Sidney Rigdon: A Portrait of Religious Excess

by Richard S. Van Wagoner

In the late 1820s a fiery young minister in western Ohio converted nearly 1,000 proselytes to the Reformed Baptist Movement. As these schismatics organized themselves into the new Disciples of Christ church, the Reverend Sidney Rigdon was already aligning himself with another, more radical movement, the Latter-day Saints, where he quickly became the LDS prophet’s principal advisor and spokesman. He served Joseph Smith loyally for the next fourteen years, even through a brief spat over the prophet’s romantic interest in his teenage daughter.

Next to Smith, Rigdon was the most influential early Mormon. He imported Reformed Baptist teachings into Latter-day Saint theology, wrote the canonized Lectures on Faith, championed communalism and isolationism, and delivered many of the most significant early sermons, including the famous Salt Sermon and the Ohio temple dedicatory address.

Following Smith’s death, Rigdon parted company with Brigham Young to lead his own group of some 500 secessionists Mormons in Pennsylvania. Rigdon’s following gradually dwindled, as the one-time orator took to wandering the streets, taunting indifferent passersby with God’s word. He was later recruited by another Mormon faction. Although he refused to meet with them, he agreed to be their prophet and send revelations by mail. Before long he had directed them to settle far-off Iowa and Manitoba, among other things. At his death, his followers numbered in the hundreds, and today they number about 10,000, mostly in Pennsylvania.

“Rigdon is a biographer’s dream,” writes Richard Van Wagoner. Intellectually gifted, manic-depressive, an eloquent orator and social innovator but a chronic indigent, Rigdon aspired to altruism but demanded advantage and deference. When he lost prominence, his early attainments were virtually written out of the historical record.

Correcting this void, Van Wagoner has woven the psychology of religious incontinence into the larger fabric of social history. In doing so, he reminds readers of the significance of this nearly-forgotten founding member of the LDS First Presidency. Nearly ten million members in over one hundred churches trace their heritage to Joseph Smith. Many are unaware of the importance of Rigdon’s contributions to their inherited theology.

Genres: Religion, Mormonism, History, Nonfiction, Biography

699 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1994

Reviews

[Rodger · Rating 5 out of 5]

While giving this book a 5 star rating I am not recommending it to my list of goodfriends on goodreads. It is however an excellent work for those who are interested in the early years of the Latter Day Saints. The author is an LDS scholar and this book is documented from Journals, letters, etc., contained in the Historical Department of the LDS church in Salt Lake City.

It is not a book that will make current Mormon's proud of their founding as it is not a whitewash of Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, and other early mormon leaders.

It is the first "non-official" account of the succession of Brigham Young to the leadership at the death of Smith that I have ever seen. Basically, Brigham and the other 11 of the quorum of 12 were practicing polygamy at the time and Rigdon thought it nothing more than an abomination and an excuse for adultery. The 12 chose to become the leadership rather than allow Rigdon, whom Joseph Smith had appointed and sustained as second in charge after him, to become the President. Their lifestyle was at stake.

Rigdon's branch of the LDS church evenutally called The Church of the Latter Day Children of Zion shrank to about 11 families at his death in 1876. While the Utah church and the Reoganized church have reduced Sidney Rigdon to a footnote, his life is still venerated in the Bickertonites whose 7 United States districts are headquartered in Pennsylvania and have missions in 11 countries around the world.

[Joe Wisniewski · Rating 3 out of 5]

As most studied scholars of historiography can attest, two historians can look at the identical sets of primary resources and come to radically different conclusions as the intentions, passions and purposes of the historical figures under consideration.

Historians also should understand that it can be very misleading to fall into the trap of applying contemporary mores, laws, or accepted codes of conduct to times past.

And finally, with all things being equal, and they generally are not, but for the sake of discourse, contemporary records of an era must be given higher value and levels of authenticity than primary records that are written decades after the era under consideration, even and especially when those records are penned by the major players of the time. Memories change.

These are generally the areas on which I want to base this review.

Having prefaced my comments as such and as one who is not a church historian in any regard, I believe that this book stretched beyond what was reasonable for the goals of this book. And this is where I had trouble. It wasn't really clear what the ultimate goal of the book was.

I believe that portrayal of Sidney Rigdon's actions and passions was accurate. In today's parlance, he may well have suffered from severe emotional disorders. He was clearly a passionate man, but it is even here that I depart somewhat from the author's conclusion and basis (from the title) for the book. Rigdon wasn't over-zealous about religion. When religion left his life for a spell, his over-zealousness was immediately transplanted in another venture (geology). Rigdon was passionate about everything.

And this is where I believe Wagoner overstretches. He is applying what we would consider today to religions over-zealousness, when in fact, as Wagoner certainly is aware, that entire region of the country was immersed in religions zealotry. It is perfectly natural that given what we know of Rigdon's oratory capabilities, he would immediately and obviously gravitate to the "flavor of the day"; relgion. All religion of the day, at one level or another was zealous.

Now to the point of drawing conclusions; there are numerous occasions in this book where the A+B=C of historical inference is left undocumented without footnoting. This was somewhat disturbing. Certainly conclusions must be drawn by the historian, however, when conclusions are drawn that conflict with accepted history, the historian is obligated to do a better job. (I will list some of those in a further review.)

While it is true that S. Rigdon seemed passionately abhorrent of polygamy, the story of S. Rigdon diverted into what seemed to be a concerted effort to destroy the reputation of Joseph Smith. Now, having said that, it is clear, as will all great "heroes", their faults and humanness are often minimized or blotted out entirely. However, in this case, Wagoner does not provide a balancing observation that the majority of the records (although I need to do further study on this) that he relies on to indict J. Smith et. al. of the more severe accusations were written decades after Joseph's death. (mostly dealing with adulterous behavior)

I believe much can be learned from this book. However while the claim is made that all primary material came from Church archives, and I don't claim any reason to doubt that, we do not know what may have been omitted that might shed an entirely different light on the view of the actions and perhaps more importantly, motivations, of Rigdon, Smith or Young. For me, more research is needed.

But again, I caution that it is dangerous to try and read the actions of those from another era through the filter of our 21st century eyes; eyes that are accustomed (for members that is) to a church whose infrastructure is relatively stable; not perfect, but stable. This simply was not the case at the time. We don't have anything near the temporal challenges of the day and do live in a time where I do not believe any of us can clearly appreciate the religious fervor of the day and how that impacted everyday life for large swaths of the country.

Sidney Rigdon as did most of the original founders of the church, left never to return. Rigdon was clearly a tortured man. Most people of the time were "tortured" in one form or another. Could they all have gotten "along" better and treated each other more kindly; certainly.

We must see these people as what they were; people with faults used by the Lord for a larger purpose.

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was interesting to see Sidney's contributions, and also to see how he interacted with Joseph Smith. It is apparent that he is devalued in the LDS church. It was sad to me to see how he ended up alone without support, despite his big contributions to mormonism.

[Joel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Even if you are familiar with early LDS history this book helps you see it from a different perspective. Rigdon was rewritten out of the narrative and forgotten after Joseph Smith died. The Twelve united behind Brigham Young and verbally destroyed him. He was a mentally unstable man who was at a minimum manic depressive. He started as a Reformed Baptist in Alexander Campbell's movement but was won over by reading the Book of Mormon to the new faith. Millenial expectations and odd spirituality led him and many like him to cast aside reason and go with their feelings.
He suffered alongside Smith through beatings, being tarred and feathered, financial ruin, and arrests. Unlike almost all other senior leaders who lasted, he did not embrace polygamy but also stayed loyal to Joseph.
Van Wagoner writes sympathetically and honestly.

[Trevor Miller · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lots of interesting details from Rigdon’s life I had never known before.

I disagreed with the author at several points with his interpretation of the historical documents, but he did a great job at gathering sources from a very broad spectrum.

[A. · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not impressed.

This review sums up many of my feelings: http://publications.maxwellinstitute....

Additionally, the book was shot through with broad dismissals and sweeping conjectures that were utterly unfounded in what Van Wagoner actually wrote. I felt like most of it was an effort to write excessively critically about Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, the Book of Mormon, etc.

[Brian Stuy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Van Wagoner's biography on Sidney Rigdon will change the way you see the restoration movement of Joseph Smith. His use of primary sources, often competing with known and traditionally referenced works by Smith and others, is enlightening and deepens the reader's knowledge of Rigdon's personality and impact on Joseph Smith. This is a masterful work.

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book that fills some gaps in Mormon history not covered in other books.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Insightful as to the atmosphere prevailing in the LDS Church in the 1840's.