This is part two of a three-part series on John Corrill and dissent in Mormonism. In the first part, I introduced the topic and broke my silence on the topic of religion. These following parts are excerpts from an essay I wrote for a Brigham Young University religion class.
Introduction
My own experience growing up as a Latter-day Saint in Utah has been characterized by a deep suspicion of antagonistic viewpoints. Young people are taught what to do when they encounter “anti stuff” online, and opposing votes during general sustaining votes on church leaders are spoken of with disdain and frustration by those who support leaders. One 2020 article by Daniel C. Peterson in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ Ensign magazine compares dissenters to a variety of Book of Mormon villains and explains in bullet points that “dissenters harm themselves”; “dissension hinders the growth of the church and fosters unbelief”; “contention reflects spiritual error”; “dissenters can often be articulate and persuasive”; “contention often reflects greed, self-interest, and political ambition”; “dissenters are often deceived or deceivers”; “dissenters can become the fiercest enemies of the Church and the gospel”.
Public dissent from Latter-day Saint leaders or institutions takes many forms. There are those who, like Ezra Booth and Ryan Cragun, abandon membership and publicly denounce their former church as foolishness. There are those like John Dehlin who see themselves as emotional guides for those experiencing crises of faith. There are organizations like By Common Consent and Provo’s Prodigal Press that adopt a positive or neutral stance toward the organized church itself while often criticizing particular aspects of the community. There are people like Terryl and Fiona Givens, Melissa Inouye, and the rest of the Faith Matters organization who embrace the church and advocate progressive social change within it that sometimes runs against the institutional grain. There are those who appear “orthodox” to outside appearances, but have strong private feelings opposed to teachings and practices of the church.
Suspicion of dissent is not a new phenomenon among Latter-day Saints. The most obvious point of origin of the church’s suspicion of dissenters is the dramatic scenes that unfolded in the “Missouri Mormon War” of 1838, and the apostasy in Kirtland before that. In 1833, violence had forced Mormons to withdraw from “Zion” in Jackson County, Missouri and settle elsewhere in the state. Threats of violence were also what drove Joseph Smith, followed by hundreds of others, to move from Kirtland to the Missouri settlements in 1838, and internal and external pressures led Smith and others to fear that history would repeat itself and they would again be forced from their homes. A vigilante band known as “Danites” coalesced around Sampson Avard, and spurred on by rhetoric like that of Sidney Rigdon, who condemned disloyal members as “salt [that] have lost his savor…[and] is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men,” the Danites threatened and expelled dissenters.
Although the Danites’ actions only escalated tensions between the Mormons and their neighbors—with disastrous consequences—such an attitude of intolerance toward dissent has persisted throughout Mormon history. A strong formulation against dissension in the contemporary church is represented by statements in Dallin H. Oaks’ 1985 discourse “Reading Church History”, statements that Oaks has more recently restated (“Elder Oaks”, 2007), that emerged amid the Mark Hofmann crisis:
Criticism is particularly objectionable when it is directed toward Church authorities, general or local… Evil-speaking of the Lord’s anointed is in a class by itself. It is one thing to depreciate a person who exercises corporate power or even government power. It is quite another thing to criticize or depreciate a person for the performance of an office to which he or she has been called of God. It does not matter that the criticism is true.
Oaks, 1985, pp. 24-25
The figure I have called to the witness stand in this investigation of dissent is John Corrill, a figure whom Latter-day Saint historian Karen Davidson has said “deserves to be better known” (Church of Jesus Christ, n.d.). Corrill joined the “Church of Christ” in 1831 in Kirtland and followed the church through the Jackson County expulsion, through the construction of the temple and apostasy in Kirtland, and to its new home in Far West, Missouri, where he remained in positions in the church hierarchy and on relatively good terms with Joseph Smith until the events of summer and fall 1838 leading up to the “Missouri Mormon War”. Though his schism with the church would be final and irreparable, he did not side (at least openly) with the Kirtland apostates, nor was he targeted by the Danites as Oliver Cowdery and others were, and Joseph Smith retained some trust in him until the aftermath of the siege of Far West. Although both Corrill and Sampson Avard would testify against Smith in the following legal proceedings, Corrill was no violent Danite (he considered Avard “as grand a villain as his wit and ability would admit of”). He remained proud of his republicanism to the end, yet he did not stoop to William McLellin’s level of reportedly looting Smith’s property and gloating to imprisoned church leaders at the siege of Far West, “How do you feel as to the course you have taken in religion?” (Pratt, Autobiography) Above its readability and brevity, Corrill’s testimony A Brief History of the Church of Christ of Latter Day Saints strikes the reader as self-vindicating but fair, frustrated though temperate, and historically lucid yet paradoxical in its initial defense of and ultimate condemnation of the Mormons.
“Investigations”
In conversing with my friends, I have been frequently asked, “How did you come to join the Mormons?”—“How could you yield to their delusions?” These inquiries, and others of the same nature, I have always answered frankly and fully, as it is my intention to do in the present little work, which, indeed, I have undertaken, not less for the satisfaction of my friends who have advised me to it, than to explain the motives which have governed my conduct.
Corrill, 1839, Preface
Corrill’s opening lines make it clear that his history will strike delicate balancing act. He must answer both why a reasonable republican—a lover of freedom and individual rights—such as himself joined the Mormons in the first place, and why he has since distanced himself from them now. This is no easy task. As a holder of public office, he can appear neither too sympathetic nor too critical of the Mormons without sacrificing face. If Joseph Smith was a charlatan, then Corrill was a dupe; if Smith was a true prophet, then Corrill is an enemy of democracy. This is a precarious tangle from which Corrill must extricate himself.
Published in 1839, Corrill’s short book inevitably emphasizes the recent conflict between the Mormons and Missourians, which had led to the capture of Mormon leaders and exile of the members. Corrill will spend nearly half his book in 1838. First, though, he must spend a chapter explaining how he came to encounter Mormonism. This occurred in 1831 in Ashtabula, Ohio (thirty miles west of Kirtland) with Oliver Cowdery, Parley P. Pratt, Peter Whitmer, and Tiba (Ziba) Peterson, the first group of missionaries on their way to the western border of the United States.
First impressions were less than positive. Unlike the emotional experience that Pratt, for example, reported in his autobiography, Corrill met the Book of Mormon with his rational mind:
I looked at [the book of Mormon], examined the testimony of the witnesses at the last end of it, read promiscuously a few pages, and made up my mind that it was published for speculation. In my feelings and remarks I branded the “messengers” with the title of impostors, and thought I would not trouble myself any more about them. But I shortly heard that these messengers had stopped in Kirtland, about thirty miles distant, among a society of people called Campbleites, at whose head stood elder Sidney Rigden, a noted preacher of that order. With that news I was at first much pleased; for, from my former acquaintance with that society, I knew that they were well versed in the Scriptures, and I supposed that, without fail, they would confound the impostors, convince them of their folly, and send them home again. But, to my astonishment, in a short time I heard that they had converted the majority of the society, together with Elder Rigden, to their faith.
Corrill, 1839, pp. 7-8
Corrill set out for Kirtland in hopes to “save [Elder Rigden] from their imposition”. When he arrived, he was “embittered” to find that Rigden had been baptized a Mormon, and “indignant” to find them “enjoying as they supposed, the gift and power of the Holy Ghost”. He argued with Tiba Peterson but, making no impression, returned home. On the journey, his rational gears started turning again:
I thought of Solomon’s words,—“that he is a fool who judges a matter before he hears it;”…investigation could certainly do me no harm… Now it is not impossible, thought I, but that ere I am aware of it, I may be found fighting against God; perhaps I had better stop and reflect on the subject a little; weigh the matter more closely, and compare this new doctrine with the Scriptures; and if it does not agree with the Scriptures, I shall certainly know that it is not of God.
Corrill, 1839, pp. 8-9
This he does over the course of the next seven chapters, qualified at the outset by his remark
that I always believed the Bible, (the Old and New Testament,) to be true. The whole course of my investigation was predicated upon that fact, and I felt safe in embracing any thing that corresponded with the scriptures.
Corrill, 1839, p. 9
The subjects of his investigations are prophets, prophecy, and revelation in modern times; the Book of Mormon, its origin and background, and contents; church doctrines; the work of gathering; and the morality and effects of the religion. Throughout these chapters, he cites the Bible on varied topics from healing the sick to the combination of the sticks of Judah and Joseph. (The verses Corrill uses are still used in contemporary Latter-day Saint religious education, and I wonder whether Corrill sourced them from Latter-day Saint tracts or preaching at a later date.) The conclusion to which his individual reason and the Bible, his twin guides, lead him is that “although I was not fully satisfied, yet viewing this religion to be much nearer the religion of the Bible than any other I could find, I concluded to join the Church,” remarking in retrospect that he did so “with the determination that if ever I found it to be a deception, I would leave it.”
Until 1838
During the period from 1831 until 1838, Corrill’s narrative is unambiguously sympathetic toward the Mormons, and reports major developments in the church as faithfully as any Mormon historian (indeed, this section and the previous may have been written while Corrill was actually serving as an official church historian (Corrill, 1839, Historical Introduction). For example, of the 1833 expulsion from Jackson County, he reports:
Here, let me remark, that up to this time the Mormons had not so much as lifted a finger, even in their own defence, so tenacious were they for the precepts of the gospel,—“turn the other cheek.”
Corrill, 1839, p. 19
During all these difficulties the Mormons were accused of many crimes. This, of course, was necessary for an excuse; but the people of Jackson well know, that up to the time, the Mormons had not been guilty of crime, nor done any thing whereby they could criminate them by the law: and, in my opinion, the stories originated in hatred towards the Mormon religion, and the fear entertained of their overrunning and ruling the county.
Corrill, 1839, p. 20
And uncharacteristically in light of Corrill’s ideological commitment to individual liberty, a critique of consecration is conspicuously absent from this section (and when it does appear in chapter 26, Corrill is remarkably neutral toward it, noting that “their law gives every man the privilege of managing his own concerns”). Even after his defection from the church, he remained uncritical of the practice, testifying neutrally in 1838 that “We have a rule in the Church, authorising any member to consecrate or give, voluntarily his surplus property to the church, for charitable purposes.” (Minutes and Testimonies, 1838, p. 29)
The Hazards of Unity
Corrill’s first criticism of Mormon conduct comes in his description of the handling of the significant debts that had arisen through the construction of the Kirtland Temple, purchase of land in Missouri, and other sources, and the resultant ill feelings. This situation was the key contributor to the internal apostasy in Kirtland, and strife within the church followed church leaders to Far West, Missouri.
At this point, Corrill faces the task of describing the events that led to warfare with the Missourians, and in this portrayal, he is much less sympathetic to the Mormons than before. According to Corrill, the Mormons had become fed up with the dissenters and mob attacks that had driven them out of both Jackson County, Missouri, and Kirtland, and if they were attacked, “God would enable them to stand against anything, even the State of Missouri, or the United States, if they should come in a mob.” (Corrill, 1839, p. 29)
Even more than the language of violence, what troubles Corrill most is the unity that Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon demand of their followers. Their preaching is not just a harmless motivational call to work together; it is a call to become one by ridding the church of its impurities—meaning dissenters. In the face of the threat of Missouri mobs, Smith and Rigdon taught that
if the church would be united, and exercise faith in God, he would protect them, though their enemies were ever so numerous… they must become one, and be perfectly united in al things; cleanse themselves from every kind of pollution, and keep the whole law of God; and if they would do this, God would strengthen them against their enemies…
…the scripture says, “If ye are agreed, as touching any one thing, it shall be done,” consequently, to become one was very essential, and they must be well united in all things…and the church, it was said, would never become pure unless these dissenters were routed from among them.
Corrill, 1839, pp. 29–30
The result of these sentiments was Rigdon’s “Salt Sermon”, where
it was plainly understood that he meant that dissenters, or those who had denied the faith, ought to be cast out, and literally trodden under foot.
Corrill, 1839, p. 30
Such a situation, where unity is taken to an extreme that noncompliance is no longer an option, frightens Corrill, who reports that “many of the church…became disgusted with such things…but such was the influence of the presidency over the church, that it was of no use to say anything” (Corrill, 1839, p. 29). High-profile dissenters were threatened with physical violence and fled from their homes—“depart, depart, or a more fatal calamity shall befal you,” read the “Danite Manifesto” (Senate Document 189, 1841, p. 7)—and others like Corrill were frightened into relative silence. “This scene I looked upon with horror, and considered it as proceeding from a mob spirit,” Corrill wrote. “Thus the work of purifying was commenced, and now it must be carried out.” (Corrill, 1839, p. 40) Those who conspired to carry out this purification were the Danites, led by Sampson Avard, “as grand a villain as his wit and ability would admit of”, in Corrill’s words (Corrill, 1839, p. 31)
If Far West as a whole was characterized by hazardously strict demands of unity, then the Danites were even more so: they were “a society that should be agreed in all things” and “covenanted to stand by one another in difficulty, whether right or wrong, but said they would correct each others wrongs among themselves”. “They therefore entered into a covenant, that the word of the presidency should be obeyed, and none should be suffered to raise his hand or voice against it” (Corrill, 1839, pp. 30–31) He expressed that “there was so much tyranny and oppression exercised, that for several weeks many persons dare not speak their minds, nor let them be known…” (p. 32). ∎
The narrative continues in part three. Citations will be presented in the third part.
