[In the spirit of transparency, I admit that what follows is an attempt to use the JI as a sounding board for ideas from my upcoming MHA presentation. Critiques are greatly appreciated.]

In 1787, after spending the last two decades of his life working toward American independence and a new form of democratic government, Benjamin Franklin noted that ?there is a natural inclination in mankind for a kingly government.?[1] He was speaking in Philadelphia to the framers of the Constitution, many of whom had grown disillusioned with the potential for radical social movement the early American republic had experienced, and envisioned their own natural aristocracy as the pinnacle of society.[2] Less than a half-decade later, Philadelphia became the location of the most recent of at least a dozen publications of the satirical novel The History and Adventures of Joseph Andrews. Written by British author Henry Fielding, Joseph Andrews mocked the aristocratic foundations of the eighteenth century, especially its ?whole ladder of dependence,? and the novel?s printing success in post-Revolutionary America demonstrates the culture?s acceptance of radical Whig philosophy that revolted against a fixed social status.[3]

This tension?of radicalized democracy and mobility on the one hand, and social stability on the other?persisted for much of the antebellum culture and surfaced in many different ways?including Mormon perceptions of heaven. Among his numerous theological innovations of the Nauvoo period, Joseph Smith proposed a distinct revision of the heaven society. Building from several of his early revelations?D&C 76?s depiction of a three-tiered, near-universalist heaven being the most relevant?the Mormon prophet offered a ?heaven society? based around both individual progress and kingdoms.[4] This ?heaven society,? however, was as much a reaction to antebellum culture as much as it was a product of it. This post considers how early Mormonism?s conceptions of heaven related to the contrasting themes of advancement and patronage.

It is important to first note how intertwined conceptions of heaven were to the introduction of Nauvoo temple rituals, which were designed to collapse the distance between heaven and earth. When introducing the endowment, Smith remarked on their importance for individuals by explaining these were the ordinances ?by which any one is enabled to secure the fulness of those blessings, which have been prepared for the Church of the first born, and come up and abide in the presence of the Eloheim in the Eternal worlds.?[5] Sealing and adoption rituals had further implications for families and communities, as apostle Heber C. Kimball wrote that these ordinances were meant ?to bring us to an organization,? and once they were in place, ?we have the Celestial Kingdom here [on earth].?[6] Benjamin Johnson later remembered Smith claiming the ?great mission? for the Saints was to ?Organize a Nucli of Heaven? which would remain the center part of life after the grave.[7] These rituals both solidified temporal relationships and set the foundation for eternal glories. They also encapsulated these sometimes-competing tensions abundantly present in their contemporary culture: as historian Gordon Wood has written, the antebellum period inherited from its colonist predecessors a “society in tension, torn between contradictory monarchical and republican tendencies.”[8]

Nothing more epitomized the democratic and Romantic spirit of the age, which emphasized mobility, improvement, and progress, as Smith?s formulation of the potential of man. ?You have got to learn how to make yourselves Gods,? he famously proclaimed in his King Follett Sermon, ?in order to save yourselves and be kings and priests to God, the same as all Gods have done?by going from a small capacity to a great capacity, from a small degree to another?till you are able to sit in everlasting burnings and everlasting power and glory as those who have gone before, sit enthroned.?[9] William Phelps wrote that the temple empowered individuals to progress ?from heaven to eternity; and from eternity to ceaseless progression,? allowing humankind to move ?from system to system; from god to god, and from one perfection to another.?[10] Parley Pratt described the Mormon heaven as ?a field where, ambition knows no check, and zeal no limits; and were the most ardent aspirations may be more than realized. A field where crowns of glory, thrones of power and dominions of immortality are the rewards of diligence.?[11] In early Mormonism, the idea of eternal ?progress? was as literal as it was radical.

On the other hand, early LDS rhetoric was not only dominated by personal potential, but of communal status and organization?of individual saints? relationships to a broader kingdom. The celestial order was to be based on the priesthood, and thus a saints? mobility was limited to the ecclesiastical tree in which they were found, and it made both relations and positions of great importance. When Joseph Smith explained to Newel Whitney through a revelation the importance of these priesthood rites, he promised ?honor and immortality and eternal life to all your house?because of the lineage of my Preast Hood.?[12] Joseph Fielding wrote that in order to ?obtain all the Glory I can? a Man?s Dominion will be as God?s is, over his own Creatures and the more numerous the greater his Dominion.?[13] While progression is indeed possible, it would only be within the larger celestial ?kingdoms? of the afterlife; this was a patronage based on priesthood that could not be escaped, a heavenly social order that could not be overturned. The celestial organization was not merely based on personal merit or individual distinction, but on a hierarchical setup of priesthood keys and genealogies. This became a dominant theme in late-Nauvoo discourse, as the succession crisis brought the question of kingdom authority to the forefront.

Nor were these two tensions?progression and patronage?the only tensions involved in Mormonism?s early conceptions of heaven. For instance, aspects of Victorian family centrism, precursors to the postbellum domestic heaven, were mixed with the dynasticism to forge a unique?and dynamic?Mormon notion of ?love? and ?dominion? in the afterlife; indeed, unique enough to make it impossible to define the LDS heaven as ?domestic? or ?dynastic.?[14] But these serve as important reminders of how early Mormon beliefs were both a product of as well as a reaction to larger intellectual trends of the day.
_________________________________________

[1] Benjamin Franklin, Address to the Federal Convention, in James Madison, Notes of Debates in The Federal Convention of 1787 (New York: W. W. & Norton Company, 1987), 53.

[2] For this disillusionment, and the resulting ?elitist? government, see Gordon S. Wood, The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787, 2nd ed. (Chapel Hill, NC: UNC Press, published for the Omohundro Institute of American History and Culture, 1998), chapter 7.

[3] Henry Fielding, The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews, and his Friend Mr. Abraham Adams, 2 vols. (Philadelphia, PA: Henry Taylor, 1791), 2:157. For this larger social transformation, see Joyce Appleby, Inheriting the Revolution: The First Generation of Americans (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2000), esp. chapter 5.

[4] The best work on Joseph Smith?s (re)conceptualization of heaven will be the relevant chapter in Sam Brown?s manuscript on Joseph Smith and the Conquest of Death. For a helpful, if sometimes simplistic, overview of early Mormon beliefs in heaven, see Brigham John Bowen, ?Present in the World of Glory: Joseph Smith and Early Nineteenth-Century Views of Heaven,? in Richard Bushman, ed., Archive of Restoration Culture: Summer Fellows? Papers, 2000-2002 (Provo, UT: JFS Institute for LDS History, 2005), 99-106.

[5] Entry for May 4, 1842, in Manuscript History of the Church, Book 1C, 507, LDS Church Archives. An editorial that appeared the previous week, written under the name of Joseph Smith, that explained it was in the temple that ?the heavenly priesthood will unite with the earthly, to bring about those great purposes; and whilst we are thus united in one common cause to roll forth the kingdom of God.? ?The Temple,? Times and Seasons 3 (2 May 1842): 776.

[6] Heber C. Kimball Journal, in George D. Smith, ed., An Intimate Chronicle: The Journals of William Clayton (Salt Lake City: Signature Books in Association with Smith Research Associates, 1995), 226.

[7] Benjamin Johnson reminiscence, quoted in B. Carmen Hardy, ed., Doing the Works of Abraham: Mormon Polygamy: Its Origin, Practice, and Demise (Oklahoma: Arthur H. Clark Company, 2007), 119.

[8] Gordon S. Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution (New York: A. A. Knoft, 1992), 124.

[9] Joseph Smith, Sermon, in Stan Larson, “The King Follett Discourse: A Newly Amalgamated Text,” BYU Studies 18, no. 2 (Spring 1978): 201.

[10] William Phelps, sermon, in Richard Van Wagoner and Steven C. Walker, ?The Joseph/Hyrum Smith Funeral Sermon,? BYU Studies 23 (Winter 1983): 11.

[11] Parley Pratt, ?Intelligence and Affection,? in Pratt, An Address? (Nauvoo, IL: John Taylor, Printer, 1844), 40.

[12] Joseph Smith, revelation, 27 July 1842, quoted in Todd Compton, In Sacred Lonliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City, UT: Signature Books: 1997), 347-348.

[13] Joseph Fielding, Journal, in ??They Might have Known that He Was Not a Fallen Prophet??The Nauvoo Journal of Joseph Fielding,? transcribed and edited by Andrew F. Ehat, BYU Studies 19 (Winter 1979): 154.

[14] For Mormonism as a forerunner of the “domestic” heaven, see Colleen McDannell and Bernhard Lang, Heaven: A History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), chapter 7; for “dynasticism,” see Compton, In Sacred Lonliness, chapter 1.