Black Methodists, White Mormons: Race and Antipolygamy

Christopher Jones

(cross-posted at Juvenile Instructor)

The latest issue of Religion and American Culture arrived in my mailbox last week, and I was immediately intrigued by the first featured article: "'Until This Curse of Polygamy Is Wiped Out': Black Methodists, White Mormons, and Constructions of Racial Identity in the Late Nineteenth Century," written by James B. Bennett, associate professor of Religious Studies at Santa Clara University.

The article examines the antipolygamy writings that appeared in the Southwestern Christian Advocate, the official organ of the Methodist Episcopal Church in late nineteenth century New Orleans. As Bennett explains, "Black critiques of Latter-day Saints are significant because they gave voice to anxieties confronting all African Americans, even as they expressed a particular denominational perspective" (170). In contrast to their fellow black Methodists in the African Methodist Episcopal Church and African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, African Americans in the MEC favored a racially-integrated religious body, believing it to be crucial to the ultimate goal of social and political equality. Critiquing the Mormons' practice of polygamy served multiple functions in their efforts to achieve this end: it was part of an effort to curb the widespread Mormon settlement in the West, which limited to spaces available for black Americans unhappy in the South to migrate; it served as evidence that deviant sexuality was not instinctively tied to race (and played into fears that white polygamy was as threatening to black females as the adulterous relationships of white plantation owners and their black slaves in the antebellum era); and it provided the black Methodists with a convenient other whose lack of patriotism and religious heterodoxy contrasted with the black Methodists' own orthodoxy and support for the nation. Additionally, Mormonism's own policies of racial segregation were an impediment to the goal of an integrated Christian community, threatening to black Episcopal Methodists in the same way that the racial exclusivism of the AME and AMEZ Churches was.

Bennett's nuanced article is insightful and well worth the read to anyone interested. It touches on the subject of the racialization of Mormons (which Paul Reeve's in-progress book manuscript will discuss at length), and provides an interesting and needed complement to the several studies of anti-Mormonism largely limited to the writings of white Anglo-Americans. It also highlights the ways in which the author or editor's own religious, racial, and regional identity affected the reasons for critiquing the Mormons. Bennett perceptively notes, for example, that anti-Catholicism served many of the same purposes as anti-Mormonism did for black Protestants in the nineteenth century, but that articulating anti-Catholic views in New Orleans, where most of the city's religious and political elite were white Catholics, was dangerous business.

Bennett concludes by rehearsing the sad irony of what transpired following the events of the 1890s, as Latter-day Saints abandoned the practice of plural marriage (officially anyway) and began their long march toward the mainstream of American society. Southwestern Christian Advocate editor A.E.P. Albert celebrated Wilford Woodruff's 1890 announcement, declaring that "the twin sister of slavery is now gone forever!" (186). But such celebratory declarations would soon turn to increased frustration. Mormonism's march toward the mainstream in the first half of the 20th century cruelly coincided with the imposition and enforcement of Jim Crow laws throughout the South. The Methodist Episcopal Church, which these black Methodists had once seen as the engine driving the move toward racial equality, pushed them further to the fringes of the denomination. In 1939, the unification of the MEC, MEC, South, and Methodist Protestant Church, resulted in the official segregation of church jurisdictions--a policy that wouldn't be reversed until "less than a decade before the 1978 Mormon decision to extend full privileges to people of African descent" (186).

Methodism, Mormonism, and the Atlantic World

Christopher Jones

Cross-posted at the Juvenile Instructor.

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I recently opined on the benefits of situating the rise of Mormonism within the larger historical context of the (late) early modern Atlantic world. I would like now to briefly outline one example of what such an approach might look like. When I wrote my MA thesis on the subject of Methodist influence on early Mormonism, I was mostly interested in exploring the specific ways Methodist converts to Mormonism left their mark on early Latter-day Saint religiosity and paid little attention to the ways in which Methodism and Mormonism related to one another on a broader scale of Christian, American, or Atlantic history. In light of my more recent reading and research, however, I find it difficult to separate those two questions.

In chapter three of my thesis, I explored the ways in which Mormon converts from Methodist backgrounds understood their prior affiliation with Methodism as expressed in public sermons, tracts, and especially in private (and occasionally published) spiritual narratives. I found that contrary to sweeping assessments that Mormonism’s doctrine of “restoration made it abundantly clear that God had sanctioned one true church and that all others were false,” and that this identity left “no room for abstractions, ambiguities, or shades of gray” in the way Mormons understood Protestant traditions [1], Mormon converts from Methodism more often than not understood their conversion to Mormonism not as a wholesale rejection of Wesleyan religion, but rather as a final step in their search for truth. These converts explained that it was their former experience as Methodists that led them to accept the Mormon gospel. Methodism was thus insufficient or incomplete, not altogether incorrect, and Mormons recalled enjoying certain spiritual gifts, learning essential “truths,” and experiencing true Christian conversion during their time as adherents to Methodist teachings and churches. Joseph Smith, therefore, purportedly declared to the Methodist itinerant Peter Cartwright that “he believed that among all the Churches in the world the Methodist was the nearest right, and that, as far as they went, they were right,” and that “if the Methodists would only advance a step or two further, they would take the world. We Latter-day Saints are Methodists, as far as they have gone, only we have advanced further, and if you would come in and go with us, we could sweep not only the Methodist Church, but all others, and you would be looked up to as one of the Lord’s greatest prophets.” [2]

Related to Smith’s assertion that Methodists had “stopped short” of claiming the entire Christian gospel was the suggestion made by other converts that Methodists not only stopped short but even took a backward step by forsaking some of John Wesley’s teachings. Of course such a claim was not new or novel, and in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, many disgruntled Methodists leveled similar charges against leaders of the Methodist Episcopal Church in America and the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Great Britain, leading to a splintering of the movement over issues of church governance, mode and manner of worship, social issues, and theological emphases. Perhaps not surprisingly, it was from these several splinter groups that so many of Mormonism’s early converts and leaders came. And it was those same individuals who repeated anew the charges that mainline Methodists in the 1830s and 1840s had forsaken pure Wesleyanism. Brigham Young, who aligned himself with the Reformed Methodist Church prior to his conversion, thus had little kind to say about the Methodists of his day but held John Wesley in high regard, remarking on one occasion that he considered Wesley to be “as good [of a person] as ever walked on this earth, according to his knowledge,” and expressed his belief that “had the Priesthood been conferred upon [Wesley], he would have built up the kingdom of God in his day as it is now being built up. He would have introduced the ordinances, powers, grades, and quorums of the Priesthood.” [3] William Appleby (and Parley Pratt), meanwhile, praised Wesley’s take on spiritual gifts, and John Taylor, who led a small Methodist sect in Canada before converting to Mormonism, once accused Methodist preachers he encountered in the British Isles of forsaking their Wesleyan heritage, charging that “surely Messrs. John Wesley, John Nelson, Fletcher, and Bramwell, who were ornaments of the Methodist society, would have been ashamed to have been found in the situation in which Messrs. Heys and Livesey have placed themselves in.” [4]

I’ll leave it to others more interested in the accuracy of such charges to debate their relative merits. But it does seem clear to me that in looking at the historical trajectory of Methodism and Mormonism, one can point to ways in which Methodists did move away from key points of Wesley’s teachings and ways in which Mormonism can appropriately be seen as “restoring” some of those points. But what does all of this have to do with the Atlantic world?

Well, one of the most notable ways in which Francis Asbury, whom Wesley appointed as co-superintendent of Methodist efforts in America and who initiated the process leading to the establishment of a separate Methodist church in America (the Methodist Episcopal Church, founded in 1784), moved away from Wesley’s legacy was in his approach to missionary work. While both were proponents of aggressive and far-reaching missionary efforts, they envisioned those efforts in very different geographical terms. As Ian Straker recently noted, whereas “[John] Wesley defined the world as his parish,” and initiated a number of foreign Methodist missions, the “British born Asbury defined his world more narrowly,” limiting the missionary endeavors of his Methodist Episcopal Church largely to the North American continent (and ultimately to the United States alone). [5] While British Wesleyan missionaries continued to operate on both sides of the Atlantic (especially in Canada and the Caribbean), American Methodists aggressively spread throughout U.S. territory. In the early 19th century, Methodists became fierce advocates of American exceptionalism and in some crucial sense (my apologies to Mormonism), the MEC became the quintessential American church of the era, growing to become the largest Protestant denomination on the eve of the Civil War.

While it could be argued that Mormonism built on this pattern both in assembling an upstart and wide-reaching missionary force and in sacralizing the American landscape (and the underlying ideals of the United States), Mormonism also departed sharply from the example of Asbury and the American Methodists by restoring an emphasis on transatlantic (and indeed, worldwide) proselytization. Instead of restricting his church to the United States, Joseph Smith (like John Wesley and others before him) initiated a movement that operated in a truly Atlantic world, prompting the spread of ideas and of people back and forth across the ocean.

Interestingly, other dissident Methodists, like Lorenzo Dow and William Hammett, insisted on moving beyond the borders of the United States and across the Atlantic in their preaching careers. And other inheritors of the Wesleyan legacy, including the Holiness and (later) Pentecostal movements (whom David Hempton appropriately labeled Methodism’s “religious offspring”) also emphasized worldwide missionary programs, leading to their modern day success in Latin America and Africa, where they compete with (who else but) Mormons for converts.

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[1] Richard T. Hughes, “Soaring with the Gods: Early Mormons and the Eclipse of Religious Pluralism,” in Mormons and Mormonism: An Introduction to an American World Religion, ed. Eric A. Eliason (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2001), 27-28, 40.

[2] Peter Cartwright, Autobiography of Peter Cartwright, with an introduction by Charles L. Wallis (Nashville: Abingdon Press reprint, 1984), 225-226.

[3] Brigham Young, “Nature of Man—Happiness—Influence of God’s Spirit Upon Mankind, etc.,” July 3, 1859, in Journal of Discourses 7:5.

[4] John Taylor, An Answer to Some False Statements and Misrepresentations made by the Rev. Robert Heys, Wesleyan Minister, in an Address to His Society in Douglas and its Vicinity, on the Subject of Mormonism (Douglas: Penrice and Wallace, 1840), 9.

[5] Ian Straker, “Comments on Selected Themes [in John H. Wigger’s American Saint: Francis Asbury and the Methodists],”Methodist History 48:4 (July 2010), 221.

Glenn Beck, Methodism, and "Black Founders"

by Christopher Jones

Glenn Beck initially drew my interest because of his Mormonism—I sensed in Beck’s conspiratorial approach to politics something reminiscent of an earlier generation of Mormon public figures. The pervading fear of socialist subversion, combined with the particularly Mormon interpretations and understandings of human agency, the methods and aims of satanic opposition, and the divinely-inspired nature of America’s Founding documents, were reminders both that the influence of Cleon Skousen and Ezra Taft Benson’s religio-political views still loomed large among a certain segment of the Mormon population and that in them lay a narrative that had the power to appeal to not only conservative Mormons but other embittered Americans as well, suspicious of the government and intent on rescuing the nation from secularism and immorality (and make no mistake, perceived secularism and immorality are as central to Beck’s movement as is some vague libertarian notion of fiscal responsibility). These topics have been discussed, analyzed, and reanalyzed at least a hundred times over by now (though some commentators rehash them anew and claim such discoveries for their own, all while butchering the identities of key people and ideas in Mormon history), and to be honest, I’ve grown weary of thinking about Beck, his Mormonism, and his agenda in general. In fact, I’d sworn off posting anything more on Beck here or at the Juvenile Instructor.

But one of Beck’s more recent forays into early American history has forced me to reconsider. It touched a nerve not because of Beck’s subtle invocation of Mormon themes, but rather because they addressed the subject of my current research—early American Methodism. Sandwiched in between Beck’s recent assertion that race relations in America were (with the exception of some unidentified “racists”) fairly harmonious before the years immediately preceding the Civil War and that provisions for Revolutionary War soldiers and veterans operated on a sort of colorblind basis is an intriguing discussion of what Beck oddly refers to as “the first real megachurch … a white and black megachurch.” The "megachurch" in question (which goes unidentified) is St. George's Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia and the central figure is Richard Allen, eventual founder of the AME Church.

“Richard Allen,” Beck explains, “was a preacher at a white church—a megachurch. … And Richard Allen, this megapreacher, he tried to segregate.” Beck’s go-to guy for all matter historical, David Barton, chimes in, noting that “In the 1790s [Allen] proposed having a black denomination. And both whites and blacks said, ‘we don’t want that. We want the integrated stuff. We don’t want separate denominations.’ There was finally an overt act of racism in one church that kind of gave him the impetus to go ahead and start a black denomination. But for years, neither blacks nor whites wanted a separate denomination ‘cause they worshipped together in those churches, in Philadelphia and elsewhere.”

Rather than focusing on each of the several problematic points raised (the insightful scholarship of Albert Raboteau, Dee Andrews, and Richard Newman is recommended for those interested), I’d like to ruminate on the meanings and implications of two particular points.

First, I was struck by Beck and Barton omitting entirely any mention of Methodism. Richard Allen is simply “a black preacher” and St. George’s is simply a generic “megachurch.” Considering that Methodist theology and worship were so central to Allen’s identity as a Christian (and as a black man), and that his "black denomination" remained within Methodist Episcopal tradition, this seems as especially odd omission. This not only simplifies and distorts the history of St. George’s (and Methodism more generally) by ignoring the complex dynamics of early American religion, but also serves as a useful means of locating this supposed bastion of interracial harmony within the tradition so many of Beck’s listeners and viewers claim as there own today—conservative evangelical Christianity. This rhetorical maneuver, then, allows these conservatives to co-opt the legacy of interracial evangelicalism in early America (in much the same way that Beck has co-opted the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement of the twentieth century).

Second, this conversation between Beck and Barton took place during a recurring segment of Beck’s show called “Founder’s Friday.” This particular episode was devoted to “Black Heroes in American History,” and was part of Beck’s stated effort to “spend more time learning about our black founders, and restoring this part of history” (a worthwhile effort, no doubt—at least theoretically). I was immediately reminded of Richard Newman’s biography of Richard Allen, Freedom’s Prophet, in which Newman sought to place Allen squarely within the tradition of America’s Founding Fathers. Echoing others, Newman reinforced the notion that Allen was a black founder, but moved beyond previous assessment by declaring that Allen was deserving of such a title not only because he founded black institutions but also because he “was essentially the forerunner of modern civil rights activists” and because “his belief in nonviolent but confrontational reform offered lessons for virtually every black leader who followed in his wake” (p. 4). As Alan Taylor summarized in his review of the book, “Allen was a Founder for all Americans. He emphasized a prophetic vision of America as a multi-racial democracy of equal rights and equal opportunity. His egalitarian vision was far more daring than anything considered by the more famous white Founders.”

In Beck’s vision of “black founders,” however, Richard Allen in cast as a foil to the interracial harmony he earlier enjoyed as a “mega-preacher” to “2,000 whites” by promoting “segregation.” Tellingly, then, what Beck sees as antithetical to his imagined ideal of American society, Newman see as admirable and daring. The implication of Beck’s narrative—that this “black preacher” and the black church he pioneered, are mere distractions to the real story of this Christian nation—serves as an interesting contrast to those who “seek a sense of authenticity” in black institutions and raises important questions about the place of the black church in the conservative white mind today.