Another Book Review

Now that I'm on vacation, I actually do have a chance to write a book review. I am even more woefully behind than the last time I promised to get caught up, and I have just finished the last book from our book club. At some point I'll get them all in.

In this post I will give you a handful of my thoughts on the book I chose for our club back in December, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling by Richard Lyman Bushman. LDS apologetics have been a minor hobby of mine for some time. During my mission I had read the approved reading list three times over and finally asked the Mission President if I could read some apologetic works, and he gave me permission to go outside the approved list and do that the last six months of my mission. I occasionally try to fit one in here and there even now.

This one, though, was highly anticipated, not only by me but many people. I have always been a big fan of Bushman as an historian, apart from subject matter. I also had really loved his book Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism, essentially a precursor to Rough Stone Rolling. Sadly, though, RSR was published in the midst of law school. At each break I would scour the libraries, but never find a copy to be had in Utah County, the book was so popular. Finally, sweet Rebecca bought it for me for Christmas 2007. I read the first hundred pages and then laid it aside as school started again.

So, I never did get around to reading it cover to cover until my turn came up on the book club, as it is a pretty dense, history-style book. I absolutely loved this book, as you might expect. It was extremely hyped, but still exceeded the hype, in my view. A masterful work, and in my mind probably the best biography ever written about Joseph Smith, and there have been more than a few.

I think the thing I appreciated most about RSR was that Bushman didn't pretend to be objective. That is something that virtually all other LDS apologetic and anti works do. The anti-mormon authors say they're just telling the facts when it's clear they have an axe to grind, and the defenders similarly often allow their feelings on the matter lead to some degree of justification or other for some of the less savory aspects of LDS history.

Bushman at the outset says simply that he is a believing Mormon, and that he approaches Joseph Smith from the frame of mind that the Prophet's revelations were in fact revelations, as the most effective way to understand what Joseph Smith did. He also approaches it as an historian, which appeals to me. He doesn't pretend that there is no historiography there, he just acknowledges what it is and submits that it is a useful way to gain insight into an undisputably remarkable life.

I could go on and on about the details in the book, but obviously that would take a ton of bandwidth. Bottom line for me is that I have little doubt, even in reading some of the books from Frawn Brodie and her ilk, that Joseph Smith sincerely believed what he taught and what he said he experienced. I simply cannot see a person sacrificing the things he did without believing that God had in fact revealed them to him. And I suspect most naysayers take little trouble to learn about his life when they disregard him as a charlatan. While I find this intellectually satisfying, it is not in the least surprising to me, as I have sought and received spiritual confirmation about his role as a Prophet.

And one last thought. One thing this book brought out to me is another reason why I love the Church and its doctrine. It's because the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints teaches what I have coined as "personal empiricism." That is, in life each of us exercises faith. The sphere of things that we actually see and experience is laughably, pathetically limited. Even minor points of knowledge we take on faith according to what other learned (or not) people tell us, even when many of these teach their truths on the word of others or wholesale conjecture, be it supported by evidence of not, there are plenty of ideas of both kinds.

I mean, think for a moment on the things you actually, out and out know. I would suggest that they are few, indeed, and the study of law has really brought that to the fore to me. Yet, there is also knowledge that we have independent and fully in ourselves - how we feel, what we think. No one is as expert as I am about what I have felt. And that is what Moroni's invitation at the close of the Book of Mormon is all about. Read the Book of Mormon to know if it is true, ask God in the name of Christ if it is, and you will be given to know - even in that one and only forum in which we can really know something - that it is the truth. Study and pray to know of the divinity of the Bible; the mission of Jesus Christ; the call of Joseph Smith as a Prophet; the existence of Prophets and Apostles today. Each of these things can be made known to us, in a personally empirical fashion, when the Spirit touches our hearts and teaches us truth totally and completely independent of other persons. This has been a great blessing in my life, the source of peace, happiness, and ultimately the most wonderful thing of all, being sealed to my wife and family. I know of no other religion, philosophy, organization, or person that teaches a concept like it.