LDS duo on list of top 100 in nation

Smith and Young are among tally of most influential Americans

As scholars continue to examine the impact of America's homegrown religious figures, a panel of historians has placed both Joseph Smith and Brigham Young on its list of the 100 Most Influential Americans of all time.

The list is the cover story in the December issue of Atlantic magazine, and ranks Joseph Smith — "the founder of Mormonism, America's most famous homegrown faith" — at No. 52, and his successor as LDS Church president — Brigham Young — at No. 74.

"What Joseph Smith founded, Young preserved," the magazine said, "leading the Mormons to their promised land." (See the list at www.theatlantic.com/doc/200612/influentials)

The top four people on the list are all past U.S. presidents, in order: Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Though the list is dominated by presidents, America's Founding Fathers and politicians, Joseph Smith and Brigham Young join Mary Baker Eddy — the founder of Christian Science (No. 86) and theologians Jonathan Edwards (No. 90) and Lyman Beecher (No. 91, father of Harriet Beecher Stowe, No. 41) as those most recognized for their religious influence.

Martin Luther King Jr., a black minister, was the only religious leader in the top 10, listed at No. 8. While the magazine notes that no one did more to further racial equality, King's religious role wasn't mentioned specifically, though the church served as his bully pulpit for social change.

William Lloyd Garrison, also a preacher whose newspaper, "The Liberator," became "the voice of abolition" in the 19th century, ranked 46th.

The 10 historians who came up with the list — four of them Pulitzer Prize winners — also cast votes for other religious figures who failed to make the list, including Catholic Bishop Fulton Sheen, missionary and Methodist leader Francis Asbury, 19th century evangelist Dwight Moody and his 20th century counterpart, Billy Graham.

Many of the panelists are political historians, but at least two of them have written about or researched the early history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, according to Jan Shipps, president of the American Society of Church History and a longtime scholar of Mormonism.

Mark Noll, a professor of history at the University of Notre Dame, preceded Shipps as president of ASCH and specializes in religious history. Gordon Wood, professor of history at Brown University, presented a keynote lecture on the early history of the LDS Church at the Mormon History Association more than two decades ago, she said.

Joseph Smith, Brigham Young and Mary Baker Eddy were selected because they led indigenous American religions, Shipps said. "I think they should all appear there, but I think there are other (religious figures) that should also appear," including Asbury, John Winthrop, Roger Williams and William Penn.

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