The distinction between God as creator and God as organizer matters because the perennial religious call to imitate God made organizing a defining act of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. (Note to readers: In my last column, I omitted “Jesus Christ’’ from the formal name of the Mormon religion - a not insignificant mistake.) The Book of Mormon organizes a vast and disjointed history. Joseph Smith, and his main successor Brigham Young, who led the exodus to Utah, were men of high religious charisma, yet each had a gift for practical leadership that enabled the organizing of an historic movement.
The organizational transformation of the religion into a burgeoning social network led to exceptional success in business. Indeed, by the late 20th century, Mormons were leaders in organizational development and other business-transforming fields - with a leading Mormon, Kim B. Clark, a 21st-century dean of the Harvard Business School. Always, they remained loyal to the church organization - in 2005, Clark left Harvard to accept a church call to run a fledgling branch of Brigham Young University. Mormons, in sum, were the original organization men.
THE BOOK OF MORMON, which the young farm boy Smith received in a vision, organizes a vast history across most of a thousand years. Three ancient Hebrew families (Jaredites, Lehites, and Mulekites) made the voyage across the seas to America about six centuries before Christ, and the book tracks the history of their descendants down to the catastrophic end of each family’s story in about 400 AD. The narrative, as read by this outsider, is presented as the composition mainly of three prophets - Nephi, Mormon, and Mormon’s son Moroni, who, reincarnated as an angel, delivers the record to Smith in early 19th-century New York.
