To read more from Daniel, visit his blog: Sic Et Non.
Only one of my ancestral family lines includes Utah pioneers. In that regard, though, I’m much more connected, genealogically speaking, to the pioneers than many members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who have no Utah pioneer ancestors at all.
So, I understand that some altogether without such ancestry – recent converts, for example, or members living in Asia, Africa, India, and Latin America — might ask, Why should I celebrate Pioneer Day? And, of course, there’s no requirement that all members do so. After all, unlike observance of the sabbath, celebrating Pioneer Day isn’t a requirement of the Gospel.
Still, many Latter-day Saints do observe it, even where (unlike Utah) it isn’t an official state holiday and even when many have no pioneers among their forebears. During my childhood in southern California, for example, ward Pioneer Day pancake breakfasts were common. The townsfolk of Cokeville, Wyoming, hold an annual Pioneer Day parade. And, annually, young Latter-day Saints reenact handcart “treks,” experiencing for themselves to at least a small degree something of what it was like to walk to the Great Basin while pulling one’s earthly possessions behind. (Moreover, such reenactments aren’t restricted only to the actual handcart site at Martin’s Cove in Wyoming, but even occur outside of the United States.)
It is, I think, entirely fitting that we engage in such activities. For one thing, I believe that it is the dramatic story of the westward migration that, more than any other single thing, separated us out from the nations (figuratively and, for a time, literally) and constituted us a people, rather than a mere denomination. I thought it quite insightful, surprising though it probably was to many, that, when the “Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups” appeared in 1990, Latter-day Saints were included along with Jews, Arabs, Polynesians, Scandinavians, Ukrainians, and other such minorities. However, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Baptists, and Roman Catholics were not included as such.
Now, obviously, Latter-day Saints as a group and, say, Polynesians as a group are different. One cannot, for example, simply choose to be a Polynesian or an Arab or a Ukrainian – though nowadays, perhaps, that’s not so certain! – but a person who has no Latter-day Saint family or ancestors can decide to join the Church. (Scores of thousands of people do it every year.)
Still, though, there seems to me some truth in the notion that being a Latter-day Saint is something like belonging to an ethnic group. It is relatively easy—for example, when moving from one area of residence to another—for a Protestant Christian to change denominations (e.g., from United Methodist to Congregationalist, or from Southern Baptist to Assemblies of God). But Latter-day Saints have created a distinct subculture, and the longer a person is immersed in it the more it marks him or her. We are different in subtle ways from those around us and, on the other hand – as many Saints who have traveled or lived abroad can testify – we can feel comfortable very quickly among fellow Saints even in quite foreign places. We share worldviews, beliefs, expectations, even life-cycle experiences (e.g., baptisms, confirmation, priesthood ordinations, missions, temple marriages, and fundamental beliefs and hopes).
I can personally testify to having felt relatively at home with fellow Saints aboard an island of floating reeds on a lake high in the Peruvian Andes – a place about as foreign to my experience as being on the Moon. And I still recall the time when, feeling alone in a summer program at Stanford University prior to my mission, I discovered that one of the other participants was not only a Latter-day Saint but a returned missionary. Instantly, I had a friend.
Latter-day Saints are, in some respects, better compared to Jews than to, say, Evangelical Protestants. Even in the sense that we, like Jews, have a geographical center: Although, for instance, most of the world’s Jews choose to live in New York City or Los Angeles or Palm Beach, Florida, rather than in Israel, the land of the ancient prophets holds a special status for them. They send their children to Hebrew schools. They vacation in Israel, send their young people for study-abroad programs there. Affluent Jews often come to Israel to celebrate the “bar mitzvahs” and “bat mitzvahs” of their children.
For Latter-day Saints likewise — although, again, most live beyond its borders — Utah plays a role not altogether unlike that of “eretz Israel” for Jews. It has a special status, as the headquarters of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Many have family there. They send their children to Brigham Young University; they attend BYU “away games” sitting on the BYU side even against their home-state teams. Twice a year, at least, the attention of active Latter-day Saints is turned towards Utah for the General Conferences of the Church, and many even attend in person.
A good illustration of what has, at least, been the attitude of many Latter-day Saints can be found in Charles W. Penrose, who was baptized into the Church in London at the age of eighteen, in 1850. He yearned to gather with the Saints to the Great Basin in western North America, but his obvious talents and abilities interfered. A series of missionary assignments prevented him from emigrating until 1861.
In the meantime, he wrote a yearning hymn that we still sing today:
O ye mountains high, where the clear blue sky
Arches over the vales of the free,
Where the pure breezes blow and the clear streamlets flow,
How I’ve longed to your bosom to flee!
For Brother Penrose, Utah was, as his lyrics say, the “sacred home of the prophets of God.” And when Utah was threatened by the Army of the United States during the unjustified Utah War of 1857, he wrote a stirring, even “patriotic,” anthem from England that, again, we still sing occasionally today:
Up, awake, ye defenders of Zion!
The foe’s at the door of your homes;
Let each heart be the heart of a lion,
Unyielding and proud as he roams.
Remember the trials of Missouri;
Forget not the courage of Nauvoo.
When the enemy host is before you,
Stand firm and be faithful and true.
The earthly story of Charles W. Penrose ended well: He did eventually reach Salt Lake City. And, by the time of his death, he was serving as the first counselor in the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The fundamental reason why Latter-day Saints celebrate Pioneer Day and otherwise honor the Utah pioneers is that the great trek westward is an important origin story for us. It is a “founding myth” – not in the sense that it is false but in the sense that the story is more transcendently important than mere historical facts and data. Moreover, it’s not insignificant that pioneer migration beyond the Rocky Mountains is often termed an “exodus,” that Brigham Young has been called an “American Moses,” and that many places along the “Mormon Trail” and in Utah were given Old Testament names by the early pioneers.
For similar reasons and as they have done for many centuries now, today’s Jews — even those of them who are secular — still celebrate the Passover. In many ways, the original events of the Passover and the subsequent Exodus constituted them a people, and celebrating Passover today reminds them of what binds them together. The Latter-day Saint sacrament was instituted at a Passover meal, the last supper that the mortal Jesus would spend with his apostles.
For the Jaredites of the Book of Mormon, who lived before Israel’s exodus from Egypt, it was the grateful remembrance of their miraculous escape from the chaos of the tower of Babel and their crossing of the sea that distinguished the righteous from the wicked and forgetful. Of Jared’s son and heir, for example, it is recorded that “Orihah did walk humbly before the Lord, and did remember how great things the Lord had done for his father, and also taught his people how great things the Lord had done for their fathers” (Ether 6:30). Of a king named Shule, it is said that “he remembered the great things that the Lord had done for his fathers in bringing them across the great deep into the promised land; wherefore he did execute judgment in righteousness all his days” (Ether 7:27). Likewise, the Jaredite ruler Shez “remembered what the Lord had done in bringing Jared and his brother across the deep; and he did walk in the ways of the Lord” (Ether 10:2).
As William Faulkner put it in his 1951 drama/novel “Requiem for a Nun,” “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”
Louis Midgley, who retired from Brigham Young University in 1996 after nearly four decades of teaching the history of political and legal philosophy there, has focused particular attention over many years on questions about the relationship between Latter-day Saint claims and historical writing. Reflecting that interest, among his signature contributions have been studies of the vitally important scriptural concept of “remembrance.”
“Remembrance” is, Midgley admits, an ordinary word, and its repetition in the Book of Mormon—where terms related to “remembering” and “forgetting” occur well over two hundred times—is easy to overlook. However, he says, “By placing emphasis on the concept of “remembering,” the Book of Mormon significantly captures one of the most distinctive aspects of Israelite mentality.” “It vividly reflects a religious sensitivity on the part of Book of Mormon prophets that is similar to that of other Israelite prophets.” And, says Midgley, paying close attention to what the Book of Mormon says about “the ways of remembrance” can help us “better understand the book’s overall message.”
Scripturally, he says, to “remember” God and one’s covenants with God is not merely to recall information, let alone simply to be aware of or curious about the past, although that is obviously a part of the word’s meaning. Rather, it is to be attentive, to consider, and, most importantly, it is to keep God’s commandments and to act accordingly. “In the Book of Mormon, remembrance results in action.” In fact, this is also the sense given in cases of obedience to legitimate earthly sovereigns: At Alma 18:10, for example, King Lamoni praises Ammon as follows: “For even he doth remember all my commandments to execute them.”
The late Richard Lloyd Anderson strikingly observed that the sacrament prayers that Latter-day Saints still use today actually originated among the Nephites—and it’s not coincidental, in that light, that we promise in them to “always remember” the Savior and to “keep his commandments” (Moroni 4-5; compare 3 Nephi 18:7-11).
By contrast, to “forget” in the scriptures isn’t merely a mental glitch or a problem during a school exam but a failure to act in accordance with the commandments of God. Essentially, it’s apostasy. The Book of Mormon says of the ancient biblical Israelites that they were “quick to do iniquity, and slow to remember the Lord their God; therefore there was a law given them, yea, a law of performances and of ordinances, a law which they were to observe strictly from day to day, to keep them in remembrance of God and their duty towards him” (Mosiah 13:29-30).
According to Professor Midgley, “it is evident that “remembering” is a saving principle of the gospel.” Just as faith looks forward in Christ to actualize the present power of his redemption, so remembrance looks back on covenants and gifts from God and keeps the past powerfully and impactfully alive.
Today, as anciently, we need reminders. That’s one of the reasons that we’re encouraged to engage in daily scripture study, weekly partaking of the sacrament, and regular attendance at the temple, to say nothing of celebrating Pioneer Day and participating in such activities as reenacted handcart treks.
“O, remember my son,” said Alma to Helaman, “and learn wisdom in thy youth; yea, learn in thy youth to keep the commandments of God” (Alma 37:35).
Two short articles by Louis Midgley, which include numerous supporting scriptural and other references, will serve as helpful introductions to the topic of remembrance: “‘O Man, Remember, and Perish Not’ (Mosiah 4: 30)” (https://publications.mi.byu.edu/fullscreen/?pub=1110&index=35) and, at slightly greater length,“The Ways of Remembrance” (https://publications.mi.byu.edu/fullscreen/?pub=1111&index=16).
