Journal articles: 'Mormon and Mormonism'

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Morris, Paul. "Polynesians and Mormonism." Nova Religio 18, no. 4 (2014): 83–101. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/nr.2015.18.4.83.

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Polynesia has a particular place in the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). The region that heralded the Church’s first overseas missions includes seven of the world’s top ten nations in terms of the proportion of Mormons in the population, and it is home to six Mormon temples. The Polynesian Latter-day Saint population is increasing in both percentage and absolute numbers, and peoples in the Pacific “islands of the sea” continue to play a central role in the Mormon missionary imaginary. This article explores Polynesians in the LDS Church and critically evaluates different theories seeking to explain this growing religious affiliation. Scholars of Mormonism and commentators explain this growth in terms of parallels between Mormonism and indigenous Polynesian traditions, particularly family lineage and ancestry, and theological and ritual affinities. After evaluating these claims in light of scholarly literature and interviews with Latter-day Saints, however, I conclude that other reasons—especially education and other new opportunities—may equally if not more significantly account for the appeal of Mormonism to Polynesians.

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Hernandez, Daniel. "A Divine Rebellion: Indigenous Sacraments among Global “Lamanites”." Religions 12, no. 4 (April 19, 2021): 280. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rel12040280.

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This essay engages with some of the experiences and metaphysics of Indigenous peoples who are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormonism/LDS/the Church) by responding to their structural construction as “Lamanites”. Lamanites have been interpreted within Mormonism to be ancestors of various global Indigenous peoples of the “Americas” and “Polynesia”. This essay reveals how contemporary Indigenous agency by presumed descendants of the Lamanites, who embrace both an Indigenous and a Mormon identity, shifts the cosmology of the Church. Interpretations of TheBook of Mormon that empower contemporary Indigenous agency paradoxically materialize a divinely inspired cultural rebellion within the Church itself. However, this tension that is mediated by Lamanites in the Church is not framed as an exclusive response to the Church itself but, rather, to a larger global hegemony of coloniality to which the Church is subject. These Lamanite worldviews can be understood as a process of restoring ancestral Indigenous sacraments (rituals) through Mormon paradigms, which are found and nurtured in the cracks and fissures of both the material and ontological infrastructure of Mormonism’s dominant paradigm. When Indigenous Mormons assert autonomous authorship of their own cosmogony and metaphysics, the Church beliefs of restoring a ‘primitive Christian church’ and ‘becoming Gods’ is creatively transformed into a more relevant and liberating possibility here and now.

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Forsberg Jr., Clyde. "Esotericism and the “Coded Word” in Mormonism." International Journal for the Study of New Religions 2, no. 1 (August 14, 2011): 29–54. http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/ijsnr.v2i1.29.

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In the history of American popular religion, the Latter-day Saints, or Mormons, have undergone a series of paradigmatic shifts in order to join the Christian mainstream, abandoning such controversial core doctrines and institutions as polygamy and the political kingdom of God. Mormon historians have played an important role in this metamorphosis, employing a version (if not perversion) of the Church-Sect Dichotomy to change the past in order to control the future, arguing, in effect, that founder Joseph Smith Jr’s erstwhile magical beliefs and practices gave way to a more “mature” and bible-based self-understanding which is then said to best describe the religion that he founded in 1830. However, an “esoteric approach” as Faivre and Hanegraaff understand the term has much to offer the study of Mormonism as an old, new religion and the basis for a more even methodological playing field and new interpretation of Mormonism as equally magical (Masonic) and biblical (Evangelical) despite appearances. This article will focus on early Mormonism’s fascination with and employment of ciphers, or “the coded word,” essential to such foundation texts as the Book of Mormon and “Book of Abraham,” as well as the somewhat contradictory, albeit colonial understanding of African character and destiny in these two hermetic works of divine inspiration and social commentary in the Latter-day Saint canonical tradition.

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Simpson, Thomas W. "Mormons Study “Abroad“: Brigham Young's Romance with American Higher Education, 1867-1877." Church History 76, no. 4 (December 2007): 778–98. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0009640700500055.

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Because Mormons could never fully realize their separatist dreams of a visible Zion in North America, the history of Mormonism has involved highly complex contacts and negotiations with non-Mormons. In their attempts to convert, resist, or appease outsiders, Mormons have engaged in a distinctive dialectic of secrecy and self-disclosure, of esoteric rites and public relations. The result has been an extended process of controlled modernization.Narratives of this process have focused on the 1890 “Manifesto” of LDS President and Prophet Wilford Woodruff, the momentous declaration that Latter-day Saints must cease to contract plural marriages. The Manifesto put an end to the intense federal persecution of the 1880s, when government agents imprisoned or exiled husbands of plural wives, confiscated Mormon assets, abolished Utah women's right to vote, and secularized Mormon schools. President Woodruff's truce with the federal government brought Mormons a relative peace and an important sign of acceptance: the granting of statehood to Utah in 1896.

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Decoo, Ellen, and Chia Longman. "Gesprekken met mormoonse vrouwen in Vlaanderen." Religie & Samenleving 16, no. 3 (October 1, 2021): 226–49. http://dx.doi.org/10.54195/rs.11460.

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Latter-day Saints (Mormons) living outside the ‘Mormon Culture Region’ in the Western United States usually form small minorities. As Mormonism upholds conservative gender norms, we investigated how a sample of thirteen Mormon women living in Flanders (Northern part of Belgium) experienced their relation with the Flemish secular-liberal environment. The research used the framework of structural ambivalence to assess how these women cope with conflicting norms on marriage age, male-only priesthood and familial dilemmas. Results show how respondents use arguments and strategies to handle or to avert ambivalence.

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Powell, Randy. "Social Welfare at the End of the World: How the Mormons Created an Alternative to the New Deal and Helped Build Modern Conservatism." Journal of Policy History 31, no. 04 (September 11, 2019): 488–511. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0898030619000198.

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Abstract:It is common for members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to be considered one of the most conservative religious groups in the United States. What is less well understood is as to when the relationship between Mormonism and American conservatism began. While some historians point to the social upheavals in the 1960s and 1970s as the glue that united Mormons and conservatives, the connection began decades earlier during the Great Depression. Leaders of the Mormon Church interpreted Roosevelt’s New Deal as the fulfillment of eschatological prophecy. Envisioning themselves saving America and the Constitution at the world’s end, Mormon authorities established their own welfare program to inspire Latter-day Saints and Americans in general to eschew the New Deal. Anti–New Dealers used the Mormon welfare plan to construct a conservative ideology. Accordingly, Mormons are essential elements in the formation of a political movement that revolutionized the United States.

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Simpson, Thomas W. "The Death of Mormon Separatism in American Universities, 1877–1896." Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation 22, no. 2 (2012): 163–201. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/rac.2012.22.2.163.

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AbstractThe transformation of Mormonism from a small, persecuted sect into an established, global faith has attracted scholarly attention for decades. By all accounts, the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were critical for the church's evolution and modernization. The rapidity of the change, however, leaves nagging questions. After years of costly, principled resistance, how could Mormons, with any semblance of dignity and self-respect, suddenly embrace the institutions and values of their tormentors? How did members of the nineteenth century's “most despised large group” become so loyal to the United States in the twentieth?This essay explores the unique, crucial role that American universities played in fostering Mormon-Gentile reconciliation. Right when the animosities were at fever pitch—in the decades between the death of Brigham Young (1877) and Utah's admission into the Union as the forty-fifth state (1896)—the American university became a liminal, quasi-sacred space where Mormons experienced a radical transformation of consciousness and identity. In the process, they developed an enduring devotion to non-Mormon institutions and deference to non-Mormon expertise. These extra-ecclesial loyalties would dismantle the ideological framework of Mormon separatism and pave the way for Mormons' voluntary reimmersion into the mainstream of American life.

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Ormsbee, J. Todd. "‘Like a Cord Snapping’: Toward a grounded theory of how devout Mormons leave the LDS Church." Critical Research on Religion 8, no. 3 (June 2, 2020): 297–317. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/2050303220924096.

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This study describes the cultural, cognitive, social, and emotional work that once-devout members of the LDS Church must engage in to leave the church and divest themselves of Mormon culture. A Grounded Theory approach with a multi-modal memoing process showed that, for the devout, leaving the LDS Church and Mormon culture is not a singular event, but rather a process of gradual transformation that requires time and effort, passing through a series of punctuating events. Formerly devout ex-Mormons had to confront various problems, including the LDS Church’s truth claims and ethical contradictions from within the particular Mormon framework that leavers believed in and followed, which in turn had shaped and constrained both their leaving process and their post-Mormon selves. Interview data revealed a necessary reconstruction of post-Mormon emotionalities. And devout women who left Mormonism bore an added burden of overcoming internalized misogyny.

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Reed, Sarah C. "The Cosmopolitan Saint: Nephi Anderson’s Scandinavian-American Mormon Identity." Scandinavian-Canadian Studies 25 (December 1, 2018): 14–28. http://dx.doi.org/10.29173/scancan150.

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ABSTRACT: Norwegian immigrant Nephi Anderson (1865-1923) was Mormonism’s first popular author and wrote a regional bestseller that stayed in print over 100 years. Despite the fact that many of his works have Scandinavian characters and international settings, scholars have considered Anderson’s texts primarily for their Mormonism and not in terms of his ethnic identity or portrayal of an international church. This parallels the scholarly reception of the Mormon Scandinavian immigration to the United States, which privileges American over Scandinavian and Mormon above American. In this article, I offer a critical reevaluation of Anderson’s works to show their place in Scandinavian-American or “immigrant” literature, preserving Norwegian cultural heritage as it intersects Mormonism.

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Bennett, James B. "“Until This Curse of Polygamy Is Wiped Out”: Black Methodists, White Mormons, and Constructions of Racial Identity in the Late Nineteenth Century." Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation 21, no. 2 (2011): 167–94. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/rac.2011.21.2.167.

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AbstractDuring the final quarter of the nineteenth century, black members of the Methodist Episcopal (ME) Church published a steady stream of anti-Mormonism in their weekly newspaper, the widely read and distributedSouthwestern Christian Advocate. This anti-Mormonism functioned as way for black ME Church members to articulate their denomination's distinctive racial ideology. Black ME Church members believed that their racially mixed denomination, imperfect though it was, offered the best model for advancing black citizens toward equality in both the Christian church and the American nation. Mormons, as a religious group who separated themselves in both identity and practice and as a community experiencing persecution, were a useful negative example of the dangers of abandoning the ME quest for inclusion. Black ME Church members emphasized their Christian faithfulness and American patriotism, in contrast to Mormon religious heterodoxy and political insubordination, as arguments for acceptance as equals in both religious and political institutions. At the same time, anti-Mormon rhetoric also proved a useful tool for reflecting on the challenges of African American life, regardless of denominational affiliation. For example, anti-polygamy opened space to comment on the precarious position of black women and families in the post-bellum South. In addition, cataloguing Mormon intellectual, moral, and social deficiencies became a form of instruction in the larger project of black uplift, by which African Americans sought to enter the ranks and privileges of the American middle class. In the end, however, black ME Church members found themselves increasingly segregated within their denomination and in society at large, even as Mormons, once considered both racially and religiously inferior, were welcomed into the nation as citizens and equals.

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O'Brien, Hazel. "The Marginality of ‘Irish Mormonism’." Journal of the British Association for the Study of Religion (JBASR) 21 (January 8, 2020): 52. http://dx.doi.org/10.18792/jbasr.v21i0.40.

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This article builds upon existing literature which demonstrates the complex interconnections of Catholicism, Irishness, and whiteness in the Republic of Ireland. Using this multifaceted inter-relationship between religious, national, and racial identities as its starting point, this article analyses negotiations of Irishness, community, and belonging amongst adherents of Mormonism in Ireland. This article firstly argues that as members of a minority religion Mormons in Ireland of all backgrounds are stigmatised and marginalised from Irish narratives of ‘belonging’. Secondly, this article determines that as the majority of Mormons in Ireland are white Irish, in keeping with the majority population, they view themselves and are viewed by others as both insiders and outsiders within their own country. Thirdly, this article demonstrates how Mormons in Ireland with racialised identities also navigate a complex system of racial, religious, and national affiliations. Thus, this article establishes that Mormons of all backgrounds in Ireland struggle to gain acceptance and belonging within the national narrative of belonging. Finally, this article identifies the processes through which Mormons in Ireland work to create belonging to the national narrative. For some, emphasising their identity as Christian is a way to find commonality with the majority Catholic population in Ireland. For others, a celebration and reinterpretation of Irishness is used as a tool to build a dual sense of belonging; to others within an increasingly diverse Mormon community in Ireland, and to the wider society.

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Fleming, Stephen J. "“Congenial to Almost Every Shade of Radicalism”: The Delaware Valley and the Success of Early Mormonism." Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation 17, no. 2 (2007): 129–64. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/rac.2007.17.2.129.

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AbstractWith many theories about the rise of Mormonism, this article turns to early Mormonism's growth in the Delaware Valley for insights. By testing the relative wealth of the converts, this article argues that Mormon conversion was not a product of deprivation as the converts tested were somewhat wealthier than their neighbors and were drawn from across the socioeconomic spectrum. Instead of appealing to the dispossessed, Mormonism offered a radical supernatural biblical message that appealed to certain cultural and religious orientations. Mormonism was successful among Methodists in central New Jersey, whose religious practice was still full of the enthusiasm common to Methodism's early years in America. Many of these Methodists saw Mormon supernaturalism as a welcome addition to their experience, while the considerably more formal Methodists on the Pennsylvania side of the Delaware were much less receptive to Mormonism. A Quaker heritage among the converts was common on both sides of the river. The converts were principally not practicing Quakers but still maintained aspects of their heritage and were, thus, termed “hickory” Quakers. Such individuals were common in the Delaware Valley since so many Quaker's had been cut off from the fold largely resulting from the mid-eighteenth-century Quaker reformation that reinstituted strict guidelines on the membership. Yet, the reformation did not reinstitute the enthusiasm of the Quakers’ early years that had been lost after its first generation. The lapsed Quakers who were drawn to Mormonism's supernatural worldview had a romantic inherited memory of Quakerism's origins and were eager to join a religion that manifested the fervor of Quakerism's origins. Thus, Mormonism was congenial to both these kinds of religious radicalism.

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Dransfield, Scott. "Charles Dickens and the Victorian “Mormon Moment”." Religion and the Arts 17, no. 5 (2013): 489–506. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/15685292-12341297.

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Abstract The growth of Mormonism in England in the middle of the nineteenth century presented a number of challenges relating to the cultural status of the new religion and its followers. Charles Dickens’s “uncommercial traveller” sketch describing a group of 800 Mormon converts preparing to emigrate to the United States, “Bound for the Great Salt Lake,” represents the challenge effectively. While Mormons were quickly identified by their heresies and by those qualities that characterized cultural and religious otherness, they were also observed to possess traits of Englishness, reflecting the image of a healthy working class. This article considers the tensions among these contradictory qualities and traces them to a middle-class “secular gospel” that Dickens articulates in his novels. Dickens utilizes this “gospel”—an ethic that valorizes work and domestic order as bearing religious significance—to perceive the followers of the new religion.

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Beckstead, Robert, Bryce Blankenagel, Cody Noconi, and Michael Winkelman. "The entheogenic origins of Mormonism: A working hypothesis." Journal of Psychedelic Studies 3, no. 2 (June 2019): 212–60. http://dx.doi.org/10.1556/2054.2019.020.

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Historical documents relating to early Mormonism suggest that Joseph Smith (1805–1844) employed entheogen-infused sacraments to fulfill his promise that every Mormon convert would experience visions of God and spiritual ecstasies. Early Mormon scriptures and Smith’s teachings contain descriptions consistent with using entheogenic material. Compiled descriptions of Joseph Smith’s earliest visions and early Mormon convert visions reveal the internal symptomology and outward bodily manifestations consistent with using an anticholinergic entheogen. Due to embarrassing symptomology associated with these manifestations, Smith sought for psychoactives with fewer associated outward manifestations. The visionary period of early Mormonism fueled by entheogens played a significant role in the spectacular rise of this American-born religion. The death of Joseph Smith marked the end of visionary Mormonism and the failure or refusal of his successor to utilize entheogens as a part of religious worship. The implications of an entheogenic origin of Mormonism may contribute to the broader discussion of the major world religions with evidence of entheogen use at their foundation and illustrate the value of entheogens in religious experience.

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Phillips, Rick. "Rethinking the International Expansion of Mormonism." Nova Religio 10, no. 1 (August 1, 2006): 52–68. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/nr.2006.10.1.52.

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ABSTRACT: The rapid international expansion of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter——day Saints——the LDS, or Mormon Church——prompts some sociologists to claim that Mormonism is an incipient world religion. This expansion also serves as the basis for several sociological theories of church growth. However, these observations and theories rely on an uncritical acceptance of the LDS Church's membership statistics. This article uses census data from nations around the world to argue that Mormon Church membership claims are inflated. I argue that Mormonism is a North American church with tendrils in other continents, and that calling Mormonism a "world religion" is premature.

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Cheng, Hongmeng. "A Review of Mormon Studies in China." Religions 12, no. 6 (May 21, 2021): 375. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rel12060375.

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Mormon studies in China began in the early 1990s and can be divided into three phases between the years of 2004 and 2017. The first Master’s and Doctoral theses on Mormonism were both published in 2004, and journal articles have also been increasing in frequency since then. The year of 2012 saw a peak, partly because Mormon Mitt Romney won the Republican nomination for the 2012 US presidential election. In 2017, a national-level project, Mormonism and its Bearings on Current Sino-US Relations, funded by the Chinese government, was launched. However, Mormon studies in China is thus far still in its infancy, with few institutions and a small number of scholars. Academic works are limited in number, and high-level achievements are very few. Among the published works, the study of the external factors of Mormonism is far more prevalent than research on its internal factors. Historical, sociological, and political approaches far exceed those of philosophy, theology, and history of thoughts. To Mormon studies, Chinese scholars can and should be making unique contributions, but the potential remains to be tapped.

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Stuart, Joseph R. "“A More Powerful Effect upon the Body”: Early Mormonism's Theory of Racial Redemption and American Religious Theories of Race." Church History 87, no. 3 (September 2018): 768–96. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0009640718001580.

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This paper examines Joseph Smith's construction of a racialized theology, which drew upon conceptions of Abrahamic lineage and the possibility of “racial redemption” for peoples of African descent through conversion to Mormonism. This ran against the grain of his Protestant and Catholic contemporaries’ religious understandings of race. He expanded upon earlier iterations of his ideas with the introduction of new rituals and liturgy related to LDS temples. Smith's wife may have invited a person of African descent to participate in this new liturgy before his murder in June 1844. The views he expressed about peoples of African descent before his death are inchoate, although high-ranking Mormons related to Smith seemed to have agreed with the possibility of racial redemption. After Smith's death, Brigham Young and other Mormon leaders framed the LDS temple and priesthood restriction in terms of Smith's liturgy rather than any of Smith's varied teachings on race. This paper also argues that Mormonism's racial restriction arose from its roots in the sealing ritual rather than ecclesiological power structures. Mormonism's racial doctrine has often been described as a “priesthood ban,” referring to ecclesiastical authority. However, this discounts the religious contexts in which it arose and excludes the experiences of women and children, who were not allowed to participate in the endowment or sealing ordinances. This paper places Mormonism's temple liturgy at the front and center of the LDS Church's priesthood and temple restriction.

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Yorgason, Ethan. "Mormon Ideological Mappings of the Last Days." Nova Religio 17, no. 1 (February 2013): 59–88. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/nr.2013.17.1.59.

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This article addresses the geo-eschatological ideologies associated with Mormonism. Recent scholarship points to the significance of geopolitical thought within religion to society’s broader geopolitical inclinations. This article reports on a survey of 817 Mormon university students’ geographical/political/social expectations for the “Last Days.” Results show confidence in their church’s institutional and doctrinal roles, but ambivalence toward various geopolitically laden popular discourses in Mormonism and Christianity. American respondents have higher levels of certain types of ideological and geopolitical concern than do their Asian and Pacific Islander counterparts. Cleavages in respondents’ social and geopolitical thought show important associations with ideological variation.

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Van Dyk, Gerrit. "Understanding Mormonism." Theological Librarianship 12, no. 1 (April 24, 2019): 50–60. http://dx.doi.org/10.31046/tl.v12i1.531.

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Over the past couple of decades, the media and popular culture have been increasingly interested in members of the LDS Church, its leadership, and its practices. With all of this recent interest, it is possible that a religious studies librarian at an institution of higher education or at a theological seminary could conceivably receive an occasional query regarding Mormonism, either out of popular culture curiosity or for academic investigation. This essay will review major sources in this growing field for any who wish to either assist patrons in comparative religion projects related to Mormonism, develop a working collection in Mormon studies, or both.

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Vance, Laura L. "Converging on the Heterosexual Dyad: Changing Mormon and Adventist Sexual Norms and Implications for Gay and Lesbian Adherents." Nova Religio 11, no. 4 (May 1, 2008): 56–76. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/nr.2008.11.4.56.

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Nineteenth-century sexual ideals in Mormonism and Seventh-day Adventism differed: Adventism proscribed sexual expression, even in marriage, and Latter-day Saints encouraged marriage and sexual expression in addition to that sanctioned by the wider society, especially in polygamy. Nonetheless, each movement justified sexual norms by asserting that sexual expression lessened vital force, or physical well-being. In the face of changing societal sexual and gender norms——especially resulting from the sexual revolution, the modern feminist movement, and the gay rights movement——Adventism's and Mormonism's definitions of appropriate sexual expression converged to promote sex in heterosexual marriage. Concomitantly, homosexuality was explicitly and publicly defined as sinful and antithetical to, even threatening, heterosexual marriage and family. This paper explores the convergence of sexual ideals in Mormonism and Adventism, with attention to explicit proscription of homosexuality, responses to homosexuality and homosexuals in each movement, and implications of these for gay and lesbian adherents.

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Oman, Nathan B. "Nomos, Narrative, and Nephi: Legal Interpretation in the Book of Mormon." British Journal of American Legal Studies 11, no. 2 (November 1, 2022): 297–322. http://dx.doi.org/10.2478/bjals-2022-0004.

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Abstract The Book of Mormon helped launch one of America's most successful religions, and millions around the world accept it as scripture. It is thus one of the more influential books to have been published in the United States. Ironically, precisely because of its role in the founding of Mormonism, the text of the Book of Mormon has often been ignored. Recently, however, the Book of Mormon has begun to attract the attention of scholars whose interest in the text goes beyond either religious devotion or the academic study of Mormonism. Rather, they look to the text as a literary creation of interest in its own right. This article brings this new approach into dialogue with the influential legal theory of Robert Cover. In so doing, it breaks new ground in the study of law and literature and shows how a close reading of the Book of Mormon text reveals a subtle debate about the nature of rule following that intersects with contemporary discussions in legal theory. These narratives illustrate an important feature of what we might call the phenomenology of legal experience, namely the way in which law carries within itself—rightly or wrongly—claims to transcendence.

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Grow, Matthew J. "The Whore of Babylon and the Abomination of Abominations: Nineteenth-Century Catholic and Mormon Mutual Perceptions and Religious Identity." Church History 73, no. 1 (March 2004): 139–67. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0009640700097869.

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In 1846, Oran Brownson, the older brother of the famed Catholic convert Orestes A. Brownson, penned a letter to his brother recounting a dream Orestes had shared with him much earlier. In the dream, Orestes, Oran, and a third brother, Daniel, were “traveling a road together.” “You first left the road then myself and it remains to be seen whether Daniel will turn out of the road (change his opinion),” Oran wrote. At approximately the same period in which Orestes converted to Catholicism “because no other church possessed proper authority,” Oran joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints because he believed that “proper authority rests among the Mormons.” Indeed, in an era characterized by denominational proliferation, democratization, and competition, Catholic and Mormon claims to divine authority proved appealing to some Americans, like the Brownsons, wearied by the diversity and disunity of the Protestant world. Oran cautioned Orestes to not trust polemical literature against Mormonism, but to “get your information from friends and not enemies.” Orestes could have repeated the same warning about Catholicism, given the number and intensity of nineteenth-century attacks on both Catholics and Mormons. Leaving mainstream Christianity to join the most despised religions in nineteenth-century America, the Brownson brothers embarked on spiritual quests that few contemporary Americans would have understood, much less approved.

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Taysom, Stephen. "‘Satan Mourns Naked upon the Earth’: Locating Mormon Possession and Exorcism Rituals in the American Religious Landscape, 1830–1977." Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation 27, no. 1 (2017): 57–94. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/rac.2017.27.1.57.

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AbstractSince its inception in 1830, an important feature of Mormonism has been its belief in a literal Devil and in the ability of the Devil to possess human beings. Despite the pervasiveness of these beliefs and practices, Mormon possession and exorcism is a largely unstudied phenomenon. What follows is a careful study of four historical accounts of Mormon exorcism rituals dating from 1830, 1839, 1888, and 1977, and their narrative presentations. This article traces the development of Mormon possession/exorcism beliefs and practices and situates them within their larger historical contexts. The article also describes the relationship between Mormon dispossession rituals and the dispossession rituals of Protestant and Catholic groups in American history and presents through a consideration of the impact of broader American cultural trends on the theory and practice of Mormon exorcism from 1830 to 1977.

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Jahl, Jakub. "Q přijíždí na bílém koni: konspirační teorie u mormonů, aneb, Proč 16 milionové americké náboženství inklinuje ke QAnonu?" Religio revue pro religionistiku, no. 2 (2022): [157]—183. http://dx.doi.org/10.5817/rel2022-2-4.

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This text deals with Mormon conspiracism, the belief in conspiracies among members of the Mormon religion. I examine how conspiracy theories are reflected in Mormon culture, history, and faith and how they were influenced by the emergence of Denver Snuffer's modern neo-fundamentalist movement. Using the example of the new age movement and Mormon preppers, I show the growing influence of conspiracy thinking and its connection to Donald Trump and the QAnon theory. Using the story of Nathan Wayne Entrekin, one of the participants in the January 6, 2021, insurrection who came dressed as a warrior from the Book of Mormon, I elaborate on the fundamentalist and conspiracy roots of early Mormonism in the times of Joseph Smith. That is combined with multiple testimonies from John Dehlin's Mormon Stories Podcast as it reflected the apocalyptic Mormon milieu from 2010-2020. In the final part, I analyze Mormon neo-fundamentalism through the social myth theory of Radek Chlup, who describes three categories of myth (political, fictional, and conspirator) and how they affect the popularity of these myths.

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Jones, Megan Sanborn. "Mormon Performance/Performing Mormonism: At the Intersection of Mormon, Theatre, and Performance Studies." Mormon Studies Review 8 (January 1, 2021): 79–92. http://dx.doi.org/10.5406/mormstudrevi.8.2021.0079.

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Wiles, Lee. "Mormonism and the World Religions Discourse." Method & Theory in the Study of Religion 27, no. 1 (February 9, 2015): 1–30. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/15700682-12341265.

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This article examines the ways in which the status of Mormonism within academic comparative religion discourses is quite different from that which has evolved among Latter-day Saint leaders and within the burgeoning field of Mormon studies. Whereas Mormonism is a quasi-Christian New Religious Movement in most world religions textbooks and reference works, some scholars of Mormonism have advanced the expanding Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints into the position of world religion. In doing so, they have adopted the terminology of a broader taxonomy largely without regard for maintaining its established demarcations. This classificatory tension, which will likely increase in the future, reveals some of the underlying logics, semantic confusions, and power dynamics of comparative religion discourses, ultimately problematizing the categories of Christianity, world religion, and New Religious Movement as currently constituted.

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Stott, Graham St John. "Missouri Zion, Missouri Intifada: Mormonism, Zionism and the Palestine Conflict." Holy Land Studies 6, no. 1 (May 2007): 7–22. http://dx.doi.org/10.3366/hls.2007.0021.

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The roots of Palestinian-Israeli conflict are often thought to be essentially religious or nationalistic,but such accounts miss the juridical nature of the conflict's origins. The potential for conflict in diff erent understandings of law can be seen in a parallel to the Zionist immigration to Palestine: the Mormon movement to western Missouri. In Jackson County those who had come earlier to the frontier reacted violently to the Mormon threat to pre-emptive rights. In Palestine too, it is argued,the violence followed from differing concepts of legitimate land use, with (as in Missouri) one side relying on title and the other on custom.

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28

Jackson, Kent P. "Joseph Smith and the Bible." Scottish Journal of Theology 63, no. 1 (December 24, 2009): 24–40. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0036930609990202.

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AbstractWith regard to sacred books, Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism (1805 – 1844), is best known for his publication of the Book of Mormon, as a history comparable to the Bible, and for other texts he put forth as divine revelations. These volumes established the unique beliefs of Mormonism and set it apart from other religions. What is less well known and often overlooked by historians is the fact that virtually every aspect of Joseph Smith's career involved the Bible, which was central to his theology and to the religious system that he established – but always in ways unique to him. Priesthoods of Aaron and Melchizedek, the building of temples and the establishment of communities in promised lands are all themes for which he invoked biblical precedents. He also produced, but never published in his lifetime, a revision of the Bible itself, the result of three years of adding to and editing the text. In addition, as he taught doctrine in his correspondence, newspaper editorials and sermons, he drew his texts and illustrations from the Bible and virtually never from the Book of Mormon or his own revelations. This article explores the role of the Bible in each of these enterprises and examines the ways Joseph Smith used it in the establishment of Mormon beliefs. The article proposes that, in his extensive use of the Bible, he was making a statement regarding his prophetic authority and his relationship to prophets and scriptures of the past.

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29

Taylor, Sarah McFarland. "Land as Lover." Nova Religio 8, no. 1 (July 1, 2004): 39–56. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/nr.2004.8.1.39.

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Steven T. Katz and James Spickard have argued that even though mystical and ecstatic experiences are often self-defined as unmediated experiences of the divine, fundamentally these experiences are always mediated to some degree through the mystic's own cultural milieu and religious language. The filtration of Mormon naturalist Terry Tempest Williams' mystical encounters with nature through a Mormon cultural lens, which is tied to a historic and mythic topophilia, lends Williams' writing a creative organicism that deftly combines diverse and contradictory elements. On one hand, Williams points to the irony of her chosen subject in light of the problematic relation Mormon culture has had with environmentalism and eroticism. On the other hand, a distinctly Mormon sensibility shapes Williams' love for the sacred geography of Utah and her attunement to the spiritual dimensions of the American landscape. In Williams' ““greening”” of Mormonism, we see the work of religio-cultural production in action, as she creates a unique fusion of nature mysticism and Latter-day sensibilities.

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30

McBride, Spencer W. "When Joseph Smith Met Martin Van Buren: Mormonism and the Politics of Religious Liberty in Nineteenth-Century America." Church History 85, no. 1 (February 29, 2016): 150–58. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0009640715001390.

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In the nineteenth century, the Mormons were a minority religious group living on the fringes of the United States in both a geographic and social sense. Yet, in the twenty-first century, historians are increasingly realizing that the history of this marginal religious “other” sheds a great deal of light on the American past broadly conceived. This essay briefly describes an important moment in early Mormon history that illuminates our developing understanding of religious liberty in the early American republic, and the political obstacles Americans outside mainstream protestant Christianity faced in their efforts to obtain equal treatment under the law as American citizens.

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31

Williams. "Mormonism and White Supremacy as White Mormon Scholarship." Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 54, no. 1 (2021): 162. http://dx.doi.org/10.5406/dialjmormthou.54.1.0162.

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32

Vaschel, Tessa. "God (Sometimes) Loveth His Children." International Review of Qualitative Research 12, no. 2 (May 2019): 198–211. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/irqr.2019.12.2.198.

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One of the most staunchly conservative Christian sects in the United States, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, or the “Mormon Church” as it is colloquially known, has led the charge in opposition to same-sex marriage for more than 20 years. In this article I use the tools of performative writing and autoethnography to examine how Mormonism and queerness as identities collide and how changing acts result in a changed identity.

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33

Decoo, Wilfried, and Ellen Decoo. "De visie op homoseksualiteit bij mormonen:." Religie & Samenleving 14, no. 3 (September 1, 2019): 245–71. http://dx.doi.org/10.54195/rs.11564.

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The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as LDS Church or Mormon Church, typifies a conservative Christian branch that has been moving through phases in its views on homosexuality. We apply a historical-sociological framework, valid for most of Christianity, to identify how Mormon church leaders shifted from ambiguous tolerance to condemnation of homosexuality. A moral-theological rationale grew only afterwards. Individual church leaders determined the tone which morphed from homophobic to empathetic rhetoric with the nurture-nature debate, the fight against same-sex marriage, and the drama of teen suicides as backdrop. For Mormon gays and lesbians the present doctrine requires them to sacrifice their sexual identity in order to earn social inclusiveness and a promise of salvation. In a broader context of the development of newer religions, Mormonism wants to profile itself as a full-fledged church with both strong principles and Christian charisma, thus trying to shed a historically marginal heritage.

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34

Grace Chou, Hui-Tzu. "Mormon Missionary Experiences and Subsequent Religiosity among Returned Missionaries in Utah." Social Sciences and Missions 26, no. 2-3 (2013): 199–225. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/18748945-02603005.

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This qualitative research examined Mormon missionary experiences and their impacts on the religiosity of returned missionaries living in Utah. Based on open-ended surveys completed by those who served a mission for the Mormon Church, this research analyzed how missionary experiences increased the religiosity of most missionaries, as well as reasons why some respondents felt their missionary experiences decreased their religious level. This paper also examined the missionary experiences of those who later dropped out of Mormonism – why their missionary experiences failed to strengthen their commitment while they convinced others to join the Mormon Church. This paper found that men and women faced different challenges during their mission, and mission experiences also affected men’s and women’s religiosity differently. In addition, although those who served in Western Europe faced the highest rate of rejection during their mission, they reported higher religious and spiritual levels than their counterparts. The paper concludes with the development of a grounded theory arguing that the impact of the Mormon missionary experiences on missionaries’ subsequent religiosity corresponds to a process of maximizing social acceptance and minimizing social rejections among various social groups.

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35

Payne, R. M. "The Mormon Menace: Violence and Anti-Mormonism in the Postbellum South." Journal of American History 98, no. 3 (November 29, 2011): 846–47. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jahist/jar358.

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36

JOHNSON, BRANDON. "The Mormon Menace: Violence and Anti-Mormonism in the Postbellum South." Utah Historical Quarterly 79, no. 4 (October 1, 2011): 378–80. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/45063339.

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37

Johnson, Melvin C. "The Mormon Menace: Violence and Anti-Mormonism in the Postbellum South." Journal of Mormon History 39, no. 3 (July 1, 2013): 272–75. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/24243862.

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38

Harper, Steven C. "Infallible Proofs, Both Human and Divine: The Persuasiveness of Mormonism for Early Converts." Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation 10, no. 1 (2000): 99–118. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/rac.2000.10.1.03a00040.

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In March 1830, the Grandin Press in Palmyra, New York, published the first edition of the Book of Mormon. On April 6, Joseph Smith, Jr., organized the Church of Christ—Mormonism—in Fayette near the Finger Lakes. Shortly thereafter, Joseph's unschooled younger brother Samuel filled a knapsack with copies of the book and traveled to villages westward to make converts to what he believed to be the restoration of primitive Christianity. From these beginnings, a small army of itinerant missionaries gathered several thousand American converts throughout the 1830's.

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39

Calfano, Brian Robert, Amanda Friesen, and Paul A. Djupe. "Mitigating Mormonism: Overcoming Religious Identity Challenges with Targeted Appeals." PS: Political Science & Politics 46, no. 03 (June 21, 2013): 562–68. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1049096513000541.

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AbstractA persistent challenge for minority candidates is mitigating negative effects attributed to their unpopular group identity. This was precisely the case for Mitt Romney, a Mormon, as he sought and captured the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. We draw on existing public opinion data about the tepid reaction to Romney's Mormonism from within Republican ranks. Then, we review our own experimental data to examine a potential mitigation strategy, “God Talk,” and its emotional costs to the GOP. We find that Romney and similar candidates may avoid direct penalty by party rank-and-file for their minority attributes when using God Talk, but the associated affective response supporters direct at their party may carry yet-unknown putative costs for both party and candidate.

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40

Stott, G. St John. "New Jerusalem Abandoned: The Failure to Carry Mormonism to the Delaware." Journal of American Studies 21, no. 1 (April 1987): 71–85. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0021875800005508.

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Under the Mormon scheme of things in 1831, somewhere in Indian territory (somewhere it was thought, west of Independence, Missouri) a city was to be built by those who accepted the gospel restored through Joseph Smith, Jr., God's prophet for the latter days. It was to be a city of refuge – a place where the saints would be safe from both the corruptions of the day and the judgement that was to fall upon the world – and a city of righteousness, endowed with the Spirit of the Lord.

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41

Hatch. "“Wissenschaft des” Mormonism: Jewish Studies as a Framework for Exploring Mormon Studies." Journal of Mormon History 46, no. 2 (2020): 96. http://dx.doi.org/10.5406/jmormhist.46.2.0096.

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42

Fluhman, J. Spencer. "Review: The Mormon Menace: Violence and Anti-Mormonism in the Postbellum South." Nova Religio 16, no. 4 (February 2013): 151–52. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/nr.2013.16.4.151.

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43

Cannon, Kenneth L. ""The Modern Mormon Kingdom": Frank J. Cannon’s National Campaign against Mormonism, 1910—18." Journal of Mormon History 37, no. 4 (October 1, 2011): 60–114. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/23292604.

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44

Foster, Lawrence. "Sex and Conflict in New Religious Movements: A Comparison of the Oneida Community under John Humphrey Noyes and the Early Mormons under Joseph Smith and his Would-Be Successors." Nova Religio 13, no. 3 (February 1, 2010): 34–58. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/nr.2010.13.3.34.

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Efforts to introduce unorthodox sexual and marital practices have often caused dissension in new religious movements. The nineteenth-century Oneida Perfectionist and Mormon communities highlight the profound impact such practices may have on group cohesion and development. Conflicts over the introduction of complex marriage almost led John Humphrey Noyes' Oneida Community to disband in 1852, yet the group survived and prospered for another quarter century until renewed internal and external tension precipitated the group's formal demise in 1881. Serious internal and external challenges associated with polygamy also developed within the larger, rapidly expanding Mormon community in Illinois under Joseph Smith Jr., during the early 1840s, and in Utah under Brigham Young until 1877. Not until the LDS Church began to give up plural marriage and make other significant accommodations to American society in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, however, was Mormonism eventually freed to begin its rapid expansion throughout the United States and worldwide after World War II. The article concludes that although alternative marriage and sexual practices may have initially served as powerful commitment mechanisms, such controversial practices appear to have had a net negative impact upon the long-term development of both groups.

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Embry, Jessie L. "Directions for Mormon Studies in the Twenty-First CenturyOut of Obscurity: Mormonism since 1945." Journal of Mormon History 45, no. 4 (October 1, 2019): 152–54. http://dx.doi.org/10.5406/jmormhist.45.4.0152.

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46

Crowther, Edward R. "A Review of “The Mormon Menace: Violence and Anti-Mormonism in the Postbellum South”." History: Reviews of New Books 40, no. 3 (July 2012): 77–78. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03612759.2012.668276.

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47

Blair, Kristen. "Disconnection and the Healing Practice of Imagination for Mormon Environmental Ethics." Religions 12, no. 11 (November 1, 2021): 948. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rel12110948.

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The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints possesses a subversive and fecund interpretation of the Christian creation narrative. This interpretation, denying creation ex nihilo, bespeaks a particular attention to and care for the living earth. However, Latter-day Saint praxis is wounded by a searing disconnect between the theopoetics of its conceptual creation and its lived practice. I argue that the Church must understand this disconnect as a wound and attend to it as such. I turn to theopoetics, arguing that it is in the lived practices of Latter-day Saints engaging somatically with the Earth that can restore our imaginative potential and move toward healing. I begin by exploring the Christian conception of creation ex nihilo and juxtapose this with the Latter-day Saint understanding of formareex materia. I then explore the implications of such a cosmology for environmental ethics and probe the disconnections between theory and practice in Mormonism broadly construed. I propose that the healing salve for disconnection is imagination, a salve found in the first heartbeat of the Latter-day Saint story. I speak with Latter-day Saint theopoetics and indigenous voices, proposing ultimately that is with them that the healing of theology and praxis must begin.

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Shipps, J. "Richard Lyman Bushman, the Story of Joseph Smith and Mormonism, and the New Mormon History." Journal of American History 94, no. 2 (September 1, 2007): 498–516. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/25094962.

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REEVE, W. PAUL. "The Mormon Menace: Violence and Anti-Mormonism in the Postbellum South - By Patrick Q. Mason." History 97, no. 326 (April 2012): 338–40. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-229x.2012.00554_32.x.

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Hales, Scott. "“This Earth Was Once a Garden Place”: Millennial Utopianism in Nineteenth-Century Mormon Poetry." Religion and the Arts 17, no. 4 (2013): 381–415. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/15685292-12341285.

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Abstract In preparation for Christ’s Second Coming, nineteenth-century Mormons worked tirelessly to build Zion, a holy city where they could weather the latter-days and plan for the Millennium. Among those who contributed their talents to Zion were poets who set their millennial longing in verse. Their body of work shows how early Mormons drew upon the Bible, new Mormon doctrines, and existing poetic forms to create a literary complement to the developing Mormon eschatology. It also shows how the Mormon concept of Zion evolved over time as historical circumstances necessitated doctrinal adaptations that affected the way Mormons envisioned their earthly haven.

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Journal articles on the topic 'Mormon and Mormonism'

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