When you want to look smart in Sunday school, if you want your friends to think you're cool,

when you want to seem wise and not a fool, it's Christy's Corner.

Hi, welcome to a special episode of the Standard of Truth podcast. Today we thought we would talk

a little bit about the martyrdom of Joseph Smith as we are approaching the 177th

anniversary of his murder. There are a lot of things we could cover with this, but we will cover

at least some of them as we go through and hopefully give all of our listeners a better understanding

of some of the events that led to that awful tragedy and of course one of the most important aspects of

church history. I think probably if you had to find a place to start, I mean, you could start

pretty far back if you're trying to find a start to the persecution of Joseph Smith. I mean,

as he explains from the moment he tells anyone about the first

vision, he's already has a problem with other people. But shortly after the Latter-day Saints

are driven out of Missouri, you have them living as refugees in Illinois, the good people of Quincy take them in, and they make the

determination to purchase land further up the river in Commerce, Illinois and outside of it, which is

later to be renamed Navu.

Now, they are able to organize their city in such a way that they get an immense amount

of power. And that's actually a little bit by design. Illinois at the time is controlled by the

Democratic Party. Now, there are two parties in America at the time, two major parties. The Democratic

Party, which will sound very similar to

the party that exists today, and also the Whig Party. Probably the worst name party in American

history, right? The Hair Club for Men Party. The Whig Party, it takes its name, really,

from their opposition to President Andrew Jackson.

They said he was acting like a king and the Whig party in England was the party that was

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