Item Detail
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12783
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2
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0
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English
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Re-Establishing Community : An Analysis of Joseph Smith's Social Thought in the Context of Philosophical Tradition
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Rutgers University, The State University of New Jersey
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Ph.D. diss.
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"A premise at the foundation of this dissertation is that the weaknesses and strengths of the United States' political system were understood by the citizens in the period of early frontier expansion in ways that could not be easily recognized in later years of national development. This can be attributed to the fact that expectations under the new government were not yet calcified. A practical comparison between the federal government, state governments, and a 'state of nature' existence presented itself immediately before the frontier people. Groups and individuals could still identify the negative consequences of particular social institutions, and recognize in themselves the potential to select life-style alternatives. The features of the United States' social and political system that drew objection from Joseph Smith, the Mormon Prophet, and the means he employed to create the community of the Latter -day Saints and ensure it against becoming subject to those objectionable characteristics, occupy our attention in much of this work. Certain institutional and socio-philosophical elements in American society reinforced individual isolation. Joseph Smith represented himself as God's instrument in setting up the Kingdom of God as a cohesive community on earth, where the psychological, social, and moral limitations of Lockean liberalism could be overcome. In its infancy, at least, the Kingdom of God was expected to have the nurture and protection of the United States Constitution. In his efforts to set up God's kingdom in the midst of, and ultimately in place of existing governments, Smith advanced institutional, socio-philosophical, and theological myths that would establish social interaction on principles other than private economic interest for those who accepted the covenants of the community of the Saints, and that would ensure the preservation of that community in spite of external forces and internal growth. I explore the limits of charisma as a factor in establishing lasting community cohesion among the Saints, and the range and success of Joseph Smith's teachings to establish a persuasive philosophy of history and an epistemology that then functioned as a plausible foundation for lasting community. Certain considerations to which Joseph Smith gave careful attention are explored to determine their effectiveness in preserving community against devisive influences functioning in the broader context of liberal society. These include the use of covenants, careful attention to the preservation and specialization of language, and the use of spoken, visual, and tactal symbols to keep the myths and covenants before the members of the covenant community. The work identifies how Joseph Smith's social thought fits into the currents of social and philosophical thought of his time. Although his philosophy and theological teachings were, and remain, plausible even in light of recent exegetical studies of ancient Christian and Biblical texts, they have been held in suspicious regard because they seemed to pose a direct threat to religious and political institutions. Specifically, the study identifies how Smith's theological teachings functioned to establish a socio-political perspective among the Latter -day Saints that incurred the wrath of 'gentiles' because these doctrines were represented to be the foundation of the political Kingdom of God on the earth which would in the end supplant all other governments. The infant Kingdom was taken by Smith to be the escatological government prophetically represented by the stone in Nebuchadnezzar's dream which rolls forth out of the mountain and fills the earth, as the nations represented by the great image's toes of clay are turned to powder." [Author's abstract]