Item Detail
-
27342
-
2
-
0
-
English
-
American Visionaries And Their Approaches to the Past
-
Approaching Antiquity : Joseph Smith and the Ancient World
-
Provo, UT
-
Religious Studies Center, BYU
-
23-60
-
This essay looks at three American figures of the era—Mary Baker, Joseph Smith, and Ellen White—and examines their respective approaches to the past. Incomparable in many ways, their juxtaposition does reveal important implications arising from their recoveries of sacred history.
This trio shared much in common. All three were born in northern New England in the first third of the nineteenth century. All three faced financial insecurity and physical malady early in life. All three found themselves dissatisfied in the mainstream Protestant churches with which their families were affiliated. All three declared revelatory experiences that set them on a path to exceptionally powerful forms of religious leadership. Perhaps most distinctively, all three produced sacred texts that their followers came to see as inspired directly by God. And—of greatest historical importance—all three established churches that continue to have an important presence on the American religious landscape and around the globe. [From the text]