Summer Review: Albert Brisbane — Joseph Smith and Eschatology

Another Oldie.

This post has been sitting around for a while, has something to do with Joseph Smith’s sermons, and in particular funeral sermons, because it poses some questions on the idea of community and eschatology, and I don’t have time to work on it more right now, so here it is.

Mormon communal adventures of the 19th century played out against a range of American civil experimentation. A major difference was the underlying eschatology of Mormonism.

Joseph Smith pushed (via revelations like Doctrine and Covenants 42) the idea of community into the lives of early Mormons, but he also pushed it into the afterlife (an early version of this is D&C 78:6 – later versions were based on sealing). Echoing Swedenborg (by coincidence rather than intent it seems) he infused doctrine with community and family.

Joseph Smith’s “David Doctrine” and King Follett I.

As a preacher, Joseph Smith could be adventurous in his interpretations of scripture. In many cases, these interpretations have been impressed on the spiritual engrams of Mormonism.

But in his “first” King Follett funeral sermon Joseph does a very curious thing: he exchanges homiletic objects.

One More Note on Presidents-Brigham Young and Adoption

I forgot to mention in the last post, that we are expanding Brigham Young’s file with a new section, 1844-1850. The initial entry is quite interesting both for Young’s ideas about priesthood adoption and his own picture of ideal life. Oh yeah, he also mentions leading the church astray. It’s an interesting twist. Also, his advice on women is interesting.

Lorenzo Barnes – One of the Many – One of a Kind

Among the Charles Finney’s, Lyman Beecher’s, Alex Campbell’s and Joseph Smith’s of early American religion stood the nearly anonymous men and women who were followers or advocates. For the most part in this age of improvement, Americans seemed to be moving on from one idea to a better one, just as they moved from one place to another. But for the Mormons, a core of dedicated people made up a missionary cohort that converted the thousands who formed the Latter-day Saints into a history-making wedge of Americana.

Albert Brisbane – Joseph Smith and Eschatology

This post has been sitting around for a while, has something to do with Joseph Smith’s sermons, and in particular funeral sermons, because it poses some questions on the idea of community and eschatology, and I don’t have time to work on it more right now, so here it is.

Mormon communal adventures of the 19th century played out against a range of American civil experimentation. A major difference was the underlying eschatology of Mormonism.

Joseph Smith pushed (via revelations like Doctrine and Covenants 42) the idea of community into the lives of early Mormons, but he also pushed it into the afterlife (an early version of this is D&C 78:6 – later versions were based on sealing). Echoing Swedenborg (by coincidence rather than intent it seems) he infused doctrine with community and family.