Matthew J. Grow is Director of the Publications Division in the Church History Department and a general editor of the Joseph Smith Papers. He is currently President of the Communal Studies Association.
I am excited to let the Juvenile Instructor community know
about two upcoming communal studies conferences as well as two opportunities
for grants and two sets of awards/paper contests.
The main scholarly organization for the study of communal
groups and intentional communities—past and present—in the United States is the
Communal Studies Association. CSA conferences are held annually, often at the
site of a historic communal group. I have found the CSA to be a very welcoming and
interesting group of scholars, and there are generally several presentations on
Latter-day Saint history. For some thoughts on the connections between communal
studies and Latter-day Saint history, see here.
Anne Braude once wrote, “American women’s history is American religious history.” The quote, to me, it meant that historians must listen to women, tell their stories, and understand the gendered contexts in which they lived. Women’s history is more than recovering voices. It is telling a more complete history.
The Juvenile Instructor is conducting a roundtable this month on Colleen McDannell’s Sister Saints: Mormon Women Since the End of Polygamy, recently published by Oxford University Press. Follow along here at the blog as contributors explore different themes within McDannell’s book.
It appears that a person or persons unknown have been circulating a document in at least one ward building in Utah. Entitled “Male and Female: A Proclamation,” the document repudiates recent alterations to the language of the various temple ceremonies, particularly the endowment and the sealing rituals. The document particularly targets those alterations made to language about gender. It’s been widely reported that these alterations move the ceremony toward greater gender egalitarianism.
This document was left in the lobby of an LDS chapel in South Jordan, Utah.
There are a number of points which could be made about 1) the alterations themselves, and 2) this document, but I want to restrict myself to three.
First: perhaps the primary word the document uses to describe gender relations is “submission.” It argues that “worldly understandings of equality are completely contrary to the gospel of Jesus Christ . . . this pattern of humble submission applies to and reflects the eternal nature, relationship, and order between male and female, and between God, husband, wife and children.” It also uses New Testament language about “heads,” arguing that mean are placed in authority over women.
This is interesting language insofar as it is far more common in recent American evangelical discourse than it is in LDS discourse.[1] As is sometimes said of Mormons, there are perhaps as many versions of evangelical theology as there are evangelicals. Some evangelicals, however, advocate “complementarian” theology, which maintains that men and women are irreducibly different and hence interprets marriage as creation of a wholeness greater than the two parts separately. This is not language unfamiliar to Mormons, though the word “complementarian” is far more common among evangelicals than it is in the LDS church.
Some complementarians, further, emphasize the concept of “headship,” as derived from the pastoral letters of the New Testament (1 and 2 Timothy and Titus, and sometimes Ephesians). As they interpret it, “headship” means that women are equal before God, but that men are to hold “headship” over women. Where exactly this “headship” applies is a matter for debate: some evangelicals would say only in the home; others would say it applies everywhere.
Further, some headship complementarians draw on the New Testament language of submission. If a man’s role is “head,” they argue, than a woman’s role is to “submit.” What exactly “submission” means is up for debate. Some evangelicals have argued that it means that women should not seek to alter their husbands and should submit to his will, arguing, as does “Male and Female,” that Christ’s submission to his Father’s will is the necessary model. They argue that the natural differences between men and women make such a relationship the most successful. Others argue that there is no natural hierarchy between men and women, but that God intends for women to voluntarily submit. Other complementarians who define headship more narrowly argue for “mutual submission” between husband and wife.
That this document draws on this language, which, as I’ve said, is not common in LDS discourse, indicates its authors have some familiarity with contemporary evangelical discourse about gender. As J. Stapley notes, Colleen McDannell’s recent Sister Saints (Oxford, 2018) points out that the LDS church has been pulling away from the sort of detailed and explicit language about patriarchy as complementarian and headship rhetoric embrace.
Second: This document advocates a primitivist vision of Mormonism. Primitivism is hardly an uncommon rhetoric at work in the broad sweep of Mormon history; nor it is uncommon in Christian history more generally. Primitivists believe that truth was once present on the earth (in many possible forms; some primitivists cite an ideal church, some a perfect scripture, some perfect authority) but has been corrupted and hence requires renewal and revitalization. They tend to view change as destructive. This document makes that argument with reference to the temple endowment ceremonies, arguing that the words of the endowment “were correctly revealed in sacred temple ordinances to the prophet Joseph Smith Jr,” and that the endowment ceremony contained the “words spoken by the mouths of The Father, The Son, Adam and Eve” before these changes. This is an unprovable claim, in part because no written record of the endowment ceremony as Joseph Smith originally instituted it exists (the ceremony was transmitted orally for decades). But it is a theological claim which draws upon the primitivist impulse.
What scholars call the “church-sect” typology is common in the sociology of religion. It argues to radically oversimplify that a “church” is a religious group comfortable in the society in which it finds itself; a “sect,” conversely, is a group at odds with its surrounding world. Sociologist Armand Mauss has famously argued that the LDS church has cycled back and forth along the church-sect spectrum throughout its history.[2] Many Mormon fundamentalist groups which separated from the modern LDS church can thus easily be read as sects discontented with the LDS church’s decisions that have propelled it toward church-dom. Most famously, of course, many such groups abandoned the LDS church in reaction to the end of polygamy.
Less famously, but equally compelling in this case, was fundamentalist Joseph Jensen’s famous Salt Lake Tribuneadvertisement denouncing Spencer W. Kimball’s decision to end the racially based restrictions on priesthood ordination and temple worship in 1978. As does “Male and Female,” this document invokes primitivist arguments that the LDS church was abandoning its scripture, the intent of its founders, and so on. As does “Male and Female,” Jensen’s argument maintained that contemporary LDS leaders were seeking the approval of “the world,” classic sect language lambasting churches, sociologically speaking.
Third: The material culture of “Male and Female” is fascinating. It apes popular versions of the church’s famous 1990s proclamations “The Family” and “The Living Christ” sold in church outlets like Deseret Book in font, in layout, and in design. This indicates, I think, something I’ve argued elsewhere: the extent to which contemporary Mormon piety is deeply marked by the aesthetics of the white American middle class—so much so that the author(s) of “Male and Female” see such design and layout as a signal of spiritual authority.
In total, “Male and Female” may (and likely, will) have very little impact on the course of the LDS church generally. Indeed, its authors may already be part of a fundamentalist group. Regardless, the document reflects significant trends in American religious history generally and Mormon history in particular.
[1] Some recent examples I found useful include R. Marie
Griffith, God’s Daughters: Evangelical
Women and the Power of Submission (UNC, 1997) Alan Padgett, As Christ Submits to the Church: A Biblical
Understanding of Leadership and Mutual Submission (Baker, 2011); Mark and
Grace Driscoll, Real Marriage: The Truth
about Sex, Friendship and Life Together (Thomas Nelson, 2012), and Stanley
Grenz and Denise Muir Kjesbo, Women in
the Church (Intervarsity, 2010).
[2] Armand Mauss, The Angel and the Beehive:
the Mormon Struggle with Assimilation (Illinois, 1994).
“The Book of Abraham typifies Joseph Smith’s experience as
revelator and translator–Smith sought divine truth from his own age and from
ancient documents, recorded that truth in a scriptural text, and imparted it to
his people and the world. Understanding his efforts to decipher the Egyptian
language adds nuance and detail to the complex story of the translation of the
Book of Abraham.” Introduction to Joseph Smith Papers, Revelations and
Translations, Volume 4, xxix.
The Joseph Smith Papers Project’s publication of the Book of Abraham manuscript and related documents is more than the production and contextualization of documents. It provides a new way for looking at the Book of Abraham as a sacred text. Over the past several decades, scholars and apologists have battled over whether Joseph Smith translated the Book of Abraham (from hieroglyphs to English) or whether they had any connection to the translated text. Robin Jensen and Brian Hauglid, the volume’s editors, chose to frame their contextualization along the lines that early Latter-day Saints understood their prophet’s translation of the materials used in the Book of Abraham as “revelations” and not as a language-to-language translation. This places the Book of Abraham squarely within the family of sacred texts “translated” by Joseph Smith. Using words often associated with the “translation” of the Book of Mormon, the Book of Abraham is said to have been translated by “the gift and power of God” and not as a completed language project.
The Department of Religion in the School of Arts and Humanities at Claremont Graduate University invites applicants for the Howard W. Hunter Chair of Mormon Studies. In addition to having demonstrated excellence and broad expertise within the field of Mormon studies, the successful candidate will also be able to contribute through teaching and mentoring to at least one of the Religion Department’s four doctoral tracks: Critical Comparative Scriptures; History of Christianity and Religions of North America; Philosophy of Religion and Theology; and Women’s Studies in Religion. The candidate must have a PhD in Religious Studies or a related field and be prepared to teach one or both of the Religion Department’s required theory and methods courses.
Gordon B. Hinckley Alumni & Visitors Center, Brigham Young University
Some of the most puzzling documents left in the wake of Joseph Smith’s prophetic career pertain tot he Book of Abraham–from the ancient papyrus to the nineteenth-century notebooks. For over a century these documents were specially housed away from public view. In 2018 the Joseph Smith Papers Project team published the documents in Revelations and Translations, vol. 4.
THE 2020 SIDNEY B. SPERRY SYMPOSIUM: “How … and What You Worship”
Christology and Praxis in the Revelations of Joseph Smith
Call for Proposals
On 6 May 1833, Joseph Smith received a revelation which clarified Johannine teachings about Christ. It taught truths meant to help early church members “understand and know how to worship and know what [they] worship” (D&C 93:19). This revelatory reworking of the Prologue of John (John 1:1-18) shed light on both the subject of worship as well as the process of how to worship that subject. Although the immediate context of the revelation remains obscure, it uncovered truths about the nature of Christ, who “continued from grace to grace, until he received a fulness,” and linked those truths to the process of worship by instructing its audience to keep Christ’s commandments, which would allow them to “receive grace for grace.” In addressing both the who and the how of worship, the revelation deals with concepts that scholars term christology and praxis. Christology has to do with the study of the nature and mission of Christ. In light of Joseph Smith’s revelations, this study necessarily involves attention to the spiritual and intellectual quest (D&C 88:118) to “know” the Savior (John 17:3). That the revelation should insist on the “how” of worship indicates that praxis is inseparable from the knowledge of Christ: as King Benjamin taught, it is a mark of discipleship, the outward manifestation of knowledge (Mosiah 5:15). This relationship is emphasized throughout scripture, and the revelations of Joseph Smith constitute a unique scriptural setting to analyze the relationship between knowledge and practice. With this in mind, the 2020 Sperry Symposium, which will be held at Brigham Young University in October 2020, will focus on both the person of Christ and the practice of worshiping Him as outlined in the revelations of Joseph Smith. For the purpose of this symposium, “the revelations of Joseph Smith” will be understood as modern revelations received by the prophet. Strong proposals will make such revelations the central focus of their arguments, without necessarily excluding the dialogic nature of such revelations with other scriptures or the precisions they bring. More specifically, this symposium and the anticipated volume seek to understand Christ in the revelations to the first prophet of the restoration, and elucidate the practices – understood both as ordinances and daily attitudes – required of those who worship a being who grew “from grace to grace.”
Authors of Sperry papers are encouraged to find the appropriate balance between responsible scholarship and the interests of nonspecialists who are looking for accessible and engaging substance with a believing dimension. See the reverse side for a list of suggested topics. Proposals should take the form of an abstract of no more than 300 words containing all of the following: (1) the main thesis of your paper/presentation, (2) a brief outline of the components supporting your main thesis, (3) a summary of your methodology as well as the primary and secondary sources you will consult as evidence and support, and (4) a brief statement concerning how your study will make a significant contribution to previous scholarship on the work of worship and the person of Jesus Christ in Joseph Smith’s revelations. Following the abstract, please include a short separate statement (25-50 words) outlining your background, qualifications, or preparation so far to address this subject (you should already have completed some research in preparation for writing the proposal).
In The Chance of Salvation, Lincoln Mullen argues that nineteenth-century religious conversion fundamentally changed American religion. Conversion, Mullen argues, made religion a forced choice for Americans rather than ethnically inherited tradition. Mullen’s conversion history is a creative study that should change both American Religious History and provoke Mormon historians to further analyze early Mormon conversion. Moreover, Mullen peppers The Chance of Salvation with mini-biographies of converts and clear prose. The Chance of Salvation should stand as an important piece of scholarship, and a pleasure to read.
Every year I look forward to seeing which books will be published (you can read my recap of the best books and articles of 2018 HERE). The list isn’t comprehensive—many books don’t have listings on press websites quite yet. Nevertheless, I hope that I’ve highlighted many of the books Mormon historians are anxiously waiting to have their hands on in the next twelve months. All quotations are from the Press’s website (when available) and all links are to the publisher’s website (where available).
Steve Fleming on Study and Faith, 5:: “The burden of proof is on the claim of there BEING Nephites. From a scholarly point of view, the burden of proof is on the…”
Eric on Study and Faith, 5:: “But that's not what I was saying about the nature of evidence of an unknown civilization. I am talking about linguistics, not ruins. …”
Steve Fleming on Study and Faith, 5:: “Large civilizations leave behind evidence of their existence. For instance, I just read that scholars estimate the kingdom of Judah to have been around 110,000…”
Eric on Study and Faith, 5:: “I have always understood the key to issues with Nephite archeology to be language. Besides the fact that there is vastly more to Mesoamerican…”
Steven Borup on In Memoriam: James B.: “Bro Allen was the lead coordinator in 1980 for the BYU Washington, DC Seminar and added valuable insights into American history as we also toured…”
David G. on In Memoriam: James B.: “Jim was a legend who impacted so many through his scholarship and kind mentoring. He'll be missed.”
Recent Comments
Steve Fleming on Study and Faith, 5:: “The burden of proof is on the claim of there BEING Nephites. From a scholarly point of view, the burden of proof is on the…”
Eric on Study and Faith, 5:: “But that's not what I was saying about the nature of evidence of an unknown civilization. I am talking about linguistics, not ruins. …”
Steve Fleming on Study and Faith, 5:: “Large civilizations leave behind evidence of their existence. For instance, I just read that scholars estimate the kingdom of Judah to have been around 110,000…”
Eric on Study and Faith, 5:: “I have always understood the key to issues with Nephite archeology to be language. Besides the fact that there is vastly more to Mesoamerican…”
Steven Borup on In Memoriam: James B.: “Bro Allen was the lead coordinator in 1980 for the BYU Washington, DC Seminar and added valuable insights into American history as we also toured…”
David G. on In Memoriam: James B.: “Jim was a legend who impacted so many through his scholarship and kind mentoring. He'll be missed.”