Customer Reviews

Joseph Smith III: PRAGMATIC PROPHET

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Roger Lanius is easily the most successful RLDS scholar. More importantly he is the best. This book offers the most complete picture available on the figure of Joseph Smith the third. In addition, it gives some great information on the formation of the RLDS church.
Despite Lanius' connection with the RLDS, this book shows little if any bias. It is a fair and accurate portrayal of the "pragmatic prophet" Overall, it is definitely worth the time of anyone interested in the RLDS, polygamy, Emma Smith or the succession crisis that occurred after the death of Joseph Smith.

How is it to be the son of a prophet? How is it to loose your father by a hand of an unidentifed mob which never got condamned? And how is it to become another prophet, like your father but differently? Well, these questions are answered in this biography.

The book is easy to read and the chapters discuss the issues that puzzled Joseph III untill his death. Joseph III was more down to earth than what his father was and he gained respect because of that. The author focuses on the pragmatic side of Joseph, which can be a bit repetitive and minimalistic. It feels wiered that a person could only have one single quality. There is some authoritarian qualities in Joseph which cannot be hidden behind the pragmatic discourse, as the reader will notice in the middle of the book. The reader get acquainted with Joseph's family, his fatherhood and how he tried to clean his father's name from polygamy. His strategy was to create a Book of Mormon-believing community which could be integrated into overall American culture. Reading this book would give those who are a part of the Reorganisation (RLDS/Community of Christ) the confirmation that Zion-building and a Christ-focused worship was Joseph's main doctrines. The book would also give those non-affliated with the Restoration movement (like me) an idea about the psyche of the son of a prophet! It seems that Joseph, having a lawyer background and knowing the weaknesses and the strenghts of his father, tried to do it in his own way. An encouragement for all of us, who try to go our own way.

This book filled in a lot of information for me that I had wondered about. It is well written and easy to read. If you are interested in early Mormonism and the origins of what used to be called the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (RLDS), this is a good source.

However, it does have some gaps. It doesn't give us much about his mother and their relationship. It doesn't really delve into the man's spiritual life beyond what he did when and only talks about his revelations as they affect some program he was trying to bring about.

But I was very interested to learn about his role in the persecution of the Utah Saints in trying to end polygamy. And I did find it kind of funny that a man who was obsessed with others having more than one wife ended up having three and children with two of them. The last one being far younger than him. Sure it is a serial form of polygamy, but...

I am glad that I own it and have read it.

Infromation compiled from a series of newspaper articles. Interesting information from several people. Insite to his family life. Highly opinionated slant on writting the information