In fall 1876, Brigham Young left Salt Lake City for his annual winter trip to St. George. But this year would be different. For the first time in more than three decades, the Saints would dedicate a temple. In the Nauvoo temple, Young and others had performed proxy baptisms for deceased relatives and friends and participated in the endowment ceremony and sealings for themselves. These practices had continued in the Salt Lake Endowment House along with proxy sealings for deceased individuals. But the temple in St. George would mark a fundamental change; under Young's leadership, the Saints would perform all ordinances that they saw as essential for salvation, including the endowment, for both the living and the dead. The temple ceremonies expressed the highest ideals of the Latter-day Saints: eternal covenants that bound families together and bound them to God.As he left for St. George, Young knew his health might not allow him to live for many more years. He had begun his time as presiding church leader by emphasizing the completion of the Nauvoo Temple even though it became increasingly apparent the Saints would have to abandon the temple shortly thereafter. And now, in the twilight of his life, Young would oversee the dedication of another temple. For Young, the visit to St. George promised to be a time of profound spiritual significance.Leaving on November 1 from Salt Lake City, Young went to St. George with a traveling party that included his wife Amelia Folsom, daughter Shemira, son Brigham Jr., apostles Wilford Woodruff and George Q. Cannon, and Truman Angell (Young's brother-in-law and temple architect).1 The traveling party was eager to see the temple as they crossed the red hills into St. George. The “pure white” temple, Cannon recorded, “stood out in bold relief and in marked contrast with the black and red hills which surround the little valley in which St. George stands.” “It excited peculiar emotions in all the party to witness once more a temple erected to the Most High God,” he wrote.2 As the party came into town, the temple workmen welcomed them, carrying two banners. The first proclaimed “Holliness to the Lord” and depicted Zion's workmen. The second announced, “Welcome to Brigham Young our chief Builder.” The workmen took off their hats and bowed to Young and his companions, who returned the salute.3The next day, Young and the other leaders inspected the temple. In the basement, they saw the cast iron baptismal font, which was being bronzed, sitting on twelve oxen, representing the tribes of Israel. They then ascended into the “grand hall” of the temple. Cannon gave a glimpse of the party's emotions: “The hall is beautifully proportioned and the workmanship is very superior. . . . I felt as though I trod on holy ground. A person who can enter that room without feeling peculiar sensations and being impressed that it was a holy place must be either very thoughtless or dead to all sensibility.”4 Young and his companions continued the tour up to the roof. “The power of God rested upon us,” Woodruff noted.5Ill health soon robbed Young of his opportunity to be involved in the temple's final preparations before a planned partial dedication on New Year's Day. When he arrived, one workman observed that he “looked well and seems in better health than he did last winter.” But Young's health took a turn for the worse, struck both by a heavy cold and a flaring of the rheumatism in his feet.6 Apostle Woodruff blessed him and “rebuked his fever.”7 A week later, Young fainted twice. After two more weeks, Young was still ailing with rheumatic fever. His feet were so painful that he could barely place them on the floor. Woodruff and others again blessed him.8 While the cold passed, the rheumatism remained and kept him homebound for three weeks in December. Finally, on Christmas, Young visited the temple.9During his sickness, Young had delegated key responsibilities to Woodruff, Brigham Young, Jr., and others.10 Young now found the temple bustling with activity, even on Christmas, as men and women hurried to prepare for a preliminary dedication. Charles Walker, one of the workmen, wrote, “The sisters are busy sewing the carpet and getting the screen ready. All are busy pushing the good work along.”11 Brigham Jr. saw divine intervention in his father's improvement, as the Saints had prayed that their prophet could attend the dedication.12 Young spent the evening before the dedication with Woodruff, apostle Erastus Snow, and Brigham Jr., who each would deliver a dedicatory prayer. Young told them that the written prayers were good but needed to be longer.13On New Year's Day, over 1200 Saints crowded into the temple for the preliminary dedication. The final portions of the temple would be finished so that a complete dedication could occur in April. Young's rheumatism left him so crippled that men carried him throughout the temple in a chair with rollers. Young had waited too long for a temple dedication to miss this occasion.At 1:00 in the afternoon, the services began in the basement with a choir singing, “The Spirit of God Like a Fire Is Burning,” a hymn sung at the first temple dedication Young had attended—at Kirtland forty years earlier. Woodruff knelt in prayer at the west end of the baptismal font to dedicate the basement, with Young sitting nearby. After Woodruff's prayer, the choir sang a “Temple Dedication Song” that spoke of the revered place of Young as the Saints’ prophet: We thank thee, God for Inspiration,Poured out upon our Living Head,Who holds the keys of Revelation,And ordinances for the dead.14With Young carried in his chair, the Saints then moved upstairs, where Erastus Snow offered a dedicatory prayer for that floor. Snow asked the congregation to remain behind, in silence, while a group of about thirty (including Young carried in his chair) went upstairs to a sealing room so that Brigham Jr. could pronounce a final prayer.15After the group returned from the sealing room, Young hobbled with his cane to the pulpit to reflect upon the Saints’ history of temple building and the significance of the present moment. He saw the occasion as a crucial moment in the history of the world. Solomon had built a temple but, according to Young's understanding, had performed “very few if any endowments,” and the scriptures did not record whether Enoch had also constructed temples in his efforts to build a “people so pure and holy that they were not permitted to remain with the wicked inhabitants of the earth, but were taken to another place.”Young spoke of the Saints’ early efforts to build temples. In Kirtland, they had performed neither baptisms for the dead nor the endowment ceremony. Joseph Smith had planned for temples in Jackson County and Far West, Missouri, but they had not been built. Looking into the audience, he saw individuals who had worked with him to build the Nauvoo Temple. “They got it nearly completed before it was burned,” Young said. The temple in St. George was different. The Saints would not be driven from this temple. They would enjoy it. And in the temple they would do work—endowments for the dead—that “we have no knowledge of any other people enjoying since the days of Adam.”But Young worried about the spiritual welfare of his people. “Those that can see the spiritual atmosphere,” he commented, “can see that many of the Saints are still glued to this Earth and lusting and longing after the things of this world, in which there is no profit.” “Where are the eyes and hearts of this people? Where is their interest for their own salvation and that of their forefathers?” Young asked. If the Saints awoke to their privilege of participating in the “salvation of the human family,” the temple “would be crowded, as we hope it will be, from Monday morning until Saturday night.”“What do you suppose the fathers would say if they could speak from the dead?” he queried. Would their ancestors say they had “lain here thousands of years, here in this prison house, waiting for this dispensation to come? Here we are, bound and fettered in the association of those who are filthy?” The relatively few Saints had a great responsibility, he taught. The world's dead depended on the Saints for their salvation: “All the angels in heaven are looking at this little handful of people. . . . So also are the devils in hell looking at this people too, and trying to overthrow us, and the people are still shaking hands with the servants of the devil, instead of sanctifying themselves.”He wanted to wake up his people. “Can the Fathers be saved without us? No. Can we be saved without them? No.” Until other temples were dedicated, the Saints would need to converge on St. George. Young had stopped baptisms for the dead in the Endowment House the previous fall. At the time, the Saints had pleaded with him. But now, he said, they could come to St. George and perform the proxy work for their deceased ancestors and free them from spirit prison.Looking at the congregation, Young lamented that some of those present were too involved in the world of Gentiles, particularly in mining. “Some of our brethren,” he grumbled, “are putting their wives and daughters into their society, and will go to the devil with them too, if they do not look out.” He contrasted his own attitude: “It has been the Kingdom of God with me. What I have, I have got in this kingdom.” Some men present were corrupt and would go to hell unless they repented. “You may think this is plain talk.” But, if they did not change, they would be faced with even plainer talk: “If you should ever go to the gates of heaven, Jesus will say he never knew you.”Gripping his hickory cane, Young peered at the congregation: “I do not know whether the people are satisfied with the services of the dedication of the Temple or not. But I do not mean to and never expect to be satisfied,” he continued, “until the devil is whipped and driven from off the face of the Earth.” As he spoke these last words, Young struck the pulpit with his cane so forcefully that he left three marks.16 “There,” Young said, “let those marks remain” as a testimony of his fervor in warning the Saints.17 The striking of the pulpit left a deep impression on his audience. “The marks are on the stand,” one congregant wrote, “and will remain there as a testimony of the truth and the great power by which he spake.”18The sermon was classic Young. He always spoke to the Saints directly, both to laud them and to call them to repentance. He had not mellowed with age. Perhaps he had even grown more cantankerous as his physical pain and his frustration with some Saints mounted as the years passed by. And the actions of the congregation that day must have reminded Young of the slowness of the Saints to reform their Word of Wisdom habits; so much tobacco chewing and spitting occurred that it would take days to clean the floor of the assembly room.19 But most of the faithful Saints in the temple seemed to appreciate Young's words. John Nuttall recorded that Young's sermon had given him greater “determination to press onward in the great work of the last days, in the redemption and salvation to myself, wives, children, and the human family.”20As he sometimes did, Young likely tempered his language before publication of the sermon, revising his sermons for the press in the following days.21 The published remarks have no swearing. But Nuttall recorded that Young had called Saints who engaged in mining as “damned fools” and John Smith wrote that he called them “spawn of hell.” Young did not apologize for his language, saying “he would not ask to be excused for swearing for he intended to swear worse yet at the April conference.”22With the temple dedicated, Young and others prepared the spaces for ordinance work. Young had called men and women who had deep experience in the ordinances in the Endowment House, several of whom he had asked to move to St. George, to assist. First on the list was Woodruff, who would supervise the ordinance work under Young's direction. Brigham Jr. and Young's wife Lucy Bigelow were called as well.23Young clearly wanted his family members to engage in the work of the temple. On January 9, Lucy's daughter Susie became the first individual baptized for the dead in the temple. Using his crutch and walking stick, Young hobbled up the steps to the font so he could witness as Susie was baptized for a deceased friend by Woodruff. Standing near the font, Charles Walker “could not refrain from shedding tears of joy on beholding the commencement of so great a work.”24 Young participated with Woodruff in performing the by the on of that the Young was not participating in a moment for his he was also the of the ordinance the day of baptisms and Young a few for the better in the temple also the first deceased to endowment by proxy was who had performed in Nauvoo and in Salt Lake City and who had been called by Young to in the St. George called it the and work I ever While and Woodruff were with the endowment, of the workmen were in the was not proxy that took Lucy's daughter own endowment on January a later, of also endowment, as did also the of the of the endowment ceremony as another essential When Joseph Smith had the in he had not it to Young and others In the the ceremony had not been But in those decades, the endowment had been performed in one place at a the House in Salt the Endowment the of Young and other Young was the church for a in which the endowment would be performed in at from each and a written would be was not in had been performed in the Endowment he saw the opportunity to long given him by Joseph after performing the first in had Young, this is not we have the we could under the in which we are I you to take this in and all these Young had taken that in to the ceremony in the Nauvoo Temple in the winter of but he would now supervise Woodruff the of all the ordinances of the including the temple Brigham Jr. and John Nuttall Young worked with them, revising and as they When they had Young told Woodruff, you have before you to on the in all the until the of the of also to perform the ceremony for of people. on that he spent the day and evening with Woodruff and others the of Young in of the Young and his had completed the of and revising the ceremony and the of the On Woodruff recorded that Young been all winter to up a of as as to performing for the dead for the first time, a final temple ordinance began in St. George as sealing deceased to deceased to a crucial of temple from on salvation of individuals and in the ceremonies of for the the endowment, and to the to family also spent much of his time following the New Year's dedication the Saints of the and in the temple. A few weeks after the he a to with for Saints who would to the temple. Young the of those the spiritual but the Saints should all over before the prepare the Saints and Young temple to visit both to about the temple and the wanted to they would whether they would come for their own ordinances or also be prepared to do ordinances for deceased friends and temple returned with many from the Saints that they to Young. When should their Young's “If of a and early of and as early as twelve but as a years is early When the temple to be to their should they be In Would who before the of need to be baptized for the dead or temple ordinances sealing to their No. need any No. deceased who had been out of be to their or to their “They should be to the one who has the and on who would be for temple their a faithful to a endowment and be to and What about a individual to their own they be baptized by until we see one that Young What about the are not Young came by from Saints in on Would a in in a need to the ceremony in the upon whether there has been a record kept of or not. If there has it will be Young taught. on individuals in family had two or three living their is the for to The as Young other Saints to attend the temple, he was not a He that would him to do proxy ordinance work for For Young wrote to the of Young's first wife who had more than a earlier. Young asked a living in to the and of so that the temple work could be performed on their ordinance work performed by Young his for the salvation of the first of some of his Young performed his first proxy endowment for first John who had after three of Young had as proxy for in sealing the for in the Nauvoo temple before he had been to for this The next day, he performed temple for first also prepared to do proxy ordinances for his but the end of his in St. George, he he was to go the He asked his Brigham Jr., and his to the proxy and sealing for John and Young. Brigham Jr. recorded that day, for the dead is a of and of the most and in of spiritual was in the St. George temple, on the that Saints should be to a faithful than their own who might the The first performed in the St. George temple, on were the of two of his and and the deceased of But it was not relatives of his wives who were to Young. On April John called as in St. George, was to Young by temple work was and for Young. For the first time in more than three decades, the Saints again had a temple. the in Young wrote, work is being to in the Temple The of the work for and in of the dead up before the Saints more than ever and they are increasingly the upon the of those who are called to be the upon in the last kept of many ordinances were performed each day in the temple. The of ordinances each day more than individual They were to Young and his that they were building the of God both here and in the spirit Young's work and church temple work needed by both women and Like other the women of the Young family found significance in temple For the two decades, Snow, Young's had temple work in the Endowment Lucy Bigelow Young, by took on the in the St. George Temple. On Lucy and Wilford Woodruff both in to perform the temple a for Lucy told the St. George was in the of being by them with as all would be by those who could not do the work for themselves. to live to of in Young, another of Young's wives, took place as both and in temple work. had also been involved in the for the St. George temple, than to to for the temple from where the were Young worked in the temples in St. George, and Salt presiding over the temple Young also continued to the work of the throughout the world from St. George, even while his and others took of many of the in Salt Lake passed and St. George and Salt Lake City, Young's and his on a of and also continued to hope for the Saints’ in another of his Word of to his wife Young, in his years, Young to upon the people the of both in and When he up a list of to the spiritual of Saints in the St. George the Word of Wisdom had the for Word of Wisdom on But now, members and the Word of Wisdom according to the Spirit and the first time since the great Young a place than Salt Lake City for perform a temple this time of the Young the Saints in that were in St. George, so most Saints in should not the to come to the dedication and But the leaders and many of Young's own family the to temple another of to prepare for the final dedication. by Young did physical and the pain in Young's feet continued to him as did his But Young in to he did not from pain as he had in the Saints’ ideals and their was ever present for Young. The Saints who had so to build the St. George temple to the of then as the of tobacco while the temple and But Young's final in St. George were The Saints had constructed a temple where they and their deceased ancestors and friends could the ordinances of was a moment of eternal significance to be Young had this Temple and the of the A great joy and had been in the spirit world on of the performed by the for the dedication of the St. George temple and the of and sealings of to for the deceased the Young's in that Saints to the St. George temple to perform proxy ordinances for their deceased family and began a by which temple became a crucial of for the Latter-day on the of the Young told temple “we had work since “I it to be the work that I have ever
In May 1991, an editor of the official magazine of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints reflected on a tumultuous quarter-century of liberalization within her church. She did so with a feature article previewed on the magazine's cover with the lines, “Framers remember formation of World Church Objectives,” and a picture of four of these framers. Those pictured were all elderly white American men. Ostensibly about a series of church objectives adopted in 1966, the article itself detailed the movement of the RLDS Church toward peace and justice theology, the inclusion of women in the priesthood, and a reframing of the very notion of mission in the church. In doing so, the article's writer included quotes from people involved in these changes. The individuals quoted had once held offices in the Council of Twelve Apostles or the church's First Presidency, the highest-ranking leadership groups in the church. The quotes were all from white American men.1In the 1970s, priesthood in the RLDS Church ranged from local priesthood who preached and presided over weekly meetings to denominational leaders who set church-wide policies. Until the mid-1980s, men filled all priesthood offices. Additionally, the RLDS Church, numbering 220,000 at its sesquicentennial in 1980, was overwhelmingly an American church, peopled by a white supermajority, even though it had a small presence in twenty-nine nations and an even smaller number of Black, Asian, Pacific Islander, Latino, and Indigenous Americans.2 Most senior church leaders in the 1960s and ‘70s were also white American men. These were the individuals who gave new revelations to the church, articulated church policies, and shaped things as mundane as hiring practices. Given this, the small cadre of historians who have investigated the RLDS Church's late twentieth-century liberalization have focused, perhaps understandably, on white American church leaders with graduate seminary degrees. These influential RLDS leaders participated in ecumenicism, taught peace and justice theology, and had transformative, global encounters as they spread the RLDS Church to Asia and Africa in the 1960s, ‘70s, and ‘80s.3This paper refocuses our attention on a different set of people who also shaped the church's rapid liberalization. These people included Barbara Howard, who wrote the article featured in my introduction. A longtime Saints Herald editor, Howard was also a founding member of a grassroots RLDS feminist consciousness-raising group. As I will argue, RLDS reformers like Howard allied with people across lines of identity, nationality, faith, and privilege, creating networks that helped make the church's liberalization plausible in the first place. Furthermore, the RLDS individuals and organizations that I will highlight in this essay gesture towards a broader story about how the New Left, forged in the fires of the 1960s, found religious denominations, like the RLDS Church, as fertile incubators for the extension of its projects across the global 1970s and 1980s. These were decades in which most scholars saw both liberal religion and the New Left in full decline, if not collapse.4 During these trying decades, the New Left emphasized the importance of grounding massive change in local organizations—in the small and the particular.In mid-twentieth century America, “small was big,” notes historian Daniel Immerwahr. This was particularly true of the New Left, that largely Western social movement advocating for identity-based rights in the 1960s. “Whereas the older leftism centered on trade unions and mass parties,” Immerwahr argues, “the new generation, enamored with ‘participatory democracy’ and ‘the beloved community,’ questioned the very basis for such organizations.”5 The New Left instead reveled in the democratic possibilities of small groups to create revolutionary change. For instance, the philosopher Herbert Marcuse told a New York audience in 1968 that the New Left was “diffused, concentrated in small groups and around local activities, small groups which are highly flexible and autonomous,” forming a “political guerilla force in peace.”6 For activists like Marcuse and his allies in the paradigmatic New Left student group, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), smallness seemed an antidote to all social ills.By the early 1970s, influential sages, such as the Gandhian economist E. F. Schumacher, the author of the best-selling 1973 book Small Is Beautiful, promoted the virtues of smallness.7 Politicians joined this chorus, too. Ronald Reagan, hardly a paragon of the New Left, declared in 1975, “It is activity on a small, human scale that creates the fabric of community.”8 The valorization of smallness also had a creative global reach across the 1970s. For example, Filipino community organizers created small, networked student groups to resist Ferdinand Marcos's dictatorship, and feminists across the United States and the globe met in small groups they called “consciousness-raising” groups for education, sharing, and political advocacy.I did not choose the latter examples randomly; the community organizing movement and radical feminism had distinct manifestations within the RLDS Church in the 1970s and 1980s. In what follows, I will highlight two individuals who exemplify these movements in the RLDS Church: the RLDS feminist theologian turned Unitarian, Sharon Welch, and the radical Catholic, community organizer, and RLDS NGO employee, Toto Delfin. As I will show, their social movements helped transform the RLDS Church, asking leadership to reimagine hierarchy and cultivate a more participatory understanding of the church. The RLDS Church, in turn, partially embraced these visions, redefining itself as a “Community of Christ” and proclaiming itself a “prophetic people,” not a “people with a prophet.”The RLDS Church's decision to do so asks us to reflect on the sources for rapid change within late-twentieth-century American-based churches. Put another way, did change come from above, below, or beside? More provocatively, the RLDS Church's evolution should also give us pause to ask what we mean by thinking about some religious groups as being successful in late-twentieth-century America. For instance, historians often talk about the success of evangelicals and Pentecostals in the late twentieth century. At the same time, they invoke words like “decline” when they write about liberal or ecumenical Protestants and liberal Jews from the same era. While it may seem less polite to do so with Restoration traditions, many everyday members of these churches point to the success of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the decline of the RLDS Church (Community of Christ). “Success” in these formulations, of course, is based upon the relative number of adherents that either one or the other group has, as well as the size of their endowments.I would like us to consider a slightly different question of and metric for success in this essay. In short, I would like us to think about how particular groups within a denomination can change their group internally. That is, how well do interest groups within their denomination change policies and orientations and exert wider cultural influence? As I will argue, New Left-aligned groups within the RLDS Church in the 1970s and 1980s might have influenced a numerically declining church, but they were astoundingly successful in giving their parent church a new set of orientations and policies. To make this case, I will first turn to Sharon Welch's story and detail the influence of small feminist groups upon the 1970s RLDS Church.In April 1977, twenty-five-year-old Sharon Patton Welch delivered a paper at a conference sponsored by an RLDS feminist consciousness-raising group called AWARE or Awake, Worship, Action, Renewal, and Education. The conference, held in Independence, Missouri, focused on women and the priesthood. Its keynote address featured a feminist theologian from Vanderbilt, where Sharon Patton Welch was a graduate student. For the April conference, Welch boldly proffered a constructive critique of the very idea of priesthood in her church.Welch began by methodically showing her audience problems with the notions of hierarchy in the Melchisedec and Aaronic Priesthoods and clerical Christianity. She argued that it was not just that the RLDS priesthood excluded women; the priesthood itself was based upon a hierarchical worldview, elevating some humans and lowering others. In an act of feminist resourcement, Welch offered a pragmatic intervention that drew upon particular RLDS traditions to counter this hierarchy. “If authority is defined as the ability to evoke skills and creative initiative in others,” she argued, “rather than the right to govern and lead, it seems appropriate that we think of it as emerging out of the social acceptance of one's effort to facilitate the growth of others.”9 This was what made priesthood a possibly transformative, liberating experience. Welch opined that such a system would enable the RLDS Church “to expand its ministry as it is open to the variety within each person, and is no longer restricted by fixed, limited definitions of the talents peculiar to each sex. This type of system discards the safety of defined patterns of service and hierarchical patterns of control. It is an acceptance of the challenge to develop a community characterized by collegiality and trust.”10 While somewhat vague, Welch envisioned a system of authority within the church that could be characterized as an interconnected web of consciousness-raising groups.Radical feminists created consciousness-raising groups in the late 1960s as a means for education, agitation, and, ultimately, they hoped, revolution. Many individuals who identified as radical feminists had felt shut out of New Left and Civil Rights advocacy groups where feminist issues might be marginalized or even ridiculed. In response, radical feminists advocated for forming small, cell-like groups where individuals could come together for face-to-face interactions, listen and validate each other's experiences, and be educated on feminist pedagogy and issues—and thus have their consciousnesses raised. These groups stressed egalitarian processes, too, where no one person was to dominate discussions, and group tasks would be rotated among participants, obviating the need for the specialization of roles or hierarchical leaders. In the 1970s, feminist consciousness-raising groups became places for radical political advocacy, personal growth, and group therapy.11In some ways, 1970s feminist consciousness-raising groups mirrored the best of what Welch had experienced in her church. Born and raised in the tiny farming town of Dimmitt, Texas, Welch attended a small RLDS branch (congregation) mostly composed of her family. In later reminiscences, she emphasized how it affirmed her, giving her great confidence in herself. Her voice was taken seriously, and she grew to believe that her calling in life was to be a scholar and earn a PhD, a degree that no one in her social sphere possessed.12 Welch also reflected that RLDS summer family camps, called by RLDS folks “reunions,” were really “socialist experiments.” “People paid what they could pay and donated their labor,” she noted. The RLDS folks who attended these camps were “farmers, janitors, and truck drivers,” and the vast majority lacked a college education. “The most uneducated worker,” she noted, “might have the insight in a class or prayer meeting that changed people's lives. There was no elitism.” As a child and teen, “it just seemed so natural for me to see people living in cooperative ways”—a stark contrast to the outside world.13Welch was a gifted high school student and left West Texas for Michigan State in a she to the RLDS Church's liberal she in but she did not That when she with RLDS her the and they and it an of feminist possibilities in Welch later that was I of the cultural of religion so in also her with RLDS feminists who became her and like Barbara Howard her to a small, RLDS where all in of priesthood Additionally, Welch was to do that no RLDS women had at the a graduate to she to in but not she and Barbara Howard attended the meeting of an RLDS feminist consciousness-raising group in in group was not the first RLDS feminist consciousness-raising group. A small group of and at had the in and it out to in some of its of these and and the group that would Welch to their meeting at the of in Independence, RLDS women and a to the RLDS Church's the leadership group in the church, composed of the First Presidency, the Council of Twelve and the of The began by This is on of all the women in the church by of their have from full within the church not to ask that another or be filled by one of the many women church but that a true in so that no one who is as and to tasks be for a this time, women of the in the RLDS Church, they held very with of authority within the church's and local Most of these priesthood and an RLDS conference women from in the priesthood. the that did not priesthood were largely filled by men. In the RLDS World a to and more women for but was no hiring 1973 and Given this the of the feminist the RLDS World AWARE women RLDS women from across the church to their At one such conference in AWARE women RLDS if they could their meeting in official conference as other interest like or their In response, AWARE member a longtime and the RLDS Church's a to the group. AWARE women their meeting on paper and in This act AWARE of new and a group of within the 1970s RLDS AWARE feminists to their and each other even if AWARE members had to be more when in official church AWARE met in the of its members in the Its meetings were a with and within the a it held in with many other 1970s feminist consciousness-raising In this way, AWARE women to the church they would be embraced more its two decades of AWARE became a for and AWARE women feminist also local women for the first for of in their advocated for more in church and helped a advocating for women in the RLDS priesthood. AWARE also the conference at which student Sharon Welch the Welch delivered her address in 1977, she was to called to a different As she later the RLDS Church in graduate At that women were not being and it was a the women who were but who were not and who movement being taken on She that “the for me was that more people of Jesus and the of in liberal not Welch to in her became as she began to other religious In Welch became a and taught as an of at the first person with in Restoration to at was not in her another RLDS left the RLDS Church in the early 1980s and was in the United Church of Welch, she a feminist at a in her case, of at AWARE and from in the RLDS Church, the became a college and and the latter a feminist in she that inclusion was not even for the majority in the 1970s RLDS This mirrored among as historian argues, the decline of churches in the 1970s can be to number of but one was that these liberal traditions were not liberal to many New Left activists in the Welch and some of her feminist who left the RLDS church a with it in Welch that was not so a the RLDS but a of what it taught For a time, Welch to to RLDS and feminist In she a to a on RLDS by Herald the official RLDS The official RLDS the in turn, a of Welch's first of and A of Welch even to in to an AWARE where she with the women with she first experienced a consciousness-raising life a of radical within the RLDS Church in the 1970s. While Welch left the RLDS Church, she and her feminist helped create an in which could be in the first place. She also a of RLDS that in which the priesthood itself became more egalitarian and even women to be to the RLDS priesthood in was not the one by the possibilities of grassroots In this the RLDS embraced a global in which community organizing could radical social in the and Welch's in on the of an RLDS NGO that did just to community organizing in the RLDS Church, we turn from the to the where radical who an RLDS NGO a new understanding of in the 1970s and a in the of in that time, as his called had for and its parent for more than in a for an with me that the and a told a I raised my a senior and a Filipino A This of a that from of in community that began a the first of Filipino and some of the Filipino Ferdinand Marcos's During these called the as it in the first of the called out the and The with and even student many joined the Filipino and its the New organizations to create social such as the Council for or in This latter group and from the community organizing movement in the United States by and from American the 1970s, community organizing like the as student activists to as places to create radical democratic from its not or could their and create change. A community could facilitate change but could not the they the people to for their articulated and helped the 1970s, most in the were that gave A community also in this was to local by the 1960s, the had the as a for local political and many of sponsored by Filipino churches or church became of to Marcos's policies and of this in the Born to a farming family in had attended a high school and college that many radical a with a community organizing NGO college in NGO to in the of to and his among the was when allied with local his in their small, upon the just the and would have if had NGO out of the and a for another NGO in met another radical NGO who was a was from a radical family. was one of the a group of who the for its and his had as to in the human for for a of liberal human the the more radical than their were particularly in community organizing to the of human found an to do an RLDS Church RLDS Church itself in the in 1966, four from a tiny church. These of their and family networks the RLDS church. also helped create the church's first NGO in the or This being in the of the First and Marcos's of in Marcos's with the New in the in A small RLDS in the of was in the The all of to their and from the the members of the RLDS and In RLDS Filipino leaders for to their RLDS and the church's the American and Filipino RLDS leaders upon a The would to from the and the of the the of their the RLDS would that the to in the new Furthermore, they would in how to like and this from of for This was successful as it was and As an of this, began to influence the RLDS Church, American thinking that local to in the in that the attention of American such as the early 1970s, his to the a mission of in and the RLDS this mission as its As the RLDS RLDS to the This the the of RLDS leaders and In RLDS the attended a on at the also the projects by in in an employee, was as the of for had not of a community organizing but of and their In the early an that to community organizing and human this to his In interest in community organizing to Toto a of the they created a they called or a that had a life of its in the RLDS and I have the I will just an from our radical of the and his valorization of the local the the could be for a variety of In it the to make liberalization in for the on this focused on in and of the of the global in the a and RLDS and a cultural and radical to participatory human to their This was on a too. the of the New Left and in the decades the 1970s emphasized the denominational leaders the of participatory human to a new of of their denominational for instance, church leaders opined that their denomination to be more from meetings to World became a that or even their to the church. It also some and offices. The and of the of which was one had a on the RLDS In a group of American RLDS leaders a to the church's of that meeting a to the denomination as “Community of The church who this emphasized that the denomination to be than people with a It was a of the and of the movement in the very of the American-based Barbara Herald article quoted at the of this Council of Twelve Apostles think we would be a a we had not the of that and I think be a if we had the might see and in of the 1980s. For example, of denominational for is of what it was in the late and its by a these latter the great of the 1970s and 1980s was a In this, of Christ other in it to if the success of the is by different small groups of people on the of the RLDS Church had created successful within the denomination by the late 1980s. RLDS could point to small things that had to projects the the inclusion of women in the priesthood, a networked with other liberal and peace and justice the what do we make of of liberalization and its as a The words of one of the of the church's liberalization a In Sharon Welch she was not about the of the global justice one that radical and Welch's RLDS American feminists helped cultivate within the RLDS Church in the 1970s and 1980s. she is that global justice by the and of who and to doing all that I can to it one should such a from a who grew in a small on the of a small For people like Welch and her of Christ is an in small
I am pleased to respond to Mark Gorman, who has written a fine piece, ‘Emptiness as a Work of the Holy Spirit in the Writings of John and Charles Wesley’. Before I engage his argument, let me make a few broader observations in relation to pneumatology.It largely depends on who one asks as to whether the opinion prevails that pneumatology continues to be woefully neglected among the doctrinal loci of Christian doctrines. On the one hand, recent movements and scholarly works show that it is of significant interest to sectors of the theological scholarly guild. On this score, one thinks of Myk Habets and his work to promote a ‘Third Article Theology’ as well as Simeon Zahl and his important recent monograph on the Holy Spirit and experience.1 On the other hand, dominant narratives die hard, and it continues to be the case that pneumatology is held with significant suspicion by other sectors of this same guild. The suspicion can take many shapes. In terms of ecclesiology, some may be worried about distinguishing (and possibly holding at arm’s length) Pentecostal and charismatic phenomena, which often make their presence known across many denominational traditions in the majority world. In terms of epistemology, others may be worried about the subjective elements involved with pneumatology, elements that make it difficult to identify—and so to know—which reactions and happenings are properly of the Spirit and which ones are properly of humans. Tied to this last point is a broader theo-logical concern: Can one identify what the Spirit of God is doing today? If the operating—even if implicit—assumption is that one cannot, then time-honoured customs and practices may seem ‘safer’ than current events on the global scene. Such are some of the challenges surrounding pneumatology that continue to make it a contested topic.2Despite these mixed opinions, pneumatology is integrally connected to Christian renewal and revival.3 Such is the case because the Spirit is able to press through to the deep registers of the self; the Spirit can open eyes, hearts, and minds to the possibilities of the gospel. In other words, the Spirit is the spirit of life and new life, the One who awakens, stirs, and empowers Christ’s disciples to deeper and broader forms of commitment, witness, and service. This unique connection between pneumatology and renewal is important to highlight because of the challenges ecclesial communities perpetually face. With the passing of time, ecclesial traditions can and do grow staid, inconsistent, or—even worse—lifeless and perhaps even hypocritical. What can appear ‘safe’ to the majority can also uphold the status quo, which itself may be in need of reform. Therefore, the importance of pneumatology for ecclesial revitalization should not be lost on account of worries related to possible excesses. Any doctrinal locus can be misappropriated; any custom or practice can be abused. Pneumatology is not any worse on this score than other doctrinal themes since the issue is not so much the theme itself but rather its interpretation and application.In continuing this logic, one can say that throughout its history, the Wesleyan movement has been an expression and outworking of Christian renewal, and because it is so, it can also be described as a Spirit movement. The movement’s origins in the lives of the Wesleys and others in eighteenth-century England have set a pattern that has been reflected in subsequent developments and changing contexts. This pattern includes the working out of one’s own salvation in the company of others, the search for holiness, and the transformation of the self in the perfect love of God. These and other relevant themes are pneumatological in orientation. The Wesleyan movement would not have originated and developed as it did apart from the presence and work of the Spirit. Some scholars may see this connection more clearly than others, but it is one that is well established in the scholarly literature.4One can further argue that if the Wesleyan movement is a Spirit movement, then it can also be labelled an expression of Christian mysticism. This notion works as an operating assumption in Gorman’s piece, but it is worth justifying at some level, given questions and concerns surrounding the language of mysticism and its relationship to Wesleyanism in particular. At least two sets of concerns must be explored for these associations to be viable.First, what is the connection between pneumatology and mysticism? This question is a broad one that requires significant definitional demarcation. If in this case pneumatology has to do with the doctrine of the Third Person of the Trinity, then mysticism in its Christian forms can mean the transformative encounter with the Triune God of Christian confession. Put another way, the experiential dimensions associated with Christian pneumatology and Christian mysticism can (and should) be grounded in the confession of the Christian God who is active and at work in the world today. This theo-logical orientation should help alleviate some of the concerns that accompany both themes, especially as they run into excesses associated with anthropologizing impulses that would stress the cultivation of the ‘human spirit’ or mystical experiences that largely draw a person deeper into their own consciousness and being.5Second, whereas it may be viable to call the Wesleyan movement a pneumatological one, it seems a stretch to call it a form of Christian mysticism given the unflattering things Wesley said about mysticism in his own lifetime. Is it appropriate to speak of Wesleyanism as an expression of Christian mysticism when Wesley made it a point to decry and lambast mysticism on many different occasions?As with many cases in the oeuvre of Wesley, receiving him well must involve more than simply proof-texting him. A study that has largely been forgotten in Wesleyan secondary literature stresses a more nuanced way of receiving Wesley on the matter of Christian mysticism. In the preface to his work Mysticism in the Wesleyan Tradition, Robert G. Tuttle Jr catalogues some of the instances of Wesley’s critique of mysticism while noting an alternative dynamic as well:A couple of things should be noted from this extensive quote. First, Tuttle draws a particular distinction in terms of chronology: He remarks that Wesley stressed these points ‘early’ in his ministry. This observation fits within Tuttle’s broader argument that early in his life, Wesley was dealing with a spiritual crisis that was fomented by certain mystical writers and sensibilities (or what Tuttle calls a ‘mystical system’).7 One can argue about Tuttle’s assessment of how Wesley’s early struggles should be best described, but the importance of naming the time frame of those quotes is invaluable for assessing their significance. Clearly, such hyperbolic language surrounding mysticism means that something was personally at stake for Wesley on these themes during certain seasons of his life. Second, whereas Tuttle draws attention to the quotes that inform the general impression that Wesley was against Christian mysticism, he also stresses that Wesley employed certain mystical figures to be paragons of his understanding of Christian perfection, a belief and logic that is often lifted up as a (if not arguably, the) distinguishing feature of Methodism. It is this last point that is often neglected in an assessment of Wesley’s estimation of Christian mysticism. Those figures that Wesley deemed as paragons of Christian perfection include the Marquis de Renty, Gregory Lopez, and others. Such figures (who, interestingly, were typically Roman Catholic) often found their way in abridged form in Wesley’s Christian Library. These claims alongside the personal witness of John Fletcher, who was a kind of mystical figure himself, collectively suggest that Wesley had an appreciation for mystical voices throughout the latter stages of his ministry.8 From these examples, one can see that this appreciation took many forms: It was not simply a nominal gesture, but one that manifested itself in overt and significant ways. On account of this evidence, one can say that the logic of the Wesleyan revival bears important resonances with features of Christian mysticism.This context is important to note so that one can see that Gorman’s instincts in this article are sound and worth highlighting. He both emphasizes pneumatological aspects of Wesley’s witness and moves into the mystical realm for considering more deeply a certain part of Wesley’s noted spiritual journey. Let us now move to some specific features of the article itself.Gorman begins by suggesting a contrast between a familiar Wesley and a less familiar Wesley, the first involving a robust and lively presentation of the Spirit’s work and presence, and the latter involving a sense of the absence or distance of God, what Gorman describes as ‘spiritual emptiness’. I wish to pause here and simply note that at work in Gorman’s framework to his article is a tension related to reception history. Wesley’s familiarity (or lack thereof) is very much a reflection of those who are reading him, interpreting him, invoking him, and so forth. I say this in large part because if it is the case that Wesley is less familiar to us on a theme that can be described as ‘spiritual emptiness’, then the situation is very likely so because we may not want to know this feature of Wesley’s witness (And by ‘we’ I mean those who consider themselves Wesley’s heirs and champions). Casting doubt or questioning features of Wesley’s spiritual development is difficult for those who esteem him so highly. If this difficulty is accurate, we can go on to ask, Why would it be difficult to recognize this part of Wesley’s life?My suspicion is that we may not know or want to know this Wesley because we may not have readily available the categories needed to help us understand him on this score. Readers of Wesley may have a kind of grammar that does not allow for something like ‘spiritual emptiness’ because such an idea would bring with it the connotation of regression or perhaps even apostasy. That connotation does not need to be the case, but again, different categories and sensibilities are required so as to have an alternative assessment available. The mystical traditions of Christianity can provide Wesleyanism with such a resource. Such is the gist of Gorman’s analysis, and I agree with its usage in this particular case. The goal here is not to make Wesley something that he was not. Wesley was not a figure in the vein of Gregory of Nyssa or pseudo-Dionysius. He was even quite different from William Law and Madame Guyon. The realm of Christian mysticism, however, is significantly varied; it has fluctuated over the years in many important ways.9 Those fluctuations persist within a larger set of general themes, ones that can include the value of apophaticism, the conceptual purchase of paradox, the logic of the mystical ‘steps’ or ‘stages’, and so on. Taken as a whole, these general themes contribute to a kind of sensibility that is in some contrast with revivalist sensibilities that stress conversion experiences that involve clear demarcations of before and after states of Christian existence. In other words, if the latter logic is prominent in the reception tendencies of Wesley’s interpreters, then they would find it difficult to appreciate a ‘spiritual emptiness’ feature to Wesley’s spiritual life; but if the former logic is operative, then the idea is not just possible but quite germane: Mystics often stress the importance and value of something like ‘spiritual emptiness’. If the goal is to understand Wesley well, then it is crucial that his linguistic tendencies be located within frameworks that help us attend to what he is experiencing and where he is in the Christian spiritual journey.Gorman believes the Wesleys connect emptiness to a number of moments in the spiritual life. For instance, emptiness can involve a sense of conviction that the Spirit makes available. In this case, the Spirit provides an awareness of how sinners are both empty without God and distant from God on account of their sin. It is this awareness brought about by the Spirit’s work that prompts sinners to confess, repent, and respond properly and fittingly to the grace that is made available to them. Gorman also delves into other circumstances in which the language of emptiness could apply. Such cases would include those who experienced justifying faith in such a rapid way that a process of self-knowledge was circumvented, so that it made itself all the more pressing in a justified state. On this point, Gorman mentions Wesley’s own reflections on his struggles immediately after Aldersgate. Could the language of emptiness and/or withdrawal apply here as well?I would say yes, it could, but it would do so in a qualified way. My sense of what Gorman is after is to speak of the Spirit’s work in those deep recesses of the human soul, work that helps prompt a person to ongoing growth and maturity. Therefore, just as one has different qualifiers to grace in the Wesleyan vision so as to account for different places or markers along the way of a person’s ongoing conformity to God—these being prevenient, convicting, justifying, regenerating, and sanctifying grace (among others)—perhaps what is also needed are qualifiers to the notion of emptiness or distance: convicting emptiness, justifying emptiness, perfecting emptiness, and so forth. The goal with these designations is not to be cute. The goal is to account for the multifaceted work of the Spirit, both in terms of what happens outside of the person or what the person responds to, and what happens deeply within the person. It is the kind of pneumatological pattern that dovetails nicely with Jesus’s words in the Johannine Farewell Discourses: Jesus promises us in John 14:17 that the Spirit will be with us (which has an external dimension of grace that we respond to) and in us (which has an internal dimension that can include promptings and distances, all of which are meant to stir the person to deeper self-awareness and deeper commitment and love toward God).In my reading, Gorman is attempting to stress the Spirit’s active role in how we go about living out a favourite New Testament passage of the Wesleys, namely that the Spirit plays an active role in how we work out our own salvation with fear and trembling (Phil 2:12). It is fitting that each of the brothers thinks of the role of the Spirit in slightly different ways on some of these points, and my inclination is to stress that these differences are likely due to the different ways each brother spiritually developed over the course of their lives. Gorman helps us to appreciate that the Wesleys serve as examples of how the Spirit meets us where we are and prompts us to the growth we need, every step of the way.
MARGARET Fuller's essay-letter to William Henry Channing in the summer of 1842, “A Credo,” is her most forthright expression of radical Transcendentalism, affirming an evolutionary process of nature and spirit in both metaphysical principle and Biblical symbolism. Fuller directs her well-established understanding of world religions to comparison with Christianity, and she at least implies the possibility of new roles for women in the world's future. In both respects “A Credo” anticipates her major work, Woman in the Nineteenth Century.1 More immediately, however, she offers her testimony at a moment when competing ideas of Jesus stand at the forefront of the Transcendentalist movement and its related network of Unitarian churches. Fuller's statement of natural religion finds private expression but speaks powerfully within a collective history.Though occasionally excerpted in collections of her writing and commented upon by scholars, “A Credo” has lacked a critical text to stand among her works. This documentary project aims to provide Fuller's complete statement as well as position it within the Transcendentalist movement. The manuscript of “A Credo” has been overlooked largely through circumstances of transmission. Channing included a selection in Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli (1852), while also censoring its content. However, by 1883 he valued this statement enough to send it to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, then working on his biography of Fuller, as a central expression of her “Prophetic Spirituality & Conscious Communion with the Divine Influent Life.”2 Higginson's more secular study found no place for “A Credo,” though he preserved it among the Fuller papers he eventually donated to the Boston Public Library. Soon a scholar of German Romanticism, Frederick Augustus Braun, transcribed the text as an appendix to his book on Fuller and Goethe; however, he used it only to argue for Fuller as a disciple of the German Romantic writer, “not a Transcendentalist at all.”3 With the recovery of Fuller's work since the 1960s, “A Credo” has been excerpted and commented upon several times, whether from manuscript or from Braun. Always its participation in Transcendentalist discourse is assumed. Most recently, a study of Fuller's religious skepticism in this essay has focused on the constraints preventing a woman writer from publishing such views in 1842.4 None of the recent scholarship, however, proposes publication of “A Credo” for current readers.Fuller's testimony is capacious in scale and perspective, open to examination in more than one way. It offers an important sign of Fuller's growing religious feminism by attributing cosmic origins to a “spirit” that is also “angel mother,” later referred to again as “she.” At the same time, Fuller speaks in primarily masculine terms, even while naming deities and prophets, as she addresses the Transcendentalists through Channing. The shifting narrative perspective of “A Credo” allows these concerns to emerge together. First, she tells in abstract terms of creation, its future unknown to “this being who now writes.” As she envisions it, the human race has no binary separation from either nature or spirit, participating in one pantheistic entirety. Nor is gender a significant internal division; soon she speaks as “we,” the collective humanity that, like the spirit, breaks through obstruction and achieves knowledge. But then an individual, intensely devotional but self-affirming “I” emerges in her account of Jesus: one who has “no objection to the miracles, except where they do not happen to please me,” who finally believes in Christ “because I can do without him.” Fuller implicitly acknowledges this first-person voice as a woman's when she specifies the Biblical text for a sermon “[i]f I were to preach on this subject.” She has no opportunity to preach, but “A Credo” is her laywoman's sermon by letter.All of the issues evoked in this statement—the miracles of Jesus, the status of the Bible, the power of nature and intuition—had defined the Transcendentalist controversy since 1838, when Ralph Waldo Emerson's “Divinity School Address” characterized the church's “noxious exaggeration about the person of Jesus” as “Monster” rather than “Miracle.” In response, conservative Unitarian Andrews Norton blasted Emerson's words as the “latest form of infidelity,” going on to argue for the Bible's verifiable history of Jesus as the only ground for faith. Emerson made no direct response, but colleagues sprang to his defense by affirming truth as perceived by the individual mind. In “A Credo” Fuller was offering her own perspective on the miracles controversy. Earlier she had reported to Emerson on Norton's latest publications as well as describing the “paper-pellet” aimed by a younger critic at “that peculiarly nervous sect styled Transcendentalists.”5 Now, as she wrote to Channing, she composed “A Credo” because a friend had asked specifically for her views of Jesus.6 Fuller's own “infidelity” joined with Emerson and his allies, even as she went beyond them in directly presenting her cosmology of past and future.A long process of self-expression and interchange with others led to her testimony, extending from years before Emerson's manifesto to the moment of writing in 1842. Fuller held a position of quasi-clerical authority among Transcendentalists by this time. The third season of her Conversations with women had just concluded: since 1839 she had been leading path-breaking discussions of the truths suggested by Greek mythology and the fine arts, with frequent cross-reference to the Bible. She had described her first session's theme as a “genealogy of heaven and earth.”7 In the same period that such ruminations on divinity and humanity grew, furthermore, Fuller was serving as editor of the movement's Dial magazine, soliciting and judging work on religious and philosophical subjects from both men and women. All of those to be named in this essay had contributed to it. As editor, she reached out widely to the community of progressive belief. In “A Credo” she quoted a sentiment without identifying its author: “The soul must do its own immortal work.” Such words might have been Emerson's, but instead they were from a poem by Eliza Thayer Clapp, a woman outside Fuller's immediate circle, as published in the Dial a year before.8“A Credo” epitomizes Fuller's vision during this time of double cultural leadership; moreover, it embodies the personal transformation that she claimed amidst such work. At the opening of the second season of Conversations, in autumn 1840, Fuller wrote to Channing that she had found a warm reception from the group after telling of her “great changes,” recent experiences of mystical identification with the divine. In the same letter she also reported on her own writing experiments, “The Magnolia of Lake Pontchartrain” and “Yuca Filamentosa,” which would soon be published anonymously, with her as editor, in the Dial. Along with “Leila,” a third piece of experimental fiction, these appeared throughout the months between Fuller's “great changes” and the beginning of 1842, the year of “A Credo.” In them she affirmed the power of female forms in the natural and spiritual worlds: woman-identified flowers bursting into bloom under the moon's influence; a grand tree, “Queen of the South,” singing to herself in solitary power; the goddess “Leila,” her wild hair blowing in the wind, who embodied the Holy Ghost's descent into matter. And the personal immersion in divine nature that Fuller expressed in such work was confirmed by a contemporary journal entry remembering her earlier self-consecration, when after exiting from church she had found illumination in the sun's glory and vowed to sow “new and immortal plants in the garden of God.”9 The revelations of 1840 and their expression in fictional and autobiographical form offer a direct prelude to her apparently spontaneous essay-letter of 1842.Significantly, Fuller wrote her creedal statement as a letter rather than in published form, even though the Dial had already offered her the possibilities of anonymous authorship. Any statement that directly claimed kinship with divinity apart from Christ and the church was a scandal, all the more, as Caitlin Smith notes, from a woman.10 But in addition, Fuller was prompted to write “A Credo” by particular friends, both the person who initially asked about Jesus and the letter's recipient, Channing, amidst an ongoing dialogue with him. Letters underlay all of the Transcendentalist movement, as texts with a life of their own. Later writing tearfully from Rome, Fuller told Caroline Sturgis of her need to continue “friendships I had paid for with so much heart's blood,” admitting that without letters from her and from Channing, “so many thoughts in the long past seemed to flee from me.”11 “A Credo” lies within that body of thought and feeling. Here I will suggest how four epistolary exchanges anticipate its voice and theological ideas: first those with James Freeman Clarke and Emerson, then those with her even more memorable partners, Sturgis and Channing.From the early 1830s, James Freeman Clarke supported her growth in new German learning, later a strong foundation for “A Credo.” With him she waxed about and of this friend to the about the who the history his by and how and had Fuller also reported to Clarke and Frederick Henry on her immersion in Biblical under the of German She thought of from its expressed in and found in a new to her exchanges and her Biblical immersion directly in “A Credo.” Fuller's of a in as both and have in particular from who had for the of nature and humanity out of Biblical furthermore, to “A Credo,” even as like in the truth of with Emerson was both and through their long In 1840 she the power of his work first him it in four years later she it from the was to how much more I it now than at I the now I the The years do not in “A Credo” was in its of it was also not with however, and after the “great changes” later in 1840, she his her of mystical have I to the central she to her she wrote not the friend I the same year that she composed “A Credo,” in his “The Emerson the movement him as it in or not she wrote in to her essay found a position by on the of not their to the And where Emerson characterized the Transcendentalist as one who from the for it to offer work of response, Fuller both nature and humanity in and As she had to Caroline she rather than the who seemed to have She but also Fuller's a friend with she both of the beginning Fuller's letters expressed an upon Greek and mythology even while as well about the of Jesus as a friend and of She quoted about the his directly to the rather than the who She was a in these letters by the need for and whether with or with its its its the and the growth would only she do not direct like the But is in the Fuller this friend as the first to of her “great changes” in I is found And at the of is can be no but all the in must be of from Emerson, she found with In both their and their expression of religious Fuller's letters to her directly anticipate the of “A Credo,” where she by as an of within the spirit and by the in Fuller's however, was the friend who directly “A Credo.” with William Henry Channing out of Dial when Fuller from the to to in the grand she a new it on 1840 But their as to the after only grand their letters were to Fuller her own of and to in the before with Channing both the of her and the “great changes” in her first claimed her as a as an to she out in after her personal with the of I were a and then would be I in this of Divine I out into before I it. I I I I More was at for her than a to authority as a as she that with for the particular her to Divine the and that she would soon more in “A Credo.” With an from her to she her own and those of Channing in the of the Unitarian to a sermon that the new to an of and Fuller the instead as for herself to for would now preach the Holy as as have been and instead of the understanding and instead Fuller was her own religious apart from church or of however, not Fuller's for such a among the claimed to the Unitarian than she had James Clarke a for the of the he and Fuller but not And Channing, to this moment his an focused on the of humanity in Christ he claimed a religion that would this is the he wrote to his of Transcendentalist on the Boston that year to the about and Fuller had no as Caroline later an between Fuller told Channing in how much she sermon which with the of Soon such ideas in “A on the and in which to a theological manifesto and in his from the Unitarian of the and authority claimed by their on miracles as of his But he as the of his of and Clarke Channing joined in the of Fuller, while their of his views in the new of also held of her Credo” might be Fuller's statement of to Channing in of Christ had seemed at first a for In early of 1842, Channing wrote to his of an for all At the same time, however, he a of Christianity, Jesus as of the of in And though his from such his letter first a new of the of beyond so as to a which the not the Fuller of this and soon asked Channing to how to At the same time she him as directly as he had just The she had been to him the of the its As “A Credo” would the of that she affirmed had beyond Jesus, both through the and the essay also both directly and was the one contemporary she named in it, to his in and from the as of the had claimed that an like that of to his thought at which with the of In “A Credo,” Fuller both and his of her for But this just after she had affirmed in the even it was rather than the of Fuller his life as of a She of Jesus at the of an by naming and before even the in to be from Jesus and prophets, her evolutionary as form was for future At the of “A Credo,” the sermon that she to preach might have been to both Channing and as she offered as its text to his is for that I he so that the spirit her journal from the Emerson that Fuller wrote in an to “A Credo.” with Emerson, a of letters from Channing, she herself to both must own no to but the Waldo must not in William in the fine that has I have of Channing, she she not need the is at in is to to a to but it is affirmed in the of own and the soul and nature all I have church where I by and Fuller was from the earlier statement as it had both the forms of and her own within it. In vision and “A Credo” is Fuller's most testimony about and the soul and by a and in to exchanges within the Transcendentalist is a spirit and it all is whether of or its it to it is to be an of forms not in the of this being who now of as This is the or publication of spirit upon the like in the This is a a new as for for for the of as through his he the which the divine The is in the of was this second the divine to for for for the in the which the as the of it in the of the of is when he is is as through and has no to this as through and of into the nature of the Divine it is from own though the of where all already is this must has been by the of being must be for and only in time not do him and led by of of then the of the The moment have through an not but by the of to was to the and with soul that is it would that the Divine expressed his to more in than in the forms of and through him the which his forms of nature only in whether from or because he is not to the of the when is in a when he is not so with all as to their spirit, also must be at the form of nature and of the she has been to through those of men in the to one that this and spirit in the human But and is a of enough is through a to the and obstruction on the of through all the of thought the is in I well and many and offer to the whether of whether of do not to an upon the position and of because I of his and the of his The history of the the of the suggest already of being than and which more this of But I do his life to be the in one of in the and that all these to and when on these strong through which on the ground but how the in the to the as he now these forms is a of and a soul of the is to to to be And as the of spirit, a new for its is one in the garden of the his many religion The the history of the human it has into the but its several though expressed the not beyond and a the history of however, have been more and more and so in the history of of the have several is men from only in being made through the and words of is whether as or but its of expression though of it is is As the to its so do to the of do this through the others through the The first second these all all so as they to the of their and so as they to that of their as is a a form is as its as the the and is its as the and within the that is expressed in the as the and the and of and the and his so has of thoughts and its upon it to a a form which stand before it a of the of its It with and it them with it its life of in the it with It one life as as or It has made it has it of the of which humanity is and one of the in respects the it has was the life of Jesus of so much in his history as I own in the long of and the truth of I a in the of Jesus be the of his its and its and I in the as in the I in the prophets, and that they not only their but the of a an one to at the the would have made of the of his a of the of the I that Jesus when the time was that he was peculiarly a and of I have to in the of his the circumstances were in time he was of a and the a truth of the I have no objection to the miracles, except where they do not happen to please not a soul so and new and I can him the and the without of of not in the they is to such a upon and all who have him since on the have their within to it not be when I to that though I all this it is of no to whether it or that the truth such to is and that the of for had the and offered it to as a to as as I it would be just as how the that from the also that I in the history of the and its in as presenting one of spiritual It is to and a of I have no from the of for as it I it as a thought to be expressed by the of not that they who their through the to were and not more than an to Christ has made many of his not place Christ then in a place than for or because his life was not it was and he is a of the But then I the Greek as one men in Christ as a a soul must its for many only when men from and him by the of their own open to of the from can he be as he do not he on his own expression he but this is not in I like to of this in he was not and where men so was and is and where he them to the they not they with him and do not I in Christ because I can do without because the truth he I because it is in the nature of own But I do not to do without him. is and I will not and on him. he to I will when I to by I I do not the church men who can with in it. I I more widely than body of men I And as I than in the apart for that will not to do The the than at a of again that to be and I will they to But that time is not I & in and I with I as to religion in It would be a of But for the I will how it is with as to I as where spirit in It the of it it it But so the and a and the It is only one of the same Jesus breaks through the of the world's like through the & I its I it. But it is a of the is about it, but its will not though I in them one I most men in need of them their their them be them in the of past But of I in these and in as they more, they beyond I would from them to I no from the past to own soul or not to the of Jesus of will of that that was in the it is not but and it must future will like to the and the but to But as an for a & a for a so Christ for a life more complete and than that of have had the to and have a to out all the forms of human life with the and of a Greek with the of a with the & of have not with how the of the in Jesus for a But this as the by to his be of in a letter or essay on the process of in have not of his life as a so that his words all & they to with all the and of the of a divine It is the same with and in a with have not of men to from the same that them so on a or of the of In him the the But this is in as will must do its own immortal friends, from only to when can do without But when can and from to do without them they will no I were to preach on this I would for a text the words of Jesus, I the is for that I for I the will not but I I will send him
I was a high school senior in September 1993, when Lavina Fielding Anderson, Avraham Gileadi, Maxine Hanks, D. Michael Quinn, Paul Toscano, and Lynne Kanavel Whitesides were disfellowshipped or excommunicated from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. While these six people's lives were being upturned via Church discipline, the great drama in my life was spending too much money on the homecoming dance and then sulking that I didn't get asked to the next girls’ choice dance. My daily journal from the time, in which I painstakingly documented what I was learning in history, English, or calculus class on any given Tuesday, gives no intimation that I even heard about the excommunications. I was serving on seminary council and faithfully reading B. H. Roberts's History of the Church while some of the people whose works about Latter-day Saint history and theology I would read and admire only a few years later were being expelled from the LDS Church, if not necessarily the Mormon community. Despite my ignorance at the time, these events ended up having a profound effect on the trajectory of my life.I enrolled at Brigham Young University the following year, in fall 1994. No one in my social circles was talking about Mormon history, at least not in any academic sense. I don't recall any of my professors mentioning the September Six during my freshman year. The excommunications didn't really register for me until four years later, during my final year at BYU, when I took a course on Mormon history from David Whittaker, who was the curator of Mormon and Western Americana in the BYU library's special collections. It was my first exposure to scholarly Mormon history. Professor Whittaker talked about the September Six as the latest chapter in the long and complex relationship between the LDS Church and its intellectuals.That was the same year I applied to graduate school. I sought advice from several professors about my plan to pursue a PhD in American religious history. No one explicitly encouraged me to become a Mormon historian. Not Professor Whittaker—for whom I worked in special collections, who was one of my mentors, and who clearly thought highly of my abilities and potential. Not Richard Bushman, who was very gracious when I audaciously cold-called him. Maybe it was because they could tell I was interested in the broader American religious experience, not just Mormonism. Maybe it was because they believed—as I do—that it's important for students of Mormon history to also study other things. Or maybe it was because it was 1998, they had lived through 1993, and they were still nervous.From the perspective of institutional boundary maintenance, the September Six excommunications were a resounding success. The tactic worked, at least in the short to medium term. The show of force did exactly what it was supposed to. It made clear that Church leaders would not tolerate intellectual exploration that they perceived as challenging Church doctrine and what they deemed to be apostolic prerogatives. This wasn't about Church leadership feeling threatened by one individual or drawing the line on one issue, as we later saw in the high-profile excommunications of the 2010s (Kate Kelly and John Dehlin being the most prominent cases). It was a broadside, a frontal assault on the entire independent Mormon intellectual community. The fact that the six recipients of Church discipline were writing about different issues and occupied different positions across the ideological spectrum is precisely what made the excommunications so effective. The not-so-subtle message to the rest of the LDS scholarly community was clear: it could happen to you too.Part of the mythical power of Church discipline—the way that it intimidates those who are not directly affected by it—is the way that the decisions of Church leaders, working individually and together, are shrouded behind the veil of bureaucracy. Even three decades later, we don't know all the details about who directed these six cases to go forward all at the same time, or the degree of communication and coordination between General Authorities (which ones exactly?) and the various bishops and stake presidents on the ground. Boyd K. Packer's name frequently comes up, but the cast of characters was no doubt much larger. Their names and roles are largely anonymous, however, because they were acting in institutional roles that left no paper trail (or at least not a publicly available one). It's not really accurate to say that “the Church” excommunicated or disfellowshipped any of these six individuals; most Church members had no knowledge of these disciplinary actions. Though we frequently speak of it as such, “the Church” is not a historical agent. Collectivities (like “the Church”) neutralize the individual responsibility of any one person acting on behalf of the whole. Accountability is anonymized and diffused to the point that there is no longer any real accountability to speak of. And that allows collectivities—whether mobs, corporations, governments, or churches—to act with at least a certain amount of impunity.With all of this in the background, it makes sense that no one encouraged me to pursue a career in Mormon history. They didn't want to cheerlead me into a professional dead end or an antagonistic relationship with Church leadership. In the late 1990s, the prospect of ushering me, an eager and faithful young LDS undergraduate, to a doctoral program to study Mormon history would have seemed tantamount to pushing me out of the trenches and sending me across the demilitarized zone to a doomed fate on the other side. My professors had learned well the lessons of September 1993.But I hadn't. When I eventually learned about the excommunications, it seemed like ancient history—something that happened, like that homecoming dance, way back when I was in high school. Besides, the late 1990s were halcyon years for Mormons and Mormonism. The Church was the “fastest growing religion in the world”—at least, that's what we told ourselves, aided by sociologist Rodney Stark's grandiose projections.1 Anything that happened in 1993 was not just one but two Church presidents ago. The Church was in full Gordon B. Hinckley mode. No dour anti-communist, he. Instead, there he was smiling on national TV, matching Mike Wallace and Larry King stride for stride. What's more, the prophet was encouraging Church members to get all the education we could. Anti-intellectualism was a thing of the past!As I started graduate school, I had imbibed all of President Hinckley's ebullient optimism. I was living proof of Mormons’ newfound standing in the world. The Department of History at the University of Notre Dame was one of the best doctoral programs in the country for religious history, and it had admitted two—two!—Latter-day Saints. Yes, we were occasionally objectified, even exoticized; in almost every class session of a seminar we took with a distinguished Catholic historian, he gruffly asked, “What's the Mormon take on that?” But there we were, at the table! If any of my Catholic, evangelical, or secular colleagues and professors ever mentioned the September Six during those heady days, I don't recall.It was in the mid-2000s that it began to occur to me that perhaps 1993 was not so distant after all. I published my first article in Dialogue in the Spring 2004 issue. Two years later, I was invited to join the Dialogue Foundation's board of directors. I wanted to keep all my employment options open, so when I received the board's invitation, I called several people at BYU to ask if adding my name to the Dialogue masthead would be a problem were I to apply for a job in Provo. Most of them said that it was a new era—my board affiliation might get raised in an interview, but any concerns could easily be allayed once the interviewer heard me express my heartfelt commitment to the Church. Only one of my former professors cautioned me against joining the board, warning that any formal association with Dialogue would undermine an otherwise strong application to teach at BYU. I learned firsthand on two different occasions over the next few years that she was right.Fortunately, BYU wasn't my only professional option, as I found other good jobs to begin my academic career. Right as I was publishing my first book, The Mormon Menace, Claremont Graduate University opened a search for the Howard W. Hunter Chair of Mormon Studies. A chaired professorship in Mormon studies at a secular university was still a novelty. I decided, almost on a lark, to throw my hat in the ring. I knew I had no chance: I was thirty-four years old and had (barely) published one book. Endowed professorships are supposed to go to accomplished mid-career or senior scholars, people in their forties or fifties or sixties who have a long publication record and are recognized as leaders in their respective fields.The establishment of the Hunter Chair represented an opportunity to pass the torch to the next generation of Mormon studies scholars. But the handoff was a stretch. There was a pool of qualified candidates, but it was much smaller and more academically junior than it should have been. What explains the gap between Mormon history's founding generation and mine? No doubt there are multiple factors, but the fallout from 1993 must rank high on the list. The September Six excommunications resulted in a lost generation of Mormon intellectuals—smart, talented people who should have written books, led scholarly organizations like the Mormon History Association, and shaped both the academic field of Mormon studies and the broader public understanding of the religion.2 Latter-day Saints were primarily affected, but non-Latter-day Saint scholars also picked up on the cue that the Church wasn't enthusiastic about open inquiry into its past. A few Latter-day Saint intellectuals stuck with it, foremost among them Terryl Givens (interestingly, a literary scholar, not a historian). But there should have been an entire generation of Terryl Givenses.The Hunter Chair should have gone to a senior scholar. In fact, it had originally, with Richard Bushman coming out of retirement at Columbia University (where he held another endowed professorship) to get the endeavor off the ground. But when Bushman stepped down from the Hunter Chair in 2011, most members of the founding generation of New Mormon History were either at or near retirement age. Furthermore, many of that generation had spent their careers teaching at BYU or working in the Church History Department—neither of which was an especially attractive career profile for a secular university like Claremont. Philip Barlow would have been an excellent choice, but he had recently been hired as the inaugural holder of the Leonard J. Arrington Chair of Mormon History and Culture at Utah State University. There was another younger member of that generation who had published enough influential scholarship to be a potentially competitive candidate for the job. His name was D. Michael Quinn. Yet the principal donors to the Hunter Chair, who did not control the search but whose generous gifts creating the position afforded them some degree of influence with university administrators, made it clear that they did not consider an excommunicant to be an acceptable candidate for a position named after a Church president.3 September 1993 loomed large over Mormon studies, even at a secular university. The fact that a thirty-four-year-old with one book was hired for an endowed professorship at a highly regarded university can only be regarded as a fluke. The stars aligned in an unpredictable way that worked out splendidly for me, but only after many others had paid the price.Times change. Things did get better in the early 2000s. The archives started to open up again. The Church History Department started producing and supporting first-rate historical scholarship, most notably the Joseph Smith Papers and the research that culminated in Ronald Walker, Richard Turley, and Glen Leonard's masterpiece Massacre at Mountain Meadows. Latter-day Saint intellectuals found new confidence, and more non-Latter-day Saint scholars gravitated to the field. Mormon history has blossomed and expanded into the multidisciplinary field of Mormon studies. Social scientists, theologians, philosophers, literary scholars, scripture scholars, and others are all producing pathbreaking work. We are living in a golden age of Mormon studies. Tellingly, most of the work is being done by people who were either young enough, or started graduate school late enough, to have not been scared away by the events of September 1993.There are still whispers. Fear remains, even if we try to push it to the back of our minds. I am frequently asked, “Have you ever been called in by a General Authority for something you wrote or said?” The answer is yes, once. We spent a little over an hour together, enjoying a wonderful conversation that I genuinely cherish. He revealed himself to be a deep thinker and compassionate minister of the gospel. But I'd be lying if I said I didn't think of the September Six when I opened the letter and read this leader's “invitation” to meet with him in his office. When friends and colleagues publish or say things that push the envelope, I actively pray they will be met with the same generosity and understanding I experienced.4 There are no guarantees. Some of Joseph Smith's most poignant insights into the human condition came when he languished in Liberty Jail during the winter of 1838–39.5 In his masterful prison letter to the Saints, excerpted in Doctrine and Covenants section 121, he reflected on the nature of power in a fallen world. Power may be exercised in various ways. Too often it is used “to exercise control of dominion or compulsion upon the souls of the children of men.” When this is the case, “the Spirit of the Lord is grieved.” In heaven's eyes, the unrepentant wielder of that kind of dominative, manipulative, compulsory power is in a posture of hostility or enmity not only toward other humans but also toward God. Alas, “sad experience” reveals that “almost all men” will “exercise unrighteous dominion” at some point.6 They may get what they want—God offers no promise to intervene in such cases—but this is not the order of heaven.The prophet's key insight comes next. “No power or influence can or ought to be maintained” unless it is predicated on the divine qualities of persuasion, longsuffering, gentleness, meekness, kindness, pure knowledge, and most of all “love unfeigned.”7 This oft-quoted scripture is usually interpreted with an emphasis on the ought. That is to say, we ought to be kind and gentle and loving in our relationships with one another. But the statement is more radical than that. This passage is not simply about the way the universe should work; it tells us the way the universe does work. It is descriptive, in other words, not merely normative. The key words are can, only, and maintained. Certainly, it's nice when people are nice. But in a world of agentive souls, power and influence can only be maintained over the long term when assent is granted freely. Compulsion, dominion, and manipulation can and do work in the short term. People can be controlled or subdued with the use of intimidation, fear, and violence. But the human soul yearns for freedom and fulfillment. Any form of power based on compulsion rather than persuasion, intimidation rather than invitation, fear rather than love is therefore inherently limited—not just in its ethical value but in its efficacy.The September 1993 excommunications effectively and tragically cowed a generation of Latter-day Saint intellectuals. When institutions and individuals are threatened by new ideas, there is always a temptation to retrench. The blunt force of Church discipline worked in the short term. Even within a few years, however, its effect had diminished. Why? Because ideas cannot be quelched by fiat. And, more fundamentally, because “no power or influence can or ought to be maintained” by fear, dominion, intimidation, and compulsion. A new generation of intellectuals arose and carried the torch of inquiry forward.Churches thrive when they count their intellectuals as assets not liabilities, partners not villains. Will intellectuals think unruly thoughts? Yes, because it is the divine nature of the human mind to inquire, to explore, to expand. The pursuit of knowledge resists institutional correlation. If members or leaders of a group encounter thinking they deem to be dangerous, they are generally served best not by attempting to prevent or squelch that thinking but rather by providing better, more persuasive thinking. Numerous historical examples suggest that the compulsory silencing of ideas deemed “bad” is ultimately more dangerous than the ideas themselves. Churches, like governments, lose their authority precisely when they have no recourse other than mere authority. If Church leaders want to promote or discourage certain ideas, they have ample opportunity to use their power as teachers to persuade the Church membership of their position. Even in a digital age, it is the rare intellectual who can even approach the reach of the general conference pulpit and other modes of official Church communication.Thirty years later, we can be grateful that the collective excommunications of September 1993 proved to be an exception rather than the rule in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints's ongoing relationship with its intellectuals. We cannot change the past. But hopefully we can learn from and avoid the unnecessary tragedy of future lost generations.
Sealing rules, which govern wedding rituals in Latter-day Saint temples, constitute a hitherto unstudied religious law of marriage that has continued to evolve from the first introduction of sealing rituals in the 1840s to the present.1 This article provides an account of the development of contemporary sealing rules. That story begins in 1888. In that year Utah passed its first marriage statute, making marriage law in Mormon country essentially indistinguishable from the rest of the United States for the first time.2 Prior to 1888, for practical purposes, sealings simply were legal marriages, although after 1862 plural sealings violated the Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act. During the territorial period, couples could dissolve their marriages by obtaining a “church divorce” in which the president of the church granted a divorce petition that was then memorialized using a preprinted contract of separation.3 Between 1888 and 1899, when the Utah Supreme Court declared that church divorces lacked any legal efficacy, the Latter-day Saints had to begin clearly differentiating the religious rules governing sealings from the secular legal rules governing marriage.4This process had two parts. First, the church had to adapt its marriage practices to a new secular regime that after 1890 it no longer sought to challenge. Second, it had to determine how its sealing practices would function in a world where sealings were no longer necessarily synonymous with legal marriages. This process was complicated by the practice of proxy sealings for deceased ancestors, which meant rules had to be promulgated for both the living and the dead. In addition, the abandonment of polygamy, which began in 1890, influenced sealing rules. In 1904, the church began moving decisively to impose monogamy as an internal ecclesiastical standard on Latter-day Saints, although it would take decades to expel internal dissidents who continued to practice polygamy. Despite these efforts, however, new sealing rules based on allegiance to plural marriage would be promulgated in the 1920s and 1930s. These rules were not a continuation of nineteenth-century practice; rather, they were an invention of the first part of the twentieth century. Later, those rules came under pressure from shifts in both theology and practice as Mormonism moved further and further away from nineteenth-century polygamy.It would be a mistake to imagine that sealing rules represent a simple working out of the implications of Mormon theology. First, Latter-day Saint theology has evolved over time, and often the rules reflect theological ambivalence rather than a single, well-worked out theological position. Second, the rules have been shaped by legal and institutional pressures. As is often the case in legal systems, Latter-day Saint sealing practices represent a layering of rules promulgated at different times in response to different concerns. Each new layer supplements and modifies the previous layer without repealing it. The result is a corpus juris that tries to respond to practical demands but is filled with tensions and inconsistencies.There are basically three strata of sealing rules that have survived into the present. The first layer was promulgated as part of the church's abandonment of plural marriage. These rules emphasize the centralization of sealing authority in the face of polygamist diehards, a desire to avoid conflict with secular marriage law, and a continuing commitment to polygamy in the hereafter. They were largely put in place by the 1930s.The second strata was promulgated in the second half of the twentieth century. These rules focus on posthumous sealings and were vital in facilitating temple worship as a regular and lifelong part of Latter-day Saint practice, something that began in earnest with the church's first international temples in the 1950s. These rules represent a liberalization of posthumous sealing practices and, at least for deceased persons, abandon the earlier rules’ implied commitment to polygamy in the eternities. The ironic result of this new layer of rules is that while modern sealing rules for living persons seem to have a strong implicit assumption of polygamy after death, sealing rules for dead people do not. This shift reflects the needs of mass temple worship and a waning theological commitment to plural marriage.Finally, there is a third strata laid down at the of the twentieth and of the that to the by the of divorce and making at the to the of earlier rules without The result is a of sealing rules that while to practical demands but which be a single, theological story of modern sealing rules begins with the of the legal regime governing marriage that the Latter-day Saints in territorial law, marriage is a of territorial law and is by a marriage have In the case of the Supreme Court declared that of an marriage was not and that of marriage was the of the marriage statute, that marriage be from of the in the and from which marriage be law the a of came to marriage simply a to be territorial the Latter-day Saints not to a marriage of any a in the of granted to the church by the first territorial simply that the church had the authority to marriage with the of which not be In Utah have been by a desire to of that to although of the church's Latter-day Saint to of marriages, and were a in the were to over the Saints, law was in Mormon and would not be a in the at which the marriage in the church's Utah law simply an of the marriage that had been in law in territorial there any a sealing and a legal marriage. legal purposes, sealings simply were marriages. were no legal as obtaining a marriage that were in the of its the Act. The law a marriage that was not with the In the Utah territorial a marriage in The law the of marriage marriages not by an which was to of the in regular with any religious could be after first obtaining a marriage from the and those the marriage had to a to the at the of the were those who marriages without a in of the with new legal sealings were no longer legal the Latter-day Saints in the they were in on divorce than they were in on marriage. In the Utah territorial a law on divorce In practice, however, Utah divorce was often than this The law granted over divorce to the in practice, couples often the church president for divorce rather than to in practice was in to where plural sought was to who to their In that those to divorce a to the to Latter-day Saints that a church divorce had of the legal of a divorce and the not as an ecclesiastical but as a The of was and the church preprinted Latter-day Saint divorce regime was in the legal into the twentieth century. In a in the of the to the of a Mormon on the that the divorce” from first was and the two had been the it as that the divorce” was but that after the first a law marriage came into the and second their marriage had been and The in over where who had church divorces their legal as The Utah Supreme Court in that divorces were which had the of who that they had been their of after 1888, it for the first to clearly sealing rules from secular The of was the in the development of these rules. the the to marriages in The of sealing authority in the of the and its was a that with an on new to be to dissolve the time, the church began rules for legal marriages that were not In Mormon in the Court were to people the temple as it would be to have the people by of In in response to in the declared that and could legal marriages of In and were with a to be in the the was to the of polygamist diehards, and and who were to The that the marriages by and were not the church to on temple sealings for the first The was that no living sealing to people in a where a marriage would be The church declared that be that the marriage the not be the have with the law in a from the the where the is into the twentieth church were that a temple sealing for a living not be in of a conflict with secular that sealing rules were than the secular law a temple sealing could not be for a it with the law of marriage in the where the temple was in the case of couples in marriage would be as in the where the temple was where a temple was that a a year after obtaining a divorce but persons to then a in after a divorce would have to a year in the under legal rules would as the marriage in The was to that couples simply be they were not to be in the in where the of a marriage was of this in in the in a of The legal marriage it for to who was in the of the In couples living as and have the of their their be by was however, and was after the moved to under its law by to their that the the in The church a of marriages law with the result that Latter-day Saint in different legal would be In a to the the a country in which law marriage is as and the from marriages are as the marriage under the in by the law of the without legal a living are not living in and be by the as This was to as in to a for where marriage without legal is to the of obtaining legal to to new legal and Latter-day Saint marriage law, the of modern sealing rules at the of the came in a of theological During the be theology sealing theology be clearly in the law of where sealings were to in with This modern Latter-day Saints of sealings in of using of marriage and their nineteenth-century in of and This for the of plural were to of these of the to although of these not have a with The were into without part of of these were when they were to on of out as of without part of of the were to while continuing to be to to be in theology of sealings was further complicated by the of posthumous sealings by These posthumous marriage sealings could marriages but not do was the of those for posthumous sealings were to be a be to a who was to be an In were often to a church sealings were a of that than of using marriage sealings with sealings to for of the proxy temple sealings the to Latter-day Saints who were to be to and while could be by proxy after the the Mormon of a were not they were into a by to a Latter-day Saint to a church theology into after when the law of the Latter-day Saints from this to their as as they and to be to their and to their and this as as president of the a of rules the new sealing the of these rules was the of rules declared of for the dead the of be As who as president of the in to a the of the who is a of the church is the Later, were to for that to in a Latter-day Saint As it these had the and to the sealing of in the from their however, was not to sealings The of the was to avoid proxy and to with the of theology sealings by a to living of had the of that and to persons their would be to of their that the in a of that and had a The of would result in who would then proxy sealings for ancestors, a posthumous sealing and that was a second to and had a second would in who would then proxy sealings for of ancestors, a posthumous sealing and the of temple and be of the as would be to both and The rules would the for to while at the of the twentieth posthumous sealing rules at least proxy sealings for both and theological of these sealings was the of as a the of marriages the was to with the sealing of from was In practice, of were often with Latter-day Saints proxy sealings for from they were not to the of both and proxy Latter-day Saints to that the sealings could be into a regime of polygamy, while the sealings were as a as to which of would have in the the of the twentieth sealing rules for living couples those for proxy This was not an but rather a continuation of nineteenth-century This be in the to second sealings after a first marriage in During the there was no the a church divorce and sealing the in polygamy no theological to a living to for a could be to without any church to dissolve the earlier divorce a for a second In that the church divorces granted marriage a than a of divorce a church to take a from a who is a and the of the a church divorce was a of an and practical as and sealings in living to two In an that the of a to in would be out by in the based on the of be in the of sealing rules with secular divorce the territorial period, couples could a divorce from secular by a petition in a were church to as part in a secular rather than an ecclesiastical These divorces marriages by a sealing and a of who were in a secular and then a second of that of the in a of sought a church divorce in to secular the secular divorce the for a second sealing without an by the president of the church to the previous was in in the church in the and to in was part of of the that their of the and that the out to those was in as a plural In and were in the in In for divorce from in the was a second as the plural of a who had been to is no of a church to both and the of the a new In to a that the sealing the authority to As marriage law in Utah in the people began the legal of church after 1890, however, the continued to with plural marriages. These couples could not of secular to the over and that after church divorces were to be they continued to be to the in secular legal rather than the of a previous marriage The shift in the of church divorces for who could of the secular legal new church divorces in these lacked legal was their In then a in the to an where the a divorce it the for and for the which the declared that church divorces lacked any legal efficacy, the continued to church which came to be as temple In addition, after the the law of in from people who had been to church under the previous regime and to be to by the sealings and temple to the of the previous shifts the that the president of the church could divorce” and by the decades of the twentieth the was to the of a previous sealing was not to for a second sealing after divorce a first of sealing was an for of In internal the with sealings for first in with the church but the second As the however, of sealings was in a that the continuing theological of plural marriage at the in practical the church was moving decisively to out polygamist in its in church began for and on sealing practices that over In the an and president of the was with to temple that temples, in with a from of how previous had been During this period, a new to have under which a could be to This in the for the first in but to have been in place at least a in a that when a who was the second marriage could be for This a shift to a under which a could be to In the church a new the to proxy sealing the it is to be to first the new however, it was for a living to be to the sealing rules in the living to be to two as sealings not to This when a was to a second after first marriage was by divorce These rules have the twentieth century. The result is that living Latter-day Saint are in to two living any to practice polygamy while would result in from the The modern sealing rules and nineteenth-century polygamy is by the of the rules. In to by the were not to be to a second without first obtaining a of the previous sealing from the president of the The result is that under the rules that have been in place the a living be to two at the when the church was making its to its sealing rules were in their commitment to a to a of a previous sealing in the however, the its to and the twentieth it living in to be to without first the previous This to have in the case of in church president the case of a who had been to first but not second a by church president the second the first to they had been were in the and who to be to a second In the second sealing was without the first As as the was with from to rules for living the practice of proxy temple meant that the church had to with rules for posthumous The of sealings was an in which Mormonism its to the was to living sealings after 1904, it had a posthumous In the decades after the couples who to be would to be as as of In was to have dead to while they are and after their As as to deceased with then living at as The of sealings for under the rules in the first half of the twentieth is not and the church and on the polygamist the of the and to polygamy their an its continued practice the church after sealing rules the of polygamy have been a of the they no as of in the and then in the twentieth with law to polygamist that the church would have its first the second of in sealing Prior to temples were in of Latter-day Saint and while there was a focus on the of temple regular temple worship was not an part of Latter-day Saint This with the of temple with the of the and church were where to the temple This shift a of the of posthumous sealings and an in proxy sealings there be for to do when they at temples to worship the church's on a of Latter-day Saints the of for temple in temple for a deceased who had been times temple were to to first were could determine which of the the would have to be to in often to in the case of deceased Latter-day Saints, and for Saints the was as people could have temple sealings in their of mass temple pressure on the the of deceased were to proxy to with the for temple temples were worship to and by temples had a of to for to The church in by the mass of from as from to and those to the This that temples would have a of for who to was no however, of that would be to their first and sealings by deceased were In this that the for living sealings for by then a to be to for proxy deceased were to be by proxy to of the to they had been while the not to deceased Latter-day Saint who had been while but could be to after and the church to something the that had in the twentieth without the of The by the process of which to for deceased the at temples, facilitating regular temple by Latter-day In when to clearly on polygamy of for the and to mass temple mass temple result was a marriage regime that the rules the living and the dead. for the living were based on a of that a to be to of the to had been after the marriages had in but a could be a second after the for a of the previous were granted to a second but in the of a petition by an it was for a to the of a sealing after a proxy however, the rules for and were and would be to of the to they had been while in those sealings could a of and in the that to any of the for living sealings put in place under has to the there has been a waning of theological commitment to the of continuing polygamy. As sealing theology came to be in the twentieth in for a marriage to be in the three be First, a sealing in by proxy be by the sealing Second, the the sealings in During the twentieth church in response to and by the continued of sealings to from they are that in the no be into a with the sealing be by the of This of the of sealings the of any the of sealings not any in the eternities. In addition, as the of nineteenth-century polygamy and the theological of its Latter-day Saints came to plural marriage as at a in than is not a but a The of the of the marriage to the and the to that be by a with a Latter-day Saint no for when on monogamy is the standard and polygamy is a is and to for their and which the of the church to the of of that the of as and and from the for to marriages that the standard of and the of marriage as the of are theological with modern sealing practices with the continuation of polygamy in the hereafter. plural sealing practices the church do not with nineteenth-century for plural marriage. on polygamy the of a first to a second marriage and, while often in practice, in this was the for sealings to the period, however, the church has not that a who to to a second were further theological in the of temple sealings that to a to sealings for Latter-day Saints of temple sealings as synonymous with the of marriages and often of two in a temple First, and are declared to be to for and second the are with and and and The of a sealing both the marriage and the of the church have been to sealings and those of sealings have not been as a of in of and of the church have been to temple of deceased persons than on the of polygamy, in church have the to temple sealings in of rather than in the eternities. In the church's who are but to the are often by the of the The sealing is not in the for a a those who their the by the This is the case the has from the marriage. a of sealings has been by the to the sealing are no longer in from the the church has the sealings for living but not for living of but different sealing rules for and on they are living dead when a the with living and a living who has been be to a deceased who has been to The rules in these an to the the living and posthumous sealing a deceased not be to of the to was while are a to be to a who to a previous a a and have the sealing on is not how the sealing rules for living and deceased be in the it a theological to polygamy rather than the of those in the church have in response to and do not to the of for then who was to a second in after in to the of the of sealings people who in the as that marriage be for then be in the when to than for have to that those and to the that the be in the church has to of the by the rules. The the has been a of church temple marriage. sealing rules to that petition the for a of sealing to a new In the church promulgated a that to petition the as a second time, although a of the previous sealing is not The sealing rules a regime of and while the earlier rules of when it to second could in two First, the could its sealings after could be granted as a of when sought by of there is the of in the temple for a of the rules is that it is for a to a of sealing to an than it is for a for it is but to a to be to a second sealings both and marriage for it that the would a a of sealing was granted as a of in of would and with the to be to a second but the second would be to the regime of posthumous sealings to living to the and sealings for living the church this then both and could be while living to sealings not to practice polygamy. This would be an of the regime of to rules. a however, would have its First, it would the theological the of This under posthumous sealing the of and is it is that a would to further emphasize the in which sealing practices and theology not with and the of but from and that Second, a living sealings by living could with this is for who have the in obtaining a of although it is by shift to a sealing for would place in an position. a would it that a of sealing could be would no longer be they are the case of a who to in the law has Latter-day Saint sealing practices in the twentieth century. This be in the of sealing rules to the in divorce Latter-day Saints had a legal something that was into temple which not rules for persons as the this as legal rules were and divorce In the church a that church who were to the temple without first obtaining from the that to the a divorce a of as the have been by an assumption that divorces by a least of the the came under First, the Latter-day Saint was and the no on the Second, with the of divorce in the the of divorce and it no longer a strong of of temple for was first to those who had been in the then to divorces and in the was to place where the of secular be is in the rules governing temple sealings after a marriage of the the twentieth church had a strong that be in the it was not to a marriage of the temple and then be church rules a on couples a marriage and their to be in the legal This first in Latter-day Saints to be in temples in the United States that the process of the of their marriage in was and the church its rules to Latter-day Saints to be in the temple after in and in the law that marriages be in a secular the world that have the law have rules. As the church after and after the of the in it that temple rules based on the legal that could a marriage the temple would not for temple sealings were in these In the was for the United marriage and sealing Latter-day Saints into with Latter-day Saint practice in law the there was no Utah marriage law and Latter-day Saint sealing be Latter-day Saints that sealings had that marriages not and marriages without sealings were under Utah law, sealings simply were marriages, and the of the it was that a church divorce was a legal that a legal marriage. 1888 this as marriage law and sealing rules came from secular marriage. the time, Latter-day Saint sealing theology a in when the of the law of which the abandonment of nineteenth-century theology. This is the from which the modern rules governing marriage sealings in the of of Latter-day Saints These rules constitute a ecclesiastical law of marriage for Latter-day Saints both living and dead. the of the twentieth those rules have evolved in the face of shifts in theological and the practical of modern The result is a of rules in which the living and the dead are to different of which rest on a theological the rules over time, with of with the while that the theological earlier rules that were This process has the church to adapt to of but the is not without and it is by no that it in the
On a sweltering day in August 1873, Eliza R. Snow stood in the Ogden, Utah, tabernacle and addressed her sisters in the Relief Society of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She recounted that church president Brigham Young had told her that he wanted a “good many” sisters to get a “classical education” and then to go on for further training in medicine. As described in the Woman's Exponent, the Salt Lake City–based newspaper that published on topics of interest to Latter-day Saint women, it is not clear which sentiments were Young's and which were actually Snow's. The article explained that younger women should train in medicine and older ones in nursing and obstetrics. In her concluding remarks, Snow summarized what had become a rallying cry of the 1870s. Women's “first business” was to their home duties but, Snow continued, “by seeking to perform every duty you will find that your capacity will increase, and you will be astonished at what you can accomplish.” Seeking to motivate her listeners Snow observed, “Don't you see that our sphere is increasing? Our sphere of action will continually widen, and no woman in Zion need to mourn because her sphere is too narrow.”1Eliza Snow was not the only Relief Society leader who recalled Young's call to action. That same August, Bathsheba Smith also remarked that Young encouraged women to receive training in medicine. The “President had suggested to her,” the Woman's Exponent explained, “that three women from each Ward in the city be chosen to form a class for studying physiology and obstetrics. Also, that one woman from each settlement be sent to the city to study the same branches, and that the Bishops see that such women be supported.”2 Both Snow and Smith were forceful voices in the Latter-day Saint community. Each had known the prophet Joseph Smith (Snow being secretly sealed as his plural wife) and made the arduous trek across the plains to Salt Lake City. Bathsheba was also one of the seven wives of George A. Smith, who was Young's first counselor in the First Presidency of the church. Within the decade, Latter-day Saint women established Deseret Hospital.Catholic residents of the territory of Utah were also calling on women to expand their traditional roles as healers. About the same time that Eliza Snow delivered her address, a mining foreman became concerned about the mortality rate among his workers.3 The completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869, the improvement of smelters and mills, and the arrival of non-Mormon workers had transformed Utah mining into a vast (and dangerous) commercial enterprise. Marcus Daly contacted Lawrence Scanlan, a fellow Irishman and newly arrived Catholic priest from San Francisco. While ministering in the raucous mining camp of Pioche, Nevada, Father Scanlan had raised funds to construct a small hospital for the injured and sick. Daly and Scanlan believed that something similar could be built for Utah miners. The hospital established by the Episcopal bishop, the six-bed St. Mark's (1872), was no longer adequate for the growing population. In October 1875, two Sisters of the Holy Cross who had recently arrived in Salt Lake City responded to Scanlan's appeal for women to nurse the sick by opening a hospital.Holy Cross Hospital expanded throughout the late nineteenth century and flourished for more than a hundred years. It closed in 1994 when the sisters sold it to a private hospital organization. On the other hand, the hospital established by Latter-day Saint women floundered. Deseret Hospital closed after little over a decade of operation. This article contends that while Deseret Hospital has been presented as an example of Latter-day Saint women's achievement in nondomestic occupations, in reality the care facility only had limited success. Indeed, part of the reason why Latter-day Saint women failed at establishing their hospital was due to the success of Catholic women in establishing theirs.In general, historians shy away from studying failures. However, by studying a short-lived project like Deseret Hospital, we can see the underlying structures that have limited women's achievements. This examination of why it failed (rather than simply celebrating the hospital's establishment) reveals what actually hampered women from widening their sphere of influence in a modernizing America.4 During the 1870s, both Latter-day Saint and Catholic women attempted to respond to the needs of the sick, but only Catholic women were able to effectively negotiate the transformation from home-based to hospital-based medical care. The Sisters of the Holy Cross were successful because they had perfected a system that was well adapted to modern medical care, unlike the women who founded Deseret Hospital. This essay presents a critical history of Deseret Hospital and concludes by briefly comparing Catholic women's efforts to those of the Latter-day Saints.Eliza Snow's 1873 call for women to study medicine paralleled instructions from Brigham Young to the Saints to maintain their frontier independence. As the railroads brought Mormons into the and Young the of the of the community. women to train in of medicine was only one of the Young Latter-day Saint women During an 1873 Young women not only to be but also to their by the to for the of the Relief were to the to the and and the in his address, women were told to to and in the While it was for the sisters to the of every other was for had about about women and have had a in but the of was more In 1869, Young and their as a to their and at Young that more than The Latter-day like of other that the be by and Mormons and the Woman's Exponent published Eliza Snow's call for it for is a and from the of and on the in the Latter-day Saints the by women at paralleled their in the of the and the the 1870s, the Saints were also Young a little time not a woman in will to have a can have a by was for more than and the cry for a Young in you have a in the for a and a The Latter-day like other were to the class of who their and Young had encouraged a to go to study and it not be that his Eliza Snow that the same should be for to at home well into the of medicine that a of and the sick in was to what become it not be after Young's in that women be to medicine and among the Saints. In the of a in the Church explained that one and while George and of the two and from the Women's of her in from the of While more were at other the only who were by Latter-day Saint an Latter-day Saint not simply the and the but also the and the The women had from medical they a of and training to an of and a hospital-based medical the same because their the of and medicine also the of the community. women had chosen a and church their by the of and the of a from other the women to the care of the Saints as a is not to the to which Latter-day Saint women the of medicine. history of Utah medicine that women were by the Relief on the and became in the no is for As we will not the and medicine throughout their have women who and in Utah the late nineteenth and but of were by Latter-day Saint church due to the of Utah and the of medical training of the were Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City. Indeed, the successful of the was who was in Utah, and in was an and was in studying medicine in the growing of women in medicine throughout the to the of the in the when women were of that medicine became by women could study briefly and call in the women from a of simply Latter-day Saint had more and in medicine than in other of the it is to that the had their by the Relief Society of the for her medical her from for the Woman's to one it was her who built her a to her and to the of and he to her every it was a Relief Society Eliza R. Snow a and a in but no that sent other While at the as a in a and During her for a fellow medical arrived in Salt Lake to her a on the physiology and of the system and to to the The Woman's Exponent that the was a and the in every as as the the and the for were was a However, it was not was in not been The Exponent of the for in and become the and also a of to a on her in the efforts were not to for a medicine in a small to her made by and her private to train and the women a the Relief Society the training of and care, but it on the of the training of from being by the the and to find the funds for their and and to in the Latter-day Saints not such During of the nineteenth and other However, a of the late nineteenth and was the of for medical than became the of for and of the of medicine was the that and who in that the of medicine and to in and to to and that only could of training which to to as in a their was a women had and for their medical it was for to and to away from of the in medical that it is not that in two after from her medical published an article in the Woman's Exponent calling for the of a The not unlike the one it be to women and training and be and the of the Latter-day Saint of article also made it clear that believed medicine was not for those that made medical training to be one of to Salt Lake City had two but of those had been founded by three In Deseret Hospital in a of the hospital in to The one in and on a history of Latter-day Saint women a Deseret article that by the is for the only for that by hospital Eliza Snow and described the as and the capacity of and The medical that a of over to the that could not at Deseret Hospital. who could private to care for their at a hospital was to be a of their of the hospital as in the care of women and the that Deseret Hospital and and those in and of the church. after it in Deseret Hospital an for and women, one private and a the medical were and and for the hospital explained that Latter-day Saints more in an could and the sick, from the of those not of their the training of the and Deseret Hospital was not by Relief Society Latter-day Saint church While Relief Society on of Latter-day Saints Deseret Hospital in by mining and in the Deseret Hospital In on the day of the hospital's church the women's a newspaper that it was Salt Lake City who over a for to In the Deseret Hospital a for his of of and the raised by the as well as by the women and of the The Woman's Exponent and were to for Deseret Hospital. was while the Latter-day Saint the hospital the women to after Deseret Hospital Eliza president of the had to her fellow Saints that the hospital was a a that had to the about the hospital the Woman's Exponent after to the to the The then appeal to women and Relief were not in their and that was a Deseret Hospital In after the hospital into a the Deseret that while the could the of the Relief Society and Young in the was for funds to in the The Deseret Hospital told the that Hospital In the Woman's Exponent that about on the of but have the first into the the became in the hospital the Woman's Exponent one of a and made in a had been could not in an As for medical Relief Society women had they could not on a from church the the church not Deseret Hospital is not the the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was a by and and Catholic that a Zion had been built by The women's Relief Society was a while more than they in the it on women's and to In the the continually the Latter-day Saint little in and was by a of Deseret Hospital at In the three were Eliza R. and women were Relief Society of women's and to that from to the a a of the of other Relief Society women and the hospital to that was in The hospital's first medical was a of Brigham Young and a church Young to have had little at the as at that time was of a Latter-day Saint hospital have been the of but when Deseret Hospital as first As in the hospital and medical in in and the of women and not have a medical She and her a in Utah in and were that in St. to Salt Lake established a in to to the of medicine. at in have more time on than of the and paralleled that of who also was a an and president of the Women's after the of Deseret Hospital, a the of by Eliza R. and it Young not to have been In the was brought the of the Salt Lake the Deseret published a of the by church were in the of of the an of the of a to the of Deseret Hospital had of being and believed was an a and a The not only the the women had about her to the that her had been in the of and that the the of the to when the her not that is of your that it is not simply the the to the Saints about the that the the Deseret Hospital and had to who those on the about for the sisters of the Eliza for the a was that only the hospital's was Snow had simply the and the but the The The had been Snow the sisters to those The was that made a of the and that Snow it for that the were not the they have the of the the of Deseret Hospital was and the church had to to the published by also Salt Lake of the that in every the was no to the of the Deseret Hospital that have and because to have and from those have been for and then of his not the Deseret Hospital to not to but he the to of by the and her to her and the he that what as and to the of the the women to and Deseret Hospital a of the that a of women as they to negotiate medicine be in a modernizing and in of their clear of the of the established and Relief Society women than the medical The church As they were well of of and and of was a but also was a a and not from a medical have her but her the of the Saints was church not to the they for The women, who and to in the one Latter-day Saint as women the care of the sick in their they in In the not over an The was not what Eliza Snow had in when women studying the of Snow to as the president of the Deseret Hospital In a and of the the hospital was became the president of the Deseret Hospital Deseret article published that same has Young as The of which to the of Deseret Hospital, was than of the of the Deseret Hospital in the of and in women's the and the Deseret Hospital from Utah women's The one on Deseret Hospital to a briefly and the not her and not Both Young and their which they had in when they had to the on a In to the delivered a to from the women of Utah, and their in became president of the Salt Lake However, after from the Latter-day Saint became a which to her in It was only then that Utah for The first of Deseret Hospital not into history and her has been Deseret Hospital no the who be the of the Relief Society In October a after into a to the were being at the facility and were for those a hospital of a two an a a a and a have no hospital from the at the but the Deseret on her in the from one and an on to two a from the of a who and the hospital after a at the hospital of her time and time to in In October secretly became the of as president of the Salt Lake on the Deseret Hospital of was and The plural two after the which such as a and a and a hundred was also and after to such as and were to be and their to to and were to In a to be a who a hospital a to at her and into In to a and when the their they to the and then on to after in her a the of as an in a not her medical in her She explained to her that her in had her for hospital was about being a in a on the of a on the at Deseret Hospital will be able to medicine day as She also told her believed from her time at Deseret Hospital. of to from at the of the at of the in and of She described being on call as a that on what to Utah from to only and in that known as the of to on then a that have of and could the but is not the not care for the of modern medicine. 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Latter-day Saint women were and for the of of the that Deseret Hospital it is that it as as it However, what historians have in in medical care is hospital by women was successful and to the The Sisters of the Holy Cross had their hospital in 1875, two after Eliza Snow Latter-day Saint women to medical training and seven the of Deseret the St. Hospital of the Holy the they had became too small for their needs and the Holy Cross sisters and the then the to the Deseret Hospital which as their first Deseret Hospital to and Holy Cross Hospital The in at a of and could it first Holy Cross was one of of founded by Catholic sisters in the late nineteenth In sisters at Holy Cross Hospital and to by The sisters had a that a a and a of private were for women, sick and In to the was also a and a In the the care of one that of Deseret that in were only in Utah and to a Utah of was clear that of to be in a Catholic That the city not to to Deseret Hospital because the women as as the Catholic Catholic sisters who to Utah made about medical care that the women who Deseret Hospital. the sisters not have their were a modernizing medical care the women of Deseret Hospital, the sisters away from the hospital As as the sisters an of a a and be to the hospital for In the sisters mining to their Each who wanted to be into a to the sisters could on a of which and While and continued, funds the more and commercial of a modernizing from the sisters were able to and a hospital to those who could such care and who to that a than a was a of As frontier Utah to commercial Utah, the and Holy Cross Hospital the needs of a concerned class and The Holy Cross Sisters an that as as to have The in brought in when Salt Lake City that was the In a medical on and to than to to to Holy Cross had a of and the hospital is in a This was not simply because Catholic were at Holy it was because Latter-day Saints the more the that Deseret Hospital the Sisters of the Holy Cross a of and as the sisters not have to and their was in their to the of the needs of a modern Catholic were and on of was the of and also an form of when it to medical care. the Latter-day Saint women at Deseret Hospital, the Sisters of the Holy Cross were not Catholic women not such medical as a part of an women's sisters not in medicine. they need to in and to become Holy Cross sisters traditional of and that at first not to be modern but in the of century women their in a modernizing medical system in other sisters the of medical care because on In Catholic of women the and the that made a In the of Utah, the Sisters of the Holy Cross (rather than the the Sisters on the hospital's and the hospital's and and Sisters and the nursing that to their The of Holy Cross Hospital which could a a and a it be the who had the about the throughout the the of their perfected on their of to effectively over their were not by church as they had been at Deseret Catholic of women were not were not the of the Indeed, they had to the sisters they to their from the of an not the that the of The of the Holy Cross Sisters when one of their a hospital in one on could from a could the and the sisters the when hospital Catholic sisters also the of care. in the when to be more in hospital care, Catholic sisters their in their of is on and that a and of that can be established they need not be Deseret Hospital could not on a of and who their on to the of Eliza Snow a a in but of the from her and her as a and a to be a as an example of be in for an to over and However, a more is that the of an is for be it to be of the of the their into their the women were in medicine. Latter-day Saint women in time and not other the of Catholic sisters not become they other women Holy Cross Sisters and their than for the more training of Catholic sisters and Both the and the medical training that sisters were and their Holy Cross Sisters established of a not to to that he could hospital across the and could from to The women in it is to Latter-day Saint women to Catholic women who had been in the However, it is to that it was only the nineteenth century that Catholic sisters made to the modern of and In Holy Cross Sisters had to the of a two after their in than they had the hospital in In were about Catholic in the that had to In were hundred sisters in the that had to The success of Holy Cross Hospital was due not simply to the and of women but to the that the to Saint women, to the needs of the of also expanded their as they the and to be medical as Eliza Snow observed, and their However, what Latter-day Saint women (and failed to was to their and a for in a modern that women to in their Latter-day Saint women were but their were The of Deseret Hospital the of women to negotiate the and the of the
This chapter explores the overall costs of the Wesleyan Methodist chapel estate, and the impact which this financial challenge had upon the Connexion, drawing comparisons with other approaches including that of Anglicanism. Chapel construction triggered the movement’s 1760s financial crisis, and led to the decentralization of responsibility for chapel debt, though with some national oversight. This succeeded in keeping total chapel debt manageable. The scale and timing of chapel construction reflected membership growth, but in some regions did not keep pace. Resources were available, from the growing number of wealthier Methodists, and sometimes from Connexional grants. But there were tensions between the ambitions of local societies and concerns over debt, and between ensuring accessibility to the Gospel, and dependence on the wealthy. By 1800, chapel financing formed part of a complex Connexional financial regime.
Reviewed by: Burdens of Proof: Faith, Doubt, and Identity in Autobiography Meghan Rosatelli (bio) Susanna Egan. Burdens of Proof: Faith, Doubt, and Identity in Autobiography. Waterloo, ONT: Wilfrid Laurier UP, 2011. 210 pp. ISBN 978-1554583331, $34.95. Readers love a true story, especially if it’s a good one, because good true stories allow in that extra bit of fantasy to our everyday realities. Amidst true stories that are often, as the saying goes, stranger than fiction, the fiction sometimes overwhelms the truth and shrinks our penchant for fantasy. Whether stories that impose more fiction than fact anger, sadden, hurt, or humor us, they often trump the ruse that readers were led to believe, as they devolve into scandal and highlight a culture so enamored with stories in the first place. Susanna Egan plants her flag in this dizzying landscape of imposture in autobiography, and asks what we, as readers, can learn from the love, betrayal, and occasional acceptance of phony lives on paper. In her third book on the subject of autobiography, Burdens of Proof: Faith, Doubt, and Identity in Autobiography, Egan explores histories of faith and doubt in autobiography while focusing on acts of imposture that question our cultural tolerance for literary masquerade. What Egan finds, and what is perhaps most interesting, is that the many stories of imposture she cites all lie on a moral spectrum that is not just culturally specific, but subject-specific as well. She acknowledges the role of culture in autobiographical imposture, but perhaps ignores the diverse readership involved. Nonetheless, Burdens of Proof takes the reader on a journey of imposture that ranges from biblical texts to the infamous televised collapse of James Frey’s Million Little Pieces. Within this range, Egan argues that autobiographical imposture is both historical and political, and creates a basis of understanding for faith and doubt in specific communities. Egan situates her analysis in the genre of the study of autobiography, rather than the study of imposture on a broader scale. While relatively recent works such as The American Counterfeit by Mary McAleer Balkin, Double Agency: Acts of Impersonation in Asian American Literature and Culture by Tina Chen, or Slippery Characters: Ethnic Impersonators and American Identity by Laura Browder focus on acts of imposture that bleed more profusely into lived impersonation, Egan’s strict autobiographical approach questions textual identity and the moral code associated with it in particular cultures. In short, she is more interested in the Wizard’s effect on Oz than in the Wizard himself. Consequently, the texts discussed are scattered upon the moral spectrum she institutes to ground the analysis, yet focused with a Canadian eye on Western acts of impersonation. Egan begins with acts of imposture in the Bible, and briefly traces the variable concept of textual identity in autobiography through the eighteenth century. With the authority of print laying a foundation of faith in [End Page 822] autobiographical texts, Egan then delves into a modern network of mass media and sensational identities to analyze James Frey and instances of Muslim imposture in the West (these stories are, interestingly, not placed in the following chapter on ethnic imposture). The case of Grey Owl, a veritable lifetime of ethnic imposture, seems to enact the range of the moral scale of autobiographical imposture in Egan’s argument—Canadian folk hero, perhaps? Loveable phony? Grey Owl gets a pass. The book ends with troubling cases of Holocaust imposture that ground the political aspects of Egan’s argument. The final chapter clarifies what is at stake when autobiographical imposture disrupts our sense of empathy and moral vigilance. On the one hand, instances of imposture in the context of Holocaust survivors remind us of the critical role of autobiography when reconstructing “difficult knowledge.” On the other hand, as Egan so poignantly explains, imposture in these contexts goes beyond holding a hand mirror to current culture or rounding out horrific histories; it hurts the victims of such atrocities. Here, imposture is not simply taboo, but dangerous. It is in these areas of autobiography where Egan’s expertise in the field is apparent—discussing how imposture serves as a political weapon, and ultimately revealing the context from which it arises...
One of the preferred methods of beginning a New Historicist reading is the depiction of a scene or piece of writing which yields a microcosmic image of what the critic seeks to elaborate in relation to the main text of discussion. So Stephen Greenblatt begins 'Invisible Bullets', his acclaimed article named after the false understandings that American Indians had of the ways in which Europeans were destroying them (believing that the smallpox which was obliterating them was in fact the invisible bullets of the Europeans), with a story of how red spots on the face of the dying mathematician, Thomas Harriot, were falsely believed to be proof of revenge from God for Harriot's alleged atheism. Whether Harriot was an atheist or not we have no way of knowing, for, as Greenblatt reminds us, '[t]he historical evidence, of course, is unreliable' (Greenblatt, in Wilson and Dutton 1992, 84).1 In its first published form the article also began with the story of an Italian miller tried of heresy by the Inquisition who, having finally renounced his atheist views, was allowed to return to life in his village, albeit branded as heretic, but on returning to his atheist views was then burned at the stake.