For years Evangelicals and Fundamentalists have called the Mormon Church a cult. Cult is a relative term, of course, but the problem for the Mormon church is that there are some very culty Mormons. The polygamists, the so-called Fundamentalist Mormons. Polygamy is something the mainstream Mormon church renounced in 1890, then again in 1904 because once is never enough. The Fundamentalists believe that polygamy is an important doctrine that’s essential to get into heaven; just as all Mormons did in the second half of the 19th century. I want to take a moment here and remind people that the word fundamentalist has lost all of its power. The Fundamentals, a series of 90 essays published in 12 volumes between 1910-5, are the source of the word fundamentalist. It means something along the lines of ‘back to basic or fundamental tenets of faith,’ not merely stringent, weird, or strong belief. The Fundamentals criticized things like higher criticism, the academic textual analysis of the Bible, and spiritualism, socialism, and evolutionism, arguing for a back to basics approach to Christian believe. To tie this tangent back in, they also included an essay that was critical of Mormonism. Fundamentalist may not be the best word, but the only other option that seems to be available is to call them by their ‘clan names,’ essentially who was the first leader of their specific sect. That doesn’t work well either, so I’m going to go with Fundamentalist, with intentional capitalization, now that I’ve given my objections to the word. Fundamentalists continue to practice polygamy and they believe that the mainstream Mormon church is in Apostasy.

Apostasy is a rather complex concept for Mormons, but, suffice to say, the Fundamentalists believe that the modern Mormon church is wrong on a number of theological issues and that they’ve bent to the will of public opinion. Polygamy wasn’t a particularly popular doctrine to non-Mormons, so in 1890 the Federal government essentially coerced Mormon leaders to abandon polygamy in order for Utah to become a state. Fun fact, the Republicans in 1860 ran on stopping the twin relics of barbarism – slavery and polygamy. According to the Fundamentalists, the Mormon Church has bent to the will of the public on more than polygamy, they also adjusted their doctrine concerning Adam and God due to public criticism.

According the Bible, I assume we all know, Adam was the first man. That’s probably the simplest statement I’m going to make for a couple of paragraphs, the rest of this is a combination of crazy, interesting, and stupidly complex. Fundamentalists accept something that is often called the Adam-God Doctrine, or Theory. Simply put, Brigham Young, the second Mormon prophet and president, taught that Adam was God. There’s a variety of ways to approach explaining this, but they primarily breakdown into three forms; apologetic, or defensive of the church, critical, or offensive towards the church, or historical, generally neutral. A neutral approach, I feel, is sufficient for me to explore my fascination. It began in April 1852 when Brigham Young said, “Now hear it, O inhabitants of the earth, Jew and Gentile, Saint and Sinner! When our Father Adam came into the garden of Eden, he came into it with a celestial body, and brought Eve, one of his wives, with him. He helped to make and organize this world. He is MICHAEL, the Archangel, the ANCIENT OF DAYS! about whom holy men have written and spoken—He is our Father and our God, and the only God with whom we have to do. Every man upon the earth, professing Christians and non-professing must hear it, and will know it sooner or later.”

The problem with quotes is that they turn into debates about context and semantics when the meaning is disputed. They don’t prove much of anything, unless the meaning is accepted by everyone involved. The intricate balance between criticism and neutral appraisal of facts is perhaps clearest when fasts demand interpretation. To balance my interpretation of this quote, and the others that will follow, I consulted with sources that were definitely meant to be apologetic along with the historical analyses I prefer. I’m approaching the task of describing this within the context of apologetics because the implications of Brigham Young teaching this proves to be difficult to square with the modern Mormon church, though it’s not impossible of course.

In a Dialogue article titled ‘The Adam-God Doctrine,’ David John Buerger offers historical context and evidence to support the claim that Brigham Young taught Adam was God. The most compelling evidence comes when considering the contemporary reactions. Samuel H. Rogers wrote, after hearing Young talk, “President Brigham Young said that our spirits were begotten before that Adam came to the Earth, and that Adam helped to make the Earth, that he had a Celestial boddy when he came to the Earth, and that he brought his wife or one of his wives with him, and that Eave was allso a Celestial being, that they eat of the fruit of the ground untill they begat children from the Earth, he said that Adam was the only God that we would have, and that Christ was not begotten of the Holy Ghost, but of the Father Adam . . . ” Before we go any further let’s pause for a moment and explain what we’re talking about. Adam is Adam from the Old Testament, according to Mormons, at least Brigham Young, but probably also Joseph Smith, Adam, like many of the Old Testament Patriarchs, was a polygamist. A Celestial Body means that Adam was originally born on another planet were he reached a state of exaltation, essentially perfection, before working with Jesus, also known as Jehovah, to create the earth. Even modern Mormons will admit that they believe that Adam is Michael, the archangel from the book of Revelations, and he helped create the Earth. A being that reaches a state of exaltation is essentially a God, so yeah, Mormons are polytheists, but they only worship one God, so they’re technically monolatrists. The debate comes when Brigham Young is said to have taught that Elohim, God for modern Mormons, was Adam’s father, or our GrandGod. For modern Mormons the trinity consists of Jehovah, Elohim, and the Holy Spirit; Jesus, God, and the mind or essence of God, as three distinct beings with one defined will. So, rather than accepting the powerful concept of three being one, Mormons take away the spirit-inducing awe thinking about three things being one brings and substitute a more 19th century empirical explanation for the trinity. It’s all confusing, I know, but it is so weird you can’t look away.

Is Adam a God? This doesn’t seem to particularly be in dispute, if he’s not now he certainly will be, according to Mormons. Is he the God of our world is the more pertinent question. Young taught the doctrine that Adam was God on multiple occasions after first introducing the doctrine in 1852, saying, on one occasion, “he is the framer of the body, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Who is he. He is Father Adam; Michael; the Ancient of days.” It seems clear that Young did teach that Adam was God. Joseph Lee Robinson wrote, after hearing one of Young’s sermons, “attended a very interesting conference, for at this meeting President Brigham Young said thus…that Adam was God, our Eternal Father.” The doctrine did not find popular appeal, even among Mormons. Parley P. Pratt, a leading Mormon theologian, of sorts, vociferously argued against the doctrine. The doctrine never received the vocal support of many leading Mormons of the time, including all the leaders that would follow Young as prophets.

The doctrine, it seems, even before Young died was placed on the back burner. Young stopped emphasizing the doctrine in sermons, and other leaders demurred from offering opinions on the subject. The doctrine attracted widespread criticism from Protestant preachers, adding fuel to the anti-Mormon fire ignited by polygamy. “In October 1897, for example, Mormon elders began proselyting in Fresno, California. They authored a favorable introductory article on the Church which was published in the Fresno paper. A local minister, C. A. Munn, proceeded to publish several articles of his own, in part quoting Brigham Young’s April 1852 sermon. Although the elders tried to meet Munn’s challenge, they failed..” The response of Church leaders to Munn’s criticism is telling, “Adam ‘is not the God to whom we pray, nor did Brigham Young undertake to convey such an idea. We worship the being who placed Adam in the garden of Eden.” The first line of defense appears to be an outright denial that Young ever taught the doctrine. Young having died in 1877, the doctrine seems to have been completely abandoned and, to some extent, covered up. Though later, “Prest. Jos F. Smith then said that… Prest. Brigham Young when he delivered that sermon only expressed his own views and that they were not corobirated [sic] by the word of the Lord in the Standard works of the Church[.]” It appears the Church approached refuting the doctrine in a number of ways.

The apologetic responses seem, according to The Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research(FAIR), a Mormon apologetic organization, to break down into six responses; one primary response and five explanations, beyond outright denial. I’m going to focus on the primary response because I feel that’s most important. The primary response breaks down as ‘it has been rejected since Young died and never gained widespread popularity, so it clearly was never doctrine.’ I admit this is probably true, it was never fully accepted as doctrine, but it raises some questions about having faith in the leaders of the Church if a prophet could be so wrong. That’s my primary point. When you’re young and Mormon you sing ‘Follow the Prophet,’ but if you did that here you would be clearly wrong. Wrong to a naturalist like me, wrong to Protestants and Catholics, and, most importantly, wrong to Mormons. I’ve documented in previous posts how Correlation has encouraged members of the church to be even more prone to have faith in leaders. To trust and follow the Prophets. The combination of increased faith in leaders and clear examples of leaders being wrong, such as Brigham Young teaching Adam-God, worries me most about the Mormon Church.

The Adam-God doctrine is important for me because it raises a question that I think every member, believers in anything really, need to ask. Is the authority I’m trusting, we all trust some authority, wrong? I think on the surface we will all admit that it’s a possibility, at least I hope we can all agree with that statement. Of course, it’s hard to determine if an authority is wrong because we wouldn’t need to trust an authority if we were in a position to judge if they were wrong. Approaching life with vigilant skepticism offers the best protection. We can’t be purely skeptical of everything, that leads to solipsism, but we need to question constantly and never invest trust in any one person or movement. Believe if you think you can trust a leader or an organization, I don’t have problem with belief, but just remember they can be wrong. The stringency of some believers is were I have problem. Why? Is always a legitimate question. Why do you want me to do that? That’s a fair question and offering no explanation is an absurd response to my mind. Vigilant skepticism is about judging, as rationally as possible, the explanations authorities offer us. There are tools to judge sources, facts, and explanations. Mental tools that I think are important for all of us to possess. Consider these: http://www.geol.umd.edu/~jmerck/eltsite/lectures/03.html

Endnote: I avoided using a number of other sources I read while researching this to keep it to a reasonable length and I’ve tried to make things as simple as possible without horribly distorting anything. The Dialogue article I used as my primary source for this piece is available for free online and is an easy enough read, though it is about forty pages. I avoided getting into a lengthy debate about Apostasy, for those that understand what I’m talking about, because it’s not a useful point to encourage doubt, in my opinion.