last class, I learned that at the exact same time that the mormons were being driven out of Missouri, across the Mississippi river into Iowa and Illinois, the Cherokee were being driven across the Mississippi in the other direction during the period and path marked as the trail of tears. this helped put the missourian persecution of the saints into perspective for me. the mormon founding experience was taking place in a very different america than today where freedoms that I take for granted were not necessarily upheld for everyone.
however, I think our perception of church history as an individual membership has taken on a victim mentality. it's good to study and know in greater detail than we do the explicit experience of the early church, but I find many members so caught up in our history and the way we've been wronged as a church in the past that they are quick to project that mentality on our interactions with the world today. that will be counterproductive. the fact that the trail of tears was occuring at the same time just highlights the reality that at this time of american history, we were not the exception, nor can we pretend that we were wronged in a vacuum. much of the persecution of the saints is explainable by many things other than our religion, including economic, political and societal conditions. church members should not be passive or incomplete students of our history but take care to understand the entire historical context, not the one we see with our lenses of today.
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