3 Nephi: Atonement Uncomplicated

Jesus Christ descends to the Americas in 3 Nephi. The New World is tied to the Old. 

Linking Europe and the Americas to Jerusalem and the Mediterranean world was part of Millennialism, which movement I will address when I reach the Book of Ether. 

For now, 3 Nephi is notable not only for a recounting of the Sermon of the Mount but for what it doesn't include.

In the early nineteenth century, Reverend Alexander Campbell stated about Joseph Smith:

"He decides all the great controversies--infant baptism, ordination, the trinity, regeneration, repentance, justification, the fall of man, the atonement, transubstantiation, fasting, penance, church government, religious experience, the call to the ministry, the general resurrection, eternal punishment, who may baptize, and even the question of free masonry, republican government, and the rights of man." (in Harrison 184)

The above passage is correct (though it lacks the caustic bite that surely must have entered the reverend's voice when discussing Joseph Smith; the passage's context is a complaint). However, what I find most impressive is when Joseph Smith goes "off-script." Joseph Smith's step-by-step argument against infant baptism is entirely keeping with his times (the unorthodox position was becoming rapidly more orthodox). 

Regarding the Atonement, however, his writings and The Book of Mormon evince a remarkable (and blessed) lack of obsession with exactly how it occurs (there is little focus on counting drops of blood). 

Page's points about

Gnosticism are spot-on.

A great many of the theologies running through America's beginnings (and earlier) come down to the nature of God and how exactly God operates. When people  blame the Enlightenment for things, they usually focused on the movement's secular attitudes. But entirely unnecessary and daft religious ideas like Creationism also arose from the Enlightenment. The need to bring God down to a human level, to explain His works/deeds as if they belong in a self-help "you can also" book have resulted in astonishing levels of cognitive dissonance. 

The impulse goes back further than the Enlightenment, of course. Check out Gnosticism, which was not as feminist, edgy, or "advanced" as some modern theologians want to claim. Once the premise "God couldn't possibly like physical matter!" is accepted, the conclusions to that premise (regarding a deity also presented as a creator of physical matter) get stranger and stranger and stranger. 

 

But I am straying into the issue of who or what God is, an issue I will address in a different post. 

 

Here, the issue is what God does, specifically when and how and why God forgives sin. 

 

From a "humans are weird and do dumb stuff" perspective, the issue of sin and needed forgiveness doesn't seem that complicated. But theologians immediately made it complicated. What worried them the most was (1) why God would create sin or encourage sin or make sin possible; (2) what happened to humans after being forgiveness.

 

If sin is a given, then once He forgives, why would any propitiation (even being sorry) be necessary, especially if He already knows who is saved? And, anyway, why would the elect even be able to sin? They might have tendencies towards sin (though some Calvinists debated this possibility), but they could not have the nature to sin because God would never do that to one of his elect. 

 

Congregationalists spent an unreal amount of time trying to figure out the problem of the above bolded statement and the arguments (because Calvinists loved to argue with each other) often came back to the first problem--that is, was sin something a person did or something a person thought or something a person might do but didn't or something that a person didn't do because that person was one of the elect? And if the person was one of the elect, was that person's behavior not sin because that person was already granted grace? Or because that person was created not to be that way? Was sin the product of choice or the product of inclination/nature and if the latter, where did that inclination come from?

 

My amateur historian's brain suffers a "gap" problem here. For me, I think messing up is natural and human and the product of choice. I don't think it needs to be explained. It just is. And I don't see why God has to be blamed.

 

I also don't understand how decent people can get up in the morning and think, "The problem isn't me correcting my faults or trying not to be a jerk today. The problem is what other people are going around thinking about their fault-ridden selves." 

 

I understand the desire to spread "good news." I understand the desire to observe what is going on in the world. And I understand the desire to comment on what is going on in the world. And I'm writing as someone who is literally paid to tell other people how to write better. But I still don't understand the (social media) desire to move from belief or concepts to slamming people's characters, from "here's my position/here's the craft/here's possible ways to transform yourself or your work(s)" to determining that the existence of a trait or idea in another must be eradicated. I understand the desire to help people be better; I don't understand the desire to "help" a person by turning that person into someone else or making them out to be someone else.

 

However much I want to understand Congregationalism, I can't entirely overcome that mindset "gap." 

 

But, then, I think social media is mostly a waste of time. 

In truth, Congregationalists weren't all of a piece. Some argued against the desire to fix others. Accepting the providence of God meant full acceptance, including the inability to change anyone for the better. However, as the First Great Awakening approached and missionary work increased among Protestants generally, the attitudes of more proactive (extroverted) leaders took hold. Some of them softened Calvinist doctrines and adopted more Methodist ideas (Congregationalism was conflicted from the beginning by American versus Old World ideals). Some of them honestly saw missionary work as an extension of service--to educate and heal and support abolition because they were called by God. 

 

But some of the die-hards clung to the idea that people needed to be told stuff about themselves even if what they were being told was that some of them were doomed. They argued over ideas presented earlier in this post: how exactly God could let his elect be exposed to sin or the desire to sin or the possible damnation of personal sin or the expectation that anyone could get over sin. If Grace is working, then why is X, Y, or Z happening to us?...was the mantra.

 

Joseph Smith skips all of it. He was fundamentally an active, physical guy. Any theory that somehow dismisses sin *or* regulates it to metaphysical discourse wouldn't have made much sense to him. He seems to have spent little time worrying about the Ransom theory of the Atonement versus the Governmental theory versus the Christus Victor theory (which last I tend towards myself and Joseph Smith seems to have utilized: the primary purpose of the Atonement is that Christ conquered--was victorious--over death, which implies a need to be victorious over sin). 

 

For Joseph Smith, ultimately, the Atonement happened in order to allow us to do stuff, to move towards something, to be saved (as George MacDonald would state) not in our sins but from our sins, FOR something. (See Helaman 5:11.)

 

But, as referenced in earlier posts, to maintain this perspective, it helps to reject original sin or at least to propose that the purpose of life IS for us to mess up.

 

That is, God wants us to experience risk. Knowing that us + risk would result in us doing very dumb things, he provided an Atonement, which makes it possible for us to keep exploring and risking and trying and experimenting rather than turning into, say, Gollum, going round and round and round without stop (hollowness). Grace while we do stuff, not grace + what we do.

 

Joseph Smith was not, in the end, a man to shy from risk. He was also not a man who thought that constantly calculating the cost of sin was terribly useful. His primary response to messing up/sin was harrowing but it was the harrowing of a man who feels that he has disappointed/let-down a loving God, not that of a man who believes he is too low or "other" to be contemplated. 

 

He and Saint Paul (and George MacDonald) would agree. 

3 Nephi: Penance & Catholic Confession

Penance is one of those issues within Christianity that has caused much upheaval. 

Catholicism's Sacrament of Penance can be placed within the Governmental Theory of Atonement--Christ died for humankind, every member within a social order, but as members of that social order, not necessary as individuals. That is, Christ did not suffer for each sin committed by each human being, which statement would have been a tremendous relief to my pre-teen self. 

(My mother made the Governmental Theory argument when I express horror at causing Christ pain, but I think she did so from what I will call the Mythic Version of the Atonement: Aslan dies for Edmund but not in some legalistic sense. He dies to free Edmund, not to even an imaginary score, whatever others claim as their rights towards Edmund.) 

In the "yes, but" approach to theology, despite the Sacrament of Penance being potentially tied to the social order, confession is an individual act. I visited a Catholic Church with a friend a few years ago and witnessed individuals cued up for the confessional. The priest could only speak to one person at a time. My friend later showed me a modern confessional, which was two chairs separated by a transparent screen in a larger office. It was more therapy-session-like even than the image.

But it was two chairs, not a group meeting. 

Protestants in nineteenth-century America were entirely opposed to the Sacrament of Penance as presented through the Confession. They argued that it involved priests forgiving sins--and only God can forgive sins. The Catholic priest does utter the words, "I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." Contrary to criticisms of antimonianism (Catholics can do whatever, once absolved!), this absolution refers only to the offering of grace. The temporal consequences remain and may extend into the next life. 

Love those 19th-century titles!

However, even the use of priests (and, of course, a pope) was anathema to early Protestants. One ex-Catholic at the time, Charles Henry Wharton, wrote that confession (alongside the claim of papal infallibility, which claim took off in the nineteenth century) was based upon "the lust of dominion and the rage for dogmatizing." 

Protestants also objected to the intimacy of the confessional. Ex-Catholic Joseph Blanco White, writing in the 1820s, sounds almost modern on the subject: "There is something in auricular confession which has revolted my feelings [from childhood]...as a protection to my life and liberty, with scorn and contempt in my heart." Another, Antonio Gavin, writing in the eighteenth century, objects to the close questioning of the penitent by the religious leader. He declares that priests have been told not to be so nit-picky, yet they are "motivated in practice primarily by...curiosity."

And still more Protestants and ex-Catholics published lots and lots of (largely false, though not entirely) "news" about Catholic priests taking advantage of the confessional to get women pregnant. 

The truth of most of these stories is debatable but the underlying reality remains: the confession was personal and intimate. Even today, according to Wikipedia, "Phone absolutions are considered invalid."

In terms of doctrine, while rejecting the Sacrament of Penance, early Protestants in America were conflicted. The problem "okay, that person said sorry and asked for forgiveness--but how do we KNOW!?" couldn't be shaken. There is something (not altogether tasteful) within the human spirit that insists that "good" people can't just say they are good. The social order has to accept them as good. 

After all, Protestants in New England had thrown out the easiest way to KNOW: actions. They had a reason to throw out that easiest way--actions so often turn into performances and indulgences, markers of goodness rather than actual goodness--but the Calvinists didn't make their lives any easier by wanting some other type of proof. In her book on Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Ann J. Lane comes closest to explaining this "proof" as any writer I've encountered so far:

Only those few who underwent an experience of "conversion" might be among the elect and thus permitted to enter heaven...[conversion was] an experience of affirming the Calvinist religion...[which] probable membership [in the church indicated]. 

I cannot speak for current-day Calvinism, but this "true" conversion was a factor in early American Calvinism and with the arrival of the Enlightenment, came down to a specific moment, a recognized instantaneous epiphany/change followed by an authentic public confession (how to recognize the confession's authenticity was a matter of some debate). There was a great deal of worry over children of parents who were born into the faith but who hadn't "truly" converted. Should the children be accepted or not?

Note the passive voice. Still--

The language "truly penitent," which appears in The Book of Mormon four times, would have been familiar to nineteenth-century readers. The idea of public confession (common in Calvinism; for those who enjoy connections to the Salem Witch Trials, one of the girls who made accusations made a public confession/apology as an adult) also appears in The Book of Mormon. As with Calvinism, confession and baptism is the standard for admittance into membership. Forgiveness is reserved to an act between the sinner and God.

But what about that proof!? 

The Sermon on the Mount in The Book of Mormon emphasizes that neither the confession as a sacrament nor the exact type of conversion is the criterion for final judgment. We are drawn to what we want and create: “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (3 Nephi 13: 21).

Later scriptures in 3 Nephi continue to emphasize the same idea. Regarding a passage that has been taken radically out of context, the church of Christ is defined as follows:

If it be called in my name, then it is my church if it so be that [the church as a group of people is] built upon my gospel. Verily, I say unto you that ye are built upon my gospel; therefore, ye shall call whatsoever things ye do call in my name; therefore, if ye call upon the Father [on behalf of] the church, if it be in my name, the Father will hear you. And if it so be that the church is built upon my gospel, then will the Father show forth his own works in it. 

But if it be not built upon my gospel and is built upon the works of men or upon the works of the devil, verily I say unto you, they have joy in their works for a season and by and by, the end cometh, and they are hewn down and cast into the fire from whence there is no return. For their works do follow them. (3 Nephi 27:8-12, my emphasis)

In the end, the argument in The Book of Mormon is quite similar to Paul's argument in Corinthians (along with the notable second emphasized line from Revelations)--that whatever is built in the name of Christ will eventually burn away, leaving only the foundation of Christ. Paul is more accepting of human variation. But the conclusion between Joseph Smith and Paul is the same. 

Ultimately, people are not "saved" by proof. They are saved due to "their faith, and their repentance of all of their sins, and their faithfulness unto the end” (3 Nephi 27:19).

The Book of Mormon from a Nineteenth-Century Perspective: Introduction

I am increasingly troubled by how little people seem to know--or care--about history and context. Our current social climate encourages partakers of online media to develop stories about other people and about the past without questioning those stories or learning more. Checks against the resulting imposed narratives--"Is that really within your purview?" "Do you have enough information?" "Shouldn't you find out more first?"--are  bypassed to deliver (supposedly caring, well-intentioned, emotionally justified and allegedly righteous) verdicts of others. Those verdicts often include labels, which labels appear to align with what I call "first cause," a modern-day version of original sin:  

Everything has gone wrong due to an inherent flaw in a person, plan, or social order. And one of those inherently flawed components is you!

Due to the spiraling focus on meaning-shorn-of-context, The Book of Mormon steadily seems subjected to a kind of self-help manual approach, which leaves it open to both subjective whimsy and "I'm so appalled" criticism. It is judged, perhaps as useful; perhaps as injurious.

In fairness, for much of history, the "everything is all about us" approach was adopted by believers and doubters as they used the scriptures to talk about other stuff, especially themselves. The approach lends itself to fresh and thought-provoking dialog. It even lends itself to social and religious change!

It also, unfortunately, lends itself to "since everything is relative and nobody can really know anything, you should believe about this passage what the 'expert' or 'proper' leader/authority/scholar/shouting person tells you to believe."

The "believe what you're told" approach doesn't work for me, whatever the identity of the lecturer. I far prefer context because I admire people of the past and believe they deserve to be understood as more than participants in an ideology or springboards to the reader's ego or springboards to the grinding of an axe. 

The context for The Book of Mormon, of course, is difficult and controversial. As stated below, this blog will not address the issue of The Book of Mormon's translation. I have no investment in that argument in any direction. The primary question behind each entry is, rather, What religious climate existed at the publication of The Book of Mormon that made it such a satisfying book to its readers?

REGARDING COMMENTS

I began to post these entries in April 2024 on my Papers blog (see Thesis & Talks). I am reposting them in chronological order with edits. After all, the more I learn...

Comments on all my blogs are moderated. On this blog specifically, I will not be allowing through any comment that focuses either on my character (Why did you write that? I know why you wrote that! You skunk!) or on contradiction (see Monty-Python's "Argument Clinic"). I have a very low opinion of most social media commentary, precisely because it fails to back claims, resorts to ad hominem attacks, and conflates stances with substance. 

I have zero interest in defending what I believe. My beliefs are a matter between me and God and come down to theology and integrity. If you would like to express your beliefs, create a blog. 

I have zero interest in arguing over whether one should or should not like/be inspired by Joseph Smith. I like him. I also think he was a flawed individual. In fact, I like him because he was flawed. I will not engage in trying to paint him either as a con-man or a paragon. I find both approaches utterly dreary. I believe in neither of them. 

I have zero interest in arguing over whether one should or should not be a member of a particular church (any church). 

I find conspiracy theories so boring, they make my brain melt. 

In sum, comments that do not address the actual points raised within entries, including stated claims and evidence will not be approved. Spiritual exegesis, anthropological insights, and general ponderings will likely be allowed.  

Entries may change--as I learn more and more about the nineteenth century!

 

1 Nephi and Enos: The Wilderness

The original entries on this topic went in Book/Chapter order, starting, naturally, with 1 Nephi. 

However, as I got further into Alma, I found that approach more and more difficult to sustain. The entries on this blog will group certain ideas while still referencing books and chapters.

1 Nephi 4-6: The Wilderness

Nineteenth-century readers would have reacted positively to the idea of wilderness as freedom. This perspective is often applied only to white settlers in North America--and Manifest Destiny, articulated in 1845, was used to justify the practice of white settlers steadily moving west. However, lots and lots of people—including escaped ex-slaves—also moved west. Irish immigrants, Blacks, and displaced Native Americans occupied the fringes of society as well as a number of religious groups. 

It helps to realize that those “fringes”--what was labeled “the West”--kept moving. At one point in the 1800s, “the West” was western New York and Ohio. It then became the Mississippi River Valley and then what we now refer to as the Mid-West. (California became a self-described utopia and sophisticated “other” coast fairly early on—though it was also perceived as part of “the West.”) 

The Gold Rush, naturally, contributed to the idea that going to the West equaled a new start, but that metaphor impacted North American pioneering as early as the Mayflower (possibly earlier, if one goes back to the Vikings). It links to the Puritan idea of “exodus” from a corrupt society. Methodist preachers, circuit riders, were immensely popular in the nineteenth century while their stable, elite, (well) paid, stationary counterparts on the east coast were perceived as missing the plot. 

Consequently, nineteenth-century readers would have reacted positively to Lehi’s decision to move his family away from perceived urban corruption into a potentially dangerous wilderness. And the thread of violence that inhabits these chapters would have made more sense to nineteenth-century readers than it often does to modern readers. The “Wild” West was truly “Wild” in some cases and the attitude “better left alone to take care of themselves” from state and Federal governments (pre-Civil War) was prevalent. (I will return to this attitude later.) 

Although indigenous people and trackers and traders saw the wilderness as an approachable and useful setting, the mindset for many North American newcomers--when faced with so much risk--was more medieval than Enlightened, namely: 

One goes into the Wilderness and dies heroically (and/or becomes a hermit--see Saint Anthony--and dies sacrificially) or one goes into the Wilderness and fights off all contenders as part of a social order. 

The tensions here between freedom and organized leadership, pacifism and violence continue through The Book of Mormon. Nineteenth-century readers could relate. 

Enos & The Wilderness

Heading into the wilderness to gain insight is not merely a product of modern life and Sondheim’s Into the Woods. The ancient world is full of gurus stepping away from agricultural and urban centers to find themselves and effect contact with deity.

However, one major difference exists between then and now. For much of history, that stepping away was a risk, challenge, and sacrifice. The praying petitioner was stripped of day-to-day concerns and self-protection. It is possible that hunter-gatherers included unorthodox members who traveled alone for the fun of traveling alone. It is also possible that such members were considered practically pathological and usually ended up dead.

When Saint Anthony the Great made his way into the “wilderness”—as numerous gurus had done before him—what mattered was the arduous nature of the experience. Nature was not one’s friend. Nature was, quite literally, the thing that would end your life.

Charles G Finney

In All the Trouble in the World, P.J. O’Rourke writes about Petrarch’s hike up Mount Ventoux, “During his brief sojourn upon the Ventoux peak, the poet stood astride the medieval and modern ages—the first European to climb a mountain for the heck of it, and the last to feel like a jerk for doing so.”

Joseph Smith

Acclaims to nature exist in early Western and Eastern literature. In one of my master’s courses, the professor and some students tried to convince the rest of us that nobody was awestruck by the Grand Canyon until Western civilization told them they should be. So much nonsense! (Academic theories, despite the jargon, are often disturbingly self-centered.) Multiple Native American tribes centered their religious ceremonies in the Grand Canyon. They weren’t exactly doing it in the middle of Kansas.

Okay, maybe they did—but my point stands: a remarkable natural occurrence is a remarkable natural occurrence, from waterfalls to the aurora borealis. Observant humans have always commented on nature’s awe-inspiring products—just look at cave paintings.

What changes are the tropes, the ways in which those wonders are addressed. Human beings are social animals. Once one person goes into the wilderness not to be challenged or to die but to be inspired and comforted, everybody is going to start going for the same reason, and they will use the language (as both writers and translators) that relates to that trope.

Both patterns run through the nineteenth century. Jonathan Edwards—despite terrifying a generation of Congregationalists with “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”—was a big believer in nature’s spiritual influence. A Puritan’s goal was to undergo a personal conversion and/or reckoning. Nature could help that individual comprehend God’s glory and God’s love.

The connection between contemplation and nature would take off with the Transcendentalists. Though he likely would have disapproved of some of their notions, they are Edwards’ philosophical heirs.

Nineteenth-century readers would have related to both purposes attached to nature: inspiration/comfort—personal challenge/sacrifice. Both run through both Nephi and Enos’s experiences: sunk deep into my heart, wrestle, hungered, guilt swept away, pour out, struggling, unshaken, labored. The Wilderness is an unfriendly place where one struggles. The Wilderness is a place where one retreats and prays and learns.

1 Nephi: Scripture Reading and the Enlightenment

1 Nephi 3: Scripture Reading

The struggle  over the brass plates, wealth versus inspiration, would have struck home with Joseph Smith, who participated in the popular early nineteenth-century search for treasures and understood the survivalist's need for cold, hard cash. The history behind this trend is covered more than adequately elsewhere. 

Of more interest to me is the definition of the brass plates as "spoken by the mouth of all the holy prophets..delivered unto [the prophets] by the Spirit and power of God” rather than "spoken by God...delivered as incontestable words." 

Bible literalism is a relatively late development in the production, collection, and canonization of scriptures. It popped up throughout the Middle Ages (and earlier), of course, but didn't take off until the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The phrases in 1 Nephi--"spoken by" and "delivered unto them"--places the translator, at least here, on the non-literal side of the argument with the addition of a possible compromise. 

Nineteenth-century readers would have been as invested in this issue as modern readers, in part due to the Reformation; in part due to the Enlightenment. 

Martin Luther, for one, was

extremely argumentative.

The Reformation

Luther et al. challenged Rome's authority based on the belief that the scriptures were the only reliable source of God's truth. The matter was instantly made more complicated by not everyone understanding what the scriptures actually said (translations into everyday language were being made but not all translators had the same background in Greek, Hebrew, and Latin). Like all human beings everywhere, both Catholic and Protestant theologians also had a tendency to "translate" in terms of their own opinions. 

So Luther took transubstantiation literally while other Protestants pointed out that Christ was probably speaking figuratively. Okay. Sounds consistent. Except some of the pro-figurative Protestants insisted on literalism regarding Christ's whereabouts ("right hand of God") while some of the literalists insisted that the reference was only figurative. 

Nevertheless, almost all Protestants--even when they violently disagreed with each other--concurred that the scriptures were the source, not the traditions coming out of Rome (which traditions included the Pope).

The Enlightenment

In recent years, some writers have blamed the Enlightenment--empiricism, searching for proofs, separating faith from science--for ruining religion while Enlightenment believers have blamed religion for keeping everyone thinking medievally. 

I think the argument is as pointless as atheists arguing with fundamentalists. The Enlightenment—a highly varied movement itself—underscored the concept of a rational and reasonable deity. The associated assumptions have impacted everything from church organization to charity work to scripture reading. Many things we take for granted—such as forensics as evidence—are both older than the Enlightenment and were encouraged by the Enlightenment. Theology, likewise, has always focused on producing a coherent explanation of God and God's acts.

One of the Enlightenment's ideas was “evidential” religion, the idea that the natural world and rational argument could prove philosophical and, if necessary, religious truths. The idea influenced generations of believers, from literalists using the natural world and the Bible to prove the equivalent of Creationism to near-atheists using the natural world and Bible studies (coming out of Germany) to prove the non-existence of miracles. 

Not everyone was a fan since there are obviously non-observable aspects of life. But "evidential" religion fit in with the Protestant Reformation's emphasis on going to the scriptures for proof. 

Back to Scripture Reading

Of course, using Bible passages wasn't a perfect solution in the nineteenth century because (a) the Bible’s clarity was being challenged by aforementioned scholars; (b) not every theologian agreed on the Bible’s meaning. An increasing number of Protestants pointed out that Saint Paul was probably speaking hypothetically or metaphorically or specifically or historically when he spoke about “election.”

There were plenty of people in-between. Many in-between religious believers honestly didn’t want to go in either direction. They didn’t want to discard rationality and evidence from the natural world—but why should that mean getting rid of the unseen, unknowable, and unprovable?

Since quantum mechanics hadn’t yet shown up in the sciences, they had a point.

That is, many nineteenth-century religious communities were perfectly capable of rejecting the logical fallacy of either/or (one must either accept that all scriptural events are metaphors or one must accept that they are meant to mean exactly what a current translation argues, in a one word=one definition sense, without any room for debate or context). 

Nineteenth-century readers were also open to a third possibility: more revelations, more visions, more scriptures, and more to come. 

God may not change. But that doesn't mean that humans fully understand the nature of God. 

1 Nephi: Individuality & The Tree of Life

1 Nephi 8-11: The Tree of Life

1 Nephi 8-11 includes Lehi's version of the Tree of Life followed by Nephi’s personal vision of same.

These chapters would have connected to the intense individualism within American thought in the early nineteenth century. (Although the first image depicts the Norse Yggdrasil, it is doubtful that early ninteenth-century Americans were aware of Norse mythology. Greek and Latin--Greek and Roman--mythology still ruled in Western universities. Norse mythology was not made truly accessible until the mid-1800s and truly popular by Tolkien and others in the mid-twentieth century.)

The nineteenth century is the era of de Tocqueville, who arrived in the United States and observed separation of church and state in action. “Good golly,” he exclaimed (I am summarizing), “when religion is not imposed by the state, people are, what do you know, more religious!”

The American Revolutionary also supplied an ongoing narrative of intense individualism—rebellion against (or exodus from) the corruptness of the Old World. Even Puritan thought, which now strikes modern people as rather dictatorial, was about individual salvation, a single person coming to understand God’s grace through lifelong, intense personal analysis.

It is difficult to entirely capture—we are products of the early C.E. era, after all—the break here from communal sin and suffering that encapsulates social orders in antiquity. That urge remains, of course, what with Witch Trials and their modern equivalents: one bad apple rots the entire barrel! Twitter or whatever it is called now appears to be the ultimate expression of badgering everyone everywhere into some kind of compliant order.

But even Twitter is the product of individual offerings.

Individualism existed in antiquity and forms the basis of most narratives, but the social order—and therefore the social role—of populations was entirely presupposed. Kings were not scribes. Scribes were not peasants. Peasants weren’t anybody. If the king is saved, you are all saved. Might as well get on-board.

The Common Era concept of the individual as agent, who works out an individual salvation, is something that nineteenth-century readers would have entirely comprehended and embraced and that modern folks rather take for granted, even when they criticize the ideology.

Lehi’s Tree of Life rests on the premise of the individual agent. Although the “strait and narrow” path connotatively gives rise to images of intolerance and exclusivity, in Lehi’s dream it is a path that each person must walk alone, even if there are others ahead and behind: each of Lehi’s children and even his wife are referenced separately; at one point, he watches them struggle separately. The path is a person’s integrity or personal path in life—choice of profession, artistic endeavor, prophetic calling (see Joseph Smith)—whatever self-definition a person embraces and endures and sacrifices for.

The “great and spacious building”—on the other hand—is the ultimate collective. People get there individually but they stay in the “safe” Borg-like “in-group” that mocks individuals and scorns the difficult pathway that each individual treads.

Consequently, the “great and spacious building” houses detractors, sneerers, people who love labels, mockers, revilers, obnoxious cliques—those who prefer to watch others drown rather than make a life for themselves. (All members of the great and spacious building point in the same direction, as a mob would.)

There are other possible interpretations, of course, including the search for a single path to God’s grace, a search that was dear to the Smith family and many others. Although communal living was all the rage, early nineteenth-century readers still would have perceived such a search in individual terms, one that this group, this community carries out for the sake of each member. (Despite the Donner party haunting American mythology, most successful pioneers moved west within specific groups—religious groups, town groups, family groups.)

And few nineteenth-century readers would have balked at the fruit of the tree being happiness, love, and joy (as opposed to discipline, humiliation, and subjugation). Gotta love those Americans and their life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness mindsets! (Even the Puritans perceived the happiness and beauty of nature as the key to comprehending God’s grace.)

1 Nephi 12-13: Catholicism

"Great & Abominable"

1 Nephi 12-13 is a kind of historical overview. It references the "Great and Abominable Church" without any other designation. 

However, in Protestantism and in Protestant America, the term was customarily attached to Catholicism. When I was growing up, there were still church members who linked the Catholic Church to the “Great and Abominable Church” (I grew up in upstate New York, so our congregation included ex-Catholics).

The link is far less palatable (and diplomatic) now, of course, and I got tired of it early on. Although some members liked to blame the Great Apostasy on the Council of Nicaea, it is obvious from reading the scriptures and history that (1) any apostasy within the early church occurred within that early church well before the end of the first century C.E. (See all of Paul's letters.)

(2) The Council of Nicaea actually preserved the most orthodox and non-crazy ideas of Christianity. That is, the Council preserved, as best as it was able, the concepts of an invested, non-abstract God and universal grace.

Yet, in truth, many nineteenth-century folks would have associated the “Great and Abominable Church” with Catholicism. Although the Reformation was nearly 300 years old at this point, it was still fresh in the American mind. Puritans left England due to persecution from the remnants of Catholicism, Anglicanism in the form of the Church of England. Europe was still a bastion, in the American Protestant mind, to Catholic influences. Truly radical Protestantism, went the thinking, couldn’t take root until the supposed stain of Catholicism was wiped away. This attitude lingered well into the twentieth century.

In fact, New Englanders got extremely nervous when Catholics, including the Catholic Irish, began to settle in Boston. Joseph Smith and his family left New England before the furor really ramped up but there is overlap. The Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk, a fictitious tale of scandal in a Catholic nunnery (rape, dead babies, secrets, catacombs) came out in 1836 (and was presented as non-fiction). 

The narrative of 1 Nephi 13 lends itself to an anti-Catholic interpretation but not entirely. After all, to many Protestants in the nineteenth century, Protestantism itself had faltered and gone down the wrong road--hence, the upsurge in Millennial sects. 

Joseph Smith, for instance, appears to have been entirely disinterested in going after Catholics specifically. It’s unlikely that he knew any anyway. Like Paul with The Law & paganism, Joseph Smith’s overall writing focuses on the analogy. Just as Paul continually used various analogies connected to legalism to go after the concept of propitiation (trying to win God or gods' favor), Joseph Smith used various analogies to attack the underlying causes of pride--such as fancy education and wealth and close-mindedness re: the Congregationalists that he grew up around--rather than a specific denomination.

Posts on Penance, Original Sin, and the Trinity to follow...