Camp Gagnon - The Mystery of Mormonism: Golden Plates or Golden Hoax

Episode Date: August 24, 2025

Who is Joseph Smith, and why is he so important in Mormonism? Today, we’ll look at the historical figure who kicked off one of the biggest religions. We’ll talk about the early life of Joseph Smith, the Second Great Awakening, Joseph's First Vision of God, discovering the Golden Plates, and other interesting topics… WELCOME TO Religion CAMP! 🏕️Shoutout to our sponsor: OdooTry Odoo with a 14-day free trial at: http://Odoo.com/CAMP✝️☪️✡️🕉️☦️ Religion Camp Merch: https://religion-camp.com🏕️ Get Today In History Email Here (Free): https://camp.beehiiv.com/🎟️ 🎫 Comedy Tour Tickets Here: https://markgagnonlive.comTimestamps:0:00 Welcome to History Camp0:51 Who Was Joseph Smith4:44 The Early Life of Joseph Smith8:53 The Second Great Awakening11:13 Joseph Smith’s Parents12:22 Joseph's First Vision of God14:10 Encounter With Moroni17:29 Discovering The Golden Plates21:30 Translating The Golden Plates + Publishing The Book of Mormon23:50 Formation of The LDS Church25:27 Joseph Smith Arrested For Necromancy29:23 Mormons Move to The West33:45 Smith Joins The Government37:25 The Death of Joseph Smith42:05 Polygamy In The LDS Church43:50 Good Deeds of Joseph Smith45:04 The Legacy of John Smith

Joseph Smith. Many of you probably know him by name, maybe had a Mormon friend grown up or you saw a Broadway play. But what if I told you that the real story is far more complicated and far stranger than maybe what you've heard? This was a farm boy from upstate New York who claimed he was chosen by God to restore the true church. Who said an angel led him to ancient golden plates buried in the ground, which he then translated into the book of Mormon and built a following that would become one of the fastest growing religions in the world. To his believers, he was a prophet, to others, he was a conman, and to history that is to be decided. This is the story of Joseph Smith, the man who said he spoke to God and changed America forever. So, sit back, relax, and welcome to religion camp. What's up, people, and welcome back to religion camp.

My name is Mark Gagnon, and thank you for joining me once again in this very tent. And this tent right here, this is the place where it all happens, where every single week, every Sunday, we explore the most interesting, fascinating, controversial stories from every religion from around the world, from all time, forever. That's right. Every religion has ever existed. Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, Christianity. We go through them all from sort of like an objective point of view, just trying to learn and understand people because I don't think it's possible to understand a people without understanding the God that they worship. As always, I'm joined by a dear friend today. It is Gabriel Reyes. Gabe, what's up, dude? He's going to take a good boy. Look, dude, we began nonstop comments, people going off saying,

And hey, they're going to unsubscribe of Gabe keeps on talking, interrupting, deriding the show with his anecdotes that no one gives a dang about. All right? It's going to give the people what they're. Enough, dude. I mean, look, we don't have time for you to be yapping all day because today we're going to talk about Mormonism. And not only Mormonism, we're talking about the guy that started all. The prophet himself, Joseph Smith. Now, look, I know there's going to be a lot of people that are like, oh, Mormonism, those guys are crazy.

Look, I will say a few things before we start. Mormons, I didn't grow a Mormon, all right? I only knew one Mormon kid growing up. And they were quite nice. My family and I, we used to go white water rafting, which is the whitest water rafting there is. I'll be honest, it is just water rafting, but when we were doing it, it is white water.

And all the guys were Mormon. We were doing it on the Green River in Utah. We would land in Moab, not far from Grand Junction, and we would ride on down the Green River. And it was the best time ever, and these Mormons were so nice. I mean, truly, the Chick-fil-A of people. They are just sweet and kind and they're smart.

And sure, is religious fundamentalism bad? Okay, fine. Is it possible that any type of religious group or sect can have radical ideas that some people go and use to, you know, control and coerce people for, you know, malicious, nefarious means? Fine. Most of the Mormons I know, they're pretty cool and they're well qualified and they're educated. And they happen to speak three languages and they're fine people, all right? So again, the purpose of this show is to try to explore the good size of all religions.

There's enough bad stuff out there, you know, people. People got mad at me for a couple episodes ago. Because I was talking about the Jews, people were like, dude, why are you defending them? I'm like, well, hey, that's the point of the show, all right? I like people. I like humanity and I like to explore the good parts of all their religions, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, et cetera.

So today's gonna be no different. Are there gonna be jokes interspersed? Obviously. But without further ado, let's begin. Just to start, typically in the US, when we're thinking about Mormonism, okay? We think about all the jokes. You probably see the book of Mormon.

You're thinking sister wives, Salt Lake City, Soaking. But, All right, Gabe, see, this is what I'm talking about, all right? You're just giggling over there. I got excited. I heard soaking. Come on, bro. But what you don't know is that Mormonism has its roots actually right here in New York City. Right where I'm pitching my tent. Upstate New York. Yeah, basically the farmland where Mormonism was established is private property owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Mormonism is, you know, an interesting religion, has fascinating and intriguing things about its practices,

but we're going to do a deep dive on the doctrine and the practices and the theology at a later date. This is not going to be a breakdown on what the Mormons or the LDS Church believes. Today is going to be a breakdown on Joseph Smith's life. Now, obviously, we're going to be having some overlap as we discuss Joseph Smith's life. We're going to see some things that now start to make sense in the broader picture of Mormonism. But again, this is not the purpose of this. This is trying to do a critical analysis of who Joseph Smith was. All right, we're looking at the founder and the movement sort of, you know, curator.

You know, he's the man. He's the myth. He's the Mormon himself. His name is Joseph Smith. Let's go all the way back to the beginning. We got to go back to the place where he sprung up, okay? And it was a little village in 1805 on the border between these two small farming villages in Vermont, which is pretty poetic. know, and there's a lot that we'll talk about in, you know, Joseph Smith's life that was sort of

on the border, two things, bridging multiple things, but we'll get there in a little bit, okay? Joseph Smith was one of 11 children. His parents were getting after it. It's pretty impressive. This is before a polygamy, okay? And two of Joseph Smith's older brothers, Hiram and Alvin, went into playing instrumental roles in the development of the LDS Church later on. So, Joseph Smith, he's born, and then he's seven years old, and reportedly he got a bone infection, for which he had to get surgery, which left him on crutches for three years. Now, considering that his family were farmers, that sucks, because obviously the big farming families notoriously need their kids to help work the land, specifically the young men. Now, there's not a lot of information

on what Joseph Smith did during these handicapped years as a child, but it's interesting to wonder whether this affected his development in any way. You know, there's obviously a social isolation that goes on. He's not able to play outside, is not able to work outside, is not able to contribute to the family like the rest of his siblings. And now, of course, there's a speculation here. But of course, you know, childhood trauma in any effect would certainly leave some type of mark on, you know, a person's personality, their mental health. And perhaps it created a different way that he associated or, you know, sort of, you know, spent his time. Is it possible he got more interested in the ephemeral, sort of the esoteric, the spiritual nature of the world when he wasn't able to actually move and do as much? He's not as distracted by the things other people distracted by because he's bedridden or at least, you know, crutch ridden.

So Joseph was described by many as being very pensive, reflective, and patient, for lack of a better word, you know. And maybe, again, that stemmed from this coping with his injury as a child. You know, he was like, I can't change this situation. I will just accept it. And as a result, became seen as sort of like a stoic kid. Well, despite all that, the farming life in Vermont didn't last long because when Joseph was 10, his family was sort of for, out of farming and kind of out of Vermont altogether due to a multi-year series of crop failure. So there were abnormalities in the weather that actually stretched around the world at this

period in time, which caused a massive global temperature decrease. So after the third season with virtually no crops in 1816, the Smith family said, you know what, we're leaving Vermont and we're going up to the township of Palmyra in upstate New York. Seems like a pretty good change. This new environment brings a lot of lifestyle switches for this. Smith family, not only professionally, but also religiously. So in this new town that the whole family goes to, all 11 siblings, all 12 kids, the parents, the whole deal, they're in an entire new area. What was, you know, later called by historians a hotbed of religious enthusiasm. So in this specific

pocket of upstate New York, there are revivals and camp meetings and these like intense religious movements that are spreading throughout the whole region. And it's influenced by a bunch of different faiths. So you have like different Christian communities that are sometimes mixed in with like Native American folk religions mixed in with some like theosophical occult religions. And they're just different people in the area, different religious holy people that are kind of spreading these different ideas that are now morphing into different religious movements. And people are going way outside any previously established boundary of organized religions. So now there's like folk magic and folk healing and medicine and divination, all sorts of stuff that would have been seen, been

seen as like, you know, pagan or even like witchcraft to, you know, more traditional Orthodox Christian circles. And there's even a growing movement of something called seekerism, which is really interesting. This is basically specifically within like Christian circles. And it was a movement that sought to restore what they called true Christianity. So basically at the time, people were dissatisfied with the church and, you know, specifically the Protestant church. And they started incorporating elements from other religions. And this was basically an effort to re-institute a new sense of authenticity to the faith, trying to make Christianity great again.

You know, this is a new take on an old favorite type thing. So in this period of hardcore religious experimentation between 1817 to 1825, this is what is known as the second Great Awakening. It was out of this truly unique kind of strange, you know, incubator religious environment where these religious foundations were being disassembled and this experimentation and tradition and neo-spirituality all start to kind of blend together. And this is where a. young Joseph Smith finds himself. So he's a kid and then, you know, a teenager during this era of

the second grade awakening. And while he was definitely impressionable at those ages, he wasn't the only one who was influenced by the quirkiness of this home. So his entire family started participating in some of these more mysterious like borderline occult activities that were popular in the community. And I only say occult. I don't want to make this sound like it's necessarily nefarious. Again, I don't know exactly, but it was just sort of outside of the traditional lines of what Christianity was at the time. So, for example, Joseph Smith Sr. started to move away from farming and got more involved in basically treasure hunting. Now, I know what you're like treasure. Like, what is that? Like pirates or something? He's like, no, no, no. This is basically like literally what it sounds like. It's like money digging. And it was pretty common during the time, which was kind of inspired by like quasi spiritual or like folk beliefs where people with special seeing powers or they would.

but sometimes use stones. I would help them see things, and this would then help them locate hidden objects, and then they would be blessed by God with tons of money. And it became pretty central to the Smith family and their sort of new stream of income. So Joseph Smith, Sr. would take some of his kids' treasure hunting, and Joseph Smith, Jr., was one of them.

And so this was one way that young Joseph Smith was actually introduced to these sort of mystical or magical practices and kind of acclimated him to this new world of spiritual possibilities, which is very different than the Methodist and Presbyterian influences that he was used to growing up. You know, if you, you grew up or new people that were just Methodist or Presbyterian, there's no real nature of, like, divination or, you know, like stone seeing or, you know, spiritual practice that will guide you to uncover hidden treasure. This is something that exists outside of the mainstream of Protestant American Christianity.

So Smith's parents were actually not united necessarily in their religious practice, which actually makes things very interesting. His mom was from a sort of like nice kind of like well-ish-to-do Connecticut family and a much more orthodox Presbyterian background. And his dad reportedly refused to attend church. So his mom was more engaged with the seekerism movement, whereas his dad was a full-on treasure hunter money digger using divining sticks and stuff like that. So again, you have these two parents that are kind of. of doing, you know, borderline new Christianity, neocristianity, in different ways. So it's interesting to see where, you know, Joseph Smith gets these ideas from in his most formative years, and he's in this place full of religious influences coming from multiple different directions.

You know, he had ties to more Orthodox Christian traditions, a mom who went to church, a dad who was dabbling in like borderline occult divination, and was living in a community full of a spiritual experimentation. And it's no wonder that he writes about feeling spiritually confused in those years. And the confusion doesn't stop because this is around the time that he begins to have visions. So by 1820, Smith is 15 years old. And he actually prayed about this confusion. And he records being disturbed about not knowing what religion or faith is the true path. And so he just went out into the woods near his house and he asked God.

And according to Smith, God appeared to him. And this was the first of many visions that Joseph Smith would report having. And he recounts it as the vision that was also the point of conversion for him. It was springtime and Smith went to a secluded wooded area near his family home to pray. And he asked God, you know, basically in short, which church is the real one? Which one should I join? Which way should I go? And this is where he would experience theophony. And this is a nice little vocab word, theophony. This is when God or a deity manifests himself or themselves physically when they appear to humans. So Smith is praying in the woods and he asks God, you know, which way do I go? Which religion is legit? And God appears to him. Like in the flesh and he shows up and he's, you know, and he writes two personages appeared to him whom he would eventually confirm were God the father and God the son, aka J.C. Jesus Christ. And those personages told young Smith that his sins were forgiven. And they confirmed to his fears that all the churches had, you know, indeed turned aside from the gospel. And God also

apparently confirmed that he would be using Joseph Smith to bring about the truth to his people. And Smith, you know, obviously had no idea what this would look like. I mean, you know, he's only 15 years old. And while God did say that he would use Smith to sort of like reform the church, it's not like he was Jesus who had, you know, childhood instances of knowing his divine fate or whatever. Okay. So he's kind of in the dark, but he knows that he's going to be used to reformed the church. And it wasn't until a few years later in 18 at the age of 18 that Smith got part two, the sequel of his visions. And, you know, this was more instruction from God. But this time, he wasn't visited by personages of God himself. He was visited by an angel. And years later, Joseph Smith

actually wrote his testimony of the vision with the angel in his own words. And it's printed at the beginning of the book of Mormon. And here's exactly what he describes. On the evening of the 21st of September 1823, I betook myself to prayer and supplication to Almighty God. While I was thus in the act of calling upon God, I discovered a light appearing in my room, which continued to increase until the room was lighter than at noon day, when immediately a personage appeared at my bedside, standing in the air for his feet did not touch the floor. He had on a loose robe of most exquisite whiteness. It was a whiteness beyond anything earthly I had ever seen,

nor do I believe that any earthly thing could be made to appear so exceedingly white and brilliant. His hands were naked and his arms also a little above the wrists. So also were his feet naked, as were his legs a little above the ankles. His head and neck were also bare. I could discover that he had no other clothing on but his robe as it was open so I could see unto his bosom. Not only was his robe exceedingly white, but his whole person was glorious upon description in his continents like true lightning. The room was exceedingly light, but not so very bright as immediately around this person when I first looked upon him. I was afraid, but the fear soon left me.

He called me by name and said unto me that he was a messenger sent from the presence of God to me and that his name was Moroni. That God had a work for me to do and that my name should be had for good and evil among all nations, kindreds and tongues, or that it should be both good and evil spoken of among all people. So Smith basically goes on for a couple more pages detailing the rest of Maronai's visit, including some special instructions that he left him with. Namely, he said that there was a book deposited

written upon gold plates, giving an account of the former inhabitants of this continent and the source from whence they sprang. He also said that the fullness of the everlasting gospel was contained in it, as delivered by the Savior to the ancient inhabitants. So that's pretty good. I mean, it sounds like kind of all the things mixed into one, you know.

He gets visited by an angel, a personage, and beautiful white. I mean, he talks about the whiteness a lot and the nakedness a lot. Not going to assume anything or make any jokes there because this is people's faith, but you can insert the blank. Then he says there's gold plates hidden somewhere but under a tree, which, I mean, if you're a son of a treasure hunter, this is like ideal. So these gold plays that the angel is talking about contain the history of the lost Judeo-Christian people who had come to the new world from Jerusalem,

thousands of years ago. That's right, even before the time of Jesus. Now, I'm not mixing this up. Okay. This is the lost history of Judeo-Christian people who had come to America from Jerusalem even before the time of Jesus. The golden plates document

these lost tribes of Israel, their lives in the Americas, and even recorded the resurrected Jesus coming to visit them as well. So Jesus resurrects and comes to the USA. Smith's charge from God was to translate these plates from their original written language, which is basically like a reformed Egyptian into

English. Now obviously coming from Vermont, Smith didn't speak Egyptian, including this mysterious reformed Egyptian. In fact, Smith had no formal education really at all, except for reading, writing, and like basic math. So how is he going to translate these golden plates? Especially since, you know, a few issues. One, scholarly reference works on languages did not acknowledge the existence of either a reformed Egyptian or, you know, reformed Egyptian script as it was described by Joseph Smith. So that no one really knows what that is. Second, there's no archaeological or, like, linguistic evidence

of the use of Egyptian writing in the Americas. I mean, you know, broadly speaking, this is what is believed by mainstream archaeology and historians. You know, perhaps they're wrong. I'll leave that open. But generally speaking, no one is really writing in Egyptian glyphs. So the angel has an answer for him. Here's how you're going to do it.

He says, also, that there were two stones in silver bows, and these stones fastened to a breastplate constituted what is called the Urum and the Thumum. Deposited with the plates and the possessions and the use of these stones were what constituted seers in ancient or former times, and that God had prepared them for the purpose of translating the book. So this is great. If you heard Urum and Thumim just now and have no idea what that is, don't worry. It's basically something worth getting into more deeply when we look at like Mormon doctrines and traditions. But for now, the point is that God had ordained sear stones to be set with the golden plates,

which would give Smith the ability to conduct his translations. Bang, God has a plan. The fact that God provided sear stones is interesting because that's something Smith would have definitely been exposed to throughout his years, potentially doing treasure hunting. but maybe this is how God knew that he would understand that these seer stones would help him translate. So here we are, Joseph Smith's bedroom, where this angel named Moroni had told him

about these mysterious ancient gold plates and these seer stones that are going to help him see and translate what these plates actually mean from this reformed Egyptian that no one really knows what it is. It sounds crazy, but God works in mysterious ways. The next step is that Smith has to actually acquire everything just to get started.

And these items are basically. buried and hidden in a hill nearby that Moronai promised Smith that he would stumble across and recognize, which he does the very next day. So he wakes up, it goes out of his house, and the hill where these stones are was just a few miles away from Smith's childhood home on a property owned by a local farmer. Smith writes about being exhausted the day after his encounter with Maronai and how on his way home from working with his father, he almost in like a trance wound up in the woods and at this hill that Marona had shown him in the vision. He wrote, on the west side of this hill, not far from the top, under a stone of considerable size,

lay the plates deposited in a stone box. Bada bang. This very hill is actually named Camorra and is a really important site that is mentioned in the golden tablets themselves. And it was the location of an enormous battle between two Judeo-Christian tribes that took place in like 400 AD and Kumora is a hill located in a land of the same name. So back in the day, the area was called Kumora, and this basically means like, you know, Comorah Hill or something.

And basically it means like a land of many waters, rivers, and fountains. Okay. So Joseph Smith would officially reinstate the name Kumora in 1829, but right now it's still 1823. Regardless, Smith goes to the hill. He tries to remove the golden plates. but Maroni returns and prevents him. And he told Smith that annually, but only on this date, he could come visit the plates

and he wouldn't be able to remove them for four years. So he's getting teased a little bit. So for the next four years, every September 22nd, he made annual visits to the hill. On the final visit, September 22nd, 1827, Smith actually reportedly took his new wife, Emma, to the hill with him. And they returned together with the plates. this is a big deal. He finally has the plates and he could finally start translating and that he did.

There were a couple different scribes who helped Smith out with this process over the next several years. One guy was Martin Harris who helped in 1828 for just a few months. Then his wife Emma Smith helped for the rest of 1828 into 1829. And then finally 1829 Smith started translating with a man named Oliver Cowdery. Now, Cowdery becomes a big character in the Mormon church, but more on that later. So together, Smith and Cowdery hustled through the rest of the golden plates, and they finally finished on July 1st, 1829. And at this point, Maroni returns, and he comes back, and he takes the plates with him, which

I don't know if anyone really knows why he takes the plates with him, but that is what he did. And it seemed that Moronai knew lots of people, you know, would be after the plates because obviously they have historic value, not only because they are, you know, ancient glyphs that tell the true story of, you know, North America and the Judeo-Nochial. Christians that came here or just because they're made out of gold and obviously that's really valuable. But, you know, there's a few reasons that Moranai needs to take them back and preserve them for their sanctity and value. And Smith also reports how after the plates were in his possession, word started to get around and he had to be, you know, watching his back to protect himself.

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trial. That's right. You get two weeks with Odu completely for free when you go to Odo.com slash camp. That's right. Odoo.com use the promo code camp and you will get 14 days for free just to try it out. See if you like it. If it's not for you, you don't need it. But Odo is going to make your life so much easier. Everything you need all in one place, save time, make more money. Now let's get back to the show. In 1830, the book of Mormon was officially published. And I initially wondered if Smith ran into any issues with getting this document published, you know? Like, again, it's difficult to publish stuff in general by 1830. And, you know, I've been to publish like a new religious doctrine probably has some, you know, it's a religious

text. And it's tough. And there's no real information around how difficult that was to do. It eventually gets published by Palmyra, in Palmyra by a printer named Egbert Brat, Grandin. And he was the first to basically put out, you know, for sale in March 26 of 1830. So less than two weeks later, on April 6, 1830, the official church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is established. Now, this is the vision coming true, that God would use Smith to restore the true church and fix all the things that the Christian church had been getting wrong. And this might be a good time to establish the difference between Mormonism and the LDS church really quick. So Joseph Smith establishes the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This is also

known as the LDS Church, and this is in 1830. Now, the text that he interpreted, these, you know, golden plates is the book of Mormon. As such, culture has just organically called members of the LDS church, Mormons after the title of their scripture. So to be fair, calling someone a Mormon rather than a Latter-day saint is just easier to do. And this is a small sort of religious sect happening in upstate New York and people just call the Mormon. So Mormonism and LDS have kind of been used interchangeably. But, you know, anyway, this would be like the equivalent of like calling Christians, Bibleers. You know what I mean? It's like, yeah, you guys are biblers. And you're like, well, we read the Bible, but we're actually Christians. Like, yeah, you're biblers. So there you go. The publication

of the Book of Mormon brought Smith some notoriety in the region. And a small group of people had already joined the movement. And they're already kind of on board. And people, you know, obviously like his family and his wife and his friends like Oliver Cowdery that we mentioned before and Peter Whitmer. And small branches of the LDS Church were starting to be established in communities across New York, like, you know, Manchester, Fayette, Colesville, and Smith slowly started to baptize new members into the LDS Church. However, we have to put a small pause there because though the LDS Church was gaining some traction and growing in fame, it's not all good publicity. So let's rewind. Remember those four years that Smith could only visit the tablets and he couldn't

actually take them with him down the hill? Remember that? Well, a few other things also happened in those four years. So first, in November of 1823, this is just a few months after the vision with Moronai. Joseph's eldest brother, Alvin, had passed away. Now, this was obviously tragic for the family. Alvin was a beloved, strong leader and also, you know, heavily, they family relied upon him, you know, heavily, you know, for financial support. And this left a newfound responsibility to our boy Joseph and his brother Hiram, who were the next two sons in the line. Secondly, 1826, three years after Alvin's death, Smith is arrested in Chinango County in charge with practicing necromancy.

Now, this is where things get interesting. Here is, again, I return to some occult associations. Now, necromancy is the occult practice of communicating with the dead, or in some cases trying to raise the dead from death and trying to bring them back to life. And it has a long history of being used in ancient pagan cultures and civilizations like Babylon, Greece, Egypt, Rome. Basically, every ancient culture,

people were trying to do necromance. in some capacity, obviously talking to people that have gone to the afterlife is valuable. So Alvin's death really impacted Joseph and was very likely the inspiration for some LDS practices like the redemption of the dead or the baptism of the dead. And that actually brings us to the necromancy charge.

There's a long story with opposing viewpoints involving the angel Maronae and Joseph Smith and something about needing Alvin, the oldest brother to be present in order to access the golden plates. There's a whole thing. I can do a different episode on that, but you get the point.

there's a trial that's held and Joseph Smith, Sr. is involved, but mostly what came from it was that Joseph Smith Jr.'s new reputation after the trial is that's the guy that does necromancy. Now, back to 1830. Many in New York remember Smith is like, oh, wait, isn't that the necromancy guy? That's a guy that tries to talk to dead people.

And, you know, he did not like that it seemed, you know, people didn't like that it seemed like it was like a cult where you talk to dead people. So he's actually arrested again in charge with being a disorderly person, whatever that means. He was soon acquitted after this arrest, but he and his buddy Cowdery then fled town to escape this growing hostility and animosity towards them as well as the group. And, you know, there was even mob violence in some capacity that they were trying to quell.

So they have to pivot. It's also worth mentioning that there are eerie, strange similarities between the early Mormon church and the early Christian church, and they obviously knew this. It is reminiscent of how the, you know, Israelites in the Old Testament were getting, you know, basically ostracized and bullied by the surrounding nations, you know, in Israel throughout all of the Torah or the Pentateuch. The Mormons are keenly aware of this, and more often than not, you know, they would suffer silently and they would go peacefully and under the direction of Smith, but there were points of time when Smith had them, you know, fight back. So, like later on, in one of the communes in Missouri,

Missouri, Smith actually organized an independent militia of his own saints, basically, his own LDS boys to fight back against the locals of the town who are trying to drive them out. I mean, that's pretty funny, right? Is this, you know, like the LDS, like the saints or marching, you know what I mean? It's just wild that he's got these Mormon boys just bucking up, grabbing pitchforks, getting after it. So Smith called the expedition the Zion's camp. And there is religious significance to that name, but there was a serious significance. seriously missed opportunity, I think, to, you know, call it like the Mormon militia or something. There's got to be a better name than Zion's camp. But regardless, the early LDS church was very persecuted, as you can imagine. There's a new movement where people are fanatical, they're excited, and they believe things that are on the fringe of traditional Christianity. And even though a lot of people are experimenting with stuff, this is the one that gets the most momentum. So basically everywhere

that they go, the non-Mormon locals start to bully them. And it was very, you know, as a result, Mormonism is very transient, and they keep on getting pushed out of different towns. And they kind of just make their way from upstate New York across the middle of the country. And this is again in line with LDS theology that was laid out in the book of Mormon. So in the book of Mormon, again, these gold tablets, they get translated by Joseph Smith and company. There's something called the New Jerusalem, which will be established on earth for Christ's reign. And this idea is consistent with Christian theology in the Bible. And then with the LDS spin, the New Jerusalem was said to be on the borders of what was U.S. territory and Native American territory.

With this growing opposition in New York, Smith announced a revelation from God. Out of the press, read all about it. We're moving west. And they're going to establish their holy city in Curtland, Ohio. It's not the place that, you know, you would want to move to establish anything holy. Curtlin, Ohio. I mean, you've got to think historically, Louisiana purges had happened in 1803. This is only 27 years later.

So obviously not all the states had been established, and these state lines, as we know today, are not as formed. So, you know, for them, Ohio, they're like, dude, that's, we're on the West Coast, baby. So they start moving the crew to Ohio to establish this new holy city, this new holy Jerusalem that God has given to them. And, you know, as he claimed, he's, God has guided them. And it's almost like connected to like this treasure hunting, seeing thing, that he is going to see through God's direction where he needs to lead his people.

So he then sent out Cowdery and some others to scout further west and to potentially even proselytize the Native Americans. And it's interesting to note that the implication of Smith's theology in the later development of divine conquest in the U.S. And, you know, even the roots of what we know today is like American nationalism. Like, I don't know. It seems like they have this feeling of like, hey, we're going to go west. We're going to get the natives. We're going to put them on our team. We're going to convert them to our religion.

and we're going to just like find our new Jerusalem. And again, this is not specifically unique to the Mormons, you know, all of Manifest Destiny, this idea of like, we're going to go west because God wants us to. I don't know if Mormonism influenced the greater culture or if the greater culture influenced Mormonism. But regardless, I don't think you can say Mormons are the only one's doing this. It seems like all, you know, American Christians were like, yeah, dude, we're going west and that's what God wants. You know, God loves us because we're rich and we're rich because God loves us, you know, that kind of philosophy. So a lot happens in terms of this growing church throughout the 1830s, and we'll get more of that in a later episode.

But as a brief overview, the church expands to Missouri, where they establish a few different communities, most famously in Jackson County and in independence. There, they experienced a lot of hostility, and they kept on getting attacked and ran out of their towns. And it seems like the general consensus that non-Mormon Americans didn't mind religious subgroups, but at the rate that the LDS church was growing, it scared a lot of people that they would eventually. be outnumbered. They would take over, you know, commerce and politics, and they would create the majority in local elections, and then they would enforce their religious ideology on the group. I mean, this is a fear that people have today about different religious groups moving in, you know, like, you know, the Punjabis will move in or the Hindus or the Muslims will move in. They'll take over the government. They'll change it. They'll turn it into a religious, you know, radical state.

Which, again, you can be afraid of that, sure, but I'm just saying it happened way long ago with the Mormons. So yeah, the Mormons experience a lot of hostility. And, you know, we already talked about this, you know, these Mormon militia groups and this, you know, Zion camp and things like that. So now they almost have, you know, this military sort of like warrior faction internally that they can then use. So I also want to briefly mention that in 1836, the LDS Church built and dedicated their first temple, which was located in Ohio. And then in 1837, Smith established a joint stock company called Curtlin Safety Society, which basically operated as like a bank, which is just an interesting side note that he's kind of like creating these financial apparatuses within the system

to work within the religion as well. And then that brings us to 1838 when the Mormons were facing expulsion for the third time from far west Missouri. So in November, Smith was imprisoned for charges of robbery, arson, and treason. And reportedly, he probably would have been executed had he not escaped and fled over the border to Illinois. So Illinois is the last setting in Joseph Smith's sort of exilic life. And it's the start of his political career in some ways. So Smith and his crew move into a nearly abandoned town called Commerce, Illinois, and they renamed it to Navu, which is the Hebrew word for beautiful place. They built up this settlement. They implemented methods for economic growth, and they started building a new temple, and they attracted converts from all over the

U.S. and then even to Europe and some of the missioners that went over to Europe, they brought them over. And this little town, known as Navu, exploded into one of the largest cities in Illinois second only to Chicago. I mean, that's how skilled the Latter-day Saints are at, you know, creating sort of tools of commerce and actually building up an economy in a place where there's basically nothing. I mean, they're very savvy, they work very hard, and they know how to organize a community. So according to the LDS Church Organization website, in 18, 1939 Smith and other church leaders visited President Van Buren concerning the losses that they had endured in Missouri. They write, President Van Buren heard Joseph's complaints and famously responded,

Gentlemen, your cause is just, but I can do nothing for you. If I take up for you, I shall lose the vote of Missouri. Recognizing that the government would not, you know, protect them, Joseph determined that, you know, he would have to do whatever he could to ensure that, you know, the LDS boys were safeguarded and that their rights would be protected. So what does he do? Let's get into politics. Yes. Smith starts to position himself, position himself in the political sphere. So in 1841, he served on the Navu City Council and also as the lieutenant general of the newly formed Navajo Legion. When within the first five meetings, 11 ordinances were passed and all of them

were introduced by Smith. So according to the LDS website, one of his most famous ordinances demonstrated his commitment to religious freedom. Smith wrote, Be it ordained that the Catholics, Presbyterians, Methodist, Baptist, Baptist, Latter-day Saints, Quakers, Episcopalians, Universalists, Unitarians, Mohammedans, aka the Muslims, Muslims, and all other religious sects and denominations, whatever shall have free toleration and equal privileges in this city. Seems pretty nice. You know, whatever you believe, you can show here. Sounds pretty good. I'm sure it's probably used as a way to, you know, pacify or ameliorate some of the concerns

from the people from the community saying, hey, are we going to get, you know, ostracized for our religious belief? So in May of 1842, Joseph Smith is elected as the mayor, and then he's reelected in 1843. And following his re-election, he was quoted promising to use all our influence to make popular that which is sound and good. Tis right politically for a man who has influence to use it. From henceforth, I will maintain all the influence I can get. In relation to politics, I will speak as a man, but in relation to religion, I will speak an authority. Bars. So, while he continued his mayoral duties in February of 1844, Joseph Smith also announces his presidential campaign for the United States of America.

That's right, making him the first Latter-day Saint to run for the office of the president. I mean, technically, he was the first Latter-day Saint ever. regardless, the record still stands. Unfortunately, some drama in the little town of Navu cut his mayorship and his campaign and also his life a little bit short. So, according to LDS records, Joseph's tenure as mayor ended in tragedy. In 1844, he and the city council passed an ordinance regarding libel. Based on the ordinance, Joseph approved getting rid of an inflammatory publication, the Navu

expositor, calling it a public news. and a threat to peace. The culture and the laws of the press were very different in 1844 than they were today. So Joseph and the city council believed that they were within their legal rights to destroy a newspaper that they thought was spreading lies about them.

Yet this act as mayor eventually led Joseph to being incarcerated in Carthage jail. And while awaiting trial there, the prophet and the mayor, Joseph Smith, was assassinated by a mob on June 27th. 1844. Joseph was actually imprisoned with his brother, Hiram, where they were both murdered. Now, if you know anything about religious authorities and, you know, ideological, spiritual

movements, when someone dies, it doesn't end the movement. Because you can kill a man, but you cannot kill an idea. So Smith ultimately died a martyr, which is obviously tragic and very sad for him, but very great for the Church of Latter-day Sam. because now they have a man who has died at the sort of height of his power at the peak of all of his potential energy, and now all of his followers are much more ardent than they were before. So this happened, you know, with basically every major religion, as many of the early Christian church leaders also died. You know, like there's actually an episode where I explain all the deaths of all the disciples and almost all of them were martyred. I mean, 11 out of 12.

I mean, if you count Judas, 11 out 12. You don't count Judas, 10 of them. Regardless. this likeness to other Christian apostles I think is significant and I think should also be sort of contemplated Smith did consider himself like an apostle of the Christian church but more similar to like

the apostle Paul because though Paul wasn't actually one of the disciples he did meet Jesus personally when he appeared to him on the road to Damascus and similarly Smith was not a literal disciple of Christ obviously but he did meet Jesus personally when he appeared to him for the first time in 1820 in that personage in the wood remember and that's kind of like the biggest criteria for being

an apostle is having like an actual interaction with the person of Jesus. Not like, you know, how, you know, people today will talk about like interacting with Jesus, having a personal relationship with Jesus or the Holy Spirit, like actually meeting the physical person of Jesus either while he was on earth or in a post-res resurrected, you know, human state. There are testimonies of Joseph Smith's character that report him being a person that was just really sort of enveloped in the love of Christ and was extremely forgiving and patient and selfless. And while these positive character traits are, you know, true in some capacity,

it's also interesting to note that there are some other traits of Joseph Smith that people will highlight as a religious and political leader. So when members of his church, including, you know, his old buddy, Cowdry that we talked before, started claiming to have visions and revelations from God, it seemed that Smith didn't really like that. And he felt that maybe his authority was getting undermined in some capacity. So soon after, he claimed to have a vision in which the Lord clarified to him that actually he, Joseph Smith, is the only one who can have revelations from God and that he's the only one that can really determine church doctrine and stuff like that. So if anyone else has a revelation from God, sorry, it's not from God.

You're going crazy. But if I do it, here we go. I don't know. I mean, if you're Mormon, then maybe this is obviously him just like protecting the chain of command from God and not letting other people or the devil himself come in and manipulate the truth of the LDS church. If you're not Mormon or LDS, you're probably looking at this being like, all right, this seems like a power. move to monopolize the, you know, connection of God's voice and basically sort of maintain your claim to divine power. And, you know, other religious leaders in history have done similar things.

I don't want to single out old Joey Smith here. But additionally, he didn't do a great job of hanging on to his friends. So every single one of his original witnesses, so Oliver Cowdery and David Whitmer and Martin Harris were excommunicated from the church before the end of the 1830s. And the reasons for, you know, these three, like, early founders of the church getting excommunicated sort of vary, but they usually had something to do with undermining Joseph Smith's authority or opposing something that he was trying to implement, like the Curtland Safety Society or, you know, that bank that you try to do, or even polygamy in some cases. So Smith himself did practice, you know, plural marriages, polygamy, basically, a commandment he believed to come from God in the Old Testament and also a commandment he personally received by a revelation from God. He shared this practice with his closer church leaders, but largely the practice was kind of like hush, hush, and, you know, there's a reason, right, if you have multiple wives to broader Christian society, this is seen as pretty socially taboo. And as such, we don't get a lot of documentation on the practice of polygamy from this time. It does seem to come from various sources, however, that Smith could have had potentially up to 40 wives. I mean, no one is really sure exactly how many. And maybe he was trying to get, you know, on par with Solomon. from the Old Testament, he had tons of wives. But of course, we don't know exactly, you know, how many wives he did have.

And we do have records of very positive things that Smith did as a religious and political leader, particularly during his, you know, very public time as mayor. But, I mean, I don't know. Polygamy just seems like, you almost got to be like, yo, God definitely told him that because who's trying to get more wives? Like, I have one, and I'm pretty much like, I'm like, this is the exact number. It's borderline too many. I'm just saying, I can't imagine having one being like, I'll take more.

I mean, I will say throughout history, I think rich people have had harems. That makes more sense, right? Like, okay, there's a, I have a temple or a brothel full of women that, you know, I can experience in a carnal sense. But wives, you got to go and you got to shop for them, you got to remember the birthdays. There's just so much to do and you got to have kids and you got to like make the kids. It's just like a whole, I don't know. You almost got to believe him because I can't imagine a man willingly choosing polygamy. Regardless, these are some of the things that people have said that were negative about him,

you know, his closest friends he eventually has falling outs with. But he does some pretty cool things. So according to the LDS website, there is a interesting testimony that says Joseph used his positions of influence to improve individual lives. As the mayor, he appealed a sentence that a Carthage judge had given some delinquent boys, Joseph convinced the court that instead of sending them to an unheeded jail, for six winter months where they would probably spend the idle time just like getting angry and they would probably just get into more trouble when they got out. The court could turn the boys over to the Navu local government.

And as mayor, Joseph put the boys to work repairing roads to earn money and repay the owner whose property they had ruined. As an elderly man, one of these reformed boys testified that Joseph Smith taught him never to destroy property and to give an honest day's work, which was a much better lesson than what he would have learned. and jail. So I mean, that's pretty cool. You know what I mean? Like he actually found a way to rehabilitate these six young dudes instead of just like sending into the prison where they would likely go back to prison later. It gives him a chance to actually work, get out some of their

frustration, learn the value of what work does, learn the value of like, you know, things you destroy have to get fixed. So remember the thing that we were talking about before about how he was born kind of like on the border like in this village in Vermont. So to return back to that, It's an interesting note again and again how throughout Joseph Smith's life, he finds himself either writing about being on the border or talking about the border or even just in retrospect, seeing that he's in this border between worlds, you know? So Mormonism kind of being the center of this Venn diagram between, you know, traditional Christianity and like this sort of experimental seekerism.

You know what I mean? Like traditionalism versus experimental religiosity or even occultism. And the prophecy of the New Jerusalem being established between. two territories and even the border between his role as a religious leader as well as a political leader. It's just interesting to see that throughout his life there are these patterns where he's kind of straddling two worlds and trying to be a bridge between these two things that are kind of at odds with each other. I mean, historically, the religious elite and the political elite battle and they're at odds. And Joseph Smith is kind of a bridge between them in this specific time

when he's the mayor as well as a religious authority. And ultimately, Joseph Smith made religious history by being the first Christian adjacent prophet to become a political leader, and he made American history by being the first presidential candidate ever to be assassinated, which is pretty crazy. First presidential candidate ever to be assassinated. So however you look at it, Joseph Smith, had a busy life. I mean, he got into it, right? I mean, religious prophet, presidential candidate, political leader, I don't know, religious, uh, uh, fringe figure. Some people would say pagan. That seems too far to me, but some people might say it. And all in all, as a mayor, I mean, a pretty nice guy, it seems like. So that is the story of Joseph Smith. I mean, to be honest with you, fascinating guy.

I mean, got busy for sure, got into it. And I got to say, the doctrine of Mormonism, I find pretty fascinating. We should probably do an entire episode on that, you know, like holy underwear and what happens to you when you die and Jesus coming to America and all sorts of stuff. If you've ever seen the Book of Mormon, I mean, they go deep into all the fascinating sort of doctrinal things of Mormonism. But I will say, again, I've always said this, and I love Mormons for this reason. They make pretty great people.

And again, I've not raised Mormon. Are there issues with it? Sure, I'm not going to be like, it's perfect, it's the true church. I'm just saying, you go over to Utah and you hang out with a Mormon or an ex-Mormon, and they're pretty great. They're nice.

They're well-educated. They're just, you know, sweet. They're, like, they're nice. At worst, they're, like, creepy. They kind of stare at you. But, like, other than that, they're nice people. Like, I'll be honest, I have many ex-Mormon friends, and they have different issues within the church and the leadership

and what their family wanted to do, yada, yada. But the Mormon mission, I think, is one of the most fascinating things throughout all religion. 18 years old, you forego college, you live basically destitute in a different country where you have to learn the language, sell your religion, the most personal thing ever to you, get rejected over and over nonstop,

then eventually you come home after two years, and then you go to college. All my friends that grow up. Mormon that did a mission, they came away with so many great life skills. I have friends that are not Mormon anymore. They don't practice it. They're atheist. They became Protestant, whatever. And they're like the board of like multinational shipping companies just because they happen to speak Portuguese and they're like hardworking dudes. I'm like, this is amazing. Like they are like bringing in rubber from Madagascar because they're like, yeah, dude, I did a

mission for two years of Madagascar. I'm like, this is such a great little setup. I don't know. I'm like, even if you're not Mormon, I might send my kid on a mission. I might be like, hey, dude, get out there. I'm sending you to Nairobi. Go spend some time in Kenya, chill with the people, go sell something, I don't know, do cut-co knives. Regardless, you're going to come home, you're going to speak a new language, have a different appreciation for culture, realize what it's like to live in like kind of a not a great situation. Empathy for the poor, I'm a big fan of the mission, regardless. That's Joseph Smith. Fascinating dude. We need to do more episodes of Mormonism. That's all I need to say. So if you grew up Mormon, or maybe you're still Mormon to this day,

What did you think of this episode? Did I get most of it right? I'm sure my pronunciation on some stuff was probably wrong, so I apologize. But please drop a comment. Tell me what I missed, what I overlooked, what I could improve on in future episodes? And if you're not Mormon, what do you learn from this? Is there connections to your faith background? The things that you heard that you're like, oh, that actually makes a lot of sense. I would love to know what you think about Joseph Smith? I would love to think. I read all of them on YouTube, Spotify, the whole deal. Just please be nice. Okay, that's all I ask. I'm very sensitive. I'm a good soul. I try my best. Gabe, what do you think about Joseph Smith? Fascinating guy. Interesting guy, right? I want to hear more about the doctrine of Mormonism. Oh, dude, it's pretty wild. These golden tablets are crazy, and I would love to read them. Yeah, I want to hear why they believe Jesus came to America. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we got to do it. We're going to do an episode on that, the doctrine of Mormonism.

So please stay tuned for that one, and of course hit the subscribe button because it really helps the channel. And furthermore, we're going to be dropping that other episode of Mormonism, and you don't want to miss it, all right? Thank you guys so much for joining us for another episode of Religion Camp. As always, I believe life is better with belief. And we try to find the good in all the world's religions, no matter what that is. If you want bad stuff, you can find it online. This is a place where I appreciate all people that believe in God.

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