What if: Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormons, is not killed in jail?

[brunohusker]

I’ve never been Mormon but I’ve always been interested in their history l, mostly their migration west as I grew up close to where the Mormon Trail was.

Anyways, the big reason Mormons went west was due to Brigham Young, and their persecution in Illinois. However I’m unaware if Smith had any plans to leave Nauvoo before his arrest or anything like that, but where might Mormons go and what would the seemingly slippery and imaginative Joseph Smith do?

Smith somehow kept followers even with his sketch behavior and revelations as well as running an army (the Nauvoo legion) and having his church vote as a block. Would he pick up for Utah (then in Mexico) like otl Brigham Young, or go to California like early and much lesser known Mormon pioneer Sam Brannon wanted? Or might he just fight the federal and state militias in Illinois?

Also, if he isn’t martyred, do Mormons even last or are they just another forgotten utopian type group from that time period, or if they make it are they the same but less centered on a region and spread out like Jehovah’s Witnesses? There seems to be a lot of possibilities if Smith isn’t killed.

 

[Gabingston]

Not the first time I've posted a song from The Book of Mormon soundtrack (not even the first of this song), probably won't be the last.

 

[Marc Anthony]

Not the first time I've posted a song from The Book of Mormon soundtrack (not even the first of this song), probably won't be the last.

I remember skipping Church one Saturday (in Israel Mormons go on Saturday rather than Sunday) to whatch "All about the Mormons" marvelous day.

 

[Marc Anthony]

Anyway, I don't know what possibility would be the most likely, but perhaps he stays in Illinois to try to affect the demographics.
Like I said somewhere else on this site: I have an idea for part of a TL where Mormons go to Oregon instead of Utah due to a surviving Iturbide Mexico beating the Texan Revolution.
If anyone wants to use that Idea, go ahead, you have my blessing.

 

[Gabingston]

I remember skipping Church one Saturday (in Israel Mormons go on Saturday rather than Sunday) to whatch "All about the Mormons" marvelous day.

 

[atlatlman]

Most likely it would be similar to the Community of Christ. If I can remember correctly, the death of Joseph Smith and Hyrum Smith set up a bit of a succession crisis in the Church, with the majority choosing to follow Brigham Young and his church council while the rest followed others like Joseph Smith III. Most likely, it would be smaller today, having less of a broader appeal to many, but if the Community of Christ (which is what those groups coalesced into) exists today, then I see no reason why an alt-Mormon church wouldn’t.

 

[durante]

Things would have got real weird (even weirder) real quick.

Joseph Smith was running for President at the time of his death.

If you're looking into the early history I recommend this series (there are 30 videos of an hour or so in length)

 

[brunohusker]

Anyway, I don't know what possibility would be the most likely, but perhaps he stays in Illinois to try to affect the demographics.
Like I said somewhere else on this site: I have an idea for part of a TL where Mormons go to Oregon instead of Utah due to a surviving Iturbide Mexico beating the Texan Revolution.
If anyone wants to use that Idea, go ahead, you have my blessing.

I heard that one of the reasons they had congregated at Winter Quarters in what's now Omaha Nebraska is that at the time this was Indian Territory, and not really under any authority but the federal government, but they were in a way kind of already left alone. Of course this is after Smith was gone, but I could see how they might try to establish such a city, and do so under the guise of ministering to the "Lamanites" (Native Americans were seen as the remnants of this tribe in the Book of Mormon IIRC, but I'm not a Mormon so I might not be quite correct) and being it'd be relatively close to their self claimed holy land of Jackson County MO, maybe Smith plans to take it back and base forces in Indian Territory. Might be interesting who they side with during the time of Bleeding Kansas, or if they are a kind of third side, or even propose taking northwest Missouri as a kind of buffer zone.

Most likely it would be similar to the Community of Christ. If I can remember correctly, the death of Joseph Smith and Hyrum Smith set up a bit of a succession crisis in the Church, with the majority choosing to follow Brigham Young and his church council while the rest followed others like Joseph Smith III. Most likely, it would be smaller today, having less of a broader appeal to many, but if the Community of Christ (which is what those groups coalesced into) exists today, then I see no reason why an alt-Mormon church wouldn’t.

This is interesting. Again I've never been a mormon but just find their history fascinating and I've looked into the different break off groups. It does seem like the Mormons would be more or less like the C of C, and unless he really wants to leave for another place like Brigham Young, but then they'd just be another church, and honestly wouldn't be all that notable. Again I would see them maybe like Jehovah's Witnesses, or even like a few of the smaller Pentecostal churches who are not Trinitarian but are more organized. Granted, I don't see Smith ever wanting to go back to Missouri again, or once he passes on the idea of congregating all the Saints in one place is pushed out of the way. He might even change his views on this, as he seems to have done many times in regards to theology in the church, going from Trinitarian Christianity towards what would be the basis of Mormonism today.

Also, while Brigham Young mostly seems to have been a follower until he took over his section of the church, I could see how maybe he'd lead a splinter sect away from Joseph, or Joseph might cast him out. Maybe the Brighamites would believe in things like the Adam-God theory, and be openly polygamous (where as if he lived, I doubt Joseph ever would be open about it, and would deny it probably) and affirm more racist practices (not that Smith wasn't racist for his time, or against slavery at the time of his death) and maybe the Brighamites are a tiny sect compared with the Smith led LDS church that is more or less like the Community of Christ.

 

[manitobot]

The ban on black people from obtaining priesthood or racial intermarriage was not part of Joseph Smith's philosophy, but came I believe after his death. If I remember he also wanted to evangelize more intensely to Native Americans, though I am not sure if his views on Native Americans were more enlightened than others. He was still a polygamist, but like others have mentioned that would have been kept more as a secret. As a result, the Mormons could be much like other Restorationist religious groups at the time.

 

[Beefhammer]

Then he lives to be put on trial. Not as a martyr, but a man in a court of law facing credible charges of serious crimes. And it's unlikely to end well for him.

Here's the thing, I don't think that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints would have survived had Joseph Smith Jr. survived. As time went on, Joseph Smith Jr. increasingly begun to develop his theology away from the vanilla protestantism he had originally presented in the Book of Mormon. Exaltation, polygamy, the Masonic-inspired temple ceremonies, etc. I don't think that Joseph Smith would simple have stopped developing his doctrines by the mid-1840s had he survived. Remember that the Book of Joseph that he claimed had accompanied the Book of Abraham in the papyri he purchased back in Kirtland still was "untranslated". Likely, he would have produced such a work as well, going more deeply into the themes he had begun sketching on in the Book of Abraham and the King Follett Discourse.

I am particularly intrigued by the Adam-God doctrine, enthusiastically preached by Brigham Young during the Utah years. Brigham insisted on that this was no invention of his own, but only what he had been taught by Joseph Smith, and took it so seriously as to include it in the so-called lecture at the veil in the early temple ceremonies. I don't see why we should doubt Brigham on this point, as Joseph was known to first only spread new doctrine to a few select before revealing it to the membership at large (see for example exaltation, polygamy, etc.). I don't think it's unlikely that a Book of Joseph would have explored this.

Then there's Smith's fascination with Masonry. The temple ceremony is filled to the brim with Masonic influences, and early Mormons taught that this was because Masonry had its origins at Solomon's Temple (another belief very common at the time), which Mormon doctrine teaches contained the very same rituals modern Mormon temples do. It had over the years however become "corrupted", and Joseph Smith Jr. merely restored them.

And then there are Joseph Smith's consistent failures with his communitarian and utopian designs, such as the United Order, the Kirtland Safety and Anti-Banking Society, Zion's Camp, etc. These were the failures that led to the most defections and apostasies during his lifetime. Unlike Brigham Young, Joseph Smith, Jr. was a terrible administrator and executer. He lack the shrewdness, the pragmatism and the sense for business.

And then as always, there is polygamy, which during Smith's time as prophet was practiced with the utmost secrecy, because many leading members of the Church were actually fiercely against it, such as Sidney Rigdon. And do not forget that Emma Smith hated the practice, and several times throated to leave Joseph and go east with their children back to her parents.

And then, there's Joseph's increasingly megalomaniacal personality, from his being crowned King of Israel by the Council of Fifty in 1844, to his campaign for the United States Presidency that very same year, when apostles were sent on missions to campaign for him.

No, if all this is allowed to continue brewing, we're looking at impending implosion. Polygamy will eventually make Sidney Rigdon leave the Church, with him denouncing Joseph. Emma will eventually say that enough is enough, and desert Joseph, returning east, possibly taking their children with her. The increasingly syncretic theology will soon enough start alienating even the most die-hard supporters such as Brigham Young, John Taylor and Heber C. Kimball. It will not surprise me if everything culminates in Joseph Smith, Jr. declaring that he is Christ reincarnated, and the whole superstructure ultimately collapses.