I bet you didn´t learn this in Sunday School

Ezra Taft Benson

D. Michael Quinn is a dissident Mormon who has authored or edited several books on the history of the Mormon (LDS) Church. Naturally, they stray quite extensively from official Mormon hagiography. Quinn's best known work is probably "Early Mormonism and the Magic World View", but his other books are equally worth delving into.

"The Mormon Hierarchy: Extensions of Power" is the second volume of a two-volume series. The first is subtitled "Origins of Power".

The book is really a collection of essays on various controversial topics of Mormon history. Half of the book consists of appendices, footnotes and references. One of the essays deals with the controversies surrounding Ezra Taft Benson and his support for the extremist John Birch Society. Another essay describes the successful Mormon campaign to stop ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA).

Quinn has also included an extensive discussion of 19th century Mormonism in Utah. He reaches the surprising conclusion that the secretive, theocratic Council of Fifty played only a minor role. Despite this, Mormon Utah clearly was a theocracy. Not without some irony, the author describes how LDS-approved candidates in Utah elections would get 99% of the votes, and never less than 95%. For a period, the Mormon-controlled "People's Party" didn't even have a central committee, but was controlled directly by Church authorities! Please note the names "people's party" and "central committee" and the 99% election results. Are we talking Utah or Estonia in 1940?

Appendix 5 is easily the most interesting part of the entire volume, a veritable treasure trove of downright bizarre information on Mormonism you won't learn from those clean-cut LDS missionaries. The "elders" probably don't even know about it! Thus, we learn that the famous Miracle of the Seagulls wasn't considered particularly miraculous when it first happened. Brigham Young prohibited Mormons from digging gold in Utah only to send a Mormon group to California to do precisely that. Sodomy was legal in Utah from 1852 to 1876. Young prohibited Blacks from entering the priesthood, but nevertheless invited Elijah Abel to a social event in Salt Lake City. Abel was an African-American who had been ordained by Joseph Smith! Young also denied the virgin birth, claiming that God had a physical body and had a carnal relation with Mary. In 1857, Young allowed a polyandrous relationship and preached in favour of marriage between siblings. One of his apostles said that Muhammad might have been a true prophet! And so on...

More shocking is the trail of violence, murder and mayhem that characterized Utah during the rule of Mormon theocrats. The Mountain Meadows Massacre is the most well known instance, but it seems that "blood atonements", decapitations and castrations were the order of the day, Brigham Young not being wholly innocent of stirring things up. Of course, the Wild West was a brutal place in those days, and the problem isn't so much that this or that horse thief was summarily dealt with. The problem, of course, is the religious-theocratic dimension, as when the Mormons and the federal authorities together attacked the Morrisites, or when Mormon dissidents were attacked, or when "loose" women were found decapitated, etc.

"The Mormon Hierarchy" is more forthright than Leonard Arrington's bland work "Brigham Young: American Moses". Arrington, of course, is The Living Prophet's Loyal Opposition. Quinn, it seems, is something else again.

The only criticism I have of this book is that Quinn's style of writing frequently gets dry, tedious and over-detailed. Still, I cannot recommend this volume high enough.