{"id":63220,"date":"2018-07-24T00:10:39","date_gmt":"2018-07-24T06:10:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=63220"},"modified":"2018-09-05T09:52:58","modified_gmt":"2018-09-05T15:52:58","slug":"joseph-smiths-sense-of-humor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2018\/07\/joseph-smiths-sense-of-humor.html","title":{"rendered":"Joseph Smith’s sense of humor?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

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\"JS<\/a>
Joseph Smith organizes the Church in 1830 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0(LDS Media Library)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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From a rough, unfinished manuscript of mine:<\/p>\n

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Humor is in short supply among fanatics, and is something carefully avoided by most pretenders to sanctity.\u00a0 Yet George Q. Cannon remembered Joseph\u2019s \u201csense of gentle humor.\u201d[1]<\/a>\u00a0 Likewise, his modern biographer Robert Remini, a preeminent scholar of Jacksonian America and a non-Mormon, writes that he \u201ccame to like the man very much,\u201d not only because he possessed \u201ccompelling charisma, charm, persuasiveness,\u201d but partly because Joseph Smith was \u201cjoyously funny.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cI like them when they\u2019re funny.\u00a0 Andrew Jackson was not<\/em> funny.\u201d[2]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

There is perhaps even a trace of humor apparent in his mother\u2019s recollection of his return home after his First Vision.\u00a0 Leaning against the fireplace, he answers his mother\u2019s concerned question about what is wrong: \u201cI have learned for myself,\u201d she recalls him saying, \u201cthat Presbyterianism is not true.\u201d[3]<\/a>\u00a0 Rather an understatement of what had just occurred.\u00a0 But, notes Professor King, \u201cWe have to remember that his mother had joined the Presbyterian Church shortly before this.\u00a0 How do you assess that as a conversation between a fourteen-year-old and his mother?\u00a0 All mothers know that sort of thing really happens to them with their teenagers.\u201d[4]<\/a> Nonetheless, Joseph\u2019s mother, Lucy Mack Smith, remembered him at the age of fourteen as \u201ca remarkably quiet, well disposed child,\u201d although she insists that, prior to that age, there was nothing unusual in his childhood.[5]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Professor King\u2019s trust in Joseph Smith as a human being was essential to his eventual faith in the doctrines and practices restored through the Prophet: \u201cBecause Joseph Smith talked about his experiences in the way he did, I was able to believe him, and having that belief, I could then go on to say, \u2018This man tells the truth; therefore, I ought to believe other things he tells me, even though I haven\u2019t got the same evidence of those.\u2019\u201d[6]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Cannon, Life of Joseph Smith the Prophet<\/em>, 342.<\/span><\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> As quoted by Dennis Lythgoe, \u201cWriter finds \u2018his Joseph,\u2019\u201d Salt Lake City Deseret News<\/em> (13 October 2002), E10.<\/span><\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Joseph Smith \u2013 History 1:20.<\/span><\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> King, \u201cJoseph Smith as a Writer,\u201d 291.<\/span><\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Lucy\u2019s Book<\/em>, 329.<\/span><\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Arthur Henry King, \u201cAn Account of My Conversion,\u201d in Arthur Henry King, Arm the Children: Faith\u2019s Response to a Violent World<\/em> (Provo: BYU Studies, 1998), 43.<\/span><\/p>\n

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***<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

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A very nice article on, among other things, small local or neighborhood congregations and part-time clergy:<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe Power and Purpose of Small Community Churches\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

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And here\u2019s something a bit strange \u2014 and not at all humorous \u2014 from the New Yorker<\/em>, with some relevance to Mormonism<\/a> and Utah:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cA Tale of Two Female Outcasts in the American Southwest\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
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<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Posted from Victoria, British Columbia<\/p>\n

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\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 From a rough, unfinished manuscript of mine: \u00a0 Humor is in short supply among fanatics, and is something carefully avoided by most pretenders to sanctity.\u00a0 Yet George Q. Cannon remembered Joseph\u2019s \u201csense of gentle humor.\u201d[1]\u00a0 Likewise, his modern biographer Robert Remini, a preeminent scholar of Jacksonian America and a non-Mormon, writes that he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nJoseph Smith's sense of humor?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"    From a rough, unfinished manuscript of mine:   Humor is in short supply among fanatics, and is something carefully avoided by most\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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