What do you get when you combine martyrdom, relic worship, secret reburials, and a healing cane made from a coffin? Mormon history at its weirdest and most fascinating. In this special on-site episode of the Sunstone Mormon History Podcast, Lindsay and Bryan take you on a field trip into the curious afterlife of Joseph Smith’s …
Tag: Joseph Smith
Episode 147: The Tragic Tale of Eleanor McLean
Before Mountain Meadows, there was blood in Arkansas. This is the wild, tragic, and shockingly true story of the Mormon apostle murdered over a love triangle, the woman caught in the crossfire, and the ripple effect that helped ignite one of the darkest moments in American frontier history. SHOWNOTES: Eleanor McLean and the Murder of …
Episode 142: Wild Bill Hickman
In this episode, we delve into the life of one of the most controversial and complex figures of the American West: William Adams “Wild Bill” Hickman, known as “Brigham’s Destroying Angel.” Hickman’s life was a paradox: he was a devoted father to 35 children, a trusted enforcer for Mormon leaders, and a self-proclaimed murderer of …
When the Mormons Let Their Freak Flag Fly
Just before Joseph Smith made a brief escape from Nauvoo over the Mississippi River into Iowa, he made a strange request. He asked his followers to take up their glue guns, their knitting needles, and their macrame rings to make a giant craft project—namely a sixteen-foot-long flag. He wanted to carry this “flag for the …
Godwrestling: Physicality, Conflict, and Redemption in Mormon Doctrine
By Rick Jepson Or, right-click here to download the audio file: Godwrestling: Physicality, Conflict, and Redemption in Mormon Doctrine Click here to read the article in PDF format.
An Agnostic View of Joseph Smith: A Possible Prophet Puzzle Solution
By Ryan Stuart Bingham Nearly forty years ago, Jan Shipps challenged Joseph Smith’s biographers to reconcile “the charlatan-true prophet dichotomy which has plagued Mormon history from the beginning.”1 While biographers have presented evidence with increasing rigor and have offered broader interpretations of Joseph Smith, the alternate distractions of devotion and incredulity have maintained the old …
Cell Mates: Poetry
By Paul Swenson Called to hold the keys of mysteries. Yet both, at 34, were locked away; Joseph jailed at Liberty, dropped through a hole in prison floor into the pit. In Birmingham, Martin declared: Where there is injustice, I am there, and it would not be fair of me to spurn …
A Joseph Smith Too Small
Philip L. Barlow is Leonard J. Arrington Chair of Mormon History and Culture at Utah State University. Earlier this year, Oxford University Press published an updated version of his classic book, Mormons and the Bible. The following excerpt is from its new preface. IN RECENT YEARS I have come to judge [Joseph Smith’s] project as …
“Praise to the Man”
One of the highlights of the 2012 Sunstone Symposium was a unique performance of “Praise to the Man” as arranged by Kim McCall and performed by the Sunstone Ward Choir. Listen to it here: Praise to the Man
The Culture of Violence in Joseph Smith’s Mormonism–Part III
Continued from Part II In May 1842, Joseph Smith reassembled a cadre of bodyguards, selecting primarily those with experience as Danites in Missouri. Former Danites such as Dimick B. Huntington, Daniel Carn, and Albert P. Rockwood began serving as Nauvoo’s “Night Watch.”[i]Previously a Danite captain, Rockwood had already been serving as “commander of my [Smith’s] …