Here is a very flattering article just posted in the Chicago
Tribune regarding the way in which the Church and it's members has maintained a
tolerant and respectful attitude since it's inception. You may want to
share this in your councils and with your priesthood leaders and mission
presidents.
Mormonism, Illinois have surprising history
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has, when you
think about it, been a remarkably good sport when it comes to "The Book of
Mormon."
As that money-spinning, massively irreverent musical lampooning
the Mormon religion and many of its sacred tenets enters its final weeks in
Chicago, there have been no LDS pickets outside the Bank of America Theatre, no
attempts to organize a boycott, no statements of condemnation nor claims of
religious persecution. History shows that other religions satirized by the
creators of "South Park" have not always been so generous. But the
LDS church even took out an advertisement in the Playbill for the Chicago
production. "You've seen the show," the text reads, accompanying a
photograph of a hip and attractive young woman, "now read the book."
Several theories are out there as to why the church has taken such
a tolerant stance. Perchance its calculation was political: "The Book of
Mormon" first opened in New York during Mitt Romney's campaign for the
presidency, when the church was keeping a low, supportive profile. Perchance
its elders decided, probably correctly, that there was no upside to a protest
beyond fanning fevered flames. Maybe the church can genuinely take a joke.
Or perhaps the Mormon respect for freedom of expression is rooted
more deeply than most outsiders realize.
Maybe one way to explain what happened with "The Book of
Mormon" in 21st century America is to think about what happened with LDS
founder Joseph Smith in and around Nauvoo, Ill., during the 1840s.
Indeed, just as "The Book of Mormon" exits Illinois this
fall and migrates west, an interesting new Mormon-themed show will start up in
the Land of Lincoln. The timing is coincidental, and therefore all the more
fascinating.
For those with only a passing interest in Mormon history, the
general view is that Illinois did not work out well for Joseph Smith or the
Latter Day Saint movement: Smith was, after all, killed on June 27, 1844 by an
angry mob that had stormed the jail in Carthage, where Smith was being held.
(The LDS church now owns that site.) Although men were tried for his murder, the
state of Illinois convicted none of them. Persecution of Smith's followers
continued. By 1846, Brigham Young had led the Mormons off to the Salt Lake
Valley, with Illinois in the rear-view mirror.
But events this fall will look back at a matter involving Smith,
Mormons and Illinois that took place not in 1844, but in 1842 and 1843, when
neighboring Missouri twice tried to have Smith extradited from Illinois after
somebody fired a shot at Missouri Gov. Lilburn Boggs, and it the authorities
reported that the shooter had a connection to Smith. Smith, who understandably
did not anticipate fair treatment in Missouri, was arrested in Illinois by
officers from Missouri but released after seeking a writ of habeas corpus (a
legal action requiring law enforcement officers to show up in court and justify
their act of detention).
Later this month, the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and
Museum and the Illinois Supreme Court Historic Preservation Commission (both
are in Springfield) plan to re-enact Smith's case (there were three Smith
habeas corpus hearings) and explore a couple of centuries' worth of the
application of habeas corpus, from Lincoln's suspension of the right during the
Civil War to the much more recent issues at Guantanamo Bay. Gery Chico, a former
candidate for mayor, is the moderator. Following the events in Springfield,
there will be a follow-up in October at the University of Chicago's Logan
Center in Hyde Park, and there also will be various events in Nauvoo, the town
where Smith and his followers settled after entering Illinois. More information
is at the dramatically titled website josephsmithcaptured.com.
The stated intent of all these programs is to explore whether or
not the court is supposed to be "a safeguard for community values,"
and whether or not people with polarizing beliefs, lifestyles or value systems
can, or should, get a fair trial.
These days, the mostly conservative LDS church generally lines up
on the side of "safeguarding community values," of course, though
that is an inherently loaded term.
But back in the Illinois of the 1840s, the Mormons were on the
opposite side of that equation: After Smith's death, Illinois Gov. Thomas Ford
said that he was all for driving the Mormons out of Illinois, on the grounds
that their beliefs and actions were too different to have survived in the
state. As the events this fall will surely show, Smith and his followers were
turning to the courts in Illinois for much-needed protection of their freedoms.
They found some satisfaction in the Land of Lincoln. Briefly.
It's a long way from real-life Nauvoo to the fictional South Park,
Colo., I suppose. But history here might go some way toward explaining the
tolerance that many non-Mormons who have looked into their Playbill at the Bank
of America Theatre over the past year have found surprising.
As with any reach into history, it's all terribly complicated.
I asked John Lupton, the executive director of the Illinois
Supreme Court Historic Preservation Commission, whether he thought that
Illinois had been admirably respectful of the rights of Smith and the Mormons,
and he pointed out that Smith and his followers represented a big voting bloc
(15,000-20,000 people was a lot of new voters, then and now) when they came
across from Missouri into sparsely populated Illinois, so political expediency
was surely a factor.
Some things about Illinois don't change.
Lupton also noted that Smith's successes came on narrow legal
grounds rather than on the merits of his particular situation, as Smith surely
must have wished. Still, Lupton said without hesitation, "Missouri was an
awful place for the Mormons."
By comparison, Illinois—well, official Illinois—was much more
hospitable. Indeed, representatives of the LDS church are taking part in the
re-enactments this fall, and historians from Utah have been contributing
material and ideas to the inquiry.
There's another interesting parallel, too. Arguably, one of
Smith's mistakes, or over-reachings, in Nauvoo happened in 1844 when he ordered
the destruction of a printing press that had been used to publish publications
critical of his teachings and practices. That caused great offense and deepened
Smith's troubles.
That misguided attempt to muzzle criticism surely did not justify
what happened to Smith in the end at Carthage, an event that must count among
one of the darkest moments in this state's history, when a violent mob undid
writs and protections for a minority, a violation of civil rights that other
Illinois mobs would echo in the century that followed.
But in the little matter of "The Book of Mormon," those
who hold Smith a martyr have taken a much smarter approach to criticism within
a free country.
Twitter @ChrisJonesTrib
