The dramatic expansion of Mormon theology that constitutes “the Vision” of the afterlife, recorded by Joseph Smith and Sydney Rigdon in February 1832, is one of the most important developments in early Mormon history. It marks a point of major transition in which the Mormon faith diverged significantly from the American Protestant mainstream. Found in Doctrine and Covenants § 76, this vision serves as the basis for this week’s lessons in the 2021 Come, Follow Me curriculum. Because it represents such a significant chapter of Mormon theological development, this response will be longer than usual, as I attempt to cover many things in more depth than typical. I will attempt to provide a broad yet detailed analysis of the historical and intellectual contexts in which this vision occurred. Thereafter, we will turn to the lesson manuals and highlight the messages and rhetoric featured therein, while commenting on how they fit into the broader cultural context of the present day.
Table of Contents
- Overview of “the Vision”
- Intellectual Context of “the Vision”
- The Come, Follow Me Manuals
Background to “the Vision”
After the General Conference of January 1832, at which Joseph Smith had been ordained as “President of the High Priesthood,” he and Sidney Rigdon returned to Hiram, Ohio, to resume their work on the revision of the King James Bible. The process of this revision included a careful study of the Bible and—according to recent scholarship—Adam Clarke’s Bible commentary. A thoughtful discussion of the influence of the Adam Clarke commentary on Joseph Smith’s revelations is relevant to this week’s material, but for the sake of brevity (haha), I will simply direct you to the excellent coverage of this topic by others. For now, suffice it to say that Smith and Rigdon certainly brought outside ideas into the process of their revision of the Bible.
However, the project also represents an exercise in Joseph Smith’s prophetic abilities as a seer and a revelator. That is, Smith used his “prophetic gifts” to receive revelation and dictate the words of the passages they were revising. Some of these could be quite lengthy expansions well beyond the original text—such as the Book of Moses, which was the result of Smith’s revisions of the early chapters in Genesis. The “translation” project often served as a catalyst prompting Smith to produce new revelations. The most famous example of such is the subject of this week’s discussion—the dramatic expansion of Mormon theology that the early Mormons would simple term “the Vision,” and which can be found today in Doctrine and Covenants § 76.
According to Joseph Smith’s history, this visionary experience was prompted by a meditation over the meaning of John 5:29, which reads: “And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.” Smith and Rigdon’s revision of this passage changed this to read: “…they who have done good, in the resurrection of the just; and they who have done evil, in the resurrection of the unjust.” These changes reflect a harmonization with the language found in Acts 24:15, and also the Universalistic nature of the theological expansions contain in “the Vision.”
“The Vision” was a collaborative experience between Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon, with both participants reportedly experiencing the same shared vision. In some ways, this seems to parallel previous shared visionary experiences in which Smith participated—namely, the vision of the Three Witnesses, and the experience of the Eight Witnesses of the Book of Mormon. Depending on whether one accepts the accounts of angelic ministers appearing to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery to restore the Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthoods—which wouldn’t be taught publicly or retconned into earlier revelations for another 2–3 years—one can see those experiences as perhaps another parallel to that of Smith and Rigdon in 1832.
Unfortunately, contemporaneous first-hand witness accounts of how “the Vision” was experienced are scant and lacking in detail. The most detailed accounts come from Philo Dibble, who gave his recollection on at least three separate occasions—the earliest some 45 years late. According to Dibble, he arrived “just as Joseph and Sidney were coming out of the vision,” and witnessed the event alongside twelve other men who gazed upon the scene from the adjoining room. As the Joseph Smith Papers relates:
Neither Smith nor Rigdon described in detail how the vision occurred—only that they both saw it at the same time. [...] Philo Dibble, who claimed to have been with Smith and Rigdon in the Johnson home when the vision occurred, later recounted that Smith and Rigdon sat in the upstairs room, where they had conducted much of their work on the Bible revision, with twelve other men. By turns, either Smith or Rigdon would ask, “What do I see?” and then relate the scene, after which the other would reply, “I see the same.” There is no indication in Dibble’s account that anyone was recording the vision as it occurred; instead, Dibble said there was “not a sound nor motion made by anyone” in the room. Dibble recalled that neither Smith nor Rigdon “moved a joint or limb during the time I was there.” [...] How or precisely when Smith and Rigdon recorded the experience of seeing the vision is unknown. [...] The first part of the vision (beginning “Here O ye heavens” and ending “. . . yet entered into the heart of man”) seems similar in language and style to Joseph Smith’s revelations, suggesting that Smith may have dictated the first part separately from the rest of the account. It is unknown whether Smith dictated the entire record to Rigdon, Rigdon wrote it himself, or the two worked collaboratively. Whatever the case, both apparently signed the record after its preparation as a testament to its legitimacy. Joseph Smith Papers, Vision, 16 February 1832 [D&C 76], Historical Introduction
Theological Expansion
The contents of Smith and Rigdon’s vision represent a dramatic expansion of the Mormon theology of the afterlife up until that point. The narrative of “the Vision” alternates between descriptions of the experience from the perspectives of Smith and Rigdon and explications in the voice of the Lord regarding what they were witnessing. Doctrine and Covenants § 76 opens with a declaration of the Lord’s role as the only Savior of mankind with accompanying exultations of his majesty and wisdom. Thereafter, the Lord promises to “reveal all mysteries, yea, all the hidden mysteries of my kingdom,” as well as the “wonders of eternity” and “the secrets of my will—yea, even those things which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor yet entered into the heart of man.” This promise of mysterious and secret knowledge echoes themes found in the culture of western esotericism with which the Smith family was intimately familiar.
Thereafter, Smith and Rigdon relate that “by the power of the Spirit our eyes were opened,” such that they were then able to see the mysteries of the kingdom of God. This again parallels the accounts of the witnesses to the Book of Mormon, who later related that they saw the angel and the gold plates “with a spiritual eye.” After seeing Jesus Christ and testifying to the reality of his resurrection, Smith and Rigdon report seeing Satan, and learn that he was once “an angel of God who was in authority in the presence of God” who was cast out for rebellion. Thereafter, they give a nineteen-verse description of the fate of Satan and his angels, and those who become “sons of perdition” through denying “the Holy Spirit after having received it.” One wonders if the fates of former members Ezra Booth and Symonds Ryder were on their minds, after having spent much of the previous few months actively combatting their vocal opposition to the church.
The remainder of “the Vision” is where the major theological expansions are found. Smith and Rigdon describe the fates of the righteous who are baptized into the church and remain valiantly faithful to the end of their lives. Significant among the twenty verses describing their glorious state, the Lord proclaims that “they are gods, even the sons of God”—presaging theological developments Smith would introduce many years later in Nauvoo. These exalted individuals are described as “celestial, whose glory is that of the sun.”
Additional tiers of glory are then described—the terrestrial and telestial, likened to the moon and the stars—which await those of lesser faithfulness. The terrestrial is reserved for generally honorable people who reject the Gospel in mortality but accept it later, whereas the telestial is reserved for the conventionally wicked—”liars, and sorcerers, and adulterers, and whoremongers”—provided they do not receive and then deny the Holy Spirit. Smith also reveals that those in the lower kingdoms will have correspondence with those of the higher kingdoms through individuals “who are appointed to be ministering spirits for them.”
As the narrative of the vision wraps up, it is explained that these degrees of glory are the results of all men being “judged according to their works,” with every man receiving “according to his own works, his own dominion, in the mansions which are prepared.”
Reactions to “the Vision”
After “the Vision” was recorded, its contents were to be kept secret from the world until the revelations in the Book of Commandments were published. However, enthusiasm among those who knew of the experience was such that its contents were quickly leaked to the community. Mark Lyman Staker hypothesizes that it was Eli Johnson who shared it without authorization. Regardless of the source, word spread quickly and reactions were mixed. Some members, such as Lincoln Haskin, went about proclaiming that Joseph and Sydney “had a vision and that they had seen great and marvelous things.” Joseph Smith recorded, “The sublimity of the ideas … are so much beyond the narrow-mindedness of men, that every honest man is constrained to exclaim: ‘It came from God.'” In the wake of the leak and the pace at which the news was spreading, Smith hastened to have the vision published in the July 1832 Evening and Morning Star, possibly to combat rumors and criticism distributed in Hiram.
Despite the enthusiasm of many, not everyone received the vision with open arms. Particularly among those members who were not former Disciples of Christ, the theological expansions contained in “the Vision” were troubling and smacked of Universalism. The primary complaint was that “the Lord was going to save everybody.” Brigham Young famously recounted, “My traditions were such, that when the Vision came first to me, it was so directly contrary and opposed to my former education, I said, wait a little; I did not reject it, but I could not understand it.” He later became convinced to accept it, but others had even stronger reactions:
An entire branch in New York balked at the revelation. The branch president particularly had trouble with it and "Said the vision was of the Devil came from hel & would go there again." Orson Pratt helped explain the teaching to the congregation. The disruptions caused by the vision apparently continued for some time. As late as the fall of 1833, the presiding elder of Livingston County, New York, and about twenty-five other members, were excommunicated "for rejecting the vision concerning the three glories." [John] Murdock [a former Disciple of Christ preacher] presided as the branch was brought back in order. Mark Lyman Staker, Hearken, O Ye People: The Historical Settings of Joseph Smith's Ohio Revelations, p. 333.
Ultimately, the vision became a boundary-defining component of Mormon theology—either you accepted it as revelation from God, or you left or were excommunicated from the church. This tension became increasingly severe, as Joseph Smith expanded upon the theology of “the Vision” in subsequent revelations in Kirtland, and even more radically in Nauvoo.
The Intellectual Context of “the Vision”
The content of the revelation comprising D&C § 76 is considered integral to Mormon theology and is often presented as demonstrating the restoration of truths that were had among the primitive Christian faith, which had been lost from the earth through the Great Apostasy. Indeed, the early Mormons viewed this revelation with such significance that they simply referred to it as “the Vision.” It has long been championed as outlining a theology of the afterlife that is so expansive—and so unique to the Mormon faith—that it serves as evidence of the veracity of the church’s claims to a divinely-guided Restoration. However, while the particular integration of ideas contained in D&C § 76 is uniquely Mormon, the ideas comprising many of the individual elements of this integration were already an established part of the Mormons’ environment in 1832 Kirtland, Ohio. As indicated by the Joseph Smith Papers:
Other thinkers and theologians, however, had conceptions of heaven that were more similar to Smith and Rigdon’s vision: The Universalist church, with which Joseph Smith’s grandfather Asael Smith had affiliated, proclaimed that Christ would temporarily punish sinners but eventually redeem all people. Emanuel Swedenborg, a Swedish scientist and mystic, posited in the mid-1700s that heaven consisted of three different levels (celestial, spiritual, and natural). Alexander Campbell, Rigdon’s former associate in the Disciples of Christ, also wrote about “three kingdoms”—the Kingdom of Law, the Kingdom of Favor, and the Kingdom of Glory. Campbell’s Kingdoms of Law and Favor, however, could be experienced during mortal life, and only the Kingdom of Glory was reserved for the afterlife. In describing these three kingdoms, Campbell wrote that the first was entered through birth, the second through baptism, and the third through good works. One differed from the next, Campbell declared, “as the sun excelled a star.” Joseph Smith Papers, Vision, 16 February 1832 [D&C 76], Historical Introduction
Presented below are three potential sources of intellectual content to which Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon were demonstrably exposed, and which may have served as inspirational material for the contents of “the Vision.”
“Mormonism is a heretical elaboration of American Protestant Christianity.”
Joanna Brooks, Mormonism and White Supremacy
Emanuel Swedenborg
Emanuel Swedenborg was an eighteenth century nobleman who wrote extensively on a wide range of scientific, philosophical, and political topics. Born the son of a clergyman and professor of theology, and raised in a family of considerable means, Swedenborg was educated in a stunning range of subjects, including: physics, astronomy, physiology, mathematics, economics, biology, chemistry, geology, metallurgy, and many, many more. In 1744, Swedenborg’s interests took an increasingly spiritual bend when:
He began to have vivid, disturbing, and exhilarating dreams and visions. Not knowing what to make of these odd experiences, he revealed them nowhere but in his personal journals. Moved partially by the need to understand his own recent experiences and partially by the direction his studies in cosmology and the human soul were taking, he began a meticulous study of the Bible. In the month of April, 1745, Emanuel Swedenborg had an experience that forever changed his life—The Lord appeared to him and told him something amazing: a human person was needed to serve as the means by which God would further reveal Himself to humanity, somewhat in the manner of the Biblical visions of the Old Testament. Craig W. Miller, "Did Emanuel Swedenborg Influence LDS Doctrine?"
Between the time of his vision and his death in 1772, Swedenborg published at least eighteen books on the subject of theology, and relating his account of the things he learned through visionary experiences and conversation with angels. The most influential of these is the widely distributed Heaven and Hell (1758), but also notable are his eight-volume Arcana Cœlestia (1749–56) and Conjugial Love (1768). Each of these are particularly relevant to Mormonism. In his magisterial work, Early Mormonism and the Magic World View, D. Michael Quinn highlighted that a connection exists between the theology developed by Joseph Smith and that espoused by Emanuel Swedenborg:
In publications in England since 1784 (and in the United States since 1812), Emanuel Swedenborg insisted: "There are three heavens," described as "intirely [sic] distinct from each other." Often regarded as a devotee of the occult, this Swedish mystic called the highest heaven "the celestial kingdom," and stated that the inhabitants of the three heavens corresponded to the sun, moon, and stars. [...] By Joseph Smith's own statement, he was acquainted with those views. D. Michael Quinn, Early Mormonism and the Magic World View, p. 217
As Quinn further explained, Ebenezer Sibly’s Occult Sciences included “a twenty-page summary of Swedenborg’s teachings about ‘spirits and departed souls of men,’ and about heaven and hell,” and included specific mention of Swedenborg’s cosmology of “three heavens” corresponding with “three degrees in man.” Quinn also emphasized that we can be confident that the Smith family was exposed to Sibly’s book because it “was the only source for various inscriptions on the Smith family’s magic parchments.”
Craig W. Miller has made an extensive study of Emanuel Swedenborg’s writing and their correlation with Mormon doctrines, which he as presented on at least two occasions at the Sunstone Symposium. He also wrote an in-depth article on the connection, from which I will be drawing heavily. In his article, Miller highlights seven parallels between Mormon doctrine and Swedenborg’s writings that he believes are uniquely shared between these two movements, which include: there are three heavens, there are three degrees within the celestial glory, one must be married to obtain the highest heaven, priesthood robes are worn as part of celestial marriage ceremonies, the world of spirits is a place of preparation before souls receive their subsequent glory, there are angels who facilitate communication between the heavens, and the degrees of glory are likened to the sun, moon, and stars.
Miller further identifies eleven additional parallels between Mormon doctrine and Swedenborg’s writings that are also found to some degree in other traditions, but are considered important features of Mormon theology. Some of these include the necessity of an opposition in all things, man’s agency in determining his ultimate fate, how individuals qualify for perdition, celestial beings living the law of consecration, all things having both a spiritual and physical existence, and that God is man.
Speaking of the similarities and differences between Mormon theology and Swedenborg’s writings, Miller relates:
The similarities between LDS doctrine and Swedenborg's teachings are striking—and impossible for me to imagine as mere coincidences. Likewise, the differences are also just as outstanding and cause me to wonder how the similarities can coexist with such marked differences. [...] One such similarity would be an interesting coincidence, two completely unexpected, three a practical impossibility, and four a strong indication that there is something much more to the similarities than mere chance. [...] The question of whether Joseph Smith borrowed heavily from Swedenborg is implied by the many similarities between the teachings of the two men and the fact that Swedenborg's work was written and distributed prior to Joseph Smith's lifetime. The mix of similarities and differences raises the question of whether Joseph Smith filtered a great deal and extrapolated the rest to come up with what we today recognize as LDS doctrine. [...] Given the uniqueness of some of the ideas found in Swedenborg's and Joseph Smith's teachings, it still seems likely that some sort of connection between the two must exist. [...] Perhaps Joseph Smith has copied portions of Swedenborg's teachings. Certainly the information provided here cannot rule that out. Craig W. Miller, "Did Emanuel Swedenborg Influence LDS Doctrine?"
I want to be clear that Miller makes considerable allowance throughout his article that the correlation between Joseph Smith’s theological developments and Emanuel Swedenborg’s works may not be the result of direct borrowing, and allows for a nuanced interpretation that preserves Smith’s claims to revelation. However, as highlighted above, the possibility of a borrowing of ideas is also not ruled out.
Drawing heavily from Craig W. Miller’s work, BYU professor J. B. Haws has also written addressing the correlation between Swedenborg’s ideas and Joseph Smith’s development of Mormon theology. Included as a chapter in The Doctrine and Covenants, Revelations in Context, Haw’s presents a decidedly apologetic discussion of the connection between Swedenborg and D&C § 76 specifically. For example, Haws proffers that the connection between Smith and Swedenborg ultimately doesn’t matter for faith in Smith’s prophetic abilities:
One might then ask, would Latter-day Saints even be troubled if it could be determined that Swedenborgian ideas did influence Joseph Smith? [...] If, therefore, it could be determined that Swedenborgian ideas did inspire Joseph Smith’s inquiries into the nature of heaven, Latter-day Saints likely would not view that as a threat to their understanding of the development of Mormonism. J. B. Haws, “Joseph Smith, Emanuel Swedenborg, and Section 76: Importance of the Bible in Latter-day Revelation”
Haws goes on to suggest that “it is possible that Swedenborg saw the heavens” and “Latter-day Saints could accept that, to a remarkable degree, Emanuel Swedenborg and Joseph Smith both experienced actual visions of the afterlife reality.” Make of that what you will.
Despite his larger apologetic message, Haws does make some interesting observations. First, he acknowledges that a multi-tiered system of the afterlife was not an unknown concept:
Brigham John Bowen has recently suggested that “the notion of degrees of glory,” which today is “often thought of as . . . uniquely Mormon,” was “not so in the nineteenth century.” [...] As part of that theological trend [of the early 1800s], many religionists posited a multiple-degrees-of-glory conception of the afterlife and speculated about individual and personal differences in intellectual attainment or eternal felicity, based often on the Savior’s comment about “many mansions” in His “Father’s house” (John 14:2). Bowen, in his review of nineteenth-century religious tracts and treatises, points out that prominent theologians such as Isaac Watts and Thomas Dick (who was a contemporary of Joseph Smith) suggested that heaven consisted of multiple levels and gradations—indeed, “the general consensus” of “numerous . . . visions, sermons, speculative treatises” was “that in some form, different degrees of glory do exist in the heavenly realm.” J. B. Haws, “Joseph Smith, Emanuel Swedenborg, and Section 76: Importance of the Bible in Latter-day Revelation”
Haws also confirms that, independent of whatever degree of familiarity Joseph Smith had with Swedenborg, Sidney Rigdon very likely was exposed to Swedenborgian ideas as a prominent minister in the Campbellite movement:
Therefore, considering Rigdon’s long association with Alexander Campbell before joining with the Mormons, the discovery that Campbell made several references to Swedenborg in the two periodicals that he edited and published seems significant. In fact, in at least two instances, Swedenborg and Rigdon are both mentioned in the same issue of the periodical—once even in the same article. In the October 4, 1830, issue of the Millennial Harbinger, an article entitled “Traveller’s Reply—Excerpts from the Traveller’s Journal” contains this interesting entry: “June 21st. Read two hours in the visions of Swedenborg on Heaven and Hell; and a sketch of his life.” Then, after providing a journal entry for June 22, the “traveller,” who signs the article “Francis,” wrote a summary of his experiences: “I had the privilege of spending several days at [Alexander Campbell’s] house, of forming a very pleasing personal acquaintance with him. . . . I was introduced also to Walter Scott, to Sidney Rigdon, to Adamson Bentley; which three ministers have immersed, within three years, at least three thousand persons.” While it is impossible to determine the chronological order of the “traveller’s” June 21 reading of Swedenborg and his undated introduction to Sidney Rigdon, at least this passage establishes that someone familiar with a specific Swedenborgian text also knew Sidney Rigdon. Because Swedenborg’s Heaven and Hell is mentioned—a text which discusses the three-tiered heaven—and because of Rigdon’s own intellectual curiosity, it seems reasonable to infer that Rigdon could have possessed a basic familiarity with Swedenborg’s view of the afterlife before he began his association with Joseph Smith. [...] Could it be possible, then, that in reflecting on the nature of the Resurrection, Sidney Rigdon brought up something he had learned from Swedenborg’s idea of a three-tiered heaven or that Joseph Smith may have remembered hearing something of the same? J. B. Haws, “Joseph Smith, Emanuel Swedenborg, and Section 76: Importance of the Bible in Latter-day Revelation”
Haws presents this concession in response to an earlier observation made by Mary Anne Meyers, who published about the connection between Smith and Swedenborg in 1981. In her article, Meyers highlights potential avenues of exposure to Swedenborgian ideas for both Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon:
I would draw attention to the possibility that Joseph Smith's picture of the realms of glory is derived indirectly from Emanuel Swedenborg's Heaven and Hell, a work originally published in London in 1758, but widely distributed in America from 1815 through the Philadelphia-based American Society for Disseminating the Doctrines of the New Jerusalem. To stress the parallels between Swedenborgian and Mormon beliefs is neither to deny Smith's vision experiences nor to confirm those of the Swedish baron. But even dreams are culture bound, and the two sects have strikingly similar ideas about the geosocial characteristics of heaven. [...] In 1822, the year before young Joseph was first visited by the heavenly messenger, Holland Weeks, a missionary dispatched by the five-year old General Convention of the New Jerusalem in the United States of America, reportedly drew crowds of 1,200 to 1,500 people at evangelical meetings held on the eastern shore of Lake Ontario about 90 miles from the Smith's Palmyra, New York, farm—and about the same distance from Fayette, where he finished the Book of Mormon. It seems improbable that a keen-witted lad would have been wholly ignorant of the tales of the hereafter recounted by Weeks, but the Mormons' principal beliefs about man's final state are drawn from a vision Joseph received in Hiram, Ohio, in 1832. Although the village is in the northeast and Swedenborgian centers were concentrated along the southern tier, evangels on horseback spread the Word throughout the state in a major missionary effort. By this time, moreover, a commanding place in the hierarchy of the Saints had been achieved by Sidney Rigdon, a native of Pittsburgh where Swedenborgians were active as early as 1790. Meyers, Mary Ann. “Death in Swedenborgian and Mormon Eschatology.” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, vol. 14, no. 1, 1981, pp. 59, 63.
Swedenborgian Modalism
Some scholars have suggested that Swedenborg’s influence on Joseph Smith’s theology may go even deeper than those ideas he presented in “the Vision” and subsequent revelations. Ronald Huggins has suggested that as early as the “translation” of The Book of Mormon, Smith’s conceptions of the Godhead reveal that he was thinking in ways that parallel those espoused by Swedenborg.
One place where we do find a close affinity to the line of thinking presented in the Book of Mormon is in the doctrine of the New Church, also called Swedenborgianism, a religion based on the esoteric writings of the Swedish mystic visionary Emmanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772). Direct evidence exists indicating that Joseph Smith and his family were familiar with Swedenborgianism. Not only were the Smith family’s occult magical parchments copied from a book that also contained an extended summary of Swedenborg’s teaching, but Joseph Smith himself made mention of Swedenborg and a certain aspect of his teaching in 1839. Ronald V. Huggins, "Joseph Smith’s Modalism: Sabellian Sequentialism or Swedenborgian Expansionism?"
As many researchers have convincingly demonstrated, the understanding of the Godhead in the early Mormon church was more akin to the classic conception of the Trinity than it is to the distinctly non-Trinitarian version that is presented in Smith’s later revelations and that is taught today. Dan Vogel has argued that the version of the Trinity presented in the The Book of Mormon is actually a version of modalism that is associated with the Sabellian heresy. Ronald Huggins takes this further by arguing that Smith subscribed to a version of modalism, as presented in The Book of Mormon and his other early revelations, that is more characteristic of the ideas promoted by Swedenborg:
Swedenborg’s modalism then is a modalism of expansion rather than sequential manifestation, and it is similar to what we find beginning to happen in the Book of Mormon, although Joseph does not seem as clearly settled on this solution, since he has left room for a sequential modalism at places like the Baptism and descent to the New World. The Book of Mormon’s understanding does clearly appear to be that the Son is the Eternal Father with a human body added on. [...] The Book of Mormon seeks to clarify this problem by replacing the Swedenborgian pre-incarnate Father as “naked deity,” with its own pre-incarnate Father as “clothed deity,” that is to say a God who already can speak of a “body of my spirit” (Ether 3:16). As a precedent for this Joseph might have drawn on another idea in Swedenborg, the idea of correspondence. The previously mentioned reference work in the Manchester Library explains correspondence as follows: “there is a correspondence or analogy between all things in heaven and all things in man.” In addition, “While we live in this world our spirits have their abode in the spiritual world.” Perhaps Joseph built upon this notion in order to explain how there was a separate God in the spiritual world while Jesus ministered on earth, the Father in a spirit body in the spirit world and the Son on earth in a body of flesh. Then when the Son ascended into heaven there would henceforth be two personages there. Again one person, two personages, or as early Mormons liked to say, two tabernacles. Ronald V. Huggins, "Joseph Smith’s Modalism: Sabellian Sequentialism or Swedenborgian Expansionism?"
Taking this further, Huggins suggests that Smith’s later development of a henotheist plurality of gods was an evolution of his earlier beliefs in a Swedenborgian-flavored version of modalism.
It is often argued that Joseph Smith’s doctrine of God changes from modalism in the 1830 Book of Mormon to Binitarianism in the 1835 Lectures on Faith, and then to a radically different doctrine of the plurality of Gods beginning in 1841. If what I am arguing is true, however, Joseph Smith is simply continuing to develop the same line of thinking about the relation between the Father and the Son right through the 1830s, that he, in fact, continues to teach expansionistic modalism right up until he abandoned it in favor of the doctrine of the plurality of Gods in 1841. [...] The commonly held opinion that Joseph Smith had, by 1835, moved from modalism to binitarianism is incorrect. The error is based on the assumption that Joseph Smith’s modalism was sequential rather than expansionistic. But as we have seen, Emmanel [sic] Swedenborg had provided the thought world of Joseph Smith’s time with a paradigm of expansionistic modalism, which Joseph seems to have taken up and developed in his own unique way. Ronald V. Huggins, "Joseph Smith’s Modalism: Sabellian Sequentialism or Swedenborgian Expansionism?"
These numerous parallels between the theological content of Joseph Smith’s revelations and the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg strongly suggest that Smith was to some degree familiar with Swedenborg’s ideas, and was probably influenced by them. Similarly, it seems that Sidney Rigdon also may have been familiar with, and friendly toward, Swedenborgian ideas. Given these observations, the suggestion that Mormon theology was developed by a partial adoption and adaptation of Swedenborg’s ideas has considerable merit.
The Disciples of Christ
Another important source of ideas that may have influenced the theological developments of D&C § 76 comes from the more immediate environment of Kirtland, Ohio—the Reformed Baptist movement lead by individuals like Alexander Campbell and Walter Scott. Followers of this movement, calling themselves the Disciples of Christ, sought to bring about “a Restoration of the Ancient Order of Things” by reproducing the organization believed to characterize the primitive Christian church. Prior to his conversion to Mormonism, Sidney Rigdon was a prominent preacher in the Disciples of Christ movement, leading a sizable congregation in Mentor, Ohio. Indeed, the majority of converts in Ohio were former followers of the Disciples of Christ movement. As believing LDS historian, Mark Lyman Staker, explains, members who had converted from the Disciples of Christ movement—including Sidney Rigdon—generally continued believing in and preaching ideas that they had learned as Disciples.
As Joseph and Sidney carefully studied the Bible, Sidney naturally considered the doctrines he had been preaching across the Western Reserve. One non-Mormon observer captured the state of the Church up to then: "Even after Rigdon became known as a Mormon, his sermons were filled with as sound Disciple doctrines as they had been before he joined up with Joseph Smith." [...] Many of the ideas they continued teaching originated with Disciple of Christ theologians Walter Scott and Alexander Campbell. As some measure of their influence, [Orson] Hyde was teaching some of Scott's speculative ideas to Latter-day Saints congregations as late as 1854, using words and concepts drawn from Scott's early writings on the subject. Mark Lyman Staker, Hearken, O Ye People: The Historical Settings of Joseph Smith's Ohio Revelations, p. 320.
Rigdon would have been very familiar with the ideas of Alexander Campbell and Walter Scott, who represented two of the most influential leaders in the Disciples of Christ movement. As Smith’s closest associate in the early Kirtland era, Sidney Rigdon had a profound influence on the development of the church in those early days. He frequently served as a scribe for Joseph Smith’s revelations and worked closely with Smith on their revision of the Bible. Indeed, this latter project served as the setting in which many of Smith’s revelations were produced—including “the Vision” comprising D&C § 76. Sidney Rigdon’s influence on the development of the church can be seen clearly by the parallels between Mormon doctrines and those taught by prominent Disciple of Christ theologians. As Mark Lyman Staker explains:
Although Disciples fought against attempts to connect them with the Latter-day Saints, their preparatory role was obvious to outsiders. "In order to understand the theological character of Mormonism," notes a British observer, "the reader needs recollect that Rigdon and several of his associates had been followers of Alexander Campbell. They had been drilled thoroughly as coadjutors of that self-styled reformer. Immersion for the remission of sins had been their favorite theme, nor did it cease to be so when they embraced Mormonism. . . . Campbellism has proved the harbinger to Mormonism, both in America and England." Disciples made such comparisons themselves. Walter Scott lashed out: "Rigdon filched from us that elementary method of stating the gospel which has so completely brought it within the grasp of everyone who hears it." The Mormon elders never denied Scott's role in laying the foundation or Rigdon's role in introducing theology to them. Mark Lyman Staker, Hearken, O Ye People: The Historical Settings of Joseph Smith's Ohio Revelations, p. 331.
Modern Mormons will acknowledge that the LDS church claims to be the “Restoration” of the same church that Christ organized during his mortal ministry. What most members will probably not recognize is that the Reformed Baptist movement led by men like Alexander Campbell, Barton Stone, Walter Scott, and importantly—Sidney Rigdon—was already undertaking to restore the ancient Christian church in what Campbell frequently termed as the “Restoration of the Ancient Order of Things.” Part of this restoration was a return to the fundamental principles and ordinances of the Gospel that members today may recognize as reflected in the Fourth Article of Faith. Mark Staker explains:
These early [Disciples of Christ] leaders became part of an effort to "restore" the Christian church to the form it took in New Testament times. They viewed their restoration of the "Ancient Gospel" as a continuation and refinement of the Reformation. [...] But when [Walter] Scott asserted that, "in 1827 the True Gospel was restored," what he meant was his understanding and articulation that year of God's "plan of salvation," a term he used to describe his "restoration" of the essential elements of the gospel. These elements were "faith, repentance, baptism, remission of sins, the Holy Spirit, and eternal life." Scott saw his selection of these specific elements from all gospel principles—and particularly their specific ordering—as new light on age-old concepts. Each principle needed to build on its predecessor in the order he specified. [...] Earlier, as the "plan of salvation" was developing in Scott's mind, Sidney Rigdon rode circuit with him in Nelson; and the two passed on through Hiram to preach in Windham. Sidney had considerable influence in the movement; and when Jesse Moss, a Disciple of Christ minister, reminisced about his own conversion, he said he had joined the "Rigdonites" in Mentor. During this time, Walter Scott studied the Bible extensively and drew on it when he hypothesized Satan was "of a superior order, a ruling angel." "He is a spirit, as least we suppose he is," Scott wrote, who was cast out of heaven with "his angels" for some unknown offence against God and eventually reached our earth. "Whether our globe is the first he visited, or only the first he seduced to a state of ruin like his own, we know not." However, here he found Adam and Eve who were living in a "terrestrial" world. Mark Lyman Staker, Hearken, O Ye People: The Historical Settings of Joseph Smith's Ohio Revelations, p. 321.
Scott also taught that Adam and Eve’s tenure in the Garden of Eden constituted their “first estate,” from which they fell through partaking of the fruit of forbidden knowledge. However, by following God’s “plan of salvation,” Adam and Eve, and their mortal descendants, could be redeemed from the Fall through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. Importantly, the Disciples of Christ taught that baptism by immersion was performed not because of remission of sins, but for the remissions of sins—a distinction that, according to Walter Scott, ran counter to the prevailing view in the Western Reserve (i.e. Ohio). That is, Disciples believed baptism to be an essential “pardon-procuring” ordinance, rather than a “pardon-certifying” one. The reception of the Holy Spirit after baptism was a part of this redemption and necessary for one to ultimately receive “eternal life.”
As noted above, Alexander Campbell was apparently familiar with the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg and promoted some of them himself. Sidney Rigdon may very well have become familiar with Swedenborgian ideas through his connection with Campbell. Notably, Campbell also taught a concept involving three heavenly kingdoms, though the nature of these kingdoms was different in many way from that promoted by Swedenborg.
Although the Disciples had little to say on the nature of the afterlife over the years, they developed a concept that included heavenly kingdoms. Alexander Campbell articulated this concept in "The Three Kingdoms," an article that first appears in 1828 [actually 1 June 1829] in the Christian Baptist but retained such significance in his mind that The Evangelist reprinted it in 1840. During the summer of 1828 [1829], Alexander Campbell wrote, "While musing upon the three kingdoms, I fancied myself in the kingdom of glory after the final judgement. Amongst my companions in that happy kingdom, I was introduced to one Simeon, a Jew, who had been converted to christianity eight years after the resurrection of Jesus Christ." Simeon explained the three kingdoms, having learned that the institution founded by Christ differed from that of Moses "as the sun excelled a star." [...] The Disciple theologian promulgated this new understanding: "There are three kingdoms; the Kingdom of Law, the Kingdom of Favor, and the Kingdom of Glory." The "gates of admission into these three kingdoms are different—Flesh, Faith, and Works." These reflected the specific requirements necessary for entrance to each kingdom. Mark Lyman Staker, Hearken, O Ye People: The Historical Settings of Joseph Smith's Ohio Revelations, p. 322–323. Erroneous dating corrected from original.
Given Rigdon’s heavy involvement in the Disciples of Christ movement, and his interactions with Alexander Campbell, it seems probable that he would have been familiar with Campbell’s teachings on the three heavenly kingdoms. Inasmuch as multiple other ideas reflecting the teachings of Disciple of Christ theologians appear to have entered the Mormon faith through Sidney Rigdon, the notion of an afterlife comprised of three heavenly kingdoms with separate admission requirements may simply represent another example.
Thomas Dick
As explained by LDS historian, Benjamin Park, Thomas Dick was a Scottish philosopher and contemporary of Joseph Smith whose ideas were influential and popular in antebellum America, particularly among religionists seeking “a rationale defense for their supernatural theologies.” Dick’s fame was such that an American advertisement claimed, “No foreign writer has been more generally read, on this side of the Atlantic, for the last twenty years, than Dr. Thomas Dick.” Additionally, an 1868 biography of Dick touted, “Few authors in so important an aim, the enlistment of science and philosophy in the service of religion, have succeeded so well or acquired such popularity.” That popularity apparently extended to the Mormons by at least 1836, when Oliver Cowdery included several lengthy passages from Dick’s Philosophy of a Future State and Philosophy of Religion, in the December 1836, February 1837, and March 1837 issues of the Messenger and Advocate. Cowdery prefaced the first of these with the endorsement, “There are reasonings sufficient, we think, to commend it to the attention of the reader.”
Many have pointed to Thomas Dick’s writings and their connection to early Mormon theology, including Fawn Brodie in No Man Knows My History and John Brooke in The Refiner’s Fire. Indeed, Benjamin Park affirms:
While numerous other intellectual connections have been posited for early Mormonism, Thomas Dick's connection is one of the most substantial due to shared language, familiar themes, and, most importantly, the fact that the early Saints were both well aware of his writings and also willing to use his texts as a defense for their own doctrines. Park, Benjamin E. “‘Reasonings Sufficient’: Joseph Smith, Thomas Dick, and the Context(s) of Early Mormonism.” Journal of Mormon History, vol. 38, no. 3, 2012, p. 213.
Most of the discussion of Thomas Dick’s influence on Mormon theology is focused on similarities to the theological developments of Joseph Smith’s “translation” the Egyptian papyri purchased in 1835 and the Book of Abraham. This is indeed where Dick’s writings and Mormon theology share the most similarities. However, it should not be ignored that Thomas Dick’s writings also share features in common with the theological developments of “the Vision” of 1832. Again, the most striking of these is the concept of “degrees of glory in heaven” that are the “natural reward” of individuals’ conduct in mortality. Dick also describes these distinctions in glory using astronomical terms.
It has frequently been a subject of discussion among theologians, "Whether there shall be degrees of glory in heaven." This question may be easily settled, if there be any weight in the remarks and considerations now stated. In so far as there is a difference in the vigour and expansion of the intellectual powers, and in the amplitude of objects they are enabled to embrace, in so far may there be said to be "degrees of glory:" and a superiority, in this respect, may be considered as the natural reward which accompanies the diligent improvement of our time and faculties upon earth, though such a distinction can never be supposed to produce any disposition approaching to envy, as so frequently happens in the present state. On the contrary, it may be supposed to produce a holy emulation to improve every faculty, to cultivate every branch of celestial science, and to increase in the knowledge of God. In corroboration of these views, we are told in Scripture, that the reward bestowed on those servants to whom talents were intrusted, was in proportion to the improvement they had made; and that, at the close of time, the saints will present an appearance analogous to that of the spangled firmament; for "as one star differeth from another star in glory, so also is the resurrection from the dead." Thomas Dick, Philosophy of a Future State, 1828, p. 191, 1869 reprinting.
Although we cannot be sure when he procured it, we know that Joseph Smith was familiar with Thomas Dick’s work, because Smith donated his personal copy of “Dick’s Philosophy” to the Nauvoo Library in 1844.
Why Does it Matter?
I present the above examples because they illuminate features of Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon’s environment that are important to understanding the development of Mormon theology in Kirtland and beyond. However, I would like to acknowledge that parallels in theme between Mormon theology with that of other contemporaneous thinkers does not necessitate that the former “stole” the ideas of the latter, though with increasing numbers of similarities it does increase the likelihood of “borrowing” or “inspiration.” In the preface to his very lengthy collection of bibliographic sources featuring parallels to Mormon thought, Rick Grunder explains:
Too many detractors from Mormonism have suggested—too simply and too broadly, I fear—that Joseph Smith literally copied doctrine or Book of Mormon history from specific contemporary printed and manuscript sources. This runs far with too little, ready to grasp at the simplest or most superficial similarities, sometimes ignoring real content, or postulating explicit, labored connections to Mormonism's founder. Apologetic response can then descend to picayune details or obtuse shades of meaning that equally obscure the real phenomena at hand. Defenders may become attackers, at times deriding even the most sober messengers with ingenuous personal attacks. Both perspectives tend to miss the forest for the trees. [...] The ready presence of Joseph's very real, inescapable culture is too overwhelming to ignore, yet we have not acknowledged it like we should. The elephant will never leave the theater, so we might as well get out the microscope. True faith deserves a full spectrum, and it is entirely appropriate to pursue its origins from all periods of history. Yet wherever modern parallels negate claims to exclusively ancient origins, one must be willing to see that fact, and to consider modifying one's claims without feeling that faith is necessarily compromised. Such intellectual adjustments have succeeded well throughout Mormon history. More will come. Rick Grunder, "Mormon Parallels: A Bibliographic Source", 2nd Ed., pp. 23–25
While the questions of who inspired whom are interesting, perhaps they are not the most illuminating in a broader sense. Inasmuch as the adoption and transformation of ideas between communities is a constant feature of human history—to such an extent that some argue that “no ideas are original”—identifying the philosophical genealogy of Mormon theological developments might not be as enlightening an enterprise as examining how those developments reflect the cultural zeitgeist in which they occurred. As Benjamin Park astutely observes: “the question should not be limited only to where Mormonism got its ideas, but also, and perhaps more importantly, what Mormons did with them once they received those ideas.” Going further, Park explains:
The question of whether Thomas Dick influenced Joseph Smith's understanding of the cosmos becomes much less important than the question of how both thinkers were responding to a post-Enlightenment world that brought supernatural assumptions into doubt. The focus shifts from the unanswerable question of whether Joseph Smith borrowed the three-tiered heaven from Emmanuel Swedenborg to the cultural milieu that encouraged revisions to the traditional understanding of the afterlife. The issue is less whether early Mormonism "stole" elements of Freemasonry rites than in determining how both the Mormon temple and the Masonic lodge exemplify American constructions of communal identity. [...] This does not mean presenting early Mormonism as merely another expression of systematic categories, though, or as an entirely unique religious movement created within a vacuum, but rather as part of a larger religious community struggling to answer many of the same questions, deal with a number of the same issues, and react to much of the same intellectual climate. Park, Benjamin E. “‘Reasonings Sufficient’: Joseph Smith, Thomas Dick, and the Context(s) of Early Mormonism.” Journal of Mormon History, vol. 38, no. 3, 2012, pp. 222–223.
Personally, I think it matters whether the theological ideas that Joseph Smith presented as divine revelation were, in fact, inspired by the ideas of others from his time and place. The question of source is an important one because the narrative of a divine source forms a foundation for the LDS church’s claims to authority and exceptionalism. In the very least, a recognition that Joseph Smith’s theology was influenced by the ideas of others around him changes how believing members should understand the process of revelation. However, while those discussions are interesting, they are beyond the scope of this present blog post. So without getting too much further into the weeds, let us now turn to the content of the 2021 Come, Follow Me manuals.
Salvation Through Christ Only
The first theme found consistently across the Come, Follow Me lesson manuals is an emphasis on the centrality of Jesus Christ in the Mormon theology outlined in D&C § 76. Adult members are instructed to identify verses mentioning Jesus Christ throughout the section and to identify Christ as the central figure in the revelation. They are encouraged to share with each other how these verses strengthen their faith in Jesus.
When Wilford Woodruff read the vision described in section 76, he said, “I felt to love the Lord more than ever before in my life.” Maybe you had similar feelings as you read this revelation. After all, none of the glorious blessings described in section 76 would be possible without the Savior. Perhaps you could identify each verse in section 76 that mentions the Lord Jesus Christ. What do these verses teach you about Him and His role in God’s plan? How do they influence the way you feel about Him?
Come, Follow Me — Individuals and Families Manual, 11 July 2021, emphasis my own.
Many people, when they think of section 76, think about the plan of salvation and the three kingdoms of glory. How can you help class members see that the central figure in this revelation is the Savior Jesus Christ? You could ask class members to share a verse they found in section 76 that strengthened their faith in Jesus Christ. If they need help, you could point them to verses such as 1–5, 20–24, 39–43, 69, 107–8. Come, Follow Me — Sunday School Manual, 11 July 2021, emphasis my own.
The Primary children are taught to identify their mistakes as sins that cause them to be dirty, and to accept that they can only be made clean again through Jesus Christ. Included in the lesson materials is a video portraying the wickedness of the world and suggesting that there can be no healing, forgiveness, or reconciliation in the world without the atonement of Christ.
Show a picture of Jesus Christ. Ask the children if they know what Jesus Christ did for us. Show the children something dirty and something clean (like a white handkerchief or sheet of paper), and explain that sin is like dirt on our spirits, but Jesus Christ came to help us become clean again. Help the children understand that the glorious blessings God promises to the faithful in the next life are possible only because of the Savior Jesus Christ. Come, Follow Me — Primary Manual, 11 July 2021, emphasis my own.
Across the manuals, the overall message is to identify Jesus Christ—and by implied extension, His church—as the only vehicle for healing and salvation from death and damnation. This is emphasized in the first verse of D&C § 76, which states “the Lord is God, and beside him there is no Savior.”
Worthiness Concerns
Another theme found consistently across the lesson manuals is the worry over “measuring up” and being worthy of entry into the celestial kingdom. The manuals provide multiple hypothetical examples of active members questioning their own worthiness, or asking themselves whether they can live up to the demanding standards of the church. Unfortunately, the way these are worded is a bit of a caricature and reinforces the common narratives among active members that those who become inactive or leave the faith just “wanted to sin” or “couldn’t handle the standards of the church.” Regardless, the lesson manuals encourage members to reframe their thinking regarding the requirements for entry into the celestial kingdom by focusing not on the ways they need to measure up, but on how God is helping them and on the blessings promised for the faithful. The lessons also encourage role-play activities in which the members reassure each other that it is all worth it and that celestial glory is within their grasp.
Have you ever wondered—or worried—about whether or not you will qualify for the celestial kingdom? When you read the description of those who receive this glory (see verses 50–70, 92–95), rather than looking only for a list of things you must do, look for what God has done—and is doing—to help you become like Him. Does reading the vision in this way affect how you feel about your personal efforts? You might also think about the great blessing it is to know these details about the celestial kingdom. How does this vision of celestial glory affect the way you view and want to live your daily life? Come, Follow Me — Individuals and Families Manual, 11 July 2021, emphasis my own.
To some, it can be discouraging or overwhelming to think of everything that is required of us to qualify for the celestial kingdom. Consider how you can help class members find hope “through Jesus the mediator” (verse 69). For example, you could invite them to read verses 50–70 and 92–95. Invite them to share how they might respond to someone who says, “Living the gospel in today’s world is so hard; I’m not sure it’s worth it” or “I’m just not good enough for the celestial kingdom.” What could we say to inspire or encourage this person? Come, Follow Me — Sunday School Manual, 11 July 2021, emphasis my own.
If someone asked us, “Why should I follow Jesus Christ and keep His commandments?” what would we say? Invite the children to look for answers in Doctrine and Covenants 76:50–70, which describes those who receive eternal life in the celestial kingdom. Let the children role-play answering the question. Bear your testimony of the great blessings Heavenly Father has prepared for us if we follow Jesus Christ. Tell the children about the three kingdoms of glory that Joseph and Sidney saw in their vision. [...] Ask the children what they like about the vision. Focus in particular on describing the celestial kingdom, and testify that this is where Heavenly Father wants each of us to be. Come, Follow Me — Primary Manual, 11 July 2021, emphasis my own.
The above conversation is a reflection the culture of perfectionism that is prevalent among Latter-day Saints. In 2014, an influential study was published by a team of researchers, including a BYU faculty member, examining the relationship between religious commitment, perfectionism, and scrupulosity among practicing Latter-day Saints. In its wake, the church has been very active about responding to the suggestion that LDS teachings and doctrines contribute to an unhealthy obsession with perfectionism, and to provide counter messaging intended to combat this trend among the membership. However, despite these efforts, struggles with perfectionism are commonly experienced by believing members of the church, and it is hard to argue that they are not rooted in LDS theology—especially those relating to a works-based, multi-tiered, “good, better, best” system of heavenly glory.
Valiance of Testimony
Related to the discussion above is another theme found repeated across the lesson manuals: the imperative to be “valiant in the testimony of Jesus” in order to obtain celestial glory. Members are directed to D&C § 76:79 which explains that “they who are not valiant in the testimony of Jesus” are unworthy to obtain celestial glory, but are instead regulated to the lower terrestrial kingdom.
As you read and ponder, you may receive impressions about how you can “[receive] the testimony of Jesus” and be more “valiant” in it (verses 51, 79). What do we learn from these verses about the importance of our testimonies? What role do our testimonies play in our eternal destiny? It might help to look up definitions of valiant to discuss how to be “valiant in the testimony of Jesus” (verse 79). You could also sing “I Will Be Valiant” (Children’s Songbook, 162). Come, Follow Me — Individuals and Families Manual, 11 July 2021, emphasis my own.
To help class members explore the differences between those who inherit the three kingdoms of glory, write on the board Celestial, verses 50–70, 92–96; Terrestrial, verses 71–79, 97; and Telestial, verses 81–90, 98–106, 109–12. Class members could select one of the three sets of verses and find phrases that describe the relationship between Jesus Christ and the people who inherit the corresponding kingdom. What do these phrases teach us about being disciples of Jesus Christ? How can we strengthen our relationship with Him and with the Father? How do They reach out to us? What does it mean to be “valiant in the testimony of Jesus”? (verse 79). Come, Follow Me — Sunday School Manual, 11 July 2021, emphasis my own.
As longtime members know, those who obtain the terrestrial glory do not enjoy the privilege of eternal families, meaning they will be separated from their spouse and family members in the afterlife. This is the lesser of possible outcomes for the unvaliant, as those who completely turn away from the faith “shall go away into everlasting punishment” and for whom there shall be “no forgiveness in this world nor in the world to come” (D&C § 76:30–49). Therefore, members are taught that the valiance of their testimonies is imperative.
Becoming (Like) Gods
The final theme I want to emphasize from this week’s Come, Follow Me lesson materials is that of divine potential and apotheosis. That is, that the faithful who obtain the highest degree of glory become Gods. While the Mormon doctrine of exaltation didn’t really take shape until many years later in Nauvoo, one passage in D&C § 76:58–59 presaged this development by declaring regarding those who obtain the celestial glory: “they are gods, even the sons of God.” This message is reinforced in the lesson manuals, but the language has been changed a little—faithful members may “become like God.”
Consider the difference between being saved (from physical and spiritual death; see verses 39, 43–44) and being exalted (living with God and becoming like Him; see verses 50–70). See also John 3:16–17; Doctrine and Covenants 132:20–25. Come, Follow Me — Individuals and Families Manual, 11 July 2021, emphasis my own.
To help the children understand their potential to become like God, find ways to show them that baby animals grow to become like their parents—perhaps the children could match pictures of animals with pictures of the animals’ babies. Open the scriptures to Doctrine and Covenants 76:24, and tell the children that we are all “sons and daughters unto God.” Bear your testimony that God is our Father and that we can grow to be like our Heavenly Parents. Come, Follow Me — Primary Manual, 11 July 2021, emphasis my own.
This change in language is a subtle but important one. In recent years, the church has sought to either distance itself from or obfuscate its teachings on the human potential to become gods. This has received a lot of attention recently, as people of social media have commented on the following excepts from the LDS church’s “Frequently Asked Questions” published on their official website:
This attempt by the church to deny the long history of very clear teachings from Mormon leaders on the doctrine of deification is not only a bald-faced lie, but it is also a quintessential example of gaslighting. It also represents the continuation of a years long campaign by the church to distance itself from its past as it increasingly strives to present itself as within the American mainstream.
In 2014, as part of their series of Gospel Topics Essays that were quietly released to be a resource for questioning members, the church published an essay on “Becoming Like God.” This essay suggests that the notion that Latter-day Saints believe that their destiny is to become gods and rule over their own worlds is a “cartoonish image” and inaccurate “caricature” of the faith. The language employed certainly invokes memories of the 1982 film, The God Makers, which included a lengthy animated segment focused primarily on a portrayal of the “plan of salvation.” It was indeed a caricature that was riddled with inaccuracies.
However, while The God Makers was in many ways a misrepresentation, the idea that the Mormon doctrine of exaltation includes becoming gods and ruling over worlds is entirely accurate, inasmuch as Mormon leaders have taught such for well over a century. There are countless quotes from LDS general authorities—including multiple Presidents of the Church—and passages from officially distributed LDS gospel instruction materials, that clearly articulate that exaltation in the celestial kingdom includes becoming gods over worlds populated by one’s own progeny. What follows is a series of quotations demonstrating this fact. It is far from exhaustive.
20 Then shall they be gods, because they have no end; therefore shall they be from everlasting to everlasting, because they continue; then shall they be above all, because all things are subject unto them. Then shall they be gods, because they have all power, and the angels are subject unto them. Doctrine and Covenants § 132:20
Here then is eternal life, to know the only wise and true God. You have got to learn how to be Gods yourselves; to be kings and priests to God, the same as all Gods have done; by going from a small degree to another, from grace to grace, from exaltation to exaltation, until you are able to sit in glory as doth those who sit enthroned in everlasting power; and I want you to know that God in the last days, while certain individuals are proclaiming his name, is not trifling with you or me; it is the first principles of consolation. Joseph Smith Jr., King Follett Sermon, 7 April 1844 Reprinted in "Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith", Joseph Fielding Smith, 1938, pp. 346–347
After men have got their exaltations and their crowns—have become Gods, even the sons of God—are made Kings of kings and Lords of lords, they have the power then of propagating their species in spirit; and that is the first of their operations with regard to organizing a world. Power is then given to them to organize the elements, and then commence the organization of tabernacles. How can they do it? Have they to go to that earth? Yes, an Adam will have to go there, and he cannot do without Eve; he must have Eve to commence the work of generation, and they will go into the garden, and continue to eat and drink of the fruits of the corporeal world, until this greater matter is diffused sufficiently through their celestial bodies to enable them, according to the established laws, to produce mortal tabernacles for their spiritual children. This is a key for you. The faithful will become Gods, even the sons of God; but this does not overthrow the idea that we have a father. Adam is my father (this I will explain to you at some future time); but it does not prove that he is not my father, if I become a God: it does not prove that I have not a father. Pres. Brigham Young, 28 Aug. 1852, Journal of Discourses, Vol. 6, p. 275
Only a short time before his death, President Snow visited the Brigham Young University, at Provo. President Brimhall escorted the party through one of the buildings; he wanted to reach the assembly room as soon as possible, as the students had already gathered. There were going through one of the kindergarten room; President Brimhall had reached the door and was about to open it and go on when President Snow said: "Wait a moment, President Brimhall, I want to see these children at work; what are they doing?" Brother Brimhall replied that they were making clay spheres. "That is very interesting," the President said. "I want to watch them." He quietly watched the children for several minutes and then lifted a little girl, perhaps six years of age, and stood her on a table. he then took the clay sphere from her hand, and, turning to Brother Brimhall, said: "President Brimhall, these children are now at play, making mud worlds, the time will come when some of these boys, through their faithfulness to the gospel, will progress and develop in knowledge, intelligence and power, in future eternities, until they shall be able to go out into space where there is unorganized matter and call together the necessary elements, and through their knowledge of and control over the laws and powers of nature, to organize matter into worlds on which their posterity may dwell, and over which they shall rule as gods." The Improvement Era, Vol. 22, No. 8, June 1919, pp. 658–659.
Jesus stated, "In my Father's house are many mansions." There will be various grades and stations. There will be activity and learning. We shall know each other there as we know each other here. Our individuality will be retained. "Whatever principle of intelligence we attain unto in this life, it will rise with us in the resurrection." "The glory of God is intelligence." These are Mormon aphorisms. Life is purposeful. It is progressive. It leads to Godhood. Gordon B. Hinckley, "What of the Mormons?", 1947, p. 23–24
We are sons and daughters of God in the spirit. Through the atonement of Jesus Christ, we receive the resurrection, the spirit and body being united inseparably, never to be divided, so that we will never die again. We thus become immortal, and if we keep the commandments which are given us, we will inherit celestial glory. When we receive this great blessing, we will be sons of God, joint-heirs with Jesus Christ The Father has promised us that through our faithfulness we shall be blessed with the fulness of his kingdom. In other words, we will have the privilege of becoming like him. To become like him we must have all the powers of godhood; thus a man and his wife when glorified will have spirit children who eventually will go on an earth like this one we are on and pass through the same kind of experience, being subject to mortal conditions, and if faithful, then they also will receive the fulness of exaltation and partake of the same blessings. There is no end to this development; it will go on forever. We will become gods and have jurisdiction over worlds, and these worlds will be peopled by our own offspring. We will have an endless eternity for this. Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, Vol 2., "Exaltation and the Creation of Worlds", p. 249
That great blessing of celestial glory could never have come to us without a period of time in mortality, and so we came here in this mortal world. We are in school, the mortal school, to gain the experiences, the training, the joys, and the sufferings that we partake of, that we might be educated in all these things and be prepared, if we are faithful and true to the commandments of the Lord, to become sons and daughters of God, joint heirs with Jesus Christ; and in His presence to go on to a fulness and a continuation of the seeds forever, and perhaps through our faithfulness to have the opportunity of building worlds and peopling them. Joseph Fielding Smith, "Adam’s Role in Bringing Us Mortality", Oct. 1967 General Conference Quoted in "Gospel Classics: Adam’s Role in Bringing Us Mortality", Jan. 2006, Ensign Magazine
A favorite theme of Brigham Young was that the dominion God gives man is designed to test him, to enable him to show to himself, his fellows, and all the heavens just how he would act if entrusted with God’s own power; if he does not act in a godlike manner, he will never be entrusted with a creation of his own, worlds without end. Hugh W. Nibley, "Man's Dominion", Oct. 1972, New Era Magazine
When we’re ready to create our own worlds and give leadership thereto, we will have great knowledge. Since knowledge is power, we will have power. Since knowledge can make us creative, we can be creators. Elder Spencer W. Kimball, "Marriage is Honorable", 30 Sept. 1973, BYU Devotional
Brethren, 225,000 of you are here tonight. I suppose 225,000 of you may become gods. There seems to be plenty of space out there in the universe. And the Lord has proved that he knows how to do it. I think he could make, or probably have us help make, worlds for all of us, for every one of us 225,000. Pres. Spencer W. Kimball, "The Privilege of Holding the Priesthood", 4 Oct. 1975, General Priesthood Session
Each one of you has it within the realm of his possibility to develop a kingdom over which you will preside as its king and god. You will need to develop yourself and grow in ability and power and worthiness, to govern such a world with all of its people. Pres. Spencer W. Kimball, “… the Matter of Marriage”, 22 Oct. 1976, University of Utah Institute of Religion Quoted in "Doctrines of the Gospel Student Manual", Chapter 10, "The Purpose of Earth Life"
We have this life of limited years in which to learn of God and become that masters of our own destiny; we have in addition this life plus eternities to learn of the earth and the things thereon, and to accumulate secular knowledge that will help make us gods, which is our destiny. Peter and John had little secular learning, being termed ignorant. But they knew the vital things of life, that God lives and that the crucified Lord is the Son of God. They knew the path to eternal life. This they learned in a few decades of their mortal life. Their righteous lives opened the door to godhood for them and creation of worlds with eternal increase. [...] The so-called ignorant Peter and John are heirs to exaltation and can learn what they need to know to create worlds. A highly trained scientist who is also a perfected man may create a world and people it, but a dissolute, unrepentant, unbelieving one will never be such a creator even in the eternities. Secular knowledge, important as it may be, can never save a soul not open the celestial kingdom nor create a world nor make a man a god, but it can be most helpful to that man who, placing first things first, has found the way to eternal life and who can now bring into play all knowledge to be his tool and servant. Pres. Spencer W. Kimball, "President Kimball Speaks Out", 1981, Deseret Book Publishing
Those who receive exaltation in the celestial kingdom through faith in Jesus Christ will receive special blessings. The Lord has promised, “All things are theirs” (D&C 76:59). These are some of the blessings given to exalted people: • They will live eternally in the presence of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ (see D&C 76:62). • They will become gods (see D&C 132:20–23). Gospel Principles Manual, Chapter 47: Exaltation © 1978, 2009, 2011 by Intellectual Reserve, Inc.
There is a sentiment among many in the world that we are the spirit creations of God, just as a building is the creation of its architect or a painting the creation of its painter or an invention the creation of its inventor. The scriptures teach, however, a much different doctrine. They teach that we are more than creations of God; they teach that we are the literal spirit offspring or children of God our Father. [...] As members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we believe that we are the spirit offspring of God with inherited spiritual traits that give us the divine potential to become like our parent, God the Father. [...] It is this doctrine of identity that defines our potential destiny of godhood. If one does not correctly understand his divine identity, then he will never correctly understand his divine destiny. They are, in truth, inseparable partners. [...] In spite of God’s altruistic aims on our behalf, perhaps no doctrine, no teaching, no philosophy has stirred such controversy as has this: that man may become a god. It is espoused by some as blasphemous, by others as absurd. Such a concept, they challenge, lowers God to the status of man and thus deprives God of both His dignity and divinity. Others claim this teaching to be devoid of scriptural support. It is but a fantasy, they say, of a young, uneducated schoolboy, Joseph Smith. Certainly no God-fearing, right-thinking, Bible-oriented person would subscribe to such a philosophy as this. While some of these advocates are hardened critics, others are honest and bright men who simply disagree with us on this doctrine. [...] At one point the Savior was about to be stoned by the Jews for blasphemy. He reminded them of His good works and then asked, “For which of those works do ye stone me?” They replied that they were not stoning him for good works “but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God.” To this He readily acknowledged that He was and declared that they should be likewise: “Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?” In other words, He said not only am I a god, but all of you are potential gods. [...] Peter, who also understood this doctrine, pled with the Saints that they might become “partakers of the divine nature,” meaning recipients of godhood. That is exactly what Jesus ordered when speaking to the Book of Mormon Saints: “Therefore, what manner of men ought ye to be? Verily I say unto you, even as I am.” And it is exactly what the Savior promised in this dispensation for all faithful Saints: “Then shall they be gods, because they have all power, and the angels are subject unto them." [...] Do not the laws of science teach us that like begets like, each after its kind? Science has taught us that a complex genetic code transferred from parent to child is responsible for the child attaining the physical attributes of his parents. If this be so, is it illogical to assume that spirit offspring receive a spiritual code giving to them the divine characteristics and potential of their parent—God—thus making them gods in embryo? No, it is but a fulfillment of the law that like begets like. [...] The difference between man and God is significant—but it is one of degree, not kind. It is the difference between an acorn and an oak tree, a rosebud and a rose, a son and a father. In truth, every man is a potential god in embryo, in fulfillment of that eternal law that like begets like. [...] The scriptures, early Christian writers, poetry, logic, and history testify not only of the divine possibility but of the divine reality that man may become as God. The Doctrine and Covenants refers to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, declaring, “And because they did none other things than that which they were commanded, they have entered into their exaltation, . . . and sit upon thrones, and are not angels but are gods.” [...] Elder Bruce R. McConkie wrote, “No doctrine is more basic, no doctrine embraces a greater incentive to personal righteousness ... as does the wondrous concept that man can be as his Maker.” And why not possible? Do not all Christian churches advocate Christlike behavior? Is that not what the Sermon on the Mount is all about? If it is blasphemous to think we can become as God, then at what point is it not blasphemous to become like God—90 percent, 50 percent, 1 percent? Is it more Christian to seek partial godhood than total godhood? Are we invited to walk the path of godhood—to “be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect”—with no possibility of ever reaching the destination? [...] I testify there are no ordinary people, no ciphers, no zeros—only potential gods and goddesses in our midst. [...] I pray we will recognize our true identity as literal sons and daughters of God and grasp a vision of our divine destiny as it really may be. Elder Tad R. Callister, "Our Identity and Our Destiny", 14 Aug. 2012, BYU Devotional
A fourth gift from our Savior is actually a promise—a promise of life everlasting. This does not mean simply living for a really, really, really long time. Everyone will live forever after death, regardless of the kingdom or glory for which they may qualify. Everyone will be resurrected and experience immortality. But eternal life is so much more than a designation of time. Eternal life is the kind and quality of life that Heavenly Father and His Beloved Son live. When the Father offers us everlasting life, He is saying in essence, “If you choose to follow my Son—if your desire is really to become more like Him—then in time you may live as we live and preside over worlds and kingdoms as we do.” Pres. Russell M. Nelson, "Four Gifts That Jesus Christ Offers to You", 2018 First Presidency Christmas Devotional
These are but a sampling of the teachings by leaders or instructional materials of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that have explicitly taught that faithful members who received exaltation in the celestial kingdom become deified and will create and populate worlds with their spiritual progeny over which they rule as gods. You can find more discussion on this matter in these articles at MormonThink and the Mormonism Research Ministry, responding to the church’s 2014 Gospel Topics Essay. I think it is abundantly clear that the church, and the apologists in their employ, are being intentionally dishonest regarding how they obfuscate their teachings on this matter in recent years.
In a (thorough) discussion of possible influences for The Vision, I’m surprised that you didn’t mention 1 Corinthian 15:41.
I guess I just assumed my readers were already aware of this connection and just neglected to bring it up. 😅 Or maybe I was just channeling my inner Swedenborg. As J. B. Haws relates: “It is therefore surprising to note that Emanuel Swedenborg apparently never quoted from, nor even referred to, 1 Corinthians 15:40–42 in any of his voluminous writings.”
Brilliant, as usual!