A Different Joseph Smith?

[Hnau]

In this thread, postulate on either A) a different Joseph Smith who has different viewpoints and has a different religious career (or a different career altogether) or B) a different American religious figure in the early 1800s that replaces Joseph Smith and creates a different religion that capitalizes on the Great Awakening happening at the time.

I've thought it would be interesting to have what I call a "non-Mormon" Joseph Smith. Instead of claiming that he found and translated ancient Native American scripture that shed new light on Christianity, he just says that he was visited by God, was selected as a prophet, and he publishes his ideas as his own and his revelations as having been sent to him personally (as he did with the Doctrine & Covenants). This would avoid all of the problems modern Mormonism has with the Book of Mormon and the lack of archeological evidence for civilizations depicted in it. This does create something of a problem though for Smith's new religion, as according to Rough Stone Rolling by Richard Bushman many of the converts to Mormonism paid little attention to Joseph Smith originally, instead they were converted by the Book of Mormon and the idea that God had more scriptures to reveal (in English and to Americans no less). Brigham Young, for example, was converted by the Book of Mormon alone. Many new converts regarded Joseph Smith as a strange illiterate bumpkin of a prophet and unsuited to the new faith that was painted so grand and majestic in the Book of Mormon. So, with a "non-Mormon" Joseph Smith, the movement might take a while longer to get started, but it also means that those who follow Smith would meet less resistance because of less numbers.

Does anyone else have any ideas? One poster on AH.com once put forward the idea of a religious figure emerging during the Great Awakening and preaching an American version of the Russian Skoptsy sect which practices castration as a religious ritual. Creepy, man! That'd be crazy to have a movement like that on American soil.

 

[edvardas]

appetizer

I regard the book of mormon as the appetizer and the Doctrine And Covenants as the main course. People took the BOM and said "This is pretty good stuff. What else did he have"?
I think the main what if is what if section 132 was never revealed or what ever. This is the part which advocated polygamy.

 

[Hnau]

Yeah, Mormon polygamy did generate a lot of antagonism and opposition. Rates of conversion perhaps would be higher without it. There is also evidence to suggest that birth rates are higher per woman in a monogamous relationship than in a polygamous relationship. However, I feel that if you just removed polygamy modern-day Mormonism would be mostly the same theologically just with more members, higher activity rates, higher presence around the world. More members could definitely push Mormonism away from its conservative American roots, however, help the religion become more multicultural.

I think D&C is definitely important and perhaps more important theologically than the BOM, but according to Rough Stone Rolling it was the publication and dissemination of the Book of Mormon that really led to a successful missionary program and high levels of conversion.

 

[Zioneer]

Yeah, I think without polygamy, Joseph Smith would have been much better regarded by most of the non-Mormons. Without it, he might have a chance to live a bit longer (I think he'd still get murdered because of his political actions and power), and the early LDS Church would grow a bit larger and more liberal overall.

The one positive thing polygamy seems to have provided for the Mormons is that it bound the loyal Mormons more closely together. After all, if you're a polygamist, or join a religion that is polygamist while the rest of the nation is not, you're likely to either fall away from the religion, or be more socially bound to your fellow members and prophet, rather than the non-Mormons.

So perhaps Smith pushes a different tradition that socially binds the Saints together, but one that is not as divisive as polygamy.

 

[Hnau]

The one positive thing polygamy seems to have provided for the Mormons is that it bound the loyal Mormons more closely together. After all, if you're a polygamist, or join a religion that is polygamist while the rest of the nation is not, you're likely to either fall away from the religion, or be more socially bound to your fellow members and prophet, rather than the non-Mormons.

So perhaps Smith pushes a different tradition that socially binds the Saints together, but one that is not as divisive as polygamy.

I totally agree, I think that was definitely one of the pros to adopting polygamy. However, the question is, did Smith encourage polygamy or not because he wanted social cohesion? As for another practice that would have bound the Saints together... it needs to break a social norm but be somewhat supported by the Bible or Book of Mormon so that people can be converted to it. Perhaps even more dedication towards the United Order and Christian communism? It would be hard to break away from a church that owns everything that supports you and your family. However, it seems like Mormon experiments into Christian communism always led to disaster. I wonder how they could have changed it so that it would have worked.

 

[mrmandias]

Yeah, Mormon polygamy did generate a lot of antagonism and opposition. Rates of conversion perhaps would be higher without it. There is also evidence to suggest that birth rates are higher per woman in a monogamous relationship than in a polygamous relationship. However, I feel that if you just removed polygamy modern-day Mormonism would be mostly the same theologically just with more members, higher activity rates, higher presence around the world. More members could definitely push Mormonism away from its conservative American roots, however, help the religion become more multicultural.

I think D&C is definitely important and perhaps more important theologically than the BOM, but according to Rough Stone Rolling it was the publication and dissemination of the Book of Mormon that really led to a successful missionary program and high levels of conversion.

1. On polygamy, its hard to overestimate its effect in ethnogenesis. It was the pariah doctrine that kept the Mormons from assimilating long enough to put down roots as a distinct subculture. Polygamy was also what kept the Mormon tension high enough with the rest of the world to keep converts (see Stark for more explanation of this). The Word of Wisdom maintains Mormon peoplehood and tension, but isn't enough to have created it in the first place.

2. Birth rates per women were somewhat lower but *Mormon* birthrates were higher. Recent research shows that there was a significant imbalance between Mormon women and men in Utah.

Without the Book of Mormon and its strong traditional Christianity, the Mormon Church may have become much more theologically distinct. The anti-Mormon caricatures or some of the 19th century high speculation may be the Mormon mainstream.

Joseph Smith as a canonized Catholic saint would be an interesting ATL.

 

[Zioneer]

How about if Joseph Smith preaches that his followers must have good relations with the Native Americans (who would be called "Lamanites" by Joseph), and embarks on an attempt to combine Native American and early Mormon cultures? Stuff like meeting up with Sequoyah and taking a serious look at the syllabary, and even fostering de facto "alliances" with Native Americans? Perhaps Joseph Smith still likes the idea of polygamy, but only with Native women?

That would certainly provide an interesting contrast to OTL Mormonism.

 

[Dan1988]

Joseph Smith as a canonized Catholic saint would be an interesting ATL.

Hmm, that would be an interesting thought. In that case, what if he becomes a 19th century version of Frère André for *Mormons like what Frère André was for French-Canadians?

 

[bayzing]

I've thought it would be interesting to have what I call a "non-Mormon" Joseph Smith. Instead of claiming that he found and translated ancient Native American scripture that shed new light on Christianity, he just says that he was visited by God, was selected as a prophet, and he publishes his ideas as his own and his revelations as having been sent to him personally (as he did with the Doctrine & Covenants). This would avoid all of the problems modern Mormonism has with the Book of Mormon and the lack of archeological evidence for civilizations depicted in it.

First of all....Mormonism never goes anywhere without the Book of Mormon. By all accounts, Joseph Smith was dirt poor, uneducated, unremarkable, and un-liked as a teenager and a young adult. You can debate about the origins of the Book of Mormon all you want... but at the very least it's an incredibly complex book with all sorts of history, religion, and doctrine intertwined. Without the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith can barely hold down a job to support he and his wife. With the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith instantly has credibility and an aura that allows him to quickly win converts... including a respected and educated Sidney Rigdon, who converts in 1830 and brings with him dozens (if not hundreds) of followers... which instantly propels the brand new church from a block party, to a real movement.

Meanwhile... I'm not so sure that modern Mormonism has problems with the Book of Mormon. The Mormon church is still growing at an incredibly fast rate right now. I think the Mormon's, along with some researchers and BYU have done a pretty good job of refuting claims (or at least muddying the waters) of there being no archeological evidence for the Book of Mormon, or that DNA evidence has somehow disproved its authenticity.

-------------

JOSEPH SMITH WITH A DIFFERENT CAREER...

It's hard to imagine someone with more revolutionary ideas than Joseph Smith in the 19th century. Polygamy? Baptisms for the dead? God was once a man? Man can become God? Those are pretty unbelievable pronouncements today... let alone in the pre-Victorian era of which Joseph Smith belonged. However, I think his career and history could have been very different if you change up the geography. Consider...

What if Joseph hadn't been so obsessed with Missouri during the 1830's... but had instead sought to establish Zion in a place that was less settled? Imagine a revelation from Smith in 1831 that the LDS should gather somewhere in Texas (possibly near present day Dallas, or Houston). They would have been the first settlers of that area (Houston wasn't settled until the late 1830's, and Dallas wasn't settled until the 1840's). If the LDS been the FIRST to settle in a region in the early 1830's... could they have grown to number 40,000 or 50,000 before running into friction with other Settlers and/or the US government or Mexican Government? Obviously there are a lot of wild cards in this scenario. I think Joseph was looking to stay in (what was then) the United States... and that region probably wasn't even on his radar in the early 1830's (though according the Rough Stone Rolling, Texas was on Joseph's radar in 1844). With this scenario... the history of Joseph Smith, the Mormon church, and probably the entire history of Texas would have taken a different course.

In reality... the scenario above is somewhat similar to what actually happened to the Mormons... instead of Texas... they ended up being the first to settle in Utah... but only after being driven from Missouri and then Illinois in the late 1840's. Once in Utah they lived pretty much in isolation and built up a society for decades before finally running into some friction in the 1880's with the US government. But by the 1880's, as the railroad brought immigrants westward and as the Federal Government started to crack down on Polygamy... there were already over 150,000 Mormons. They were no longer a little sect that could be easily broken up. I think you can attribute a larger part of the sustainability and growth of the LDS church to the fact they were isolated, insulated, and alone in the Utah desert for nearly half-century. They had to work hard to survive. Two or three generations of Mormons grew up with little or no knowledge of the outside world... because the outside world was several hundreds of miles away. Which brings me to Polygamy...

Without Polygamy, Joseph Smith quite possibly lives another 10-20 years. Polygamy was secretive and extremely controversial in Nauvoo. Joseph had several of his closest confidants turn on him because of Polygamy... most notably William Law, who was a church leader before splitting the faith in 1844, and subsequently starting the Nauvoo Expositor. Anyone familiar with Joseph Smith knows that the incidents following the destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor Press led directly to Joseph's incarceration and death in June 1844. So Polygamy essentially caused Joseph Smith's death.

I'll make the argument that without Polygamy, the LDS church today would look very different. Here's my alternate history timeline of Mormonism without Polygamy....

Joseph Smith possibly lives another 10-20 years. The LDS stay in Nauvoo... and it becomes an important city in the Midwest. Salt Lake City is founded decades later... and today is roughly 1/3 the size. Mormonism continues its incredible growth in the 1840's - 1870's, but loses its distinctiveness with mainline protestant religions. The church and its members assimilate into the general population and culture of the late 1800's and today Mormonism is much more like Methodism or Presbyterianism... with an uncanonized inspirational text called The Book of Mormon. It's members are not quite as vigilant or conservative, it's temple ordinances not as controversial (and perhaps non existant), and its health code (the word of wisdom) is a guideline rather than a measuring stick for obedience. Ultimately today's Mormon church looks very similar to the Community of Christ Church (formerly known as RLDS) albeit its membership is somewhere in the 5-10 million range, mostly centered in Illinois and Iowa, with relatively little membership outside the USA.

 

[Hnau]

By all accounts, Joseph Smith was dirt poor, uneducated, unremarkable, and un-liked as a teenager and a young adult.

I don't think you could say that about a man who created what is now becoming a world religion. Joseph Smith wasn't a buffoon. He had a typical frontier education for the time period. He might have had problems with spelling but he was a voracious reader of the Bible and was deeply interested in theology from a young age. Poor and disliked by many as a young man, certainly, but he wasn't uneducated or unremarkable. The guy was serious about learning Hebrew and Greek in his later years... that kind of task can't be taken up by someone who is unremarkable. In fact, being a religious leader and thinker by itself makes him quite remarkable. He had a lot of ideas that came from no where, such as divine progression, the plan of salvation, American Zionism, as you said. Joseph Smith might not have been highly educated by the standards then or now, but he was at the very least a smart guy, and I think there is good evidence that he was a genius in certain aspects.

Mormon apologetics have only in recent years moved away from confronting very basic problems in LDS theology, and if it was able to do a good job at defending its claims, then there wouldn't be the huge-scale apostasy that's happening right now. Elder Jensen of the Quorum of the Seventy has said that people are leaving the church in higher numbers than ever before. I've seen statistics that report 40%-50% of those who leave the LDS Church cite their primary reason as "unmet spiritual needs", but the article I linked to makes mention of the fact that linguistic and archeological problems with Book of Mormon are also causing people to leave. We've got around a 50% activity rate in the United State and missionaries retain only 25%-33% of new converts worldwide. There's lots of statistical evidence to show that in terms of active members, the LDS Church has stopped growing and has leveled off, and that the higher numbers reported every year merely reflect the "fast baptisms" that are being made primarily in Latin America, Africa, and Asia, where it's possible to baptize large numbers of people that ultimately don't remain in the LDS Church.

I think the LDS Church is less socially/spiritually fulfilling in some aspects and also a very inefficient and poorly managed missionary program, but lack of archeological, scientific, linguistic, and genetic evidence for the Book of Mormon is a big issue as well. Mormon apologists have muddied the waters to some extent... good rebuttals to common criticisms are definitely out there, on the internet, but they are so poorly publicized that I feel it does little in keeping the majority of the world from believing the Book of Mormon has been entirely disproven by science.

I like the idea of Joseph Smith looking immediately to Texas as Zion, instead of Missouri. It would be cool to run with that. Brigham Young was considering in the 1840s a move to Texas rather than Utah, but it might have been too late to establish an isolated presence there. I don't think that non-polygamous Mormons would have been able to stay in Illinois indefinitely. There were other issues going on other than polygamy. I mean, if the Missourians could throw out the Saints in the 1830s before polygamy was really even mentioned, I'm sure the people of Illinois could get riled up just as much. Will it take longer? Definitely. And it might not lead to the martyrdom of Joseph Smith. But I believe eventually they'll have to leave Nauvoo. I also don't think they'd give up the Book of Mormon if they remained in the Illinois region. The Community of Christ adapted to the local religious climate only after decades and with a very small membership base. If the entire LDS Church remained in Illinois, outside religious and social ideas would be much less influential. Now, the Book of Mormon was recently only super-emphasized in the 1980s. Beforehand it was canon, but many Latter-day Saints regarded it equal to or even secondary to the Old and New Testaments. Perhaps an Illinois-based LDS Church would have continued to de-emphasize the BoM in this manner, but I don't think it would fall out of canon.

 

[Dan1988]

I like the idea of Joseph Smith looking immediately to Texas as Zion, instead of Missouri. It would be cool to run with that. Brigham Young was considering in the 1840s a move to Texas rather than Utah, but it might have been too late to establish an isolated presence there.

Definitely a interesting idea, true. However, for an isolated presence, there are some ideas that could be worth exploring. For example - historically speaking, Texas/Tejas was originally a small state in the Mexican hierarchy, as the State of Texas also sits on land that once belonged to the states of Coahuila and Chihuahua - in the latter case, think El Paso, TX/Ciudad Juárez, Chih., which was never considered part of Texas until after the Texas Revolution. An LDS El Paso would be one idea that could be interesting, for example.

 

[Zioneer]

Aw, no interest in the "obsession with Native Americans instead of polygamy" idea? I think it would work, especially since OTL Mormons had some limited success in having good relations with Native Americans.

Also, agreeing with you Hnau. Joseph Smith, whether you believe he was a prophet or not, was a religious genius. He managed to create a completely distinct religious tradition that endures even to this day in a time where most religious groups either assimilated or were crushed. He manages to meld together a multitude of differing spiritual traditions, he created a culture that was loyal to most of his ideals, and he was effective at picking competent lieutenants (mostly).

 

[Hnau]

I would be more interested in an ATL Mormonism that is obsessed with Native Americans if the Saints could intermarry with some other group than the Plains Indians, the closest to them. I mean, the Plains Indians were nomadic, warlike, and anti-white man... not an easy deal.

Hmmm... okay, what if the Mormons move to Oklahoma, right as the Cherokee and other tribes are experiencing the Indian Removal. They team up with the US soldiers in the area as well as the more civilized tribes to beat back the raids of the Plains Indians like the Osage. Maybe Joseph Smith negotiates with the chieftains of various tribes to recreate Prophetstown and a version Tecumseh's Confederacy? That would be cool... but Oklahoma is the worst place to do it. They wouldn't be isolated, and they wouldn't thrive there.

What if Smith sends the Apostles not to Europe in the 1830s, as in OTL, but to various Native American tribes such as the Cherokee? Early evangelism in Europe was important for the LDS Church, as it was there the majority of the body of the early church was converted. I doubt there would be as much success among the Native Americans as in Europe, but perhaps you could get something rolling. The Church would have less membership for a while though, and may not attain the numbers it has now.

If some kind of alliance can be worked out (mass conversion seems to me improbable), maybe some Amerindian tribes and the Latter-day Saints would be able to work together to build something interesting. For some reason I like the idea of them moving to Oregon Territory instead of the bleak Great Basin. There would be tribes there as well that maybe the LDS could work with.

 

[Hnau]

Yeah, the more I research the Christianization of Native Americans the more I discover that the American Indians were really resistant to conversion. I can't find conversion numbers anywhere to any Christian church, which would help me gauge how successful missionary efforts would be among them. There is the story of the Christian Munsee, in which virtually an entire tribe was converted to the Moravian Church, but I can't find any numbers on them.

There are reports that the Shawnee, which lived in Oklahoma, resisted Christian evangelism efforts for more than a century, consistently denying interest in converting to Christianity. Tough stuff.

Seven Mormon missionaries sent to England in 1837, including Heber C. Kimball, were able to baptize 2,000 individuals in eight months. That's in high-population density, agricultural, English-speaking, accustomed-to-freedom-of-religion, already-Christianized England. How many could they convert among the Native Americans? Honestly, I think you'd be lucky to convert a dozen, based on journals from some missionaries that went to the American Indians. Not very receptive people.

Now, I think it would be cool if Joseph Smith could have been born say thirty years earlier. He could have taken his persecuted religious minority to Tecumseh's Confederacy and offered an alliance with the Native Americans against the Americans. Mormon farmers, blacksmiths, gunsmiths, teachers, and ranchers could have created communities through Amerindian territory and provided technical and military assistance to their armies. Maybe instead of letting it collapse, the denizens of Tecumseh's Confederacy could have taken their state west to Oregon on an exodus with the rest of the Latter-day Saints. Maybe they could have kept non-Mormon American colonists out of the region and would accept British protection when they declare independence? Over the years the Mormons would intermarry with "civilized" Amerindian tribes and religious syncretism would pick up... Something like that.

 

[willbell]

By all accounts, Joseph Smith was dirt poor, uneducated, unremarkable, and un-liked as a teenager and a young adult.

I am more inclined to believe that he was a successful conman, who was minimally educated, unremarkable (considering that he was one of hundreds claiming to make similar claims just in upstate New York), and an enchanting but stupid teenager.
Here is an interesting discussion:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTi8dq4KAeE

 

[Hnau]

If he was just a conman, he was either a brilliant one or an extraordinarily lucky one. Which is more probable? He may have been one of hundreds making religious claims, but his stuck for whatever reason and is still inspiring enough people around the world to keep billions of dollars coming into the LDS Church. If you read his written works, whether or not you believe its true, the theology there is very advanced and complex. He was an incredibly deep thinker.

Joseph Smith was absolutely remarkable, no doubt about it. You don't have to believe he was a prophet to know that. What he did has not been replicated since. He's easily up there with Buddha and Muhammad. Also, I doubt the things he did would have been the work of a simple conman. He didn't establish the church just to get rich or powerful from it. Something more complex was going on. Reading Rough Stone Rolling and the first-hand accounts of his behavior definitely gave me a new perspective on him and his motives. Was he deliberately lying? That's up for debate, but he wasn't just out for money.

I'll watch that video though and see if I learn something new. David Fitzgerald? Smart guy, I like him.

 

[Hnau]

Hmmm... nothing new in that video. Pretty much just a summary of Mormonism with almost no apologetic content.

 

[mrmandias]

Hnau, these are standard talking points of an ex-Mormon/foyer Mormon polemic that aren't nearly as true or as universally applicable as they would like to think (or you, I assume).

Its only a small minority of people for whom religious conversion or deconversion is straightforwardly an intellectual process of weighing evidence. Most people don't even bother, and those who do are usually looking for reasons to justify an emotional or psychological need that they have.

Even if Joseph was a remarkable individual, I agree with the others who claim that the Book of Mormon was essential to the spread and success of the early Mormon church. Look at Terry Givens' historiography on the subject for an intro. I would even go further--the sociological position and institutional and doctrinal history of the Mormon church is unintelligible without the Book of Mormon.

There is no fundamental rule that remarkable people are going to make a huge splash no matter what direction they take in life. In any age there are many remarkable people, but its luck and circumstances that determine whether they can put lighting in a bottle. If you change their circumstances in a major way, probably all you do is that you release the lightning from the bottle.

That said, if this is something that matters to you personally, which it sounds like it is, this is a better topic for Chat or for PMs than for an AH.

I don't think you could say that about a man who created what is now becoming a world religion. Joseph Smith wasn't a buffoon. He had a typical frontier education for the time period. He might have had problems with spelling but he was a voracious reader of the Bible and was deeply interested in theology from a young age. Poor and disliked by many as a young man, certainly, but he wasn't uneducated or unremarkable. The guy was serious about learning Hebrew and Greek in his later years... that kind of task can't be taken up by someone who is unremarkable. In fact, being a religious leader and thinker by itself makes him quite remarkable. He had a lot of ideas that came from no where, such as divine progression, the plan of salvation, American Zionism, as you said. Joseph Smith might not have been highly educated by the standards then or now, but he was at the very least a smart guy, and I think there is good evidence that he was a genius in certain aspects.

Mormon apologetics have only in recent years moved away from confronting very basic problems in LDS theology, and if it was able to do a good job at defending its claims, then there wouldn't be the huge-scale apostasy that's happening right now. Elder Jensen of the Quorum of the Seventy has said that people are leaving the church in higher numbers than ever before. I've seen statistics that report 40%-50% of those who leave the LDS Church cite their primary reason as "unmet spiritual needs", but the article I linked to makes mention of the fact that linguistic and archeological problems with Book of Mormon are also causing people to leave. We've got around a 50% activity rate in the United State and missionaries retain only 25%-33% of new converts worldwide. There's lots of statistical evidence to show that in terms of active members, the LDS Church has stopped growing and has leveled off, and that the higher numbers reported every year merely reflect the "fast baptisms" that are being made primarily in Latin America, Africa, and Asia, where it's possible to baptize large numbers of people that ultimately don't remain in the LDS Church.

I think the LDS Church is less socially/spiritually fulfilling in some aspects and also a very inefficient and poorly managed missionary program, but lack of archeological, scientific, linguistic, and genetic evidence for the Book of Mormon is a big issue as well. Mormon apologists have muddied the waters to some extent... good rebuttals to common criticisms are definitely out there, on the internet, but they are so poorly publicized that I feel it does little in keeping the majority of the world from believing the Book of Mormon has been entirely disproven by science.

I like the idea of Joseph Smith looking immediately to Texas as Zion, instead of Missouri. It would be cool to run with that. Brigham Young was considering in the 1840s a move to Texas rather than Utah, but it might have been too late to establish an isolated presence there. I don't think that non-polygamous Mormons would have been able to stay in Illinois indefinitely. There were other issues going on other than polygamy. I mean, if the Missourians could throw out the Saints in the 1830s before polygamy was really even mentioned, I'm sure the people of Illinois could get riled up just as much. Will it take longer? Definitely. And it might not lead to the martyrdom of Joseph Smith. But I believe eventually they'll have to leave Nauvoo. I also don't think they'd give up the Book of Mormon if they remained in the Illinois region. The Community of Christ adapted to the local religious climate only after decades and with a very small membership base. If the entire LDS Church remained in Illinois, outside religious and social ideas would be much less influential. Now, the Book of Mormon was recently only super-emphasized in the 1980s. Beforehand it was canon, but many Latter-day Saints regarded it equal to or even secondary to the Old and New Testaments. Perhaps an Illinois-based LDS Church would have continued to de-emphasize the BoM in this manner, but I don't think it would fall out of canon.

 

[Hnau]

Its only a small minority of people for whom religious conversion or deconversion is straightforwardly an intellectual process of weighing evidence. Most people don't even bother, and those who do are usually looking for reasons to justify an emotional or psychological need that they have.

I'm inclined to agree that before people start looking at evidence to support or deny religious claims most people have reasons to do so. I saw that a lot on my mission. However, there is some proof to the claims I'm making that there are aspects of the Book of Mormon that lead some members of the LDS Church to leave. Surely if some leave principally because of these issues, some people fail to convert solely because of it. There's a particularly interesting survey that was conducted recently that tries to determine what the main reasons are for members leaving the Church. I think it's possible the survey has inaccuracies, but I think data does point in the direction that lack of archeological/genetic/linguistic proof for the Book of Mormon leads people to become inactive or leave the LDS Church. According to the survey, 45% of those who left said that lack of genetic proof for the BoM was a major factor in their departure. 42% said that anachronisms such as horses and steel were a major factor. In all, 65% said that they stopped believing in the LDS Church because they lost faith in the Book of Mormon. There's some evidence that as many as 80,000 members leave the LDS Church every year, though I'd love to get a more definitive source. I have to admit, that's only recently... the departure of members based on problems with the Book of Mormon may only have really gotten serious in the last decade or so, but it's happening.

I agree with the others who claim that the Book of Mormon was essential to the spread and success of the early Mormon church. Look at Terry Givens' historiography on the subject for an intro. I would even go further--the sociological position and institutional and doctrinal history of the Mormon church is unintelligible without the Book of Mormon.

I agree.

That said, if this is something that matters to you personally, which it sounds like it is, this is a better topic for Chat or for PMs than for an AH.

For heaven's sake no. I made this thread specifically for alternate history purposes. I'm looking at the LDS Church as objectively as possible, noticing trends and making conjectures on how those trends could have been preempted or changed. When I talk about people leaving the LDS church because of anachronisms in the Book of Mormon, I'm talking about it in order to figure out the cost/benefit would be to have ALT Joseph Smith's sect go without it. I think it would be interesting to speculate on what a Joseph Smith-inspired ALT religion would be like today, if it would have more or less members, what doctrines it might espouse. I'm here for the AH.

I think you are right though that Smith would be hard-pressed to create something as powerful as a converting factor as the Book of Mormon. What if Joseph Smith translated a "BoM Lite", the Book of Mormon with all of the theological speeches and ideas but most of the "history" removed? Instead it would read more like the Pauline Epistles, ideas on theology as revealed by ancient Native American prophets of Christ, with only the basic description of how Christianity spread to the American continent and how the plates were made, etc. etc.

 

[mrmandias]

That poll is extremely methodologically dubious (i.e., worthless as data). When you talk about online ex-Mormons, you are talking about an already extremely select and unrepresentative group. Then you have a self-selected online poll, and you are asking people for retrospective reasons for a decision they already took, and in which they continue to be engaged in a polemic, and you get a result that has no significance at all.

You really need to read Givens book. He points out that for the first decades, the doctrines taught in the Book of Mormon made almost no difference at all. It was the history stuff, the sense of God's purpose unfolding throughout the world anciently, that was the real hook. Basically, all the stuff you want to take out. Now, you could posit a Book of Mormon that just happens to have historical information that won't be a stumbling block for early 21st century opinion, but frankly that sounds little too convenient to me.

But if you do want some kind of very alternate Mormonism, just for fun, maybe you could have the Book of Mormon be temple rites and have an earlier development of temple theology and ascent rituals in Mormonism. In fact, maybe you could have it be almost like Masonry, in that technically you don't have to even leave your prior church to join? Dunno, just throwing out ideas.