The American Prophetic Pattern
on Full Display
in Joseph Smith, Jr.
I am like a huge, rough stone
rolling down from a high mountain;
and the only polishing I get
is when some corner gets rubbed off
by coming in contact with something else,
striking with accelerated force
against religious bigotry,
priestcraft, lawyer-craft, doctor-craft,
lying editors, suborned judges and jurors,
and the authority of perjured executives,
backed by mobs, blasphemers,
licentious and corrupt men and women —
all hell knocking off
a corner here and a corner there.
Thus will I become a smooth and polished
shaft in the quiver of the Almighty,
who will give me dominion over all
and everyone of them,
when their refuge of lies shall fail,
and their hiding place shall be destroyed.
– Joseph Smith, Jr. (1805–1844)1
As we said before, so we say again: the American religious impulse is to act like unto an Old Testament prophet.2
This thesis—as we shall see briefly below—can be demonstrated from even early colonial days. However, the American prophetic impulse is seen in highest resolution when one looks through the lens of the life of Mormonism’s founder, Joseph Smith, Jr.
But before we begin the theatrical story of our “prophet,” it will profit us to set him in the broader context of American religious identity. To do this, we need not even look at his more immediate, Yankee Protestant ancestors.
Rather, for our purposes—i.e., to show the prophetic moves Smith makes are according to a pattern at the very foundation of American identity and expression—we need look no further than the early Roman Catholic colonial missionaries.
I. Early Colonial Missionaries:
Prophets to a New World
Butler and company, in their second chapter,3 cover (c. AD 1500–1800) “often deadly” interchanges between Native Americans (“Indians”) and European missionaries and “conquerors,” in New Spain and New France.4 Though consciously different from their British Protestant successors, these early Spanish and French missionaries participate in the same American religious pattern—which is, let us remember, to play the parts of Old Testament prophets.
1. Bullies & Benevolence:
Missions in New Spain
The above-mentioned authors identify “two overweening drives” for Spanish missionary efforts: the first, a “traditional Christian missionary impulse”; the second, a concern to create “a uniform version of Christianity” in their societies.5 Together, these drives make the missionaries of Spain sometimes bullies, sometimes benevolent.
Too often, Spain’s religious policy toward Indians in the New World mirrors her policy toward Muslims and Jews in the Old: an often violent campaign, “to turn all residents… into Christians.”6 Here we see the beginnings of an American prophetic impulse: the Spaniards liken themselves unto Jonah, and Natives unto Ninevites (and also often, Joshua and the Canaanites), respectively—far-away pagans to whom they must preach repentance.7 (These demands to bow before new Throne and Altar the Indians meet with mixed, sometimes violent, reactions.)8
A people seeking such a double-portion of the Hebrew prophetic spirit,9 though, are inevitably challenged by what is perhaps the old God-seers’ most formative gift to Christendom: a tradition of self-critique.10 Just as those ancient men announced God takes no pleasure in the piety of those who neglect the needy,11 we see some of New Spain’s Dominican clergy argue for Natives’ humane treatment.
In the 1500s alone, this results in the Spanish Crown forbidding Indian enslavement and hereditary labor demands,12 and Spanish Catholics in Mexico embarking on a major hospital-building campaign. By the end of the late 1500s, “most major towns in central Mexico” have a hospital staffed by priests.13
Thus we see some humanitarianism and holiness brought by Spain to the Americas’ peoples, even amid the horrors of conquest. And this all, we remind readers, was done in true American fashion: at the spurring of self-critical prophets.
2. Flourish Like the Lily:
Missions in New France
The short-lived missions of New France—as seems the way of Jesuits since—are animated by the prophetic promise fulfilled in Christ, that God will make himself known among all peoples.14 Thus they assimilate more into Indian (Huron and Algonquian) life than their Spanish counterparts, and for a time live much more peacefully with them.15
In a 1611 letter from the mission field in Acadia, Fr. Pierre Biard, S.J., proclaims his hope that the time has come for Isaiah’s prophetic promises—“that the kingdom of our Redeemer shall be recognized throughout the earth”—to be fulfilled.16 Another Account of the Canadian Mission likewise sees the Natives’ “…barbarism and… vile array of sins [giving] place to reason and virtue,” as a fulfillment of ancient promise. Again drawing on Isaiah:
The land that was desolate and impassible shall be glad,
and the wilderness shall rejoice,
and shall flourish like the lily. 17
These are the foundations of the American prophetic milieu from which Joseph Smith emerges.
II. Even as Moses:
Brief Biographical Sketches of Joseph Smith, Jr.
Tozer (a writer who ought not be ignored by students of American religion) is right to say there are four kinds of people—enemies, disciples, rivals, and relatives—who make “the poorest of biographers.”18 Humbly, here we believe ourselves—of Smith history buffs—to be among the few who fit none of the above four categories.19
Brodie’s words in regard to Smith have been true of him and his church for two centuries: “Wherever Joseph Smith went he roused a storm.”20 He seldom garners anything approximating neutrality.
Counting ourselves qualified, let us now sift through the wild storm of early Mormon history and reconstruct a quick picture of the American “prophet.”
I Say Unto Thee: Smith’s “Revelations”
Nerds get nitpicky when they read generalists’ attempts to cover their pet interests (i.e., in our case here, early Mormon history). Thus below, we must say a word in regard to Religion in American Life’s treatment of the Smith story.21
Our aforementioned textbook does decent work when it explains Smith’s understanding of restoration, and its connection to the coming forth of the Book of Mormon.22 But though our authors understand Smith’s sense of restoration, they fail to do justice to the other of his two big “R”s: revelation.
Some two months before his murder, Smith brags in a sermon: “No man knows my history.” This is quite funny for Smith to say; for he, as Brodie notes, “dared to found a new religion in the age of printing.”23 Throughout his fourteen-year public career (1830–1844), Smith publishes a myriad of “revelations” in the direct voice of the Lord, “with all the confidence of an Old Testament prophet.”24
Contrary to his “No man knows” claim, Smith’s history is quite knowable. Indeed, he leaves us a massive paper trail which—together with his “revelations”—conjures for us our clearest portrait of the American prophetic impulse.25 Below, therefore, we shall examine some revelations from his prophetic career.
September 1830. Shortly after he starts playing his new part of prophet, Joseph meets, “what every new leader must face sooner or later, the problem of defining his own power.”26 For in September 1830, one of Smith’s associates, Oliver Cowdery (and at Cowdery’s provocation, another called Hiram Page), tries to dictate a revelation of his own. Joseph responds with a rebuke in the Lord’s voice:
Behold, I say unto thee, Oliver… verily, verily, I say unto thee,
no one shall be appointed to receive commandments and revelations in this church
excepting my servant Joseph Smith, Jun., for he receiveth them even as Moses.27
May–July 1834. To truly be an American Moses, Smith must not merely reveal new commandments, but must lead his people on a wilderness expedition toward Zion. In summer 1831, the prophet publishes a revelation declaring “Zion”—the place Mormons must build the New Jerusalem; the place at which Christ will return at the last Day—as Jackson County, Missouri (near today’s Kansas City).28
That November, Smith claims another revelation, wherein the Lord instructs the saints to gather together at Zion (Jackson County).29 The resulting influx of a new people with a theocratic bent who, when gathered together, become the most powerful voting bloc in the state, terrifies many Missourians; the two parties are in constant conflict thereafter, culminating in the Mormons being expelled from their Zion by mobs in early 1834.30
Two days after he receives news of said expulsion, Joseph (at current church headquarters in Kirtland, Ohio) publishes the following revelation, in which the Lord commands him to raise a militia to reconquer His city:
Behold, I say unto you, the redemption of Zion must needs come by power;
Therefore, I will raise up unto my people a man,
who shall lead them like as Moses led the children of Israel.
For ye are the children of Israel, and of the seed of Abraham,
and ye must needs be led out of bondage by power, and with a stretched-out arm.31
The 200-man militia—which Smith calls “Zion’s Camp”—sets out on the 900-mile trip from Ohio to Zion in May 1834, with the prophet leading the charge as “Commander-in-Chief of the Armies of Israel.”
The expedition is, in terms of achieving Zion’s “redemption… by power,” a miserable failure. Perhaps Smith forgot to hold up his hand, but the Missourians repel his “Armies” almost instantly.32 If he were a humbler man, perhaps our prophet would here learn the lesson eventually learned by many American zealots: he is not so “like as Moses” as he thinks.
III. The Revelation from Hell:
A Prophet’s Polygamous Deathwish
In July 1843, Smith dictates—to Emma, his wife—what is among his most infamous revelations: he commands her, in Christ’s voice, to receive “the new and everlasting covenant” of “celestial” (i.e., eternal) and “plural” (i.e., polygamous) marriage.33
Here the American prophetic impulse reaches its most extreme, self-indulgent form. For in an exercise of eisegesis for the ages, Smith uses the examples of Old Testament polygamous patriarchs and prophets like Abraham, David, and Solomon, to solemnize his lustful fancies.
Smith—by now, prophet of a booming new religion; mayor of an Illinois town he founded, Nauvoo, which rivals Chicago in size; general of a militia, the Nauvoo Legion, one-third the size of the US Army; and toying with candidacy in the 1844 US presidential election—has little restraint. He wields divine thunderbolts, and they feel heavy in his hand.34 “The Lord” gives Emma a stern warning:
And again, verily, verily, I say unto you,
if any man have a wife… and he teaches unto her… as pertaining to these things,
then shall she believe and administer unto him, or she shall be destroyed,
saith the Lord your God; for I will destroy her…
Behold, I am Alpha and Omega. Amen. 35
With such blasphemies, it is no surprise this “plural marriage” agenda—during Smith’s lifetime, (a bit poorly) kept a secret from all but top Mormon leaders—sets the machinery in motion that ultimately gets him killed by a mob in a jailhouse shootout.
Thus in Joseph Smith, Jr., (the man who more than any since Mohammed tried to live like an Old Testament prophet), we see the American religious pattern—in all its excess—on full display.
Notes
1. See e.g., Brodie, p. 296; Bushman; Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
2. Cf. Galatians 1:9.
3. Butler et. al., Chapter 2: Religions and Missions in New Spain and New France (pp. 21–43).
4. Ibid., p. 21.
5. Ibid., pp. 22–23.
6. Ibid., p. 23.
7. Cf. Cañizares-Esguerra, p. 109; see also Butler et. al., pp. 31–33. The “Joshua vs the Canaanites” character of some Spanish missions is captured well in this account of Spanish campaigns in New Mexico’s pueblos.
8. The general range of Indian reactions is detailed in ibid., p. 22. Instances of violent Native resistance are documented on e.g., pp. 29, 32, 41–42.
9. Cf. 2 Kings (4 Kingdoms) 2:9.
10. See e.g., Davis & Musser, 3.1–2; 5.1ff.; 6.1ff.; Hoffmeier, p. 134ff
11. See e.g., Isaiah 58; Amos 5:21–24.
12. Butler et. al., pp. 26–27.
13. Ibid., p. 26.
14. See e.g., Isaiah 2:2–4; 11:10; 42:1–6; 49:6; 56:3–8; 66:18–23; Jeremiah 3:17; 12:14–17; 16:19–21; Daniel 2:44–45; 7:13–14.
15. Butler et. al., pp. 41–42.
16. Biard.
17. Jouvency; quotes Isaiah 35:1 DRA.
18. Tozer, p. 2.
19. Though—considering I am of some Mormon Pioneer stock—it is possible Smith and I are distant relatives.
20. Brodie, p. viii.
21. Butler et. al. cover Smith’s story (and Mormonism at-large) on pp. 204–212; cf. pp. 426, 439.
22. Ibid., pp. 204–205. (I originally wrote this piece for a Religion in America course.)
23. Brodie, p. vii.
24. Ibid., p. 57. Of Smith’s surviving revelations, 133 are (with a few embarrassing details edited out, and a small handful of additions from his successors) included in a book of LDS scripture called Doctrine and Covenants (D&C).
25. From 2008–2023, the LDS Church-run Joseph Smith Papers project published a gathered collection of many of the primary sources that together make up this “paper trail.”
26. Brodie, p. 92.
27. D&C 28:1, 2; underline added.
28. D&C 57.
29. D&C 133. The “literal gathering of Israel” is a Mormon Article of Faith.
30. See e.g., Brodie, pp. 130–142.
31. D&C 103:15–17; underline added.
32. See e.g., Brodie, pp. 143–158; cf. Exodus 17:11.
33. D&C 132.
34. To echo language from Brodie.
35. D&C 132: 64, 66.
References
Biard, Pierre, “Letter from Father Biard to Reverend Father Christopher Baltazar, Provincial of France, at Paris,” Port Royal, June 10, 1611, in The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents: Travels and Explorations of the Jesuit Missionaries in New France, 1610–1791, ed. Reuben Gold Thwaites, vol. 1, Acadia: 1610–1613 (Cleveland: Burrows Brothers, 1896), 179–81.
Brodie, Fawn M. No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith. 2nd ed., rev. and enl. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, [1945] 1971.
Bushman, Richard Lyman. Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling. New York: Vintage Books, 2007.
Butler, J., Wacker, G., & Balmer, R. (2011). Religion in American Life: A Short History (Second Edition). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Cañizares-Esguerra, Jorge. Puritan Conquistadors: Iberianizing the Atlantic, 1550–1700. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006.
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Words of the Prophet: Praise to the Man.” New Era, May 2005. Accessed May 5, 2026. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/new-era/2005/05/words-of-the-prophet-praise-to-the-man?lang=eng.
Davis, E. F., & Musser, S. (2023). Prophecy, interpretation, and social criticism. In B. N. Wolfe et al. (Eds.), St Andrews Encyclopaedia of Theology. University of St Andrews. Retrieved April 22, 2026, from https://www.saet.ac.uk/Christianity/ProphecyInterpretationandSocialCriticis.
Hoffmeier, J. K. (2021). The Prophets of Israel: Walking the Ancient Paths. Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Academic.
Jouvency, “An Account of the Canadian Mission,” in The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents: Travels and Explorations of the Jesuit Missionaries in New France, 1610–1791, ed. Reuben Gold Thwaites, vol. 1, Acadia: 1610–1613 (Cleveland: Burrows Brothers, 1896), 205.
Tozer, A. W. Wingspread: A. B. Simpson: A Study in Spiritual Altitude. Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2010.
Justice (Joseph) Bjorke 