One word can speak volumes says this morning’s Salt Lake Tribune. It carried a small story on a change to a single word in the introduction of the Book of Mormon in the recent Doubleday edition. Elder Bruce R. McConkie wrote the introduction in 1981 for the then new edition of the Book of Mormon and it contained this statement:
“After thousands of years, all were destroyed except the Lamanites, and they are the principal ancestors of the American Indians.”
The new wording is:
“After thousands of years, all were destroyed except the Lamanites, and they are among the ancestors of the American Indians.”
A commonly held presumption has been that all Native American groups from Alaska to the Patagonia were descendants of the Lamanites ( I certainly grew up with this idea). For some time a growing segment has felt that since the text itself does not argue for this kind of all-encompassing ancestry, there is little reason to perpetuate that view. Though “principal” does not have to mean “sole” anyway, I can only surmise that rather than try to influence the commonly held view by redefining the “principal”, the word itself has been changed to provide minimal commentary.
It will be interesting to see how this will affect dialogue both within the Church and outside it as we talk about Book of Mormon origins.
Also, as pointed out by David Grua below, there is another interesting change in the Doubleday introduction.
On Saturday, November 17 at the Utah Cultural Celebration Center in West Valley City, the Folklore Society of Utah will be hosting its Annual Conference. The keynote speaker is William A. “Bert” Wilson, Emeritus professor of English at BYU and past president of the Association for Mormon Letters. He will be speaking on “What’s True in Mormon Folklore?” The Contribution of Folklore to Mormon Studies.”
In addition, two of our permabloggers–Stanley Thayne and Ben Park–will be presenting papers. Stan will be presenting a paper entitled, “‘Stranger than Fiction’: Remembering Marie Ogden and the Home of Truth”, which will address folklore surrounding Marie Ogden’s millennial, celibate, communal society in Depression-era southern Utah. Ben’s paper will address “Perceptions of Polygamy: The Oral History of Plural Marriage.” Ben’s research looks at a variety of folkloric explanations by Mormons today in reference to the reasons why plural marriage was practiced (and stopped) by the Latter-day Saints.
I attended the conference last year, and enjoyed it quite a bit. The folklore conference has much more of an informal, relaxed atmosphere than academic conferences I’ve attended. It is much smaller in both the number of presenters and the size of the audience, meaning attendees don’t have to choose between break-out sessions. I don’t remember the cost, but it was minimal and well-worth it. If you’re in the area and don’t have plans, try and make it out to the conference. Folklore provides a unique and important approach to Mormon studies, and you will no doubt enjoy yourself. Below is the complete schedule:
Folklore Society of Utah Annual Meeting
November 17, 2007
Utah Cultural Celebration Center (Rooms 104-105)
9:30-10:00 Registration
10:00-10:15 Welcome; introductions & announcements: Michael Christiansen (FSU President/host)
10:15-11:15 Keynote Speaker: William A. “Bert” Wilson: What’s True in Mormon Folklore?: The Contribution of Folklore to Mormon Studies
11:15-11:30 Break
11:30-12:45 Student Panel: Moderator-David Allred (FSU Vice President)
- Stanley J. Thayne: “Stranger Than Fiction”: Remembering Marie Ogden and the Home of Truth
- Ben Park: Perceptions of Polygamy: The Oral History of Plural Marriage
- Rajalekshmy Achath: “Lerala Thanima”: The True Malayali or the Very Private Space in a Diverse Public Sphere
- Tammy Messick: Hmong Marketplace: Representations of the Homeland
12:45-2:00 Lunch (on site: pre-ordered box lunches, $6)
2:00-3:15 50th Anniversary Planning Meeting: Moderators-Polly Stewart & Elaine Thatcher
3:15-3:30 Break
3:30-4:30 Professional Session: Moderator-Lisa gabbert (FSU Sec. Treas.)
- Polly Stewart
- Randy Williams
- Ronda Walker Weaver
- Michael Christensen
4:30-5:30 FSU Business Meeting
5:30 End
Modern Mormons, it seems, are quite fond of “romanticizing the Reformation,” meaning that Mormons often portray Luther, Arminius, and other Protestant Reformers as being sort of proto-Latter-day Saints. In my experience, this tendency is not limited to seeing Reformers as such, but often extends to Christopher Columbus and America’s Founding Fathers. However, this is far from being a recent development in Mormonism’s worldview. Parley P. Pratt, noted apostle and editor of The Latter-day Saints’ Millennial Star, included the following in the June 1841 (Vol. 2, No. 2) issue of that periodical.
JOHN WESLEY A LATTER-DAY SAINT,
IN REGARD TO THE SPIRITUAL GIFTS AND THE APOSTACY OF THE CHURCH!!
Extract from the 94th Sermon of John Wesley, on “The More Excellent Way.”–“It does not appear that the extraordinary gifts of the spirit were common in the church for more than two or three centuries. We seldom hear of them after that fatal period when the Emperor Constantine called himself a Christian, and from a vain imagination of promoting the Christian religion, heaped riches, power, and honour upon the Christians in general From this time they almost wholly ceased. Very few instances of this kind were found. The cause of this was not, as has vulgarly been supposed, because there was no more occasion for them, because all the world had become Christians. This is a miserable mistake! Not a twentieth part was then nominally Christians. The real cause was because the love of many waxed cold–the Christians had no more of the Spirit of Christ than the other Heathens! The Son of Man when he came to examine his church could hardly find faith on the earth.–This was the real cause why the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost were no longer to be found in the Christian Church, because the Christians were turned Heathens again, and had only a dead form left.”[1]
A couple of things, I think, are noteworthy. While this may indeed be just another example of Mormons’ romanticizing the Reformation, I find it interesting that in early Mormonism, there seems to have been a special affinity for Wesley in preference to other Reformers. This particular sermon included by Pratt suggests that one reason is that Wesley emphasized an apostasy and the need for spiritual gifts–two of the features many early Mormons used in establishing their identity as God’s true church. It is also perhaps telling that this was published in the 1840s, suggesting that despite some evidence to the contrary, Methodist practices and beliefs continued to influence Mormon thought until near the end of Joseph’s life.
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[1] The Latter-day Saints’ Millennial Star (Liverpool: June 1841), Vol. 2, no. 2, 23.
Scholars typically seek to locate Mormon history within two wide frameworks: that of American religious history and that of the history of the American West. Jan Shipps, in her review of literature on Mormonism in the West, describes the situation as a donut hole. In her essay, “Gentiles, Mormons, and the History of American West,” Shipps argues that historians of the West have skipped Utah, “circling all around the Great Basin, taking into account and telling nearly every western story except the Mormon one.”[1] The task Shipps sets for herself in the essay is to understand why that would be and to offer suggestions to western historians for ways to integrate Mormons more fully into their accounts of the region.
As for the first objective, Shipps presents several ideas for why Mormonism has been ignored in the West’s wider story. First, she argues that it is Mormon “otherness” that leads historians to shy away from trying to incorporate the Latter-day Saints. This otherness reflects the divide that we Mormons have created ourselves by dividing the world into “Saints” and “Gentiles.” This leaves Mormons to write their own history.[2] A second reason put forward by Shipps is the secularism that she perceives among historians. Since these historians do not see the divine in their own lives, they have a difficult time seeing it in the stories of the people that they study.[3] A third reason is that with “[t]he transformation of Mormonism from regional faith to worldwide church makes it so difficult to get here from there, from the familiar Mormonism of western history to contemporary Mormon Christianity, that what has been occurring in the past few decades may be the principle reason why today’s historians of the American West so often neglect the region’s geographical center.”[4] This last reason is perhaps the most intriguing of the three.
Shipps also offers suggestions for how western historians can begin to fill in the hole at the center of the donut. First, she sees Mormon history as a good counter-example to Frederick Jackson Turner’s Frontier Thesis. Turner’s provocative 1893 essay argued that the frontier was what made Americans unique, with Europeans entering the frontier in the East, struggling with nature and savages, and finally emerging in the West as Americans, fully democratic and individualistic. Shipps concludes that Mormons passed through the same process, but with very different results. “The trail was where Saints were made…they emerged in the Great Basin not as individualists committed to capitalistic ethos but as communally oriented Latter-day Saints ready to give what was necessary to give what was necessary to build up Zion.” This transformation led to the creation of an ethnic group that can be studies as are other ethnic groups in the West.[5] In addition to seeing process in the development of Mormon ethnicity, Shipps also contends that historians should peek past their secular lenses and seek to understand the Mormon worldview from the inside.[6]
The “donut theory” may not win the prize for Shipps’ most eloquent representation of the Mormon past, but it does get the point across. This review has necessarily focused on Shipps’ specific thoughts on how Mormons fit into the western narrative, but there are some wonderful autobiographical gems that she shares about her developing sense of identity as a Gentile/non-Mormon/nonmember studying the Saints. But what of her ideas for situating the Mormons in the West? I am troubled by Shipps’ acceptance of Turner’s emphasis on process rather than the New Western history’s reliance on place. Although some respected historians continue to see a process at play in western migration, most historians have followed Patricia Nelson Limerick’s lead in seeing the West as a region first and a process a distant second. In my view, historians need to cease seeing Mormons as an isolated group in the West, and recognize that although Utah never was California in terms of diversity, Latter-day Saints in their Zion constantly converged and came into contact with “others,” whether it be Gold Rushers, federal officials, protestants, Gentile merchants, and general travelers. These contacts shaped Mormonism, as well as these “others.” Focusing our analyses on these points of contact and convergence will go a long way toward filling in that donut hole.[7]
[1] Jan Shipps, “Gentiles, Mormons, and the History of the American West,” in Sojourner in the Promised Land: Forty Years Among the Mormons (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000), 21.[2] Shipps, Sojourner, 25.
[3] Shipps, Sojourner, 35. Both D. Michael Quinn and Thomas G. Alexander have argued for secularism among historians for the neglect of religion in histories of the West (D. Michael Quinn, “Religion in the American West,” in Under an Open Sky: Rethinking America’s Western Past, eds. William Cronon, George Miles, and Jay Gitlin [New York: W. W. Norton, 1992], 165; Thomas G. Alexander, “Establishing Zion,” The Mormon History Association’s Tanner Lecutures: The First Twenty Years , eds. Dean L. May and Reid L. Neilson [Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2006], 117-18).
[4] Shipps, Sojourner, 41.
[5] Shipps, Sojourner, 34-35.
[6] Shipps, Sojourner, 36.
[7] Convergence, along with conquest, complexity, and continuity comprise Limerick’s four C’s for understanding the New Western history paradigm (Patricia Nelson Limerick, Something in the Soil: Legacies and Reckonings in the New West [New York: W. W. Norton, 2000], 13-28).
As a follow-up to the previous post on the latest in the Warren Jeffs saga, it appears that Jeffs attempted to hang himself while imprisoned in Purgatory Correctional Facility in January. Brooke Adams of the Salt Lake Tribune reports that despite a motion opposing their release, court documents released today reveal that shortly after Jeffs’s confession to his brother that he was not a Prophet in January, he attempted suicide. The new documents also explain that Jeffs admitted that William E. Jessop was the rightful FLDS prophet and that he had usurped the position.
Fifth District Judge James L. Shumate explained that he didn’t release the documents until now so as to ensure that Jeffs would get a fair trial in Utah. In reference to whether the records will hurt Jeffs’s chances of a fair trial in Arizona, Shumate said “We were successful here in picking a jury and there is no question it can be done in Mohave County.”
All court filings are available here.
Matthew N. Schmalz, associate professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the College of Holy Cross, has an article entitled “Meet the Mormons: From the Margins to the Mainstream” over at Commonweal: A Review of Religion, Politics, and Culture (hat-tip to American Religious History blog). Schmalz discusses his personal history with Mormonism (“It was Kolob and associated exotica that first drew me to the study of Mormonism” he says), as well as how his students at Holy Cross react to the study of Mormonism (“I’ve found that my students combine a personal openness to Mormonism . . . with deep skepticism about details of Mormon belief.”).
As a Catholic, he sympathizes with Mormons who struggle to get others to take their religion seriously. He explains that unless “one sees Mormonism as something more than eccentricity or pathology” there cannot be “a more substantive kind of Mormon talk, especially surrounding Mitt Romney’s [Presidential] candidacy.” He also briefly critiques the PBS documentary The Mormons (“[it] did not give a full sense of the diversity of Mormon life, the surprisingly broad spectrum that exists between orthodoxy and apostasy”), shares his experience at the Sunstone Symposium in 2004 and concludes by calling for others to approach Mormonism in “good faith.”
As a religion, Mormonism is still quite young-but it is a religion. As Sunstone’s Dan Wotherspoon told me, “Someone who views others in good faith would assume that these other people have gone through similar processes in sifting the wheat from the chaff of their religion.” In other words, we share more than we might think at first. Talking about Mormonism in “good faith” does not mean accepting all-or any-of Mormonism’s teachings. Instead, it means accepting that Mormonism is composed of real people who are best seen up close, not from high atop the Rameumptom.
Tonight KJZZ featured an hour long documentary on the Joseph Smith Papers Project. It was billed as a television foreward.
The first 15-20 minutes of the documentary consisted largely of devotional material such as a series of interviews with LDS Church conference goers about how they felt about Joseph Smith. We then proceeded to some discussion of past (and ongoing) efforts to compile and edit the papers of prominent Americans such as presidents and founding fathers. The program proceeded to recount some of the standard information about the genesis of the project in Dean Jessee’s efforts to compile Joseph Smith’s papers. What was supposed to have been a 9 volume effort was recognized as more than one man could accomplish. Soon after the idea gained support from the Church. At this point, it was explained that the next stage of the project occured when Larry H. Miller attended a lecture by Ron Barney on Joseph Smith. Miller was stirred and set up an appointment with Barney, but was unable to come to a determination as to why he was there. Both discussed a few programs that prominent historians were working on, but none struck them. Later, the connection was made that brought Miller in as the major funding force behind the project.
Elder Marlin Jensen, Church Historian and Recorder said that he agreed with Harold Bloom that Joseph Smith was one of the least studied geniuses of our time.
The documentary cameras followed Ron Esplin, one of the general editors, home and onto the Trax on the way to work in Salt Lake. On the trax, Esplin explained that the vision was of a shelf of books, about 30 volumes, and a living website. He said that the books would be good for a generation or two, but the website was meant to be living and capable of updates that would enable the addition of documents and an expansion of knowledge of already published documents. When asked if there were things in the documents that “we don’t want to know about”, Esplin answered that when you get into real history, you have to adjust your expectations, the ritualized version we tell each other is too condensed and doesn’t get into rich detail. At that level of detail, it’s fascinating. There’s nothing we’ve found to be afraid of.
When asked, What do you hope it does for the membership and the outside world? He answered, I hope we finally come to terms with our documentary record in a comprehensive way. We don’t even have a list of the documents much less an understanding of the record. It’s past due. Question: Will the complete JS Papers make it more dificult for enemies of the Church to do what they do? Esplin said, in essence, today you can get by with some shoddy scholarship because it’s hard to get into the record, but scholars will be held to a higher standard.
One of the highlights of the documentary was the myriad shots of the scholars with the actual documents they were working on. Mark Ashurst-McGee and Robin Jensen were shown with some of the revelation books and diaries.
Mark Ashurst McGee is working on the three volume series of the diaries of Joseph Smith.
Sharalyn Howcroft, documents specialist for the legal series, discussed how though many aspects of Joseph Smith’s life have been touched upon, one of the least researched areas has been his legal history. Esplin related that it was previously thought that Joseph Smith was involved in about 30 legal cases. Now we know that there were over 200 cases where he was involved in some way in the proceedings.
There will be a volume on authorized histories of Joseph Smith, one of which was written by John Corrill.
The JSP is getting high marks from national boards of documentary editors.
One segment showed how the use of UV light shed new light [no pun intended] on the writings of Joseph Smith. One piece of writing of Joseph Smith says, “Lord, spare thou the life of thy servant, amen.” Looking under the UV light, you can see that under the word “the” was written “me”, so he first wrote, “Lord, spare me (then “thou” over “me”).
Elder Marlin Jensen, Church Historian and Recorder said that Pres. Hinckley has said that all that we have is a lengthened shadow of Joseph Smith. “I want to be careful to stress that Joseph Smith himself would have viewed himself as a means to an end, not the end himself.”
The last 15-20 minutes were largely devotional in nature as well with shots of the scholars expressing testimonials of the character of Joseph Smith. Apparently starting in January there will be a weekly series of about 50 documentaries that will talk about not only advancements with the project, but segments of many of the editors and other Mormon history scholars at significant Church sites explaining their convictions about the Prophet Joseph. The final quote was from Harold Bloom about how Joseph Smith, “remains the least-studied personage, of an undiminished vitality, in our entire national saga.” ( The American Religion: The Emergence of a Post-Christian Nation, [New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992], 95.)
A few comments. I thought that one of the strengths of the documentary was that a good number of scholars were featured on film. Many who have not had the opportunity of visiting scholarly conferences have had no exposure to the authors who have shaped Mormon history. Milton Bachman, Richard Bushman, Ron Esplin, Ron Barney, and many others were shown and in many cases with the documents they were working on, which was also a positive feature. I feel the documentary’s presentation and editing was somewhat poor as documentaries go. “The Mormons” was certainly better presented, even Groberg’s “American Prophet” was better produced. I was somewhat turned off as well by the narrator.
Oh, I almost forgot. Toward the end, Ron Esplin put three spiral bound volumes on his desk and mentioned that there were the first three volumes and that they expected to, “with some luck” publish them and perhaps a fourth, next year. They did mention that three were expected per year thereafter. I, for one, will be praying for their efforts!
In 1986, the Pacific Historical Review published an article by Grant Underwood entitled, “Re-visioning Mormon History.” [1] Challenging the traditional portrait of 19th-century Mormonism as a countercultural, radical response to democratic politics, capitalist economics, and Victorian marriage ideals, Underwood argues that “upon closer examination, the nineteenth-century attitudes and behavior of most Latter-day Saints may prove to be less countercultural and the influence of communitarianism, plural marriage, and theocratic politics more superficial than transformationists generally assume” (412).
Underwood also takes to task historians of 20th-century Mormonism who have exaggerated the Americanization of the Church. He points to the size of Mormon families, the Word of Wisdom, the Church’s welfare system, and contemporary politics to show that “Latter-day Saints continue to be a ‘peculiar people’” (412-413). He warns against “attribut[ing] everything that the Saints said or did to the fact that they were Mormons,” and argues that if “doctrines and beliefs are traced to their ultimate refuge in the mind of the common individual, there may be found, even within the institutional boundaries of the LDS church, a kaleidoscopic pattern of Mormonisms” (420-422).
In his view, the “transition of Mormonism” that scholars have suggested occurred in the period of 1890-1920, is not quite as black-and-white as made out to be. While admitting that a transformation certainly occurred, Underwood suggests that it was neither as drastic nor as instantaneous as previously suggested.
Overall, the essay is well-argued, carefully-documented, and somewhat convincing. However, few historians, if any, have followed Underwood’s suggestion that “monolithic Mormonism on either side of 1900 needs to give way to a more fine-grained analysis.” (414-415). The reasons why deserve further discussion. Thomas Alexander’s excellent (and highly influential) work, Mormonism in Transition: A History of the Latter-day Saints, 1890-1930 appeared just after Underwood’s article had been sent to the printer. Alexander’s work, noted by Underwood as “the most detailed and sophisticated treatment of this period to date” (406, n. 6), was probably convincing enough to most readers so as to negate Underwood’s article altogether. But should it? I’m not entirely convinced one way or the other. The historical interpretations Underwood critiqued continue to dominate the literature of Mormon studies, but is this because that interpretation is most convincing? Is it because many Mormon historians (myself included) find expression of personal ideals in 19th-century Mormon radicalism? Or is it because polygamy, communalism, and theocracy are more mysterious and consequently more interesting than the moderate Mormonism Underwood suggests?
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[1] Grant Underwood, “Re-visioning Mormon History,” Pacific Historical Review 55 (August 1986), 403-26.
As explored elsewhere, novel reading/writing did not have a major stronghold in 19th century Mormonism. This sentiment changed with Orson Whitney’s call for “home literature” around the turn of the 20th century, novels became more common both for past-time reading as well as a career in writing. These were often didactic tales teaching morals with a simple plot, usually with the intention of building faith. Very characteristic of the neo-classicism era, they found historical accuracy not as important in their tales as the message gleaned from them. A modern-day example of this type of literature is The Work and the Glory series.
However, Mormon novels did not gain respect outside of Utah until the 1940’s, when a handful of authors dared to write historical fiction from a not-too-glamorized point of view. Two of these books, Virginia Sorensen’s A Little Lower than the Angels and Maurine Whipple’s The Giant Joshua, explore the practice of polygamy in the early Church. While Sorensen focuses on the Nauvoo time period, Whipple sets her story in the settling of St. George. While a case can be made that neither denied the faith in their masterpieces, it is safe to say that they offered a very humanistic approach to controversial topics.
So, my question is, what role does historical fiction play in understanding how Mormons view the past? A vast majority of members would prefer Gerald Lund’s stories over Sorensen and Whipple, but does the fact that the latter’s books were written say something about our community? And, perhaps more importantly, how does literature help shape our outlook on the past? Even though it is obvious that the books are fiction, would they structure how a person would view the time period that the story is set in?
As a follow-up to my last post (see below “Going global but not imperial: conversion without deculturation”), and heading in what may seem to be the complete opposite direction, I’d like to qualify my concerns with the Americanization of foreign converts with what I see as a positive American influence. When living in Taiwan, I was surprised at how often Taiwanese Saints would speak about the Mormon pioneers and their difficult exodus to the Desert of Utah. It came up frequently in Sacrament meeting talks. Speakers would often speak of the persecutions the early Saints endured and then naturally move into speaking about Brigham Young, the difficult journey across the desert, and the final settlement in Utah where they established Zion. This seemed to be a very meaningful narrative that was shared or alluded to over and over.
I’ve wondered since just what it was about this story that makes it so meaningful. I’ve always figured it was so meaningful to so many Utah Saints because of a sense of ancestral heritage; it links them to their ancestral past with a sense of continuity: they continue the legacy at least to some degree out of gratitude for what their ancestors did—so their sacrifice is not in vain. But what of these Taiwanese Saints? Why is the same narrative so meaningful to them?
Perhaps it has to do with the universality of the pioneer archetype. As converts to a church that is still relatively young in their country–a church that requires (or at least encourages) some major changes in lifestyle, beliefs, and worldview–the pioneer symbol resonates. Each convert has to cross their own desert in the process of conversion. The ward community becomes their Zion settlement in that new, unfamiliar land. Themes of sacrifice, displacement, transition, endurance, dedication, and community really resonate with their own experience.
Perhaps it is partially because the Church is young in these areas that stories from the American past are so prominent. Maybe with time more stories of the establishment of the LDS Church in Taiwan will become more prominent in their meetings. Maybe stories of certain individuals from among the Taiwanese Saints will become more well-known and will share pulpit time with Brigham Young and the early pioneers. Maybe some of today’s Saints’ own children will relate more and more their own parents’ conversion experiences for the same reasons the exodus to Utah gets told so frequently. Even then, the exodus narrative will probably not die out completely, nor does it really need to. Some symbols are universal: there will always be new beginnings and new pioneers; thus genesis and exodus themes will always be meaningful. It will be interesting to see if new, more local narratives gain prominence as the Church grows. If recent trends in Ensign article selection serve any indication, perhaps they will.
Juvenile Instructor 