S11 E10 David Whitmer | Faithful Witness and Outspoken Critic

Episode 10 of Apostates explores David Whitmer's journey from foundational witness to Church critic. Despite never wavering on his Book of Mormon testimony, Whitmer left the Church in 1838, arguing it departed from the "written word" standard established in scripture. We examine his specific objections: Joseph Smith's prophetic role, new priesthood offices, the name change from "Church of Christ," canonizing the Doctrine and Covenants, polygamy, and the Missouri Zion attempt. Whitmer believed these changes contradicted the complete gospel blueprint found in the Bible and Book of Mormon. 

Sources

• Essay_David Whitmer Bio_BYU RSC
• Pamphlet_An Address to All Believers in Christ_David Whitmer
• Video_Why Was David Whitmer Excommunicated_Scripture Central
• Video_David Whitmer's 12 Points Against the Church_Uncorrelated Mormonism
• Lecture_Three Kinds of Believers_Sunstone

AI Prompt

Explore David Whitmer's reaons for belieivng Josepth Smith and the early Mormon Church was in error. Rely heavily on An Address to All Believers in Christ - a pamphlet he authored in 1887 a year before his death. Discuss how Whitmer describes the Church prior to its organization in April 30 and afterwards. What specific things did he see wrong with the way the Church operated. Paint of picture of the Church as it was conceived at the beginning to how it evolved. What was of God? What was of man and the devil? Why did Whitmer leave? Use specific examples from his own words.

Transcript

Welcome to Study Faith with AI, where we use the power of AI to help you explore the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

I'm Meg Jensen.

And I'm Paul Carter,

and we're Google AIs. Whether you're a lifelong member or just starting to learn about the Church, we're here to dive deep into its history, beliefs, and culture.

So, if you're ready to learn, you're in the right place.

That's right.

Let's get started. 

Welcome to the deep dive. You know, it's fascinating when someone you see as absolutely foundational to something uh later becomes one of its biggest critics.

It really is. And that's exactly the situation with David Whitmer and the early Latter-day Saint movement.

Right. I mean, here's a guy who was one of the three witnesses, saw the angel, saw the plates. His testimony on that never changed.

Never. Rock solid on the Book of Mormon's divine origin. He reaffirmed it constantly right up until his death. We have his 1881 proclamation: citizens in Richmond, Missouri, attesting to his integrity. He believed that initial experience.

So, that's the puzzle, isn't it? How does someone with that kind of powerful personal foundational witness end up leaving the Church? He was excommunicated in 1838.

Exactly. And that's what we're digging into today. We want to understand why David Whitmer felt the Church went wrong based heavily on his own account, especially his 1887 pamphlet, an address to all believers in Christ.

So, we're looking at it through his eyes. using the sources you found, how he saw the beginning, what he thought was divine,

What he saw as human error or even uh worse influences creeping in and the specific reasons he gave for separating himself. It's a perspective we're exploring.

Okay, let's establish the man first. Beyond being a witness, what was his role early on? He wasn't just a bystander.

No, definitely not. He was deeply involved. The sources show him as a stake president in Missouri involved with the Kirtland Temple project. He was in leadership. He was central in those early formative years.

So integral to the start.

Yeah.

Which makes his later departure even more significant.

Precisely. And his pamphlet is essentially his explanation for that journey. How he went from a core believer and leader to being outside the main body of the Saints.

Let's rewind then back to 1829, maybe early 1830. What did Whitmer see as purely of God in that initial phase?

Well, for him the absolute core was the translation of the Book of Mormon. He describes it very specifically.

The stone-in-the-hat method.

Yes. Joseph putting the seer stone into a hat to block out light and then uh spiritual light would appear and characters would materialize like on parchment.

One character at a time.

One at a time. Yeah. With the English interpretation directly underneath. Joseph would read that interpretation aloud to the scribe, usually Oliver Cowdery. For Whitmer that process was purely the gift and power of God. No question in his mind.

Okay. So the translation itself divinely managed. What happened right after? It was finished around June 1829. What was the next instruction as he understood it?

This is crucial for Whitmer's whole argument.

Yeah.

He says once the Book of Mormon was given along with just a few early revelations that came through that same stone method,

Right?

The command from God was clear and absolute: rely on the written word.

And by written word, he meant specifically

the Bible and the Book of Mormon. Full stop. He even quotes an early revelation from the 1833 Book of Commandments, which he says was later changed, but originally said to rely on, on things which are written. For in them are all things written concerning my Church, my gospel, and my rock.

All things. That leaves very little room for additions, doesn't it?

That was exactly his point. He saw the blueprint as complete in those two books.

So, what did that initial Church look like based on just the Bible and Book of Mormon? What structure, what practices did he see as ordained?

Very simple. He described the spiritual offices as just Elders, Priests, and Teachers. Their duties plainly laid out in the New Testament and the Book of Mormon. Nothing more needed.

And the practices?

Also straight from the books. Baptism by immersion. The sacrament with bread and wine as described in the Book of Mormon. Meeting often to fast, pray, talk about their welfare, partake of the sacrament.

Handling discipline like in the New Testament with witnesses,

Right? And conducting meetings by the spirit's guidance. He felt the gospel, the doctrine of Christ was full, plain, complete. It was all right there in the written word.

Okay? So that's the idyllic picture of the beginning according to Whitmer. Where in his timeline did things start to go off track? What was the turning point?

He pinpoints a very specific moment actually, early spring 1830, even before the Church was formally organized on April 6th.

What?

He says Joseph Smith gave the seer stone to Oliver Cowdery and basically declared I am through with it. He stopped using the stone to receive revelations.

Ah, and how did that change the way revelations came in Whitmer's view?

It changed everything for him from that point on. Revelations came through Joseph acting as a mouthpiece, just speaking them.

Without the stone as an intermediary.

Exactly. And Whitmer came to believe that in this mode, Joseph could sometimes maybe unconsciously speak his own thoughts or be influenced by people around him like Sidney Rigdon later on and mistake those thoughts or influences for God's direct word.

So, a less reliable method in his eyes,

Much less reliable. And he felt he received confirmation of this. He tells the story about a failed mission to Toronto, Canada. They went to try and sell the Book of Mormon copyright based on a revelation Joseph received as mouthpiece.

Okay.

When the mission fails completely, Joseph apparently inquired again, but this time he went back to using the stone. And the revelation that came was quite striking.

What did it say?

It said, "Some revelations are of God. Some revelations are of man, and some revelations are of the devil."

Wow. So that revelation received through the stone after the failure became his litmus test.

Precisely. It gave him a framework. From then on, whenever a revelation came through Joseph, his mouthpiece, Whitmer felt he had to ask, "Is this from God? Is this just Joseph? Or could it even be from the devil?" That test became central to everything else he criticized.

Okay, that makes sense as a framework. Let's get into the specific errors he identified using that test. What was the first major departure he saw after Joseph stopped using the stone?

The very first one, right at the formal organization on April 6th, 1830, was ordaining Joseph Smith as Prophet, Seer, and Revelator to the Church. Whitmer called this a grievous error.

Why was that specific title and role such an error for him?

Because he argued the idea of a single one-man leader for the entire Church just isn't taught by Christ anywhere in the written word. Not in the New Testament, not in the Book of Mormon.

So it was an addition, something not in the original blueprint.

Exactly. He saw it as putting trust in man, making flesh his arm. As Jeremiah warns, he felt it went against the principle of relying solely on Christ and the written word. He even pointed out how an early revelation, D&C 3, which showed Joseph was fallible and could seek men's approval, was later slightly altered in the D&C, which he saw as an attempt to sort of downplay Joseph's human weaknesses.

Interesting. And he had a specific take on the choice prophecy from the Book of Mormon, too, didn't he? He didn't think it applied to Joseph Smith.

Right. He argued that if you read that prophecy carefully in Nephi, it describes someone from the Lamanite lineage, someone connected to the land who would bring forth more sealed records. He felt those details didn't match Joseph Smith or how the Book of Mormon came forth. He thought it pointed to a future figure, likely of Native American descent.

Okay. So, the prophet-seer role was error number one. What came next on his list?

The introduction of the office of high priest. This is another major issue for him.

And this happened a bit later, you said.

Yeah. June 1831. So, nearly two years after the Church started. And Whitmer places a lot of the uh impetus for this on Sidney Rigdon.

Rigdon. Again, Whitmer seemed to view him as quite influential.

Hugely influential. Whitmer describes him as this very skilled orator and Bible scholar who came in and uh really swayed Joseph. He believed Rigdon pushed interpretations of Old Testament priesthood, persuading Joseph to inquire about it, leading to revelations that Whitmer felt were basically just as they desired, shaped by Rigdon's ideas rather than pure divine instruction.

And Whitmer's objection was again based on the written word. Absolutely. His argument was straightforward. High Priests existed before Christ under the law of Moses. Christ came as the final great high priest. That office, he insisted, is simply not mentioned anywhere in the New Testament or the Book of Mormon after Christ's ministry as something for the Church going forward. So, bringing it back was adding an obsolete office not found in the completed gospel plan.

Did he point to any specific signs or events related to this?

He did. He recounts an incident in Kirtland when the first High Priests were ordained in June 1831. Two of them: Harvey Whitlock and John Murdoch were apparently physically afflicted like they were bound by the devil. While maybe others saw it differently at the time, Whitmer looked back on it as a clear sign of God's sore displeasure with this unauthorized innovation.

And he connected the terminology shift too from authority to priesthood.

Yes, he felt that emphasis on priesthood language drawn from the Old Testament model also came primarily from Rigdon's influence, moving away from the simpler New Testament concept of authority given by Christ. Okay. So, Prophet, Seer, High Priest. What was another major change that troubled him?

The name change of the Church itself. This happened in 1834. And Whitmer saw it as a really serious error. Evidence of utter spiritual blindness.

What was the change from what to what?

It was originally called the Church of Christ. Plain and simple. It was changed to the Church of the Latter-day Saints.

And why was that so bad in his view? Just a name.

For Whitmer, it was far more than just a name. He felt Christ himself had implicitly designated the name in the Book of Mormon 3 Nephi 27. Changing it was setting aside Christ's authority. He felt it signaled the Church was no longer truly Christ's Church, but had become identified with the time period Latter-day and implicitly with the Saints, the people, maybe even leaders, rather than being solely centered on Christ.

He contrasted the book titles, didn't he?

Yes. He pointed to the 1833 Book of Commandments title page showing the Church of Christ versus the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants title page with the Church of the Latter-day Saints as clear evidence of this departure.

Which leads us naturally to his problems with the Doctrine and Covenants itself. Canonizing it was an issue.

A huge issue. He argued the D&C introduced doctrines that weren't in the Bible or Book of Mormon and sometimes even contradicted them and went back to those very early revelations, the ones received through the stone in 1829.

The ones he said were meant for individual instruction.

Exactly. He maintained they were sacred, personal, and never intended to be published to the world as binding Church law.

He points out how a revelation originally commanding not to share these things because the world couldn't bear them was, he claims, altered in the D&C to allow publication “until it is wisdom in me”. A significant shift in meaning he felt.

And did he see negative consequences from publishing them?

He certainly did. He relates how he specifically prophesied to Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon that if they sent those revelations to Missouri to be printed in the Book of Commandments, the press would be destroyed and the Saints driven out of Jackson County.

And that happened.

It did. In the summer of 1833, the printing press was destroyed by a mob. Whitmer saw this fulfillment as direct proof that publishing those revelations was against God's will and led directly to their troubles there.

So the D&C wasn't just problematic for containing new doctrines, but for altering that original command to rely only on the written word.

That's a key part of his argument. He felt that the D&C version of that revelation we discussed earlier, the one about relying on things which are written, was changed subtly. Changed to imply the Bible and Book of Mormon only laid the foundation or the beginning.

Opening the door for more.

Precisely opening the door for all the later revelations, new doctrines, new offices like High Priests, like baptism for the dead. Eventually polygamy - things he saw as additions going far beyond the complete blueprint supposedly contained in the Bible and Book of Mormon.

Let's talk about polygamy. He left in ‘38 before it was widely known or practiced. But he addressed it later.

Oh, definitely. It became a major point for him later in life. Based on testimonies he read, particularly accounts published in the RLDS Herald from people like Isaac Sheen and William Marx. He became convinced that Joseph Smith did receive the revelation and practiced polygamy.

Though he thought Joseph repented,

He expressed a belief or maybe a hope that Joseph repented of it near the end of his life. But his condemnation of the principle itself was absolute.

How did he justify that condemnation?

Straight from the Book of Mormon. He saw polygamy as clearly of man and not of God. He pointed directly to Jacob Chapter 2 where the prophet Jacob condemns the Nephites for imitating David and Solomon's practice of having many wives and concubines, calling it abominable before me, saith the Lord.

So for him, the polygamy revelation D&C 132 was definitive proof that later revelations could be flawed.

Yes, it was a smoking gun in his view. Here was a revelation coming through Joseph's mouthpiece about 14 years after the Book of Mormon translation that directly contradicted the plain teachings of the Book of Mormon itself. It perfectly fit his framework. Revelations coming after Joseph gave up the stone and he had potentially drifted into error could indeed be of man or even of the devil.

But then this seems really important. He separated Joseph's actions from the Book of Mormon's origin.

Critically important. He used the analogy of biblical figures. David sinned grievously with Bathsheba and Uriah. Solomon had hundreds of wives. Yet, we don't discard the Psalms or Proverbs because of their author's later failings. In the same way, Whitmer argued Joseph's errors, including polygamy, shouldn't invalidate the Book of Mormon, which came forth by the direct gift and power of God through the stone before these errors crept in via the mouthpiece revelations.

Okay. One more specific error he mentioned was the attempt to build Zion, the new Jerusalem in Missouri. What was his issue there?

He saw it as acting too soon based on a misunderstanding. He felt that many members spurred on by revelations through Joseph his mouthpiece got overly zealous and rushed to gather and build the city in Jackson County, believing the time was immediately at hand.

But Whitmer thought the timing or the method was wrong.

Both really. He saw it as too hasty. And more fundamentally, he argued it contradicted the prophecies in the written word, especially the Book of Mormon. He believed the Book of Mormon clearly stated that the remnant of Jacob, whom he identified as the Lamanites, the Native Americans, were the ones appointed to actually build the city. Gentiles and other Israelites would only assist them. Since that hadn't happened and the Lamanites weren't leading the effort, he felt the attempt was premature and based on a faulty interpretation of when and how Zion would be established.

So with all these accumulating issues, the leadership structure, new offices, the name change, the D&C, polygamy, the Zion attempt, all seen as departures from the original written words standard. How did the final break come in 1838?

Well, Whitmer says he'd been trying for a long time to voice his concerns. To point out these errors to Joseph and other leaders, but he felt he wasn't heard. Instead, he says he faced persecutions.

What kind of persecutions?

He describes the atmosphere in Far West, Missouri in the spring of 1838 becoming quite intense. There was this secret group, likely the Danites, under Dr. Avard, demanding oaths of loyalty to support the leadership in everything they taught.

And refusing meant trouble.

Refusing meant being labeled a dissenter. Whitmer, along with others like Oliver Cowdery and the Phelps brothers resisted this pressure because they couldn't endorse teachings they believed were in error. He says his own persecutions became severe specifically because he kept trying to highlight these deviations.

So the pressure built and built, what was the final straw, the thing that made him physically leave.

He gives a very direct spiritual reason in his pamphlet. He claims that in June 1838, as the pressure and threats mounted, God spoke to him directly by his own voice from the heavens.

Another direct revelation.

That's what he claimed. And the message was specific. Separate myself from among the Latter-day Saints, for as they sought to do unto me, so should it be done unto them. He saw it as a divine command to leave, partly for his own safety and partly as a judgment on the path the Church was taking.

It's quite a story. And through it all, leaving the Church facing opposition. He never backed down from that initial testimony of the Book of Mormon.

Never. That's the constant threat. His conflict wasn't with the Book of Mormon. It was with everything that came after, the doctrines, the offices, the practices, the revelations that he believed contradicted or went beyond the original complete written word found in the Bible and the Book of Mormon.

His core issue seems to be the shift in authority from the written scripture alone to relying on ongoing revelation through a single leader, especially when that leader stopped using the original verifiable method, the stone.

That sums it up very well. He saw a danger in elevating any man's word, even a prophet’s, to the same level as or above the established scriptures.

So David Whitmer's account, especially in this 1887 pamphlet, really serves as a kind of warning, doesn't it? A warning about trusting too much in human leaders versus sticking strictly to what he saw as the foundational unchanging written word of God.

Absolutely. And it raises questions for anyone really in any tradition. How do you evaluate new teachings or the claims of leaders? What's your ultimate authority? How do you navigate that tricky space between divine guidance, human interpretation, and maybe other influences, especially When things change over time,

it leaves you with a really challenging thought based directly on his argument. If, as David Whitmer passionately believed, the entire doctrine of Christ, everything needed for the Church was fully contained in the Bible and in the Book of Mormon back in 1829,

Right?

What does that imply about the necessity or even the validity of any subsequent revelations, new scriptures, or expanding leadership authority beyond what's already in that written word? It's a profound question stemming directly from his witness and his critique.

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