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An interesting criticism of “Becoming Brigham”

An interesting criticism of “Becoming Brigham”

Last updated on: February 3, 2026 at 1:35 pm by Dan Peterson

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An interesting criticism of “Becoming Brigham” 2026-02-03T13:35:56-07:00 Dan Peterson

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Miriam Works Young (portrayed by Jana Dahmer) and Brigham Young (John Donovan Wilson), following the baptism of Vilate Kimball. Miriam died of “consumption” (tuberculosis) only about three or four months after her own baptism, at the age of twenty-six. This is a scene from the 2024 Interpreter Foundation film Six Days in August.

We posted our second episode in the Becoming Brigham series yesterday (see “Becoming Brigham, Episode 2—Shorthand & Bloodstains, Part One”) and our first episode is still available for you delinquents who haven’t yet watched it. I hope that you will watch it and that, if you feel able to do so, you will commend it to others. And, by the way, Episode 2 may be of special interest to those out there who played with secret decoder rings and/or guns as children .

Becoming Brigham has even received some coverage — and relatively positive coverage — in the Salt Lake Tribune! “New docuseries tackles the ‘hard questions’ about LDS leader Brigham Young: “A lot of his harder edges,” historian says, “developed in the wake of Joseph Smith’s murder.””

The comments following the article, however, are quite another matter. Plainly, the very idea of the series massively irritates some, and it appears that I’m not universally beloved.

Amusingly, at least a couple of the commenters seem to blame me and the others involved in Becoming Brigham for the idea — which I don’t actually share — that Brigham Young’s “harder edges” resulted from the trauma that he allegedly suffered from the murder of Joseph Smith. (“You can see,” says one of the letter-writers, “they’ve thought up a “heart wrenching” excuse for all the horror of Brigham Youngs life.”) But it’s John Turner who says that in the article, and John Turner is a Virginia-based non-Latter-day Saint historian and biographer of Brigham Young (and of Joseph Smith) who has been quite critical of Brigham and of Latter-day Saint claims and who has absolutely no connection with Becoming Brigham.

Brigham Young (John Donovan Wilson), Mary Ann Angell Young (Twyla Wilson), and an up and coming younger actor in a scene from Six Days in August

In the study of logic, the term begging the question has a very specific meaning — which refers to a fallacy of assuming the conclusion, or circular reasoning. The fallacy occurs when an argument’s premises assume the truth of its conclusion, rather than independently supporting it. In this sense, it’s often called by the Latin name petītiō principiī. Here is a trio of examples:

“There is a God because the Bible says so, and the Bible is true because God inspired it.”
“Opium puts people to sleep because it has sleep-inducing properties.”
“Freedom of speech is important because it’s important that people be able to speak freely.”

Unfortunately, many people misuse the term to mean merely “raising the question.” One of the complaints leveled against Becoming Brigham at both the Tribune and elsewhere, though, seems to me a nice, neat case of “begging the question” in the accurate meaning of the term:

Why, the complainers ask, are we seeking to defend this odious man? Doesn’t defending a morally contemptible person suggest that the defender himself is odious and morally contemptible? (For present purposes, let’s ignore my personal involvement in Becoming Brigham. The fact that I am, in fact, odious and morally contemptible merely clouds the issue by complicating the logic of the matter.) But whether Brigham Young is odious and morally contemptible is precisely one of the questions in dispute. (With others, I deny it.) Simply assuming him to be such cannot reasonably be used as an argument against inquiring about whether he is or isn’t.

Joseph and Hyrum Smith, who have been in hiding, welcome the arrival of Emma Smith and Brigham Young in a scene from the Interpreter Foundation’s 2024 film Six Days in August. George A. Smith is at the oar.

I commented yesterday that my remarks at the August 2025 FAIR Conference appeared not to have been posted. Happily, though, an alert reader pointed out that I was wrong. (Which is, of course, a first for me. I’m still reeling from the realization and needing to process the unfamiliar concept of being mistaken.) Here is a link to my talk, on a subject that I consider quite important:

“Brigham Young and Slavery”

Dan Peterson examines Brigham Young’s views and actions regarding slavery, servitude, and race in the 19th century, pushing back against modern assumptions that frame the issue only in terms of absolute slavery or freedom. He emphasizes that Brigham Young should not be judged by oversimplified modern categories but understood within his historical context.

Cyrus Dallin’s 1897 statue of Brigham Young, near Temple Square in Salt Lake City
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

An academic with whom I’m acquainted who is deeply critical of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, formerly active in the Church and now, sadly, quite alienated from it but, on many occasions, far more balanced, fair, intelligent, and lucid than those who surround him where he posts, has raised an interesting objection to Becoming Brigham. I know his identity in real life, but I’ll call him Alex:

Alex is inclined to fault Becoming Brigham as an instance of “hero worship” and a manifestation of the “cult of personality” that he regards as a negative characteristic of the culture of the Church. He writes, he observes, about such historical figures as Julius Caesar and Constantine, but he feels no need to defend them as honest, or nice, or good. He has nothing invested in them. He simply follows where the historical evidence leads.

I will grant that there are sometimes elements of undue hero worship in the Church (as elsewhere). While I’m not especially offended by them, I also don’t advocate such attitudes. Still, I do believe that there are real heroes, in the Church and beyond it.

But I think that, in this regard, Alex seriously misconceives what we’re doing with Becoming Brigham and what we did with Six Days in August. These are not ventures in “hero worship.” But they are attempts to tell an accurate story, to paint an accurate portrait as we see it. And to correct inaccurate perceptions where they occur.

Why does this matter? Because Brigham Young (and Joseph Smith and the Witnesses to the Book of Mormon) occupy a distinctly different place in Latter-day Saint historical self-understanding than Julius Caesar, Constantine, Napoleon, and Attila the Hun occupy in historical understanding more generally. Nobody orients his or her daily personal life according to a conception of Julius Caesar — though, I will confess, some current public figures begin to remind me of Attila the Hun. But the claims of Joseph Smith, the Witnesses, and Brigham Young do have life-orientational implications for those who accept them — and, for that matter, for those who reject them.

Moreover, to put it perhaps another way: Joseph and Brigham and other such pivotal figures in the story of the Restoration aren’t merely historical figures. They are witnesses, the value of whose testimony rests upon their credibility and moral character. Thus, as in a courtroom, defending (or questioning) their credibility and their character makes perfect sense and is actually quite important.

Reading Alex’s objection to Becoming Brigham, I immediately thought of a passage from a letter written by Oliver Cowdery to Phineas Young, on 23 March 1846. Oliver was negotiating his return to the Church, and he had some strong requests, even demands, to make before his rebaptism. During the turbulent and unpleasant time of his departure from the Church, in 1838, some very grave and intemperate accusations had been leveled against him and his character. The accusations were untrue, and he wanted explicit clarification that they were untrue. His reasons are of interest and of relevance here:

I have cherished a hope, and that one of my fondest, that I might leave such a character, as those who might believe in my testimony, after I should be called hence, might do so, not only for the sake of the truth, but might not blush for the private character of the man who bore that testimony. I have been sensitive on this subject, I admit; but I ought to be so—you would be, under the circumstances, had you stood in the presence of John, with our departed Brother Joseph, to receive the Lesser Priesthood—and in the presence of Peter, to receive the Greater, and looked down through time, and witnessed the effects these two must produce,—you would feel what you have never felt, were wicked men conspiring to lessen the effects of your testimony on man, after you should have gone to your long sought rest.

I have nothing invested in arguing for the perfection of Joseph Smith or Brigham Young or the Book of Mormon Witnesses. But a great deal rides for me (and for millions of others) on their credibility and on their having been morally adequate to the stewardships that I believe God assigned to them. Fortunately, I believe the historical evidence to be on my side, and on theirs.

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