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Book Reviews
Wayward Saints: The Godbeites and Brigham Young. By RONALD W. WALKER. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998. xxiv + 399 p p . Cloth, $49.95; paper, $25.00.) Called "The New Movement" or the G o d b e i t e Revolt w h e n it o c c u r r e d in the fall of 1869, it has been largely forgotten by many Mormons. While it was a s t r o n g expression of d i s a g r e e m e n t with Brigham Young's a u t h o r i t a r i a n leadership by British intellectuals such as William S. G o d b e a n d E. L. T. H a r r i s o n , it was by n o m e a n s halfbaked. T h e rebellion was over quickly, b u t in the process a press was established, articles were written, a rival church was established, and a lecture hall was built. In the end, i m p o r t a n t questions were raised a b o u t the issue of religious authority. Ronald Walker, professor of history a n d senior research historian at Brigham Young University, has written scores of perceptive, thought-provoking articles a b o u t various phases of M o r m o n history. W i t h o u t q u e s t i o n , this is his best work to d a t e , an eloq u e n t and perceptive treatment of the intellectual history of the early Latterday Saints. It is clearly m a r k e d by the author's gift for the written word. Each sentence is so carefully crafted as to be both dramatic and moving. In the best tradition of the historian's craft, Walker literally makes the past come alive. Instead of focusing angrily o n dissenters as divisive heretics, as some M o r m o n historians have done, Walker treats the Godbeites as talented people
of ideas, deserving of the term intellectual. He believes dissent helps to define t h e personality of a religious movem e n t a n d t h a t the G o d b e i t e s served t h a t role admirably in t h e history of Mormonism. Moreover, Walker has shed important light on the usually forgotten spiritualist movement of early Utah. In an unusually effective way to engage the reader, h e begins t h e b o o k with t h e arraignment of several Godbeite leaders before the Salt Lake School of the Prophets in October 1869. T h e offense was an article in Godbe's Utah Magazine suggesting that M o r m o n r e a d e r s avoid "blind obedie n c e " a n d that they test any religious t e a c h i n g by "the light of t h e i r own souls." Religious obedience in Brigham Young's U t a h was, as Walker says, "a highly prized and almost unchallenged virtue in Zion—at least to members of the M o r m o n leadership." An angry Brigham Young addressed the School of t h e P r o p h e t s a n d expressed dismay at "a great and secret rebellion that would shake the entire c h u r c h . " H e singled o u t G o d b e , Harrison, Thomas Stenhouse, Edward Tullidge, and several others for having generated a crisis of authority. T h e issue for G o d b e was w h e t h e r Brigham Young as LDS president h a d the right to dictate "in all things temp o r a l a n d spiritual." T h e G o d b e i t e s
