Leroy S. Johnson

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Leroy S. Johnson
Born Leroy Sunderland Johnson
(1888-06-12)June 12, 1888
Lee's Ferry, Arizona, U.S.
Died November 25, 1986(1986-11-25) (aged 98)
Hildale, Utah, U.S.
Resting place
 Isaac W. Carling Memorial Park
Colorado City, Arizona, U.S.
Occupation Prophet President of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
Religion Fundamentalist Mormon
Spouse(s) at least 15[1]
Parents Warren Marshall and Permelia (Smith) Johnson

Leroy Sunderland Johnson (June 12, 1888 – November 25, 1986), known to his followers as Uncle Roy,[2] was a leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS Church), a polygamist Mormon group based in Colorado City, Arizona, during the latter half of the twentieth century.

Biography

Leroy Sunderland Johnson was born on June 12, 1888, probably at Lee's Ferry, Arizona, to bigamist Warren Marshall Johnson, a first-generation convert to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), and one of his wives, Permelia Smith Johnson.[3]

Johnson was baptized into the LDS Church at the age of eight, not long after Church President Wilford Woodruff's 1890 Manifesto banning polygamy was issued.[4] Like his father before him, Johnson took issue with the Manifesto, being very outspoken about his belief in "the Celestial Law" even before learning about the formal fundamentalist movement within Mormonism.[5] His convictions were strengthened after traveling to Short Creek, Arizona, where a prominent polygamist community was coalescing, and acquainting himself with movement leaders such as John W. Woolley, Joseph White Musser, and John Y. Barlow.[6]

Johnson and his wife Josephine were excommunicated from the LDS Church in 1935, along with most of the Short Creek Community, after refusing to sign an affidavit abandoning their belief in plural marriage. At this time Johnson chose to officially join the "Woolley group" of fundamentalists, the spiritual predecessor to the modern Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS Church), and was quickly ordained a member of the group's Council of the Priesthood by John Y. Barlow.[7][8]

Johnson became a leader of the polygamist movement after Barlow's death in 1949. He did not initially consider his group a distinct organization from the Salt Lake-based Church, describing it simply as "the Fundamentalist division of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints," but by 1952 he openly remarked that he and his followers "have separated ourselves from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as it now stands."[9][10] Despite being plagued by incidents such as the 1953 Short Creek raid, Johnson's thirty-two year tenure as senior member of the Priesthood Council has been characterized as "a time of stability, growth, financial success, and greater public acceptance."[11]

While Johnson is today recognized as a prophet of the FLDS Church, he only elusively made reference to his own prophetic status: "You have heard other men call me a prophet, but you have never heard me make the claim."[12]

While acting as Prophet, Johnson dismissed J. Marion Hammon and Alma Adelbert Timpson from the Council of Friends.[13] Hammon and Timpson went on to form the Centennial Park group of polygamists.

Following Johnson's death in Hildale, Utah on November 25, 1986, Rulon Jeffs succeeded him as leader of the FLDS Church. Although Johnson had been "very ill" and "fast fading into senility" for several years, his passing created a "climate of upheaval" within the community, during which the Church became increasingly authoritarian.[14] The numbers of apostates gradually increased, spiking in the early twenty-first century with the turmoil accompanying the imprisonment of Jeffs' son, Church President Warren Jeffs, on two counts of child sexual assault.

In recent years, Johnson's tenure as Prophet has become a focal point for Fundamentalists disaffected with the modern FLDS. For instance, one of Warren Jeffs' brothers noted that "Uncle Roy" was a "warm, loving" prophet who "taught polygamy for the right reasons," whereas Jeffs "has no love for the people."[15]

Johnson's birthday was celebrated as a holiday within the FLDS Church until the practice was discontinued by Warren Jeffs in 2003.[16][17]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ "Polygamist 'Uncle Roy' Johnson," The Montreal Gazette, 27 November 1986.
  2. ↑ Krakauer (2003, p. 33) ("Until 1986...the prophet was LeRoy Johnson, a plainspoken farmer known to his followers as 'Uncle Roy.'")
  3. ↑ Johnson (1983-84), 4:1223.
  4. ↑ Johnson (1983-84), 2:693.
  5. ↑ Johnson (1983-84), 3:1159 ("I tried for some years before I became acquainted with President Barlow or President John W. Woolley to get into the principle of plural marriage, because I had it in my heart")
  6. ↑ Johnson (1983-84), 6:346.
  7. ↑ Johnson (1983-84), 6:343.
  8. ↑ Baer (1988, p. 38).
  9. ↑ Johnson (1983-84), 4:1635.
  10. ↑ Johnson (1983-84), 5:28.
  11. ↑ Ken Driggs (1990). "Fundamentalist Attitudes toward the Church: The Sermons of Leroy S. Johnson". Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. p. 39. 
  12. ↑ Bistline (2004, p. 102)
  13. ↑ "Leroy S. Johnson". Retrieved 6 April 2013. 
  14. ↑ Krakauer (2003, pp. 38–39) ("Uncle Roy...was by then ninety-three years old, very ill, and fast fading into senility.... In 1986 Uncle Roy died, and Rulon Jeffs became the UEP's new prophet. In the climate of upheaval that followed, there was turmoil in both Bountiful and Colorado City.")
  15. ↑ Krakauer (2003, p. 263)
  16. ↑ Wall (2009, p. 260) ("...Warren announced that this year we would not be celebrating Uncle Roy's birthday. Though Uncle Roy had begun this tradition himself, and it had been carried on for years, Warren declared that the event was not what Uncle Roy would have wanted.")
  17. ↑ Jeffs (2010, p. 206) ("Warren had already begun cracking down on the people of Short Creek: canceling the 2003 celebration of Leroy Johnson's birthday in June and the Pioneer Day Parade in July, which commemorates the date that Mormons first settled in the Salt Lake valley.")

References

  • Baer, Hans A. (1988), Recreating Utopia in the Desert: A Sectarian Challenge to Modern Mormonism, Albany: State University of New York Press .
  • Bistline, Benjamin J. (February 2004), The Polygamists: A History of Colorado City, Arizona, Agreka Books, ISBN 1-8881-0674-3 .
  • Jeffs, Brent W. (May 2009), Lost Boy: The True Story of One Man's Exile from a Polygamous Cult and His Brave Journey to Reclaim His Life, Broadway, ISBN 0-7679-3177-7 .
  • Johnson, Leroy S. (1983-4), The L. S. Johnson Sermons (6 vols.), Hildale, Utah: Twin Cities Courier Press  .
  • Krakauer, Jon (July 2003), Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith, New York: Doubleday, ISBN 1-4000-3280-6 .
  • Wall, Elissa (February 2008), Stolen Innocence: My Story of Growing Up in a Polygamous Sect, Becoming a Teenage Bride, and Breaking Free of Warren Jeffs, New York: HarperCollins, ISBN 0-0617-3496-9 .

External links

Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints titles
Preceded by
Joseph White Musser
as Senior Member of the Priesthood Council 
(Short Creek Community)		 Prophet and President
1954 – November 25, 1986 		Succeeded by
Rulon T. Jeffs
as Prophet and President of the FLDS
Preceded by
Charles Zitting
as Senior Member of the Priesthood Council
(unrecognized)		 Succeeded by
J. Marion Hammon
as Head of the Centennial Park group
Recognized leaders[lower-alpha 1]
Disputed leaders[lower-alpha 2]
Early fundamentalist leaders
Leaders of the fundamentalist sects
The Apostolic United Brethren
The FLDS Church
The Centennial Park group
  • J. Marion Hammon
  • Alma A. Timpson
  • John W. Timpson
The Latter Day Church of Christ
The LeBaron Sects
Independents and other leaders
  1. ↑ [a] Mormon leaders prior to the start of the fundamentalist movement and recognized by most fundamentalists as legitimate church leaders.
  2. ↑ [b] Mormon leaders that made changes to church policies on plural marriage; recognition of legitimacy of leadership varies by fundamentalist group.
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