I can think of few jobs tougher than being an official apologist for the Mormons—i.e., the Church of Latter-Day Saints, based since 1847 in Salt Lake City, Utah. Defending, justifying and rationalizing the life of their “prophet,” Joseph Smith, is an almost impossible task, and yet many people, whether on the church’s payroll or not, work at it with admirable vigor.
As may already be evident, I do not adhere to this ostensibly Christian sect. Smith was a charismatic man who fancied himself chosen by God as the conduit for some rather audacious revelations. Allow me to summarize.
Smith (1805–1844) was born in Vermont but grew up in “the burnt-over district” of western New York. It had that curious name because many religious revivals, awakenings and utopian gatherings had taken place there. Citizens on the American frontier in the early 19th century were really caught up in a millenarian, apocalyptic view. The world, they seemed convinced, was coming to an end, and soon! Smith was part of that, but he also claimed to be skilled in the art of fortune-hunting. Lacking a real job, he took payment from others to seek buried treasure in the Finger Lakes region. His success rate was no better than other men plying the trade, although Smith purported to have some special glasses that allowed him to see gold, silver or coined money below ground.
This oddity matters only because of what came next. Smith insisted that in 1823 he had an encounter with an angel named Moroni on a hill outside Palmyra, New York. He was told the location of a set of golden plates, along with some spectacles which would permit him to translate the contents from an ancient Egyptian language. As mentioned above, he already had experience in digging—with the benefit of magical glasses—for buried treasure. In such a way, Smith maintained, he came up with The Book of Mormon, a document that, I regret to say, has been translated from English into 108 languages and is highly regarded by some people. (An original copy of The Book of Mormon goes for $200,000 today.) It stated that the American Indians were descended from the lost tribes of Israel, had been visited by Jesus Christ and would be a key factor in the fast-approaching end of times. There followed other books which he also said were divinely inspired: The Pearl of Great Price (containing The Book of Moses and The Book of Abraham) and Doctrine and Covenants.
Modern archeologists, anthropologists, experts in deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphics and others have studied Smith’s writings, and they are in almost unanimous agreement—nothing of substance can be found here. Most of Smith’s assertions have been disproven, so it seems pointless to re-state them now. Nevertheless, the Mormon church employs many people, some of them with Ph.D.’s, to buttress its claims and cast at least a little doubt on what secular specialists say. Put differently, they try to give Smith’s revelations a veneer of legitimacy. I should add that the Latter-Day Saints have 30,000 full-time missionaries all over the world who are said to bring in 200,000 new converts every year. How can a faith be so easily debunked but last almost two centuries and keep roaring along in good health? You tell me.
Smith allegedly had revelations all the time, most of which were harmless. One, though, surely was not. In 1843, an angel of the Lord stood in front of him with drawn sword and told him to implement the new policy of polygamy, also known by the euphemisms of “plural marriage” and “spiritual wifery.” Joe, honorable and sexually chaste man that he was, hesitated but finally consented. How could he say no to a commanding angel? In fact, he was trying to cover his backside. Smith, married to a woman named Emma since 1827, had been consorting with numerous female Mormons for quite a while. Some were married, and some were teenagers. This dark, whispered rumor had finally come into the open. Since he was doing it, the other top men in the Mormon church followed suit and then every man who had sufficient funds was getting “sealed” to a pretty face or three. Brigham Young, the sect’s leader after Smith was murdered in the summer of 1844, took no fewer than 55 wives. This, we are to believe, was done with God’s sanction.
Now, did all the women go along with the plan? No. Some had the courage to tell Smith that he was a salty dog, a lecherous libertine, indeed an agent of the devil. But the men held power, and Smith had constructed a bizarre theology by which those who cooperated would be richly rewarded in the afterlife. Some apostatized and wrote devastating exposés, but most remained in this tight socio-religious group. Polygamy was an official church policy for three generations before officially ending in 1890 when Utah was trying to gain entry to the United States. Mormonism, which had been splintered even while Smith was alive, still has pockets where polygamy is practiced.
I conclude with the first stanza of an 1884 poem satirizing Smith and the Mormon church. It is entitled Buckeye’s Lamentation for Want of More Wives:
I once thought I had knowledge great, but now I find ’tis small.
I once thought I’d religion too, but I find I’ve none at all—
For I have got but one lone wife, and can obtain no more;
And the doctrine is, I can’t be saved unless I’ve half a score more.
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