B. H. Roberts
B. H. Roberts | |
---|---|
Seat refused March 4, 1899 – April 2, 1900 | |
Preceded by | William H. King |
Succeeded by | William H. King |
Personal details | |
Born | Brigham Henry Roberts March 13, 1857 Warrington, England |
Died | September 27, 1933 Salt Lake City, Utah, U.S. | (aged 76)
Political party | Democratic |
Spouse(s) | Sarah Smith Celia Dibble Margaret Curtis Shipp |
Children | 15 |
Education | University of Utah (BA) |
Signature | ![]() |
Brigham Henry Roberts (March 13, 1857 – September 27, 1933) was a historian, politician, and leader in
Early life
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/95/Ann_Everington_Roberts.jpg/150px-Ann_Everington_Roberts.jpg)
Roberts was born in
Assisted by the
Roberts became a miner and participated in the gambling and drinking typical of that time and place. (He was once disciplined by a Salt Lake
Church service
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e1/PH_5653_f0001_item_9-Miscellaneous_portraits_circa_1885-1900.jpeg/150px-PH_5653_f0001_item_9-Miscellaneous_portraits_circa_1885-1900.jpeg)
After graduation (and the birth of his first child) Roberts was ordained a seventy in his local church branch and taught school to support his family. The LDS Church sent him on a mission to Iowa and Nebraska, "but because the cold weather was hard on his health, he was transferred to Tennessee in December of 1880." There he rose to prominence as the president of the Tennessee Conference of the Southern States Mission.[3]
![Photo of Celia Dibble Roberts](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/2/27/Dibble.jpg/150px-Dibble.jpg)
On August 10, 1884, a mob in the small community of Cane Creek murdered two Mormon missionaries and two members of the Mormon congregation. (One of the latter had killed a member of the mob before he was in turn slain.)[6] At some personal risk, Roberts disguised himself as a tramp and recovered the bodies of the two missionaries for their families in Utah Territory.[3][7]
During a brief return to Utah, Roberts took a
In December 1886, while serving as associate editor of the Salt Lake Herald, Roberts was arrested on the charge of unlawful cohabitation. He posted bond to appear in court the next day and that night left on a mission to England.[3]
In England, Roberts served as assistant editor of the LDS Church publication the Millennial Star and completed his first book, the much reprinted The Gospel: An Exposition of Its First Principles (1888).
Returning to Salt Lake City in 1888, as full-time editor of
Political and military career
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4c/Brigham_Henry_Roberts.jpg/150px-Brigham_Henry_Roberts.jpg)
During the transitional period following 1890, the LDS Church disbanded its People's Party and encouraged its membership to align with nationally organized Democrat and Republican parties instead.[13] Roberts became a fervent Democrat and was elected Davis County Delegate to the Utah State Constitutional Convention in 1894. Roberts proved a vocal member of the Convention, particularly in his opposition to women's suffrage.[3]
In 1895, Roberts was the losing Democratic candidate for the
The LDS Church then issued the "Political Manifesto of 1895," which forbade church officers from running for public office without the approval of the Church. Both Roberts and Thatcher refused to agree to the Political Manifesto and were suspended from their ecclesiastical offices. Roberts, believing such a requirement was a basic infringement of his civil rights, capitulated just hours before the deadline of March 24, 1896. He signed the manifesto, wrote a letter of apology to the First Presidency, and was reinstated. Thatcher was more stubborn: he refused to sign, was expelled from the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and barely evaded excommunication.[14]
In 1898, Roberts was elected as a Democrat to the
The
Career as a writer
Roberts wrote two biographies, a novel, eight historical narratives and compilations, and another dozen books about Mormon theology.
Roberts wrote a novel Corianton (1889), published serially in
Roberts's most important work was a comprehensive treatment of Mormon history, which he began in 1909 as a series of monthly articles for a non-Mormon magazine. Roberts repeatedly (and for many years, unsuccessfully) asked church leaders to republish the articles as a multi-volume set. Finally, in 1930 the church agreed to publish it during its centennial celebration. The six-volume
Roberts "frequently took a broader view" of the place of the LDS Church "in the heavenly scheme of things than did some of his colleagues. In 1902 he told the Saints that 'while the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is given a prominent part in this great drama of the last days, it is not the only force nor the only means that the Lord has employed to bring to pass those things of which His prophets in ancient times have testified.'"[24] Roberts' theology included belief in "the modern liberal doctrine of man and the optimism of the nineteenth century, and it required a bold, rebellious and spacious mind to grasp its full implication."[25]
Roberts hoped that the church would publish his most elaborate theological treatise "The Truth, The Way, The Life", but his attempt to use contemporary scientific theory to bolster Mormon doctrine led, in 1930, to a conflict with Mormon
Studies of the Book of Mormon
Although Roberts continued to testify to the truth of the Book of Mormon, a foundational religious text in Mormonism, he also wrote three studies, unpublished until 1985, that wrestled with Book of Mormon problems. The first, "Book of Mormon Difficulties: A Study," was a 141-page manuscript written in response to a series of questions by an inquirer, referred to Roberts by church president Heber J. Grant. When Roberts confessed that he had no answer for some of the difficulties, and the General Authorities chose to ignore them, Roberts produced "A Book of Mormon Study," a treatise of more than 400 pages. In this work he compared the Book of Mormon to the View of the Hebrews, written by Ethan Smith, and found significant similarities between them. Finally, Roberts wrote "A Parallel," a condensed version of his larger study, which demonstrated eighteen points of similarity between the two books, and in which he reflected that the imaginative Joseph Smith might have written the Book of Mormon without divine assistance.[29]
Mormon historians have debated whether the manuscript reflects Roberts's doubts or was a case of his playing the devil's advocate.[30] When he presented "A Book of Mormon Study" to church leaders, he emphasized that he was "taking the position that our faith is not only unshaken but unshakable in the Book of Mormon, and therefore we can look without fear upon all that can be said against it."[31] However, Roberts withheld some of his materials from the general authorities.[32]
Roberts asserted that the authenticity of the
Roberts continued to affirm his faith in the divine origins of the Book of Mormon until his death in 1933; but as
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/46/B.H._Roberts_Headstone.jpg/220px-B.H._Roberts_Headstone.jpg)
Later years
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2b/Image_of_Margaret_C_Roberts_as_Missionary.png/220px-Image_of_Margaret_C_Roberts_as_Missionary.png)
From 1922 to 1927, Roberts was appointed
Regardless of his ultimate religious beliefs, most scholars would accept the judgment of Brigham Madsen that Roberts possessed a "deeply embedded integrity, and above all ... fearless willingness to follow wherever his reason led him. He could be abrasive in his defense of stubbornly held beliefs, but he had the capacity to change his views when confronted with new and persuasive evidence."[37] To Leonard J. Arrington, Roberts was "the intellectual leader of the Mormon people in the era of Mormonism's finest intellectual attainment."[38]
Published works
- Roberts, B. H. (1888). The Gospel: An Exposition of its First Principles. Salt Lake City: The Contributor Company.
- — (1892). The Life of John Taylor, Third President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Salt Lake City: George Q. Cannon & Sons.
- — (1893). Outlines of Ecclesiastical History. Salt Lake City: George Q. Cannon & Sons.
- — (1894). Succession in the Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Salt Lake City: Deseret News.
- — (1895). New Witnesses for God (PDF). Salt Lake City: George Q. Cannon & Sons.
- — (1900). The Missouri Persecutions. Salt Lake City: George Q. Cannon & Sons.
- — (1900). The Rise and Fall of Nauvoo. Salt Lake City: Deseret News.
- — (1902). Corianton: a Nephite story. Salt Lake City: s.n.
- —; History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, (7 volumes). Salt Lake City: Deseret News.
- — (1903). New Witnesses for God. Volume II. The Book of Mormon (PDF). Salt Lake City: Deseret News.
- — (1903). The Mormon Doctrine of Deity: the Roberts-Van der Donckt Discussion. Salt Lake City: Deseret News.
- — (1907–1912). The Seventy's Course in Theology (5 volumes). Salt Lake City: Deseret News.
- — (1907–1912). Defense of the Faith and the Saints (2 volumes). Salt Lake City: Deseret News. (vol 2)
- — (1908). Joseph Smith, the Prophet-Teacher: A Discourse. Salt Lake City: Deseret News.
- — (1909). New Witnesses for God: Part III. The Evidences of the Truth of the Book of Mormon (PDF). Salt Lake City: Deseret News.
- — (1916). The Church as an Organization for Social Service. Salt Lake City: General Board of the Y.M.M.I.A.
- — (1919). The Mormon Battalion; its History and Achievements. Salt Lake City: Deseret News.
- — (1930). LDS Church.
- — (1931). The "Falling Away"; or, The World's Loss of the Christian Religion and Church. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book.
- — (1932). Rasha—the Jew; a Message to All Jews. Salt Lake City: Deseret News.
- — (1948). Discourses of B.H. Roberts of the First Council of the Seventy. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book.
- —; Madsen, Brigham D. (1985). Studies of the Book of Mormon. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
- —; Bergera, Gary James (1990). The Autobiography of B. H. Roberts. Salt Lake City: Signature Books.
- —; Larson, Stan (1994). The Truth, the Way, the Life. San Francisco: Smith Research Associates.
- —; Madsen, Brigham D. (1999). The Essential B.H. Roberts. Salt Lake City: Signature Books.
- —; Sillito, John R. (2004). History's Apprentice: the Diaries of B.H. Roberts, 1880–1898. Salt Lake City: Signature Books.
See also
- Mormonism and evolution
- Unseated members of the United States Congress
- List of members-elect of the United States House of Representatives who never took their seats
- List of United States representatives expelled, censured, or reprimanded
Notes
- ^ Quoted in Truman G. Madsen, Defender of the Faith: The B. H. Roberts Story (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1980), 1.
- ^ a b John W. Welch, "Roberts, Brigham Henry," American National Biography Online, February 2000.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j [1] Archived 2012-12-12 at archive.today
- ^ Truman G. Madsen, Defender of the Faith: The B. H. Roberts Story (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1980), 70.
- ^ John W. Welch, "Roberts, Brigham Henry," American National Biography Online, February 2000; Leonard J. Arrington and Davis Bitton, The Mormon Experience: A History of the Latter-day Saints, 2nd ed. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992), 257.
- ^ The Mormon Massacre Archived 2008-04-04 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ The New York Times, August 20, 1884.
- ^ "A Mormon "Widow" in Colorado: The Exile of Emily Wells Grant – BYU Studies". byustudies.byu.edu. Retrieved 14 October 2017.
- ^ "The Manifesto and the End of Plural Marriage".
- ^ John Sillito, ed., History's Apprentice: The Diaries of B. H. Roberts (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2004), introduction.
- ^ "Grover Cleveland: Proclamation 369—Granting Amnesty and Pardon for the Offenses of Polygamy, Bigamy, Adultery, or Unlawful Cohabitation to Members of the Church of Latter-Day Saints". Presidency.ucsb.edu. Retrieved 14 October 2017.
- ^ Malmquist, O.N.: The First 100 Years, Park Record, 1896
- ^ Leonard J. Arrington and Davis Bitton, The Mormon Experience: A History of the Latter-day Saints, 2nd ed. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992), 247.
- ^ Ostling, 1999/Harper San Francisco:Mormon America, The Power and the Promise, p. 83.
- Reed Smoot, a monogamist, be refused his senate seat because Smoot was a Mormon apostle.
- JSTOR 45057881.
- ^ Ronald W. Walker, David J. Whittaker, and James B. Allen, Mormon History (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2001), 34.
- ^ Walker, et al., 32.
- ^ Walker, et al., Mormon History, 35.
- ^ For a survey of Roberts's strengths and weaknesses as a historian, see Davis Bitton, "B. H. Roberts as Historian," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 3 (Winter 1968), 25–44.
- ^ Madsen, Defender of the Faith, p. 296
- ^ "Keepapitchinin, the Mormon History blog » "Corianton": Genealogy of a Mormon Phenomenon". Keepapitchinin.org. Retrieved 14 October 2017.
- ^ Walker, et al., Mormon History, 36.
- ^ Leonard J. Arrington and Davis Bitton, The Mormon Experience: A History of the Latter-day Saints, 2nd ed. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992), 257.
- ^ Leonard J. Arrington and Davis Bitton, The Mormon Experience: A History of the Latter-day Saints, 2nd ed. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992), 257–58; Sterling M. McMurrin, "Introduction in B. H. Roberts, Joseph Smith the Prophet-Teacher (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967).
- ^ Roberts argued that the Adamic race had been preceded by a pre-Adamic race, which implied that there had been death and decay before the fall of man.
- ^ Ronald Numbers, The Creationists (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992), 312; see Richard Sherlock, "'We Can See No Advantage to a Continuation of the Discussion': The Roberts/Smith/Talmage Affair," Archived 2011-06-14 at the Wayback Machine Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 13(3):63–78 (Fall 1980).
- ^ Tim S. Reid, "Mormons and evolution: a history of B. H. Roberts and his attempt to reconcile science and religion," Ph.D. dissertation, Oregon State University, 1997.
- ^ Roberts 1985, p. 235: "In the light of this evidence, there can be no doubt as to the possession of a vividly strong, creative imagination by Joseph Smith, the Prophet, an imagination, it could with reason be urged, which, given the suggestions that are to be found in the 'common knowledge' of accepted American antiquities of the times, supplemented by such a work as Ethan Smith's View of the Hebrews, would make it possible for him to create a book such as the Book of Mormon is." See George D. Smith, "'Is There Any Way to Escape These Difficulties?' The Book of Mormon Studies of B. H. Roberts," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, 17 (Summer 1984), 94–111.
- S2CID 164780021. Retrieved 2007-02-14.
- ^ Letter to Heber J. Grant, Council, and Quorum of Twelve Apostles, March 15, 1922, in Roberts, Studies of the Book of Mormon, 57–58.
- ^ Richard N. Ostling and Joan K. Ostling, Mormon America: The Power and the Promise (Harper San Francisco, 1999), 276. A friend said that two months before his death, Roberts had told him of his disappointment in the response of the church leadership to his study and that Roberts believed the golden plates and the Urim and Thummim to be "subjective" rather than "objective." Journal of Wesley P. Lloyd, August 7, 1933, quoted in Studies of the Book of Mormon, Brigham D. Madsen, ed. (Salt Lake City, Utah: Signature Books, 1992), 2nd ed.
- ^ Roberts 1985, p. 47
- Terryl L. Givens, By the Hand of Mormon: The American Scripture that Launched a New World Religion (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 110–11. Givens argues that while Roberts "found himself incapable of solving the dilemmas he uncovered ... neither did he find his doubts sufficient to overpower his faith" in Book of Mormon historicity, basing this conclusion partly on a 1923 letter by Roberts in which he wrote that his research "does not represent any conclusions of mine" and that Latter-day Saint "faith is unshakeable in the Book of Mormon". For a view that researching and writing "A Book of Mormon Study" did lead Roberts to reject belief in Book of Mormon historicity, see Brigham D. Madsen, "B. H. Roberts's Studies of the Book of Mormon," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 26 (Fall 1993), 77–86; and "Reflections on LDS Disbelief in the Book of Mormon as History," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought30 (Fall 1997), 87–97. Madsen contends that after writing "A Book of Mormon Study", Roberts's references to the Book of Mormon in sermons focused on "ethical teachings and aphorisms" more than "historical events".
- Richard N. Ostling and Joan K. Ostling, Mormon America: The Power and the Promise (Harper San Francisco, 1999), 276.
- ^ State of Utah Death Certificate Archived 2008-10-28 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ B. H. Roberts, Studies of the Book of Mormon, ed. Brigham D. Madsen (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1985), 30.
- ^ Leonard J. Arrington, "The Intellectual Tradition of the Latter-day Saints," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 4 (Spring 1969), 22.
References
- Madsen, Truman G. Defender of the Faith: The B. H. Roberts Story (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1980.)
- ISBN 0-8425-0482-6.
- ISBN 0-252-01043-4.
- ISBN 978-1-56085-173-8, archived from the originalon 2003-02-24.
Further reading
- "Gospel Topics – The Manifesto and the End of Plural Marriage", churchofjesuschrist.org, LDS Church, retrieved 2014-10-22
External links
- John W. Welch, "Roberts, Brigham Henry," American National Biography Online, February 2000.
- "Introduction" to John Sillito, ed., History's Apprentice: The Diaries of B. H. Roberts (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2004).
- Works by Brigham Henry Roberts at Project Gutenberg
- Works by or about B. H. Roberts at Internet Archive
- Materials relating to B. H. Roberts in the L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University