Did Joseph Smith Join the Methodist Church?

Critics claim historical records show Joseph joining the Methodists — directly contradicting the First Vision. The actual evidence shows something far simpler.

What the Critics Actually Claim

The argument runs like this: if the First Vision actually happened, God told Joseph not to join any existing church. Yet critics point to three pieces of evidence they say show Joseph doing exactly that.

First, Lucy Mack Smith’s history records that the Smith family was drawn toward Methodism during the local religious excitement. Second, the Joseph and Hiel Lewis accounts published in the Amboy Journal allegedly show that a “Joseph Smith” was placed on a Methodist class roll. Third, Joseph’s own siblings joined various churches — why would he be different?

The implication is devastating, critics say: either the First Vision never happened, or Joseph immediately ignored a direct divine command. Neither option leaves his credibility intact. But this argument collapses under examination on every single point.

Class Meetings Are Not Church Membership

Here is the question that stops this argument cold: do you know what a Methodist “class meeting” actually was in early 19th-century America?

Methodist polity in the 1820s operated on a probationary system inherited from John Wesley. Interested seekers — people who had not made any formal covenant commitment — could attend class meetings and be recorded on probationary rolls. These were lists of seekers, not members. The probationary period existed precisely to allow investigation before commitment. A person on a probationary class meeting roll had made no binding covenant with the Methodist Church, had not been received into membership, and could walk away at any time with no ecclesiastical consequence.

Being on a Methodist class meeting roll in 1820 is the functional equivalent of signing up for a church’s email newsletter today. It establishes interest. It does not establish membership.

Joseph himself recorded in his 1838 history that before his prayer in the grove, he “attended their several meetings as occasion would permit.” He was attending. He was investigating. That is exactly what probationary class meeting attendance was designed for — and it is precisely what Joseph said he was doing. The critics have found evidence of exactly what Joseph said happened, then argued it contradicts him.

What Lucy Mack Smith Actually Recorded

What did Lucy Mack Smith actually write? Read carefully, because the critics rarely quote the full context.

Lucy records that members of the Smith family responded differently to the religious excitement of the era. Several of the children inclined toward the Presbyterians. Lucy herself describes becoming drawn to the Methodists — in her own words, “somewhat partial to the Methodist sect” — and feeling a desire to join with them. Her interest reflects how appealing Methodist preaching was to the family. But her history nowhere records Joseph entering covenant membership with the Methodists; it describes a household caught up in the seeking and investigating that defined the era.

Lucy Mack Smith History, 1845 (Joseph Smith Papers)

“I became somewhat partial to the Methodist sect…”

Notice what this quotation does not say. It is Lucy describing her own attraction to Methodism, not a record of Joseph formally joining. The critics borrow the family’s general interest in Methodist preaching and quietly transfer it into a claim that Joseph took on covenant membership — a claim Lucy’s history simply does not make.

The critics have taken half of the picture — that the Smith family was emotionally moved by Methodist preaching — while ignoring the other half: that this interest belongs to a period of searching, and that no formal membership for Joseph is recorded. Selective reading is not historical analysis.

The Timing Problem — Before or After?

Even accepting every factual premise the critics assert, their argument requires a specific timeline that the evidence does not support.

The critique must demonstrate that Joseph attended Methodist class meetings after the First Vision and that this attendance constituted formal covenant membership. Neither of these conditions is established by the evidence. Joseph’s 1832 account — his earliest written version of the First Vision — explicitly states that before his prayer, he had already concluded through personal scripture study that “mankind did not come unto the Lord but that they had apostatised from the true and liveing faith.” His theological conclusion preceded the vision.

The attending, the investigating, the Methodist class meeting — all of this belongs to the period of Joseph’s search, not to the period after the First Vision resolved that search. There is no credible evidence of Joseph seeking formal Methodist membership after 1820.

The class-roll episode itself comes almost entirely from a single late source: the reminiscences of Joseph Lewis and Hiel Lewis, published in the Amboy Journal in 1879. They recalled that Joseph had been put on a Methodist class book, but their account dates to roughly 1828 and refers to the period when Joseph was living near the Lewis family in Harmony, Pennsylvania — years after the 1820 vision, and well into the time when Joseph was a known seeker who had not affiliated with any sect. Even taken at face value, this hostile, decades-later recollection describes class-book attendance, not covenant membership. For a fuller treatment of the Lewis accounts and Lucy Mack Smith’s religious affiliations, see FAIR’s review of the relevant sources.

The Logic Problem — Fabricators Don’t Leave Contradictions

Here is the question to ask any critic pressing this argument: what exactly are you accusing Joseph Smith of?

Critics who believe Joseph fabricated the First Vision are simultaneously arguing that he was a brilliant enough deceiver to produce the Book of Mormon, establish a new theological system, found a church that would survive his death and grow to millions — and yet careless enough to leave a contradictory paper trail in a small New York town where his neighbors knew everything about him.

In Palmyra in 1820, everyone knew everyone. Methodist class meeting records were not secret documents. If Joseph had formally joined the Methodists and then publicly claimed God told him not to join any church, his neighbors — many of whom later became his most vocal critics — would have used that contradiction to destroy his credibility immediately. They did not, because the contradiction did not exist.

The argument requires Joseph to be simultaneously a sophisticated architect of religious fraud and an obvious bungler who left elementary contradictions in a small town where everyone could see them. You cannot have it both ways. A fraudster careful enough to invent the First Vision would have been careful enough not to join the Methodists afterward.

The Double Standard in Historical Evidence

Some critics cite a letter from Phineas Young mentioning Joseph’s interest in Methodism as if it were definitive. Phineas Young was not a contemporary witness to events in 1820. He was writing years later, recounting secondhand information. In any other historical context, this would be acknowledged as hearsay and weighted accordingly.

The double standard is worth naming plainly: critics apply rigorous skepticism to every piece of evidence supporting Joseph Smith — eyewitness testimony to the First Vision is dismissed because accounts vary in detail — while accepting secondhand letters and ambiguous probationary records as decisive proof against him. Consistent historical method requires consistent standards of evidence.

Apply the same standard to both sides. Joseph’s own accounts, recorded in his own words, at multiple points in his life, consistently affirm that he investigated all the sects and joined none. The class-roll claim rests on a single hostile reminiscence recorded decades after the fact. And the probationary nature of class meetings means that even if accurate, attendance was never the same thing as membership.

Against this: a secondhand letter and a probationary attendance record that does not constitute membership, consistent with the very investigation Joseph described. This is not a close call.

The Verdict

Did Joseph Smith join the Methodist Church? No. The evidence, read carefully and in full, confirms the opposite of what critics claim.

Joseph attended Methodist meetings as part of his sincere investigation of all the sects — exactly as he described. The strongest evidence critics can produce is a class-book attendance recalled decades later by the Lewis brothers, which reflects seeker attendance, not covenant membership. Methodist class meeting rolls were not church membership rolls; confusing them is a category error.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ teaches that God answered a young man’s sincere prayer in a grove of trees in upstate New York. Joseph Smith spent years attending every church in the region, genuinely searching for the truth before that prayer. The evidence of that search is not a contradiction of his account. It is confirmation of it.

The critic’s argument has taken the evidence of Joseph’s honest investigation and tried to turn it into evidence of fraud. That requires misreading Lucy Mack Smith, misunderstanding Methodist polity, ignoring the timeline, applying a double standard to sources, and demanding that a sophisticated fraudster simultaneously leave obvious contradictions in plain sight. None of that holds together. The First Vision account stands.