Mob Violence Against (and by?) Mormons in Missouri - John Turner pt. 14 | Ep. 2059

Mormon Stories Podcast

Dr. John Dehlin

Religion & Spirituality

4.6 • 5.2K Ratings

🗓️ 5 September 2025

⏱️ 145 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We are here today with part fourteen of our Joseph Smith: The Podcast series with Dr. John Turner. Today we are continuing on with chapter thirteen of his new book “Joseph Smith: The Rise and Fall of an American Prophet.” The chapter is titled “Zion is Fled” and covers the years 1883-1834 in Missouri. In this episode we explore one of the most turbulent periods in early Mormon history. We dive into the Missouri conflict of the 1830s, the Saints’ rising tensions with their neighbors, and the violent clashes that shaped both Mormon identity and leadership.

We also discuss:

-The growing resentment of Non-Mormons

-The destruction of a Mormon printing press by mob violence

-Slavery in Missouri and how that related to the Saints

-Doctor Philastus Hurlbut affidavits

-The Solomon Spaulding Manuscript

-The 1833 Meteor shower

-How persecution shaped and influenced the Saints’ identity

This conversation wrestles with big questions: Why did violence erupt? How did Joseph Smith and the Saints respond to failed prophecies? And what do these early struggles reveal about faith, leadership, and survival in a hostile America?

Please purchase the book ⁠here⁠.

To support this series please donate ⁠here⁠. One half of all donations will go to Dr. Turner for as long as he is participating in the series.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Mormon Stories podcast, Joseph Smith Podcast edition.
0:05.5	I'm your host, John DeLinn. It is Friday, August 29th, 2025.
0:10.9	And we are now in episode 14 of our Joseph Smith podcast series, where we are covering in-depth this amazing book that you should all buy,
0:21.2	Joseph Smith, The Rise and Fall of an American Prophet by John G. Turner.
0:25.7	We are grateful to all of our donors, to Mormon Stories podcast,
0:29.3	and to the Joseph Smith podcast specifically as well that make all this possible.
0:35.8	Again, we've done 13 episodes so far. Last week, we got up to
0:41.4	kind of talking about the School of the Prophets in Curtland. And this week, we're going to be
0:47.7	talking about the Latter-day Saints in Missouri, what led to the extermination order, what led to the Mormons getting
0:56.4	eventually kicked out of Missouri, what led to them having to flee Zion or Independence,
1:02.4	Missouri? How did Joseph Smith initially respond to the adversity in Missouri? We're going to be
1:09.2	talking about all that today. Was it, was Joseph
1:11.6	just an irresponsible false prophet hubris guy that caused all this reckless, caused all this
1:19.3	adversity through reckless, irresponsible false prophecies? Or were the citizens of Missouri
1:25.3	totally just barbaric, frontier justice, vigilante, evil people?
1:31.0	Or was there something in the middle?
1:33.6	Which is pretty much always where Dr. John Turner and probably most sound minds come about.
1:40.0	Again, we're going to be talking about the Solomon Spalding manuscript.
1:43.0	How much credibility is there to that theory about the origins of the Book of Mormon.
1:48.1	We're going to be talking about as well, the hurlbit affidavits.
1:53.0	And we're going to be answering the question, as horrible as it got in Missouri, what in the world would lead Joseph Smith to say that it's almost as bad in
2:01.3	Kirtland as it is in Missouri?
	...

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