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Wilford Woodruff and the Changing Nature of Mormon Religious Experience

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Thomas G. Alexander
Thomas G. Alexander
Affiliation:
Professor of history in Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah.
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Extract

Though historians of religion in the United States have long recognized the importance of Mormonism, scholarly studies such as those by Mario De Pillis, Marvin Hill, and Louis Reinwand have only begun to explain the church's meaning and attraction. As a recent scholar of American religious history has argued,

the exact significance of this great story persistently escapes definition.…One cannot even be sure if the object of our consideration is a sect, a mystery cult, a new religion, a church, a people, a nation, or an American subculture; indeed, at different times and places it is all of these.…[The Mormons] remain people apart.…Their inner intellectual and spiritual problems cannot easily be shared with others.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 45 , Issue 1 , March 1976 , pp. 56 - 69
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1976

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References

Appreciation is extended to Jessie Embry for help on the research for this study, to the Brigham Young University Graduate School for financial assistance in its preparation, ond to James Allen, Marvin Hill. Klaus Hansen. and Jan Shipps for their comments.

1. De Pillis, Mario S., “The Quest for Religious Authority and the Rise of Mormonism,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 1 (Fall. 1966): 68–88Google Scholar; Hill, Marvin S.. “The Role of Christian Primitivism in the Origin and Development of the Mormon Kingdom, 1830–1844,” (Ph. D diss., University of Chicago, 1968)Google Scholar; Louis G. Reinwand, “An Interpretive Study of Mormon Millennialism During the Nineteenth Century with Emphasis on Millennial Developments in Utah,” (M.A. thesis, Brigham Young University, 1971).

2. Ahlstrom, Sydney E., A Religious History of the American People (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972), p. 508.Google Scholar

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4. Wilford Woodruff, the Journal of Wilford Woodruff, MS, Latter-day Saints Church Archives, Historical Department of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (hereafter cited with Library of Congress designation, US1C), Salt Lake City, Utah, passim.

5. Berthoff, Rowland. An Unsettled Pcoplc: Social Order and Disorder in American History,(New York: Harper and Row, 1971), pp. 204–217Google Scholar; Miller, Douglas T., The Birth of Modern America, 1820–1850 (New York: Pegasus. 1970), pp. 91–115Google Scholar; Somkin, Fred, Unquiet Eagle: Memory and Desire in the Idea of American Freedom, 1815–1860 (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1967), pp. 3–7, 181.Google Scholar

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7. Hill, , “Christian Primitivism,” pp. 9–22.Google Scholar

8. See Woodruff, Journal, US1C, passim; CowIey, Matthias F., Wilford Woodruff, Fourth President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: History of His Life and Labors as Recorded in his Daily Journals (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1916), p. 17.Google Scholar

9. Ibid., pp. 20–22, 29.

10. Woodruff to Ashael Woodruff, 1 March 1832, Woodruff Papers, USIC.

11. Woodruff, Journal, 29, 31 December 1833, USIC.

12. James, William, The Varieties of Religious Experience (London: Longman Green and Co., 1910), pp. 189–212Google Scholar; Strickland, Francis L., “The Meaning of Conversion,” in Readings in the Psychology of Religion, ed.. Strunk, Orlo J. Jr. (New York: Abingdon Press, 1959), pp. 136–137Google Scholar; Maslow, Abraham H., Religious Values and Peak Experiences (Columbus, Ohio: Ohio State University Press. 1964), p. 19.Google Scholar

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16. Hansen, Compare Klaus J., “Mormonism and American Culture: Some Tentative Hypotheses,” in The Restoration Movement: Essays in Mormon History, ed. McKiernan, F. Mark, Blair, Alma H., and Edwards, Paul M. (Laurence, Kansas: Coronado Press, 1973), p. 4Google Scholar: and Hill, Marvin S., “Quest for Refuge: An Hypothesis as to the Social Origins and Nature of the Mormon Political Kingdom” (Unpublished Paper, Brigham Young University, 1975), pp. 15–16.Google Scholar

17. Kepler, Thomas S.. The Fellowship of the Saints: An Anthology of Christian Devotional Literature (New York and Nashville: Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, 1948).Google Scholar Other groupa like the Shakers offered their own versions of the fellowship, but its emphasis was considerably different from that of Mormonism.

18. Rieff, Philip, “The Meaning of History and Religion in Freud's Thought,” in Psychoanalysis and History, ed. Mazlish, Bruce (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1963), p. 27.Google Scholar

19. Erikson, , Young Man Luther, p. 134Google Scholar; William Sargant has suggested that thought reform played an important part in religious conversion. This may well be the case in those who are not already culturally conditioned to accept a particular point of view. Woodruff's case seems to have been different. See Sargant, , Battle for the Mind: A Physiology of Conversion and Brainwashing (Garden City: Doubleday, 1957), pp. 148–158.Google Scholar

20. Woodruff, Journal, 25 April, 1, 8, May, 31 December 1834, and passim, USIC.

21. Inge, William Ralph, Christian Mysticism (London. Methuen, 1899), p. 5.Google Scholar

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23. Pratt, Parley P., Key to the Science of Theology, 3d ed. (Salt Lake City: Deseret News 1874), pp. 1–2Google Scholar; Pratt, Orson, Orson Pratt's Works on the Doctrines of the Gospel (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1945), pp. 48–50Google Scholar; Talmage, James E., The Articles of Faith (Salt Lake City: Deseret News, 1899) pp. 2–3Google Scholar; Widtsoe, John A., Rational Theology as Taught by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City: General Priesthood Committee, 1915), pp. 6–8.Google Scholar

24. Inge, , Christian Mysticism, pp. 45–74.Google Scholar

25. Ibid., pp. 77–164; Schweitzer, Albert, The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle (New York: Macmillan, 1956), pp. 26–40Google Scholar; James, . Varieties, pp. 380–386.Google Scholar

26. Though Joseph Smith experimented with seerstones. there has been a tendency in Mormonism to reject spiritualism, table rappings and other such phenomena as contrary to primitive Christianity. Bitton, Davis. “Mormonism's Encounter with “Spiritualism,” Journal of Mormon History 1 (1974): 49–50.Google Scholar

27. Schweitzer, , Mysticism of Paul, pp. 16, 23, 100.Google Scholar

28. Harkuess, Georgia. Mysticism: Its Meaning and Message (Nashville and New York: Abingdon, 1973), pp. 26–27, 43–54Google Scholar; Inge, , Christian Mysticism, pp. 44–59, 60–68Google Scholar; for a discussion of Rufus Jones, twentieth-century affirmative mystic, see Bridges, Hal, American Mysticism from William James to Zen (New York, Evanston, and London: Harper and Row, 1974), pp. 35–36Google Scholar; see Leuba, James H., The Psychology of Religious Mysticism (New York: Harcourt, Brace aud Co., Inc., 1926),Google Scholar for an unsympathetic view of mysticism.

29. Woodruff, Journal, 23 July 1835; October, passim; 14 November 1935, US1C.

30. Woodruff to Aphek and Azubah Woodruff, 9 May 1936. Woodruff Papers, US1C.

31. Jessee, Dean C., “The Kirtland Diary of Wilford Woodruff,” BYU Studies 12 (Summer, 1972):Google Scholar passim; Woodruff, Journal, 14 April 1837, US1C.

32. Ibid., passim and 28 April 1856; 1 March 1892. This may well be a representation of the “Dreams of Surcease” dealt with by Mario S. DePillis in an address to a session of the Mormon History Association at the annual meeting of the Western History Association in New Haven, Connecticut, 13 October 1972.

33. Reinwand, , “Millennialism,” PP. 34. 43. 46, 49.Google Scholar Reinwand believes that the emphasis in Mormon millennialism actually changed from premillennialism to postmillennialism and a-miliennialism at various times, but it seems probable to me that the phenomenon was simply a unique Mormon brand of premillennialism. On millennialism see Tuveson, Ernest Lee, Redeemer Nation: The Idea of America's Millennial Role (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1968), pp. 32–34, 175–186Google Scholar and Burridge, Kenelm, New Heaven, New Earth: A Study of Millenarian Activities (New York: Shockens Books. 1969), pp. 3–14.Google Scholar As Norman Cohn has pointed out, this fear of malevolent forces was an aspect of medieval revolutionary millennialism, Pursuit of the Millennium, pp. 18–19, 58–69.Google Scholar

34. Sandcen, Ernest R., Roots of Fandanmentalism: British and American Millenarianism, 1800–1930 (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1970). pp. 6–27 and 52–55.Google Scholar

35. Woodruff, Journal, 11 June, 23 December 1837; 14 January, 16, 21 February, 4 April 1838.

36. Ibid., 7 July 1838.

37. Ibid., 7, 31 July 1839.

38. Allen, and Alexander, , Manchester Mormons, pp. 1–11.Google Scholar

39. Ibid., 12 February 1841 and passim.

40. Ibid., 27 December 1841; 27 March 1842.

41. Ibid., 21 July 1842; 10. 13, 14, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24 March, 2 April 1843. This was, of course, a comet, but Woodruff did not perceive it as such.

42. Ibid., 9 ff. July, 8 August 1844.

43. Ibid., 18 February, 19 October, 1855; 9 October, 7, 23 December 1856

44. Ibid., 21, 31 December 1857; 1 January, 7 March, November, 31 December 1858.

45. Ibid., 21 December 1860.

46. Ibid., 31 December 1861; 31 December 1862.

47. Ibid., 26 January 1880; see also end 1897.

48. Ibid., 31 December 1884; 10, 12 November, 20 December 1886; 31 December 1887; 20, 23 March, 25 September, 20 December 1885.

49. Ibid., 24 November 1889.

50. Ibid., 23 December 1889; 22 March 1893; Reinwand, , “Millennialism,” p. 14Google Scholar; for speculation on the coming in the early 1890s see ibid., pp. 142–143.

51. Ibid., chap. 6. This was, of course not the only revolutionary aspect of Mormonism.

52. This argument was anticipated by Hansen, Klaus in his Quest for Empire: The Political Kingdom of God and the Council of Fifty in Mormon History (East Lansing, Michigan: Michigan State University Press, 1967), pp. 3–10Google Scholar; and in his “Mormonism and American Culture,” pp. 18–19. For a view placing the origin of radical politics in the modern Western religious tradition see Walzer, Michael, The Revolution of the Saints: A Study in the Origins of Radical Politics (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1965).Google Scholar

53. Lyman, Edward Leo, “Isaac Trumbo and the Politics of Utah Statehood,” Utah Historical Quarterly 41 (Spring, 1973): pp. 129–183.Google Scholar

54. See Journal, 3, 5, 24 August, 3, 21, 24, 25 September 1890.

55. See Journal, 25 October 1891.

56. Ibid., 18 August 1896; 6 April 1893; 18 March 1894; 1 May 1894; 19, 28 May 1896.

57. Ibid., 17 May 1894; 2 September 1898.

58. Ibid., 28 May 1896.

59. Hill, Marvin S. and Allen, James B., eds., Mormonism and American Culture (New York: Harper and Row, 1972), p. 3.Google Scholar

60. The Jacksonian Persuasion: Politics and Belief (New York: Vintage Books, 1960).Google Scholar

61. Schlesinger, Arthur Jr, The Age of Jackson (Boston: Little, Brown, 1945), pp. 505–523.Google Scholar