D. Michael Quinn

D. Michael Quinn (born in 1944) is an American historian specialist in the Mormonisme. He is the author of several books which are regarded as major reference books on the history of the movement. He is particularly interested in the evolution in the hierarchy of the Mormonisme and in the influence of the occult beliefs of the 19th century on Joseph Smith.

Biography

D. Michael Quinn obtained a doctorate in history (Ph.D.) with the Université Yale. Of 1976 with 1988, he was professor with the Brigham Young University, where it more particularly was interested in the question of the plural marriage. Because of its work of historical research on discussed aspects of the Mormonisme, it was excommunicated Église of Jesus-Christ of the Saints of the Last Days in September 1993 at the same time as five other intellectuals and feminist members of the movement (the event had a media repercussion and was known under the name of September Six ). In spite of this excommunication, it continues to have a certain regard of the Mormonisme even if it rejects certain aspects and doctrines of them.

D. Michael Quinn wrote several books on the history of the Mormonisme which are regarded as reference books by many historians. It is abundantly quoted in all the research tasks on the Mormonisme. Its most known books are: Early Mormonism and the Magic World View and Mormon The Hierarchy (in two volumes: Origins off Power and Extensions off Power ). Each one of them caused a sharp controversy within the Mormonisme because they called into question “the official story” of the movement.

Works

Mormon The Hierarchy

Two volumes of The Mormon Hierarchy treat history of the organization of the Church since its foundation until the modern time. The works approach the relations of being able between the leaders and councils of the Church, their evolutions and their reactions vis-a-vis the challenges come from outside and vis-a-vis the internal dissensions.

Mormon The Hierarchy - Origins off Power

The work treats mainly material changes in the hierarchy of the Church under Joseph Smith and of the evolution of the concept of theocracy. It also treats crisis of succession to died of the founder and many Mouvements resulting from the mormonism which resulted from it.

The historian Klaus J. Hansen greets the work of Quinn taking into consideration complexity “incredible of the institutional history of the mormonism which requires not only one solved and determined research sources” but also the fact “of binding them in a coherent and understandable whole”. The historian Melvin T. Smith regards the book of Quinn “important” and as “the only serious attempt on behalf of historians to examine this aspect of the Mormon history attentively”.

Mormon The Hierarchy - Extensions off Power

The work is interested more particularly in the period since the advent of Brigham Young with the head of the Church until our days. It treats aspects violent one of the Mormonisme during the 19th century (Danites, massacre of Mountain Meadows, atonement by blood…). Then, it stresses the progressive bureaucratization of the Church during the 20th century and its interventions in the political arena (anticommunism, in favor of racial discrimination, against Equal Rights Amendment, the rights of the Homosexuels).

The historian Mario S. De Pillis regards the two works of Quinn as his “major work” and that they constitute a “essential work of reference on the history, the organization and the techniques of the government of the Église of Jesus-Christ of the Saints of the Last Days and on the personalities of its leaders”. For David S. Azzolina, “documentation is so complete and so undeniable that little will be able to question its arguments”.

The work approaches many controversies within the Mormonisme and the Mormon apologists reject it completely. For Duane Boyce, collaborator of FARMS, the book “cannot be read with innocence or certainty” and are “a treason of the confidence of the reader”.

Early Mormonism and the Magic World View

Early Mormonism and the Magic World View treats possible influence of the occultism on the life and the work of Joseph Smith during the first years of the Mormonisme. According to the historian, the visions of Joseph Smith and the Livre of Mormon are notably influenced by occult and magic beliefs popular in the 19th century in England News. It points inter alia the use of stones of vision ( SEER stone ) in research of hidden treasures and during the translation of the Livre of Mormon.

Several historians regard the book as an important contribution as for the comprehension of the first years of the Mormonisme. Thus, for Klaus J. Hansen. The historian John L. Brooke made of the thesis of Quinn its starting point in its study of the birth of Mormon cosmology.

The work is however criticized by certain Mormon historians, like by the Mormon apologists, who question several of the parallels advanced by Quinn and point the use of certain doubtful sources, like the testimonys collected by Howe and Hulburt. Thus the Mormon historian William J. Hamblin, collaborator of FARMS.

Same-Sex Dynamics among Nineteenth-Century Americans: mormon Example has

The work deals with the policy of the Église of Jesus-Christ of the Saints of the Last Days concerning the Homosexualité since its foundation until our days. Since 1959, the Church condemns the homosexual relations severely and intervenes in the political arena in order to slow down the recognition of the rights of the homosexual ones. Before this date, the Church was hardly worried question. Quinn affirms that at that time (particularly at the 19th century), the homosexual relations existed between certain members of the Church and were tolerated to a certain extent, because of the disinterest of the hierarchy. Although the book is recognized like a thorough study of the perception of homosexuality within the Church, this last thesis causes the controversy among the specialists in the Mormonisme of which several consider that the absence of formal judgment of the Homosexualité did not mean that it for as much was accepted better than today within the movement.

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