In a previous post, I briefly explored the thought of Transcendentalist and abolitionist Theodore Parker to outline the relationship between antebellum biblical and constitutional hermeneutics. His biblical criticism bolstered his belief in the progress of religion and in the presence of an innate religious sense, which allowed him to dismiss as antiquated scriptural passages supporting slavery.[1] He used a similar approach to reject proslavery constitutional clauses as outdated. In contrast to some abolitionists, however, Parker maintained that those texts contained permanent truths that could be separated from transient teachings. Others went further in depicting the Constitution as a moldable and amenable text, including the dissenters in Dred Scott (1857)–Benjamin R. Curtis and John McLean–who followed some of the framers in suggesting that the Constitution had been crafted with the expectation that it would adapt to new contingencies, including the spread of egalitarian sentiment.[2] The realization of historical change and, in turn, historical distance, allowed some antislavery proponents to accept the presence of proslavery passages in the Bible and the Constitution without discarding those documents altogether. Positing their inherent malleability fueled the expectation of formal amendments, in the case of the Constitution, but also demanded informal reinterpretation. And, at least in Parker’s case, these approaches to the Constitution and the Bible overlapped.

Joseph Smith’s reading of the Bible aligned more with the dominant literalist approach of Protestants than with the radical readings of abolitionists like Parker. Despite his qualification about correct translation, he and his early followers accepted the biblical narrative as a sacred account of historical realities.[3] Far from questioning the authorship of biblical books, the validity of biblical stories, or the timelessness of most biblical teachings, Smith distinguished Mormons from other Christians in claiming “that we believe the bible, and they do not.”[4] His revisions of the Christian canon expanded its narrative, adding to its history, teachings, and truths, rather than chopping it down in the tradition of Thomas Jefferson.[5] Early Mormons approached the Book of Mormon (1830) and the Book of Abraham (1842), scriptural productions with ancient trappings, as narratives of real historical figures and facts. While channeling the authorizing potency of pastness, Smith’s historical engagements rested on revelatory claims rather than historical excavation and contextual interpretation. The net effect of his thinking was a radical collapse of temporal distinction rather than a revelation of historical distance and difference of the sort that informed Parker’s progressive hermeneutic.[6]

However, despite a literalist approach to scripture, Smith’s emphasis on the Bible’s incompleteness, coupled with his introduction of new scripture and his assertion of new revelation, called into question the status and relevance of the Christian canon. Indeed, even while conceived in a restoration framework that conflated historical eras, and even given Smith’s stated preference for a kind of biblical originalism?” I believe the bible, as it ought to be, as it came from the pen of the original writers,” his revisions made ancient biblical figures and their teachings modern and Mormon, which ensured their contemporary relevance.[7] Further, the very process of expanding the canon to include the modern revelations comprised in the Book of Commandments (1833) and the Doctrine and Covenants (1835) suggested change despite assertions of continuity. Smith reread and rewrote the past in light of the Mormon present, which had the effect of streamlining time, or, from another vantage point, of portraying time as cyclical, with repeating periods of apostasy and restoration, his dispensationalist claims–fulness of times–called for unprecedented revelations.[8] Smith’s literalist approach differed from Parker’s critical exegesis, but, while holding unique conceptions of the revelatory process, both could lament with Emerson that “men have come to speak of the revelation as somewhat long ago given and done,” and both appealed to historical change, distance, and circumstance to assert the need for new revelation.[9]

The August 1832 edition of The Evening and Morning Star instructed early members to “search the Scriptures’ and learn what portion of them belongs to you, and the people of the nineteenth century,” demonstrating an awareness of temporal distinction, while issuing a call to “liken all scriptures” to the modern Church of Christ.[10] This suggested that the continued relevance of scripture depended on adaptation to present circumstances and, sometimes, past revelations fell short. On April 21, 1834, the Mormon prophet told a conference of elders that “it is very difficult for us to communicate to the churches all that God has revealed to us, in consequence of tradition.” Long-held beliefs stood as barriers to new truths. “We are differently situated,” he continued, “from any other people that ever existed upon this Earth. Consequently, those former revelations cannot be suited to our condition, because they were given to other people who were before us.” Times had changed, Smith reasoned, and new circumstances required new revelations. Emphasizing the present need for “seers and prophets,” Smith was also stressing that historical distance and change required historic revelations. As with Parker, his historical awareness, nurtured by his own sense of prophethood, informed the distinction between operative and defunct revelations and his affirmation of God’s present communication. While willing to slough off past revelations as unsuited to current conditions, by and large Smith maintained the sacred relevance of ancient scripture. Indeed, whereas figures like Parker valued the Greek book of scripture more, Smith reclaimed the Hebrew texts, but, again, he molded it into his restoration framework.[11] Aware of historical change, he made even the Old Testament fit the new times.

As the biblical debate over slavery narrowed in on the New Testament in the 1830s and 40s, further unsettling the privileged place the Old Testament had enjoyed, both antislavery and proslavery forces increasingly used what one scholar calls contextualist arguments. While Frederick Douglass proposed that the progressive nature of the age and of the American republic, which stood in contrast to ancient Israel, made slavery particular and anachronistic, George Fitzhugh asserted that slavery, a universal and liberal institution, as evidenced by its presence in ancient Israel, ensured the nation’s progress.[12] Depending on the orientation, present circumstances required either slavery’s abolition or its preservation. This kind of circumstantial contention might have been part of Smith’s argument for polygamy. In his exposé of Mormonism, John C. Bennett published a letter that Smith had allegedly written to Nancy Rigdon. According to Bennett, Smith claimed that “he had the blessings of Jacob granted him” and then explained, “That which is wrong under one circumstance, may be, and often is, right under another.” The letter described this as “the principle on which the government of heaven is conducted–by revelation adapted to the circumstances in which the children of the kingdom are placed.”[13] Having harnessed the now depleted power source of patriarchal precedent, Smith also called on revelatory prerogative. Southerners held that past and present conditions made slavery right and Smith asserted the same about polygamy. Old Testament precedent buttressed present inspiration, a coupling consonant with Smith’s 1843 revelation (D&C 132). Though the provenance of the account raises questions about its authenticity, and while the letter implies a kind of arbitrariness to God’s commands, it accords with Smith’s scriptural appropriations and his calls for revelatory relevance.[14] The same sentiment later assisted Saints in the process of readopting a monogamous lifestyle.

It does not appear that Smith’s utilitarian approach to scripture nor his contextual and circumstantial understanding of revelation informed his reading of the Constitution. His mention of the nation’s leading legal text focused more on its status, rather than its interpretation. Still, one can decipher a link between his view of the Bible and that of the Constitution. A number of Americans held the Constitution in high regard, but one of Smith’s revelations sanctified the text as established “by the hands of wise men whom I raised up unto this very purpose” (D&C 101:80). In the wake of the Missouri problems, Smith came to believe that he and his followers uniquely upheld what he described as “a glorious standard…founded [in] the wisdom of God.” Robbed of its protection by corrupt government, he maintained that “God is true that the constitution of the united States is [true] that the Bible is true.”[15] According to later accounts, in 1843 Smith predicted that “the time would come with the Constitution and Government would hand [sic] by a brittle thread and would be ready to fall into other hands but this people the Latter day Saints will step forth and save it.”[16] Mormonism, it appeared, was the last bastion of defense for the Bible and the Constitution. One might conclude that the sanctification of the Constitution lends itself to a rather strict interpretation, but given Smith’s actual rather than stated approach to scripture, and given his idea of revelation, the semi-canonical status granted the Constitution allows for a progressive reading of the nation’s sacred legal text, one that expects informal emendation and formal amendment.

Those suspicious of this suggestion might highlight the differences between the production and interpretation of scripture and the Constitution. On the production side, we might separate prophetic and divine scripture from a political and deeply compromised human document.[17] This approach avoids the problem of what Michael Austin calls “Founderstein,” but it fails to take into account the various compromises involved in the revelatory process itself, which, because it occurs in time and space, are inevitable.[18] In other words, as Austin explores elsewhere, it fails to recognize the human element involved in both the reception of revelation and the creation of law. Recognition of the temporal nature of these texts encourages new readings. The realization of disagreement among the framers led Frederick Douglass to accept an antislavery interpretation of the Constitution and created space for a populist hermeneutic.[19] The interpretive choice, then, is not simply between original framers or current legislative and judicial branches, thus calling into question the need to stress differences between prophets as scriptural interpreters and the branches of government as constitutional interpreters. Scriptural interpretation, too, is not the prerogative of Church leaders alone. Though Joseph Smith sought to curb revelatory claimants (see D&C 28 and 43), even the revelatory process was at times a collaborative affair and the revelations were often multivocal (see D&C 20 and 76). Further, popular antebellum readings of the Constitution clearly had long-reaching repercussions, as evidenced in the aftermath of Dred Scott, and it seems clear that certain concepts and teachings in the LDS Church have obtained new meanings as members, leader and lay, add their brush strokes to the large canvas of received learning.[20] Perhaps I will address such questions in a subsequent post, but it seems to me that certain aspects of early Mormon approaches to scripture and revelation encourage a kind of broad-based living constitutionalism. The temporal nature of the Constitution and law-making, and of revelation and the revelatory process, invite reinterpretation and reapplication among citizens of both Church and State.[21]