Sunstone Podcast #13—Don Bradley: The Grand Fundamental Principles of Mormonism: Joseph Smith’s Unfinished Reformation
By John Dehlin on Aug 4, 2006
If you’ve thought there was nothing new to discuss about the connections between Masonic influences on early Mormon history and theological development, you haven’t yet read Don Bradley’s article “The Grand Fundamental Principles of Mormonism: Joseph Smith’s Unfinished Reformation” in the April 2006 Sunstone. But even more than the new understandings about Mormonism and Masonry, this article provides a wonderful entry into the Mormon prophet’s hopes for reshaping Church emphases during the final year of his life. What would Mormonism be like today were the Grand Fundamental Principles Smith attempted to install as central to LDS lives as Buddhism’s Four Noble Truths or the Five Pillars of Islam are to adherents of those traditions? If we like that vision, what might we do to bring it into clearer focus?
This new podcast features an interview with Don Bradley conducted by Sunstone editor Dan Wotherspoon. In it, they discuss the background and path through which Bradley came to see the connections he did, plus the article’s broad outlines and projects that Bradley is currently working on to bring some of these things into greater focus.
To listen directly to this podcast, either click here, or subscribe directly to SunstonePodcast via iTunes.
Wow, an excellent podcast. The RS/masonic connections are fascinating. I do have a question for those more knowledgable than I, however.
It is my understanding that one of the purposes of establishing a Masonic lodge in Nauvoo was to create a political and social connection to those outside of Mormonism in the other lodges of the region. Given this (assuming I understand correctly), wouldn’t the establishment of the RS, essentially a female lodge, undermine that objective by possibly angering other Masonic lodges?
Comment # 1 by Tom Grover | Aug 5, 2006 | Reply
Hi Tom,
Thanks for the kudos!
There are many scholars at the interface of Mormonism and Masonry who can give a more complete answer than I (and I hope they’ll chime in). But I’ll take a shot at your question.
While it is the reasonable surmise of several recent historians that JS sought a lodge in order to build connections with non-Mormons, I’m not aware of any contemporaneous documentation for this view. This may have been a factor, but so, undoubtedly, were the Masonic experience of Joseph’s father and brother, the Masonic connections to the plates story, the fact that the Masons claimed keys from Solomon’s temple, etc.
In the anti-Masonic environment of late 1820s New York (following the Morgan affair), portions of Masonic ceremony were openly performed and parodied by disaffected Masons. Joseph would have encountered enough Masonry at that time to possibly pique his interest in what other keys or wisdom the Masons might possess.
I understand that Nick Literski will flesh out how Joseph Smith came to be a Mason in his book _Method Infinite_.
But Joseph Smith definitely took actions in the wake of his Masonic initiation that would have alienated him from Masons more broadly. In the endowment, he revealed to non-Masons what Masons would have seen as Masonic secrets. And even in the lodge, he had the Nauvoo Masons give new degrees when the Nauvoo lodge’s authorization to do so had been suspended.
If Joseph Smith joined the lodge to win friends and influence non-Mormon Masons, he quickly lost sight of that purpose.
Don
Comment # 2 by Don Bradley | Aug 5, 2006 | Reply
Hey Tom and Don,
Nick is planning on covering all the previous theories about why JS became a Mason in depth, but just briefly, the idea that Joseph became a Mason to network is something that, if known by the Lodge, would get any man kicked out. It is a violation of Masonic promises that you are not joining for any mercenary means. Those who say that was his reason, or even one of many reasons, are almost always LDS who are trying to find some justification for him doing something that is so *awful* and have no idea what they are talking about. As you have stated, the Relief Society only further discredits this long held and very wrong view.
Joseph
Comment # 3 by Joseph Johnstun | Aug 7, 2006 | Reply
Aa a Reform Mormon, I applaude Don’s well-research, thoughtful exploration of Joseph Smith’s unfinished Reformation.
Reform Mormonism takes a completely raionalistic, naturalistic approach to Mormon history and Joseph Smith. Based on the Nauvoo-era philosophy and theology advanced by Joseph Smith and the Pratt Brothers, Reform Mormonism teaches that existence and nature (not God) are primary. This “Rational Theology” (a phrase later coined by LDS Apostle, John Witdsoe) was the theological/philosophic basis for Joseph’s unfinished reformation of Mormonism. Cut short by his murder, his Reformation was stopped before it could flower.
With the break-up of the Nauvoo Mormon community (resulting in the Utah LDS, the RLDS and the Strangite LDS traditions), Mormonism reverted back to its roots in Christian Primitivism and Restorationism. Thus the theologies of most currernt Mormon churches and sects are more “Christian” than the new theology Joseph was developing during his Nauvoo-era Reformation.
Anti-Mormons, of course, have had a field day pointing out the contradictions to the LDS Church’s 20th and 21st Century Christ-centered theology and the new Mormon Paradigm that Joseph Smith and the Pratts introduced in Nauvoo.
This new Mormon Paradigm, however, is the greatest theological innovation of the past two thousand years. It collapses the distance between the human and the Divine. If one accepts Lorenzo Snow’s pithy evaluation of the Mormon Paradigm (”As man now is, God once was; as God now is, man may become”), then biology becomes theology. To accept the Paradigm’s rejection of Creationism (which Joseph laid out in his King Follett Discourse), as well as the Paradigm’s contention that “there is no such thing as immaterial matter” and that matter is eternal–is to accept the Primacy of Existences over Consciousness (the basis of most theologies) and to have theology merge with physics and chemistry.
Joseph Smith’s unfinished Mormon Reformation–founded upon this new paradigm–could have indeed revolutionized religion had it been allowed to flower in the mid-19th century.
Thanks to the attention brought to it by Don Bradley and others, it may still flower and revolutionize 21st century religion. Given that theology is the basis of the world’s current troubles, such a revolution would be welcomed.
Comment # 4 by Rob | Aug 11, 2006 | Reply
I didn’t listen to the podcast yet, but just read the article. Very interesting, Don. Thanks for posting it, John.
Comment # 5 by APJ | Aug 15, 2006 | Reply