Angels in America: The Foundations of the Mormon Faith

A sermon prepared by Rev. Tim Kutzmark
Sunday, October 7, 2007 • Unitarian Universalist Church of Reading

THE FIRST READING

Our first reading comes from “The Doctrine and Covenants, Section 85” as revealed by God to Joseph Smith, first President, Prophet, Seer and Revelator of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints on November 27, 1832:

“And it shall come to pass that I, the Lord God, will send one mighty and strong, holding the scepter of power in his hand, clothes with light for a covering, whose mouth shall utter words, eternal words; while his bowels shall be a fountain of truth, to set in order the house of God.”

THE SECOND READING

Our second reading comes from the book “The Fruit of the Branch” by Richard L Saunders:

From its inception, the revelatory tradition in Mormonism engendered strife. The doctrine of a modern, continuing revelation, begun by Joseph Smith . . . leaves social order open to counterclaims that strike at the heart of . . . order. If one person may speak for God, why may not another? By claiming an ongoing dialogue with divinity, Joseph Smith opened the door to a social force he could barely control.”

THE THIRD READING

Our third reading comes from the writings of John Taylor, third President, Prophet, Seer, and Revelator, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. January 4, 1880:

“We believe in honesty, morality, and purity; but when they enact tyrannical laws, forbidding us the free exercise of our religion, we cannot submit. God is greater than the United States, and when the Government conflicts with heaven, we will be ranged under the banner of heaven and against the Government . . . I defy the United States; I will obey God.”

THE SERMON

It was a great time to be religious. It was great time to be a spiritual seeker. The revolutionary war had been over for more than 30 years. The new country’s population numbers were exploding. People were struck with the sense of adventure, with the driving need to break out of the East Coast. Widespread was the sense that opportunity waited just over the next mountain range. Widespread was the hope that the untapped wilderness could be tamed into farmlands. A pioneering spirit, a belief in manifest destiny—of God leading people into the barely explored heartland— infused America in the early to mid years of the 1800s.

It was a great place to be religious. It was a great place to be a spiritual seeker. Many New Englanders had moved west into sparsely settled upstate New York. In upstate New York, the conservative hand of New England Puritanism barely reached.

There, on the fringes of civil society, mesmerizing itinerant preachers roamed. People gathered in thrilling fire and brimstone tent revivals. In fact, western New York was called the “The Burned-Over District.” Not because of any literal fire damage, but because of the endless firestorm of preachers and prophets and founders of new spiritual sects.

Here strange new religious ideas could flourish unchecked by the religious establishment.

Universalists could teach that God would never condemn anyone to eternal damnation. Unitarians could teach that each human being could be nurtured and educated and guided into right living. Here, Mother Ann Lee and her Shakers taught that God was both male and female, that marriage should be abolished, and that a person could visit the spiritual realms to receive revelations.

It was here that William Miller predicted that Jesus’ Second Coming would take place in 1843. Over 100,000 people took up this belief, leaving jobs and selling farms and gathering to wait. When Jesus didn’t return, splinter groups kept the faith and became Jehovah’s Witnesses and Seventh-Day Adventists. It was here that the Fox Sisters—Kate and Margaret—claimed to be able to speak with the spirits of the dead, giving birth to the widespread Spiritualist movement.

It was here that John Humphrey Noyes created a utopian commune, where everything was shared, including sexual partners. Here Noyes’ followers practiced “complex marriage,” where women and men, though married, were free to enjoy sexual relations with any one else in the commune, and where post-menopausal women were encouraged to introduce teenage males to sex, since there was no fear of pregnancy.

It was here that belief in folk magic was widespread, belief that talking spirits roamed the countryside, and “seer stones” could predict the future.

It was here that Indian burial mounds were raided for artifacts, giving rise to wild speculation about the origins and demise of the Native Peoples, who some claimed were remnants of a lost tribe of Hebrews.

It was here that a new brand of social radicalism was born. Here, Elizabeth Cady Stanton helped organize the first women’s rights convention, held in Seneca Falls in 1848. It was here, two weeks later, that Unitarian Susan B. Anthony signed the historic Declaration of [Women’s] Rights and Sentiments. It was here that anti-slavery activism took root, as well as the temperance movement.

And it was here, in upstate New York, that a fourteen-year-old boy had a vision. It was here that a farm boy named Joseph Smith became this country’s most influential homegrown prophet. It was here that Joseph Smith saw Angels in America.

Joseph Smith, Jr. was not born in that place of religious ferment. He came into this world in the Green Mountains of Vermont on December 23, 1805, born to Lucy and Joseph Smith. He was the fourth of eleven children, some who did not survive into adulthood. The Smith family was poor, and barely educated. In 1816, ten-year-old Joseph and his parents abandoned the rocky soil of Vermont for the fertile lands of upstate New York, moving to a small farm outside the town of Palmrya. Joseph was a hard-working youth, although unusually quiet. He was religiously restless, unsure which of the many churches and sects in Palmyra taught the true faith. He also reportedly dabbled in folk magic, using “peeping” stones placed in a hat to read the future or to reveal the locations of buried gold. Using dowsing rods, he also reportedly hired himself out to search through farms and burial grounds for hidden treasure.

Whether a teenage mystic or youthful conman, or a mix of both, Joseph Smith tells of the spring day in 1820 when he walked into a grove of trees, seeking God’s guidance. Anxiety-ridden, he called out: “What church should I follow? What is true?” Smith remembered: “I kneeled down and began to offer up the desires of my heart to God . . . immediately I was seized upon by some power which entirely overcame me . . . I saw a pillar of light . . . over my head . . . which descended gradually until it fell upon me. . . .I saw two personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name.”

In answer to his prayer, Joseph Smith was told that by God that “all creeds . . . [were] an abomination . . . that. . . [all] were all corrupt.” But God wanted Joseph Smith to be a new prophet. Joseph Smith was charged to reconstitute the true church of Jesus Christ . And those who followed his gospel would become living Saints in these latter days.

Over the next few years, Smith claimed other visions, most regularly a figure identified as the Angel Moroni who appeared at his bedside to instruct him in matters spiritual. Moroni told Smith that buried not far from his house, on Hill Cumorah, was a collection of small golden tablets that had been etched in an ancient language. “They were “records of a people who had inhabited the American continents” and “fourteen hundred years earlier, Moroni had been [their] last custodian.” (A Mormon in the White House?, p. 213) These people were descendants of a lost tribe of Israel who had immigrated to the Americas thousands of years prior. Their descendants had split into two warring groups, the godly Nephites and the evil Lamanites. The Nephites were light skinned and good, but had God punished the Lamanites for their impiety by giving them dark skin; Smith was told these dark-skinned sinners were the ancestors of the Indians. (Mormonism For Dummies)

“Shortly after” his “resurrection . . . Jesus visited North America to share his new gospel with the Nephites and Lamanites and to persuade the two clans to quit squabbling.” (Under The Banner of Heaven, p. 111) After two hundred years of Jesus-induced harmony, war broke out again. Fearing destruction, one Nephite whose name was Mormon, carved this full history onto thin golden plates. Mormon’s son, Moroni, was the last surviving Nephite, and he hid them. And now, in 1820, Moroni had returned to reveal the location of the Book of Mormon to Joseph Smith.

Using two “seer” stones provided by the Angel, and peering into his hat where images appeared in the darkness, Joseph Smith translated the gold tablets from their previously unknown language of “Reformed Egyptian.”

Smith said he continued to be visited by the Angel, and to receive ongoing revelations directly from God. Smith began sharing these revelations with his family, friends, and the people of surrounding towns. Ten years later, in 1830, Smith officially organized a church in a friend’s living room. Smith called it “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” what is often incorrectly called the Mormon Church.

Joseph Smith taught a theology of God and an understanding of humanity that was religiously radical. In fact, some of the core principles of the LDS faith mirror Unitarian and Universalist teachings (but taken to greater extremes). Like Unitarians, Smith denied the Trinity. Like Universalists, Smith denied the concept of original sin, dismissing the notion that humanity was stained by the sin of Adam and Eve and thus needed salvation. Smith also did not believe in the authority of professional clergy (something many present day Unitarian Universalists would find agreement with). Church leaders demanded strict patriarchal obedience, but Smith felt no one should make a living doing what everyone was called to do: teach, preach, and care for others. Every religious leader in the LDS church was a volunteer. Even today it is not uncommon for most Saints to offer 15-20 hours a week in volunteer service to their local ward.

Joseph Smith’s beliefs about God were even more radical. Smith taught a plurality of gods, and that the Father God had once been a human being, that God was married to a woman and fathered spirit children, and that the Father God had elevated himself to his God-status through discipline and dedication. Father God was—and still is—actual flesh and bone: a human being in form and substance, a Deity in power and majesty. Further, Smith claimed, all human beings were potential Gods. Through righteous living, through following Biblical commands and the Book of Mormon and his revelations, a human being could become divine. As God is, a human can be.

Like Universalists, Smith taught a positive view of the afterlife. Universalists believed that God would never condemn anyone to eternal damnation. Smith took this view even farther. After death, he said, every person returns to their original, non-physical state. Some people go to spirit paradise, and some to spirit prison, where the imprisoned spirits could still be converted to the true LDS Gospel.

At the end of the world, Smith claimed, every person would be resurrected with perfect physical bodies that last forever. Everyone would then be sent into one of three kingdoms, all of which are glorious paradises, and none of which hold any punishment. The Telestial Kingdom is for those who lived in sin and never repent. The Terrestrial Kingdom is for those who have lived good lives but don’t embrace the full LDS gospel. And the Celestial Kingdom is reserved for those who live the gospel, as taught by Joseph Smith. The Celestial Kingdom is where good Mormons become God. (Mormonism For Dummies, p. 13)

Smith and his followers practiced the communal sharing of property, money, and supplies. Like Universalists and some Unitarians, Joseph Smith’s followers were abolitionists, and this stance was part of the reason for their persecution when they eventually moved westward to Missouri, which was a slave state. They practiced healthy living, using no tobacco, alcohol or caffeine, and eating lots of fruits and vegetables long before science proved this was a healthier lifestyle. Joseph Smith also raised a Mormon militia that was so large it was half the size of the United States Army. In 1844, he declared himself a candidate for the Presidency of the United States.

And yes, Joseph Smith and his key leaders practiced plural marriage, although they denied it publicly for years. Smith taught that taking multiple wives was biblically based, and that it had been commanded to him by a direct revelation from God. According to some critics, plural marriage in this patriarchal faith, where obedience to male authority was crucial, also allowed Smith and other Mormon elders to coerce and force teenage girls into their beds.

Smith’s beliefs about God challenged America. Smith’s social stance against slavery challenged America. Smith’s armed militia challenged America. Smith’s political aspirations challenged America. Smith’s fast-growing church challenged American—within twelve years he had 30,000 members with new converts pouring in daily from Europe. And Smith’s practice of polygamy challenged and scandalized America.

But—despite fifty separate arrests; despite mob violence; despite expulsions from multiple towns, despite ejection from New York State, Ohio and Illinois; despite the Governor of Missouri ordering the state militia to exterminate all followers; despite the cold-blooded killings of Mormon children, women, and men; despite a brutal thousand mile trek across the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains to flee their persecutors, despite the Federal Government outlawing the religion and seizing their property, money, and assets (the only time in the history of this country where the government has done so to a religion); and despite his own assassination in a jail cell, the spirit and revelations of Joseph Smith could not be silenced.

As Smith himself once proclaimed: “You know no more about this church and its destiny than a babe upon its mother’s lap. You don’t comprehend it, but this church will fill North and South America. It will fill the world.”

Most of the other faiths from the 1800s in upstate New York have floundered and failed. A few—such as our own 200,000-member Unitarian Universalist denomination—struggle on as fringe faiths with minimal numbers. But Joseph Smith’s Church of Latter Day Saints grew from a persecuted group of six, to fifty, to a thousand, to 30,000, till today there are an estimated 4.8 million church members in the United States, making it the seventh largest denomination in the country, beating out Lutherans, Presbyterians and Episcopalians. The Mormon Church is by far the most numerically successful creed born on American soil, and one of the fastest growing anywhere. For America is only one part of the story. The Mormon Church now has 13 million members worldwide. At this moment, there are more than 60,000 teenage missionaries knocking on doors in 120 nations and island states. It is estimated the church gains 300,000 converts a year. By some predictions, in eighty years there could be over 260 million members worldwide, making it one of the world’s largest religions.

Today, the CEOs of JetBlue, Dell Computers, Deliotte and Touche, Black and Decker, and the Madison Square Garden Corporation are Mormon. The founders of the Marriott Corporation are Mormon. The owners of Rockefeller Center, Radio City Music Hall and the famous Radio City Rockettes are Mormon. The former Dean of Harvard Business School and many of its top professors are Mormon. The CFO of American Express is Mormon. Key national leadership in the Boy Scouts of America is Mormon. Fifteen Mormon Senators and Representatives currently serve in Congress. The church boasts the fullest genealogical record in the world, the microfilmed equivalent of 7 million books of 300 pages apiece. (TIME MAGAZINE
, AUGUST 4, 1997 VOL. 150 NO. 5)

The Church itself has assets worth over $30 billion. “If it were a corporation, its estimated $5.9 billion in annual gross income would place it midway through the FORTUNE 500, a little below Union Carbide and the Paine Webber Group but bigger than Nike and the Gap.” (TIME MAGAZINE
, AUGUST 4, 1997 VOL. 150 NO. 5)

And today, a Mormon is a serious contender to become a nominee for the next President of the United States. In our pluralistic country, which practices a civic religion that affirms the right of individual belief, this is a good and important step forward. And it is a world away from 150 years ago when presidential candidate Joseph Smith was shot to death by a mob in a Carthage, Illinois jail. For in our country, which practices a civic religion of that gives no one faith precedence over another, people of any belief have the right to run and be elected to political office, whether Jewish, Catholic, Atheist, Evangelical Christian, Unitarian Universalist, or Mormon.

Professor John Mark Reynolds says: “Mormonism is no longer a tiny movement. It’s already dominant in one state politically. It’s going to be dominant in two or three [more] states. . . Mormonism is here to stay as part of the fabric of the American nation.” (A Mormon in the White House?, p. 279)

Gordon Hinckley, the current LDS President, Prophet, Seer and Revelator, puts it another way: "We're celebrating this year the 150th anniversary of the arrival of the Mormon pioneers. From that pioneer beginning . . . to what you see today...this is a story of success." (Time Magazine, ibid.)