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ISSUES & ART
SUNSTONE
D. Michael Quinn
on Early
MOrMOnisM’s
culturE Of
ViOlEncE (p.16)
Gary James Bergera
documents
thE MOnitOrinG
Of Byu faculty
tithinG
PayMEnts (p.42)
rEturn Of thE
natiVE
Fiction by levi s.
Peterson (p.54)
yOur OlD
wOMEn shall
DrEaM DrEaMs
Essay by sara
Burlingame (p.66)
MOrMOns talk
aBOut sEx (p.70)
triButEs tO
chiEkO OkaZaki
anD MariOn D.
hanks (p.82)
uPDatE
The Mormon
Moment; The Book
of Mormon Musical;
Moroni is an alien?
Mormons in the
news; more . . .
October 2011—$7.50

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SUNSTONE
MORMON EXPERIENCE, SCHOLARSHIP, ISSUES, & ART
OCTOBER 2011 Issue 164
FEATURES
16 D. Michael Quinn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . THE CULTURE OF VIOLENCE IN JOSEPH
SMITH’S MORMONISM
39 Noah Van Sciver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . VAN SCIVER’S BOOK OF MORMON
42 Gary James Bergera . . . . . . . . . . . . THE MONITORING OF BYU FACULTY TITHING
PAYMENTS: 1957–1963
54 Levi S. Peterson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . RETURN OF THE NATIVE: Fiction
66 Sara Burlingame. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . YOUR OLD WOMEN SHALL DREAM DREAMS
SUNSTONE (ISSN 0363-1370) is published by The Sunstone
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POETRY
2 Paul Swenson. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . GRAPHIC NOVEL
65 David Lawrence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . BIRTHDAY PARTY
78 Anita Tanner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PAINTING
81 Lyn Lifshin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MY SISTER WANTS ME TO COME AND READ
THROUGH THIRTY YEARS OF DIARIES
COLUMNS
4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2011 UTAH SYMPOSIUM REPORT
6 Stephen Carter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . FROM THE EDITOR: I Will Go; I Will Play
CORNUCOPIA
9 Alisa. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . BLOGWATCH: The Garment and the Veil
10 Michael Vinson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SCRIPTURE NOTES: How Much Does Jesus
Care about Doctrinal Purity?
12 Curt Bench . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ADVENTURES OF A MORMON
BOOKSELLER: “Unscrupulous or Misguided
Adventurers”
13 James P. Harris . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A PLACE FOR EVERY TRUTH: Understanding
Talmage
14 Aaron C. Brown . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . FROM THE PEWS: Leaderlore
15 Mark Jensen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . FROM THE PEWS: My Top Eight Questions
70 Stephanie Buehler, Natasha Parker,
and John Dehlin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ROUNDTABLE: Pornography, Masturbation, Sex,
and Marriage in Mormonism
76 D. Jeff Burton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . BRAVING THE BORDERLANDS . . . : Unusual
Tales from the Borderlands
79 Michael Farnworth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . THE FAMILY FORUM: Discipline
82 Various Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . IN MEMORIAM: Marion D. Hanks and
Chieko N. Okazaki
90 Chieko N. Okazaki . . . . . . . . . . . . . . AN OLIVE LEAF: “May We Shoulder It
Together . . . ”
UPDATE
85 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . News media can’t get enough of the Mormons;
Responses to The Book of Mormon musical, Mountain
Meadows becomes national park, Mormons are as
strange as Muslims; People section . . .
Printed by K and K Printing
Copyright © 2011, The Sunstone Education Foundation Inc.
All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.
Cover art by Galen Smith
Back cover art by Jeanette Atwood

S U N S T O N E
Y E A , Y E A
N A Y , N A Y
Founded in 1974
Editors Emeritus
SCOTT KENNEY 1974–1978
ALLEN D. ROBERTS 1978–1980
PEGGY FLETCHER 1978–1986
ELBERT EUGENE PECK 1986–2001
DAN WOTHERSPOON 2001-2008
Publishers Emeritus
DANIEL H. RECTOR 1986–1991
WILLIAM STANFORD 2000–2008
Editor
STEPHEN CARTER
Director of Outreach and Symposia
MARY ELLEN ROBERTSON
Associate Editor
CAROL B. QUIST
Section Editors
PHYLLIS BAKER, Fiction Contest Coordinator
DAN WOTHERSPOON, Touchstones, Cornucopia, An Olive Leaf
LISA TORCASSO DOWNING, Fiction
ALAN AND VICKIE EASTMAN, “Righteous Dominion”
JAMES P. HARRIS, “A Place for Every Truth”
HUGO OLAIZ, News/Update
DIXIE PARTRIDGE, Poetry
DALLAS ROBBINS, “In the World”
ALISON TAKENAKA, “Margin Notes”
MICHAEL VINSON, “Scripture Notes”
Editorial Assistants
JOHN-CHARLES DUFFY, HUGO OLAIZ
Contributing Columnists
D. JEFF BURTON, MICHAEL FARNWORTH
Cartoonists
JEANETTE ATWOOD, CAMI THORNOCK.
JONATHAN DAVID CLARK, JONNY HAWKINS
Much-Appreciated Volunteers
ADRIANE ANDERSEN, SUSAN ANDERSEN,
PHYLLIS BAKER, LES AND SHANON GRIPKEY
DON AND LUCINDA GUSTAVSON, BRUCE JENSEN
ANN M. JOHNSON, LLOYD PENDLETON,
MARY BETH PENDLETON, SHERRI PENDLETON
CAMI THORNOCK, SHARI THORNOCK
I
N RESPONSE TO Noah Van Sciver’s
comic, “Book of Mormon Origins,” (June
2011) SUNSTONE received the following:
GRAPHIC NOVEL
The Sacred Grove is strangely young—devoid of foliage,
with spindly, half-grown trees. And awkward, teen-age
Joseph, on his knees—trapped inside the walls
of his own comic strip—has coal-black hair,
and fuller lips than we recall. Is all of this
a horror tale? His pale countenance
is dipped in wash of pen-and-ink, encroaching
menace of the adversary’s darkness
that surrounds him. The vision’s blackest blacks
and whitest whites reveal his face as stark
and vulnerable—he swims in waves
of perspiration. Perhaps we, too, should
THE SUNSTONE EDUCATION
FOUNDATION
The mission of The Sunstone Education Foundation is to
sponsor open forums of Mormon thought and experience.
Under the motto, “Faith Seeking Understanding,” we examine
and express the rich spiritual, intellectual, social,
and artistic qualities of Mormon history and contemporary
life. We encourage humanitarian service, honest inquiry,
and responsible interchange of ideas that is
respectful of all people and what they hold sacred.
Board of Directors
MICHAEL J. STEVENS co-chair, LAURA R. COMPTON co-chair
JOANNA BROOKS , DOE DAUGHTREY,
JOHN P. DEHLIN, BILL HANSEN,
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STEVE MAYFIELD
be afraid, since comic art defies an orthodox
interpretation. Blinding light that's soon to vanquish
fleeing vestiges of Satan’s power, and then to manifest
a Father God presumed ‘til now as dead, will also testify
the boy and Deity converse in charming lunacy
of ordinary speech—preserved and read
in dialogue balloons. Trite—the superhero
cartoon-god is old, and whiter still than any ghost.
But almost lost in shadow, the story’s one
authentic flesh-and-bone anomaly, the Son—
swarthy, plain, Semitic, real—no form
or comeliness we should desire.
How is it, cartoon-Joseph seems to know him?
PAUL SWENSON
PAGE 2 OCTOBER 2011

The Signature Books Library
Several years back, we thought it would be a grand idea to post some of our books (in their entirety)
on a website. We assummed this would be useful for history researchers and readers of poetry and fiction.
Now that we have, we want to advertise to Sunstoners, the only question being how to do so effectively.
We met and talked about it and had pizza (which was really tasty), then met a few more times before we
realized we had spent our budget on delicious cheese and pepperoni. So we decided we would just show
you one of our pizzas and hope you understand. Ugh! www.signaturebookslibrary.org

2011 Utah
Sunstone Symposium
New Place
New Feel
Same Magic

S U N S T O N E
“ WHAT WOULD A GOOD
Mormon video game play
like?” It’s a question that has
doubtless crossed the mind of many a
Mormon gamer as he fires missiles at a
giant mutant brain, or slices her way
through a horde of zombies, or fattens up a
princess.
The first game ideas that come to mind
might be something like Street Fighter
Nauvoo, where characters from early
Mormon history do battle for supremacy.
Of course, being a Mormon video game, it
would have to teach something, so we’d
give each character special fighting moves
that would sneak a few facts into the player’s
brain. Joseph Smith could have a backbreaking
stick-pull move; Brigham Young
could mash his opponents with a covered
wagon, and Eliza Snow could call on the
help of a few heroic couplets.
Or maybe we could develop a game
called Brigham Kong, where a pixelly pioneer
guy climbs up logs and jumps over
barrels to rescue his wife from Brigham’s
harem.
The possibilities are endless—but also,
admittedly, not all that Mormon. We may
be using Mormon characters and borrowing
from stereotypes, but when looking
F R O M T H E E D I T O R
I WILL GO; I WILL PLAY
By Stephen Carter
Street Fighter Nauvoo: Not a real video game—but should be.
for a good Mormon video game, shouldn’t
we be hoping for something a little deeper;
something with more substance; something
that could possibly tap the core of Mormon
experience, theology, and worldview?
A similar question is contemplated at
length in a book edited by Craig Detweiler,
Halos and Avatars: Playing Video Games
with God (Westminster John Knox Press).
But in this case, the question is: What
makes a game Christian?
In her chapter, Rachel Wagner provides
a quick tour of video games that feature
biblical themes or characters: games like
Bible Fight where you can break face with
Jesus, Moses, Eve, Satan, and even Mary.
The fig leaf-clad Eve can use her serpent attack
or call Adam in to kick some trash for
her, though Noah’s ability to call in a wild
animal stampede is more impressive. Or a
player can use Mary’s heavenly teleportation
ability to get her out of the tight spots
her flying feet can’t. Moses can rain frogs on
an opponent or hurl a couple of hefty commandments.
Or if you want to let your fists
fly outside the Judeo-Christian tradition,
you can play Faith Fighter and rumble as
Mohammed (with or without a face),
Buddha, Budai, or Ganesha.
These games, of course, were mainly developed
for laughs, and so I suppose we
shouldn’t expect much depth from them.
But as I found out, even when dealing with
Christian development companies, it is still
almost impossible to find a game that uses
biblical characters, stories, and themes as
anything more than pawns in the service of
a trivial scenario.
For example, the Wisdom Tree company
has been making Bible-based video games
for more than 20 years. One of their most
popular titles is Bible Adventure—three
games stuffed into one NES-compatible
cartridge. In the first game, “Noah’s Ark,”
the player controls Noah as he picks up animals
and carries them overhead to the ark.
In “Baby Moses,” you play Moses’s mother
as she tries to carry her diaper-clad infant
(over her head) past enemies—many of
whom, if they get their hands on the baby,
will throw him in the water. And don’t miss
out on Noah’s Ark 3-D, a first-person
shooter (or, rather, slingshotter) where the
goal is to shoot tranquilizers at an onslaught
of homicidal goats before they
batter Noah to a pulp. Please also give Jesus
in Space a try; currently on sale for only
$22.95!
These are the faithful games. The ones
from people who purportedly take their religion
seriously.
The Christian video game that got the
most attention in Halos and Avatars was the
Left Behind series, based on the popular religious
apocalypse books by Tim LaHaye
and Jerry Jenkins. The game takes place in
ruined city streets where neutral characters
wander among evil soldiers, military vehicles,
and rumbling tanks. The player’s job is
to convert as many neutral people as possible
to God’s side and then mount an attack
on evil forces.
How do you go about converting a neutral
character to the Lord’s side? Well, first
you build a relationship of trust, and then
. . . just kidding. If your spirit meter is high
enough, all you have to do is click on the
desired characters and, in a shower of light,
they’re born again and equipped to kick
some Satanic tushie! And how do you fill
your spirit meter high enough to perform
such a miracle? Click on it with your
mouse. Lots. If you happen to shoot an innocent
bystander—or worse, stand near a
rock concert—your spirit meter will
plunge. But it’s nothing a few dozen repentant
clicks can’t fix. The world of Left
Behind, though dangerous, is a predictable
and controllable world where all one has to
do to succeed is follow the rules.
PAGE 6 OCTOBER 2011

S U N S T O N E
Al l imAg es : JeAn et t e At w o o d
SO WHAT ABOUT
Mormon video games?
How do they stack up
against mainstream Christian
games?
My Google search revealed
exactly two Mormon video
games. The first, Outpost
Zarahemla, is a goofy, spacebased
SimCity-type game. You
play a humanoid missionary
who is under the command of
a fish-headed senior companion.
He puts you in charge
of a space station where your
job is to keep the drivers of incoming
spaceships happy by
building power sources,
lemonade stands, and rec centers
that provide “good clean
fun.” Oh, and you have to
earn money. In fact, profit is so
important that you can’t complete
a level until you’ve
earned a specified sum.
As the game continues, you
are required to build family
history centers (where some
visitors learn that an ancestor
was a fish), and other vaguely
Mormon structures.
Some spaceships that come in are
marked by an exclamation point. If you
click them, they will ask you a churchy
question such as “Are Mormons
Christian?” (Answer: Yes); “How many
books of Alma are there in the Book of
Mormon? (Answer: One); and “What is a
deacon’s duty?” (Answer: To help the
bishop). Considering the game was released
in 2004, it’s not too bad, and it has
some humorous moments. But its religious
elements are only tacked on—unless the
core of Mormonism is making a profit.
The second game I found is called
Brother Nephi’s Ultra-funtastic Point-andclick
Adventure. It has been released in two
parts thus far: the first getting Nephi into
Jerusalem to acquire the plates of brass, and
the second helping him find and kill Laban.
A King’s Quest-style game, the player walks
Nephi through various environments to locate
and combine items that will help him
complete his mission. For example, giving
a cat to the camel causes the camel to run
into a cafe and expose an illegal animal
smuggler, thus allowing you to go up on a
balcony to grab a blanket that helps you
cross a mud barrier on the way to Laban’s
house. But you have to get the poem first.
Why does a Mormon male need to be married before age
25? Any older, and he wouldn’t be able to jump the barrels.
Umm, yeah. The causal chain doesn’t
make a lot of sense there, but it does in the
game . . . kind of. But that’s part of the
game’s charm: its dry, free-associative sense
of humor.
However, the game suddenly grows very
strange when Nephi finds Laban. Until
now, the tone of the game has been breezy
and witty (though the amateurish voice
acting destroys the ethos of the script). But
suddenly, angelic music swells, and, as
Nephi is bathed in an ethereal light, a deep,
God-like voice quotes scripture about how
one person may perish if it will save the
souls of many.
Then the mood alters drastically again
as the player is launched into a mini-game
where Nephi is standing, sword drawn,
over Laban’s body. The object is to land a
swiftly moving line inside a small demarcated
area—and it’s not easy. Each time you
miss, Nephi’s sword comes down and eyeballs,
fingers, and other body parts fly up.
It’s funny. Really. But as I giggled and
hacked, I was almost afraid I was going to
be struck by lightning. The mini-game
bumped me up against a question I had
never thought about before: what are the
tensions that make integrating video games
and scripture so difficult?
IN HER HALOS and Avatars
chapter, “The Play is the
Thing: Interactivity from
Bible Fight to the Passions of
Christ,” Rachel Wagner probes
the same question, pointing out
that though the story of Jesus
Christ has been told in many a
film, it has remained all but untouched
in video games. She
cites a few games where one
can play characters who interact
in peripheral ways with
the Passion but none that actually
give the player significant
interactivity with the event itself.
She argues that, in contrast
to film, where the narrative is
laid out and permanent, video
games liquefy the stories they
touch because a player, not a
writer or director, is in charge
of the protagonist’s movements.
Making the Passion the subject
of a video game would throw
the event and its interpretation
into question. If the player isn’t
skilled enough, Jesus might fail
and the redemption of the
world might not come to pass. Such a possibility
strikes at Christianity’s foundations.
And when you jiggle the pillars of people’s
worldview, they tend to freak out.
Likely I was feeling something similar
while I helped hack Laban’s head off: I was
messing with a core story. Being one of the
founders of Mormonism’s first satire magazine,
The Sugar Beet, I’m not squeamish
about tipping a sacred cow or two. But the
murder of Laban is one of those stories that
bears the markings of archetype.
Archetypes are stories that get told again
and again because they have deep roots in
essential aspects of human experience. The
roots are so deep that even when thousands
of years’ worth of people and institutions
try to interpret the stories to favor their particular
worldview, the stories still manage
to retain their ability to lead thoughtful listeners
into mystery.
Abraham’s attempted sacrifice of Isaac is
one such story. Søren Kierkegaard, a Danish
Christian philosopher, wrote an entire
book, Fear and Trembling, exploring the
mystery Abraham’s narrative points us toward:
what is the nature of faith?
As Kierkegaard points out, if one of us
found out that a man was taking his son to
a mountain in order to sacrifice him,
OCTOBER 2011 PAGE 7

S U N S T O N E
wouldn’t we try to stop him? Indeed,
wouldn’t we have tried to stop Abraham?
And what about Nephi? If Jerusalem’s finest
had caught him chopping Laban’s head off,
wouldn’t they have been justified in carting
Nephi off to jail? If we had been nearby,
wouldn’t we have tried to stop Nephi from
committing his act? Taking a life is irrevocable
no matter how good the intentions.
Kierkegaard’s explanation of Abraham’s
story is that it is a metaphor for the radical
subjectivity of faith, for the absolute exclusivity
of one’s relationship with the divine.
In other words, no one can in any way be a
part of or understand your relationship
with the divine; the relationship is exclusively
between you and God. No outside
observer can judge it. The story presents
such a repulsive scenario to point to the impossibility
of understanding Abraham’s relationship
with the divine. The only way
you could hope to understand another person’s
faith is to live his or her life.
Nephi’s motivations for killing are a
little more understandable than
Abraham’s. After all, Laban had threatened
the lives of Nephi and his brothers, Laban
had also stolen their wealth, and Nephi believed
that the plates of brass were essential
to the success of his family’s divinely
mandated journey. But this setup puts a
new twist on the Abraham story.
Abraham’s act seems next to insane and is
rife with personal sacrifice, but Nephi’s act
deprives him of no one he loves, gets an
enemy out of his way, and secures him access
to the plates of brass. He has everything
to gain and nothing to lose by killing
Laban. It seems unlikely that such a convenient
and lucrative murder could be divinely
mandated, especially since—unlike
in Abraham’s story—Nephi actually does
end a human life.
I can’t recall having ever been in a
Sunday School class where someone questioned
Nephi’s decision. The popular vote
seems to be that Nephi did the right
thing—the voters happily embracing the
idea that God and Nephi were utilitarians
(considering the life of one man to be of
less moral weight than the religious cohesion
of Lehi’s descendants, and therefore
expendable). But archetypal stories are
structured to ignite exploration, not instill
certitude. Nephi’s story is meant to fracture
our worldview, not stabilize it.
Which brings me back to my original
question: what element could imbue a
game with a resonantly Mormon core? It
would be our unique archetypal stories,
presented in such a way that the player
would have to grapple with the tensions
that make the stories powerful.
BUT HOW MIGHT such a game unfold?
Mark Hayse presents an interesting
template in his Halos and
Avatars chapter “Ultima IV: Simulating the
Religious Quest.”
At the beginning of this fantasy roleplaying
game released in 1985, the player is
presented with a series of ethical dilemmas;
for example: “Thou art sworn to uphold a
Lord who participates in the forbidden torture
of prisoners. Each night their cries of
pain reach thee. Dost thou, A) show
Compassion by reporting the deeds, or B)
Honor thy oath and ignore the deeds?”
Notice how the choices pit two virtues
against each other? There doesn’t seem to
be a correct answer—only a revealing one.
The answers the player provides shape the
character he or she will play. In a way, the
character is an embodiment of the player’s
worldview.
The player wanders through Brittania,
encountering other characters—friendly
and otherwise—monsters, animals, and
difficult situations. The goal is to perfect
the character in each of the eight virtues,
but no guidance is offered. As players interact
with the game, their decisions affect
their character’s virtues. In all cases,
players have to sacrifice one thing to gain
another. If they flee from an unwinnable
battle, they lose valor points, but they also
live. If they cheat the herbs woman so that
they can have enough money to buy an essential
item, they gain the item, but lose
honesty points.
But here’s the twist. The game never
shows players how many points they have
in each virtue, or the consequences their
actions have on their virtues. As Hayse
writes: “Gradually, players come to realize
that the quest for virtue demands ongoing
ethical self-assessment. Every interaction
with the subjects and objects of Britannia
requires critical reflection.” Some of the
questions the player is forced to contemplate
include: “What is the right thing to do
when I am attacked by others? . . . If I find
something of value on my journey, under
what conditions may I claim it as my own?
. . . When asked to share financial or physical
resources with others, how much
should I share? . . . Are there certain tools
that I should not employ in the service of
virtue? Or does the virtue sanctify every
tool in order that the end justifies the
means?” Now there’s a question for Nephi!
A careful study of scripture and Church
history reveals the fact that our world and
its inhabitants are complex and everchanging.
It might be comforting to think
that one need only “choose the right” in
order to increase one’s spiritual stature and
avoid the evils of the world, but it’s a false
comfort. Zion’s Camp was a grab-bag of
death, failure, and miracles. Many of Alma
and Amulek’s converts were burned to
death by their own neighbors. Ammon’s
converts had even less luck, being constantly
dogged by murderous armies. Sure,
we can offer mollifying explanations for
these difficult situations, but they serve
only to neuter the exploratory potential
these stories offer.
The Book of Mormon seems very clear in
its conviction that good intentions don’t always
produce good results. What if we built
a game around that idea? Could we make
Alma into a video game character, eject him
from King Noah’s palace and watch as the
player attempts to bring people together
around a common, but revolutionary, faith?
How would he spread his gospel? What
parts of the gospel would he emphasize?
How would the people react to those particular
principles? Whom would Alma trust
with power in his fledgling church? How
would he deal with the attacks of King
Noah’s army? What decisions would he
make in order to keep his people alive in the
wilderness? How would he secretly boost
his people’s morale while they are enslaved
by the Lamanites? What sacrifices will he
need to make to achieve his goals? How will
the consequences of his decisions affect him
and the people who follow him?
At first, it might seem that developing
such a game would be prohibitively expensive,
especially for such a small audience.
But making a game as an app or as a Flash
game to be distributed on the internet can
be relatively inexpensive. The graphics
don’t have to be the greatest, as Ultima IV
proves, and neither does the music. What
really matters is how skillfully room is
made for value-laden, consequence-ridden
choices, where something like a virtual soul
can be forged.
Video games could prove themselves to
be a great medium in which to create a
post-modern midrash, where we could not
only re-envision our stories, but relive
them; drawing out the archetypal power
many of them possess, making them more
personally relevant.
Besides, think of how the seminary program
would boom if the kids knew that
they were required to play awesome video
games for half an hour a day.
PAGE 8 OCTOBER 2011

S U N S T O N E
CORNUCOPIA
SUNSTONE invites short musings: chatty reports, cultural trend
sightings, theological meditations. All lovely things of good report,
please share them. Send to:
B l o g w a t c h
An earlier version of this reflection was published 13 January
2011 on the Exponent blog, www.the-exponent.com, and is
reprinted here with permission.
THE GARMENT AND THE VEIL
With snow-white veil and garments as of flame,
She stands before thee, who so long ago
Filled thy young heart with passion and the woe
From which thy song and all its splendors came . . .
–HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
IHAVE ALWAYS BEEN PRETTY ORTHODOX IN MY
garment wearing. I’ve worn them under the bra as I
was instructed. I also wore both tops and bottoms together,
feeling that the garment wasn’t complete unless I
wore the set. I found that I get the most out of my garments
when I think about the symbolism of the
Atonement. They play an important part of an archetypal
story that goes like this:
Eve found herself vulnerable outside the Garden of
Eden. Her world was now open to strife, sickness,
and death. Then Jesus, the creator of earth, told her
that he’d make a way for her to overcome these ills
of the new world. He would descend to Earth and
lay down his life for her and her posterity. And as a
promise that he would do this, he gave Eve a coat of
animal skin, a sacrifice in similitude of his own future
sacrifice: A sacrifice that would serve to cover
up Eve’s vulnerability to this new world and the
death that exists there.
Because this is the narrative I use to understand the garment,
I have appreciated wearing it. I tend to look better
with more clothes on, so making sure I’m covered hasn’t
been an issue. In many ways I liked the sense of equality—
both men and women get to wear it, and ordaining women
to wear the Garment of the Holy Priesthood has got to mean
something about an endowed woman’s priesthood power,
even if we don’t fully understand it yet.
I also view the garment as a type of veil. It shields us from
the outside world. I’m not comparing it to a burqa, but to the
veil that hangs inside the temple. The garment is similar to
the temple veil in distinct ways, and we can learn about the
meaning of one by learning about the meaning of the other.
THIS LAST YEAR, however, I made a conscious decision
to not wear the garment, or rather, to not wear it
in an orthodox sense. When I was planning for the
birth of my baby, I purchased some nursing tops for the garment.
But when I was hit with mastitis the day I came home
from the hospital, my plans changed. I wasn’t able to wear a
nursing bra, much less the garment. As I healed, and I began
to get the hang of nursing twenty times a day (and I have the
recorded times to prove it!), I began to feel it wasn’t right for
me to wear the garment as I’d been instructed. This doesn’t
mean I’ve given up on the symbolism I enjoy with the garment,
but that I found it was necessary to make a temporary
modification.
What I felt is that I needed to be close to my new tender
baby. I wanted to feel him close to me, skin on skin, wrapped
in only a diaper and under a blanket big enough for the both
of us. I wanted him to know my touch, to smell my skin, to
lay his head on my chest and hear my heartbeat. I couldn’t
imagine anything holier than my touch on his skin, and the
gentle dependence he had on my body. Although he was
born full term, I wanted the benefits of Kangaroo Care, the
ability to incubate my baby outside of the womb by holding
him close to my skin during feedings.
I found the garment nursing tops to be a hindrance to this
closeness. To lay my baby on my constantly milk-soaked top
and only give him access to the bare minimum part of myself
didn’t seem to bring us the bonding I wanted. When I wasn’t
wearing the garment top, and I could lay him right on my
skin, I could quickly wipe any excess milk off of his skin and
mine. This was the practical consideration, but there was a
spiritual consideration, too.
As I thought about the symbolism of my wearing the garment
or not, I remembered the garment as a veil. In my understanding,
the garment sets endowed people apart from
the rest of the world and often serves as a physical barrier
between the self and others—between Eve and the lone and
dreary world. I thought about this veil separating me from
my newborn infant son, who relied on me for all his nurturing.
And I remembered Heavenly Mother. I thought
about the veil that separates us from her, the veil that some
say the Father put between her and us so that we cannot
touch her and defile her with our coarseness. “A veil to pro-
OCTOBER 2011 PAGE 9

S U N S T O N E
tect her from her children,” some Church leaders have told
me. I thought about the times I have ached for Heavenly
Mother, those desperate times in my life when I wished for
the veil to part so that I could be held against her and sob
into her chest and have her nourish me. I looked at my own
newborn son, and I decided I could not bear any longer to
have a veil placed between us.
ALISA
Midvale, Utah
S c r i p t u re n o t e s
In this regular column, Michael Vinson, a master’s graduate of the
Divinity School of the University of Cambridge and a frequent
devotional speaker at Sunstone symposiums, delves into personal and
scholarly aspects of scripture.
HOW MUCH DOES JESUS CARE
ABOUT DOCTRINAL PURITY?
. . . And I shall bring to light the true points of my doctrine,
yea, and the only doctrine which is in me. And
this I do that I may establish my gospel, that there may
not be so much contention; yea, Satan doth stir up the
hearts of the people to contention concerning the points
of my doctrine; and in these things they do err, for they
do wrest the scriptures and do not understand them.
—D&C 10:62–63
ONE OF MY EARLIEST EXPERIENCES IN “BIBLE
bashing” came while I was serving as a
stake missionary in California and
waiting for my own mission call. I had gone out
with the elders to visit an investigator, who had
invited a surprise visitor—the leading anti-
Mormon minister in our little community.
Almost immediately, the Reverend and the missionaries
began arguing about points of doctrine
while I sat there with just a year of Rick’s College
religion classes behind me and nothing to add to
any arguments. The voices became louder, and I
could feel temperatures rising in the room. I am
sure the investigator was sorry to be there as
well. After nearly an hour of arguing, there was a
pause and I finally spoke up. I’ll get to what I
said in a moment.
I wish I could say I learned from that experience,
but a little scriptural knowledge and a lot
of missionary zeal is a dangerous combination,
and a year later, while on my mission in Bolivia,
I had my own run-in with a minister who had
been invited over by our investigator.
As I reflect back on these Bible-bashing experiences,
they now seem to me not so different
from all other arguments about scriptural
meaning and doctrine, including those going on within the
Church today. I am thinking especially here of members
who have been punished by or threatened with excommunication
over theological or doctrinal issues. Instead of
bashing over points of scripture—though that can certainly
happen in Sunday School—these confrontations take place
in the privacy of a stake high council room and are known
today as “Church Disciplinary Councils” (though in classic
Orwellian double-speak, they were once called “courts of
love”). In the Church’s purge of intellectuals in the early
1990s—one that to some extent still continues—one of the
main justifications for the excommunications was that
these persons’ writings and lectures could contaminate the
“pure” doctrine of the Church as taught in classes and
meetings. Clearly some Church leaders have felt that doctrinal
purity is an issue that should be pressed. Indeed, a recent
edition of the Church Handbook of Instructions lists
keeping the Church “pure” as adequate reason for excommunication.
Teaching “false doctrine” is also mentioned as
an excommunicable offense.
But I believe there is something inherently dangerous for
the long-term health of religious institutions that perpetrate
this point of view. First, because all leaders are human, there
is not any earthly institution—”true church” or otherwise—
that does not occasionally make mistakes that might be considered
doctrinal. For instance, there are few Church leaders
today who are willing to still stand up and say that the denial
of priesthood blessings to blacks was truly the word and will
of the Lord. Nevertheless, before the 1978 priesthood revelation
in 1978, some Latter-day Saints were threatened with or
received Church discipline for advocating the eradication of
PAGE 10 OCTOBER 2011

S U N S T O N E
racial boundaries.
I am not denying the reality of priesthood revelation but
only pointing out that sometimes our surety about Church
doctrine and practice is not as sure as we might like. Even if
we are confident that this ship belongs to the Lord, men are
at the helm and do the steering. Because of the principle of
agency, I have to believe that the Lord will pretty much let
them steer or take the Church any direction in which they
are inclined.
SO, HOW MUCH does Jesus actually care about the
purity of the doctrine taught in the Church? On the
surface the answer seems straightforward. Of course
the Lord cares about the doctrines being taught; why else
would the world have needed a restoration of priesthood authority
after a long apostasy? But perhaps this answer is not
as intuitive as it might first appear.
I believe that part of our obsession with punishing dissident
teachings in the modern Church stems
from the ancient Christian church practice of
emphasizing orthodoxy over orthopraxy. In
other words, it was not what you did that made
you a Christian in the ancient church (think of
Paul eradicating the Jewish dietary laws) as
much as what you believed. Leaders of the ancient
church fought constantly over doctrine
and interpretation, and they often resorted to
ostracizing fringe doctrines or teachers.
But one can find an alternative in the Jewish
tradition, which emphasizes practice (orthopraxy)
over beliefs (orthodoxy). In Judaism,
there is a fairly long tradition of disagreement
over doctrines (according to the Mishnah, this
was true even dating back to the time of Jesus),
so that almost every variety of belief or non-belief
is tolerated. There is no litmus test, per se,
that is administered to Jews every year or two
to be sure that they believe the same as
everyone else in the congregation. Instead, for
most congregations, as long as you observe the
practices, regardless of what you actually believe,
you are considered a Jew.
This was the religious tradition Jesus was
raised in. You could be excommunicated for
becoming a tax farmer (part of the Roman
tax-collecting bureaucracy) but not for
voicing alternative views of scriptural interpretation.
Some of Jesus’s views on how we should
treat differing interpretations of doctrine can be
seen in the account of Christ’s visit to Book of
Mormon peoples: “And there shall be no disputations
among you, as there have hitherto been;
neither shall there be disputations among you
concerning the points of my doctrine, as there
have hitherto been” (3 Nephi 11:28).
Admittedly, at first glance, this passage lends itself to two
different readings. One reading could see Christ’s injunction
as a form of “Thou shalt not dispute anymore because this is
the official doctrine”—Jesus channeling Elder McConkie’s
Mormon Doctrine, as it were.
But in the next verse we read, “For verily, verily I say unto
you, he that hath the spirit of contention is not of me, but is
of the devil, who is the father of contention, and he stirreth
up the hearts of men to contend with anger, one with another.”
The Nephites had apparently had some extensive
doctrinal disagreements, but the Savior was more concerned
with how they treated each other than he was with what
anyone was teaching.
Jesus seems to be advocating orthopraxy over orthodoxy—preaching
against the temptation to impose a particular
system in order to regulate spiritual conformity
within the church. In other words, Jesus is saying (and
this point is repeated in other verses as well) there is no
Viavi Company advertisement on the Table of Contents page of the January 1901
Young Women’s Journal. According to the ad, why is it popular? “Because it does
not unsex women; . . . because it makes women strong and well; . . . because a happy
home is where mother and wife is healthy.”
OCTOBER 2011 PAGE 11

S U N S T O N E
MORONI THE MARTIAN
THE COMICALLY NAMED History Channel, which
specializes in sensationalistic programs on historical
mysteries and conspiracy theories, recently offered a fresh
take on the Angel Moroni: He may have been a space alien.
For the kickoff of the second season of Ancient Aliens,
which aired on 27 July (coinciding with the release of the
movie Cowboys and Aliens), the producers decided to explore
the topic “Ancient Aliens and the Old West.”
The show explains that “according to Ancient
Astronaut theorists, Moroni may in fact have been a star
being, an extraterrestrial whose mission was to pass down
to Smith and his followers the advanced knowledge of the
Mound Builders.”
The show includes clips from an interview with Logan
Hawkes, author of Close Encounters of the Old West, who
states that “Moronee [sic] claimed to be from the Pleiades
star cluster.”
“So a church today 9-million strong believe that their
church may have originated not of this world, but of another
world,” Hawkes concludes.
This is, of course, an outrageous falsehood: The LDS
Church is 14-million strong.
point of doctrine or church teaching that is worth contending,
disputing, or arguing about with fellow church
members if it interferes with our loving each other. The
inverse is true as well. If we truly respect and love each
other, we can have those vigorous doctrinal discussions
with this caveat: don’t get too carried away with the correctness
of your point of view.
So did Jesus correct the doctrine of the Nephites when he
appeared to them? Yes, but only after warning them about
the dangers of contending over the meaning of scripture. In
D&C 10:62-63, the verses I quoted at the beginning of this
column, the Lord identifies Satan as the force behind contention
over doctrine and the temptation to “wrest the scriptures”
and turn them into tools for battle. As much as we
might enjoy intellectual dialogue, there is some point at
which differences can begin to degenerate into angry disputations.
I think the Savior knew that, in the midst of disagreements,
we often lose our tempers and are tempted to
call each other names. In fact, in the online chat and blog
environment this tendency even has a name: “Godwin’s Law
of Nazi Analogues, “which predicts that the longer an online
disagreement continues, the more likely one party will resort
to comparing the other to Nazis. If we reach the point of
pointing fingers and calling names, whether we are a
Church leader judging from one side of the high council
table or a member sitting on the other, we have transgressed
the Lord’s law of love.
SO WHAT DID I say to the anti-Mormon minister that
evening so long ago when I was an ignorant stake missionary?
I told him that even though we disagreed
strongly over the meaning of Jesus’ words, I knew the Lord
loved him just as much as he loved us, and that I loved him,
too. A strong spirit of the Lord’s love came into that room,
and just before leaving with the missionaries, the minister
took me aside and said that he had felt something in his
heart that he had not experienced before, and he asked if he
could visit with me later that week. I wish I could tell you I
was brave enough to follow through with that visit, but I
was too young and scared.
The lesson for me, though, still remains a force whenever
I am tempted to dogmatically argue with someone about a
Church teaching or interpretation of doctrine. Nothing, it
seems, is as important to the Lord as loving our fellowman—even,
or especially, Church members whom we
may fervently feel to be in doctrinal error.
MICHAEL VINSON
Star Valley, Wyoming
A d v e n t u re s o f a M o r m o n B o o k s e l l e r
In this regular Cornucopia column, Curt Bench, owner and operator
of Benchmark Books (www.benchmarkbooks.com), a
specialty bookstore in Salt Lake City that focuses primarily on
used and rare Mormon books, tells stories—both humorous and
appalling—from his 35-plus years in the LDS book business.
“UNSCRUPULOUS OR
MISGUIDED ADVENTURERS”
THE BANNER HEADLINE IN THE JANUARY 1894
Salt Lake Herald advertisement reads, “ARE YOU A
WELL WOMAN?” The lengthy ad then touts “Viavi”
as a remedy for various female disorders. The product (offered
in various forms—some to be used internally and
some externally) was promised to be a “boon” to “Eve’s
daughters.” But husbands were also promised benefits:
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S U N S T O N E
A poor man’s sole cause of happiness is often a cheerful
healthy wife and their babies. She may not be accomplished
in social arts, but she has warm arms to enfold
him. Men are governed by the same human longing,
whatever their various ranks may be, and the hearthstone
of a millionaire is made brighter if a wife be there
who is NATURALLY prompted to the display of sweet
emotion.
After selling book subscriptions for several years,
brothers Hartland and Herbert Law formed the Viavi
Company in 1886. Although their main product was designed
to treat uterine and other female disorders, Viavi also
manufactured and sold eye and ear treatments, tonics, and
laxatives. Company literature further promised treatments
for obesity, headaches, and even bad breath. Supposedly, the
firm’s miracle products could help women regulate how
many children they bore, improve the sexual health of both
men and women, and cure just about any other illness, including
cancer.
The American Medical Association took a rather dim
view of Viavi, stating that if the Law brothers were correct in
their claims, “then the whole medical world is all wrong,”
and asking, “What reputable physician, not employed by
them, could be found to agree with them?” The AMA review
also noted that the Laws, who had started with almost
nothing, were now affluent, their patrons consisting of “confiding
sick and suffering women, to whom, not skilled in
medicine, their literature appeals.”
Viavi products sold nationwide and were popular with
Mormons in Utah for some time. Viavi ads ran in the
Church’s Young Woman’s Journal for at least three straight
years (1900–1903; the image on page 11 is one example).
That the ads would run in an LDS publication is puzzling
since several years before this, the Church’s First
Presidency discussed the company and concluded that it
was no more than a “fraudulent money scheme.” In a 30
January 1894 letter written by Joseph F. Smith (then
counselor to President Wilford Woodruff) to a Logan,
Utah, stake president, 1 Smith refers to the “pretencious
[sic] and flaming advertisement” that Viavi had run in the
Salt Lake Herald earlier that month. Smith’s letter says
that Church leaders determined the scheme was designed
to “prey upon the weak and unsuspecting.” However, he
cautions the stake president against “openly opposing this
scheme, for in so doing you might give to it undue importance,
but we think you can quietly put a stopper upon it,
and thereby save our people from being duped and
robbed of their means by either unscrupulous or misguided
adventurers.”
ISN’T IT COMFORTING to realize that such chicanery
and scheming is a thing of Utah’s past? I’m sure readers
will all agree that it’s hard to imagine that any company
or person would try to deceive or sell a questionable product
to anyone, let alone a fellow Saint, as part of a get-rich-quick
scheme. Certainly not in the Mormon book and document
business anyway.
NOTE
1. Benchmark Books sold this letter to Utah State University’s Merrill-Cazier
Library Special Collections. It is quoted here with the library’s permission
A p l a c e f o r e v e r y t r u t h
This regular Cornucopia column features incidents from and
glimpses into the life and ministry of Elder James E. Talmage as
compiled by James P. Harris, who is currently working on a fulllength
biography of this fascinating Mormon apostle. The
column title is adopted from the statement inscribed on Elder
Talmage’s tombstone: “Within the Gospel of Jesus Christ there is
room and place for every truth thus far learned by man or yet to
be made known.”
UNDERSTANDING TALMAGE
ONE OF THE CHALLENGES IN READING ANY
book written by James E. Talmage is grappling with
the difficult vocabulary. He uses big words. Really
big words. Words like “tesseradecads,” which refers to the
arrangement into “groups of fourteen individuals each.” The
word occurs in Talmage’s Jesus the Christ in the discussion of
the genealogies of Jesus (see Matthew 1:17; Jesus the Christ,
89). Some of my favorites include: casuist—someone skilled
in judging right from wrong; palliate—to cover with excuses;
stultify—to cause another to look foolish.
Words such as these flowed naturally from Talmage, as
he was schooled in Latin and German while a student at
Brigham Young Academy. Most likely he also learned
German from his mentor Karl G. Maeser. A great many of
the difficult words Talmage uses, especially in The
Articles of Faith and Jesus the Christ, have a Latin or
German root base.
In 1996, I had the opportunity to interview John R.
Talmage, who was then, at age 85, the last living child of
James and May Talmage. I asked John if his father brought a
dictionary to the Salt Lake Temple when he was writing Jesus
the Christ. He replied, “Father didn’t use a dictionary. If he
didn’t know the meaning of a word, he didn’t use it.”
Not everyone who wanted to benefit from the books
Talmage wrote was blessed with his huge vocabulary, however.
Recognizing this, and in response to Jesus the Christ’s
having been chosen as the course of study for Melchizedek
Priesthood quorums for 1963 and 1964, several missionaries
serving under President J. Leonard Love in the Northern
California Mission in 1963 undertook a project to make
things easier for readers who tripped on those strange words
conjured from memory or concocted fresh by Elder
Talmage. It was a booklet they titled Understanding Talmage,
subtitled “A Conceptual Dictionary to Supplement the
OCTOBER 2011 PAGE 13

S U N S T O N E
Study of Jesus the Christ and Articles of Faith by Elder James
E. Talmage.” Readers today sometimes have trouble locating
Understanding Talmage because it’s commonly referred to as
“The Talmage Dictionary.” Also, Understanding Talmage has
been long out of print, but copies can occasionally be found
at used and rare bookstores or for sale on the Internet.
Another difficulty in using Jesus the Christ as a reference
guide is that Talmage provided no scripture index. Thus, if
you wanted to find out what Talmage had to say about Amos
8:11–12, you would have to do some research. In 1963, a
couple by the name of J. Marlan and Christina Vella sought
to remedy this lack by compiling the “Scripture Index to
Jesus the Christ.” Their index may have been meant for publication,
but it never got that far. For those interested in obtaining
one, Special Collections at BYU’s Harold B. Lee
Library has been willing to make reprints available for purchase
on demand.
F ro m t h e p e w s
A two-sentence version of this piece appeared as Aaron C.
Brown’s 9 February 2011 Facebook status update.
LEADERLORE
NOTHING DRIVES ME CRAZIER THAN HEARING
a well-meaning Latter-day Saint earnestly explain
how some popular Mormon teaching doesn’t count
as official—or as a “doctrine”—because it belongs to some
other—supposedly inferior—category of teaching:
“Culture.” “Policy.” “Speculation.” “Folklore.” It’s not that I
object to drawing distinctions between central gospel teachings
and their lower-class cousins. It’s not that our terms
can’t have concrete, useful meanings. It’s that more often
than not, they don’t. They’re just empty words. And this is a
problem. For if we Mormons are going to draw distinctions
between “doctrine” and “non-doctrine,” we need to make
sure we’ve thought hard about the contours of these categories.
We need to carefully define our terms, and then use
them in concrete, principled ways. Otherwise, we’re just employing
clever rhetorical tricks to downgrade LDS teachings
we don’t like, without doing the work of showing why these
teachings should be viewed as less authoritative than teachings
we do like.
Perhaps no term for “non-doctrine” irks me so much as
“folklore,” because, to my ears, it implies that the “lore”
being disparaged originated with the common Mormon
“folk”—in other words, that some idea is the weird invention
of rank-and-file Mormons from yesteryear who had too
much time on their hands and too much zeal in their heads.
But many of the embarrassing, awkward, even shameful,
ideas that have circulated among the Mormon populace
have no such lowly origins. Many were either promulgated
by the senior leadership of the LDS Church (often in official
fora), or were at least promoted and popularized by them.
We really need a term that reflects this reality. We need a
word that helps us confront the necessary task of reflecting
on the origin of our teachings.
I understand the perceived need to employ a term that
can safely disown outdated Mormon teachings and practices
without gratuitously embarrassing the LDS leadership. But
our collective failure to properly identify the origins of false
Mormon teachings has costs. It prevents many of us from
recognizing where destructive religious notions often come
from. It dissuades many of us from learning from these historical
episodes, and from raising constructive questions
about how we should approach the teachings of authorities
we want to view as inspired.
So here’s my suggestion: Let’s jettison “folklore,” at least
when we discuss Mormonism’s past racial teachings or any
other outmoded teachings the LDS leadership once promoted.
Let’s save it for instances where we’re supremely confident
that the Mormon “folk” really are the authors of the
“lore.” If we want to employ the term in reference to a
sighting of the Three Nephites, a UFO story, or some other
tale of dubious provenance, fine. But teachings once viewed
as authoritative by Mormon leaders deserve a different
term—one that doesn’t mask important questions about the
origin and authoritativeness of our “lore.”
Let’s stop talking about “folklore” and start talking about
“leaderlore.”
AARON C. BROWN
Seattle, Washington
Nex t Pag e: Wr it t eN by Mar k JeNs eN, il l u s t r at ed by JeaNet t e at Wo o d
PAGE 14 OCTOBER 2011

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Early Mormon history
THE CULTURE OF VIOLENCE
IN JOSEPH SMITH’S MORMONISM
By D. Michael Quinn
IT IS EXTREMELY DIFFICULT FOR MOST OF US
today to comprehend the violence that was pervasive,
often normative, 1 in early American culture. 2 Much of
this normative violence had its roots in the national culture
while regions (such as the South and West) had their own
traditions of sanctioned violence in daily life. 3 In other instances,
the rowdyism and violence were normative only for
a subculture that was defined primarily by social class or
ethnicity. 4 Early Americans had perspectives about violence
that were very different even from those of modern
Americans who have served in the military or lived in wartorn
societies, because it is normal for modern Americans to
grow up in a peaceful environment where violence is considered
a violation of social norms.
Some of America’s culture of violence is rooted in
England. Robert Shoemaker has observed of England’s traditions
of male honor before 1800 that “violence for men was
part of accepted codes of masculine behavior, and offered
them a means of affirming their gender identity, and gentlemen
a means of confirming their superior social position.”
Nevertheless, Shoemaker’s statistical analysis shows
that urban Englishmen of all classes were becoming less violent
during the decades before 1800. 5 Part of the reason for
this decline of violence was the growing success of English
common law’s “duty to retreat.” As Richard Maxwell Brown
explains, a centuries-old “society of civility” in Britain that
called for “obedience to the duty to retreat—really a duty to
flee from the scene altogether or, failing that, to retreat to the
wall at one’s back—meant that in the vast majority of disputes
no fatal outcome could occur.”
Beginning with an 1806 decision by a Massachusetts
court, gradually the United States “as a whole repudiated the
English common-law tradition in favor of the American
D. MICHAEL QUINN is an independent scholar in
Rancho Cucamonga, Southern California. His first
ancestral Mormon mother, Lydia Bilyeu Workman,
died in Nauvoo on 30 September 1845, just days
after she was burned out of her farmhouse by mobs.
Her five youngest children were aged six to eighteen."
theme of no duty to retreat: that one was legally justified in
standing one’s ground to kill in self-defense.” This shift resulted
in America’s “proud new tolerance for killing in situations
where it might have been avoided by obeying a legal
duty to retreat.” 6
During this same period, American norms were changing
concerning violence by boys and teenagers. E. Anthony
Rotundo observes: “Early in the 1800s, men and women had
seen youthful brawls as a badge of evil and a sign that manly
self-control was not yet developed.” However, during a
decades-long transition, “bourgeois Northerners did more
than endorse interpersonal violence: they now believed that
fighting helped to build youthful character.” 7
A few examples may be helpful in recognizing this early
American culture of violence, which extended from the elite
to the lower classes, from the cities to the villages, from
North to South, from the Eastern Establishment to the
western frontier. Although dueling (usually with pistols)
was permitted by the laws of various states and was regarded
as honorable by most Americans of the time, 8
Thomas Jefferson in 1798 persuaded ambassador (and future
president) James Monroe against trying to kill U.S.
president John Adams in a duel. 9 Alexander Hamilton, a
founding father of the Republic and secretary of the U.S.
Treasury, died in an 1804 duel. 10 The history of dueling in
the nation’s capital also included “an affair of honor” between
Secretary of State Henry Clay and Senator John
Randolph. 11 Known for dueling while he was justice of the
Tennessee Supreme Court in the early 1800s, Andrew
Jackson killed one opponent in 1806, engaged in a hotel
brawl as army general with Thomas Hart Benton in 1813,
massacred countless Creek Indian women and children (including
hundreds on a single day), executed six Tennessee
militiamen in 1814 for leaving camp when they thought
their enlistments had expired, illegally invaded the Spanish
territory of Florida in 1818, and hanged two British men
there for befriending the Seminole Indians—yet Jackson
was elected U.S. president in 1828. 12 As governor of Illinois
Territory, William Henry Harrison declared “a war of extirpation”
against the Kickapoo Indians who opposed white
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settlement on their ancestral lands, and he successfully used
this violent campaign to get elected as U.S. president in
1840. 13 In 1842, Abraham Lincoln nearly engaged in a
sword duel with the Illinois state auditor. 14
Violence in the classroom was also common in early
America. In 1802, students at Princeton University burned
down the library; before 1830 had arrived, they had engaged
in five other “major campus rebellions.” Student rioting and
violence also plagued the University of Virginia during the
1830s and 1840s. The problem was even worse at public
schools where the children of farmers, shopkeepers, and
common laborers were educated. In 1837 alone, 400 schools
had to be closed in Massachusetts because of violence and
disciplinary problems. 15 From colonial times to the mid-
1840s, it was a tradition in Philadelphia on Sundays for
young men to commit both “organized and spontaneous
mayhem.” 16
The pervasiveness of violence in early American culture,
particularly by men, leads to an obvious question. Did every
early American man, or even the vast majority, commit assault
and battery? Existing evidence indicates that the answer
is “no” for a large portion of American males during
that era.
Why did many early American males avoid violence, even
though it was socially sanctioned? Opinion polls did not
exist, relatively few American males wrote diaries or letters
about their personal feelings, and even fewer commented
about their responses to violence (aside from service in the
military). Therefore, the answer can be only tentative, but
many early American males apparently declined to participate
in their country’s culture of violence because of some
combination of the following factors: non-aggressiveness in
their personalities, their adherence to the Christian commandment
to “turn the other cheek” (Matthew 5:39), family
indoctrination against violence, or their perception that
there was never sufficient cause for them to resort to violence
in their daily lives.
Because many American males (and nearly all females)
avoided violence, we might question whether there really
was a “culture of violence” in early America. To answer that
question, we need more than arrest records, or anecdotal references
to violent incidents, or even estimates of those who
did not engage in violent acts. Rather, we need to ask a more
fundamental question: What were the norms of the society
regarding violence?
In terms of the previously cited examples of legally and
socially sanctioned violence in daily life and of the election
of national leaders with violent reputations, it should be obvious
why historians regard early America as a violent culture.
Though the incidents of violence are certainly important,
both individually and statistically, the crucial question
is whether the violent incidents occurred in concert with the
society’s norms or in opposition to them.
C. C. A. Ch r is t en s en : Det Ail f r o m “h Au n ’s mil l ”
IT MAY BE difficult for the majority of those who follow
the Restoration message that began with the 1830 Book
of Mormon to conceive of early Mormon culture as
being violent. 17 After all, the Book of Mormon’s narratives
endorsed self-defensive wars (Alma 43: 26, 47) but also expressed
discomfort or condemnation of violence in daily life
(1 Nephi 4:7–18; Mosiah 29:14; Alma 35:15; 48:11).
Members of the Community of Christ, headquartered in
Independence, Missouri, can point to a tradition of gentle
co-existence with their neighbors which extends to that
movement’s founding in the 1850s. 18 Members of the LDS
Church, headquartered in Salt Lake City, can point to a similar
tradition throughout their own lifetime and that of their
parents, grandparents, sometimes great-grandparents and
great-great-grandparents. 19
However, the Utah church’s peaceful norms extend back
only to the 1890s, 20 and the Community of Christ’s norms
do not define the Mormonism which existed before the
Reorganization of the 1850s. To avoid the “presentist bias”
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S U N S T O N E
of trying to make the past conform to our
own experience and world views, 21 we need
to explore the personalities, norms, and behaviors
of early Mormonism concerning violence.
In the above sentence, I mentioned “personalities”
first because prior to the existence
of Mormonism’s norms, its founder
Joseph Smith Jr. had developed personality
traits which interacted with the norms of the
Church he led from 1830 to his death in
1844. As biographer Richard Lyman
Bushman has recently observed, “Joseph’s reaction
to insults was learned behavior,
shared with his society. His anger was both
his own and an expression of a cultural practice—what
honorable men were taught to
do. . . . The culture of honor moved him to
contend with the offending parties to protect
his easily bruised pride, even though all the
while he wanted peace.” 22
On the one hand, for example, in 1836 a Kirtland resident
called Joseph Smith “a pugnacious Prophet.” 23 This described
a repeatedly manifested aspect of Smith’s personality—he
physically assaulted those who offended him, and
he spoke with pride about these violent incidents. His followers
might justify such personal behaviors with religious
prooftexts about Jesus using a whip on money-changers in
the temple at Jerusalem (John 2:15), 24 but the Mormon
Prophet’s resorting to assault and battery also reflected early
America’s culture of violence and its code of male honor. 25
On the other hand, as God’s living Prophet and mouthpiece
on earth, Smith also claimed that Mormons had the religious
right to take vengeance on their enemies and had the
theocratic right to form private armies. Joseph Smith’s personality
and his theocratic teachings were the joint basis for
early Mormonism’s norms for violent behavior. This resulted
in a violent religious subculture within a violent national
culture.
“When I was a boy” in Palmyra, New York—probably in
the 1820s—Smith confronted a wife-beater: “I whipped him
till he said he had enough.” 26 He also told Mormon friends
another “anecdote. While [Joseph was] young, his father
had a fine large watch dog which bit off an ear from David
Stafford’s hog, which Stafford had turned into Smith[‘s] corn
field. Stafford shot the dog and with six other fellows
pitched upon him [Joseph] unawares. Joseph whipped the
whole of them and escaped unhurt [—] which they swore to
as recorded in Hurlburt’s or Howe’s Book.” 27 Not surprisingly,
the official History of the Church, published in Salt
Lake City, deleted this latter passage from the Prophet’s personal
journal, in part, perhaps, because it actually endorsed
the accuracy of affidavits collected from Smith’s Palmyra
neighbors and published in the first anti-Mormon book,
Mormonism Unvailed. 28
However, despite these violent incidents in his early life
(one expressing his code of male honor and
one representing self-defense), the first few
years of Joseph’s leadership of the Church
were remarkably non-violent. His pacifism
was most extraordinary when, in March
1832, a mob broke into the homes of Smith,
then church president and his counselor
Sidney Rigdon in Hiram, Ohio. The mob
dragged the two from their beds, attempted to
poison Smith, nearly castrated him, beat both
men unconscious, then tarred-and-feathered
them. Worse, the Prophet’s adopted child died
from exposure to the cold as the mob ransacked
his house. Nevertheless, Joseph
preached the next day to a congregation
which included several of his attackers, and
he sought no retribution. Among this mob
was a former friend, apostate Symonds
Rider. 29
I find it difficult to explain in satisfactorily
human terms how Joseph Smith could manifest such
Quaker-like pacifism 30 in his personal responses to this
physical attack on himself and family in 1832, yet could lash
out with vehemence at far lesser provocations during the
last ten years of his life. This contrast seems beyond Richard
Bushman’s biographical assessments.
To explain the Prophet’s pacifist behavior in 1832, I think
Joseph believed that Mormonism required him to live a
higher standard. However, that changed—and Joseph became
“pugnacious” for reasons that are neither explained
nor self-evident.
Perhaps hackneyed phrases such as “straw that broke the
camel’s back” or “dam bursting” apply to the cumulative effect
of the years of religious ridicule and personal insults
that he experienced. Both certainly provoked the Prophet’s
conventionally American code of honor. At any rate, it is
easier to explain the theocratic basis for violent aspects in
his religious leadership after 1832.
Because Joseph Smith’s 1832 response to the 1832 mob
attack was the most important guide his followers had concerning
how they should respond to violent attacks,
Mormons behaved as pacifists when Missourians attacked
them in Jackson County during July 1833. Mobs destroyed
the Mormon newspaper, the home of editor William W.
Phelps, and burned nearly all copies of the newly printed
Book of Commandments, the first collection of Smith’s revelations.
Then the mob tarred-and-feathered Bishop Edward
Partridge and other Mormon men for not agreeing to leave
the county immediately. The Missouri Mormons gave no resistance
to these attacks, brandished no weapons, and did
not speak of revenge. 31
As resident John Corrill wrote, “up to this time the
Mormons had not so much as lifted a finger, even in their
own defense, so tenacious were they for the precepts of the
gospel—’turn the other cheek.’” 32 That changed after Smith
made the first revelatory pronouncement that Mormon
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imAg es : C. C. A. Ch r is t en s en : Det Ail s f r o m
“s Ain t s Dr iv en f r o m JACk s o n Co u n t y mis s o u r i”
theocracy was a here-and-now reality, not some distant
event connected with the millennial return of Jesus. 33
In August 1833, Smith announced the words of God:
“And now verily I say unto you, concerning the laws of the
land, it is my will that my people should observe to do all
things whatsoever I command them . . . “ The document required
Mormons to obey divine rule, not secular authority,
concerning war and militarism: “And again, this is the law I
gave unto mine ancients, that they should not go out unto
battle against any nation, kindred, tongue, or people, save I,
the Lord, commanded them” (D&C 98:4–11, 33). 34 The
revelation implied that God would reveal such commands
through the LDS Prophet. That became explicit within
months, when Joseph Smith became the theocratic commander-in-chief
of the “armies of Israel.”
Having previously endured an anti-Mormon attack
without retribution, the Mormon community in Missouri
responded to this document’s instructions to endure a total
of three attacks and “bear it patiently.” However, upon the
fourth attack, “thine enemy is in thine hands and thou art
justified.” This theocratic justification extended to
vengeance against “all their enemies, to the third and fourth
generation” (D&C 98:23, 25–26, 31, 37).
In October 1833, Missourians raided isolated Mormon
homes, which was the second major attack of “your enemy,”
after the attack in July. On 1 November, mobs destroyed the
Church’s gristmill in Independence and attacked Mormon
homes there. This was the third attack, and, in compliance
with the August revelation, the Mormon community in
Missouri again chose to “bear it patiently.”
The next night, the Missourians raided
Mormon settlements in the Blue River
Valley. This time—the fourth attack—the
Mormons surprised their enemy by
fighting back. Skirmishes increased until
the “Battle of Blue River” on 4 November,
when Book of Mormon witness David
Whitmer led the Mormons in killing two
Missourians and severely wounding
others. In response, Jackson County’s
leaders called out the militia, who compelled
the Mormons to surrender their
weapons and begin leaving their homes. 35
It is possible that the 1833 Missouri
mobbings caused the Prophet to enlist
some of his followers as bodyguards, but
the practice would have been understandable
after his being tarred-and-feathered in
1832. In any event, a non-Mormon in Ohio
wrote in January 1834 that “Smith has four
or five armed men to gard [sic] him every
night.” 36
A month later, Joseph dictated a revelation
concerning “the redemption of your
brethren who have been scattered on the
land of Zion” and “in avenging me of mine
enemies.” To accomplish these ends, the revelation commanded
Smith to organize at least “a hundred of the strength
of my house, to go up with you unto the land of Zion,”
adding the instruction, “And whoso is not willing to lay
down his life for my sake, is not my disciple” (D&C 103:1,
26, 28, 34). This was the beginning of the Mormon military
expedition called “Zion’s Camp.” 37
Perhaps the most significant dimension of this “commandment”
(v. 1) was its provision that “ye shall avenge me
of mine enemies . . . unto the third and fourth generation of
them that hate me” (vv. 25–26). This new statement verified
that the conditions laid down in the 1833 revelation had
been fulfilled and that the Latter-day Saints were now free to
take “vengeance” at will against any perceived enemy. This
February 1834 revelation was the equivalent of a standing
order from God—you may fire when ready.
Zion’s Camp did not succeed in redeeming Zion, but it
transformed Mormon leadership and culture. In February
1834, the high council in Kirtland, Ohio, elected Joseph
Smith as “commander-in-chief of the armies of Israel.” 38
This was one of the first acts of the newly organized high
council, which thereby acknowledged Smith’s religious right
to give God’s command to “go out unto battle against any
nation, kindred, tongue, or people” (D&C 98:4–11, 33).
Zion’s Camp was the first organization established for the
external security of Mormonism. In June 1834, Joseph
Smith created the second by reorganizing his private bodyguards
into an organization led by a captain, his brother
Hyrum, who presided over twenty of “my life guards.” 39
Six months later, the military experience
of Zion’s Camp (rather than any ecclesiastical
service) was the basis upon
which Joseph Smith said he was selecting
men for the newly organized Quorum of
the Twelve Apostles and the Seventy. 40
Unlike other American religious denominations,
“the church militant” was a literal
fact in Mormonism, not just a symbolic
slogan. 41
DURING THIS SAME period,
Joseph Smith was involved in two
outbursts of personal violence in
Kirtland. Sometime between April 1834
and April 1835, the following incident occurred,
as described by Smith himself.
After a Baptist minister threatened him
with a cane, the Prophet said, “I whipped
him till he begged. He threatened to prosecute
me. I sent Luke Johnson[,] the constable[,]
after him and he run him out of
the County into Mentor,” Ohio. 42 Johnson
explained that this act of violence occurred
because the minister, after receiving
the hospitality of the Prophet’s home, then
“called Joseph a hypocrite, a liar, an im-
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poster and a false prophet, and called upon him to repent.”
Therefore, “Joseph boxed his ears with both hands, and,
turning his face towards the door, kicked him into the
street.” 43 The American code of honor triumphed.
In April 1835, Joseph’s brother-in-law Calvin W. Stoddard
accused him of assault and battery. At a preliminary hearing,
the judge ruled that “it is considered that the charge is sustained,”
and the Prophet was bound over for trial at the
Court of Common Pleas. However, because Stoddard failed
to appear at the May trial, Smith was acquitted, and the
plaintiff had to pay court costs. 44
Despite this charge of battering his brother-in-law in a
dispute during the spring, the Prophet showed remarkable
restraint in the fall with his brother William, who had an
equally pugnacious reputation. 45 Because Joseph would not
allow their mother to testify at a high council trial, William
Smith “became enraged. I finally ordered him to set [sic]
down. He said he would not unless I knocked him down.”
Although furious at his brother, Joseph did not respond to
this challenge with violence. Concerning a subsequent argument,
Joseph wrote that William “used violence upon my
person.” 46
However, this fraternal conflict of 1835 had a final outcome
which the Prophet’s diary and official LDS history did
not mention. Joseph Smith’s devoted friend Benjamin F.
Johnson, a Kirtland resident, reported that “for insolence to
him, he (Joseph) soundly thrashed his brother William who
boasted himself as invincible.” 47
Less than four years later, Smith’s former secretary
Warren Parrish referred in print to these incidents. He condemned
“the Prophet[‘]s fighting four pitched battles at
fisticuff, without [sic within] four years, one with his own
natural brother, one with his brotherinlaw [sic], one with
Ezra Thair [Thayer], and one with a Baptist priest.” Parrish’s
statement was endorsed by two disaffected apostles (including
Constable Luke Johnson) and two disaffected
Presidents of the Seventy. 48
By contrast, rather than becoming disaffected because of
the Prophet’s personal violence, some faithful Mormons
cited these incidents as justification for their own aggressive
behavior. Following his ordination in Kirtland to the LDS offices
of elder and seventy, 49 Elijah Abel served a proselytizing
mission. After this African-American elder threatened
“to knock down elder Christopher Merkley on their passage
up Lake Ontario, he publickly [sic] declared that the elders
in Kirtland make nothing of knocking down one another.”
Jedediah M. Grant and Zenas H. Gurley disapproved of
Abel’s preaching this, and they formally accused him of misconduct.
50
ON 24 SEPTEMBER 1835, notwithstanding the absence
of an external threat, Joseph Smith organized
militarily in Kirtland. He proposed “by the voice of
the Spirit of the Lord” to raise another Mormon army “to
live or die on our own lands, which we have purchased in
Jackson County, Missouri.” His manuscript diary concluded
in his own handwriting: “I ask God in the name of Jesus that
we may obtain Eight hundred men (or one thousand) well
armed and that they may ac[c]omplish this great work.” 51 A
thousand-man army was a remarkable goal for an organization
with fewer than nine thousand men, women, and children,
which may be why the official LDS history changed
the phrase to “one thousand emigrants.” 52 John Whitmer,
who was official Church Historian at this time, added something
that Smith’s diary left unstated: on this day, the high
council “by revelation” appointed the LDS president as head
of the “war department” of the “Lord’s Host.” 53
This was a significant expansion of Joseph’s previous role
as commander-in-chief of the armies of Israel because “war
department” assumed crucial circumstances. First, he used
the phrase which defined the jurisdiction of the U.S.
Secretary of War, and this implied a nationalist dimension in
Mormonism. Second, given that the U.S. War Department
was a permanent function, in war or peace, 54 the Prophet’s
military oversight was also permanent. Third, as head of
Mormonism’s “war department,” Smith did not need to be a
line officer in the field during hostilities. Like the U.S.
Secretary of War, Joseph now had oversight of all Mormon
military operations. Fourth, he had no mortal superior and
thus combined in himself roles that the U.S. government
found it wise to separate in time of war—military command
and civilian oversight. The fact that his diary stated his military
goals for Missouri but did not reveal his actual organizational
responsibility may indicate that the Prophet wanted
to be an unseen hand to outside observers of Mormon military
ventures. 55 If so, the Prophet failed in his intention: in
May 1836, a hostile resident referred to Kirtland’s Mormons
as “a military array of ragamuffins, headed by the modern
Mohammed.” 56
Furthermore, tensions with non-Mormons at Kirtland led
Joseph Smith to take an extraordinary step in November
1836. He and eleven other general authorities (including
four of his counselors in the First Presidency) joined with
fifty-nine other Mormons in signing a warning to the non-
LDS justice of the peace to “depart forthwith out of
Kirtland.” Of those who signed this warning against
Kirtland’s judicial officer, at least a dozen later joined the
“Danites” in Missouri; this 1836 document foreshadowed
their activities less than two years later. 57 John Whitmer was
probably referring to this November ultimatum when he
lamented the beginning of “secret combinations” in Kirtland
“in the fall of 1836.” 58
In another incident about which Smith’s personal diary
and official history are completely silent, he was acquitted in
June 1837 of conspiring to murder anti-Mormon Grandison
Newell. The silence may be due to the fact that two of
Joseph’s supporting witnesses in the case, both apostles, acknowledged
that the Prophet discussed with them the possibility
of killing Newell. Apostle Orson Hyde testified that
“Smith seemed much excited and declared that Newell
should be put out of the way, or where the crows could not
find him; he said that destroying Newell would be justifiable
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in the sight of God, that it was the will of God, &c.” Hyde
tried to be helpful by adding that he had “never heard Smith
use similar language before,” insisting further: “I have
known him for some time and think him to be possessed of
much kindness and humanity towards his fellow beings.”
Likewise, apostle Luke S. Johnson acknowledged to the
court that Joseph had said “if Newell or any other man
should head a mob against him, they ought to be put out of
the way, and it would be our duty to do so.” However,
Johnson also affirmed: “I believe Smith to be a tenderhearted,
humane man.” Whether or not the court agreed
with that assessment, the judge acquitted Joseph because
there was insufficient evidence to support the charge of conspiracy
to commit murder. 59
In the fall of 1837, David W. Patten investigated the
Prophet’s secret relationship with his servant girl Fanny
Alger, 60 and the hapless apostle collided with Smith’s code of
male honor. Brigham Young described what happened:
“David in[sult]ed Joseph & Joseph slap[p]ed him in the face
& kicked him out of the yard.” 61
However, the Mormon Prophet’s code of honor took offense
at far lesser provocations. Benjamin F. Johnson reminisced
that “criticism, even by his associates, was rarely acceptable,
and contradiction would rouse in him the lion at
once, for by no one of his fellows would he be superseded or
disputed and in the early days at Kirtland, and elsewhere[,]
one or more of his associates were more than once, for their
impudence, helped from the congregation by his (Joseph’s)
foot.” 62
When armed dissenters joined anti-Mormons in forcing
the Prophet and his loyal followers to flee Kirtland in
January 1838, 63 this event solidified a world view that was
indelible throughout the rest of the nineteenth century:
Mormonism was fighting for its life against conspiracies of
anti-Mormons and Mormon traitors. Every generation of the
Mormon hierarchy remembers this heritage of anti-Mormon
persecutors and collaborating apostates. This is the context
in which, as Marvin S. Hill observed, “the desire for refuge
from pluralism and the uncertainty of choice in a free society
encouraged a quest to eliminate opposition both within and
without the [LDS] Church through intimidation and, when
necessary, violence.” 64
Some of Kirtland’s dissenters also resettled at the new
Mormon headquarters of Far West, Missouri, where they associated
with local dissenters. Joseph and his loyal followers
were determined to prevent these formerly faithful leaders
from causing mass disaffection a second time. They pursued
this aim through an organization which functioned both
militarily and theocratically.
IN EARLY JUNE 1838, Sampson Avard—who considered
himself an ultra-loyal Mormon—proposed organizing
the “Danites” among other ultra-loyal Mormons.
The Danites were the first civil appendage of Mormon power
since 1834. Some historians have claimed that Joseph Smith
and the rest of the First Presidency were unaware of the
C. C. A. Ch r is t en s en : Det Ail f r o m “h Au n ’s mil l ”
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Danite organization, 65 but documentary evidence shows
otherwise.
Quoting from his daily journal, founding member
William Swartzell later wrote that the Danites organized formally
as the “Daughters of Zion” in June 1838 at Far West,
taking their nickname from the prophecy of Daniel about
the stone cut out of the mountain without hands (Daniel 2:
44–45). 66 While the organization was still functioning, loyal
LDS member Albert P. Rockwood wrote in 1838: “the
Companies are called Danites because the Prophet Daniel
has said [Daniel 7: 18] the Saints shall take the kingdom and
possess it for-ever.” 67
Two weeks after the formation of a second group at
Adam-ondi-Ahman, Missouri, John Smith (who was both
stake president and a special counselor in the First
Presidency) called the organization “the Danites” in his
diary. He also described Danite meetings as routine events. 68
Soon this militant group developed an infamous reputation
for its intimidation of Mormon dissenters and its warfare
against anti-Mormon militia units. Joseph Smith cited
those two purposes in his journal (called a “Scriptory
Book”) to explain why “we have a company of Danites in
these times.” 69 Sidney Rigdon, first counselor in the First
Presidency, later made a similar statement in the official LDS
newspaper. 70
Thus the Prophet’s own diary corroborates the later statement
by Ebenezer Robinson, who remained a believing
Mormon but regretted his Danite activities: “Both Joseph
Smith, jr. and Sidney Rigdon sanctioned and favored the
only organization of ‘Danites’ of which the writer has any
knowledge.” 71
On 17 June 1838, Sidney Rigdon preached his “Salt
Sermon” as a warning that Mormon dissenters would “be
cast out and trodden under foot of men.” 72 Rather than
simply being an echo of Matthew 5: 13, Rigdon’s sermon was
restating what an 1834 revelation had authorized the First
Presidency to do to Mormons who “hearken not to observe
all my words” (D&C 103:8–10).
The next day, Second Counselor Hyrum Smith and his
uncle John Smith (an Assistant Counselor in the First
Presidency) joined with Danite leader Sampson Avard (the
first signatory) and eighty other Danites in signing a
threatening letter to Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, John
Whitmer, Lyman E. Johnson, and William W. Phelps.
Presidency counselor John Smith was the only general authority
who signed both this 1838 warning
and the earlier warning to Kirtland’s justice
of the peace. This Danite threat instructed
these excommunicated dissenters to “depart,
or a more fatal calamity shall befall
you.” 73
Ebenezer Robinson, who also signed the
Danite document, later wrote that all the
signers were members of the recently organized
Danite “military organization.” He
added that he was told in June 1838 that the
document itself “was gotten up in the office of the First
Presidency.” 74 Avard specified that Counselor Rigdon wrote
the text of this Danite ultimatum. 75 Although the Danites
had been organized primarily for external security against
the possibility of Missouri mobs, 76 they now functioned as
an organization for internal security—to intimidate and possibly
kill dissenting Mormons.
Indeed, Joseph Smith’s “Scriptory Book” journal showed
that the Prophet intended the Danites to use force against
LDS dissidents: “we have a company of Danites in these
times, to put to right physically that which is not right, and
to cleanse the Church of verry [sic] great evils . . .” (emphasis
added). 77 The fact that the Danite death threat was
written by Joseph’s first counselor Sidney Rigdon, signed by
second counselor Hyrum Smith, and co-signed by assistant
counselor John Smith indicates that the First Presidency had
thorough knowledge of the Danite organization in mid-1838
and crucial participation with its violent manifestations
from the outset.
Speaking of the prominent dissidents who received this
death threat in June, Joseph Smith’s “Scriptory” journal
noted: “These men took warning, and soon they were seen
bounding over the prairie like the scape Goat to carry of[f]
their own sins.” 78 Unable to see the situation in such lighthearted
terms, dissenter John Whitmer wrote: “While we
were gone[,] Jo. & Rigdon & their band of gadiantons kept
up a guard and watched our houses and abused our families
and threatened them if they were not gone by morning they
would be drove out & threatened our lives if they [the
Danites] ever saw us in Far West.” 79 “Gadianton” was a
Book of Mormon term for thieves and murderers who were
bound by secret oaths (Helaman 6: 18, 24, 26).
The Danites’ 1838 ultimatum was not an irregularity in
Mormonism but a direct fulfillment of a revelation four
years earlier concerning unfaithful Latter-day Saints “who
call themselves after my name” (D&C 103: 4). Stephen C.
LeSueur observed: “The Danite organization was the
product of, not an aberration from, Mormon attitudes and
teachings. The Danites represented mainstream
Mormonism.” 80 Despite trying to put the best face possible
on this event, Leland H. Gentry acknowledged: “The
method chosen by the Latter-day Saints to rid themselves of
their dissenting Brethren was unfortunate since it furnished
the dissenters with further proof that the Saints were inimical
to law and order.” 81
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Regarding the Danite expulsion of prominent Mormon
dissenters, Sidney Rigdon told apostle Orson Hyde at Far
West that “it was the imperative duty of the Church to obey
the word of Joseph Smith, or the presidency, without question
or inquiry, and that if there were any that would not,
they should have their throats cut from ear [to] ear.”
Remarkably, an official LDS newspaper later published this
verification of the First Presidency’s 1838 authorization for
theocratic killings. 82 Rigdon was, after all, merely restating
in 1838 what the Prophet had said a year earlier about
Grandison Newell—”that Newell should be put out of the
way, or where the crows could not find him; he [Joseph
Smith] said that destroying Newell would be justifiable in
the sight of God, that it was the will of God, &c.”
Benjamin Slade, a lifelong Mormon, soon testified that
counselor Rigdon referred to carrying out that threat in mid-
1838. “Yesterday a man had slipped his wind, and was
thrown into the bush,” Rigdon told a closed-door meeting of
Mormon men (apparently Danites), adding: “the man that
lisps it shall die.” 83
ON 4 July, a month before the county election, the
First Presidency virtually dared the Missourians to
try to stop Mormons from exercising their civil liberties:
“It shall be between us and them a war of extermination,”
counselor Rigdon warned, “for we will follow them,
till the last drop of their blood is spilled, or else they will
have to exterminate us.” 84 Joseph Smith published this
Independence Day talk as a pamphlet, advertised it in the
LDS periodical, and explained that Rigdon’s sermon expressed
“the fixed determinations of the saints, in relation to
the persecutors . . . for to be mob[b]ed any more without
taking vengeance we will not.” 85
Non-Mormons were determined to prevent Mormons
from voting in Daviess County, which resulted in violence at
the county seat of Gallatin in August 1838. “The first thing
that came to my mind was the covenants entered into by the
Danites,” wrote lifelong Mormon John L. Butler of this incident.
He rallied the dozen other Mormons at the voting
place by shouting: “O yes, you Danites, here is a job for us.”
Among the Danites he rallied to fight the Missourians was
Samuel H. Smith, Book of Mormon witness and brother of
the LDS president. This account was included in the LDS
Church’s official “Journal History.” 86 Although there were no
fatalities, this election-day “battle” between self-professed
Danites and anti-Mormons started a virtual civil war that engulfed
four Missouri counties. 87
In retaliation for raids against isolated
Mormon farms, Mormon forces (primarily, if
not exclusively, Danites) pillaged two non-
Mormon towns. “There is no question,”
wrote BYU professor William G. Hartley,
“that Latter-day Saint rangers burned buildings
at Millport and Gallatin,” including the
U.S. post office and county treasurer’s office.
In the most candid account ever written by a
Utah Mormon historian about the Missouri Danites, he also
acknowledged: “It is certain that some of the Missouri
Danites played the thief, and it is possible, although unproven,
that one or two were murderers.” 88
However, Hartley’s comparison of the Danites with the
National Guard was a flawed attempt at “balanced assessment,”
since the Danites were religious vigilantes, not
legally commissioned soldiers. Likewise, Hartley’s comparison
fails in defining Danite atrocities as “wartime . . .
military actions,” when in fact the Danite acts of “arson,
vandalism, and robbery” were what they appeared to be,
“clearly crimes” (his quotes). These Mormon crimes may
have been understandable responses to even more savage
attacks, but the retaliation was illegal by any definition.
Worse, the Danites targeted a whole class of individuals—
non-Mormons in general—rather than the specific perpetrators
of the attacks for which Mormons sought
revenge. 89
Describing Danite security arrangements for August
1838, the manuscript autobiography of loyal Mormon
Luman A. Shurtliff revealed that Joseph Smith was also a
Danite. Between two discussions of Danite “sighns [sic] and
passwords” and the Danite “countersign,” Shurtliff noted
how the LDS President and his brother Hyrum Smith (a
Danite by mid-June 1838 as well as Joseph’s second counselor
in the First Presidency) gave the necessary “countersign”
as the two approached Shurtliff, who was the night
sentry. A little further in his narrative, Shurtliff added that
while he was on guard duty with newly appointed apostle
John Taylor, “I did not feel at liberty to use any sighn [sic] or
password” because “Br Taylor was not a Danite.” 90 However,
like Hyrum, Joseph Smith was a Danite, and they both used
the Danite countersign. 91
Justus Morse, a Danite, listened to Joseph Smith authorize
a Danite meeting (apparently after the Gallatin fight) to
“suck the milk of the gentiles.” Morse, who remained loyal
to the Prophet throughout his life, added that Smith explained
“that we had been injured by the mob in Missouri,
and to take from the gentiles was no sin,” merely retribution.
92
Danites who maintained lifelong loyalty to the LDS
Church later wrote of what they did to defenseless “gentiles”
during this “Mormon War” in Missouri. For example,
twenty-year-old Benjamin F. Johnson participated in a raid
that Danite captain Cornelius P. Lott led against an isolated
settlement:
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My sympathies were drawn toward the women and
children, but I would in no degree let them deter me
from duty. So while others were pillaging for something
to carry away, I was doing my best to protect,
as far as possible, the lives and comfort of the [non-
Mormon] families who were dependent on getting
away on horseback. . . . While others were doing the
burning and plunder, my mission was of mercy so
far as duty would permit. But of course I made enemies
at home [among fellow Mormons], and became
more known by those who were our avowed
enemies. Before noon we had set all [houses and
barns] on fire and left upon a circuitous route towards
home.
The LDS publishing house of the Central States Mission
printed that uncomfortable acknowledgement of Mormon
depredations. 93
On the other hand, Oliver B. Huntington offered no
apology. This lifelong Mormon wrote decades later that he
and other Danites had “the privilege of retaking as much as
they took from us.” However, contrary to Huntington’s rationalization
of justified retribution, Danites sometimes plundered
the property of gentiles who had previously been
friendly to their Mormon neighbors. The Danites involved
did not know these friendly non-Mormons. 94
Moreover, in the skirmishes that both sides called “battles,”
Mormons used deadly force without reluctance.
Benjamin F. Johnson wrote that Danite leader (and future
apostle) Lyman Wight told his men to pray concerning their
Missouri enemies: “that God would damn them, and ‘give us
power to kill them.’” 95 According to lifelong Mormon and
Danite, Nathan Tanner, apostle David W. Patten (a Danite
captain with the code name “Fear Not”) told his men: “Go
ahead, boys; rake them down.” This was on 25 October
1838, at the beginning of the Battle of Crooked River. 96
The highest-ranking Mormon charged with murder for
obeying this order was apostle Parley P. Pratt, who allegedly
took the careful aim of a sniper in killing one Missourian
and then severely wounding militiaman Samuel Tarwater.
This was after apostle Patten had received a fatal stomach
wound. 97 In their fury at the sight of their fallen leader, some
of the Danites mutilated the unconscious Tarwater “with
their swords, striking him lengthwise in the mouth, cutting
off his under teeth, and breaking his lower jaw; cutting off
his cheeks . . . and leaving him [for] dead.” Tarwater survived
Crooked River to press charges against Pratt for attempted
murder. 98
NEVERTHELESS, MORMON MARAUDING
against non-Mormon Missourians in 1838 was
mild by comparison to the brutality of the anti-
Mormon militias. Three days after Governor Lilburn W.
Boggs issued a military order that the Mormons “must be
exterminated, or driven from the State,” a Missouri militia
unit attacked the LDS settlement at Haun’s Mill on 30
October 1838. They shot at and wounded thirteen fleeing
women and children, then methodically killed eighteen
males, including the point-blank execution of two boys
(aged nine and ten). Militiamen also used a “corncutter” to
mutilate the still-living Thomas McBride. When survivors
found the elderly man, his corpse was “literally mangled
from head to foot.” 99
However, a generally unacknowledged dimension of the
extermination order and the Haun’s Mill massacre is that
they both resulted from Mormon actions at the Battle of
Crooked River. Knowingly or not, Mormons had attacked
state troops, and this had a cascade effect. Local non-
Mormon residents feared annihilation: “We know not the
hour or minute we will be laid in ashes,” a local minister and
county clerk wrote the day after this battle. “For God’s sake
give us assistance as quick as possible.” Correspondingly,
the attack on state troops weakened the position of pro-
Mormon Missourians in the state’s militias and government
offices. Finally, upon receiving news of the injuries and
death of state troops at Crooked River, Governor Boggs immediately
drafted his extermination order of 27 October
1838 on the grounds that the Mormons “have made war
upon the people of this state.” 100 Worse, the killing of one
Missourian and mutilation of another while he was defenseless
at Crooked River prompted the mad-dog revenge by
Missourians in the slaughter at Haun’s Mill.
The day after that massacre, Joseph Smith and other LDS
leaders surrendered to the Missouri militia, which had encircled
Far West. After Sampson Avard—under arrest and vulnerable
to the same criminal charges filed against Joseph
Smith—testified against the Prophet (his Danite “Secretary
of War”) in open court, the Prophet publicly repudiated the
Danite general and his oath-bound organization. Charged
with the capital crime of treason, the Prophet and several
colleagues remained in jail for six months before they escaped
to Illinois. 101
It is anachronistic to apply Smith’s later rejection of Avard
to the activities of the Danites months earlier. 102 Avard was
the stalking-horse for the First Presidency from the summer
to fall of 1838. The Danite constitution specified: “All officers
shall be subject to the commands of the Captain
General, given through the Secretary of War.” The Prophet
had held the latter position “by revelation” in the Church’s
“war department” for three years. 103 He had been commander-in-chief
of the Armies of Israel for four years. The
Danites’ military actions of 1838 were carried out under the
general oversight and command of Joseph Smith, and their
violent acts resulted in multiple disasters: the massacre of a
Mormon settlement, the ransacking of LDS headquarters,
the near-execution of LDS leaders, and the expulsion of the
Mormon population from Missouri.
And that perspective is necessary to understand a curious
dimension in the next stage of early Mormonism’s culture of
violence. During the balance of Smith’s leadership, strident
Mormon militarism co-existed with military non-violence
among the Mormons.
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THROUGH NEGOTIATIONS WITH
Illinois political leaders eager for the support
of the bloc-voting Mormons, 104 LDS
headquarters in February 1841 gained a statechartered
private army, the Nauvoo Legion. The
LDS president was its governor-appointed commander,
holding the rank of lieutenant-general.
Aside from Smith, only George Washington had
ever held that rank. By 1842, this Mormon army
of 2,000 was the largest military organization in
Illinois. Within two years, the Nauvoo Legion had
about 5,000 men under arms, compared with the
U.S. army’s total of fewer than 8,500 soldiers.
Under Smith’s direction, the Nauvoo Legion
drilled and held mock battles. 105
Nevertheless, the legion engaged in no violent
actions, even when its commander was kidnapped,
arrested, and nearly dragged back to
Missouri for certain death. Although most members
of the Mormon “Relief Expedition” which
came to his aid were officers and soldiers in the
Nauvoo Legion, they acted as a ragtag collection
of friends, rather than as the Nauvoo Legion
under orders. 106
Despite being the commander of a Mormon
militia which rivaled the size of the U.S. army,
Smith did not lead it into violent conflicts; nor did
his subordinates. Haunted by the 1838 consequences
of violent Mormon militarism, for which
he had clearly been responsible, Joseph Smith
limited himself to saber-rattling in Illinois.
Although he avoided violent militarism, the
LDS Prophet expanded the Mormon culture of violence
in personal, civil, and theocratic ways at
Nauvoo. He boasted of his past physical assaults,
advocated theocratic blood atonement, and committed
acts of assault and battery—all in response
to what he regarded as justifiable provocation.
It will probably never be known if the Prophet
privately authorized his bodyguard and former
Danite Orrin Porter Rockwell to kill Missouri’s exgovernor
Boggs in May 1842, as an extension of
Smith’s “spilling his blood on the ground” doctrine
(which he did not announce publicly until
1843). 107 Smith held Boggs directly responsible
for the expulsion of the Mormons from Jackson
County in 1833 and for the disasters of 1838. 108
Killing Boggs would have fit within the provisions
of the 1833 revelation (D&C 98:31). It would
have also been consistent with another Danite’s
pledge to Joseph Smith in 1839: “I from this day
declare myself the Avenger of the blood of those
innocent men, and the innocent cause of Zion.”
The Prophet had this pledge copied into his personal
letterbook. 109
The attempt to kill Boggs occurred one month
after Smith received a revelation that has never
been officially published. The full content of this
document of 7 April 1842 is presently unknown,
but it provided the ponderous name for a future
theocratic organization that was nicknamed the
Council of Fifty: “Verily thus saith the Lord. This
is the name by which you shall be called—The
Kingdom of God and His Laws, with Keys and
power thereof, and judgment in the hands of his
servants. Ahman Christ.” 110 Killing Boggs a
month later was likely the first theocratic “judgment
in the hands of his servants.” One of the
LDS newspapers (edited by the Prophet’s brother
William, an apostle) called the attempted assassination
a “noble deed.” 111
Completely loyal at this time, the Prophet’s
second counselor William Law understandably
asked Smith in 1842 about this matter. Law later
claimed that Smith replied: “I sent Rockwell to
kill Boggs, but he missed him, [and] it was a
failure; he wounded him instead of sending him
to Hell.” 112 On 5 July 1842, witnesses overheard
an argument between Rockwell and recently excommunicated
First Presidency counselor John
C. Bennett about the attempted assassination.
Four days later, two men signed affidavits that
during this argument, “Rockwell said he had
been up into Boggs’s neighborhood, in Missouri;
and said he, `If I shot Boggs, they have got to
prove it.’” 113 Decades later, Rockwell also allegedly
acknowledged: “I shot through the
window and thought I had killed him, but I had
only wounded him; I was damned sorry that I
had not killed the son of a bitch.” 114 Boggs
miraculously survived this attempt on his life in
May 1842, despite two large balls of buckshot
lodged in his brain and two in his neck. 115
Already a fugitive from Missouri punishment for
capital crimes, Joseph Smith made several denials
that he was involved in the attempt to kill
Boggs. 116
In May 1842, Joseph Smith reassembled a
cadre of bodyguards, selecting primarily those
with experience as Danites in Missouri. Former
Danites such as Dimick B. Huntington, Daniel
Carn, and Albert P. Rockwood began serving as
Nauvoo’s “Night Watch.” 117 Previously a Danite
captain, Rockwood had already been serving as
“commander of my [Smith’s] life guards.” 118 The
Prophet’s bodyguards included such well-known
Danites as John L. Butler, Reynolds Cahoon,
Elias Higbee, Vinson Knight, Orrin Porter
Rockwell, and Samuel H. Smith. The other bodyguards
with Missouri experience were probably
lesser-known Danites. 119 In December 1842, a
bounty hunter wrote to Missouri’s governor: “All
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of our efforts to seize the renegade Smith, have proved fruitless.
He keeps constantly around him as body guard some 12
to 14 enthusiastic fanaticks which makes a secret approach
impossible.” 120
In January 1843, Smith told dinner guests about whipping
the Protestant minister in Kirtland “till he begged.” 121 A
month later, he preached publicly about whipping the
Palmyra wife-beater. 122 On 28 March, the Prophet wrote that
seventies president “Josiah Butterfield came to my house
and insulted me so outrageously that I kicked him out of the
house, across the yard, and into the street.” 123 This was another
instance of Smith upholding his sense of male honor.
Also in March 1843, Joseph Smith told the Nauvoo city
council that he was opposed to hanging: “If a man kill another[,]
shoot him or cut his throat[,] spilling his blood on
the ground and let the smoke thereof ascend up to God. If I
ever have the privilege of making a law on this point, I will
have it so.” 124 This remark echoed statements that Sidney
Rigdon had made five years earlier, while a counselor in the
First Presidency, about cutting the throats of non-Mormons
in Missouri.
Although Smith’s instructions about capital punishment
to the city council could be viewed as a secular commentary
from the city’s mayor favoring a particular mode of capital
punishment, theocracy was clearly the context of his comments
as Church president to the LDS general conference on
6 April 1843: “I’ll wring a thief’s neck off if I can find him, if
I cannot bring him to Justice any other way.” 125 When
former Danite John L. Butler heard his Prophet preach on
this occasion, he understood Smith as saying “that the time
would come that the sinners would have their heads cut off
to save them.” Butler said the “spirit” of God filled him as he
listened to those words. Butler’s account was likewise included
in the official “Journal History.” 126
IN JUNE, SMITH instructed the Nauvoo Mormons
about the next stage of violence against their enemies.
He warned what would happen “if Missouri continues
her warfare, and to issue her writs against me and this
people unlawfully and unjustly . . . if they don’t let me alone,
I will turn up the world—I will make war.” 127
In August, the Mormon Prophet showed that he did not
hesitate to physically assault a civil officer: “[Walter] Bagby
called me a liar, and picked up a stone to throw at me, which
so enraged me that I followed him a few steps, and struck
him two or three times.” Smith added in a sermon: “I seized
him by the throat to choke him off.” He pleaded guilty to assault
and battery of Bagby, who was the county tax collector,
and the Nauvoo judge assessed a fine for this crime. 128
Joseph Smith’s secretary William Clayton added that Daniel
H. Wells had ended the brawl when he “stepped between
them and succeeded in separating them.” The prophet had
evidently wanted to do further damage to Bagby, judging
from his later complaint in a sermon about “Esquire Wells
interfering when he had no business.” 129
Concerning Nauvoo’s Sunday meeting of 17 September
C. C. A. Ch r is t en s en : Det Ail f r o m “h Au n ’s mil l ”
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1843, Joseph’s official history stated: “I took my post as
Mayor outside the assembly to keep order and set an example
to the other officers.” 130 Some non-Mormon attendees
had a different perspective about the example Smith
was setting. These residents of Warsaw, Illinois,
were at Nauvoo, in attendance upon public
preaching, near the Temple. Bennett [not John C.]
and his companion were engaged in some conversation
about the time of day, when the Prophet, who
happened to be near, came blustering up, and
seizing him by the collar, led him out of the crowd.
After letting go, Bennett turned to speak to him,
when Smith commenced beating him with his cane,
declaring that, if he didn’t shut his mouth, he would
cane him out of the corporation [i.e., the citylimits].
Bennett came home, and on Tuesday made
complaint before Justice [George] Rockwell for assault
& battery. A writ was issued, and put into the
hands of Mr. [James] Charles, Constable, who on
appearing before the Prophet on Wednesday, was
coolly told that he was too late! He had procured an
arrest, and had a trial before a Nauvoo court, and
was discharged.
In other words, Smith had arranged to have himself acquitted
of the assault. 131
Although not dated in the autobiography which recorded
it, the following incident may also have occurred in 1843.
Ira N. Spaulding was riding in the Prophet’s carriage when
“there came a man who held a [promissory] note against
Joseph. He talked kindly to the man and begged him to wait
a short time for the money as he could not pay him then[,]
but good words would not satisfy him. He abused him [the
Prophet] shamefully, calling him every mean name he could
think of.” The man should have known that this was not a
wise thing for anyone to do. Smith “stepped outside the carriage
and knocked him down flat as a beef, not speaking a
word and come into the carriage and traveled on.” 132
Even the Mormon Prophet’s well-known hobby of
wrestling manifested an unpleasant willingness to take
physical advantage of smaller men. While celebrating
Joseph’s “athletic nature,” Alexander L. Baugh noted: “On
occasion, the Prophet even challenged much smaller individuals
we might consider to be the more non-athletic type
to wrestle with him.” He quoted Howard Coray about one
example that ended badly. The Prophet told his devout follower:
“Brother Coray, I wish you was a little larger, I
would like to have some fun with you.” I replied,
perhaps you can as it is, —not realizing what I was
saying—Joseph a man of over 200 lbs. weight,
while I [was] scarcely 130 lb., made it not a little
ridiculous for me to think of engaging with him in
any thing like a scuffle. However, as soon as I made
this reply, he began to trip me; he took some kind of
a lock on my right leg, from which I was unable to
extricate it. [A]nd throwing me around, broke it
some 3 inch(es) above the ankle joint.
Breaking Coray’s leg was an accident which Joseph immediately
regretted. 133
However, Baugh did not raise an obvious question: Why
would a tall, husky man like Joseph Smith want to humiliate
small, scrawny men either by easily defeating them in a
wrestling match or by giving them a challenge they would
lose honor by declining? It does not matter that he often
wrestled larger men for sport or that he sometimes engaged
in serious fights with several opponents at once.
Whenever the Prophet challenged a smaller, obviously
weaker male to a physical contest, he went beyond the male
code of honor and engaged in the kind of behavior that
Americans described at the time as “bullying.” 134 This also
puts another perspective on Joseph’s boasting about beating
up enemies until they begged him to stop.
Despite his endorsements of decapitation in 1843, there
is no evidence that the Prophet ever actually authorized
such punishment in Nauvoo. However, one of his housegirls
wrote, apparently late that November, that Dr. Robert D.
Foster, surgeon-general and brevet-brigadier-general of the
Nauvoo Legion, had used a sword to decapitate a man execution-style
“on the prairie 6 miles” from LDS headquarters.
Foster was not a dissenter then, but would become one
within four months. 135
In December 1843, Joseph Smith organized the “Police
Force of Nauvoo,” with Jonathan Dunham and Hosea Stout,
former Danites, as captain and vice-captain. Among the
forty police were such other Danites from Missouri as
Charles C. Rich, John D. Lee, Daniel Carn, James Emmett,
Stephen H. Goddard, Abraham C. Hodge, John L. Butler,
Levi W. Hancock, Abraham O. Smoot, Dwight Harding, and
William H. Edwards. Several members of the police force
continued to double as Smith’s personal bodyguards. 136
These Mormon policemen were proud of their Danite
background. According to one complaining Mormon at
Nauvoo, policeman Daniel Carn “told me several times
[that] Daniteism was not down . . . said it was a good
system.” Carn laconically replied (in Joseph Smith’s presence):
“Daniteism is to stand by each other [—] that is all I
know about Daniteism.” 137
As mayor, Joseph authorized his police to kill “if need
be,” and then said his own life was endangered in December
1843 by a “little dough-head” and “a right-hand Brutus.”
The latter remarks put the police on notice to look for
Mormon dissenters as traitors. Within a week, Nauvoo’s police
left Smith’s second counselor William Law and Nauvoo’s
stake president William Marks under the terrifying impression
that Smith had marked them for death. 138 Both were
foes of the Prophet’s secret practice of polygamy. 139
On 11 March 1844, Joseph Smith secretly organized the
theocratic Council of Fifty in fulfillment of the revelation
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nearly two years earlier. 140 Several months later, disaffected
members claimed that he “swore them all to present secrecy,
under penalty of death!” 141 Although the 1844 minutes of
the Council of Fifty are sequestered in the LDS First
Presidency’s vault, the claim of a theocratic “penalty of
death” in 1844 is verified by available minutes from a later
date which referred to a “Penalty.” 142
BYU professor William G. Hartley has written that the
Missouri “Danite oaths [were] not to betray each other, the
breaking of which could bring the death penalty.” 143 At least
eighteen members of the Council of Fifty had already taken
oaths as Danites before Smith required this new guarantee of
deadly secrecy in the spring of 1844. 144
Within two weeks, Smith took the first step toward abandoning
the non-violent militarism which had characterized
his leadership of the Nauvoo Legion during the years since
he had escaped a death sentence for Danite militarism in
Missouri. On 26 March, the Council of Fifty authorized
Smith to ask Congress to commission him to recruit “one
hundred thousand armed volunteers in the United States
and Territories.” As secretly approved by this theocratic
council, Smith’s “memorial” to Congress promised that he
would use this military force “to extend the arm of deliverance
to Texas [then an independent nation in conflict with
Mexico]; [to] protect the inhabitants of Oregon from foreign
aggressions and domestic broils; to prevent the crowned nations
from encircling us as a nation on our western and
southern borders.” This petition also asked Congress to provide
for the arrest and two-year imprisonment of anyone
who “shall hinder or attempt to hinder or molest the said
Joseph Smith from executing his designs.” In case Congress
was unwilling to grant these powers, Smith prepared a similar
petition to the U.S. president. Ostensibly representing
Smith as mayor, Orson Hyde carried this memorial to the
nation’s leaders after being secretly commissioned as an ambassador
of the theocratic Council of Fifty during its 4 April
meeting. 145 Two months before asking federal authority for
him to lead military forces against “foreign aggressions and
domestic broils,” Joseph Smith had publicly announced
himself as candidate for U.S. president. 146
In contrast to the previous five years, Smith was no
longer content with mere saber-rattling by the armed forces
he commanded. Uriah Brown was initiated into the secretive
Council of Fifty because of the Prophet’s 1844 interest in
this non-Mormon’s invention of “liquid fire to destroy an
army or navy.” 147 Thirty years earlier, Brown had unsuccessfully
offered his idea “for destroying by fire the vessels of the
enemy” in a proposal to the U.S. Navy. 148
The last public endorsement of violence during Joseph
Smith’s life occurred at the general conference on 6 April
1844. Sidney Rigdon undoubtedly startled many Mormons
by announcing: “There are men standing in your midst that
you cant [sic] do anything with them but cut their throat &
bury them.” The Prophet said nothing to censure his first
counselor’s remarks. 149
Ten weeks later, Joseph Smith died as a martyr to his faith
in Carthage Jail. But he was neither a willing nor non-violent
martyr. As the mob clamored up the stairs, he fired at them
with a six-shooter pistol, wounding three. 150
MORMON CULTURE BECAME increasingly violent
following the murder of its founding Prophet.
Claiming apostolic succession from his fallen
leader, Brigham Young authorized assault and battery
against Nauvoo dissidents and applauded Porter Rockwell
for killing some of those identified as involved in murdering
Smith and other Mormons. 151 On the pioneer trail and in
the Utah society he created, Young increasingly preached
about “blood atonement” against sinful Mormons and about
“avenging the blood of the prophets” against anti-Mormons.
These themes of violence and vengeance became both normative
and pervasive in LDS sermons, hymns, newspaper
editorials, and patriarchal blessings for decades. 152
However, LDS apologists claim that faithful Mormons
were really non-violent pioneers who regarded as mere
“rhetorical devices” or “hyperbolic rhetoric” all evidence of
this wholesale endorsement of theocratic violence. 153 To the
contrary, there were many examples of religiously motivated
assaults and murders until the First Presidency in December
1889 publicly abandoned previous Mormon teachings about
blood atonement for apostates and about the temporal
Church’s theocratic prerogatives. 154 Moreover, Utah pioneer
diaries, correspondence, and Church minutes indicate that
ordinary Mormons believed that they had the religious
obligation to “blood atone” apostates and to avenge the
blood of the prophets on anti-Mormon gentiles. 155 As Utah
historian Melvin T. Smith has noted, “violence against `evil’
became a defensible rationale for both the Smith family and
for most early Church members.” 156
The fact that many Utah Mormon men did not act upon
the norms for violence that Brigham Young and other general
authorities promoted is beside the point. Those violent
norms were officially approved and published by the LDS
Church in pioneer Utah. Likewise, most Mormon men did
not marry polygamously, even though this was an unrelenting
norm of the LDS Church until 1890. 157
Nevertheless, Brigham Young did not originate
Mormonism’s culture of violence. It had been nurtured by
Joseph Smith’s revelations, theocracy, and personal behavior
before June 1844. Like all prophets before or since, Smith
was influenced by his environment, which included a national
culture of violence and its code of male honor. This
was a volatile mix for those early Americans who became
Mormons within a hostile religious environment that was
increasingly dominated by crusading Evangelicals. 158
NOTES
1. Shelly Kagan, Normative Ethics (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998);
Michael Hechter and Karl-Dieter Opp, eds., Social Norms (New York: Russell
Sage Foundation, 2001).
2. Richard Maxwell Brown, “Historical Patterns of Violence in America,”
in Hugh Davis Graham and Ted Robert Gurr, eds., The History of Violence in
PAGE 28 OCTOBER 2011

S U N S T O N E
America: Historical and Comparative Perspectives (New York: Frederick A.
Praeger, 1969), 45–89, provided a very useful summary of various kinds of violence—criminal,
feuds, lynch mobs, racial, ethnic, religious, urban rioting, serial
killing and mass murders, assassinations, police violence, labor violence,
agrarian uprisings, vigilantes, and wars. This essay discusses only a few of these
types.
3. H.C. Brearley, “The Pattern of Violence,” in W.T. Couch, ed., Culture In
the South (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1934), 678–92; John
Hope Franklin, The Militant South (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press/Harvard
University Press, 1956); Jack K. Williams, Vogues In Villainy: Crime and
Retribution In Ante-Bellum South Carolina (Columbia: University of South
Carolina Press, 1959), 31–38; Richard Maxwell Brown, American Violence
(Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1970); Leonard L. Richards, Gentlemen of
Property and Standing: Anti-abolition Mobs in Jacksonian America (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1970); sections of relevant chronology in Richard
Hofstadter and Michael Wallace, eds., American Violence: A Documentary
History (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1970); Raymond D. Gastil, “Homicide and
a Regional Culture of Violence,” American Sociological Review 36 (June 1971):
416–27; Richard Slotkin, Regeneration Through Violence: The Mythology of the
American Frontier, 1600–1860 (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press,
1973); W. Eugene Hollon, Frontier Violence: Another Look (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1974), esp. 216 (for his thesis that Americans have tended “to
over-emphasize the violent side of the frontier, in comparison to that of the
cities, and to give short shrift to the peaceful and orderly side”); Richard
Maxwell Brown, Strain of Violence: Historical Studies of American Violence and
Vigilantism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975); Michael Feldberg, The
Philadelphia Riots of 1844: A Study of Ethnic Conflict (Westport, CT: Greenwood
Press, 1975); David Grimsted, “Rioting in Its Jacksonian Setting,” American
Historical Review 77 (April 1977): 361–97; David J. Bodenhamer, “Law and
Disorder on the Early Frontier: Marion County, Indiana, 1823–1850,” Western
Historical Quarterly 10 (July 1979): 323–36 (by contrast, found “a remarkably
peaceful frontier” in this case study); Dickson Bruce Jr., Violence and Culture in
the Antebellum South (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1979); W. Stuart Harris,
“Rowdyism, Public Drunkenness, and Bloody Encounters in Early Perry
County,” Alabama Review 33 (January 1980): 15–24; Michael Feldberg, The
Turbulent Era: Riot and Disorder in Jacksonian America (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1980), esp. 77–80 (for “Recreational Rioting”); Bertram
Wyatt-Brown, Southern Honor: Ethics and Behavior in the Old South (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1982); Edward L. Ayers, Vengeance and Justice: Crime
and Punishment in the 19th-Century American South (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1984), 98–117; Roger D. McGrath, Gunfighters, Highwaymen,
& Vigilantes: Violence on the Frontier (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1984), esp. 261–71 (for his summary of scholarly assessments that “The
Frontier Was Violent” versus scholarly assessments that “The Frontier Was Not
Especially Violent”); Elliott J. Gorn, “`Gouge and Bite, Pull Hair and Scratch’:
The Social Significance of Fighting in the Southern Backcountry,” American
Historical Review 90 (February 1985): 18–43; Carl E. Prince, “The Great `Riot
Year’: Jacksonian Democracy and Patterns of Violence in 1834,” Journal of the
Early Republic 5 (Spring 1985): 1–19; David Brion Davis, From Homicide To
Slavery: Studies in American Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986);
Paul A. Gilje, The Road to Mobocracy: Popular Disorder in New York City,
1763–1834 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1987); Linda
Gordon, Heroes of Their Own Lives: The Politics and History of Family Violence,
Boston, 1880–1960 (New York: Viking, 1988); Robert M. Ireland, “The Libertine
Must Die: Sexual Dishonor and the Unwritten Law in the Nineteenth-Century
United States,” Journal of Social History 23 (Fall 1989): 29–44; Charles Van
Ravenswaay, “Bloody Island: Honor and Violence in Early Nineteenth-Century
St. Louis,” Gateway Heritage 10 (Spring 1990): 4–21; Morgan Peoples,
“Brawling and Dueling On the North Louisiana Frontier, 1803–1861: A
Sketch,” North Louisiana Historical Association Journal 21 (Fall 1990): 99–108;
David T. Courtwright, “Violence in America,” American Heritage 47
(September 1996): 36–46; David T. Courtwright, Violent Land: Single Men and
Social Disorder From the Frontier to the Inner City (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1996), 9–151; Richard E. Nisbett and Dov Cohen, Culture of
Honor: The Psychology of Violence in the South (Boulder, CO: Westview Press,
1996); Hendrik Hartog, “Lawyering, Husbands Rights, and the Unwritten Law
in Nineteenth Century America,” Journal of American History 84 (June 1997):
67–96; Kenneth E. Foote, Shadowed Ground: America’s Landscape of Violence
and Tragedy (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1997); Anne Spencer Lombard,
“Playing the Man: Conceptions of Masculinity in Anglo-American New
England, 1675 to 1765,” Ph.D. dissertation, University of California at Los
Angeles, 1998; David Grimsted, American Mobbing, 1828–1861: Toward Civil
War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), ix (his omitting most “incidents
of economic, racial, ethnic, religious, and youth” violence), 85–113 (the
South’s culture of violence, including discussions of dueling on 88–89, 97–99);
David Peterson del Mar, “Violence Against Wives By Prominent Men in Early
Clatsop County,” Oregon Historical Quarterly 100 (Winter 1999): 434–450;
Michael A. Bellesiles, ed., Lethal Imagination: Violence and Brutality in American
History (New York: New York University Press, 1999); Christine Daniels and
Michael Kennedy, ed., Over the Threshold: Intimate Violence in Early America
(New York: Routledge, 1999); Scott C. Martin, “Violence, Gender, and
Intemperance in Early National Connecticut,” Journal of Social History 34
(Winter 2000): 309–25; David Edwin Ballew, “The Popular Prejudices of Our
People: Kinship, Community, and Male Honor, in the Alabama-Mississippi Hill
Country, 1820–1890,” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Mississippi, 2000; Sean
T. Moore, “`Justifiable Provocation’: Violence Against Women in Essex County,
New York, 1799–1860,” Journal of Social History 35 (Summer 2002): 889–918.
4. For example, Rhys Isaac, “Evangelical Revolt: The Nature of the
Baptists’ Challenge to the Traditional Order in Virginia, 1765 to 1775,” William
and Mary Quarterly 31 (July 1974): 345–68; Bertram Wyatt-Brown,
“Barnburning and Other Snopesian Crimes: Class and Justice in the Old
South,” in Orville Vernon Burton and Robert C. McMath Jr., eds., Class,
Conflict, and Consensus: Antebellum Southern Community Studies (Westport, CT:
Greenwood Press, 1981), 173–206 (esp. 177, that according to the South’s
norms, “class crimes were misdeeds of anonymity and insignificance,” with
title-word referring to Colonel Snopes in William Faulkner’s short story “Barn
Burning”); Susan G. Davis, “`Making the Night Hideous’: Christmas Revelry
and Public Disorder in Nineteenth-Century Philadelphia,” American Quarterly
34 (Summer 1982): 185–99; Gene Sessions, “`Years of Struggle’: The Irish in the
Village of Northfield, 1845–1900,” Vermont History 55 (Spring 1987): 88; Peter
Way, “Shovel and Shamrock: Irish Violence in the Digging of the Chesapeake
and Ohio Canal,” Labor History 30 (Fall 1989): 489–517; Michael A. Gordon,
The Orange Riots: Irish Political Violence in New York City, 1870 and 1871
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993); Michael Kaplan, “New York City
Tavern Violence and the Creation of a Working-Class Male Identity,” Journal of
the Early Republic 15 (Winter 1995): 591–617; Matthew E. Mason, “`The Hands
Here Are Disposed To Be Turbulent’: Unrest Among the Irish Trackman of the
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad,” Labor History 39 (August 1998): 253–72.
5. Robert Shoemaker, “Male Honour and the Decline of Public Violence in
Eighteenth-Century London,” Social History 26 (May 2001): 190–208, with
quote on 200.
6. Richard Maxwell Brown, No Duty To Retreat: Violence and Values in
American History and Society (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 4–5
(for quotes), 7 (for 1806 decision and subsequent rejection by American jurisprudence
of the English common-law “duty to retreat”). Shoemaker did not
emphasize this as a factor in the statistical declines of violence he identified for
London in the 1700s, so my concluding comment in the previous paragraph is
my application of Brown’s thesis to Shoemaker’s study.
7. E. Anthony Rotundo, American Manhood: Transformations in Masculinity
from the Revolution to the Modern Era (New York: Basic Books, 1993), 225–26
(for first quote), 225 (for second quote, which came first in his narrative).
8. Don C. Seitz, Famous American Duels, With Some Account of the Causes
That Led Up To Them and the Men Engaged (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell,
1929); William O. Stevens, Pistols At Ten Paces: The Story of the Code of Honor in
America (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1940); Harnett T. Kane, Gentlemen,
Swords, and Pistols (New York: Morrow, 1951); J. Winston Coleman, Famous
Kentucky Duels: The Story of the Code of Honor in the Bluegrass State (Frankfort,
KY: Roberts Printing Company, 1953); Wilmuth S. Rutledge, “Dueling In
Antebellum Mississippi,” Journal of Mississippi History 26 (August 1964):
181–91; Guy A. Cardwell, “The Duel In the Old South: Crux of a Concept,”
South Atlantic Quarterly 66 (Winter 1967): 50–69; Sheldon Hackney, “Southern
Violence,” American Historical Review 74 (February 1969): 906–25; James D.
Van Trump and James Brian Cannon, “An Affair of Honor: Pittsburgh’s Last
Duel,” Western Pennsylvania Historical Magazine 57 (July 1974): 307–15;
Malcolm J. Rohrbough, The Trans-Appalachian Frontier: People, Societies, and
Institutions, 1775–1850 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978), 17–118,
275–84; Nancy Torrance Matthews, “The Duel In Nineteenth-Century South
Carolina: Custom Over Written Law,” Proceedings of the South Carolina
Historical Association (1979): 78–84; Stephen M. Stowe, “The `Touchiness’ of
the Gentleman Planter: The Sense of Esteem and Continuity in the Antebellum
South,” Psychohistory Review 8 (1979): 6–17; Nicholas B. Wainwright, “The
Life and Death of Major Thomas Biddle,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and
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Biography 104 (July 1980): 326–44 (in which he and Congressman Spencer
Pittis killed each other in an 1831 duel); Jack K. Williams, Dueling In the Old
South: Vignettes of Social History (College Station: Texas A&M University Press,
1980); Michael Stephen Hindus, Prison and Plantation: Crime, Justice, and
Authority in Massachusetts and South Carolina, 1767–1878 (Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press, 1980); Stephen W. Brown, “Satisfaction at
Bladensburg: The Pearson-Jackson Duel of 1809,” North Carolina Historical
Review 58 (January 1981): 23–43 (involving Congressman Joseph Pearson); E.
Lee Shepard, “Honor Among Lawyers: The Case of Charles Marshall Jones and
Edward Sayre,” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 90 (July 1982):
325–38; Kenneth S. Greenberg, “The Nose, the Lie, and the Duel in the
Antebellum South,” American Historical Review 95 (February 1990): 57–74;
James M. Denham, “The Read-Alston Duel and Politics in Territorial Florida,”
Florida Historical Quarterly 68 (April 1990): 427–46; Dick Steward, Duels and
the Roots of Violence in Missouri (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2000).
9. Arthur Scherr, “James Monroe, John Adams, and Southern Honor:
Dueling With the Passions,” Southern Studies 7 (Summer/Fall 1996): 1–26.
10. Joanne B. Freeman, “Dueling As Politics: Reinterpreting the Burr-
Hamilton Duel,” William and Mary Quarterly 53 (April 1996): 289–318; Arnold
A. Rogow, A Fatal Friendship: Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr (New York:
Hill and Wang, 1998); Thomas Fleming, Duel: Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr,
and the Future of America (New York: Basic Books, 1999).
11. Myra L. Spaulding, Dueling In the District of Columbia (Washington,
D.C.: Columbia Historical Society, 1928); Robert V. Remini, Henry Clay:
Statesman for the Union (New York: W.W. Norton, 1991), 292–95.
12. Official Record From the War Department, of the Proceedings of the Court
Martial Which Tried, and the Orders of General Jackson For Shooting the Six
Militia Men, Together With Official Letters from the War Department, (Ordered To
Be Printed By Congress) Showing That These Americans Were Inhumanely &
Illegally Massacred (Washington, D.C.: J. Elliot, 1828); Robert V. Remini,
Andrew Jackson (New York: Twayne, 1966), 41–43, 55–56, 57–58, 59, 60–61,
78–82; Lowell H. Harrison, “An Affair of Honor: The Jackson-Dickinson Duel,”
American History Illustrated 8 (April 1973): 38–43; D. Michael Quinn, “Benton,
Thomas Hart (1782–1858),” and Thomas D. Clark, “Jackson, Andrew
(1767–1845),” in Howard R. Lamar, ed., The New Encyclopedia of the American
West (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998), 92, 559–61.
13. John Mack Faragher, Sugar Creek: Life on the Illinois Prairie (New
Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1986), 31–32; Thomas D. Clark, “Harrison,
William Henry (1773–1841),” in Lamar, New Encyclopedia of the American
West, 471. Illinois was originally part of Indiana Territory, over which Harrison
was governor. For brief narratives, historians often simplify references to the
Illinois portion of Indiana Territory by describing them as occurring in Illinois
Territory. The same approach applies to early events in Arizona before it was officially
split from New Mexico Territory.
14. Thomas O. Jewett, “Lincoln’s Duel,” Lincoln Herald 89 (Winter 1987):
142–43; Lowell H. Harrison, Lincoln of Kentucky (Lexington: University of
Kentucky Press, 2000), 73.
15. Joan Newman and Graeme Newman, “Crime and Punishment in the
Schooling Process: A Historical Analysis,” in Keith Baker and Robert J. Rubel,
eds., Violence and Crime in the Schools (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books/D.C.
Heath and Company, 1980), 11 (for Massachusetts schools in 1837), 12 (for
Princeton and the University of Virginia).
16. Elizabeth M. Geffen, “Violence in Philadelphia in the 1840s and 1850s,”
in Roger Lane and John J. Turner Jr., eds., Riot, Rout, and Tumult: Readings in
American Social and Political Violence (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1978),
113.
17. I first described early Mormonism as “a Culture of Violence” in The
Mormon Hierarchy: Extensions of Power (Salt Lake City: Signature Books/Smith
Research Associates, 1997), 241.
18. Alma R. Blair, “The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day
Saints: Moderate Mormonism,” in F. Mark McKiernan, Blair, and Paul M.
Edwards, eds., The Restoration Movement: Essays on the Mormon Past
(Lawrence, KS: Coronado Press, 1973), 207–30; Paul M. Edwards, Our Legacy
of Faith: A Brief History of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day
Saints (Independence, MO: Herald Publishing House, 1991); Richard P.
Howard, The Church Through the Years, Volume 1 (Independence, MO: Herald
Publishing House, 1992). In 2001 the RLDS Church officially changed its name
to Community of Christ, which defines itself as one of the “Peace Churches.”
19. For example, in his Internet article, “Militias and Mormon Culture??”
(at www.jefflindsay.com/militias.shtml, accessed on 3 March 2011), Jeff Lindsay
wrote: “In Utah, I knew of very few Mormons who owned guns . . . I honestly
don’t recall ever seeing a gun during my years living in that state . . . The
Church teaches its members across the world to find peaceful, legal, orderly solutions
to problems, even when those problems might be bad laws or oppressive
governments.” In the middle of discussing Mormon history from Joseph
Smith (including the Missouri “Danites”) to pioneer Utah, Lindsay exclaimed:
“Violence is not part of Mormon culture!”
20. As examples of the official endorsement by LDS headquarters of violence
against newspaper reporters, LDS dissenters, unfriendly non-Mormons,
and federal officials until 1890, see the following articles in newspapers published
by LDS headquarters, Deseret News (the LDS Church’s official newspaper
since 1850) and Salt Lake Herald (the official newspaper of the LDS Church’s
political party, The People’s Party, from 1872 to 1891): “The Killing of
Brassfield,” Deseret News [weekly], 12 April 1866, 148 (reported that the
murder of a non-Mormon was due to a “general feeling of just indignation” that
he had legally married a Mormon’s polygamous wife and attempted to adopt
her children legally); “What Is a Riot?” Deseret Evening News, 19 August 1874,
[3]; “`Take That You Handsome Son of a Bitch’: Jerome B. Stillson, the New York
Herald `Commissioner’ Attacked—In a Horn,” Salt Lake Herald, 1 June 1877,
[3]; “Investigation of the Assassination Fabrication, Deseret Evening News, 2
June 1877, [3]; “He Survives—The Improbable Story Going to Grass: Who Has
Seen a Black Goatee With a Tall Gentleman Attached To It: Stillson the
Laughing Stock of Salt Lakers,” Salt Lake Herald, 3 June 1877, [3]; “A Tribune
Editor Assaulted,” Salt Lake Daily Herald, 14 November 1878, [3]; “Assault and
Battery,” Deseret Evening News, 14 November 1878, [3]; “Retaliation” and
“Another Whipping Affair,” Deseret Evening News, 6 August 1879, [2, 3]; “The
Whipping Case,” Deseret Evening News, 8 August 1879, [3]; “CHASTENED.
The `Tribune’ Local Editor Soundly Thrashed. THE PENALTY OF LYING,” Salt
Lake Daily Herald, 1 November 1884, 9; “A REPORTER RAWHIDED. EN-
COUNTER BETWEEN A RESPECTABLE CITIZEN AND A `TRIBUNE’ RE-
PORTER,” Deseret Evening News, 10 November 1884, [3]; “A
HAMMERED`HERO.’ A `TRIBUNE’ REPORTER COMES TO GRIEF,” Deseret
Evening News, 8 December 1884, [3]; “A BLISSFUL LOT. Another of the
`Tribune’ Crew Rewarded. A TROUNCING WELL MERITED,” Salt Lake Daily
Herald, 9 December 1884, [2]; “Punishment for Scandal-Mongers,” Deseret
Evening News, 12 December 1884, [2]; “MALICIOUS ACCUSATIONS,” Salt
Lake Daily Herald, 16 September 1885, 4; “VARIAN TAKES A HAND: After
Deputy [Andrew J.] Burt for Mauling [non-LDS] Deputy Collin . . . Burt is
Fined $25 in the Police Court but Varian Wants Him Given an Extra Dose,” Salt
Lake Daily Herald, 12 November 1885, 8; “The Collin Examination: M’Murrin
Not the Only Witness Missing . . . M’Niece Says There Was a Plot to
Assassinate,” Deseret Evening News, 23 January 1886, [5]; “The Collin Case: Is
Collin or McMurrin the Defendant?” Salt Lake Herald, 25 January 1886, 12;
“McMurrin,” Salt Lake Herald, 26 January 1886, 4; “AN UNFORTUNATE OC-
CURRENCE: District Attorney Dickson Assaulted by a 16-year-old Boy in the
Continental Hotel—a Reprehensible Action . . . THE FEAR THAT HAUNTS
AN F.O.H. [Federal Office Holder] WHEN HE THINKS A `MORMON’ IS
LOOKING AT HIM,” Deseret Evening News, 23 February 1886, [3]; “THE AS-
SAULT ON DICKSON: Hugh [J.] Cannon Pleads Guilty, and Is Fined,” Deseret
Evening News, 24 February 1886, [3]; “Blood Flows From a `Tribune’ Liar’s
[Reporter’s] Nose,” Deseret Evening News, 10 March 1886, [3]; “THRASHING A
REPORTER. Don Carlos Young Remodels the Phiz [sic] of C.T. Harte to Suit
His Fancy,” Salt Lake Daily Herald, 11 March 1886, 8; “The Battery Case,”
Deseret Evening News, 11 March 1886, [3]; “The Cannon Boys: Frank J. Cannon
Shoulders the Blame—The Others Discharged,” Salt Lake Herald, 2 May 1886,
1; “A Just Verdict,” Deseret Evening News, 11 May 1889, [2] (editorial applauding
the acquittal of Howard O. Spencer for first degree murder of Sgt. Pike
who “richly deserved his fate”); “The Usual Dish of Sensations,” Deseret
Evening News, 22 November 1889, [2] (LDS headquarters’ last condemnation
of investigation by non-LDS officials of religiously motivated killings by
Mormons).
21. Jacques Barzun and Henry F. Graff, The Modern Researcher, rev. ed. (New
York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1970), 53; David Hackett Fischer, Historians’
Fallacies: Toward a Logic of Historical Thought (New York: Harper
Torchbooks/Harper & Row, 1970), 135–40; Paul K. Conkin and Roland N.
Stromberg, Heritage and Challenge: The History and Theory of History
(Wheeling, IL: Forum Press, 1989), 204.
22. Richard Lyman Bushman “with the assistance of Jed Woodworth,”
Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005), 295.
Their source-notes for this discussion did not mention the 2002 version of my
essay on this topic, but their bibliography (page 704) cited it.
23. Truman Coe, “Mormonism,” The Ohio Observer, 11 August 1836, page
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82 (near end of long, first paragraph), original in Western Americana, Beinecke
Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.
Recent transcriptions of the original sometimes inaccurately lowercase
“Prophet,” as in Milton V. Backman Jr., “Truman Coe’s 1836 Description of
Mormonism,” BYU Studies 17 (Spring 1977): 352.
24. In fact, that is what Jeff Lindsay did in his Internet article, “Militias and
Mormon Culture??”
25. Although there is a regional emphasis on the South in much of the literature
about the code of male honor in early America, it was a national phenomenon,
as indicated in the previously cited studies by Brown (R.M.),
Courtwright, Hartog, Ireland, Kaplan, Lombard, Martin, Moore, Stevens, and
Van Trump/Cannon. For cross-cultural studies of the usually violent dimensions
of male honor, see Donna T. Andrew, “The Code of Honour and Its
Critics: The Opposition to Duelling in England, 1700–1850,” Social History 5
(October 1980): 409–34; Robert A. Nye, Masculinity and Male Codes of Honor in
Modern France (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993); Kevin McAleer,
Dueling: The Cult of Honor in Fin-de-Siecle Germany (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1994); Robert A. Nye, “The Modern Duel and Masculinity in
Comparative Perspective,” Masculinities 3 (Fall 1995): 69–79; Elizabeth
Foyster, “Male Honour, Social Control and Wife Beating in Late Stuart
England,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 6 (1996): 215–24; Petrus
Cornelius Spierenburg, ed., Men and Violence: Gender, Honor, and Rituals in
Modern Europe and America (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1998);
Elizabeth Foyster, “Boys Will Be Boys?: Manhood and Aggression, 1600–1800,”
in Tim Hitchcock and Michele Cohen, eds., English Masculinities, 1660–1800
(London: Longman, 1999), 151–66; Thomas W. Gallant, “Honor, Masculinity,
and Ritual Knife Fighting in Nineteenth-Century Greece,” American Historical
Review 105 (April 2000): 359–82.
26. Joseph Smith diary, 21 February 1843, in Joseph Smith Jr., et al., History
of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 7 vols. (Salt Lake City: Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1902–32; 2nd ed. rev. [Salt Lake City:
Deseret Book Co., 1978], hereafter History of the Church), 5: 285 (“till he said
he had enough”); Scott H. Faulring, ed., An American Prophet’s Record: The
Diaries and Journals of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Signature Books/Smith
Research Associates, 1987), 310 (“till he said enough”). This would have appeared
in the never-published third volume of Dean C. Jessee, ed., The Papers of
Joseph Smith, 2 vols., with a different subtitle for each volume (Salt Lake City:
Deseret Book Co., 1989–92).
27. Joseph Smith diary, 1 January 1843, in Faulring, An American Prophet’s
Record, 267.
28. History of the Church, 5: 216; also Rodger I. Anderson, Joseph Smith’s
New York Reputation Reexamined (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1990).
29. History of the Church, 1: 261–65; Max H. Parkin, “A Study of the Nature
and Cause of Internal and External Conflict of the Mormons In Ohio Between
1830 and 1838,” M.A. thesis, Brigham Young University, 1966, 248–55; Donna
Hill, Joseph Smith: The First Mormon (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1977),
144–47; Susan Easton Black, “Hiram, Ohio: Tribulation,” in Larry C. Porter and
Black, eds., The Prophet Joseph: Essays On the Life and Mission of Joseph Smith
(Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1988), 161–74; Karl Ricks Anderson,
“Hiram, Ohio,” in Daniel H. Ludlow, ed., Encyclopedia of Mormonism: The
History, Scripture, Doctrine, and Procedure of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday
Saints, 5 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1992), 2: 588; Blaine Yorgason and
Brent Yorgason, Joseph Smith: Tarred and Feathered (Orem, UT: Grandin Books,
1994). History of the Church, 1: 261n, explained that Rider apostatized because
a revelation misspelled his name, but this official LDS account ironically
misspelled both the first and last names of “SYMONDS RIDER,” as he signed
his name in bold-face in a letter to the editor condemning the Mormons, in
Ohio Star (Ravenna, OH), 29 December 1831.
30. D. Elton Trueblood, Studies in Quaker Pacifism (Philadelphia: Friends
Peace Committee, 1934); Peter Brock, The Quaker Peace Testimony, 1660 to
1914 (York, Eng.: Sessions Book Trust; Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press,
1990).
31. History of the Church, 1: 390–95; Richard L. Bushman, “Mormon
Persecutions in Missouri, 1833,” BYU Studies 3 (Autumn 1960): 11–20; Warren
A. Jennings, “Zion is Fled: The Expulsion of the Mormons from Jackson
County, Missouri,” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Florida, 1962; Warren A.
Jennings, “Factors in the Destruction of the Mormon Press in Missouri, 1833,”
Utah Historical Quarterly 35 (Winter 1967): 57–76; Warren A. Jennings, “The
Expulsion of the Mormons from Jackson County, Missouri,” Missouri Historical
Review 64 (October 1969): 41–63; T. Edgar Lyon, “Independence, Missouri,
and the Mormons, 1827–1833,” BYU Studies 13 (Autumn 1972): 10–19;
Warren A. Jennings, “The City in the Garden: Social Conflict in Jackson
County, Missouri,” in F. McKiernan, Blair, and Edwards, Restoration Movement,
99–119; Ronald E. Romig and John H. Siebert, “Jackson County, 1831–1833: A
Look at the Development of Zion,” Restoration Studies 3 (1986): 286–304;
Church History in the Fulness of Times (Salt Lake City: Church Educational
System, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1989), 127–39; Ronald
E. Romig and John H. Siebert, “First Impressions: The Independence, Missouri,
Printing Operation, 1832–1833,” John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 10
(1990): 51–66; James B. Allen and Glen M. Leonard, The Story of the Latter-day
Saints, 2nd ed. rev. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1992), 94–95; Robert J.
Woodford, “Book of Commandments,” Clark V. Johnson, “LDS Communities
in Jackson and Clay Counties,” Max H. Parkin, “Missouri Conflict,” in Ludlow,
Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 1: 138, 2: 922–25, 927–28.
32. John Corrill, A Brief History of the Church of Christ of Latter Day Saints,
(Commonly Called Mormons;) . . . With the Reasons for the Author for Leaving the
Church (St. Louis: By the author, 1839), 19.
33. The best work on this idea/theology during Joseph Smith’s lifetime is
Grant Underwood, The Millenarian World of Early Mormonism (Urbana:
University of Illinois Press, 1993). For the continued legacy of Smith’s statements,
the disappointed expectations of his followers, and the institutional redefinitions
by the LDS Church (headquartered in Salt Lake City), see Dan
Erickson, As a Thief in the Night: The Mormon Quest For Millennial Deliverance
(Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1998).
34. For the full text, context, and implications of this 1833 revelation, see
my The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power (Salt Lake City: Signature
Books/Smith Research Associates, 1994), 80–84. Nevertheless, as I discuss on
its page 111, early Mormon pamphleteering and editorials continued to describe
theocracy as a distant, millennial circumstance until Smith changed the
emphasis both publicly and privately in 1842.
35. Note 31; History of the Church, 1: 407, 410–15, 423–31; Howard H.
Barron, Orson Hyde: Missionary, Apostle, Colonizer (Bountiful, UT: Horizon
Publishers, 1977), 42–43; also B. Pixley’s different perspective about this
Mormon “ambuscade” in his letter to editors of New York Observer, 7
November 1833, in William Mulder and A. Russell Mortensen, eds., Among the
Mormons: Historic Accounts by Contemporary Observers (New York: Alfred A.
Knopf, 1958), 81–83.
William G. Hartley, My Best For the Kingdom: History and Autobiography of
John Lowe Butler, A Mormon Frontiersman (Salt Lake City: Aspen Books, 1994),
44–45, also interpreted the military provisions of the 1833 revelation in a cumulative
manner. However, he offered a lengthier time frame: “ . . . Saints probably
counted the expulsion from Jackson [in 1833] as one provocation and the
forced departure from Clay County [in 1836] as a second. Persecutions in
Kirtland and its collapse [in late 1837] might have been seen as a third offense.
Expected abuses of Saints in northern Missouri [in mid-1838] could easily run
the count up past four.” To the contrary, as indicated in my discussion to follow,
an 1834 revelation and commandment verified that the three-fold restraints of
the 1833 revelation had been fulfilled and no longer applied.
36. B.F. Norris to Mark Norris, 6 January 1834, Mark Norris papers, Burton
Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library, Detroit, Michigan.
37. History of the Church, 1: 493, 263; Warren A. Jennings, “The Army of
Israel Marches Into Missouri,” Missouri Historical Review 62 (January 1968):
107–35; Roger D. Launius, Zion’s Camp: Expedition to Missouri (Independence,
MO: Herald Publishing House, 1984); Lance D. Chase, “Zion’s Camp,” in
Ludlow, Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 4: 1627–29; Bruce A. Van Orden, “Zion’s
Camp: A Refiner’s Fire,” in Porter and Black, The Prophet Joseph, 192–207.
38. History of the Church, 2: 39.
39. History of the Church, 2: 88 (referring to 12 June 1834).
40. History of the Church, 2: 39, 180–86, 201–04.
41. Nicholas Lockyer, Christ’s Communion With His Church Militant . . .
(London: John Rothwell, 1644); William Tilson Marsh, The Tabernacle and the
Temple, or, The Church Militant, and the Church Triumphant . . . (London:
Hatchard; Birmingham: J.M. Knott; Colchester, Eng.: Taylor, 1839); Hymns of
the Church Militant (New York: R. Carter, 1858).
42. Joseph Smith diary, 1 January 1843, in Faulring, An American Prophet’s
Record, 267; History of the Church, 5: 216, deleted this entry; see Note 26, last
sentence. Luke S. Johnson served as Kirtland’s constable from April 1834 to
April 1835, and not again until the last week of December 1837. The latter period
would have been too late for this incident due to Smith’s own hasty retreat
from Ohio in January 1838. See Kirtland Township Trustees minutes
(1817–38), 123–24 (7 April 1834), 135 (6 April 1835), 161 (23 December
1837), Lake County Historical Society, Mentor, Ohio.
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43. “History of Luke Johnson,” Latter-Day Saints Millennial Star 27 (1865):
5, with transcription in Hyrum L. Andrus and Helen Mae Andrus, comps., They
Knew the Prophet (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1974), 31.
44. Calvin W. Stoddard v. Joseph Smith Junior (based on an original complaint
by Grandison Newell), court documents (21 April, 7 May 1835), Janes
Collection, Henry E. Huntington Library, San Marino, California; State of Ohio
v. Joseph Smith Jr., Book Q, 497–98 (16 June 1835), Court of Common Pleas
records, Geauga County courthouse, Chardon, Ohio. From 1827 to his death in
1836, Stoddard was married to Joseph’s older sister Sophronia Smith (b. 1803).
According to Ohio law at this time, a criminal case (“State of Ohio versus”)
could be instituted by a citizen’s complaint against the defendant for criminal
behavior (“Calvin W. Stoddard versus”), which in turn could begin with an
original complaint by a third party (in this case, Grandison Newell) on behalf
of the battered plaintiff. It is unclear, at least to me, whether the court costs
were assessed against Stoddard (for allowing the criminal complaint to proceed
to trial concerning the charge of battery against himself, the plaintiff) or were
assessed against Newell (the original complainant who began the court proceedings).
45. Origins of Power, 594–95; Irene M. Bates and E. Gary Smith, Lost Legacy:
The Mormon Office of Presiding Patriarch (Urbana: University of Illinois Press,
1996), 74.
46. History of the Church, 2: 295, 335; Joseph Smith diary, 29 October and
16 December 1835, in Faulring, An American Prophet’s Record, 43, 79; Jessee,
Papers of Joseph Smith, 2: 59, 107; Dean C. Jessee, Mark Ashurst-McGee, and
Richard L. Jensen, eds., The Joseph Smith Papers: Journals, Volume 1: 1832–1839
(Salt Lake City: The Church Historian’s Press/Church History Department of
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2008), 77, 124.
47. “Benjamin F. Johnson to George S. Gibbs, April-October 1903,” in E.
Dale LeBaron, Benjamin Franklin Johnson: Friend to the Prophets (Provo, UT:
Grandin Book Company, 1997), 221.
48. Warren Parrish letter, 5 February 1838, with signed endorsement by
Apostles Luke S. Johnson and John F. Boynton, and by Seventy’s Presidents
Sylvester Smith and Leonard Rich, published in Painesville Republican
(Painesville, OH), 15 February 1838.
49. Andrew Jenson, Latter-day Saints Biographical Encyclopedia, 4 vols. (Salt
Lake City: Deseret News/Andrew Jenson Historical, 1901–36), 3: 577; Journal
History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (1830–1972), 31 May
1879, 246 reels, microfilm, Special Collections, Marriott Library, with original
in Church History Library of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,
Salt Lake City, Utah; Lester E. Bush Jr., “Mormonism’s Negro Doctrine: An
Historical Overview,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 8 (Spring 1973):
16–21; Newell G. Bringhurst, “Elijah Abel and the Changing Status of Blacks
Within Mormonism,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 12 (Summer
1979): 23–36; Bringhurst, Saints, Slaves, and Blacks: The Changing Place of
Black People within Mormonism (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1981),
37–38; entry for Mormons,” in Jack Salzman, David Lionel Smith, and Cornel
West, eds., Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History, 5 vols. (New
York: Macmillan Library Reference USA/Simon & Schuster, 1996), 4: 1854–55.
50. Last accusation against Elijah Abel by Jedediah M. Grant, which “was
substantiated by the written testimony of elder Zenas H. Gurley,” in First
Council of Seventy’s minute book (1835–43), 81–82 (1 June 1839), Archives,
Church History Library (hereafter cited as LDS Archives), with complete transcription
currently available to the public in D. Michael Quinn’s research files,
Beinecke Library. This meeting (in fact, the entire day) is absent from History of
the Church.
For Grant, see Gene A. Sessions, Mormon Thunder: A Documentary History
of Jedediah Morgan Grant (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1982). For
Gurley, see Clare D. Vlahos, “The Challenge to Centralized Power: Zenos H.
Gurley, Jr. and the Prophetic Office,” Courage: A Journal of History, Thought and
Action 1 (March 1971): 148–58. Gurley’s first name has been spelled both
“Zenas” and “Zenos,” but I used the spelling I found in most manuscripts and
original sources.
51. Joseph Smith diary, 24 September 1835, in Faulring, An American
Prophet’s Record, 35; Jessee, Papers of Joseph Smith, 2: 41–42; Jessee, Ashurst-
McGee, and Jensen, Joseph Smith Papers: Journals, Volume 1: 1832–1839, 64.
There are slight variations in these transcriptions.
52. History of the Church, 2: 282. Deseret News 1993–1994 Church Almanac
(Salt Lake City: Deseret News, 1992), 396, shows 8,835 total members in 1835,
with 7,500 located in the two stakes of the Church (one in Ohio and one in
Missouri). More recent almanacs do not separate stake membership from the
total LDS membership of 8,835 in 1835.
53. F. Mark McKiernan and Roger D. Launius, eds., An Early Latter Day
Saint History: The Book of John Whitmer (Independence, MO: Herald Publishing
House, 1984), 151 (hereafter cited as The Book of John Whitmer); also Jessee,
Papers of Joseph Smith, 2: 42n2.
54. For example, Letter From the Secretary of War, Transmitting a List of the
Names of the Clerks Employed in the War Department, During the Year 1820; and
the Compensation Allowed To Each . . . (Washington, D.C.: War Department,
1821), which was a peace-time publication. During the “Cold War” with the
Soviet Union after 1945, the U.S. government officially changed these terms to
“Secretary of Defense” and “Department of Defense.”
55. Marvin S. Hill, Quest for Refuge: The Mormon Flight from American
Pluralism (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1989), 53.
56. “Another Mormon Invasion,” Daily Missouri Republican (St. Louis,
MO), 17 May 1836, referring to “letters from Kirtland, Ohio have been received
here by the last mail from persons of undoubted veracity . . .”
57. “Petition of Joseph Smith Jr. to Ariel Hanson,” 7 November 1836, Lake
County Historical Society. The signers (showing those with verified membership
in the Mormon paramilitary Danites in 1838) were LDS First Presidency
members Joseph Smith (Danite), Oliver Cowdery, Sidney Rigdon (Danite),
Frederick G. Williams, and John Smith (Danite), Apostles Brigham Young,
William Smith, and Parley P. Pratt (Danite), Seventy’s Presidents Joseph Young,
Zebedee Coltrin, Lyman R. Sherman, and Leonard Rich. Re-arranged in alphabetical
order with corrected spellings of names, the other signers were:
Solomon Angell, Loren W. Babbitt, Edson Barney, Royal Barney Jr., Isaac H.
Bishop, Roswell Blood, Edmund Bosley, Norman Buell, Jacob Bump, Horace
Burgess, Reynolds Cahoon (Danite), William F. Cahoon, James M. Carroll,
Jared Carter (Danite), Hiram Clark (Danite), Marcellus F. Cowdery, Warren A.
Cowdery, William Cowdery, John Davidson, Lysander M. Davis, Maleum C.
Davis, David Dort, Bechias Dustin, Sterry Fisk, Solomon Freeman, George W.
Gee (Danite), John P. Greene (Danite), John Gribble, S[elah] J. Gri[ffin], Isaiah
Harvey, Nathan Haskins, Jonathan H. Holmes, Vinson Knight (Danite),
Lorenzo L. Lewis, Garland W. Meeks, Artemus Millet, Roger Orton, Ebenezer
Page (Danite), John D. Parker, Burton H. Phelps, William D. Pratt, David H.
Redfield, John Reed, Ezekiel Rider, Ebenezer Robinson (Danite), Peter Shirts,
Asael Smith, Don C. Smith, George A. Smith (Danite), Samuel H. Smith
(Danite), Harvey Stanley, Christopher Stillwell, Hyrum Stratton, Ezra Strong,
Benjamin Sweat, Chauncy G. Webb, Edwin Webb, Joseph Willard, and Willard
Woodstock.
58. McKiernan and Launius, The Book of John Whitmer, 161.
59. Painesville Telegraph (Painesville, OH), 9 June 1837; also Grandison
Newell v. Joseph Smith Junior, Court of Common Pleas records, Book T, 52–53
(5 June 1837), Geauga County; Edwin Brown Firmage and Richard Collin
Mangrum, Zion in the Courts: A Legal History of the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints, 1830–1900 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988),
55–56, 384n17; and brief discussions of the case in B.H. Roberts, A
Comprehensive History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 6 vols.
(Salt Lake City: “By the Church,” 1930), 1: 405; in Max H. Parkin, “Mormon
Political Involvement in Ohio,” BYU Studies 9 (Summer 1969): 500; and in
Bushman “with” Woodworth, Rough Stone Rolling, 337.
60. Donald Q. Cannon and Lyndon W. Cook, eds., Far West Record: Minutes
of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1830–1844 (Salt Lake City:
Deseret Book Co., 1983), 167 (for April 1838 testimony about the investigations
“last fall”), 171n18 (for Fanny Alger); Todd Compton, In Sacred
Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Signature Books,
1997), 37–38 (which gives the incorrect date of “the summer of 1837” for
Patten’s inquiry).
61. Brigham Young statement to apostles in Scott G. Kenney, ed., Wilford
Woodruff’s Journal: 1833–1898 Typescript, 9 vols. (Midvale, UT: Signature Books,
1983–85), 5: 63 (25 June 1857). Young accurately dated this incident as occurring
“in the fall of 1837.” See Note 60 for the date.
Young said that he was less severe with other Mormons than the founding
prophet was. See Journal of Discourses, 26 vols. (London and Liverpool: Latter
Day Saints’ Book Depot, 1854–86), 8: 317–18.
62. LeBaron, Benjamin Franklin Johnson, 221.
63. History of the Church, 2: 484–93, 508–12, 529; Mary Fielding Smith letters
to Mercy R. Fielding Thompson, July–October 1837, in Kenneth W.
Godfrey, Audrey M. Godfrey, and Jill Mulvay Derr, eds., Women’s Voices: An
Untold History of the Latter-day Saints, 1830–1900 (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book
Co., 1982), 60–68; Robert Kent Fielding, “The Growth of the Mormon Church
In Kirtland, Ohio,” Ph.D. dissertation, Indiana University, 1957, 245–64;
Parkin, “Study of the Nature and Causes of External and Internal Conflict of
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S U N S T O N E
the Mormons in Ohio Between 1830 and 1838,” esp. 309–17; Davis Bitton,
“The Waning of Mormon Kirtland,” BYU Studies 12 (Summer 1972): 455–64;
Marvin S. Hill, “Cultural Crisis in the Mormon Kingdom: A Reconsideration of
the Causes of Kirtland Dissent,” Church History 49 (September 1980): 286–97;
Milton V. Backman Jr., The Heavens Resound: A History of the Latter-day Saints in
Ohio, 1830–1838 (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1983), 310–41; Karl Ricks
Anderson, Joseph Smith’s Kirtland: Eyewitness Accounts (Salt Lake City: Deseret
Book Co., 1989), 193–223; Church History in the Fulness of Times, 169–80;
Kenneth H. Winn, Exiles in a Land of Liberty: Mormons in America, 1830–1846
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989), 106–28; Hill, Quest For
Refuge, 55–80; Milton V. Backman Jr. and Ronald K. Esplin, “History of the
Church: 1831–1844,” and Backman, “Kirtland,” in Ludlow, Encyclopedia of
Mormonism, 2: 609–10, 797; Allen and Leonard, Story of the Latter-day Saints,
117–25; Origins of Power, 61–62.
64. Hill, Quest for Refuge, 70. In view of that assessment by Marvin S. Hill in
1989, I was mystified by his rejection in SUNSTONE (November 1997) of my
analysis of early Mormonism’s culture of violence as presented in Extensions of
Power.
65. Francis M. Gibbons, Joseph Smith: Martyr, Prophet of God (Salt Lake
City: Deseret Book Co., 1977), 228–29; Leonard J. Arrington, Brigham Young:
American Moses (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1985), 65. Hill, Joseph Smith, gave
the traditional account (223–24) that Smith was unaware of the Danites and
quickly repudiated them, but she concluded (225) that he had at least peripheral
involvement with the Danites and gave approval of their early activities.
66. William Swartzell (a Danite) daily journal, 14 July 1838, in his
Mormonism Exposed, Being a Journal of a Residence in Missouri From the 28th of
May to the 20th of August, 1838 (Pekin, OH: A. Ingram Jr., Printer, 1840), 18.
67. Dean C. Jessee and David J. Whittaker, “The Last Months of
Mormonism in Missouri: The Albert Perry Rockwood Journal,” BYU Studies 28
(Winter 1988): 23, as a slightly different version of Albert P. Rockwood to
Luther Rockwood, 29 October 1838 (rather than 22 October, as in Jesse and
Whittaker), Beinecke Library.
Nevertheless, as I discuss in Origins of Power, 111, until 1842, early
Mormon pamphleteering and editorials did not discuss the Daniel prophecies
as applying to the LDS Church at present, but instead discussed theocracy as a
distant, millennial circumstance. Joseph Smith changed the emphasis both
publicly and privately in 1842, thus introducing the Missouri Danite interpretation
to the Church at large.
68. John Smith diary, 4 August, 1 September 1838, George A. Smith Family
papers, Manuscripts Division, Special Collections, J. Willard Marriott Library,
University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah; John E. Thompson, “A Chronology of
Danite Meetings in Adam-ondi-Ahman, Missouri, July to September, 1838,”
Restoration: News, Views, and History of the Latter Day Saint Movement 4
(January 1985): 11–14; Stephen C. LeSueur, The 1838 Mormon War in Missouri
(Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1987), 38, 44.
Richard Lloyd Anderson, “Clarifications of Bogg’s [sic] `Order’ and Joseph
Smith’s Constitutionalism,” in Arnold K. Garr and Clark V. Johnson, eds.,
Regional Studies in Latter-day Saint Church History: Missouri (Provo, UT:
Department of Church History and Doctrine, Brigham Young University, 1994),
64, claimed that the “only official and contemporary” reference by LDS leaders
to the Danites was a statement by George W. Robinson (“a Danite officer and
Church recorder”) in Joseph Smith’s “Scriptory Book” (Anderson, 71n19,
80n147).
However, Anderson nowhere acknowledges that John Smith, an assistant
counselor in the First Presidency and the prophet’s uncle, made repeated references
of a positive or neutral nature to the Danites in his 1838 diary. This diary’s
quotes about the Danites and “the Daughters of Zion” appeared on page 44 of
LeSueur, The 1838 Mormon War, which Anderson’s article was trying to refute.
By linking “official” and “contemporary,” Anderson was able to legalistically exclude
most of the first-hand Danite evidence he didn’t like. However, since he
included the private diary of the LDS president, even Richard L. Anderson’s
own rules of evidence should have required him to include the Danite references
written in 1838 by the First Presidency’s assistant counselor, who was
also serving as a stake president in Missouri.
69. Joseph Smith diary, 27 July 1838, in Faulring, An American Prophet’s
Record, 35; Jessee, Papers of Joseph Smith, 2: 262; Jessee, Ashurst-McGee, and
Jensen, Joseph Smith Papers: Journals, Volume 1: 1832–1839, 293. This entry did
not make it into the official History of the Church.
70. Times and Seasons 4 (15 July 1843): 271.
71. Ebenezer Robinson, “Items of Personal History of the Editor,” The
Return 2 (February 1890): 217. Hartley, My Best For the Kingdom, 47, also observed:
“Evidence indicates that President Rigdon knew about them and gave
them his blessing.”
72. Anson Call statement to B.H. Roberts (an LDS general authority serving
in the First Council of the Seventy) and John M. Whitaker (the Council’s secretary),
30 December 1885, typescript, 1, Whitaker file, Utah State Historical
Society, Salt Lake City, Utah; Corrill, Brief History, 30; Hartley, My Best For the
Kingdom, 46; John E. Thompson, “The Far West Dissenters and the Gamblers
at Vicksburg: An Examination of the Documentary Evidence and Historical
Context of Sidney Rigdon’s Salt Sermon,” Restoration 5 (January 1986): 21–27.
73. Document Containing the Correspondence, Orders, &c In Relation to the
Disturbances With the Mormons, 103–07.
74. Ebenezer Robinson, “Items of Personal History of the Editor,” The
Return 1 (October 1889): 145–47, 2 (February 1890): 218–19.
75. Avard testimony in Document Containing the Correspondence, Orders, &c
In Relation to the Disturbances With the Mormons, 102. Leland H. Gentry, “The
Danite Band of 1838,” BYU Studies 14 (Summer 1974): 424n14, acknowledged
Avard’s testimony, but noted that since Rigdon did not sign the ultimatum, “it is
possible, therefore, that Avard drew up the document himself.” Likewise,
Church History in the Fulness of Times, 191, described this as “an unauthorized
document . . . signed by eighty-four Church members, and it pointedly
ordered the apostates to leave the county or face serious consequences.”
However, “unauthorized” hardly fits a document which was signed by an assistant
counselor in the First Presidency and by Second Counselor Hyrum Smith,
brother of the Church President. Gentry did not list any of the signers except
Avard, but suggested (425): “It is possible that the document was . . . presented
for signing at one or more Danite meetings.”
76. Some have viewed the Danite organization as formed in June 1838 for
the sole purpose of opposing a handful of LDS dissenters, whose intimidation
was unquestionably its first action. Although its blood-oath enforced internal
loyalty, its constitution provided for military titles, structure, and chain-ofcommand.
This indicates that large-scale military activities were paramount for
its intended use from the very beginning of the Danite organization, not an afterthought
following the expulsion of the dissenters. For the Danite constitution,
see Document Containing the Correspondence, Orders, &c In Relation to the
Disturbances With the Mormons, 102.
77. Joseph Smith diary, 27 July 1838, in Jessee, Papers of Joseph Smith, 2:
262; with differences in the printed transcriptions of Faulring, An American
Prophet’s Record, 187, and of Jessee, Ashurst-McGee, and Jensen, Joseph Smith
Papers: Journals, Volume 1: 1832–1839, 293. This entry did not make it into the
official History of the Church.
78. Joseph Smith diary, 4 July 1838, in Jessee, Papers of Joseph Smith, 2: 249
(for quote), 249n1 (noting that “`June’ [was] penciled sideways in the margin
opposite these lines,” which were otherwise dated as 4 July 1838; also Faulring,
An American Prophet’s Record, 187; Jessee, Ashurst-McGee, and Jensen, Joseph
Smith Papers: Journals, Volume 1: 1832–1839, 278; Hartley, My Best For the
Kingdom, 46. This entry did not make it into the official History of the Church.
79. McKiernan and Launius, The Book of John Whitmer, 165.
80. LeSueur, The 1838 Mormon War in Missouri, 46. In confirmation of just
how mainstream one LDS apologist regards this 1838 death threat against
Mormon dissenters, Anderson, “Clarifications of Bogg’s [sic] `Order’ and Joseph
Smith’s Constitutionalism,” 63, stated: “Like many responsible contemporaries,
Joseph Smith experimented with prior restraint of defamation in times of
danger. But the flight of the Cowdery-Whitmer group is an exception in Joseph
Smith’s policy of full rights for Mormons and neighbors.”
81. Leland H. Gentry, “A History of the Latter-day Saints In Northern
Missouri From 1836 to 1839,” Ph.D. dissertation, Brigham Young University,
1965, 171. However, despite the Mormon paranoia of 1838, the following is an
overstatement by Winn, Exiles in a Land of Liberty, 126: “The banishment of the
dissenters initiated a veritable reign of terror against those who might doubt the
wisdom of Church policy.”
82. Orson Hyde letter, 21 October 1844, in LDS newspaper Nauvoo
Neighbor (edited by Apostle John Taylor in Nauvoo, IL), 4 December 1844.
Although LDS headquarters intended Hyde’s letter to attack the character of
Rigdon, who had been recently excommunicated for opposing the 1844 succession
claims of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Hyde’s letter also verified the
First Presidency’s 1838 authorization of theocratic killings.
83. Benjamin Slade testimony (November 1838) about Rigdon’s statement
the previous month, in Document Containing the Correspondence, Orders, &c In
Relation to the Disturbances With the Mormons, 143. For Slade as a loyal
Mormon in Nauvoo and Utah, see his entry in Susan Ward Easton Black,
Membership of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1830–1848, 50
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S U N S T O N E
vols. (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University,
1984–88), 40: 539–40.
84. Oration Delivered by Mr. S. Rigdon on the 4th of July 1838 (Far West, MO:
Elder’s Journal Office, 1838), 12, as the only quote from this document in
Church History in the Fulness of Times, 92. A photographic reprint of the oration
is in Peter Crawley, “Two Rare Missouri Documents,” BYU Studies 14 (Summer
1974): 517–27.
85. Elder’s Journal 1 (August 1838): 54.
86. John L. Butler reminiscence, in Journal History, 6 August 1838, page 3;
also John L. Butler, history and autobiography, typescript, 16–17, Lee Library.
87. History of the Church, 3: 56–58; Church History in the Fulness of Times,
193–210; Reed C. Durham, “The Election Day Battle At Gallatin,” BYU Studies
13 (Autumn 1972): 36–61; LeSueur, The 1838 Mormon War in Missouri,
58–64.
88. Hartley, My Best For the Kingdom, 69, 42. He referred to the post office
mentioned by Philip Covington, justice of the peace for Daviess County, affidavit,
22 September 1838, and to the treasurer’s office in William P. Peniston’s
affidavit, 21 October 1838, both in Document Containing the Correspondence,
Orders, &c In Relation to the Disturbances With the Mormons, 43–44.
89. Hartley, My Best For the Kingdom, 42.
90. Luman A. Shurtliff manuscript autobiography (1807–51), 120, 122, 125
(for August 1838), LDS Archives, also typescript at Special Collections, Harold
B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah. A written revelation of 8
July 1838 had appointed John Taylor as an apostle. (Doctrine and Covenants
118: 1, 6)
In Document Containing the Correspondence, Orders, &c In Relation to the
Disturbances With the Mormons . . . (Fayette, MO: Boon’s Lick Democrat, 1841),
98, Sampson Avard, the Danite leader at Far West, testified: “As for Joseph
Smith, jr., and his two counsellors, the witness does not know that they ever
took the Danite oath.” This indicates that Smith was not initiated at Far West,
and instead the prophet undoubtedly received his Danite initiation from Lyman
Wight. Wight was the Danite leader at Adam-ondi-Ahman, the second largest
organization of Danites. There was a certain symmetry in this, since Smith had
ordained Wight as the Church’s first high priest in 1831, and Wight in turn had
ordained Smith as a high priest. Three years later, Smith secretly ordained
Wight “to the office of Benamey [“Baneemy”] in the presence of an angel.” See
History of the Church, 1: 176n; Cannon and Cook, Far West Record, 67; Lyman
Wight to Cooper and Chidester, editors of the Strangite newspaper Northern
Islander, July 1855, in Wight letterbook, 23, Archives of The Community of
Christ (formerly The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints),
Independence, Missouri.
91. I acknowledge the possibility, as Todd Compton has argued, that sentry
Shurtliff might have given a temporary military password, military sign, and
military countersign (which changed nightly by conventional practice) to
Joseph Smith and Hyrum Smith on the night Shurtliff’s autobiography described,
rather than the permanent codes given to initiated Danites. Compton
acknowledges it only as “a good chance that it may have been a Danite sign and
password.” He elaborated this in “Joseph Smith and the Danites,” paper delivered
at Sunstone Symposium, Salt Lake City, 6 August 2010, to be published as
an appendix in Leland H. Gentry and Todd M. Compton, Fire and Sword: A
History of the Latter-day Saints in Northern Missouri, 1836–39 (Salt Lake City:
Greg Kofford Books, forthcoming).
However, in my view, there is almost no probability that Shurtliff gave non-
Danite signals to the two Smiths in August 1838, in view of (1) the manifold evidences
of their close involvement with the Danite activities since June 1838,
(2) Shurtliff’s expressed eagerness to give Danite signals to other Danites, and
(3) the fact that Shurtliff recognized the approaching men as Joseph and Hyrum
before he gave the signals.
92. Justus Morse affidavit, 23 March 1887, LDS Archives, with complete
transcription in folder 3, box 22, H. Michael Marquardt papers, Marriott
Library; History of the Church, 5: 302, 6: 337, for Morse’s continued association
with Smith. Closer to the events of 1838, dissident Mormons and former Danite
officers Sampson Avard and Reed Peck described Smith’s similar encouragement
to plunder Missourians in Document Containing the Correspondence,
Orders, &c In Relation to the Disturbances With the Mormons, 98, 117.
93. Benjamin F. Johnson, My Life’s Review (Independence, MO: Zion’s
Printing & Publishing Co., 1947), 39.
94. Oliver B. Huntington manuscript autobiography, book 1, 37–38 (1838),
Lee Library; LeSueur, The 1838 Mormon War in Missouri, 119, 136.
95. LeBaron, Benjamin Franklin Johnson, 222.
96. Nathan Tanner reminiscence, in George S. Tanner, John Tanner and His
Family (Salt Lake City: John Tanner Family Association/Publishers Press,
1974), 386.
97. Indictment of Parley P. Pratt for murder of Moses Rowland, filed 2 April
1839, Boone County Circuit Court Records, Case 1379, folder 17, Western
Historical Manuscripts Collection, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri;
John D. Lee autobiography in Mormonism Unveiled: or the Life and Confessions
of the Mormon Bishop, John D. Lee (St. Louis: Bryan, Brand & Co., 1877), 73;
also Reed Peck’s similar description of acts by the unnamed Parley P. Pratt, a
“cold hearted villain (I know him well),” in Reed Peck manuscript, 18
September 1839, pages 99–100, Huntington Library.
98. James H. Hunt, Mormonism . . . Their Troubles In Missouri and Final
Expulsion From the State (St. Louis: Ustick & Davies, 1844), 190–91. Although
he did not acknowledge that Tarwater sustained these injuries after he was shot
and lying unconscious on the ground, an assistant LDS Church historian gave a
more gruesome description of his injuries, including “a terrible gash in the
skull, through which his brain was plainly visible.” See Andrew Jenson,
“Caldwell County, Missouri,” The Historical Record 8 (January 1888): 702; also
Alexander L. Baugh, “The Battle Between Mormon and Missouri Militia at
Crooked River,” in Garr and Johnson, Regional Studies in Latter-day Saint
Church History: Missouri, 93 (for discussion of Tarwater).
99. History of the Church, 3: 184–87, 326n, and 175 (for text of the governor’s
extermination order; “A Heroine of Haun’s Mill Massacre,” in Heroines of
“Mormondom,” the Second Book of the Noble Women’s Lives Series (Salt Lake City:
Juvenile Instructor Office, 1884), 86–96; “Exterminate or Expel Them!” and
“Massacre at Haun’s Mill,” in Mulder and Mortensen, Among the Mormons,
102–06; Gentry, “History of the Latter-day Saints In Northern Missouri,”
430–66; “Alma R. Blair,” “The Haun’s Mill Massacre,” BYU Studies 13 (Autumn
1972): 62–67; Clark V. Johnson, “Missouri Persecutions: The Petition of Isaac
Leany,” BYU Studies 23 (Winter 1983): 101–03; Clark V. Johnson, ed., Mormon
Redress Petitions: Documents of the 1833–1838 Missouri Conflict (Provo, UT:
Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1992), 17–18, 28–31,
89–90, 274–76, 320–21, 408–09, 417–18, 440–41, 451–52, 477–78, 486–88,
490–91, 505–06, 637–39, 720–24; Alma R. Blair, “Haun’s Mill Massacre,” in
Ludlow, Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 2: 577. Traditional accounts misstate both
the age and military experience of victim McBride. Born in 1776, he was too
young to be a “veteran of the Revolution” (History of the Church, 3: 220n),
which war ended in 1783. The Journal History for 30 October 1838 acknowledged
that historical impossibility and suggested that McBride was a veteran of
the War of 1812.
100. LeSueur, The 1838 Mormon War in Missouri, 138, 144–52. While
Anderson, “Clarifications of Bogg’s [sic] `Order’ and Joseph Smith’s
Constitutionalism” acknowledges that the Boggs extermination order responded
to what Anderson calls “the hot skirmish at Crooked River” (45), he
emphasizes the “unfounded rumors” (45), “the upcoming fictitious attack on
the county seat” (46), the “false rumors” (47), “this mythical Mormon offensive”
(48) described by Missourians, and then dismisses Crooked River as “the
attack of 70 Mormons on a state patrol of 50, which was intimidating Mormon
settlers instead of acting on defensive orders” (48). Anderson argues at length
(27–47) that the governor simply ratified long-standing calls for expulsion by
anti-Mormons. Thus (47), Boggs “served special interests in upper Missouri
when they demanded extermination orders. This executive was more conduit
than commander” in issuing the October 1838 extermination order against the
Mormons.
101. History of the Church, 3: 58–322; Gentry, “History of the Latter-day
Saints in Northern Missouri,” 527–98; Leonard J. Arrington, “Church Leaders
in Liberty Jail,” BYU Studies 12 (Autumn 1972): 20–26; Dean C. Jessee, “`Walls,
Grates and Screeking Iron Doors’: The Prison Experience of Mormon Leaders
in Missouri, 1838–1839,” in Davis Bitton and Maureen Ursenbach Beecher,
eds., New Views of Mormon History: A Collection of Essays in Honor of Leonard J.
Arrington (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1987), 19–42; LeSueur, The
1838 Mormon War in Missouri, 46–48, 63–263, 125n35; Hill, Quest for Refuge,
75, 76, 92, 225n65.
102. Which is exactly what Richard L. Anderson did in his “Clarifications
of Bogg’s [sic] `Order’ and Joseph Smith’s Constitutionalism,” 68.
103. Document Containing the Correspondence, Orders, &c In Relation to
the Disturbances With the Mormons, 102; Jessee, Papers of Joseph Smith, 2:
42n2.
104. Robert Bruce Flanders, Nauvoo: Kingdom on the Mississippi (Urbana:
University of Illinois Press, 1965), 19; Kenneth Gordon Crider, “Rhetorical
Aspects of the Controversies Over Mormonism in Illinois, 1839–1847,” Ph.D.
dissertation, University of Illinois, 1956, 270–71; Kenneth W. Godfrey, “Causes
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of the Mormon Non-Mormon Conflict in Hancock County, Illinois,
1839–1846,” Ph.D. dissertation, Brigham Young University, 1967, 43–47;
Andrew F. Smith, Saintly Scoundrel: The Life and Times of Dr. John Cook Bennett
(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997), 58–61.
105. History of the Church, 5: 3–4, 56, 369, 383–84, 6: 34; Hamilton
Gardner, “The Nauvoo Legion, 1840–1845: A Unique Military Organization,”
in Roger D. Launius and John E. Hallwas, eds., Kingdom on the Mississippi
Revisited: Nauvoo in Mormon History (Urbana: University of Illinois Press,
1996), 53 (for lieutenant-general rank), 57 (for “an estimated five thousand
members”); with lower estimates in John Sweeney Jr., “A History of the Nauvoo
Legion In Illinois,” M.A. thesis, Brigham Young University, 1974, 70, 73; compared
with Thomas H.S. Hamersly, Regular Army Register of the United States,
1779–1879 (Washington: By the author, 1880), 84–89.
106. History of the Church, 5: 482.
107. See discussion in narrative-text for Note 124.
108. History of the Church, 1: 434, 3: 81, 204, 328, 5: 15; “Mormons Held
Boggs Responsible For Their Hardships,” in L. Dean Marriott, “Lilburn W.
Boggs: Interaction With Mormons Following Their Expulsion From Missouri,”
Ed.D. dissertation, Brigham Young University, 1979, 27-30.
109. Alanson Ripley to “Dear brethren in Christ Jesus,” with Joseph
Smith, Hyrum Smith, Caleb Baldwin, Alexander McRae, and Lyman Wight
identified by initials at the end of letter, 10 April 1839, Joseph Smith letterbook
2: 17, Smith papers, original in LDS Archives, with microfilm copies at
Community of Christ Archives, at Lee Library, and at Marriott Library; quoted
in Hill, Quest for Refuge, 100.
110. William Clayton diary, 1 January 1845, in George D. Smith, ed., An
Intimate Chronicle: The Journals of William Clayton (Salt Lake City: Signature
Books/Smith Research Associates, 1991), 153, gives the earliest available statement
of the revelation’s text but does not date it. The earliest known statement
that this revelation occurred on 7 April 1842 is Council of Fifty minutes, 10
April 1880, typed copy, Lee Library, also in Joseph F. Smith diary, 10 April 1880,
LDS Archives (with complete transcription in Quinn’s research files, Beinecke
Library), and in Andrew F. Ehat, “`It Seems Like Heaven Began on Earth’:
Joseph Smith and the Constitution of the Kingdom of God,” BYU Studies 20
(Spring 1980): 254n3. Restatements and slight variations of this council’s long
name (given by the 1842 revelation) appear in Kenney, Wilford Woodruff’s
Journal: 1833–1898 Typescript, 3 (29 May 1847): 188; John D. Lee diary, 3
March 1849, in Robert Glass Cleland and Juanita Brooks, eds., A Mormon
Chronicle: The Diaries of John D. Lee, 1848–1876, 2 vols. (San Marino, CA: The
Henry E. Huntington Library, 1955), 1: 98; Joseph F. Smith diary, 16 March
1880; Franklin D. Richards diary, 16 March 1880, LDS Archives, Council of
Fifty minutes, 10 April 1880, LDS Archives, Joseph F. Smith memorandum, 31
December 1880, LDS Archives (with complete transcriptions of the above in
Quinn’s research files, Beinecke Library); Abraham H. Cannon diary, 9 October
1884, Lee Library, Marriott Library, and Utah State Historical Society; John
Taylor revelation of 27 June 1882, in Annie Taylor Hyde notebook, 67, LDS
Archives, with complete transcription in Quinn’s research files, Beinecke
Library; and in Fred C. Collier, Unpublished Revelations of the Prophets and
Presidents of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2nd ed. (Salt Lake
City: Collier’s Publishing Co., 1981), 134, verse 29.
111. The Wasp (Nauvoo, IL), 28 May 1842.
112. William Law statement, 31 July 1887, in Lyndon W. Cook, ed.,
William Law: Biographical Essay, Nauvoo Diary, Correspondence (Orem, UT:
Grandin Book Co., 1994), 116–17.
113. Jonas Hobart affidavit on 9 July 1842 (for quote); Samuel Marshall
affidavit on 9 July 1842 (for third person paraphrase of quote), both in John C.
Bennett, The History of the Saints . . . (Boston: Leland and Whiting, 1842), 285.
Lacking the effusiveness and sensationalism that Bennett and his allies typically
used, these affidavits quoted/paraphrased Rockwell’s guarded and not-quite-incriminating
statement. Under the circumstances, the affidavits sound like unexaggerated
statements of what Hobart and Marshall actually heard him say.
114. Quoted in Harold Schindler, Orrin Porter Rockwell: Man of God, Son
of Thunder (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1966), 80.
115. William M. Boggs, “A Short Biographical Sketch of Lilburn W.
Boggs, By His Son,” Missouri Historical Review 4 (January 1910): 107; also
Nicholas Van Alfen, Orrin Porter Rockwell: The Frontier Mormon Marshal
(Logan, UT: LDS Institute of Religion, 1964), 20–32; Monte B. McLaws, “The
Attempted Assassination of Missouri’s Ex-Governor, Lilburn W. Boggs,”
Missouri Historical Review 60 (October 1965): 50–62; Flanders, Nauvoo,
104–05; Schindler, Orrin Porter Rockwell, 74–109; Richard Lloyd Dewey, Porter
Rockwell: The Definitive Biography (New York: Paramount Books, 1986), 49–77.
116. Joseph Smith letter to Mr. Bartlett, 22 May 1842, in Quincy Whig
(Quincy, IL), 4 June 1842; Joseph Smith letter to the editor, 27 May 1842, in
Quincy Herald (Quincy, IL), 2 June 1842; History of the Church, 5: 9, 15, 6: 151.
117. History of the Church, 5: 4, 13; Book of the Law of the Lord, 19 May
1842, in Jessee, Papers of Joseph Smith, 2: 384; The Wasp (Nauvoo, IL), 21 May
1842, [3], 4 June 1842, [3]. The Night Watch in 1842 included Dimick B.
Huntington, William D. Huntington, Lucius N. Scovil, Charles Allen, Albert P.
Rockwood, Noah Rogers, Shadrach Roundy, Josiah Arnold, David H. Redfield,
Hiram Clark, S.B. Hicks, Erastus H. Derby, John A. Forgeus, Gilbert D.
Goldsmith, Daniel Carn, and John G. Luce. See appendix, “Danites in 1838: A
Partial List,” in Origins of Power, [479]–490.
118. History of the Church, 5: 4.
119. James B. Allen, Trials of Discipleship: The Story of William Clayton, A
Mormon (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987), 140. Based on the list of
Smith’s personal staff and “guards” in the Nauvoo Legion as of February 1841
(History of the Church, 4: 296), Hartley, My Best For the Kingdom, 120, lists as
Smith’s twelve bodyguards the following men: John L. Butler, Thomas Grover,
Christian M. Kremeyer, John Snyder, Alpheus Cutler, Reynolds Cahoon, Henry
G. Sherwood, Shadrach Roundy, Vinson Knight, James Allred, Elias Higbee,
and Samuel H. Smith. A problem with this list is that it omits Orrin Porter
Rockwell, widely known as one of Smith’s bodyguards. Hartley also omits
Albert P. Rockwood, the actual commander of the “lifeguards,” with the explanation
that the 1841 entry in History of the Church listed Rockwood only as a
“drill master” with the Nauvoo Legion. Apparently, Smith’s “lifeguards” in the
Nauvoo Legion were for ceremonial purposes and overlapped with his actual
bodyguards who were “ordained” to protect his life. For sources about the
Danite affiliation of the above men, see appendix, “Danites in 1838: A Partial
List,” in Origins of Power, [479]–490.
120. L.B. Fleak (at Keokuk, Iowa) to Governor Thomas Reynolds, 4
December 1842, folder 14346, box 319, Reynolds Correspondence, Missouri
State Archives, Joseph City, Missouri, with transcription in Warren A. Jennings,
“Two Iowa Postmasters View Nauvoo: Anti-Mormon Letters to the Governor of
Missouri,” BYU Studies 11 (Spring 1971): 286. For the context of why
Missouri’s governor was receiving reports from attempted kidnappers, see
George R. Gayler, “Attempts by the State of Missouri to Extradite Joseph Smith,
1841–1843,” Missouri Historical Review 58 (October 1963): 21–36.
121. Joseph Smith diary, 1 January 1843, in Faulring, An American
Prophet’s Record, 267; History of the Church, 5: 216, deleted this entry; see Note
26, last sentence.
122. History of the Church, 5: 285.
123. History of the Church, 5: 316.
124. Joseph Smith diary, 5 March 1843, in Faulring, An American
Prophet’s Record, 326; phrased differently in History of the Church, 5: 296 (“I will
shoot him, or cut off his head, spill his blood on the ground,” also “on that subject”);
see Note 26, last sentence.
The LDS Church’s official history changed the phrase to “cut off his head”
as an apparent effort to make readers think the founding prophet was referring
to the civil execution by decapitation as practiced in the decades-earlier French
Revolution. However, Smith’s actual phrase “cut his throat” replayed the throatcutting
threats by Missouri Danites (including Sidney Rigdon) in 1838 (see
quotes for previous notes 82 and 83). The LDS prophet’s 1843 statement was
also an official precedent for Counselor Rigdon’s throat-slitting statement to
April 1844 general conference (see quote in narrative for Note 149).
Smith’s 1843 statement was also an obvious precedent for Brigham Young’s
similar phrases in his published sermons about “blood atonement” during the
1850s (see Note 152). Published in Salt Lake City, the LDS Church’s official
History of the Church, 5: 296 even described Smith’s remarks as “The Questions
of `Currency’ and Blood Atonement, in the Nauvoo City Council.” Notice that
its editors did not put quotation marks around Blood Atonement, but did for
“Currency.”
125. Joseph Smith statement, manuscript minutes of 6 April 1843 conference,
first version (page 10), and with quoted words lined out in second version
(page 4), both documents in LDS Archives, with complete transcriptions
in Quinn’s research files, Beinecke Library. This statement by Joseph Smith is
absent from the report of his remarks in Times and Seasons, History of the
Church, and in Andrew F. Ehat and Lyndon W. Cook, 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),
173–81.
126. John L. Butler reminiscence, in Journal History, 6 August 1838,
page 6.
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127. History of the Church, 5: 473.
128. History of the Church, 5: 524, 531; Joseph Smith diary, 13 August
1843, in Faulring, An American Prophet’s Record, 405; see Note 26, last sentence;
also Allen, Trials of Discipleship, 114–15, 144n15.
129. William Clayton diary, 1 August 1843, in Smith, An Intimate
Chronicle, 114; History of the Church, 5: 531.
In Warsaw Message (Warsaw, IL) (11 October 1843), [1–2], Bagby wrote
that Joseph Smith “insulted me in the grossest manner, without any provocation,
(as I think will appear in the sequel) and at time too, when I was enfeebled
by long and severe illness, being then but just able to walk . . . and what, Mr.
Editor, may you suppose was the cause of this attack? Why simply because, as
collector of the county, I advertised, according to law, a certain lot in Nauvoo, to
which he afterwards set up a claim. Such was the ostensible cause that produced
the cause above alluded to.
“ . . . And I would here remark, that, but for the timely interference of Dan’l
H. Wells Esq., who happened to be near, and who nobly throwed himself into
the breach, I would, doubtless, have suffered great personal injury, by the dastardly
beast [Smith], whose fury increased in an inverse ratio to his discovery of
my entire inability from the effect of disease, and the want of suitable weapons,
to resist his brutal violence.”
130. History of the Church, 5: 34; Joseph Smith diary, 17 September 1843,
in Faulring, An American Prophet’s Record, 414, specified “under officers”; see
Note 26, last sentence.
131. “The Last Case At Nauvoo,” Warsaw Message (Warsaw, IL), 27
September 1843, [3]. Bennett’s first name was not given in this long article, nor
in the first reference to this altercation “on Sunday last” in Warsaw Message (20
September 1843), [2]. However, Smith’s excommunicated counselor John C.
Bennett was not “one of our citizens” at Warsaw.
132. “Story as related to me by Ira N. Spaulding of East Weber,” in “THE
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DAVID OSBORN, SENIOR Started in February 1860,”
Lee Library, with complete transcription in GospeLink 2001 CD-ROM (Salt
Lake City: Deseret Book, 2001), and on the Internet at
www.boap.org/LDS/Early-Saints/DOsborn.html, accessed on 3 March 2011; also
quoted in Richard Lyman Bushman, “The Character of Joseph Smith,” BYU
Studies 42, No. 2 (2003): 23–34. Spaulding died in 1882 at Uintah, Weber
County, Utah. One of his children was born in Nauvoo in 1844. See “Ancestral
File” of the LDS Church, available on the Internet at familysearch.org.
133. Alexander L. Baugh, “Joseph Smith’s Athletic Nature,” in Susan
Easton Black and Charles D. Tate Jr., eds., Joseph Smith: The Prophet, The Man
(Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1993), 140.
134. For example, Isaac M. Dwight, To the public, Augusta, Dec’r 2d, 1823
(Augusta, GA: N.p., 1823). This broadside was a refutation of printed charges
posted by Thomas Broughton Jr., accusing the author of being “a bullying
coward, a braggadocio in words and a poultroon in deeds.”
135. Phebe Wheeler Olney statement, written between November 1843
and April 1844 on the back of Susan McKee Culbertson’s application for membership
in the Nauvoo Relief Society, 21 [July] 1843, uncatalogued manuscripts,
Beinecke Library. Nauvoo’s 1842 census showed “Phoebe” Wheeler as
the first of the six girls residing as house servants with the Joseph Smith family.
Despite her marriage to Oliver Olney on 19 October 1843, performed by
Patriarch Hyrum Smith, Phebe apparently continued as a servant in the Smith
home until 1844. Its unrelated reference to “Mrs Sagers” indicates that this
entry dates from November 1843 to April 1844, when the marital complaints of
Mrs. Harrison Sagers involved the high council. The more likely time period for
discussion of the Harrison case in the Smith household was November 1843,
the only time Smith’s manuscript diary referred to the complaint against
Harrison. See Joseph Smith diary, 25 November 1843, in Faulring, An American
Prophet’s Record, 428; Nauvoo high council minutes, 25 November 1843, 14
April 1844; History of the Church, 6: 118, 333 (which retroactively adds the
April 1844 reference to Sagers as if it were part of Smith’s diary); Nauvoo 1842
census in Lyman De Platt, Nauvoo: Early Mormon Records Series (Highland, UT:
By the author, 1980), 86; Lyndon W. Cook, comp., Nauvoo Deaths and
Marriages, 1839–1845 (Orem, UT: Grandin Book Co., 1994), 107; also Joseph
Smith diary, 2 March 1843 to 21 January 1844, in Faulring, An American
Prophet’s Record, 314, 323, 324, 334, 335, 336, 337, 373, 388, 403, 412, 424,
433, 438, 442, for his positive or neutral references to Foster; see Note 26, last
sentence. Smith’s next reference (460) described Foster as a dissenter trying to
destroy him. History of the Church, 5: 369, 6: 355, for Foster’s positions in the
Nauvoo Legion.
136. History of the Church, 6: 149–50; compare appendix, “Danites in
1838: A Partial List,” in Origins of Power, [479]–490.
137. Statements by Eli Norton and Daniel Carn in presence of Mayor
Joseph Smith, Nauvoo City Council Minutes, 3 January 1844, LDS Archives,
with complete transcription in Cook, William Law, 40n–41n.
138. History of the Church, 6: 151, 152, 166–70; William Law diary, 2–5
January 1844, in Cook, William Law, 38–45.
139. Lawrence Foster, Religion and Sexuality: Three American Communal
Experiments of the Nineteenth Century (New York: Oxford University Press,
1981), 147, 177; John Frederick Glaser, “The Disaffection of William Law,”
Restoration Studies 3 (1986): 163–77; Cook, William Law, passim; Compton, In
Sacred Loneliness, 3, 476–77, 549.
140. Church History in the Fulness of Times, 270; Origins of Power,
120–22, also appendix, “Members of the Council of Fifty, 1844–45, Ranking as
of 27 June 1844 (at Joseph Smith’s death),” [521]–528; Ehat, “`It Seems Like
Heaven Began on Earth,’” passim.
141. George T.M. Davis, An Authentic Account of the Massacre of Joseph
Smith, the Mormon Prophet, and Hyrum Smith, His Brother, Together with a Brief
History of the Rise and Progress of Mormonism, And All the Circumstances Which
Led to Their Deaths (St. Louis: Chambers and Knapp, 1844), 7, emphasis in
original. Davis, a newspaper editor, was in Nauvoo gathering information just
before Joseph Smith’s death. See History of the Church, 6: 587.
142. Council of Fifty minutes by Joseph F. Smith, 12 October 1880, emphasis
in original, LDS Archives, with modified transcription in “jfs box 11
[page] 14-14-14-14,” in folder 6, box 6, Scott G. Kenney papers, Marriott
Library, and complete transcription in Quinn’s research files, Beinecke Library;
also discussion in Origins of Power, 128–29.
143. Hartley, My Best For the Kingdom, 50. For the documentary evidence
on which his statement is based, see Document Containing the Correspondence,
Orders, &c In Relation to the Disturbances With the Mormons, 97 (which was
quoted by Schindler, Orrin Porter Rockwell, 46–47, and by Roberts,
Comprehensive History, 1: 501; also variant of the oath in William Swartzell
daily journal, 21 July 1838, in his Mormonism Exposed, 22. In his manuscript
autobiography (1807–51), pages 120, 125 (for August 1838) at LDS Archives,
lifelong Mormon Luman A. Shurtliff verified that the Danites took a solemn
“oath,” without giving its details. His reference to “oath” was removed in the
typescript, “Luman Andros Shurtliff: My Grandfather, 1807,” at Utah State
Historical Society.
However, David J. Whittaker, “The Book of Daniel in Early Mormon
Thought,” in John M. Lundquist and Stephen D. Ricks, eds., By Study and Also
By Faith, 2 vols. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., and Provo, UT: Foundation
for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1990), 1: 171, observes that in the
letters of Albert P. Rockwood to his relatives about the Danites in 1838,
“nowhere is there the cutthroat secrecy that Avard later succeeded in convincing
Judge Austin King and the non-Mormon public that there was.”
However, since Rockwood as a Danite was already bound by a penal oath of secrecy
(as friendly Mormon sources verify was the case), he understandably did
not volunteer that information to his uninitiated relatives. Whittaker’s argument
is the fallacy of irrelevant proof.
144. Compare appendix, “Danites in 1838: A Partial List,” in Origins of
Power, [479]–490 with its appendix, “Members of the Council of Fifty,
1844–45, Ranking as of 27 June 1844 (at Joseph Smith’s death),” [521]–528.
145. History of the Church, 6: 270, 274–77, 282–83, 286, 286n; Faulring,
An American Prophet’s Record, 461, 463; William Clayton diary, 4 April 1844, in
Smith, An Intimate Chronicle, 128; Ehat, “`It Seems Like Heaven Began on
Earth,’” 275.
146. “WHO SHALL BE OUR NEXT PRESIDENT?” in Nauvoo Neighbor
(Nauvoo, IL), 14 February 1844, [2], and in Times and Seasons 5 (15 February
1844): 441; also History of the Church, 6: 64–65, 144, 155–60, 376–77, 428–29,
439; Hill, Joseph Smith, 374–75.
147. Uriah Brown to Brigham Young, 3 November 1845, LDS Archives;
statements of Phineas Young and Almon W. Babbitt, in Council of Fifty minutes,
25 August 1851, LDS Archives, with complete transcriptions of the above
in Quinn’s research files, Beinecke Library; also Origins of Power, 127–28, for
discussions of the three non-Mormons in Smith’s theocratic Council of Fifty.
148. U.S. Congress, House of Representatives, Report of the Committee on
Naval Affairs, On the Petition of Uriah Brown, January 27, 1815. Read and Ordered
To Lie On the Table, document 53 in State Papers, 3rd Session, 13th Congress
(Washington, D.C.: Roger C. Weightman, 1815), whose one-page text stated in
part: “The committee on naval affairs, to whom was referred the memorial of
Uriah Brown, together with the report of the acting secretary of the navy, have,
according to order, had the said memorial and report under consideration, and
thereupon submit the following report: . . . many difficulties would be pre-
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sented to the execution of such a plan, as it is represented by the memorialist,
that to be able to effect it, the vessel carrying the materials must approach
within three or four hundred feet of the vessel to be attacked. The memorialist
supposes that fifty thousand dollars would be necessary to carry his plan into
execution; the committee taking into consideration the present situation of the
finances ... think it would be inexpedient at this time to authorize an appropriation
for the purpose proposed by the memorialist.”
149. Sidney Rigdon sermon on 6 April 1844, compiled on 24 April 1844
by Thomas Bullock, LDS Archives, with complete transcription in Quinn’s research
files, Beinecke Library; deleted from the published report.
150. Church History in the Fulness of Times, 281, for photograph of the
“six-shooter” Joseph Smith used and the single-shot handgun he gave his
brother Hyrum who declined to fire it. John Hay, “The Mormon Prophet’s
Tragedy,” Atlantic Monthly 24 (December 1869): 675, identified three men who
were shot by Joseph Smith: John Wills in the arm, William Vorhees in the
shoulder, and William Gallagher in the face. Hay was a son of Charles Hay, a
surgeon of the Carthage militia and apparently a member of the mob. Church
History in the Fulness of Times, 282, agrees that Smith wounded three men.
151. Origins of Power, 176–81; Marshall Hamilton, “From Assassination
to Expulsion: Two years of Distrust, Hostility, and Violence,” in Launius and
Hallwas, Kingdom on the Mississippi Revisited, 214–30; John E. Hallwas and
Roger D. Launius, eds., Cultures in Conflict: A Documentary History of the
Mormon War in Illinois (Logan: Utah State University Press, 1995).
152. John Smith (former Danite) patriarchal blessing to John Smith (b.
1832), 22 January 1845, quoted in Irene M. Bates, “Patriarchal Blessings and
the Routinization of Charisma,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 26 (Fall
1993): 12, 12n45, 21; Hosea Stout diary, 27 September 1845, in Juanita Brooks,
ed., On the Mormon Frontier: The Diary of Hosea Stout, 1844–1861, 2 vols. (Salt
Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1964), 1: 76; Elden J. Watson, ed., MANU-
SCRIPT HISTORY of Brigham Young, 1846–1847 (Salt Lake City: By the author,
1971), 480 (24 February 1847); Elisha H. Groves patriarchal blessing to
William H. Dame, 20 February 1854, in Harold W. Pease, “The Life and Works
of William Horne Dame,” M.A. thesis, Brigham Young University, 1971, 64–66;
Groves patriarchal blessing to William Leany, 23 February 1854, in Leany autobiography,
8, typescript in Utah State Historical Society; “DISCOURSE By
Jedediah M. Grant, Tabernacle, G.S.L. City, March 12th 1851 [1854],” Deseret
News [weekly], 27 July 1854, [2]; “REMARKS By President J. M. Grant,
Bowery, Sunday Morning, Sept. 21, 1856,” Deseret News [weekly], 1 October
1856, 235; Elisha H. Groves patriarchal blessing to Joseph Fish, 30 January
1857, in Paul H. Peterson, “The Mormon Reformation,” Ph.D. dissertation,
Brigham Young University, 1981, 192; Isaac Morley (former Danite) patriarchal
blessing to Philip Klingensmith, 28 May 1857, in Anna Jean Backus,
Mountain Meadows Witness: The Life and Times of Bishop Philip
Klingensmith (Spokane: Arthur H. Clark Co., 1995), 124; Journal of
Discourses, 1: 73 (Hyde/1853), 1: 83 (B. Young/1853), 1: 97 (G.A.
Smith/1851), 1: 108 (B. Young/1853), 3: 246–47 (B. Young/1856), 4:
49–51 (J.M. Grant/1856), 4: 53–54 (B. Young/1856), 4: 173–74
(Kimball/1857), 4: 219–20 (B. Young/1857), 4: 375 (Kimball/1857), 6:
38 (Kimball/1857), 7: 20 (Kimball/1854), 7: 146 (B. Young/1859), 10:
110 (B. Young/1857); Sacred Hymns and Spiritual Songs (Salt Lake City:
Deseret News/George Q. Cannon, 1871), 73–74, 314, 332, 337, 385;
Sessions, Mormon Thunder, 125–30, 211; John W. Welch and John
William Maddox, “Reflections on the Teachings of Brigham Young,” in
Susan Easton Black and Larry C. Porter, eds., Lion of the Lord: Essays on
the Life & Service of Brigham Young (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co.,
1995), 393 (which listed two of these sermons on “Blood
Atonement”); Extensions of Power, esp. 246–57.
153. Charles W. Penrose, Blood Atonement, As Taught By Leading
Elders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City:
Juvenile Instructor Office, 1884), 35; Roberts, Comprehensive History,
4: 126; Eugene England, Brother Brigham (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft,
1980), 169, 182; Lowell M. Snow, “Blood Atonement,” in Ludlow,
Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 1: 131; Ronald W. Walker review in
Journal of Mormon History 20 (Spring 1994): 170, 173.
154. Extensions of Power, 242–61; “OFFICIAL DECLARATION,”
Deseret Evening News, 14 December 1889, [2]; James R. Clark, ed.,
Messages of the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints, 6 vols. (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1965–71), 3: 185, 186.
155. Extensions of Power, 242, 245, 248–49, 257, 273. On these
issues, also compare Will Bagley, Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young
and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows (Norman: University of
Oklahoma Press, 2002) with Ronald W. Walker, Richard E. Turley Jr., and Glen
M. Leonard, Massacre at Mountain Meadows (New York: Oxford University
Press, 2008).
156. Melvin T. Smith, “Response to Paper by D. Michael Quinn,” John
Whitmer Historical Association 2002 Nauvoo Conference Special Edition, 187.
157. For statistics of polygamy in Utah, see Dean L. May, “People on the
Mormon Frontier: Kanab’s Families of 1874,” Journal of Family History 1
(Winter 1976): 169–92; James E. Smith and Phillip R. Kunz, “Polygyny and
Fertility in Nineteenth-Century America,” Population Studies 30 (September
1976): 465–80; Phillip R. Kunz, “One Wife or Several?: A Comparative Study of
Late Nineteenth Century Marriage in Utah,” in Thomas G. Alexander, ed., The
Mormon People: Their Character and Traditions (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young
University Press, 1980), 53–73; Larry Logue, “A Time of Marriage: Monogamy
and Polygamy in a Utah Town,” and Lowell “Ben” Bennion, “The Incidence of
Mormon Polygamy in 1880: `Dixie’ versus Davis Stake,” Journal of Mormon
History 11 (1984): 3–26, 27–42; Marie Cornwall, Camela Courtright and Laga
Van Beek, “How Common the Principle?: Women as Plural Wives in 1860,”
Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 26 (Summer 1993): 139–53; Kathryn
M. Daynes, More Wives Than One: Transformation of the Mormon Marriage
System, 1840–1910 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2001), 100–01 (for
percentages from her research about Manti). For the publicly stated emphasis
of LDS leaders that plural marriage was the required norm, see Daynes (72–73)
and B. Carmon Hardy, Doing the Works of Abraham: Mormon Polygamy: Its
Origins, Practice, and Demise (Norman, OK: Arthur H. Clark, 2007).
158. Ray Allen Billington, The Protestant Crusade, 1800–1860: A Study of
the Origins of American Nativism (New York: Rinehart, 1952); David Brion
Davis, “Some Themes in Counter Subversion: An Analysis of Anti-Masonic,
Anti-Catholic and Anti-Mormon Literature,” Mississippi Valley Historical
Review 57 (September 1960): 205–24; Leonard J. Arrington and Jon Haupt,
“Intolerable Zion: The Image of Mormonism in Nineteenth-Century American
Literature,” Western Humanities Review 22 (Summer 1968): 243–60; Gary L.
Bunker and Davis Bitton, The Mormon Graphic Image, 1834–1914: Cartoons,
Caricatures, and Illustrations (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1983);
Craig L. Foster, “Anti-Mormon Pamphleteering in Great Britain, 1837–1860,”
M.A. thesis, Brigham Young University, 1989; William O. Nelson, “Anti-
Mormon Publications,” in Ludlow, Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 1: 115–32;
Craig L. Foster, “Victorian Pornographic Imagery in Anti-Mormon Literature,”
Journal of Mormon History 19 (Spring 1993): 115–32; Terryl L. Givens, The
Viper on the Hearth: Mormon Myths and the Construction of Heresy (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1997); any sample one might choose on the Internet
of Evangelical diatribes against Mormonism.
OCTOBER 2011 PAGE 37

2011
Ut Ah
sYMPOsiUM
hig h
l ig ht s
s ear c h fo r : s u n s t o n es ympo s iu m
2011 Brookie and D.k . Brown
f iCt io n Co n t es t
t he s unstone education f oundation invites writers to enter its annual fiction contest, which is made
possible by a grant from the Brookie and D. k . Brown family. All entries must relate to adult l atterday
s aint experience, theology, or worldview. All varieties of form are welcome.
r u l es
1. u p to three entries may be submitted by any
one author. s end manuscript in PDf or Word
format to sunstone.editor@gmail.com by 31
October 2011.
2. each story must be double-spaced. t he author’s
name must not appear on any page of
the manuscript.
3. in the body of the email, the author must
state the story’s title and the author’s name,
address, telephone number, and email. t he
author must also include language attesting
that the entry is her or his own work, that it
has not been previously published, that it is
not being considered for publication elsewhere,
and that it will not be submitted to
other publishers until after the contest. t he
author must also grant permission for the
manuscript to be filed in the s unstone
Collection at the marriott l ibrary of the
u niversity of u tah in s alt l ake City. if the
entry wins, s unstone magazine retains firstpublication
rights though publication is not
guaranteed. t he author retains all literary
rights. s unstone discourages the use of pseudonyms;
if used, the author must identify the
real and pen names and the reasons for
writing under the pseudonym.
stories, without author identification, will be judged by noted mormon authors and professors of literature. Winners will be announced by 28 f ebruary
2012 on s unstone’s website, www.s unstonemagazine.com. Winners only will be notified by mail. After the announcement, all other entrants will be
free to submit their stories elsewhere. Publication is not guaranteed, but winners agree to give s u n s t o n e first publication options.
Prizes will be awarded in two categories: short-short story—fewer than 1,500 words; and short story—fewer than 6,000 words. Prize money varies (up
to $400 each) depending on the number of winners announced.

S U N S T O N E
To be learned is good if you pay your tithing
THE MONITORING OF BYU
FACULTY TITHING PAYMENTS
1957–1963
By Gary James Bergera
SHORTLY AFTER HIS APPOINTMENT IN 1951 AS
president of the LDS Church’s educational flagship,
Brigham Young University, Ernest L. Wilkinson
(1899–1978) began scrutinizing his faculty’s compliance to
LDS teachings. 1 For a time, his attention focused especially
on tithing contributions. All practicing Church members are
expected to pay to their local congregations at least onetenth
of their annual income, though how this is defined
and how faithfully members adhere to this expectation are
considered personal matters between members and their
local religious leader(s). 2 Members’ church status is determined,
in part, by their meeting their tithing obligations.
Wilkinson himself paid his own tithing, and he expected
nothing less from his faculty.
Wilkinson also understood that if he hoped to secure
Church funding for BYU, the school’s board of trustees, all
members of the Church’s governing hierarchy, might respond
less positively if faculty were found to be less than
full tithepayers. In fact, following the precedent of past
practices at the LDS school, Wilkinson decided to use an
individual’s tithing history to help determine raises, promotions,
and even continuing employment. However,
some Church leaders and faculty members believed that
Wilkinson’s actions intruded into a very private matter, effectively
undermining a member’s relationship with his or
her local Church leaders. Securing compliance proved to
be challenging, as both Wilkinson and LDS authorities
struggled to strike a balance between privacy and
Wilkinson’s desire to know.
GARY JAMES BERGERA is the managing director of the
Smith-Pettit Foundation. From 1985 to 2000, he was Director
of Publishing at Signature Books; from 1992 to 1998, he was
Managing Editor of Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon
Thought.
“YOU ARE NOT EXPECTED TO RETAIN
PERMANENTLY ON YOUR STAFF NON-TITHEPAYERS”
WILKINSON WAS NOT the first BYU administrator to address
the issue of faculty tithing. Early 1910s attempts to automatically
deduct tithing from BYU salaries were scuttled in
the face of a chorus of faculty complaints. Young physics instructor
Harvey Fletcher (1884–1981) “exploded” at the
news, telling administrators “in no uncertain terms” that
“under these conditions the tithing was not a donation, it
was a tax.” 3 While the automatic salary deduction was abandoned,
LDS officials remained concerned and by mid-1915
had compiled a list of sixty-seven faculty members and the
tithing each had paid. 4 Of the sixty-seven, thirty-one (46
percent) had not paid a full tithe. 5
By 1929, the payment of a full tithe had become virtually
de rigueur for all Church-employed school teachers. “Those
who cannot conscientiously do these things,” wrote LDS
Commissioner of Education (and later apostle) Joseph F.
Merrill (1868–1952), “should not, we believe, be encouraged
to remain in the employ of the Church school
system.” 6 Two years later, at Merrill’s urging, BYU President
Franklin S. Harris (1884–1960) convened a special faculty
meeting to discuss loyalty to the Church, including the
payment of tithing. Enclosed with Merrill’s request was a
summary the Church’s Presiding Bishop’s office had provided
of the tithing records of all faculty for the previous
year. Of the 102 faculty identified, slightly more than half
had paid a full tithing, 37 percent had paid a partial tithing,
and 8 percent had paid no tithing. “You are not expected to
retain permanently on your staff non-tithepayers,” Merrill
subsequently reminded Harris. 7
Despite repeated exhortations, 1934 figures reveal that,
compared to 1931, the number of faculty paying a full
tithing had actually decreased 19 percent, the number
PAGE 42 OCTOBER 2011

S U N S T O N E
Al l imAg es : JeAn et t e At w o o d
paying a partial tithing had increased 2 percent, and the
number paying no tithing had risen 17 percent. 8 While this
decline may have been due largely to the effects of the Great
Depression, LDS leaders were still “dumbfounded” at what
they saw as blatant disobedience. “As far as I am concerned,”
Church President Heber J. Grant (1856–1945) insisted, “the
Church is paying these people. If they haven’t enough loyalty
to the Church to do their duty and pay their tithing, I
want it recorded here and now that I want other teachers
there.” 9
Six years later, the situation had not improved. When, in
1940, LDS officials decided that salary increases were to be
granted only to full tithepayers,
BYU’s acting president
reported that “practically
all members whom
we intended to give a small
increase cannot qualify
under this new requirement.”
10 Dismayed, the
First Presidency responded
bluntly: “No person who
has not paid a full tenth of
his Church compensation
for the year 1939 will receive
any advance in salary for the
next school year; that is to
say, the school year 1940–41.
At the end of the next school
year the question of advances
in salaries can be given consideration
to those who have
fully tithed their Church compensation,
and who are otherwise
entitled, under the principles
hereinafter set forth, to
such consideration. The First
Presidency feel that this rule
must be mandatory.” 11 Franklin
Harris remained reluctant, however,
to second-guess a faculty
member’s ability to pay tithing,
and at the time of his resignation
in 1945 (to preside over Utah State University), he had
never disciplined a teacher for tithing-related concerns. 12
“MATTERS OF PRIVATE CONSCIENCE”
WITH HARRIS’S DEPARTURE, the emphasis on faculty
tithe-paying decreased somewhat as attention shifted to
other areas of campus administration, notably how best to
manage the sudden growth of the student body following
World War II. Thus Ernest Wilkinson was both surprised
and chagrined to learn in 1957 that more than a few faculty
members were not full tithepayers. BYU “must pay awfully
low salaries,” he recalled several local Church officials
telling him, sarcastically. 13 Alarmed, Wilkinson met immediately
with LDS President David O. McKay (1873–1970) “on
whether we should insist on payment of tithing by teachers
at the BYU. President McKay shared my opinion,”
Wilkinson reported, “namely, that . . . it was unthinkable
that we retain on our faculty people who do not pay tithing.
He authorized me not only to ask teachers what they do in
this respect, but actually to find out what they do by
checking with the Presiding Bishop’s office and let the
teachers know that I know what their record is.” 14
Wilkinson’s attempt to
gain access to faculty tithing
records proved premature,
however, as Church policy
stipulated that the “amount
of tithing paid by an individual
or by the total ward
membership is confidential
and should not be disclosed
by the bishopric to anyone
except to the stake president
as requested and in
confidential reports to the
General Authorities.” 15
And when McKay’s counselors
in his First
Presidency learned the
extent of the information
that Wilkinson sought,
they decided to withhold
from Wilkinson the
exact amounts of tithing
paid by faculty members.
Undeterred, Wilkinson
arranged to have
the Presiding Bishop’s
office identify for him
any faculty who were
partial- or non-tithepayers,
though without
disclosing the exact
amounts of tithing paid. 16
This, Wilkinson believed, would allow him to doublecheck
the data, if needed, with a faculty member’s local
Church leaders. But the arrangement was not without its
shortcomings. As Wilkinson discovered by the end of
April 1957:
[I] had a conference with a faculty member, advising
him that I could not promote him because
the standards were that he should be faithful to
the standards of the Church, and my understanding
was that he was a non-tithe payer.
Apparently, in this case the report I received from
the stake presidency was wrong. It disturbed the
member no little, as it should. In the evening he
OCTOBER 2011 PAGE 43

S U N S T O N E
brought to my home some cancelled checks for
his tithing for last year. True, they were for only
about 1/3 of what he should have paid, but at least
he was a partial tithepayer and over the years was
very faithful, apparently, and paid less last year
than ever before. 17
Wilkinson also decided to announce publicly that promotions
and salary increases would henceforth be based, in
part, on the payment of a full tithing. “When I am called
upon this year,” he promised his faculty five months later,
“to pass on proposed promotions in academic rank for
members of the faculty I hope I do not have to refuse any
on the ground that the nominee does not adhere in practice
to . . . the payment of tithing.” 18
Wilkinson’s push for compliance did not sit well with
some faculty, who had initially been employed at the university
under a different set of assumptions. “These demands
were seen by some,” recalled R. Kent Fielding (b. 1920),
who taught history,
as nothing more than Wilkinson’s personal opinions
and served only to alienate the President from
the independent minded members of the faculty.
Many of us believed that our faculty status was
protected by the practice of tenure so long as we
met the standards of our academic professions.
Most of us accepted our prior experience as reason
to believe that our religious beliefs and practices
were matters of private conscience, providing we
made no attempt to convert others or to subvert established
orthodoxies. To others it seemed that further
conditions of employment at BYU were being
added without consultation. The opinion was frequently
expressed that other standards of religious
orthodoxy might be promulgated in the same
manner and also required for faculty status unless
some stand were taken against arbitrary decisions.
The suggestion that any who disagreed should resign
“as a matter of conscience,” was taken as a
warning of the consequences of disagreement with
other teachings of the Church as interpreted by
“authority.” 19
“This invasion of the sacred tithing records, using them
to put pressure on the faculty,” added J. Kenneth Davies (b.
1925), a member of the economics department, “was resented
by a substantial portion of the faculty, including
some of the most orthodox members of the church who
were never interviewed for non-compliance. A number of
prominent members of the faculty resigned in protest. I
personally had no difficulty on the issue because my tithing
records showed me in conformity with the law of tithing, a
principle I firmly believed in and practiced. However, I was
disturbed by what I perceived as a violation of Church procedures.”
20
“THE POOR RECORD OF CERTAIN FACULTY”
IN MARCH 1958, when Wilkinson again requested a report
from the Presiding Bishop’s office on faculty members’
tithing payments, McKay again ruled that Wilkinson “could
be furnished information about whether or not they pay part
or full tithing.” 21 Wilkinson, however, hoping for more, also
asked for the names of any errant faculty and the exact
amounts of tithing paid so that he did not have to rely solely
on the statements of local LDS officials. “If you should decide
that for proper administration I should have this information,”
the lawyer-turned-president pressed McKay,
you may be sure that I will keep it confidential. . . . I
do not intend to disclose its existence to the
teachers involved, but it will give me sufficient basic
information that with respect to teachers who are
derelict in their duty, I may call them in and by
careful questioning obtain from them direct the
facts. You will appreciate, of course, that I do not
have time to interrogate all 500 members of the faculty
on a matter of this kind, nor would there be any
purpose in interrogating more than probably ten
per cent of the faculty who, by their dereliction, are
giving the University in the eyes of their own stake
presidents and bishops, a bad name.
The Presiding Bishop already has the list of our
faculty, and if you will just authorize him to fill it in
with the amounts paid by each, I will then be in a
better position to judge the faithfulness of the members
of our staff. 22
McKay was not persuaded, reiterating that Wilkinson
would get the names of teachers judged not to be full tithepayers
but not the specific amounts of tithing paid. 23 Two
weeks later, Wilkinson met with faculty members “who are
not tithepayers (in all cases they claimed to be part-tithepayers,
but I insisted there was not such a thing as a parttithepayer;
but that a tithepayer means one who pays onetenth
of his income). On the whole, the individuals to
whom I spoke had a very fine attitude and I think will make
a greater effort to pay a full tithing another year.” 24
Wilkinson disliked having to work with incomplete information.
“This was a day of almost complete frustration,”
he recorded early the next year.
I stayed at my home all day in an attempt to determine
salaries for next year and evaluate the worth
of some 600 faculty members. One of the difficulties
arises from one of the criteria adopted by the
teachers themselves for their appointment and promotion–namely,
that they shall be faithful members
of the Church, adhering to all its standards. The
Presiding Bishop’s office has this year given me a list
of teachers indicating within certain limits their
performance as far as tithing is concerned, and I
PAGE 44 OCTOBER 2011

S U N S T O N E
was very much distressed to find the poor record of
certain faculty members. . . . it looks to me that no
more than one-half of the faculty are full tithe
payers and many of them have different ways of
computing their tithing. . . .
“I have three alternatives,” Wilkinson argued.
One is to pay little attention to it, as has been too
much of our practice in the past. If I do this, we become
just another educational institution and this
alternative must be rejected. The second is to let the
teachers know that their jobs depend on performance
in this respect. I have to reject this, because
to make the payment a condition of being employed
is to force the payment of tithing, in which event it
ceases to be a voluntary offering. The only logical
third alternative is to call the teachers in and say in
effect, “One of the prerequisites for appointment to
our faculty is the voluntary payment of tithing. I am
not going to require you to pay it, because it ceases
to be voluntary, but since you have not voluntarily
paid, it would seem you ought to look elsewhere for
a position.” . . . I know that a chat with many faculty
members will bring them to their senses and have
them pay a full tithing. My difficulty will be that I
will never know whether they are paying it to keep
their jobs or based on their own belief. 25
Wilkinson arranged to meet with McKay in his office a
few weeks later. During the hour-long early morning conference,
Wilkinson
told President McKay of the faculty having adopted
as a criteria for promotion the fact that members of
the faculty must live in accordance with the standards
of the Church, and I could not administer this
rule without knowing the tithing paid by the faculty
members. He told me that he agreed with me. He
thought I ought to know the details and he would
take it up in a meeting of the First Presidency that
morning. . . .
He told me that when I got permission he would
permit me to share information with the deans as to
whether or not teachers were non-tithe payers or
part-tithe payers, but I should not inform the deans
as to amounts. That I should hold confidential. 26
Wilkinson also reported that of the $3.6 million paid in
faculty salaries, approximately $273,925 was returned to the
Church as tithing (or about 75 percent of a full tithe); and
that 73 percent of faculty paid a full tithing, 18 percent a partial
tithing, and 9 percent no tithing. 27
During an afternoon meeting with the executive committee
of BYU’s board of trustees the following week,
Wilkinson found himself facing one of his more outspoken
trustees regarding the religious orthodoxy of some of the
school’s faculty:
A few weeks previous Kent Fielding of our campus
had admitted . . . that he did not have a testimony of
the Gospel. In answer to the question of why he had
become a member of our faculty when he had no
testimony of the Gospel, he replied that while he
was interrogated by [LDS Apostle] Harold B. Lee at
the time of his appointment [to the history faculty
in 1952], he was never asked whether he had a testimony
of the Gospel. I had told Brother Lee about
this at the time, and Brother Lee, whose main weakness
as far as I can see is that he cannot accept criticism,
had interpreted it as serious criticism on my
part of him. So in this meeting, alluding to this situation,
he said he had been disappointed that I had
not gotten rid of about a third of the faculty who did
not have a testimony of the Gospel. I told him that I
thought his estimate was altogether too high. His
response was that he thought I must be awfully
naive if I did not know the large number of our faculty
who did not have a testimony. He was smarting
very much under what I thought was my criticism
of him for not having properly interrogated Brother
Fielding.
Out of this whole discussion, however, came the
suggestion that I should not increase the salaries or
promote any of our faculty who do not pay an
honest tithing. Just how I am going to do this is still
a mystery unless the Brethren give me a list of the
amount paid by each faculty member. 28
Years later, Fielding recalled being asked during a brief interview
with one of Wilkinson’s aides about some controversies
in Mormon history, including Fielding’s study of the LDS
Church in Ohio during the 1830s. Fielding replied that his
“‘testimony’ of the ‘truthfulness’ of the gospel demanded a
basic honesty about its origins and its early leaders and could
not survive on the kinds of contrivances which appeared in
the distorted histories and altered documentation.” Nothing
more was said, Fielding wrote, and “I began to believe that my
arguments were acceptable and that the matter might end
without further consequences.” 29 Of his earlier 1952 meeting
with Apostle Lee (1899–1973), Fielding added: “Apostle Lee
was concerned with only two issues: ‘Brother Fielding, are
you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist
Party?’ . . . ‘Have you ever been unfaithful to your wife?’ . . .
Lee was adamant and stern as he required a direct answer.
Once that was given, there were no more questions and the
interview concluded as pleasantly as it had begun.” 30
Three days after his encounter with Lee, Wilkinson spent
an entire Sunday “wrestling with the question of what to do
with faculty members who were not faithful in the payment
of their tithing. The best solution I came up with during the
day,” he wrote,
OCTOBER 2011 PAGE 45

S U N S T O N E
paid none and was denied a proposed
$600 increase, the law of retribution
worked even mathematically correct.
This still, however, did not seem to be
the correct answer, but I went through
and made out salaries for the entire faculty
pretty largely on this basis. 31
Wilkinson continued to grapple with the issue,
and the following Tuesday, 28 April 1959, sought
additional advice:
At 7 a.m. I called Brother Marion Romney
followed by a call to Brother Hugh Brown
on the question of what I should do with respect
to faculty members who had failed to
pay a full tithe. Brother Romney was the one
who, in my Executive committee meeting
last week, had proposed that there be no
promotion or salary increase of any kind for
those who did not pay a full tithe. I felt when
I talked to him, however, that he had pretty
much changed his mind on this, his feeling
being that since tithing was supposed to be
voluntary people would not get the benefits
from it if they paid it under coercion. He proposed,
therefore, that I go ahead and set
salaries without much respect to tithing this
year but that members of the Executive
Committee come down and meet individually
with members of the faculty who were deficient
in this respect. Brother Brown echoed
pretty much the same thoughts. 32
Early the next morning, Wilkinson met with McKay
again to discuss the situation. “I told President McKay
also,” he recorded,
was that they probably should be treated the same
way as they treat the Lord—a new application of
the Golden Rule. Under this application, if they
paid no tithing they would get no salary increase. If
they paid half tithing they would get half the salary
increase contemplated. As I worked on this during
the entire day I finally realized that if, for instance, a
faculty member should have paid $600 tithing but
that since he had authorized me to have information
concerning faculty salaries, I had obtained
the same and was shocked at the fact
that apparently 100 members either were non
or token tithe payers. He said he was shocked
also. I told him that it had been suggested to
me by Executive Committee that no salary increases
should be given to those who were in
that situation, but that I had my doubts that
that was the proper way to handle it because
that had the effect of requiring the payment of
tithing when as a matter of fact it ought to be a
voluntary matter. He said he agreed with me and
that salary should be predicated largely on professional
ability.
I then told him that obviously we must do something
about it, and I proposed that he appoint members
of the Quorum of the Twelve to come to the
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S U N S T O N E
campus and have individual conferences with all
members of the faculty, those who were faithful as
well as those who were not. I suggested they
should, of course, commend those who were
faithful and take up a labor with those who were
not equally faithful, trying to persuade them to pay
tithing as a voluntary matter. He wondered if the
Executive Committee could not do this and suggested
that I take it up with that committee. I agreed
to do so. 33
When Wilkinson met with his board of trustees later that
same day, they agreed that all teachers were to pay their
tithing and to adhere to the Church’s other standards. But
the question of how exactly Wilkinson was to determine the
faculty’s obedience was, much to Wilkinson’s frustration, deliberately
left unaddressed. 34
Reviewing the question of salary increases with one of his
aides the next afternoon, Wilkinson decided to give
primary consideration (almost exclusive consideration)
to the professional competence and performance
of the teachers rather than their adherence to
the principle of tithing. We have firmly resolved,
however, that beginning immediately every member
of the faculty is to have a personal conference with a
member of the Executive Committee for the purpose
of commending those who are faithful and trying to
persuade those who are not faithful in the performance
of this duty, to become faithful. If by the end
of this calendar year, we still have members on the
faculty who are either non- or token tithepayers, my
present feeling is that we should take some action to
have them replaced on the faculty. 35
“A MATTER OF FREE WILL GIVING”
AS BYU OPENED that September 1959, Wilkinson delivered
his second “forthright statement” (his term) on tithing.
“Promotions should not be granted those who did not believe
in and adhere to the principles and teachings of the
Gospel,” especially tithing, he announced at a special faculty
workshop.
The question was then raised as to whether belief in
and adherence to the principles and teachings of the
Gospel, specifically the payment of tithing, should
be taken into consideration in the determination of
salaries for the coming year. Because no such direct
policy had been previously announced, it was decided
that the payment of tithing should not be
taken into consideration for the fixation of salaries
for the school year [1959–60]. But I was instructed
[by the board of trustees] that adherence to this
principle as well as others should be taken into consideration
thereafter. 36
“A number of faithful members of the faculty came to me
afterward,” he recorded, “commending me for the statement.
I know, of course, that there will be some members of
the faculty who will disagree with it.” 37
The next morning, following a panel discussion on an
unrelated topic, BYU political scientist Robert E. Riggs (b.
1927) called attention to Wilkinson’s comments of the day
before. According to Wilkinson, Riggs
launched into a vigorous attack on the position I
had taken to the effect that members of the faculty
must pay their tithing to continue on the faculty.
This was a real bitter attack in which he took me to
task also for having been so long last year in answering
a certain request which he made. As he
went along in his attack, Francis Pray, Vice
President of the Council for Financial Aid to
Education, sent me a note stating in effect: “Every
university faculty has some of that type on it.” Riggs
announced that because of this policy he would not
be returning to the BYU next year.
As Riggs concluded, John T. Bernhard (1920–2004), recently
appointed as one of Wilkinson’s aides, countered that
Riggs had “brilliance but not wisdom.” He
[Bernhard] went on to point out that there would
be no purpose in the continued existence of the
BYU unless the Gospel of Jesus Christ were placed
first in our minds; further, that Riggs’ outburst was
altogether improper and unwise because it did not
even pertain to the subject matter of the panel discussion.
He said that Riggs’ outburst was something
that should have been taken up with the administration.
It could not possibly do any good in a
public meeting of that kind. John gave rather an
eloquent defense and at one time referred to Riggs’
speech as “intellectual poppy-cock.”
“My judgment,” Wilkinson wrote, “is that from 20 to 25
per cent of the faculty applauded Riggs. John Bernhard, on
the other hand, got pretty much of an ovation from the balance.”
38
Later that afternoon, Wilkinson asked that the faculty
hold “no hard feelings against [Riggs] for his outburst.
While I did not agree with him,” Wilkinson continued,
I defended his right to state what he wanted. I then
went on to point out that the statement I had made
with respect to the payment of tithing and other
adherence to Church standards had been approved
by the Board of Trustees. Riggs, in his speech, had
quoted the Doctrine and Covenants that members
of the Church should be long suffering and patient
in trying to persuade others to conform to the standards.
He had suggested this was the attitude we
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S U N S T O N E
ought to take with respect to the faculty rather
than making compliance with Church standards a
requirement. I pointed out that the Board had considered
fully that viewpoint, but that that was the
standard held up for us as faculty members to persuade
our students to adhere to the Church standards.
The Board felt that faculty members themselves
must of necessity adhere to all standards in
order that they could properly teach the students
both by precept and example. I pointed out further
that while I had used tithing as an example in my
talk, it was only used as an example and what I
said applied to all standards and principles of the
Church. . . .
I am sure that my comments in the afternoon
had a wholesome effect. In fact, after the meeting
was over Bob Riggs came up, shook hands, and
commended me for my statement. He even went so
far as to admit that I might be right. He was somewhat
chastened and had the best attitude I had ever
known him to have. 39
For Riggs, the new policy was merely the tip of the iceberg
regarding what he perceived as Wilkinson’s authoritarian
administrative style. “That afternoon,” Riggs recalled
more than thirty years later,
they had one of their open forum discussions, a
panel discussion on the topic “What is a university?”
They opened it up for comments. . . . I told
how I had come to BYU fresh out of graduate school
with high hopes for the kind of institution that it was
and could be, and how I’d enjoyed my association
with the faculty here, and with the students, but then
one thing after another, I don’t recall all the things
that I mentioned, but I know I mentioned . . .
President Wilkinson’s unwillingness to consult the
faculty, how we really weren’t part of the enterprise
in the sense that faculty ought to be and gradually
I’d developed a great disappointment with what was
going on here and now we had come to this tithing
requirement and while I agreed that everybody here
ought to pay their tithing, it ought to be voluntary
for us, it ought to be a matter of free will giving just
as it is for everybody else, and from now on my
tithing was going to be one dollar short. I also said
that because of the things that had happened I was
tend[er]ing my resignation from the university, that
I would be here throughout the year but I would
not be here the following year. 40
True to his word, Riggs moved to another university at
the end of the school year, teaching part-time at the
University of Arizona, Tucson, while also attending law
school. 41
“THE INALIENABLE RIGHT
OF EVERY CHURCH MEMBER”
WILKINSON CORRECTLY FEARED that Riggs was not
his only faculty critic and quietly asked some of his subordinates
to watch out for similar sentiments. Less than
two weeks after Wilkinson’s address, BYU’s public relations
director, Lester B. Whetten (1904–88), informed
Wilkinson: “While you were in Europe, at one of our
Deans[‘] Council meetings the matter of tithe paying was
discussed at some length. I recall that I was quite surprised
to hear some of the deans make statements of this
nature, stating that some of their men felt this way. My
memory could be in error, but as I recall Dean [Armin J.]
Hill and possibly Dean [Leonard W.] Rice were the ones
who advanced these ideas.” 42
Following the Christmas break, Wilkinson met with
Armin J. Hill (1912–1988), the fifty-seven-year-old dean of
the College of Physical and Engineering Sciences, who, as
Whetten had noted, shared some of Riggs’s concerns:
One special thing I did [today] was to have Dean
Hill in. I had received a rather impudent note from
him stating that he had supported me in the past
but implying strongly that if I went ahead, as he felt
I was going to do, and examined the tithing of
members of the faculty, that he would not support
me. He wanted some assurance from me that I
would not [examine the faculty’s tithing records]. I
called him in with Brother [Earl C.] Crockett and
Brother Bernhard and told him that he had not such
assurance from me, that I would not give it, and that
what I did in a situation would be between me and
the Board of Trustees. I told him I wanted to know if
I did something he didn’t want me to do, if I would
still have his support. He backed down and
promised that I would. 43
Evidently, Wilkinson’s comments had reached LDS
headquarters in Salt Lake City, and early that same January
1960, the Presiding Bishop’s office reminded the Church’s
local leaders: “How much tithing a man pays is his own
business, his bishop’s and the Lord’s . . . Privacy is precious,
and the inalienable right of every member of this
Church.” 44 The First Presidency, too, explicitly informed
Wilkinson that such confidential information was to be obtained
directly from them. Sensitive to any hint of impropriety,
Wilkinson sought to reassure McKay: “I asked if
there had been complaints that I had been obtaining the information
from local Bishops. He told me that they had received
a letter of criticism to the effect that all secretaries in
my office and other places knew the amounts paid by faculty
members. I assured him there was no truth of any kind
to that statement, that no one had the information except
me. He said he had himself assumed that fact but that he
was glad to have this assurance.” 45
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S U N S T O N E
Early the next week, meeting with McKay and his two
counselors, J. Reuben Clark (1871–1961) and Henry D.
Moyle (1889–1963), Wilkinson stressed
that unless I knew what the faculty paid, I was in no
position to know whether they were, in fact, full
tithe payers. President McKay agreed with this and
the First Presidency consented that I continue to
obtain the information in that way.
I assured them that contrary to reports they had
received, that this information was not available to
secretaries and was not being broadcast around the
campus.
I reported that I had, pursuant to their instructions
of last fall [1959], informed Deans of particular
faculty members who were short in the payment
of tithing but that I had not disclosed the
amount to the Deans. I was authorized to
continue. 46
In the meantime, Humanities and Social Sciences Dean
Leonard W. Rice (1914–1986), 47 the second of the two
deans about whom Whetten had expressed concern, decided
that, like Riggs, he could no longer remain at BYU,
and informed Wilkinson of his intent to “resign and accept a
job teaching in Rhode Island because he did not think he
could conform to the standards which I set forth in my
speech to the faculty in September of 1959. I have known for
some time that Leonard was not orthodox in all matters, but
he has been an outstanding teacher and administrator and I
hope we can persuade him to come back. I cannot for the
life of me understand why Leonard cannot conform to the
standards set down.” 48
Wilkinson immediately arranged to meet privately with
Rice, and for more than two hours the two men debated a
variety of topics:
He [Rice] had taken some exception to my letter
of last September in which I laid down the requirement
that all members of the faculty must be
loyal and faithful to the Church. I do not as yet
know whether he will return. He particularly had
grievances against Elder Mark Petersen and Elder
Bruce McConkie. He just could not agree with
many of their statements. I took the position that
it may be that there are certain isolated statements
made by different members of the General authorities
with which some of us could not agree, but
that it is incumbent upon all of us at the BYU to
support these General Authorities in the performance
of the functions of their various offices. He
agreed with that. 49
Rice did not change his mind and left BYU for Rhode
Island by the end of that school year. 50
“SELF-STYLED INTELLECTUALS”
WILKINSON SPENT MUCH of the remainder of February
1960 going over the partial information he continued to receive
from the Presiding Bishop’s office. On the evening of
the 23rd, he met individually with five faculty members
who, according to the Presiding Bishop’s office, “had not
paid tithing during the year.” He also talked with one of his
deans, who thought
I ought to have one of the General Authorities come
down and sit down with the non-tithepayers and try
to persuade them. I recalled that I had personally
once suggested this to my Executive Committee but
they had turned it down on the ground that they
would be undermining my authority, that I ought to
do it myself. This particular Dean was afraid that
there was an organized clique intending to make a
cause celebre out of the present situation and force
the Administration to give way on this tithing question
or in the alternative to fire some of them, which
would be the occasion for a big outburst.
From my conferences during the evening, I am
convinced that if there is a clique of that kind it is
confined to very few teachers in political science
and history. 51
Three days later, Wilkinson interviewed nineteen additional
teachers. “Many of them,” he recorded,
admitted their carelessness or lack of faith, but
promised to do better. There were, however, as
would be expected, a few dissidents who took bitter
exception to the fact that the administration should
be concerned with what they considered an obligation
between themselves and their bishops. These
were generally the self-styled intellectuals who
thought they could pretty much solve the problems
of the world by logic and the spirit of the intellect.
They were centered largely in three departments:
English, political science, and history. 52
The next day, Saturday, 27 February 1960, Wilkinson and
aide Earl C. Crockett (1903–1975) reviewed the records of
approximately forty-five faculty members “who were deficient
in the payment of tithing and decided on their salaries
for next year. Generally, where they had made no payments
on tithing, they got no increases. . . . However, where members
paid a partial tithing and exhibited certain evidence of a
desire to bear their share of Church responsibility, we tried
to be lenient in salary increases. None of the 45, however, received
the salary increase he would have received had he
otherwise measured up fully in this particular.” 53
According to Kent Fielding, he was one of the nineteen
faculty whom Wilkinson interviewed on the 26th. “I was determined
to stand my ground . . . ,” Fielding recalled.
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S U N S T O N E
“Despite Wilkinson’s forthright declaration and his position
of authority, it was my Church also and the source of my
youthful values as well as the faith of my ancestors, my
living relatives and most of my friends. I intended to retain
my allegiance on my own terms, regardless of the outcome.
Without risks, no change was possible.” As a result, Fielding
and his wife had “determined to withhold any further payment
of tithing and to refuse to reveal our offerings to any
others.” 54 When the acting dean of Fielding’s college, Reed
H. Bradford (1912–1994), subsequently “asked me to confirm
the accuracy of my tithing record, which he held in his
hand,” Fielding wrote,
I refused to look at the record. I declared that such
matters were confidential to the parties directly involved
and perhaps to God. He replied that
President Wilkinson had been given permission to
access the tithing records and to utilize this information
in decisions affecting salary and promotion.
I declared that such matters were now immaterial; it
had become a question of conscience with me and I
must be retained or fired on my own terms. He
urged me not to take such a position, for it could
not be supported by the administration. I charged
him with irresponsibility in being an agent of coercion
rather than in defending the academic freedom
of his faculty. He said he could not fulfill his duties
as a dean without carrying out the order of his administrative
leaders. I declared that he should resign
his administrative duties rather than to violate
his allegiance to his academic profession. 55
As Fielding recalled, Wilkinson began their 26 February
1960 interview by explaining that “his concern was with my
evident lack of religious orthodoxy which had the potential of
disturbing the testimony of my students in the future.”
Wilkinson then queried: “Do you believe Joseph Smith saw
God?” “I have to believe he thought he did,” Fielding answered.
“This interview continued for four hours,” Fielding
wrote, “under circumstances which were never threatening;
indeed, they seemed most congenial and understanding. The
subject of tithing was never mentioned.” Later, however,
Fielding concluded that the decision to terminate his employment—reached
on 27 February and delivered to Fielding
during a meeting with Wilkinson on 3 March—had been
made prior to his interview, that “I was the victim of an elaborate
charade, designed to give me a sense of fair treatment.” 56
During a 2 March 1960 meeting with his board of
trustees, Wilkinson was pleased to report that his efforts
were bearing fruit, and that, in fact, the amount of tithing
paid by the school’s faculty in 1959 was considerably
more than what had been paid in 1958. 57 Wilkinson continued
his interviews of faculty members, and in early
May 1960 informed trustees that a total of thirty-nine
teachers were being released, to be “replaced by faithful
and highly educated men.” 58
“WE DO NOT INTEND TO FORCE
FACULTY MEMBERS TO PAY TITHING”
AS 1961 BEGAN, Wilkinson again faced the task of reviewing
the tithing payments of his faculty in determining
adjustments to salaries. “This is a most difficult assignment,”
he reported on 26 February.
Actually, what ought to be done with respect to
those who do not pay tithing is to release them from
the faculty because no one should pay tithing in
order to stay. I am happy to report that, whereas a
few years ago there were quite a number of faculty
members who paid only a token tithing, so far this
year I have found only about three. Now the main
difficulty is in the interpretation of what constitutes
tithing. I find that many fall in the upper brackets;
that is they will pay about 80% or 85% of what is really
a full tithing. 59
A month later, still reviewing faculty tithing information,
he reported:
The day before yesterday one teacher reported to
me that while he knew the record showed he was a
non-tithe payer he had paid his full tithing after the
end of the year, but too late to get on the record for
the year. Yesterday in checking with the bishop to
confirm his story, about which we were rather suspicious,
we found that immediately after having had
his interview with me, he went to the bishop and
paid the tithing. The bishop commented, “He is a
peculiar duck. I could not understand why he was
so insistent that I accept a check yesterday for last
year’s tithing.” 60
Following a meeting with his executive committee that
May, Wilkinson complained to Henry Moyle about a lack of
timely cooperation from the Presiding Bishop’s office. He
also thought Church authorities need to issue
some authoritative definition of what constituted
full tithing, particularly that it should be paid before
the payment of taxes. He [Moyle] thoroughly
agreed with my viewpoint, but said as long as
President McKay and President [J. Reuben] Clark
were in the First Presidency there was no chance to
get any authoritative interpretation. He informed
me also that President [Stephen L] Richards, and he
thought Bishop [Thorpe B.] Isaacson, only paid
their tithing after the deduction of taxes and that
there was not a chance at the present time to change
that situation. 61
By the end of that month, Wilkinson, during a meeting
with McKay, pointed out
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S U N S T O N E
that, although bishops in the Church were supposed
to have their reports in by the middle of
January, there were some reports from some bishops
this year which did not get in until well after the
first of March. This had hindered us in getting the
reports as quickly as we should have the facts in
order to determine the eligibility of faculty members
for reappointment, etc. I suggested that if
there was some way of having the Presiding
Bishop’s Office get these records in on time, that it
would be helpful to us. 62
Wilkinson continued to face similar difficulties each year
for the next two years. In early 1962, he recorded being “a
little discouraged to find that approximately 150 of our faculty
were not paying full tithing. . . . this lack of loyalty and
lack of assuming their share of financial responsibility for
the financing of the Church disappointed me very
much.” 63 The next year, he was surprised to find that
without his knowledge, two of his aides had assigned college
deans to interview faculty members whose tithing
contributions were reported to be less than 100 percent.
“These deans merely called some in and told them they
were short,” Wilkinson reported. “The deans do not
know the full facts; and since I am the only one knowing
the full facts, it would have been better had I done the
interviewing. Some faculty members were furious, but
as generally turns out to be the case in these situations,
they had made bad mistakes in either computation or
definition of what constitutes tithing.” 64
Wilkinson believed that he had the appropriate
“authority to check the tithing of all faculty members.”
65 However, the Presiding Bishop disagreed,
and raised the matter with McKay the next month.
As described by McKay:
Bishop [John H.] Vandenberg of the
Presiding Bishopric explained that the information
about tithing paid by members
of the faculty of the Brigham Young
University has been requested, and asked
whether or not it should be released.
Limited authorization formerly given
President Wilkinson was considered. I
said that we do not intend to force faculty
members to pay tithing, nor do we intend
to release information about tithing
they pay. Special permission was given
on one occasion, but it has not been
continued regularly. Bishop Vandenberg
said that it is the Bishop’s prerogative to
interview the person, and the responsibility
rests with the person paying tithing. Bishop
Victor L. Brown suggested that President Wilkinson
might be informed as to whether or not faculty
members are tithe payers, part tithe payers, or non
tithe payers. I indicated approval. Bishop
Vandenberg said that accordingly they would disapprove
of giving information about the amount of
tithing paid. 66
“We have reviewed your request for information regarding
the amount of tithing paid by the faculty members
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S U N S T O N E
with The First Presidency,” the Presiding Bishopric subsequently
informed Wilkinson. “The occasion on which permission
was given to provide you with this information as
indicated by President McKay was ‘for that time only.’ The
First Presidency has ruled that this information is not to be
provided but rather we can give you the status of those employees
as to whether they are full, part or non-tithepayers.”
67
By the end of 1963, Wilkinson decided to pursue a longtime
dream of running for public office and stepped down as
president of BYU. 68 Following his defeat and return to the
BYU presidency in late 1964, his absence together with
changes in the composition of the First Presidency and
McKay’s failing health combined to end his surveillance of
faculty tithing payments. In fact, current BYU policy strictly
prohibits the release of faculty tithing information to university
administrators. 69
During the eight years of increased surveillance of
the individual tithing records of BYU faculty members,
some two dozen (probably more) teachers were dismissed
or resigned specifically, according to Wilkinson,
because of “religious problems,” “church problems,” or
“disagreement with administration,” including “disagreement
with President’s administrative approach.” 70
While these numbers may not seem to represent much
of an impact on BYU generally, the effect of Wilkinson’s
drive to enforce adherence to LDS teachings on the
lives of the individuals who left, either voluntarily or
involuntarily, cannot easily be overstated. For some
teachers who believed the primary criteria regarding
their employment centered on academic experience and
expertise, Wilkinson’s emphasis on tithing was misplaced
and irrelevant. Still others, appealing to Church
guidelines regarding the confidential nature of one’s
tithing history, viewed Wilkinson’s interest as inappropriate.
For Wilkinson, however, BYU was an extension
of the Church, and he was merely an agent of the
Church’s general authorities. Not only did he see
nothing wrong with having access to such information,
he considered it essential if he were to successfully administer
the affairs of the “Lord’s University.” That such
tensions endured for nearly a decade underscores the
challenges confronting a religion-sponsored university
and its advocates.
NOTES
1. For Wilkinson as president, see Gary James Bergera, “Ernest L.
Wilkinson’s Appointment as Seventh President of Brigham Young University,”
Journal of Mormon History 23 (Fall 1997): 128–54. For Wilkinson’s personality
and managerial style, see Gary James Bergera, “Wilkinson the Man,” SUNSTONE
20 (July 1997): 29–41.
2. “The amount of tithing and other offerings paid by a member is confidential.
Only the bishop and those who are authorized to handle such contributions
should know the amount” (Handbook 1: Stake Presidents and Bishops,
2010 [Salt Lake City: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2010], 128).
3. Harvey Fletcher, “Autobiography,” 41, in Harvey Fletcher file,
University Archives, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library,
Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah.
4. See “Tithing Record of the Faculty of the Brigham Young University for
1915, Exclusive of Those Who Discontinued Service June 30,” courtesy of the
Smith-Pettit Foundation.
5. On the other hand, ten (15 percent) had paid more than 150 percent,
and four (6 percent) had paid more than 300 percent. Ibid.
6. Merrill, Letter to Presidents of LDS Church Schools, 2 May 1929, in
Brigham Young University: The First One Hundred Years, 4 vols., edited by Ernest
L. Wilkinson (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 1975), 2:216.
7. Merrill, Letter to Harris, 1 March 1933, in Brigham Young University:
The First One Hundred Years, 2:217.
8. See Howard W. Pease, “A Chronological and Comparative Listing of
Events of BYU, Church and State, and National History from 1847 to 1973,” 7
October 1974, in BYU Archives.
9. In Brigham Young University: The First One Hundred Years, 2:218.
10. Ibid., 385.
11. In Franklin L. West, Letter to Christen Jensen, 9 May 1940, in Franklin
L. West Papers, Perry Special Collections.
12. According to BYU’s official history, “Written records do not indicate precisely
what President Harris did to handle the tithing problem, but some living
faculty members remember that Harris interviewed faculty members who did
not pay a full tithe, reporting special problems and extenuating circumstances
to the First Presidency. Where there was any doubt, President Harris usually
supported the cause of the faculty member” (Brigham Young University: The
First One Hundred Years, 2:218, 414). See also Janet Jenson, The Many Lives of
Franklin S. Harris (Provo, Utah: BYU Printing Services, 2002), 60–63. While
BYU’s official history addresses Harris’s response regarding faculty tithing, it is
silent on Wilkinson’s efforts to enforce compliance, even though Wilkinson was
one of the authors of the official history. For a very brief treatment of
Wilkinson’s monitoring of faculty tithing, see Gary James Bergera and Ronald
Priddis, Brigham Young University: A House of Faith (Salt Lake City: Signature
Books, 1985), 68–70.
13. Wilkinson, “Notes for Presentation to First Presidency on ‘Tithing’
Problem,” 16 April 1959, Wilkinson Papers, Perry Special Collections. Unless
otherwise noted, all such Wilkinson-related materials are in his papers at BYU.
14. Ernest L. Wilkinson, “Memorandum of conference with President
McKay Today Re: Payment of tithing by teachers,” 8 April 1957.
15. The Messenger (distributed by the Presiding Bishopric of the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints), 16 (April 1957): 2. Using more or less the
same wording, this was reiterated in subsequent editions of the Church’s
General Handbook of Instructions.
16. Wilkinson, “Notes for Presentation to First Presidency.”
17. Wilkinson, Diary, 22 April 1957.
18. Wilkinson, “The Principle and Practice of Paying Tithing,” 25
September 1957, 24, Perry Special Collections.
19. Robert Kent Fielding, “Growing Up Mormon: Autobiographical
Narratives and Related Papers,” August 1997, 20, in Robert Kent Fielding
Papers, Special Collections, Marriott Library. Fielding graduated from BYU
twice, in 1950 (B.A.) and again in 1952 (M.A.). Although Fielding may appear
to figure more prominently than other faculty members in the following narrative,
it would be a mistake to view him, or any other single faculty member, as
a primary instigator of tithing-related controversies. Fielding was one of a
number of faculty who disagreed with Wilkinson’s policies. If Fielding’s name
appears more frequently than others, it is simply because he left an account of
his involvement.
20. J. Kenneth Davies, “My Personal Odyssey,” 1998, 30, courtesy of the
Smith-Pettit Foundation.
21. McKay, Diary, 3 March 1958, David O. McKay Papers, Special
Collections, Marriott Library.
22. Wilkinson, Letter to McKay, 7 April 1958.
23. Wilkinson’s handwritten notation on ibid.
24. Wilkinson, Diary, 21 April 1958.
25. Ibid., 13 March 1959.
26. Wilkinson, Memorandum of a Conference with David O. McKay, 16
April 1959 (17 April 1959).
27. Ibid. McKay’s diary reported only: “The question of whether President
Wilkinson should have access to the tithing records of the faculty of the
Brigham Young University. The faculty itself has already voted that compliance
with Church standards is one of the criterions for promotion. This question
was discussed at our meeting of the First Presidency today” (McKay, Diary,
April 16, 1959; emphasis in original).
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28. Wilkinson, Diary, 23 April 1959. Beginning in 1957, Fielding chaired an
“Intellectual Climate Committee” to “foster the rational and intellectual side of
Mormonism” (Fielding, “Growing Up Mormon,” 21). Two years later, he participated
in an on-campus debate with LDS educator E. E. Erickson regarding
the place of liberal Mormonism in the Church. When he learned of the
meeting, Wilkinson recorded that it “apparently turned out to be the most vigorous
criticism of Church tendencies and Church leaders that has been held on
the campus since I have been here” (Wilkinson, Diary, 17–19 January 1959).
Evidently, word of Fielding’s comments also reached Harold B. Lee, which
prompted Lee’s exchange with Wilkinson.
29. In Fielding, “Growing Up Mormon,” 30.
30. Ibid., 17. During the 1950s, Fielding pursued, and was awarded, a Ph.D.
in history at Indiana University. His dissertation was on the LDS Church in
Ohio during the 1830s.
31. Wilkinson, Diary, 26 April 1959.
32. Ibid., 28 April 1959. Romney (1897–1988) had been ordained an
apostle in 1951; Brown (1883–1975) had been ordained an apostle in 1958 and
would serve as a member of McKay’s First Presidency beginning in 1961.
33. Wilkinson, Memorandum of a Conference with David O. McKay, April
29, 1959 (30 April 1959).
34. BYU Board of Trustees Meeting, Minutes, 29 April 1959, courtesy of the
Smith-Pettit Foundation.
35. Wilkinson, Diary, 30 April 1959. Ray R. Canning (1920–94), who
taught sociology at BYU, fumed over what he believed was Wilkinson’s intrusion
into his private life. “That is the way Wilkinson operated,” Canning later
wrote of Wilkinson’s inquiries into Canning’s tithing contributions; “he simply
sent out his agents, and they got the information. . . . The more he knew, the
more leverage and power he had over me, if he wanted to use it” (Canning, My
Continuing Quest: Sociological Perspectives on Mormonism, edited by Stan Larson
[Salt Lake City: Freethinker Press, 1996], 73). Canning left BYU in 1959 for a
career at the University of Utah.
36. Wilkinson, “The Return of Full Value,” an address at the faculty worship
of Brigham Young University, 21 September 1959, Perry Special
Collections; reprinted in Edwin J. Butterworth and David H. Yarn, eds.,
Earnestly Yours: Selected Addresses of Dr. Ernest L. Wilkinson (Salt Lake City:
Deseret Book Co., 1971), 268–82.
37. Wilkinson, Diary, 21 September 1959. “In the emotional and sometimes
heated discussion which followed the address,” remembered Kent
Fielding, “it was many times repeated by Wilkinson that Brigham Young
University had a Destiny which required faith and dedication. . . . In that context,
all arguments to the contrary seemed pitiful and self-serving” (“Growing
Up Mormon,” 34).
38. Wilkinson, Diary, 22 September 1959. In 1968, following his own disagreements
with Wilkinson, Bernhard resigned to accept the presidency of
Western Illinois University. From 1974 to 1985, he presided over Western
Michigan University.
39. Wilkinson, Diary, 22 September 1959. Bernhard tried to persuade Riggs
to stay, assuring him that there would be no administrative retaliation.
However, Riggs was dismayed soon afterwards to learn that the administration
had decided not to grant him a promised promotion because “of my public criticism
of the University and President Wilkinson the previous fall” (Riggs, email
to Gary James Bergera, 4 February 2011).
40. Robert E. Riggs, Oral History, 8 September 1992, 32, Perry Special
Collections. Riggs later clarified: “I did, for instance, state that from then on my
tithing would be ‘one dollar short.’ But in fact I immediately repented of that inflammatory
statement. My tithe payments, both before and after the speech,
have always been in full” (Riggs, email to Bergera).
41. Following a career teaching political science at the University of
Minnesota, Riggs returned to BYU, now presided over by Wilkinson’s successor,
Dallin H. Oaks (b. 1932), to join the J. Reuben Clark Law School.
42. Whetten, Memorandum to Wilkinson, 5 October 1959. Before coming
to BYU in 1956, Whetten had served as executive dean of the Chicago College
of Osteopathy, as superintendent of schools in Pagosa Springs, Colorado, as director
of agriculture at Mesa College (Colorado), and as president of Snow
College (Utah). In addition to directing BYU’s public relations, he was also dean
of General College. From 1972 to 1973, he chaired the school’s Department of
Indian Education.
43. Wilkinson, Diary, 23 January 1960. Hill remained at BYU as dean, first
of Physical and Engineering Sciences, then in 1972 of Engineering Sciences and
Technology, until his retirement in 1977.
44. The Messenger 45 (January 1960): 1.
45. Wilkinson, Memorandum of a Conference with David O. McKay, 3
February 1960.
46. Wilkinson, Memorandum of a Conference with the First Presidency, 9
February 1960.
47. Rice graduated from BYU in 1941. He then enrolled at the University of
Washington. He served in World War II as a cryptographer. Following the war,
he returned to Washington to finish his Ph.D. studies. He subsequently joined
the BYU faculty, chaired the English department, and in 1957 was named Dean
of Humanities and Social Sciences.
48. Wilkinson, Diary, 12 February 1960.
49. Ibid., 16 February 1960. Petersen (1900–84) had been ordained an
apostle in 1944; McConkie (1915–85) had joined the First Council of the
Seventy in 1946 (and would be ordained an apostle in 1972). Both men were
literalistically oriented LDS theologians.
50. In 1962, Rice was appointed thirteenth president of the Oregon College
of Education (in Monmouth), where he remained until his retirement in 1977.
51. Wilkinson, Diary, 23 February 1960.
52. Ibid., 26 February 1960.
53. Ibid., 27 February 1960.
54. Fielding, “Growing Up Mormon,” 35, 37.
55. Ibid., 37–38.
56. Ibid., 39–43. Fielding was told he would be given a sabbatical leave after
which he would be allowed to return only if he passed another interview with a
member of BYU’s board of trustees. Following his leave, Fielding decided to
hazard an interview with Harold B. Lee. But after Lee replied with “a cryptic
and wholly unsympathetic letter,” Fielding “made no further effort to secure
approval” (ibid., 44–45). Following a career at the Graduate School for
Teachers at Wesleyan University (Connecticut), the Utah Center for the
Prevention of Juvenile Delinquency, and the Connecticut Commission on
Higher Education, Fielding retired in 1978.
57. BYU Board of Trustees, Minutes, 2 March 1960.
58. Ibid., 4 May 1960.
59. Wilkinson, Diary, 26 February 1961.
60. Ibid., 2 March 1961.
61. Ibid., 11 May 1961. In 1960, Church members were told that tithing is
“one-tenth of their interest (income)” (General Church Handbook, Number 18
[Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1960], p. 59). Three years later,
Church leaders were more explicit: “A tithe is one-tenth of a wage earner’s gross
income; a tithe is one-tenth of a professional man’s income after deducting standard
business expenses; a tithe is one-tenth of a farmer’s income after deducting
standard business operating expenses” (General Handbook of Instructions,
Number 19 [Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints 1963], p. 67, emphasis
in original). In 1968, however, Church officials referred members, without elucidation,
to the D&C 119 (General Handbook of Instructions, Number 20
[Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1968], p. 102). Today, members
are instructed: “The simplest statement we know of is the statement of the Lord
himself, namely, that the members of the Church should pay ‘one-tenth of all
their interest annually,’ which is understood to mean income. No one is justified
in making any other statement than this” (Handbook 1: Stake Presidents and
Bishops 2010, p. 125).
62. Wilkinson, Memorandum of a Conference with David O. McKay, 22
May 1961.
63. Wilkinson, Diary, 15 March 1962.
64. Ibid., 29 March 1963.
65. Wilkinson, Memorandum to William E. Berrett, 13 April 1963.
66. McKay, Diary, 24 May 1963; emphasis in original. Vandenberg
(1904–92) had been named Presiding Bishop in September 1961. When Ken
Davies asked him about Wilkinson’s access to tithing information, Vandenberg
“seemed shocked by the revelation of what was taking place on the campus and
said that he would certainly look into it” (“My Personal Odyssey,” 30).
67. Presiding Bishopric, Letter to Wilkinson, 24 May 1963.
68. See Gary James Bergera, “‘A Sad and Expensive Experience’: Ernest L.
Wilkinson’s 1964 Bid for the U.S. Senate,” Utah Historical Quarterly 62 (Fall
1993): 304–24.
69. All BYU employees must undergo annual ecclesiastical endorsement interviews
conducted by local LDS officials. “If an ecclesiastical endorsement is
not granted for an employee, BYU does not ask the reason why” (Carri Jenkins,
email to Gary James Bergera, 8 February 2011).
70. These figures come from two documents, courtesy of the Smith-Pettit
Foundation. The first is entitled “Faculty members dismissed since 1953”; the
second is not titled.
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Fiction
RETURN OF THE NATIVE
By Levi S. Peterson
THE PHOENIX-BOUND PLANE WAS AIRBORNE
before I allowed myself to consider the negatives of
what I was doing. I told my stepdaughter who lives
in Seattle an outright lie about my destination, saying I was
flying to Corvallis to visit an old buddy from my Navy days.
I knew I would have to expand on that lie when my wife, on
a cruise with her sisters, got around to calling me. Even
worse, I would have to expand on the lie I had been telling
myself for a long time, that there was no resemblance between
who I’d become and the fifteen-year-old kid who
forced himself on his first cousin in a barn back in 1951.
It was my sister Rosa who phoned me, saying that Uncle
Hammond was dead, also that Aunt Sophrina was holding
up, but a daughter, who had been taking care of them, had
gone to pieces. Not that anybody expected me at the funeral,
Rosa said, but it wouldn’t be decent not to let me know. To
which I replied that she was right, it was something I ought
to know even if I hadn’t been home for over half a century. I
appreciated Rosa greatly. She was the only one left who kept
me posted on things in Linroth.
Actually, Rosa’s call caught me at a lonesome moment,
Patricia having just left on her cruise. I went golfing that first
day, and the next day I helped a neighbor put up a cedar
fence, but I woke up both nights feeling abandoned, and on
the second night the thought hit me like a bullet, Just go!
Patricia had been at me for a long time to take her to
Linroth. Our friends couldn’t believe we had been married
for twenty years without a single visit to my home town.
That story had to be a fiction, they said; it just wouldn’t
happen in real life to a couple as normal as we were. But it
wasn’t fiction. So I woke up that morning and said to myself,
this is it, my one and only chance to scout things out in advance
and see if Linroth has turned into a Levi’s-and-boots
kind of town full of firearm-packing Republicans like the
rest of Arizona, because if it has, it isn’t a place to take
LEVI S. PETERSON is a former editor of Dialogue and
author of novels The Backslider and Aspen Marooney,
short-story collections Canyons of Grace and Night Soil,
and autobiography A Rascal by Nature, A Christian by
Yearning. He lives in Washington with his wife Althea.
Patricia, who ran out of patience long ago with ultra-right
wing folks and can be counted on to stop and quarrel if she
runs into any of them. At least that was the reason I gave
myself, though later, as I realized once the jetliner was airborne,
the real reason was to test myself and see whether I
could keep my composure when the old anxiety—the old
self-incrimination—came back to me like delirium tremens
to a half-cured drunk.
I lived in Phoenix during the last year and a half of high
school, so I shouldn’t have been surprised at how hot it was
when I left the air terminal and climbed on a shuttle bus out
to the car rental lot. But I was surprised, and, after navigating
onto the freeway heading east toward Mesa and
Globe, I was equally surprised at how little I recognized of
the city I’d once known so well. But all this wonderment
proved a beneficial distraction, so for a while the fantods I
had been anticipating on the airplane didn’t kick in. When
they did kick in, I was eating a hamburger in a fast food
place on the east end of Globe. Out a window I could see the
junction where the Safford-bound highway split off toward
Show Low, and I was struck hard by the fact that the junction
looked exactly like it used to fifty years ago, also by the
fact that on Thanksgiving Day of the year I turned 17, I
stood at that very junction trying to thumb a ride home to
Linroth because I had heard that Cassia, my cousin, would
probably be there. I stood at the junction all day in a cold
wind. What little traffic took the Show Low road didn’t stop
for me. I was broken-hearted to say the least. A little before
dark, I caught a ride back to Phoenix, and when the school
year was out, I joined the Navy and never made another attempt
to go back to Linroth.
I threshed all this over while sitting in the fast food place,
wondering how I ever figured that, even if I had made it
home to Linroth and even if Cassia had actually been
there—I later learned she wasn’t—I would have had the
nerve to beg her forgiveness, which made me pause for a
moment to wonder how, having more or less ruined her life,
I could face her at the present if she happened to turn up at
Uncle Hammond’s funeral, which—according to my current
reasoning—she just might. I sat there after I had finished my
hamburger and cola mulling that possibility and, as I say,
Al l imAg es : g Al en s mit h
PAGE 54 OCTOBER 2011

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having the fantods. Then it occurred to me to get Rosa on
my cell phone and find out if Cassia was in town, because if
she was, I would turn around and go back to Phoenix and
catch the first available plane back to Seattle.
Unluckily, Rosa didn’t answer her mobile phone, and
when I dialed her house phone, a granddaughter—likely a
teenager, I thought—answered and said Rosa was out.
When I asked the girl whether she had ever heard of her
uncle Rulon Braunhil, which is me, she said, “Sure, you’re
grandma’s brother who lives in Seattle.” But when I asked if
an elderly cousin named Cassia had come home for the funeral,
she said nobody had told her anything about that. “I
didn’t even know I had an elderly cousin Cassia,” she said.
MY TROUBLE WITH Cassia—which I didn’t see as
trouble for a long time—came about because we
were born within six days of each other and our
families regarded us as twins and encouraged us to do things
together. As a result, we had feelings for each other from
early on that first cousins shouldn’t have. Around the time
we turned five or six we got into the habit of getting undressed
and checking each other out behind a chicken coop.
Luckily, we got past that phase without being caught.
The summer we were ten, we wrestled each other on the
back lawn of the seminary building, and she pinned me and
kissed me long and hard. “That’s the way Betty Grable kisses
Victor Mature,” she said and kissed me again.
The year we were twelve and in MIA, we rode in the back
seat of my parents’ car to a stake-wide New Year’s Eve party
in Holbrook. It was very cold, and Cassia and I huddled
under a blanket and we kissed in a way that seemed sinful to
me. I put a hand on one of her breasts and she took it off. I
felt humiliated. For several months after that I wanted to
forego partaking of the sacrament, but doing so would have
made me intolerably conspicuous because I was a deacon
and had to help pass the bread and water to the Linroth congregation
every Sunday. That doubled my worry because I
understood people who partook of the sacrament unworthily
were eating and drinking damnation unto themselves.
All of that trouble between Cassia and me was nothing
compared to the trouble we got into during the summer we
were fifteen, and it happened because our fathers owned
side-by-side farms on the creek. I had been hoeing corn on a
rainy afternoon in June. Near evening, Cassia came down
the lane to fetch cows home for evening milking. She wore a
dress and scuffed brown and white oxfords with no socks. A
squall of rain hit, and she climbed into a barn at the head of
the pasture.
“Hey, dummy,” she shouted from a window, “come in out
of the rain.”
I dropped my hoe, crawled through a fence, and climbed
into the barn. Damp and shivering, we sat side by side in the
hay. Our shoulders touched, and I gazed at her askance. She
was beautiful—dark brows, an aquiline nose, slightly hollowed
cheeks.
“When we were kids,” she said, “you asked me to marry
you, here, in this barn.”
I couldn’t remember that.
“You kissed me,” she said. “Don’t you remember that?”
“I remember other places, but not here,” I said.
She placed a stem of hay on my head. I removed it with an
irritable gesture. She replaced it, and I let it stay.
“Did you kiss Lori Ann when you took her home from
the junior prom last spring?” she went on.
“That’s none of your business.”
“You did, didn’t you?”
“That just isn’t any of your business.”
“Would you kiss me now?” she said.
I stared at her.
She puckered her lips and closed her eyes.
Alarmed, I said, “The rain’s quitting. We better be going.”
She pushed me down and placed a long, lingering kiss on
my lips.
To that point I had struggled to maintain an illusion of
disinterest. But after that long, lingering kiss, a frantic, furnace-fed
flame drove through me and there was no stopping
me even though when I tugged up her dress she pleaded for
me not to do it and when the deed was done, she wept. I
waited til full dark before I went home, long after she had
climbed from the barn and gathered her cows and returned
along the lane. Lightening arced madly through a distant
cloudburst, a portent and testimony, I felt, of the hell I had
suddenly entered.
My nighttime terror was of God, who couldn’t overlook a
rape, particularly a rape of a first cousin. As weeks passed, I
realized God was toying with me, letting me simmer in anxiety,
preparing a catastrophic demise for me in the ripeness
of his own due time. My daytime terror was that Cassia
would tell her parents, who would tell my parents, and who
knew what would happen then? Maybe they’d turn me over
to the law and I’d end up doing a life sentence down at
Florence. In the meantime, Cassia avoided me. One day
when I saw her in the store, she turned on her heel and disappeared
through the door at the rear that said “Employees
Only,” even though she wasn’t an employee. She didn’t come
down the lane anymore, either.
When fall approached, the two Braunhil homes were set
abuzz by the announcement that Cassia would spend the
school year with an aunt on her mother’s side in Salt Lake
City. The reason given was that her bright mind merited a
challenging high school. Weeks after she left, I overheard a
mere fragment of conversation between my sisters Carol and
Rosa, who were washing dishes at the kitchen sink. A single
phrase—”put it up for adoption”—lingered in my mind as I
left the house by the kitchen door, heading for a belated duty
in the corral, where unmilked cows lowed impatiently. By
the time I returned with a pail brimming with foamy milk, I
had figured it out. Cassia had been banished to Utah to have
a baby.
Years later, I pressed my mother to open up about Cassia.
She admitted the real reason that Cassia went to Utah was
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that Uncle Hammond, informed by Aunt Sophrina of his
daughter’s pregnancy, had exiled her forever from his house.
When the family gathered for prayer before supper on the
day he found out, Hammond forbade Cassia to join. “You no
longer belong to this family,” he said. The next day she left
on the afternoon bus. Aunt Sophrina and Dory took her to
meet the bus. My mother went too, and so did Carol and
Rosa. I imagine those girls already knew the real reason.
The more I thought about the circumstances under which
Cassia left Linroth, the more certain I felt that she wouldn’t
show up at Uncle Hammond’s funeral. I figured that he’d be
the next to last man in the whole world—me being the very
last—she would want to show some respect for by attending
his funeral. In any event, I had got myself as far as Globe,
and I wanted to keep on going. So I did, calming my nerves
by working out a little plan in case a tactical retreat proved
necessary. With the exception of Rosa, nobody presently
alive in Linroth had seen me for fifty years, and if I took a
little care not to confront persons near my own age face to
face, I could easily remain incognito. I would take a motel in
Show Low for the night and turn up in Linroth just in time
for the funeral and take a seat at the back of the church. If I
saw Cassia filing in among the mourners after the closing of
the casket, I’d slip away when the funeral adjourned to the
cemetery, leaving town as unannounced as I had entered it.
When I got to Show Low, there was still a lot of daylight
left and I kept driving, assuring myself that I would just take
a quick look around Linroth and then come back to Show
Low for the night. My eyes blurred with tears when I
rounded the hill south of Linroth. From that perspective, the
little town nestling in a horseshoe-shaped valley looked as
familiar as if I had left it the day before. Driving on in, I
could see a lot of things had changed. There was a Chevrolet
dealership, a modern post office building, and, across the
street from the church house, a bank branch and a café. The
church house itself, constructed of chiseled yellow stone
and topped by a steeple, was unchanged. The doors and
window frames must have been painted recently because
they looked as fresh and well cared for as when I had last
seen the building.
Driving on down the street, I saw a modern small-town
version of a supermarket occupying the spot where a mercantile
had once stood. Across the street from the supermarket
I saw an old red brick home fronted by a white
picket fence. Attached to the fence was an ornate sign declaring
“Pioneer Bed & Breakfast.” I pulled over and with
motor idling sat thinking a while. If I registered with a pseudonym—the
name of my Corvallis friend came to mind—
there was no need to retreat to Show Low for the night. But
then it occurred to me that it was pretty craven of a man to
rent a room in a bed-and-breakfast place in a town loaded
with relatives who would consider it a high privilege to furnish
him with a bed. With that, I decided to call Rosa again,
and if Cassia was in town, I’d pretend I was calling from
Seattle and beat a hasty retreat, and if she wasn’t, why, heck,
I’d abandon this incognito stuff and go stay at Rosa’s house
where a brother ought to stay.
However, Rosa didn’t answer either her cell phone or her
house phone, so, craven or not, I went into the bed-andbreakfast
place. The girl behind the counter, maybe 17,
pulled out a registry and asked my name. “Rulon Braunhil,”
I blurted, suddenly repulsed by the ploy of a pseudonym.
“Braunhil is a common name here,” she said.
“I grew up here,” I said. “But I’ve been gone a long time.”
Maybe I struck her as incapacitated because she said, “I’m
sorry, we only have an upstairs room available.”
“That’s okay,” I said. “I do a lot of hiking on hilly trails.”
As she led me up the stairs, I asked her family name.
“Burleson,” she said.
“That’s not a name I recognize.”
“No, my parents are newcomers. We aren’t Mormons, but
we like it here. I have lots of Mormon friends.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” I said.
In my room, I heaved my suitcase onto the dresser top
and hung my shirts and pants on racks in a closet. I went to
a window and looked out. A small, sleek White Mountain
Lines bus had stopped at the supermarket across the street.
On a Monday evening fifty years ago, Cassia got on another
White Mountain Lines bus at that very spot though I wasn’t
there to see her do it. I went back to the bed, took off my
shoes, and lay down, somehow feeling truncated, cut in half,
dismembered.
I graduated from high school in Phoenix because after
Cassia left for Utah I acted out the complete outlaw at
Linroth Union High. I sauntered down corridors slamming
locker doors shut, popped bra straps on unwary girls, and
knocked a boy over a bench in the shower room after PE, in
consequence of which my parents and I met with the principal
one morning.
“I just hope you can influence your son to behave,” the
principal said. “The next step is the state industrial school at
Fort Grant. If we expel him, that’s where they’ll put him.”
“What’s got into you?” my mother said. “You come home
late. You don’t do your chores. You sass your dad. This isn’t
like you at all!”
Fortunately, my father had a plan. “Rulon says he can’t
take it here anymore. Boys get that way. So I phoned Uncle
Trevor,” he said. “That’s my brother who lives in Phoenix,”
he explained to the principal. “He says let Rulon come live
with him and Sybil.”
Dad looked at me. “Do you want to do that, son? Do you
think you could settle down and start getting decent grades
again?” I said I would try, and I did, having made up my
mind that I really had gone kind of crazy, and Cassia
notwithstanding, I had a life to live and needed to get on
with it.
My dad was a good man. He wasn’t anywhere near as
hidebound and punctilious as Uncle Hammond. Neither
was Uncle Trevor, for that matter. He was laid back, too.
I went home to Linroth for brief visits, but as I said, after
that failed hitchhike on Thanksgiving Day I never went
back. I knew Linroth was like a malaria zone for me. It was
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as if I had been run through some kind of a magnetizing machine
and there was a protective shield around the town that
automatically deflected me.
My parents came to my graduation from Camelback High
School, and when I told them I wanted to join the Navy, they
agreed to sign for me. The Korean War was going full tilt,
and like a lot of the other fellows at Camelback, I could see
serving in the Navy was ten times smarter than getting
drafted into the infantry. I did my basic training at the Great
Lakes training station on the shores of Lake Michigan, then
was assigned to a logistics unit at the Alameda Naval Air
Station across the bay from San Francisco. Although
handing out underwear and socks to new arrivals wasn’t my
idea of excitement, the bustling activity of the base distracted
me, and upon returning to my quarters in the
evening I often realized that I had gone for hours without
thinking of my private hell. But with evening the fantods returned,
and I spent long, wakeful nights until I got some
sleeping pills from the base medical center and began to
knock myself out every night by taking a couple.
After nearly a year at the base, I started to take evening
courses in electronic engineering at the University of
California at Berkeley. During the first semester, I met and
began to date a young woman from Mexico, Emilia, who
was finishing a master’s degree in philosophy. An atheist, she
had a long list of proofs for the absence from the universe of
a divine personality, and she was eager to convert me. As
things stood, I was eager to be converted. I did some superficial
reading in Hume, Nietzsche, Russell, and Sartre, declared
myself free from Christianity, and threw away my
sleeping pills. As for my social life, I went to movies, museums,
and operas around the Bay Area with Emilia, usually
at her expense because her father owned a big ranch and
sent her plenty of money. Eventually, she made it evident
that she would welcome something more than philosophical
discussions between us. She wasn’t voluptuous, yet with
dark braided hair, luminous eyes, and lightly bronzed lips
she was far from unattractive. However, my Mormon scruples
hadn’t vanished with my Mormon theology. Simply put,
I couldn’t make love to a woman without marrying her, and
I couldn’t marry Emilia, not only because I couldn’t see
spending the rest of my life in Mexico, but even more important,
because I judged the rapist of a first cousin to be unworthy
of any decent woman. The truth was, I realized, that
I couldn’t marry at all. And with that realization, I broke off
with Emilia and settled into three decades of celibacy. As for
Emilia, she graduated in the spring and went home to
Mexico to stay.
I understand sublimation well. It’s what monks, nuns,
and maverick laypersons like me practice in order to lead
sexless lives. I developed my skills in sublimation chiefly in
and around Seattle, where I eventually migrated, having
found employment with the Boeing Company after I resigned
from active duty in the Navy. Sometimes I dated
women I met at Boeing, and my various male friends occasionally
recruited me for blind dates. Not wanting to get to
the point of having to explain myself, I rarely dated a woman
more than once, even if I was attracted to her.
So how is it that after three decades of celibacy I married
Patricia?
I met her on a Sunday afternoon. It was nice weather, and
I had driven up from Seattle to see the fields of tulips in the
Skagit Valley. I stopped at an ice cream shop on a rural road
and had a dish of almond fudge at an outdoor table. Patricia
and her teen-aged daughters—Koreen and Alisha—came
out of the shop looking for a place to sit. My table was the
least occupied, and Patricia asked if they could sit with me.
Things went from there. Patricia had a round, cheerful
face and abundant, shoulder-length hair, carefully parted in
the middle. She engaged me in conversation with the disarming
forwardness of an established friend. She had a
home in the Cedar Park district of north Seattle. She was five
years past the accidental death of her husband and, as the
following months proved, was willing to have a gentleman
caller. Luckily for me, she more or less took me as is without
asking to see under the hood; that is, she didn’t seem perturbed
by the blank spaces in my life’s story. I was pleased—
and a little astonished—that I could at last permit myself to
think of marriage owing to the fancy that with age I had
been transformed into a different human being, still named
Rulon Braunhil, but otherwise an utter stranger to that fifteen-year-old
youth who had raped his first cousin in a barn.
IDOZED OFF for a while on the bed in the bed-andbreakfast
place and woke up wondering how I was
going to spend the evening. I went downstairs and
asked the Burleson girl whether there was still a movie theater
in town.
“Yes, but it just runs on Saturday night.”
“What do people do for entertainment during the rest of
the week?”
“Friday nights there’s usually a dance somewhere—here
or in Saller’s Cove or up at Show Low. Monday night is
family night for the Mormons. Everybody stays home. Other
nights, a lot of people play softball. There’ll be a game
tonight with a team from Holbrook.”
“What about that café up the street?” I said. “Do local
people seem to like it?”
“A lot of them seem to. We could have fixed you dinner if
I had let my dad know early enough that you wanted it.”
“That’s all right. I’ll check out the café.”
I drove to the café and went in. I took a seat in a booth,
and a girl in a lacy apron came from behind a counter and
handed me a menu. “We only offer the full menu on Friday
and Saturday night,” she said. “Tonight, the entrée is
chicken fried steak.”
“No lasagna?” I said. “Too bad.”
“You could have a hamburger or a sandwich.”
“I’ll have the chicken fried steak,” I said, handing back
the menu.
“Chicken fried,” she called to the fry cook.
She stood fingering the menu, apparently in no hurry to
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leave. I looked her over. I wouldn’t have called her pretty, yet
I was attracted by her dark, curly hair and reassuring smile,
which caused me to consider my own less-than-attractive
person—a thin fellow, somewhere between tall and short,
somewhat stooped, and possessed of a lined, emaciated face
and white, close-cropped hair.
“I was wondering . . . ,” she started to say, then suddenly
blurted, “Are you my uncle Rulon?”
I was totally astonished.
“My friend Cindy Burleson phoned me a few minutes
ago. I hope you won’t be mad at her for telling me you were
in town.”
“No, I won’t be angry.”
“You phoned Grandma at noon, didn’t you?” she went on.
I nodded.
“I’m the one you talked to. I’m Ashley. I’m Lee Ann’s
daughter. We live next door to Grandma. Mom asked me to
run over and borrow a lemon juicer. But Grandma wasn’t
there, and I couldn’t find it.”
A couple of boys of high school age came in and sat at the
counter. Ashley served them Cokes and stood behind the
counter talking to them. After a while she brought my order.
“You wanted to know about Cousin Cassia,” she said.
“When Mom brought me to work a while ago, she told me
Cassia is arriving by Amtrak and Grandma will pick her up
in Winslow early tomorrow morning.”
“I’m glad to know that,” I said—truthfully enough
though I realized Ashley would assume my reason to be
quite different than it was.
At this point, a man entered the restaurant and looked
around uncertainly. His face was broad and pasty, and a
shock of graying hair hung almost to his eyes. His longsleeved
shirt was buttoned at the throat. He shuffled to my
booth and slid in opposite to me.
“My name is Clemon Haines,” he said, offering me a limp
hand.
Ashley set a knife and fork in front of the man and asked,
“Is it milk or orange pop tonight?”
“Pop,” he said. Then, as she retreated toward the counter,
he leaned confidentially toward me. “The church pays for
my supper here every night. I’ve got a bad back. Can’t work.”
My mind was getting error signals from four or five directions.
I was dredging up memories from a series of letters
from my mother saying a retarded Haines’ boy had assaulted
a woman and had been castrated and sent home from the
state hospital as no longer being a public menace. Also,
since there was no way I could face Cassia the next day, I was
trying to process how I was going to manage to leave town
without her and Rosa knowing I had been there.
Ashley brought the man a chicken-fried steak and glass of
orange soda, and he fell to eating with gusto. “Going to the
softball game,” he said with scarcely a pause in his avid
chewing. “That Holbrook feller, he’s something else. Can he
ever hit!”
I laid a couple of dollar bills on the table and stood up.
“Boy, you’re a real tipper!” the man said, eying the bills
closely. “Say, stick around a few minutes and you can go to
the game with me. You ought to see that Holbrook feller.”
“Thanks. I’ve got things to do,” I said.
I went to the counter. I glanced back at the man in the
booth. “Do you worry about a fellow like that?” I asked
Ashley in a low voice.
“Of course,” she said, rolling her eyes with something
like vexation. “We don’t walk places after dark. Girls, I
mean. Not alone, that is. When the café closes, Mom will
come get me in the car.”
“What time does it close?”
“Ten-thirty on week nights. But I won’t wait to let
Grandma know you’re here. I’ll phone her right now. I know
she’ll want you to stay with her.”
“That’s okay,” I said. “There’s no need to let her know
tonight.”
“No, really, she’ll want to know you’re in town. I’m sorry
I didn’t phone her sooner.”
“Do you mind holding off and letting me surprise her?”
“Well, heck no, if that’s what you want.”
“I mean like tomorrow at the funeral.”
She studied me for a long time.
“It’s important to me,” I said.
“All right.”
“Promise?”
“Yes, I promise.”
It was getting toward twilight when I went outside. I saw
lights in the church and heard an organ, so I crossed the
street and went in, taking a seat in the backmost pew. The
church was empty except for me and a woman at the organ,
who smiled at me and went on playing. Likely she was practicing
for the funeral. The dark wood of the pews glistened,
and the scent of furniture wax pervaded the atmosphere.
The pasty-faced Haines fellow was on my mind. Men who
violate women ought to be castrated. That goes for a man
who has his way with his first cousin in a barn. That’s how I
felt. That’s how I had been feeling off and on for five
decades. Also, sitting in the church, I could see the disadvantages
of being a total disbeliever. If I believed in God, I
could ask for forgiveness and maybe I could get a feeling
that said, “Okay, you’ve done penance enough. Go your way
and sin no more.”
However, I knew I had to get my mind off irremediable
matters in a hurry. I needed to concentrate on how to leave
town without Rosa and Cassia finding out I had been there.
Figuratively speaking, I was kicking my own butt over and
over for giving the Burleson girl my true name. The key now,
of course, was Ashley, who sooner or later would tell her
grandmother and Cassia that I had been in town. I had to
come up with a reason for her not to tell them—a reason
that could at best be only half accurate—and I had to
somehow convey it to her before her mother came for her at
ten-thirty.
When I went back, the café was empty except for Ashley
and the fry cook. Ashley looked surprised when I walked in,
of course. “I’d like a cola,” I said and went to the back booth.
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When she brought the drink, I said, “I need to talk to you
for a minute.”
“About what?” she said, throwing a quick glance toward
the pass-through window into the kitchen.
“I’ve changed my mind about going to the funeral. I want
to leave town first thing in the morning. I don’t want Rosa
and Cassia to know I’ve been here. I wish I hadn’t come in
the first place. I need you to promise not to tell them I’ve
been here. Just that.”
Shifting uneasily, she glanced again toward the passthrough
window. Time passed. Obviously I had put her between
a rock and a hard place.
“There’s a reason I have stayed away from Linroth for fifty
years,” I added.
“And it involves Grandma?”
“No. Cassia.”
I was in a pure panic, speechless, maybe shaking a bit and
certainly wondering how it was that a pleasant, innocentlooking
teenager of whose existence I had had no inkling
until a few hours earlier should turn out to be the one soul
to whom I had confided even so much as a remote hint of
my reason for not returning to Linroth.
“All right,” she said at last. “I promise. I won’t say a
word.”
A short, burly man came into the café and took a seat at
the counter. Ashley left me and took his order. Then a chattering
couple came in and took a seat in a booth, and she
took their order.
I got up and walked to the door. As I stepped onto the
sidewalk, I saw Ashley had followed me. “Couldn’t you
settle things with Cassia?” she asked.
“I don’t think so,” I said. “I ruined her life.”
She looked at me for a long time, then shrugged and went
inside.
IWOKE UP around three a.m. from a nightmare about a
swarm of frenzied ants running over my feet and up my
legs. I turned on the light and got out of bed and sat in a
chair. I felt hollow and heartsick, the way I felt when I first
understood that first cousins can marry in Europe and
nearly half of the states in the Union. Unanswerable questions
came back to me. Did our parents know but choose
not to let us marry? Would Cassia have had me? Would I,
barely sixteen when her pregnancy showed, have manfully
shouldered the duties of a husband and father?
What was certain was that I presently lacked the courage
for a face-to-face encounter with Cassia. I couldn’t survive
looking into her eyes.
It might have been otherwise if I could have construed
her life as largely a success. I followed her life through my
mother, who followed it through Sophrina, who surreptitiously
defied her husband by staying in close touch with
her banished daughter. After attending college in Utah,
Cassia headed east, where she taught school for twenty
years. She was married for four or five years during this period.
As far as I knew, she and her husband had no children.
After she divorced, she got an Ed.D. and served as the principal
of an elementary school for fifteen more years. Judging
by appearances, she was among those plucky teen girls who
pull out of the tailspin of getting pregnant and giving up a
baby for adoption and go on to lead adult lives of considerable
achievement.
However, she probably suffered a good deal from loneliness
and also from the injustice of her exile. I could well
imagine how angry she felt whenever she allowed herself to
think about either me or her father. Moreover, the longer I
lived—and the more keenly I appreciated the fact that
having an unknown son somewhere out there in the big
world had put me into a tailspin of sorts—the less certain I
became that any woman could pull entirely out of the
trauma of giving up a baby. Even if Cassia had abhorred the
fetus growing within her at first, considering how it got
there, wouldn’t she have bonded with it when it began to stir
and kick inside her womb? And even if the boy child it
turned out to be was carried away from her unseen at the instant
of his birth, her instinct for mothering couldn’t have
been disposed of so succinctly. Didn’t an unfed hunger, a
thwarted desire, leave her perpetually susceptible to bouts of
grief—like my mother, who mourned a seven-month stillborn
girl to the end of her days?
That’s why I couldn’t imagine Cassia would want to see
me under any circumstance. The least I could do was
honor her wish and leave town at dawn as I had originally
planned.
I went down to the lobby at daybreak and looked up
Seattle-bound flights from Phoenix on the house computer.
I decided on a late afternoon departure and secured an online
reservation. After a breakfast of sausage gravy and biscuits,
I loaded my travel bag into my car and, by way of a
final goodbye to Linroth, drove along the back streets.
Driving by the cemetery, I saw a man loading a backhoe onto
a trailer. I stopped, got out, and—back to playing incognito—said,
“There must be a funeral coming up.”
“Yeah. Just dug a grave for a feller named Hammond
Braunhil. Old as Methuselah. Damn well time for him to
go.” The backhoe operator had red, scaly cheeks. He looked
like a man who didn’t worry about washing his face and
combing his hair when he got out of bed in the morning.
He scrutinized me closely. “You from around here?”
“I’m just passing through. I’ve lived in Seattle most of my
life. I don’t know much about little towns. I get curious
sometimes to see what they look like from the back side.” I
was surprised how slithery and loathsome I felt, though
technically nothing I said was a lie.
The backhoe man, who had been digging close to the
cemetery gate, got into his truck and left. I decided to take a
look at the grave—that serving as a kind of vicarious attendance
at the funeral I had chosen to miss. Both the open
grave and the excavated soil were covered by a tarp—
nothing to see there. Looking around, I realized I was in
Braunhil territory. My Braunhil grandparents were here, as
were my own parents and the seven-month stillborn girl
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they insisted on naming. Suddenly, I was beset by the sense
of an unfulfilled duty. It seemed a pity a man should pay his
respects to the mortal dust of his parents for the first time at
my age.
I could vaguely recall the interment of my stillborn sister.
But I attended the funeral of neither of my parents. I was
spared the guilt of intentionally missing my father’s funeral
because Boeing had sent me to Mulhouse, France, and
without informing anyone, I went to Haute Savoie in the
Alps for a weekend of skiing, where I was put even more
out-of-touch by a four-day blizzard.
When my mother died, Rosa let me know by telephone.
“I hope you’ll come for the funeral,” she said.
I was silent.
“It’s time,” she said. “I don’t know what it is with you, but
it’s time to get over it. Come home, Rulon.” But I couldn’t.
Like a felon, I was reluctant to revisit the scene of my crime,
the ruin of Cassia.
Nor did I mention the funeral to Patricia, whom I was
dating at the time. After that, I always spoke to Patricia of
my mother’s death—and my father’s too—as vaguely in the
past. My mother had faithfully written at least one letter a
week from the moment of my departure. Needless to say,
my knowledge of matters in Linroth fell off drastically with
her death.
When I left the cemetery, I decided to drive along the
street I had grown up on, which I quickly decided was a
bad mistake because I went to pieces when I passed by the
two Braunhil houses, mine and Cassia’s, and all of a
sudden I wanted to see Cassia—unbeknownst to her, of
course, because her gaze would have withered me like an
earthworm in the summer sun. So I made up my mind to
attend the funeral after all, where I could sit at the back of
the church and probably catch a glimpse of Cassia when
she filed in with the mourners, and then, as I fervently
promised myself, I’d for sure slip away while the first
hymn was being sung and get on the road to Phoenix in
time to make my plane.
At the church, custodians had opened the sliding doors
between the chapel and the recreation hall and filled the
latter with folding chairs in anticipation of a crowd as large
as a stake conference—a well-founded anticipation, I saw as
I took a seat well to the rear of the nearly filled recreation
hall. An organist—likely the woman I had seen the evening
before, though I couldn’t be sure at that distance—played a
soft prelude. Shortly, there was a stir, and the organist shifted
to a solemn hymn. The family procession, led by pallbearers
and the coffin, came from a side hall and turned into the
middle aisle of the chapel. Immediately behind the coffin
came a tiny, shrunken woman on the arm of a robust, halfbald
man of approximately my age. I recognized the woman
as Aunt Sophrina. The robust man had to be Bryant, her eldest
son. As for the others—fifty or sixty of them—I could
make out only an occasional face with some cast of the familiar
to it. I identified my brother Badge and my sisters
Carol and Denise and also my cousins Jake, Dory, and
Brenda. Among a trailing crowd of teens and children, I recognized
Ashley, who seemed intent on marshaling her
younger cousins into pairs. Finally, at a distance from all the
others—as if there had been some hesitation on their part
about joining the mourners’ throng—came two women,
whom—with a catch in my throat—I recognized as Rosa
and Cassia. The twenty-five years since Rosa had brought
Mother to Seattle for my commissioning as a lieutenant
commander in the Navy Reserve had been kinder to her
than to me. Of sturdy frame, she had a round face, prominent
cheeks, and amber-grey hair swept upward to add to
her already imposing height. As for Cassia, her slight,
slender body was clad in a black dress with a white collar
and cuffs. Her hair, once auburn, was silvered—something
like light on rippling water. Her forehead was lined, her
cheeks seamed, her mouth composed. As she and Rosa
passed from my view, I felt apathetic and let down. What
had I expected? Perhaps something transcendent, ethereal,
other-worldly.
In any event, fragments from the past tumbled through
my mind—kaleidoscopic memories of fights, street games,
bonfires, and family gatherings. I recalled a day when Bryant
intervened in a fight between me and Badge, saving me from
a sure beating. I remembered that Rosa tackled me once
during a game of football, and I plowed into the gravel with
my elbows and knees. I remembered hiding in Uncle
Hammond’s granary while Dory and Brenda searched for me
during hide-and-seek; I held my breath for fear they would
hear me. I loved those kids, all of them; siblings and cousins
were one and the same to me. Here they were, most of them,
at this funeral, the Braunhil family more or less in its entirety,
and I longed to claim a place among them. Sitting at
the back of the church, a stranger among strangers, I recognized
afresh what a fragile and pitiable creature a human
being is without a family. I was lucky, of course, to have married
Patricia, but considered objectively, my marriage to her
was a grafting onto the trunk of a tree planted by her dead
husband, whose last name Patricia kept because Koreen and
Alisha wanted her to.
I knew it was time for me to leave, but I could no longer
muster any sense of urgency. I hadn’t seen enough of my kin.
I knew I’d stay as long as there was a reasonable chance of
concealing my presence in the crowd.
The funeral began with a hymn, which—though I hadn’t
so much as thought of it in fifty years—returned to me
word for word. A son-in-law of Hammond’s, Jasper
Cleveland, gave a lengthy invocation, extolling Hammond
as a man mighty in the service of the Lord. A daughter,
Brenda, read his life story. As a young man, he had served
as a missionary in New England. Upon his return, he attended
Arizona State University, where he met and married
Sophrina. They settled in Linroth, and he became one of
the foremost farmers in Navajo County, winning all sorts of
prizes for cattle and crops at fairs. He had been on the local
school board four or five times. He had been counselor to
one bishop and two stake presidents, but had never been a
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bishop or stake president himself, which, as I conjectured,
likely said something about his lack of tact and understanding
of human nature. I wondered what Cassia was
making of all this. As for myself, I couldn’t quarrel with the
facts of his life—the boards and church positions and
prizes and all that—but I could quarrel with the lies about
what a kind father and devoted husband he had been. I
knew from my mother’s letters that he put Sophrina
through the wringer on a steady basis, and from when I was
a kid I could remember him making Bryant lean over a
rabbit pen while he beat him with a belt for forgetting to
latch a corral gate. Lies are pretty much the stock in trade
of funeral speakers. Somehow it’s blasphemous to admit
the ugly side of the dead person’s life.
Following the closing prayer, I stood with the general
congregation while the family filed from the church. I went
to my car but made no move to leave until most of the other
cars had left the church. Sitting there, I observed my divided
emotions with a detached curiosity, being fully aware that
further delay meant missing my Seattle flight yet knowing
that sooner or later I would start the engine and drive to the
cemetery.
When I arrived at the cemetery, I parked at the far end of
a line of cars, a position from which I could watch the proceedings
at the grave without getting out of my car. Needless
to say, I despised myself for being a voyeur, a peeker through
a keyhole, as it were, into the doings of a family I no longer
belonged to.
A considerable crowd stood around the grave. Observing
their bowed heads, I surmised that the dedicatory prayer
was in progress. Following that, the formalities of the service
were at an end, and the crowd began to disperse, filing
through the cemetery gate and getting into cars and driving
away. Several persons entering cars near mine glanced my
way. I sat tight, confident in my anonymity, a stranger
among strangers. My siblings Badge, Carol, and Rosa lingered
by the grave, also my cousins Bryant, Dory, and
Brenda—to say nothing of Cassia and the girl Ashley, who
stood beside a woman I couldn’t identify—her mother, Lee
Ann, I supposed.
A vague apprehension grew over me when another car
parked near the gate and the Burleson girl from the bed-andbreakfast
place got out. Before entering the gate, she paused
and looked my way. Jolted by a shot of adrenaline, I realized
I had missed my chance to escape. Sure enough, an instant
later she was conferring with Ashley, and both girls were
looking my way.
Ashley left the gravesite, came through the gate, and
turned in my direction. She wore half-high heels, a black
skirt, and a white blouse, and, despite the frantic thoughts
ricocheting off the walls of my mind, I calmly reflected that
a girl doesn’t have to be pretty to be attractive if she was as
decent and good natured as Ashley.
I lowered my window as she approached. “Cindy told me
this was your car,” she said. “So you haven’t left yet.”
“No,” I said, “but I’m leaving now.”
“Don’t do that. Not without seeing Grandma.”
“I’ve got to go.”
“It’ll break Grandma’s heart when I tell her it’s you I’ve
been talking to over here.”
“So you’ll tell?”
“They can see I’m talking to somebody. I can’t lie about it,
can I?”
“You promised not to tell,” I said.
“You said you were leaving town first thing this
morning,” she insisted. “You broke your word, so I can
break mine.”
I was surprised by her tenacity. She looked altogether too
young, too kind and willing to please, to hold to such a hard
line.
“It’s Cassia, isn’t it?” she said. “You are absolutely afraid of
her.”
“Well, yes, I am afraid of her.”
“Why?”
“Because I did something very bad to her.”
“What was it?”
“The worst thing a man can do to a woman, short of
killing her.”
Her eyes narrowed with perplexity. How odd, I was
thinking, that I should be confessing an offense of these dimensions
to this epitome of decency, this unblemished soul
whose deepest instincts tended toward propriety and duty.
“In any event,” I said, “you can see why I need to leave
town unnoticed. I admit it was very foolish of me to come to
the cemetery. For that matter, it was very foolish of me to
come home to Linroth in the first place.”
Ashley looked toward the group around the grave. “What
could I tell them?” she said. “Cindy has probably already
told them it’s you I’m talking to.”
“Just tell them you don’t know why I insist on leaving in
such a hurry.”
Her perplexity increased. “Couldn’t you ask Cassia to forgive
you?”
“Some things can’t be forgiven,” I insisted.
“It happened a long time ago, didn’t it?
“Fifty years ago.”
“You weren’t very old.”
“Fifteen.”
“Well, then, I think she should forgive you. She’s awfully
nice. She doesn’t seem like somebody who would hold a
grudge for fifty years.”
I was beginning to wonder what Ashley knew about rape.
Hadn’t every girl in Linroth, long before she was ten, learned
to fear the likes of Clemon Haines, the castrated imbecile
who stalked the dark streets of her imagination at all hours
of the night? Wasn’t it the curse of Eve that her daughters
should perpetually fear the rapist who lurked undiscerned
among the sons of Adam? Maybe not. Maybe with girls like
Ashley, rape is simply a concept. Maybe it is an eventuality
that happens to persons so unconnected to them that it has
no meaning.
“Are you aware that at the age of sixteen Cassia was ex-
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iled to Utah to have a baby?” I asked in exasperation. “Do
you realize that this is her first day in Linroth in fifty years?
Do you realize that I am the cause of her exile?”
“No, I didn’t know that,” she said.
“Cassia doesn’t want to see me,” I repeated. “It would embarrass
her profoundly. It would make her angry.”
“I could at least ask her if she would like to see you.”
“Don’t even think about that!”
I hadn’t budged her an inch. She looked steadily into my
eyes. I began to feel disconcerted and finally looked away.
She continued to stand there, her hands on the car door. It
dawned on me that she was going to win by default. Just by
standing there, just by not giving me permission to leave,
she was making my worst nightmare come true. Pretty soon
someone else—her mother, for example, or maybe Rosa—
would join her. With that thought, I pushed open the door
and got out. I felt like a prisoner ready for his execution.
“Let’s go,” I muttered.
She turned and led me through the gate. The group
around the grave watched us closely.
“It’s Rulon!” Rosa cried, but it was Cassia who came forward.
I glanced at her face. Her brow was even more furrowed,
her cheeks more seamed, than I had realized from
my brief glimpse of her at the church house. Her unadorned,
half-pinched lips were ambiguous, perhaps angry, perhaps
grieved. The ambiguity depressed me. I lowered my eyes.
The hem of her dress came slightly above her knees and her
feet were clad in black flats trimmed with golden buckles.
There was something measured, something poised, in her
step. I felt a flicker of hope. As she neared, she held out her
arms, and with a flood of relief I reached for her hands. I
fixed my eyes on the base of her throat. Her skin was
freckled as if she had been in the sun a good deal. Truly, her
silvered hair caught sunlight like rippling water, and her
eyes—when at last I dared look into them—brimmed with
luminescent tears.
“Forgive me,” I choked.
“I forgave you long ago.”
“How could you?”
“How could I not? Don’t we still love each other? Have
we ever stopped?”
She pulled me close and pressed her cheek against
mine. I closed my eyes, refusing to countenance the curious
stare of our waiting relatives. For those of my generation
of the Braunhil family, the unknown father of
Cassia’s child must have been a principal mystery, subject
to countless quiet discussions in guarded moments. I had
clarified the mystery for the girl Ashley. Wouldn’t the
others clarify it for themselves now, confronted as they
were by the prolonged embrace and the half-whispered
words Cassia and I exchanged?
I didn’t care. I was grief-stricken and exultant, benumbed
and euphoric, made so by the knowledge that Cassia had relied
on my love through the long, empty decades of our
exile. As Cassia had said, didn’t we still love each other? Had
we ever stopped?
BIRTHDAY PARTY
Tonight is five nights after my birthday and my son
Is taking me out for dinner.
We’re going all the way.
Four star—
“Adour.”
He is bringing Jane, his Korean wife.
I’m bringing my petal—Lauren
Petal?
Well, I picked her out of the crowd and planted her
In the stem of my heart.
Graham used to think that he was Buddhist,
Now he is Christian.
Jane is too.
My wife is a Born Again Christian.
She watches Joel Osteen.
He looks a little like me.
Some people, God forbid,
Say that I look like Woody Allen.
I am not that ugly.
I am an atheist.
What has happened to religion?
I feel bad about its confusion.
I am tempted to study the Torah
In defense of the death of Judaism.
If the skeletons in the concentration camps
Saw me now?
They would put on flesh and ask if it was worthwhile
After all to have died for Moses?
I am tempted to tell communism and fascism
That religion will stand up against their wholesale killings.
I will become religious.
I will convert to real faith.
I will be your rabbi if you will teach me to believe
In stardust in a landscape without Jewish stars.
DAVID LAWRENCE
OCTOBER 2011 PAGE 65

S U N S T O N E
Testimony of an atheist
YOUR OLD WOMEN SHALL
DREAM DREAMS
By Sara Burlingame
INTRODUCTION
FOLLOWING IS A VERSION OF A PRESENTATION
I gave at the 2010 Salt Lake Sunstone Symposium.
Before I started, I called two women—Kynthia and
Beth—to the podium and handed each a goblet filled with
small squares of chocolate. Then I enjoined them to pass
this “sacrament.”
As they made their way down the aisles, presenting the
goblet to each audience member, I intoned: “As the cup is
passed, please take a piece of chocolate, but don’t eat it
yet.”
When everyone held a piece of chocolate, I continued,
Now that we have received this sacrament, I would
like you all to lick or nibble a portion—not the entirety—of
your chocolate. Brothers and Sisters, this
chocolate is your intellectual integrity. Someday
you are going to meet someone of another faith
whom you will love very much. When that day
comes, you’ll want to have a whole and
unbesmirched chocolate to offer them. We can refrain
from “tainting” our chocolate by refusing to
slander people who believe differently than we do.
I hope this has been a meaningful and deeply impressive
lesson for you all even though it has almost
nothing to do with the talk I’ve prepared. I am
counting on the old adage, “There’s nothing that
Latter-day Saints love more than an object lesson—
relevant or not.”
SARA BURLINGAME has been a Montessori
teacher, Eurotrash, zine publisher, artisan bread
baker, mother, partner, and blogger at fMh. She
makes her living as the Director of Religious
Education at the Unitarian Universalist Church of
Cheyenne, but her passion is haunting the Wyoming legislature,
whether Cheney is in town or not.
That “opening exercise” seemed a cheeky way for me, a
non-Mormon, to show that my understanding of Mormon
culture went beyond denim skirts and green Jell-O. But how
then do I explain the sadness that washed over me when I
saw Kynthia and Beth cradling their goblets, solemnly
moving down the aisles with their offering? I wondered how
long those two had been waiting for someone to call their
names; to ask them to come to the front of a congregation; to
entrust the objects of ritual into their hands.
With that sadness came a clear vision—one I am grateful
to own, even if doing so means I have to give up my atheist
card. As those two women stood across from each other in
the Sheraton Hotel conference room, reflected endlessly in
the echoing mirrors, I also saw a host of faithful, stagnant
women waiting patiently behind them, fanning out across
time. I wanted to call to those women, bound in the wings,
to take their rightful place—or at the very least, I wanted to
proclaim, “This sacrament is real, too. We are still a people
gathered, and you have served us. That must be holy.”
But what those women really wanted—to stand in front
of their people and be recognized as beloved daughters of
God, equal to their brothers, was clearly not in my power to
give them. And that was heartbreaking. Ritual is important. I
was foolish to forget that the act of ritual contains its own
rules and that no person can control the results.
A year later, I still don’t know how I feel about that vision.
I am content to have witnessed and learned something
from it, even if that something was only a deeper understanding
of the particular pain that exclusion carries.
THE SPEECH
IWANT TO talk about faith and personal narrative today,
and a good way to start is to tell my own story. I was
raised Bahá’í by my parents, but as a teenager, I experimented
with Christianity, Buddhism, New Age–ism and—
perhaps most memorably for those around me—a very
vocal Goddess worship. By age 16, I’d found what felt like
my true calling and remained a staunch adherent to
PAGE 66 OCTOBER 2011

S U N S T O N E
s t er eo h y pe—is t o c k ph o t o .c o m
atheism until I read an article in Bust magazine exploring
the curious phenomena of Mormon feminism. I became a
regular reader of the blog it cited and even began meeting
the women who wrote for it. My curiosity about this peculiar
people grew until I agreed to take the missionary discussions.
Those naturally led to my conversion, a testimony
of the Book of Mormon, my baptism surrounded by
my once skeptical family
who, inspired by my powerful
example, soon chose
baptism themselves. . . .
Not really. The stuff
after the missionary discussions
is imaginary. But I do
recognize the resonance of
that story. When I relate
my actual story, I can hear
the devout silently
sketching in the right
ending—the only ending
that seems to make sense
of my participation in their
religion. Sometimes that
narrative is so powerful I
feel the pull of it myself.
M
Y ACTUAL
STORY is that I
am an atheist
and feminist who came to
Mormonism because of my
feminism—not in spite of
it. I really did read an article
in Bust about Lisa
Butterworth and her blog,
Feminist Mormon Housewives.
And, being an enlightened
do-gooder, I decided
to help those
Mormon women out. So I
barreled onto the blog, no
less ridiculous than the
Margaret Sanger Society
representative in Cheaper
by the Dozen who shows up
at the Gilbreth household:
“Here I am, ladies! Hold
onto your hats, I’m going to
teach you about Real
Feminism!” I spared myself some humiliation only because I
followed my mother’s sage advice, “Wait to make an ass of
yourself until after you know these people better.” The result?
I was not the atheist who brought enlightenment to
those sad, oppressed Mormon women.
But I was still an atheist. I still find the concept of patriarchy
offensive. My skin crawls when I hear of the bureaucracy
behind sealings and the folklore of a middle management
style in the hereafter. But there is also the power of
women blessing their own children—an innate connection
to the divine trumping a lifetime of social conditioning.
There is the LDS pioneer experience that resonates with
many sagas of exile and redemption. Where in the atheist
story can I voice my attraction to the particular grace I have
found only in fleeting moments
of community?
Where is the room for
mystery? How good it feels
to share my real and
metaphorical scars with
another woman whose life
is both nothing like my
own but also a mirror of
the suffering and redemption
that I have felt.
I have found myself
outside of the atheistturned-convert
story popularized
by Lee Strobel,
C.S. Lewis, and every issue
of Ensign I’ve picked up. I
likewise feel very little
connection to the Ed
Deckers of the world—the
Dawkinses and Hitchenses
with their dismissive
snideness toward faith.
Thus, I was left to
cobble together my own
story: the story of an
atheist trying to fit in with
the Mormons. How does
that work?
The answer came as I
was listening to National
Public Radio—the secular
version of general conference.
At first those brushes with the female
divine were subtle: the image of a
swollen womb, a motherly caress on
your temple . . .
I had recently been
elected to the Democratic
National Convention as an
Obama delegate for
Wyoming, and I was struggling
to decide whether to
publicly identify as a
queer. I was in a heterosexual
marriage, so the question of being queer had never
really come up. But the DNC form wanted to know.
How much diversity would they claim, I wondered? If I
did out myself, I would face an awkward reception at best
and open hostility at worst. But would it kill me to get a little
gay schwag, rub elbows with Gavin Newsom, and receive
that bittersweet applause—the affection people give when
OCTOBER 2011 PAGE 67

S U N S T O N E
they know someone is queer and from Wyoming—the
home of that sweet-faced boy whose crucified body was
found propped against some of that ubiquitous Wyoming
barbed wire?
I finally decided to openly identify as a queer delegate and
immediately had to begin fielding questions from fellow delegates,
reporters, and friends. I spoke as honestly as I could.
Yes, I was married to a man; yes, I’d had previous relationships
with women; no, I didn’t plan to leave my husband
now that I had identified as a queer delegate. But I was still
conflicted about what that title meant and the extent to
which I could claim it if I was not living it.
Then on a mild spring day, I was parked in my car, baby
sleeping in the back seat, my brain half-engaged with an
NPR interview with a Palestinian woman who had written a
book about her childhood. Soon the tone of her voice—her
rich, deep tenor and thick rolling r’s—began to make an impression
on me. And of all things, I found myself thinking,
“Huh. That woman’s voice gives me a real testimony of my
queerness.”
In that moment, I realized two things: one, I was perfectly
at peace with the fluidity of my sexuality. And two, I had
used the word “testimony.” Apparently, I had spent so much
time around Mormons that I’d incorporated not just their
jargon, but the worldview that came with it. I, Sara
Burlingame, had unconsciously claimed the Mormon right
to ask for and receive revelation. And if that revelation happened
to come from NPR—well, alleluia!
More important, I realized that just as my sexuality is
fluid, so is my spirituality. I’m an atheist immersed in, and in
love with, Mormon people. If I can be a queer/hetero-married/Obama
delegate from the great state of Wyoming, why
not an atheist who loves Mormons? It was possibly the least
bizarre part of my identity. (I’m kidding about that last part.
If I sprouted horns, bowed three times a day to Hong Kong,
and declared the divinity of Lady Gaga, my secular friends
would find that far more palatable than my love for and contact
with the Latter-day Saints.)
Being an inhabitant of this fluid spiritual state, I find myself
translating stories from the world into Mormonese and
vice versa. For instance, I often hear secular feminists ask,
“Why don’t Mormon feminists just withhold their membership—rob
the Church of their participation, their money,
and certainly and perhaps most critically, their children
until the Church changes?”
As a narrative, their demand could look like this:
valiant Mormon women decided to fight the
Church, publishing polemics against it, and withdrawing
their “favors,” a la Lysistrata, from their
priesthood-holding husbands. The prophet finally
relented, recognizing the divine nature of
the women’s protests. Men and women now
jointly hold the priesthood in the LDS faith.
I couldn’t imagine a less Mormon story if I tried.
But I’ve felt the presence of another story inching its way
into my consciousness, asserting itself so persistently that I
have to remind myself that it isn’t real.
Christ died. The Church he’d formed fell into
apostasy. Joseph Smith received a vision and subsequently
restored the gospel. But it was incomplete.
Due to men’s fallen nature, they’d neglected
to fully include women in this restoration.
Whispering into the prophet’s ear, Satan had
urged him to consider the needs of only half of
God’s marvelous creation. The prophet complied.
Finally, through prayer and fasting, a band of
k el l y br o o k s
PAGE 68 OCTOBER 2011

S U N S T O N E
Christ died. His church fell into apostasy. Joseph
Smith received a vision and restored the gospel. But
because the world wasn’t ready to hear of the divine
nature of women that mirrored their Heavenly
Mother, the Church was incomplete. When the
kingdom had been built on earth by a righteous
people, Heavenly Mother began to reveal herself to
ordinary men and women. Her appearances came to
be expected in nightly dreams and even during tedious
sacrament meetings.
At first, those brushes with the female divine
were subtle: the image of a swollen womb, a motherly
caress on your temple when you were alone in
the car worrying about where this month’s mortgage
payment would come from. But the whisper
crescendoed until God’s people could no longer
deny that, yes, they had a Heavenly Mother and she
was aching to connect with them. The prophet
heard so unceasingly from members of the Church
who wanted to make sense of these dreams that he
began to pray daily, and finally hourly, for direction.
Then the prophet received a revelation that Mother
in Heaven had been trapped in a prison of her people’s
making. Because she allowed for free agency,
she would not be released until those same people
grew and ached enough to know her in return. And
so it came to pass that men and women jointly hold
the priesthood in the LDS faith and pray openly to
their Heavenly Parents.
Now that’s a Mormon Story. And it’s a story in which I
want to play a minor role. If there is a place for someone like
me, who loves your stories and your valiant hearts, I want to
claim that role. Messy, dissonant, and hard to explain.
Practically Mormon.
I’ll close with a poem I wrote:
PRAYER TO A GOD
IN WHOM I DO
NOT BELIEVE
I didn’t have my own words
So I had to borrow yours
My people never hied to Kolob
We didn’t feel the need
We knew what it was like to be
Hungry
But bread stayed bread
And wine was more than enough
Without becoming blood
I never cared for your confining spaces
Sterile baptism pools
Or your creed that concludes
“meetings without end”
But I need your people, Lord
More than desire them
If this is a battle
Must I acknowledge that you’ve won?
This world may be a testing ground
And the men and women I want
Beside me
Belong to you
I say this in my own name
Amen.
OCTOBER 2011 PAGE 69

S U N S T O N E
NATASHA PARKER: Pornography is becoming
a regular subject in general conference
addresses, and its use is currently
affecting many Mormons and our culture at
large. There are many who feel the Church
is making pornography such a prominent
topic that it is actually causing even more
problems. Others express appreciation for
the frank discussion and accountability
that is taking place within the Church.
Today we’re diverging from the usual
Mormon Stories format in that I’m not interviewing
a Mormon. I wanted to try to get
a different perspective on the topic, so I
have asked a prominent psychologist and
sex therapist, Dr. Stephanie Buehler, to join
us today. She is the director of the Buehler
Institute, which has offices in Newport
Beach and Riverside, California, and she’s
the author of a recent book, Sex, Love, and
Mental Illness: A Couple’s Guide to Staying
Connected. Dr. Buehler treats people of all
different races, cultures, and religions, and
is very familiar with problematic behaviors
that can be associated with pornography.
Hello, Dr. Buehler!
DR. STEPHANIE BUEHLER: Hello, Natasha.
PARKER: Thank you so much for joining
this discussion today. I have also invited
John Dehlin, the founder of Mormon
Stories and himself a graduate student in
psychology, to join us and help me make
sure we cover all the angles on this topic.
So, hello, John!
JOHN DEHLIN: Hello, guys! Happy to be
here! Thanks for joining us, Dr. Buehler.
PARKER: I thought the first place we’d start
is a definition of the topic at large. As a
R O U N D TA B L E
PORNOGRAPHY, MASTURBATION,
SEX, AND MARRIAGE IN MORMONISM
with Dr. Stephanie Buehler, Natasha Helfer Parker, and John Dehlin
The following is excerpted from the Mormon Stories podcast (episode 245), “Pornography,
Masturbation, Sex and Marriage in Mormonism,” which was first released on 10 March
2011. To hear the full discussion (about twice the length presented here), visit http://mormonstories.org/?p=1506.
This excerpt is printed with the permission of all participants.
therapist, one of the things I like to do
when I first talk with people about pornography
is to make a distinction between
pornography and erotica, but I would love
to get your sense of that distinction, Dr.
Buehler, so that we can know what you’re
talking about when you refer to pornography.
BUEHLER: I think pornography is the depiction
of sexual acts—whether in photos, or
print, or video—designed to titillate
people. Its purpose is to get people sexually
aroused. Erotica does the same thing, but I
think most people would think of erotica as
being something that piques your interest
and is maybe not so frank, so “in your
face.” It is more sensual and, I think, invites
the viewer to think about their own sensuality
whereas pornography is really more of
an exchange between exhibitionists and
voyeurs—people who simply like to watch
other people engage in sex acts. I think
people will have different definitions of
what’s erotic, and some people are going to
want to stretch the boundaries a little bit,
but I think if you were to look at a painting
of a nude couple in an embrace, you’d call
that erotic, whereas if you had movies of
the same couple having sex for the sake of
having sex, you might call that pornographic.
PARKER: It seems to me that in the more traditional
strains of Mormonism, we tend to
define a lot of things as pornography that I
wouldn’t necessarily define that way, so I
think what you’ve shared here is an important
start.
DEHLIN: I’m wondering if we’re exploring
this distinction because sometimes people
say they need or enjoy having something to
“get them going” sexually. Perhaps we’re
trying to ask whether it’s okay for married
couples, or for single people, or whomever,
to have some light form of sexual arousal
through erotica that can help them achieve
whatever their sexual goals are. And if we
allow for that, maybe it’s important to then
have a more clearly drawn line between
that and something that is socially taboo or
forbidden.
PARKER: Using erotica as part of your
sexual repertoire is definitely an issue
worth exploring. I often get someone
coming in and saying things like, “I’m addicted
to pornography,” or a wife who is
angry that her husband is looking at
pornography, but when I dig deeper the
pornography they are referring to is something
like looking through a Victoria’s
Secret catalog or watching Dancing with the
Stars or some other thing that can be erotic
and sensual and maybe even inappropriate
for some people but something I would
never label “pornography.” So I think that’s
why I want our audience to really understand
what exactly it is we’re talking about.
DEHLIN: I think that within the Mormon
context, and probably just in most human
experience, looking at pornography most
often starts with somebody getting exposed
to some pictures or some movies when they
are in their adolescent years. In other
words, their first sexual experiences are not
in the context of having a partner at all, so
there is probably a strong drive to engage in
some type of self-stimulation. Let’s start
with the adolescent experience and then
move into marital relations, because many
LDS leaders see this as an epidemic—that
our teens are looking at porn too much and
masturbating too much, and, as a result,
there’s a lot of shame, a lot of charged language
around this subject.
BUEHLER: In the “old days,” exposure to
pornography was pretty minimal. You had a
“girlie” magazine, and it was probably very
well worn. But these days, it’s not just
looking at a couple of pictures, you’re usually
on the Internet where there’s just so
much material—an endless supply. And I
think that part of the problem is this endless
supply.
In adolescence, there is a natural curiosity
about the human body and about
sex. From my non-Mormon perspective, a
teen’s interest in sexuality is quite healthy;
the desire to see the human body in all its
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S U N S T O N E
imag es : Ju l ia mil ber g er —is t o c k ph o t o .c o m
glory doesn’t concern me. It’s when the adolescent’s
social skills start to decline, when
they get involved in a sordid world that has
become their central world—that’s when
things become problematic.
PARKER: Can you speak to the separation
between masturbation and pornography
use? My understanding is that there are
many adolescents and adults who masturbate
without pornography being any part
of it.
BUEHLER: That is very true. You
can use your own fantasy material,
or sometimes people just
get into a sensual experience or
begin exploring their body; so,
you don’t need pornography to
get aroused. There are certainly
other ways. Human beings are
very creative.
DEHLIN: Let’s hit that topic
head on. When I was growing
up, I was taught that masturbation
is a really bad sin. There is
a famous talk that was given by
an LDS Church leader twenty
or so years ago that basically
had the philosophy that the
body is like a factory that produces
semen or hormones, and
what you don’t want to do as a
teenager is get the factory
revved up, because once you do
you’re always looking for opportunities
to masturbate,
which can then lead to sexual
behavior with a partner or
maybe even lead to perversions.
That was, I think, the mind set
at the time. As a result, masturbation
had a lot of shame and
fear connected with it.
From your point of view, is
masturbation something we
should fear? Does it lead to
promiscuity, or homosexuality,
as that sermon taught?
BUEHLER: I would say it doesn’t necessarily
lead to any of those. Understanding
your own body and finding out that your
body can give you pleasure is fine. And,
actually, there are some health benefits to
masturbation. For men it helps with
prostate health; for women it helps balance
the hormones. And, of course, it oxygenates
the body and the brain. If you
have a healthy attitude about it, it can
make you feel relaxed and vital.
But when you bring shame into the
process, you can cause some unhealthy cycles.
If you masturbate and are then filled
with shame, and then masturbate again to
relieve those anxious, negative feelings,
only to bring on more guilt and shame,
that’s not good. It is at that point that you
risk getting into some problematic behaviors.
As for masturbation becoming a compulsive
behavior: in the field of sex therapy,
we would say that if it interferes with your
day-to-day functioning, if it interferes with
your relationships or hinders your ability to
get to your job, or if it is something that
you are actually doing on the job, or if because
of masturbation you’re not pursuing
friendships, then you have a problem. But if
it’s not interfering with anything, well,
maybe it’s not so much of a problem.
DEHLIN: What about the idea that masturbation
leads to promiscuity? The argument
from some within conservative religious
traditions would be that masturbation gets
people too sexualized at too young an age,
leading them to want to have sex outside of
marriage.
BUEHLER: I don’t think that masturbation
does that; I mean if masturbation
led to promiscuity, everybody would be
promiscuous!
(Laughter from all)
PARKER: I’ve heard it called the
safest sex ever developed. No
STDs involved. No unwanted
pregnancy.
BUEHLER: Those are really good
points. I tend to think that masturbation
can actually help prevent
people from making bad
decisions. If you know that you
can bring yourself pleasure or
that you can comfort yourself in
this way, you might choose to
not seek sexual relationships
outside of marriage, or relationships
that aren’t healthy for you
in other ways.
DEHLIN: So masturbation could
possibly keep you from moral
transgressions, you’re saying . . .
BUEHLER: Yes. That’s what I
think.
DEHLIN: What about the idea of
masturbation as a sexual release?
Is there any psychological
or physiological data that
suggests that people have kind
of a sexual clock that needs a
release?
BUEHLER: At the mid-point of
their menstrual cycle, when
they’re ovulating, women experience
surges in hormone levels that often
cause them to feel “randy” or “horny,” and
if there’s no partner available, then they
might feel the need to have a sexual release.
Men don’t have the same kind of definitive
clock, but they have build-ups of semen
and hormones, and they can also feel a
need for release. So we do seem to have a
physiological need. Suppressed or repressing
that need can cause psychological
problems, disconnecting people from their
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S U N S T O N E
sexuality and from bodily sensation. That’s
not a good thing.
DEHLIN: Why not? Why not just “pack that
stuff down tight” until you are married?
That’s what I feel like I was taught.
BUEHLER: I actually understand that particular
message. However, if you were to sit in
my office for several sessions, you would
see that I have a lot of people who are so
sexually suppressed—sometimes they have
never had the experience of self-pleasuring—and
who have worked so hard to
get rid of sexual feelings, that they can’t recognize
them once they get married. They
can’t “flip the switch.” Consequently, they
have a hard time enjoying sex.
PARKER: Yes, both inside and outside of
Mormonism, we have so many women who
have never been able to achieve orgasm. It’s
very sad.
DEHLIN: So are you making the argument
that masturbation could be healthy for
sexual relations in marriage?
BUEHLER: Yes. I think a woman who understands
her own body can communicate
with her partner what is pleasing to her,
and that can make sex more enjoyable for
the couple. It seems to be difficult for
women—especially when they are shy or
repressed about their sexuality—to “connect
all the dots,” if you will, when they’re
with a partner. They are trying to negotiate
being with a partner who comes to the marital
bed with his own ideas and his own
needs, and they are trying to accommodate
to those needs as well as their own. If the
woman is willing to do some self-exploration,
that usually does help the couple
with their enjoyment of sex.
PARKER: In LDS culture, people tend to get
married very quickly. It’s common to have
anywhere from a two-week to a threemonth
engagement. I wonder if masturbation
might relieve some of the sexual
tension and help those engagements to run
a little bit longer. That way, the couple
could get to know each other a little better
before they make a huge commitment.
DEHLIN: But on the flip side, is there a limit
to the health benefits of masturbation and
self-exploration? Are there any dangers involved—any
downsides at all?
BUEHLER: Well, yes, masturbation can become
a problematic behavior. For instance,
I’ve heard of men developing carpal tunnel
syndrome or actually damaging their genitals.
So you can do it too much! I think the
primary element that leads to this kind of
excess is when one doesn’t recognize that
one is using masturbation as a coping
mechanism. One could be trying to cope
with unresolved family-of-origin issues,
with work-related problems, with low selfesteem,
with feelings of inadequacy, and get
caught up in a cycle of excess.
DEHLIN: What you’re saying jibes with
what I’ve been learning in my Ph.D. program.
We experience anxiety, emotions,
and sadness but don’t know what to do
with them. So sometimes we take drugs;
sometimes we inflict dietary restrictions on
ourselves; sometimes we cut; and sometimes—it
sounds like—we compulsively
masturbate. It’s all an attempt to regulate
emotion, feeling, and distress.
BUEHLER: Yes, those are all maladaptive
coping mechanisms. The person hasn’t developed
healthy ways of coping with negative
feelings.
PARKER: Sometimes on Mormon blogs, I’ll
come across headlines like: “Pornography:
Is it really that bad?” or, “Are there good
things about porn?” My feeling is that in
many of these cases the bloggers are
starting to use pornography and want to believe
that they can do so healthily. What evidence
do you know of on either side of
that equation? Does pornography negatively
impact our psychology or our arousal
templates? Are there positive aspects? And
now I’m talking specifically about pornography
and not erotica.
BUEHLER: One thing that might shock
people is that it seems that people who look
at pornography are actually less likely to act
out sexually. Sometimes there are fears that
looking at pornography will lead to rape or
sexual assault or pedophilia, but the opposite
seems to be true.
DEHLIN: There’s data for that assertion?
BUEHLER: Yes, there’s actual data. A researcher
did a study expecting to find that
looking at pornography leads to violent or
illegal acts. But he found that the opposite
is true, which is quite interesting. 1
Consider people who have various disabilities—whether
mental or physical—
that make it very difficult for them to have
partnered sex; pornography and masturbation
can be an outlet for them. And, actually
in the Netherlands, many would think
of it as a compassionate gesture to provide
such an outlet. For some reason, here in the
U.S. we don’t talk about what we might do
to provide for the sexual needs of the marginalized
or disadvantaged.
DEHLIN: Are there lower incidence rates of
rape and pedophilia in the Netherlands?
BUEHLER: That I do not know.
PARKER: I’ve read studies indicating that
there are fewer sexual criminal acts in cultures
where there’s access to and acceptance
of pornography. What we don’t know is if
having that outlet favorably affects the general
public, or only those who have violent
criminal tendencies to begin with.
BUEHLER: There are some researchers who
make the argument that people who watch
pornography are sexually savvier, that they
understand the human body and the sexual
response better, and thus have better partnered
sex. And some people feel that
pornography can be a celebration of one
part of the human experience.
PARKER: Just to clarify, those are theories
that are not based on hard data.
BUEHLER: Correct. One researcher tried to
do a study of men who have never looked
at pornography. But the study never happened
because he couldn’t find any men
who had never looked!
(Laughter from all)
DEHLIN: So “everybody is doing it”, basically.
BUEHLER: Well, “everyone has done it” is
more accurate. My experience as a sex therapist
working with hundreds and hundreds
of couples is that there are plenty of people
who really aren’t interested in pornography,
who don’t need it, and who don’t see why
someone would look at it.
PARKER: To me, “doing it” connotes a more
regular practice versus “Well, I was exposed
to it once or twice.”
DEHLIN: I’m interested in whether all
pornography is alike in terms of its poten-
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tial benefits or damage. In other words, is
there “light” pornography that could be
helpful versus pornography that could be
damaging? Are there shades of good and
bad pornography, and are there shades to
healthy or unhealthy use of pornography?
BUEHLER: Definitely. I’ve worked with men
who have looked at pornography that both
aroused and disturbed them. They come
into my office trying to figure out their conflicting
reactions. There is easy access to so
many different kinds of pornography—not
just the light stuff—there are things that
can be quite shocking or distasteful to
somebody who stumbles upon it.
PARKER: And even more upsetting if they
are finding themselves aroused by it at the
time but then later feel ashamed about their
reaction.
BUEHLER: Right. There is some evidence
that men who are involved in downloading
or looking at child pornography might
never have looked at it in the first place if
there hadn’t been such easy access. So there
is definitely a dark side to Internet pornography.
Some men who look at pornography
end up with quite a bit of sexual dysfunction
when they try to have partnered sex.
They encounter erectile dysfunction or delayed
ejaculation. Partnered sex just doesn’t
have the same “charge” as what he’s used to
when looking at pornography—and that’s
very problematic.
DEHLIN: Earlier you argued that masturbation
in moderate amounts can actually be
healthy. If we take violent, heinous pornography
off the table, are you saying: Hey, it’s
okay if a man or a woman wants to look at
pornography every once in a while as long
as it doesn’t interfere with their job or their
marriage or whatever?
BUEHLER: I think each person must decide
for him- or herself whether pornography is
something they are comfortable with—
whether it is something that improves their
lives.
DEHLIN: That kind of statement might
sound like moral relativism to a religious
person—”Anyone can do anything they
want.” If I put on my orthodox-believer
hat, I wouldn’t want my psychologist to say,
“Do whatever works for you.” I would want
him or her to tell me what is healthiest. So,
if you were to give me a guideline for what
provides the greatest health benefits for the
greatest amount of people the greatest
amount of time, what would you advise?
BUEHLER: In my practice, I never recommend
looking at pornography. It really isn’t
up to me to make that decision. I understand
what you’re saying about moral relativism,
but to me, it really is a matter of
examining your own values.
If somebody asks me about pornography,
I will ask questions like, “What do
you believe? What does your church tell
you? What do you think is healthy? What’s
a healthy amount for you?” Those are all issues
that can be explored. If an activity
leaves someone filled with guilt or shame
after they do it, then I don’t think that’s a
healthy activity for them.
DEHLIN: But we just got through saying
that some people’s interpretation of their
church’s teachings can actually increase
chronic, unhealthy masturbation and porn
use. Yet you seem to be willing to turn
people back to the wolves, so to speak—to
say “What are your values?” knowing that
so many people equate their values with
their church’s teachings.
BUEHLER: Well, I do try to help my clients
examine their church’s messages about
masturbation and pornography since those
are often such a big part of their identities.
But I’m pretty sure people know that a
therapy room is different from a pastor’s office.
A therapy room is a place for free exploration;
it’s up to them to determine what
feels right. I’m simply a guide.
PARKER: Whereas if you go to a Christian
counselor or an LDS therapist working for
an agency associated with its religion, the
therapist is probably more likely to lay out
ground rules that go along with the values
of the religion, versus a therapist who is
going to be more experiential, asking what
the client is bringing to the table.
BUEHLER: In my practice, I see people from
all religions—including Mormonism—as
well as atheists and agnostics. I get the
whole spectrum. Since there are so many
different ideas and values concerning
pornography, I really feel that people have
to be square with their ideas and beliefs
about it. If they can’t figure that out in my
office, I may suggest they go back to the
church and have a discussion on these issues
with somebody they trust.
DEHLIN: As we move on to a discussion of
partnered sex, I can imagine some people
encountering this conversation who will
ask, “How could there ever be a healthy
scenario for porn use when you have a
spouse in bed next to you?”
BUEHLER: Well, I think some couples
would say, “Variety is the spice of life.”
Others might say that watching other
people in sexual encounters keeps them
from having extra-marital, in-person sexual
experiences. Some couples watch it to get
ideas about sexual practices. It can also
trigger sexual arousal and interest. And
some people simply consider it to be a form
of entertainment.
PARKER: You’re talking about the couples
who want to look at porn together?
BUEHLER: Right—when it’s a consensual
act. If both partners are enjoying it together,
it would be similar to enjoying a
meal together or enjoying skiing together.
PARKER: I wonder, though, how often it’s
actually consensual. Sometimes one
partner—usually the woman—will say she
wants to watch it, but what I hear is, “I’ll go
along with it because I know this is what
my husband likes, and I don’t want to be
left out.” They are worried; they want to
improve their relationship, so they don’t
say, “Well, this doesn’t really do it for me.” I
worry that they are putting themselves in a
position that will build resentment toward
their partner, which will feed into other issues
within the marriage.
PARKER: I’d like to talk about whether or
not someone can become “addicted” to
pornography.
BUEHLER: Whether you can actually be “addicted”
to pornography, or be a “sex addict”
is something we argue about constantly in
professional circles.
One of the problems with applying the
“addiction” label in this case is that it’s similar
to calling food an addiction. We need to
eat; we have a drive to eat; and we have a
sex drive, whereas we don’t have a drive to
consume alcohol or drugs. There’s nothing
intrinsic about those substances that causes
us to seek them out. So, I’m not really sure
you can become addicted to pornography
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S U N S T O N E
from that standpoint.
However, there are some similarities to
an addiction. It seems that some viewers of
pornography do need increasingly intense
material to achieve the same charge.
Compulsion can also show up—urges that
a person feels he or she must satisfy lest
some terrible thing happen to them. So it
has some of the characteristics of an addition,
but I don’t know if we can call it a
pure addiction.
PARKER: Are there personality traits that
you notice when you work with compulsive
pornography users?
BUEHLER: I’ll use the word “men” in my
reply because I haven’t encountered
women with that
kind of problematic behavior.
Often the men I work
with are emotionally detached
from their partner.
They may say they love
their partner, but their behavior
shows they really
haven’t made a good attachment.
They don’t feel truly
bonded to their partner—
and pornography is just another
wedge. It can become
a way for the man to regulate
the emotional intimacy
in the relationship. And
that to me is one of the saddest
things about using too
much pornography.
PARKER: I’ve counseled
couples where the man will
say, “Well, I only use it
once a week. I don’t know
why she’s making such a
big deal out of it.” But she is devastated because
she doesn’t want this to be a part of
her marital life.
BUEHLER: To me that speaks to the man’s
emotional detachment. In effect, he is
saying to his wife, “So what if my behavior
disturbs you? I don’t care.” The not-caring
is what allowed the man to get into the
pornography and use it to cut his partner
out of the picture. The not-caring is the
most destructive part of that scenario.
Sometimes men who overuse pornography
do so because they are dissatisfied
with aspects of their relationship but are
poor communicators or conflict avoiders.
Pornography is often only a symptom of
other emotional deficits like handling intimacy
and conflict—being able to communicate
with one’s partner.
PARKER: It seems that a lot of women find
out that their husband is watching
pornography, not because the husband
comes and tells her about it but because
the husband is “found out” in some way.
When this happens, I hear a lot of very intense
emotions, almost the same type I encounter
when there’s been an extra-marital
affair. The spouse feels like the porn use is
an infidelity.
BUEHLER: For some people, it can be a form
of infidelity. Some people feel that texting
or “sexting” is a form of infidelity, and
others don’t feel so threatened. I think couples
need to have a “sit down on the sofa”
talk and lay it out. “This is my definition of
infidelity.” Or “If you’re getting sexual gratification—any
sexual gratification—outside
the marriage bed, I consider that to be
a form of infidelity.” It has to be spoken up
front; it has to be discussed.
DEHLIN: But there are going to be spouses
who feel that way about masturbation.
There are probably plenty of Mormon
wives who, if they were to find their husband
masturbating, would want to take
him to the bishop; they would want him to
confess; they would want to put him on a
repentance plan, because they consider it a
gross, egregious violation of their marital
vows.
PARKER: I love your provocative language,
John! I agree that there is very little wiggle
room for masturbation in Mormon culture.
DEHLIN: However, it’s probably common,
especially when babies come, for there to
be valleys in the number of sexual exchanges
going on between husband and
wife. Or sometimes people’s libidos wane.
Let’s just say bluntly that a man doesn’t
“get it” as much as he wants to. Sometimes
he’s faced with weeks or even months
without regular intimacy with his wife.
Maybe she’s nursing; maybe she’s sore;
maybe she’s just not in the mood. We were
talking about that natural clock earlier. I
imagine that the man would occasionally
masturbate to get a release. Maybe he wants
something to help stimulate him and turns
to soft porn and eventually to harder porn.
He’s likely doing all this in secret because
he doesn’t want his wife to think he’s evil
and terrible.
PARKER: Meanwhile, he’s feeling evil and
terrible.
DEHLIN: Yes, and that’s feeding the shame
cycle.
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BUEHLER: Wait! Why is he unable to tell his
wife about his sexual needs? Why can’t the
two of them have a “sit on the sofa” conversation
about the change in their life, the
stressor that’s occurred, and talk about how
they are going to continue to have a satisfying
intimate relationship?
They should explore all the avenues.
Does it have to be sex? Does it all have to be
intercourse focused? Maybe he just needs
to be cuddled or hugged or have his feet or
neck rubbed. Maybe they simply need to be
consciously nicer to each other, giving each
other treats that don’t require the energy
level of sex.
So will a guy go off and take care of himself
because he doesn’t want to bother his
wife? Yes. Is that okay sometimes? In my
mind, yes. But the more important thing is
having conversation. We are not taught
how to have an adult-to-adult, sit-down
chat about sex. We’re raised that sex is
something you don’t talk about. It’s too embarrassing.
Which doesn’t really make any
sense. Talking about sex should carry a
lower level of tension than actually having
it, but we have so much shame, so much
guilt. We’re not given an adult vocabulary
for talking about our sexual needs. That is
what creates the problem.
PARKER: And I have found that once couples
learn to have this type of conversation,
they can usually come to good compromises.
Maybe it will be that he’s going to
masturbate but in her presence or at least
with her knowledge and permission. And
again, I feel bad that we’re being stereotypical
because I know there are women who
have a higher sex drive than men, women
who also look at pornography, and sometimes
the shame there can be even greater
because we don’t talk about women looking
at porn. But I find that once the couple can
acknowledge their shared values and come
to some compromises, a lot of this anxiety
can dissipate.
DEHLIN: What if a good chunk of the
women who aren’t very interested in sex
only feel that way because their husbands
don’t know how to help them achieve orgasm?
Could a couple’s sex life improve if
the husband got a little savvier?
BUEHLER: Definitely. It’s kind of interesting
to me that women don’t always put those
two things together. They see their husband
getting a lot of pleasure from sexual
activity, but they’re not getting much out of
it themselves. If couples are more open to
exploring each other’s bodies and understanding
each other’s sexuality and being
freer with one another, then maybe there
wouldn’t be as much need for pornography.
We have a lot of problems with people
being suppressed. And it’s not just women
who have their sexuality suppressed—it’s
men, too. They may have developed the
idea that sex is dirty, or not something you
do with a “nice” woman. We have a lot of
sexual problems in our culture.
DEHLIN: Should a man get rid of the expectation
that mere penetration is going to lead
to his wife’s sexual satisfaction?
BUEHLER: Absolutely. Absolutely. Most
women find that they don’t have orgasm
through penetration.
PARKER: Seventy-five percent.
BUEHLER: One study showed that women
who have been in a relationship for a long
time are more likely to have a vaginal orgasm.
A lot of a woman’s response is bound
up in how much she trusts her partner and
how familiar she is with her own body. Men
shouldn’t feel like they have to bring their
wife to orgasm through intercourse only.
There are many other avenues.
It’s important for the couple to understand
female anatomy and the whole art of
lovemaking—the nuanced touching and
caressing that leads a woman to become
aroused. Only when she is highly aroused
do you want to try for orgasm. Just
knowing that can be helpful.
When sex goes well, it is a wonderful
experience. But it becomes perilous when it
becomes too goal-oriented. A man can get
his ego bent out of joint if he can’t bring his
wife to orgasm, and a woman can feel guilty
and upset with herself. That’s not a good
scenario for the couple at all.
DEHLIN: And then if the woman feels as if
she has to “fake” the orgasm so the man
doesn’t feel rejected or sad, then that can
also drive her to want to avoid sex.
BUEHLER: And if at some point she can’t
keep up the charade and tells her husband
so, it can be devastating. “Faking it” may
seem like a good idea at first, but I think it
just leads to very bad feelings.
DEHLIN: Here’s my summary of what our
main points seem to have been. It sounds
like your advice to teens is to be moderate
about masturbation and pornography
usage: don’t have shame and guilt, use good
judgment. You seem to be arguing that masturbation
may even prevent sexual exploration
and the spread of venereal diseases.
BUEHLER: I would agree with that. We have
natural curiosity about our bodies and
about sex, and satisfying that natural curiosity
is a healthy thing.
DEHLIN: And when it comes to sex in marriage,
your mantra seems to be,
“Communicate, communicate, communicate.”
Both members of the relationship
need to give in order to come to a mutual
understanding about their shared sexuality.
BUEHLER: That’s a good summation.
DEHLIN: And then the final thing I’m
hearing you say is to make sure that sex is
pleasurable for both members of the
couple. It’s especially important to help
the wife achieve orgasm regularly. The
wife may need to explore herself, even
through masturbation, so she can become
familiar with what brings her pleasure,
and then teach her husband how to help
with that—and that is likely not going to
be through penetration alone, but
through oral sex or manual manipulation
or whatever. You’re saying that couples
can increase their mutual sexual satisfaction,
making pornography and masturbation
less of an issue.
BUEHLER: I think you summed it up really
well. The more you communicate about sex,
the more you’ll enjoy it as a couple.
NOTES
1. Milton Diamond, “Pornography, Public
Acceptance and Sex Related Crime: A Review,”
International Journal of Law & Psychiatry (vol. 32
no. 5), 304–314.
Dr. Stephanie Buehler’s book, Sex, Love,
and Mental Illness: A Couple’s Guide to
Staying Connected is available in bookstores
everywhere. Her website is
thebuehlerinstitute.com, where visitors
can link to a free e-book, Sexual
Discoveries: 25 Secrets for Incredible Sex.
Natasha Helfer Parker’s website is:
natashaparker.org. She also blogs at:
mormontherapist.blogspot.com.
OCTOBER 2011 PAGE 75

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B R AV I N G T H E B O R D E R L A N D S . . .
UNUSUAL TALES FROM
THE BORDERLANDS
I
N THIS COLUMN, I share some unusual—and
sometimes troubling—experiences
and observations from four
Borderlanders. I’ve changed the names of
the first three. To respond, please send an
email to jeff@eburton.com. I will forward
your messages and may include some responses
in a later column. 1
JACOB: Having been attracted to both men
and women since my teens, I am what is
sometimes referred to as a bisexual man.
After a typical LDS upbringing, I went to
BYU, met a wonderful woman, married in
the temple, and fathered three children. We
were all very active in the Church and, to
all appearances, a standard Mormon family.
During all those years, I did not act on
my attraction to men. But later, my work
required me to travel overseas for extended
periods. During these times away from
home, I met and became attached to a man.
One thing led to another, and we had sex.
I knew my actions were terribly wrong
and sought counseling. Somehow my wife
suspected that I might have stepped out on
her. Although she knew no details—especially
not that I had been involved with a
man—she asked me about it directly. Bad
as they were, I told her the facts. I said I
would never commit the act again and was
trying to repent for it. I asked for her forgiveness.
I so wanted our marriage and
family unit to survive; I was willing to do
by D. Jeff Burton
FIGURE 1. GROUPS IN THE LDS ORBIT
1—CORE MEMBERS: true believers, unwaveringly supportive,
the acceptable.
2—BORDERLANDS MEMBERS: those who consider
themselves faithful to and part of the Church but don’t fit
comfortably in Group 1.
3—MEMBERS-OF-RECORD ONLY: non-participators,
non-believers, non-supporters.
DOTS—previous members, prior investigators, and
non-LDS family members.
whatever was needed.
Of course, my wife was stunned, hurt,
betrayed, and furious. She sought counsel
from friends, family, and the bishopric.
Some, including one bishop’s counselor,
strongly urged her to divorce me, and she
did. Ward members and neighbors soon
knew the “sordid” details, and I was pushed
into the Borderlands, where I still live.
Everyone seemed to rally around my wife,
but I felt little, if any, support from my ward
leadership. I was the expendable one, the
throw-away.
I hoped that if I fully cooperated in the
divorce proceedings, went through the
Church’s repentance process, and showed
my wife that I loved her and our children,
she might in time change her mind and be
willing to reestablish our eternal family. She
stayed in the family home, and I moved out
of the stake. I’ve been very attentive to my
family’s needs, paying child support and
trying to spend as much time with them as
possible. I even tried to go to church with
my kids, but met many objections from
local Church leaders and others.
I completed the Church’s repentance
process of excommunication and rebaptism.
I am celibate to this day and observe
all Church teachings, except that I am in arrears
on my tithing. Key to my continuing
efforts is my desire to see my sealing with
my ex-wife preserved, and I hope progress
can still be made in healing our family, even
if in the afterlife.
The years have passed, but my hopes
D. JEFF BURTON is an author and a former member of the Sunstone Board of Directors.
have not been realized. My wife has married
again; our children have grown. I feel
completely rejected, and one of my children
still perceives me as very suspect.
When I asked priesthood leaders if we
were still sealed, they told me yes—that
unless there had been a cancellation, the
sealing was still in place, though subject to
my ex-wife’s future wishes. However, when
my wife asked her leaders the same question,
they said no—because I had been excommunicated,
we were not sealed. I asked
my current stake president (a good man)
for clarification and was told that both answers
were right, but I needed to have my
blessings “fully restored” in order for the
sealing to be valid. Because of financial
problems, I have not been a full tithing
payer. Thus, I couldn’t get all my blessings
back yet. I asked if he would be willing to
help with a posthumous restoration of
blessings should I die before I could catch
up on my tithing. At first, because I was not
current on tithes, he said “no,” but later he
said he would do it.
What upsets me most is the seeming
willingness of the local ward and stake
leadership to see my family and me sacrificed,
first on the altar of their biases, and
later on the altar of money (I must “pay for
blessings”). Everyone has seemed to ignore
my desire to keep my family together and
to heal my past sins. This whole episode
has not drawn me closer to the Church nor
back to Group 1. Indeed, it has made me
feel that Church membership is all about
money and control, not about helping individuals
and family.
What have others experienced along
these lines? Any suggestions?
JEFF: Thanks for sharing your story with
our readers. Let’s see what responses this
column generates.
MARY: I have been married for ten happy
years to an inactive Mormon from a very
active LDS family. I am not an LDS Church
member, nor is my family of origin.
I think that the LDS Church provides
good structure and programs for children
and families and promotes a healthy
lifestyle. It also seems to provide teachings
on how to be a good Christian during this
lifetime, maybe even better teachings than
other Christian religions offer. As a whole, I
think very highly of the LDS people I’ve
met or known.
We have two children, ages five and
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eight. My husband would love for all of us
to join up and be active in the LDS Church
together. Unfortunately over the years, I
have read things about Church doctrines
and teachings that have raised serious issues.
I am also bugged by Mormons bearing
their testimonies to me. They seem to do it
more for their benefit than mine, as if trying
to reaffirm their own beliefs instead of imparting
any spiritual information to me.
These testimony-bearing incidents usually
happen when I ask a question about some
LDS doctrine or teaching. It’s frustrating because
I’m only looking for information.
I’m trying to determine if I can take part
in the LDS experience for the sake of my
husband and children. Can I go to church,
participate in family home evenings, get involved
in the activities, but not fully accept
the doctrine or Church proceedings?
From reading your columns, I note that
others have felt the way I do now. The various
approaches you suggest others use to
deal with these problems address many of
my concerns, and reading them gives me
hope.
JEFF: I think you can find suitable ways of
integrating yourself into your husband’s
and children’s Mormonism. Just do what
feels comfortable and allows you to be
honest. Go as far as you can with that fuel.
Time will likely expand your horizons. An
initial approach might be to simply tell
members, “I am not a true believer, but I
want to participate in church with my husband
and children. So I’ll use the doctrines
and practices that work for me. Is that okay
with you?”
As for the doctrines, teachings, and
unique LDS practices you are not able to
accept yet, you might simply ignore the
doctrine and theology and instead concentrate
on the human, the now, the good, the
opportunities for service, and your family’s
needs.
MARY (sometime later): Well, we have
started attending church with our kids.
Depending on the day’s topic in the Gospel
Principles class, it can be a bit of a challenge
for me to sit and listen to doctrine I
don’t necessarily believe—or in
Mormonese, doctrine I don’t have a testimony
of. I barely made it through the
“Final Judgment” lesson last week and am
not looking forward to “Exaltation” next
week. From what I’ve read, it outlines each
commandment and doctrine a person is required
to adhere to.
I have to come to terms with trying to fit
into a religion that withholds blessings
from those who don’t adhere to its doctrines,
teachings, and commandments. I
would be happier if these religious activities
were a source of comfort for me, and a
refuge from the world at large. But I realize
that won’t happen unless I am fully converted.
Our kids are doing okay at church, but
they are starting to realize that, as a family,
we don’t follow all the “rules.”
For now I’ll have to remain a fencesitter,
which may get more uncomfortable
as time goes on. So I’ll work on trying to get
comfortable up there. Perhaps a large
cushion might help.
JEFF: Any suggestions from our readers on
how to pump up Mary’s cushion?
OLIVER: While a teenager in the eastern
United States, I converted to the Church.
Then I went on a mission, and married an
LDS woman. Now, in my early thirties, I’m
a relatively new subscriber to SUNSTONE. I
recently read your column, “Protecting and
Strengthening Your Marriage,” and found it
very interesting and useful. Who developed
the “Groups in the LDS Orbit” model? How
is it supposed to be interpreted?
JEFF: I call that model the “fried egg.” The
yolk represents core members; the egg
white is a group of “members of record
only,” and a fairly thin membrane between
the two is where Borderlanders are located.
The reasons people find themselves between
the core group and the non-participating
group vary. Most of us understand
that if five hundred Mormons are sitting in
a chapel, five hundred different versions of
Mormonism will be represented. The differences
are often small and unspoken but can
sometimes be quite large. Thus, the “fried
egg” model doesn’t always fit every person’s
situation. Where would you place yourself
in that simplified model?
OLIVER: That is difficult to explain. Maybe
a little background will help.
My perception is that Mormon pioneers
had a raw “fire in the belly” that brought
them close together, despite their diverse
set of personalities and backgrounds. They
had a sense of mission which I am sure was
intensified by the newness of the Church
and the persecution it endured. There was a
feeling of fellowship and an attitude of
working together for a common goal.
I don’t feel that kind of fellowship in our
ward and stake. On the whole, Church
members have done well in our society, creating
a kind of cultural security blanket. So
fellowship or togetherness seems to be built
on socializing instead of on mission. (I may
sound cynical but don’t necessarily mean to
be.) Fellowship seems to be all about the
board-game nights, the dances, dinners and
parties, the BYU bond, and other socializing
behaviors, some of which I openly
OCTOBER 2011 PAGE 77

S U N S T O N E
criticize (at least with my wife and nonmember
friends). My church experience
hasn’t provided me a strong sense of mission
and Christian service.
Many born and raised in the Church
may know only that socializing foundation—that
“weak fellowship” culture. If so,
how will they work their way to a spiritual
conversion and find a sense of mission? I’m
worried that this kind of conversion happens
only rarely among this population.
So, I suppose I do find myself somewhere
outside the yolk. As a convert, I’ve
retained a religious past which was centered
on service and work. My wife and I
sometimes skip Church social events to engage
in public service efforts. Sometimes
ward members in the “yolk” perceive us as
being inactive, or at least disconnected
from the CTR track.
A better “yolk” (a purer one, in my
view) would be one in which this “inward
comfort” is changed to a focus on getting
out to mingle with, work with, and give
Christian service to non-members.
I don’t mean all this as criticism . . . well,
maybe I do.
JEFF: Thanks for your story. This is another
facet of living in the Borderlands that we
haven’t dealt with much in the column. So,
readers, please respond.
BRAD [his real name]: I grew up in Idaho,
served a mission, and then began a sevenyear
stint at BYU, finishing a biology degree,
then an MPA and a JD. For six of
those seven years, I was very happy and felt
I fit in just fine. I won intramural championships,
took extra classes in several disciplines,
dated like crazy, served in elders
quorums, led student service organizations,
attended devotionals, and worked as a
teaching assistant. However, instead of rich
and rewarding BYU activities, my final year
has been filled with anxiety and loss.
I love to exercise my mind by evaluating
issues I care about, such as happiness, personhood,
epistemology, equality, governance,
decision-making, and bioethics. Last
year I became interested in homosexuality,
a topic that, because I’m completely heterosexual,
had never really been on my radar.
I’m a binge learner, and once I started on
this topic, I couldn’t stop researching. I became
a teaching assistant for a bioethics
class where readings and discussion on homosexuality
constitute one week of the
curriculum. The moral gravity of LDS homosexual
issues grabbed me, and I gathered
a lot of data. I decided to summarize
the subject in a book, and over a threeweek
period, the book seemed to come
through me. In short, I felt inspired. I began
to sell the initial book to libraries and bookstores
(it sold out at the BYU bookstore).
Now I am seeking a publisher.
Distributing my book had its costs. Soon
after I completed the first draft, my mainstream
LDS girlfriend decided we needed to
separate. The MPA program declined to
nominate me for the presidential management
fellow program, a nomination I had
been counting on and working toward for
years. My parents were upset; my bishop
called me into his office several times;
deans at BYU’s Law School wanted to
“warn” me. Nevertheless, I persisted. And
every day I feared BYU would block me
from graduating.
I attended the Sunstone Symposium last
summer and have subsequently read extensively
in the Mormon blogosphere. I feel
there is an undercurrent of people who
could help the Church transition to a more
democratic, less hierarchical, less fundamentalist
culture. There is far too much
richness inside and outside the Church to
justify the kind of limited worldview I
spent about a quarter century immersed in.
I’m hoping that this undercurrent will grow
with the rise of my generation and its successor.
JEFF: What a story. Thanks for being open
and sharing your thoughts. You are one of
the few Borderlanders who have been able
or willing to “come out” in the column
with your real identity. Readers: Any
thoughts for Brad? 2
NOTES
1. All past columns are available for download
at www.forthosewhowonder.com. This is column 41.
2. At the August Sunstone Symposium at Weber
State University in Ogden, Utah, Brad Carmack
chaired session UT11315, concerning issues related
to gays and gay marriage. He also presented a paper
“Why Mormonism Can Abide Gay Marriage,”
UT11342. At the same symposium, I chaired session
UT11122 about Borderland experiences.
Please send me your
experiences from life
in the Borderlands.
D. Jeff Burton,
djeffburton@gmail.com
PAINTING
My daughter says the best gift
for Christmas was painting
four daughters’ nails—
not figures frescoed
on massive walls
or pastoral scenes sketched
on canvas
but eighty ovals brushed
brilliant,
cotton balls scrunched
between toes—
and, oh, the talk while waiting.
After mom’s funeral,
nothing more we can do,
our eyes heavy and weary,
my daughters and I
stretch out on a bed
while I paint their nails.
During these elongated moments
I forget where I am
and why.
I think I see portraits
in miniature,
women who came before
and those yet to be,
cameos in relief,
seraphim and cherubim
hovering near small moons,
icon faces of saints,
each oval a token,
a passage.
ANITA TANNER
PAGE 78 OCTOBER 2011

S U N S T O N E
Y
EARS AGO MY mother ran across
the following piece of doggerel. She
was tickled by its message and decided to
share it with all six of her grown children.
WHEN I’M ALITTLE OLD LADY
Then I’ll live with my children and bring
them great joy
to repay all I’ve had from each girl and boy.
I shall draw on the walls and scuff up the floor;
run in and out without closing the door.
I’ll hide frogs in the pantry, socks under my bed.
Whenever they scold me, I’ll just hang my head.
I’ll run and I’ll romp, always fritter away
the time to be spent doing chores every day.
I’ll pester my children when they’re on the phone
as long as they’re busy, won’t leave them alone.
Hide candy in closets, rocks in a drawer,
and never pick up my clothes from the floor.
Dash off to the movies and not wash a dish
I’ll plead for allowance whenever I wish.
I’ll stuff up the plumbing and deluge the floor,
as soon as they’ve fixed it, I’ll flood it some more.
When they correct me, I’ll lie down and cry,
kicking and screaming not a tear in my eye.
I’ll take all their pencils and flashlights and then,
when they buy new ones, I’ll take them again.
I’ll spill glasses of milk to complete every meal,
eat my banana and just drop the peel.
Put toys on the table, spill jam on the floor,
I’ll break lots of dishes as though I were four.
What fun I shall have, what joy it will be
T H E FA M I LY F O R U M
DISCIPLINE
by Michael Farnworth, Ed.D.
Before we were sent to earth, were we warned never to do violence,
but that we would inevitably be victims of it and very
likely from the hands of our own family? Historically and
statistically, our spiritual, emotional, and physical safety is
most threatened by our family, the people who profess to love
us the most.
to live with my children like they lived with me.
—AUTHOR UNKNOWN
It wasn’t the most flattering thing I’ve
received from my mother. It made me
wonder how much resentment she bore
toward my childhood self. That thought
reminded me of the years I spent as a
child under her rule, and I realized that
the poem needed a response from a child’s
point of view. So I created the following
reply.
A CONSIDERED RESPONSE TO
THE LITTLE OLD LADY
I’d be happy to have my mother come back
and live with us, that mean old bat!
I’d smack her around and pull on her ear.
I’d spank her butt and yell till she feared!
I’d do all the things she did to us;
the things I could tell you would make her blush!
I’d sit her in the corner when she didn’t behave,
I’d lecture her long, about an hour each day.
I’d scold her for being inquisitive, then say,
Mind your own business, you busy old bray!
I’d ground her, I’d spank her; I’d shame her a lot.
Then act as if she were being the mean little snot!
I’d call her names like slow as a poke—
maybe messy and dirty and you little old dope.
I might even scream, “You make me crazy
at times!
Please, please go away, here’s a nickel and dime!”
MICHAEL FARNWORTH, Ed.D., retired from Ricks College after 31 years of teaching
family psychology. He is married to Cindi Halliday and is father to Brad, Camie, and
Jeff, along with their spouses Melinda, Nate, and Lindsay. He is grandpa to Joel.
Contact him at: farnworthm@yahoo.com.
Yes, my good old mom would be in for a shock
if she came back to live with me on my block!
But fair is fair in this reversal of roles.
What goes around comes around, everyone knows!
So what of the moral? I’ll give you a clue:
The fun you felt would pass into the blues
If you had to live with us like we lived with you!
E
XCEPT in cases of severe abuse that
receive attention from authorities, parents
are usually insulated from the consequences
of their behavior toward their
children. I knew a family with a young
adult daughter who had the brain development
of a five- or six-year-old. She could be
loving and docile but could also throw terrible,
violent tantrums. She would try to
make her parents shut up and threaten to
hit them if they didn’t stop doing things she
didn’t like. I can’t help but wonder if she
was giving back to her parents what she’d
received from them.
Since the family is the basic building
block of our culture, the child’s perception
of right and wrong is shaped largely by the
cultural values the family embraces.
Mormon parents are in an especially interesting
place. They are trying to be disciples
of Christ, but they feel pressure to produce
children who fit cultural expectations. So
they turn to the tools most readily available
to them: discipline and punishment.
Some research suggests that more than
ninety percent of us receive corporal punishment
as children. And because discipline
patterns tend to get passed down,
generation after generation of parents will
continue to use violence to socialize their
children.
The problem with our culture’s form of
discipline is its preoccupation with control
and power. We sometimes immerse our
children in a discipline based on punishment:
hitting, spanking, threats, punitive
manipulation, and shame. Our culture justifies
these actions by preaching that whatever
we parents do is for children’s own
good; that we need to prepare our children
for the “real world”; that our success as parents
is determined by our children’s obedience;
and that the honoring of parents is
more important than the honoring of children.
Instead of examining our real selves, of
trying to discover our true identity as we
journey through life, we are distracted by
the outer demands of society. We rely on
the gauges of worldly appearance and pretence.
We embrace the cultural values of
control and power even though they are
corrosive to our souls and displace the
OCTOBER 2011 PAGE 79

S U N S T O N E
things of God. Parents who
place obedience above all
else often are willing to sacrifice
the child’s inner sense
of value for the approval of
others.
Most of us know that disciple
is the root word of discipline.
A disciple learns and
practices the teachings of a
master teacher and then
helps to spread those teachings.
So parents should be
the master teachers while
the children are disciples.
But most young Mormon
parents, usually in their 20’s
and 30’s, aren’t ready to be
master teachers. At a stage
in life when they’re barely
starting to figure themselves
out, they’re certainly not
ready to mentor other
people.
Parenting and discipline
are meant to be part of the
spiritual journey toward
wholeness—not toward
culturally prescribed behaviors.
Both parent and child
should be involved in the
journey—parents learning
of life’s lessons from the
Master (Christ) while children
absorb a curriculum of
compassion and understanding. This
journey is fundamentally different if we
follow the culture instead of Christ.
Before we were sent to earth, were we
warned never to do violence, even though
we would inevitably be victims of it and
very likely from the hands of our own
family? Historically and statistically, our
spiritual, emotional, and physical safety is
most threatened by our family, the people
who profess to love us the most. Sociology
professor Murray A. Straus wrote: “The
group to which most people look for love
and gentleness is also the most violent
civilian group in our society.”
Consider Mary’s job as the mother of
Jesus. Was her firstborn a sweet-tempered
thing, always willing to help, continually
thinking of others, never rambunctious,
never making a mess, and never expressing
an opinion different from his mother’s or father’s?
I doubt it. Likely, Jesus sometimes
wore his mother down, sometimes behaved
in socially unacceptable ways, leaving her
to figure out how to respond to him. How
did she parent the world’s Savior when he
Parents who place obedience
above all else often are willing to
sacrifice the child’s inner sense of
value for the approval of others.
became exasperating? Did she sometimes
spank him?
As a young father, I spanked and hit my
own children and felt justified in doing so.
Then I concluded that it was immoral to
hit people in order to control a situation or
make myself feel better, especially if I were
hitting the children who were supposed to
be under my care. My younger self probably
would have thought that spanking the
Christ child was acceptable, but now I
would be too apprehensive of what might
happen if I, as his parent, hit him. I
wouldn’t be afraid that he would zap me
with heavenly power; rather, I would
worry that my action was morally reprehensible
and indefensible. And when I
read the scripture that says: Inasmuch as
ye have done it unto one of the least of
these . . . ye have done it unto me. I again
worry about how I parented my own children.
I
N The Biology of Transcendence, Joseph
Chilton Pearce writes that children begin
with an exuberance towards life which
Jean Piaget spoke of as “an unquestioned
acceptance of the given.” Everything is exciting,
wonderful, and crying out to be experienced—that
is, until fear or shame
becomes part of the child’s world. When I
engaged in violent parenting, I instilled
pockets of fear and shame into my children.
When children begin to doubt themselves
and fear their world, everything
changes. They feel stressed and inadequate;
they hesitate to attempt new things;
they become spiritually anemic. In fact,
when parents are never satisfied and continually
harass their children to be better,
the child’s neurological functions become
skewed.
According to neuroscientist Paul
MacLean, the lower brain is responsible
for survival action, the middle part is responsible
for emotions, and the upper
area is responsible for thinking. From
Harville Hendrix’s book, Getting the Love
You Want, I use two terms—”old brain,”
which includes the stem and limbic areas
of the brain, and “new brain,” which includes
the neo-cortex, or thinking area,
Mas o n Br ad l ey —is t o c k ph o t o .c o M
PAGE 80 OCTOBER 2011

S U N S T O N E
of the brain
Our old brain was fully functional at
birth. We were breathing, our organs
were functioning, and we could express
fear, discomfort, and contentment.
Instead of language, our old brain dealt
with images and feelings. We were reactionary,
instinctual, survival-oriented
creatures. Our new brain—our sensory,
motor, thinking, and language center—
had been installed, but it was very immature.
Not until we were seven or eight
years old did the new brain begin to dominate,
and not until our mid- twenties did
it develop to full maturity.
The old brain does not recognize linear
time, so fears and feelings that developed in
early childhood can still live on in our adult
brain. Accessing and working with these
old, embedded feelings is very difficult, as
they are powerful and resistant to change.
As William Faulkner wrote, “The past isn’t
dead; it isn’t even past.” A look, a tone of
voice, a smell, or a memory can trigger old
brain energies from childhood that set off a
sequence of behavior beyond the conscious
control of the new brain.
Shame, stress, threat, and fear activate
the reflexive old brain into survival mode,
and the higher cognitive functions of the
new brain are put on hold. Professor of
neurology Robert Sapolsky describes the effects
chronic stress has on adults: “It suppresses
the immune system—causing
sickness; it slows and disrupts growth; it
erodes memory; it disrupts the ability to
learn; it blocks the formation of new neurons
in the brain; it can permanently
damage the memory function of the hippocampus;
it slowly kills.” As frightening
as these effects are on adults, imagine how
much more powerful their consequences
are upon children.
When parents create a discipline environment
of shame and fear to enforce
obedience, their children will spend
much time in “old brain” survival strategies
of fight, flight, or freeze, stunting
their higher neurological development.
Parents’ verbal and physical acts of violence,
done in the name of meeting the
demands of our culture, may end up
squelching the higher brain development
we desire for our children. When children’s
obedience is motivated out of fear,
or when children believe that obedience
is the only way to receive love, children
can get stuck in lower brain development.
Obedience becomes survival behavior.
There are spiritual consequences to this
transformation. Children unable to meet
their parents’ high expectations blame
themselves. They grow up marinating in a
stew of failure, which generates vanity. The
Hebrew word for vanity denotes a sense of
emptiness, falsehood, and worthlessness.
These children defend themselves against
this deep-seated sense of inadequacy by
fantasizing about being an unattainable
self; they compare themselves unfavorably
with others, thus breeding even more insecurity.
This feeling of worthlessness causes
people to hide from themselves and others,
an act dishonest to themselves, to others,
and ultimately to God.
Vanity likely undergirds much of our
good and bad parental behaviors. We displace
our own sense of childhood failures
with exaggerated feelings of both adult superiority
and inferiority. We start the
process all over again in our children by
setting impossible expectations for them,
hoping to obtain the approval of the society
at large and thus feel better about our children
and ourselves.
Certainly each generation of children
deserves better discipline than that their
parents were served. A discipline of compassion
and Christ-consciousness tastes
much different than our culture’s often violent
agenda of control and power. We
parents can improve, but we must
awaken from our cultural slumber to do
so, and that is a difficult thing to do. We
are usually only willing to change paradigms
in response to crisis situations.
Voluntary conversion is much easier, but
often we don’t see the unintended consequences
of our parenting tactics until
they have already rooted themselves in
our children. The next column will introduce
ideas for expanding and understanding
our interactions with our
offspring.
MY SISTER WANTS ME TO COME AND READ
THROUGH THIRTY YEARS OF DIARIES
in the house overlooking
rainbent pines,
in the life others
would envy she loses her
self in fragments. How
could we have changed so
she asks over the
phone. How could I not
still be eleven in front
of the old Plymouth
on Main street,
Mother Younger there
than I am now. Beginnings.
What might go, pressed
flat as a daisy from
someone she tries to
remember like a deaf
man remembers an
opera he heard
eleven years ago.
My sister, fragile, as
in demand as those flowers
has found her days
losing color, turning thin,
breakable as those nearly
transparent brittle leaves.
Nothing bends
like the pines. Her
days are a shelf of
blown glass buds
a heart beat could shatter. Come
she says We can laugh
at what seemed so
serious then. Maybe from
what happened in the
apartment when the
roof fell in or
at Nanny’s as Herbert
was dying we can
know something about
the stories we
haven’t begun yet.
LYN LIFSHIN
OCTOBER 2011 PAGE 81

S U N S T O N E
Among the First
by J. Frederick (Toby) Pingree
J. FREDERICK (TOBY) PINGREE is a lifelong
disciple of Elder Hanks, and, under
Hanks’ personal endorsement, has served as
chair of the Sunstone Board of Directors.
A
LONG WITH NEWS of this beloved
Church leader’s death came much
well-deserved recognition of the extraordinary
fullness of the life he’d lived.
Collectively, those who had known him
hailed Elder Hanks as a genuine “Man for
All Seasons”—an author and scholar, a remarkable
humanitarian, an accomplished
athlete, an advisor to five U.S. presidents, a
Boy Scout in the truest sense, a general authority
for five decades, a mission president,
a temple president, a New Era editor,
a counselor to and leader of governmental
and international service organizations—
the list could go on. He personified what
being a disciple of Christ means: reaching
out to embrace and lift the poor and downtrodden,
standing up to the proud and the
mighty, sharing testimony of Christ at all
times and in all places, rendering service
whether recognized or not, giving liberally
to worthy causes.
But my recognition of Duff Hanks’
legacy is personal and intimate: how my life
was influenced by 63 years of association
with the man. In the fall of 1947, I entered
Salt Lake’s West High School and grudgingly
enrolled in early morning seminary.
While completing his law degree at the
University of Utah, Duff (as we always
called him) was our teacher, and it was his
first year on the job. From the beginning,
all of my reservations about seminary—
and those of my callow comrades—evaporated
as our teacher worked to know us
each personally, treated us like peers, and
talked thoughtfully and poignantly of the
Savior and of prophets, both ancient and
modern.
I N M E M O R I A M
MARION D. HANKS
AND CHIEKO N. OKAZAKI
I could be a firebrand, and one day I accosted
a sociology teacher about his alleged
affiliation with the Communist Party.
I think Duff thought my aggressive behavior
was juvenile, but during the next
class, he commented on it in such a way
that I felt validated for being willing to
take on an established authority figure
when I sincerely perceived a threat to our
way of government.
But he also challenged me in subtle but
enduring ways. One day, he told us about
a family of African-Americans who had
joined the Church prior to his arrival in
Cincinnati as a missionary. Perceiving that
their attendance caused a conspicuous decline
in participation by white folks, they
had stopped coming to services. Each
Sunday thereafter, Elder Hanks and fellow
missionaries traveled to the family’s farm
outside of town to hold sacrament
meeting with them. As I listened, a keen
feeling settled on my heart that something
was not right. In telling the story, Duff said
nothing derogatory about the Church nor
its members, but I sensed that he had been
quietly protesting. Duff’s powerful, unadorned
tale of good faith and steadfastness
in the face of injustice would
encourage and console me years later
when my disagreement with the Church
establishment on blacks and the priesthood
came close to open rebellion.
Naturally, my intense, constant relationship
with Duff at West High diminished
significantly when I moved on to the
University of Utah. But later, he became
part of that era’s fabled University of Utah
Institute of Religion faculty, along with
Lowell Bennion, T. Edgar Lyon, and George
Boyd—a group of L.D.S. Church teachers
that Sterling McMurrin considered the
finest ever assembled. Although Duff’s
classes were invariably overenrolled, I managed
to gain entry to a few. But the demands
of university teaching and “General
Authoritying” in his life, along with my
growing involvement in university life,
meant that our paths crossed less and less
frequently.
The years passed, and I moved around
the world—to the mission field, military
service, graduate school, four different
work locations outside of Utah, and a mission
presidency. My contact with Duff was
occasional and usually brief, occurring
when he would tour a mission in my locale,
preside at a stake conference in my area, or
address a professional group with which I
was affiliated. No matter how brief or intermittent
the contact, however, Duff always
treated me with the same graciousness and
dignity that I remembered from those West
High seminary days.
Through the years, Duff became a wellknown
and highly respected person within
the Church and throughout the world. His
general conference talks were eagerly anticipated,
and requests for his time and talents
came from all quarters. The special competence
he demonstrated in many fields over
the years, and the relatively young age (31)
at which he had been called as a general authority,
led many to expect that he would
one day ascend the Church ladder and become
an apostle, much as had Richard L.
Evans, whom Duff had succeeded among
the seven presidents of the Seventy in 1953.
But it wasn’t to be: Duff was released
to emeritus status around age 70, the
now-prescribed retirement time for
Quorum of Seventy members. Though it
was never verified, a rumor grew in
Church gossip circles that Duff had incurred
the displeasure of one or more of
those at the top of the Church hierarchy
MARION D. HANKS
PAGE 82 OCTOBER 2011

S U N S T O N E
by challenging certain orthodoxies.
The last time I met with Duff was in the
lobby of the Joseph Smith Building (formerly
Hotel Utah). He was well past retirement
and showing signs of age. He told me
of many of his experiences with other
Church authorities, remarking that in the
years before blacks had been given full fellowship
in the Church, many of his Church
colleagues had struggled as he had with this
gross inequity, hoping and praying for its
resolution. He described the deep personal
satisfaction he’d felt at being able to represent
the Lord in many places, under a wide
range of circumstances, to diverse people of
all races, social strata, nations, and religious
persuasions.
As we parted, I had the temerity to ask
him why, in his view and considering his
great influence and longevity as a general
authority, he had not risen to a more prominent
Church position. He smiled, and
mildly chastened me with a statement that
“one serves in the Lord’s Church where and
when one is called, and for long as one is
called.”
Then, after a pause, and with a twinkle
in his eye, he ventured that the Lord had
not selected him for further advancement
because “He knew me too well and loved
me too much.” I do not know whether it
was the Lord who chose not to elevate Duff
in this mortal context, but I am certain to
my core that among those who are chosen
to be known and loved by the Lord, Marion
Duff Hanks is among the first.
CHIEKO NISHIMURA OKAZAKI
Coming Home
by Paula Jensen Goodfellow
PAULA JENSEN GOODFELLOW, one of the
founding mothers of the DAM Women Retreat
(www.rockymountainretreat.org), recently
completed an MA in speech-language
pathology. If Mormon tchotchke makers sold
bracelets that read “WWCD” (What would
Chieko do?), Paula would totally buy one
I
N THE EARLY 1990’s, I lived in
Westminster, Colorado, a suburb of
Denver. In those dark days of dial-up
modems and primitive web browsers, we
felt relatively isolated from events in Utah.
Despite this disconnection, I began to hear
news from friends about the new Relief
Society presidency. They were feisty, independent,
well-educated women. My friend
in New Mexico said that Sister Okazaki, the
new first counselor, had visited her stake
and that she was an incredibly strong
speaker with a very personable manner.
A few months later, I heard that Sister
Okazaki was coming to our stake. I was
sure there would be a big crowd, so I arrived
early. Very early. Early enough that I
actually crashed the leadership meeting before
the main meeting.
I saw Chieko standing at the pulpit: a
tiny woman wearing a simple fuchsia dress.
During the question and answer session, it
became clear that her outward appearance
masked an intelligent, caring, and strong
woman. When male leaders asked questions,
she didn’t use the cloying, highpitched,
unsure Relief Society voice; she
didn’t defer to them. Instead she told the
leaders directly, clearly, and strongly what
they should do. When a Relief Society president
asked for guidance on working with
her bishopric, Sister Okazaki told the
woman to go back to her leaders and tell
them what she needed from them and to
explain how it should be done.
At one point during the main meeting, I
was startled and pleased to realize that she
was quoting from Exponent II. And as she
spoke, she leaned forward, gripping the
podium, stating her message forcefully. Her
talk was grounded in the teachings of Jesus,
emphasizing kindness and love. She urged
us to not be so hard on ourselves. She was
pleased with us as we were.
Listening to this woman speak, I felt as
if—having been trapped for many years on
another planet—I had finally received the
message that it was time to come home. I
felt more hope for women in the Church
that day than ever before.
A few years later, she came to the Rocky
Mountain Retreat for LDS Women.
Although she was there as the keynote
speaker, she didn’t hold herself apart from
the rest of us. I saw her spending hours
talking with the women there, listening to
them, and sharing her own opinions.
Sister Okazaki made the Church a better
place because she was not submissive and
deferential but took herself seriously as a
daughter of God. She amplified her talents
much as did the faithful servant in Jesus’s
parable. Here’s to many more Mormon
women like her.
Breaking Free of
Cookie-Cutter
Mormonism
by Mary Ellen Robertson
MARY ELLEN ROBERTSON is Sunstone’s director
of outreach and symposia and was the
first LDS woman to complete the women’s
studies in religion MA program at Claremont
Graduate School.
C
HIEKO OKAZAKI’S SEVEN-YEAR
tenure in the General Relief Society
Presidency (March 1990–April 1997) coincided
with my progress into adulthood—
my last two years of college, my
post-graduation wanderings, my acceptance
into Claremont Graduate School’s
women’s studies in religion program, connecting
with like-minded Mormons via
email lists, and figuring out life as a single
LDS woman.
Chieko’s talks were always a highlight in
general conference—engaging, instructive,
and, for me, the equivalent of a window
being thrown open to air a stuffy room.
Likewise, her books were a source of inspiration
and instruction, liberally seasoned
with humor, grace, and realness.
Six months after her release from the
General Relief Society Presidency, Chieko
spoke at a four-stake women’s conference in
Pasadena, California. This was my first and
only experience hearing Chieko speak
live—and uncorrelated. The chapel and
cultural hall were packed with women
eager to hear her.
The conference theme was “Discover
the Joy,” based on D&C 42:61: “If thou
OCTOBER 2011 PAGE 83

S U N S T O N E
shalt ask, thou shalt receive revelation
upon revelation, knowledge upon knowledge,
that thou mayest know the mysteries
and peaceable things—that which bringeth
joy, that which bringeth life eternal.”
Chieko began by holding up four cookie
cutters and asking the congregation what
they thought cookie cutters had to do with
joy. Many associated them with the warmth
of cooking and raising children.
Chieko said we get many promissory
notes at Church: If we have family home
evening, our kids will get along. If we’re
obedient, we’ll be happy. If we work harder,
do better, or do things more times, we’ll be
blessed. She pointed out that the scripture
the conference theme was based on focused
on gospel basics—not all the things we’re
supposed to do.
She described things that are supposed
to bring women joy. Mothers, for example,
are supposed to find total joy and fulfillment
in bearing and raising children; single
women are supposed to find joy in
preparing to marry and have families;
widows like herself are supposed to find joy
in enduring to the end.
Chieko compared these ideals to a café’s
Blue Plate Special and worried that women
in the Church are too often presented with
a meal or a message that may not fill their
actual needs. The problem with messages
delivered like Blue Plate Specials is that
they don’t treat women as individuals.
Chieko wondered if others felt as she did
sometimes—she doesn’t want one more
Blue Plate Special and feels like she’ll gag
on what someone else is trying to feed her.
(At this point, it was difficult for me to restrain
the impulse to stand and cheer).
Chieko returned to her original analogy,
saying that we sometimes try to live cookie
cutter lives, and a time can come when
those boundaries don’t feel good anymore.
That’s when we need personal revelation
from our Heavenly Father and Heavenly
Mother. We shouldn’t lop parts of ourselves
off in order to fit someone else’s prescribed
shape.
In other words, cookie cutters are for
cookies—not human beings; we should
not try to live someone else’s life or pray
someone else’s prayer. She tossed the
cookie cutters into the audience for people
to keep and remember the message: women
are individuals with individual needs.
She said that if any of us felt useless,
worthless, unloved, or sad, to get help from
the Lord, the Relief Society president, the
bishop, family, or a therapist—make a
change. You are worth rearranging the environment
for, she insisted.
I spent the conference taking notes,
trying to keep up with Chieko’s brilliant
stream of ideas. A few days later, I typed the
notes and emailed them far and wide. Such
wisdom deserved wide circulation.
The feedback was immediate from all
quarters:
“This summary is something I can pass
on to three women friends in need today.”
“What a relief to hear something beyond
‘have faith’ and ‘write in your journals.’”
“Chieko speaks right where women are:
none of this ‘humble yourselves and follow
the formula’ stuff, because she knows that
women need a much different message.”
“What a stunningly beautiful and powerful
address. I’ve been trying to think why
it hit me so hard. That rare combination of
honesty, good sense, and the gospel?”
When news of Chieko’s 2 August 2011
passing began to circulate, a friend wrote to
say she remembered my notes from this
talk and lamented that Chieko was gone.
I attended Chieko’s memorial service in
Salt Lake on 10 August 2011. I felt her loss
keenly, as I’m sure thousands of LDS
women did who had been spiritually fed by
her life’s work. I was grateful that she conveyed
through her words and by her example
that there is more than one way to be
an LDS woman and that joy comes from developing
a firsthand, personal, intimate,
daily relationship with Jesus Christ.
The First and Last
Time with Chieko
by Phyllis Barber
PHYLLIS BARBER is most recently the author
of Raw Edges: A Memoir (University of
Nevada Press). Her essay, “The Knife
Handler,” published in AGNI 71, was noted in
The Best American Essays 2011 and The
Best American Travel Writing 2011.
IN 1997, AT the Snow Mountain
Retreat near Granby, Colorado, I met
Chieko. For the first and last time.
Even though this was my single encounter
with this graceful, elegant, almost mystical
woman, the meeting made a large imprint
on my mind.
We were both speakers at the Denver
Area Mormon (DAM) Women’s Retreat. At
the time, I considered myself a misunderstood,
rebel/fringe item who was in a
like/dislike relationship with my Mormon,
all-encompassing, surround-sound upbringing—and
my public remarks reflected
that state of mind, that uncertainty, that internal
debate.
Sometime after my speech, I stood
looking through a window at the outlines
of the black pine trees stark against the sky
as the sun slipped past the horizon. Chieko
came up to me, having heard my words and
read my writing. The gently observant
woman said something to the effect of:
“You have some issues with Mormonism,
don’t you?”
“Yes, I do,” I said bluntly, having long
ago given up any pretense.
“But you’re not bitter or anti. You have a
deep yearning for the truth and for God.
And it’s all right to take issue with
Mormonism. I, too, have my differences.”
This conversation had taken a turn from
what I’d expected from someone who’d
been in the presidency of the General Relief
Society. (Later, though, I heard Chieko
voice her discouragement with the way the
Church approaches homosexuality, and
better understood her words.)
She continued, “The Church needs you,
needs your mind and your perceptions.
Don’t go away. Stay.”
I looked into her eyes, and for one moment,
felt déjà vu trickling through my
veins. Somewhere, long ago, on some high
misty mountain in Japan, perhaps. A wise
woman with long gray hair falling over her
shoulders; small wooden sandals that
sounded in the quiet; a purple obi tied
around her long kimono. A fleeting image
in the shifting mist. We both turned to
other people waiting to have conversations,
but I felt as if a thread had tied itself to me,
a thread that connected us.
Chieko’s words have returned to me
many times when I’ve felt there was no
place for me on the pews of my ward or on
the Church’s membership rolls; words
spoken in the high mountains of Colorado
as the sun set behind jagged peaks.
PAGE 84 OCTOBER 2011

S U N S T O N E
LDS CHURCH, DOCTRINES RECEIVE
WIDE MEDIA ATTENTION
WITH THE BOOK OF MORMON MUSICAL PLAYING ON
Broadway, two Mormons running for president, and a polygamist
leader serving a life sentence for sexually assaulting
minors, Mormons are receiving a degree of media attention
not seen since the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics.
While the Church redoubles its efforts to project a hip, diverse
image through the “I’m a Mormon” campaign and
other web and broadcasting initiatives, Mormon scholars
and celebrities are making the rounds on radio and TV in an
effort to explain to the general public the nuts and bolts of
this peculiar faith.
“We’re jumping into the conversation because there is a
big one going on about Mormons, and we want to be a part
of it,” Stephen B. Allen, managing director of the Missionary
Department, told the Washington Post. “When someone goes
into Google, if the first 10 sites are people who hate us, we
lose in terms of our message.”
The “I’m a Mormon” campaign includes ads which have
been broadcast on TV and YouTube as well as taxi and
U P D A T E
subway signs. In the ads, men and women of various races
and backgrounds say something about their lives or professions
and end with the punchline, “ . . . and I’m a Mormon.”
Mormon watcher Jan Shipps told the Washington Post that
the Church spent $1 million alone on a Times Square billboard
located steps away from the theater where the Book of
Mormon musical plays.
According to the Post, the LDS Church is using “search
engine optimization” strategies to improve the visibility of
LDS websites through Google and other search engines.
“LDS impressed me with how they have leveraged inbound
marketing to dramatically improve their outreach,” web
consultant Justin Briggs wrote last December on distilled.net.
“Their strategy is much more forward thinking than many
organizations and companies.”
The cover of Newsweek’s June 13/20 issue featured a
leaping missionary fashioned after The Book of Mormon musical
ads but with Mitt Romney’s face superimposed. In the
main article, novelist Walter Kirn, a former Mormon, gives
an overview of the religion, touching on the doctrine of
eternal progression and the history of polygamy. It also includes
a reference to Glenn Beck and the John Birch Society.
Kirn describes the LDS Church as “an organization which
resembles a sanctified multinational corporation—the
General Electric of American religion, with global ambitions
and an estimated net worth of $30 billion.”
SCHOLARS SPEAK OUT
RICHARD BUSHMAN AND Joanna Brooks are two Mormon
scholars who in recent interviews gave candid but sympathetic
answers to questions about Mormonism. Historian
Richard Bushman was asked to respond to CNN’s “In the
Arena” blog after Tricia Erickson, an ex-Mormon, called
temple ordinances “completely violent, mind controlling
and alarming” and stated that “an indoctrinated Mormon
should never be elected as President.”
“Erickson does a good job of making Mormon temple rituals
seem ominous and irrational,” Bushman responded.
“The secrecy surrounding the temple inevitably arouses suspicion,
but in my opinion, secrecy is important. I see
Mormon temples as an effort to create a sacred space in a
secular world—a quest followed by numerous religious peoples
throughout history. They are a spatial equivalent of the
Christian and Jewish Sabbath where a sacred time is demarked
from the rest of the week.”
Bushman did not shy away from difficult theological
questions, including one about lyrics from The Book of
Mormon musical, according to which, Mormons believe that
“God lives on a planet called Kolob.”
“Pretty close, but not precisely accurate,” Bushman replied.
“Mormon theology differs radically from conventional
Christianity in locating God in time and space. He is not outside
OCTOBER 2011 PAGE 85

S U N S T O N E
creation as traditionally believed. He is part of the physical universe—a
being like the God in Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel
who could touch Adam’s finger with his own if he chose.”
Joanna Brooks, who chairs the Department of English
and Comparative Literature at San Diego State University
and blogs on Mormon issues, published a piece in the 5
August Washington Post dispelling some popular misconceptions
about the LDS faith. On 24 August, she was a guest on
NPR’s Talk of the Nation, where she gave candid responses to
difficult questions about gender issues, homosexuality, race,
and even the temple garments.
Asked whether Mormons believe that Jesus is God,
Brooks responded: “There are theological technicalities and
reasons, some of them having to do with the distinctive
Mormon view of the shape of the Trinity, which lead some
theologians and some Christians to reject us as part of the
mainline orthodox Christian tradition. But we sure feel
Christian to ourselves.”
“There is a lot of talk, especially in pop culture, some of it
derisive, about Mormon undergarments,” Brooks observed.
“And you’ll see them described as magic undergarments. It’s
worth saying out loud that observant adult Mormons go to
temples as adults and make promises to live lives of modesty
and devotion and fidelity, and they wear undergarments
under their street clothes to remind themselves of those
promises. Are they magic? That’s not something I believe,
and calling them so is a little derisive. It’s sort of like calling
a kippah a magic beanie.”
DONNY AND MARIE ON CNN
IN A RELAXED, humor-filled atmosphere, Donny and
Marie Osmond appeared on CNN’s Joy Behar Show on 29
August, answering questions about The Book of Mormon musical,
polygamy, Mitt Romney, and temple garments.
“Do you think Mitt Romney could win being a
Mormon?” Behar asked.
“Could Kennedy do it being a Catholic?” Marie responded.
Using Elder Carlos E. Asay’s language from a September
1999 Ensign article, Donny called the temple garments “an
outward expression of an inward commitment.”
“The [temple] ceremony there, it goes back to the same
ceremony in Solomon`s day—all those sacred temples back
then, not everybody was allowed in there,” Donny said. “But
the promises we make to God—you know, this magical underwear
or whatever you want to call it—all it is, is an outward
expression of an inward commitment.”
“But why underwear?” Behar pressed the Osmonds.
“Why not the magic shirt, or the magic socks? Why not a
ring? Why?”
“Way back in the days of Jerusalem . . . , the Old
Testament days, they used to wear those things on their forehead
to remind them or something on their hand or arm—
it`s the same thing,” Donny replied. “It`s a reminder of the
promises you make . . . those commitments and commandments
that you say, ‘God, I promise to keep them.’”
“I just think that, you know, are we different?” Marie
added. “Are we weird? No. We have more fun than anybody
on the planet.”
POLL: AMERICANS DON’T TRUST
MORMONS, MUSLIMS
A SURVEY CONDUCTED 10 YEARS AFTER THE 11
September terrorist attacks reveals that Mormons, along
with Muslims and atheists, are among the least accepted minority
groups. The “What It Means to Be American” poll by
the Public Religion Research Institute concludes that only
67 percent of Americans have a favorable view of Mormons.
Muslims fared worse, with only 58 percent favorable views,
and atheists fared worst of all, with only 46 percent.
In a recent interview published by Dialogue: A Journal of
Mormon Thought, author and scholar Shaun A. Casey argues
that many Americans still perceive Mormonism as secretive.
“I think centrist and center-right Americans are susceptible
to the fear factor about what they perceive to be closed,
secret or secretive, or esoteric groups,” Casey tells Gregory
A. Prince in the fall 2011 issue. “It’s almost the same way
they distrusted the Catholic Church.”
A 2003 poll by International Communications Research
revealed that 53 percent of Americans view Muslims and
Mormons as holding values and beliefs dissimilar to their
own. In 2006, during Mitt Romney’s campaign for the White
House, a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg Poll reported that 37
percent of Americans would not vote a Mormon into the
U.S. presidency.
LDS “REGRET” FOR MOUNTAIN
MEADOWS MASSACRE
AS THE SITE OF THE MOUNTAIN MEADOWS MASSACRE
became a national historic landmark on 11 September, Elder
Marlin K. Jensen expressed regret for the 1857 massacre in
which a Mormon militia killed 120 men, women, and children
emigrating to California.
Falling short of issuing an apology, Jensen said that the
human element of the massacre “compels me to say today
just how sorry I am for what happened here so long ago.”
Church historian Richard Turley added that “no one alive
today is responsible for this horrific crime, but we are responsible
for how we respond to it.”
In September 2007, President Henry B. Eyring similarly
expressed “regret” for the massacre in a statement which
was prepared by Jensen and authorized by the First
Presidency.
In July 2011, Warner Bros. purchased the film rights to
Jon Krakauer’s 2003 bestseller Under the Banner of Heaven,
which juxtaposes the 1857 massacre with the 1984 Lafferty
murders. Ron Howard recently signed on to direct the film
with a screenplay written by former Mormon and Academy
Award-winner Dustin Lance Black.
PAGE 86 OCTOBER 2011

S U N S T O N E
People
Died. Best-selling Mormon author
CHIEKO OKAZAKI, 84, of congestive
heart failure. Born in Hawaii to Japanese
laborers on a plantation, Okazaki moved
to Utah in 1951, where, despite racial
discrimination, she became a teacher and
eventually a school principal. In 1961,
she was the first non-Caucasian to join the Young Women’s
General Board, and in 1990, she became the first non-
Caucasian to serve in the General Relief Society
Presidency. A breast-cancer survivor, Okazaki addressed issues
often ignored in official LDS discourse, such as sexual
abuse and the difficult choices mothers working outside
the home must make. As described by Vanderbilt professor
Kathleen Flake, Okazaki was “fearlessly honest about herself
and the problems that members of the Church faced.”
Died. Elder MARION D. HANKS, 89, of
conditions incident to old age. One of
the longest-serving General Authorities,
he served actively for 39 years until his
1992 release at age 70. An athlete and an
inspiring speaker, Hanks studied law at
the University of Utah and taught seminary
and institute classes for the Church Educational
System. From 1962–1964, he served as president of the
British Mission, where future apostles JEFFREY R. HOL-
LAND and QUENTIN L. COOK then served as missionaries.
In the early 1950s, he took African-American visitors
into his home when no Salt Lake City hotels would receive
them. BYU professor Warner Woodworth called Hanks a
“sweet companion to those who suffered.” “The world has
Albert Schweitzer,” wrote Woodworth. “The Church has
Elder Hanks.”
Monikered. President DIETER F. UCHTDORF, 70, second
counselor in the First Presidency. He is known popularly
as “The Silver Fox” and “Mr. Mac.” According to Salt Lake
Tribune’s Peggy Fletcher Stack, Uchtdorf received the first
nickname “for his amazing head of hair” and the second
after being seen “buying Apple computers for himself and
family members.”
Charged. With failing to report teen sexual assault, LDS
bishop GORDON LAMONT MOON, 43. According to
Duchesne County detective DAN BRUSO, Moon, who is
also vice president of the Duchesne County School Board,
was told by a teenaged girl of his congregation that she had
been sexually assaulted by a teenaged boy, and Moon advised
her not to report the assault to the police.
Featured. Former Miss Wyoming and
BYU student JOYCE MCKINNEY, 62, in
ERROL MORRIS’s new documentary
Tabloid. In 1977, McKinney was accused
of abducting and raping LDS missionary
KIRK ANDERSON in Ewell, Surrey. The
case, dubbed “the Manacled Mormon,”
created a media sensation in both the U.S. and U.K.
McKinney, who claims she was trying to save Anderson
from “the Mormon cult,” was charged in 1984 with
stalking Anderson at his workplace.
Out. As a gay man, BYU television producer KENDALL
WILCOX, 41. Wilcox, who has produced documentaries,
talk shows, and reality series for BYU, is now producing
Far Between to document his journey as a gay Mormon.
Convicted. President of the Fundamentalist
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day
Saints, WARREN JEFFS, 55, of sexually
assaulting underage girls whom he took
as spiritual wives. During the trial, Jeffs,
who acted as his own lawyer, attempted
unsuccessfully to prevent the playing of
an audio tape in which he can be heard giving sexual instruction
to twelve of his wives, including one who was allegedly
14 at the time of the marriage. The instruction,
which Jeffs called “heavenly sessions,” was allegedly related
to ritualistic sexual encounters which Jeffs had with
his wives in beds and in the baptismal font in the FLDS
Texas temple.
OCTOBER 2011 PAGE 87

Everyone’
Responses to The Book
in the end, the message is not
against Mormonism but literalism:
that whatever our different myths,
metaphors, and rituals, the real
purpose of religion is to give us a
higher purpose and a sense of
compassion in the universe.
—Maur eeN d o w d
New Yo r k TiMes
How audiences interpret [the show’s most
obscene] song and others like it . . . will
determine whether the musical is received as
an unapologetically rude yet unexpectedly
sentimental hit, or a polarizing, provocative
work of possible blasphemy.
—DAVE ITZKOFF, NEW YORK TIMES
The Book of Mormon
may be the most
obscene show ever
brought to a
Broadway stage . . . .
But their musical also
has an uplifting message:
the Mormons
save the African
villagers and come to
realize that the moral
of the story is more
important than
whether it’s true.
—JACo B Ber nSTeIn
TheDAIl yBeAST.Co M
The day I spoke with co-creator Matt
Stone, I coincidentally ran into a
group of Mormon missionaries in the
lobby of a mall. A dapper-looking
elder gave me a message to pass
along to Parker and Stone: “Tell them
I said ‘hi’ and I think their show is
funny.” So freakin’ nice.
—Chr ISTo Pher BeAM
Sl ATe.Co M
Conservative Mormons have ignored or
denounced it. The Mormon Church itself
. . . has signaled to members to turn the
other cheek . . . Meanwhile, some more
liberal Mormons (and some
ex-Mormons) are making pilgrimages
to New York to see it.
—Laur ie Go o ds TeiN
New Yo r k TiMes

s a Critic
of Mormon musical
For all the show’s refreshing novelty, it cops
out almost completely at the finale, giving
the entire cast of the credulous a free moral
pass. The Book of Mormon sets out to attack
religious fundamentalism, only finally to embrace
Broadway’s gospel of the bottom line.
—Jo hn l Ahr , n eW Yo r ker
i can’t recommend the show to anybody. it’s
just too much. i was frequently uncomfortable
watching it. But that’s a different thing than
saying the show is hurtful or willfully
antagonistic to the Church. it simply isn’t.
—GLeN NeLs o N
Mo r Mo Nar Tis Ts Gr o up.Co M
The score . . . is no better
than what you might hear
at a junior-varsity college
show. The tunes are jinglyjangly,
the lyrics embarrassingly
ill-crafted.
—Ter r y TeACho uT
Wa l l STr eeT Jo ur na l
I’m not willing to spend $200 for
a ticket to be sold the idea that
religion moves along oblivious to
real-world problems in a kind of
blissful naiveté.
—MICHAEL OTTERSON
HEAD OF LDS PUBLIC AFFAIRS
The only problem with The Book of Mormon is
that its theme is not quite true. The religions that
grow, succor, and motivate people to perform
heroic acts of service are usually theologically
rigorous, arduous in practice, and definite in their
convictions about what is True and False.
—DAVID BROOKS, NEW YORK TIMES
David Brooks says that “vague, uplifting, nondoctrinal
religiosity doesn’t actually last.” If
Brooks were to attend his local Mormon
congregation for a few months or years,
he’d see how wrong he actually is.
—JOANNA BROOKS, RELIGION DISPATCHES
i have no plans to see this new
musical because i really don’t see a
need to provide money to someone
who misreads and turns the sacred in
my faith for their profit.
—LaNe w iLLiaMs , Mo r Mo N TiMes

S U N S T O N E
A N O L I V E L E A F
“MAY WE SHOULDER IT TOGETHER . . .”
By Sister Chieko N. Okazaki
With the recent passing of Sister Chieko
Nishimura Okazaki, Mormonism lost one of
its tireless fighters for addressing “real” issues
facing Latter-day Saints today—ones for
which there are no easy answers, and which
sometimes reveal weaknesses in ways we as a
Church handle things. Early in Sister
Okazaki’s tenure as a counselor in the Relief
Society general presidency, Sister Okazaki became
alerted to the intense emotional, physical,
and spiritual pain brought on by sexual
abuse. In characteristic style, she addressed it
head on, refusing to blink in the face of this
agony but also refusing to forget the Savior’s
promises to be with us always, no matter what.
The following few paragraphs are excerpted
from remarks given 23 October 2002 during
an “Embracing Hope” conference at Brigham
Young University. Access the full text at:
http://www.byub.org/talks/Talk.aspx?id=1136.
WE ARE ALL HERE TOGETHER IN THIS CHURCH.
We are all here together in this problem, and we
must be all part of the solution. How is it possible
to reveal trust that has been betrayed? When the
fabric of our lives is ripped and wrenched, what will make
it whole? Let me use the analogy of a piece of lace or a crocheted
dolly or a cat’s cradle. All of them begin with a long,
straight thread or string. It becomes complex and beautiful
when it touches other parts and other strings, but all of
them are fragile. They can be shredded, unraveled, and
torn, but we need to remember that there is a pattern. Even
if it is damaged, it can be rewoven. Second, each part supports
the other parts and is connected to them. You cannot
pick one string out without destroying the whole pattern. I
am part of the pattern. The bishop who sits with the injured
members of the ward while they face the injury and
begin healing is part of that pattern. . . . You are part of this
pattern, and the Savior is part of this pattern. I like to think
of the Savior’s love as filling the spaces in the lace where
there is no thread because there wouldn’t be a pattern if
there weren’t spaces. I think of him as the intersections
where the threads come together, making something special
happen where they touch and connect.
We can be part of this network of
service and support, and we can be part of
the Savior’s pattern. . . .
[Let me quote from] material prepared
with the support of the Brigham
Young University’s Women’s Research
Institute: “Victims need to be believed.
They need to be listened to. They need
to be relieved of any inappropriate guilt
about their role in the abuse. Many
women reported the strength they felt as
their bishops and therapists worked together.
This arrangement allows bishops
to concentrate on the spiritual and physical
welfare of their ward members while
the trained professional works with the
victim to resolve emotional issues.” One
of the women was so anxious and frightened
about going to her bishop that she
wouldn’t let him shut the door of his office during their
first conversation. But when he heard her story, “he cried
with me,” she said, “and that is when I started trusting
him. He is the first man I ever remember trusting. I gave
my therapist permission to talk with him to better understand
how he could best help me.” And now another
woman reported that her bishop was also initially baffled
about how to help her, but he took the time to go out and
get educated. He still keeps in touch with her even
though she has moved to another state. . . .
FOR THOSE OF you who have been spared the
scourge of abuse, I ask you to open the circles of your
sisterhood and brotherhood. Include those whose
trust has been betrayed by those who should have been their
protectors. Open your hearts to them. Let them open their
hearts to you. This is a burden that is grievous to be born.
May we shoulder it together, not merely adjust it upon the
backs of those who have born it so long alone. May we love
each other with a pure unselfish active love as the Savior has
loved us.
May our troubled hearts find the peace we seek with him,
I pray, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, amen.
PAGE 80 OCTOBER 2011

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