{"id":43372,"date":"2022-08-19T07:34:44","date_gmt":"2022-08-19T12:34:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.timesandseasons.org\/?p=43372"},"modified":"2022-08-19T08:41:02","modified_gmt":"2022-08-19T13:41:02","slug":"method-infinite-on-masonry-and-mormonism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2022\/08\/method-infinite-on-masonry-and-mormonism\/","title":{"rendered":"Method Infinite: On Masonry and Mormonism"},"content":{"rendered":"

The recently-published <\/span>Method Infinite: Freemasonry and the Mormon Restoration <\/span><\/i>by Cheryl L. Bruno, Joe Steve Swick III, and Nicholas S. Literski (Greg Kofford Books, 2022)<\/span><\/a> is an insightful and information-packed volume about a plethora of <\/span>possible points of contact between Freemasonry and the Restoration of the Church of Christ<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

While many studies of Masonry and the Latter Day Saint movement focus primarily on temple rituals, <\/span>Method Infinite <\/span><\/i>covers the entirety of Joseph Smith\u2019s life and follows the influence of Masonic ideas and rituals into some of the major branches of Mormonism that emerged in the aftermath of the Prophet\u2019s death.\u00a0 The book starts with a brief history of Freemasonry and its existence in the early United States of America, then discusses how Joseph Smith grew up in an environment saturated with Freemasonry.\u00a0 It points to ideas that were being discussed or practiced by Freemasons and compares these with strains of Latter Day Saint thought and action, suggesting that Joseph Smith saw himself as the restorer of the pure form of Masonry from the outset and that he viewed the Freemasonry practiced at the time as an apostate or spurious form of Masonry.\u00a0 Evidences for this idea that are pointed out have to do with the Book of Mormon and the Book of Abraham, the way various organizations within or connected to the Church were organized, specific teachings of Joseph Smith and other early Church leaders, the ways that the City of Nauvoo was organized politically and religiously, and in temple rituals.\u00a0 The closest I\u2019ve seen any study of the intersection of Masonry and Mormonism come to what this book achieves is Michael Homer\u2019s <\/span>Joseph\u2019s Temples: The Dynamic Relationship between Freemasonry and Mormonism <\/span><\/i>(University of Utah Press, 2014), though that one doesn\u2019t go as deeply into some of the areas of intersection that <\/span>Method Infinite <\/span><\/i>brings up outside of the temple rituals.\u00a0 An incredible amount of information and analysis is presented in <\/span>Method Infinite<\/span><\/i>, and I have to say that I had a fair amount of \u201cah-ha\u201d moments while reading.<\/span><\/p>\n

As a Latter-day Saint, it can be disconcerting to look at the possibility that Joseph Smith was influenced by Freemasonry because it opens up questions of whether Joseph Smith was acting under God\u2019s instructions or whether he was cobblinging together ideas that he liked from other groups to make his own religion (at least that’s how I’ve felt while reading about Masonry and the Church).\u00a0 This book approaches the issue from the perspective that the reality is somewhere in the middle, including the scriptures that Joseph Smith translated, which may be an idea that is uncomfortable for some readers.\u00a0 That being said, I did have a lot of moments while reading the book where what they shared helped me make sense of aspects of what Latter Day Saints believed and did in the early days of the Church.\u00a0 As an example of this, one most interesting to me was how the Danites (or whatever name you want to use) were essentially intended to function as a secret Mason-like order that was used to coordinate on protection of the Saints.\u00a0 The history of that organization was explored, pointing out how widespread it was among the Latter Day Saints in Missouri and how aspects of it survived in Nauvoo, even if it wasn\u2019t as overt as it had been during the Missouri-Mormon War.\u00a0 With everything that the book discusses, though, I would say that my main complaint was that the book made efforts to cover so much ground that it sometimes blazed through topics faster and with less depth than I would have liked.\u00a0 At 509 pages, though, I can very much see that there was a need for concise discussions to get through everything they wanted to discuss.<\/span><\/p>\n

Overall, I found <\/span>Method Infinite: Freemasonry and the Mormon Restoration <\/span><\/i>by Cheryl L. Bruno, Joe Steve Swick III, and Nicholas S. Literski (Greg Kofford Books, 2022)<\/span><\/a> to be a fascinating read and would recommend it to scholars and others interested in gaining a deeper understanding of both 19th century American Freemasonry and the early Latter Day Saint movement.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The recently-published Method Infinite: Freemasonry and the Mormon Restoration by Cheryl L. Bruno, Joe Steve Swick III, and Nicholas S. Literski (Greg Kofford Books, 2022) is an insightful and information-packed volume about a plethora of possible points of contact between Freemasonry and the Restoration of the Church of Christ.\u00a0\u00a0 While many studies of Masonry and the Latter Day Saint movement focus primarily on temple rituals, Method Infinite covers the entirety of Joseph Smith\u2019s life and follows the influence of Masonic ideas and rituals into some of the major branches of Mormonism that emerged in the aftermath of the Prophet\u2019s death.\u00a0 The book starts with a brief history of Freemasonry and its existence in the early United States of America, then discusses how Joseph Smith grew up in an environment saturated with Freemasonry.\u00a0 It points to ideas that were being discussed or practiced by Freemasons and compares these with strains of Latter Day Saint thought and action, suggesting that Joseph Smith saw himself as the restorer of the pure form of Masonry from the outset and that he viewed the Freemasonry practiced at the time as an apostate or spurious form of Masonry.\u00a0 Evidences for this idea that are pointed out […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10397,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,17,2910,2900],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","category-church-history","category-joseph-smith","category-temples"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10397"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43372"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43372\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43391,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43372\/revisions\/43391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}