Sunday, February 13, 2022

Parley P. Pratt's Prophecy Concerning the "Unbelieving Gentile" in Mormonism Unveiled (1838)

The Tanners, in Mormonism: Shadow or Reality? wrote the following against Parley P. Pratt and his prophetic abilities:

 

Writing in 1838, the Mormon Apostle Parley P. Pratt prophesied that in 50 years there would not be an unbelieving Gentile on this continent, and if the inhabitants were not greatly scourged within 5 or 10 years the Book of Mormon would be proven untrue. His statement appears as follows in the tract, Mormonism Unveiled—Truth Vindicated:

 

Now, Mr. Sunderland, you have something definite and tangible, the time, the manner, the means, the names, the dates; and I will state as a prophesy, that there will not be an unbelieving Gentile upon this continent 50 years hence; and if they are not greatly scourged, and in a great measure overthrown, within five or ten years from this date, then the Book of Mormon will have proved itself false. (Mormonism Unveiled—Truth Vindicated, by Parley P. Pratt, p. 15; copied from a microfilm of the original tract at the Mormon Church Historian’s Library) (Jerald and Sandra Tanner, Mormonism: Shadow or Reality? [5th ed.; Salt Lake City: Utah Lighthouse Ministry, 1987, 2008], 188)

 

In this blog post, I will (1) provide previous apologetic responses to this issue and (2) Ian Barber’s comments situating Pratt’s eschatology and prophecy.

 

(1) Apologetic Explanations of Pratt’s Prophecy

 

In response to a question by "RBYSECKER," the "Latter-day Saints Haven" (PKA "Mormon Haven") Website responds thusly:

 

JOEL - Parley P. Pratt's "Mormonism Unveiled: Zion's Watchman Unmasked" was a pamphlet written solely by himself in an emotional response to the many lies and hostile articles written by a Protestant minister named LeRoy Sunderland. Parley's attitude was obviously quite livid throughout the writing of this pamphlet which may at times have allowed his emotions to cloud his judgement about some of the things he said.

 

However, the "prophesy" he makes correlates to a prophesy that he refers to in the Book of Mormon earlier in the article. He speaks of 3 Nephi Chapter 21:11-21 when he says, "where all who will not hearken to the Book of Mormon, shall be cut off from among the people; and that too, in the day it comes forth to the Gentiles and is rejected by them. And not only does this page set the time for the overthrow of our government and all other Gentile governments on the American continent, but the way and means of this utter destruction are clearly foretold; namely, the remnant of Jacob will go through among the Gentiles and tear them in pieces. like a lion among the flocks of sheep. Their hand shall be lifted up upon their adversaries, and all their enemies shall be cut off. This destruction includes an utter overthrow, and desolation of all our Cities, Forts, and Strong Holds -- an entire annihilation of our race, except such as embrace the Covenant, and are numbered with Israel." (Mormonism Unveiled, Pratt p.15)

These are the things that Jesus predicted will happen to all the people in the latter-days if they harden their hearts and not hearken to the Book of Mormon. At the time Parley made his prophesy, it seemed that that was they way things were going to go. And if the people of his day continued to harass and persecute the saints, he believed that "within five or ten years" everyone would either be converted to the Lord's Church or would be destroyed as predicted by Jesus in the 3 Nephi 21:11-21 scriptures.

 

But obviously, the governments were not completely overthrown, cities were not desolated, and an entire race was not annihilated. Were both Jesus and Parley wrong? No! Here is the reason why.

 

Later in 3 Nephi 21 Jesus places a provision on His earlier prophecy when He said:

 

"But if they will repent and hearken unto my words, and harden not their hearts, I will establish my church among them, and they shall come in unto the covenant and be numbered among this the remnant of Jacob, unto whom I have given this land for their inheritance;" (See 3 Nephi 21:22-29)

 

Parley's and Jesus' prophesy of destruction did not need to come to pass, because later on there were enough people who did not harden their hearts and who were willing to listen. Because of that God did not destroy them and He was able to establish His church among them.

 

Therefore, Parley's "prophesy" was essentially valid if opposition and hatred against the Church had continued in the way it seemed to be going at the time he said it. Fortunately that did not happen and Christ was able to firmly establish His Church on the earth as it is today.

 

Notice the portion I emphasised in bold: the author argues that the prophecy in 3 Nephi 21 (and, as a result, Pratt’s prophecy in his 1838 Mormonism Unveiled) were conditional prophecies.

 

FAIR has an article on this topic here where the influences of the Book of Mormon and its eschatological prophecies on Pratt is discussed. Later on in the article, on the question of "Was Parley's interpretation correct?" we read that

 

it is hard for later readers to read these verses and say that it is as explicit as all that. The scripture uses the term "in that day," which is typical of Isaiah's millennial prophecies in the KJV. So, I think Parley misunderstood these verses, and assumed that this meant that the end would be very near to the Book of Mormon's publication and so saw them as a prophecy with a clear time-frame.

 

Unfortunately for his argument, I don't think this was not the case. The Book of Mormon simply isn't that clear or specific. And, notably, Joseph Smith (the prophet and president of the Church) made prophecies which insisted that the end would not come within the time frame that Parley offered up.

 

And that

 

In this case that Elder Pratt was simply wrong. He had no authority to declare doctrine for the Church. What he was doing, it seems, was instead reading scripture and interpreting what he thought was a prophecy contained therein. If he had been right in his reading, then of course his prophecy would have been true, since scripture has the authority to give prophecy. But, it is hard to read the scripture and think that this is as clear-cut as he makes it out to be. It isn't.

 

Parley likely wanted a response to Sunderland's argument, but Sunderland was right--there is no prophecy in the Book of Mormon that is specific enough that someone in 1838 could have said, "Oh yeah, this is obviously from God, it foretold X." And, while Sunderland may think that a weakness, modern believers would probably see it as normal and expected--God does not give "signs" like that. There may well be prophecies we can appreciate, but they won't be so compelling that they will force people to believe, and we may not see them until "after the fact."

 

In sum, Parley is here really more (mis)reading scripture than coming up with a prophecy out of the blue. He was mistaken, but that's OK--even apostles can be wrong, and an isolated apostle has no right to declare binding doctrine. New revelation would always come to the prophet--which Parley likely knew, but he just thought his reading of the scripture was obviously correct, so felt no fear in making it. But, we must remember that he came out of a long religious background before joining the Church in which he had a deep sense of the second coming's urgency and imminence. So, what seemed a "natural" reading to him just wasn't.

 

It's a good reminder that what we think is really obvious about scripture may not be so; our own biases and cultural presuppositions come into it. (This article may be doing the same thing, of course, reading it with more historical distance, but a compelling case can certainly be made, nonetheless, that the Book of Mormon is not near so precise or specific as Parley thought.)

 

If the Book of Mormon had actually said what Parley thought it did, and did so as specifically as he thought it did, that might pose a problem. But, he's mistaken about what it says, and so the Book of Mormon stands or falls on Parley's misreading.

 

What Parley was likely trying to do was force Sunderland to take the Book of Mormon seriously (since this argument in itself would have proved nothing to Sunderland, since it was well in the future). Parley took the Book of Mormon text more seriously than many of his fellow Saints, and so he was probably trying to encourage his readers to give it a fair shot.



(2) Ian Barber on the Apocalyptic Background of Pratt’s Prophecy

 

Commenting on D&C 87 (the “Civil War Prophecy”) and its eschatology, Barber notes that

 

In the revelation on war, Smith referred to but also looked beyond the time that the northern and southern states would be divided against each other. ‘After many days’, the revelation foresaw, ‘slaves shall rise up against their masters who shall be marshaled and disciplined for war’. This s the church leader’s first, recorded reference to apocalyptic conflict involving slaves. As well, Smith added, ‘the remnants who are left of the land will marshal themselves, and shall become exceedingly angry, and shall vex the Gentiles with a sore vexation.’ ‘Thus,’ the text continued, ‘with the sword and by bloodshed the inhabitants of the earth shall mourn’, where God would also chasten the earth with famine, plague, earthquake, ‘the thunder of heaven, and the fierce and vivid lightning . . . until the consumption decreed hath made a full end of all nations.’ (Doctrine and Covenants, 87)

 

In context, the revelation’s marshaled remnants ‘left of the land’ are resonant of Book of Mormon prophecies concerning the vengeance of the remnant of Jacob on latter-day American Gentiles. These documents demonstrate Smith’s continuing claims of Indian alliances against Missouri, it is worth noting also that there is nothing in Joseph Smith’s private teachings in the 1830s that would suggest any proposed Mormon encouragement of Native American vengeance. Rather, it seems that the Native Americans were expected to fulfill an apocalyptic role on their own terms, consistent with the report of contemporary Indian conflicts with Anglo-American settlers that Smith had followed. As the revelation on war put it: ‘the remnants . . . will marshal themselves, and . . . vex the Gentiles’ [emphasis added]. [Ibid., 87:5]

 

Joseph Smith’s public reticence is also reinforced in the comparison of the reserved 25 December 1832 revelation with the public, 4 January 1832 letter that omitted war in a list of God’s apocalyptic judgments, to say nothing of the agency of avenging ‘remnants’, as noted above. Considering this, it seems significant that the revelation on war remained unpublished during Smith’s lifetime. [Bushman, Joseph Smith, 192] On the eve of the American Civil War, Joseph Smith’s confidante and immediate successor Brigham Young recalled that this revelation was ‘reserved’ during the compilation of the Doctrine and Covenants in 1835. ‘It was not wisdom to publish it to the world, and it remained in the private escritoire.’ [Brigham Young, 20 May 1857, Journal of Discourses, 8:58] Other revelations that referred to ‘Lamanite’ engagements were also expurgated or unpublished in the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants. [Walker, ‘Seeking the “Remnant”,’ 10] (Ian Barber, “As A Lion Among the Sheep: Indigenous Americans and the National Apocalypse in Early Mormon Thought,” in Framing the Apocalypse: Visions of the End-Time, ed. Sheila C. Bibb and Alexandra Simon-López [Oxford: Inter-Disciplinary Press, 2015], 42-43)

 

With that as background, Barber notes the following of this prophecy and other influences on Pratt:

 

Not all early Mormon leaders shared Smith’s reserve. As one of the first missionaries called to the Indians, Parley P. Pratt became an influential apologist and an ordained member of the governance Quorum of Twelve Apostles under Joseph Smith. In a defensive, 1838 publication that went through several printings (including an 1842 reprint), Apostle Pratt included the following in a list of prophetic Book of Mormon evidences.

 

Also, [Book of Mormon] p. 527, where all who will not hearken to the Book of Mormon, shall be cut off from among the people, . . . And not only does this page set the time for the overthrow of our government and all other Gentile Governments on the American continent, but the way and means of this utter destruction are clearly foretold, namely, the remnant of Jacob will go through among the Gentiles and tear them in pieces, like a lion among the flocks of sheep. Their hand shall be lifted up upon their adversaries, and all their enemies shall be cut off. This destruction includes an utter overthrow, and desolation of all our Cities, Forts and Strong Holds—an entire annihilation of our race, except such as an embrace the Covenant, and are numbered with Israel. [Mormonism Unveiled [183], 14]

 

Pratt was so sure of this prediction to opine that if unbelieving Gentiles ‘are not greatly scourged, and in a great measure overthrown, within five or ten years from this date, then the Book of Mormon will have proved itself false.’ [Pratt, Mormonism Unveiled, 14-15] Pratt restated the general principle with more subtlety in 1841 while editor of the Millennial Star, a British LDS periodical. A July editorial acknowledged that public notice of the Indian vengeance doctrine had spread to Britain. Pratt cited ‘a long article’ that had appeared in the Preston Chronicle of 24 April, ‘taken mostly from the Baptist Register (an American paper).’ The article had summarised Book of Mormon teachings about the sufferings and abuse heaped upon the Indians, and the prophecy that the ‘tables are to be turned’ as the Gentiles are cut off. With respect to the plight of the Indians, the article as cited by Pratt even conceded a point: ‘The reader would obtain a very correct history of the present state of the Indians by reading the book.’ As reproduced by Pratt, the Chronicle article then paraphrased Christ’s Book of Mormon prophecies that the House of Israel would tread upon unrepentant Gentiles ‘as the lion doth his pray’, and then converted Indians and Mormons would congregate in a holy city (the New Jerusalem). After this, the Chronicle article observed, the Book of Mormon anticipated the destruction of American Gentiles by the sword of an “’unfuriated [sic] fanaticism’ that would become ‘what Mohammedism was to the contingent of Asia.’ ‘These fulminations have struck terror into the hearts of the timid’, the article concluded. [P. P. Pratte, ed., ‘Reply to the Preston Chronicle,’ The Millennial Star 2 [10 July 1841]]

 

Pratt’s editorial reply recognised that the ‘enemies of truth . . . seem desperately afraid’ that Jesus will ‘take vengeance upon the Gentiles for their injustice and oppression.’ Here Pratt cited the article’s acknowledgement that Book of Mormon testimony ‘in regard to the Gentile, having wronged and oppressed the Indians[,] is correct.’ Pratt asked bot the Baptist Register and Preston Chronicle what objection they could have to Christ executing ‘justice in this matter’, since ‘they themselves acknowledge that the Book of Mormon contains a true and correct testimony of wrongs, suffering, and abuse heaped upon that remnant by the Gentiles? (Christians).’

 

However, while supporting the doctrine of violent Indian redemption in broad terms, Pratt also denied that any Mormon, Indian or otherwise, would ever draw the sword against those of differing belief, ‘however the Lord may see fit to make use of the Indians to execute his vengeance upon the ungodly, before they (the Indians) are converted.’ Pratt added: ‘it is certain that if they once become Latter-day Saints they will never use weapons of war except in defence of their lives.’ [Editor, ‘Reply to the Preston Chronicle,’ 43] This explanation helps explain the seeming paradox in 1830s-1840s Mormon doctrine of ‘visions of Lamanites violently reseizing their homeland and wreaking God’s justice upon the wicked’ with ‘expectations that Lamanites would be pacified and civilized through conversion.’ [Duffy, ‘Use of “Lamanite”,’ 125] In short, Book of Mormon prophecies of dire, Micah-like Indian vengeance on the Gentiles would have to occur before conversion. Allowing that, the provision that converted Indians might still use weapons ‘in defence’ in Pratt’s editorial is interesting. It suggests a further, perhaps post-Missouri persecution nuance in the doctrine. (Ibid., 43-44)

 

Further Reading


Resources on Joseph Smith's Prophecies