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“Early Anti-Mormonism in Great Britain, 1837–1842”

“Early Anti-Mormonism in Great Britain, 1837–1842”

Last updated on: January 10, 2026 at 11:06 am by Dan Peterson

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“Early Anti-Mormonism in Great Britain, 1837–1842” 2026-01-10T11:06:42-07:00 Dan Peterson

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From a later period, but growing out of those early efforts: The British classic “Trapped by the Mormons” was made in 1922, but it was hardly the first anti-Mormon film — because such masterpieces go back all the way to the very origins of moviemaking. And the tradition continues vibrant and healthy still today, even though the British can’t even accurately spell the word “honor.” (Wikimedia Commons public domain photograph)

This new article was published today in the Interpreter Foundation’s journal: “Early Anti-Mormonism in Great Britain, 1837–1842” (Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 67 [2025]: 371-400), written by Robin Douglas:

Abstract: This article seeks to shed light on an under-researched subject: the more negative public responses to the first five years of the Latter-day Saint mission in Britain, from 1837 to 1842. Sufficient research attention has not been given, to date, to the full range of responses of the British people to the arrival of the new Church on their shores. These responses were often—although by no means exclusively—unfavorable. In short, what we have here is the story of what happens when strangers arrive bearing a message of a newly restored gospel to an insular society that has both a rigid class system and incumbent churches that regard themselves as the only legitimate forms of Christianity. It is a story that offers some lessons for modern times.

It is accompanied online, as such articles generally are, by a summary from Kyler Rasmussen. This particular summary is entitled “Interpreting Interpreter: Early British Anti-Mormonism”:

This post is a summary of the article “Early Anti-Mormonism in Great Britain, 1837–1842” by Robin Douglas in Volume 67 of Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship. All of the Interpreting Interpreter articles may be seen at https://interpreterfoundation.org/category/summaries/. An introduction to the Interpreting Interpreter series is available at https:/interpreterfoundation.org/interpreting-interpreter-on-abstracting-thought/.

A video introduction to this Interpreter article is now available on all of our social media channels, including on YouTube at https://youtube.com/shorts/SmVlHHdP0Fg.

The Takeaway: Douglas examines early resistance to Latter-Day Saint missionary efforts in Great Britain, providing historical context and outlining common arguments, physical acts of violence, criticism of the missionaries (as con-men and revolutionaries) and the converts (as fools), as well as criticism levied at state-sponsored churches for not preventing such conversions in the first place.

A public domain political map of Iran, from the Nations Online Project. I recently flew over Iran, traveling back and forth from Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, to Uzbekistan. But I’ve only been on the ground in Iran one single time, for roughly a week and a half.

Everybody has been mesmerized by the American strike on Venezuela and by the killing of Renee Nicole Good in Minnesota. But there is another really big story underway: the unrest in Iran. We’ve seen this before and, each time, we’ve hoped that, at long last, we were going to see the end of the government of the ayatollahs. Maybe this latest round of riots will do the trick. Here, in the meantime, is an opinion piece that was written for the Deseret News by my congressman, Dr. Mike Kennedy, and Khosrow B. Semnani, whom I have known for years: “Opinion: Trump seizes the Iran moment: America’s role is not to choose Iran’s leaders, but to stand unmistakably with those demanding the right to choose for themselves”

Based on my (admittedly very limited) time in Iran quite a few years ago, as well as on my knowledge of the country’s history and my unsystematic reading about its contemporary condition, I suspect that the current Islamic regime in the country is broadly very unpopular. It rules by fierce repression and the suspension of fundamental human rights.

Ideally, for justice to be reached, claims and evidence need to be weighed in the balance. (Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

Well, what the heck. I’ve mentioned the shooting death of Renee Nicole Good, so I might as well dive right in and say something about it:

Yes, she seems to have been an anti-ICE activist.
And, yes, she seems plainly to have disobeyed, or to have been in the act of disobeying, orders from a federal agent.
She seems to have been attempting to leave the scene. (I’ve looked at the video footage multiple times, from various angles.)
None of the propositions above justifies her fatal shooting.
Taken altogether, the propositions above don’t justify her fatal shooting.
A new video, released just today, shows her demeanor fairly clearly. She was not compliant, but she also doesn’t seem to have been murderous or intent upon violence or even screaming or especially hostile.
Did the ICE agent who shot her have grounds for thinking that she was intent upon hitting him? It’s difficult to say. I see little if anything to suggest that that was her plan, but it’s easy for me and others, seeing what unfolded multiple times from various angles while sitting relaxedly in our comfortable chairs, to form such a judgment. The agent, however, had just seconds (at most) to judge her intent and estimate his own risk.
It seems that the officer who fired upon Renee Nicole Good, Jonathan Ross, was seriously injured last summer when he was dragged by the vehicle of a fleeing suspect whom he shot with a stun gun. That could, quite understandably, have affected his necessarily almost-instant decision in this most recent case.
Law enforcement personnel have the right to defend themselves.
Moreover, in cases where they have been forced to make fateful decisions within split seconds, I’m inclined to give the benefit of the doubt to law enforcement personnel — but only within limits — even when the decision turns out to have been incorrect (e.g., where the apparent pistol turns out to have been a squirt gun or the tires were actually aimed away from the officer in question).
So I’m not at all inclined, at this point, to join the chorus of those who have, from the very first moments after it happened, pronounced the killing of Ms. Good “murder.”
Nor, however, am I remotely inclined to accept Kristi Noem’s almost instant claim that Ms. Good was engaged in “violent domestic terrorism.” I see no evidence to support so inflammatory a declaration, although Ms. Noem has apparently doubled down on that description even today.
What is needed is a careful investigation of the incident and calm, unsensationalized discussion of it. So I’m not pleased to see that the federal government is apparently excluding local Minnesota law enforcement agencies from investigation of the shooting and denying them access to relevant evidence from the FBI and elsewhere.
I’m baffled by the apparent refusal of ICE agents on the scene to allow a physician who was standing there to attend to her injuries. That’s odd.
Is Minnesota a liberal hotbed? Yes, to a large degree. Would its investigation therefore be tainted and partisan? Possibly. But I don’t think that the Trump administration — particularly Ms. Noem’s Department of Homeland Security, Pam Bondi’s Department of Justice, and Kash Patel’s FBI — has managed, quite yet, to slip the surly bonds of Earth and touch the face of God. Free, unfettered investigation by competent professionals of whatever background is, albeit not without risks or flaws, the only way forward toward the truth of this matter, to the extent that that truth can be recovered.

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