John Bytheway:               00:00:00             Welcome to part two with Dr. Keith Erekson Doctrine and Covenants 135 to 136.

Hank Smith:                      00:00:08             Keith, we now move to section 136, which is three years, almost three years later, two and a half years later. John, you might have to correct me here, but I think this is only one of two sections of the Doctrine and Covenants that don’t come through Joseph Smith.

John Bytheway:               00:00:28             And it’s interesting too how many that came as a result of the answer to a question going through the JST for example. There’s one that’s kind of a funny thing happened on the way to buy wine from my enemies for the sacrament when an angel shows up. And then now here we have John Taylor and now Brigham Young. So boy, as we close up here, I can’t stop thinking about what Keith said. We’re gonna include this in the Doctrine and Covenants and there will be more. This work is gonna go on. Yeah.

Hank Smith:                      00:01:03             So tell us about Brigham Young, Keith. I don’t know if all of our listeners know a lot about Brigham Young. We’ve talked about Joseph Smith all year.

Dr. Keith Erekson:           00:01:10             Brigham Young is one of the significant figures in our history. He is an early convert. He’s a couple years in, he’s not one who’s at the first meeting or right away, but a couple years in, he joins the church and he develops. One of the things he does as part of his conversion is he wants to meet Joseph. He wants to meet this prophet and shake his hand and talk with him. And so he does travel to Kirtland and meet Joseph there and that becomes part of a witness. Brigham is kind of outside of the inner circle. There’s already a couple of years under the bridge. There’s Joseph and Oliver and Sidney Rigdon and all of these leaders and Brigham is just a new guy on the side, but he’s a talented person and a hardworking person, so he slowly comes into other contact with Joseph.

                                           00:02:08             The experience on Zion’s Camp is a significant part where he’ll spend time and work closely. Then Brigham is called to be one of the first members of the Quorum of the Twelve. The Quorum of the Twelve is organized in 1835 after the Zions Camp or Camp of Israel march. Brigham is in that group, the first Quorum of the Twelve. The first Twelve does not have a very good pass rate. Nine of them are excommunicated, many of them do return. The three who never waver are Brigham and Heber C. Kimball and then David Patten, but he will be killed shortly with the troubles in Missouri coming out of Nauvoo. It’s really Brigham and Heber. Heber will become Brigham’s counselor in the First Presidency, but Brigham is a member of the Quorum of the Twelve. They will shift around how they do seniority and who comes out, but the long story is that in the summer of 1844, Brigham is the senior member of the Quorum of the Twelve.

                                           00:03:17             He’s now gained a lot of experience. Joseph has increasingly relied on Brigham for difficult things. Brigham is sent to England with the apostles while Joseph is imprisoned in Liberty Jail. Brigham is the one, and the Twelve, who coordinate the exodus from Missouri to Illinois. Brigham has had practical experience leading the Saints and proclaiming the gospel. He’s had now as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve lots of council time with Joseph and seeing it in action. And so he is positioned in the summer of 1844 to pick up the work and carry it forward.

John Bytheway:               00:03:57             It’s one of the things I love about church history was the British missions. I thought it was so brilliant of the Lord to inspire, to send as many of the Twelve as could go and to operate as a quorum without being able to text or email or call Joseph to be able to run independently as a quorum. I thought, oh, that was brilliant, so that they would know how to do that, how to act independently and if Joseph were a cult leader, he would want to control everything. But at a time in his life when he really probably would love to have help and friendly fellowship around him, he sends them all over to the British Isles. I just think that’s a fascinating little part of church history.

Hank Smith:                      00:04:42             In your studies, Keith, how was Brigham prepared for this? I don’t think he thought this would ever happen ’cause you had Joseph and Hyrum and Sidney and all these other leaders, Edward Partridge and Newel K. Whitney, like you said, he wasn’t there in the very beginning. What do you see in your studies of Brigham’s life?

Dr. Keith Erekson:           00:05:03             Yeah, one of the things you said I think is really important. Brigham never saw this happening to him. Brigham wasn’t aspiring for this. Brigham wasn’t pulling the strings behind the scenes to make this happen. Brigham literally revered Joseph Smith. If you said anything bad about Joseph in Brigham’s presence, you would have to deal with Brigham. He was a hundred percent loyal. He was a defender and in that reverence for Joseph, Brigham also saw himself as so far below or different. This continues to play out through Brigham’s life. People will come to Brigham when he’s President of the Church and say, how come you don’t do translation like Joseph did? And he’ll just say, I don’t have that gift. Joseph was Joseph. Nobody is Joseph, I’m not Joseph. He had a, we might today call it an inferiority complex or imposter syndrome. Brigham is President of the Church and he will think about Joseph and think, I’m not him.

                                           00:06:11             I’m not as good as him. I can’t do what he did. And I think in many ways that is an important starting point for Brigham’s preparation, is that he knew that he had to rely on the Lord because he just didn’t see himself as doing those kinds of things. Then he does have those different experience that we mentioned in the quorum and as a missionary, but I think Brigham would be the first to tell you when he realizes that the Quorum of the Twelve need to lead, that he can’t do it. President Thomas S. Monson would talk about whom the Lord calls the Lord qualifies. The inverse of that is when you are called, you don’t feel qualified. Brigham would’ve told you that I can’t do this. And in many ways that’s the most important criteria. No, you can’t do that, but God can do it. You’ve been called to be humble and to do that work, not because you can just do it.

Hank Smith:                      00:07:13             I can’t imagine being asked to fill that spot. There’s tough spots to fill and then you know saying, please take over the reigns here. What happens between these two revelations? I noticed that they’re two and a half years apart and Brigham is, I think at this point, isn’t he the President of the Quorum of the Twelve still?

Dr. Keith Erekson:           00:07:37             That’s right. That fact also illustrates what we were saying. The first reaction of Brigham and the Quorum of the Twelve is there isn’t another Joseph. There can’t be another Joseph. And so in fact, the best way to do this is for the Quorum of the Twelve to manage the work. We mentioned earlier that there’s not a whole plan. There’s not a succession handbook that they turn to. They have to think about it, counsel together, and as they talk it through, that’s their initial assessment. Joseph is Joseph. Praise to his memory, we are not Joseph, but as a quorum we can work in unanimity and we can. And so that works. They keep things moving in Nauvoo, they publish the Doctrine and Covenants. They advance the work on the temple. They’re managing the relationship with their neighbors. But those will continue to deteriorate. Tensions will escalate the following year and the summer of 1845.

                                           00:08:39             Those tensions are escalating and there are some starting to be some conflict even to the point of armed conflict. And Brigham Young is interesting because he is in many ways one of the great peacemakers of our history. We’ve talked about how in Nauvoo, one of the things they don’t do is retaliate. They also don’t do that in Missouri. Brigham leads an exodus, not a counter attack, and as tension escalates in Nauvoo for a third time, Brigham chooses the path of peace and peacemaking. Right In the winter of 45 to 46, they finish the Nauvoo temple. Hundreds of Saints come into the temple to receive this ordinance. Brigham is there day and night. He’s one of the select group of people who have learned the temple endowment and so they could administer it. They do that in January and February and then the first part of February, the first group begins to leave Nauvoo. That has even been exacerbated. The original negotiation was let us leave in the summer. The Hancock County residents don’t even allow that. They crossed the Mississippi River in February, the first group. They will continue to leave over the coming months, but throughout 1846 they’ve tried to move across Iowa. And if we kind of imagine the geography, we’ve got Nauvoo and the Mississippi River. The immediate escape is across the river. But Iowa, even though on a map it looks like a tiny state if you’re walking across it, it’s a very long walk.

                                           00:10:22             And it’s a time of rain. This year 46 is particularly rainy and muddy. The Saints were not prepared for a major overland journey. One of Brigham’s first inclinations was let’s just leave Nauvoo and go. But he realizes they can’t do that. They’re bogged down, they’re not ready. They’re too slow, they’re poorly organized, they’re not prepared. By the fall of 1846, there are about 7,000 people who have made it across Iowa, and they’re right on the border of another river with modern day Nebraska. They’ve made it there. They’re in Winter Quarters. There’s still another 3000 kind of spread across Iowa that haven’t quite made it. We’ve got 10,000 people in the fall and by fall it’s too cold. You can’t cross where this is an overland journey. So they missed the summer of 1846, so that’s where they are.

                                           00:11:23             It’s now, it’s regroup in the winter. How do we get ourselves prepared for the coming summer? This revelation that’s now section 136 comes in January of 1847. That’s where we find them expelled from Illinois straggling their way across Iowa. Trying to figure out how to get 10,000 people at this moment and in the end, many thousands more. But the immediate concern is 10,000. And these aren’t a trained group of overland explorers. These are families and widows and children and the elderly and sick. Nobody else in American history is trying to move 10,000 people of all ages and health conditions. If you’re gonna go to California for gold, you’re going to be lean, mean gold digging machine and you’re gonna go. But Brigham’s problem is totally different. Some of these people are now two time refugees pushed out of Missouri, pushed out of Illinois, destitute, lost property, whatever investment they had in Illinois, they just left it there. That’s the problem that Brigham has and this revelation is the answer to that problem. Kind of wrapping our head around the scope of the problem helps us realize what’s at stake.

Hank Smith:                      00:12:49             Can you imagine all these people looking to you? What are you gonna do? I don’t think those of us who live in 2025 can even comprehend the gravity of that situation. You can’t run down to the store. We can’t go find hotel rooms. We’re out in the weather in the mud when we can’t go back.

Dr. Keith Erekson:           00:13:15             You don’t just endure trek for three days and then you can go home to your warm bed.

Hank Smith:                      00:13:19             It’s an incredible thing and I imagine the stress was high and it would be a relief to hear from the Lord like you used to with Joseph.

John Bytheway:               00:13:29             I mentioned the British mission before and I’ve been thinking of this wonderful expectation of Zion and now what they’re dealing with. This is not what I crossed the ocean for. And now we’ve got across the plains as well, the hardship of all of it. Hank, I know you love to talk about unmet expectations and how what a trial that can be. Also, here’s Brigham, as you have said, not expecting to be the one to take and to lead this group of elderly, of babies, destitute people. How many did you say 10,000?

Dr. Keith Erekson:           00:14:05             About 10,000 in 1846.

John Bytheway:               00:14:09             And one of the questions that I had was, were there people hounding them to get out of Nauvoo?

Dr. Keith Erekson:           00:14:15             Yes, there were threats and escalating tensions and violence. Definitely a push to get out and get out sooner rather than later.

Hank Smith:                      00:14:25             Brigham, to my knowledge Keith, is committed to, nobody gets left behind. We have to work together. It is not gonna be an every family for themselves.

Dr. Keith Erekson:           00:14:36             Yeah. As Brigham leads people across, he’s very often compared to Moses leading this exodus. But I think another important parallel to remember is Enoch. We learn about Enoch much more in the Joseph Smith translation of the Old Testament that come out in the Pearl of Great Price in the book of Moses. What a great prophet Enoch was. How he prepared his people to live in unity, that there are no poor and that he prepares an entire city that is taken up to God. That is Brigham’s model. It isn’t I’m gonna find 20 great people and we’re gonna do it. It is the entire city. It’s the entire community. How do we prepare an entire people, or in this case rescue them, not just keep them fed, but it’s those big ideas in Zion that they are united, that they are one heart, that they are one mind, that they care for each other, that there are no poor. Those are really hard things that we still work on in the 21st century world, but those were his aspirations as a leader, avoiding the conflict and trying to build a community of peace.

Hank Smith:                      00:15:56             Keith, I know we can’t go through the entire Vanguard company and talk about every day, there’s a wonderful book called We’ll Find The Place by Richard Bennett, which really was an eye-opening book to all that they went through. In your study of the trek west do you have any highlights or anything you want to point out or talk about?

Dr. Keith Erekson:           00:16:18             Yeah, I might start in the text of 136. That does become the foundation, but then I think we can see some threads. We can see through the Vanguard company and other companies that follow three important things come out in this revelation. The first 15 or 16 verses, we get instructions on organization. They’re organized into companies. We get a structure, there’s a group of 150 and 10 and that this structure is how we will make sure the poor and the widows will make it. Their first view is that the companies will be led by apostles. So they start setting out these companies and assigning different apostles to lead them. That’s one of the things we’ve perpetuated in modern trek. The idea of companies and structure. I think there’s an important insight right there in verse one that we miss in our modern cosplay reenactments that we do.

                                           00:17:21             And it says in verse one that to organize into companies with a covenant. Today we often reserve covenant for something attached to an ordinance that I’ve done. I think there’s a really significant thing here that these are companies with a covenant to each other that we will make sure all a hundred of us or 50 of us or 10 in whatever our structure is that we’ll make it and also covenants not to leave. One of the things that happened in the first year is people were just wandering across Iowa at their own pace. And if the group you were with was kind of slow and you wanted to hurry, you would hurry. Part of the covenant was to say, I’m not leaving to a different company. I’m assigned to this one and I will stay. We’ll make it through. A second thing I think that’s really interesting is after the organization, the revelation gives a whole list of commandments.

                                           00:18:17             I think this is part of that companies with a covenant, but there’s don’t covet, don’t take the name of God in vain. No contention, no drunkenness. You’ve gotta edify each other. You have to return what you borrowed. That’s an interesting commandment. You have to be a good steward. But it gives all the kind of the rules of how we’re gonna be this covenant group, what we need to do together. And then the third thing I love about this revelation, verses, this is around 28 to 32, 33, it says, one of the things you need to do is praise God. Singing, music, dance, prayer, prayers of praise, learning by the Spirit. Learning is praise. But that this isn’t just walk and walk and walk and walk. This is praising God for his deliverance, praising God for his protection, praising God for arriving in the place of safety and refuge.

                                           00:19:19             But the act of crossing the plains is an act of praise. I think that’s beautiful. Sometimes I wish we praised a little more in some of our experiences. I think our music could be a little more praiseful and a little less dreary. Sometimes a little more merry. The pioneers we will see in their journals, they do walk a lot, but putting that in context, if you stayed home, you would walk a lot. It’s not like you were gonna stay home and drive your car, you’re gonna stay home and walk. Walking wasn’t so much the issue. And what would happen is at the end of the day, they would dance, they would pull out their instruments, they would dance, they would sing, they would play. One of the things we did a few years ago in the church history department, by a few, I mean like 40 years ago, our librarians, we would get so many questions about pioneers.

                                           00:20:18             Was this person a pioneer? Was that person a pioneer? What did they do? Do you know anything? And so we started to build in-house a documented list of all of the pioneers that we knew. Over time that grew and as computer technology came along, it turned into a database. Then in the early decade of the 21st century, we released this as the Overland Pioneer Travel database. So that was available online and it has now been so successful we’ve added other data sets to it. We just now have a biographical database, but all the pioneers are there and we’ve identified now more than 60,000 people who crossed the planes between 1847, this Vanguard company and 1869, when the Transcontinental Railroad comes through, then you don’t have to walk anymore. You just get a train ticket. In those years, the journey decreased. As the train moved west, you would ride a train to the end of the track and then you would walk the rest of the way.

                                           00:21:26             But that’s the pioneer window. And so we have this data set of pioneers and now we can analyze it. We can say accurate things about pioneers and not just imaginary things, but one of the things that we can say from their records is they do praise God. They sing, they dance, they marry. Half of the people who cross the plains are under the age of 21. We sometimes lose that from photographs of old pioneers, but this is like a giant YSA conference. People are falling in love, they’re having fun, they’re courting, they’re teasing, they’re enjoying. We get accounts of people, sometimes the young men would take the axle grease and they would rub it on the beards of men who were sleeping, and so the men would wake up and have a greasy beard. We find pranks and fun and so I think this is an important part.

                                           00:22:25             They were disciples of Christ. They were cast out and they were praising God and having a good time. We’ve identified about 400 pioneer companies that crossed the plains from this structure. The organization that comes in this revelation is replicated 400 times over the next two decades. For about a third of those, there’s not a single death. One of the modern perceptions we have is the pioneers were all suffering in death, but for a third of the pioneers, if you get the chance to meet them in heaven and say, we’re sorry everyone died in your company, they’ll say, what are you even talking about? Nobody died. We got there. That was the goal. That was why we organized. Related to that, we found the mortality rate for the pioneers as a whole, the whole 60,000 of them was basically the same as the United States mortality rate.

                                           00:23:31             You were just as likely to die staying home in Illinois as you were to cross the plains. It is risky. You are working with large animals and the dangers are sort of the same. Now that changes when we go down to a company level, the Martin and Willie Handcart company level, they have about a four times mortality rate. So yes, specific groups suffer in different ways, but by and large what’s laid out in this revelation to be organized and keep the commandments and praise God becomes a very effective way to move thousands of people across a continent.

Hank Smith:                      00:24:12             Yeah. It seems that those who come later benefit from those who come before. The early groups probably suffered more. I mean the handcart companies, those two are a little bit of an outlier, but Brigham, didn’t he set up almost way stations along the way?

Dr. Keith Erekson:           00:24:29             Yeah. It becomes a path, a rite of passage almost. Here’s one of the ways I compare. A lot of times people will tell a story from their mission. They served at different times, but they’ll have a same experience. The day I was dropped off at the MTC this happened and the first day I arrived in the field this happened. Even though we have a whole variety of experience, there’s a kind of general path and we see that in the records of the Saints. When we got to Chimney Rock we did this, the first time we crossed the Platte River at the Lower crossing, we did this because they had structured it that way with a trail and a path and way stations and they could then talk about it in a shared way. Oh yeah, this is what happened when we were in Immigration Canyon or whatever. Well, when we were on Rocky Ridge, this is how it played out for us.

Hank Smith:                      00:25:25             Yeah. I like what you said there, Keith. I don’t wanna say we overemphasize the death and the suffering, that needs to be talked about, but they had fun. They had dances, they had bands.

Dr. Keith Erekson:           00:25:38             Yeah. I think for me it just helps to remember they’re young. You’re not gonna have a dour group of 16 year olds. They’re gonna find some way to pull a prank and have some fun and get their wiggles out. That’s who we have. We have people that are happy and healthy and they want to enjoy what they’re doing. And yeah, you have chores and yeah, you have to walk, but you still have fun when you go to work or when you do your chores, you can find ways.

Hank Smith:                      00:26:04             Yeah. Keith, if I’m a seminary teacher and I’m taking this on, this one’s gotta be treated differently than Joseph’s. They’re not the same. It isn’t like the Lord inhabits these people and speaks through them. Brigham’s a different person. How would you describe this revelation? How is it different?

Dr. Keith Erekson:           00:26:24             Yeah. Brigham’s a different person. The moment is different. This revelation is shared orally. People hear it, they listen to it. It’s not one that they read. We had just published an edition of the Doctrine and Covenants. They don’t publish a third edition until the late 1870s. This isn’t at their fingertips for a very long time, but it is in their ears and it is in their memories. They don’t sit around the campfire and ponder these words, but it does come to them as a blueprint, as a charge. Get organized, keep these commandments, praise God. Move across the plains. Make sure everyone gets there. That’s the way that it’s taken as their overview, as their direction. That’s the experience that the pioneers have with this revelation.

Hank Smith:                      00:27:16             And there can be things that I can find in here that even though I’m not crossing the plains, I’m still a member of this church, I wanna help everybody along, keep your pledges to one another. Don’t covet each other’s things. Don’t be drunk. Edify one another with your speech. Don’t contend with one another. Don’t speak evil of one another. This really is like a Latter-day saint survival guide to being a team.

John Bytheway:               00:27:47             So many times throughout the history of the world, there are incredible journeys. The Jaredites, Lehi and his family, the children of Israel delivered from Egyptian bondage and it’s such a great metaphor for life. So Hank what you’re saying, this is our journey. Now we’re staying in the same geography, but those same rules apply on our journey through the plans. I like the way you said that there.

Dr. Keith Erekson:           00:28:12             You know, I like a word that you used there John, delivered. This isn’t a word we use often enough in modern Latter-day Saint speech. That is definitely the way that the pioneers experienced it, and we even see it in verse 40 of this revelation. It talks about you are being delivered as a witness. So I think that word connects us with the deliverance of the children of Israel that you mentioned. I also think scripturally this connects us with the deliverance that Jesus brings, the deliverance from death, the deliverance from captivity, and I think this deliverance metaphor is a very powerful one and I think there’s a lot of deep meaning in there that would help us more often as we face the challenges of today. I want to be delivered from some of the things that are bombarding me every time I open my phone or whatever. This peace and deliverance is a way to see the pioneers differently, but it also reminds us as a way to see our relationship with the Savior. He’s a deliverer who’s delivering us from our afflictions.

Hank Smith:                      00:29:25             Wow, that’s really well said. I wanna read something to you both, and I’m sure you’ve both heard it. President Hinckley, we know, loved to talk about the pioneers. He loved to talk about that trek. I think he talked about his wife’s ancestors coming across the plains. He said this, he said, today, facing west on the high bluff overlooking the city of Nauvoo and across the Mississippi over the plains of Iowa, there stands Joseph’s temple, a magnificent house of God. Here in the Salt Lake Valley, facing east to that beautiful temple in Nauvoo stands Brigham’s temple, the Salt Lake. They look toward one another as bookends between which there are volumes that speak of the suffering, the sorrow, the sacrifice, even the deaths of thousands who made the long journey from the Mississippi River to the valley of the Great Salt Lake. That’s a beautiful picture. Bookends and thousands of stories in between of these incredible, incredible people. I have a chair here in my house that crossed the plains. 160 year old chair. It’s just a chair, but it stands for something, for the faith of my pioneer ancestors.

Dr. Keith Erekson:           00:30:44             That’s one of the ways you and your family can synchronize with the past. You’ve got an artifact that brings you together across the time and space.

John Bytheway:               00:30:56             I just love the next verse after that deliverance verse, verse 41. Now, therefore, hearken, O ye people of my church; and ye elders listen together; which reminds me of another section. You have received my kingdom. It’s huge, the Lord to say that the keys are with you. Stay with the Twelve. You’ve received my kingdom.

Hank Smith:                      00:31:20             Love it. Keith, my students frequently ask me about, I didn’t know there were break off groups from the church. How many saints actually come west? Some don’t. Some stay behind.

Dr. Keith Erekson:           00:31:34             Yeah, that’s true. The first part of your question, how many, we don’t have an exact number. Beginning around the 1920s, somebody published a figure of 70,000 over that whole two decade span. I mentioned we’ve been trying to document everyone. We’ve got to about 60,000, so we can definitely say 60,000 crossed. We continue to find new ones all the time. That’s what makes research fun. But somewhere in there is the how many who crossed and your students are right to ask, there are others who stayed behind, who chose not to go. We tell this in our curriculum usually in a very oversimplified way. We’ll talk about Brigham Young and the Twelve and we’ll talk about Sidney Rigdon and his proposal to be a guardian for the church and he was serving in the First Presidency at the time. He was also Joseph Smith’s running mate. Joseph was running for U.S. president.

                                           00:32:37             One of the rules was you and your partner couldn’t live in the same state, so they moved Sidney to Pennsylvania. So Sidney comes back from Pennsylvania. His pitch is Joseph did everything. It’s just perfect and my job would just be to guard it. That’s the way we tell the story. If the story is only July and August of 1844, that is kind of the story, but the story is more than July and August. Over time there are three other ideas that emerge that become persuasive. There are people persuaded by Sidney and he does have a following to just keep the church the way that it was. The next one that emerges is from Joseph Smith’s brother William Smith. William is an apostle and we’ve talked about William already a little bit of disagreements in some tough moments with Joseph and Hyrum along the way, but William makes a two-part claim.

                                           00:33:40             The first part of his claim is that if Hyrum hadn’t died, Hyrum would be the successor and he bases this off a revelation that did sustainings. This is now section 124 of the Doctrine and Covenants, but they lay out some sustainings and in there they sustain Joseph as president and Hyrum as patriarch and then they do the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve and all the other offices. William points to that and he says, look, that was the sequence in the sustaining. The prophet, the patriarch, and then the other things, so it should be the patriarch. Then the second part of his claim is the oh so humble part in which he says, well, Hyrum died. The patriarch is inherited in the Smith family. It was first my father Joseph Sr. Then it was Hyrum. I, William am the oldest surviving Smith member, so it should be me and I should be the successor.

                                           00:34:39             The Smith family is actually persuaded by this right away in 44 in the summer of 44 into the fall. That makes the most sense. The patriarchs next, Smith family is the next one, and so it should be William. Second one emerges in those months into a little bit in the summer, but especially into the fall of 1844. There’s a man named James Strang. He is a convert, brand new. He was baptized in March of 1844. Joseph was murdered in June, so he is just around for a couple of months of overlap. Hyrum performs the baptism, James, he’s living away. He comes to Nauvoo, he gets baptized, goes back home, but then after Joseph’s death, James reappears with two things. One is a letter that he says is from Joseph Smith written in the Carthage Jail saying that James is his successor and the second thing James says is he’s been visited by Moroni and Moroni has called him to be a prophet and given him a book to translate and he’s gonna have some witnesses.

                                           00:35:49             Then he will go forward for the next two or three or four years. This idea is the one that is most captivating for many Latter-day Saints and it’s the one that keeps Brigham Young up at night. If you think about this situation, everyone who’s a member of the church is a first generation member and they have all been converted by the story that God picked a random guy out of this farmer in New York and sent him an angel and gave him work to do. James Strang is telling this same story, but now he’s the random guy. The story is the same story and the logic is, yeah, this isn’t all about structure and everything. It’s whoever God calls, that’s who it’s gonna be. We talk about the Vanguard company. They crossed the plains to Salt Lake. Brigham only stays for a couple of days and then he goes back to Winter Quarters.

                                           00:36:47             He’s back in Winter Quarters by December of 1847. From there, he starts sending letters to the thousands of Saints who haven’t crossed Iowa because Iowa’s a muddy mess. He starts sending letters out and saying, come and gather with us. One of the things they do is they reconstitute the First Presidency at that time. Brigham’s message is, we have the First Presidency, we have a gathering place. We’ve found a spot for a temple. Come and gather with us. He specifically sends missionaries and messages to Latter-day Saints who are trying to decide what to do. Some are persuaded and they go. Those become more of the numbers. Some are still dissatisfied and they stay. The third idea, or fifth in all, if we’re keeping track of all of these will emerge a little bit later. That’s the idea that it needs to be a direct descendant of Joseph Smith that emerges almost 15 years later, early 1860s.

                                           00:37:53             The word they use, the concept they use is that at Joseph’s death, the church got scattered. It got disorganized, so they need to reorganize. There are some significant players here. One of them is the stake president in Nauvoo, William Marks, but several of these early members and leaders say, we need to create the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. They pull that together and then they approach Joseph Smith III, who now these years later is in now in his mid twenties. They say, you know, this is how it worked in the Bible, a prophet, and then it was inherited and so you should do that. Joseph Smith III’s first reaction is, no, he didn’t wanna do that. He was newly married, he was studying the law. He had trouble with all this religious stuff in his life and wanted to move on.

Hank Smith:                      00:38:46             Yeah, well look what happens. Look at what happened to my father.

Dr. Keith Erekson:           00:38:49             Look what happens to his dad, to his uncle, to his family, to his friend. He does go away from that invitation and he has a personal experience with the divine and he comes back and says, no, I accept. This is what God is calling me to do. That becomes the largest group after the Saints who go with Brigham Young. The Reorganized Church, that’s the name they’re known by until 2002. They renamed themselves the Community of Christ. That’s the name by which we know them today, but those are kind of the five main ideas that get contested. Maybe one more postscript we’ll add, not known to the Saints in the 1840s and fifties, but James Strang I mentioned had a letter that he said came from Joseph Smith that ended up in the library at Yale University. It was analyzed in the early 20th century and found to be a forgery that was part of the story and the presentations.

Hank Smith:                      00:39:57             Of the members of the church that are in that area in 1844 is there a percentage? Would you say 50%, 60.

Dr. Keith Erekson:           00:40:08             Yeah the hardest part is we don’t know the denominator. We don’t know how many Saints there were. There wasn’t a census or an index. They don’t all live in Nauvoo either. That’s one of our misconceptions. They are scattered throughout Illinois. By the 1850s, there are more Latter-day Saints in England than there are in the US because the rapid growth that we have there, the estimates for the population around Nauvoo range, a low end is 12,000. A high end is 20, 22,000. We do have about the 10,000 that are crossing Iowa in that first year. It’s somewhere in there. We don’t have a really solid sense.

Hank Smith:                      00:40:58             It does seem clearly that Brigham does get a majority.

Dr. Keith Erekson:           00:41:03             Yeah, the largest group go west with Brigham and especially over time, like I said, there are some people who will hang around with James Strang for a couple of years, but immigrants keep coming in 1853 and 57 and 64, there are people who will switch and it goes the other way. There’s people who come to Utah and they don’t like it and they’ll go back and affiliate with the RLDS church. We at least know one case he goes all the way back to England and goes back to the Methodist Church. There’s definitely movement, but yeah, the largest segment follows Brigham to the West and then the second largest group is that reorganized group that forms a decade and a half later and those become the two biggest poles. Then they do become polarized over time. They do, especially in the late 18 hundreds when Joseph Smith III is the head of the Reorganized Church and his cousin, Hyrum’s son, Joseph F. Smith is in the First Presidency and then President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. There is a lot of antagonism between those two cousins and their respective organizations into the early 20th century.

Hank Smith:                      00:42:19             Yeah. Where does that stand today? Us and the Community of Christ, in your experience?

Dr. Keith Erekson:           00:42:25             Yeah. Today though, that relationship is totally changed. The antagonism, especially the bitter rivalry and competition is definitely passed and interestingly, it has been over historical questions that we have found some ways to work together. We share interest in historic sites and historic documents and in our shared histories, there are gatherings of scholars that convene, adherence of both faiths into those conferences. We will work together, so like on the Joseph Smith Papers project, many of the documents were in the possession of the Community of Christ and they opened up their archive. We went in, they let us digitize the documents and post those online, and there have been in the last oh 15 years, some significant transactions in 2010 or 12 or so, Community of Christ sold to the Church of Jesus Christ, the Hauns Mill site, and the site of the Joseph and Emma Smith home in Kirtland.

                                           00:43:40             That’s one that we have renovated and just opened a few years ago. That one’s right up next to the temple, and then in 2017 they sold to us the printer’s manuscript of the Book of Mormon, and then of course in 2024 we had the transaction that transferred stewardship of the Kirtland Temple and the properties, the Smith family properties in Nauvoo and some other historic documents. We have been in conversations church to church and you know different layers of leadership their Presiding Bishopric and our Presiding Bishopric worked closely in particular on the Kirtland Temple transfer, but I think that there’s definitely an opportunity for more understanding. I think a lot of Latter-day Saints don’t know much about these other religious cousins, and then we would do well to know more and understand better.

Hank Smith:                      00:44:38             Yeah, be peacemakers. I love it. Keith, talk to us if you would, about prophets. You’re a historian. People come in thinking of a prophet, I think with all sorts of expectations of this is what a prophet can do and can’t do, and this is what makes someone a prophet or not. I’m sure you’ve had a lot of conversations like this. Speak to our listeners here. We’ve discussed Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. These are different people both receiving revelation, but you can see the difference. You can feel the difference. How do you speak to that when you speak to groups and to individuals about prophets?

Dr. Keith Erekson:           00:45:16             Yeah, I think you used probably the most important word, expectation. So much of the challenge I find that people have with prophets is because of their expectation. It isn’t about the prophets. It’s about what’s in my own head, and if I have wrong expectations, many times, impossible expectations, and if I think the prophet is supposed to do that and he doesn’t, then I’m all upset. Well, he’s not a prophet or he is a fallen prophet, or he didn’t do that, and this problem goes all the way back to Joseph Smith. We have stories of converts coming to Nauvoo and expecting it to be a big flourishing city and perfect and wealth and streets paved in gold, and they show up there and when Joseph will openly say to them, it’s not that, you’ve expected the wrong thing. We could go and talk about a whole bunch of harmful expectations.

                                           00:46:13             I was a university professor. My job was to talk. I know all about that. There was a guy in my ward in Texas, he came up to me and said, oh, you’re a history professor. Will you tell me this thing? And I said to him, I actually teach a whole course on that question, would you like the 45 hour answer? And he said, no, no, no, I do not want the 45 hour answer. I have more than 45 hours on prophets. That’s for sure. These expectations that we have become really crucial. Maybe one way to illustrate this and tease it out a little bit is with probably the most common story I hear about prophets, and when I say most common, let me give you some example. On this past Sunday, there was a lesson about temples. I saw people online and people wrote to me directly saying, in my class, we were talking about temples and people told this story.

                                           00:47:16             This very morning of our recording, I was meeting with the young sister missionaries at Temple Square and answering their questions and helping them with the things that they present. They told me, we hear this story all of the time. Can you help us? The story is that when the Salt Lake temple was completed, the whole interior was done except for these random empty spaces that wind up every floor. Brigham Young told people to leave those open, and then later in the future, elevators were invented and the elevators were plugged right into those spaces. And see, here is the proof that Brigham Young is a great and mighty prophet because he prophesied that they should leave space for this thing that would come in the future. People will tell this story with tears. They’ll tell it with conviction. They’ll tell it with all of this witness that they’re so thankful for a living prophet.

                                           00:48:20             Well, maybe it’s appropriate to quote another religious leader. This is an elderly figure. I think his name was Elder G. Lucas Skywalker of the Seventy. No, I’m just kidding here, but I will quote Luke Skywalker, the old angry one. When people tell him a story and he’ll say, that’s interesting that everything you just told me is wrong. This story about Brigham Young and elevator shafts, every single part of the story is wrong. First of all, elevators were invented a hundred years before the Salt Lake Temple was even under construction. There’s no waiting for elevators to be invented. Second, Brigham doesn’t do anything with the inside of the temple. It takes 40 years to build the temple. Brigham dies 16 years before it’s done because of the way building works, they’re just building the outer shell. They’re stacking the stones on top of each other. It’s gonna be in the 1880s, six or seven years after Brigham’s death that the architects sit down and say, oh, what do we do on the inside of the temple?

                                           00:49:35             And we get our first rudimentary blueprints in the early 1880s, and we get polished blueprints in the late 1880s. Those blueprints include elevators. They’re written right into the blueprints. We have the receipts in the Church History Library for the purchase of elevators. On the day the temple is dedicated there are three functioning elevators in the Salt Lake Temple in 1893. We continue to tell it and people will share it, which has made me think about it and analyze why do we keep telling this story if we’re a people who love truth? This isn’t oh, kind of a story that’s exaggerated. This is wholly, totally made up. And not only that, what’s made up is so inconsistent with truth and reality, but we tell this story why? I think one reason is we don’t understand history. We think old people in black and white photographs had no technology, so if they’re dedicating the temple in 1893, it must have just been like the Stone Age.

                                           00:50:39             They barely could do the, well in 1893, the temple has electricity, it has a telephone, it has the three elevators. It’s a modern building. They build it to a fire resistant standards for the time. Those of course have changed. They build it sturdy. We’re in the middle now of working on some of the earthquake resistance, but anyway, to the best of the modern construction abilities, they build it. It’s a modern building. I think there’s that general ignorance, but I think the other thing that’s going on here brings us back to this expectations question, and it’s that it’s hard to bear an abstract testimony. We want a concrete testimony. You think I don’t have a prophet? Here’s proof. The elevator. The elevator is the proof of my prophet, and that lines exactly with what God teaches. This is my work and my glory to save remanufacturing costs in a temple reconstruction.

                                           00:51:45             No, that is not at all why God calls a prophet, but it’s harder to say, well, I know he is a prophet because the heavens were opened, but why don’t we say that? And I think they had it right. The hymn Praise to the Man, the opening line praise to the man, not because he foresaw elevators or, praise to the man who communed with Jehovah, and as our current church historian and recorder Elder Kyle S. McKay said a few years ago at General Conference, praise to Jehovah for communing with that man. That’s what I’m seeking for a testimony of, there’s another line in that hymn that says, ever and ever the keys he will hold. That’s what prophets are for. They commune with God, they receive authority, they speak for God, they speak against evil. In the case of the revelation to Brigham Young, it’s going to be don’t covet. Don’t be drunk, to return what you borrow. That’s what prophets do for us. They don’t help us with elevators, so we have to, I think, think about it differently.

Hank Smith:                      00:52:58             Yeah, I love that. One of my favorite moments in the Book of Mormon is in Mosiah eight, John, you know this story where Limhi is asking Ammon, do you know someone who can translate? And Ammon says, yes, we have a Seer He doesn’t say anything about elevators, but he does say God has provided a means that man through faith might work mighty miracles. He becomes a great benefit to his fellow beings. To me, the prophets I have listened to, President Hinckley was the first time I remember really sitting up straight and listening. President Monson and President Nelson have been a great benefit to me. A great benefit to me. Thank you for that Keith. We have to watch out for our expectations, don’t we?

Dr. Keith Erekson:           00:53:50             Well, and I like what you said about the benefits ’cause we could see Section 135 as that kind of testimony when they say he has revealed these two books of scripture. He sent the gospel to the four quarters of the earth. We’re gathering to a city. That’s that kind of testimony. That’s why we have a prophet to do those kinds of things.

Hank Smith:                      00:54:13             Be careful on your expectations. John it was you who said, don’t put these people under microscopes.

John Bytheway:               00:54:19             It was in my stake. A member of the Seventy came and set apart our new stake president. He said to the congregation, now, don’t put him under a microscope. He can’t take it. Neither can you, he said. And he said, if his children do something that makes you raise your eyebrows, put ’em back down, he said.

Hank Smith:                      00:54:39             I like what you said there, Keith. We have unrealistic expectations.

John Bytheway:               00:54:42             We’re just folks.

Dr. Keith Erekson:           00:54:44             You know, in many ways, I think this is an influence of our modern culture. We often engage with people as celebrities or superheroes. That’s what we expect for prophets. We imagine that they have a bat phone that goes straight to heaven, and anytime they need something, they just pick it up and God tells ’em what to do. But that is not how it works. They do have a gift, which is the same one we have. Jesus taught Joseph Smith, you’re gonna translate the Book of Mormon when I, by me telling you in your mind and in your heart through the Holy Spirit, and Jesus gave away the secret. This is in Section eight of the Doctrine and Covenants. This is the Spirit by which Moses led the children of Israel across the Red Sea. That’s it. That’s what prophets have. The gift of the Holy Ghost, and Moses had to learn how to use it. Joseph had to learn how to use it. Oliver failed. He couldn’t translate. We get that in the following revelation, but that’s what they have. That is the gift. The channel. They don’t have this special kind of thing or we imagine that they’re infallible or all these kinds of things. They’re not superheroes. They’re messengers called of God. That’s who they are.

John Bytheway:               00:55:57             I’ve heard a lot of young people pray and bless that we’ll learn something new. Now, they don’t say it that way, but a lot of times, can you just give us something new? And I love that Brigham Young is saying, hey, be honest with each other and pay your debts. It’s nothing new.

Hank Smith:                      00:56:13             Don’t gossip.

John Bytheway:               00:56:13             It’s keep the commandments. That’s what we should expect. Now, President Nelson is amazing in how he can make these messages think celestial, so concise. Stay on the covenant path and be a peacemaker. These are concepts we’ve heard before. It’s not something new.

Hank Smith:                      00:56:34             They reiterate what God has told us.

Dr. Keith Erekson:           00:56:38             And then to add to that, President Nelson will say, I hope you’re not missing the majesty of what’s happening.

John Bytheway:               00:56:45             Beautiful.

Hank Smith:                      00:56:46             Imagine the Saints hearing. Just one temple was a joyous miracle, and now 16, 17 in one session of General Conference, and it happens over and over and over. Keith, we’re so grateful that you would spend your time with us. Do you have any closing thoughts for our listeners as they study these sections this week? The martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum and the trek west through the Prophet Brigham Young, and any closing thoughts?

Dr. Keith Erekson:           00:57:15             I really love a phrase that our current leaders have been using more frequently, and it’s the idea of an ongoing restoration. Often we look back at the past and say, Joseph and Brigham did things, and they did, and we’ve talked about those kinds of things, but it’s important to remember that this is ongoing. One of the things we make little kids memorize in order to escape primary is the idea that God will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to his prophets, but we never stop and think about what that means. Here’s what it means. It means President Nelson doesn’t know all of the stuff right now. If God will yet reveal many great and important things, it means he doesn’t know all of those things. It also means that President Nelson knows more than Gordon B. Hinckley did, and he knew more than David O. McKay did, and he knew more than Wilford Woodruff did. Wilford Woodruff even said this at the pulpit in General Conference. They had ended the practice of plural marriage.

                                           00:58:22             They had also changed the way that we do sealings in the temples. There was some pushback, and Wilford Woodruff said, hey, I know more than Joseph and Brigham knew. I am the Lord’s mouthpiece, and I’m telling you that this is what the Lord wants us to do. That’s exciting as we go forward. It also opens up to change and ongoingness and line upon line, but it is many great and important things pertaining to the kingdom of God. Those are coming in the future, including the most exciting thing, which is when the Savior returns, he will bring us all of those glad tidings, these messengers. They don’t teach us to follow them. President Nelson has put it in the pithy phrase, hear him, Joseph and Brigham and President Nelson. They all know that they are following Jesus and they’re calling us to hear him and to follow him. We get in these sections glimpses in Joseph, Brigham, but I hope that’s where we end up, that we’ll say, I can trust that God is calling messengers.

Hank Smith:                      00:59:31             Yeah. I think that’s beautiful. The focus isn’t on what I have seen as the prophet, but what you can see, not that I’ve heard him, but you also can go hear him.

John Bytheway:               00:59:44             I just love it. The Savior works through mortals. He has revealed himself. He has restored the gospel. It is a continuing restoration. I love that idea too, Keith. We keep seeing it. The majesty of it. Thank you for saying that. We get front row seats to all of this. It’s amazing. My parents passed away. I’m just wondering what they’re watching ’cause I wish I could talk to my dad about, can you believe what’s going on? You know. He’s got front row seats too I bet. So it’s amazing.

Hank Smith:                      01:00:17             We can finish where we started that Keith’s words have tended to edify us and our listeners. Now I feel built. I know when I’m feeling the Holy Ghost, ’cause I’m excited, excited to have our listeners hear this, for I can share it with my family and with my children. Keith, thank you. Thank you for taking your time with us.

Dr. Keith Erekson:           01:00:37             Thank you so much.

Hank Smith:                      01:00:38             It’s been so fun. With that, we want to thank Dr. Keith Erekson for joining us. We want to thank our executive producer Shannon Sorensen, our sponsors David and Verla Sorensen, and every episode we remember our founder Steve Sorensen. We hope you’ll join us next week. We’re coming close to the end of the Doctrine and Covenants here on followHIM. Thank you for joining us on today’s episode. Do you or someone you know speak Spanish, Portuguese, or French? You can now watch and listen to our podcast in those languages. Links are in the description below. Today’s show notes and transcript are on our website. FollowHIM.co. That’s followHIM.co. Of course, none of this could happen without our incredible production crew. David Perry, Lisa Spice, Will Stoughton, Krystal Roberts, Ariel Cuadra, Heather Barlow, Amelia Kabwika, Sydney Smith and Annabelle Sorensen.