I’m excited to have Dr Casey Griffiths back on the show. He’s a Church History professor at BYU and we’re going to talk about 2 of his newest books, 50 Relics of the Restoration & Truth Seeker. He’s the incoming JWHA president, and we’ll talk about several relics from other restoration groups, including James Strang’s sceptre, and a cricket team called the Islamabad Moronis! We’ll also discuss a science apostle, Joseph Merrill. Merrill advocated for theological training for LDS seminary teachers, and believed science showed the existence of God. Check out our conversation…
Copyright © 2022
Gospel Tangents
All Rights Reserved
Except for book reviews, no content may be reproduced without written permission.
Intro to JWHA
Interview
GT 00:37 Welcome to Gospel Tangents. I’m excited to have a return visitor back on the show. Could you go ahead and tell us who you are?
Casey 00:44 Hi, I’m Casey Paul Griffiths. I work at BYU. And I’m excited to be back too. It’s always a pleasure to visit.
GT 00:52 And you’ve got a new title now. I know you’re the new president of the John Whitmer Historical Association.
Casey 00:58 I am.
GT 00:59 2023.
Casey 01:00 For 2023.
GT 01:01 Tell us about that.
Casey 01:02 I love the John Whitmer Historical Association. It’s a smaller historical association. It is to the Community of Christ, what the Mormon History Association is for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And yet over the last couple of years, it’s kind of morphed into less of an emphasis on Community of Christ and more of, I don’t know, diverse restoration movements. So, you can go to John Whitmer, and it’s a little bit smaller. It’s a little bit cozier. You’ll hear some really, really good research. And you’ll also hear a lot of diverse restoration perspectives. For instance, our 50th anniversary conference was just back in September. And we had a healthy contingent of Strangite scholars that were there. You don’t hear very much about James Strang, because there’s not very many adherents to his branch of the restoration anymore. And, in the meantime, the Joseph Smith photograph was the main session.
GT 02:05 [It was] a big deal.
Casey 02:07 Yeah. John Whitmer Journal published the first real write up on that photograph, the first pictures of him. So, it’s just a real, real grab bag. And I love MHA. I’ve always had a positive experience there. But, like I said, I think I like John Whitmer, a little bit better, not just because I’m the president. But because it’s a little bit smaller and a little more…
GT 02:28 A lot more diverse.
Casey 02:29 A lot more diverse, yes, I should say.
GT 02:30 You get a lot more restoration groups there.
Casey 02:33 Yeah. And that’s lively fun, right?
GT 02:36 I’ve even found that there are more Gospel Tangents listeners at John Whitmer than even Mormon History [Association.]
Casey 02:43 Yeah. I mean, I didn’t want to use the term, but John Whitmer is a real great home for oddballs, that are a little bit maybe–I wouldn’t say off the beaten path, because there’s some great mainstream scholarship that’s presented there, too. I mean Richard Bushman was our keynote speaker a couple of years ago, but also it feels like the perspectives are really diverse. And we’re talking about the whole restoration family. That seems to be what sets apart John Whitmer, where MHA there’s a lot of diverse opinions, but it’s primarily discussions that surround the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. So yeah, I enjoy John Whitmer quite a bit. For our 50th anniversary, I got to meet with all the founders.
GT 03:27 That’s like Bill Russell. He was one of the founders.
Casey 03:29 Bill Russell’s one of the founders.
GT 03:30 Who are some of the other founders? Bill is the only one I really know.
Casey 03:32 The main guy, it seems like the George Washington, the indispensable man is Richard Howard.
GT 03:37 Oh.
Casey 03:38 He is still with us. He and his wife, Barbara, are remarkable. If you’ve heard the name Richard Howard, it’s because he is to the Community of Christ what Leonard Arrington was to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And those two actually know each other quite well. And Richard Howard is the one that starts to say to Community of Christ, “Let’s be a little less defensive.”
GT 04:00 Right.
Casey 04:01 Let’s be a little bit more open. He’s the person that invites scholars from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to come and see the Joseph Smith Translation manuscripts and verify them. He introduces really gently to members of his church, the idea that Joseph Smith practiced plural marriage, and using a more disciplined, rigorous, less defensive methodology when it comes to history. And, his daughter-in-law is Deborah Winger, if that helps too.
GT 04:30 Like from Footloose?
Casey 04:32 Well, was she in Footloose?[1]
GT 04:34 I think so.
Casey 04:35 You know, Terms of Endearment, Legal Eagles, all that stuff. Yeah, I was over visiting in his house.
GT 04:41 That’s his daughter-in-law?
Casey 04:42 That’s his daughter-in-law.
GT 04:43 No way!
Casey 04:43 Yeah, his son is Arliss Howard. He is actually a fairly well-known actor in his own right. So, I’m in Dick and Barbara’s home and I saw a picture of their family and I was like, “Your daughter-in-law looks just like Debra Winger.”
Casey 04:57 And he said, “She is Debra Winger.” So, after that, I mean, I don’t know if I’m a huge Debra Winger fan. I guess I know her enough to recognize her. But that was kind of a weird connection to Hollywood and restoration history.
GT 05:13 So she hasn’t converted the Community of Christ as far as you know.
Casey 05:15 I don’t think she has, and I don’t know if Arliss is active either. They shared a couple of Arliss stories. But Dick Howard was the person that gathered together all these Community of Christ historians and said, “We need to have something like the MHA.” So, the organization is really linked. John Whitmer was founded five years after MHA is founded. They founded theirs because Leonard Arrington invited all those guys, Paul Edwards and Bill Russell, and Dick Howard to come and attend MHA. And they wanted an equivalent for Community of Christ.
Casey 05:48 And as Community of Christ has grown and changed, like I said, it seems like John Whitmer has just naturally turned into this-here’s where every branch of the restoration can meet and feel comfy. And it’s like a weird family reunion where, you’ll have Strangites. You’ll have people from Community of Christ. A lot of their conferences are held. Every third year their constitution says they have to meet in Independence. And so, a lot of the Independence churches come out and meet, and it’s a great place to hear some really unique perspectives on the restoration. It’s a very, very enjoyable conference. So, I’m proud to be the president of the JWHA. I don’t know why they picked me, but I really, really treasure my associations that I’ve had.
GT 06:34 Yeah, it’s super fun. Where’s it going to be next year?
Casey 06:37 Next year, it is going to be in Texas.
GT 06:40 Oh, Fredericksburg .
Casey 06:41 Fredericksburg, Texas. So Mel Johnson, have you had Mel on?
GT 06:45 I have had him on.
Casey 06:46 Mel’s a son of a gun. Right? He’s a great guy. Mel is the leading Lyman Wight scholar in the Church and in the restoration, I should say. And he has been twisting everybody’s arm to go to the Wightite settlement in Texas. So we’re going to Fredericksburg.
GT 07:04 Yeah.
Casey 07:04 There’s actually a ton of interesting stuff in Fredericksburg.
GT 07:06 It’s near San Antonio, for those of you who don’t know.
Casey 07:07 It’s near San Antonio. There’s a museum about the Pacific War there and a lot of interesting things. And it’s kind of off the beaten path. I can say that Zodiac, Texas, where the Wightites have their settlement, is a place I’ve never been to before. And so, I’m really looking forward to it.
GT 07:28 Me too. It was supposed to be there a few years ago and then COVID killed everything.
Casey 07:30 Yeah, it was supposed to be in St. George, which was a big thing for them to do it in Utah. I don’t know if they have before. No, they have done it in St. George one time, a long time ago.
GT 07:39 Oh.
Casey 07:40 But now it’s planned for Texas next year, and then St. George after that, because the conference in St. George was cancelled due to COVID.
GT 07:46 Right.
Casey 07:47 It was moved online.
GT 07:48 Yeah.
Casey 07:49 So like I said, they bounce from place to place and visit a lot of really unique places. And it’s a fun group of people to be affiliated with.
GT 07:56 I have to tell you a funny story, well, a couple of funny stories. There was a guy that I ate breakfast with that was investigating the LDS Church, and he was at John Whitmer. I was like, “What? You come to this?” And then he told me, after I said I had a podcast, he’s like, “Oh, I recognize you.”
Casey 08:17 You kind of attract the odd balls, too, Rick. He’s probably familiar with all the odd balls out there. And I wouldn’t say John Whitmer is a bad introduction–maybe if you’re trying to join the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, it might be hard to jump. That’s jumping into the deep end.
GT 08:18 They had a 1970s disco, or everybody was supposed to dress like the 70s.
Casey 08:37 They had a 70s day and…
GT 08:37 There was an Elvis there.
Casey 08:40 And I should mention, too, that the whole conference took place in the Community of Christ Temple, which when I tell my students, “We’re going to have a 70s day and play disco music in the temple.” They just think “What the heck is going on with this religion?”
GT 08:51 Right.
Casey 08:52 But in Community of Christ, they use their temple as a multi-purpose facility. It’s not as designated as our temples are. And so, we had a delightful time.
GT 09:02 Yeah.
Casey 09:03 It was a great experience, and the temple staff was just wonderful to work with. [I have] nothing but good to say.
GT 09:07 And then there was another presentation, Kyle Beshears. Do you know Kyle?
Casey 09:14 Yeah, he’s one of the Strangite guys.
GT 09:15 Right, and so I was like, “Are you a professor?” Do you know? Tell us his background.
Casey 09:21 Kyle, I think he’s a Pentecostal or a Baptist.
GT 09:25 I thought he was a Baptist.
Casey 09:26 Yeah, he’s a Baptist minister who just wrote his master’s thesis on James Strang. And let me tell you. There’s no bottom to the well when it comes to James Strang. There’s a lot to process there. I ate lunch with Kyle, and I called them the Strangite Community, even though half of them aren’t affiliated with anything having to do the restoration. They just think James Strang is really fascinating.
GT 09:54 Well, yeah, because he talked about–because James Strang was a polygamist. I’m trying to remember if he talked about–was it Elvira? Was that the cross-dressing wife?
Casey 10:10 What was the name of the cross-dressing wife? Just the phrase cross-dressing wife tells you how strange this is.
GT 10:16 Exactly. Yeah, because there was a presentation, and maybe they’re the same person. But two of James Strang’s wives, one was named Elvira, and I can’t remember if that was the one that was cross-dressing as Charles Thompson.
Casey 10:30 Yes. Yeah. Charlie Thompson.
GT 10:32 She claimed to be his nephew.
Casey 10:33 Yeah, another one, and I guess this tells you how strange John Whitmer can be. One of the keynotes was Amy DeRogatis, who’s not a member of any restoration movement, but who’s a scholar on the daguerreotype of James Strang’s first plural wife, [who] originally dressed as a man. So, it was on cross-dressing in the 19th century. And that kind of shows you what a typical weekend is with John Whitmer. You can go from “here’s the Joseph Smith photograph” to “here’s a photograph of James Strang’s wife dressed as a man.” And like I said, for me, it’s really fun.
GT 11:14 I love it.
Casey 11:15 It’s not General Conference for sure. But the diversity of the presentations that I got a chance to, I took the Strangite community on a tour of the Temple Lot. I showed them around and it was really fun to be with Vicki Speek, who’s written that great book on James Strang,[2] and Amy and Kyle, who were all really interested to kind of get back to, “This is where Strang was coming from. This is Joseph Smith and the Temple Lot.” And then Strang comes onto the scene a lot later.
GT 11:47 Was Bill Shepard on that tour?
Casey 11:50 No, no. Bill is a little bit older guy. And I think he just declined. We were just happy Bill made it to the conference, because for a long time we didn’t know if he was going to come, because he’s getting up there [in age.]
GT 12:02 Right.
Casey 12:03 But Bill, for those of you who don’t know–have you interviewed Bill?
GT 12:05 I’ve had Bill on yes. In fact, I had him on at Whitmer when it was in New York, in Rochester.
Casey 12:10 Yeah. Bill is a really admirable guy, because he is a Strangite. He’s not a scholar. He’s a believer. Oh, he believes in James Strang’s revelation.
GT 12:22 I think he’s a scholar. He’s written a lot of stuff.
Casey 12:24 Yeah, you’re right. It’s not fair to say he’s not a scholar.
GT 12:26 He’s not a trained scholar.
Casey 12:27 He’s not just in it for the academic side.
GT 12:30 Right.
Casey 12:31 Some of these other figures are [just academics.] Bill’s a scholar and a believer. And at the conference, I came up and asked him about Strang’s revelations, which are hard to come by. Bill was part of publishing James Strang’s revelations. I just said, “Hey, I’d really like a copy.” And a couple days after the conference, he had mailed me a personal copy that actually had his own notes…
GT 12:53 Oh, nice.
Casey 12:54 …inside of it, which was so nice of him. So, I really admire Bill and I like the Strangites.
GT 12:59 He is one of the kindest people I’ve ever met.
Casey 13:02 Yeah, he’s a really good guy. He’s a John Whitmer stalwart.
James Strang’s Sceptre & History
GT 13:05 Yeah. So since we’re talking about James Strang, you have a new book out that has James Strang’s scepter in it.
Casey 13:14 Yes, I do. And I should give you a little bit of background on this book. So last time, you interviewed me was for my book, 50 Relics of the Restoration.
GT 13:23 Correct.
Casey 13:24 And I think in the course of that interview, I told you there were actually 100. Because we wrote the book, my partner and I, Mary Jane Woodger, based on this series of books that have no connection, except they’re the history of something in 100 objects. So, it started with the British Museum that published the History of the World in 100 Objects. And now there’s a History of America in 100 Objects. That’s published by the Smithsonian, and History of Baseball in 100 Objects, History of World War One in 100 Objects. And we just said it would be really fun to do a history of the Church in 100 objects.
Casey 13:57 So we wrote the manuscript, then we had some trouble publishing it. And our publisher, who we really love, they’re great to work with, basically said, 100 is really ambitious. So why don’t we do 50 and see if it works out? So, they published 50 Relics of the Restoration, and it went really well. The book turned out really well. And I think it’s done okay. And so, the whole time, we were saying, “Hey, there’s 50 more relics with essays already written and edited. And the photographs are ready to go. And so it’s been a really quick turnaround. 50 Relics came out last November. Now 50 More [Relics of the Restoration] is coming out this year.
Casey 14:38 We didn’t tell them which ones to pick. They just made up the list themselves. And we said, “Okay, we’re just happy to be here,” basically. But because 50 Relics kind of covered, early restoration, Joseph Smith, this is what you would expect people to know about. And since oddballs is turning into a theme, 50 More Relics is sort of the deep cuts. This is the weird stuff that our publisher Cedar Fort may have felt, “I don’t know if people will know about that.” But I’m just thrilled to see this in print, because the stuff that’s in this book, just because of the way the two books were, is demonstrably further off the beaten path and a little bit strange. And yes, James Strang’s scepter is one of those objects, too. I really, really was devastated when it wasn’t going to be in the first volume. And now I’m thrilled that somebody, somewhere is going to have a book on their shelf that has a photograph of Strang’s scepter.
Casey 15:40 So, you’ve had some great Strang scholars on here. And most people familiar with your podcast will know that Strang is one of the leaders of this really prominent breakoff movement. In fact, you could argue that Strang’s movement sort of collapses, then reorganizes and becomes the Reorganized Church. There’s just so many people in the RLDS/Community of Christ Church that have their beginnings with Strang, and then become disillusioned and reform around William Marks and Jason Briggs and finally, Joseph Smith, III. But Strang is an oddball. He shows up in Nauvoo, after Joseph Smith’s death. He claims that he has a letter from Joseph Smith, designating him as his true successor. He’s only been a convert of (I think) five months at this point. The Twelve refute the letter and excommunicate him. But Strang starts to really appeal to people and for a number of reasons. He’s claiming that angels are speaking to him. He’s claiming new revelation. He has the Voree plates, which he translates, which that’s what Bill Shepard sent to me was a copy of the Voree Plates, which are really fascinating themselves. And I think it’s fair to say that at least an early part of his appeal was he did not practice plural marriage or claimed not to.
GT 17:03 Right. Well, at first he didn’t. He rejected polygamy and then he had a revelation. I don’t think it was in the Voree plates, because he’s had a few books of scripture. Was it the Book of the Law of the Lord, where he was revealed polygamy?
Casey 17:15 I think so. Now, I could be wrong. Bill Shepard would be better to answer this than me. But he does get a revelation that he is supposed to start practicing plural marriage, and he does so in an interesting way where his second plural wife starts traveling around with him dressed as a man and…
GT 17:34 As his nephew.
Casey 17:35 As his nephew. And this was, like I said, a big part of the discussion at John Whitmer. There’s a daguerreotype of her dressed as Charlie…
GT 17:45 Oh, is it Thompson?
Casey 17:46 Charlie Thompson.[3]
GT 17:47 I don’t remember.
Casey 17:48 Eventually, he goes public with his practice a plural marriage, take several more wives, moves to Beaver Island. And at Beaver Island, a ceremony is performed where he is crowned king of the kingdom of God. Now this scepter, which is currently in the Historical Library of Community of Christ, we believe is the scepter that he was given, because the whole ceremony is really dramatic. And there’s plenty of sources to read about it. A guy named George A. Adams, who is a whole other story. We’ve got to do a discussion on George Adams. Basically, there’s this big theatrical ceremony where Strang has a paper crown of stars placed on his head, and a wooden scepter placed in his hands. So, the object, itself, is very humble looking.
Casey 18:37 Like, if you saw it, you would just think that it’s kind of a lacquered, nice…
GT 18:37 Yeah.
GT 18:41 It almost looks like a bat.
Casey 18:42 Yeah, it’s smaller than a baseball bat. And I’ll let you get the book and see the picture, because we got a photograph of it. Community of Christ was very gracious in saying, “Yeah, take this and take a photograph of it. In fact, it was hard for me to get the photo because Lach Mackay, an apostle in the Community of Christ, loves the scepter, too.
GT 19:01 (Chuckling)
Casey 19:03 And he had, a couple of times I came to photograph the scepter, and Lach had it in Nauvoo, because he loves to show it off, as well. It’s really a cool relic. But it was in Independence, and I took a picture and it’s beautiful. I mean, it’s well-crafted. It’s not especially ornate, or anything like that. It’s just kind of smooth wood. When you look at it, it’s about the size, I guess, a scepter would be. I would guess that…
GT 19:30 Is it about four or five feet tall? Is it that long?
Casey 19:32 No, no, no, it’s about, I don’t know, maybe a foot, a foot and a half.
GT 19:36 Oh, it’s tiny.
Casey 19:37 It’s tiny. Yeah, it’s just something you’d kind of hold in your hand like this. And for some reason, the first couple times I saw it, it was wrapped up in aluminum foil, too, which adds to the weirdness factor, as well. But Strang took that as his–his calling was King of the Kingdom of God, which is built, primarily, on Beaver Island. So, that’s another place we’ve been begging to go to for John Whitmer. But everybody that’s been to Beaver basically said that it’s really hard to get there. The facilities on the island are limited when you do get there.
GT 20:12 Well, I was talking to Lach and he said, “Don’t take the ferry. Take a plane.” But is there a way to get there by plane?
Casey 20:18 Yeah, you can fly there. Beaver Island is a little island in Lake Michigan.
GT 20:22 A private jet or like a Cessna or something?
Casey 20:25 Yeah, apparently you can charter flights to go there. The ferry, apparently, takes about two hours, and it’s pretty choppy, and can be a little harrowing, from what I hear. This is what I talked about with the Strangite…
GT 20:38 Because I want to go there. I haven’t been there.
Casey 20:40 I’d love to go there, too. In fact, if you’re ever going, let me know. I want to go, too.
GT 20:44 Okay, we’ll plan a trip together.
Casey 20:45 I’m just flat out interested. Beaver Island has a poignant history too. Honestly, Strang is an easy target for people to ridicule.
GT 20:55 Well, and you know, because there was a book, in fact, I asked Kyle Beshears about this.
Casey 20:59 Yeah.
GT 21:00 There’s a book called the King of Confidence, written by a reporter, and he makes fun of James Strang quite a bit.
Casey 21:08 He really satirizes James Strang. I talked to the Strang community about that book, too, because I saw it.
GT 21:08 They don’t like it.
Casey 21:11 It’s a national publication. The guy that wrote it isn’t super well-known, but sort of well known. And I just asked them, “What was your feeling?” Because I read the book.
Casey 21:25 And all the Strangite scholars, and these are serious people, like DeRogatis, Vickie Speek and Kyle Beshears, and they basically said, “You know what? It’s not respectful.” He writes in this kind of frontier–it’s almost a satire of those 19th century novels where they have like, big bold titles with a lot of exclamation points, “In which, James Strang does this, and this and this,” and things like that. I’m not a member of the Strangite faith, but at the same time, too, I’ve seen people handle early members of our church, like Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, in the same kind of sarcastic way. And you can just recognize a document that’s written in bad faith.
GT 22:06 That’s what Kyle said.
Casey 22:07 That’s written more to mock James Strang than it is to explore genuinely. I think Vicki Speek’s book is superior, personally. And, like I said, Strang, when it comes down to it, there’s more than meets the eye there. The surface story is this hilarious tale of a guy who dresses his wife up as his nephew. But there’s some, also, interesting points in Strang’s theology. Strang has a really robust theology that embraces environmentalism, that talks about the beauty of the Earth and has some meaningful passages in his scripture that have been meaningful to me, in my life. Strang is eventually murdered by his own followers. I mean, other people have told the story better than me.
Casey 22:53 And then his followers were, literally, swept off of Beaver Island. I mean, it’s almost Jackson County, Missouri type narrative…
GT 23:07 Right.
Casey 23:08 …for the Strangites, themselves. And that type of religious persecution is something that shouldn’t be made light of. And I’m not saying that the author of The King of Confidence, whose name escapes me, was sarcastic about that part. The general tone of the book was that James Strang was a con.
GT 23:25 Right.
Casey 23:26 The King of Confidence is the name of the book. And there’s a lengthy passage in there, expositing what a con man is and where the title comes from. And that’s clear that that’s his thesis. Well, I mean, people believed in James Strang. And I, personally, think the jury’s out on James Strang’s sincerity. Did James Strang believe what James Strang was teaching? I sort of think he did. And the bottom line is, people suffered horrendous persecutions that I feel were unwarranted. And I can recognize in their community, the type of suffering that my community has endured. And so, I didn’t put the scepter in to be disrespectful. I put it in because I wish more Latter-day Saints knew the story of James Strang, and what an interesting figure he was. And, that concept of kingship, which is found in our faith, too. I mean, Joseph Smith was crowned king of the kingdom of God. He didn’t do it as splashy and dramatic as Strang did, but he did do it in Nauvoo, and apparently, so was John Taylor and a couple other people in our faith. So, that was something I was really, really excited about.
Multiple Churches of Jesus Christ
GT 24:33 Now, remind people what the official name of the Strangite Church is.
Casey 24:39 What is the official name of this Strangite Church? I put it in the book, but…
GT 24:42 You don’t know? It’s the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
Casey 24:46 That’s right.
GT 24:47 It’s a capital D, instead of a lowercase d, like ours. They have no dash.
Casey 24:50 That’s another thing, with these restoration groups is the dash, small, lowercase d is a big deal with them, too. In working with Community of Christ, I got corrected a lot of times, before I finally picked up on it that Latter Day with a capital D is a big deal.
GT 25:09 Yeah, yeah.
Casey 25:10 And I just wrote another book with some scholars from Community of Christ. We had to have, it sounded almost pedantic. But, in the book, they wanted to use Latter-day, (lowercase d,) and Latter Day (uppercase D) to distinguish between the two communities. And that is, I think we’re one of the only communities that use the lowercase d.
GT 25:30 Yeah, I think we are the only one. Yeah.
Casey 25:32 That’s right, the Strangite Church is, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter (capital D,) Day Saints.
GT 25:37 Yeah, I was talking to Patrick McKay just recently and one of the things he said to me, “Do you know how many churches of Jesus Christ there are?”
GT 25:46 And I’m like, I do!” [We have] the Cutlerite Church, the Bickertonite Church.
GT 25:37 And now President Nelson has said, “Well, you can call us the Church of Jesus Christ. That’s now our official website address. We don’t have a “the” in front of it, the Bickertonites do. So we’ve got to distinguish better, especially amongst the restoration groups. You can’t just say, The Church of Jesus Christ. People don’t know [which group you are talking about.]
Casey 26:11 Yeah. And it was it. I mean, the first time I went to Independence, I introduced myself, “Hey, I work at BYU.” And someone said, “You’re a Brighamite.”
GT 26:21 There you go.
Casey 26:22 And I remember being, you know, a little offended, like, well, yeah, Brigham Young was a member of my Church. But I don’t like to use that term. And then I realized, I’ve been using terms like Strangite and Bickertonite, and…
GT 26:36 Josephite.
Casey 26:38 Josephite, which Community of Christ follows. And at a certain point, we got comfortable just saying that I have a lot of friends in different restoration movements. I think most of them are okay with being called a Bickertonite, but there’s still a little twinge, just like I have a little twinge when I’m called the Brighamite.
GT 26:55 Yeah.
Casey 26:56 Because, you know, we want to identify with Jesus Christ. I think that’s common across all the restoration movements. And so, we try to use respectful language, but I will say the Strangites are the least fussy of anybody that I run into. If you call them a Strangite, they usually just go, “Yeah, okay.” They like James Strang.
GT 27:13 Well, they like to be called Mormons, too.
Casey 27:14 And they don’t mind being called Mormons, which, that’s a whole other can of worms. Bickertonites hate being called Mormons and saying they’re part of the Mormon faith. And I don’t think that members of Community of Christ are particularly fond of Mormon, either.
GT 27:30 No, they don’t like it.
Casey 27:31 And some people are more or less comfortable with it. I’ve even had someone say, “Are you guys dropping the Book of Mormon?” Because President Nelson asked us to use the name of the Church instead of the word Mormon. So, it’s a mixed bag in the restoration family of all those terms. And boy, it’s a fun culture to be part of, but you have to do a lot of listening, in order to understand where people are coming from.
More Relics of the Restoration
GT 27:55 Definitely. So What else is in 50 More Relics of the Restoration book that you’d like to talk about?
Casey 28:01 Okay, well, I can do some broad ones. For instance, a Sunstone, from the Nauvoo Temple is in here. For this one, the biggest problem we had was choosing which Sunstone to use. There’s a Sunstone in the visitor center in Nauvoo. Most people that have been to Nauvoo are familiar with that sunstone. It’s officially on by the State of Illinois, but it’s on loan and is displayed inside the visitor center behind the glass case. But the one…
GT 28:28 The LDS Visitor Center.
Casey 28:29 The Latter-day Saint Visitor Center in Nauvoo, but the one we wanted a picture of is the one in the Smithsonian. So, there’s one in the Smithsonian in the Museum of American History. And, apparently, it is one of the crown jewels of their collection, like the people we talked to were really thrilled that they were able to acquire a Sunstone. And since they acquired it in the 1970s, it’s been on display prominently. It’s on the first floor of the building. You walk in and there, Bam, is the Sunstone, right on display. And they also have right next to it a few coins. I think that’s in the, no, I think that one was in the first book, where there were coins minted in the Utah territory that have some really interesting symbolism on them.
GT 29:14 For people who don’t remember the Sunstone, it was actually part of the Nauvoo Temple.
Casey 29:18 It was part of the Nauvoo Temple. As we were researching this, we tried to get into why moons, suns and stars? Because most members of our church walk up to the Nauvoo Temple and see the moon stones which are at the base of the building, and then the sun stones, which are the top of the pillars, and then the star stones which are above them, and just sort of assume well, this is about The Three Degrees Of Glory. But I mean if that’s the case, it should go stars, moon, sun, and it doesn’t. The best source we can find was one of the foremen on the Nauvoo temple, who said that the symbolism of the Nauvoo Temple was derived from the imagery in the Book of Revelation, from Revelation 12 specifically, where John sees a woman. Joseph Smith’s Translation designates that the woman is the church and says that her feet were adorned with the light of the moon, and the light of the sun shone in her face. And she had a crown of stars on her head, which I don’t think anybody would have guessed, if we hadn’t had that source, and that they were using the Nauvoo Temple to architecturally express the ideals of the Church of God, as the bride of Jesus Christ. That, to me, is really, really fascinating.
Casey 30:31 And in the chapter, we got into a little bit about–it was sort of our gateway to explain Nauvoo Temple symbolism. For instance, the inverted pentagrams on the Nauvoo Temple, a lot of people walk up and say, “Well, that’s satanic. Why are there satanic symbols on your temple?” We got to trace that back a little bit and found out that in the 1840s, nobody would have seen an inverted pentagram as being satanic. For the saints in Nauvoo, it was a morning star. It was an emblem of the planet Venus, which is the brightest star before the sunrise. It was a Christ symbol for them. And a pentagram itself, which you know, today is associated with satanic worship was, also, in some sources, linked to the five wounds Jesus received on the cross. And so, they saw these symbols as a link to the Atonement of Jesus Christ. And as ways of linking themselves as the church of God.
Casey 31:28 The other interesting explanation I read, and I can’t recall the source on this, but it was compelling, was that the arrangement of the moon, sun and stars on the Nauvoo Temple, was because of cosmology. If you’re standing on Earth, and you look up into the sky, the nearest celestial object you see is the moon. And then the next nearest object is the sun and most distant is the stars. And so, the order on the Nauvoo Temple of Seven Stars, is supposed to basically communicate, this is a square model of the universe. This is a place of orientation. This is a place where you can come and figure out where you’re at.
Casey 32:03 And I think that ties into a couple symbols on the Salt Lake Temple. You may have noticed that the Big Dipper is carved into the west tower of the Salt Lake Temple. There are various explanations for [that.] I think the most common one is the same thing, that the Big Dipper is carved there because it’s a symbol of orientation. If you find the Big Dipper, you can find Polaris. If you find Polaris, the North Star, you can navigate. If you go to the temple, you can find Christ. If you find Christ, you can navigate your life and the trials that you have. So, we were excited. We had to get permission from the Smithsonian to put this one in. But we were happy that not every object in the book came from random collector 402, which, there’s a lot of that, but this is the Smithsonian Institution.
GT 32:47 I noticed there were quite a few private collections. It didn’t really say who it was from.
Casey 32:51 Yeah, and part of that was us running into–we had a lot of people, once we started working on the book, that came out of the woodwork and said, “Hey, I have something really cool. Come look at it.” A lot of them, we had to do a lot of provenance research to make sure that what they were showing us was real. And a couple of times, we had to turn people down, because we couldn’t find good provenance…
GT 33:15 Oh.
Casey 33:19 …for the things that they did. So, we were really, really careful with that. And we also worked in coordination with the Church History Museum, who does a lot of provenance research, too. So, if we got something, we’d generally send it to them and say, “What do you guys think?” And then we go back and get the story from the person and work through it there. But, that did lead us, these private collectors, to some really, really cool things. For instance, one private collector who I’ll mention by name, Reid Moon. Have you interviewed Reid Moon?
GT 33:40 I have not.
Casey 33:41 Oh, man, you need to sit down with Reid. Reid is so fun to talk to. Reid has this store in Provo called Moon’s Rare Books. But, really, it’s like Reid’s little closet of curiosities. And Reid is an avid scholar of Latter-day Saint history. But he’s also a huge fan of movies, and a huge fan of all the stuff. So, he’s got a Harry Potter room where he has a copy of Harry Potter signed by Daniel Radcliffe. And in the next room, he’s got the bowl that they use in The Hunger Games to pull the names out of. Some of the stuff he has, I don’t know if I can say on this podcast that he has, but I’ll tell you privately after. But Reid has a set of scriptures. Reid has spent time trying to collect a set of scriptures from every president of the Church.
GT 34:35 Oh, wow.
Joseph F Smith Scriptures & Vision
Casey 34:36 And so the set that he gave us to put in this book was the set of scriptures that we believe Joseph F. Smith owned when he received Section 138 of the Doctrine & Covenants. So, it’s a little tiny set. They’re about the size of those military book copies of the Book of Mormon. But, if you open it up, right in Joseph F. Smith’s handwriting, “Purchased this day,” it’s got to clear provenance going back to Joseph F. Smith. And then the passages that he highlights in Section 138, in 1st Peter and 2nd Peter are highlighted within the book, themselves, too. And so, there’s, apparently, another Bible that the family donated to the Church, too, that could possibly be the book he’s studying. But there’s a good possibility, these little, tiny set of scriptures are the scriptures, Joseph F. Smith was reading the day that he has a vision of the Spirit World and the people within the Spirit World.
Casey 35:35 And in researching that, we actually found out a lot about the context of that vision. That was one where we had to do a lot more work, because it doesn’t show up on the Joseph Smith Papers site. It is not a Joseph Smith revelation. But when you start to dig into that, man, there was so much interesting stuff happening when Joseph Smith cracks open his scriptures. I think it’s commonly known that one of the things that drove him to read the scriptures was that his son, Hyrum M. Smith, who’s this very, very gifted [person.] He’s an apostle. He’s a scholar. Hyrum, his son, writes the first real serious commentary on the Doctrine & Covenants, that little red one that a lot of people have. Hyrum dies suddenly of appendicitis. Joseph F. is devastated by this. But the part of the story we sometimes miss is that it’s just about, I think, six months later in September, when Ida Smith, this is Hyrum’s wife dies. And so, Joseph F. Smith is not only dealing with the loss of his son, he is dealing with his grandkids being orphaned. The loss of his son and his son-in-law [daughter-in-law] so close in proximity, and the realization that six of his grandkids are orphans, is one of the things that sort of drives him into this. I think he was in a state of extended depression when he has the vision. There are some sources that say he barely came out of his room the last few weeks of his life. And the other thing that he…
GT 37:09 Well, he died from the Spanish Flu, too. That didn’t help. Right?
Casey 37:12 Well, I don’t know if he dies from the Spanish flu. He dies less than 30 days after the revelation is given. And one of the misunderstandings, too, is that–I used to tell the story in my classes that he got up and shared the revelation with the [Saints in] General Conference. He didn’t. He attended the General Conference. And there are sources that say people were shocked when they saw his appearance, that he looked like a person who was on death’s door. But the statement he makes at General Conference isn’t the revelation. It just alludes to it. So, what happens is he gets up at the General Conference and says, “I know that many of you haven’t seen me recently. But I’ve been alone. And I haven’t been alone, too.” He says, “I’ve not been alone these past five months.” And he talks about how the Lord had spoken to him, but he doesn’t give the revelation there. Apparently, after the conference was over, he pulls in Joseph Fielding Smith, this is the future President of the Church.
GT 38:12 His son.
Casey 38:13 His surviving son, I guess you could say. He has two kids that are apostles. He’s doing pretty good in that department. But he pulls in Joseph Fielding Smith and says, “I need you to write this down for me. And so, Joseph Fielding Smith pulls out a typewriter and types it out, as Joseph F. Smith, dictates it, then. And one of the cool things you could do in association with this, and we didn’t even know about this when we were writing the book, is the Church renovated the Beehive House where this revelation was received, and they made part of the Beehive House resemble what it was like when Brigham Young was there. But they took a special suite of rooms and arranged it the way it would have been when Joseph F. was there, because apparently the vision happened in the Beehive House.
GT 38:59 Oh, wow.
Casey 38:59 And they’ve got the room set up there with furniture that belonged to Joseph F., and a nice big portrait.
GT 39:07 Did he live in the Beehive House?
Casey 39:08 He lived in the Beehive House.
GT 39:09 Oh, I didn’t know that, because now it’s a restaurant. Right?
Casey 39:12 You’re thinking of the Lion House.
GT 39:13 Oh, sorry.
Casey 39:14 The Lion House is a restaurant. The Beehive House is still sort of a historic site. But it’s kind of one of those ones that everybody goes to Temple Square, but they never [go in.] They go to the Lion House and they get scones or something like that. But the Beehive House is right next door. And this is actually one of the coolest stories of the restoration, where this guy, I mean, let’s contextualize a little bit here. The First World War has just ended, the most devastating war in the history of mankind. I mean, back in 2020, when everybody was saying, “This is the end of the world.” Man, in 1918, you had a lot better case for it being the end of the world than 2020. World War I ends, and the end of the war sees the first truly global pandemic, the Spanish flu, which does happen to overlap with Joseph F.’s death. I don’t think he died of Spanish Flu.
GT 40:03 I’d always heard that he died from the Spanish Flu.
Casey 40:05 He was in advanced age. I don’t think that [Spanish Flu] was the cause of death. But they didn’t hold a public funeral for him, because they were worried about the spread of the flu. So, and one thing we haven’t been able to figure out is did Joseph F. say anything about the flu? Like, was he seeing, “This is important,” of the end the times, as well. But I mean, you’ve got a major war, the first war that really Latter-day Saints participated in, an American war.
GT 40:30 Because we didn’t participate in the Civil War.
Casey 40:32 We really didn’t. And the Spanish-American War was over so fast, we just really didn’t have a chance to participate there. But in World War I, a regiment of Latter-day Saint troops is sent. B.H. Roberts is appointed as their chaplain. And I mean, all you have to do is drive around to any random town in Utah, there’s usually a World War I monument, where a lot of these doughboys that left this town got killed. And you’ve got to imagine this prophet who has it weighing on him heavily that Latter-day Saints are being killed in large numbers in an American war. And also, that his own son and daughter-in-law [passed away.] He has that on his shoulders. And this vision of the Spirit World, I think, was very much to comfort him. The last time I read through it, one thing that struck me is it’s the last appearance of Adam and Eve in the scriptural canon. The first two spirits he lists as welcoming Christ in the Spirit World are “Adam and Eve, and many of her glorious daughters.” And that just struck me as, “Hey, it’s nice to know that mom and dad are still together, all these years later in the Spirit World, welcoming people in.” And so Reid Moon has those scriptures. And he is also super generous. He’s got this big vault that just has all this amazing stuff in it. He’s got a Book of Mormon that belonged to Samuel H. Smith, the very first missionary in the Church.
GT 41:45 Oh, wow.
Casey 41:46 He’s got Samuel A. Smith’s Doctrine & Covenants. And so, I recommend to anybody that’s interested, and Reid is super generous. He’s like a kid in a candy shop.
GT 42:08 I need to get him on. I’ve had Curt Bench on, and we’ve got to get Reid on.
Casey 42:12 Well Reid’s collection is fun, and Reid will go off on anything from Star Wars, to The Hunger Games, but it feels like Church history is his real love. And one of the items we wanted to put in the book, but was semi-controversial, is Reid also believes that he knows people that have the Book of Mormon that Hyrum Smith had in Carthage Jail.
GT 42:31 Oh, really?
Casey 42:32 Yeah. So there’s, I mean, Elder Holland held up one in General Conference. Most people will remember. That’s the one at the Church History Library, and that could be the one. But there’s several, actually, that can be traced back to Hyrum Smith, and have that page folded down, just like they described in Section 135. And Reid has traced this one to a family of descendants from Hyrum Smith. And so, he feels like it’s the right one, too. I don’t think he has it at the store, but every time we go, he’s got some crazy [movie props] like Wolverine’s claws or Indiana Jones’s whip and…
GT 43:08 Oh, really?
Casey 43:08 Yeah. Like I said, Reid is just a fun guy, and he was incredibly generous in this book. But then the question became, are we going to get in trouble for feeling like we’re promoting Reid, or Brent Ashworth, who’s also has some interesting things.
Eliza Snow Poem
GT 43:22 I was going to ask you if Brent Ashworth had anything in there.
Casey 43:24 Yeah, Brent Ashworth…
GT 43:25 Did you leave those both as private collectors, or…
Casey 43:27 We put them as private collectors. And it was partially because we wondered about the ethics of promoting someone’s business in the book, and it was kind of gut wrenching, because I’m fine promoting their businesses. They’ve just been incredibly generous to us. Yeah, it was just that ethical question because Brent gave us some top-notch stuff, too. Like, one of the items in the book is a little book. It’s like one of those books where you get people’s signatures. And you open it up and there’s a poem in there from Eliza R. Snow. Eliza R. Snow wrote a poem to this little girl, named May Pearl Richards. Her grandpa was Franklin D. Richards, the apostle in the 19th century, and her father was killed in a carriage accident. And so, this little girl is devastated. She’s just eight or nine years old. And there’s this page where Eliza R. Snow wrote out a poem to her about how much her dad loved her and how he was still watching over her. Nobody knew that it existed until Brent Ashworth, who has got to be well-known by this point. He’s in the Murder Among the Mormons documentary.
GT 44:42 And we’ve had him on the podcast.
Casey 44:43 You’ve had him on the podcast, and he’s a fascinating guy. He’s like, that guy’s a real rockin’ tour. He knows how to tell stories. He acquired this book, and in the book was the poem. And he acquired it in time for them to put it in the Collected Poems of Eliza R. Snow. So, it’s there but it really isn’t something anybody was aware of, that Eliza didn’t write for anybody, for the public, or it seems like she ever intended to publish. She was just really great. And so, she wrote a poem for this little girl. It was almost 150 years later that the poem was discovered. And so private collectors like that were a real asset to us. Of course, the two biggest groups we worked with were the Church History Museum, who were incredible to work with, and Community of Christ, who were also really, really generous to us in putting this book together. So, people from the Church History Museum, for instance, just actually went through and they have so much stuff. They picked out things and said, “Hey, have you heard about this? Here’s Green Flake’s medal, which was in the first book.
GT 45:45 Yeah, that was in the first book.
“Billy” Johnson’s Radio
Casey 45:46 This one has, the item we’ve put in this book is the Joseph William Billy Johnson’s radio. They pulled this out of storage.
GT 45:57 Yes, he was one of the first Church members in Africa. Was it Nigeria?
Casey 46:01 Yeah, where was it? No, it’s Ghana. He’s in Ghana. Joseph William “Billy” Johnson. Most people are maybe familiar with that seminary video, where they show the guy in Africa. It’s a 1990s seminary video.
GT 46:17 That sounds too new to me.
Casey 46:19 It came with the New Testament media package, but…
GT 46:22 I actually wrote a short biography of him.[4] It’s at www.blackpast.org.
Casey 46:28 Did you really? Yeah, okay. Okay. So, he is one of the early converts to the Church in Africa and converts before the 1978 revelation. And this CES video that highlights him, tells his story where he had been trying to just hold this branch together, because there were some serious accusations of racism made against the Church. He was a believer in the Book of Mormon. He is tired and one day, he gets this prompting when he comes home that he needs to just flip on his radio. And he turns on the radio and he tunes into the BBC, and he heard the announcement that President Kimball had received the revelation that the priesthood could be extended to all worthy men. And this is that radio that he tuned. So, people around my age, who went to seminary in the 1990s, there was a video put with the New Testament to go with Acts 9, where Peter receives the revelation that the gospel can go to all people, where they show Joseph William “Billy” Johnson coming home. And that’s, by the way, his name, Joseph William Billy Johnson. I think the Billy’s in parentheses. We just said Billy Johnson’s radio. He came home and he tuned in, and he heard this. And he was one of the very first people ordained to the priesthood of African descent. I think he’s the first patriarch of African descent, and he’s passed away now. But, when you start tracing the history of the Church, specifically in eastern Africa, and around those areas, Nigeria and Ghana, his name pops up all the time. In fact, we had several artifacts associated with him, because I just like him so much. And that’s why the radio didn’t make it into the first volume, because he also had a statue of Angel Moroni on top of his church that they had sculpted from that old light blue copy of the Book of Mormon.
Casey 48:25 Oh, yeah.
Casey 48:26 That was on top of their church before any missionaries had reached them. They knew about the Church.
GT 48:34 They were asking for missionaries from President McKay, I believe.
Casey 48:37 Yeah, Billy Johnson was one of those people that wrote to David O. McKay and said, “I’ve read the Book of Mormon. I love the Book of Mormon. Can you send missionaries to teach us the gospel?”
Casey 48:51 And David O. McKay had to basically reply and say, “We’re not going to send missionaries right now.” It’s a more complicated story, because they do send an investigatory mission, a mission president in Africa is sent up to…
GT 49:05 In Nigeria.
Casey 49:06 Sent to Nigeria to scout around and see what the possibilities are. And then the David O. McKay diaries, which Harvard Heath just published, actually highlight the discussions among the members of the First Presidency and Twelve where they’re basically saying, “Should we send missionaries?” And the discussion is, “Well, we can send missionaries, but can they organize an independent branch if they don’t have independent priesthood?” One of the topics of discussion that came up was, “Can we just give them the priesthood?” Because President McKay was on record as saying, “I think it’s policy.” He’s the person that gets rid of the whole, “Not a single drop,” where in a place like South Africa, people would have to trace their ancestry before they could get the priesthood and prove they didn’t have any black ancestors. President McKay comes along and ends that.
GT 49:57 Right.
Casey 49:58 President McKay, also, on his world tour comes to Fiji. If you’ve ever been to Fiji, the people there appear to be black Africans, same features, same basic skin color. But President McKay said, “They don’t have ancestry that links to Africa. So, we’re not going to put the priesthood policy in here.” So, it seems like he was containing the priesthood policy. But he was also clear in saying, “I haven’t gotten a revelation.” The diaries indicate that they couldn’t achieve unanimity among the Quorum of the Twelve, either.
GT 50:27 See, I didn’t know about this. I’ve been–I’ve had Matt Harris on.
Casey 50:31 Yeah, Matt’s more well-qualified than me to talk.
David O. McKay Diaries
GT 50:34 Yeah, he’s coming out with a new book, and I cannot wait for it. I’ve actually talked to Matt. I’m like, “I need to have you back on.” So, we’ll talk about him again when the book comes out. But I didn’t know about this Harvard Heath book.
Casey 50:49 Yeah, Harvard Heath edited a collection of present McKay’s diaries. And scholars have known about the McKay diaries for years. I use them a lot in my research, because I…
GT 50:59 Greg Prince did, as well, right?
Casey 51:00 Yeah. Greg Prince did, too. What happened was, if you look at a lot of the books produced by President McKay, it will say something like, “Edited by Clare Middlemiss.” Claire Middlemiss was President McKay’s secretary, and she was really devoted to him. But Claire Middlemiss also kept a record, basically kept a copy of all of President McKay’s diaries. And I mean, these aren’t personal diaries, they’re work diaries. They’re office diaries, basically records of his meetings. And before Claire Middlemiss passed away, she donated those to the University of Utah. And so, these records have been available at the University of Utah for scholars to use. Greg Prince uses it in his biography of David O. McKay, which is excellent, by the way. But Harvard Heath, who is another great scholar, comes along and edits the diaries and publishes them with Signature Books. And if you want to know about the priesthood policy in the 1950s, I was particularly interested in the fiscal policy of the 1960s. Because we talk today about how the Church is flush with resources, but there was a major financial crunch in the mid-1960s. And N. Eldon Tanner comes in and basically saves the day. These are all in the Harvard Heath’s edited volume of David O. McKay’s diaries, which, like I said, is really, really fascinating stuff. And we used a lot of that research to kind of contextualize the priesthood policy and what was going on in the 1960s, where it does seem like President McKay may have been trying to systematically stop the spread of the priesthood policy. And President McKay on several occasions says, “I think it’s policy. It’s not doctrine,” which was the big discussion at the time, too. Is this doctrine, or is this policy? A policy we can change.
GT 52:48 In 1949, it was doctrine and in 1955, he said it was policy.
Casey 52:52 Yeah. The First Presidency statement in 1949 says its doctrine, and then President McKay, gently starts using the term policy to describe it. It’s not the time period when the revelation is changed, or the revelation is received, but it does show you the context leading towards it. And like I said, Matt’s done some really good research on that. But we wanted something from someone in the field, someone in Africa, who’s dealing with these issues on a day-to-day basis. And, we also wanted a perspective where, I’m a white guy. My co-author is a white woman. We wanted a perspective from a black person on what it was like to hear the revelation and to understand now that they can hold the priesthood. So, we didn’t just put his story in here, we put a little bit from Marcus Martins.
GT 53:43 Oh.
Casey 53:44 His dad, Helvecio, was the very first black general authority in the history of the Church. Marcus is also a good guy. He was the head of the religion department at BYU-Hawaii, for a while. He talks about him and his dad both being ordained to the priesthood.
GT 53:58 They’re from Brazil. Right?
Casey 53:59 They’re from Brazil. Yeah, they’re black Brazilians. And so that was something we were super thrilled to include in the book, too. And that was something that a person in the Church History Library–I didn’t know it was there. He took me aside and said, “I’d really like it if you can put this in.” And I just can’t thank them enough, the staff of the Church History Library was great. Now there’s a couple of items in the book, by the way, that are that are personal. Can I talk about them?
GT 54:03 Absolutely.
LDS Dance Halls
Casey 54:24 So a few things, like I said, maybe verge on the weird. One is from my hometown.
GT 54:33 Which is?
Casey 54:33 Delta, Utah.
GT 54:36 They’ve got the best high school mascot in the state, I think.
Casey 54:40 The rabbits, yeah.
GT 54:43 (Chuckling) Who’s scared of a rabbit, huh?
Casey 54:45 I’ve heard every joke that there is, Rick. You’re not going to find a new one that I haven’t heard before. But, Delta Rabbits. Delta is a Latter-day Saint community in the West desert of Utah. And I really wanted to include this one item. So, on Main Street in Delta, there is this building. It’s semi-abandoned. My mom bought the building next door. She didn’t buy it. She rented it and turned it into a reception center. You go upstairs, and in the second floor of the building, there is a 1920s and 1930s dance hall. That is the most eclectic, weirdest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. So, you’re going up the stairs and lining the walls are statues of the Angel Moroni. So, you get up there and there’s these glass decorations all over the place designed to reflect light. And you can see the bandstand where there’s a band there playing hot swing music. And, then the central feature is this eight-foot-tall mirror ball.
GT 55:34 Eight feet?
Casey 55:50 Eight feet tall mirror ball. It has a train around it and an airplane that circles with a sign that says, “We dance next Saturday.” And then on top is the Salt Lake Temple.
GT 56:06 Oh, no way.
Casey 56:07 Yeah, and then you start looking around the dancehall, and you can see Moroni and then there’s a model of the Salt Lake Temple over on one of the walls. It was owned by this guy named Billy Van, who, I think was a member of the Church. I don’t know if he was active or not. But it’s always been there. And I’ve always just thought, “What the heck? Who would think to associate dance and swing music with the Salt Lake Temple?”
GT 56:33 Right. Brigham Young, maybe?
Casey 56:35 Brigham Young, maybe. What I actually found out was that there was this unique subculture of dance halls in the late 19th, early 20th century Latter-day Saints. When you start tracking them down, there was one in just about every single town. Like, in Manti, there was one in Palisades, a little lake outside of town where everybody goes to party. All that’s left of that is the cement pad it was on. But there was a place where bands would come and they would do swing music. And in Salt Lake, there were dozens, and they were sometimes affiliated with ward houses. Sometimes today, we think that popular music and religion are diametrically opposed to each other. But this is one place where a symbol, like the Salt Lake Temple did not feel weird in the middle of your hot swinging, jazz band dance performance or anything like that. And Delta, which is my hometown where I grew up, there were always rumors that there was some kind of weird dance hall that you couldn’t get into. It probably has the best-preserved Mormon dance hall from this time period.
GT 56:35 And your mom preserved it.
Casey 56:35 My mom helped preserve it, a shout out to my mom. My mom set up a reception center downstairs. And part of it was upstairs was this dance hall. And she’s worked really tirelessly to try and raise funding to preserve the dance hall and keep it the way it is. Because it it’s like nothing you’ve ever seen. Honestly.
GT 58:03 Now it makes me want to come to Delta.
Casey 58:05 You need to come to Delta. And I’ll take you to the Van’s hall, and I’ll show you the hall. And honestly, I took the MHA to Delta a couple of years ago in 2016. Yeah, we went down to Eskdale and visited the House of Aaron and all that stuff. And the highlight of the tour was Van’s hall. Tom Alexander, one of the preeminent historians of…
GT 58:05 Is that on the way to Eskdale?
Casey 58:18 It’s on the way to Eskdale. It’s right on Main Street in Delta.
GT 58:27 I don’t remember going through there.
Casey 58:29 Tom Alexander, one of the most important Mormon historians of the last 50 years, ran to the mirror ball and started singing “My Way,” by Frank Sinatra underneath the mirror ball. Everybody pulled out their cell phones and started filming them. So that was maybe me. But I wanted to highlight that aspect of Latter-day Saint culture that until…
GT 58:50 Aren’t you glad we didn’t grow up Pentecostal? They can’t dance.
Casey 58:53 Yeah, I mean, I know Footloose was filmed in Utah, but it feels like Utah, at least early Utah was one place where popular music and religion weren’t seen as opposing forces to each other. You could walk into a dance hall that had a gigantic mirror ball with the Salt Lake Temple on top and not think twice about it.
GT 59:13 I remember watching Footloose and being like, “What? Who would ever ban dancing? Like that’s just weird.” I didn’t realize the Pentecostals had [banned dancing.]
Casey 59:21 Yeah. When Kevin Bacon gets up and reads the Bible to convince the town. Well, I mean, Latter-day Saints had their prophets advocating. They had Brigham Young’s revelation, section 136, told them “When thou art sad, dance.” Celebrate. It would have been awesome if Kevin Bacon had read section 136 of the Doctrine & Covenants to the town council.
GT 59:42 It wouldn’t have been as big of a hit.
Casey 59:43 it wouldn’t have been a big of hit because the town council would have been like, “Oh, yeah, we know this.”
GT 59:47 We do have this big scandal with “The Chosen” right now.
Casey 59:51 Do we?
GT 59:51 Yeah.
Casey 59:52 What’s the scandal?
GT 59:53 Apparently “The Chosen” quoted some Book of Mormon verse or something.
Casey 59:55 Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That’s neither here nor there. The guys that make “The Chosen” are super nice. I know a couple of them. But yeah, it is weird. Isn’t it? But this this was one thing that we highlighted, an aspect of Mormon culture. And this is one case where I went and climbed on the ladder, took the photograph myself. Maybe my ulterior motive was to publicize the dance hall to raise money. But I also think that, in and of itself it is genuinely fascinating. And as I started to research Latter-day Saint dance culture, I was surprised at what a rich tapestry it is. Just about every town in Utah had some kind of dance hall, and most of them have fallen into disrepair. This one’s not in that great shape right now. I’m being honest with you, but it’s still there fully preserved, and it has to be seen to be believed. I mean, it’s really [interesting.] There’s a smoking room.
GT 1:00:03 What?
Casey 1:00:04 Yeah, there is the Salt Lake Temple, mirror ball, over here is where you go to smoke if you need to smoke and things like that. There’s a hat room.
GT 1:00:56 Is this before we really started getting real serious with the Word of Wisdom?
Casey 1:01:02 No, I mean, this was post-when we were serious with the Word of Wisdom. I mean, I think…
GT 1:01:07 Non-Mormons could go out and smoke.
Casey 1:01:07 Yeah, I mean, it was a place where everybody could gather. Like I said, I knew Billy Van’s grandson. I went to school with Brian Vandevander was his name. I don’t know if Billy Van was incredibly engaged with the Church, but he saw it as a gathering space for all people. The culture of Latter-day Saints, he celebrated. He thought the architecture in the Salt Lake Temple was cool. He thought Moroni was a fun symbol and I didn’t get any feeling; Because I went to the local town archive and dug Billy Van’s records. I didn’t get any feeling that any of it was sarcastic or mocking of the Church. It was a genuine, sincere homage to Mormon architecture, which he thought was cool. And, to his credit, he did not think was a weird thing to place in a in a in a 1930s dance hall. So that’s one thing to put the book.
LDS Church in Pacific Islands
Casey 1:02:00 Let me bring up a couple other things. One that’s going to feel odd is a sea wall stone from Moroni High School. So, this is something that I saw that was incredibly moving to me, but I research education. And for the last couple of years, I’ve been getting grants to visit all of the Church schools. And most people know about BYU and BYU-Idaho, and BYU-Hawaii, but there’s a network of schools in the Pacific. Most of them are in Tonga. There are two schools in Fiji. There’s a couple of schools in Samoa and there’s one school in this country called Kiribati [pronounced Kiri-bus.] Kiribati is even spelled KIRIBATI.
GT 1:02:00 It looks like Kiribati.
Casey 1:02:00 Right. Most people would know the name Tarawa. Tarawa is where one of the bloodiest battles in the Second World War was fought. It’s this island. It’s the set of atolls. They were originally called the Gilbert Islands. When they became autonomous when they separated themselves from Great Britain, they gave themselves their own name, which is Kiribati. It’s where the Battle of Tarawa was fought, which was one of the first real island-hopping adventures where the Marines really hadn’t worked out their methodology. And there were a couple of things that were off the tide. The tides didn’t work with the timing, and it just turned into one of the bloodiest battles of the second World War. When you go to Kiribati, you can still see a Sherman tank offshore from Tarawa. Tarawa is about a 40 mile a long string of islands, red beaches where the Marines invaded. Walking around Red Beach for five minutes, I found an M1 shell and a 50-caliber shell that had blown up. Over on the other side, there’s these huge Japanese guns that are still there. And other than this battle that had been fought there, nobody knows very much about this country.
Casey 1:03:50 But in the 1970s, the Church established a presence there. What happened was, a guy on the island had set up a school and he wrote to Liahona High School and basically said, “I’ve taught my students in elementary school, but I I can’t offer anything further. The government won’t let me. There’s only a handful of schools on the island. And education is very limited. So, he wrote to Liahona High in Tonga, and said, “Can I have students come here?” And so, the Church flew out and visited him and then flew to Moroni and said, “Yeah, we’ll let you send 12 students.” So, they sent 12 students. All 12 of them get baptized the year they spend it at Liahona High.
Casey 1:04:33 And at this point, missionaries hadn’t been allowed into Kiribati because of the government there. The government literally told the Church, “Hey, we’ve got a Catholic church. We’ve got a Protestant church, so people can choose. So, we really don’t need another church. Thanks.” But now that there are members of the Church, that are natives of Kiribati, they can go back and serve missions, and they start serving missions. It’s a little crazy because their supervision is limited. But they establish a strong branch there. And then there’s enough members that the Church decides to build a school here. It was the last elementary school the Church constructed in the 20th century. Now the location of the school, they take over the school that the guy had been running and they turn it into what’s called Moroni High School, which is now one of the most important educational institutions in the entire country. Moroni High was built in the space where–I mean, the geography of Kiribati is unique. The widest point of the island is 800 meters. Most places you can stand in the ocean and throw a rock and it’ll land in the ocean on the other side of the island. Moroni High is built in one of those spaces. And in order to create enough land for the high school, they had to go out and construct a seawall so that the land wouldn’t be washed away. And it’s sort of like a once every 10 years, the students of Moroni high go out and rebuild the seawall.
GT 1:06:00 Wow.
Casey 1:06:01 It’s on the outer side of the island where the waves just sort of like crash up against it, especially at high tide. And this wall, I went to visit Kiribati, and I was walking along the wall, and I looked down, and I saw this place where a bunch of students had written their names, as part of their crew. They were the last group to rebuild the island. And I was so moved by it, like the idea that these students come out here and build a wall, to hold back the ocean, so that there’s enough land for them to have a school to learn and to progress and to grow. And at the school, I mean, they teach religion classes and things like that. But the school became the heart of the Latter-day Saint community on the island. A lot of people that come to the school convert. And while I was there, I think there were six baptisms at the school. I was just there for a week, visiting. And honestly, [there were] the craziest conditions. My house, they gave me a house to stay in. That’s how generous they are. It was right next to the seawall. And when high tide was there at night, you could feel the spray from the ocean, from the waves crashing up against the wall.
Casey 1:07:08 And another weird phenomenon was you’d start walking down the road, and you’d hear all these little [tapping] sounds behind you. You would look around, and 300 crabs had come out of nowhere and were following you. It was really unsettling. The people were so sweet and humble. Like when I went there, they had just gotten their first paved road that ran the entire length of the island. Everybody kept coming up to me and going, “Have you seen the road?”
Casey 1:07:30 And I was like, “It’s super nice.”
Casey 1:07:31 And they were like, “Yeah, man. It’s really nice. It’s the best!” And they were just super jazzed over the fact that they had a road with a sidewalk. At the same time, too, they were so generous. And here’s the other part of the story. So this school gets set up. And again, still today. It’s the engine that drives the Church in Kiribati. Over time, the population of the Church in Kiribati grew until we’re about 20% of the population.
GT 1:08:00 Wow.
Casey 1:08:01 It’s one of the highest percentages…
GT 1:08:02 How many people are on the island, would you say?
Casey 1:08:03 The island probably has, and don’t quote me on this, but probably I want to say 40,000 people living on it.
GT 1:08:09 Oh, wow.
Casey 1:08:10 Kiribati itself if you count ocean is bigger than the United States. So, the furthest Island is Christmas Island, which isn’t the one with all the crabs that everybody talks about. It’s a different one, about 2000 miles away. So, if you go on a mission to Kiribati, and they send you to Christmas Island, you’ll be on a boat for a couple of days getting there. But Tarawa is where a lot of population is.
GT 1:08:32 So, they don’t have an airport?
Casey 1:08:33 They do have an airport but flying into Tarawa is dicey. When you’re landing, you’re honestly going, “Hey, when does the land appear?” You’re looking out your window and then all sudden the land’s there and you land and you’re okay. But man, they’ve built up a lot of that land. And we went there, and we had to stay a week because when I went there was only flights in and out on Monday, so we were forced to be there a week which I didn’t mind at all. The people were just super generous. I took a return missionary that had served with me. He knew the language and everything.
GT 1:09:06 Oh, so they don’t speak English there?
Casey 1:09:08 Well they do speak English. English is the official language because it was a British colony but it’s kind of like Tonga where English is the official language but sort of the common language of the people is their own language which is I-Kiribati. That’s the name of the language.
GT 1:09:25 It begins with an “i”?
Casey 1:09:28 It begins with an I-KIRIBATI. I-Kiribati. The other part of the story and part of the reason why I wanted to go there is the other mention you would hear of Kiribati besides the World War II battle, is that it and Vanuatu are two of the most threatened nations from rising sea levels. So, the widest point of Kiribati is 800 meters. The highest point on Tarawa is eight meters. And I mean, you can go there and just ask, “Are the sea levels rising?”
Casey 1:10:01 “Yeah, we can see that they are rising.” They’re not in denial about it. The question is, what are they going to do about it? And as I talked to members of the Church, I heard a lot of varied responses like, “Yeah, we may have to evacuate,” to other people saying, “God’s not going to let our island sink,” to people saying “We’re going to fight this. We’re going to plant mangrove trees, and we’re going to reclaim the island,” which they do occasionally. “We’re not going to go down without a fight,” basically.
Casey 1:10:29 But I mean, at the time I visited, which was 2018, the question was, “Will they ever get a temple?” They had to fly to Fiji. Kiribati is also one of the poorest countries on Earth. It’s this island, and they’re super happy. And they’re right at the perfect spot where the weather is at eighty-five degrees, the whole year round. When I was there, they were actually having a drought, which was surprising. And the other geographic feature of Kiribati, it’s the country closest to the International Dateline. And so, when I was there, I got up at 6 am to take a picture of the sunrise. So, I could say, “Hey, I’m probably the first person in the world to take picture of the sunrise.” But when I talked about a temple, because they had to save up to go to Fiji.
GT 1:11:14 Which is how far away?
Casey 1:11:16 Fiji is about, I don’t know, probably have six hour flight from Kiribati.
GT 1:11:22 Wow.
Casey 1:11:22 And the funny thing was, is we had to go to Fiji to go there. At our hotel in Fiji, the person that was running the hotel was like, so “Where are you gentlemen, going next?”
Casey 1:11:30 I had my research assistant with me. And I said, “We’re going to from Kiribati. him us and like, it looked like I sent off A stink bomb.
Casey 1:11:37 She was like, “Why would you go there? What is there?” Well, Kiribati is gorgeous first of all. It’s got this turquoise lagoon and beautiful, beautiful, friendly people. But it’s poor. You know, it’s not a tourist destination, because it’s so remote. And that’s part of the reason why the Church has maintained the school there.
Casey 1:11:56 I had some pointed conversations. The principal of the school was the stake president. And I said, “Do you think you’ll ever get a temple?”
Casey 1:12:03 And he said, “I just don’t. With the tenuous nature of our situation, with all the factors that are there, with just the simple fact of how hard it is to get stuff to this particular island; sometimes if there’s a bad storm, they don’t get any groceries for a month, or something like. He just said, “I don’t know if we’ll ever get a temple.” Going to the temple for them was a once in a lifetime [opportunity.] You save up for years and years, and you go to Fiji, and you stay for a couple of days, so you can get everything you need to get done. They announced a temple at General Conference that’s going to be built in Kiribati after my visit.
GT 1:12:38 Oh, wow.
Casey 1:12:39 And so the temple. This is an island where like I said, just look at the geography. The president of Kiribati drives by three times a day. And the President of the country has had the missionaries over to his house. Parliament is literally this building that is right off the road because everything is less than 100 yards off the road. So, like I said, while I was there, the president drove by three times, and we were like, “Hey, what’s going on?” Everybody knows everybody. The location of the temple is going to be right across the street from parliament. And so, imagine in their world. Imagine if the Church had built the Washington DC temple across the street from the US Capitol. That’s what’s happening. And for the saints in Kiribati, it’s just a huge blessing. And like I said, this, this little stone where they had cemented it in and then taking some of the spare cement and scratched their names into it, was something that touched me a lot, but it’s kind of an obscure story. So didn’t make it into the first volume of the book. Anyway, that was something that I really wanted to put in just a story of the global Church I’m putting in there.
GT 1:13:45 That’s cool. Have you worked with Devan Jensen? Because he’s got a new book out. I can’t remember the name of it. It’s something about war and the Church. I don’t remember.
Casey 1:13:56 It’s called From Battlefields to Temple Grounds. And it’s going to come out in spring, and I wrote a chapter. Okay, so me and my research assistants, and actually, one of the first batches of students, There was a guy named Iotua B. Tune, who is now a member of the Quorum of 70. And he is a co-author, too. So Elder Tune was the one that shows around the island and gave us the histories, everything like that. And man, it’s just cool to see how the other half lives. It’s got this turquoise lagoon. And so with my research assistant, we did all our interviews about our work done, and I said, “Let’s go hop in the lagoon.” And he had served there. And so I was saying, “Let’s go party.”
Casey 1:14:37 He was the one that went, “Maybe let’s don’t.”
Casey 1:14:42 And I go, “Well, how come? Look at how beautiful it is.”
Casey 1:14:44 He goes, “There are 40,000 people on this island and there are no sewers on the island.”
Casey 1:14:51 And I just thought about that for a second and realized, “Oh. Oh!” So, if you have to go to the bathroom, and there’s indoor plumbing in some facilities. Our house had indoor plumbing. But a lot of people just go down to the beach. And the next day when I woke up to go take my sunrise picture, yeah, there were several places on the beach where someone had just gone and done their business. And the implication was that the tide would sweep it back out. But for that reason, he said, “For people that aren’t from here, you can get sick by swimming.”
Casey 1:15:21 Now, the principal of the school was generous enough to take us out into the ocean. And once we got out there, we jumped off the boat and we swam around. I got my I got my play in. But it’s one of these little faith communities where there are tons of Latter-day Saints there. They’re incredibly faithful. They don’t expect a lot. I mean, you’d go in and the house didn’t have walls. You’d stop in. It had a roof and a freezer. And they just brought out dish after dish and fed this and said, “We’re just so grateful that you guys want to hear our story. Come and listen to us.” So, I was grateful that got put in there too.
GT 1:15:57 That’s cool.
{End of Part 1}
[1] Debra Winger was not in Footloose.
[2] The book is called “’God Has Made Us a Kingdom’: James Strang and the Midwest Mormons” and can be purchased at https://amzn.to/3Q0evSY
[3] I believe the name was Charlie Douglass.
[4] Actually Russell Stevenson wrote the biography. See https://www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/people-global-african-history/johnson-joseph-william-billy-1934-2012/
Copyright © 2022
Gospel Tangents
All Rights Reserved
Except for book reviews, no content may be reproduced without written permission.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:17:42 — 71.1MB) | Embed
Subscribe: Email | | More
