They ways in which Latter-day Saints observe the Sabbath and hold meetings have changed from time to time. Among the early Latter-day Saints, under Joseph Smith‘s leadership, flexibility was the norm. For example, pioneer church members attended worship services, used bread and water (instead of wine) for the sacrament, and visited the sick. In this interview, Richard E. Bennett discusses early observance of the Sabbath among members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
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Read more about Sabbath observance in Sacred Time: The Sabbath as a Perpetual Covenant.
How did you come to be involved in writing a chapter in Sacred Time?
I was serving as Chair of the Dept. of Church History and Doctrine at BYU at the time, under the direction of Brent L. Top, Dean of Religious Education. Brent received an invitation from the Church to have several of our faculty come and make a presentation to the General Authorities on the topic of the Sabbath Day from a variety of interests. These included the Sabbath day in the Old Testament and New Testament, the Book of Mormon, in the Doctrine and Covenants and Church History (my assignment), etc.
I can’t prove it but my guess is that Elder Russell M. Ballard, who spoke much about Sabbath Day observance, was part of the inspiration for our particular presentation. Although the First Presidency did not attend, six of the Twelve and several of the Seventy were in attendance, including Elder Ballard who directed it and had several post-presentation questions.
How did the Second Great Awakening affect the approach of early church members?
Scholars generally agree that the Second Great Awakening was quite effective in rekindling a Sabbath Day commitment among many lapsed Christians of the late 18th and early 19th centuries in America. Joseph Smith’s mother and several of his siblings were converted to Presbyterianism and certainly attended Church in Palmyra. Although the father, Joseph Sr., kept aloof from denominational church attendance, we know that the family read the Bible together, as did many of their co-religionists of the time and place.
It was the expectation to attend church services and it is only reasonable that Joseph Smith would have continued in that tradition from a familial standpoint.
It is interesting to speculate on his church attendance after the First Vision and especially after the visit of Moroni. We have no record of his attending Church but we know that his mother and siblings did not stop attending and likely Joseph did not either.
But surely he would have listened with a more jaundiced ear. He does say that he continued to assert his testimony of the visions and was persecuted for it. It would be reasonable to conclude that he made such assertions in a church or Sunday School setting.
Why were early Latter-day Saints flexible on which days they partook or the sacrament?
It was not always easy to get together on Sundays, especially when there were so few members of the Church, relatively speaking, and often lived far apart from one another. There were no established meeting houses and no set regimen of church meeting expectations.
More importantly, there was an essential pragmatism and flexibility in the early church sentiment that set it apart from formal orthodoxy. It was a new religion finding its way and was well aware that modern revelation through a young, vibrant prophet leader allowed for flexibility—as per example being, the revelation on bread and water, not wine, for the sacrament. Revelation, not tradition.
Yet another reason was the missionary thrust. Missionaries were often itinerant in their approach and would want to have sacrament with new members on or soon after their baptism, and could not always wait for Sundays when they would be gone. Sacrament was seen as essential but the day was more flexible.
What types of activities did early Church members view as appropriate for the Sabbath?
Early Latter-day Saints engaged in many activities on the Sabbath, including:
- Church attendance
- Choir singing and practicing
- Visiting and healing the sick
- Exercising gifts of the spirit, including speaking in tongues
- Baptisms and confirmations
- Ordinations
- Serving others, even if it meant pre-empting church attendance
- Missionary service
Attending services of other churches happened but was not a common thing since the tenets of the Restoration strongly taught of apostasy and separateness.
In what types of spaces did the early Latter-day Saints meet?
No chapels existed for several years in the early church; in fact, we had a temple (Kirtland) before chapels. In many ways, the Kirtland Temple was our first chapel—or almost such.
Meetings were held in home living rooms, barns, livery stables, school houses (very common), outdoor groves—wherever spacious and convenient and that offered a semblance of privacy.
Do we have good records of what hymns early Latter-day Saints sang? What were their favorites?
It is very difficult to piece together a suitable answer to this question, at least for the first five or six years of the history of the Church. However, the journals certainly indicate that singing was a staple in most of their meetings. The most common songs of this very early period were Protestant in derivation and included “Glorious Things of Thee are Spoken” (1831), “Go On Ye Pilgrims” (1831), and beginning in 1834 “How Firm a Foundation.”
The first hymn book of the Church, compiled by Emma Smith and Williams W. Phelps, did not appear until 1836. Beginning at that time, we know that their favorite hymns fast became “Adam-ondi-Ahman” and “The Spirit of God Like a Fire is Burning,” the latter composed for the dedication of the Kirtland Temple in 1836.
As a general rule, the Saints favored hymns that emphasized conversion, gathering to Zion, and spiritual gifts.
The hymn “Come, Come Ye Saints” written by the British Saint William Clayton in 1846, seemed to usher in a new era of choral singing. Indeed, the Mormon pioneers were especially known for their choral singing while crossing the plains.
How did people handle sermons that were three hours long?
While it is true that Sidney Rigdon sermonized for some three hours during the dedication of the Kirtland Temple, speaking that long was an exception. Most speakers in the 1830–35 period spoke for 1.5 hours, occasionally 2 hours max. Many of their meetings lasted all morning or all afternoon, usually for 3 hours, but they usually featured two, often three, speakers.
Meetings were often punctuated by singing, stirring testimonies of such aspects of the Restoration as the Book of Mormon, the Three and Eight Witnesses, the First Principles of the Gospel, the need to gather, personal conversion, etc.
Meetings also broke off for baptisms and confirmations, manifestations of the Spirit such as speaking in tongues and hearing the interpretation thereof, etc.
Many speakers were untrained itinerants but who could often speak with breath-taking interest and incredible urgency. Audiences then were more capable of sitting for long periods of time, unacquainted with today’s impatient listeners who go from sound-bite to sound-bite and who are accustomed to half hour and hour TV programming increments.
Lacking in Latter-day Saint meetings generally were the kinds of thundering jeremiads revivalist preachers were especially known for.
What role did charismatic spiritual gifts play in Church gatherings?
There is no question that such spiritual gifts as healings, speaking in tongues along with the interpretation thereof were very common in early Latter-day Saint meetings. They were not a requirement but were certainly welcomed. Brigham Young speaks of such as early as his conversion in 1832. Such were very much manifested in the dedication of both the Kirtland Temple and the Nauvoo Temple.
However, Joseph Smith‘s revelations in March 1831 (Section 46) and again in May of that same year (Section 50) about the cautious use of spiritual gifts tempered enthusiasm for public displays of spiritual manifestations.
William E. McLellin, as early as August 1831, caught the spiritual, often uplifting and inspiring tenor of a Latter-day Saint meeting as well as anyone when he wrote the following of one of his first experiences in attending a Mormon Sabbath day meeting:
The meeting was dismissed and we assembled again at a schoolhouse, near, that evening and held a prayer meeting, where I was much disappointed, instead of shouting, screaming, jumping or shaking of hands in confusion. Peace, order, harmony and the spirit of God seemed to cheer every heart, warm every bosom and animate every Tongue. I really felt happy that I had seen the day that I could meet with such a people and worship God in the beauty of Holiness. For I saw more beauty in Christianity now than I ever had seen before.
The Journals of William E. McLellin, 1831-1836, Eds. Jan Shipp and John W. Welch (BYU Studies and University of Illinois Press, 1994), p.34, entry for 21 August 1831
Latter-day Saint meetings often included baptisms, confirmation, and the Sacrament and seemed more inclined to quiet, meditative thought than loud and excessive ramblings and exhortations.
What indications are there of a gradual shift towards more formality in worship services during the Kirtland era?
There was no strong shift to a more rigid formality in early Mormon meetings, certainly not while Joseph Smith was alive. The emphasis was on spiritual spontaneity, not even on set times to meet right through to the Nauvoo period.
Temple dedications were more rigid and formal, for the very reason that not everyone could be admitted into any one session.
With the organization of smaller wards, with a pastoral-like bishop in Winter Quarters in 1847/48, there did develop more local meetings, set times to worship, more defined organizations, etc.
But not before that time.
What do you hope people take away from reading your chapter in Sacred Time?
The essence of early Latter-day worship was to meet the needs of the Saints and not to fulfill some preconception on how to worship. Flexibility and adaptation ruled.
The Sabbath Day was honored but there was no rigid expectation of behavior, though a call to greater righteousness and holiness was the aim. There was a profound thirst to feel and share the Spirit of the Lord, to learn the First Principles of the Gospel, to build upon their conversion experience, to understand the Book of Mormon, and to wait with eager expectation in the spirit of gathering to Zion for the imminent Second Coming of Christ.
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About the interview participant
Richard E. Bennett was born and raised in Ontario, Canada. From 1978 to 1997, he was the head of Special Collections at the University of Manitoba. Richard Bennett received his PhD in US intellectual history from Wayne State University. He teaches Church history and Doctrine and Covenants at Brigham Young University.
Further Reading
- How Did Early Christians Observe the Sabbath?
- What Did Moroni Teach About the Sacrament?
- What Sacrifice Did Latter-day Saints Make to Build Temples?
- Why Were So Many Latter-day Saints Rebaptized?
- What Happened at Winter Quarters?
Resources
- “Sabbath and Sunday in Ancient Christianity: Second through Sixth Centuries” in Sacred Time: The Sabbath as a Perpetual Covenant (BYU RSC)
- The Changing Forms of the Latter-day Saint Sacrament (Interpreter)
- Adam-ondi-Ahman: Elizabeth Ann Whitney (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints)
- Mormon Sundays (Ensign)
