The Deseret News took a cheap shot at a Latter-day Saint Historian. Here’s what it got wrong.

Writing in the Deseret News this morning, my BYU colleague Hal Boyd offered his personal assessment of journalist McKay Coppins’s feature on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ history and the author’s own experience of the faith in The Atlantic. In evaluating the piece, Boyd reduces features on Latter-day Saints and Mormon history to three genres: “non-Latter-day Saint journalist[s] who look at the faith warily,” “pieces written by former or lapsed members of the church who revisit their past faith with equal parts exoticism and redemptive nostalgia,” and a third group he classifies as “active church members [who] examine their faith.” Boyd accuses this last group of “tak[ing] special pains to demonstrate just how objective they are in a well-intentioned but ultimately gauche bid to convince readers that they’re playing it straight,” or what Boyd dismissively calls “performative objectivity.” Straining to find examples, he points to two pieces: a 2005 Newsweek article and, curiously, our own Benjamin Park’s 2020 book, Kingdom of Nauvoo: The Rise and Fall of a Religious Empire on the American Frontier.

If it seems strange to include a book about Latter-day Saint history written by an academically-trained historian in an article about journalistic assessments of Mormonism, that’s because it is. Such an inclusion betrays an unfortunate misunderstanding of historical scholarship. And make no mistake — though Ben’s book is written for an audience beyond his academic peers, it is still very much historical scholarship, representing years of archival research, rounds of editing and peer review, and a commitment to not just telling a story, but making a historical argument.

Where Boyd sees “a gauche bid” at “performative objectivity,” other readers will (rightfully) see that very commitment on full display. The Kingdom of Nauvoo aims not only to tell a fascinating story but to demonstrate what the Mormon sojourn in Nauvoo tells us about early America, writ large. And whereas journalists from all of the camps proposed by Boyd have largely agreed that Mormonism is, as the title of Coppins’s piece puts it, “the most American religion,” Park’s argument is more subtle and interesting: Joseph Smith and his followers, he agrees, are best understood as a product of their time and place — the early nineteenth century American republic, a place of religious revivals, rapid change, and a faith in the future of the American experiment. But they also represented a distinct challenge to that republic and to that civic-minded optimism. More significantly — and this is Park’s real contribution — Latter-day Saints in Nauvoo were an affront to “the foundations of American democracy” (9).

Frustrated with the failure of local and national governments to protect their rights as American citizens from mob rule, Saints took matters into their own hands. Park describes in detail the Mormon formation of a local militia, the organization and activity of both ecclesiastical and civil courts, the provocative city charter drawn up for Nauvoo, and the bloc voting that continually frustrated non-Mormon politicians. Most radically of all, Joseph Smith and a group of his most trusted followers began making plans during this time for a theocratic government that would triumph over the failed democracy of the United States (along with all other world governments).

All of this took place against the backdrop of rapid revelation and change within the Latter-day Saint community. Smith and others began taking plural wives, challenging American conceptions of the Christian family and provoking dissent from otherwise committed followers. If this seems sensationalistic, it’s because the subject matter is sensational. It makes for gripping reading. That’s not Park trying to “play it straight” to appease non-Mormon readers; it’s him offering a close reading of the historical sources. As a historian does.

Some may quibble with Park’s conclusions. That’s good and fine. But the sources on which those conclusions are based are listed in 31 pages of detailed endnotes citing each document and archive by name, along with each earlier scholarly interpretation Park’s book builds on and revises. If the Deseret News, or any other outlet, wants to critique the book, it should start by assessing the book on its own aims — its reading of sources and its interpretation of them. That is how history works.

Missionaries and Infectious Disease, circa 1853

Among the many disruptions caused by COVID-19, the coronavirus currently sweeping the globe, are those felt by Latter-day Saint missionaries. More than 1600 missionaries returned home on chartered flights from the Philippines last week. Others are beginning their missions at home, while still others are self-isolating in their apartments around the world, presumably passing their time reading scriptures, proselytizing remotely where possible, and otherwise trying to survive being stuck in place with a companion not of their choosing. At the time of writing, at least two missionaries have tested positive for the virus. A fairly comprehensive (and continually updated) list of how the pandemic is affecting Latter-day Saint missionary work can be found here.

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“The spirit of murder seems to be on the increase … due to the increase in firearms”: George Q. Cannon Denounces Gun Violence, 1891

In the July 15, 1891 issue of the (original) Juvenile Instructor, Mormon apostle and editor George Q. Cannon penned an editorial entitled, “Obedience — Do not Kill.” As that title implies, Cannon’s editorial contains both advice to parents on raising obedient children (“the best family government is that in which the judgment of children is appealed to and they are shown, by kind words, that the requests made of them are for their benefit and happiness”) and a denunciation of violence and bloodshed.

Cannon’s aim is broad — he decries both murder and, in words that seem as foreign to modern Mormonism as polygamy — hunting for sport. But his primary focus is on the shedding of innocent human blood, and in light of additional mass shootings this past weekend, Cannon’s words are all too relevant:

The spirit of murder seems to be on the increase in our day. This is partly due to the increase of firearms and to their cheapness, also to the fashion which prevails in many quarters of carrying deadly weapons. The frequency with which shooting is done also has its effect to break down the feeling of sacredness which should surround human life.

George Q. Cannon, “Obedience — Do not Kill,” Juvenile Instructor 26:14 (July 15, 1891), 443

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Mormon Studies in Unexpected Places, Volume IV: The Infinite Future

This is the fourth installment in an ongoing but terribly irregular series dedicated to the appearance of Mormon Studies in popular media, including musical lyrics, popular television shows, movies, and so forth. Previous installments can be read here, here, and here.

Okay, the appearance of Mormon Studies isn’t entirely unexpected in a novel written by a Latter-day Saint author who graduated from BYU and whose books deal with explicitly Mormon themes and revolve around LDS characters. Indeed, it was the mention of “an excommunicated Mormon historian in Salt Lake City” among the characters featured in the description of Tim Wirkus’s 2018 novel, The Infinite Future, that sparked my interest enough to read a book about the search for the obscure Brazilian author of a mysterious science fiction book (that may or may not possess mystical powers).

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God’s Blessings and Labor Crises: On Ammon Bundy’s Theology

Ammon Bundy, the erstwhile hero of the loosely organized anti-government militia movement in Idaho, Oregon, and Nevada who engaged in a 41-day standoff with federal authorities in 2016, made something of a splash on Tuesday when he weighed in on the latest reports of border officials tear gassing asylum seekers at the Mexico-U.S. border in a 17-minute long video streamed live on his facebook page.

To the surprise of many news reporters and his own supporters, Bundy defended the refugees, criticized the actions of the Trump administration, and dismissed popular conservative conspiracy theories regarding the immigrants as “a bunch of garbage”:

“[Trump] has basically called them all criminals and said they’re not coming in here. It seems that there’s been this group stereotype. But what about those who have come here for reasons of need? … What about the fathers,the mothers, the children, who have come here and are willing to go through the process to apply for asylum so they can come into this country and benefit from not having to be oppressed continually by criminals?”

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From the Archives: Black Internationalism in 19th Century Salt Lake City; or a Haitian-born African American in Utah Reports on the Fourth of July, 1873

NOTE: The original version of this post was based, in part, on faulty research, for which I take full blame. What appears below is a revised version (with a slightly modified title).  There is no documentation identifying either Francis or Martha Grice as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Believing, however, that the source shared below is still sufficiently interesting and important, I’m keeping the post. A copy of the original can be seen here. 

I’ve been slowly making my way through Paul Ortiz’s new book, An African American and Latinx History of the United States. In a chapter on the Cuban Solidarity Movement of the 1860s through the 1890s, Ortiz quotes an 1873 letter from “an African American in Salt Lake City,” published in the black-owned newspaper, The Elevator.[1] Curious to learn more (and anxious to see if there were any clues where the SLC correspondent was a Latter-day Saint), I searched for the original letter in the digitized version of the paper (courtesy of the California Digital Newspaper Collection), and to my great delight, discovered that it was written by Francis H. Grice, a “mulatto” artist, miner, and restauranteur who moved to Salt Lake City in 1871.[2] 

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Review: Foundational Texts of Mormonism: Examining Major Early Sources

Mark Ashurst-McGee, Robin Scott Jensen, and Sharalyn D. Howcroft, eds. Foundational Texts of Mormonism: Examining Major Early Sources (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018).

Most historiographical essays on recent shifts in Mormon Studies point to new subjects of study or new theoretical frameworks that build on, depart from, and challenge earlier generations of scholarship. In Foundational Texts of Mormonism: Examining Major Early Sources, editors Mark Ashurst-McGee, Robin Scott Jensen, and Sharalyn D. Howcroft have compiled a set of original essays that encourage scholars to return to the archival and documentary roots of the earlier historiography. But instead of simply mining those records for content, the editors invite students and scholars of Mormonism to “interrogat[e] documents as products of history rather than just as sources of historical information.” Historians, they insist, should take a nod from “archivists, descriptive bibliographers, and documentary editors” and ask “routine methodological questions of textual interpretation, production, transmission, and reception” (2). Their call here builds on both their own training and the Joseph Smith Papers Project that employs each.[1] The goal of the volume isn’t simply to tell historians what to do, but rather to demonstrate what more sustained attention to the production, transmission, reception, and custodianship of the documentary record can illuminate about early Mormonism.

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“A little bit of that in there, too”: Arcade Fire and Mormon Heaven

This is the latest installment in a very sporadic series of posts on Mormonism and music. And by very sporadic, I mean the first such post in nearly seven years. Previous posts include “Of Mormon Fundamentalism and Outlaw Country Music” and “Conveying Joseph Smith: Brandon Flowers, Arthur Kane, and the Mormon Rock Star Image.”

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Win Butler. Screenshot from “Put Your Money on Me” music video.

Arcade Fire is a Canadian indie rock band. Their lead singer, Win Butler, and his younger brother and bandmate, William Butler, were raised by a Latter-day Saint mother in northern California and suburban Houston. Though neither is a practicing Mormon today, the Butlers have had mostly positive things to say about their LDS upbringing. Here’s Win in a 2010 interview:

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From the Archives: Mormonism in Barbados (Almost), 1853

(detail from John Arrowsmith, Map of the Windward Islands, 1844. Click on image for original)

Last month, Elder Dale Renlund visited the West Indian island of Barbados, which he dedicated for the preaching of the gospel. The timing of his doing so carries with it some special significance. As Elder Renlund noted in his remarks, the West Indies Mission was first dedicated thirty years ago, in 1988. And it was, of course, forty years ago this summer that the temple and priesthood ban denying black women and men certain blessings and opportunities in the church was lifted, which opened up Barbados and the other predominantly black Caribbean islands for full-fledged missionary work. 

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Mormonism in The Moslem Sunrise, 1922

In 1921, Mufti Muhammad Sadiq, a representative of the Ahmadiyya Movement and the first Muslim missionary to America, launched the The Moslem Sunrise, a newspaper intended to help proselytize Americans. In its October 6, 1922 issue, Sudiq included a short excerpt from another paper on “Mormon Christians.” Here it is in its entirety:

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