If early belief was sustained by comfort, fear, or psychological pressure, why did recent converts repeatedly choose financial ruin, violence, and displacement when leaving would have made them safer, wealthier, and socially restored?
Dear CES Letter,
Your Letter repeatedly suggests that early Saints remained because of human motives rather than conviction. You imply they stayed because of sunk cost, social dependence, fear of leaving, psychological commitment, loyalty to Joseph Smith.
But were those pressures actually present in the earliest converts?
How much of actual church history from real journals and sources have you even studied?
In the early church every member was a new convert. The Church itself was new. None of them were born into it. Many had already moved between churches and religious movements before encountering Mormonism. Changing beliefs was not foreign to them. It was something they had already done. For some of them, multiple times.
So why would leaving suddenly become harder this time? Especially when this new faith ran so far against the norms of American Christianity at the time. Many of these early Saints had already broken family ties and traveled great distances to join the Saints, even though remaining in their homes and communities would have been far easier.
If walking away from their previous churches did not trap them psychologically or socially, what changed after they joined this one? Why would recent converts, with no generational ties, no lifelong identity investment, and no institutional protection, suddenly find themselves unable to leave — unless they believed Joseph Smith was a prophet and that the Church was led by Jesus Christ?
Why Did They Stay?
That question becomes harder to dismiss once the cost of staying is examined. Here are a few examples.
Joseph Knight’s Continual Loss Without Motive
Joseph Knight Sr. was one of the very earliest members of the church. He materially aided with the translation of the Book of Mormon by providing food, money, paper, and transportation. He was not one of the witnesses. He didn’t have his name printed in the Book of Mormon. He did not seek leadership, authority, or public recognition.
He had none of the motives the CES Letter relies on. No claim to fame. No position of power. No institutional reward. He didn’t hold major church leadership callings. Yet he was faithful and loyal despite being persecuted for the rest of his life.
Knight and his family were driven from Colesville, forced off Leman Copley’s land, expelled from Jackson County by mob-run militia violence, fled to Clay County, then forced out of Caldwell County under the governor’s extermination order, before finally gathering to Nauvoo where he died at age 47.
At every step, denouncing Joseph Smith would have allowed Knight to remain where he was, preserve his property, and protect his family. He did not.
His name is not widely known. Few outside Church history recognize it at all. This directly contradicts the CES Letter’s sunk-cost and incentive models. Knight gained nothing and lost everything.
Edward Partridge’s Voluntary Surrender of Security
Edward Partridge was a successful businessman and respected civic leader in Kirtland. He was cautious enough to investigate Joseph Smith before converting.
After joining the Church, Edward Partridge left stability to serve as Bishop in Missouri. He lost property, endured mob violence, and was beaten and tarred and feathered.
Partridge had been a respected, influential, and financially secure community leader in Kirtland. Why would someone in that position submit to the direction of a much younger, uneducated outsider in his mid-twenties, telling him where to go and what to do, unless he truly believed he was a prophet?
The CES Letter implies that social dependence kept people from leaving. Partridge had the opposite problem. He possessed social standing, financial independence, and long-established influence before converting. Denouncing Joseph Smith would have allowed him to retain his wealth, reputation, and authority.
Instead, Partridge chose to follow what he believed were divine revelations. He sacrificed his business, moved to Missouri, settled a desolate and unstable frontier, endured persecution, was driven from his homes, watched his family suffer poverty and loss, and remained with the Saints until his death in Nauvoo in 1840.
Newel K. Whitney and Abandoned Wealth
Newel K. Whitney was a prosperous merchant and ashery owner with a successful store. Conversion did not increase his wealth. It dismantled it.
Whitney lost property, capital, and security through repeated expulsions. He devoted resources to the Church that never returned to him financially. He endured mob violence and displacement and ultimately died in Salt Lake City after sacrificing what could have been a life of personal prosperity.
If belief persisted because of material incentive, Whitney chose the wrong path.
Amanda Barnes Smith and Faith after Haun’s Mill
Amanda Barnes Smith and her family were passing through Missouri in 1838 to join the Saints in Far West. They spent the night in Haun’s Mill where her husband and a son were killed in the massacre. Another son had his hip blown out and was miraculously saved.
They were not residents of Hauns Mill. They were not combatants. They were targeted because they were Latter-day Saints, during state-sanctioned violence carried out by militia.
Amanda later wrote that she would rather her husband had died than lived and lost his faith. Leaving the Church after Haun’s Mill would have ended danger and grief compounded by persecution.
Leaving the church and returning to her family would have made raising her children without a father so much easier.
She did not leave. She died in Salt Lake City on April 6, 1915.
Eliza R. Snow and Chosen Sacrifice
Eliza R. Snow was educated, articulate, and socially capable. She could have lived comfortably outside the Church.
Instead, she accepted poverty, displacement, and persecution. She also accepted plural marriage, a decision carrying severe social cost in her culture. For a woman of her education and independence, this was not conformity.
Eliza described receiving her own testimony from God. Her faith endured after Joseph Smith’s death, eliminating charisma as an explanation.
Why the CES Letter’s Motive Explanations Fails
Your Letter relies on several implied explanations: sunk cost, social dependence, psychological commitment, fear of leaving, and loyalty to Joseph Smith.
These examples directly contradict each one.
Leaving would have reduced suffering, restored wealth, repaired reputations, and increased safety. These were recent converts who had already changed religions before. They were not trapped by identity or community.
The only thing leaving required was deciding that they no longer felt compelled to gather with the Saints.
They refused to do that.
If early Saints stayed because of pressure, fear, or psychology, why did recent converts repeatedly choose financial ruin, violence, and exile when leaving would have made them safer, wealthier, and socially restored?