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Chapter 2: Unity and Conflict in Early Mormon History
- Penn State University Press
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2 unity and conflict in early mormon history The rise of nineteenth-century Mormonism illustrates the important convergence of heretical religious innovation, primary group social reinforcement , and auspicious historical circumstances involving a receptive religious market in the context of a supportive cultural environment. All of these elements, in potent combination, are conducive to the successful emergence of new religious traditions.1 In the case of the Mormons, the heretical innovator was Joseph Smith Jr. The initial social reinforcement came through Smith’s attentive, if not doting, parents and siblings and a spreading network of credulous neighbors and employers. Historical circumstances included American political separation of church and state and frontier settings in a new nation ripe with uncharted democratic possibilities for innovation, expansion, and change. The supportive cultural environment included both the regional folk magic traditions of New England and upstate New York, as well as the camp meeting revivals of the second Great Awakening that emphasized ultra-supernatural religion and ecstatic conversion.2 At the same time, we should not forget that the emergence of new religions typically generates discord and divisions as well as spiritual ful- fillment for believers. Detractors typically characterize adherents of new religions as deluded—and their leaders as unscrupulous villains. Prophetic new religions predictably struggle, too, with internal doubts and dissent. In the context of mass Mormon migrations from western New York to the American Midwest and ultimately to Utah’s Rocky Mountain Great Basin, we highlight here those aspects of early Mormon history that PAGE 26 ................. 18278$ $CH2 08-30-12 08:36:52 PS unity and conflict 27 demonstrate the polarizing effects of new religious movements founded in the strong charisma of oracular prophecy. new york Joseph Smith Jr. was born in Sharon, Vermont, but at the age of eleven, he moved with his family to Palmyra, New York, in the winter of 1816–17. Palmyra was one of a string of towns and villages in upstate New York that blossomed along the length of the Erie Canal between Albany and Buffalo during the first quarter of the nineteenth century. Propertyless after experiencing a series of financial reversals in New England, Joseph Smith Sr. hoped to begin anew in the expanding frontier economy of western New York.3 Both Smith parents were deeply religious, Bible-reading literalists, but they were divided by an important difference: Joseph’s mother, Lucy, was ‘‘churched’’ (uniting with the Presbyterians, circa 1824), but his father, Joseph Sr., was not affiliated and, in fact, was antagonistic toward organized religion. At the same time, Joseph Sr. professed vision-like dreams whose meanings eluded and troubled him, and he allowed the pious Lucy to have primary control over their children’s religious upbringing. Joseph Smith Sr. was reasonably well educated for his time and place and, prior to moving to New York, had tried his hand at teaching school as well as farming and tending a store. In New York he cleared land and again attempted farming; Lucy sold assorted homemade items and refreshments , which she and the children peddled from a cart, for extra income. Along with other men in the Palmyra area, Joseph Sr. also believed in occult powers and joined with some of his neighbors in deploying magical artifices in the search for buried treasure, an occupation in which Joseph Jr. also engaged as a young man. Of Joseph Jr., only a smattering of detail is known of his childhood and early adolescence (most of which comes from his mother’s memoir, written in old age after Joseph’s death).4 Joseph suffered a serious infection in his leg as a child, was partially lame for a period of time following a horrific operation, and consequently appears to have been the object of his mother ’s particular attention and affection. Other than a slight limp, Joseph outgrew his childhood handicap and, like his father and five brothers, developed a strong, broad-shouldered physique and a mature height in excess of six feet.5 We can infer from various contemporary sources that as a young man he was bright, literate (though the recipient of only a very PAGE 27 ................. 18278$ $CH2 08-30-12 08:36:52 PS [54.196.27.171] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 18:06 GMT) 28 binding earth and heaven sporadic grammar-school education), sociable, imaginative, and, apparently like his father, an able storyteller with a narrative talent. That as a man he would be capable of entertaining radical theological...