Comments on: The Mormon Jubilee

By: manaen

manaen — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 06:22:34 +0000

9. I find it very interesting that BY refers to himself and the other apostles as â€œthe traveling high councilâ€. This appeared in minutes of the first high council in 1835, and in revelations to Joseph Smith in 1835, and in 1841. In 1880, the Church also declared a year of Jubilee in 1930 and asked members to write personal histories for their descendants to read in the Jubilee year. I treasure the one my g-g-grandmother wrote at age 34 of her family's conversion and persecution in England when she was a girl, the miraculous healing of her father after being burned in a coal pit, crossing the plains and burying her mother at trail side, marriage and sealing in the Endowment House, and going on after her husband was killed in a snow slide. She writes in her last paragraph,

I will now write to those who may be liveing of my ofspring 50 years hence. My Dear and Beloved children I have written you a short sketch of my life and your Fathers hoping that it will be interesting to you and that you will Preserve it and hand it down to your Posterity for GeneraÂ¬tions. I say unto you all, be humble and prayerfull, and always under all circumstances put your trust in the Lord and he will not forsake, for this is what I have learned by experience, and I want to Testify unto you that I know this to be the true Church and Kingdom of God established upon the earth, never to be thrown down, and I hope and pray that all my future generations may live so as to receive a testomoney for themselves of this work, and it is my desire that you may further carry out and Establish the work that I have commenced, so that when we have finished our probation here, we may receive an exaltation in our fathers kingdom.

Her bouyancy and faith after the experiences she related have helped me through my trials.

By: amri

amri — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 20:47:04 +0000

Lilburn “Buster” Boggs? Seriously, I need to get one of those quotation marked nicknames.

I think this Mormon city also thrived because of the sense of belonging to something new and world-changing (this and the next). It’s exciting to feel those feelings and while we might get those occasionally, they don’t happen very often. Plus it’s not so new and grassroots anymore.

By: smb

smb — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 20:33:57 +0000

Stapley is correct. Remember that Nauvoo was a “stake of Zion,” so the authority of the Apostles was less than clear vis-a-vis the standing high council of Nauvoo. It was hard to maintain that Nauvoo was the “mission field,” but that was something like the logic of succession.

By: J. Stapley

J. Stapley — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 20:25:55 +0000

Mark, that is really what the succession crisis was about. So I would say that jurisdictional disputes weren’t resolved until succession was.

By: Mark IV

Mark IV — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 20:08:13 +0000

Just a tangent, but I find it very interesting that BY refers to himself and the other apostles as “the traveling high council”. If I remember correctly, there was some conflict over jurisdiction between the apostles and the high council in Missouri, but I thought it had been resolved by the time we got to Nauvoo. When did we start calling them the quorum of the twelve? I can’t imagine anybody today saying traveling high council.

By: smb

smb — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 18:03:07 +0000

Rockwell reportedly made that argument, though he was ultimately let off for lack of evidence, as I recall.
john f, thanks for the input on the rural areas. I think staples is right that a charismatic leader is helpful. i wonder whether anyone has done recent useful research on the nature of unity in the FLDS communities (rather than just talking about their fights with the LDS and the law).

By: Joe B.

Joe B. — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 17:21:44 +0000

My opinion is that it was the trials and persecution that united them. I think we have a hard time coming together like that today because life is too comfortable. We wouldn’t need to be the only ones in a community, necessarily. But we’d need something external to bring us together.

I wish our ward or stake could find that unity, but be careful what you wish for, I guess.

By: J. Stapley

J. Stapley — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 16:43:44 +0000

I think that the local presence of the Prophet had to have had a galvanizing effect on the saints. He walked among them and people called him by his first name. That really is hard to replace. The charisma was within reach.

By: Blain

Blain — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 16:17:44 +0000

Wasn’t that the case that Port got out of based on his testimony to the effect that, if he’d shot at Boggs, he’d have killed him and not just wounded him?

By: john f.

john f. — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 11:08:53 +0000

Steve, a related question is how a unity such as Nauvoo’s could possibly exist in a pluralistic society. That is, isn’t homogeniety (in this case religious homogeneity) a de facto pre-requisite for such a condition of unity? It seems like this very idea is the impetus behind Elder Oaks’s (apparently controversial) statement that unity within the Church is the goal, not diversity (meaning, of course, becoming of one mind religiously, and not implying that people of all racial, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds should not be part of this religious unity).

As someone who is in withdrawal from living in SLC — such a beautiful and comfortable setting and city — I must also admit that I do not miss the LDS, non-LDS divide there. SLC is no Nauvoo. By and large, LDS are treated very poorly in SLC (with many notable exceptions, of course, including the wonderful neighbors that I shared with SMB when we lived on the same street in SLC). As it currently stands, SLC could never approximate a unity of purpose, thought, or goals like Nauvoo. SLC is not an LDS city, contrary to what people might believe (although it might be the only place in the world where I could regularly see anti-Mormon graffiti spray-painted on the city sidewalks). LDS consitute the largest single religious body in the city, but do not consitute a majority of people in the city. Of course, the LDS could just abandon their priorities and positions and join with the non-LDS in a bid at achieving a type of unity.

Sam raises the possibility that this type of thing might exist in some of the Mormon hinterland. It is true that there are still many dusty towns throughout Utah that are close to 100% LDS (though certainly not 100% practicing or active LDS). From my observation, having spent apparently much more time in these places than SMB (having family in Sanpete County has meant spending time in the towns immediately surrounding Manti pretty much every year), this unity also does not really exist in those towns either. That might be a result of lacking the central focus that the physical presence of the prophet gives (which is why SLC would be the natural focus of the investigation, rather than Ephraim or Monticello).

This raises a related question of whether a completely secularized society can achieve such a unity. That is a tricky question and one that I have thought long about, particularly because of my own preference for the separation of church and state.

Anyway, I’m just thinking off the cuff. I don’t have any answers, just random thoughts.