Pent up in an Acorn Shell

From "Joseph Smith Through the Eyes of Those Who Knew Him Best", Truman & Ann Madsen
Latter-Day Saint Scholar and Author & BYU Professor of Ancient Scripture, Joseph Smith Lecture
November 13, 2003

Heber C. Kimball once said that Joseph's greatest sorrow, amidst all his other afflictions, was his inability to communicate.  He said, "I will remark that you will have here with you a few of us that have traveled with him here from the beginning.  And we know his trials.  And we know that the greatest torment he had, and the greatest mental suffering, was because this people would not live up to their privileges.  There were many things he desired to reveal that we have not learned yet, but he could not do it.   He said sometimes he felt pressed upon, as though he was pent up in an acorn shell, and all because the people did not and would not prepare themselves to receive the rich treasures of wisdom and knowledge that he had to impart." 

In one of his climactic discourses, the Prophet said, "Knowledge through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is the grand key that unlocks the glories and mysteries of the kingdom of Heaven."  (Truman G Madsen)

The Standard of Truth

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The Standard of Truth has been erected; no unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing; persecutions may rage, mobs may combine, armies may assemble, calumny may defame, but the truth of God will go forth boldly, nobly, and independent, till it has penetrated every continent, visited every clime, swept every country, and sounded in every ear, till the purposes of God shall be accomplished, and the Great Jehovah shall say the work is done. (Joseph Smith, The Wentworth Letter, 1 Mar 1842, History of the Church, 4:540, p 540)

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The Sincerity of Joseph Smith

From “A mere impostor . . . would have broken down.”, Dan Peterson, 8 Nov 2017

In June 1851, a journalist connected with London’s Morning Chronicle published a piece entitled “The Mormons.”  He did not accept Joseph Smith’s religious faith, and believed that Mormonism was conceived in fraud.  “At the same time,” though, he wrote of Joseph,

there is much in his later career which seems to prove that he really believed what he asserted—that he imagined himself to be in reality what he pretended—the chosen medium to convey a new gospel to the world—the inspired of heaven, the dreamer of divine dreams, and the companion of angels.  If he were an impostor, deliberately and coolly inventing, and pertinaciously propagating a falsehood, there is this much to be said, that never was an impostor more cruelly punished than he was, from the first moment of his appearance as a prophet to the last.  Joseph Smith, in consequence of his pretensions to be a seer and prophet of God, lived a life of continual misery and persecution.  He endured every kind of hardship, contumely and suffering.  He was derided, assaulted and imprisoned.  His life was one long scene of peril and distress, scarcely brightened by the brief beam of comparative repose which he enjoyed in his own city of Nauvoo.  In the contempt showered upon his head his whole family shared.  Father and mother, and brothers, wife and friends, were alike involved in the ignominy of his pretensions, and the sufferings that resulted.  He lived for fourteen years amid vindictive enemies, who never missed an opportunity to vilify, to harass, and to destroy him; and he died at last an untimely and miserable death, involving in his fate a brother to whom he was tenderly attached.  If anything can tend to encourage the supposition that Joseph Smith was a sincere enthusiast maddened with religious frenzies, as many have been before and will be after him—and that he had strong and invincible faith in his own high pretensions and divine missions, it is the notability that unless supported by such feelings, he would have renounced the unprofitable and ungrateful task, and sought refuge from persecution and misery in private life and honorable industry.
(A journalist connected with London’s Morning Chronicle published a piece entitled “The Mormons.” June 1851. Quoted in Cannon, Life of Joseph Smith the Prophet, 356)

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Five Compelling Ideas

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Joseph was utterly alone in the Christian world in promulgating each one of those five ideas, with one possible exception.  Those ideas being that
[1] we believe God’s heart beats in sympathy with ours; that
[2] we lived with Him as pre-existent beings; that
[3] life is not a fall, but an ascent; that
[4] God has the capacity and the desire to save the entire human family (shared by some Universalists of the day); and that
[5] heaven is a perpetuation of those relationships we cherish here and now.
Now any one of those five ideas is sufficiently compelling, I think, to attract adherents, but put all five together and you have a unique combination that had no contemporary parallel. And I’m not surprised, that with those five doctrines at the core, that there have been few dissenters, once you embrace that original mosaic. (Terryl Givens, "Exclusive Interview with Terryl and Fiona Givens with the release of Terryl’s new book, ‘Wrestling the Angel’", Oct 8, 2014)

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A few years ago at the time of the scandal relating to Mormons baptizing Holocaust victims, I was interviewed by a Jewish radio host in Philadelphia.  And his first question was direct and to the point. He said, “What are you doing baptizing my dead ancestors?”  And, Mormons tend to be very uncomfortable with the doctrine of baptizing the dead.  It seems weird, and it conjures up gruesome or rather strange images in the mind, and we tend to avoid that topic.  But what I said to this radio host on that occasion was, “Well, Mormons believe in a Heavenly Father who wants to save the entire human family.  And at the last day will provide a wedding feast to which He wants His entire human posterity invited.”  And I said, “Mormons see ourselves as putting everyone’s name on the guest list. And not everybody has to attend, but we feel everybody should be invited.”  His answer to me on air was, “What a beautiful idea. How do I get my name on your list?” Now, that explanation isn’t always going to elicit that response.  But that is an example of the fact that our theology is much more powerful and compelling and morally appealing than we have recognized, and I think we need to lead with that more often.(Terryl Givens, "Exclusive Interview with Terryl and Fiona Givens with the release of Terryl’s new book, ‘Wrestling the Angel’", Oct 8, 2014)

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