Review
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Title: Joseph Fielding Smith: A Mormon Theologian
Author: Matthew Bowman
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Genre: Academic, Religious non-fiction
Year Published: 2024
Number of Pages: 122
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-0-252-08805-6
Price: $14.95
Reviewed by Conor Hilton for the Association of Mormon Letters
Matthew Bowman’s Joseph Fielding Smith: A Mormon Theologian is a solid addition to the excellent Introductions to Mormon Thought series. Bowman helpfully frames and contextualizes Fielding Smith’s thought in his biography and lived experiences. The book takes Fielding Smith seriously as a thinker and a person, reading his work clear-eyed, striving for generosity as appropriate and critique when necessary.
Over and over, as I read the book, the term I kept coming back to is “illuminating.” Bowman highlights anecdotes, experiences, and context that shed light on who Fielding Smith was and how he came to be shaped that way, what the forces were that influenced him and his thinking, and what the nuances and wrinkles present in that thinking are. As someone who has come to use Fielding Smith as somewhat of a boogeyman, a stand-in for a certain strain of fundamentalist, intellectually unserious dogma, reading Bowman’s text challenged me to see Fielding Smith as an intellectually honest reader of scripture with some compelling values motivating some of his interpretive choices.
Bowman opens the book with an anecdote about “the terrible Christmas of 1884.” Fielding Smith is eight years old, and his father is giving the children blessings, as he prepares to flee to Hawai’i to escape the federal marshals, after him for his polygamy. It will be about a decade before Fielding Smith’s father resettles at home. This early experience of Fielding Smith frames Bowman’s reading of his thought, drawing attention to Fielding Smith’s suspicions of government and institutions, his fierce devotion to the church (wrapped up in devotion to his family and their legacy), and his view of history more broadly.
In the third chapter, Bowman writes that “To put it simply, Joseph Fielding Smith did not believe in progress” (42). He elaborates on what this means, saying that “not only did he deny the idea that human beings were the product of a long process of biological development; he denied also the idea that human cultures and civilizations were likewise the product of centuries of historical development” (42). As Bowman details the ways this informed Fielding Smith’s thought, I found myself equally compelled and repulsed by where this assumption takes Fielding Smith. This view of history and progress contextualizes much of Fielding Smith’s thought for me and also seems to derive meaningfully from his own life experiences that challenge the narrative that history is constantly progressing, moving forward, and getting better.
For readers who might share my negative assessment of some of Fielding Smith’s thought, I highly recommend Matthew Bowman’s Joseph Fielding Smith: A Mormon Theologian for the ways it will challenge the fairness of that assessment. The book is also a valuable contribution to understanding how current approaches to scripture and theology developed. Bowman’s work is deftly written, with clear, precise prose that is engaging, illuminating a figure in church history with a somewhat complicated legacy. A book well worth your time if you are interested in the development of Mormon thought.