This is a continuation of my pervious post here, where I discuss the radiant sensual body in Smith's 1840s theology.
The reason why, as Peter Coviello successfully argues (see previous post link above for details), that the Institutional LDS Church has been easily successful at depicting the current Mormon church as just another monotheistic Victorian Protestant sect is because Joseph Smith himself went through a development from Trinitarian Protestant (from about 1827 to 1839) to what I call an Abrahamic Expansionist in the 1840s.
LDS scholar John Tvetednes points out that because "Joseph Smith came from a traditional Protestant environment, in which there was firm belief in the trinity of the Nicaeno-Constantinopolitan Creed," the 1835 Lectures on Faith were essentially a modified doctrine of the Protestant Trinity (see A Reply to Dick Baer by John A. Tvedtnes, pages 25 to 26). Meanwhile, LDS scholar Terryl Givens speaks freely of how Protestant Calvinist doctrines made its way into The Book of Mormon. In other words, The Book of Mormon can be seen as inspired and yet be what Blake Ostler describes as a modern expansion: in that the story of the Nephites and Lamanites was told through Joseph Smith's own psyche and personal creativity and thus contains the limitations of his Protestant mindset at the time. Many LDS Scholars respect this point of view.
The Church's website acknowledges this "seemingly" change in understanding of the Godhead from 1835 and 1843:
The publication of the Lectures on Faith in the Doctrine and Covenants elevated its status among Church members. In the early 20th century, however, Church leaders became increasingly concerned about some of the statements in the Lectures on Faith. For example, the fifth lecture speaks of the Father as a “personage of spirit,” which seems to contradict Joseph Smith’s teaching (expressed in 1843, several years after the lectures were given) that “the Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man’s” (D&C 130:22). Elder James E. Talmage, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles who led the committee that revised the 1921 Doctrine and Covenants, felt that it would be best to “avoid confusion and contention on this vital point of belief.”
(Source)
During the composition of the Book of Mormon Joseph Smith moved to many different locations around New York. Although Smith did not stay in Palmyra the entire time, it is clear that Palmyra had an effect on his psyche and on March 26, 1830 the first printed copies of the Book of Mormon were available in Palmyra, New York. So one could say that The Book of Mormon was produced during this Palmyra, New York phase.
This was the time when Joseph Smith was caught up in the Revivals in Palmyra, New York; and so the Book of Mormon contains the language of many Protestant sermons, as the preachers of that day (like today) threatened Hellfire and caused great anxiety and produced dramatic conversion experiences.
The Ohio & Missouri Transition
The following trajectory taken from a website provides important dates and locations for understanding the development of Mormon theology. My words are in Brackets:
From December 1830 to January 1831, [Joseph Smith received Revelations for the Saints to gather in Ohio.]
July 20, 1831 — The site for the city of Zion (the New Jerusalem) in Independence, Missouri, is revealed to Joseph Smith.
[Smith was very focused on the Pauline/Johannine vision of an egalitarian Christian society which Smith described as Zion]
Nov. 1, 1831 — “The Book of Commandments” is published.
[These canonized Revelations sound very Protestant and contain only modified versions of Protestant theology during this time period.]
Feb. 14, 1835 — The Quorum of the Twelve Apostles is organized in Kirtland, Ohio.
[During this time Joseph Smith is moving away from the more non-hiearchical egalitarian concepts (lacking structure) by forming a more hierarchical structure based on the Hebrew Bible]
Aug. 17, 1835 — The Doctrine and Covenants accepted as a standard work of the church in Kirtland, Ohio.
[It is important to note that it is at this time in 1835, that the Lectures on Faith were published as the doctrine of the church and we're essentially trinitarian. Meanwhile, D&C section 101 in this 1835 version declared monogamy as the doctrine of the church even though Joseph Smith had begun to introduce polygamy secretly among his inner circle. This demonstrates part of the transitional period from monogamous protestantism toward plural marriage later on.]
March 28, 1836 — The Kirtland Temple dedicated.
January 1838 — Joseph Smith and his family moves from Ohio to Missouri.
Dec. 1, 1838 — April 16, 1839 — The Prophet Joseph Smith and others imprisoned at Liberty Jail in Liberty, Missouri.
1839 — Joseph Smith and his family move from Missouri to Nauvoo, Illinois.
[It is here, in Nauvoo in the 1840s, that we begin to see the radical shift away from Victorian Protestant Norms and monotheism; when Joseph Smith declares the doctrine of the Plurality of Gods, all matter is refined spirit (theological materialism) and his doctrine of Abrahamic Expansionism (see D&C 132), that is the Gods expand in dominion and power through their increase of lives/progeny through the Abrahamic practice of the pleasures of the flesh having plural wives and concubines (note that during the Nauvoo period women could also have multiple husbands).]
March 17, 1842 — Female Relief Society organized in Nauvoo, Illinois.
May 4, 1842 — First full temple endowments given in Nauvoo, Illinois.
May 19, 1842 — Joseph Smith is elected as the mayor of Nauvoo, Illinois.
May 28, 1843 — Joseph and Emma Smith are sealed for time and eternity.
July 12, 1843 — Revelation on plural wives and celestial marriages is recorded by Joseph Smith.
May 17, 1844 — Joseph Smith is nominated as a U.S. presidential candidate.
June 24, 1844 — Joseph Smith with his brother Hyrum voluntarily surrenders to a constable in Carthage, Illinois on charges of inciting a riot.
June 27, 1844 — Joseph and Hyrum Smith martyred at Carthage Jail in Carthage, Illinois.
(Source)
Below I will expound further on the growing development away from monotheistc monogamous protestantism toward an abrahamic theology. The following timeline I put together shows how early Mormonism was at first trinitarian, more egalitarian, and essentially Protestant (with a heavy emphasis on the concept of Zion). In the process of the restoration of all things, by the 1840s Joseph Smith believed he was called to restore the early spiritual naturalism of the ancient Hebrews, which included the Council of Gods (embodied anthropomorphic Gods) and plural marriage.
There are those, like Taylor Drake, who wrote Joseph in the Gaps, that argue that Joseph Smith abandoned the original Palmyra/Kirtland Church and went wrong with his Nauvoo innovations. I have not read the book but listened to Taylor Drake on many podcasts. I probably wouldn’t deny his facts and evidence. But I would offer an alternative interpretation of his facts and evidence. In my view, there is room for the viewpoint, that Smith projected the language and concepts of his day (Puritan Protestantism) into his early scriptures and revelations; but what was missing from the Pauline/Lutheran point of view of his Protestant culture was the view that matter, the earth, and tangible bodies were good and sensuality was divine.
So in my view, Joseph restored Judaic Sensuality after Protestant Puritanism had despised the body with doctrines derived from Platonism and Augustine’s dogma of Original Sin, etc. Smith also restored to the Christian movement many of the views of modern science which were not known earlier. See Joseph Smith's 21st Century View of the World: Truths He Knew Before the World Accepted Them by John David Lamb.
So here is how I see the trajectory:
1830: The Book of Mormon's Ekklesia: We find Methodist and Calvinist Protestantism within the Book of Mormon. Terryl and Fiona Givens often discuss the Calvinist language Joseph Smith was working with when dictating The Book of Mormon; and Blake Ostler discusses the expansionist theory which explains why these Protestant ideas and concepts are in the Book of Mormon.
1835: The Kirtland Church: The 1835 Lectures on Faith as the Protestant Doctrine of the Latter day Saints, with a Father God without a personage of tabernacle (a bodiless spirit). Again, as LDS scholar, John Tvetednes points out that because "Joseph Smith came from a traditional Protestant environment, in which there was firm belief in the trinity of the Nicaeno-Constantinopolitan Creed," the Lectures on Faith were essentially a modified doctrine of the trinity (see A Reply to Dick Baer by John A. Tvedtnes, pages 25 to 26). So this time period was full of typical Victorian/Puritan and prudish mores common at the time. This time period had doctrines that I also find interesting like:
Tithing only on your surplus
Emphasis on building an egalitarian Zion (e.g. the United Order and law of consecration)
1836: The philosophical shift from Calvinism and Methodism toward Judaic/Hebrew spiritual naturalism (all spirit is matter) begins here after Joseph Smith learned Hebrew from a Jew and his mind was expanded to embrace the original Hebrew theology of the Old Testament. From this point we see the further formation of a priesthood hierarchy akin to the Catholics, a focus more on self-reliance and free-market capitalism, and the restoration of hebraic eros and embodied senuality as divine and good. The melding of Hebrew Eros and Pauline Zion can be summarized by these dates:
1836: "The Hebrew class was taught from January 26 to March 29, 1836 by Joshua Seixas, a Jewish man who had converted to Christianity." (Source)
1836: The events surrounding Fanny Alger
1841: "Joseph Smith received a revelation on January 19, 1841 instructing the Saints to construct a boarding house named the Nauvoo House to “be a delightful habitation for man, and a resting-place for the weary traveler, that he may contemplate the glory of Zion.”
1842: "On Jan. 5, 1842, the Prophet Joseph Smith opened for business in his new red brick store on Water Street in Nauvoo." (Source).
1842: On March 1, 1842 … the Articles of Faith were published for the first time in the Church’s Times and Seasons newspaper in Nauvoo. Articles of Faith 1:2: “We believe that men will be punished for their own sins, and not for Adam’s transgression.”
1840s: The Nauvoo Kingdom: The rise of spiritual naturalism and abrahamic expansionism: a Father God with a personage of tabernacle, with body parts and passions; a masculine and feminine divine; a sexual society of Gods in the heavens mirrored on earth through plural marriage sealings within Christianized Freemasonic rites in temples.
1920 to present: Utah's Corporate Church: A return to victorianism, puritanism and prudishness in order to fit in with Protestant culture after abandoning polygamy. The beginnings of a correlation committee, set dogma, mandatory tithing, and Temple worthiness interviews: including inappropriate questions above masturbation that began around the 1950s, and at one point the questions included asking married couples if they engage in oral sex which was considered depraved (this question was later removed).
Nauvoo Mormonism:
It is clear to me that the Nauvoo Mormon era ushered in a post-Protestant Abrahamic Expansionism, what Coviello calls the doctrine of the radiant body: which was a repudiation of the depraved body of Augustinian and Calvinist dogma. Joseph Smith basically restored the abrahamic theology of the ancient Hebrew Bible. The original belief structure of the ancient Jews was built around a belief in Jehovah and the Council of the Gods and sex with multiple partners was acceptable and good (as the way to expand a theology held by a People as Abraham and the patriarchs took part in, as well as the means of experiencing the joys of sex).
The kingdom of Nauvoo was not the realm of a pacifist, celibate, monkish utopia. Smith was too masculine, confident, charasmatic and ambitious for that. He envisioned a new world order, a theo-democracy (as The Joseph Smith Papers puts it).
The Templed City of Nauvoo
One thing that stood out to me when listening to the audiobook Rough Stone Rolling by Richard Bushman, is that Joseph Smith never really intended to create a church of merely chapels but intended to create a city of temples. Temples were where you were endowed during your progress to becoming a sexually liberated God-in-the-making. In my view, plural marriage was meant to be a temporary ritual and the language of D&C 132 (that emphasizes practicing plural marriage as a necessity to enter the highest degree of Heaven) was in my view meant to work on the hearts and minds of men; just as the Hellfire language in the Book of Mormon was also designed to work on the heart and mind of the reader when in reality such language was metaphorical not literal (see D&C 19). In other words, my theory is that plural marriage was designed to change the consciousness of the Saints which was accomplished by 1890; and was not meant to be a permanent practice and is not a necessity in the highest degree of Heaven.
The city of Nauvoo was to be a post-Protestant new community based on the empowering theo-philosophy of Abrahamic Expansionism combined with the unifying ideals of Zion. In my view, Smith sought to liberate the Saints from the sexual oppression of prudish puritanism which shunned sensual pleasure in the body. Again, as he explains it succinctly in his letter to Nancy Rigdon, "God is more liberal in his views." Joseph Smith was simply too masculine, too virile, to rugged and physical and athletic to be confined to the role of a celibate monkish priest or minister. He had the ego and bravado and courage to break out of the Protestant norms of his day. Being true to the Bible itself, I think he sincerely searched the scriptures and with audacious chutzpah he claimed access to direct revelation (on par with the apostle Paul) as he sought to replace Augustinian Protestant dogma by reintroducing the original Hebrew theology of a Plurality of Gods and plural marriage; presenting Humanity not as depraved but gods in embryo on the path to their exaltation within a pro-sexual theology that declared the pleasures of the flesh as righteous and good.
In Conclusion
The Nauvoo Kingdom is not the Salt Lake City Kingdom of the modern Institutionalized Church in Utah. The version of Mormonism that has sprung up in the 1900s is not fully based on the origial vision of Joseph Smith. Current Mormon leaders have simply given in to the peer pressure of their surrounding Protestant America and have sought to conform to Puritan prudishness by adopting the same Purity Culture as Evangelicals; and seek to sound monotheist in their proselyting. They are able to pull this off because Joseph Smith in fact channeled Protestant dogma (he psychologically inherited from his Palmyra upbringing), into the Book of Mormon and the early Revelations contained in the Doctrine and Covenants (produced prior to 1840). However, by the mid-1830s to the 1840s, Joseph Smith began to generate a post-Protestant Abrahamic theology that was directly at odds with the Calvinist Puritan Dogma he grew up with.
So if you only stick to what Joseph Smith produced before 1839 you will only find material supporting Protestant Trinitarian monotheism. This is why other restoration branches like The Community of Christ continue to believe in the Book of Mormon yet are largely Trinitarian Protestants in their belief system.
Some devout true believing Mormons might scoff at my analysis and argue that modern prophets receive revelation. However, the current Utah-based Institutional Church itself admits that church leaders can make mistakes even in doctrine. Keep in mind that the Lectures on Faith were the doctrine bound in scripture but then were removed from the Canon. The recent 2013 Race and the Priesthood essay admits that the temple priesthood-ban and the doctrines surrounding blacks and the priesthood are now considered basically wrong: yet the essay omits the fact that there are authoritative statements in 1949 and 1969, declaring the seed of Cain as Doctrine. Hence the 2013 essay is a repudiation of the former doctrine with a new doctrine that disavows the racial doctrines of the past. In other words, the facts are indisputable that that which is claimed to be doctrine or revelation can and does change. Even Joseph Smith said a prophet is a prophet only when he is acting as such.
So as I see it, there is no reason not to conclude that the current attitudes and positions of the current Institutional Church in regards to the body and sensuality, are as mistaken as declaring that blacks are cursed with a dark skin as the Seed of Cain. Because of this growing awareness of past mistakes in the internet age, modern Mormon apologists have become more frank in their criticism of the Institutional-Mormon's belief in prophetic infallibility.
Again, as previously mentioned, the contrast between the transition between the early Protestant Mormon phase into the later Abrahamic Expansionism, is so stark that books have been written by Mormons attempting to return to the Protestant beginnings, as we see in the book Joseph in the Gap: The Hidden History That Explains Mormonism's Past, Present, and Future by Taylor Drake. Drake basically declares Joseph Smith a fallen Prophet like The Community of Christ does. But in my view, to return to these early transitional periods is to simply return to just another Protestant sect. It removes from Mormonism all that was unique and philosophically profound and empowering in what Joseph Smith produced. As Joseph Smith himself puts it, "Take away the Book of Mormon and the revelations and where is our religion? We have none.” (HC, 2:52, words in italics my own for emphasis).
In my view, the the practice of plural marriage was a temporary phase and strategy. As I mentioned earlier, a Latter-Day Saint can simply see polygamy as a method of liberation from puritanism and a restoring of Hebrew theology and a more positive view of the body, that was useful during that time frame. I believe that the spirit of the Nauvoo Kingdom was based on Joseph Smith's attempt to repudiate much of body-denying Protestant dogma. So one can embrace the spirit of Nauvoo while not necessarily practicing polygamy (as I personally do not intend to do). In fact, again I'm not promoting libertinism. See: Disclaimers regarding Sexual Ethics, Modern Polygamists, & The Flaws of Joseph Smith.
