Dialogue Classic Articles: (Re)Interpreting Early Mormon Thought: Synthesizing Joseph Smith’s Theology and the Process of Religion Formation

Ben Park takes a look at "Two theological essays published just months before Smith’s death by Parley P. Pratt, one of the Twelve Apostles, (that) offer a micro- historical lens through which we can examine the process of synthesis and interpretation. Pratt’s 1844 writings are used as gateway texts through which to explore two burning issues of the period: Mormonism’s relationship to the American nation and the LDS conception of continuing revelation. These two themes strike at the heart of Smith’s religious legacy as an “American revelator.” Indeed, they are rooted in the egalitarianism, amateurism, and Americanness that often dominate the scholarly image of Mormonism’s founding prophet and are central to the attempts at placing Smith within his cultural context. Yet the direction the Twelve took with Mormonism’s theological corpus not only nuanced but also challenged its democratic flavor—a move that brought stability to a fledgling movement and authority to a contested debate. Taken together, the debates over these features in Joseph Smith’s thought magnify a synthesizing process that shaped how Mormon theology was to be understood for the rest of the nineteenth century and even until today."