Sidney Rigdon: A Portrait of Religious Excess
by Richard S. Van Wagoner
Category: Biography & Autobiography

In the late 1820s a fiery minister in western Ohio converted nearly 1,000 proselytes to the Reformed Baptist Movement. But as these schismatics organized themselves into the Disciples of Christ, the Reverend Sidney Rigdon aligned himself with the Latter. day Saints, quickly becoming a member of the First Presidency. He served Joseph Smith loyally, even through a spat over Smith's romantic interest in Rigdon's teenage daughter.Next to Smith, Rigdon was the most influential early Mormon. He co-wrote the famous Lectures on Faith, championed communalism, and delivered significant early sermons, including the famous Salt Sermon and the Ohio temple dedicatory address. Following Smith's death, Rigdon led some 500 Latter-day Saints to Pennsylvania, where today his followers still number about 10,000 strong.Rigdon is a biographer's dream, writes Van Wagoner. Intellectually gifted, manic-depressive, an eloquent orator and social innovator but a chronic indigent, Rigdon aspired to altruism but demanded advantage and deference. When he lost prominence, his early attainments were virtually written out of the historical record. Correcting this void, Van Wagoner weaves the psychology of religious incontinence into the larger fabric of social history.