In Defense of the Brighamite Sect: The Cycle of the Invisible and Physical Church

Just as the Old Testament temple was a shadow of the crucifixion of Christ, and the works of the Mosaic Law are done away with through Christ, similarly the Nauvoo era temple was a shadow of modern Restorationist Movements that move beyond temple rituals and garments and leader-worship to form "fellowships" or Protestant style churches (like the RLDS) instead. In other words, I see a divine pattern in the history of Christianity and The Bible. The Old Testament's physical temple was replaced with the collective temple of "Christian bodies" (the ecclesia): where God's Spirit (Pneuma) would dwell in humans not buildings. But then a physical church was erected in the form of Catholicism in order to organize and sustain the early Christian movement. Like every organization run by fallible humans it became corrupt; and so Martin Luther provided a necessary protest which became Protestantism, which basically means a protest against the corruption of Catholic leaders. Then of course the Protestant churches became built up as large organizations themselves and their leaders became corrupt; and thus there was needed the Book of Mormon where Joseph Smith condemned the modern Protestant churches and their anti-body creeds, paid clergy, and attachment to Augustine's Original Sin and an Unfortunate Fall. Then continuing the same trajectory, whereas the Book of Mormon and early Mormonism was simply a protest of a protest (protesting Protestantism), it also grew into a large organization after Joseph Smith was killed and the Utah-based Mormon Church became similar to the Catholic Church in acting more like a Corporation. 

Thus one can follow the cycle and its ongoing recycling of the same pattern, from the physical temple to the spiritual temple of the Body of Christ (Ecclesia), to the Catholic Church. Then the Catholic Church is protested against by Luther generating Protestantism. Then Protestantism is protested by the Restored Church of Christ through Joseph Smith. Then Joseph Smith is martyred and Brigham Young and Joseph Fielding Smith and others produce a new Corporatized Church similar to the Catholic Church. And thus many Mormon Restoration Movements emerge and begin protesting and breaking away from the corrupted Utah-based Brighamite Corporation. 

What this means to me is that there's always going to be the large organized Corporate Structure and an original Spiritual Movement. They need each other. For example, the artistic innovations of Paul needed the later Roman Catholic Church to organize his Ethos into a structured hierarchy so that it could more effectively spread and change lives. So too, Brigham Young was a necessary agent in allowing Mormonism to spread despite his many errors, which Denver Snuffer also argues in his December 2021 interview with the Salt Lake Tribune here. In other words, I do not see all "institutional religions" as inherently bad or evil, but are a "necessary evil" so to speak because without them the original innovations of those like Paul and Joseph Smith would not survive without the later structure of the organized systems produced by their predecessors. 

Keep in mind as well that Jesus himself, while opposing the Tradition of the Elders (a sect within Judaism) was himself a devout Jew and true to Torah observance. It is a misconception that Jesus opposed traditional Judaism. Jesus lived and died a religious Jew! From this perspective, with Jesus as more of a reformer of Judaism, seeking for his fellow Jews to focus more on "the spirit of the law" (interpreting the Mosaic Law based on the underlying principles of Torah over rigid dogmatism). Jesus as a religious Jew within Judaism, preached the Bible principles of love of God and neighbor as one's interpretive tool while remaining a member of the Jewish Religion. So one need not see all large organized religions as inherently problematic or something to reject outright. 

Organized religion does serve a purpose, for example we would not have Christianity if the Jewish People had not encoded an ethic of hospitality in the Hebrew Bible; which the apostle Paul and Jesus both utilized to generate more Other-centered compassion. It was the ancient Jewish Religion itself that organized this Hospitality Ethic around beliefs, rituals, and an ethnic identity. So without the Jewish religion there could be no spiritual reformers like Paul or Jesus. Note that James the Just (Jesus' brother) and the leader of the Jerusalem Church after Jesus died, did not leave Torah-observant Judaism to join Paul's Gentile-Christian movement that did not observe the Torah-Laws like circumcision. So if the brother of the Lord (James) was a Jerusalem temple attending, Torah observant Jew, then obviously it is complicated to say one should reject all organized religions that meet in church-buildings or temples. So it is not so simple as to segregate the spiritual from the religious, or brick-and-mortar "Church" from the spiritual wall-less church of the Body of Christ. In other words, just as James's Torah-observant sect existed side by side with Paul's Gentile assemblies, the Brighamite sect can exist harmoniously with the various non-temple wall-less Restoration Branches/Movements.

So I do not look down on or criticize those who want to be part of the institutional Brighamite Church, or the Catholic Church for that matter. I think they serve a purpose, and if the institutional structure provides one security and identity and fits their personality and it makes them happy and content, I support that. But I also think that for other personalities and temperaments, the Institutional Brighamite Church and its confining structure does not provide security but scrupulosity, and does not make them happy but miserable. To put it another way, I see religion as not a "one size shoe fits all," but that for some people the "Brighamite Mormon shoe" fits them well; while for another a different "religion shoe" fits them better or maybe they even fit into the atheist or agnostic shoe best.

The "Brigamite Mormon shoe" does not fit me because as I see it, the temple was simply preparing nineteenth century Mormons for the eventual change in mindset we learn from modern science today; wherein we now know that the body is not inherently sinful and depraved but in fact our bodily drives for sex and status were designed through millions years of organic evolution. Today’s modern understanding of sexuality has moved us way past Augustine’s superstitious nonsense, and Joseph Smith’s temple ritual paved the way for helping Mormons make this transition. Unfortunately, modern Brighamite Church Leaders in the 1900s basically “apostatised” (i.e. fell away) from “true Mormonism” and brought back puritanical body-despising ideas back into the Utah-based Brighamite Church: with in my view quite stupid and actually harmful ideas about a young boy’s reproductive organs being a little factory that needs to be shut down and masturbation is evil, or oral sex even in marriage is an "impure and unholy practice." The whole point of the temple ritual was actually meant to liberate Mormons from this kind of Augustinian puritanical nonsense.  

Today, modern Mormons have many options: they can remain devout Brighamite Mormons or they can resign their membership; or go "inactive" or be an "Edgy Mormon" or a New Order Mormon; or join one of the Restoration Movements, or reject all religions and spiritual paths. Or they can choose to be what I call an "Emergent Mormon": that sees no need for creeds, dogmas, secret garments or the temple; but instead can simply read the original Mormon Scriptures as inspired mythology or midrash, as practically useful for encouraging courage, strength, and vitality; as well as goodness, charity, and social unity; and embracing this life, this world, and seeing one's sexual body of muscles as good and holy. They can meet with other like-minded Restorationists or even non-Mormon Protestants or not attend any church or spiritual group, because it is about the Mormon Scriptures' stories acting as inspiration for transformation, not as a prescribed dogma; nor seeing temple rituals as a gateway to heaven.

Emergent Mormonism & Reform Mormonism?

After producing most of the content of this blog, in 2023 I found a group of individuals calling themselves The Mormon Community (Reform), dating back to 2002, that had come to nearly the same conclusions that I had (independent of each other). It has been deeply satisfying to find a group of individuals who after doing their own research and study of Mormon scripture and history, came to several of the same conclusions that I have come to on this blog and my articles. The fact that we both came to nearly the same conclusions independently of each other, has been validating. For I see that I am not alone in my desire to appreciate my Mormon heritage while thinking for myself, and that my opinions and point of view clearly has some credence since this other group came to the same or similar conclusions as myself.

For example, I agree that one does not need to meet in a chapel or interpret scripture literally to practice Mormonism. So I agree with the summary of Reform Mormonism:

Unlike most organizations based on Joseph's teachings, Reform Mormonism is a home-based spiritual path. Reform Mormons focus on the processes of self-actualization and Eternal Progression, seeking to become more like our Heavenly Father and Mother. … Reform Mormons are not fundamentalists or literalists in their approach to religion, but view all scripture and ordinances as artistic and symbolic endeavors, meant to inspire and assist individuals in their Eternal Progression.

(Source) 

This summary above is similar to my own point of view. I found the article, Scripture as Art: Reform Mormons and Scripture on the Reform Mormonism Site, to be very similar to the interpretive lens of the website churchistrue.com that follows the Marcus-Borg-inspired sacramental paradigm. I agree with this interpretive lens of understanding scripture. Another article at reformmormonism.org/library, states:

Reform Mormons recognize that all scripture was written by human beings. It is therefore a man-made or woman-made object - a created thing. Does that object contain inspiration? Does any created object contain inspiration? You be the judge. We view writing that is inspired to be "scripture" - which means many other writings may "speak" more loudly to a Reform Mormon than the Book of Mormon, and play the role of "scripture" in their lives than does the Book of Mormon.

Whether or not the [Book of Mormon] is a literal history is a ridiculous discussion. Reform Mormons don't need to engage in it since we don't connect the idea of its "truthfulness" to the idea that we belong to "the one true church." These concepts mean little or nothing to us, because they're quite useless.

… [Reform Mormonism is about] Learning to recognize inspiration in writing, and allowing it to mean something to you that is emotional, satisfying, and more than just the sum of the words. Learning to evaluate and incorporate new facts, not just find ways around them or dismiss them. Learning to create our own writing, explanation, and definitions of what currently has impact in our lives, rather than adopting someone else's outside system of what should matter. Learning to be free agents.

This is how we learn to progress and grow. Scripture plays a role in this. It is not, to us, a "foundation." We are the foundation. Scripture merely allows us to see ourselves differently, to understand ourselves better, to observe areas of potential growth, and - at its best - to learn to connect to a deeper part of ourselves and confront the veil. This view of ourselves is clouded at best and completely inaccurate at worst if we adopt other people's insistence upon - or perspectives of - literalness.

(Source)

I agree with this as well. As of this writing, I am still reading the articles on the website but so far I I agree with nearly everything I have read so far. So while I'm not willing to just call myself a member of any denomination, I would say that I definitely fall into the category of a "Reform Mormon" in at least the sense of I am definitely more of a Reform Mormon than an Orthodox Mormon. I define an Orthodox Mormon as a member of the Utah-based LDS Church (Brighamite sect) who blindly obeys the Brighamite "Brethren," or a member of the FLDS, etc. Put another way, the difference between "Reform Mormonisms" in general and Orthodox Mormonisms is similar to the difference between Orthodox Judaism and Reform Judaism. 

Furthermore, while reading through the articles on the website https://reformmormonism.org/library, I began to realize that the authors of that site had come to many of the same exact conclusions that I had. Specifically their understanding that Original Mormonism was a pro-body physicalist theology, which I point out in my blog series Sex, Gods, & Zion and my article The Secret Doctrine of God: Moving Toward A Theology of the Body. After writing all of the content in those links I then read through the articles at reformmormonism.org and noticed that the author(s) of that site had come to nearly the same conclusions that I had (again, independent of each other). This was vindicating to see, as it affirmed my own perspective, which I call The Emergent Mormon Perspective: in that it appears that anyone who honestly examines original Mormon scripture, history, and theology with an honest open mindedness, scholarly rigor, and rational frame, will likely come to similar conclusions.

Seeing somebody else realize the artistic literary beauty and liberating life-affirming theology of original Mormonism has been deeply validating. For example, as a heterosexual male, when I learned the true meaning of original Mormonism and it's pro-sensual message, I felt liberated from the toxic shame culture and induced scrupulosity I felt in my youth -- after experiencing phobia-inducing indoctrination from Brighamite Church leaders and its culture, based on wrongheaded ideas in books like The Miracle of Forgiveness and My Little Factory, etc. -- that produced a potent Shame Culture in the 1980s and 1990s when I was a Mormon youth (and continues till this day in Brighamite culture). So seeing that another group of people raised Mormon (at reformmormonism.org) had come to the same or similar conclusions that I did when reading the original Mormon documents, further vindicates my point of view; and supports my belief that one does not need to "throw out the baby with the bathwater," but they can keep the beautiful "baby" of original Mormonism's physicalist spirituality while throwing out the "dirty bathwater" of unhealthy and toxic creedal dogmatism in any of the mormon sects. One can thus maintain their identity as a "Mormon" (Reform and/or Emergent Mormon) and connect to their Mormon ancestors, the "Mormon People," and appreciate their LDS heritage and its core values; and find inspiration, meaning, and purpose in life through the Mormon Philosophy: without "checking their brain at the door of a Brighamite chapel," and instead go about mormoning in their own way, on their own terms; just as Joseph Smith himself did and exemplified.

A Nietzschean Trajectory: Examining Cultural "Energies" & Individual Physiologies

According to Oxford Languages, nihilism is "the rejection of all religious and moral principles, and the belief that life is meaningless." I have found that atheistic skepticism and positivism often ends in nihilism. Nietzsche understood this better than any other philosopher of his day. After being influenced by the nihilism of Schopenhauer, Nietzsche spent his entire career reacting against the No-saying of Schopenhauer with a more positive Yes-saying philosophy of life. Nietzsche acted as a "physician of the soul" diagnosing the sickness of modern culture due to nihilism and presenting the cure of a path to the Great Health. 

For Nietzsche, nihilism need not affect one's psychology and physiology negatively if they instead follow his existential "cure" of affirming life and the human species. For Nietzsche, scientific veracity was not as important as was "how far an opinion is life-furthering, life-preserving, species-preserving, perhaps species-rearing" (Source). So whatever affirmed life and the species was good, even religion-making was good as long as the religious mythology did not negate life or deny life but affirmed organic life and becoming. Thus, in Human, All Too Human -- Section Five: Signs of Higher and Lower Culture - Aphorism # 251, Nietzsche writes, "if science produces ever less joy in itself and takes ever greater joy in casting suspicion on the comforts of metaphysics, religion, and art, then the greatest source of pleasure, to which mankind owes almost its whole humanity, is impoverished. Therefore a higher culture must give give man a double brain, two brain chambers, as it were, one to experience science, and one to experience nonscience. Lying next to one another, without confusion, separable, self-contained: our health demands this. In the one domain lies the source of strength, in the other the regulator. Illusions, biases, passions must give heat; with the help of scientific knowledge, ..." In short, Nietzsche diagnosed nihilism as an existential sickness and offered the cure of the great health through religion-making artistry, which our health demands. 

Nietzsche distinguished between active and passive nihilism, writing in his notes in The Will to Power:

 “Nihilism, a normal condition.

It may be a sign of strength; spiritual vigour may have increased to such an extent that the goals toward which man has marched hitherto (the "convictions," articles of faith) are no longer suited to it (for a faith generally expresses the exigencies of the conditions of existence, a submission to the authority of an order of things which conduces to the prosperity, the growth and power of a living creature ...); on the other hand, a sign of insufficient strength, to fix a goal, a "wherefore," and a faith for itself.

It reaches its maximum of relative strength, as a powerful destructive force, in the form of active Nihilism.

Its opposite would be weary Nihilism, which no longer attacks: its most renowned form being Buddhism: as passive Nihilism, a sign of weakness: spiritual strength may be fatigued, exhausted, so that the goals and values which have prevailed hitherto are no longer suited to it and are no longer believed in—so that the synthesis of values and goals (upon which every strong culture stands) [Pg 22]decomposes, and the different values contend with one another: Disintegration, then everything which is relieving, which heals, becalms, or stupefies, steps into the foreground under the cover of various disguises, either religious, moral, political or æsthetic, etc.”

 In other words, even if one arrives at nihilism after the death of the God-concept by science, the psychological disorientation of the Mad Man (below) in Nietzsche's parable is real and his remedy of religion-making becomes an option to overcome the disorienting sickness of nihilism:

The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. "Whither is God?" he cried; "I will tell you. We have killed him -- you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning? Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.

 "Is not the greatness of this deed [killing the God-concept] too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whoever is born after us -- for the sake of this deed he will belong to a higher history than all history hitherto."

How one responds to nihilism can either be life-affirming and psychologically healthy by integrating both the left and right brain so to speak (i.e. Logos and Mythos); in order to ignite the passions through the imagination; or one's response can be pessimistic and life negating, denying the passions and imagination, thus lacking art, creativity, and mystical heat: as with Buddhism or Schopenhauerianism, etc. 

Nietzsche emphasizes the body (or one's physiology) above all else and how what we think and believe affects our body or physiology. So for Nietzsche there were two trajectories: shrinking in vitality and valor toward a degenerated, weak, pessimistic pale atheist and mediocre person (i.e. a Last Man), or expanding through courage, valor and optimistic myth-making toward generative strength and vitality (i.e. a Higher Man). 

Click on the image below where I present a Nietzschean Trajectory:

Click image to enlarge 

So I would argue that from a Nietzschean perspective, regardless of its objective veracity, "Smith-Pratt Mormonism" acts as dramatic art form and cultural ethos that is more life-affirming, hero's journey affirming, existentially healthy, and generative toward high culture and The Great Health, than the alternative of atheistic relativism and passive nihilism that leads to physiological depressiveness and cultural degeneration. 


A Case Study: 

I noticed the passive-nihilism of Bill Reel in his discussion with Jacob Hansen in May 2023. There were three discussions but the one most significant to me was the one published May, 19, 2023. 

I don't agree with all of Jacob Hansen's more orthodox positions, but I find his attempt at reconstructing his faith to be commendable; and it clearly works for him individually to feel better existentially. Bill Reel on the other hand seems negatively impacted physiologically by his nihilism. Listening to the entire 3 Part Discussion, I was most troubled by Bill Reel's denial of free will despite an Atlantic article by Stephen Cave saying it's better to believe in free will for ethical and practical reasons. As Bill Reel's nihilism and determinstic philosophy, led to his failing to say criminals can make the choice not to do harm. 

Then his nihilism led to him making anti-natalist statements wishing he did not have as many children as he did. This is nothing against Bill Reel personally, because I went through a similar state of existential nihilism myself for several years, before reconstructing my current Christian life-stance; and so I mean this only as a subjective "existential diagnosis" on my part. But in my view, one can see the clear nihilistic relativism and philosophical-pessimism as his frame of mind and the resultant depressive physiology in Bill Reel. In contrast, I see a more existentially healthy psyche and the practical result of a more healthy physiology in Jacob Hansen. 

In my view, Bill Reel mirrors the character Rust Cohle in the HBO Series True Detective, Season (1), who has a similar nihilistic worldview he calls being a philosophical pessimist (meaning he is a nihilist); and throughout the series we can see the resultant physiological depressiveness in Russ Cohle. 

The actor Mathew McConaughey has commented on how stepping into that character and adopting the worldview of the character of Russ Chole, and saying the nihilistic dialogue of a philosophical pessimist did in fact make him feel physiologically depressive. It was watching the series that I first became aware of how my own philosophical pessimism affected my own former depressive physiology that I now perceive in Bill Reel (as of 2023).

Compare the images below:

The actor Matthew McConaughey embodying the philosophical pessimism of the character Russ Chole:

The real Matthew McConaughey who derives existential meaning and energy from Christianity:

 So from a Nietzschean perspective, I want nothing to do with "exmormon atheistic nihilism," as it is a degenerative and depressive life philosophy. To be clear, note that there are other philosophical positions among former Mormons (as not all exmormons are atheists and/or nihilists); but unfortunately, the loudest voices and most consistent position among most exmormons, I have encountered since 2015, has been the more nihilistic variety.

For example, going on exmormon forums/message boards and lurking I have begun to see an "existential sickness" arise from this increase in nihilism as a cultural energy possessing many exmormons online: as they remain in a depressive state, full of chronic anger, stuck in a deconstruction phase, and are full of revengeful hatred and resentment: leading to a lack of ethics, leading to a mob mentality, cyber bullying, name calling, insults and mean-spiritedness. Many of them have remained in this state for decades, unable or unwilling to reconstruct a new spiritual ethos to overcome their nihilism. 

Popular exmormon podcasts have devolved into postmodern politically far-Left leaning propaganda, replacing the LDS religion with a new secular cult; while they are stuck in chronic deconstruction and resentment, doing almost nothing but criticizing and complaining. Another manifestation of nihilism. 

 So when I compare and contrast those who have reconstructed a new faith-stance with those stuck in nihilism and a chronic  "anti" frame, I see a core difference in cultural energy and personal physiology. So that even if nihilism were true, the Nietzschean response to nihilism of engaging in creating new values and creating empowering mythologies -- as Nietzsche attempted to do with his dionysian pantheism as a  "humanity-affirming religion" and Yes-saying philosophy of life -- seems far healthier psychologically, and wiser existentially. 

So I take from Nietzsche a valuable lesson in the reality of our embodied psyche and our primal need to create meaning and mythos to be most healthy psychologically and physiologically; so that on a practical level, why would I adopt a view leading to the path of a Sick Soul or Last Man rather than something more akin to the Healthy Minded or Higher Man of culture? Why not attempt to form the option of the path of the Emergent Mormon, as I do on this blog?

As Victor Frankl argued, creating meaning in life is the most important thing for developing psychological health. So why choose a passive nihilistic worldview that makes one existentially sick and depressive? Why remain stuck in deconstruction rather than move on to reconstructing a new life philosophy and/or mythos, a new identity and worldview, that is physiologically empowering?