The Origins of the Mormon Moment; or, How to Generate Your Own Such Moment

Christopher Jones

As a follow-up to Paul's post last week on "the Mormon moment in scholarship," and in an attempt to answer the questions posed by Elesha and Curtis in the comments of that post, I'll simply point readers to a post today ("2011: The Year of the Mormon") over at the Mormon blog By Common Consent. Embedded within that post, which surveys a number of individuals, events, and trends in pop culture, politics, sports, and scholarship that kept Mormonism in the spotlight all year long, is what appears to me to be a basic (if slightly complicated) formula for those interested in generating a similar moment for their respective religious movement/scholarly-subject of study/etc. With a giant tip-of-the-hat to the fine folks at BCC, then, here is my formula:

1. Aim for an election year (preferably a presidential election), and ensure that at least two of the candidates are of the specific faith community. If they represent divergent approaches to said faith, and maintain a personal and/or political rivalry dating back several generations, even better.

2. Politicians alone, of course, cannot create such a moment. They need to be buttressed by likeable star athletes that inspire hip-hop songs and videos, rock/pop music sensations that publicly proclaim their faith without coming across too condescending or annoying and incorporate elements of the religion's founding theophany in their music videos, and television programs portraying the more controversial elements of the faith tradition. For scholars of religion, it is particularly important that these figures not only be members of the religion, but also that their respective talents can be explained by alluding to, for example, Thomas Aquinas's theory of scripture. Landing these public figures on the cover of several prominent national publications doesn't hurt, either. Oh yeah, and if the guys behind South Park create the Broadway hit of the year about the religious community, that's just icing on the cake.

3. While loads of publicity may generate a "moment" for the religion, they do not automatically lead to a corresponding "moment" for scholarship on the subject. The key there, of course, is to keep researching and writing. The sheer amount of scholarship focused on Mormons and Mormonism over the past year (or that forthcoming in 2012) really isn't all that unique---historians, sociologists, and others have been generating volumes and volumes of scholarship on the subject for decades now. The key here, as I see it, is that the younger generation of scholars---folks like Pat Mason, Matt Bowman, John Turner, and Spencer Fluhman---are building on the work of their predecessors but also more directly engaging trends in larger fields (American religious history, religious experience, religion and politics, etc.) and demonstrating what the Mormon experience uniquely reveals about those larger subjects, trends, etc. It also helps if the institutional church in question decides to take an active role in that scholarship by expanding and publishing archival collections.

Looking forward to 2012, Paul may be right in wondering if "another mainline moment in being born." But just to be sure, someone may want to put in a call to the South Park guys.

The Mormon Moment in Scholarship

Paul Harvey

Everyone is discussing the "Mormon moment" thanks to Romney and national politics, and Max Mueller's piece for Religion Dispatches discusses why non-expert pontificators feel free to pontificate on Mormonism's "weirdness" where they would do no such thing about other religious traditions. Don't miss his article.

But it may actually be more the Mormon moment in the scholarly world than anywhere else. Our own John Turner's biography of Brigham Young will be out in a little over a year or so (and scroll down for John's recent post on Joseph Smith's Journals), with Harvard University Press, and the big biography of Parley Pratt by Terryl Givens and Matthew Grow will be reviewed here at the blog in just a little while. And don't forget Patrick Mason's The Mormon Menace, reviewed here at the blog a while back. The world awaits J. Spencer Fluhman's forthcoming study of nineteenth-century anti-Mormon rhetoric, coming out next fall with the University of North Carolina Press; the parts I've seen represent scholarship at its best.

The efflorescence of scholarship in the field is pretty astonishing, keeping up with it impossible. For a little assistance in the latter, I recommend Ben Park's "2011 in Retrospect: A Look at Important Books and Articles in Mormon History," over at Juvenile Instructor. Here are Ben's personal award winners for the year, but go over to his post for a much fuller and more extensive discussion of the variety of recent scholarship in the field.

My picks for a handful of MHA’s awards are as follows. (Drumroll please…)

• Best Book: Sam Brown, In Heaven as it Is on Earth
• Best Biography: Terryl Givens and Matthew Grow, Parley P. Pratt
• Best First Book: Patrick Mason, The Mormon Menace
• Best Article: Stapley and Wright, “Female Ritual Healing in Mormonism” (Stapley also gets recognition for “Adoption Sealing Ritual,” which is equally deserving of the award)
• Awards of Excellence (2 Articles): Patrick Mason, “God and the People”; Chris Jones, “The Power and Form of Godliness”
• Silver Award for Women’s History: Catherine Brekus, “Mormon Women and the Problem of Historical Agency”

Joseph Smith Journals

John Turner

One of the great frustrations and blessings of Mormon History is operating within a remarkably deep well of sources and evidence. Thus, new discoveries regularly remind one of one's own relative ignorance. Depending on the day, I refer to this as the curse or blessing of D&C 21:1 ("Behold, there shall be a record kept among you..."), which adorns the wall above the entrance into the Church History Library in Salt Lake City.

Recently, the Church History Department published the second of three annotated volumes of journals kept by Joseph Smith, his clerks, and -- in this case -- Eliza R. Snow, a teacher living in Smith's home who became one of the prophet's plural wives in June 1842.

Much of the discussion of this volume has centered around Joseph Smith's practice of polygamy, first firmly documented with his marriage to Louisa Beaman (one of my favorite women in LDS History) in April 1841. That marriage came slightly before the first journal in this volume; Smith married approximately fifteen additional women by April 1843, when this volume ends. The pages of Smiths' journals provide precious little information about these marriages, but the subject comprises the heart of the editors' introduction to this volume. Those pages do not constitute what most scholars would consider a frank examination of polygamy, but they do affirm that some of the marriages were consummated and that some of the women involved were already married. Most notably, the editors document that Smith married Marinda Hyde, already the wife of Mormon apostle Orson Hyde. The editors (Andrew H. Hedges, Alex D. Smith, and Richard Lloyd Anderson) conclude that the "polyandrous marriages ... were primarily a means of binding other families to his [Smith's] for the spiritual benefit and mutual salvation of all involved." While Smith's practice of plural marriage certainly involved more than lust and sex, in my mind that conclusion (which rests on Richard Bushman's analysis in Rough Stone Rolling) reaches beyond the very fragmentary and contested evidence. Despite a small mountain of scholarship on Mormon polygamy, we know relatively little about how most of its earliest practitioners -- including Joseph Smith -- understood it at the time.

Readers interested in such matters can readily find full treatments elsewhere. The value of this volume lies in the journals themselves, the annotations, and the remaining scholarly apparatus. All reflect the resources and talent that the Church History Department continues to devote to this venture.

I was quickly struck by the passage for December 27, 1841: "Joseph. was with. Brigham [Young], Heber C [Kimball], Willard [Richards]. & John [Taylor] of the twelve, at his office. instructing them in the principles of the kingdom." The annotation for that sentence references Wilford Woodruff's journal: "I had the privilege of seeing for the first time in my day the URIM & THUMMIM," the seer stones that Joseph Smith used during his translation of the Book of Mormon. I had never put those passages together, but I found it noteworthy that Brigham Young probably saw them for the first time on that date as well. Any student of Mormon History will encounter such nuggets throughout the volume.

The chronology, outstanding maps, biographical directory, complex charts of church officers, and bibliography will all also be of great use to anyone active in Mormon Studies. Any instructor with students who might write research papers on Mormon topics should have their libraries buy the (not inexpensive) volumes of the JSP. At this point, it is frustrating not to have access to the index, but it evidently will be available on the JSP website in teh near future. The JSP website also has a number of high-resolution scans of sources available on its website.

Conveying Joseph Smith: Brandon Flowers, Arthur Kane, and the Mormon Rock Star Image

Christopher Jones

(cross-posted at Juvenile Instructor)

While pundits and theologians continue the seemingly endless debate over whether or not Mormonism is Christian/Mormons are Christians/a Mormon can be a Christian, over at Slate, browbeat writer David Haglund weighs in on the Mormon church's latest advertising campaign (the "I'm a Mormon" campaign) and the recent participation of The Killers frontman and international rockstar Brandon Flowers in that effort:

The video hews closely to the campaign's usual formula: Flowers talks about himself, then about his values, and then he connects those values to his Mormon faith. Near the end, Flowers talks a bit about his public persona. "A lot of people love to come up to me and tell me they were raised in the church," Flowers says, "and they expect there to be this camaraderie of, oh, we've outgrown it now, we're smart enough now not to be in it." One can understand why this would happen: In 2004, Spin identified Flowers as an ex-Mormon, and he has been candid in the past about his drinking and smoking, activities forbidden for devout members of the Mormon church. 

But as the existence of this video suggests, Flowers doesn't see himself as an ex-Mormon, at least not anymore. (If he did, he could have participated in a different video campaign.) What's interesting about this is the way Flowers frames his re-affirmed faith: "I was raised in it," he says, "and I still... it's..." He chuckles. "There's still a fire burning in there." That's the last thing he says before the more standard send-off: "I'm a father, and I'm a husband, and I'm a Mormon."

For those, like myself, interested in Mormon conversion narratives (as well as unexpectedly Mormon musicians), there's a lot to unpack here; I'm especially intrigued by the centrality to his faith of his roles as husband and father. (As an aside, the entire corpus of videos available at mormon.org as part of the ad campaign presents a wealth of primary source material for researchers interested in the lives and stories of everyday Mormons today. They strike me as a 21st century equivalent to the personal narratives and life stories of committed Christians that populated the pages of denominational periodicals of yesteryear).

But Flowers's recent offering at mormon.org is not an isolated example of him speaking out about his faith. In addition to the numerous interviews and articles in which he's affirmed his Mormonism over the years, his music has long been heavy on religious themes---from the redemptive pleadings and catchy chorus ("I've got soul but I'm not a soldier") of "All These Things that I've Done" to "When You Were Young," which Flowers once explained was "about growing up in a religion where Jesus is considered a saviour and also realising people can be saviours, too, whether they be your wife, your best friend or your next-door neighbour. He can come in other human forms." Perhaps the most striking nod to his Mormonism, though, comes in the music video for the second single released on his debut solo album, Flamingo---"Only the Young." Filmed in a darkened and otherwise empty theater in Las Vegas, Flowers performs on stage, surrounded by angelic figures descending from a bright light overhead. To anyone familiar with Joseph Smith's first vision, in which Smith recalled being visited by God the Father and Jesus Christ accompanied by "many angels," the imagery is obvious. But just in case it was missed, Flowers then mimics the pose often portrayed in illustrations of Smith as the divine light descends upon him (all while singing about the innocence and potential of youth to "break away" and discover the Sun, which will surely "shine again").

Flowers's story immediately brought to my mind another Mormon rockstar---coincidentally nicknamed "Killer"---Arthur Kane, the now deceased bassist of the 1970s glam rock and proto-punk band, the New York Dolls, whose post-rockstar career, conversion to Mormonism, and brief reunion with his former bandmates was chronicled in the excellent 2005 documentary, New York Doll. Comparing the two personal narratives provides occasional contrasts---whereas Flowers explains that his renewed commitment to Mormonism means that his faith and family has now "surpassed the music now, for me" in importance, Kane's faith famously found expression in his continual prayers asking for God's help in reuniting the estranged New York Dolls one final time. Yet in other respects, the two resemble one another, particularly in their visual invocation of Mormonism's founding prophet. For the Dolls' 2004 reunion show in London, Kane insisted on wearing "a white ruffly shirt and black leather pants." While such a wardrobe might bring to mind Jerry Seinfeld before anyone else, in Kane's mind it was intended to "convey a Joseph Smith kind of image."

I'm not entirely sure what conclusions can be drawn from these parallel examples, but I doubt Mormonism's musician par-excellence of the 19th century, W.W. Phelps, had anything like this in mind when he eulogized the deceased Mormon prophet by prophesying in verse that "millions shall know Brother Joseph again!"

CFP, Mormon History Association 2012 (Updated with Extended Deadline)

Call for Papers (Updated with Extended Deadline)

2012 Mormon History Association Conference

Calgary, Alberta, Canada

“Mormonism In Its Expanding Global Context: Invitations to New Interpretations and Understanding

The 47th annual conference of the Mormon History Association will be held a month later than usual – June 28-July1, 2012 at the MacEwan Conference and Events Centre at the University of Calgary. The year 2012 marks the 125th anniversary of the establishment of the first Mormon settlement on Lee’s Creek (later Cardston) in southern Alberta by Charles Ora Card. Furthermore, July 1, 2012 will mark the 145th anniversary of the Canadian Confederation. Originally established in 1875 as Fort Calgary by the Northwest Mounted Police, Calgary has become a thriving metropolitan center to many of Canada’s most successful oil, gas and transportation businesses. So come celebrate with us!

Building upon last year’s theme of global transformations, we intend to capitalize on Calgary’s dynamic setting to invite papers that interpret the Restoration Movement in fresh, new ways. Canada is a richly diverse and cosmopolitan nation and as such beckons the immigration of new viewpoints on Mormon history. International studies of the Mormon experience and comparative studies with other faiths and their environments are encouraged; we also invite research that considers changing perspectives. For instance, how have media and the new era of electronic digitalization influenced the print culture of Mormon history and historical research? What influence has internationalization had on church structures and local memberships as well as interpreting our histories? To what extent has U.S. politics defined the internal understanding of Mormonism? How might various disciplinary lenses such as lived religion, theology, praxis, gender, race and ethnicity shape and reshape our understanding of the Mormon past? Beyond the standard North American perspective, how have local cultures, challenging economics, and national politics affected our interpretations?

The intersection of Canadian and Mormon history also begs scholarly inquiry. For example, how did the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1881 impact Mormon migration to Alberta? What unique legal and social challenges did Mormon polygamy encounter in Canada? How does the current debate in the Supreme Court of Canada over plural marriage challenge historical interpretations? How have the Restoration Movements developed in Canada? What of the challenges of secularization?

While we encourage presentations related to the conference theme, we also welcome high-quality proposals related to any and all aspects of Mormon/Restoration history. As a Program Committee we invite proposals for panels as well as individual papers. Innovative formats will also be considered. Please send an abstract of each paper (no more than 300 words) plus a short CV (no longer than two pages) as well as suggestions for session chairs and respondents. Previously published papers will not be considered. Young scholars are especially encouraged to participate. Generous donors have offered to pay travel expenses for some undergraduate and graduate students whose proposals are accepted. Student proposals should include estimated expenses if applying for a travel grant.

The deadline for proposals has been extended to November 1, 2011. Proposals should be sent by email to mhacalgary2012@gmail.com. If necessary, hard copies of proposals can be sent to Richard Bennett, 370D Joseph Smith Building, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84602. Notification of acceptance or rejection will be made by December 31, 2011. Additional instructions and information are available on the MHA website at http://www.mhahome.org.

Mormonism's Apostle Paul

John G. Turner

In May 1857, a jilted husband found the man who had taken his wife and children. After tracking him to western Arkansas, he organized a posse to cut off his escape, followed him into a thicket of trees, pulled him from his horse, and stabbed him repeatedly near his heart. Hector McLean left to fetch a gun, returned, and shot Mormon apostle Parley P. Pratt in the neck.

Terryl Givens and Matt Grow's new The Apostle Paul of Mormonism tells the often dramatic story of Pratt's tumultuous fifty years. Shortly after deciding to become a Campbellite minister, Pratt encountered the Book of Mormon, read it, and believed. As the title suggests, the authors emphasize Pratt's missionary travels and writings. In the nineteenth century, Mormons leaders often recommended Pratt's 1837 Voice of Warning to inquirers as an introduction to the Mormon faith. As they follow Pratt across the United States and to England and Chile, co-authors Givens and Grow provide an accessible and colorful introduction to the first quarter-century of Mormon history, theology, and missions.

The book has many virtues. For a co-authored book, the narrative is seamless, though one can appreciate Givens's typically lucid exposition of the early evolution of Mormon theology. I am also impressed with their discussion of Parley's experience with plural marriage. Over the past fifteen years of Pratt's life, polygamy brought repeated bouts of estrangement and conflict. For instance, the widowed Pratt's second wife Mary Ann ultimately chose to be sealed by proxy to Joseph Smith for eternity in the Nauvoo Temple. In that same venue, Parley's own brother Orson Pratt accused him of adultery, a charge later repeated by Brigham Young in relation to unauthorized plural marriages. Regularly dispatched by Young on missions, Pratt endured considerable poverty and years of separation from his family.

Those looking for an entry point into Mormon History for themselves or their students should give this volume serious consideration. Pratt stands alongside Joseph Smith as a formative influence on key developments within Mormon theology, and he is at the center of struggles between "Many Mormonisms" (as the authors put it) after Smith's 1844 murder. The authors also took the care (and expense) to obtain a series of very helpful maps to accompany the narrative.

I've long found the furor over Pratt's murder fascinating. His murder sparked a mixture of outrage (mostly in Utah) and justification (in the rest of the country) in 1857. Historians debate its contribution to the ensuing Utah War and the September 1857 Mountain Meadows Massacre (compare Ron Walker, et al., Massacre at Mountain Meadows and Will Bagley's Blood of the Prophets on those points). Givens and Grow point to the newspaper coverage of Pratt's violent death as a demonstration of "the profound depths to which American opinion of Mormonism had plummeted in the wake of plural marriage and the tumult over governance in Utah." That is no doubt true. Americans would probably have approved of Hector McLean's actions had his victim not been a Mormon apostle, but Parley's religion made his death a national story, and the circumstances of the case gave anti-Mormons considerable fodder.

I hardly think Pratt deserved to be stabbed and shot for his marriage to Eleanor McLean, who saw in Mormonism (among other things) a way to escape from an abusive marriage. But it's not surprising that many Americans concluded that Pratt deserved his bloody fate. "[A] man ought to be ashamed of himself," the Nauvoo Neighbor had quipped in 1843, "to run away with another man's wife, when there are so many maiden ladies with their trunks all packed ready for a start!" Mormon apostle George A. Smith had argued that "mountain common law" gave husbands the moral right to kill men who slept with their wives. The Utah territorial legislature codified such justifiable homicides in 1852 when it provided immunity for husbands to kill "in a sudden heat of passion caused by the attempt of any such offender to commit a rape upon his wife, daughter, sister, mother, or other female relation or dependent ... or when the defilement has actually been committed." In Texas, for instance, a cuckolded husband could kill his wife's "ravisher ... at any time before he has escaped from the presence of his victim." Unlike George A. Smith's comment, neither of those laws suggested that a man could act with McLean's level of premeditation. Across the country, though, juries in a series of high-profile murder cases in the 1850s and 1860s used an "unwritten law" to extend that privilege to include premeditation. [See Hendrik Hartog, "Lawyering, Husbands' Rights, and 'the Unwritten Law' in Nineteenth-Century America," Journal of American History 84 (June 1997): 67-96]. In keeping with such conventions, Americans justified Parley's murder. While he lay dying, Pratt insisted that he hadn't stolen another man's wife. "[T]hey were oppressed," he said, "and I did for them what I would do for the oppressed anywhere." McLean defended his actions with pride and enjoyed his moment of fame. "I look upon it as the best act of my life," he stated. Neither Hector McLean nor Parley Pratt regretted their actions.

Black Methodists, White Mormons: Race and Antipolygamy

Christopher Jones

(cross-posted at Juvenile Instructor)

The latest issue of Religion and American Culture arrived in my mailbox last week, and I was immediately intrigued by the first featured article: "'Until This Curse of Polygamy Is Wiped Out': Black Methodists, White Mormons, and Constructions of Racial Identity in the Late Nineteenth Century," written by James B. Bennett, associate professor of Religious Studies at Santa Clara University.

The article examines the antipolygamy writings that appeared in the Southwestern Christian Advocate, the official organ of the Methodist Episcopal Church in late nineteenth century New Orleans. As Bennett explains, "Black critiques of Latter-day Saints are significant because they gave voice to anxieties confronting all African Americans, even as they expressed a particular denominational perspective" (170). In contrast to their fellow black Methodists in the African Methodist Episcopal Church and African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, African Americans in the MEC favored a racially-integrated religious body, believing it to be crucial to the ultimate goal of social and political equality. Critiquing the Mormons' practice of polygamy served multiple functions in their efforts to achieve this end: it was part of an effort to curb the widespread Mormon settlement in the West, which limited to spaces available for black Americans unhappy in the South to migrate; it served as evidence that deviant sexuality was not instinctively tied to race (and played into fears that white polygamy was as threatening to black females as the adulterous relationships of white plantation owners and their black slaves in the antebellum era); and it provided the black Methodists with a convenient other whose lack of patriotism and religious heterodoxy contrasted with the black Methodists' own orthodoxy and support for the nation. Additionally, Mormonism's own policies of racial segregation were an impediment to the goal of an integrated Christian community, threatening to black Episcopal Methodists in the same way that the racial exclusivism of the AME and AMEZ Churches was.

Bennett's nuanced article is insightful and well worth the read to anyone interested. It touches on the subject of the racialization of Mormons (which Paul Reeve's in-progress book manuscript will discuss at length), and provides an interesting and needed complement to the several studies of anti-Mormonism largely limited to the writings of white Anglo-Americans. It also highlights the ways in which the author or editor's own religious, racial, and regional identity affected the reasons for critiquing the Mormons. Bennett perceptively notes, for example, that anti-Catholicism served many of the same purposes as anti-Mormonism did for black Protestants in the nineteenth century, but that articulating anti-Catholic views in New Orleans, where most of the city's religious and political elite were white Catholics, was dangerous business.

Bennett concludes by rehearsing the sad irony of what transpired following the events of the 1890s, as Latter-day Saints abandoned the practice of plural marriage (officially anyway) and began their long march toward the mainstream of American society. Southwestern Christian Advocate editor A.E.P. Albert celebrated Wilford Woodruff's 1890 announcement, declaring that "the twin sister of slavery is now gone forever!" (186). But such celebratory declarations would soon turn to increased frustration. Mormonism's march toward the mainstream in the first half of the 20th century cruelly coincided with the imposition and enforcement of Jim Crow laws throughout the South. The Methodist Episcopal Church, which these black Methodists had once seen as the engine driving the move toward racial equality, pushed them further to the fringes of the denomination. In 1939, the unification of the MEC, MEC, South, and Methodist Protestant Church, resulted in the official segregation of church jurisdictions--a policy that wouldn't be reversed until "less than a decade before the 1978 Mormon decision to extend full privileges to people of African descent" (186).

Mormons, Pagans and ‘Post-Modern Polygamy’

By John L. Crow

One may ask what do Mormons and modern Pagans have in common in today’s religious marketplace? A recent post by a prominent Pagan blogger tells us: multiple-partner marriages. Last Tuesday, Jason Pitzl-Waters, who writes The Wild Hunt blog, posted about a recent Mormon polygamy case in Canada and the impact that they might have on Pagans in Canada and potentially the U.S. While paganism is not known for polygamy, it has a widely known association with polyamory. (As one example, see Raven Kaldera's book, Pagan Polyamory: Becoming a Tribe of Hearts.) For those not familiar with the term, polyamory is defined by Maura I. Strassberg, Associate Professor of Drake University Law
School, as:

a form of commitment which is flexible and responsive to the needs and interests of the individuals involved, rather than a rigid institution imposed in cookie cutter fashion on everyone, this new polygamy reflects postmodern critiques of patriarchy, gender, heterosexuality and genetic parenthood.

Strassberg calls polyamory a kind of ‘post-modern polygamy.’ This is not the only term used. She points to the web site/magazine, Loving More, a polyamory advocacy site, as a place where the numerous polyamory-related terms are defined. Other terms Loving More adds include: Poly-Family, “a group polyamorous people all the people living in or sharing life experiences in the same home or household”; Poly activist, “a person interested in taking action intended to counteract the political, social and religious enforcement of monogamy”; and One True Way Polyamorist, “a person who believes there is only one right way to be polyamorous often based on their own moral judgments (most believe there are many ways to be poly).”

This kind of diversity and specificity is not always appreciated by others. As Pitzl-Waters points out in his blog post, legal authorities have rarely cared to make a difference between polygamy and polyamory. He quotes Craig Jones, lead attorney for the British Columbia Attorney General’s office as saying, “When multi-partner, conjugal relationships are like ‘duplicative marriages,’ they are criminal regardless of whether the individuals are heterosexual, gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered.” It is this legal status that is causing the concern in pagan communities.

At a time when many celebrate the recent legalization of same-sex marriages in New York state, some question if the celebration is premature or what same-sex marriage legalization means for other types of marriage. This issue is certainly the one discussed by Strassberg in her 2003 essay in The Capital University Law Review where she notes,

The emergence of polyamory suggests that continuing efforts to legitimize same-sex marriage may raise questions about whether legalizing the marriage of same-sex partners would force the future legalization of polyamorous group marriages. (31.3, 443).

It is these concerns over future restrictions/prosecution that emerged within the pagan blogosphere. Within two-days, Pitzl-Waters’ post has received over 100 comments and other pagans have continued the conversation on their blogs and forums. (For examples see here and here.) Pitzl-Waters also mentioned the possibility of pagans working in tandem with Mormons to legally challenge marriage restrictions, and some think there is common ground to be found. However others, as quoted by Pitzl-Waters, have their doubts.

I can conceive of legal efforts which serve both groups’ interests, but I have difficulty imagining it politically. The movements have different cultural aims and have different relationships with the society at large. People in each movement tend to find the practices of the other distasteful, making any alliance fraught. Both groups would hesitate to focus only on tactics which support both groups. Both groups may fear that it will compromise their efforts if the public foresees benefits to the other group.

In June 2007 Salon.com published an essay discussing a retreat in central Florida for people practicing polyamory. The essay quotes a 2002 survey conducted by Loving More which claims that while 87% of those who took the survey where raised as Christian, approximately 30% of the respondents converted to paganism. It also stated that one retreat workshop was entitled “Poly and Christianity.” (This certainly would be an interesting topic for someone’s dissertation!)

The issues regarding sexual relationships, marriage and religion are not new to scholars of American religious history. We can point to Oneida, The People’s Temple, and many other groups who encouraged or demanded various sexual and marital practices. Yet there is a tendency today to think that polygamy is primarily a Mormon issue. If Pitzl-Water’s blog post and the ensuing discussions are any indication, polygamy, polyamory and multiple-partner marriage are clearly issues that concern American paganism too.

The Beautiful Mind and Life of Jen Lindell

by Edward J. Blum

You’ve never heard of her, but you would have. She had earned a doctoral fellowship to the Religious Studies department at the University of Pennsylvania and in the fall would have begun her apprenticeship under Anthea Butler and Sarah Barringer Gordon. She had just finished a Master’s Thesis on Mormon-Indian interactions beginning with the initial publication of the Book of Mormon in 1830 and ending with the Mountain Meadow Massacre of 1857. She was my star student who taught me so much about race and religion, helped with my own projects even amid her own routine trips to the hospital, and died far too earlier

.Jen Lindell wrote a Master’s Thesis that easily could have been expanded into an award-winning dissertation. Her broad interest was in the dynamic ways religion influenced the lives of everyday people and on how religious ideas influenced racial perceptions and vise-versa. She fixated on early Mormons and their conceptions of and interactions with Native Americans. She wanted to understand how white people who weren’t considered white by others (in large part because of their distinct faith) at first reached out to non-white people (Native Americans) as potential brothers and sisters, but then years later treated those people with disdain and violence. Lindell refused to take a “top down” approach – which would focus principally on Joseph Smith and Bringham Young – and instead looked to the laity. Reading deeply and widely through diaries, letters, memoirs, and local newspapers, she found epic encounters and love and betrayal, missions and murder, friendship and violence.

Soon, Lindell’s thesis will be deposited in the San Diego State University library and will be available online. I hope scholars interested in Mormonism and race will check it out. She’s got some rich material and fascinating insights. Even more, anyone who reads it will get to know in a small way the brilliant mind that I had the pleasure of learning from for a season. We miss you, Jen, and we’re so glad we got to be a part of your beautiful life.

Richard Bushman, Robert Orsi, and Mormonism's "Abundant History"

Christopher Jones

(cross-posted at Juvenile Instructor)

Over at the website for Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, the editors have posted a discussion (moderated by Susanna Morrill, associate professor of religious studies at Lewis and Clark College) between noted historians and scholars of religion Richard Lyman Bushman and Robert Orsi. Bushman and Orsi reflect on the potential Orsi's approach to "supernatural presence" and "abundant events" in modern Catholicism holds for scholars of Mormonism.

The conversation between these two seasoned scholars, which touches on the relationship between the scholar and her subjects, how to make sense of revelatory visions and the writing of the Book of Mormon, and the vocabulary used to describe such occurrences, deserves to be read in its entirety, but I'm including a brief excerpt below:

Richard: You also speak of the routes of influence radiating from such events. That’s a nice way of putting it; the word “routes” suggests an approach to what happens in consequence. Where do the abundant events lead? But it occurs to me that some of the responses of the Marian groups, which taken together could be thought of as a morphology of an abundant event, take a different form in the case of Joseph Smith. Rather than the abundant event dissolving the boundaries of subjectivity and establishing intimacies, in Joseph Smith’s case it leads to structure and organization. The people who are converted take on priesthood offices and go on missions; they have council meetings. As the influence radiates still further, you get minutes of the meetings and letters and all the paraphernalia of organization. I thought it would be interesting to talk about how events that are so similar at the core lead in different directions in the aftermath.

Robert: I appreciate the difference. I was thinking about that concept as I read the very powerful final chapter of Rough Stone Rolling, in which the people left behind at Nauvoo after Joseph’s murder continued to work on building the temple, though they knew they weren’t going to be using it after it was done because they would be leaving Nauvoo. It seemed to me that we needed some word to get at what happens between Max Weber’s idea of initial charismatic leadership of a new religion and its eventual institutionalization. It seems as if something else is going on there, almost as if the stones themselves were charismatic–the stones of this sacred building that would otherwise signify the routinization of Mormonism. So I take your point. It does lead in different directions, which might have to do with the specific peculiarities of modern Catholicism and modern Mormonism. I was struck by–as you want to put it–the radiation outwards of Joseph’s spirit and his vision through the organization.

Go here to read the rest of the interview.

"To Normalize the False Teachings of Mormonism the World Over"

Paul Harvey

As the long -- very long -- Republican primary season just begins to get going, here's a little reminder that anti-Mormonism didn't die out in the 19th century, or in the 20th century, or after that: Warren Cole Smith, "A Vote for Romney is a Vote for the LDS Church." A little taste:

Placing a Mormon in that pulpit would be a source of pride and a shot of adrenaline for the LDS church. It would serve to normalize the false teachings of Mormonism the world over. It would also provide an opening to Mormon missionaries around the world, who could start every conversation: "Let me tell you about the American president." To elect a Mormon President is to advance the cause of the Mormon Church.

Yes, like the election of Richard Nixon normalized the teachings of Quakerism, and the election of Clinton the teachings of Southern Baptists. Anyway, further discussion of the evangelical division about Romney's faith may be found here, and doubtless in a million other places in the months to come. As for said pending discussion, don't you know that you can count me out.

Our friend Joanna Brooks is about to fire up a post about this, so I'll update here when that is up.

Update: It gets worse. Joanna recounts her conversation with the author here.

In the meantime, that little blast from the past requires an antidote, so here's an interview with the South Park-ers Trey Parker and Matt Stone talking about their musical The Book of Mormon, the full soundtrack of which I'm looking forward to hearing sometime soon. Maybe they'll follow with a sendup musical about the United Church of Christ, or the Unitarian Universalists.

Update: Also, I meant to put this in the original post, but blog friend and part-time basketball analyst Matt Bowman of Georgetown University reflects here, in The New Republic, on the comparative "business Mormonism" of Romney and contrasts that with the much hipper public image of Jon Huntsman. Taking the two together, he says, suggests a sort of generational shift in internal LDS dynamics and culture. Very interesting reading.

After the Historical Revolutions: Or, When the Tree Falls in the Historical Paradigm Forest, Does Anyone Listen?

Paul Harvey

A review of (and an announcement of) some challenging new works in earlier American History, and the history of the American West, got me to thinking about the changing of the historical paradigm guard -- or whether those guards get changed at all by scholarly revolutions. These are questions which affect the course of American religious history, but bear with me for a short detour before discussing that further.

These thoughts first came from reading Charles Mann’s review of Daniel K. Richhter’s new book Before the Revolution: America’s Ancient Past (Harvard Press) in Saturday’s Wall Street Journal (yes, Virginia, I do read the Wall Street Journal! But I'm not sure if the link will let in non-subscribers; if it doesn't and you want to read, I'm happy to send it to you).

I know nothing about this book other than this review, but I am a big fan of Richter’s earlier work Facing East from Indian Country: A Native History of Early America, a favorite of mine to use in class for its wonderful illustrations of how changing one’s angle of vision creates an entirely different historical sense of a period. Richter also engages in some deft analyses of early American documents of religious history from the European-Native encounter, including John Eliot’s bizarre but fascinating Indian Dialogues, of course the Jesuit Relations, Indian conversion narratives, and various ceremonial encounters at treaty negotiations.

In his review of Richter’s new book, Mann writes:

“Every few decades, historians develop a new way of looking at the past. I am not talking about ‘revisionism’ but unifying conceptual schemes, the sort of mental framework that Frderick Jackson Turner created in his argument for the importance of the frontier to our history or that Bernard Bailyn established in his studies of the American Revolution’s ideological orgins. Historians debated Turner for a long time and continue to debate Mr. Bailyn. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were arguing with Mr. Richter a decade from today.”

When I become King of the World I will permanently ban the word "revisionism" and its variant "historical revisionism" (as I have already banned the words "bias" and "politically correct" in my classrooms, since they have become barriers to thought and discussion), since they have been rendered meaningless for precisely the reason Mann explains there.

But the revolution in understanding is not just in the early America of Richter. My longtime friend Anne Hyde, Professor of History at my sister institution Colorado College, is about to publish her magnum opus for the West of the first half of the nineteenth century, Empires, Nations, Families: A History of the North American West, 1800-1860, part of University of Nebraska’s outstanding series History of the American West series. If this this means anything to you, as it will to some of you, the immediate predecessor to Anne’s book is Colin Calloway’s monumental work One Vast Winter Count: The Native American West Before Lewis and Clark.

(As a brief aside, when Anne and I were in graduate school, she always made it to the library at 8:00 a.m. sharp, while I was lucky to drag myself, half hungover and ears still ringing from some too-loud jazz concert the night before, by 10:00 or 11:00 at best, which explains a lot about the great scholarly discipline it took for Anne to finish this huge work, while I was busy watching the Mavs beat the Lakers).

Anne’s work may suggests a paradigm for understanding the history of the West in that era, in a way such as Richter and Colin Calloway have done for earlier American history. Her work also features chapters fully integrating the Mormon West into the larger picture, and too much else of interest besides to even begin to summarize here.

All of this is exciting as an historian. But all of it also makes me wonder how, whether, and when any of this affects public consciousness of earlier American history. Lately we’ve been talking about Barton et al., and of course the bookshelves at your Barnes & Noble are full of everything Founding Father related. I understand that, but considering the impact of the works above – great on historians, perhaps little on anyone else – makes me wonder about similar questions for religious history.

The older paradigm of American religious history will be familiar to many blog readers here, and most are familiar with its more recent challengers, summarized in works such as Tweed’s edited volume Retelling U.S. Religious History. I once saw Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, God rest her soul, blast away at that book at a Young Scholars in American Religion conference, with most of the authors in that book in attendance; it quickly became clear she was itching for a fight with a group that had no interest in fighting with her on the alleged evils of “postmodernist” history, since that debate was long since old and tired at that point; at the end of it, Diana Butler Bass got up and urged her to give up swinging at phantoms since none of us were in the ring with her. Sitting in the back row with Diana, I gave her a big high-five for trying to extricate us all from such an unproductive conversation.

Much of the newer paradigm seems to come from removing religious history from the specific story of the American nation-state, and using categories that engage religious experience at its own level rather than as some proxy for political parties or current day culture wars. We've blogged here extensively about some recent classics that move American religious history/studies well down this path -- by Leigh Schmidt, Robert Orsi, Kathryn Lofton, and numerous others.

Again, however, for religious history as for the studies of earlier American history mentioned above, one wonders whether and how this affects any sort of public consciousness or discussion, and whether it’s the job of religious historians to evangelize for these perspectives that challenge or disrupt how we perceive the American religious past (and present). Or maybe scholars should just do their work, let popularizers who are good at popularizing disseminate this stuff to the general public (like happens in science all the time -- neuroscientists do their thing, and then someone like Oliver Sacks explains a little bit of it to us), and trust that over a generation or two it will find its way into the more general understandings. That's a comforting and easy role to take, but it leaves not much excuse for complaining about why some pseudo-historians advise presidential candidates while the rest of us get to advise freshmen how to raise their grade from a D to a C.

As usual, I have no answers, only questions. You're welcome.

[Sutton -- sorry about your Lakers. Not].

Religion and Humor

BY MICHAEL PASQUIER

Josh Paddison, American Council of Learned Societies New Faculty Fellow at Indiana University, is an historian of religion in the American West. His manuscript, "American Heathens: Religion, Race, and Reconstruction in California," will be published by the University of California Press in the not-too-distant future. He is also the editor of A World Transformed: Firsthand Accounts of California before the Gold Rush (1999).

Like all scholars (I hope), Paddison does more than read, write, and teach. He also draws comics, in this case for the blog Occasional Religion, which serves as a kind of forum for "scholars and artists engaging the world." Paddison's latest installment in the series "Moments in U.S. Religious History" recounts a play performed by three Chinese immigrants at the Methodist Mission in San Francisco. You can see/read it here. In an earlier comic strip, Paddison portrays an 1859 interview between Horace Greeley and Brigham Young.

Good stuff! Thanks Josh!

Playing Jane: Black Mormon History and Memory

Paul Harvey

While our blog contributor Chris Jones is getting ready to ace his comprehensives, he sent along this outstanding piece by Harvard graduate student Max Mueller: "Playing Jane: The History of a Pioneer Black Mormon Woman is Alive Today," published online at the Harvard Divinity School Bulletin. Highly recommended reading, particularly if (like me) you know absolutely nothing about this subject. The article discusses the historical re-creation efforts of Jerri Halwell, who "plays" the remarkable character of Jane Manning James, an African American woman who served in Joseph Smith's household, became a convert, made the trek to Utah, and remained a faithful member of the Church until 1908. A brief taste from this piece (footnotes omitted):

Last summer, I went to Salt Lake City to look for Jane Manning James in the archives of the LDS Church History Library and the archives of the Utah Historical Society. I hoped that Jane would speak to me from scratchy microfiche and dusty letter-books. I hoped she would tell me how she dealt with the precarious place in which she lived out her life as a black Mormon pioneer in Zion, simultaneously at the center and on the margins of the nineteenth-century Mormon experience. I planned to "ask" her: How did you understand your status as a beloved member of the community, celebrated as a friend of the first prophet's family, as a pioneer of 1847, and as a steadfast member of the LDS Church? At the same time, how did you come to terms with LDS Church policy that, due to your race, defines you as innately cursed and thus unworthy to receive the same blessings as your fellow white saints?

Although this was my plan, during my time in Salt Lake City, I found that the archives are not the only or even the best place to find Jane. Certainly, the archives shed light on the question of how Jane in writing subtly challenged the Church's marginalization of blacks within Mormon history and within the Mormon community. But it was in my interviews with Jerri and in my observations of her reenactments that I discovered the canon is not closed on Jane's story. The legacy of Jane's black Mormon experience unfolds today in the lives of modern black Mormons like Jerri, who strike a precarious balance between their ongoing struggles with the Mormon "folklore" about black spiritual inferiority and the spiritual truth they find within their own Mormon testimonies of faith.

Continue reading here.

Reassessing John Brooke's The Refiner's Fire

Christopher Jones

In 1994, Cambridge University Press published John L. Brooke's The Refiner's Fire: The Making of Mormon Cosmology, 1644-1844. As indicated by the subtitle, Brooke's work aimed for a wholly unique and provocative re-interpretation of Mormonism's origins. While it was generally met with praise in the academy and won the Bancroft Prize in 1995, the book was almost universally panned by historians who specialized in Mormon history, and received its harshest (and most polemic) critiques from believing Latter-day Saint scholars (and especially from pseudo-scholarly apologists, some of whom seemed intent on making the most out of the publicity that might come with reviewing an award-winning book).

In the almost two decades since Brooke's work appeared, the sometimes hostile and always intentionally-unique world of Mormon studies has undergone significant changes (though the ever-earnest apologists remain). So have the disciplines of history and religious studies. All of these changes have led a younger generation of Mormon historians to reconsider Brooke's argument and approach. When I recently re-read The Refiner's Fire while preparing for comps, I was surprised at what I'd missed last time through and at how much I liked much of what he was trying to do (and indeed, did). Over at the Juvenile Instructor, Matt Bowman has posted his own brief thoughts on The Refiner's Fire, together with those of Steve Fleming, whose currently in-progress dissertation aims to expand on and revise some of Brooke's central ideas, and Mark Ashurst-McGee, editor of the Joseph Smith Papers project, whose research focuses on Joseph Smith and folk magic and Joseph Smith's social and political thought.

Matt explains by way of introduction his own take on the book and its importance:

It’s my opinion that the further we get from the publication of John Brooke’s The Refiner’s Fire, a wildly inventive examination of Mormon origins through the lens of various esoteric European -isms (including occultism, the quest for hidden and often mysterical knowledge; hermeticism, a particular brand of the occult supposedly derived from ancient Egypt and for Brooke basically a restorationist concept that sought to regain Adam’s access to God, and the non -ism alchemy, or the transformation of the mundane into the exalted) the more interesting a book it seems. Its flaws - most revolving around the difficulty of transplanting such quirky early modern concepts as these to frontier America, though Brooke gives it a go with the vehicle of Masonry – have been well documented; its strengths have been less well recognized by LDS historians, who have tended to find the book, frankly, weird. Thus, too many of the doorways Brooke opened have remained unused.

The whole entry is really quite interesting and well worth the read.

The Mormon Menace

John Turner

Last fall, Ed Blum brought Patrick Mason's Journal of Southern History article on southern anti-polygamy campaigns to our attention. Those appetites whetted by Mason's article can now satiate themselves with his full-length treatment of anti-Mormonism in the late-nineteenth-century American South. [Note: Patrick is a former graduate school classmate of mine who helped kindle my interest in things Mormon, so I make no pretense at detachment in the below].

The Mormon Menace (released imminently by Oxford University Press) tells a largely unknown and remarkable story. Patrick's book is not a history of the Latter-day Saints in the South, but an analysis of southern anti-Mormonism. He might have subtitled the book Awash in a Sea of Baptist Haters but chose to not be so impolitic. At first glance, one might object that there were not all that many Mormons (or Mormon missionaries, for that matter) in the American South at this time. However, southerners were incredibly alarmed about the threat Mormon polygamy posed to innocent white women allegedly at great risk of being seduced by traveling elders. Patrick notes that vigilante attacks against Mormons "far exceeded the combined number of attacks against all other religious outsiders in the South, including Jews and Catholics, during this time period." Following the lead of R. Laurence Moore, Patrick suggests one can learn a great deal about the religious "center" of a society by examining the experience of the religiously marginalized.

One great strength of the Mormon Menace is its intelligent engagement with a variety of literatures. Rereading the introduction, I found insights about American vigilantism, southern politics, race, and religious difference. Patrick argues that "anti-Mormonism provided one set of bonds that helped reforge national unity after the Civil War and Reconstruction, and gave southerners common cause with northern reformers and politicians who had been their bitter enemies only a few years earlier." In short, this is first and foremost a book for historians of the American South, not a narrow offering for historians of Mormonism. I would recommend it as absolutely essential reading for anyone studying the place of religious minorities in the South or the history of American vigilantism.

A final note. Well-written and intelligently edited books are always a greater pleasure to read, even for historians. Patrick's book excels in this respect. The narrative is strong, and some of the illustrations are downright shocking (turn to pp. 138-39).

In the late 1800s, southerners were mostly unique in employing violence to ward off the "Mormon menace." Patrick's book prompted me to think about the contemporary nature of anti-Mormonism in the United States, especially in the South. LDS adherents remain a small minority in Dixie (the "real" Dixie, not southern Utah), comprising less than one percent of the population in all states of the former Confederacy save Virginia and Texas. I occasionally hear people talk about LDS growth in this region of the country but do not know whether it's true. Also, I often ask Latter-day Saints about their missionary experiences. Since Mormon missionaries are quite inured to rejection and unfriendly responses, I rarely hear complaints about anti-Mormon attitudes. The exception has been among former missionaries who served in the Deep South. Perhaps southern evangelicals retain their long-standing animus against Mormons, fortunately without the violence documented in The Mormon Menace. I also note a fair amount of theological anti-Mormonism (or simply generic anti-Mormonism, based on not very much) among my students. Since we began our annual summer pilgrimages to Zion, several well-meaning acquaintances in southern Alabama have expressed spiritual concern on our behalf, whereas our New England friends mostly worry about our access to coffee.

Methodism, Mormonism, and the Atlantic World

Christopher Jones

Cross-posted at the Juvenile Instructor.

____________________________________________

I recently opined on the benefits of situating the rise of Mormonism within the larger historical context of the (late) early modern Atlantic world. I would like now to briefly outline one example of what such an approach might look like. When I wrote my MA thesis on the subject of Methodist influence on early Mormonism, I was mostly interested in exploring the specific ways Methodist converts to Mormonism left their mark on early Latter-day Saint religiosity and paid little attention to the ways in which Methodism and Mormonism related to one another on a broader scale of Christian, American, or Atlantic history. In light of my more recent reading and research, however, I find it difficult to separate those two questions.

In chapter three of my thesis, I explored the ways in which Mormon converts from Methodist backgrounds understood their prior affiliation with Methodism as expressed in public sermons, tracts, and especially in private (and occasionally published) spiritual narratives. I found that contrary to sweeping assessments that Mormonism’s doctrine of “restoration made it abundantly clear that God had sanctioned one true church and that all others were false,” and that this identity left “no room for abstractions, ambiguities, or shades of gray” in the way Mormons understood Protestant traditions [1], Mormon converts from Methodism more often than not understood their conversion to Mormonism not as a wholesale rejection of Wesleyan religion, but rather as a final step in their search for truth. These converts explained that it was their former experience as Methodists that led them to accept the Mormon gospel. Methodism was thus insufficient or incomplete, not altogether incorrect, and Mormons recalled enjoying certain spiritual gifts, learning essential “truths,” and experiencing true Christian conversion during their time as adherents to Methodist teachings and churches. Joseph Smith, therefore, purportedly declared to the Methodist itinerant Peter Cartwright that “he believed that among all the Churches in the world the Methodist was the nearest right, and that, as far as they went, they were right,” and that “if the Methodists would only advance a step or two further, they would take the world. We Latter-day Saints are Methodists, as far as they have gone, only we have advanced further, and if you would come in and go with us, we could sweep not only the Methodist Church, but all others, and you would be looked up to as one of the Lord’s greatest prophets.” [2]

Related to Smith’s assertion that Methodists had “stopped short” of claiming the entire Christian gospel was the suggestion made by other converts that Methodists not only stopped short but even took a backward step by forsaking some of John Wesley’s teachings. Of course such a claim was not new or novel, and in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, many disgruntled Methodists leveled similar charges against leaders of the Methodist Episcopal Church in America and the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Great Britain, leading to a splintering of the movement over issues of church governance, mode and manner of worship, social issues, and theological emphases. Perhaps not surprisingly, it was from these several splinter groups that so many of Mormonism’s early converts and leaders came. And it was those same individuals who repeated anew the charges that mainline Methodists in the 1830s and 1840s had forsaken pure Wesleyanism. Brigham Young, who aligned himself with the Reformed Methodist Church prior to his conversion, thus had little kind to say about the Methodists of his day but held John Wesley in high regard, remarking on one occasion that he considered Wesley to be “as good [of a person] as ever walked on this earth, according to his knowledge,” and expressed his belief that “had the Priesthood been conferred upon [Wesley], he would have built up the kingdom of God in his day as it is now being built up. He would have introduced the ordinances, powers, grades, and quorums of the Priesthood.” [3] William Appleby (and Parley Pratt), meanwhile, praised Wesley’s take on spiritual gifts, and John Taylor, who led a small Methodist sect in Canada before converting to Mormonism, once accused Methodist preachers he encountered in the British Isles of forsaking their Wesleyan heritage, charging that “surely Messrs. John Wesley, John Nelson, Fletcher, and Bramwell, who were ornaments of the Methodist society, would have been ashamed to have been found in the situation in which Messrs. Heys and Livesey have placed themselves in.” [4]

I’ll leave it to others more interested in the accuracy of such charges to debate their relative merits. But it does seem clear to me that in looking at the historical trajectory of Methodism and Mormonism, one can point to ways in which Methodists did move away from key points of Wesley’s teachings and ways in which Mormonism can appropriately be seen as “restoring” some of those points. But what does all of this have to do with the Atlantic world?

Well, one of the most notable ways in which Francis Asbury, whom Wesley appointed as co-superintendent of Methodist efforts in America and who initiated the process leading to the establishment of a separate Methodist church in America (the Methodist Episcopal Church, founded in 1784), moved away from Wesley’s legacy was in his approach to missionary work. While both were proponents of aggressive and far-reaching missionary efforts, they envisioned those efforts in very different geographical terms. As Ian Straker recently noted, whereas “[John] Wesley defined the world as his parish,” and initiated a number of foreign Methodist missions, the “British born Asbury defined his world more narrowly,” limiting the missionary endeavors of his Methodist Episcopal Church largely to the North American continent (and ultimately to the United States alone). [5] While British Wesleyan missionaries continued to operate on both sides of the Atlantic (especially in Canada and the Caribbean), American Methodists aggressively spread throughout U.S. territory. In the early 19th century, Methodists became fierce advocates of American exceptionalism and in some crucial sense (my apologies to Mormonism), the MEC became the quintessential American church of the era, growing to become the largest Protestant denomination on the eve of the Civil War.

While it could be argued that Mormonism built on this pattern both in assembling an upstart and wide-reaching missionary force and in sacralizing the American landscape (and the underlying ideals of the United States), Mormonism also departed sharply from the example of Asbury and the American Methodists by restoring an emphasis on transatlantic (and indeed, worldwide) proselytization. Instead of restricting his church to the United States, Joseph Smith (like John Wesley and others before him) initiated a movement that operated in a truly Atlantic world, prompting the spread of ideas and of people back and forth across the ocean.

Interestingly, other dissident Methodists, like Lorenzo Dow and William Hammett, insisted on moving beyond the borders of the United States and across the Atlantic in their preaching careers. And other inheritors of the Wesleyan legacy, including the Holiness and (later) Pentecostal movements (whom David Hempton appropriately labeled Methodism’s “religious offspring”) also emphasized worldwide missionary programs, leading to their modern day success in Latin America and Africa, where they compete with (who else but) Mormons for converts.

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[1] Richard T. Hughes, “Soaring with the Gods: Early Mormons and the Eclipse of Religious Pluralism,” in Mormons and Mormonism: An Introduction to an American World Religion, ed. Eric A. Eliason (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2001), 27-28, 40.

[2] Peter Cartwright, Autobiography of Peter Cartwright, with an introduction by Charles L. Wallis (Nashville: Abingdon Press reprint, 1984), 225-226.

[3] Brigham Young, “Nature of Man—Happiness—Influence of God’s Spirit Upon Mankind, etc.,” July 3, 1859, in Journal of Discourses 7:5.

[4] John Taylor, An Answer to Some False Statements and Misrepresentations made by the Rev. Robert Heys, Wesleyan Minister, in an Address to His Society in Douglas and its Vicinity, on the Subject of Mormonism (Douglas: Penrice and Wallace, 1840), 9.

[5] Ian Straker, “Comments on Selected Themes [in John H. Wigger’s American Saint: Francis Asbury and the Methodists],”Methodist History 48:4 (July 2010), 221.

Announcement: 2011 Mormon History Association Awards

The Mormon History Association is pleased to announce the following award competitions, including the new Silver Award for Mormon Women's History. Submissions for each category must be received by February 15, 2011 at the respective email addresses indicated below. Winners will be announced at the annual meeting of the Mormon History Association in St. George, Utah this May.

MORMON HISTORY ASSOCIATION STUDENT AWARDS

The Mormon History Association (MHA) is pleased to announce two award competitions for exceptional student work exploring the history of those religious traditions originating with Joseph Smith, Jr. The Juanita Brooks Undergraduate and Graduate Paper Awards will be given to the best unpublished papers written in 2010 by an undergraduate and graduate student, respectively. Students are eligible to submit one paper for consideration. The winning graduate student essay will be published in the Journal of Mormon History, pending editorial review and appropriate revisions as determined by the Journal editor. (Provided the winning entry has not been submitted elsewhere for publication.) All submissions must be sent electronically (as either a "Word" or "PDF" document) to J. Spencer Fluhman at fluhman@byu.edu. Submissions should include a cover sheet detailing the student's biographical information: name, department, institution, and undergraduate or graduate major, etc. Submissions must be received by February 15, 2011, to be considered. Awards will be presented at the MHA annual meeting in St. George, Utah, in May 2011.

MORMON HISTORY ASSOCIATION ARTICLE AWARDS

The Mormon History Association (MHA) is pleased to announce awards for exceptional published scholarship exploring the history of those religious traditions originating with Joseph Smith, Jr. The T. EDGAR LYON BEST ARTICLE AWARD (Awarded for the best article on Mormon history published in 2010) AND J. TALMAGE JONES AWARDS OF EXCELLENCE (Awarded for two outstanding articles on Mormon history published in 2010). Please note, the articles must have been published in 2010. Any member of the Mormon History Association may submit an article for consideration. Publishers/editors may submit one article as well. All submissions must have been published in 2010 and be sent electronically (as either a "WordPerfect," "Word," or "PDF" document) to Thomas G. Alexander as e-mail attachments (thomas_alexander@byu.edu). Submissions must be received by February 15, 2011, to be considered. Awards will be presented at the MHA annual meeting in St. George in May 2011.

MORMON HISTORY ASSOCIATION THESES AND DISSERTATION AWARDS

The Mormon History Association (MHA) is pleased to announce two award competitions for exceptional graduate student work dealing with Mormon history. The Lester E. Bush Best Theses Award will honor two master theses completed and approved by committee in 2010. The Gerald E. Jones Best Dissertation Award will honor a dissertation completed and approved by committee in 2010. Graduate students and faculty advisors are encouraged to send qualifying submissions electronically (as a "Word" or "PDF" document) to Janet Ellingson at janet.ellingson@utah.edu. Submissions must be received by February 15, 2011, to be considered. Awards will be presented at the MHA annual meeting in St. George, Utah, in May 2011.

MORMON HISTORY ASSOCIATION INTERNATIONAL ARTICLE AWARD

The Mormon History Association (MHA) is pleased to announce the newly-funded Andrew Jenson Award, to be given to the best article written about international Mormonism in 2010. (The Geraldine McBride Woodward Award will now be reserved for books published about international Mormonism). All submissions must be sent electronically (as either a "Word" or "PDF" document) to Matthew K. Heiss, LDS Church History Department, at heissmk@ldschurch.org. Submissions should include a cover sheet detailing the author's biographical information: name, department or institution, status or career (student, professor, historian, etc.). Submissions must be received by February 15, 2011, to be considered. Awards will be presented at the MHA annual meeting in St. George, Utah, in May 2011.

SILVER AWARD FOR MORMON WOMEN'S HISTORY

The Mormon History Association (MHA) is pleased to announce a new award for 2011. The Silver Award for Mormon Women’s History will be awarded for an outstanding article published in 2010 on the history of Mormon women in the 19th and 20th centuries. This award includes a prize of $350. All submissions must be sent electronically (as either a Word or PDF document) to subcommittee chair Sheree Bench at shereebench@msn.com. Submissions should include a cover sheet detailing the author’s name, contact information, affiliation, etc. Submissions must be received by February 15, 2011, to be considered. Awards will be presented at the MHA annual meeting in St. George, Utah, in May 2011. The Silver Award is sponsored by the Mormon Women’s History Initiative Team (MWHIT) and funded by the Silver Foundation.

WINCHESTER FAMILY AND COMMUNITY HISTORY AWARD

The Mormon History Association (MHA) is pleased to announce a newly renamed award for 2011. The Winchester Family and Community History Award (formerly the Thomas Rice King Family History Award) will be awarded for the best Mormon family or community history. This award includes a prize of $500. Two hardbound copies of each publication should be submitted to Ardis Parshall, Chair AEParshall@aol.com. Submissions must be received by February 15, 2011.

MHA BEST BOOK AWARDS

The Mormon History Association (MHA) is pleased to announce submission requirements for Best Book Award (i.e., Ella Larsen Turner/Ella Ruth Turner Bergera Best Biography Award, MHA Best Book Award, Smith-Pettit Best First Book Award, and the Steven F. Christensen Best Documentary Book Award). Submit 5 hardbound copies of each publication by February 15, 2011 to: Linda Thatcher, Chair, MHA, 10 West 100 South, Suite 610, Salt Lake City, UT 84101, (801) 428-0471, thatcher0911@msn.com