repudiation of democratic society in antebellum America. Park believes Mormonism was an embodiment of rather than an escape from democratic society, but that neither Hatch nor Hill captures the egalitarian and patriarchal cross-pressures inherent in democratization and inflected by Mormonism. In both descriptions, theocratic authority prevails, whether before Smith's death (Hill) or after (Park). But how theocratic authority brokered its own antinomian dispersal without breaking apart remains to be analyzed.

6. Hatch, Democratization, 186.

7. Ibid., 121. Originally titled the “Church of Christ,” the church’s name was changed in 1838 to “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” and today prefers that the entire title be used in reference to it. This strong preference appears to be in response to internecine debates about its status as Christian. http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/style-guide With no intention of participating in that debate and for convenience sake only, this paper will use the short “LDS Church” to refer to the organizational expression of dominant institution within the nineteenthcentury Mormon movement.

8. Noll, Mark A., America's God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9. Davis, David Brion, “The New England Origins of Mormonism,” New England Quarterly 26, (June 1953): 154.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10. Smith, , “Righteousness and Hope,” 21 Google Scholar, regarding Hatch, Nathan O., The Sacred Cause of Liberty: Republican Thought and the Millennium in Revolutionary New England (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977).Google Scholar

11. Such are not the historiographical concerns animating more recent responses to Hatch and Noll. Amanda Porterfield and John Lardas Modern interrogate, instead, antebellum agency as a discursive illusion and antebellum religion as a dependent variable in various arrangements of power—pulling up the roots rather than reappraising the branches (as I do) of democratization and republicanism. Their respective selections of Hatch and Noll for sustained engagement signal the continuing interpretive influence of those senior scholars, but this article does not join their inquisition into the constructions and coercions of the religious and the secular. Rather, reaching beyond the same historiography of antebellum American religion, the primary goal of this article is to consider a different religious studies question that arises from the nonpopulist and noncommonsensical nature of the Mormon movement. Porterfield, Amanda, Conceived in Doubt: Religion and Politics in the New American Nation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Modern, John Lardas, Secularism in Antebellum America : with reference to ghosts, Protestant subcultures, machines, and their metaphors: featuring discussions of mass media, Moby-Dick, spirituality, phrenology, anthropology, Sing Sing State Penitentiary, and sex with the new motive power (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011).Google Scholar

12. Ralph Waldo Emerson, as quoted in Thayer, James Bradley, A Western Journey with Mr. Emerson (Boston: Little, Brown, 1884)Google Scholar, reprinted in Mulder, William and Mortensen, A. Russell, eds., Among the Mormons: Historic Accounts by Contemporary Observers (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1958), 384.Google Scholar

13. More recently, Davis's conclusion has been supported with data showing actual relationships between radical Puritans and the early converts to Mormonism. See Rust, Val D., Radical Origins: Early Mormon Converts and Their Colonial Ancestors (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2004)Google Scholar. Based on the genealogies of early converts to Mormonism baptized between 1830 and 1835, Rust demonstrates that Mormonism's original population was to a statistically significant degree descended from persons who had either been expelled from Massachusetts Bay for heresy, belonged to radical religious groups, or lived in regions of New England characterized by unorthodox belief.

14. I am aware that “kinship” has been a contested term of art, especially among anthropologists, for more than a century. I do not pretend to contribute anything to that debate and confess to a purely vernacular use of the term in this study. For an introduction to the general parameters and history of the debate concerning kinship as a cultural construct, see, for example, Godelier, Maurice, Trautmann, Thomas R., and Fat, Franklin E. Tjon Sie, eds, Transformations of Kinship (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1998)Google Scholar and, for a proposal to solve the dilemma, see Sahlins, Marshall, What Kinship Is—And Is Not, (Chicago: University of Chicago, 2013).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

15. Smith, Joseph Jr., comp., A Book of Commandments, For the Government of the Church of Christ, Organized According to the Law, on the 6th of April, 1830 (Zion [Independence], MO: W. W. Phelps, 1833), 24: 2–3 Google Scholar (hereafter referred to as Commandments [1833]). The most accessible version of the original is available in facsimile reprints in Jensen, Robin Scott, Woodford, Robert J., and Harper, Steven C., eds., Manuscript Revelation Books, facsimile ed. Revelations and Translations series of The Joseph Smith Papers, vol. 1, ed. by Jessee, Dean C., Esplin, Ronald K., and Bushman, Richard Lyman (Salt Lake City: Church Historian's Press, 2009), 74–87 (hereafter referred to as Manuscript Revelation Books)Google Scholar. The modern, standardized version of this text is Section 20 of Smith, Joseph Jr., comp., Doctrine and Covenants of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: Containing Revelations Given to Joseph Smith, the Prophet, with Some Additions by His Successors in the Presidency of the Church (Salt Lake City: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1981), http://scriptures.lds.org/en/dc/contents (hereafter referred to as D&C).Google Scholar

16. Not until 1838 did the church successfully distinguish itself from other similarly named churches by adopting the name “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” In 1830, the six persons designated for purposes of legal incorporation were Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery (his scribe for the Book of Mormon), Joseph Smith's brothers Hyrum and Samuel H. Smith, and David and Peter Whitmer, Jr., whose father's log cabin provided the site for official incorporation proceedings.

17. Manuscript Revelation Books, 225; Commandments (1833), 1:4; Smith, Joseph Jr., trans., The Book of Mormon: An Account Written by the Hand of Mormon, Upon Plates Taken from the Plates of Nephi (Palmyra, N.Y.: E. B. Grandin, 1830), 36–37, 485–88, 498 (hereafter referred to as Book of Mormon)Google Scholar. In the contemporary version of the Book of Mormon (which will be used hereafter), the cited references to “fullness” are found at 1 Nephi 15:13; 2 Nephi 16:10; 20:28.

18. Commandments (1833), 15:35.

19. The most thorough analysis of the historical origins and evolution of these offices is found in Prince, Gregory A., Power from on High: The Development of Mormon Priesthood (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1995), 47–62.Google Scholar

20. Commandments (1833), 24:61.

21. “History of Joseph Smith,” Times and Seasons 4 (December 1, 1842): 22.

22. Ibid., 1:85–86.

23. The summary of conference proceedings and quotations from its minutes are from Richey, Russell E., Early American Methodism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991), 78 Google Scholar; quoting Sweet, William Warrant , ed., The Rise of Methodism in the West: Being the Journal of the Western Conference, 1800–1811 (New York and Cincinnati: The Methodist Book Concern; Nashville and Dallas: Smith and Lamar, 1920), 100–109.Google Scholar

24. Ibid., 76.

25. Ibid., 7. The emphasis here on the commonalities between Methodist and LDS conferences is not meant to deny obvious differences experienced by the early practitioners of these religions. See, for example, the comments of Mosiah Hancock, a young Latter-day Saint who attended Methodist meetings in Missouri in the mid-1830s: “Once I was permitted to go to a Methodist Camp Meeting, and I used to think it funny to see them pass the hat to get money. I could not help contrasting the way they had of conducting their meeting to that of the Latter-day Saints. While our meetings are conducted with singing and prayer and intellectual talks, theirs were conducted, ‘Come to the Anxious Seat,’ ‘Come to Jesus.’ … I did go four nights in succession. I used to think that if the Saints ranted and howled like these people, what a host of people we might have in our Church someday.” Mosiah Lyman Hancock, Autobiography (1834–1865), Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah, http://www.boap.org/LDS/Early-Saints/MHancock.html. Cf. Jones, Christopher C., “‘We Latter-Day Saints Are Methodists’: The Influence of Methodism on Early Mormon Religiosity” (Master's thesis, Brigham Young University, 2009).Google Scholar

26. Richey, Early American Methodism, 149.

27. Stevens, Abel, Supplemental History of American Methodism: A Continuation of the Author's Abridged History of American Methodism (New York: Eaton and Mains, 1899), 149.Google Scholar

28. Perry, William Stevens, The General Ecclesiastical Constitution of the American Church: Its History and Rationale (New York: Thomas Whittaker, 1891), 285 Google Scholar.

29. Ibid., 282.

30. Smith, Horace Wemyss, Life and Correspondence of the Reverend William Smith, D.D. (Philadelphia: Ferguson Bros., 1880)Google Scholar, quoted in Manross, William Wilson, The Episcopal Church in the United States: 1800–1840; A Study in Church Life (1938; repr., New York: AMS Press, 1967), 41 Google Scholar.

31. Manross, Episcopal Church, 42.

32. Starkweather, John, The Object and Importance of a Church Covenant: A Sermon (Providence: Philanthropic Press, 1833), 11.Google Scholar Admittedly, this single reference is a wholly inadequate treatment of antebellum Protestant debates on the nature of the church and their relation to a rising “disdain for the ‘metaphysical.’” Holifield, E. Brooks, Theology in America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 156.Google Scholar For the history of American ecclesiastical covenants themselves, see Weir, David A., Early New England: A Covenanted Society (Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans, 2005)Google Scholar. See, especially, his discussion in chapters 4-6, which confirms Holifield's conclusion that “the history of theology in seventeenthcentury New England [is properly depicted] as a troubled progression marked by continual dispute, often grounded in disagreements about the covenant.” Holifield, Theology in America, 42, and more generally, 127–56.

33. Wood, Gordon S., The Radicalism of the American Revolution (New York: Knopf, 1992)Google Scholar.

34. Johnson, Benjamin F., My Life's Review (Independence, Mo.: Zion's Printing and Publishing Co., 1947), 17.Google Scholar

35. Manuscript Revelation Books, 225; Commandments (1833), 1:4 (D&C 1:17, 22).

36. Commandments (1833), 1:4 D&C 1:19–20.While my emphasis here is on ecclesiastical structure, it is important to remember that the prophetic ideal to “speak in the name of God” was not merely a matter of status vis-à-vis other persons, but a degree of holiness or increased capacity to be in relation to God. It offered the promise “to commune with the general assembly and church of the Firstborn [or the saints in heaven], and to enjoy the communion and presence of God the Father, and Jesus the mediator of the new covenant.” See Smith, Joseph, History, 1838–1856, vol. C-1 [2 November 1838–31 July 1842] http://josephsmithpapers.org/paperSummary/history-1838-1856-volume-c-1-2-november-1838-31-july-1842?p=559.Google Scholar

37. Manuscript Revelation Books, 27; Book of Mormon, Mosiah 8:15–16; Commandments (1833), 22:4–5 (D&C 21:4–5).

38. Proctor, Scot Facer and Proctor, Maurine Jensen, eds., The Autobiography of Parley P. Pratt, rev. ed. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2000), 146.Google Scholar

39. This and other antinomian invitationswere normed and,more, valorized by their incorporation into LDS understanding of divine essence and human potential. New scripture declared it was God's “work and… glory to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.” In other words, for Mormonism, God's objective and capacity was to endow humans with the glorified nature that was his own. “History of Joseph Smith,” Times and Seasons 4 (January 16, 1843): 73 Google Scholar. Modern and standardized reference in The Pearl of Great Price: A Selection from the Revelations, Translations, and Narrations of Joseph Smith, First Prophet, Seer, and Revelator to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City: the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1981), Moses 1:39, http://scriptures.lds.org/en/pgp/contents Google Scholar. As early as 1833, Smith had been teaching that humans were to proceed “from grace to grace” until they “receive of [God’s] fulness.” Manuscript Revelation Books, 333–35 (D&C 93:13, 20). Though echoing Wesleyan perfectionism, Smith's belief in human capacity to receive the divine nature through sanctifying grace was much more concretely imagined and given its own liturgical structure in Smith's temple rites.

40. Numbers 11:29 (KJV).

41. In LDS usage, “ordain” was eventually limited in its application to rites associated with male priestly office. During the church's early period, “ordain” had a broader meaning and included the appointment of women to specific ecclesiastical positions and duties. The chief example was Emma Hale Smith's ordination as “elect lady” discussed below. For analysis of Smith's claims to ordination by heavenly messengers, see Prince, Power from on High, 4–10, and Quinn, D. Michael, The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power (Salt Lake City: Signature Books in association with Smith Research Associates, 1994), 14–26 Google Scholar.

42. “History of Joseph Smith,” Times and Seasons 5 (September 2, 1844): 625 Google Scholar. Here, again, one sees the influence of what Wood identified as the most radical impulse of the American Revolution, namely, the conviction that society was to function according to the more personal and individualistic virtues of “love, respect and consent,” not patronage or birthright. Wood, Radicalism of the American Revolution, 92. This insight, however true, must be balanced by the awareness that for antebellum Bible-reading Christians, these values would be seen as ageless imperatives. Smith in particular had more transcendent intentions than sociopolitical equality, as discussed below.

43. Manuscript Revelation Books, 27; Book of Mormon, Mosiah 8:15–16; Commandments (1833), 22:4–5 (D&C 21:4–5).

44. For example, Hiram Page claimed to have received revelation regarding the church's proper order. The substance of his revelation challenged both New Testament rule and Smith's revelations. Resolution of the conflict came by way of another revelation to Smith that further legitimated his position as sole prophetic voice vis-à-vis the community at large. While others may teach, only Smith was “appointed to receive commandments and revelations.” It was improper to “command him who is at thy head, and at the head of the church; for I have given him the keys.” Manuscript Revelation Books, 51–53 (D&C 28).

45. For an analysis of a failed attempt to duplicate Smith's scripture- writing prowess and its significance to Smith's status, see Mark R. Grandstaff, “Having More Learning Than Sense: William E. McLellin and the Book of Commandments Revisited,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 26, (Winter 1993): 42–43.

46. See Whitmer, David, An Address to All Believers in Christ (Richmond, Mo.: the author, 1887)Google Scholar, for a retrospective account of his differences with Smith and reasons for founding his own church. Available at http://www.utlm.org/onlinebooks/address1.htm.

47. See Manuscript Revelation Books, 275–89 (D&C 84).

48. See May, Dean L., “A Demographic Portrait of the Mormons, 1830–1980,” in Quinn, D. Michael, The New Mormon History: Revisionist Essays on the Past (Salt Lake: Signature Books, 1992).Google Scholar

49. Manuscript Revelation Books, 277;D&C(1835): 4:5(D&C84:29–30).

50. Proctor and Proctor, Autobiography of Parley P. Pratt, 150.

51. See Prince, Power from on High, and Quinn, D. Michael, The Mormon Hierarchy Origins of Power (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1994)Google Scholar. Of particular significance to the argument in this essay is Prince's observation that “historical irregularities, … not inclusion in the Bible” provided the basis for the definition and evolution of LDS office. “Therefore, one is left,” he concludes, “with a circular and not entirely satisfactory definition of ‘office’ as a calling with a biblical precedent to whichmen were ordained and which gradually became accepted in the church as an office. In other words, offices became such by convention.” Prince, Power from on High, 49–50.

52. Manuscript Revelation Books, 83; Commandments (1833), 24:38; D&C (1835) 2:11 (D&C 20:54).

53. Cahoon, William F., “A Humble Ward Teacher,” Juvenile Instructor 27 (August 15, 1892): 492, http://www.boap.org/LDS/Early-Saints/WFCahoon.html. Google Scholar

54. Roberts, B. H., ed., History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints 1:388 (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1974) 2d ed. Rev.Google Scholar

55. “Kirtland Council Minute Book,” February 12, 17, 19, 1834, digital copy of holograph available in Turley, Richard E. Jr., ed., Selected Collections from the Archives of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Provo, Ut.: Brigham Young University Press, 2002), vol. 1, DVD 19:7.Google Scholar

56. “Presiding Authorities” to John M. Burk (Liberty, Mo.), June 1, 1835, Church History Library, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah (hereafter referred to as Church History Library). Typescript available in Journal History of the Church, in Turley, Selected Collections, vol. 2, DVD 1:7. “The Elders in Zion or in her immediate region have no authority nor right to meddle with her affairs, to regulate or even hold any courts. The high council has been organized expressly to minister in all her spiritual affairs; and the Bishop and his council are set over her temporal matters; so thus Elders acts are null and void” (emphasis original).

57. “Kirtland Council Minute Book,” February 12, 1834.

58. Ibid.

59. “History of Joseph Smith,” Times and Seasons 6 (August 15, 1845): 992.

60. Manuscript Revelation Books, 39, 53; Commandments (1833), 27:3 and 30:13 (D&C 26:2; 28:13).

61. “Kirtland Council Minute Book,” February 19, 1834; http://josephsmithpapers.org/paperSummary/minutes-19-february-1834.

62. “Kirtland Council Minute Book,” February 12, 1834.

63. Ibid., August 11, 1834, http://josephsmithpapers.org/paper-Summary/minutes-11-august-1834. From May to June of 1834, Smith led a rescue party from Ohio to defend members in Missouri from attack by mobs. Sylvester Smith (no relation) accused Smith of “prophesying lies in the name of the Lord and … abusing … his (Sylvester’s) character, before the brethern [sic].” Ibid.

64. Manuscript Revelation Books, 309, punctuation standardized (D&C 88:133).

65. “History of Joseph Smith,” Times and Seasons 5 (September 2, 1844): 625 Google Scholar; History of the Church, 1:269.

66. For an extended discussion of a contest within and between the church's ruling councils that extended into the administration of Smith's successor, Brigham Young, see Bergera, Gary James, Conflict in the Quorum: Orson Pratt, Brigham Young, Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2002)Google Scholar.

67. “Kirtland Council Minute Book,” September 24, 1834, http://josephsmithpapers.org/paperSummary/minutes-24-september-1834#2. Eight months later, when Joseph Smith's brother stepped into a vacancy in the High Council, Hyrum was blessed by his father after being set apart by his brother, in the fashion described above.

68. History of the Church 2:124–26.

69. Manuscript Revelation Books, 39; Commandments (1833), 26:2, 4 (D&C 25:3, 5). “Elect lady” is the addressee in 2 John 1:1 (“The elder unto the elect lady and her children, whom I love in the truth; and not I only, but also all they that have known the truth”). Unless otherwise indicated all references to Emma's blessing are from this source.

70. For a discussion of female exhorters and their sources of authority, see Brekus, Catherine A., Strangers and Pilgrims: Female Preaching in America, 1740–1845 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999), 23–24, 52–56.Google Scholar

71. Manuscript Revelation Books, 39; Commandments (1833), 27:1 (D&C 26:1). For a textual history of these two sections, see Woodford, Robert J., “The Historical Development of the Doctrine and Covenants,” 3 vols. (Ph.D. diss., Brigham Young University, 1974), 373–92.Google Scholar

72. The entire conclusion reads as follows: “Wherefore lift up thy heart and rejoice, and cleave unto the covenants which thou hast made. Continue in the spirit of meekness, and beware of pride. Let thy soul delight in thy husband, and the glory which shall come unto him. Keep my commandments continually and a crown of righteousness thou shalt receive. And except thou do this, where I am you cannot come. And verily, verily I say unto you, that this is my voice unto all. Amen.” Manuscript Revelation Books, 41 (D&C 25:13–16).

73. During the intervening years, little is written about Emma Smith in official church documents or subsequent church histories. This can be explained in terms of both the church's and the Smith family's privations. Note that even the revelation's direct command that she compile a hymn book for the new church is not complied with until 1835, five years after the fact. The lack of interest in Emma Smith's story by later LDS Church historians was probably caused by lingering consternation that Emma refused, after the death of her husband, to join the Latter-day Saint exodus under Brigham Young. Newell, Linda K. and Avery, Valeen T. in Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith, Prophet's Wife, “Elect Lady,” Polygamy’s Foe, 1804–1879 (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1984)Google Scholar were the first to write Emma Smith's biography for the general reader.

74. Smith derived the name from his Hebrew studies. Where others saw a swamp, Smith saw Zion and chose a name that “‘signifies a beautiful situation, or place, carrying with it, also, the idea of rest; and is truly descriptive of this most delightful situation.’” Times and Seasons 2 (January 15, 1841): 273–74, quoted in Leonard, Glen M., Nauvoo: A Place of Peace, A People of Promise (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2002), 59 Google Scholar.

75. Ehat, Andrew F. and Cook, Lyndon W., eds., The Words of Joseph Smith: The Contemporary Accounts of the Nauvoo Discourses of the Prophet Joseph (Provo, Ut.: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1980), 110.Google Scholar

76. Sarah Kimball, at whose home the women had first gathered, later referred to them merely as “some of our neighbors.” Granger Kimball, Sarah M., in Augusta Joyce Crocheron, Representative Women of Deseret: A Book of Biographical Sketches (Salt Lake City: J. C. Graham, 1884), 27.Google Scholar

77. For details on the identity of the attendants, see Beecher, Maureen Ursenbach, “The ‘Leading Sisters’: A Female Hierarchy in Nineteenth-Century Mormon Society,” Journal of Mormon History 9 (1982): 25–39.Google Scholar

78. The hymn, “The Spirit of God like a Fire Is Burning,” written by William W. Phelps, was Hymn 90 in the hymnal (the Saints' first) compiled by Smith, Emma, Sacred Hymns, for the Church of the Latter Day Saints (Kirtland, Oh.: F. G. Williams, 1835), 120–21Google Scholar, and appeared as “Hosanna to God and the Lamb,” in The Latter-day Saints' Messenger and Advocate 2 (January 1836): 256.Google Scholar

79. “A Record of the Organization, and Proceedings of the Female Relief Society of Nauvoo,” March 17, 1842, http://josephsmithpapers.org/paperSummary/nauvoo-relief-society-minute-book#3 (hereafter “Female Relief Society of Nauvoo, Minutes”).

80. Two weeks later, when the group had grown to eighty-eight members, Smith would make this dimension of their society explicit by cautioning them that they “were going too fast” and “should grow up by degrees … commenc[ing] with a few individuals—thus have a select Society of the virtuous and those who will walk circumspectly.” Ibid., March 30, 1842.

81. Ibid., March 17, 1842. See also “The Relief Society Jubilee,” Deseret Weekly 44 (March 26, 1892): 433.Google Scholar

82. “Female Relief Society of Nauvoo, Minutes,” April 28, 1842.

83. Joseph Smith had argued “benevolence” was the more popular and, therefore, better understood term. “Relief,” he feared, might give the wrong impression of an intention to do such things as exculpating wrongdoers or “reliev[ing] criminals from punishment.” Emma responded that popularity was the very problem, since “benevolence” didn't capture the exceptional intentions of the society. Besides, she added, “benevolence” had earned a reputation for corruption because of the activities of such groups as the Washingtonian Benevolent Society. She had chosen her examplewell. The Washingtonian’smeetings had been criticized for their “vulgar tone” and “spicy narratives of drunken orgies” that, as Sean Wilentz has shown, catalyzed “an all-out war over the importance of religion and the efficacy of moral suasion.” Wilentz, , Chants Democratic: New York City and the Rise of the American Working Class, 1788–1850 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 312.Google Scholar

84. “Female Relief Society of Nauvoo, Minutes,” March 17, 1842.

85. Ibid., June 9, 1842.

86. Ibid., March 30, 1842.

87. Ibid., April 28, 1842.

88. Ibid., May 26, 1842.

89. Ibid., April 28, 1842. Smith was murdered two years later on June 27, 1844.

90. Ibid., March 17, 1842.

91. Manuscript Revelation Books, 83; Commandments (1833), 24:38–41; D&C (1835), 2:11 (D&C 20:53–59).

92. “Female Relief Society of Nauvoo, Minutes,” March 17, 1842.

93. See, for example, Romans 16:1 and 1 Timothy 3:8–13.

94. “Female Relief Society of Nauvoo, Minutes,” April 28, 1842.

95. Whitney, Elizabeth Ann, “A Leaf from an Autobiography,” Woman's Exponent 7 (November 15, 1878): 91.Google Scholar

96. “Female Relief Society of Nauvoo, Minutes,” April 19, 1842.

97. Ibid., April 28, 1842.

98. Ibid., August 13, 1843, quoting Reynolds Cahoon (1790– 1861) one of three men who oversaw the construction of the Nauvoo temple.

99. Ibid., March 17, 1842.

100. Ibid., March 17, 1842, and April 28, 1842.

101. Ibid., August 13, 1843.

102. Ibid., March 30, 1842.

103. See, for example, Utah “Relief Societies copied the priesthood organization in several respects. They called women to be teachers, like the block teachers, to visit the sisters in the ward. They called a few sisters to be deaconesses, doing the work ward deacons did.” Hartley, William G., “Common People: Church Activity during the Brigham Young Era,” in Nearly Everything Imaginable: The Everyday Life of Utah's Mormon Pioneers, ed. Walker, Ronald W. (Provo, Ut.: BYU Studies and Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Latter-day Saint History, 1999), 263.Google Scholar

104. “Female Relief Society of Nauvoo, Minutes,” April 28, 1842.

105. Ibid. (emphasis added).

106. Ibid., July 28, 1843.

107. Snow, Eliza R., unpublished sermon to the Annual Meeting of the Relief Society and Young Ladies Mutual Improvement Association, October 27, 1880, “Utah Stake Relief Society Minutes, 1878–1882,” vol. 2, Church History Library.Google Scholar

108. “Female Relief Society Minutes,” August 13, 1843 (Reynolds Cahoon). For Cahoon's status in relation to these rites, see Bergera, Gary James, “Identifying the Earliest Mormon Polygamists, 1841-44”, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 38 (2005): 1, 6.Google Scholar

109. Ibid., May 27, 1842 (Newel K. Whitney). It is outside the scope of this article to discuss LDS temples beyond their relation to the ritual creation and definition of ecclesiastical authority. As for the more theologically significant aspects of LDS temple theology, it must suffice to say that they relate ultimately to promises of sanctifying theophany or, as defined by Bishop Whitney, “blessings” of “intelligence and instruction” that enable participants to “get testimony for ourselves” like that obtained by “the ancient saints.” Ibid.

110. Ibid., April 28, 1842.

111. “A Fac-Simile from the Book of Abraham,” Times and Seasons, 3 (March 1, 1842) 703–6.Google Scholar First published serially in three parts by the church's newspaper, all were later collated and formally adopted as canon. See “Introduction to the Book of Abraham Manuscripts”, http://josephsmithpapers.org/intro/introduction-to-book-of-abraham-manuscripts. For a digital version of the text, see “The Book of Abraham, Early 1842,” Joseph Smith Papers Project http://josephsmithpapers.org/paper Summary/book-of-abraham-early-1842#!/paperSummary/book-ofabraham-early-1842&p=2.

112. In Smith's day, as in our own, a “sealing” meant “fixing a seal; fastening with a seal; confirming; closing; keeping secret.” Webster, Noah, and Walker, John. An American Dictionary of the English Language (Harper & Brothers, 1846) s.v. sealingGoogle Scholar. More significantly, the word adopts the New Testament's metaphorical sense of being “sealed by the Holy Spirit” or a guarantee of future sanctification. See 2 Corinthians 1:22; 5:5; and Ephesians 1:13–14; 4:30.

113. Joseph Smith, Journal, November 24, 1835, accessed January 1, 2016, http://josephsmithpapers.org/paperSummary/journal-1835-1836?p=50&highlight=%22everlasting%20priesthood%22#!/paperSummary/journal-1835-1836&p=50.

114. Irving, Gordon, “The Law of Adoption: One Phase of the Development of the Mormon Concept of Salvation, 1830–1900,” BYU Studies 14:3 (Spring 1974): 291–314 Google Scholar. See also Whittaker, David J., “An Introduction to Mormon Administrative History,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 15, (Winter 1982): 17.Google Scholar

115. See generally, “Editors’ Introduction,” in Anderson, Devery S. and Bergera, Gary James, eds., Joseph Smith's Quorum of the Anointed, 1842– 1845: A Documentary History (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2005).Google Scholar

116. For a discussion of temple rites related to prayer, see Quinn, D. Michael, “Latter-day Saint Prayer Circles,” BYU Studies 19, (Fall 1978): 79–105.Google Scholar

117. Quinn, Origins of Power, 118, 120. As the work of the quorum became increasingly devoted to political matters related to Smith's efforts to establish a theocratic government and to his 1844 campaign for the U.S. presidency, however, women's role in the quorum diminished.

118. General Relief Society PresidentSmith, Bathsheba W., quoted in “Relief Society Reports, Pioneer Stake Relief Society Conference,” Woman's Exponent 34, (July-August 1904): 14.Google Scholar I am indebted to Carol Cornwall Madsen for this reference.

119. Anderson and Bergera, Joseph Smith's Quorum of the Anointed, 25.

120. “History of Joseph Smith,” Times and Seasons 5 (September 2, 1844): 625.Google Scholar

121. The aspect of LDS order denoted “tribal” is more frequently characterized as “familial.” “Tribal” is preferred here for its connoting greater complexity of public government and personal relationship. The distinction becomes more apparent with Brigham Young's adaptation of Smith's marital practices, particularly the development of a “law of adoption” where adults were ritually joined or “sealed” to the church's most prominent leaders. See Irving, “The Law of Adoption.”

122. See, for example, Philip Schaff's observation in the 1857 Mercersburg Review that Mormonism was “more unpopular than Romanism … and has much more affinity with Mohammedanism than with Christianity,” quoted in Graham, Stephen R., Cosmos in the Chaos: Philip Schaff's Interpretation of Nineteenth-Century American Religion (Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans, 1995), 224.Google Scholar

123. Hatch, Democratization, 121.

124. Flake, Kathleen, The Politics of American Religious Identity: The Seating of Senator Reed Smoot, Mormon Apostle (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004).Google Scholar

125. Ibid., 208.

126. Holland, David F., Sacred Borders: Continuing Revelation and Canonical Restraint in Early America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011).CrossRefGoogle Scholar