Latter Days An Insider's Guide to Mormonism, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

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ISBN: 9780312280437 | 0312280432
Cover: Paperback
Copyright: 5/4/2001

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This is the story of the Latter-day Saints, the story of when God came back to earth and started things over.In person. It may be the most confident message of God in centuries.Written with the non-Latter-day Saint reader firmly in mind, yet free of proselytory pretense, Latter Days goes right to the mind and heart of this religion, exploring an utterly unique catalogue of Christian doctrine regarding the purpose of human existence and destiny.It gives the Mormon story of the creation of this world and lays out what Mormons believe is the divine plan for mankind, from Adam to Noah to Christ to Joseph Smith to Brigham Young.It relates the astonishing story of their great Exodus, as they were driven from the supposedly civilized United States to the wilderness of the Salt Lake-a truly remarkable story that most of us were not taught in our high school history books.AUTHORBIO: A convert in his late teens to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Coke Newell graduated from the journalism program at Colorado State University. For most of a decade a media spokesman for the LDS Church in Salt Lake City, Utah, he has authored or contributed to a number of books and periodicals and has been quoted extensively on Church policy, history and doctrine.

Preface

xiii

Prologue: A Boy's Prayer

(4)

In 1820 an obscure American farm boy went into the woods to pray and came out with a message and mission that would challenge the foundations of contemporary religion. But this new view of God, man, and salvation proclaimed by Joseph Smith wasn't really new at all. It was the plan from the very beginning

Part 1 A New Heaven and a New Earth

(26)

A Heavenly Start

(6)

Long before Eden, or T. Rex or even the Big Bang, billions of spirit entities lived and learned in a premortal world, literal children of a physical God. Individual intelligences imbued with motive and motion, we exercised choice, initiative, and preference. But under our Father's eye, and within his presence, we could only go so far. The Great Plan of Happiness---the genetics within us---required that we leave our heavenly home, take a physical body, and live by our spiritual wits in a new world far away, a blue planet called Earth

The Choice

(5)

Set upon the earth as immortal beings, the first man and the first woman soon understood that their enternal progress, or even happiness, required that they pass through a mortal experience. But to get there, they would have to die

The Place Where Adam Dwelt

(6)

In contrast to the doctrine of most other Christian churches, Latter-day Saints teach without reservation that the entire gospel plan---the Christian gospel---was known to and practiced by Adam and Eve, as were other advanced concepts of human learning and culture

Oh, Israel

(7)

The Old Testament---era dispersion of the tribes of Israel sprinkled the blood of the covenant people throughout the lands of the earth. A fundamental focus of the Latter-day Saints is to find and gather those children of the covenant---with whom they share a literal heritage

Part 2 The First Coming and a Falling Away

(32)

The Fulcrum of Time

(15)

From his premortal stature as the most valiant of all spirit children of God, and following four millenia as the mighty God of the Old Testament, the Great Jehovah begins his turn on earth as the humblest of children, delivered in straw and diapered in rags. As Jesus of Nazareth he comes to full and early realization of his mission as the Savior of the world, a mission that will only be accomplished with the sacrifice of his life

Christ in America

(9)

The Book of Mormon, like the Bible, is a compilation of the writings---historic and prophetic---of heaven-inspired men. Central to the book is an eyewitness account of the visit of the resurrected Savior to a group of people in ancient America

Of Peter, Popes, and Prophets

(6)

With the Savior's return to heaven, the apostle Peter and his colleagues in the Judean ministry continue the work of Christ. But the seeds of rebellion are almost instantaneous. One by one, the apostles are killed, the converts hunted and driven, the pure truths changed. Centuries intervene, creeds rise, reformers rebel. Spiritual darkness covers the earth

Part 3 Beyond the First Vision

(146)

Angels on the Earth

(17)

Following his vision of heaven in 1820, Joseph Smith faced the bitter scorn of neighbors and former friends for his continuing tales of heavenly visitors, Official and Exclusive Sanction, and new scripture. The creedal faiths of seventeen centuries, whatever else their differences, unitedly found such claims ludicrous at best, and blasphemous most likely. They determined to wipe Mormonism from the face of the earth

The Untold Story

(16)

From 1831 to 1844, the Latter-day Saints were driven from town to town, and state to state: New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio. In late 1838, thousands housed their children under tarps and trees, or in muddy caves carved into riverbanks spread out across far western Missouri. Then, Missouri's governor-elect Lilburn Boggs issued his famous decree: ``exterminate [the Mormons] or drive them from the state.'' So through the winter of 1838--39, and across three hundred miles of frozen mid-western back country, ten thousand Latter-day Saints dragged all that hadn't been burned, abandoned, or killed three hundred miles to refuge in Illinois

Road to Carthage

(31)

In Illinois, the Latter-day Saints founded a vibrant community that was the envy of the day. Named Nauvoo, it swelled toward twenty thousand residents by 1844. But if any among them were entertaining visions of taking their rightful and respected place in the mainstream of American society anytime soon, it wasn't Joseph Smith. In fact, his vision dictated exactly to the contrary: the Saints would suffer mightly and be driven once again. But this time, Joseph would not go with them

Aftermath

129

(5)

Following the assassination of Joseph Smith and his brother, Hyrum, the world thought Mormonism had come to its end. Even the Latter-day Saints were in despondent disarray. But all they would need to carry on in strength had been well prepared for the people, including doctrine, policy---and Brigham Young

Prelude to a Finale

134

(10)

Under Brigham Young's able leadership, the Latter-day Saints hung on in Nauvoo through the remainder of 1844 and much of 1845, continuing to build their city. But by the fall of 1845, their farms burning, mobs harassing them, and the leadership of both Illinois and the nation refusing to aid them, it was clear that their time in Illinois was coming to a close. But it was also clear that no place in America would take them next

The American Exodus

144

(18)

In the cold blue heart of winter, long before grass was growing or streams flowing to sustain their draft animals, twelve to fifteen thousand Latter-day Saints began their journey into the western wilderness, their eyes set on a remote basin in Mexican territory thirteen hundred miles away. It would be the largest forced migration in the history of America. Later scholars would see the experience as the single most important influence in molding the Latter-day Saints into a distinctive people

The Camp of Israel

162

(8)

What formed and cohered in the earliest days of the Mormon Trail to the west was a people apart: separate, unique, and alone, calling themselves the ``Camp of Israel.'' Even journalists of the day were soon making comparisons to the ancient travels of Moses and his people: here was modern Israel, with its Prophet, its Exodus from bondage, and its sojourn toward the Promised Land

Road to Zion

170

(14)

Converging from three directions and a dozen lands, the Mormon pioneers moved toward their envisioned land of refuge---isolated, arid, unpeopled, and unwanted by the rest of humanity. The Valley of the Great Salt Lake would be just the right place

Transition

184

(14)

Having established themselves in safety in the remote valley of the Salt Lake basin, the Latter-day Saints began a new era of settlement and expansion under the leadership of Brigham Young. Thousands of converts would flow into the valley from all over the world, and the next three decades would see the colonization of nearly four hundred communities across the American West

Give and Take

198

(11)

Refuge from the long arm of intolerance and misunderstanding would grace the home base of the Latter-day Saints for only a few years. The U.S. Army would march on Utah, and a prairie court would condemn their limited practice of polygamy. Though they would argue the latter issue all the way to the Supreme Court, thousands of fathers and husbands would be hunted and imprisoned. Seeing the future of the church on the verge of forfeit, the Mormon prophet would end the practice in 1890, paving the way for U.S. statehood

Part 4 Steaming Toward Kolob

209

(36)

From Zero to Sixty in 2.2

211

(14)

More and more through the decades of the twentieth century, Latter-day Saint history would begin playing out in places like Adelaide and Johannesburg and Medellin. And it would play out prominently, setting a pace of international growth that would stun observers. In the words of one prominent sociologist. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints would enter the twenty-first century as ``the first world religion since Islam.''

The Biggest Heaven and the Littlest Hell

225

(20)

Mormon doctrine corresponds with many concepts common to the larger body of Christian belief and practice: the world will end, Christ will return in glory, people will be judged. But from there the Latter-day Saints embrace an entirely divergent set of specifics regarding heaven, its purposes, and its eventual occupants

Epilogue

245

(4)

How do you get a religion so precise, so comprehensive, and so radical to work---smoothly---in 165 nations of the world, attracting converts from all walks of life and faith? You speak to that engraved code, the DNA of deity. And then you explain it in an entirely new light, a light that goes all the way back. All the way to the beginning

Appendix: Important Doctrines and Policies of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

249

(12)

Selected Bibliography

261

(2)

Index

263

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Latter Days An Insider's Guide to Mormonism, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials