No, not that Jersey, the one famous for Bruce and the MTV show. Its namesake, the one in the English Channel.

Through my clicking, I learned that my great-great-great-grandmother was born in Jersey in 1838 and died in West Bountiful in 1912.

For most, this probably wouldn’t be remarkably meaningful. I didn’t do the work to get back these generations, and I have absolutely no knowledge of these ancestors’ lives.[fn2] But . . .

. . . but Jersey is a tax haven.[fn3] And I’m a professor of tax law, a researcher of tax law, and, frankly, pretty darn interested in most things tax. And so, learning that I’m descended from residents of what has now become a tax haven is just cool. Way cooler than pretend being descended from royalty.

And now I’m curious. I’m curious about when and how the Church moved into Jersey. I’m curious what life was like in Jersey (which, I assume, wasn’t a tax haven in the 19th century). And I’m curious what the Church was like in Jersey. My relationship to Jersey is more attenuated than the relationship that Ardis suggests careful family history research can develop, but, for one of the first times, I’ve found something fascinating about my family history.

And that’s a cool feeling.

—

[fn1] I suspect this is accurate, notwithstanding my run-in with royalty documented in my earlier post.

[fn2] Ardis pointed out on my earlier post that, through carefully learning about earlier generations, starting with our parents and moving back, we learn details about their lives that, in turn, help bind us closer to them (a paraphrase that hopefully does little damage to Ardis’s point). I found that paradigm-shifting in my view of the purpose behind genealogy and our current participation in proxy ordinances. That said, as I’ll explain shortly, this Jersey connection also piques my personal and historical curiosity.

[fn3] Albeit a tax haven about which I know very little. In the U.S., we generally use Bermuda or the Cayman Islands or maybe Ireland or Switzerland (though the latter two would dispute the label). Jersey is mostly a tax haven for London, from what I understand.

At 394 pages with 12-point font (not the tiny print one sometimes finds in reference volumes) it might seem a little light for the genre, but that adds to what you might call the readability of the book. The first of four major sections presents six 10-page essays covering the entire span of the Mormon experience, essentially a short but dense course in LDS history:

• Foundation: 1820-1830, by James B. Allen
• Development: 1831-1844, by Stephen C. Taysom
• Exodus and Settlement: 1845-1869, by Ardis E. Parshall
• Conflict: 1869-1890, by W. Paul Reeve
• Transition: 1890-1941, by Thomas G. Alexander
• Expansion: 1941-Present, by Jessie L. Embry

As this list illustrates, the authors for essays and articles in the book include seasoned scholars, younger scholars, and independent scholars (those without a present academic affiliation). Bloggers are well represented: Julie Smith (Mormon Scripture), Nate Oman (Mormonism and Secular Government), Brad Kramer (Local Worship), J. Stapley (Mormon Missiology), Samuel Brown (Mormonism as Restoration), Blair Dee Hodges (Correlation), Bruce A. Crow (Mormon Battalion), just about everyone on the perm roster at Juvenile Instructor, and of course Ardis, who like her co-editor wrote about a dozen short entries as well as the longer historical essay listed above.

I am not so bold as to try to critique any particular entry or even the selection of topics — I’m sure there were dozens of potential entries that weren’t included simply because you can’t include everything in a single volume. A full table of contents for the book is available at the book’s Amazon page. The fourth section of the book, Issues, is really outstanding: 23 short articles of about five pages each on such topics as Mormonism and Blacks (by Margaret Blair Young and Darius Aidan Gray), Mormonism and Race (Armand Mauss), Mormonism as a World Religion (David Clark Knowlton), and Non-Mormon Views of Mormonism (Jan Shipps).

I hate to spend the whole review speaking in generalities without sharing a little bit of the content of this enlightening volume, so I will end with a second list giving one surprising fact or statement drawn from the biographical articles on each President of the LDS Church. I guess I’m hoping to show that these aren’t just Sunday School summaries — there really is a lot of information in the book that many readers, even well-read ones, will not have encountered before. For all presidents except Joseph Smith, I will note the years served as President of an organized First Presidency, along with the author of each article.

1. Joseph Smith, 1830-1844 (Jed Woodworth) – Joseph Smith “is not known to have preached a sermon before he organized the Church of Christ, in April 1830.”
2. Brigham Young, 1847-1877 (John G. Turner) – When Brigham moved to reorganize a First Presidency in 1847, several of the Twelve, including Orson Pratt, opposed the action.
3. John Taylor, 1880-1887 (Ardis E. Parshall) – John Taylor’s last public address was on February 1, 1884; after than, he was “on the underground” (in hiding, at various locations) until his death in 1887.
4. Wilford Woodruff, 1889-1898 (Thomas G. Alexander) – While serving as the president of the St. George temple, Woodruff introduced “vicarious temple ordinances for deceased men and women not related to Mormons — particularly national and international political, literary, and scientific leaders.”
5. Lorenzo Snow, 1898-1901 (Alan L. Morrell) – The Church was almost bankrupt when Snow took over leadership in 1898; he issued Church bonds and set the expectation that every Latter-day Saint would pay a full tithing. Church finances turned around within a few short years.
6. Joseph F. Smith, 1901-1918 (Christopher C. Jones) – The man who really ended polygamy with the Second Manifesto of 1904, part of a successful transition from the confrontational stance of the 19th-century Church to the accommodationist stance (my term) of the 20th-century Church.
7. Heber J. Grant, 1918-1945 (W. Paul Reeve) – Grant served as President almost 27 years and oversaw the emergence of two defining features of modern Mormonism: during Prohibition, “a more stringent implementation of the Word of Wisdom”; and during the Great Depression, the Church Welfare Program.
8. George Albert Smith, 1945-1951 (Gary James Bergera) – Married just after his 22nd birthday, he and his wife together served an LDS mission to the southern states from 1892 to 1894.
9. David O. McKay, 1951-1970 (Gregory A. Prince) – A clean-shaven monogamist and “the first college graduate to serve as president.” Along with Ernest Wilkinson, “transform[ed] BYU from a small, bucolic college into the largest private university in the United States.”
10. Joseph Fielding Smith, 1970-1972 (Matthew Bowman) – Church Historian from 1921 to 1970, his 1938 publication of The Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith made many of Joseph’s teachings “available to the general public for the first time.”
11. Harold B. Lee, 1972-1973 (J. B. Haws) – Mr. Correlation.
12. Spencer W. Kimball, 1973-1985 (Jacob W. Olmstead) – Kimball successfully opposed “efforts to deploy the MX missle in the Great Basin in 1981.” And there was that revelation in 1978.
13. Ezra Taft Benson, 1985-1994 (J. B. Haws) – To the surprise of some, “the preeminent focus of his ministry [as President of the Church] was the Book of Mormon,” not anti-Communism. See the 1988 Conference talk Flooding the Earth With the Book of Mormon.
14. Howard W. Hunter, 1994-1995 (W. Paul Reeve) – The first LDS President born in the 20th century; also the shortest tenure (8 months, 26 days) of any LDS President.
15. Gordon B. Hinckley, 1995-2008 (Gary James Bergera) – Called as an additional counselor to President Kimball in 1981, “Hinckley guided the Church as de facto president” during Kimball’s last years in the mid-1980s, then again acted as de facto president during President Benson’s decline in the early 1990s.
16. Thomas S. Monson, 2010-present (Gary James Bergera) – President Monson spearheaded efforts to build an LDS temple in East Germany (completed 1985) and to secure permission for LDS missionaries to proselyte there (1988). At the time, these were stunning developments, coming several years before the Berlin Wall came down (1989) and Germany reunified (1990).

My advice: beg, borrow, or buy this book. You will enjoy it.

Former Speaker of the U. S. House of Representatives, “Tip” O’Neill, is well known for saying All politics is local. By that he meant that voters choose who they support based on how it effects them locally, instead of on major national ideological issues. While how true this is may be debatable (don’t here, its off topic), I think it extends to history also. All history is local.

Too often the history that is most popular, and even that produced by academics, is concentrated in events and periods that capture the public’s imagination. In the U.S., look at the lineup for the History Channel or what appears on the bookshelves of large bookstores—you might get the idea that U.S. history is mostly the Civil War and World War II. In Mormon history, the concentration is on the Joseph Smith period and on the territorial Utah period. I sometimes wonder if Mormon history for most LDS Church members stopped by 1890!

Along with this period bias in Mormon history there is a similar bias towards what happened at Church Headquarters and those saints who gathered to be with the bulk of the Church. What happened in Utah is usually more important than what happened in California or the Eastern U.S. or anywhere else. Even in the Mormon histories that do look at Mormonism on the peripheries it is unusual to find citations to sources in libraries outside of Utah or in languages other than English. I don’t want to overlook the difficulties in finding and using such sources, but I also don’t want to ignore the fact that much of this problem stems not from the difficulty in getting sources, but from a lack of interest in the local.

Which brings me back to my extrapolation of Tip O’Neill’s statement. Since all historical events and movements have to happen in some location, the local context is often very important. The discovery of previously unknown history and connections can only happen when researchers have explored multiple local contexts or compiled enough information on important events in many separate locations that inferences can be drawn from events. Since general histories are often based on studies done of many events in many different places, I wonder how much confidence we can have in any general history of 20th century Mormonism, given that so much local history has not been sufficiently explored.

New Zealand Mormon History

The above thoughts made me very interested in reading Tiki and Temple: The Mormon Mission in New Zealand, 1854-1958, a substantial local history of an area that I know little about. Before reading this book, all I knew about Mormonism in New Zealand was that the Church had been very successful among the Maori (90% of Church members in New Zealand in 1955 were Maori), that Apostle Matthew Cowley had served mission there (what an understatement that turns out to be) and spoke in General Conference about the faith and faithfulness of the Maori, and that New Zealand has more Mormons per 1000 people than the US.

Of course, those facts are just trivia in comparison to the larger story about this country and it’s people. Tiki and Temple is full of wonderful and colorful stories about the rather long history Mormonism there which make for an engaging read. I liked the stories of long-time members, like the Going family (think of family member and New Zealand rugby star Sid Going, who was mentioned in General Conference) whose history in the church goes back more than 100 years. The family once cut down the largest tree on their property to provide all the timber needed (from a single tree!) for a wooden framed LDS meeting house. The story of the translation of the Book of Mormon is here (much more interesting than the tepid version published recently in the Deseret News). I liked learning about the service of Mormons in both world wars (there were both heroes and casualties, including a member of the Going family in World War I). And I loved the story of Maori LDS Church member Rangikawea Puriri, who, at the start of World War II, traveled 175 miles to Wellington to enlist as a chaplain. Rejected because of his age, he returned home and died the following year at age 102. Having already served in three wars, he was buried with full military honors.

More important than these stories are the issues that this local history raises for Mormon history in general and for local Mormon history elsewhere. These issues show how local Mormon history is important and something that even the average Church member who doesn’t live in an area should want to read.

For example, New Zealand Mormons struggled with a varied of cultural issues through the entire length of the period covered, trying to reconcile Maori customs, from the significant, like the lack of a formal Maori marriage ceremony, to the more mundane, like how “appropriate” is the traditional Maori dance, the “haka,” which mission president alternately prohibited and permitted at Church functions. Complicating these cultural issues are the health, welfare and other problems associated with those customs, the difficulty of integrating them with Western economic and cultural systems, and even the moral issues that arise when Maori customs conflicted with church teachings. In addition to teaching western farming and hygiene, Mormon leaders faced issues like how to deal with Maori customs like giving away children of all ages to extended family and friends, regardless of the relative or friend’s religion. The cultural issues Mormonism faced in New Zealand are likely just the local version of what the Church has and is facing elsewhere.

Another significant issue throughout the book are the challenges that missionaries faced from a variety of issues, like government interference, language, illness and a lack of financial resources. Like many other countries, mission presidents in New Zealand faced visa problems starting in 1916, which may have arisen because of negative perceptions of Mormons and the influence of competing clergy. Resolution took years and decades, and often involved negotiations between Aukland, Washington D.C. and London.

Because missionaries in New Zealand had more success among the then predominantly rural Maori, the missionaries spent much of their time traveling between various Maori settlements, generally on foot but sometimes on horseback. This meant leaving each area for  weeks or months at a time, and sometimes returning to find a rival preacher taking advantage of the missionary’s absence.

Just as in much of the rest of the world, the Spanish Influenza epidemic of 1918 had a huge effect on the missionaries and mission in New Zealand, with missionaries not only struggling to stay healthy, but also working to keep others alive.  The mission also faced significant financial difficulties, largely stemming from the fact that the concept of tithing was so foreign to Maori culture that missionaries didn’t even try to teach it until the first decades of the 20th century — Maori weren’t really expected to pay tithing! Since many of the difficulties that the mission faced are things I’ve heard of elsewhere around the world, I wonder what conclusions might be drawn from these difficulties.

The development of local leaders, another issue in the book that is relevant to Mormon history elsewhere, is somewhat unusual in New Zealand. While the mission initially acted like other missions and put missionaries in leadership positions throughout the mission, an acute shortage of missionaries led to Maori branch and district leaders throughout the mission by 1928. But later local leaders were released and missionaries were again made district leaders throughout the mission. From today’s perspective, that might seem odd, since we try to have local leaders as early as possible. Given that local leadership was an issue in at least one other mission (Mexico, where it led to the Third Convention schism), I wonder what conclusions might be drawn from the changes in policy over the 20th century?

Perhaps more than any other mission in the Church before 1960, the building program in New Zealand was a significant part of member lives and the efforts of local missionaries. Starting as early as 1913, the mission built first one residential High School (called the Maori Agricultural College, which lasted until 1931) and then a second (the Church College of New Zealand, 1958-2009), followed by a Temple (dedicated 1958). These projects were, of course, in addition to many local meetinghouses and the very unusual “carved house” project, a community building employing Maori craftsman using traditional techniques. As a result, building projects make up a significant part of this book (which at one point almost becomes a building history), as it no doubt did for many other areas of the Church during the 20th century.

In all of these broad subject areas, local Mormon history in New Zealand has something of value to say about Mormon history in general. The New Zealand experience either adds to or even, on occasion, exposes heretofore unexplored history. We all owe a debt to Marjorie Newton, and to other local historians (insert shout out to Ardis here!!), who not only open these lines of inquiry, but also put a human face on the Mormon experience.

Unfortunately, I don’t think that this book is all that it could be. While I see it as very valuable, I’m not sure that publisher Greg Kofford saw that perception in the Mormon market, and perhaps limited the amount of editorial work put into the book (either that or the author was in a hurry and wouldn’t put the work necessary into making the text better). Chief among the problems is the failure to connect the story to larger contexts, both to the larger New Zealand context and to the context of general Mormon history. In addition, I didn’t quite understand the organization of the book. Chapter divisions seemed to be as much about the length of the chapter as the content, instead of any natural divisions in the chronology or content, at least as far as I can see.

The text also suffers from the author being a bit to close to the subject, which seems to be the best explanation for omitting facts that are, I assume, obvious to the author, but not likely to be clear to those of us who do not live in New Zealand. For example, the author mentions a “Church Trust Board” in a couple of places, but never explains what that is. The text also includes a number of cultural terms like Waitangi, heritage (based on context it clearly isn’t just the dictionary meaning of the word) and Patriotic Fund that are never explained or defined. Thorough editing could have resolved problems like this, cleaned up chapters 6 and 7, which read kind of like a General Authority travelogue and building chronology, and perhaps even fixed the fact that the maps included don’t show the location of many of the places mentioned in the book (and the text generally doesn’t help by listing nearby landmarks on the map).

But, the overall contributions made by Tiki and Temple far outweigh these weaknesses. The book is still a fascinating and enjoyable read—something that can, perhaps after a little thought and study, add to everyone’s understanding of LDS Church history, regardless of where we live.

[Note: The publisher, Greg Kofford Books, provided an advance reading copy for this review.]

And, frankly, I don’t have any reason to think that it will in the 21st century; the Law of Consecration seems to be something different than economic communalism (though economic communalism fits within the Law of Consecration).

But I’ve been thinking recently about the consequences of introducing a United Order into modern American culture. And frankly, the tax consequences strike me as pretty interesting.[fn2]

For purposes of a hypothetical look at the tax consequences of a new United Order, of course, we have to define the United Order; there have actually been at least three iterations of United Orders, each with their own characteristics. Lucas and Woodward assert that the specific forms of these United Orders reflected the different economic situations in which they were formed; the Kirtland version reflected an agrarian economy, where the various Utah versions reflected an Industrial Revolution economy.[fn3]

What does that mean for my purposes? Basically, it means that, were the United Order to be established in our current information economy,[fn4] it would probably differ significantly from any historical United Order. I don’t have any idea what the modern version would look like so, instead, I’m going to look at the consequences of transporting the Kirtland United Order to 2012. Why Kirtland? Because (a) its basic contours are detailed in the D&C, (b) it’s the version I’m most familiar with off the top of my head, and (c) I’ve actually thought about the tax consequences attendant to it.

For these purposes, I’m assuming that the transplanted United Order looks something like this: (1) members contribute all of their property to the Church; (2) the Church provides members with property to meet their needs, (3) using this property, members work at their professions during the year, and (4) to the extent they have surplus at the end of the year, they contribute such surplus back to the Church. And repeat.

So what would the tax consequences be?

(1) Donation of property. Because I’m assuming the donation would be made to the Church, a 501(c)(3) organization, the member could deduct the fair market value of her donation from her income for the year. Except that the deduction would be limited; under current tax law, your charitable deduction for a year cannot exceed 50 percent of her adjusted gross income for the year.

That is, assume that you make just over $100,000, so that you have adjusted gross income of $100,000. Also assume that you have a house worth $200,000, a car worth $10,000, and other property worth $15,000. You donate this property, worth $225,000, to the Church in order to join the United Order. But you don’t get a $225,000 deduction; instead, you get a deduction for $50,000, and will owe taxes on your remaining $50,000 of income for the year.

(2) Income from your job. It’s taxable to the member. Even if we posited a more extreme version of the United Order, where all of a member’s earnings were paid directly to the Church by the employer, income earned by an individual is still taxable to that individual. The quintessential example of this rule is in the case of Fogarty v. U.S. Father Fogarty, a Jesuit priest, had taken the vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience. His religious superior told him to teach a religious studies class at UVA, which he did. His paycheck from the University was deposited into his Order’s bank account. The court held that, in spite of the fact that he gave it all to his order, that he was sincere in his beliefs, and that he took the teaching gig at the behest of his Order, the income was taxable to him.

(3) Assets received from the Church. The “stewardship” received from the Church would almost definitely constitute income to the member.[fn5] Taxing a member on her stewardship make sense, too: to the extent the member got a deduction (albeit potentially limited) when she donated assets to the Church, she should have a corresponding income inclusion when she receives assets from the Church. Otherwise, you create a really easy tax shelter: a person with $100,000 of income could donate $50,000 to a church or other 501(c)(3) organization, and then receive, say, $45,000[fn6] in non-taxable income back, and she would have cut her taxable income in half.

A couple final thoughts: first, I realize this is U.S.-centric. And it is necessarily the case—I don’t have sufficient knowledge of other countries’ tax systems to post anything substantive on them.

Also, this will never happen. Back in 1830s Ohio, there was no federal income tax; ours only dates back to 1913. Plus we have an entirely different economic model; any United Order would presumably take those (and other) considerations into account.

Still, it’s fun to think about.

—

[fn1] At least, I’m not aware of any such attempt. If I’m wrong about this assumption, I’d love to hear details.

[fn2] Of course, tax consequences often strike me as pretty interesting . . .

[fn3] See James W. Lucas & Warner P. Woodworth, Working Toward Zion 111 (1999) (“As early as the 1870s, Brigham Young and other Church leaders knew that establishing an industrialized united order in the desert could not be carried out by individual efforts as in Missouri and Ohio.”).

[fn4] Or however you want to classify our current economy.

[fn5] Similarly, I suspect that Church welfare assistance constitutes gross income to the recipients. I could be wrong; if it’s considered a gift, it isn’t taxable to the recipient. And Church welfare assistance may qualify as a gift (though off the top of my head, I kind of doubt it), but I’m pretty sure that a United Order stewardship wouldn’t.

[fn6] Why only $45,000 back? Because if it worked, this would be a tax shelter; when you buy a tax shelter, you have to pay the counterparty for its participation. In 2012, with income of $100,000, you’re paying taxes at a marginal rate of 25 percent (if you’re married filing jointly) or 28 percent (if you’re single. Your tax savings from converting $50,000 of taxable income to untaxable income would be $12,500 or $14,000 respectively; surely you could spare $5,000 to make the transaction happen.

We are no longer an agrarian society, no longer tied so closely to the land that we feel immediately the effects of our stewardship, for good or bad. Part of that may be because we own such tiny little pieces of land instead of family farms, grazing ranges, and ranches. Even if I do everything I can to improve on my own .21-acre lot in downtown Provo, even if in that small realm, I am the perfect steward, I will have a negligible impact on the larger environment of which I am a part.

For that reason, much as I hate to admit it, stewardship cannot be a completely private enterprise. I own little land myself, but I am a citizen of a country that owns vast tracks of land, much of it in my own state, administered by the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, the  National Park Service, and the Bureau of Land Management. And although my vote, my voice may be just as insignificant in shaping the policies that govern the use of that public land as my .21 acres is relative to the 1900 million acres of the contiguous United States, I still have a obligation to speak up, because that is a real exercise of stewardship in our country today. The fact that we don’t personally own the land neither excuses us when we fail to speak against environmentally destructive policies nor protects us from the ill effects of such use. We must come together collectively as stewards or suffer collectively the loss and damage allowed by our disagreement and apathy.

I don’t know what the best policies are concerning public land use, preservation, and development. I suspect that they would best be decided locally by people who balance immediate gains with long term needs. I do know that unless we have the discussion, and weigh our interests against our obligations, we cannot claim to be good stewards.

Elder Snow did not explicitly advocate political action in his essay. He did, however, talk about stewardship in relationship to our roles as citizens.

“I believe the Lord expects up to act as good stewards. We have many stewardships, not only in our family, church, and citizenship responsibilities but also in temporal things. That principle is clear in LDS scripture:

I, the Lord, stretched out the heavens, and built the earth, my very handiwork; and all things therein are mine…

Behold, all these properties are mine,…And if the properties are mine, then ye are stewards; otherwise ye are no stewards. (D&C 104:14, 55-56)

…it is required of the Lord, at the hand of every steward, to render an account of his stewardship, both in time and in eternity. For he who is faithful and wise in time is accounted worthy to inherit the mansions prepared for him of my Father. (D&C 72:3-4)

As Mormons we tend to focus on our ecclesiastical and family stewardships, which is well and good. But I believe we will also be held accountable for how we treat one another, the community in which we live, the land that surrounds us, even the earth itself (244).

The impetus for the “Sewing and Penny Society” wasn’t relief, but the calls of the Twelve for donations to the construction of the Temple from outside Nauvoo. As a result, the sisters in Boston created a local women’s organization, as the following item from The Prophet (New York City) of 3 August 1844 explains:

Boston, July 25, 1844.

Mr. Editor.—I send you the minutes of a society lately formed in this place, by which you will perceive the ladies of the Boston branch are determined not to be behind hand in assisting the rolling on of the cause of Christ.

A society of the sisters was formed on the 16th inst., called the “Boston Latter day Saint’s Sewing and penny Society.” The object of which is to lend their aid in the purchase of glass, nails &c, for the Temple of God, now being erected in Nauvoo.

The meeting was called to order and opened with prayer by Miss. Elvira Bassford, and the following officers chosen, viz—

• Mrs. Mary McAllester, president.
• Mrs. Clarissa B. Sperry,  Vice Pres’t.
• Miss. Elvira Bassford, Vice Pres’t .
• Mrs. Margaret E. Wallace, secretary.
• Mrs. Isaac Hardy, treasurer.
• Mrs. Isabella Jones,
• Mrs. Caroline Welch,
• Mrs. Margaret Clementson,
• Mrs. Almira Hicks,
• Miss. Mary Murray,
• Miss. Mary Brown, as Committee of Arrangement.

The society meet once a month, and devote a day to sewing for the benefit of the society; and also to pay in the sum of one penny per week or more, each. It is expected that the brethren and friends will supply them with work. Every exertion of this kind is commendable, and it is to be hoped that they will succeed in their praiseworthy efforts, even beyond their most sanguine expectations. Yours, &c.

A. Mc. A.

Likely, given the society’s formation on July 16th, the news of the martyrdom was very fresh when the society was formed, although the news may have been discounted initially because it was from non-Mormon sources (like the reporting in the Prophet which only acknowledged the martyrdom after it received news from Mormons in Nauvoo).

I haven’t yet found any additional references to this organization, so I can’t even suggest that it made it to its second meeting. But I suspect that the organization didn’t survive the turmoil of the next few years. Boston and New York, in particular, suffered a lot of turmoil in the years after the martyrdom as schismatic groups attempted to gain followers there (often successfully) and rumors of polygamy (or affairs, for those who hadn’t heard of polygamy) spread along with attempts by some local leaders in the East to practice polygamy without authorization. However, some of the names of these women—McAllester, Sperry, Hicks, Welch and even Murray—appear in subsequent LDS history, so it may be that their descendants survived the turmoil and stayed with the Church.

Still, you have to like the initiative that these women took. I would find it encouraging to see such initiative today.

That said, Dr. Bloom is right that the Church has changed a lot between 1844 and 2011.[fn1] Change is inevitable and, as Ecclesiastes tells us, is to be expected. And, frankly, there have been a number of changes that, even if they risk our Protestantization, I’m really happy about.

And I’m not talking Official Declaration 1 or 2 stuff—I’m going to assume that most of us are grateful that polygamy is no longer the sine qua non of the faithful member, and that all of us are grateful that we don’t live in the world of a racially-based Priesthood ban. And I’m also not talking about our wishlist of things we want changed. I assume most of us have one or two, even if they’re just wouldn’t-it-be-nice-if kinds of things.

No, I’m talking about less-prominent practices that the Church once had that have left. And there are two that leap to my mind:

Missionary Finances

I’m actually not talking about the standardization of mission expenses, even though that’s pretty nice, too. I’m actually talking about going on missions with purse and/or scrip. See, throughout the 19th century, and even through the first half of the 20th, missionaries would travel without purse or scrip. And that practice undoubtedly helped connect modern missionaries to early Christian missionaries, making the latter-day and the ancient churches that much more connected. But really, I liked having reais in my wallet as I went preaching in Brazil.[fn2]

Come to Zion

I’m also glad that the meaning of Zion has shifted from a literal physical gathering to a broader sense of Zion as being where the Church is organized. Why? Because I liked growing up in California, living in New York, Virginia, and Chicago. Moreover, I like that we’re full participants[fn3] in the world, rather than being cloistered and physically set apart from it. I realize that physical gathering has its power and its place. But I’m glad it’s gone.

—

[fn1] Between 1992 and 2011, on the other hand, not so much. This is beside the point, but I can’t, for the life of me, figure out what happened between 1992, when Bloom was gung-ho on Mormonism, and today, when we’re, in his words, on the path to “just one more Protestant sect.” The only major changes the Church has instituted during those two decades that I can think of are (1) the introduction of the mini-temple, (2) the changed logo, and (3) the Perpetual Education Fund. But none of these support the Protestantization of Mormonism. As James points out, the temple is a distinctly un-Protestant institution, and the mini-temples have made temples significantly more pervasive in the Mormon world. The emphasis of Jesus in the logo is mostly cosmetic; it may reflect a renewed emphasis on Jesus, but that’s far from un-Mormon. And the Perpetual Education Fund, while it looks a lot like microcredit (which, as far as I know, isn’t a particularly Protestant institution), also looks a lot like the Perpetual Emigration Fund, which is a particularly and historically Mormon institution.

Or maybe he’s thinking about the How Wide the Divide crowd; while that project seems to have a lot of BYU support, it hasn’t crept into my Church experience in any material way.

That’s not to say that the Church hasn’t changed, and changed significantly, since Joseph Smith’s days. But I can’t think of any material shift between 1992 and today. But again, this is all tangential to the point of the post.

[fn2] Okay, just one more: I’m glad we initiate the mission process, rather than being called during conferences. And that missions don’t last much more than 2 years. And that I won’t be asked to leave my wife and children to go on a mission. I do like a lot about our current mission procedures, especially in light of the way it used to be.

[fn3] I actually probably don’t mean full participants, but I do think that our rhetorical opposition to “the World” is overblown. Sure, there’s bad that we need to avoid (or, better yet, fix). Still, but for the World, we wouldn’t have jazz or iPhones or the Doughnut Vault or a ton of other things that I appreciate on a regular basis. And I’m glad I can both be a faithful and believing member of the Church and eat simply amazing doughnuts in Chicago while listening to jazz on my iPhone, or whatever.

Now Available

Charles Harrel,“This Is My Doctrine”: The Development of Mormon Theology (Kofford Books) “In this first-of-its-kind comprehensive treatment of the development of Mormon theology, Charles Harrell traces the history of Latter-day Saint doctrines from the times of the Old Testament to the present.” I have my doubts that someone who does not equally control original Biblical sources and LDS history, as well as the vast amounts of secondary literature on historiography, exegesis, etc. can give LDS doctrine a truly comprehensive diachronic treatment, and compress it into 597 pages. Nevertheless, I’m grateful to Harrel, an engineering professor, for making the attempt and I look forward to reading it. Too many LDS labor under the assumption that the status quo sprang fully formed from Joseph Smith. I don’t recall which of my friends said, but it’s in my Evernote file, “If there’s one thing Mormons excel at, it’s enshrining the status quo and assuming that if we do anything, there must be a good reason for it, and if there’s a good reason, it must have been revealed as the only way to do it, and if so, then it must have always been that way in all dispensations. And a lot of people’s faith can be shaken when it turns out not to always have been that way, which unravels that chain of reasoning back from that point until you doubt the premise, i.e., that any of it was revealed at all.”

Brant Gardner, The Gift and Power: Translating the Book of Mormon (Kofford Books) Many questions about the Book of Mormon end up centering on the nature of the translation, and many papers make tacit assumptions about it. Brant’s is the deepest treatment addressing those assumptions.His FAIR Conference presentation this year appears to have been based on his book. Gift and Power has already been reviewed elsewhere, so I’ll pass by without further commentary except to say that Brant’s previous volumes on the Book of Mormon have been fresh and thoughtful, and I expect no less from this.

Harold Bloom, The Shadow of a Great Rock: A Literary Appreciation of the King James Bible (Yale University Press) This is one of a string of books to appear about the KJV this year, but Bloom and the literary approach mark this one apart. Preview available. I’m particularly interested because the literary argument comes up repeatedly in LDS contexts. Of historical note, though, is that the KJV was not meant to be literary, and no one thought it was so until at least a century had passed. Chapter 1, “Language within language: the King James Steamroller” of Hamlin, The King James Bible After Four Hundred Years: Literary, Linguistic, and Cultural Influences (Cambridge) appears to address this. (I only had a few minutes to browse it.) Another recent volumes of note is The King James Bible: A Short History from Tyndale to Today by David Norton, the author of the authoritative, technical and expensive Textual History of the King James Bible.

Coming in September

John Walton’s Genesis 1 as Ancient Cosmology (Eisenbrauns) This is the expanded version of Walton’s arguments found in The Lost World of Genesis 1 (Eerdmans), but Lost World was for a lay audience and Ancient Cosmology a more academic audience. Walton places Genesis 1 in its ancient Near Eastern context and argues convincingly that Israelites read it as a description of functional, not material creation, and furthermore, Genesis 1 is a temple text. You can get the gist of his thesis from the audio here. Jared at LDS Science Review has addressed Walton several times (here and here), and the comments include an enthusiastic endorsement by SteveP, BYU biologist and BCC blogger.

Coming in October

N.T. Wright, The Kingdom New Testament: A Contemporary Translation (Harper One) N.T. Wright is a prolific paradigm-shattering New Testament scholar, who is nevertheless very accessible to laypeople. Among others, he’s authored commentaries on Romans and a New Testament commentary series “For Everyone” as well as books on Paul, and Heaven. He’s criticized various Bible translations in the past, so I’m glad to hear he’ll have his own. Ben Witherington interviews him about it here.

Jewish Annotated New Testament (Oxford Press) I’m familiar with both of the editors, Marc Brettler from his How to Read the Bible (not to be confused with books of the same title from James Kugel or Steven McKenzie) and Amy-Jill Levine from her lectures with the Teaching Company. Oxford’s Jewish Study Bible has an excellent set of notes, essays and other aids. The Jewish Annotated New Testament aims to do the same thing for the New Testament, from a Jewish Perspective. “For non-Jewish readers interested in the Jewish roots of Christianity and for Jewish readers who want a New Testament that neither proselytizes for Christianity nor denigrates Judaism, The Jewish Annotated New Testament is an essential volume that places these writings in a context that will enlighten students, professionals, and general readers.” Among other notable features, the JANT, is the “first New Testament annotated by Jewish scholars (barring those who have converted to Christianity), brings out Jewish background of early Christianity, New Testament writers, explains Jewish concepts (e.g., food laws, rabbinic argumentation) for non-Jews & Christian concepts (e.g., Eucharist) for Jews, and will be helpful for non-Jewish readers interested in the Jewish roots of Christianity.”

Coming in January

Peter Enns, The Evolution of Adam: What the Bible does and Doesn’t Say about Human Origins (Brazos Press)

Enns says, “The book is divided into two parts. Part one focuses on Genesis, and my general point is that the creation stories are part of Israel’s literature of national and religious self-definition. In other words, they are not prepared to give the type of (historical and scientific) information we ask for today when speaking of “human origins.” To seek such information is to misread Genesis, and so attempts to align science and Genesis get us off on the foot altogether by not taking the biblical text on its own terms.Part two focuses on Paul’s use of the Adam story in Romans 5. Paul’s reading of the Adam story, despite superficial appearances, is hardly straightforward, and appreciating the theological subtly and depth of Paul’s words requires much more of us than simply opening an English Bible, reading a few verses, and drawing conclusions. I go on and on about this for a lot of pages, because this is a far more pressing problem for most Christian readers than Genesis.

The audience for the commentary is seminarians, pastors, and scholars. For The Evolution of Adam, the intended audience is similar to that of Inspiration and Incarnation: lay readers looking for different approaches to old problems. In fact, The Evolution of Adam applies the approach of Inspiration and Incarnation to a specific and pressing issue: in view of evolution, what does it mean to read the Bible well? So think of EOA as I&I part two.” I was a big fan of I&I, as well as the lectures of his I’ve heard online and in person. (Some posts of mine about Enns’ ideas here and here)

Happy reading.

One significant transition that I think amounts to a change of regime is the change in leadership that occurred beteen 1844 and 1847. It started with the succession crisis that occurred upon the death of Joseph Smith and the dissolution of the First Presidency in June 1844; it lasted through three difficult years for the Saints, during which time the Church was directed by the Quorum of the Twelve and by Brigham Young as president of that quorum; and it culminated in the reestablishment of the First Presidency in late 1847, with Brigham Young as President of the Church and with two apostles drawn from the Quorum of the Twelve, Heber C. Kimball and Willard Richards, as his counselors.

As I read the history, the First Presidency reconstituted in late 1847 was not the same First Presidency as existed before June 1844. The reconstituted First Presidency is essentially an executive committee of the Quorum of the Twelve, composed of three apostles drawn from that quorum. While it is theoretically possible for one who is not an apostle to be called as a counselor, in practice this is almost never done. In contrast, members of the original First Presidency were not apostles and were not called from the Quorum of the Twelve. The original First Presidency represented a separate and distinct quorum. The authority of those in the First Presidency was not in any way a function of their being an apostle. A separate First Presidency quorum might hold different views on issues of interest to the senior leadership of the Church than did the apostles and the Quorum of the Twelve. After 1847, however, the First Presidency was simply an extension of the Quorum of the Twelve, composed of men who spent many years in the Quorum of the Twelve before moving to the First Presidency. (The decline of the Seventies as a separate senior leadership quorum proceeded more slowly, but by the mid-20th century that quorum, too, was simply a committee that was selected and controlled by the Quorum of the Twelve.)

So I would describe the 1844-47 transition as a regime change: the Church really was contituted and run differently after 1847 than it was during Joseph Smith’s lifetime. That is a description, not a criticism — I don’t think the Church could possibly have continued to be run as it was between 1830 and 1844 because Joseph occupied a unique position of authority that simply could not be duplicated. Brigham Young and the Quorum of the Twelve were wise to wait three years before reconstituting a modified First Presidency. The successful management of an ever-growing Church from 1847-2011, including surviving several serious confrontations with the US government in the 19th and early 20th centuries, is evidence of the effectiveness and stability of the new regime. And while there was a succession crisis following the death of Joseph in 1844, there have not been any after 1847.

An open question is whether any event or development has occurred between 1847 and 2011 that might also amount to a regime change or a significant break with how the Church is constituted. Perhaps some readers have a candidate event to propose.

As I heard it at the time, John 14:27 began:

Peace I live with you, my peace I give unto you…

Christ makes this statement as part of the sermon he gives the Apostles at the last supper—so he says “leave” because he knows that he is about to leave them. When he comes to stay, surely he will say something that implies that he will live in peace with us instead.

For us, I think, the difference between “leave” and “live” is crucial. As good as it is to “leave” peace with others, how much more important is it to “live” peace with them? While “leave” implies a single act—something that happens just once, “live” implies an ongoing process. Where we can “leave” in peace by simply agreeing to disagree, “live” requires learning how to create peace through resolving and working through differences. Leaving with problems and disputes resolved is vital, but more important still is living with others in a way that doesn’t cause disputes in the first place and in a way that resolves differences when they are still discussions and not yet arguments. Perhaps when stated this way it seems obvious, yet still somehow this idea is lost among most people—even among faithful Latter-day Saints.

“His peace I live with you” isn’t just about the quality of “peace.” It is also about who it is we mean when we say “you” and what it means to “live” with others. It is relatively easy to live in peace if we limit who we live with. A hermit may easily live a life void of conflict, but he can never learn the true meaning of His peace. Working excessively may eliminate conflict with a spouse or friend, but it can never allow you to learn to live in peace. Living in a neighborhood where everyone is like we are may eliminate conflict or give a feeling of security, but this is clearly not true peace. Restricting immigration to protect your culture may make it easier to reach consensus in a country, but is that really His peace? Doesn’t His peace even require that we do everything we safely can to discover how to live in peace with those we now label as terrorists?

For too many of us, peace means hiding from conflict instead of resolving it. It means avoiding news we consider “negative” and books that are “troubling” because they don’t give us peace. Those who do so forget that Christ calmly and courteously confronted even those who were determined to take his life.

Others of us, when faced with conflict, are determined to win at all cost, entering into arguments that become vicious and vile. When the debate becomes more about winning than persuading, we forget that we should disagree without being disagreeable.

In all of this real peace, His peace, comes not from avoiding others or excluding those who are different than we are, or who disagree with us, but from welcoming others and learning the hard lessons about how to live, really live, in peace with them.