16-06-2025
‘Joseph Smith' is a clear-eyed biography of the Mormon founder
Perhaps a true-to-life biography of Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon Church, can never be written. Smith's claims to accessing the divine were too outlandish, his embrace of polygamy too priapic, his messianic political ambitions too obviously insane. (In addition to running for president in 1844, he formed a council to establish world governance after the Second Coming of Christ.) If he were a musician, Smith would be Jerry Lee Lewis, not Tennessee Ernie Ford. He was just too rock and roll.
