The video we watched on Wednesday portrayed Joseph Smith Jr. as young man struggling to make sense of the world around him. The interesting way the movie presented Smith’s situation growing up, dependent on his family and others but existing comfortably in New York without much contest. Of course this movie does not mention several key problems that Smith would have faced during his young life which I think are important in order to better understand Mormonism as a faith through the facts. The movie makes no mention of the massive debt Smith’s father owed and worked most of his life to pay off and conflicts with other folk religious during the Second Great Awakening.
Living in a indebted house is not easy. Smith’s family would’ve all needed to help in order to work off his father’s debt. This is important to understand, as it wasn’t uncommon for the family to be an economic model, but this would’ve been an important problem the Smith family had to deal with. Certainly that debt would not pass away with his father’s death, and would’ve passed on to him. While considering this American life the Smiths were involved in, maybe the economic and property benefits given to them as Americans were not a major focus of theirs. For Smith, folk religion might have been an escape from the pressures of debt and land ownership. The religious fever of the Second Great Awakening certainly frames the perfect time period for such an escape to occur. However, fervor can lead to violence and the movie makes no mention of the Mormon Wars of 1838. Anti-Mormon mobs did battle with Mormon followers that left many dead over their religious idealism.
To think that the Mormon faith was born of the passive, free and carefree age in the early 1800’s is a farce. It seems like it was actually born out of tension and strife of white indebted landowning Americans, which does not in any way discredit the faith or insult its pillars. In fact, I find the more historically correct story to be much more interesting account that attests to life in the 19th century as well as important religious movements that shaped our nation.
You shed some really interesting light on this historical period, that I think really helps to explain some of the things going on at the time, especially for the early Mormons. However, I think it makes sense that the film didn't present it this way, because they probably wanted to show Smith and the Mormons in the best light possible. I agree with you, though, that a more historically accurate account of Joseph Smith and the Mormons would have been much more interesting, and I think it would make it easier to sympathize with him/them.
ReplyDeleteWill - you bring up some good points. Certainly when someone is stressed out and is looking for an escape from the stresses of life will turn to something that puts things into perspective, like the folk religions. But why do you think he decided to make his own religion that became so popular? I don't really know the answer to that but I think that is the most interesting part.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I am glad you incorporated this with the second great awakening. I like how you point to the second great awakening. perhaps he started his own religion because so many other people were trying to start their own escapes all over the country; I am referring to the Utopian communities that popped up all over the place (as is mentioned in my blog post).