I have been researching the Church of Zion, which was a breakoff from the LDS church in the 1870s and were commonly called “Godbeites”. I am astounded at how flawlessly they fused Mormon identity with intellectualism, naturalism, and a greater sense of personal autonomy while also retaining a distinctly Mormon identity. This is something that I have strived to do in my own community, the Reform Mormons.
Today I came across the “Platform of the Movement” in The Salt Lake Tribune, July 2nd, 1870, and this is essentially the Godbeite Articles of Faith. I was astounded by it, and wanted to transcribe it so others could easily read it:
Our creed is “All Truth”. We follow no [one] living or dead. We believe in the beauty and divinity of many inspirations that have been given by prophets and apostles in past times, but we are limited by none. We view them all as vehicles, more or less imperfect, through whom truth has come. We are prepared, as truth is developed to our minds, to go by them all, accepting their truths and honoring their missions, as beneficial to the world, but more particularly to their own times. But, while honoring the past, we cannot be bound by it and held in its swaddling clothes forever.
We have faith in the doctrine of present revelation, but we believe in placing it at the feet of our judgment. We believe in testing the prophet by [their] revelations and not the revelations by the prophet.
We believe in “Spiritual gifts,” but we hold that the development of spirituality and intellectuality in the nature is an infinitely superior result to the reception of manifestations of any kind.
We believe in a church organization, but solely as a means for more speedy propagation of truth, and simply as an educational institution. We believe in no priestly authority to control or dictate the judgment in any respect.
We believe in a complete division between temporal and spiritual affairs, and consequently in the separation of Church and State.
We reserve to the members of the Movement the right to accept or reject their spiritual teachers, and secure that right by vote by ballot.
We believe in being circumscribed by no creed further than by the fundamental principles herewith expressed. All speculative details as to the past or present we leave to individual judgment.
We believe that from eternal ages past, by an irresistible and inevitable law, the Universe and all the works of God therein have been progressing in beauty and perfection, and that the universe is, and must be, forever one eternally expanding scene of progress and development in which retrogression is impossible.
We hold that a [person], as a constituent part of this Great Nature, are endlessly progressive in all the faculties and power of their being, and that they can no more recede to destruction or fail of ultimate perfection than the universe itself.
We hold that [humanity], in the providences of God, through the experience of life, are, without exception, being brought out of the darkness into the light.
We view the wicked and corrupt as men morally diseased who simply need to be cured. We ascribe all wickedness to ignorance, false education, unfortunate surroundings, but more than all to inherent tendencies to good and evil derived from parentage at birth. We believe, however, that all are responsible to make use of such intelligence and tendencies to good as they do possess; but that tendencies to good or evil are not equally strong in all [people] and that therefore with some it is far easier to do right than it is for others.
We hold that all punishment of evil or painful experience is intended solely by God for the purposes of reform; and that all human punishment should be inflicted only with a view to this end.
We recognize all religions as having been wisely developed in the providences of God to meet the varied conditions of the different races and classes of [humanity]. We consider that any creed which is above the understanding or the intellectual growth of a [person] cannot prove itself divine to [them]; while a lower creed, which comes within [their] conceptions of what is divine, will touch [their] heart and develop more good in [their] nature. We, therefore respect all creeds as fulfilling a good and useful purpose in God’s hands.
The policy of the Movement is to abolish all religious distinctions or sectarian influences which build up hatred and divisions in the hearts of [people], and we seek to build up an institution in which differences of creed has the least power to separate a [person] from [other people].
On the question of Civil rule, as a movement, we recognize the National Government as supreme in its sphere. We, therefore, sustain obedience to law, seeking by constitutional means to change those which we consider opposed to civil or religious liberty.
We are opposed to the doctrine that plural or any other kind of marriage is required of [humanity] by a commandment of God. In respect to the propriety of either plural or single marriage, we believe that every[one] should be left to decide for themselves.
Above all things we strongly assert the necessity of the highest appreciation of woman, and of her highest development and culture as the only basis of a true civilization.