By James E. Kerns

Latter-day Saints the world over have cause to celebrate:  December 23^rd is (was) the 200^th birthday of their church’s founder, Joseph Smith.

And celebrate they are.  They’ve been doing it all year.  From Seoul to San Diego, and from Portland to Portugal they’ve been holding extravaganzas of dance, music, plays and parties.

And who can hold it against them?  The fact that there is anyone at all in the world who is even interested in commemorating Joseph Smith’s birth is nothing short of a miracle.  That there are 12-million of them is worthy of notice.

Newsweek magazine took notice, and in its October 17, 2005 issue printed a multi-page article on Joseph Smith and the Church that he founded.  Who was he, and why is he newsworthy enough that a national magazine would take up his story?

Joseph Smith was only a 14-year-old farm boy in upstate New York when he emerged from a grove of trees one spring day and announced to his family that he had been visited by the Father and the Son.  His family believed him.  The ministers of religion in his local area did not.  Though not united in any of their other views on the subject of religion, they joined in a common persecution of the otherwise obscure boy.

It was an unusual excitement on the subject of religion that those same ministers had promulgated in the Manchester, New York area which lead young Joseph to his experience.  Many people united themselves to the various denominations as priests from the contending parties vied for converts.  Joseph’s mother and three of his siblings joined the Presbyterian Church.  Joseph’s Bible-studying father held himself aloof from the churches; but Joseph felt a desire to unite himself with the Methodists.

Being greatly confused by the war of words going on around him, he one day read in the Bible, “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.”  (James 1:5).

In Joseph Smith’s own words he said, “Never did any passage of scripture come with more power to the heart of man than this did at this time to mine. It seemed to enter with great force into every feeling of my heart.  I reflected on it again and again, knowing that if any person needed wisdom from God, I did; for how to act I did not know, and unless I could get more wisdom than I then had, I would never know; for the teachers of religion of the different sects understood the same passages of scripture so differently as to destroy all confidence in settling the question by an appeal to the Bible.”

Thus it was that Joseph went to the woods to pray.  It was his first vocal prayer.  He reported that a pillar of light appeared over his head which descended gradually until it rested upon him.  Two Personages, “whose brightness and glory defy all description,” stood above him in the air.  One called him by name, pointing to the other, and said, “This is My Beloved Son.  Hear Him!”

Joseph asked the Personages which church he should join.  He was answered that he should join none of them because, “They teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof.”

It was statements like this which got Joseph into trouble with professors of religion.  All united to persecute him.  That persecution followed him the rest of his life.  It lead to his arrest upon dozens of occasions, illegal incarcerations, being tarred and feathered, and finally to being shot to death with his older brother by an angry mob when he was just 38 years old.

How can such a man have such a large and loyal following after all these years?  Why is the Church which he founded the fastest growing Christian denomination in the world?

The church he founded—The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—presently has the second largest membership of any Christian denomination in Oregon.  The nation of Tonga is 46% LDS, according to the Church’s 2005 almanac.  The Church is growing explosively in areas such as Chile, The Philippines and Mexico.

The Church’s rapid growth, according to Church President Gordon B. Hinckley, is its biggest problem.  Growth necessitates new meetinghouses, of which the Church is building more than one a day.  Growth also necessitates trained local leadership.  The Church has no paid ministry, so leaders must be selected from among local congregations.  Those leaders might themselves have only been baptized a year or two before being called.

The growth comes from the veritable army of missionaries which is fanned out over most of the nations of the world.  Over 51,000 missionaries, the majority of which are young men between the ages of 19 and 21, are currently serving the Church.  They give two of their prime years—years when their peers are obtaining educations, jobs, and getting married—to serve at their own expense.  Each is expected to pay his or her own way.  It’s a commitment which costs each of them two years and over $10,000.

Why do they do it?

One and all would say that it is because they believe The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to be the Lord’s true Church, and because they believe Joseph Smith’s story about seeing God and Jesus Christ in that grove of trees in 1820.  They would also say that they’re serving because they believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God.  They’re attempting to “flood the earth” with this new book of scripture which they hold to be as authoritative as the Bible.

The Book of Mormon was Joseph Smith’s doing, too.  Three years after the visitation of the Father and the Son, Joseph claimed to have been visited by an angel named Moroni.  Moroni declared himself as the last prophet to have lived and served among a branch of Israelites here in the Americas 1400 years earlier.  He told Joseph that the records of his people were written upon golden plates which were buried in a hill not far from Joseph’s home.

During the first of Moroni’s many visits to Joseph, he told the then 17-year-old boy that his “name should be had for good and evil among all nations, kindreds, and tongues, or that it should be both good and evil spoken of among all people.”

That’s an audacious statement to make about an obscure, uneducated farm boy!  But Moroni’s prophecy is well on its way to fulfillment.  One is hard pressed to find anyone in this United States who hasn’t heard the name Joseph Smith, and who doesn’t have an opinion, for good or for evil, about him.

Moroni gave Joseph the golden plates, and also the means to translate them.  This young man, with less than three years of formal education, produced a 531-page book which has now been translated into over a hundred languages with over 108-million copies around the world.

The Book of Mormon was recently included as one of the 20 most influential books ever published in America.  The Church has recently joined hands with a commercial publisher, at the publisher’s request, to enlarge the distribution of the book.

The Book of Mormon purports to be an abridgment of over a thousand years of religious records kept by prophets who lived in the Americas.  The abridgment was made by Moroni’s father, Mormon—hence the book’s name.

The highlight of the book is the account of Jesus Christ’s visit to America’s early inhabitants following His crucifixion in Jerusalem.  The central figure throughout the book is Jesus Christ—hence the book’s subtitle, “Another Testament of Jesus Christ.”

Says President Gordon B. Hinckley, “I cannot understand why the Christian world does not accept this book.  I would think they would be looking for anything and everything that would establish without question the reality and the divinity of the Savior of the world.”

Joseph Smith, and the book he produced, have been hugely controversial.  The Book of Mormon was published in 1830.  Many theories as to its true origin have been put forth.  Many claim that it was not given to Joseph Smith by an angel, but that Joseph wrote it himself.  One of the Church’s Apostles, Boyd K. Packer, responds to that claim in these words:

“Most critics claim Joseph Smith wrote the [book].  They give him far too much credit.  This would make him a genius beyond all measure.  I don’t believe that.  To assume that he produced [it] without help and without inspiration is preposterous.”

That statement carries weight, since Joseph translated the book in about 90 working days.  Most of it was done with a man named Oliver Cowdery acting as scribe.  As Joseph read the plates aloud, Oliver wrote.  Oliver and five others of the eleven people to whom Joseph showed the golden plates were eventually excommunicated from the Church.  Three of those, Oliver included, testified that they were shown the plates by “an angel of God,” and that the voice of God declared to them that “these things are true.”

That six of the eleven witnesses left the Church would at first seem a disastrous blow to Joseph’s work.  But the fact that not one of them denied his testimony of what he saw and heard, and that several eventually asked for rebaptism makes their testimonies all the more compelling.  Had Joseph’s works and claims been a fraud, their disaffections from the Church should have proved a ripe opportunity for exposure.

Joseph’s family never wavered from their belief in their son’s and brother’s claims and works.  His parents were his most loyal followers.  His older brother, Hyrum, five years his senior, was his special friend and supporter.  Both sealed their testimonies with their blood at Carthage Jail in Illinois on 27 June 1844 when attacked by a masked mob.

Illinois governor, Thomas Ford, had promised the Smith brothers the protection of the state if they would give themselves up for trial on what proved to be spurious charges.  Governor Ford then failed to provide the promised protection.  He expected Joseph’s church to fail following the assassination, and later wrote this statement:

Joseph Smith was “the most successful imposter in modern times.  He never could succeed in establishing a system of policy which looked to permanent success in the future.”

Thomas Ford was obviously not the prophet that Moroni was.  The Church, rather than failing, has moved beyond the era of masked and armed mobs.  It is still not without its critics, however.  The Church is now attacked for being too wealthy and for being elitist.

President Hinckley points out that the Church’s “wealth” is mostly in the form of meetinghouses and temples.  The Church does, however, use its resources in a vast program of humanitarian aid.  It operates 113 storehouses, 63 farms, 105 canneries, and 18 food processing and distribution plants.  These facilities provide the means for the Church to quickly send aid to victims of natural disasters around the world.

Recent recipients of Church aid include earthquake victims in Pakistan who received tents, food, clothing, bedding, and money.  Hurricane victims in the southern United States not only received supplies, but were deluged by armies of Church members who donated vacations and weekends to go from house to house repairing roofs, ripping damaged sheetrock from walls, cleaning up, and offering emotional support to people without regard to their religious affiliations.

Tsunami victims in Southeast Asia continue to receive support and help to rebuild their lives a year after their disaster.  Some 98 million dollars in cash and in-kind assistance were distributed in 2003.  Nearly a billion dollars of such aid has been given in the past two decades.

Older couples, serving as humanitarian missionaries have drilled thousands of wells in impoverished, drought-stricken areas in Africa.  Upwards of 42,000 disabled persons in third-world countries have been provided with wheelchairs.  Doctors, nurses, dentists and other professional people donate weeks of their own time and expense to travel to distant places to treat patients without charge, and train local practitioners in sight-saving, neonatal, and life-saving procedures.

 

The Church’s growth and success are a modern-day phenomenon and a surprise to its critics.  Would Joseph Smith be surprised to see the state of the Church on this 200^th anniversary of his birth?

Probably not.

“You know no more concerning the destinies of this Church and kingdom than a babe upon its mother’s lap,” he told a small gathering in the Church’s early days.  “You don’t comprehend it…It is only a little handful…you see here tonight, but this Church will fill North and South America—it will fill the world.”

Given the Church’s progress thus far, one might wonder.

(A shortened version was printed in the Baker City Herald 23 December 2005).