Ok, I know I have devoted much time to Sidney Rigdon. I think this is the last one I’ll do for a while, though I reserve the right to change my mind. Most people are aware that Sidney left the church (or should we say the church left him?), but few know very much about his own branch of Mormonism.
After Joseph Smith was killed, there was a real question about who would lead the church. Joseph Smith left no succession plans. Between his public and private announcements, at least 8 people claimed to have been appointed as Smith’s successor. There is a great article at BYU studies, outlining many of these and other people who made claims to lead the church.
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With Sidney running the church in Quincy, Joseph and others were still in the Liberty Jail. Through the first 10 years of the church, Sidney Rigdon and Joseph Smith seem to be in lock step with each other. However, the Nauvoo period seems to show a few cracks in the friendship. Were they serious? Well, Joseph called Sidney to be his Vice Presidential nominee–but I’ll get to that later.
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Ok, I’ll continue an overall review of Sidney’s life. We last left Sidney leaving Hiram, Ohio after a serious beating. He, Joseph, and the rest of the Saints gathered in Kirtland, where they tried to establish the Law of Consecration, making all things equal among them. They also built the Kirtland Temple, and had many miraculous visions. I guess the thing that was interesting to me was to learn more about how the properties were handled.
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Ok, I just finished the Sidney Rigdon book, and wanted to give some of my overall impressions, as well as present some information about his life. I had intended to give an overall sketch of his life, but this post is long enough, so I will probably do this in a few parts. I like this quote from the introduction.
“Together, Rigdon and Smith, in a theological partnership, led a religious revolution that is still on-going in many respects. Rigdon’s role in the birth of Mormonism was substantial, yet the lion’s share of his contribution has been obscured by official alteration of official church records.”
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With St Patrick’s day being here, I wanted to tell the story of St Patrick. Mormons love good missionary stories, and I think the story of St Patrick is a wonderful missionary story. The information below comes from a DVD titled, Christianity-The First Two Thousand Years. (It was originally aired on A&E.) If you want to learn more, there is an interesting article in the Deseret News about St Patrick.
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I few weeks ago, I read this humorous article in the Deseret News which basically said the men don’t attend book clubs. I loved this quote:
“Men realize that they are only allocated a certain number of spoken words in their lifetime, so being of a cautious nature, they choose not to waste words on book discussions …”
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I recently purchased Nobody Knows: The Untold Story of Black Mormons. It is an outstanding documentary produced by Margaret Young, BYU faculty member, and Darius Gray, one of the original members of The Genesis Group. Under President Joseph Fielding Smith, this group was supervised in 1971 by junior apostles Gordon B Hinckley, Thomas S Monson, and Boyd K Packer to try to fellowship black LDS church members.
Since I had already seen the movie at the LDS Film Festival, I was really looking forward to the special features on the DVD, and I was not disappointed. Connell O’Donovan, an independent genealogist and Mormon Historian outlines 7 early black church members who held the priesthood prior to 1847–one of them was even a Branch President! I’d like to give a brief outline of some of these early black Mormon pioneers.
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Recently, there has been some news where Jews object to the Mormon practice of baptism for the dead, especially for Holocaust victims. Catholics have also objected to the Mormons use of old church records for the purpose of baptism for the dead. I came across an Irish Columnist who basically says, “Why do they care?”
I want to point out some interesting things from his article–questions which Mormons should also start asking. You can see the full article here.
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Ok, it’s always nice to be creative when proposing. But hiding the ring in a milkshake, and then having a race to finish the shake is a really bad idea. Yep, she swallowed it! You can read more here. (Oh yeah, they’re LDS.)
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