Chris, it was good to meet you and briefly chat. Thanks for the detailed notes on the session.

One of the sessions I attended, which I felt was fairly worthwhile, was the one about intersections and environmental influences. Here are my notes on that session:

Christopher C. Jones, “‘We Latter-day Saints Are Methodists’: Methodist Influences on Early Mormonism.” MHA Conference, Sacramento, CA, 5/23/08.

Smith told a Methodist named Cartwright that the Methodists were the closest of all the sects to being right.

Mormon proselytism tended to be successful in regions where Methodism was strong. An inordinate number of converts to early Mormonism came from the Methodists. This was perhaps even more true in England than in the United States. Former Methodists also dominated the early LDS hierarchy, with 8 of the original 12 apostles having been affiliated with the Methodists at some point prior to their appointment.

Methodists were drawn to Mormonism’s blending of the rational and the metaphysical. Early Methodism included a similar tension. Wesley, for example, spoke of healing coming by “medication and prayer”.

The earliest accounts of Joseph Smith’s First Vision essentially follow the format of a Methodist conversion narrative. This is probably how both Joseph and those around him understood it. No wonder, then, his surprise when the vision was condemned by a Methodist minister!

Distinctives of early Methodist conversion narratives:

1. They occur at times of crisis
2. They are the result of reflection on a sermon or Scripture
3. They sometimes come by praying in a different way than usual (in Smith’s case, by praying aloud for the first time)
4. They include an encounter with the devil (which frequently involves bodily convulsions and the inability to speak)
5. A fortuitously timed theophany or vision delivers the convert from the devil
6. The convert makes a decision to join a Methodist society

Each of these was true also of the First Vision.

Benjamin E. Park, “‘The Defining Intellectual Influence’: Mormonism and Romanticism.” Mormon History Association conference, Sacramento, CA

Romantics rebelled against Neoclassicism.

They rejected full reliance on reason, yearned for revelation and intimate relationship with the divine
JS was a Romantic, perhaps even more than he was a primitivist.

Romantics rejected methodical truth acquisition in favor of intuition and experience.

The yearned for transcendence: deification? Argued for divine-human continuity.

Romantics tended to be anti-anthropomorphic; JS broke w/ this tradition.

Smith insisted upon the possibility of religious assurance. Certainty of calling and election was central to his thought. Romanticism also a quest for certainty?

Joseph Darowski – “Schools of the Prophets: An Early American Tradition” MHA Conference, Sacramento, CA 5/23/2008.

Harvard and Yale were considered Schools of the Prophets. They appealed to the OT as precedent. Great Awakening revivalists sharply rebuked these universities for failing to even produce Christians, let alone prophets.

The Great Awakening’s “New Light” ministers opened their own seminaries, which stressed conversion, ancient languages, and theology. Hyrum apparently attended such a school.

The Mormon SoP followed some earlier Protestant patterns, while breaking with others.

For JS, the essence of a Zion society was equality before the Lord. For this reason, he wanted to educate the Saints and opened a series of schools. Given the way SoP was used as a generic term for ministerial training schools, the Kirtland SoP is perhaps less distinct than we might think from other early Mormon education efforts like the high school & Nauvoo University.

The School of the Prophets included Holiness lifestyle requirements, Lectures of Faith, and language study.

But unlike Prot schools, there were also points of departure. They met in the temple, made covenants, hoped for theophanies.

Thanks for the notes.

So Richard and Claudia Bushman ramble over (my friends used to live in NY and knew the Bushmans) and were going to sit in two of the empty seats, but we had to shush them away because they were saved.

We laughed about how that’s probably the first time anyone had ever turned the Bushmans away from a table at an MHA event! Normally you can’t even get close to them for all the people hanging around their orbit. My friend said I had made a huge sacrifice for sitting with her family.

I thought the whole thing was pretty funny.

Paul’s talk on California Mormon architecture was really spectacular, with lots of pictures. Great stuff.

And the reception after was really fun, with conversation with dear old–and new–friends.

An absolutely terrific time!

Next year the conference will be in Springfield, IL, so plan ahead now.