Though raised as a Latter-day Saint in Utah, Samuel M. Brown was an atheist from an early age and proud of it. Yet, by his own account, God became an undeniable presence in his life. Now a faithful Latter-day Saint, this practicing research physician narrates some of the waypoints on his journey into believing and belonging. Some are dramatic–his wife’s cancer diagnosis or working in a hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic–while many are simple yet profound: being mistaken for a homeless person while a student at Harvard, growing to like little children and opera, and learning to bake cookies for others. 

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The Constitution of the United States guarantees that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Despite that promise, Latter-day Saints in the nineteenth century sometimes found themselves as victims of legal and extralegal violence against their leaders and lay members alike. When Joseph Smith ran for President in 1844, he made religious freedom a central component of his campaign. In this episode of the Maxwell Institute Podcast, we speak with Dr. Spencer McBride, Associate Managing Historian of the Joseph Smith Papers Project, and the host of the Joseph Smith Papers Podcast, about his book Joseph Smith for President: The Prophet, the Assassins, and the Fight for American Religious Freedom (Oxford University Press).

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In today’s episode of “Abide: A Maxwell Institute Podcast,” we are studying four of Joseph Smith’s revelations. Three of them, Sections 129-131 are written in Joseph Smith’s own style, you can hear him teaching the Saints. This makes sense; they are quite literally teachings from Joseph Smith in both personal and public settings, compiled and made available to the Saints. They form a sort of super-cut of Joseph Smith’s teachings, like watching you a YouTube compilation of an athlete’s highlights that is made for quick absorption.

Section 132 is a different matter entirely. It’s a revelation that is a sustained theological document that, at times, also reads like a legal document. The voice is the Lord’s, and it covers one topic at great length: celestial marriage. It’s a section that requires skill and care to unpack. There is much to gain, to be sure, but readers should always recognize that their comfort level with the revelation and its implications for individuals, families, and communities. 

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Following the Latter-day Saints’ expulsion from Missouri and while they worked to make a new home in Nauvoo, IL, Joseph Smith received several revelations that brought divine insight into earthly problems. For instance, what to do for those who could not afford to live in Nauvoo, or who desired to live in small cities surrounding the “City of Joseph?” How long could a person work before they needed a break? How do you ensure your life doesn’t fall apart when circumstances beyond your control take over your life? And how are you supposed to keep track of the many important things that you’ve been asked to do in your limited time?

In my mind, these revelations answer those questions by pointing to the importance of focusing on two audiences: God and our community. 

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From acting as a scribe for the translation of the Book of Mormon to founding the Relief Society, Emma Hale Smith was a key figure in the Restoration. She was also her husband’s anchor and the love of his life. But how much do we really know about her role, teachings, and leadership?

Drawing upon letters written by Emma to Joseph and to many others, along with minutes from Relief Society meetings and other artifacts, this book sketches a more complete portrait of this elect lady. It allows each of us to become personally acquainted with Emma as we learn more about her essential work as a leader, a wife, and a mother in the early days of the Church.

Today’s guest is Dr. Jennifer Reeder, who wrote a biography of Emma Smith, entitled FIRST: THE LIFE AND FAITH OF EMMA SMITH from Deseret Book. Dr. Reeder will be delivering the Neal A. Maxwell Institute Lecture on November 13 at 7 PM at the Hinckley Alumni Center at BYU. Make plans to attend her lecture! And follow us on Instagram at @BYUMaxwell.

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On January 19, 1841 Joseph Smith voiced a revelation that declared Nauvoo as the new gathering place for the Saints. Much had happened since we left Joseph in section 123. After the expulsion from Missouri, 5,000 Saints scattered traveling east across Missouri to safety in Illinois, 200 miles east of Far West, Missouri 1838, with a population of 1,800. They took in 5,000 Mormon refugees. The citizens of Quincy did much to welcome the Saints officially resolving to “extend kindness” to the Saints, to speak out against those with prejudices against the Saints, help them find employment and housing, and their last resolution: “Resolved, That we recommend to all the citizens of Quincy, that in all their intercourse with the strangers, they use and observe a becoming decorum and delicacy, and be particularly careful not to indulge in any conversation or expressions calculated to wound their feelings, or in any way to reflect upon those, who by every law of humanity, are entitled to our sympathy and commiseration.”

This generous example stands through time. 

Quincy was an important respite for the Saints, but they soon began to move about 50 miles to the north to another bend in the Mississippi to a place originally called Commerce. There they cleared trees, drained swampy land, built houses, planted crops and began to build a city. What we now know as section 124 became a sacred charter for that city Joseph Smith called Nauvoo. This revelation centered the Saints, enabled them to think of Nauvoo as a new home, and sharpened their focus as they worked to build up the city. 

As the Joseph Smith Papers tell us: [this was] One of the few revelations from the Illinois period to be later canonized by the church, the 19 January revelation served as divine direction for the Saints for the duration of their time in Nauvoo. Mayor John C. Bennett read it at the general conference of the church in Nauvoo on 7 April 1841. The text was published in the 1 June issue of the church’s Nauvoo newspaper, Times and Seasons, as well as in the September 1841 issue of the Latter-day Saints’ Millennial Star, printed in Manchester, England. The Saints in Illinois referred to the revelation frequently in print and in public settings.

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Everything changed for Joseph Smith and the Latter-day Saints in a few short months in 1838. 5000 Saints gathered in the burgeoning city of Far West, Missouri to celebrate the 4th of July. Confident and secure in their main settlement, Sidney Rigdon declared that if a mob came again, it would be a “war of extermination.” His words proved prophetic–the Missourians would remember that language. Governor Lilburn Boggs signed Executive Order number 44 the 27th of October declaring that “the Mormons must be treated as enemies and must be exterminated or driven from the state.” After the Hawn’s Mill Massacre and the siege at Far West, 66 Latter-day Saint men were arrested. Joseph Smith, Hyrum Smith, and Sidney Rigdon, as well as Caleb Baldwin, Lyman Wight and Alexander McRae were eventually jailed in the Clay County Jail at Liberty, Missouri for “crimes of high treason”–an offense that did not provide the possibility of bail. BH Roberts would later call the jail a “prison temple,” yet it was a squalid, dirty, and dark place. They spent four months there as the Saints were scattered across Missouri hoping to find safety in the city of Quincy, Illinois.

Joseph wrote his first general missive to the saints in the middle of December. After a long winter in the jail with “screeking iron gates,” Joseph wrote again to the Saints as the spring began to thaw, not knowing they would soon escape. The Doctrine and Covenants sections we know today as sections 121, 122, and 123 are all portions of a larger letter written to the Saints on March 22nd. Not being able to stand up straight in the jail, in the letter Joseph also described how, “Our souls have been bowed down and we have suffered much distress … and truly we have had to wade through an ocean of trouble.” 

Joseph directed the letter “to the church of Latterday saints at Quincy Illinois and scattered abroad and to Bishop Edward Partridge in particular,” however he sent the missive to his wife Emma because he wanted her “to have the first reading of it.”

The 17-page letter was quickly circulated amongst the Saints. As members would often do with revelations, some created their own handwritten copies. Mary Fielding Smith described the letter as “food to the hungry.” 

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Eugene England was many things: a scholar, a theologian, an essayist, a husband, father, and teacher. But, above all, he defined himself as a disciple of Jesus Christ and a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Today, we speak with Terryl Givens, a Senior Research Fellow at the Neal A. Maxwell Institute, to discuss his biography of Gene England, entitled Stretching the Heavens: The Life of Eugene England and the Crisis of Modern Mormonism (UNC Press, 2021). We discuss Gene’s approach to discipleship, scholarship, and how he wouldn’t have separated his pursuit of knowledge and bridgebuilding from his very core beliefs in the restored gospel of Jesus Christ.

Could you do us a favor and review, rate, and subscribe to the Maxwell Institute Podcast wherever you find podcasts? Thank you! Now, without any further do, let’s start our conversation with Terryl Givens.

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