I like Kaimi, but I am afraid that he is just wrong. One of his recent posts suggested that religious liberty in America had nothing to do with the Restoration because there wasn’t much religious liberty in America in the nineteenth century. He basically offers two arguments in favor of this claim. The first is that the Saints were subject to large-scale persecution by mobs and local governments. The second is that the de jure protection of the First Amendment didn’t provide the Mormons with any protection when congress moved against them over polygamy.
Kaimi is right in that Mormons were harassed and persecuted by local governments and mobs in the period from 1830 to 1844. He is also right that the First Amendment didn’t provide much protection for the Mormons in the nineteenth century. However, it seems to me that his analysis rests on a set of mistakes that are — I think — uniquely typical of Mormon lawyers. I will start with the lawyer part first. Kaimi’s argument focuses in on the de jure protection of religious liberty as though the idea of religious freedom were co-extensive with the idea of judicial review and invalidation of laws targeting religious practices. The religious liberty that Mormonism benefited from was less a matter of law than of politics in the broadest sense. As to the Mormon part, Kaimi focuses on the often self-contained narrative of Mormon history without an adequate reference to the rest of the historical context.
Let me trying offering an alternative story of Mormonism and American religious freedom. I begin with the founding period, but rather than focusing on the Bill of Rights, I think that we should first look at the presence of religious establishments. At the close of the 18th century, most states have established churches of one kind of another. The two quintessential examples are Massachusetts and Virginia. In Massachusetts the congregational churches received tax support and other government benefits (mainly in the form of grants of real property known as glebes, which were then used to generate revenue to support the churches.) The same was true of the Episcopalian church in Virginia. These were basically tolerant establishments on the English model, which is to say that non-conformists were subject to social and political ostracism, marginalization, and sporadic but not overwhelming legal harassment. All of this was thoroughly constitutional, as the Bill of Rights did not apply to the states at the time, and indeed the original intent of the establishment clause was probably to protect state establishments from federal interference. Still, it was a system in which established church’s largely defined religious life, and the idea of sectarian choice was a social oddity.
Now fast forward to the Jacksonian period of the 1820s and 1830s. What you see is the political and demographic implosion of state establishments. Across the nation, pressure from the non-conformists, especially Baptists and Methodists but more generally evangelicals, causes the disestablishment of state churches. This is not done by an act of heroic constitutional interpretation by the federal courts, which is the implicit model that Kaimi invokes, but rather was done as a matter of popular politics. Indeed, disestablishment along with the extension of the franchise and various other populist measures was part of the core of the Jacksonian political project.
Disestablishment in the Jacksonian period made American religious life unique chaotic. By uncoupling the church from the state and the corporate manifestation of the civil community, the American disestablishment movement created an environment in which sectarian identity both became less important as a mode of social cohesion and more important as an individual choice. It was an ideal environment for the creation of a new church that sought to gather adherents through a process of individual conversion by an act of sectarian identification. What is more, the collapse of the older established religious orders created, I think, a powerful anxiety about the civic status of the new sectarian movements. This in turn led to persecution which was, I think, ultimately good for the Restoration as a movement. It seems to me that what a new religion needs is an optimal level of external persecution. You don’t want so much external coercion that the new community is annihilated a la the Albejencians. On the other hand, persecution seems to be an important part of forging collective identity. This is certainly what happened with the Mormons. Yet this optimal level of persecution was made possible by the decentralization of legal authority over religion in the 19th-century America. The original, federalist version of the Bill of Rights meant that the governor of Missouri could persecute the Mormons, but that they could always flee across state borders.
Of course, the civil war and the Mormons themselves altered the constitutional status of religion in America during the second half of the 19th century. A single national policy did emerge as the Bill of Rights was transformed from a procedural to a substantive constitutional norm. What this meant was that now the Mormons faced a level of persecution that was no longer optimal. The federal government really could grind the Latter-day Saints to dust, and after the burning of Atlanta and Sherman’s march to the sea, it had the bloody-minded will to do so. However, by that time Mormonism was established both as a demographic fact and as a communal identity to the extent that it could safely retreat from polygamy without simply subsiding in the general welter of Protestant America.
In short, America provided just the right amount and right variety of religious liberty. It was not of the variety that post-Warren Court American lawyers are trained to look for, but it does seem to have been the particular variety necessary for the Restoration.
Nate,
You’re channeling Bruce Ackerman, which is a combination that I’m a little surprised to see.
So apparently there has been, in the past, some limited number of “Restorationist Moments” during which the perfect environment exists. And while religious liberty qua religious liberty didn’t really help the church much, it was one of the necessary ingredients in the witch’s brew that is required to stir up a Restorationist Moment?
That’s a theory that I can live with. I may not agree with it, but it does make sense. However, I don’t think that that’s the theory that you hear from the pulpit on July 4th. Mileage may vary, according to the particular pulpit in question.
“You?re channeling Bruce Ackerman, which is a combination that I?m a little surprised to see.”
Careful. Them’s fightin’ words! I think that you are mistaken to think that religious liberty is a matter simply of robust judicial review of legislative enactments. It seems to me that it is also a matter of creating a social and legal enviroment in which sectarian choice is not only possible but forms a major part of social life. Think about life in Jane Austen’s England or James Madison’s Virginia. To be sure, there were dissenters and non-conformists at the margins of society, but by and large socially speaking one was born into one’s religion and religious identity was given to one by family and community, rather than by individual choice.
Joseph Smith’s America, by contrast, was a place where sectarian choice was a central social experience. One was not born into a particular church. One chose it, and the choice that one made mattered. This it seems to me is a much more powerful vision of religious freedom than one that simply looks to the level of judicial review available. This notion of religious freedom has much more to do with the social disruption of the frontier– and accompanying decline of tory notions of religion — than with the state of free exercise doctrine. It is not any less an instance — and perhaps a unique one — of religious freedom for all of that.
This is very irrelevant dribble. Can you guys perhaps discuss stuff on this blog of some significance. I miss the days when Matt Evans used to debate Ed Enochs. At least they had something worth saying.
Nate & Kaimi,
I’m caught up in this discussion and some of the questions it prompted.
The idea of optimal persecution has been with us for a while. The Lamanites were used to goad the Nephites to repentance. God’s used physical challenges as well as in the experiences of the Israelite Exodus, Zion’s Camp, and the LDS pioneers. We also see this individually. Paul wrote the Hebrews that even Jesus learned from what he suffered and he counseled us to bear the Lord’s chastenings. Elsewhere, “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.” (Rev. 3:19). Was it JS or BY that said you only can kick the church upstairs? Still, I hadn’t considered before how the supposed religious freedom in the U.S. balanced against the persecutions we endured to create the optimal challenges that caused us to grow. I’ll enjoy pondering this.
Other thoughts I’d like to see you discuss:
* How does Massachusetts’s and Virginia’s support of congregational and Episcopalian churches compare with LDS fostering in Deseret? Is the Church’s ownership of Temple Square and all the other property there also “glebe”?
*“What is more, the collapse of the older established religious orders created, I think, a powerful anxiety about the civic status of the new sectarian movements.” How would you compare that to the current decline of the sects you mentioned that grew then (Baptists, Methodists)? Do the new religious growth groups (Muslims) fit this model or is something else at play? What do you make of evangelicals and LDS growing in both periods?
* “What this meant was that now the Mormons faced a level of persecution that was no longer optimal. The federal government really could grind the Latter-day Saints to dust” This actually happened to the primitive churches in both the old and the new worlds. Do you have any thoughts on the similarities and differences between the challenges faced by the primitive churches and the JS/BY church? Do you foresee such coming around again?
* “by and large socially speaking one was born into one’s religion and religious identity was given to one by family and community, rather than by individual choice. … [In] Joseph Smith’s America, by contrast, … One was not born into a particular church. One chose it, and the choice that one made mattered.” And Joseph Smith left us with a culture that combines these. We choose to join the Church, and then our children are born in the covenant (and have their agency to leave it – but with hope offered to parents of wayward children’s ultimate return). What do you make of our combination of choice and birth? Do you see a blending of the best of both worlds here? How does this combination shape LDS culture?
manean: Lots of interesting questions here, most of which I don’t know the answers to, however you did ask —
“* How does Massachusetts?s and Virginia?s support of congregational and Episcopalian churches compare with LDS fostering in Deseret? Is the Church?s ownership of Temple Square and all the other property there also ?glebe??”
I have actually done research on this question. A glebe was usually an income producing piece of land. For example, 100 acres might be attached to a particular parish as a glebe. This 100 acres would then be rented to a local farmer. The income from the rents would be used to pay the salary of the clergy man. One of the interesting questions that arose after disestablishment in Virginia was who owned the glebes. The newly “privatized” Episcopal church took the position that the glebe’s belonged to the church. Virginia took the position that they belonged to the commonwealth. The issue got complicated by mortmain statutes, which are an old feature of the common law that limits the amount of real property that can be held by a corporation (read church, since initially ecclesiastical corporations were basically the only kind that existed).
There were a number of imperfect analogs in Deseret. First, the Perpetual Emmigration Fund was granted title to Anelope Island in the Great Salt Lake. A statute of the State of Deseret then provided that all stray livestocked was to be impounded and if not claimed given to the PEF, which had herds of cattle on the Island. Second, high ranking church officials were granted either real estate or special rights, ie the sole right to cut timber in a certain canyon, which then generated income. To my knowledge the Church itself was not granted land as an income producing asset.
The issue also comes up with the various punative laws that were passed against the Church over the practice of polygamy. All of these beginning with the Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act of 1862 contained mortmain statutes that limited the amount of property that the church could hold. Incidentally, the church was formally organized under an Illinois ecclesiastical corporation law at the time of Joseph Smith’s death. This law contained a mortmain provision that limited the amount of property the church could hold, which led — among lots and lots and lots of other things — to extensive disputes over the Joseph Smith estate between Brigham and Emma. Once in Deseret the saints incorporated the church under a local ordinance that pointedly contained no mortmain statute. Congress then intervened in teh 1860s with its mortmain, with the result that the Brigham Young estate was subject to many of the same sorts of disputes that bedeviled the Joseph Smith estate, although unlike Joseph, Brigham died solvent.
The fact that all are not equally enlightened does not negate the enlightment that took place starting with the Reformation by Martin Luther. There were great thinkers such as Locke who helped shaped the thoughs of founding fathers. I was reading Locke a few months back or trying to as it is rather wordy for us non-lawyer types. I was impressed by how he defines freedom of religion as allowing people to worship in whatever manner that they choose provididing that they do not break laws of society. For instance, it is legal for people to butcher a cow so therefore one can sacrifice a cow for religion. By the same token, it is not legal to murder a person so a religion is not allowed to have human sacrifice. He seemed to understand so much the importance of separation of Church and State and not allowing a Church to decide a religion. While it may be said that the Puritans were mainly interested in freedom of their own religion, there was a lot at work for the stage that would be set latter and areas such as Road Island were very much the fertile ground where much religious liberty took root.
Also, some of the founding fathers believed that a government should not support a religion financially because if a religion were endorsed by God, it should not need any financial support.
The fact that black Churches have been burned, does not mean that such Churches are given freedom under the Constitution.
I do believe freedom of religion was the necessary precursor to the Resored Gospel.
Road Island–I think I meant Rhode Island. To think that I take hotel reservations all day and would make such a mistake. :)
Oh, I just skimmed a little before making my orignal post. Now, I actually read all of Nate’s comments. I guess my comments do not fit with this thread very much. I guess I am so insecure taking hotel reservations all day that I wanted to try to sound smart. However, as my father says, it is better to be thought a fool than to open your mouth(or in this case make a few comments) and remove all doubt.
There is a fairly strong current in American intellectual thinking which seeks to debase anything which is American as not as good as European, etc. I think Kaimi has fallen for that line, hook and sinker, rod and reel included.
Let’s face it, the Restoration would have been impossible in Latin America. Countries which have been reluctant to grant visas to our missionaries in the 20th Century, would hardly have been likely to harbor a new religion which sought to displace the established religion
Europe? Most European countries had established religions, and were only a few decades removed from violent civil wars over the subject of religion. In France, in the early 1790’s came the Reign of Terror, followed by the dictatorship of Napoleon. As if the invader of Russia would have accepted the emergence of a dissident religion (I know, he was gone by 1830, but the ethos was still there).
During the Napoleonic Wars, the British routinely impressed lower class men whom they scooped up from the streets and hamlets on England, for service in the Royal Navy. As if they would have been solicitous of a new religion which claimed that their state religion was an abomination in the sight of the Lord. From our armchairs in our libraries we may view the 19th Century scene in Europe through rose-colored lenses, but remember that tolerance is very much a 20th Century principle.
In this blog, we don’t have to be concerned about impressing the left wing professors in the Academy any more. It’s all right to be American.
The US Constitution was inspired, but it did not follow that the interpretation of that Constitution was inspired. So it wasn’t perfect in the USA? Of course not. But it wasn’t perfect anywhere else, either.
it wasn’t perfect in the USA? Of course not. But it wasn’t perfect anywhere else, either.
The End. Roll Credits.
Babylon and Canaan weren’t very hospitable religious environments either. But somehow, the Gospel succeeded there anyway.
I don’t mind the premise that American democracy was utilized in God’s designs. But it’s just typical American pride (and I say “pride” in all the worst senses) to claim that God couldn’t have done it anywhere else.
News Flash: God is all powerful. You and I are just insignificant little peons and the USA is just a silly little nation of peons.
Glorify God. Don’t waste everyone’s time glorifying America. It doesn’t deserve it.
Looking at the two camps in this argument I can see why Kami might view America as a more inhospitable locale to lift up the gospel than contemporary LDS views would lay claim to. However, I think Nate is more correct.
But as I read both views it is becoming clear to me that America was the best place to restore the gospel for reasons relating to both camps. The freedoms associated with America allowed the gospel to flourish as it allowed its citizens to act according to their conscience. But because of the persecution the church was strengthened.
It is that mix of freedom and persecution that allowed it to grow. Like an anchored tree in the wind, its roots would not grow deep and strong to support the church without opposition. Perhaps the church would have less opposition had they not gathered the saints together. But if that had happened would the church have been culturally strong and close-knit?
I would say the church would have experienced a more splintering and apostacy. Keeping the saints together was neccessary. The hardships endured were concecrated to strengthen the saints and the church, but were not so great that they would have destroyed the church.
It was a delicate ballancing act.
“Glorify God. Don’t waste everyone’s time glorifying America. It doesn’t deserve it.”
Get over your anti-Americanism, Seth Rogers. We’re not Muslims, who believe that Allah is incomparable and the world is nothing. There is room in our beliefs loyalty and respect for human institutions and human societies. America is a particularly meritorious example.
I fully concur with Adam. Anti-Americanism is a bizarre sentiment – and I think indicative of a person’s narcissistic naivete.
Nate will never have a better occasion to use the word “antidisestablishmentarianism.” And he missed it.
Seth;
Here I was thinking what a breath of fresh air this blog is and then you make a statement like that. I don’t think anyone here would claim to “Glorify” the United States, (Calling it AMERICA, by the way really pisses off saints from Central and South America, they rightly claim that they are Americans also.) but it is deserving of our respect and admiration more than any other country in the world.
Marvmax say that the U.S. is “deserving of our respect and admiration more than any other country in the world.” I agree that it is deserving of respect and admiration, but why more than any other country in the world? Why shouldn’t I pass that part of what he says as jingoism?
Because you are part of it. (I presume. If not, you don’t need to).
I’m actually not particularly “anti-United States.” I just don’t believe in national pride (I don’t believe there is such a thing as “good pride”). However Adam’s exhortation to recognize things that are “virtuous, lovely or of good report” is well taken.
As for the label of narcisist … I’ll take that under advisement. =)
This conversation between Nate, Kaimi and the rest of us hangers-on has had me thinking a bit about history and its creation over the past couple of days. The back and forth over the two stated positions is a beautiful example of how “history” gets created. One might look at history as a collection of objectively verifiable facts, for example, George W. Bush won election to the presidency in 2004, I had corn chex for breakfast yesterday, etc. But these facts, in and of themselves, are not always terribly interesting or even seemingly important. What becomes interesting is an attempt to fit a grouping of events, or writings, or discoveries into a pattern, to explain them with some sort of framework. It is the creation of this explanatory framework that constitutes the real creative, inventive work of the historian. That this work is creative, inventive and the product of an individual’s mental efforts is something that, as members of a church that relies a great deal on its founding history (as opposed to intellectual theological argument, for example), we should keep firmly in mind.
Those frameworks do not constitute truth in an absolute sense, whether they come from sympathetic, are antipathetic sources. I point this out because I think both types can be an impediment to our relationship with God. If we, for example, swallow whole cloth the framework for understanding Joseph Smith as expounded in “Joseph Smith, America’s Son of Perdition” (one of the more entertaining holdings in BYU’s special collections), then we likely would not be interested in being active members of the church he had a somewhat prominent part in founding. Likewise, if we use only laudatory statements made about Joseph during Sunday school, we’re probably going to have a limited view of what he did with his time on this earth and what it means for us personally, and it may be so whitewashed as to seem unreal, or so heroic as to seem impossible to emulate in any real sense.
I don’t mean to say that this type of historical framing is not a useful exercise, or that it isn’t sometimes relatively accurate, but to be clear that it certainly is the wisdom of men and women being put on display and therefore something we should be careful about, or even avoid, when it comes to picking a foundation for our faith.
Um, Jess, there are people who contest that little election fact.
LisaB –
there are also people who believe aliens in UFOs kidnap people daily, that Bush financed the 9/11 terrorist attacks and that Clinton murdered people to advance his political career.
Since Bush is president now – he “won” – whether there were serious problems with the voting or not is a seperate matter.
Hey, maybe I’m one of those people! Just kidding. (Jesse’s my spouse. I’m just giving him a hard time cause he’s a Republican and I’m a Democrat who campaigned for Kerry.)
LisaB-
ah!
;-)
Uh hum. You will note that I cited the 2004 election, which PRESIDENT Bush won in both the popular and the electoral count.
So phlbtbtbtbt!
“There is a fairly strong current in American intellectual thinking which seeks to debase anything which is American as not as good as European, etc. I think Kaimi has fallen for that line, hook and sinker, rod and reel included.”
I haven’t followed every post of Kaimi’s to find if he consistently follows this trend, but the idea that his theory itself is “anti-american” seems like rubbish to me.
He pointed out that in several instances the state didn’t live up to the lofty goals of religious freedom. He seems to be correct. Nate pointed out that wasn’t the whole story, and offered a theory as to why America was a good place for the restoration to take hold anyway. It was a good response. Not particularly well emulated in the subsequent accusations of anti-americanism, which seem to be accompanied by a soundtrack remniscent of axe-grinding, and don’t add much to an interesting discussion.