Review
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Title: Religious Liberty and Latter-day Saints: Historical and Global Perspectives (Church History Symposium)
Edited by John C. Thomas and Robert T. Smith
Publisher: RSC/BYU/Deseret Book Company
Year Published: 2023
Number of Pages: 536
Binding: Hardback
ISBN: 978-1950304431
Price: $34.95
Reviewed by Meagan Anderson Evans (meagan@ou.edu) for the Association for Mormon Letters
The introduction to Religious Liberty and Latter-day Saints offers an appendix titled “Religious Liberty Quotes by Church Leaders.” It includes the following quotation by former member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Bruce R. McConkie:
Freedom of worship is one of the basic doctrines of the gospel. Indeed, in one manner of speaking, it is the most basic of all doctrines, even taking precedence over the nature and kind of being that God is, or the atoning sacrifice of the Son of God, or the vesting of priesthood and keys and saving power in the one true Church. By this, we mean that if there were no freedom of worship, there would be no God, no redemption, and no salvation in the kingdom of God (22).
If McConkie’s proclamation is to be taken to heart, the text, a rich tapestry of historical narratives, legal analyses, and personal accounts gathered from the Church’s 2022 Church History Symposium, should not only be on the bookshelf of every Latter-day Saint household, but its lessons should be read, cherished, and taught, embraced with fervor and gratitude reflective of McConkie’s words.
Furthermore, the text’s appeal extends beyond the Latter-day Saint community, resonating with amateur and professional historians alike, as the breadth of knowledge encapsulated within its pages will captivate and enlighten readers from all walks of life. The volume, divided into “Challenges in the American Arena” and “Challenges on the Global Stage,” provides an introduction to Latter-day Saint perspectives and understandings of religious freedom, rooted in Joseph Smith’s 1842 proclamation: “We claim the privilege of worshipping the Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may” (11).
The introduction to the text includes the words of a current Quorum of the Twelve Apostles member, Gerrit W. Gong, and other Church-related professionals, including Alexander Dushku, Matthew J. Grow, Kate Holbrook, Bill Atkin, and Robert T. Smith, setting the stage for the enlightening discussions that follow. In the next chapter, “‘Anxiously Engaged in a Good Cause:’ Panel Discussion of Religious Freedom at Home and Abroad,” are words by Gary B. Doxey, “Recognizing the core value of religious freedom we hold as Latter-day Saints, we need to understand it better if we are to uphold it better” (56). Doxey’s invocation of Doctrine and Covenants 123:15—“Let no man count [the gathering of knowledge of facts as small things, for there is much which lieth in futurity, pertaining to the saints, which depends upon these things”—sets the tone for the remainder of the text, emphasizing the importance of acquiring knowledge as a means of fulfilling one’s responsibility as a Latter-day Saint.
Each contribution to the text profoundly explores religious liberty and its framing within the Latter-day Saint tradition; this review focuses on the work of two authors within the first section of work—“Challenges in the American Arena”—Alexander Baugh and Melissa Inouye. Alexander Baugh’s chapter “Bringing the Jackson Country Antagonists to Justice: Edward Partridge’s and William W. Phelp’s Civil Lawsuits in Missouri, 1833-36” offers a compelling narrative that vividly illustrates the challenges faced by early Latter-day Saints in Missouri. As an art historian, I was drawn to one of the striking visual elements highlighted by Baugh: Thomas Hart Benton’s mural at the Missouri State Capitol Building. The work depicts the harrowing scene of Edward Partridge being tarred and feathered—an emblematic image that encapsulates the violence and hostility directed towards early Latter-day Saints. By meticulously reconstructing the events leading to the destruction of The Evening and Morning Star offices, the targeting of W. W. Phelps’s home, and the subsequent legal proceedings, Baugh paints a vivid picture of the systematic opposition faced by Latter-day Saints in Missouri.
In “A Bellwether of Religious Freedom: Public Discourse on Chinese in Utah,” Melissa Inouye addresses how race and religion are connected and how Latter-day Saint attitudes in Utah protected and restricted religious freedom. In her conclusion, Inouye states, “It is myopic to discuss religious freedom as if it exists all by itself, independent of a broader social context,” and asks her reader to consider the following: “Instead we must ask questions such as religious freedom for what group of people? What is this group’s relationship to other groups within society, including racial groups? How does rhetoric about religious freedom function within existing dynamics of power in a particular social context, including dynamics shaped by race (but also by other factors such as gender, class, sexual orientation)?” (244) Inouye’s essay confronts and challenges the long-standing beliefs of many Latter-day Saints regarding race and religious freedoms.
The additional chapters provide equally enriching, thought-provoking ideas concerning the relationship of the Church of Jesus Christ to religious freedom. They include Gerrit Dirkmaat’s “‘Too Long Trampled on to Be Celebrated’: The Latter-day Saint Protest of Independence Day in 1845,” Derek R. Sainsbury’s “‘We Have Not Been Allowed the Liberty…to Worship As We Please’: Nancy Naomi Tracy and the Denial of Latter-day Saint Religious Liberty,” Jordan T. Watkins’ “Standing in the ‘Inner Circle of Their Feelings and Convictions’: George Ticknor Curtis and Religious Freedom,” “Latter-day Saints, Voting, and Test Oaths in the West” by John Dinger, John C. Thomas’ “Ahead of Its Time: Revisiting the Saints’ Appeal for Religious Freedom in Idaho,” and “The Church’s Legal Advocacy for Religious Freedom: Amicus Curiae Briefs, 2008-22” compiled by Rachel Miner and Anna Bryner.
The second section of the text, “Challenges on the World Stage,” includes five chapters emphasizing various geographic locales. Michelle Graabek’s “A Global Church History and Negotiating Religious Freedom in 1850s Denmark” aims “to present some of the history that led to religious freedom’s inclusion in the Danish Constitution and the experience of Danish Latter-day Saints in negotiating religious freedom in Denmark in the early 1850s,” and “to highlight that to be a truly global church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints should be more culturally sensitive to how it presents global history, including constitutional history” (342). Graabek calls for more inclusive language surrounding Church history.
The final chapter, Keneth L. Alford’s “War’s Influence on Missionary Work,” demonstrates that, since the Mexican-American War, war has not halted the Church’s progress, in accordance with Joseph Smith’s proclamation in the 1842 Wentworth Letter, “No unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing” (490). Additional chapters in the final section include “The London Missionary Society in the Cook Islands: Restricting Religious Freedom,” by Mary Jane Woodger and Sarah Romney, James Perry’s and “Religious Persecution of Mid-Twentieth Century Czechoslovakian Latter-day Saints, and Jeffrey G. Cannon’s “Religious Liberty in Apartheid South Africa: The Latter-day Saint Experience.”
Returning to the appendix to the introduction, included near Bruce McConkie’s quotation on religious liberty, are the words of the former prophet of the Church, Joseph F. Smith. In the Spring 1909 General Conference, he proclaimed, “We believe in all truth, no matter to what subject it may refer. No sect or religious denomination in the world possesses a single principle of truth that we do not accept or that we will reject. We are willing to receive all truth, from whatever source it may come; for truth will stand, truth will endure” (21). McConkie, Smith, and each scholar included in this volume echo the profound importance of religious liberty within the Latter-day Saint tradition and offer wisdom that will resonate with readers across generations.