Review
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Title: Terrible Revolution: Latter-day Saint and the American Apocalypse.
Author: Christopher James Blythe
Publisher: Oxford University Press, New York City
Genre: Religious Non-Fiction
Year Published: 2020
Number of Pages: 338
Binding: Hardback
ISBN: 9780190080280
Price: $74.00
Reviewed by Kevin Folkman for the Association For Mormon Letters
As a teen in the late 1960s, I became interested in the books on my parent’s bookshelves and read many of the church-related titles. Two that I remember, mostly for their apocalyptic tone, were Cleon Skousen’s Prophecy and Modern Times, and Duane Crowther’s Prophecy: Key to the Future. These included interpretations of scriptural prophecies, statements by church leaders, and a few references to uncanonized items such as “The White Horse Prophecy.” I came away with the idea that the end times would be terrible times of violence, bloodshed, famine, and plague. When I would go to church, I would often hear teachers and speakers talk fondly about these times with what seemed an unhealthy anticipation and celebration of a time when the wicked would finally get what they deserved, when communism would be defeated, and tell of the terrible wars that would ravage the Earth. These were not events that I anticipated with any particular pleasure. However, I took comfort in the thought that wanting something is infinitely more satisfying than having it, and in that day I would be able to say, “I told you so.”
Our church is, after all, a church of anticipation. We are the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (emphasis mine). As a seminary student, I was told that I was part of a choice generation, held back to come forth in the fullness of times. My own teenage children heard the same statements in the 1990s, and I have heard the same rhetoric directed to the youth of our current day. We have been counseled as church members to look forward with anticipation to the Second Coming, to lay in our year’s supply of food and cash (Two years? Six months?), and to hasten the end times by flooding the world with the Book of Mormon and missionaries.
This anticipatory sense is at the root of Christopher Blythe’s new book, Terrible Revolution: Latter-day Saints and the American Apocalypse. A sense of the nearness of the last days and the Second Coming of Jesus Christ permeated the experiences of Joseph Smith and his followers from the earliest days of the church. Blythe points out that the text of the Book of Mormon is an apocalyptic text, “drawing on themes of destruction and renewal” (p. 16). The building of the Kirtland and Nauvoo Temples were described in the language of end-times symbolism, ripe with a sense of keys, authority, and rites restored, never to be taken from the Earth again. The expulsion from Nauvoo, the trek west, the struggles surrounding Utah’s quest for statehood, and the battles with the federal government over polygamy were also described in similarly apocalyptic terms. As Blythe points out, these events were defined in apocalyptic language by church leaders and understood by members who looked forward with an anticipation of the imminent return of the Messiah.
Blythe, formerly with the Joseph Smith Papers Project and now a research associate with the Maxwell Institute at Brigham Young University, covers the history of apocalyptic thought and rhetoric in the church from Joseph Smith on through the present. The first chapter explains the apocalyptic tone of the American religious environment at the time of the restoration, and how the early church reflected that sentiment. Chapter 2 describes the effect of the Martyrdom on interpreting end-times prophecies, and later chapters describe how the anti-American sentiment of the 19th century turned to an inclusion of American exceptionalism in the 20th century, and how apocalyptic views persist in the 21st.
There is also an element of folklore in all of this apocalyptic language, Blythe writes. Individual members have interpreted this language in ways that make sense to them, drawing on scripture, history, and “wonder stories,” anecdotes regarding the end of the world (p. 96). This is how we get stories about the Three Nephites delivering stern warnings while helping you to change your flat tire on a deserted road. It is also where we get the idea that Willard Richards escaped the mob at Carthage with no wounds because unlike the rest of Joseph Smith’s companions, he was wearing garments during the attack.
It is not just church leaders who contribute to the prophetic narrative, or how these prophecies are interpreted. Blythe writes about “vernacular prophecy,” visions claimed by those outside the church’s leadership, and how that has informed our view of the end times. Near-death experiences, such as LDS author Betty Eadie’s 1992 best-selling memoir, Embraced by the Light, are examples of the homegrown apocalyptic current in Mormon thought. Individuals and groups have carried on the “prepper culture” of the 20th century that has its roots in the counsel of LDS leaders by building fallout shelters and putting in their year’s supply of food, water, and ammunition. Study groups have morphed into movements, such as the “True and Living Church” centered in Manti, Utah at the end of the 1990s. The group’s leader looked for a return to an older version of the church and anticipated the return of a resurrected Joseph Smith who will reset the church’s course (Chapter 6). Some, reading the apocalyptic visions in scripture, found reason to separate themselves from the mainstream church, forming fundamentalist sects. These stories still play out today among many members. My wife recently shared a social media post with me that used similar apocalyptic language. Talking about the tumultuous year that 2020 has become, the commenter wrote “I find it interesting that all the recent craziness…has happened since the demolition and construction work of the Salt Lake Temple…Maybe it is Gods [sic] way of showing us that He needs to break us down in order to build us back up…Maybe we are just facing these trials because God is preparing us for a bigger storm. A bigger trial.”
In Terrible Revolution, Blythe documents fact, folklore, and fantasy in these latter-day visions. In a sense, Blythe has woven a fabric of end-time prophecies, with the colors and textures changing as new circumstances arise. Scripture and revelation are explained according to changed perspectives and new interpretations, New threads are introduced into the weave, sometimes replacing older yarn. We don’t yet know how this tapestry is going to look in the end, but Blythe gives us a guide to how the weave may look at any one time, why it changes at particular points, and what it might become in the near future. It is an unfinished work, but a work of craftsmanship, vision, and anticipation. It is shaped by the original weavers as well as by the many who have themselves laid a hand on the developing tapestry. Not much of this fabric is unfamiliar to us, but Blythe helps the reader to view it in its whole unfinished state. The title may include “Terrible,” but this book is anything but. It is a unique contribution to understanding the history, theology, and folklore surrounding the much-anticipated end times through the eyes of the church and its lay members.