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in my judgment those few latter day saints whom I1 knowto be conscientious objectors are not cowards or disloyal totheir country or the church on the contrary they have showngreat courage and are frequently subjected to considerablepersonal abuse the long and torturous process including thecosts of a lawyer would seem to be a test of one s convictionhowever it also implies conscientious objection status isavailable mostly to the rich educated or wellborn

if we are to understand latter day saint youths who havebecome conscientious objectors thomasson s compilation isrequired reading while at first glance this compilation ofdocuments seems rather shocking to some members of thechurch yet hopefully his efforts could be the beginning ofa more meaningful dialogedialogo within the church regarding mili-tary service and conscientious objection such dialogue willnot settle the question but it may improve understanding

RUSSEL J THOMSEN latter day saints and the sabbath moun-tain view california pacific press publishing association1971 150 ppap

reviewed by F kent nielsen instructor in the physicsdepartment at brigham young university mr nielsensnielseneNiel sensfield of research isis the history and philosophy of sciencehe is author of book of mormon studies 1959 and haspublished in the new era

russel thomsen is a young seventh day adventist doctorcurrently working at the LDS hospital in salt lake city hisbook is a zealous missionary minded effort to persuade mormons to his point of view written primarily as a tool for thatpurpose the present work was originally presented to the lomalinda university the SDA institution near san bernardino in1968 as a master s thesis in religion under the title the historyof the sabbath in mormonism printed by the seventh day ad-ventist publishing house it is an attractive paperback of 150pages plus appendix with notes for each of its nine chaptersand a bibliography it is generously illustrated

thomsenthomson s overall approach is basically polemical andhortatory and his work consequently suffers from a lack of

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objectivity and of critical evaluation by an objective standardhe fails to establish his major thesis that latter day saints havenothing more than tradition as a basis for keeping sunday asa sabbath day of rest and worship not withstanding this fail-ure there are points of interest in the work the chapter onsunday closing laws and mormonism 1 while written with

some animus againsttheagainst the LDS church does provide historicaldocumentation of an issue upon which the seventh day adven-tist have been very sensitive the section on james J strangalthough often used by thomsen as a vehicle for taking potshots at joseph smith through strang does remind us of thesaturday sabbath practices of that interesting mormon offshootone can however hardly credit thomsenthomson s incredible assess-ment that except for the prophet joseph strang possibly bearsno equal in the history of the mormon movement

easily the most worthwhile contribution of thomsenthomson s

book are the chapters dealing with samuel walter gamblegambie s

anti sabbatarian arguments and their uses by latter day saintauthors gamble s contentions showed a fertile imaginationcoupled with an ignorance of history the jewish calendar andgreek usage and have been discredited and rejected byresponsible scholarship an unwitting wholesale acceptance ofgamble s arguments by some LDS authors has certainly invitedwith justification thomsenthomson s rejoinder that latter day saintsappear to be an audience with a need for more ammunitionp 77.77

but when it comes to the presentation of his own casethomsen involves himself in an equally specious argumenta-tion seventh day adventists have long argued that earlychristian gentile and jew alike worshippedworshipped on the jewishsaturday sabbath until that day was deliberately and wickedlychanged to sunday in constantine s time because of the pagansun worship of the romans that absurdity is faithfully re-produced by thomsen who reports that constantine was a sunworshipperworshipper p 125 and that the use of sunday by christiansas a day of worship has been customary only since the fifth orfourth century p 19 again adhering scrupulously to thetraditional teachings of his church thomsen equates the ex-pression the lord s day with the jewish sabbath whereverit occurs in the early christian documents and even in latterday saint scriptures p 19 such convenient rewriting of

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history and historical usage is totally inexcusable at a timewhen scholarship has made available contemporary documentsfrom the earliest christian period as a few representative cita-tions will indicate

the master commanded us to celebrate service at fixedtimes and hours on the lords day of the lord we cometogether break bread and hold eucharist we celebratewith gladness the eighth day in which jesus also rose from thedead no longer living for the sabbath but for the lordsday on which also our life sprang up through him and hisdeath it is monstrous to talk of jesus christ and to prac-tice judaism sunday is the day on which we all holdour common assembly and jesus christ our savior on thesame day rose from the dead for he was crucified on the daybefore that of saturn and on the day after that of saturnwhich is the day of the sun having appeared to his apostlesand disciples he taught them these things see I1 clementxl1XL 121 2 didache xiv1XIVxiva 1 3 barnabas xv4XVxvi 494 9 ignatius to themagnesiansMagne sians VIIIXVIII X justin martyrs first apology LSVIIsuch documentary sources from thediedle first christian century andfrom men who know the apostles themselves make crystalclear the actual beliefs and practices of early gentile christiansconcerning sunday the lord s day and their practice of sacra-mental worship upon that day in commemoration of the lord s

resurrection there is no need for special interpretation tounderstand what john meant when he wrote to such peopleabout being in the spirit on the lords day rev 110nor to understand paul s charge to his gentile converts whowere being troubled by the judaisers of their time

christ blotted out the handwriting of ordinances that wereagainst us and took it out of the way nailing it to hiscross let no man therefore judge you in mean or indrink or in respect of an holy day or of the new moon orof the sabbath days col 214 16 cf II11 cor 36113611.36 11

thomsenthomson is inconsistent in his position with respect to theearly christian practice of sunday observance since when herefers to the testimony of the christian fathers he accepts itas showing such a practice in the first and second centuriesnotwithstanding the constantine theory I1 arguing that such

practice may have been one of the early apostasiesapostasies p 110

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thomsen makes an ambitious attempt to refute LDS ob-servance of the lord s day sunday from LDS scripturesthemselves he shows that from its beginnings the LDS churchobserved sunday as a day of rest and worship a sabbathappp 101710 17 and passim withanwith an apparent unanimity of be-lief and practice p 17 he further shows that such beliefand practice was not based on unchallenged acceptance of theprevailing christian practice but that important leaders likebrigham young appp 202720 27 626462 64 and wilford woodruffclearly understood the distinction between thedie seventh daysabbath of the jews and the first day sabbath of the chris-tians and also understood the sabbatariansSabbatarians arguments thatchristians should be keeping the jewish sabbath orson prattused the existence of such arguments as one of the reasonswhy new revelation was necessary and wilford woodruff hadbeen himself a saturday sabbath keeper before he joined theLDS church

in his presentation of the position of these men thomsenisis guilty either of incredible naivete or else of deliberate mis-representation he contrives a context wherein the early lead-ers continued to hold seriousserious questions and doubts about thesabbath issue an issue which was clouded because of theturbulence surrounding the birth of mormonism and never

resolved being engulfed in the furor of the times appp 2219 55 and finally dismissed as unimportant p 63such a picture is totally inaccurate woodruff s acceptance ofthe church was decisive for him upon the very issue of sab-bath keeping he used it as an example of one of the falsetraditions he had laid aside when he accepted the truth 1 Iknew that the latter day saints had the true church ofchrist and if I1 had a hundred traditions I1 would have laidthem all aside p 20 orson pratt was not listing sub-jects which he felt required additional light for himself orfor the latter day saints as thomsenthomson s context plainly impliesbut was rather arguing that the rest of the christian worldabsolutely needed new revelation from god concerning pointsupon which they could not agree such as the sabbath question

revelation which the latter day saints had received andwhich settled those questions for pratt it is not modern dayrevelation but the new testament without such revelationwhich is an insufficient guide appp 212221 22 both pratt and

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woodruff agree that the sabbath issue far from being anissue overlooked in the furor of the times is an issue whichhad been definitely settled by modern revelation

thomsen completely misrepresents the LDS position onmodern revelation by treating it as a last resort p 17instead of the primary and sufficient basis for practice as itis treated by all LDS writers and while he quotes the perti-nent part of dacd&c 59 as the basis for LDS sunday observanceeven mentioning that the revelation was given on sunday p18 he somehow manages totally to ignore the significance ofthe phrase on this the lord s day verse 12 to a peoplewho had from their beginning observed sunday the lord s

day as a day of worship and who were engaged in such ob-servance at the very time they received the revelation whatelse could the identification of this the lords day as theholy day upon which they were to rest worship attend churchand offer up their sacraments mean but the lord s acceptanceof that practice and his enjoinment of its continuance

that core position urged by every LDS writer upon thesubject is not answered by thomsen or even acknowledgedit is totally ignored thomsen contends instead that therevelation was only exhortatory challenging the people tofollow the ten commandments and similar gospel principlesp 18 to support his contention thomsen urges only his

misuse of the term the lordlords s day his naive claim of josephsmiths ignorance of the time of the biblical jewish sabbathand his assertion that nowhere can it be found thatjoseph smith questioned the validity of the ten command-ments built upon this tottering foundation his argumentproceeds to take strength unto itself by the mere process ofrepetition until he arrives at the wholly unsubstantiated con-clusion that sunday observance in the mormon church as inthe roman catholic church lies in tradition alone

thomsenthomson s book will likely be of interest to only twogroups of people seventh day adventists and latter daysaints many seventh day adventists will no doubt find itsatisfying and gratifying since they already share its author s

preconceptions and will seldom have the background to notewhere he is falsifying the latter day saint position somelatter day saints may be sufficiently stirred up to learn abouttheir own doctrine and its sources and to stop using bad argu

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ments for presenting a good case if so the book will servea useful purpose for them also

GUSTIVE 0 LARSON the ameiamelamericanization7nanizationcanizationcaniza rioution of utah jorforfoijoistatehood san marino california the huntington library1971 328 ppap 7507.50750

reviewed by dr T edgar lyon associate institute directorat the LDS institute of religion adjacent to the universityof utah and research historian for nauvoo restoration incdr lyon is presently a member of the editorial board ofBYU studies

this book should be in every university college and pub-lic service library where inquiries are made concerning theecclesiastical and religious aspects of mormonism and theirrelationship to utah s struggle for statehood the americani-zationization of utah is an all inclusive phrase which professorlarson has applied to the process by which a small minorityof the inhabitants of utah territory in the last four decadesof the nineteenth century almost all of whom were not onlynon mormonscormons but also not natives of the territory attemptedto secure political control by disfranchisingfranchisingdis the mormon ma-jority after the americanization program had failedfrederick T dubois a former territorial attorney general ofidaho during the period referring to the efforts of federalofficials to build a political structure on an anti mormon biasmade the following confession in his autobiography

those of us who understood the situation were not nearlyas much opposed to polygamy as we were to the politicaldomination of the church we realized however that wecould not make those who did not come actually in contactwith it understand what this political domination meantwe made use of polygamy inin consequence as our great weap-on of offense and to gain recruits to our standard therewas a universal detestation of polygamy and inasmuch asthe mormonscormons openly defended it we were given a very effec-tive weapon with which to attack

it is to this discussion that the book under review is concernedin the estimation of this reviewer no writer isis better

qualified than gus larson to have undertaken an exhaustive