The word “remember” appears 406 times in the scriptures of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We take the sacrament every week in an attempt to “always remember” the Father and the Son and what they did for us. Ancient Israel observed a ritualistic religion to bring them into constant remembrance of their deliverance from Egypt and the forty years of being fed manna by God. Our ordinances and covenants also remind us of our need to completely rely on the atonement of Jesus Christ for our deliverance from sin and death.
In that spirit, every year on July 24th, we remember the Mormon pioneers. We call it “Pioneer Day” although it celebrates more than the entry of the Latter-day Saint refugees into the Salt Lake Valley. Pioneer Day is a remembrance of the miracles the Lord provided to help the pioneers survive many life-threatening experiences.
Most of you know that backstory; some of you won’t. In the nineteenth century, Latter-day Saints were a persecuted and despised religion. In 1838, we were forcibly expelled from homes and farms in Missouri by mobs and the state militia, under an executive “extermination” order from the Governor of the state. In 1846, that process repeated itself, following the assassination of our founding prophet, Joseph Smith. Joseph Smith’s murder was not the result of a crime of passion or of a personal, individual nature. It was a political assassination. In 1844, Smith was arrested, kept in a jail under the “protective custody” of Illinois’ governor. A mob of some 200 men, who painted their faces black to mask their identity (kind of like a modern Antifa), stormed the jail and killed the Prophet and his brother.
In the ensuing two years, the government of the state revoked the charter granted to the Mormon city of Nauvoo. In doing so, they took away the rights of the people and de-authorized its elected representatives. Can you imagine that happening today? Imagine if Donald Trump could take away the city of Portland or Chicago as a political entity! Suddenly, the mayor, the council, the police, and all city employees were put out on the street with no authority? What would happen in those cities? We know today, there would be anarchy. In nineteenth century Nauvoo, because the Mormons had a strong civic conscience and were law-abiding citizens, it made little difference. We were a civic body, whether or not we had the legal recognition from man’s system of governance. Our priesthood, quorums, relief society, and other organizations provided stability and community. Our obedience to law and civility was not the result of any legal coercion, but of a godly conscience.
By 1846, the state had had enough of the Mormons. It had brought force of arms against the Latter-day Saints and minor civil war took place as we attempted to defend our families, our homes, and our temple. In 1846, we abandoned the city and began the move westward. In a mass migration, we successfully, regrouped, organized pioneer companies, and sent a vanguard out into the desert West to find a new home that had only been seen in vision. On July 24th, 1847, that vanguard reached the Salt Lake Valley and began to establish a new home.
In the ensuing years, thousands of Latter-day Saints overcame threats of near-famine and disease to survive and thrive. Tens of thousands crossed the ocean and half a continent to join their brothers and sisters in their desert Zion. Within a decade of their arrival, the President ordered the US Army to invade and occupy the territory the saints had subdued by sheer grit and determination. We briefly abandoned the city and dispersed. When the Army entered Salt Lake City, everywhere they looked, they saw men with torches waiting for the signal to burn the city to the ground. Fortunately the message was received and the Army did not take aggressive actions.
Latter-day Saints managed to maintain their community’s integrity by out-organizing the competing, hostile government. Brigham Young led the efforts to keep the people together and our culture intact through the coming of the miners and the railroads. We practiced a communalistic system called the United Order to guard our economy, preserve jobs, and keep the saints unified. An example of this communalistic labor was the negotiations with one railroad company when a financial crisis struck the country. When a financial panic struck, the railroad anticipated having to abandon construction, resulting in job losses. Instead, Brigham Young negotiated a pay reduction, and offered to build the rail line for less money up front, with the rest coming after the financial crisis passed. The rail company loaned us engines and equipmen that otherwise would have sat idle. The Church had the means to help support the workers, meanwhile they kept their jobs, the line was completed, and the railroad helped communities along its path financially. When the crisis was over, the railroad company stayed in business and paid the full amount of the contract. That kind of cooperation helped keep the families from want and helped the Latter-day Saints stay together as a people.
The Saints suffered again when the national government decided to crack down on polygamy, imprisoning some of our leaders, while others scattered. Almost all Church property was confiscated by the government. How does any group of people overcome such opposition? Nevertheless, we did it and we overcame once again.
Pioneer Day celebrations mark not only the entrance of the first pioneer companies into the Salt Lake Valley, they also help us to remember all the obstacles we overcame. It memorializes miracles like the coming of flocks of seagulls to eat up crickets that threatened to destroy our first harvest in the Valley, preventing starvation. Almost every individual journal from the time can recount some miracle, great or small, that helped it survive to face the next crisis, and the next, until finally security was established.
Today, I read two different articles that tell me we have a great need to remember. Jana Riess uses the day of remembrance to castigate Mormon “whiteness” and our resistance to “structural change.” Although she gives lip-service to the pioneers, she has failed to truly remember the hand of God that preserved this people. On Pioneer Day, we ought to remember that God didn’t look upon our “whiteness” as crickets devoured our first crops, the very food upon which our survival depended. No, he didn’t tell us to implement “structural change” or give the priesthood to black people as a condition for sending seagulls to destroy the pestilent insects. He heard our prayers and had mercy on us. To liberals like Riess, the hand of God moving in our behalf is unimportant—they only care about finding acceptance among the world’s idolatrous systems of power. For Jana Riess, memorializing Pioneer Day is about tearing down what the pioneers’ persecutors could not.
The second article was by a former member of the Church who was celebrating her new deity: marijuana. The author talks about her abusive lesbian mother who relocated to Salt Lake City and encouraged her daughter to join the Church, despite her own rebellion against the gospel. The author grew up in a world of contradictions between a parent who selfishly caved to her carnal instincts and resented having a child and a Church that valued family, obedience, and morality. The woman ultimately left the Church behind and escaped into the physical gratification from cannabis. The bulk of the article was the author trying to convince herself that she shouldn’t continue to feel guilty, even though she still does. On Pioneer Day, she finds herself memorializing the stupor that erases her guilt.
Remembering can be hard. There are many distractions. People are no longer taught history; they are given an indoctrination. Comfort and ease dull the remembering. Hardship sharpens it. As we celebrate Pioneer Day this year, we stand on the border between a fading ease and looming crisis although many do not yet perceive it. Remembering the pioneers and the miracles will become important to us again as we seek the Lord’s providence in the years to come.
Comments