Without Disclosing My True Identity
themselves to the local people by being “harmless as lambs” and examples of those
characteristics that their neighbors would have found worthy to embrace.
Vying for Authority to Reveal the “Word of God”
Rigdon’s and Partridge’s disputations got so intense that Joseph had to do
something. By August of 1831 he had assigned Edward Partridge to the “Land of Zion“^60 in
Jackson County, Missouri and kept Rigdon by his side, allowing both Rigdon and Oliver
Cowdery to write “revelations” for him. In many revelations, “my servants Joseph Smith,
Jun., and Sidney Rigdon”^61 would be to whom the Lord revealed his will. The truth,
however, is this:
Joseph began to allow Sidney to take some of the pressure of having to invent
revelations for everything the people of the Church desired to do. Joseph became tired of giving
the people what they wanted, so he gave them Sidney Rigdon...who gave the people what they
wanted. Partridge didn’t like the fact that Sidney now had a direct line with God; so in making
Partridge the main leader in the prophesied “Land of Zion,” Joseph equalized the playing field
between the two rivals. And that’s exactly what it was to Joseph—a “playing” field.
At this time, it was neither Joseph’s nor God’s playing field; it was that of the people.
Sidney Rigdon became the editor-in-chief for most of the Lord’s “revelations,” with Oliver
Cowdery as his scribe.^62 When Edward Partridge questioned Sidney’s authority in writing
“statement[s] of the will of God,”^63 the Lord’s editor made sure Edward received a warning: “But
if he repent not of his sins, which are unbelief and blindness of heart, let him take heed lest he
fall.”^64 Then the editor “proved” to Partridge that the Lord had chosen him to receive revelation:
I give unto my servant Sidney Rigdon a commandment, that he shall write a
description of the land of Zion, and a statement of the will of God, as it shall
be made known by the Spirit unto him;^65Joseph sat back incredulously and watched the blindness and stiffneckedness of the
Saints. He supported their desires whenever it was needed in the words and prose of an
elected “prophet, seer, and revelator.”^66 Regardless of what the Book of Mormon said, the
members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints formed and developed their
church into one of the most prejudiced Christian religions in America.^67
In the subsequent church of Brigham Young, the priesthood blessings and sacred
ordinances were withheld from the descendants of black slaves until 1978.^68 At this late
date, a rare “revelation” proclaimed that “all worthy male members of the Church [could]
be ordained to the priesthood without regard for race or color.”^69 Of course, this new
revelation on the blacks completely undermined Brigham Young’s own prophecy on the
subject that blacks would never hold the priesthood, at least during mortal life.^70
The “Will of God” in Zion, Published According to Sidney Rigdon
Among the many “statements of the will of God” concerning the “description of the
land of Zion,”^71 Rigdon wrote the following in August 1831:
And it is wisdom also that there should be lands purchased in Independence,
for the place of the storehouse, and also for the house of the printing. ...And