Mormonism's “Gathering”: an American Doctrine with a Difference

Abstract

America in 1830 could have taken Joseph Smith's Book of Mormon as portent and symbol. Itself the narrative of an ancient religious migration, the book begot a greater wandering, an epic in-gathering of believers from Europe and the States seeking New Jerusalem on the American frontier. Every Mormon proselyte knew by heart and in his own tongue the words of Father Lehi, refugee from Babylon, American immigrant circa 600 B. C.: “We have obtained a land of promise, a land which is choice above all other lands…Yea, the Lord hath covenanted this land unto me, and to my children forever, and also all those who should be led out of other countries by the hand of the Lord.” That was the book's portent, big with history and promise. America, it said, had always been promises.