Conversions ~ Reflections on a Spiritual Journey with Elaine Ball
Program of The Women’s Alliance, Tuesday, January 7, 2025
Have you had a conversion story? What does conversion mean for you? Have you converted to anything at some point in your life?
Tonight I’ll be sharing a few of my own conversion stories, as well as some of those of my ancestors. I’ll be tying in what I’ve been learning about three religious traditions – Mormonism, Unitarianism, and Universalism – especially as they were developing here in New England during The Great Awakening.
I’ll be weaving back and forth through various points in history, but I’ll start with my own story. I’ll jump back to the 1500s when I talk about our Protestant religious roots; take you through the 1600s when I talk about my English-American ancestors; and I’ll wrap up in the 1800s, where my ancestry gets all tied up with the Mormons, Unitarians, and Universalists.
My interest in this religious history stems from a life-long desire to understand who I am, and where I come from. I was born in 1985 and raised in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the official name of the Mormon Church); I resigned my Membership about two decades ago, when I was 21 and began learning about the history of Mormonism from sources outside The Church.
I realize that having ‘a conversion story’ means something different to anyone who might have one. Some people never really experience ‘being converted’ to anything, while others may have the experience once, or a few times.
For me, I felt ‘converted’ nearly every time I went through one of the rites/rituals in the Mormon Church. To me, ‘being converted’ to something means you begin to believe it strongly. You experience powerful religious/spiritual emotions, and even change your behavior to align with your new beliefs.
Even being born into a Mormon family, I wasn’t considered an official Member of the Mormon Church until I was baptized at the age of eight. This was the first time I felt ‘converted.’ Mormon families believe this is the ‘age of accountability,’ when people begin to be responsible for their own decisions.
When I was about to be baptized, I remember thinking and praying a lot about it. I remember my parents giving me my first Book of Mormon . . . we had one we read as a family, and we had many illustrated children’s versions, but this one ‘a real one,’ and it was mine! I could read it any time (and I did, all the time), and highlight the parts I liked.
I remember my Dad helping me ‘practice’ for my baptism, so I wouldn’t be nervous on ‘the big day.’ The Mormons practice Baptism by Immersion, and dunking an eight year old who doesn’t swim all the way under water – even if it’s only for a few seconds – seems a little mean to me now.
So why would being baptized into a church you had been born into be such a ‘conversion’ experience? Well, because I had prayed and studied so much before the big day, I knew Heavenly Father was proud of me for ‘choosing’ to join His Church. I remember my Grandparents, Aunts, and Uncles coming – all the way from Utah to North Carolina – and them and other people giving me presents, like flowers and a Choose the Right ring.
Then, after the baptism, all the men in my family gave me a special Priesthood Blessing where I was given The Gift of the Holy Ghost – it was like a warm light entered into me, and would stay with me the rest of my life. We were taught to listen to The Still, Small Voice, which was The Holy Ghost guiding us, to know right from wrong. The first time I swore – a word I’d heard somewhere but didn’t really know what it meant – I felt sick to my stomach right away, and I knew The Holy Ghost was telling me to never say that word again!
There were a number of other rites and rituals I experienced at various ages – 12, 14, 18, 20 . . . and at each of these stages, I felt ‘converted’ again. I felt I was starting over, in a way, like I understood something new, and wouldn’t ever be the same.
When I was 21 – just a year after being ‘married and sealed for time and all eternity’ in the Mormon Temple, my husband and I began reading more about the lives of the Mormon Prophets we had been taught were God’s representatives on Earth, and we soon found that we no longer believed what we’d been taught. We resigned from the Mormon Church, and about a year after that, I realized I was queer, and a couple years after that we divorced . . . my twenties were a turbulent time.
I was just as interested, as an ex-Mormon, in reading everything I could get my hands on about religion, faith, and belief, as I had been as a Mormon in studying my scriptures . . . So, shortly after leaving the Mormon church, I went to another holy place, the Library, and found something new to read: Karen Armstrong’s “A History of God: The 4,000 Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.”
I soon ‘converted’ – if you can say that – to humanism, and began organizing student groups and community events with atheists, humanists, and ex-Mormons in Salt Lake City. Through that organizing work, I met the Humanists of Utah, who met monthly in the Vestry of the First Unitarian Church of Salt Lake City, of course – soon, I began attending services there.
I’ll never forget the first few times I sang hymns from the UU grey hymnal. The music is so similar to the hymns I’d grown up singing (I would later realize this was because of our shared Protestant roots), but the words! I could sing the words! I believed them, they spoke to me. I hadn’t been able to sing the words to hymns for years, and it felt like coming home.
I officially became a Unitarian Universalist there at First Church in Utah in 2010, signing my name to the Membership Book and taking on various volunteer roles, from staffing the Book Table, to teaching the preschoolers, to mentoring the Coming-of-Age group.
Then, through a serendipitous series of events, I found myself in Vermont, where Joseph Smith, Founder and Prophet of Mormonism, was born in 1805 – It would feel as if I’d ‘come full circle,’ backtracking from the path my ancestors had followed from New England to Utah in the 1800s .
When I began attending UCM, I noticed right away that when we were all singing together, if the word “God” came up, an audible half of the congregation would sing the word “Love,” instead. I hadn’t ever heard people do that before – mostly because at First Church in Salt Lake, we just avoided any hymn containing the word “God.” This also felt like a ‘conversion’ to me – the beginning of a greater appreciation for the plurality of beliefs in UU congregations.
Now, I’d like to jump back in time from my own Mormonism-to Unitarian Universalism ‘conversion story,’ to share some of my ancestors’ conversions to Mormonism, from New England Protestant churches like First Church Boston (now a UU church).
From my upbringing in the Mormon church, I’ve had access to extensive genealogical records, including diaries, letters, and journals kept by my ancestors, and we’ve been able to trace my mother’s line to family in the Americas in the early-and-mid 1600s.
Of course, in the 16-1700s, churches like First Church Boston were not at all liberal religious communities, so my ancestors didn’t exactly ‘convert’ to Mormonism from being Unitarians or Universalists . . . and I’ve been fascinated to learn just how much our faith traditions (and our families) have in common, solely from the roots shared by our Protestant ancestors.
In 1630, Thomas and Dorothy Dudley, my 11th-great grandparents, travelled from England with John Winthrop and others on the Arbella, with the Charter from the King to settle the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Anne Bradstreet, their oldest daughter, was the first woman poet – and first poet – whose work was published in both London and the American colonies.
Anne was only 16 when she married 25-year-old Simon Bradstreet, an apprentice of her father’s who would follow in Thomas’ footsteps, serving multiple terms as Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
The first few generations of the Dudley and Bradstreet families in Massachusetts enslaved over 40 people – African Americans, indigenous peoples, and indentured servants. Thomas Dudley was one of the founding colonists who established the not-so-aptly-named Body of Liberties in 1641 – the first legal code in British North America to officially sanction slavery.
I have no desire to cover-up unpleasant realities, or pretend awful things haven’t happened in my family. I believe Martin Luther King, Jr.’s words: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”
When my family first emigrated to North America in 1630, they composed and signed the covenant for First Church Boston written within days of their arrival! This was important work . . . as was keeping everyone ‘in line.’
In 2005, First Church Boston dedicated a statue of Anne Hutchinson, a midwife, mystic, and lay religious advisor who began criticizing local ministers as soon as she arrived in 1633. She’s recognized as having been “received into the Membership of this church, 1634. Banished from Massachusetts by Decree of Court, 1637. Cast out of First Church, 1638 . . .”
My ancestors’ names are listed in the Membership records of First Church Boston during those years – and Thomas Dudley – remember my distant grandfather? – was Deputy Governor at the time, and assisted in the prosecution!
How did these churches shift with the sands of time?
Here we jump forward to the late-1700s through the mid-1800s – a time now called The Great Awakening. ‘Religious revivals’ – waves of religious excitement – were spreading across what was becoming the United States of America, especially around New England. Itinerant and evangelical preachers were traveling from town to town, and state to state, to share their beliefs and help revitalize or start new congregations of all denominations.
Unitarianism – the heretical, anti-trinitarian idea that God was One being, rather than three – and Universalism – the possibly even more heretical belief in Universal Salvation – that God would save all people – were just a couple of the religious movements emerging and spreading around here. Mormonism was one of the newer movements.
An interesting common thread here: Mormon doctrine is actually ‘unitarian.’ They teach that God is His own separate being, that Jesus Christ is His son, and . . . well, the Holy Ghost is complicated. Suffice to say, they don’t think the idea of a Trinity (which the Catholics teach) makes much sense. Solidly Protestant.
For those not so familiar with Christian religious history, I’ll jump back now even further, to the 1500s, in Europe. Unitarians and Universalists consider a number of people to be free-thinking UU ancestors. Beginning shortly after the Guttenberg Press began making The Bible more accessible, people began reading the text on their own, and interpreting it differently from how it was being taught by the Catholic clergy. People like Catherine Vogel in Poland, and Michael Servetus in Switzerland, began to be arrested for ‘apostasy’ and burned at the stake as ‘heretics.’
Around this time, Martin Luther, a German teacher and monk, published his 95 Theses (inspiring Servetus and others) – and the Protestant Reformation began.
‘Protestant Christianity’ is called that to distinguish it from Catholicism. Those who came to be known as ‘Protestants’ were ‘protesting’ many teachings and practices of the Catholic Church – the primary one Luther took issue with was the practice of priests selling “indulgences” for sins . . . Theses 27 reads:
- They preach only human doctrines who say that as soon as the money clinks into the money chest, the soul flies out of purgatory.
From these heretical beginnings, over the next couple hundred years, Protestant Christianity would continue to branch off into many sects, known today as Lutherans, Presbyterians, Methodists, and others.
Now, there are many more comprehensive histories of Unitarian, Universalist, and Mormon theologies that I won’t delve too far into now – I’ll just say that they all evolved, here in America, from these Protestant roots.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has to a significant degree maintained theologies, doctrines, and practices that continue to closely align with the Calvinist teachings being espoused in New England in the 1830s.
Their leadership structure hasn’t changed, men are still in the only positions of real authority, and people who no longer believe, or who doubt or question what they’re taught, are excommunicated (or forced to resign). Family ties are often broken during painful religious transitions. This was happening in the 1600s, the 1800s, and is still happening today . . . I can tell you more sometime about my own ‘resignation’ – I was able to choose not to be excommunicated, although they did try as soon as they found out I was trying to resign!
A personal example of excommunication from my family history: One of Anne Bradstreet’s sisters, Sarah (Dudley) (Keayne), experienced the first recorded instance of divorce and excommunication in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, in 1644! She was married in 1639, when she was just 19, to Benjamin Keayne. They had a daughter together, Hannah, then just 5 years later he abandoned them, absconded to England, and never returned. Yet she was the one excommunicated, two years later, accused of “having a bad reputation as a single woman!”
Now eventually, many once-Puritan Protestant Christian church communities began calling more ‘liberal Christian’ ministers to lead their parishes, eventually resulting in churches like First Church Boston becoming Unitarian Universalist congregations.
New Unitarian and Universalist congregations were also organized during this time (including ours), typically by ‘non-orthodox’ Christians and people of other faith traditions, who wanted a place to worship, and to be in community with others with a more curious, questioning way of seeing the world.
One of these ministers I’ll highlight briefly is Olympia Brown, the first woman in the U.S. to be ordained as clergy with the consent of her denomination, by the Universalist Church, in 1863.
Antoinette Brown Blackwell was ordained by the Congregational Church in South Butler, NY in 1853, but was only recognized as a qualified minister by that one church congregation.
Olympia Brown even preached here, in Marshfield and Montpelier, as well as numerous other New England churches. And right about the time when she became a Universalist minister, our own church, originally called The Church of the Messiah, was founded in 1864 – exactly 160 years ago last month.
So! How might these traditions have crossed paths during the late 1700s and early 1800s?
As I mentioned earlier, in Sharon, Vermont in 1805, Joseph Smith, founder of one of those new Christian, Protestant faiths, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints – was born to an itinerant farming family. I won’t go into his whole history, but around 25-30 years later, Joseph Smith and a few of his trusted Mormon friends and leaders would cross paths with Leonard Wilford Hardy, my 5th-great grandfather, in Bradford, MA.
Oddly enough, Joseph and Leonard were both born in 1805, but that’s tangential . . .
By 1850, Joseph Smith had died – long story – and his successor, Brigham Young, was leading “The Saints” (The Mormons) West.
Now, I have an intriguing Letter to the Editor – I’ve included photos of it here – written by Joseph Smith’s widow, Emma Smith, shortly after he died in 1845. A couple of highlights: she shares her dismay at the religious leaders’ decision to “lead The Saints West,” accuses them of being “petty tyrants,” and also expresses her belief that her husband had been “laboring under a diseased mind” – shocking!
I found this in The Universalist Watchman and Christian Repository, a religious periodical published right here in Montpelier, VT in the early 1800s by Eli Ballou, one of the original founders of this church. So, you can see that the LDS/Mormon movement was definitely on the radar of Universalists and liberal Christians around this time.
Shortly after Joseph Smith was killed, Leonard Hardy and his family migrated with those leaders Emma trusted so little, and the rest is history!
As I’ve been delving more deeply into my family history – especially in the years since the conversion of my first Mormon ancestor, Leonard, in the 1830s – and learning so many stories about my ancestors, everything I’ve come across has elicited more questions than answers – how very UU!
Here are a few questions I’ve been trying to answer:
Why didn’t any of Leonard’s immediate family members also join the Mormon Church? How did they feel about him joining and moving West? Did he ever see them again?
Why didn’t Leonard’s first wife, Betsey, convert to Mormonism at the same time he did – he converted in 1832, and she didn’t join until eight years later, in 1841!
Then, why did she not only migrate West with him in 1850, but also agree to open their marriage to an additional four wives, three of them sisters to each other?
Letter to the Editor from Emma Smith, 1845
