Commenting on Brigham’s teachings on Adam-God, T.B.H. Stenhouse, a former LDS and critic of the Church of the time, admitted that the mass of Latter-day Saints did not hold to the doctrine:
The grandeur of the universe, and the infinity of its wonderful and glorious organizations, that have filled the noblest minds with veneration and awe, never disturbed the soul of Brigham Young. The arrogance of unchallenged authority grows rapidly upon its flattered possessor, and easily carries him from the level of human beings. How near must Brigham Young have imaged himself to deification when he announced that Adam was God! And what a humiliating spectacle has the Mormon Church presented to the world, in resting quietly and submissively for nearly twenty years under such threats of damnation! while, to the credit of the Saints, be it said, they have as a people refused to abandon their faith in "the God of their fathers." The mass of the Mormon people do not believe the doctrine of the Adam deity, but of them all, one only, Orson Pratt, has dared to make a public protest against that doctrine.
No community of people in Christendom, no church organization upon the earth, could have listened to the dogmatic enunciation of a new god for the people's worship, without remonstrance. In Utah some pricked up their ears, but the masses were unmoved. (T.B.H. Stenhouse, The Rocky Mountain Saints [New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1873], 492)
Further Reading
Matthew B. Brown, Brigham Young's Teachings on Adam
