B. H. Roberts

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Brigham Henry Roberts

Brigham Henry Roberts (March 13, 1857 — September 27, 1933) was a leader, historian, and "defender of the faith" of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Although he was elected as a representative to the U.S. Congress, he was denied a seat due to his illegal practice of plural marriage. He was also a prolific writer and editor and published a comprehensive history of the church.

Roberts was born in Warrington, a manufacturing town of Lancashire, England. At birth his name was Henry Roberts. Brigham was added to his name a few years later after his mother was baptized in the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He emigrated to Davis County, Utah with the assistance of the Perpetual Emigrating Fund in 1866 and was baptized the following year into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He was ordained a Seventy March 8, 1877. He spent some time as a miner in the Tintic mining area.

Roberts served a mission in Iowa, much of the time without a companion. He latter served as assistant president of the Southern States mission, where he was involved in removing the bodies of the missionaries slain in the Cane Creek Massacre.

He practiced plural marriage, marrying Sarah Louisa Smith in 1878, Celia Dibble in 1884, and Margaret Ship in 1894. In 1889 he served six months in Utah territorial prison for "unlawful cohabitation".

Church service

Roberts served three proselytizing missions: Iowa, Nebraska and southern states from 1880 to 1882; as assistant president of the southern states mission from 1883 to 1886; and Britain from 1886 to 1888. Elder J. Golden Kimball was in the mission office in Chattanooga, Tennessee when word came that three elders had been killed by a mob while conducting a service on Sunday, August 10, 1884. According to Kimball, Roberts decided to retrieve the bodies of the missionaries to return them to their families in Utah. Given the dangerous situation, Elder Kimball tried to get President Roberts to let him make the journey. But Roberts insisted on going, disguising himself as a farm laborer. With local assistance, he went to the site and recovered the bodies. The party took a wrong road on the way back to the railroad station. Roberts later stated that the error may have saved his life, as a mob was waiting for him on the correct road.

Kimball later said about Roberts:

Brother Roberts has been my mentor; he has been my teacher; he has been my chronicler. I was relieved of reading the great histories; I didn't have to read a whole library searching for information. What did I have to do? When anything troubled me about the history of the Church or scripture, I went to Brother Roberts. He had the most wonderful mind and memory of any human being I have ever known, right up to the very last.

Roberts was ordained to the First Council of Seventy on October 1888. He served as LDS Church Historian from 1901 until his death in 1933.

He also served for many years as a leader of the YMMIA.

Political Service

Roberts was politically active and served as a Democratic representative in the Utah territorial legislature and the 1895 Utah State Constitutional Convention. During the convention, he took an active role in the debate over the inclusion of woman's suffrage in the Utah State Constitution. In contrast to the vast majority of Latter-day Saint leaders of the day, he strongly opposed woman's suffrage in a number of well received speeches. However, woman's suffrage was strongly supported by both parties and was eventually included in the state constitution. Statehood was officially granted on January 4, 1896.

Roberts was elected as a representative on the Democratic Party ticket to the 56th Congress, but the House of Representatives prohibited him from taking the seat to which he had been elected on the grounds of his practice of polygamy (William H. King, the Senator who preceded him won the election to succeed him). A special election was held to fill his seat. He later testified in the Smoot Hearings when Republican Reed Smoot was being attacked in a similar manner (although Smoot was never a polygamist, and his case therefore different).

In addition to his attempted service in the Congress, Roberts was also a member of the Utah National Guard when it was pressed into service in World War I in 1917. In his national guard capacity, Roberts became the first LDS chaplain in the U.S. Armed Forces. He was one of the oldest, if not the oldest, chaplain to serve in World War I, being 80 years of age at the time of his service. The war ended however before his unit saw any combat.

Career as a writer

Roberts was a prolific writer and author of some notable historical, biographical and theological works. He wrote A Comprehensive History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints which was printed as a series in Americana (a monthly periodical published by the "American Historical Society" of New York) from June 1909 to July 1915 and updated to 1930 when it was published.

Ironically, while he was indeed a defender of the faith and expressed a strong testimony of The Book of Mormon (a foundational work of Mormonism) throughout his life, he also authored a manuscript entitled Studies of the Book of Mormon, which critically examined the book’s claims and origins. In the manuscript he examines some of the claims of The Book of Mormon regarding the native inhabitants of the Western Hemisphere, compares the content of the book with an earlier book entitled View of the Hebrews (finding much in common between the two books), and comments on the possibility that Joseph Smith could have been the author of The Book of Mormon without divine assistance. Whether the manuscript reflects his true doubts or was a case of Roberts playing the devil's advocate is a subject of much debate among Mormon historians and scholars. Significantly, upon presenting Studies of the Book of Mormon to Church leaders, he emphasized that "I am taking the position that our faith is not only unshaken but unshakable in the Book of Mormon, and therefore we can look without fear upon all that can be said against it" (see B.H Roberts' Purpose in Performing the Study)

Roberts asserted that the authenticity of the Restoration must “stand or fall” on the truth of Joseph Smith’s claim that the Book of Mormon was the history of an ancient people inscribed on a cache of gold plates. Roberts predicted that if church leaders did not address the historical problems of church origins and possible anachronisms in the Book of Mormon, the problems would eventually undermine “the faith of the Youth of the Church.” Roberts continued to affirm his faith in the divine origins of the Book of Mormon until his death in 1933, but as Terryl Givens has written, "a lively debate has emerged over whether his personal conviction really remained intact in the aftermath of his academic investigations."

Roberts has been celebrated by Latter-day Saints as "defender of the faith" for his apologetic writings of Mormonism. This title has been widely used for only one other Mormon to date: Hugh Nibley.

References

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Madsen, Truman G. "Defender of the Faith: The B. H. Roberts Story". (Salt Lake CIty: Bookcraft, 1980.)

External links

• Grampa Bill's General Authority Pages
• Military Service