Wayward Saints: The Social and Religious Protests of the Godbeites against Brigham Young

A story that includes spiritualist séances, conspiracy, and an important church trial, Wayward Saints chronicles the 1870s challenge of a group of British Mormon intellectuals to Brigham Young’s leadership and authority. William S. Godbe and his associates protested against Young because they disliked his demanding community and resented what they perceived to be Young’s intrusion into matters of personal choice.

Excommunicated from the Church, they established the “New Movement,” which eventually faltered. Both a study in intellectual history and an investigation of religious dissent, Wayward Saints explores nineteenth-century American spiritualism as well as the ideas and intellectual structure of first- and second-generation Mormonism.

A compelling story, and the author has a compelling way of drawing the reader into it. I recommend it.

—Klaus Hansen, author of Mormonism and the American Experience