A Kingdom Transformed : Early Mormonism and the Modern LDS Church, New Edition [1 ed.] 9781607814450, 9781607814443

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A Kingdom Transformed

A KINGDOM TRANSFORMED EARLY MORMONISM AND THE MODERN LDS CHURCH Gordon Shepherd and Gary Shepherd Second Edition

The Univer sit y of Utah Pr ess Salt Lake City

Copyright © 1984, 2016 by The University of Utah Press All rights reserved. First edition published 1984. Second edition 2015. The Defiance House Man colophon is a registered trademark of the University of Utah Press. It is based on a four-­foot-­tall Ancient Puebloan pictograph (late PIII) near Glen Canyon, Utah. 20 19 18 17 16    1 2 3 4 5 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Shepherd, Gordon, 1943–   A kingdom transformed : early Mormonism and the modern LDS Church / Gordon Shepherd and Gary Shepherd. — Second edition.    pages cm   First edition had subtitle: Themes in the development of Mormonism.    Includes bibliographical references and index.   ISBN 978-1-60781-444-3 (paperback)   ISBN 978-1-60781-445-0 (ebook) 1. Christian sociology—Mormon Church—History. 2. Social change—­ History. 3. Mormon Church—History. 4. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-­ Day Saints—History. I. Shepherd, Gary, 1943- II. Title.   BX8635.3.S54 2015  289.3›3209—dc23 2015017703

Printed and bound by Sheridan Books, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan.

• To the memory of our parents: Alvin Brighton Shepherd and Marjorie Coombs Shepherd

Contents

1.

List of Figures   viii List of Tables   ix Preface  xi Introduction  xvii Mormon Prophetic Rhetoric and the Institution of LDS General Conference  1 2. Parallel Paths: LDS General Conference and Mormon History   13 3. The Social-­Historical Context of Mormon Beliefs   37 4. Utopia, Family, and Authority: The Major Rhetorical Themes of LDS General Conferences  70 5. Mormon Commitment Mechanisms   102 6. Patterns of Mormon Commitment Rhetoric   130 7. Mormon Accommodation  148 8. Mormon Responses to Secularization   177 9. Contemporary Developments: LDS Conference Trends from 1980–2009  200 Epilogue  233 Appendix A: Content Analysis Procedures for Obtaining and ­Evaluating a Representative Sample of LDS General Conference Addresses, 1830–1979  241 Appendix B: Listing of Addresses in the LDS Conference S ­ ample, 1830–1979   252 Appendix C: General Conference Topic Index with Salience Scores for Thirty-­Year Periods, 1830–1979   269 Notes  309 Bibliography  375 Index  393

Figures

7.1. Recapitulation of Rhetorical Emphasis on Utopian and Commitment Themes  159 7.2. Mormon Rhetorical Emphasis on Individual and Social Reform  161 7.3. Mormon Rhetorical Emphasis on Dissension   167 7.4. Mormon Rhetorical Emphasis on Mobilization and Articulation  174 8.1. Mormon Rhetorical Emphasis on Individualism   191 8.2. Mormon Rhetorical Emphasis on Doctrinal Differentiation   193 8.3. Mormon Rhetorical Emphasis on the Supernatural and Eschatology  195

viii

Tables

4.1. Mormonism’s Ten Most Salient Conference Themes   73 4.2. General Categories Generated from Mormonism’s Most Salient Conference Themes  76 6.1. Mean Salience Scores of Commitment Categories for Thirty-­Year Time Periods, 1830–1979   136 9.1. Most Salient Conference Themes by Decade, 1980–2009   205 9.2. Generic LDS General Conference Theme Categories, 1989–2009 (Authority, Truth, Knowing, Goals, and Rewards)   209 9.3. Conference Salience of Distinctive LDS Teachings, 1980–2009 (Restoration and Salvation Themes)   213 9.4. Salience of Selected Supernatural and Eschatology Conference Themes, 1980–2009  216 9.5. Gender, Family, Homosexuality, and Independent Scholarship Themes, 1980–2009  219

ix

Preface

This book is broadly concerned with how Mormonism—as a religious movement, a social organization, and a cultural system—has adapted to a number of internal and external pressures during the first 150 years of its history. Beginning in 1830 as a small, radi­cal, millennial group based on the prophetic claims of Joseph Smith, the Mormons survived enormous obstacles in a turbulent early career to emerge in our own time as one of the most prominent of all home­grown American religions. Our purpose in this book is to under­stand more clearly some of the fundamental ways Mormonism (organizationally embodied in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-­day Saints, or LDS Church) has changed over time and to suggest some reasons why these changes have occurred. Our approach in pursuing these ends is not that of the professional historian. We have not tried to write a detailed history of Mormon­ism, rather, our perspective is sociological. Thus, we have attempted to identify general sociological themes in our study of the Mormons—such as group identity, social solidarity, organizational commitment, sectar­ianism, and secularization—and use them as organizing constructs for an institutional analysis of the Mormon religion both past and present. Throughout the book we resort to these concepts to help explain the causes and consequences of what we regard to be major changes in Mormon attitudes and institutions. While our ob­jective is to produce a sociological interpretation of Mormonism and its organizational expression—the LDS Church—we do not think it is possible to adequately comprehend any institution without first understanding and appreciating the historical process that produced it. In our

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xii Preface

study of the Mormon faith we have therefore relied on a number of historical sources in order to outline the social context from which it emerged and continues to be shaped. It is within the context of the unfolding history of the LDS Church that we have attempted our sociological analysis of Mormon beliefs and institutions. Outside of using conventional historical narration to establish the essential framework of places, events, and personalities associated with Mormon history, our principal conclusions are based on statistical data techniques. The object of these techniques is the changing public rhetoric of Mormon leaders. Our primary assumption is that leader rhetoric both reflects and guides organizational and ideological changes. We wish to emphasize that in studying public statements made by Mormon leaders, it is not our intention to do a structural analysis of their rhetoric per se. We are not proposing any new theories of rhetoric. We would point out, however, that documenting patterns of leader rhetoric is highly compatible with the theoretical prescriptions of frame analysis in journalism studies of mass communication and public opinion, sociological research on the mobilization of core supporters by social movement organizations, and political science analysis of the partisan character of political discourse in electoral politics. It is through effective framing of relevant social, political, and religious issues that group leaders exercise influence in constructing and broadcasting meanings that resonate with people’s lives and provide them with justifications for their individual choices and collective action. Assuming that public statements made by institutional authorities can be used as valid indicators of certain kinds of institutional change, we must also recognize the limitations of this approach. Not uncommonly, official pronouncements may be designed to conceal as much as reveal, to obfuscate rather than clarify. Institutional authorities are in a position to manage information and to prevent pertinent facts from being publicly known. Authorities may typically be counted on to present biased accounts of events—accounts that in many ways are bound to be self-­serving. Official statements reflect what officials want people to know; there is always a history of events behind the scenes that is not part of the public record. And there are often factors that shape the course of events, the importance of which may not even be adequately recognized by officials at the time

Preface xiii

they occur, which have little or nothing to do with official rhetoric. It is in dealing with these kinds of issues that other approaches are undoubtedly better suited than ours. At the same time, institutional authorities must and do publicly respond in significant ways to historical circumstances. What leaders say and do in public becomes an important source of information that we cannot afford to ignore, particularly if a reliable record of such occasions is kept over time. Indeed, it is through the public rhetoric of organizational leaders that a group’s basic values and ideology are expressed. The study of official ideology leads to an understanding of how leaders attempt to justify organizational policies and programs. Through a systematic examination of official records over time, it is possible to discern organizational patterns and long-­ term institutional trends that would not otherwise be apparent. Because of Mormons’ paramount belief in modern revelation, we conclude that leader rhetoric has played a particularly meaningful part in the institutional history of the LDS Church. It is also our opinion that the published proceedings of LDS general conferences, which have been regularly convened since 1830, constitute a documentary source that provides the most comprehensive and meaningful record of Mormon rhetoric over the entire course of Mormon history. Most of the empirical generalizations that we make about the transformation of Mormon institutional priorities in the first edition of our book are based on a systematic content analysis of a representative sample of LDS general conference addresses covering the first 150 years of Mormon history. [Our original survey approach contrasts with a complete census of thirty additional years (1980–2009) of general conference addresses that we have now carried out, the details of which are summarized in a new Chapter 9]. Those readers interested in the details of our conference sample and census, content analysis procedures, and a comprehensive summary of our theme analysis should consult Chapter 9 and Appendices A, B, and C at the end of the book. In recognition of the limitations of our conference data, we have also supplemented our conclusions at various points with information derived from other sources, not the least of which is our own personal experience as firsthand observers of contemporary Mormon life. Thus, we have attempted to leaven a predominantly outsider perspective, based

xiv Preface

on empirical analysis of historical data, with occasional insights from an insider perspective, based on participant observation and our own cultural perceptions. We hope that our interpretation of Mormon institutions is richer as a result of this blend. Our conscious intent has been to preserve a decent objectivity in the analysis of our materials. Our collaboration in this study represents fulfillment of an old fantasy that originated between us as undergraduate students majoring in sociology at the University of Utah. Our initial interest in sociology and its possible applications to religious institutions was particularly stimulated at that time by our student work with Lowell L. Bennion, Ray R. Canning, and Glen M. Vernon. We remain grateful to these men for their early interest and encouragement. Our actual collaboration on the present project has been simultaneously fascinating and frustrating. We have been separated by long distances for a number of years, and this has resulted in a joint product constructed from innumerable letters, emails, phone calls, and occasional visits and time stolen from family vacations to Utah or other rendezvous sites. Many other people have necessarily become involved in the course of our efforts to research and write this book. Without burdening these ­people with responsibility for any of the errors or flaws our work may contain, we would like to acknowledge the credit due to them and express appreciation for their contributions. High on this list is Armand Mauss, a man who through much correspondence has been both our most persistent and perceptive critic and our most encouraging supporter. [2015 note: These comments of appreciation—for Armand’s ongoing support and keen suggestions—remain just as true now with regard to our revised and updated edition.] Since our research has not depended on an exhaustive survey of primary historical sources, our library needs have been relatively simple. However, on those occasions when we required special library assistance, we were always very graciously and competently aided by Ruth Yeaman, librarian of the University of Utah’s Western Americana and Special Collections division (and our former supervisor when we worked at the University of Utah Library as part-­time student employees). Everett L. Cooley, former director of Western Americana and Special Collections, was also interested and helpful over the years. [2015 note: We acknowledge the

Preface xv

contemporary encouragement and wise counsel of Jan Shipps in relation to our revised and updated edition. Appreciation is also due to Emily Benoit, who expended her time and talent on short notice to reconcile formatting incompatibilities in our endnote and bibliographic references. And finally, we gratefully note the eagle eye and unerring ear for harmonious wording displayed by Holly Hansen Rogers in rendering an impeccable copyedit of this second edition of our book. We have been pleased to work with the professional staff of the University of Utah Press on both editions of our book. Both staffs—in 1984 and now in 2015—encouraged us, tracked down our mistakes, competently responded to the exigencies of the publication process, and, in short, significantly reinforced our convictions (which, over the years, sometimes flagged) that this book was worth bringing to completion. We are grateful to one and all for their interest and efforts. In revising and updating A Kingdom Transformed, we have added thirty additional years of LDS conference proceedings to our study. Based on analyses of this new material, we discuss our updated findings in a new chapter at the end of the book. We have preserved the other chapters in their original form but have updated their contents where necessary, modified and expanded our reference sources, and systematically tweaked the writing throughout for greater clarity wherever we thought appropriate. Finally, we have altered Kingdom’s subtitle from “Themes in the Development of Mormonism” to “Early Mormonism and the Modern LDS Church” in order to more accurately reflect the overarching thesis of our book.

Introduction

In 1989, roughly three decades after publishing his influential book on American Judaism, Nathan Glazer concluded that enough had changed in both American society and the Jewish community to warrant revising and updating his earlier study.1 This observation is relevant to us for several reasons. It has been, coincidentally, just over thirty years since we published A Kingdom Transformed: Themes in the Development of Mormonism, a book about Mormons in America from their beginnings in 1830 through their twentieth-­century growth and development up to 1980.2 Given our original conceptual format of thirty-­year intervals for gauging generational changes in official leader rhetoric and corresponding changes in the ways Mormons practice their religion, we can now contemplate what new changes, if any, have transpired during the most recent generational period of Mormon history, carrying us into the first decade of the twentyfirst century. Beyond timeline coincidences, there are several interesting ways the subject matter of our book about Mormonism in America overlaps with Glazer’s American Judaism. Glazer confronts the question of Judaism’s fundamental duality—its amalgamated religious and ethnic character, which seems ultimately to defy separation. As a religion, Judaism is of ancient origin and eventually became the world’s prototypical monotheistic religion. Monotheistic Judaism spawned Christianity and long predated Islam in the Arabian Peninsula. Genealogically speaking, both Christianity and Islam are linked to Judaism as Abrahamic religions.3 Today, Jews are defined as an ethnic group by their shared history and collective travails, religiously

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mandated customs and cultural practices (importantly including preservation of the Hebrew language), and ancestry through matrilineal descent.4 We should note that current social science definitions of ethnicity reject the explanatory value of genetically inherited “racial” traits. Instead they emphasize the unifying characteristics of a shared culture that is generationally perpetuated through childhood inculcation and made resilient through the erection of social boundaries that foster attitudes of protective in-­group loyalty and ethnocentrism in relationship to outsiders and potential adversaries. Ethnic groups simultaneously require mutual identification by insiders and consensual labeling by outsiders, who concur with the existence of distinctive social and cultural characteristics but predictably differ in their valuation of those characteristics. Ethnic group boundaries not only strengthen in-­group solidarity, they also function to maintain majority group privileges relative to minority group disadvantages in systems of social inequality.5 Do Mormons, like Jews, constitute not only a religion, but an ethnic group as well? Some scholars have in fact suggested that in the formative decades of their history Mormons came to approximate a homegrown, American ethnic group or “people,” producing and reinforcing a unique Mormon identity and in-­group loyalty that set them apart from other Americans.6 Interestingly, in their early history and theological development in the nineteenth century, the Mormons incorporated various Hebraic religious elements into their concepts of priesthood, patriarchy, posterity, temple worship, and the practice of plural marriage. Taking their cue from the Old Testament, they believed in the Hebraic tradition of prophetic guidance and direct revelation from living prophets. They consciously identified with the ancient Hebrews’ covenantal relationship with God and believed themselves, through divine intent, to have inherited God’s promises to the scattered tribes of Israel in the latter days of human history. The name they appropriated from Old Testament scripture for the physical and spiritual community that they aspired to build was Zion, a holy place where they would dwell with God in latter-­day harmony and obedience to his revealed commandments. But, like the Jews, the Mormons also quickly saw themselves beset by enemies whose persecution they seemed fated to endure. Hectored in upstate New York and eventually driven from their frontier communities

Introduction xix

in Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois, they chose corporate exile as a people and claimed a new homeland in the sparsely inhabited deserts and mountains of the American West, where for two generations they resisted the intrusive authority of the United States government as well as influences from outsiders or “gentiles” (the Mormon designation for non-­Mormons). In these ways and many others, early Mormonism generated a religious worldview and insular community institution that, in truncated form, mimicked the Jews’ historical narrative and strong sense of peoplehood. At the same time, the Mormons were insistently Christian in their theology; they creatively embellished Protestant doctrines and practices and displayed cultural characteristics derived from their ancestral New England origins and frontier peregrinations that were distinctly American. In contrast, as immigrants to the United States, Jews were cultural and religious aliens who, from the outset, struggled to find a place in Christian America while holding on to their Old World traditions and ancient religious forms. The earliest Jewish immigrants to colonial America were Sephardic (Spanish and Portuguese) Jews, followed by German Jews after the American Revolution, Eastern European Jews in the latter nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and finally a wave of Russian Jews in the 1970s and 1980s, prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union.7 Of widely different nationalities and attached to different versions of religious Judaism, all of these diverse immigrant groups were nevertheless perceived by other Americans as Jews, and, in turn, all self-­identified as such. Here is not the place to summarize the historical trials and triumphs of American Jewry in the face of ethnic hatred and discrimination in this country. Suffice it to say that once established in the American political economy, the primal threat for American Jews of all nationalities has, in more recent decades, had less to do with anti-­Semitism and more to do with the homogenizing forces of American individualism and mass culture. Carried to its extreme conclusion, assimilation is a historical process in which individuals or groups, through intimate contact, including intermarriage, lose their unique differences and develop ties of mutual identification with dominant groups in the host society. True assimilation of American Jews in American society would go beyond social integration and active participation in the political economy. It would signal the demise of a distinctive ethnic-­religious group that

xx Introduction

heretofore has survived for millennia. This is what American Jews, both religious and secular, wish most to avoid. According to Glazer, while Jewish religion tenaciously persists in America (through its various Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform branches), a substantial majority of American Jews have become fundamentally secularized and are not devout or religious in their beliefs. Nonetheless, many Jewish parents continue to prize their Jewish identity and desire the same for their children. They want their children to marry Jewish spouses and in turn raise children to know and respect their cultural and religious heritage. In Glazer’s analysis, it is the survival of Jewish ethnicity that has trumped religious Judaism in the ambiguous American melting pot wherein assimilating pressures vie with countervailing, pluralistic ideologies that celebrate diversity and foster the perpetuity of ethnic distinctions.8 We would argue that Mormons face similar concerns. Do the homogenizing forces of American individualism and the materialism of consumer mass culture threaten the peculiar theological and historical foundations of modern Mormonism? In its contemporary quest for respectability and expansion as a legitimate global religion, is Mormonism at risk of losing its distinctive, originating religious and cultural characteristics? In addressing these concerns in later chapters, we will develop the thesis that, in contrast to American Judaism, it is the religious side of the Mormon equation that trumps any of Mormonism’s erstwhile ethnic characteristics. In supporting this argument, we must not only recognize what Mormonism shares in common with Judaism but also what is fundamentally different about these two faith traditions. While nineteenth-­century Mormonism shared certain religious and sociological affinities with ancient Israel, it also acquired a very different ecclesiastical structure and a powerful evangelizing ethic. Organizationally, Mormonism shares far more in common with Catholicism than it does with either Judaism or most Protestant denominations. Like the Catholic Church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-­day Saints (or LDS Church) is founded on a centralized, hierarchical priesthood organization whose delegated system of authority relies on ultimate belief in the revelatory supremacy of its highest officialdom—the papacy in the Roman Catholic Church and the prophet and his counselors in the First Presidency of the LDS Church. The various branches of Judaism lack both

Introduction xxi

a centralized priesthood hierarchy and corresponding authenticated creed or theological dogma. Instead, they operate in congregational fashion at the grassroots level under the direction of local rabbis, who, without official oversight by ecclesiastical superiors, are at liberty to offer their personal wisdom and guidance for congregants in interpreting and applying the strictures of ancient Jewish law. Most importantly, in contradistinction to the LDS Church, religious Judaism is emphatically not a proselytizing religion. One can convert to Judaism, but conversion is not programmatically encouraged, and the process is lengthy and demanding, discouraging all but the most sincere applicants. Judaism is not a growth-­oriented religion. The LDS Church, by contrast, has become virtually equated with its worldwide missionizing efforts. In this regard, Mormons strongly resemble evangelical Protestants, who, as proclaimed disciples of Jesus Christ in the modern world, define the evangelization of all humanity to be their divine mandate and ultimate goal. Unlike contemporary Judaism, which is committed to its primal survival as a distinctive, ethno-­religious entity in American society, the LDS Church is fundamentally committed to worldwide expansion through the missionary spread of its message of the “restored gospel of Jesus Christ.” The discerning reader will note that at this point we have begun making references to the LDS Church and not just to “Mormons” or “Mormonism.” The latter, of course, are indelible nicknames bestowed by non-­Mormons (and employed by church members themselves) in an allusion to the Book of Mormon—a scriptural text regarded by Latter-­day Saints to be on par with the Bible. As an analytical expediency, we will use the term “Mormonism” to designate those aspects of the religion that are related to a distinctive way of life and which therefore connote certain ethnic characteristics. But it is the LDS Church that is spreading worldwide, not necessarily Mormonism per se. In its rapid growth and institutional commitment to missionary evangelization, the LDS Church must simultaneously adapt and standardize its message and policies to different religious markets in different parts of the world. Striving to become a universal religion—rather than preserving its particularistic historical and cultural heritage—is arguably the chief challenge facing the contemporary LDS Church. It is its centralized authority structure and deeply entrenched missionary ethic that have decisively tipped the scale in the

xxii Introduction

LDS ethno-­religious equation. Ethnic Mormonism has been and continues to be eclipsed by the religion of the Latter-­day Saints.9 To what extent and in what ways the LDS Church has diluted or transformed its fundamental faith commitments and theological premises in the process of becoming a worldwide religion is the primary subject matter of this book.

A Kingdom Transformed

1

Mormon Prophetic Rhetoric and the Institution of LDS General Conference

Most of the novel religious movements spawned by the ferment of nineteenth-­century expansion and change in American society have vanished. Many experiments in religious living failed to attract a significant following or have a discernible impact on the course of American history. One of the important exceptions to this general historical record has been the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-­day Saints: the Mormons. In 1980—the culminating point of our book’s first edition—the LDS Church celebrated one hundred and fifty years as an indigenous American religion. Not only had the Mormons endured, they ultimately had prospered and flourished. Formally incorporated as a religious body in 1830 with a membership of six persons, the Latter-­day Saints (as they refer to themselves) could boast of over five million adherents worldwide by 1980. In the three decades since, official church membership tripled (as of 2015) to over fifteen million. Several hundred thousand new converts are now being brought into the fold annually through a highly organized and productive missionary program that is global in scope.1 Why do some religious movements persist and others not? Why do some new organizations stagnate while others gain momentum? How do enduring movements maintain their unity and purpose? How do they adapt

1

2  CHAPTER 1

to change, and what kinds of transformation of belief and practice occur as they mature in the historical process of institutional development? These are recurrent questions investigated in the study of new religious movements. They can be pursued with both ideographic and nomothetic ends in mind: one may ask these questions with respect to the social history of Mormonism as a subject worthy of understanding in and for itself. They are also questions that, while investigated in the context of Mormon experience, may contribute to a general understanding of other religious movements as well. For the historian and sociologist of religion, Mormonism represents an important historical case, a strategic example of a “successful” religious movement.2 The Mormons have, in fact, been studied extensively by both Mormon and non-­Mormon scholars. As might be expected, much of the existing literature on Mormonism dating back to the nineteenth century is either polemical or apologetic. A number of very competent histories have been done, however, as well as numerous scholarly articles, essays, and surveys treating specific themes in the group life and history of the Latter-­day Saints.3

Leader Rhetoric In our study of Mormonism as a historical movement, we focus on the articulation of Mormon beliefs through the rhetoric of succeeding generations of church leadership. This strategy warrants some comment. All social movement organizations, whether religious or secular, cohere around some set of beliefs that justify the movement’s existence and legitimate its programs. The tasks of leadership, especially in the early stages of a movement’s development, are to identify and articulate the sources of people’s existential concerns and discontents, define courses of corrective action, and mobilize individuals to become personally committed in pursuit of a common cause. At later stages in a movement’s career the tasks of leadership may become primarily administrative rather than charismatic, but if the movement is to endure, leaders must continue to successfully reinforce member commitment as changes occur in goals and organizational structure.4 And at every stage of institutional development leaders must define and manage the movement’s relationship with other groups in society.

Mormon Prophetic Rhetoric and the Institution of LDS General Conference 3

All of these tasks require the essential ability to persuade, to stimulate and guide social action through various forms of public rhetoric. When new movements are opposed by established groups, counter-­rhetoric emerges that seeks to undermine the credibility of movement claims and often legitimates suppression and self-­defensive belligerence. Partisan rhetoric, whether that of the movement or of its opponents, is aimed at creating and maintaining definitions of reality that simultaneously disparage alternative definitions. Thus, the study of social movement rhetoric involves the study of propaganda and indoctrination of group ideologies. Rhetorical persuasion, both in written and spoken form, is an essential part of the historical development of all social and religious movements.5 It has played a particularly significant role in the history of Mormonism.

Official Mormonism In order to adequately comprehend the religion of the Latter-­day Saints, past or present, it is above all necessary to recognize the essentially theocratic character of Mormon beliefs. The Mormons’ claims to religious truth are based on belief in modern revelation as the ultimate source of all spiritual knowledge. The Latter-­day Saints also believe that those who occupy positions of authority in their church have been appointed by divine inspiration. Not only do Mormons believe that their leaders are chosen by God, but also that leaders are directly prompted and guided by the Holy Spirit in the performance of their official duties in such a way that their leadership is a manifestation of God’s will rather than their own. Although it is believed that each individual member may receive revelation to resolve personal problems or to carry out the duties of a local church office, only the president of the LDS Church (who is also “prophet, seer, and revelator”)—with the affirming assent of his two counselors and the Quorum of the Twelve— is entitled to receive revelation pertaining to matters of doctrine and policy for the church as a whole. Since this revelation is believed to follow directly from a divine source, there can be little questioning of the truthfulness of principles that are declared to be its products. Accordingly, Mormons are taught from an early age to obey church doctrines, to honor priesthood authority, and to comply with leadership decisions. At the same time, new converts recruited to the faith must, if

4  CHAPTER 1

their conversion is to be judged sincere, be persuaded to accept the divine authority and inspiration of church leaders. Conversely, rejection of Mormonism necessarily entails repudiation of Mormon theocratic claims. Throughout its history Mormonism’s theocratic doctrines simultaneously have been a prime source of both unity and division. The leadership and governance of the LDS Church are based in a complex network of priesthood authority. The outermost roots begin with organized, local groups of lay priesthood holders (including all “worthy” males, twelve years old and older) and extend up increasingly hierarchical levels of organization and authority to a body of men known as general authorities. This body is subdivided with the top positions occupied by the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and the First Presidency (i.e., the church president and two counselors). The decisions these men make, and the programs they establish, are funneled back down the levels of organization. There are both formal and informal pressures to support policies emanating from above, and conformity is almost always achieved.6 Our emphasis on the conspicuous authoritarian features of Mormon belief and organization is in keeping with the conventional perception of Mormon life made by both inside and outside observers. It is, however, at variance with the analysis of Mormonism advanced in Mark Leone’s important work, Roots of Modern Mormonism (1979). Written a generation ago, Leone’s analysis of Mormonism remains distinctive and provocative. The most novel aspect of Leone’s thesis is that the apparent authoritarianism and doctrinal orthodoxy of Mormonism are illusions behind which is concealed the essential creedlessness of the LDS religion. This creedlessness is, according to Leone, the key to understanding Mormonism’s success as a “modern” religion.7 He argues that individuals thrive in Mormonism because the church tolerates and in fact encourages subjective, idiosyncratic interpretation of religious meanings as applied to the personalized experience of everyday life. Rather than a clearly defined orthodoxy, Mormonism is seen as providing only a loose and fairly primitive conceptual framework within which a welter of privatized theologizing is the norm. What Leone terms the “decentralized creation of religious meaning” in Mormonism results from the lay character of the LDS Church, lack of professional theologians devoted to systematically rationalizing the inconsistencies of the faith, and the Mormons’ metaphysical assumptions

Mormon Prophetic Rhetoric and the Institution of LDS General Conference 5

concerning the ever-­changing nature of the universe.8 Since, theologically, the LDS faith regards change to be natural and inevitable, Leone infers that Mormonism itself is highly flexible in changing positions as new circumstances warrant. Thus, he characterizes the LDS Church in terms that emphasize its subjective individualism, changeability, relativism, and adaptability. These are all presumed traits of modern religions for helping people cope with the rapid transformations and uncertainties of the modern world. We would contend that there is a good deal of insight in these and other observations Leone makes. We would also argue, however, that it is a mistake to disregard Mormon priesthood hierarchy, entrenched literalism, doctrinal absolutism, and orthodoxy as being mere appearance, as Leone apparently does. Mormonism has, of course, changed over time; it has become modernized in many ways; it has made successful adaptations to a changing and increasingly secularized environment. This is an institutional history that we hope to partially elucidate in the following pages and one which Leone has attempted with considerable ingenuity. But ultimately Leone’s vision of the Mormons fails to capture what we would regard to be their most distinctive sociological feature; namely, a close sense of religious community and hence the systematic subordination of individuals to the institutional order of the church. Additionally, Mormons’ reverence for prophetic authority is at least as significant ideologically (and probably much more so) as their attitudes concerning progress and change. Failure to recognize these points results in a failure to understand that which is both appealing and repelling in the religion of the Latter-­day Saints. How can Mormonism simultaneously be authoritarian yet individualistic, orthodox yet creedless, objectively imposed yet subjective, unified yet endlessly pliable and diverse? We take it as an axiom that social life is perpetually made complex by the tension between such human contradictions or paradoxes. In part these contradictions are a matter of degree; they also reflect the conceptual emphasis chosen by different scholars. Our bias in this study is to interpret Mormonism and the LDS Church from the perspective of the “official religion,” while Leone’s bias, it would seem, is to assume the perspective of what some have called the “common religion.”9 Everywhere and always common religion is the shadow of official religion. It is the personalized, practical side of religion as interpreted and

6  CHAPTER 1

implemented by individual believers in their everyday lives. It emerges and is maintained informally. Based on folk beliefs, customs, and superstitions, it need not conform to the formal categories of official theology or liturgy. In fact, common religion is characterized by its lack of systematic rational theology, exclusive doctrinal orthodoxy, and emphasis on a purely transcendental world. Above all, common religion is defined by its orientation to this world and to the practical problems posed by everyday life. In typically concrete and material terms it fills in the existential gaps created by the abstractions of official religion.10 When Leone describes the individualism, creedlessness, subjectivity, and changeability of modern Mormonism, he is primarily informing us of his observations of the common religion at work among the Latter-­day Saints.11 A good case can be made that Mormonism is more nurturing of a common religion than many other official faiths.12 The lay structure of the LDS Church and its own avowed religious materialism are conducive to this outcome. But this does not diminish the social and psychological significance of official Mormonism for an adequate understanding of the Mormon people. If the Mormons are prone to displays of the common religion, they are also closely supervised by and typically submissive to the directives of the official religion. It will be our task to show how the official religion, through the formal rhetoric of its ecclesiastical leadership, has functioned to legitimate its core values and beliefs, secure member commitment to the religious community, and define and redefine its relationship to other groups in a changing society. Documentary materials expressing the official rhetoric of Mormon leaders are plentiful. The Mormons are justifiably renowned for their record-­keeping proclivities and massive production and dissemination of doctrinal and instructional materials. In addition to various official documents—including the standard works of the LDS Church (the Bible, Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price), periodic statements issued by the First Presidency, and electronic notices sent to update local ecclesiastical units on church policies—Mormon authorities regularly communicate their views on doctrine, church programs, and social issues through a number of official circulation magazines, which include dissemination of conference reports. In addition to these outlets, the LDS Church publishes numerous pamphlets and lesson manuals for the indoctrination of both potential converts

Mormon Prophetic Rhetoric and the Institution of LDS General Conference 7

and members of all ages. In recent years the church has made a major investment in digital media outreach, including an official LDS web page (www.lds.org) that, among other things, includes an online scriptures and gospel library, media contact information, online distribution center, programs and doctrinal information, and an official LDS “Newsroom” site (www.mormonnewsroom.org) that provides an LDS perspective on news events involving or implicating church members, activities of church officials, doctrines, organizational programs, and official policies. Finally, it has long been a practice among LDS general authorities to author books on doctrine or devotional topics. Frequently such books are based on a selection of conference sermons given by Mormon leaders over the years of their tenure in office.

LDS General Conference as a Source of Official Mormon Rhetoric Our selection of a data source for this study was guided by four basic criteria. Does the source permit some form of quantitative measurement? Does the source cover the entire span of Mormon history? Is it a single and relatively standardized source? And does the source, in fact, contain systematic reflections of important Mormon beliefs, policies, and experience? In our judgment, the one source that best meets all of these criteria is the recorded addresses of LDS authorities delivered at general conference. Annual and semiannual general conferences have been convened on a fairly regular basis since the official founding of the LDS Church in 1830. There are several crucial advantages to using general conference records for a study of LDS leader rhetoric. To begin with, the pronouncements made at general conference are regarded by Mormons as authoritative. Conferences have become perhaps the most important institutional mechanism for members to sustain belief in the Mormon doctrine of modern revelation and consequently in the religious authority of the church. Though LDS leaders are not trained theologians, their words at general conference, when “moved upon by the Holy Ghost,” have ascribed to them the force of scripture by the church membership.13 Although Mormons tend to be quite literal in their interpretation of existing scripture, they do not believe in the absolute inerrancy of the Bible, nor do they consider themselves circumscribed by biblical teachings alone as do Protestant

8  CHAPTER 1

fundamentalists. Rather, their belief in restored revelation leads them to profess a greater reliance on authorized living oracles than on holy writ. A second advantage of utilizing conference addresses is the extent and range of their topical coverage. Mormon conferences have always marked occasions when church leaders have conveyed to members an official position on matters of doctrine, policy, and religious expectations of all sorts. Thus the whole body of conference addresses constitutes a continuous record of official rhetoric dating from the earliest days of the Mormon religion to the present time. Though endlessly quoted by both church officials and members to substantiate this or that proposition about the faith, or to illustrate this or that religious concept, the entire body of conference reports had never been systematically analyzed as a vantage point for observing Mormonism’s modern metamorphosis until our initial study was published as A Kingdom Transformed in 1984.14 This we attempted to do (and continue to do in this updated volume) by performing a statistical content analysis of a representative sample of general conference addresses.15 Our original sample consisted of six hundred addresses selected from every year of Mormon history beginning in 1830 and continuing through 1979. A more thorough description of this sample and the methods we used to evaluate its contents is presented in Appendix A. For documenting rhetorical themes during the latest period of conference history—1980 through 2009—we have taken advantage of a recently developed, digitalized “corpus” of all LDS conference addresses delivered since 1850.16 Our use of this online conference corpus dictated a different methodology from the one we employed in collecting data for the first edition of our book, and it therefore requires further explanation in Chapter 9 at the end of the book.

The Institution of General Conference On April 6, 1830, a group of approximately sixty people assembled at a small farmhouse in Fayette, New York, to witness the first official meeting of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-­day Saints.17 Of this number, six men acted as formal participants while the rest took part as sympathetic spectators.18 The primary purpose of the meeting was to comply with New York State regulations for the incorporation of the church as a legal entity

Mormon Prophetic Rhetoric and the Institution of LDS General Conference 9

and to formally announce the organizational and doctrinal basis of the new religion. According to Mormon tradition, this meeting of the original six incorporators should also be regarded as the first general conference of the church, with annual conferences designated as occurring every year thereafter. Thus, during the first week of April 1980, Mormons celebrated the sesquicentennial anniversary of their religion at what was declared to be the one hundred and fiftieth annual general conference year of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-­day Saints. [Subsequently, as this book goes to press, an additional thirty-­four years of general conference proceedings have been recorded.] The fact is that for approximately the first decade of Mormon history it is not possible to identify general conferences of the church as such. The institution of a regular annual and semiannual conference schedule does not appear to have become an established pattern until 1840. Prior to 1840, conferences of the church were convened primarily on an expediential, and, therefore, irregular basis. Church records show that in 1830 two additional conferences were held subsequent to the initial organizational meeting in April, the number of conferences escalated to as many as eight in 1831, but that number dropped to only two conferences in 1832 and a mere one conference each year—held at irregular dates—during the years 1833– 1838. In 1839 there was a resurgence of conference activity with four different conferences of the church recorded.19 It is not until 1840 and thereafter that it becomes possible to systematically identify annual and semiannual conferences that were regularly scheduled and convened every six months. The official Mormon chronology suggesting an unbroken sequence of regularly scheduled and convened annual and semiannual conferences dating back to the organization of the church must therefore be recognized as a minor historical fiction. What the record of early Mormon conferences does reveal is the emergence of general conference as a fundamental institution in the Mormon religion. From the earliest days of the movement, general conferences of the entire church provided Mormon leaders with a vehicle for the public exposition of new religious doctrines and the opportunity to exhort rank-­ and-­file members to strengthen their commitment to the faith. In addition to sheer indoctrination, early Mormon conferences also served a number of important organizational functions associated with the governance of

10  CHAPTER 1

the church and the administration of both its internal and external affairs: policies were commonly debated, organizational goals formulated, decisions made, religious ordinances performed (such as baptisms and ordinations to offices in the Mormon priesthood), and church discipline exercised through censure, disfellowshipment, or excommunication proceedings. In fact, the preaching of sermons was often incidental or ancillary to the conduct of church business and administrative tasks at early Mormon conferences. While clearly serving indoctrinational, governance, and administrative functions, the earliest general conferences were quite irregular with respect to time, place, form, and content. They were convened when and where circumstances dictated and were frequently concerned with responding to immediate problems of organizational maintenance and survival. With the passage of time, and parallel to the development of other forms of church organization, conference patterns became increasingly routinized. Within a decade of the founding of Mormonism, a biannual conference schedule was instituted that has been followed ever since. Adherence to a regular schedule meant that general conference was not merely an ad hoc way of responding to immediate crises; it became an institutional mechanism for charting and steering the course of an enduring religious movement. General conference eventually became for both leaders and rank-­and-­file members an anticipated, ritual event, celebrated as a stable reference point in the life of the Mormon community for reinforcing commitment and preserving institutional coherence. As Leonard J. Arrington emphasizes: It was through the instrumentality of the conference that church leaders were able to effect the central planning and direction of the manifold temporal and spiritual interests of their followers. It was in the conference that Latter-­day Saints experienced most keenly the sense of belonging to a whole—a worshipping, building, expanding Kingdom. Other pioneering groups in the West studied the Bible, prayed, formed local institutions to solve their many problems, such as churches, schools, and associations, and developed many collective instrumentalities and enterprises, but for lack of an institution resembling the general conference, few that were scattered over such

Mormon Prophetic Rhetoric and the Institution of LDS General Conference 11

a wide territory achieved the militant strength and social cohesion of the Mormons.20

It should be pointed out that once a regular conference schedule became firmly established, Mormon leaders occasionally convened “special conferences” between biannual dates in order to address particular problems deemed urgent. (Some of these special conferences will be highlighted in the following chapter’s summary overview of Mormon history.) Thus, in the process of routinizing the institutional functions of conference, an element of practical flexibility was also preserved. The routinization of a conference schedule was accompanied by a specialization of conference functions. Business once conducted at general conference eventually became the primary task of newly organized church councils and priesthood quorums such as the First Presidency, Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, High Council, School of the Prophets, and the Council of Fifty, all instituted between 1832 and 1844.21 One consequence of these organizational developments was to divest general conference of most of its earlier governing and administrative functions while, at the same time, increasing the importance of its indoctrinating character. Unencumbered by administrative concerns, conference time could be devoted almost entirely to the exposition and defense of Mormon doctrine, the renunciation of church enemies, and the exhortation and admonition of church members by the movement’s leading figures. Rather than a place where policies might be debated and decisions made, conference became chiefly a place where the authority of the church, and hence of its leaders, could be legitimated and strengthened. Conference administrative proceedings were gradually reduced to pro forma votes to sustain leaders called to important positions in the hierarchy and to the ritualistic approval of policies formulated prior to conference by the governing councils of the church. In the next two chapters we review some of the significant events and trends in Mormon history—especially those associated with general conferences—and summarize key elements of the Latter-­day Saint belief system. Chapter 4 begins our statistical analysis of the major rhetorical themes emphasized by LDS leaders at general conferences in different periods of Mormon history through 1979. In the next four chapters we elaborate our interpretation of conference themes for those eras within a framework of

12  CHAPTER 1

some basic sociological questions:22 What rhetorical themes have Mormon leaders stressed most in building and maintaining member commitment, in accommodating to pressures for change, and in responding to the religious challenges of modern secularization? Finally, in Chapter 9 we summarize salience patterns of themes that have emerged over the most recent generation of conference addresses (1980–2009), compare these to preceding theme patterns, and raise and analyze new questions that are suggested by our findings.

2

Parallel Paths LDS General Conference and Mormon History

The history of Mormon general conference parallels the history of the Mormon religion. In some cases a particular general conference may represent a turning point in Mormon history. In all cases general conference mirrors Mormonism’s responses to the major circumstances and events that have challenged and shaped its development. In this chapter we attempt to highlight the interaction between conference proceedings and important turning points in Mormonism’s development. Our account, to borrow a phrase from John Galbraith, necessarily involves a “ruthless exercise in condensation.”1 Such a procedure serves to outline the historical context for our analysis of sociological trends in later chapters and also illustrate the key role played by the institution of general conference in Mormon history.

Mormon Beginnings, 1830–1846 Mormonism originated in what American religious historians have referred to as the Burned-­over District. Whitney Cross, in his still well-­regarded history of “enthusiastic religion” in western New York from 1800 to 1850, explains that

13

14  CHAPTER 2

The Burned-­Over District was a name applied to a small region, during a limited period of history, to indicate a particular phase of development. It described the religious character of Western New York during the first half of the nineteenth century . . . Upon this broad belt of land congregated a people extraordinarily given to unusual religious beliefs, peculiarly devoted to crusades aimed at the perfection of mankind and the attainment of millennial happiness. Few of the enthusiasms or eccentricities of this generation of Americans failed to find exponents here. Most of them gained rather greater support here than elsewhere. Several originated in the region. Some folk called it the “infected district” . . . Critics chiefly concerned with the habitual revivalism occurring in a much wider area came to call it the “Burnt” or “Burned-­Over District”, adopting the prevailing western analogy between the fires of the forest and those of the spirit.2

The Burned-­over District circumscribed the boyhood home of Joseph Smith, the Mormon prophet. Smith appears to have been deeply affected as a youth by the periodic conflagration of evangelical fervor in the region which, according to his own account, stimulated a series of personal spiritual experiences that eventually led to his career as the founder of an American religion.3 Smith’s claims of a prophetic mission first gained widespread notoriety through the publication of the Book of Mormon in late March 1830. The Book of Mormon was advertised to be the religious history of an ancient people and to also contain theological writings that clarified, corrected, and amplified the teachings of the Christian Bible. Smith claimed to have been led to the discovery of the ancient record by miraculous means and to have made a translation of the work through divine revelation. The translation derived its name, according to Smith, from an ancient American prophet, Mormon, who was responsible for doing most of the abridgment and organizing of his people’s records.4 It is also, of course, from this book that Smith’s followers received the nickname by which they are popularly known. Less than two weeks after publication of the Book of Mormon, Smith and a small band of his disciples met, as recounted earlier, to officially organize what they believed was the restored Church of Jesus Christ. At the time Joseph Smith was twenty-­four years old.5

Parallel Paths 15

While western New York in the first part of the nineteenth century may have epitomized the enthusiastic and innovative forms of American religious expression, it was far from being the only region of the country where religious populism flourished in apparent disregard of the formal authority and strictures of clergy-­dominated, creedal Christianity. In spite of the early ascendance of Puritanism in New England, Jon Butler advances the thesis that American religious culture as a whole was never dominated by a stable religious establishment. According to Butler’s analysis, American religion—exported by European dissenters—was contentiously pluralistic, eclectic, and syncretistic from the outset, coexisting with folk magic beliefs and occult practices in an informal but credulous religious environment that emphasized miracles and supernatural interventions in human affairs.6 It was in the context of this turbulent religious milieu that Joseph Smith’s audacious claims of angelical appearances and divine guidance attracted both eager seekers of visionary religion and the vitriolic reaction of skeptics and adversaries in America’s bourgeoning religious economy. Moreover, at a social and political tipping point in its history, American religion was impacted decisively by the American Revolutionary War and, consequently, by the swift democratization of religion that appealed to people’s growing sense of personal empowerment and independence and to the spiritual and material concerns of ordinary people. Overlapping with Butler’s analysis, the democratization of American religion following the Revolutionary War is the central thesis of Nathan Hatch’s influential study of antebellum religious currents that gave voice and influence to common people and shaped the distinctive development of American Christianity, including Mormonism.7 Through its endorsement of a new American scripture and lay priesthood organization that authorized male converts to officiate on God’s behalf, early Mormonism was, in many ways, a prototypical American religion. At the same time, however, some of Mormonism’s perceived heretical teachings—claims of modern revelation, covenantal identification with ancient Israel, conviction of a divine mission in the last days, urgent proselytizing, and concentration of zealous converts in insular religious communities on America’s expanding frontier—generated huge tensions and the rapid alienation of the LDS Church from the Protestant mainstream of nineteenth-­century American society.

16  CHAPTER 2

Within six months of its founding, Mormonism was challenged by both the external and internal conflicts typically experienced by new religious movements that markedly depart from established custom and belief. From without, counter movements are generated that attempt to curtail or suppress what outsiders perceive as outrageous and dangerous activities of the new group. From within, the movement is threatened by disputes over doctrine, authority, and organizational leadership.8 Mormonism’s initial conflicts in New York would be recapitulated throughout the remainder of the nineteenth century. Outside opposition against the Mormons quickly took the form of heckling and intimidation, disruption of religious services, threats of violence, and lawsuits against Smith as an impostor and disorderly person. In retrospect, an even more serious challenge to the movement’s development came from insider pretensions of several of Smith’s most prominent converts who, in imitation of the prophet, began to proclaim their own revelations. The divisive potential in this was very great; it represented a clear threat to Smith’s supreme authority as God’s spokesperson and divinely appointed leader of the restored church. The matter was brought to a head at a conference convened in late September 1830. At this conference Smith displayed superior leadership skills by adroitly deterring his lieutenants’ unauthorized attempts at prophecy without alienating himself from their respect and personal devotion.9 His authority reconfirmed and strengthened by these proceedings, Smith deflected his followers’ religious zeal from preoccupation with spiritual manifestations to proselytizing for the new faith and to the building of a theocratic society to be called Zion, the kingdom of God on earth. Not long after this conference, Smith was paid a visit by the renowned Campbellite preacher, Sidney Rigdon. Rigdon had been given a copy of the Book of Mormon by missionaries,10 professed conversion, and hastened to New York in the hope of persuading Smith to join ranks with him and his struggling congregation in Kirtland, Ohio. Smith seized the opportunity to expand the scope of his fledgling religion, but initial enthusiasm for such a move among his New York flock was not particularly keen. A conference was called on the first of January 1831 primarily for the purpose of overcoming opposition to the proposed migration. This was ultimately accomplished by the announcement of a revelation that sanctioned the move and

Parallel Paths 17

by the clear implication that such a step was part of God’s design for the building of Zion in the last days.11 The first Mormon migration in search of a hallowed place was underway. Though Mormon headquarters were soon established at Kirtland, the physical site for the city of Zion was designated at Independence, Missouri, eight hundred miles distant on the western frontier. Preparations for an expedition to Missouri were made at a June conference, and two months later the land of Zion was dedicated at a second conference near Independence as the place “appointed and consecrated for the gathering of the Saints.”12 Following the Missouri conference, Smith returned to Kirtland, leaving behind a colony of disciples committed to the task of establishing Zion and implementing a communitarian social order called the United Order of Enoch, which ostensibly prefigured the kingdom of God on earth. The basic law of Zion was to be the Law of Consecration, which required members to surrender personal wealth and property to the church. The church in turn would redistribute goods to its members on the basis of their needs as stewards of the Lord’s resources.13 Thus, at this juncture in Mormon history there were two major centers of Mormon activity: Kirtland, Ohio, and Independence, Missouri. For as long as Joseph Smith remained in Kirtland it was the de facto headquarters of the movement, even though the land of Zion was supposed to embody the Mormon’s ultimate spiritual and temporal aspirations. The existence of both communities, however, was soon to be threatened: first, Zion, as a consequence of increasing outside opposition and mob violence against the Mormon dreams of theocratic empire; and subsequently, Kirtland, as a consequence of internal dissent and schism. Back in Kirtland, Smith and Rigdon commenced work on an “inspired translation” of the King James Bible.14 This project seems to have stimulated Smith’s thinking on theological questions, and the elaboration of Mormon doctrines became for him a major preoccupation. Several conferences were called in October 1831, the chief business of which was to generate financial support for the prophet’s revision of the Bible. Another conference was conducted in November to plan the financing and publication of Smith’s most important revelations on church government and doctrine, to be entitled the Book of Commandments. At yet another conference three months later, Smith was sustained as “President of the High

18  CHAPTER 2

Priesthood,” an action which consolidated his charismatic authority with an institutionally legitimated position as head of the restored church.15 Meanwhile, converts had been greatly augmenting Mormon ranks in both Ohio and Missouri. At first the Missouri colony seemed to prosper, but friction between the Latter-­day Saints and their “gentile” (non-­Mormon) neighbors increased proportionally to the influx and concentration of Mormon converts seeking their promised inheritance in the land of Zion. By the summer of 1833, bad feelings against the Mormons had been kindled into public threats of violence and mob action. In July the Mormons’ printing office in Independence was ransacked, their press destroyed, and their leaders tarred and feathered. Hostilities continued to escalate, culminating in November with the forced evacuation of Mormon settlers from Jackson County into makeshift shelters on the Missouri prairie. Smith’s first reaction to these troubles in Zion was to chastise the Missouri Saints for their presumed transgressions, citing failure to live up to the requirements of the United Order as the chief cause of their afflictions.16 Eventually, however, Smith recruited a Mormon army in Ohio for the “redemption of Zion,” i.e., the restoration of Mormon properties by military force if necessary. Final preparations for the march of Zion’s Camp were made at a conference in early May 1834. The Mormons’ military objectives were never realized, however. Dissension and bickering among the ranks became a significant problem along the way. Upon arriving in Jackson County an epidemic of cholera decimated their strength, and the camp was disbanded in the face of superior enemy forces. The Mormons’ lost homes and property were never restored, and Zion was not redeemed. The apparent fiasco of Zion’s Camp created a major challenge to Smith’s authority as God’s latter-­day prophet.17 Back in Kirtland, Smith was forced to defend himself against bitter charges of being a tyrant and fallen prophet. As in previous tests of his leadership, Smith weathered the crisis and succeeded in diverting his followers’ attention to other matters. Chief among these developments were the calling of twelve men who had proved their loyalty to become modern apostles, approval by a conference of the church to update Smith’s revelations in a new publication to be called the Doctrine and Covenants, and the completion of a temple in Kirtland. Plans for the construction of the Kirtland Temple were first announced in 1833. After three years of labor and at the then considerable cost of two

Parallel Paths 19

hundred thousand dollars, the temple was dedicated in late March 1836.18 The temple dedicatory ceremonies were conducted over several days and were witnessed by thousands, stimulating a great outpouring of Pentecostal enthusiasm and catharsis among the faithful.19 Preoccupation with the temple and the development of its spiritual and ritual functions doubtlessly, in part, represented a sublimation of the movement’s frustrated temporal aspirations for the building of Zion in Jackson County, Missouri.20 The climate of spiritual ecstasy and optimism generated by the temple was soon spoiled by economic disaster. In the waning months of 1836, Mormon leaders made plans to establish a bank in Kirtland. Turned down by the Ohio legislature in their application for a charter, the Mormons simply declared their enterprise an “anti-­banking society” and commenced doing business. Due to inadequate assets, mismanagement, and the financial panic of 1837, the bank failed, leaving the church deeply in debt and a number of prominent members bitterly disillusioned over the loss of their investments. In May the Kirtland High Council broke up in heated argument. Loyalty to Joseph Smith was once more keenly at issue, and this time the movement was clearly divided. Splinter factions arose dedicated to Smith’s removal from leadership on grounds that he was a false prophet. Smith attempted to rally support and suppress the spirit of apostasy at a September conference by having three of the Twelve Apostles— who were taking leading parts in the dissension—disfellowshiped. At the same time, Smith, his two counselors in the First Presidency, and the apostles who remained loyal were sustained in their positions by a vote of the conference.21 But with his public stature at a low ebb and his life threatened by enemies both from within and from without the movement, Smith fled Kirtland at the outset of the new year, 1838, for the Mormon colony in Missouri.22 Following their expulsion from Jackson County in 1833, the Missouri Mormons had regrouped in adjacent counties and recommenced the task of building Zion.23 In spite of the numerous troubles that had beset the church, Mormon missionary activity had remained productive and the stream of converts to Zion had never ceased. By 1838 their new city at Far West was a rapidly growing frontier community.24 The Saints at Far West were gladdened to have the prophet in their midst. Those in Kirtland who remained loyal to Smith soon followed their leader and migrated

20  CHAPTER 2

to Missouri. A general conference of the church was held during the first week of April at which the “Stake of Zion” was reorganized, and Smith was once more sustained as president of the church.25 Additional excommunications purged the ranks of some of the earliest and, formerly, most stalwart figures in the movement, who had become disgruntled with the Order of Enoch and would no longer consent to Smith’s leadership.26 Meanwhile, outside resentment had been rekindled, and Missourians were again publicly demanding that the Mormons be expelled from the state. Smith determined that the Latter-­day Saints would hold their ground and meet force with force. Military preparations ensued and armed conflicts soon erupted. Mormon communities were attacked and pillaged; Mormon militia units retaliated in kind. Authorized with an exterminating order by the governor of Missouri, an army of the state militia marched on Far West and laid siege to the city. 27 Outmatched militarily, Mormon leaders surrendered to avoid a bloodbath. Smith, Rigdon, and other leading authorities were taken prisoner and charged with murder and treason. Their expected fate was execution. Under the governor’s exterminating order, an estimated eight thousand Mormons were forced into mass exile from the state and backtracked into Illinois, searching for a place of refuge. 28 Initially sympathetic to their plight, citizens of Illinois offered aid and shelter to the Mormons, who congregated at Quincy on the eastern banks of the Mississippi. With the prophet languishing in a Missouri dungeon, temporary leadership of the church was assumed by Brigham Young, who had worked his way up the ranks to become head of the Twelve Apostles.29 Young presided over the Missouri exodus and in mid-­March 1839 convened an emergency conference at Quincy to reorganize the church’s affairs, lay plans for settlement in Illinois, and excommunicate a number of church officials whose faith and loyalty had faltered during the crisis at Far West.30 In late April—suddenly, miraculously, joyously—Joseph Smith rode into Quincy. After six months in jail, Smith and the other prisoners had escaped in apparent collusion with some of their jailers who had become increasingly embarrassed by the public outcry against the Mormon persecutions. Smith’s return was celebrated by another conference at which plans for the purchase of lands north of Quincy were approved by a vote of the conference.31 The land acquired was situated on the Mississippi River at

Parallel Paths 21

a place called Commerce, soon to be renamed Nauvoo, the City of Joseph.32 Here the Latter-­day Saints would gather once more to build God’s kingdom. The rapid development of Nauvoo was remarkable. Within six years Nauvoo was transformed from a swampy, sparsely inhabited hamlet into one of the largest metropolises in the state of Illinois.33 With the major political parties courting their votes, the Mormons acquired a charter from the state legislature which, in many respects, granted Nauvoo the powers of an autonomous city-­state. At the expense of the state, the Mormons recruited and equipped their own militia, the Nauvoo Legion, one of the largest trained military forces west of the Alleghenies as deterrence to anti-­ Mormon mobs. Plans were made to establish a university. Several newspapers were supported. Mormon manufacturing, farming, and commercial enterprises were established and began to prosper. As in Ohio and Missouri, new converts—increasingly Europeans, especially from Great Britain—flocked to Nauvoo to gather with the Latter-­day Saints and participate in the building of Zion. And an imposing temple—much larger and more elegant than the one at Kirtland—was constructed on a hill in the center of Nauvoo overlooking the Mississippi River.34 The thriving of a Mormon culture at Nauvoo was relatively short-­lived, however, as the same kinds of conflicts that had plagued the church in Kirtland, Independence, and Far West were fated to be reenacted in Illinois. Non-­Mormon groups became increasingly alarmed at the expanding political and economic power of the Nauvoo Mormons and viewed with resentment their exclusiveness, religious zeal, and self-­righteousness. Outsiders correctly perceived, in fact, that Mormon interests, which continued to revolve around the concept of Zion and a theocratic social order, were ultimately at odds with their own material and political interests. How could non-­Mormons in the region hope to compete successfully against what appeared—especially with the new arrival of every group of Mormon converts and European immigrants—to be the swift development of a religious juggernaut? At the same time, from within the church at Nauvoo there emerged a prominent faction wishing to modify Mormonism’s most radical (and most distinctive) doctrines, the very ones which outsiders found most offensive: Zion, the gathering, theocratic rule over temporal as well as spiritual affairs, and, most emphatically, the emerging temple rituals and beliefs associated with the new doctrine of plural marriage.

22  CHAPTER 2

The religious legitimation for plural marriage was part of an expanding theological system which centered on the Mormons’ interpretation of God’s plan of salvation and included the doctrines of preexistence, perfection and eternal increase, and baptism for the dead. These principles, particularly the notion of proxy ordinances such as baptism on behalf of deceased individuals, were publicly expounded at general conferences of the church between 1840 and 1844. The doctrine of plural marriage was only taught surreptitiously, however, to a select number of leading elders of the church. Rumors and charges of “spiritual wifeism” were repeatedly denied, and the practice of polygamous marriage outwardly repudiated, while in secret the most trusted Mormon leaders began taking additional wives.35 Completion of the Nauvoo temple was also publicly stressed at church conferences as a major priority, since it was in the temple that the necessary ordinances associated with the plan of salvation (such as baptism for the dead and celestial marriage) were to be performed. One of the most significant conferences in Mormon history took place at Nauvoo in April 1844. The tone of anti-­Mormon opposition in surrounding communities was becoming increasingly menacing, and the dissent movement from within was voicing open defiance to the prophet’s authority and newest teachings. As in times past, Smith took advantage of general conference as a means for unifying the membership of the church behind him and his leadership. The leading dissenters were deliberately excluded from participation at the conference and hence the possibility of an open and divisive debate was avoided.36 Preliminary speakers were called on to rebut criticism and accusations against the prophet and to defend his status as God’s spokesperson to the people. Smith then took the pulpit and delivered one of his last public discourses, ostensibly the funeral sermon for a certain King Follett, who recently had been killed in a construction accident while working on the temple. In his remarks Smith both elaborated the metaphysical foundations of a new theology and defended his prophetic status before the conference. Smith’s charisma and persuasive powers were never greater: the following day the conference gave Smith what amounted to a clear vote of confidence by sustaining him as a candidate for the presidency of the United States.37 Shortly following this conference the chief figures in the dissent movement were summarily cashiered from their ecclesiastical offices

Parallel Paths 23

and excommunicated from the church. The disaffected Mormons in Nauvoo continued their protest, however, by purchasing a press with which to attack Smith and expose his heresies to both church members and the outside world. As mayor of Nauvoo (and possibly emboldened by the show of support at April conference), Smith ordered a contingent of the Nauvoo Legion to destroy the opposition press as a public nuisance. The consequences of this rash action proved disastrous for Smith. The region erupted in uproar. To outsiders the Mormons at Nauvoo had become a law unto themselves, acting with apparent legal impunity toward non-­Mormons and dispensing their own justice. They would have to be stopped, avowed their enemies, before they gained total domination of the region. Vigilante mobs threatened to march on Nauvoo, and the governor of Illinois commanded the prophet’s arrest on charges of riot. Smith considered fleeing the state but eventually surrendered to civil authorities and was taken to the county seat at Carthage to stand trial. There, on June 27, 1844, the life of the Mormon prophet was abruptly ended at age thirty-­eight by a mob of assassins who stormed the jail in a hail of gunfire, killing both Joseph and his older brother, Hyrum, who were ostensibly lodged in custody for their own protection.38 The Latter-­day Saints at Nauvoo were stunned: Joseph had providentially escaped so many other threats, but now he was gone. According to B. H. Roberts, “His death had not been realistically contemplated by the body of the people . . . Now that this calamity had befallen them, the Saints were for the moment as sheep without a shepherd.”39 After a bewildered period of mourning, struggle for control of the church ensued. A special conference was held at Nauvoo in early August 1844 to determine the future leadership and continuity of the Latter-­day Saint movement. At this conference the Twelve Apostles, with Brigham Young at the head, won the confidence of the largest fraction of church members, while the leadership aspirations of Sidney Rigdon and others were thus rejected by the majority.40 Prior to Smith’s assassination, the apostles—reinvigorated in their quorum with new members who replaced defectors from the Kirtland and Missouri crises—had increasingly become Smith’s staunchest supporters. The majority decision of the conference in favor of Young and the apostles appears, therefore, to have been based on the premise that Smith’s most

24  CHAPTER 2

radical teachings, including plural marriage, were to continue to be implemented and not abandoned or reformed.41 The apostles acted swiftly to consolidate their position and excommunicated Rigdon and others (including Joseph’s younger brother, William) who had questioned their right to authority. At general conference in October the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles was collectively sustained as the acting First Presidency of the LDS Church.42 Mormonism’s enemies expected that Smith’s death would be a blow from which his followers would not recover. When this hope proved a delusion, hostilities recommenced. As in Missouri, rabid anti-­Mormons were determined to rid their state of the perceived Mormon plague. Recollecting their painful experience in Missouri at the hands of the state militia, Young and the apostles perceived the ultimate futility of armed resistance and concluded that if Mormonism were to survive, it would have to separate from established society. For the Mormons this meant seeking a sanctuary somewhere in the uninhabited regions of the American West.43 During 1845 the apostles were preoccupied with two primary tasks: completion of the Nauvoo Temple (so Saints could receive their promised endowment of spiritual power) and preparations for a large-­scale Mormon exodus.44 Both themes were simultaneously stressed at April and October general conferences.

The Utah Migration and Territorial Experience, 1846–1896 In early February 1846 Mormons began evacuating Nauvoo, crossing the frozen Mississippi and making camp in the Iowa territory. The exodus continued through spring and into summer with thousands of Mormon exiles strung out along the length of Iowa, slowly making their way through the prairie mud to rendezvous with the apostles at Council Bluffs. On the west bank of the Missouri River the Mormons established a temporary settlement that they called Winter Quarters.45 There they attempted to marshal their strength and “endured the winter of 1846–1847 in tents, dugouts, and crude log huts.”46 In April 1847 a select vanguard company made final preparations to blaze the trail and secure somewhere in the Great Basin region of the Rocky Mountains a suitable place to settle and

Parallel Paths 25

pursue unmolested the dreams of Zion. The day prior to the departure of the vanguard company, Latter-­day Saints assembled for general conference and listened to Brigham Young and other leaders give final instructions for the journey.47 In retrospect, it is clear that their withdrawal to the Rocky Mountains accomplished the Mormons’ principal objective of preserving a distinctive religious culture. Insulated in comparative isolation from the rest of the country, especially during the first ten years of habitation in the mountains and deserts of the Great Basin, Mormon institutions would have a chance to become so well established that later crises and compromises could only alter rather than destroy their religion. It took three and a half months for Young and the vanguard pioneer company to reach their ultimate destination in the Great Salt Lake Valley. Upon arrival they immediately set about irrigating the desert soil with creek water from nearby canyons and planting crops with the hope of raising a harvest for the coming winter.48 Four days after arrival in the valley, Young signaled his determination to continue the doctrines of Joseph Smith by selecting the site for a new temple. In August a special conference was held to organize a temporary government in the valley. Following this conference, Young and eight of the Twelve Apostles left the new settlement and retraced their steps eastward to rejoin the main body of Mormons at Winter Quarters to supervise the large-­scale migration scheduled for the following year. In late December 1847 a special conference was called at Winter Quarters, and Brigham Young was sustained as the second president of the church, successor to Joseph Smith.49 This meant that Young’s de facto rule by virtue of his senior position among the apostles was institutionally secured and strengthened by his new status as “prophet, seer, and revelator,” a step which was confirmed by additional conference votes in April and October the following year. From 1847 to 1849 Mormon government in the Great Basin was, according to Thomas O’Dea, openly theocratic: “There was a complete absence of regular civil government, the ecclesiastical organization serving also in the civil capacity and appointing what additional officials were found necessary.”50 This changed in 1850 when Congress passed legislation that established Utah as a territory of the United States.51 Brigham Young was appointed territorial governor, and other government posts were partially

26  CHAPTER 2

staffed by Mormons and partially by appointees from Washington. Thus, though relative isolation had been achieved (at least for the time being), complete independence from the unsympathetic interference of outsiders had not. There soon ensued the same kind of cultural conflict and mutual intolerance that had plagued Mormon-­gentile relations from the beginning. Federal officials were particularly offended by Mormons’ devotion to their priesthood leaders rather than to federal authority. They also professed to be scandalized by Mormon polygamy. For over a decade Mormon leaders had publicly suppressed official discussion of the doctrine of plural marriage. Once ensconced in the Rocky Mountains, however, the LDS Church’s commitment to the principle of polygamous family life had become open knowledge, and Young now thought the time right to officially say so. For this purpose a special conference was convened in Salt Lake City in August of 1852, and Orson Pratt, one of the apostles (and one of Mormonism’s most celebrated intellectuals), was called on to publicly elaborate the religious legitimations for the practice of having more than one wife.52 At this same conference over one hundred missionaries were called to spread the news throughout the world that Zion had been reestablished in the Rocky Mountains and to urge all those who wished salvation in God’s kingdom to forsake Babylon and gather with the Latter-­day Saints in the Utah Territory. Emphasis on the themes of Zion and the gathering continued with renewed enthusiasm as soon as the Mormons had succeeded in establishing a permanent community in the Salt Lake Valley. At an earlier conference in 1849, Brigham Young had announced a plan (the Perpetual Emigration Fund) for financing the emigration of new converts to the territory.53 Not only were proselyting missionaries appointed at general conferences, but even larger numbers were called from the pulpit to colonize settlements throughout the entire Intermountain West. This was done as part of the Mormons’ master plan for building the kingdom of God in the last days. Already off to a bad start, relations between Mormons and non-­Mormon territorial officials steadily worsened. Reports reached Washington that the Mormons were in a state of insurrection against the federal government. President James Buchanan’s response was to dismiss Brigham Young and install a new territorial governor in his place. To accomplish this change and

Parallel Paths 27

to put down the “Mormon rebellion,” the United States Army was dispatched in the spring of 1857 to accompany the new governor as an escort and expeditionary force. The Mormons interpreted this maneuver as an act of war and readied to defend themselves. “Brigham prepared a scorched-­earth policy as the troops drew near, and the militia was mustered into service. The outlying settlements were given up and their people called back, and the Saints in Salt Lake prepared to burn their homes and move south, ready to make ‘a Moscow of Utah and a potter’s field of every canyon.’”54 As the Army of Utah approached, the Mormons did, in fact, engage in guerilla tactics and succeeded in harassing the federal forces to such an extent (by burning prairies and supply posts in Wyoming, destroying baggage wagons, and stampeding the army’s livestock) that the latter were forced to bivouac in the mountains of Wyoming during the winter of 1857– 1858. This respite allowed time for negotiations to take place and a compromise to be struck. Even so, the Mormons remained suspicious of the military’s intentions and temporarily abandoned Salt Lake City as a precautionary measure. The Utah War thus ended in a bloodless anticlimax. The federal troops were permitted peaceful passage into the Salt Lake Valley, where they established a camp outside Salt Lake City, and the Mormons were subjected to military surveillance.55 For more than a generation the Mormons were locked in a protracted struggle with the United States government. The struggle was joined and, in fact, promoted by a growing and increasingly influential gentile population in Utah who wished to break the church’s political and economic dominance of the territory. Completion of the transcontinental railroad near Ogden, Utah, in 1869 linked Mormon society to the rest of the country, and non-­Mormon settlers increased in number. Its location midway between the Missouri River and the Pacific Coast made Salt Lake City a major way station and supply center on the trail to California and Oregon. Gentile merchants were attracted to the commercial opportunities but found the Mormons’ in-­group cooperation and out-­group exclusiveness a major obstacle to their business interests. Gold, silver, and later copper ore were discovered in the mountains around Salt Lake City, and outsiders were anxious to exploit the mineral wealth of the region. But the Mormon hierarchy was opposed to such development and strongly discouraged Mormon laborers from taking employment in the new Utah mining industry.

28  CHAPTER 2

The theocratic intervention of the LDS Church in the worldly affairs of its members, and in every other aspect of territorial life, was in distinct opposition to the capitalistic development of nineteenth-­century American society. From the gentile perspective in Utah, the Mormon priesthood was an organization that violated American values of individualism and free enterprise and encouraged disloyalty to the United States. For the most part, federally appointed officials were viewed by the administration in Washington as allies against the all-­controlling influence of the church, and gentiles fought to deny statehood aspirations for as long as the Mormon hierarchy insisted on its right to temporal power. Mormon beliefs and practices—particularly block voting in political contests as counseled by leaders—were denounced as un-­A merican. Incensed by continued reports of Mormon disloyalty, theocratic intransigence, and immoralities in the name of religion, Congress repeatedly turned down church-­sponsored bids for Utah statehood. Mormon polygamy was called a “relic of barbarism,” and Congress began drafting legislation to put a stop to it.56 But the Mormons continued undeterred in their missionary and colonizing efforts and pursued a legal strategy in the courts to challenge antipolygamy statutes on the grounds that they violated first-­amendment rights to freedom of religion. In the meantime, general conference continued to serve indoctrinating functions and was used by Mormon authorities to rally the faith and resolve of members and defend the church against enemy accusations. Polygamy was defended from the pulpit as a divine commandment, and the people were assured of God’s approval and protection. Self-­sufficiency, in-­group economic cooperation, and the boycotting of gentile businesses were persistent conference themes. Finally in 1877, toward the end of Brigham Young’s life, a revival of the communitarian Order of Enoch or United Order was strongly urged throughout Mormon settlements in the territory.57 The American Civil War postponed concentrated public attention on the Latter-­day Saints, but by the 1870s the Mormon question had become a major national issue with the majority of public opinion (particularly the Protestant clergy) strongly in favor of federal regulation of the heretical sect. The original antipolygamy legislation passed by Congress in 1862 was followed by increasingly draconian measures in 1874, 1878, 1882, and 1887,

Parallel Paths 29

all of which were constitutionally upheld by the United States Supreme Court. These bills not only made the contracting of further polygamous marriages illegal but also disinherited the offspring of polygamous unions, disenfranchised polygamists from voting or holding public office, disincorporated the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-­day Saints, escheated church property to the government, and, since their provisions were retroactive, eventually forced the majority of Mormon leaders to go into hiding or face arrest and imprisonment on charges of illegal cohabitation.58 The undisguised intent of these measures was not merely to suppress the practice of polygamy but to crush the temporal power of the LDS Church.59 General conference continued to be held but, as with most church programs, was significantly disrupted. The location for conference was shifted from Salt Lake City to various other communities in the territory to minimize harassment from federal marshals on the prowl for leading Mormon polygamists. Not daring to be seen in public, the First Presidency sent written epistles from the Mormon underground to be read by others at general conference. Mormon officials attempted to resist the mounting legal pressure for several more years after passage of the Edmunds-­Tucker Act in 1887, but the membership was becoming demoralized and the church was on the verge of disorganization and financial ruin. New and even more repressive federal legislation appeared to be in the making. Finally, in 1890, Mormons leaders officially capitulated. In September President Wilford Woodruff declared in writing his willingness to submit to the law of the land and withdraw church sanction from the contracting of any more polygamous marriages. Woodruff’s manifesto was subsequently presented at the October general conference in Salt Lake City and was sustained as the new policy of the church.60 In 1896 a similar political manifesto was approved at general conference that repudiated church intervention in political affairs.61 These formal concessions symbolized the Mormons’ resolve at long last to reconcile their faith with the demands of the United States government and, indeed, with those of American society, though the actual process of accommodation would require several more decades. In 1893 a federal proclamation of amnesty for Mormon polygamists was issued. In 1896 church property was restored, and Utah was admitted as the forty-­fifth state of the Union.62

30  CHAPTER 2

Progressive Era Mormonism, 1896–1945 The hated carpetbag rule of territorial days was ended at the cost of major revisions in LDS Church policy and practice. Mormon accommodation not only meant renouncing the practice of plural marriage, more essentially it also meant greatly modifying the religion’s fundamental objective of a temporal Zion and theocratic social order. The church relinquished its role as planner, financier, and regulator of the region’s economic development. The ideal of the self-­sufficient Mormon commonwealth was abandoned, and Utah’s material welfare was now subject to the outside domination of the national corporate economy. The church began making large-­scale investments in various private commercial enterprises, which entangled church interests with capitalist business interests.63 Though the LDS Church continued to wield considerable economic and political influence, the secular division between church and state was now recognized as the paramount reality, a situation which would eventually seem as natural to new generations of Mormons as the mixture of church and state had seemed to most of their forebears in the days of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. Rather than communitarian economics, the law of consecration was redefined to merely emphasize regular payment of tithes and, occasionally, other financial assessments of members levied by the church. The doctrine of a literal gathering was suspended as church leaders ceased to urge migration to Utah. Concomitantly, emphasis on Zion as a physical place was changed to emphasis on Zion as a spiritual community with strict moral standards church members must internalize for themselves and their children. New converts were urged to remain in their own lands or localities and to build throughout the world a spiritual kingdom based on righteous example, dedication to God’s commandments, and participation in church-­sponsored programs and missionary work while subject to the authority of secular governments. These and other themes representing a decisive moderating shift in Mormon attitudes toward the world have been consistently reinforced since the turn of the twentieth century by LDS speakers at general conference.64 After decades of religious and political defiance, Mormon leaders began to cultivate respectability and acceptance (if not approval) into the mainstream of American society. In his summary history of the Latter-­day Saints, Matthew Bowman argues that early twentieth-­century Mormonism, reeling from capitulation

Parallel Paths 31

to federal authority and abandonment of plural marriage and theocratic rule, pursued respectability by aligning its theology with the optimistic moralism of progressive-­era social and political reform.65 Progressivism’s emphasis on rational organization, efficiency, expertise, and virtuous character resonated with LDS organizational development and doctrine concerning the innate potential and goodness of human beings as God’s spiritual offspring. LDS theological attention was deliberately shifted away from plural marriage ideals and an imminent latter-­day Zion to the sanctity of the nuclear family as the foundation of a righteous society, supported by organized church programs for developing moral character in young people. Joseph Smith’s scattered doctrinal references concerning human origins and ultimate destiny were synthesized into a theology of “eternal progression.” This synthesis connected such distinctive Mormon teachings as belief in a spirit pre-­existence, belief in the experiential and testing purposes of mortal life, and belief in ultimate human progression toward perfection in a celestialized afterlife. The possibility of this latter objective was linked to the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ and the restoration of legitimate priesthood authority; proper exercise of priesthood was now seen as necessary for entering into temple covenants with God. (These distinctive LDS beliefs are discussed in greater detail in the next chapter.) General conference in turn became a means for enhancing Mormonism’s public image. Prior to the electronic revolution in mass media communications, conference proceedings were intended almost exclusively for a Mormon audience. Beginning in 1924, however, the LDS Church commenced broadcasting sessions of general conference by radio. In 1949 the new medium of television was adopted for the same purpose. By the late 1960s general conference proceedings were broadcast by satellite to countries around the world. Today, Mormon officials speaking at general conference self-­consciously address a world audience through satellite, cable, and the Internet, tailoring their remarks accordingly. The extemporaneous and even fiery speeches of an earlier era have given way to carefully prepared and written sermonettes, most of which are calculated to reflect favorably on the benefits of Mormon institutions while emphasizing righteous living. These modern speeches also, however, continue to serve their historical function of reinforcing member obedience to church authority.

32  CHAPTER 2

The public image of the modern LDS Church has, in fact, undergone a dramatic transformation from the disreputable esteem in which it was widely held in the nineteenth-­century Victorian era. Once viewed as fanatical, lascivious, and socially dangerous, Mormons today are stereotyped as puritanical, prosperous, and steadfastly conservative. At the present time it would seem laughable to renounce the LDS Church as a threat to traditional American piety. The reverse is now the case. As a group, Mormons are widely recognized as being among the country’s staunchest defenders of traditional gender roles, family values, and a conventionally wholesome lifestyle. However, to the chagrin of politically conservative high-­ranking LDS authorities (especially church president, Heber J. Grant), Mormon voters during the 1930s depression era joined the populist, democratic American masses in electing and supporting Franklin Roosevelt and the federal relief programs of his New Deal administration.66 But by this time Mormon leaders had backed away from making political pronouncements at general conference or overtly attempting to influence the choices of Mormon voters. Instead, the church instituted its own welfare program for economically strapped members, disclaiming the character-­debilitating consequences of government handouts while emphasizing the moral virtue of church-­ sponsored work programs in exchange for food and financial assistance. As a result of the emergent threats of international communism following the Second World War, and in concert with their conservative Christian counterparts of the Cold War era, many Mormon leaders viewed federal welfare programs as incipient socialism. In many public forums, including general conference, church president David O. McKay and other high-­ranking authorities became outspoken adversaries of “godless communism,” which they now viewed as Satan’s primary means for suppressing individual free will and subverting God’s restorationist plans in the latter days of human history.67

The Modern LDS Church, 1945–Present Like other enduring groups of all sorts, religious organizations grow over time through birth rates that exceed death rates and member defections (natural increase) as well as through recruitment of new members.

Parallel Paths 33

Historically, both of these have been essential sources of Mormon growth. Major obstacles to the full flowering of LDS recruitment efforts in the first half of the twentieth century included World War I, the Great Depression, and World War II—all massive world events that siphoned both human and financial resources away from investment in a truly large-­scale missionary enterprise. It was the superpower emergence of the United States following World War II, coinciding with the true acceleration of Mormon centralized proselyting and organizational growth, that propelled the church to a worldwide scale. While Mormon births are still an important source of growth, clearly it is the high octane of the LDS missionary program that has primarily fueled rapid expansion of the church in the global religious economy of the twentieth and twenty-­first centuries.68 Church growth—especially expansion of missions and convert baptisms—was increasingly publicized and celebrated by general conference speakers as the realization of the church’s latter-­day mission. Corollary topics included emphasis on enhanced missionary preparation of Mormon youth and new construction of chapels and temples in international areas outside the Unites States. At the same time, like other religious conservatives, Mormon leaders viewed with alarm the growing secularism of American society as a perilous threat to the faith, and they redoubled efforts to fortify LDS youth from the enticements of popular culture. Especially worrisome were the massive challenges to traditional morality and authority caused by the social upheavals of the 1960s and early 1970s, which severely called into question status quo racial discrimination, U.S. militarism in the name of patriotic duty, and patriarchal subjugation of women. In the context of these large-­ scale movements for social change, unflattering criticism was especially directed at the LDS Church’s racial policies and gender norms. In particular, as the civil rights movement of the 1960s gained momentum, public attention was drawn to the Mormon lay priesthood, which expressly excluded black priesthood ordination. Black males of African American descent were unable to hold ecclesiastical offices, perform religious ordinances, or enter Latter-­day Saint temples. This meant that black families were effectively barred from full participation in the religious life of the LDS community. Not surprisingly, black membership in the church was practically nil. The apparent theological rationale for this

34  CHAPTER 2

discrimination was imprecise and demeaning to black people in its racial implications.69 Civil rights organizations sharply condemned the church for practicing racism and for failure to lend its moral authority to their crusade. Liberal Mormons were acutely embarrassed. Conservative LDS officials, however, were reluctant to elaborate justifications or publicly respond to criticism, except to say that black people had as much right to join the church as anyone, but that changes in God’s priesthood rules required a revelation from God. To the surprise of most and the relief of many, President Spencer Kimball called a press conference in June 1978 to announce that God had finally revealed that “worthy men of all races” were eligible to receive the LDS priesthood.70 Kimball’s press statement was presented as a revelation and unanimously approved as “the word and will of the Lord” at the following general conference of the church in October. In contrast to their reticence to openly discuss racial issues at general conference or elsewhere, Mormon authorities today—similar to Catholic prelates—continue to defend an all-­male priesthood as divinely instituted and have resorted to traditional arguments for rationalizing a patriarchal system in which men lead and women follow. There are, leaders insist, God-­created differences between men and women: that whatever else they might aspire to or accomplish, women’s paramount roles in life are to be wives and mothers; that men are not superior, but their role in God’s divine plan is to bear responsibility for making ultimate administrative decisions. Women are meant, in complementary fashion, to render their support and be a spiritual influence for both their husbands and their children. That these roles are oppressive of women has been emphatically denied by Mormon apologists, who, like other religious conservatives, argue that the LDS Church supports a family system based on a natural division of labor between the sexes that is essential to the realization of life’s fundamental purposes.71 Most Mormon women seem content to accept their religion’s position on women’s issues and a male-­controlled priesthood organization, although recent attention has also focused on growing numbers who are not.72 The intellectual and organizing skills of Mormon women have long been channeled by the church hierarchy into the Relief Society, an all-­ women organization that serves as an auxiliary to the male priesthood.

Parallel Paths 35

In addition to sponsoring courses of study and benevolent activities for women, the Relief Society functions to reinforce and implement the policies set forth by the LDS priesthood. It became, for example, part of an active and effective organizational opponent of the 1970s Equal Rights Amendment and, more recently, helped in organizing opposition to Proposition 8, a same-­sex marriage initiative in California.73 Nonetheless, as the LDS Church continues to grow, claiming a larger niche in the international religious economy, feminist issues are bound to amplify as a challenging concern to the modern church, both at home and abroad. Thirty-­five years ago Mark Leone argued that as a minority religion the LDS Church had always differentiated itself from other groups by taking a stand in opposition to something.74 In the nineteenth century the Mormon kingdom stood in opposition to the master trends of industrial capitalism. By succumbing to and eventually endorsing an economic system that it once rejected, Mormonism surrendered many of its original, most distinctive features. What, if anything, justifies the Mormons’ continued claims of uniqueness, of peculiarity? What does Mormonism stand for now? Leone reasoned that to preserve belief in its distinctiveness the church must seek new symbols of opposition. In the 1960s and ‘70s, opposition to admitting black males to the Mormon priesthood became such a symbol. Opposition to full-­female equality while lamenting the breakdown of the traditional nuclear family may presumably be regarded as symbols of what Mormons currently stand for. According to Leone, these symbols of opposition function to obscure the lack of essential differences between the contemporary church and other modern religious. The LDS Church, of course, is far from being the only American religion to have resisted integration of black people into full religious fellowship or to continue opposing full equalization of the sexes in both religious and secular roles. While taking a stand on these kinds of issues may periodically set the church in opposition to large-­scale trends, it certainly does not make the Mormons unique. Conservative, reactionary religious disapproval of liberal social change is one of the major motifs of religion in America over the past half century.75 In apparent harmony with conservative trends in American religion, the LDS Church nonetheless maintains a very definite sense of its own uniqueness. Leone argues that this is a form of self-­delusion; but, if so, it continues to be a very important delusion.

36  CHAPTER 2

The occasional stands which the modern LDS Church takes on controversial issues, bringing criticism and condemnation from many quarters (but praise and admiration from others, too), explain in part the preservation of a distinctive Mormon identity. But by itself this is not a sufficient explanation. The ultimate sources of Mormons’ unity and sense of distinctiveness lie in their transcendent religious beliefs: in their own sacred history as God’s chosen people, in their own sacred community as the restored church of Jesus Christ, and in the contemporary prophetic guidance of their ecclesiastical leaders. The fundamental task of Mormon leadership is, in fact, to preserve these beliefs. How this has been done through the medium of general conference is the subject of subsequent chapters. In the final chapter we return to a consideration of Mormon prospects for maintaining a distinctive LDS religious identity in the modern world—a theme that more recently has been addressed by other scholars such as Matthew Bowman, Armand Mauss, Terryl Givens, and Jan Shipps.76

3

The Social-­Historical Context of Mormon Beliefs

Belief systems have been studied by historians as intellectual history or the history of ideas, by psychologists as part of cognitive psychology, by sociologists as ideologies or the sociology of knowledge, and by anthropologists as the underlying symbolic orders of culture. The interaction between people’s beliefs, epochal historical trends, and the material and social organization of human institutions is always complex. Bertrand Russell in his History of Western Philosophy puts it this way: “There is here a reciprocal causation: the circumstances of men’s lives do much to determine their philosophy, but conversely, their philosophy does much to determine their circumstances.”1 This is manifestly true of the Mormons, a people whose religious beliefs have been fashioned in adaptation to their various historical environments and, in turn, whose environments have been fundamentally altered by their religious beliefs. In narrating some of the salient features of Mormon history, we have alluded to a number of Mormonism’s distinctive beliefs. In this chapter we attempt to systematically review Mormon beliefs by interpreting their meaning in conjunction with other currents of thought in nineteenth-­and twentieth-­century American society. For roughly the first three generations of its existence, the Mormon religion was widely perceived by other

37

38  CHAPTER 3

Americans as an alien system. In more recent generations some scholars, at least, have revised that judgment and often credit Mormonism as a quintessential American faith.2 While no longer universally regarded as bizarre or menacing, popular opinion would undoubtedly still agree with the Mormons’ own claims that they are a “peculiar people.” In reality there are few if any religious ideas in Mormonism that, when considered discretely, are entirely peculiar or unique. Mormonism’s distinctiveness lies in the amalgamation of its doctrines and practices, eclectically derived for the most part from numerous other nineteenth-­century social and religious movements.

Millennial Currents Perhaps the most significant current of nineteenth-­century religion with which Mormonism can be closely linked is millenarianism. According to one historian of that movement, “America in the early nineteenth century was drunk on the millennium. Whether in support of optimism or pessimism, radicalism or conservatism, Americans seemed unable to avoid— seemed bound to utilize—the vocabulary of Christian eschatology. In those decades of American utopianism men spoke the language of the apocalypse.”3 Millennial beliefs in turn overlapped and gave impetus to such other influential strains in nineteenth-­century religious movements as utopianism and restorationism. Mormonism incorporated all three of these elements into a theological core from which the development of other Mormon beliefs and practices may be traced. From its inception Mormonism’s own interpretation of itself as a religious movement was explicitly eschatological. Mormon adherents designated themselves as Latter-­day Saints to emphasize their elect status and mission in what they believed were the last days or “dispensation of the fullness of times.” The concept of religious dispensations, including the last dispensation, is not unique to Mormonism. As a mode of thought, dispensationalism is commonly associated with the theology of John Nelson Darby—a prominent millenarian divine of the nineteenth century—though neither was the idea original or unique to him.4 As Ernest Sandeen notes, “Darby also shared with other millenarians, and indeed with many nonmillenarian nineteenth century thinkers, a philosophy of history which

The Social-­Historical Context of Mormon Beliefs  39

divided the past into a number of distinct eras in each of which the mode of God’s operations, if not nature’s, was unique. The eras were called dispensations.”5 According to Mormon reckoning, the world has experienced seven historical dispensations; the first five are associated with the eras of the major Old Testament patriarchs, namely, Adam, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, and Moses, respectively. The sixth dispensation is referred to as the “meridian of time” and is associated with the ministry of Jesus Christ and the establishment of the Apostolic Church. The seventh and last dispensation is considered by LDS theologians to have commenced with the prophetic calling of Joseph Smith and the restoration of the ancient church. This latter dispensation is held by Mormons to be the precursor of the millennial epoch. The Latter-­day Saints’ special mission, as they saw it, was to build an earthly kingdom, a New Jerusalem, and prepare themselves to receive the Second Advent of the Messiah, who would rule and reign from Zion throughout the Millennium.6 Millennial themes run throughout Joseph Smith’s revelations in the Doctrine and Covenants and are also commonly expressed in nineteenth-­century Mormon hymns, as the following verses illustrate. “Come, O Thou King of Kings” Come, O thou King of kings! We’ve waited long for thee, With healing in thy wings To set thy people free. Come, thou desire of nations, come; Let Israel now be gathered home. Come, make an end to sin And cleanse the earth by fire, And righteousness bring in, That Saints may tune the lyre With songs of joy, a happier strain, To welcome in thy peaceful reign.7 “The Day-­dawn is Breaking” The day-­dawn is breaking, the world is awaking,

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The clouds of night’s darkness are fleeing away; The world-­wide commotion, From ocean to ocean, Now heralds the time of the beautiful day. Beautiful day of peace and rest, Bright be thy dawn from east to west; Hail to thine earliest welcome ray, Beautiful, bright, millennial day.8 American millenarianism flourished both independently and was influenced by the British millennial revival of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The movements in both countries became theologically divided between those who believed in a premillennial advent and those who believed in a postmillennial advent. The premillennialists maintained that the Second Advent of Jesus Christ is imminent and that his ultimate reign of peace and justice upon earth must necessarily be inaugurated by disaster and destruction to cleanse the world of its wickedness.9 In this view the great and dreadful day of judgment is to precede the Millennium. The postmillennialists (whose position is sometimes referred to as millennialism rather than millenarianism) believed that the Second Advent is not imminent but will occur only as the culmination and fulfillment of the thousand-­year millennial epoch and is, therefore, yet a distant event. According to postmillennialists, then, the Millennium will precede the judgment day rather than vice versa. The immediate social and psychological import of these competing doctrines was that the premillennialists largely believed the corruption of the world and deterioration of human institutions to be inevitable and irreversible. They consequently were not much inclined to put stock in futile efforts to reform or rehabilitate the world but eagerly awaited the “any moment coming” of the Master. In contrast, postmillennialists believed that the way for the Second Advent must first be prepared by human effort, that the Millennium will ultimately be brought about as a consequence of the conversion and perfecting of human souls. It has been convincingly argued by others that this latter kind of religious ideology supplied a great deal of the initial impetus and zeal behind the effervescence of antebellum reform movements in the United States and strengthened the traditional American faith in the possibility of constructing a better world through hard work and dedication to a moral cause.10

The Social-­Historical Context of Mormon Beliefs  41

This poses an apparent conundrum with respect to the Mormons who, in theology, teach a premillennial, apocalyptic advent but are also committed to the value of human effort and are surpassed by few, if any, religious groups in their purposive industry. To sketch an outline of Mormon Adventist millennial beliefs, we quote selected passages from an apologetic work entitled The Articles of Faith, first written in 1890 by James Talmage, a Mormon apostle and respected theological spokesperson of that era for the Latter-­day Saint faith. Both before and after His death Christ prophesied of his appointed return to earth; and His faithful followers are today waiting and watching for the signs of the great fulfillment. The Heavens are flaming with those signals and the burden of inspired teaching is again heard—repent, repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand . . . At the time of his glorious advent, Christ will be accompanied by hosts of righteous ones who have already passed from earth; and be marked by a destruction of the wicked, and by the inauguration of an era of peace . . . At the beginning of this period Satan is to be bound, that he should deceive the nations no more, til the thousand years should be fulfilled . . . certain of the dead [the wicked] are not to live again until the thousand years are past, while the righteous shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years . . . Enmity between man and beast shall cease; the fierceness and venom of the brute creation shall be done away and love shall rule . . . Satan’s power will be restrained; and men, relieved to some degree from temptation, will be mostly zealous in the service of their reigning Lord . . . Both mortal and immortal beings will tenant the earth and communion with heavenly powers will be common . . . When the thousand years are passed Satan will be permitted to assert his power, and those who are not then numbered among the pure in heart will yield to his influence. But his doom will speedily follow, and with him will go to the punishment that is everlasting, all who are his. Then the earth will pass to its celestial condition and become a fit abode for the glorified sons and daughters of our God.11

That Mormon eschatology is premillennialist, while Mormon ethics enjoin active effort to change the world, is a prime example of what

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O’Dea calls Mormonism’s “creative eclecticism, which, although it failed to achieve logical consistency, nevertheless possessed a cohesiveness of tendency and congruity of fundamental principle that rendered it a unified point of view.”12 Mormon millennial expectations in the nineteenth century interacted with other beliefs in such a way to compel the Latter-­day Saints to seek an active mastery of the world rather than a passive withdrawal from it. Beliefs that fostered social activism included the Mormon doctrines of moral agency and radical perfectionism13—of which more will be said shortly—and, of course, their conception of the kingdom of God on earth as both a material and spiritual theocracy. While the alienation of many millenarian groups from modern developments in nineteenth-­century social, political, and economic institutions fostered an attitude of pietistic withdrawal and social indifference, the Mormons’ response was to create an alternative social order. Unlike their counterparts among the Millerites and other nineteenth-­ century Adventist sects, Mormon leaders were never so imprudent as to officially determine a specific date for the Second Coming; they merely emphasized that the world had entered into the last days or final dispensation in which certain events must transpire before the Millennium dawns.14 Chief among these events for Mormons were the restoration of the true church and the gathering of the Saints to build up the kingdom, both of which required a tremendously organized and active effort on a large scale. Though the imminence of Mormon millennial expectations has been muted with the passing of time, the LDS Church continues to adhere to the doctrine of the last days, teaching preparation and readiness. This belief, for each Latter-­day Saint generation, has functioned to generate a sense of urgency and special mission for those who believe themselves entrusted with the duty of carrying out God’s work in the final period of human history. The Mormons’ millennial dreams of Zion and their attempts to build religious commonwealths in the Midwest and Rocky Mountains link Mormonism to yet another nineteenth-­century movement: utopian communitarianism.

Utopia It has been estimated that since the late seventeenth century to the present day “the United States, in particular, has been the site for the founding of

The Social-­Historical Context of Mormon Beliefs  43

hundreds—possibly thousands—of utopian communities.”15 Though precise figures do not exist, “the greatest wave of enthusiasm for utopian ventures came in the 1840’s, in the aftermath of the revivals of the 1820’s and 1830’s.”16 The revivals referred to here were particularly intense in the Burned-­over District of western New York and the Ohio Western Reserve, the two principal areas from which came the earliest Mormon converts. Like the Mormons, many eighteenth-­and nineteenth-­century utopian groups were religious societies seeking spiritual purification in anticipation of the Millennium. The better known of these groups included Ephrata (Pennsylvania, 1732–1900), the Shakers (New York, 1787–present), Jerusalem (Pennsylvania, 1804–1904), Zoor (Ohio, 1817–1898), Hopedale (Massachusetts, 1841–1933), and Oneida (New York, 1848–1881). Other utopian groups were avowedly secular in character, seeking to better human life on earth through the radical implementation of scientific socialism. Among the more famous secular utopian experiments were New Harmony (Indiana, 1825–1827), Brook Farm (Massachusetts, 1841–1847), North American Phalanx (New Jersey, 1843–1856), Wisconsin Phalanx (Wisconsin, 1844– 1850), and Modern Times (New York, 1851–1866).17 Rosabeth Kanter argues that although they differ widely in many respects, utopian communities, whether religious or secular, share a common set of interrelated values; namely, the millennial ideals of perfectibility, order, brotherhood, mind-­body unity, and group coherence. The idea of perfectibility stresses that human nature is essentially good and inherently inclined to moral progress, but that people are corrupted by degenerate societies out of kilter with the laws of the universe. To reverse this unnatural state of affairs requires understanding and living in harmony with universal laws. The idea of utopian order repudiates the uncertain and wasteful excesses of the outside world in favor of the centralized planning and coordination of community life. Communal cooperation rather than the pursuit of private or “selfish interests” is the hallmark of utopian social order. Utopian brotherhood celebrates human unity; interdependence and social harmony are promoted by the elimination of artificial barriers that lead to competitive invidiousness, tension, and conflict. Principal barriers to genuine brotherhood include the institution of private property and exclusive social relationships, such as are found in monogamous marriage and the nuclear family. Utopian emphasis on the unity of mind and body merges

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temporal with spiritual values and vice versa. Physical work is placed on an equal moral plane with contemplation and reflection; virtue is imputed to manual labor, and (particularly during the nineteenth century) an almost mystical identification with land and agricultural pursuits is often expressed. Finally, the community value of group coherence is achieved by cultivating a high degree of group consciousness and sense of historical purpose. A strong distinction between members and nonmembers is formed, based in part on the belief that the patterns of life sponsored within the utopian community are the pure expression of spiritual values in contradistinction to the hypocrisy and wickedness of the outside world. According to Kanter, the connecting thread in this tissue of utopian ideals is harmony: harmony with the universe, harmony with nature, and harmony with other human beings. Ironically, utopians’ struggles to achieve harmony within their own exclusive communities have typically led to disharmony with other groups and the eventual compromise of utopian ideals. That the Mormons have exhibited most of these utopian values identified by Kanter is evident. During the Missouri period of church history and later in Utah, toward the end of Brigham Young’s life, the Mormons experimented with the law of consecration in the form of the United Order of Enoch. Though these communal ventures did not ultimately prove successful, traditional LDS orthodoxy maintains that the law of consecration defines the correct socioeconomic system for the kingdom of God and is anticipated to be reinstated when the Millennium comes.18 In the meantime, utopian ideals have permeated Mormon beliefs and institutional programs. Perfectibility

Mormonism originated at a time when American Protestantism was moving away from its earlier Calvinist emphasis on predestination, humanity’s inherent sinfulness, and the inscrutable sovereignty of God’s grace in favor of belief in free will, human perfectibility, and the saving efficacy of good works. A central ideological implication of the evangelical revivals of the mid-­eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was that religious conversion led to moral regeneration and change in the direction of spiritual ideals. Belief in the potential perfectibility of human nature encourages belief

The Social-­Historical Context of Mormon Beliefs  45

in the possibilities of perfecting human societies. Affirming the importance of voluntaristic choice and commitment to moral change, evangelical perfectionism exercised a major influence on the nineteenth-­century reform tradition in the United States, which—in addition to revivalism and communitarianism—included such movements as abolitionism, temperance, women’s suffrage, pacifism, spiritualism, health, physical fitness, and educational and penal reforms. At the same time, religious legitimation of social reform shared an obvious affinity with the ascendant secular dogmas of progress, democracy, and the civil participation of the common person.19 Mormonism adopted both the nineteenth-­century evangelical and secular emphasis on individual freedom in its doctrine of free agency, which became a cardinal belief in the Latter-­day Saints’ conception of God’s plan of salvation. Mormonism’s fundamental belief in freedom of the will led to a denial of the orthodox Christian doctrines of original sin and salvation by grace alone, and to an overall positive rather than a negative conception of human nature.20 According to Mormon theology, the mortal existence of each individual is the result of a conscious moral decision made in a preexistent sphere to come to earth and obtain a physical body, while simultaneously being subjected to the temptations of the flesh. Mortal life is defined as a probationary stage of eternal existence in which individuals develop spiritually by exercising moral agency to choose good over evil. Body and spirit are separated at death but will ultimately be reunited in a literal resurrection through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Mormonism teaches that salvation from physical death is a universal gift, an act of pure grace. Thus every person will be resurrected regardless of the merit of his or her life. But salvation from spiritual death (estrangement from God’s presence and influence) is reserved for those who have led obedient and righteous lives. The atonement of Jesus Christ is thus regarded as a necessary but not sufficient condition for ultimate spiritual salvation (or what Mormons call “exaltation”). The latter must be earned by the individual. In Mormon theology, “the meaning of the grace of God given through the atonement of Christ is that Man by his freedom can now merit salvation.”21 Free agency means that individuals are responsible for their actions and will be judged according to their works. Heavenly rewards are contingent

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upon obedience to God’s laws, but divine punishment is only meted out to those who are knowingly disobedient. While the ignorant will not suffer retribution for their failures, the way to perfection and eternal life requires an expanding knowledge and understanding of the supreme laws of the universe. God’s own mastery of the universe is considered a function of his superior knowledge and intelligence, which his children are also expected to pursue in the course of their own development. Miracles, or supernatural occurrences, may be understood as the rational operation of higher order laws that, with proper knowledge, can be made to supersede lower laws.22 In his powerfully innovative King Follett discourse Joseph Smith combined the ideas of human progress and perfectibility and advanced them to their logical extremes, culminating in a theology of deification or what Mormon writers have called the “law of eternal progression.”23 Theologically, this is Mormonism’s greatest heresy, a liberal doctrine of human nature that rests on a radically unorthodox conception of God.24 The God described in the King Follett discourse is not absolute in the traditional Christian sense. He has finite power and being; he does not transcend time and space, he is not immaterial, and, though organized by him, the universe is not his creation ex nihilo (i.e., the basic elements which make up the universe are eternal and therefore uncreated). God is not the ground of all being but is himself in constant process of becoming, of developing and expanding through new creations. Smith argued that the human race is the literal offspring of God and, consequently, that men and women have the inherent potential, through eternal development and obedience to divine law, to become gods themselves. In accomplishing this, they are simply following the law of eternal progression. Projected to infinity such a process must eventuate in a polytheistic universe, a plurality of gods in which exalted men and women become “heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ.”25 Those individuals who achieve the exalted status of godhood will do as all other gods before them have done: create and govern new worlds, which will be inhabited by their spiritual offspring.26 Thus Mormonism, in an extreme way, celebrates the potential goodness and perfectibility of human nature assumed by utopian values.27 Mormonism emphasizes that perfection cannot be attained through knowledge alone but also through striving, personal achievement, and the active application of divine laws. Mormons believe that the organization

The Social-­Historical Context of Mormon Beliefs  47

of their church is based on such laws and exists for the “perfecting of the saints” through an all-­embracing set of programs and activities that provide an organizational context in which to accomplish good works. The importance of active lay involvement required by the Mormon religion cannot be overestimated. Activity in the sense of carrying out the duties of church callings and participating in church programs becomes an index of personal morality. Good Mormons are, virtually by definition, active members of the church, while backsliders are those who fail to participate and consequently earn the moral epithet of inactives. The value that Mormonism places on activity is even reflected in its conception of heaven. For Mormons, heaven is not just a place of eternal rest as in the traditional Christian view, but is an extension of earth life, a place of continued work, effort, and development.28 The spiritualization of activity by the Mormons is, of course, altogether consonant with the nineteenth-­century Yankee spirit of personal effort and utilitarian practicality. Mormonism, for the most part, is not a contemplative religion; action and concrete achievement are valued over abstract theorizing. Cross has observed that even Joseph Smith, “for all his imagination, was, like the Yankees he led, in many respects an eminently practical man.”29 It must be remembered that Joseph Smith not only dreamed dreams and professed visions, he also built cities, organized schools and newspapers, directed an extensive missionary program at home and abroad, rode at the head of a well-­trained military legion, occupied important civil as well as religious positions, and, in every way, led his people temporally as well as spiritually during the fourteen-­year trajectory of his prophetic career. A man of even greater practicality was Brigham Young, the guiding force behind the Mormons’ colonization of the Great Basin region. Young once typically declared that “if I were obliged to think for ten years and not erect a building or help build up a city, or in any way put my thoughts into execution, it would materially injure my mental faculty through want of results for it to rest upon.”30 A somewhat indirect but nonetheless telling testimonial to Young’s practicality was provided by his close friend and associate Jedediah M. Grant in a letter to the New York Herald. I can’t undertake to explain Brigham Young to your Atlantic citizens, or expect you to put him at his value. Your great men eastward are to me like our ivory and pearl-­handled table knives, more shining

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than the inside of my watch case, but, with only edge enough to slice bread and cheese or help spoon victuals and all alike by the dozen. Brigham is the article [that] sells out West with us—between a Roman cutlass and a beef butcher knife, the thing to cut up a deer or cut down an enemy and that will save your life or carve your dinner every bit as well, though the hand piece is buckhorn and the case a hog skin hanging in the breech of your pantaloons. You, that judge of men by the handle and sheath, how can I make you know a good blade?”31

The utilitarian practicality of its early leaders is one of the major strands of Mormon heritage visible today among both the contemporary leadership and the general membership of the LDS Church. In general, the practical orientation of Latter-­day Saints toward work and success in worldly occupations is derived from their puritan heritage (most of the original Mormon converts, including Smith and Young, were of New England stock) and reflects the religious attitude of what Max Weber calls “worldly asceticism,” i.e., devotion to overcoming the world as an instrument in the hands of God and subjecting all things to the divine will.32 Thus, according to Arrington, Perhaps the most significant environmental influence on early Mormonism, however, was that of the so-­called “Protestant Ethic.” Those habits of mind and patterns of collective behavior to which early capitalism owed so much were carried over into Mormonism and proved to be invaluable in meeting the problems encountered in settling the arid West. “The Mormon ethic” included a this-­worldly approach to the problem of life, a capacity for rational calculation, hatred of mendicancy, emphasis on the righteous pursuit and development of an earthly calling, the practice of abstemiousness and self-­discipline, and, above all, the conviction of the Mormons that they were immediately and specifically invested by God with the task of preparing the earth for the Second Coming of Christ.33

Order

While Mormonism’s theological rejection of Calvinistic metaphysics was compatible with the progressive optimism of nineteenth-­century American

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thought, its social rejection of the pluralistic and individualistic tendencies of the newly emerging industrial order was not. Like other nineteenth-­ century utopian groups, the Mormons posed an ideological alternative to the capitalistic development of American society. Their vision of Zion reflected a desire to re-­create the centralized authority and order of the traditional community.34 The basis for social order among the Mormons is the priesthood, which is divided into two major classes: the higher, or Melchizedek priesthood, and the lesser, or Aaronic priesthood. The principal charge of the Aaronic priesthood is to oversee the material welfare of the church, while that of the Melchizedek priesthood is to direct the church’s spiritual welfare. Both orders of priesthood are subdivided into a number of different offices. The basic offices of the Aaronic priesthood are deacon, teacher, and priest, while the basic offices of the Melchizedek priesthood are elder, seventy, and high priest. Other LDS priesthood offices include bishop, patriarch, stake president, and apostle. Reflecting both the democratic and patriarchal prejudices prevalent in nineteenth-­century America, the LDS priesthood is a lay organization in which only men may be ordained, though women theoretically participate equally in the benefits of priesthood authority and contribute essential auxiliary roles in the church’s lay organization. (In later chapters we discuss growing concerns about gender equality issues among contemporary Mormons.) Male Mormons are ordained to the office of deacon in the Aaronic priesthood at the age of twelve and begin a career of advancements through the ranks of priesthood offices based on their continued fidelity to Latter-­day Saint religious requirements. Mormonism teaches that God’s power and authority are delegated to men through the priesthood; thus, all church policies and programs must be legitimated through the priesthood organization. The order of the Mormon priesthood constitutes a patriarchal system in which each male officeholder is delegated a certain sphere of responsibility or stewardship in which to exercise his own initiative, while, at the same time, being subject to the authority of yet higher priesthood offices in the ecclesiastical hierarchy. In general, the Melchizedek priesthood oversees the activities of the Aaronic priesthood while, under the direction of the First Presidency, the general authorities—including the Twelve Apostles, the First Quorum of the Seventy, and the Presiding Bishopric—have jurisdiction over the

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entire church.35 Under the direction of general authorities, local priesthood authorities officiate in stake and ward positions.36 In the home, each father is esteemed as the patriarch of his family. God himself is projected as the Great Patriarch of the human race, a benevolent Father who watches over his children and entrusts them with various responsibilities (revealed through the priesthood) that they must learn for their own good and salvation. In like manner the LDS lay priesthood allows for a certain amount of democratic participation within the framework of an authoritarian system of control. It is through the priesthood that the utopian values of order and centralized control of group cooperation have found expression throughout the course of Mormon history. As far as the Mormons are concerned, the priesthood and the government of the kingdom of God are virtually one and the same.37 Mormon utopian efforts to build the city of Zion in the nineteenth century were directed and implemented through the organization of the priesthood. Following the exodus from Nauvoo into the arid wastes of the Great Basin, unified social action and economic cooperation were not merely utopian aspirations but were essential to group survival in a hostile, desert environment. In Utah an extensive irrigation system was collectively built and operated through priesthood organization, and cooperative mercantile associations were sponsored. Similarly, under church sponsorship cooperative farming was practiced, coal and iron mining attempted, and the production of silk and beet sugar experimented with. Through the cooperative institution of the Perpetual Emigration Fund, the church directed the migration of more than seventy thousand European converts between 1847 and 1877 and coordinated the colonization of more than 360 towns and settlements throughout the Intermountain West.38 In all these collective enterprises, Arrington reminds us that “cooperation meant that every man’s labor was subject to call by church authority to work under supervised direction in a cause deemed essential to prosperity of the Kingdom.”39 In the twentieth century the LDS Church’s response to the federal welfare legislation of the New Deal was the development of its own comprehensive and self-­sustaining welfare system operated on the basis of member donations of both capital and labor.40 The church welfare program reflects the Mormons’ continued commitment to the communitarian ideal of self-­sufficiency and to the principle that members of a religious

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community should cooperate in taking care of one another’s material as well as spiritual needs. These examples illustrate only some of the more obvious Mormon ventures based on community cooperation and centralized coordination. Today, even though Mormon officials no longer stress the theocratic authority of the priesthood over members’ temporal affairs, obedience to priesthood authority and member cooperation are still hallmarks of all church programs and organization. Ironically, however, the LDS communitarian ethos does not extend to social and political sympathies outside the authority and framework of the LDS Church. Utah, with its large Mormon majority population, is a famously red state today in which conservative Republican politics prevail among both LDS leaders and ordinary members. Government programs for aiding the poor, regulating predatory business practices, protecting the environment, and providing healthcare benefits are not seen in the same light as church programs, which are based on social cooperation, centralized control, and ideals of community welfare. Federal programs designed to alleviate poverty and discrimination are derided as big-­government intrusions and socialistic infringements of individual liberties. Brotherhood

Community control and cooperation are closely linked to ideals of unity and brotherhood. Brotherhood among the Mormons was and is one of the compelling features of membership in the community. Strong in-­group loyalties are fostered, and diffuse, gemeinschaft obligations to fellow members are the norm.41 Ironically, the achievement of comradeship within a cohesive community is typically enjoyed at the cost of excluding other groups; community ethnocentrism interferes with the utopian ideal of universal solidarity—an aspect of Mormon culture to be commented on shortly. The institutions of private property and monogamous marriage, commonly repudiated as barriers to comradeship by other nineteenth-­century utopian groups, also became important objects of Mormon experimentation, as reflected in the law of consecration and the mandate of plural marriage. Though the law of consecration was intended “to bring about something approaching economic equality”42 among the Latter-­day Saints, individual ownership of private property was preserved through the institution of economic stewardships. As Arrington points out:

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While the collection, administration and investment of the initial and annual consecrations were to be under the supervision of the Presiding Bishop and his advisers, there was to be freedom of enterprise in production and in the management of properties held as stewardships. There was no provision for the minute and intimate regulation of economic activity which prevailed in some contemporary communitarian societies.43

Thus the radical communism of many utopian groups was not generally advocated by the Mormons, although the attempt to implement the United Order in several southern Utah communities during the 1870s and 1880s came very close.44 Neither did nineteenth-­century Mormon polygamy involve the radical degree of group control over sexual and family relations as was evidenced, for example, in the celibacy of the Shakers or the institutions of complex marriage and stirpiculture among the Oneida Perfectionists.45 Instead, the concept of stewardship was extended to the home where the Mormons considered parents to be stewards over the mortal development of God’s spirit children, and the father was designated as the patriarch of his own family. Family life was thus linked to the religious community through the patriarchal order. In fact, according to Arrington, Brigham Young’s utopian vision was that the church should become a single patriarchal family: I will give you a text: Except I am one with my good brethren, do not say that I am a Latter-­day Saint. We must be one. Our faith must be concentrated in one great work—the building up of the kingdom of God on the earth, and our works must aim to the accomplishment of that great purpose. I have looked upon the community of Latter-­ day Saints in vision and beheld them organized as one great family of heaven, each person performing his several duties in his line of industry, working for the good of the whole more than for individual aggrandizement; and in this I have beheld the most beautiful order that the mind of man can contemplate and the grandest results for the upbuilding of the kingdom of God and the spread of righteousness upon the earth . . . Why can we not so live in this world?46

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Echoing the refrain of all utopian adventures, Brigham’s plaintive “Why can we not so live in this world?” correctly anticipated the practical failure of the United Order. Today the Mormons champion capitalism and free enterprise, but within the Latter-­day Saint community the law of consecration remains a powerful ideal in shaping members’ attitudes toward the consecration of their personal resources when called upon for the advancement of the church. Similarly, the nineteenth-­century ideal of patriarchal unity continues to exert a major influence on Mormon attitudes about parenthood, gender roles, and family life. Mind and Body

Mormonism is an avowedly materialistic religion. The material well-­being or temporal salvation of the Latter-­day Saints in this world was declared in early Mormon rhetoric to be as much an essential function of the faith as was spiritual salvation in the life to come. Otherworldly religions that spoke only of spiritual abstractions and showed little concern for human welfare here and now were dismissed by early Mormons as nonsensical.47 The material and immaterial are not radically differentiated by Mormon beliefs, as Arrington notes. “Religion, the Mormons believed, was not only a matter of sentiment, good for Sunday contemplation and intended for the sanctuary and the soul, but also had to do with dollars and cents, with trade and barter, with the body and the daily doings of ordinary life.”48 Consistent with typical utopian belief regarding the unity of mind and body, Joseph Smith taught that both “the spirit and the body are the soul of man” and though separated at death will be permanently united in the resurrection.49 With respect to the distinction between the spiritual and the physical, he asserted that according to God, “all things unto me are spiritual, and not at any time have I given unto you a law which was temporal.”50 Furthermore, “there is no such thing as immaterial matter. All spirit is matter, but it is more fine or pure, and can only be discerned by purer eyes; we cannot see it; but when our bodies are purified we shall see that it is all matter.”51 Thus Mormon doctrine both materializes the spiritual and spiritualizes the material. Translating theology into dictums for everyday life, early Mormon leaders often praised the virtues of agrarian values, manual labor, and physical fitness. In the nineteenth century Brigham Young vigorously

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warned against the corrupting consequences of forsaking stewardship of the land in search of precious metals, and for years he inhibited Mormon exploitation of Utah’s mineral wealth in favor of cultivating the soil. “The Saints obeyed Brigham’s counsel, although it seemed difficult to some and even perverse to a few, to eschew mining and the more comfortable humid valleys of California. Only farming, operated on a family basis within the larger context of church cooperation, could, Brigham believed, develop an adequate basis to support a Mormon civilization.”52 The Mormons’ intense identification with the land was associated with their belief in Zion as an actual physical location, a literal New Jerusalem on the American continent to be inherited by the Saints of God. Standard Mormon hymns such as “For the Strength of the Hills,” “Zion Stands with Hills Surrounded,” and “O Ye Mountains High” give expression to the Latter-­day Saints’ aspirations for Zion and to their profound attachment to their mountain home. “For the Strength of the Hills” For the strength of the hills we bless thee, Our God, Our fathers’ God; Thou hast made thy children mighty By the touch of the mountain sod; Thou has led thy chosen Israel To Freedom’s last abode For the strength of the hills we bless thee, Our God, our fathers’ God. 53 “Zion Stands with Hills Surrounded” Zion stands with hills surrounded Zion kept by power divine. All her foes shall be confounded, Though the world in arms combine. Happy Zion, Happy Zion, What a favored lot is thine!54 “O Ye Mountains High” O ye mountains high, where the clear blue sky Arches over the vales of the free,

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Where the pure breezes blow and the clear streamlets flow, How I’ve longed to your bosom to flee! Now my own mountain home, unto thee I have come, All my fond hopes are centered in thee. 55 The Mormons’ commitment to the land and agricultural pursuits continued well into the twentieth century, as evidenced by a prominent apostle’s remarks in 1949. We Latter-­day Saints are a land-­loving people. We believe in the land, We are a land-­using people. Most of us are farmers, directly or indirectly. Some few years ago—not many years ago—in a census then taken, approximately sixty-­five percent, at least, of our people were engaged in agriculture, in tilling the soil, or in making use of the things that grow upon the mountains, in the valleys and on the deserts. That has given us strength. I hope that we as a people will not depart from that tradition. Those who own the land and use it in the end will determine the future of mankind. It will not come from those who work in the factories or who live in crowded cities; from those whose feet are planted upon the land will come the great determining factors in shaping human destiny. It has been so in the past. It will be so in the future. We Latter-­day Saints must ever remember the sanctity and the holiness of the land given us by the Father. There is safety in the land.56

The fact that Mormonism today is increasingly becoming an urban religion, with the majority of its members no longer rooted to the soil, is a major source of institutional change which merits considerably more study.57 Yet another way Mormonism emphasizes the unity of mind and body, or spirit and matter, is through the Word of Wisdom, a law of health by which the Latter-­day Saints are supposed to live. In turn, the Mormon Word of Wisdom is linked to two additional nineteenth-­century movements: temperance and health reform. The temperance movement was one of the longest lived of all American reform efforts.58 Long before the Women’s Christian Temperance Union and the saloon-­smashing career of Carrie Nation, temperance had become

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a national issue. Temperance societies were organized in both New York and New England in the first decades of the nineteenth century. It is estimated that by 1834 some five thousand state and local temperance societies had been formed across the country.59 Prohibition legislation was passed in Massachusetts, New York, and Maine prior to the Civil War. The thrust of most temperance arguments was moral and religious: strong drink polluted the soul and made the body an unfit dwelling place for the Holy Spirit; its habit-­forming character led to personal bondage, depriving the imbiber of moral autonomy and self-­control, and so on. Later, the social and economic evils of liquor were also adumbrated. At roughly the same time, general health reforms were also attracting devotees. The importance of proper diet, hygiene, and exercise were stressed. Proscription on coffee, tea, meat, spices, rich food, and sexual indulgences were advocated. In addition to the theme of temporal salvation and happiness through physical perfectionism, the morality of the temperance movement was added, emphasizing the virtues of self-­discipline.60 The Mormon Word of Wisdom incorporates most, if not all, of these sentiments. Given by Joseph Smith in 1833 as a “principle with promise, adapted to the capacity of the weak and the weakest of all Saints, who are or can be called Saints,” the Word of Wisdom proscribes “wine or strong drink,” tobacco, and hot drinks (interpreted by Mormons to mean tea and coffee). Only “sparing” use of meat is sanctioned. In addition, vegetables, fruits, and grains “in the season thereof” are prescribed as good and “ordained for the use of man.” Significantly, those who observe the Word of Wisdom are promised spiritual as well as physical rewards: they “shall find wisdom and great treasures of knowledge, even hidden treasures; and shall run and not be weary, and shall walk and not faint.”61 In much the same way as commitment to plural marriage in the nineteenth century, adherence to the Word of Wisdom today functions as one of the defining characteristic of practicing Latter-­day Saints. Group Coherence

The Mormons’ sense of self-­identity, particularly in the nineteenth century, has been so strong that many writers have compared them to the ancient Hebrews (which we, too, have done in our preface). The Mormons were the first to apply the analogy, calling themselves the “House of Israel” and imitating many Old Testament institutions. Through patriarchal blessings,

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Mormons are informed of their lineage in the house of Israel. (If persons are not designated as literal descendants of one of the Twelve Tribes of Israel, they may obtain their lineage through ritual “adoption” by those who are so designated.) It is through the Mormon missionary program that “scattered Israel” is expected to be gathered together in the last days.62 One Mormon device for maintaining group distinctiveness in the nineteenth century was the rhetorical practice of referring to members of the faith as Saints, while commandeering the Jewish pejorative label of gentiles to reference nonmembers. Although this latter practice diminished greatly as Mormonism became integrated within American society, many Mormons today continue to classify people into member or nonmember categories, while members are further typed as active or inactive, as earlier noted. A large portion of church energy and resources is devoted either to proselytizing the nonmember category or to reactivating the inactive. Furthermore, Latter-­day Saints, like the ancient Hebrews, believe themselves to be a chosen people, foreordained to participate in a New and Everlasting Covenant with God in the building up of his kingdom in the last days. A neglected Mormon scholar, Ephraim Erickson, suggested many years ago that the conscious effort of the Mormons to emulate the institutions and ideals of ancient Israel was the cause of the beginning of the great Mormon and non-­Mormon conflict. The ideals and institutions of that ancient people were out of harmony with Christian tenets. The latter had made the other world the ideal home and resting place for the faithful. Mormonism, in its attempt to introduce Israelitish ideas, was setting up a material kingdom, a Zion on earth. To the Christian world it was materialism against mysticism, carnality against spirituality . . . This Zion was more than a mere mental state or spiritual order such as the Christian world held up as its ideal. It was a real country which was given to the Saints of God, an eternal home for scattered Israel, a land which was sanctified and blessed for the select children of God. It was a city which the Mormons were to build and which was to stand over against all non-­Mormon communities.63

With respect to conviction of their special mission, the Mormons are in company with numerous other millennial groups in American history,

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beginning with the New England Puritans. Mormons not only regard themselves as God’s chosen instruments, they also believe America is a chosen land, “choice above all other lands.”64 This, too, is a conviction inherited from and expressive of the blending of native millennialism with the growing fervor of American patriotism and nationalism.65 The manifest destiny of the United States became both a secular and a religious creed, as Sandeen notes. Stemming from the Puritan conviction that the colonists were a chosen people and their commonwealth a ‘city set upon a hill,’ reinforced by the War for Independence and the potentialities of the West, Americans vied with each other in producing grander and more glorious prospects for the United States. As early as the eighteenth century, the concept of America’s destiny was influencing American theology.66

Mormon beliefs were in full agreement with these nationalistic sentiments. Mormonism itself and the establishment of the kingdom of God on earth—the primary objective of Mormon efforts—were to be the culmination of America’s destiny. Although the LDS Church was constantly at odds with the federal government in the nineteenth century, it has staunchly maintained that the Constitution of the United States was an inspired document and that the founding fathers were providentially guided by the spirit of God in order to bring about his plans for this nation in the latter days. Even though government officials might attempt to corrupt the divinely inspired principles of the Constitution, God’s designs cannot be thwarted.67 According to Mormon belief, God’s preeminent design was the restoration of the true church and teachings of Jesus Christ upon the earth through the agency of a precocious youth who resided in the Burned-­over District of upstate New York.

Restoration Many Christian millennial groups have shared the belief that established churches have lost their spiritual and moral authority through corruption and apostasy. Also, many millenarians have sought a return to the

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simple purity of the primitive church, along with a restoration of the apostolic gifts. One historian of the millennial tradition, Ernest Sandeen, has noted that “many millenarians felt that the scriptures predicted a restitution of Pentecostal charisma in the last days, and this hope for a revival of apostolic fervor found a more generalized expression in other parts of the Church as well.”68 Commenting on the “early nineteenth century zeal for restoration,” he goes on to describe the intensified popular interest in such gifts as faith healing and speaking in tongues. One restorationist group particularly active on the American frontier— both competing with and influencing the Mormons—was the Campbellite Disciples of Christ, a movement which early Mormon leader Sidney Rigdon helped to promulgate prior to his conversion to Mormonism in 1830. The Campbellites believed that Christian denominations had strayed from New Testament teachings and that a restoration was necessary to unify the Christian world. The Mormons shared this view, justifying their own existence on the “Great Apostasy” of the ancient church and in the “restoration of all things” as a necessary prelude to the Millennium.69 Among the things considered by the Latter-­day Saints as essential to the restoration are a number of topics already discussed: prophets and direct revelation, priesthood power and authority, church organization, ordinances of salvation, the preaching of the restored gospel to all the nations of the earth, and gathering the pure in heart to further the cause of Zion in the last days. Revelation

The Mormons’ interpretation of Judeo-­Christian history is couched in terms of a cycle of apostasy and restoration in which prophecy and revelation have played a key part.70 During those periods when the true church has been on the earth, the church has, according to Mormon belief, always been guided and directed by prophets through direct revelation from God. From time to time, however, the true church is believed to have been taken from the earth because of wickedness and corruption; and then, as people become spiritually regenerated, it has been restored again in a new dispensation of prophetic leadership. During the cycles of spiritual darkness, direct concourse between God and his people has presumably ceased; the gifts of prophecy and revelation have been withdrawn to be restored later to a more worthy people. The ideology of restoration was remarkably well

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adapted for the advancement of a new millennial sect, particularly one whose leading character seems to have been so well equipped to assume the role of prophet of the last dispensation as was Joseph Smith. For more than one hundred and eighty years the character of Joseph Smith has been alternately eulogized and assailed. Was he God’s anointed? An untutored religious prodigy? A genius? Was he psychotic, unable to discern the distinction between fact and fantasy? Or was he merely a brash super-­huckster, skilled at fleecing a gullible public? Three months before his assassination in 1844, at the close of his King Follett discourse to the Saints assembled at April conference in Nauvoo, Smith offered these enigmatic remarks: “You don’t know me; you shall never undertake it. I don’t blame anyone for not believing my history. If I had not experienced what I have, I would not have believed it myself . . . When I am called by the trump of the archangel and weighed in the balance, you will all know me then.”71 Non-­Mormon evaluations of Joseph Smith include that of the celebrated writer and later mayor of Boston, Josiah Quincy, Jr. (not an unqualified admirer of the prophet), who visited Smith in Nauvoo and later reported that of all men he had met, Joseph was “one of two best endowed with that kingly faculty which directs, as by intrinsic right, the feeble or confused souls who are looking for guidance.”72 Included among the “feeble and confused souls” were such Mormon leaders as Sidney Rigdon and Brigham Young, whom Quincy said constituted a sort of “silent chorus during the exposition of their chief.” And yet, Quincy confessed, “if the reader does not know just what to make of Joseph Smith, I cannot help him out of the difficulty. I myself stand helpless before the puzzle.”73 Others, much more bitterly opposed to Joseph Smith than Quincy, did not hesitate to account for Smith’s power over his people by granting him certain superior qualities. Thomas Ford, the governor of Illinois who played a controversial role in Joseph’s assassination, said of him: “No doubt he was as much indebted for his influence over an ignorant people, to the superiority of his physical vigor, as to his greater cunning and intellect.”74 E. D. Howe, author of Mormonism’s first exposé, described Smith’s “natural genius, strong inventive powers of mind, a deep study, and usually correct estimate of the human passion and feelings . . . his followers, of course, can discover in his very countenance all the certain indications of a divine mission.”75

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It was, indeed, Smith’s followers’ belief in his divine mission and revelations which sanctioned their religious efforts. Not only could they see it in his “countenance” but also claimed to feel it in his very presence. Amasa Lyman, who became an apostle (but was later excommunicated during the early Utah period of the church), described his feelings when he came into intimate contact with the prophet in this manner: “When he grasped my hand . . . I felt as one of old in the presence of the Lord. My strength seemed to be gone, so that it required an effort on my part to stand on my feet . . . the still small voice of the spirit whispered its living testimony in the depths of my being that he was a man of God.”76 That Joseph Smith was successful in maintaining his role as prophet in the eyes of the majority of church members, in spite of numerous challenges to his authority, is a well-­documented fact. But that he was able to exert a mesmerizing influence over the select coterie of men who formed the church hierarchy was all the more amazing. As presiding teacher at the School of the Prophets in Kirtland, and later as supreme spiritual and temporal leader in Nauvoo, Smith expounded revolutionary doctrines and ideas while older and more educated men listened at his feet. These were men often superior in their own particular ways to the unschooled prophet. Edward Partridge, Newel K. Whitney, and Brigham Young shone in business and practical affairs. Orson Spencer and Orson Pratt were distinguished in intellectual attainments. In oratory and prose, Sidney Rigdon, William Phelps, John Taylor, and Parley P. Pratt were outstanding. Yet these and other strong, independent personalities were all subordinate to the youthful Smith, willing to do his bidding and risk their lives and fortunes on behalf of the restoration which he had proclaimed. Though truly extraordinary, Joseph Smith’s career as a prophet was not entirely unique during the periods of religious enthusiasm in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Others also laid claim with some success to prophetic prowess. A fair number were women: Ann Lee, founder of the Shakers; Jamima Wilkinson, founder of Jerusalem; Mary Baker Eddy, founder of Christian Science; and Ellen White, “messenger” for the Seventh-­Day Adventists. Both Lee’s and Wilkinson’s most devoted disciples established their societies in the Burned-­over District of New York State, not far from where Smith proclaimed the Mormon restoration. Several years later New York also produced Andrew Jackson Davis, the Poughkeepsie

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Seer who sparked interest in Swedenborgianism (featuring animal magnetism, trances, and revelations from departed spirits), as well as the Fox sisters, guiding lights of the spiritualist movement. And in 1847 John Humphrey Noyes established the sexually notorious Oneida Community in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York; his perfectionist disciples revered Noyes as God’s representative on earth. Most of these movements were millennial and utopian, and all shared Mormonism’s preoccupation with prophecy and revelation.77 Priesthood and Church Organization

The question of authority seems to have been one of supreme importance to Joseph Smith. Revelations and instructions from God were apparently not enough to legitimate the restoration of the apostolic church. Smith went beyond the arguments of other restorationist visionaries to claim a direct and literal ordination to the lost priesthood through the visitation of heavenly messengers. Smith wrote that the first of these messengers was John the Baptist, who was sent to confer upon him and his scribe, Oliver Cowdery, the “Priesthood of Aaron, which holds the keys of the ministering of angels, and of the gospel of repentance, and of baptism by immersion for the remission of sins.”78 This occurrence was dated May 1829, a time when the production of the Book of Mormon was still in progress. Shortly after this experience, Smith reported that a similar visitation was made by ancient apostles Peter, James, and John, bearers of the apostolic Melchizedek priesthood, who collectively ordained Smith and Cowdery to the apostleship and empowered them to restore the church. In retrospect such claims seem utterly fantastic, but at a time of widespread biblical literalism, millennial expectations, and restorationist mentality, they greatly appealed to early Mormon converts, who were “seekers of biblical Christianity” but “dissatisfied with revivalism and the existing denominations.”79 Through this restored priesthood authority, Mormons expected to both witness and perform prodigies and miracles in God’s name: healings were wrought, devils cast out, dreams and visions reported, prophecies foretold, and the tongues of Pentecost descended. To overemphasize early Mormon Pentecostalism, however, would be misleading. Though the gifts of the spirit were believed in and practiced—particularly faith healing—Mormon worship was relatively restrained compared to the emotional excesses of

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other nineteenth-­century groups.80 In fact, as O’Dea points out, the containment of charisma was rapidly achieved through the development of an authoritarian organization that depended on the hierarchical principle of priesthood stewardship discussed earlier.81 The organization of the priesthood permitted individual expression of charismatic gifts but placed a premium on obedience and submission to the echelon authority of the church through its prophet head. “Such restriction was necessary, for if the special charisma of the prophetic office should be interpreted democratically as something available to every member or to any member who believed himself to possess such special gifts, prophetic authority would be dispersed, and the result would be a diffusion of authority and leadership. It was important for Mormonism to control and contain the very prophetic charisma upon which it was based.”82 In keeping with the theme of restoration, the church was organized in emulation of New Testament offices; apostles, patriarchs (evangelists), high priests, seventies, elders, priests, teachers, and deacons were all located within the organizational structure, as earlier noted. As in the days of the original apostles, the church was to be a community of saints (i.e., disciples of Jesus) with no formal distinction between clergy and laity. For administrative purposes the church was divided into ecclesiastical units called stakes of Zion and, later, subdivided further into local units called wards (the equivalent of a parish or congregation). Each stake was presided over by a council of twelve high priests, with a president and his two counselors at their head. In turn, all stakes of Zion were under the jurisdiction of the First Presidency and general authorities of the church. As emphasized previously, the church as an organization was more or less equated with the kingdom of God on earth; the restoration of its theocratic priesthood structure was rationalized as a prototype for the millennial government of the Messiah. Ordinances

In common with the general spirit of American lay democracy and Protestant reform, the Mormons repudiated the splendor of Catholic ritual in favor of restoring the presumed simplicity of apostolic worship. At the same time, however, they (like Catholics) maintained certain necessary sacramental ordinances, obedience to which is required for salvation. Initially,

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necessary salvation ordinances for Mormons included only baptism by immersion and the laying on of hands, administered by those with restored priesthood authority. Later, during the Nauvoo period, Joseph Smith proclaimed other saving ordinances—knowledge of which presumably had been lost as a result of the Great Apostasy—as crucial elements in the Mormon restoration; namely, baptism for the dead, celestial marriage, and the temple endowment. The ordinance of baptism for the dead was perhaps Smith’s most original doctrinal innovation. What was called the law of eternal progression by later Mormon theologians, and the corollary doctrine of the plurality of Gods, may be viewed as extensions (albeit radical ones) of evangelical perfectionism. The law of consecration had its counterparts in any number of nineteenth-­century utopian communes. Plural marriage was but one variety of nineteenth-­century experimentation with unconventional marital and sexual relationships. The ritual that is part of the Mormon temple endowment bears striking resemblance to Masonic rites.83 But the doctrine of baptism for the dead apparently was based solely on cryptic biblical passages, elaborated on in some of Smith’s later revelations.84 According to his teachings on the subject, through the authority of the restored priesthood the dead can be baptized in proxy, giving to those who—through no fault of their own—have died in ignorance of gospel truth an opportunity to receive the necessary ordinances of the restored church. This presupposes the opportunity for departed spirits to receive and accept the true gospel of Jesus Christ beyond the grave. The motivation for the Latter-­day Saints to save their ancestors has been intense. Genealogical research conducted by the LDS Church is unsurpassed in the world and is an important aspect of Mormon emphasis on family unity both in this world and the world to come.85 Similarly, celestial marriage is contracted not “until death do you part,” but for eternity, or beyond the grave in the life to come. Like baptism for the dead, celestial marriage can only be performed through the restored priesthood. When first officially enunciated by Smith in 1843, and over the next fifty years, the doctrine of celestial marriage also meant plural marriage.86 No other doctrine or practice in Mormon history has been more controversial. In the decades between 1850 and 1890, plural marriage was staunchly defended by Latter-­day Saints as an integral part

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of the restoration of all things—the concubines and plural wives of the Old Testament patriarchs were cited by Mormon apologists as evidence of God’s favor of the practice. More importantly, plurality of wives was linked theologically to the doctrine of eternal increase (progression) and human deification, in which one’s status as a god was theorized to be, in part, measured by the size of one’s posterity. Though Mormon polygamy did not, apparently, produce larger numbers of offspring on average than did nineteenth-­century monogamy,87 such doctrine was powerful incentive for having large families—an attitude that has persisted among modern Mormons (although, of course, polygamy has not). Today the doctrine of plural marriage has, as O’Dea puts it, “retreated to the limbo of theological relics.”88 Most modern Mormons are thoroughly ambivalent at best about the marital institution which their forebears so tenaciously defended. In principle, plural marriage is still adhered to as doctrinally correct, at least for the nineteenth-­century church (though it is not a very comfortable topic of discussion in most church circles today). In practice, however, the Latter-­day Saints take a harsh attitude toward the small schismatic groups that defiantly continue to live the doctrine of plural marriage throughout the Intermountain West.89 Such groups are, of course, a source of embarrassment to the Mormons’ rising social status and respectability.90 Practice of polygamy—even the advocacy of its practice—is instant grounds for excommunication from the mother church. What was once the definitive test of one’s commitment to the faith in the nineteenth century is now heresy.91 Baptism for the dead and celestial marriage92 are both ordinances which can only be performed in Mormon temples.93 Mormon temples are not chapels for ordinary religious services but are dedicated as places to conduct the most sacred rites and ordinances of the Latter-­day Saint religion. In addition to performing baptisms for the dead and celestial marriages, worthy members go to the temple to receive personal “endowments,” consisting of promises of both spiritual and material blessings contingent upon covenants made in the temple ritual. These include vows of sexual fidelity, obedience, and sacrifice to the kingdom of God. In many respects Mormon temples may be viewed as “micro Zions” in which the law of consecration is symbolically enacted.94 As with other ordinances, the endowment ceremony may be performed by proxy for deceased ancestors.

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Thus all ordinances associated with temple work, both for the living and the dead, are regarded by Mormons to be an essential part of the latter-­day restoration and necessary for ultimate salvation in the highest realms of the celestial kingdom.95 The Gathering

From its inception the LDS Church was, in keeping with the intense sectarian rivalry of the era, a proselytizing religion. Missionary work is legitimated by Mormons as another fundamental aspect of the restoration. It is, they believe, their duty as a covenant people to proclaim the tidings of the restored gospel throughout the world in preparation for the Second Coming. But early Mormon millennialism differed significantly from that of other evangelical Adventist groups because it did not merely seek to warn the world or win converts, but it also advertised temporal salvation through the restoration of a literal kingdom in a designated location. Mormon missionaries canvassed the eastern states and the Midwest during the first decade of the church’s existence, and in the 1840s Mormon elders competed with Millerites, Disciples, and other evangelical American sects for converts. In Great Britain, especially, the harvest was ripe, and thousands upon thousands of the working class were reaped. A large segment of these converts joined the tides of immigration to America to unite with the central body of the Latter-­day Saints.96 They were later joined by converts from other European countries, particularly from Scandinavia. In the nineteenth century converts to Mormonism were, in fact, taught the doctrine of the gathering and urged to flee from Babylon to the spiritual safety of Zion, there to materially aid in building the kingdom of God. Missionaries were commissioned to seek out and gather to Zion the pure in heart from the four corners of the earth. Arrington and Bitton cite the nineteenth-­century apostle Lorenzo Snow’s remarks on the distinctiveness of the Mormon approach: It is the same when a Sectarian minister goes to England. He knocks at a man’s door and says: “I am a missionary from America.” Well, the man on whom he calls is in distress. Says he: “I am sorry I cannot take you in; but I am in distress. It is meal time but my family has nothing to eat. I am out of employment and have nothing to

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live upon. I wish I could relieve your wants, but I have nothing with which to assist you.” “Oh,” says the minister, “you must wait upon Providence, you must have a great deal of patience and longsuffering. I am come to preach to you the gospel, and you must pray and keep praying until you think you have got a pardon of your sins; but still remain where you are. No redemption!” Well, now, that is different from the “Mormon” Elder’s manner. He presents himself in something like this way: “I have come in the name of the Almighty, in obedience to a call from God, to deliver you from your present circumstances. Repent of your sins and be baptized, and the Holy Ghost shall rest upon you, and you shall know that I have the authority to administer the ordinances of the Gospel by the power of the Almighty and the revelations of God. Gather out from this nation, for it is ripening in iniquity, there is no salvation here. Flee to a place of safety.” And as the messenger who went to Sodom said to the family whom he found there, so says the Elder of Israel, telling them, as Moses did the children of Israel, to “go to the land that the Lord God has appointed for the gathering of His people.”97

The principle of a literal gathering is no longer stressed. In fact, since almost the turn of the twentieth century, converts have been encouraged to remain at home and build up the church in their own parts of the world. The religion of the Latter-­day Saints, once deliberately parochial, has become internationalized. But the concept of a spiritual gathering is still adhered to; Mormon missionaries continue to seek and gather the “pure in heart,” which is to say those who are willing to hear and accept the claims of the church.98 Presently the Mormon Church maintains a force of over eighty-­five thousand missionaries who proselytize in more than one hundred and fifty countries, as well as throughout the United States.99 Two remaining elements in the doctrines of the gathering and restoration merit comment, namely, the gathering of Israel and the restoration of the Ten Lost Tribes. These topics again link Mormon beliefs to Christian eschatology and the millenarian tradition. An important preoccupation of millenarians in both England and America during the nineteenth century was the condition of the Jews and their readiness to return to their ancient homeland, as prophesied in

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Christian scriptures, in anticipation of Jesus’ Second Advent. Christian societies were organized to evangelize the Jews and, presumably, help bring the realization of prophecy to a speedy fulfillment. In England, for example, the London Society for Promotion of Christianity among the Jews was organized in 1809, and in 1820 the American Society for Meliorating the Condition of the Jews was formed in New York City. Such organizations not only attempted to convert the Jews to Christianity but also actively supported the cause of Zionism.100 Another prophetic puzzle of the times had to do with the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, missing from historical cognizance since the Assyrian captivity in 721 BC. Since a reappearance of the tribes was also believed to signal the Second Advent, a fair amount of speculation was stimulated as to where they might be. A good deal of conjecture centered on the American Indians as likely descendants. Mormon teachings agree with orthodox Christian beliefs that the Jews are to be returned or “gathered” to Palestine—there to dwell once more in the holy city of the Old Jerusalem, to rebuild the temple of Solomon and Herod, and finally recognize and confess that Jesus is the long-­ hoped-­for Messiah. As early as 1841 a Mormon apostle was commissioned to go to Jerusalem and there dedicate the land to the restoration of the gospel among the Jews.101 The rise of Zionism as a political force and the emergence of the Israeli state in the twentieth century have strengthened the Mormons’ confidence—indeed, the confidence of most Christian millenarians—that the world is concluding its last days as foretold by the prophets. With respect to the precise whereabouts of the Lost Tribes, Mormon tenets are not explicit. That the tribes exist—dispersed among the nations of the world—and are expected to be restored to their former status as members of the house of Israel is believed, however. In a creedal statement Joseph Smith affirmed, among other things, that “we believe in the literal gathering of Israel and in the restoration of the Ten Tribes; that Zion will be built upon this [the American] continent; that Christ will reign personally upon the earth; and that the earth will be renewed and receive its paradisiacal glory.”102 At the same time, the Mormons also confirm that Native American Indians in both North and South America are, in fact, remnants of the house of Israel. The account of their ancestors coming to the New

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World from Jerusalem in 600 BC and their subsequent religious history for the next thousand years is chronicled in the Book of Mormon. In addition to its historical narrative, the Book of Mormon also elaborates a substantial amount of Mormon theology. The themes of free will, faith, repentance, conversion, obedience, atonement, resurrection, salvation, revelation, prophecy, Christology, and the Second Coming are all woven within its pages. Another preeminent theme is contained in the promises to be fulfilled to Native Americans as part of the restoration; the Book of Mormon claims to restore knowledge of “what great things the Lord hath done for their fathers; and that they may know the covenants of the Lord, that they are not cast off forever.”103 As the restoration continues to unfold, Native Americans are promised by Mormon scripture that they will be restored to their rightful inheritance as children of Israel, partakers by birthright of the covenants of their fathers, and heirs of God’s kingdom with the saints of the latter days. Millennialism, utopianism, materialism, perfectionism, restoration, prophecy, revelation—these are the metacategories of the Mormon belief system. Within the framework of these categories specific beliefs have been elaborated, applied, altered, emphasized, and de-­emphasized in response to changing historical circumstances. In the chapters that follow we attempt to make empirical generalizations about these patterns of belief through a statistical analysis of the most salient conference rhetorical themes in different periods of Mormon history.

4

Utopia, Family, and Authority The Major Rhetorical Themes of LDS General Conferences

In the preceding two chapters we have sketched a brief chronology of Mormon history and an outline of prominent Mormon beliefs as they developed in the context of nineteenth-­and twentieth-­century American history. This review helps to make more meaningful our specific analysis and interpretation of LDS conference addresses, which constitute our primary focus in the remaining chapters. The crux of our analysis is to empirically define the categories of belief and practice most emphasized by church authorities at general conferences during different periods of Mormon history, while simultaneously attempting to understand their sociological significance in the historical development and change of Mormonism and the LDS Church. Our initial task in this chapter is simply to identify and describe the conference themes and subthemes that received the greatest amount of authoritative attention during the first one hundred fifty years of LDS church history. If general conference is the important socializing agent we believe it to be, and if our procedures for extracting conference content are as valid as we hope, then we should expect that many of the central Mormon doctrines and concerns previously summarized will emerge as the rhetorical themes most favored by conference speakers in different periods over this initially selected span of LDS development.

70

Utopia, Family, and Authority 71

As we shall see, certain conference themes were highly dominant during the early periods of Mormon history, only to fade into relative obscurity during later periods. Other themes have become ascendant only in more recent times. Yet other conference topics have been consistently salient during every period of Mormon history. We shall try to comprehend the significance of these thematic constants and variables as revealed in the historical record of general conference proceedings. The basic premise of our analysis is that patterns of conference emphasis are correlated with the institutionalization of the LDS Church, and that from these patterns we may learn something about the way the religion has both changed and been preserved.

Analysis Considerations A full account of the procedures followed in our content analysis of conference documents is given in a methodological appendix (Appendix A). For the general reader not interested in the technical details, we simply say here that our basic approach for analyzing the documents in our original survey of LDS change (from 1830 through 1979) was to systematically record the themes and subthemes that appeared in each paragraph of each address sampled from the conference record. All of the themes identified in a given address generated scores based on the number of paragraphs in which each theme appeared, divided by the total number of paragraphs in the address. We called this ratio of theme frequency to paragraph units a salience score. Salience scores provide us with a measure of the relative emphasis given by speakers to a wide range of specific conference themes. In order to examine patterns of theme emphasis for different periods of time, we employed statistical techniques for aggregating individual salience scores. (Our somewhat different methodology for analyzing and scoring the most recent period of LDS conference addresses—from 1980 through 2009—is summarized in Chapter 9.) The purpose of any statistical analysis is to simplify a set of data in order to make it more intelligible. Simplification is always gained at the expense of detail. The question of how much detail to ignore in order to obtain useful statistical summaries is difficult and ultimately arbitrary. We

72  CHAPTER 4

cannot realistically describe, in all the rich detail that it merits, the outcome of our content analysis of conference addresses that spanned one hundred and fifty years of Mormon history for our original book (now expanded by an additional thirty years in this volume). We have had to make several arbitrary but necessary decisions regarding the statistical simplification of our data. One basic analysis decision concerns the designation of different units of time to represent the historical periods that we wish to compare. Initially we computed salience scores for every topic addressed at general conference by decades. In our original plan for the book, this gave us fifteen different units of time to judge the relative emphasis placed on various conference themes. Ultimately, however, by the time the first edition was published, we had decided to reduce our findings to a more manageable format by condensing decades into five 30-­year periods: 1830–1859; 1860–1889; 1890–1919; 1920–1949; and 1950–1979. Though somewhat arbitrary, the division of time is not entirely a matter of statistical convenience or whimsy. Thirty years may be taken to represent a traditional generation, and the five generational periods thus defined are meaningful in light of major episodes in Mormon history. The period 1830–1859 roughly corresponds to Mormonism’s formative years: its origin in New York State; its migrations to Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois; the final migration to Utah; and the initial settlement of the Great Basin region. During most of this period the Latter-­day Saints were preoccupied with securing a sanctuary for their religious community. For a second generation of Mormons, the period 1860–1889 came to be dominated by their struggle to preserve the Mormon commonwealth and the theocratic principles on which it was based against the intrusion of the outside world, especially from the United States government. The period 1890–1919—encompassing the Mormon capitulation to federal authority and the subsequent years of accommodation and adjustment—bridges nineteenth-­century Mormonism with its modern counterpart. By 1920 the mutual and oftentimes ferocious animosity between Mormons and non-­ Mormons, which had characterized the experience of roughly three generations, was virtually at an end. Fourth-­and fifth-­generation Mormons (and now sixth) have found themselves in the position of belonging to a rapidly growing religious minority that has become increasingly well integrated into American society.

Score

0.114

0.108

0.093

0.091

0.077

0.064

0.060

0.057

0.051

Kingdom of God

Joseph Smith

Persecution

Church Gov.

Priesthood

Obedience

Enemies

Zion

Missionary Work

0.135

Knowledge

Enemies

God’s Will

Gentiles

Joseph Smith

Plural Marriage

Obedience

Kingdom of God

L. D. Saints

Persecution

0.060

0.061

0.063

0.068

0.076

0.079

0.080

0.151

0.159

0.161

Score

1860–1889

1830–1859

L. D. Saints

II

I

Prophets

Church Divinity

Gospel

Blessings

Priesthood

Parenthood

Joseph Smith

Obedience

Missionary Work

L. D. Saints

1890–1919

III

Score

0.056

0.063

0.063

0.067

0.068

0.070

0.081

0.083

0.091

0.183

Score

0.041

0.042

0.050

0.057

0.061

0.066

0.091

Restoration

Word of Wisdom

0.035

0.036

Church Reputation 0.039

Prophet(s)

Jesus Christ

Gospel

Obedience

L. D. Saints

Joseph Smith

Missionary Work

1920–1949

IV

TA BLE 4.1. MOR MONISM’S TEN MOST SA LIEN T CONFER ENCE THE M ES FOR E ACH THIRT Y-Y E A R PER IOD, 1830 –1979

Score

0.032 0.032

Knowledge

0.033

0.034

0.042

0.041

0.049

0.049

0.059

0.057

0.104

Church Growth

Gospel

Family

Priesthood

Marriage

Obedience

Prophet(s)

Parenthood

Missionary Work

Jesus Christ

1950–1979

V

74  CHAPTER 4

Extending into the twenty-­first century, the most recent generation of Mormon history has witnessed a massive increase in missionary numbers and the maturation of the LDS Church as an international actor in the world’s religious economy (the institutional implications of which we consider in the book’s final chapter). Thus the periods of conference history after 1920 are not as easily characterized by dramatic conflicts as were earlier periods. It is, in fact, the relative lack of intense conflict with outside groups that, in large part, typifies the differences between early Mormonism and the contemporary church. In addition to designating different units of time, we also limited our concentration to particular conference themes while neglecting others. Of all the many topics addressed by Mormon leaders at general conference, which have been consistently most salient in different historical periods? For reasons of economy and comprehension we decided to focus only on the ten most salient general themes addressed in each thirty-­year period of conference history from 1830 through 1979. (For the most recent period—1980 through 2009, which we review in Chapter 9—we identify the twenty most salient conference themes.) The first five generations of salient conference themes are shown in Table 4.1. It should be noted that in our analysis general themes were typically indicated by a number of related subthemes, aggregated together. All of the subthemes that we associated with more general themes have been scored and organized in Appendix C. Our overall description and interpretation of the general themes that follow are, in fact, largely constructed on the basis of our statistical analysis of related subthemes. Once we identify the most salient themes in particular generational periods, we can observe the thematic conference history of each by charting its relative rise and fall over time. To facilitate visualizing these patterns, we have reorganized the simple rank ordering of salient conference topics shown in Table 4.1 into a new order that highlights the way these topics tend to cluster across comparative generations. Thus, Table 4.2 reveals the following major groupings. (1) Those themes that were highly prominent during early periods of Mormon history but which are no longer stressed are shown. As a general category, the first seven themes listed in Table 4.2 emphasize early Mormon exclusiveness and utopian strivings. (2) Those themes which were not emphasized in earlier periods but which have emerged in modern times are outlined. The last six themes presented

Utopia, Family, and Authority 75

in Table 4.2 are of this type; taken as a whole, they suggest a merger between Mormon ideals and American middle-­class values of acceptance and respectability. (3) Finally, highlighted are those themes that have remained more or less constant in their salience during all or most periods of conference history. This latter category consists of the largest clustering of themes in the center of Table 4.2; these are rhetorical themes that insist on the ultimate authority and truth claims made by the LDS Church.

The Utopian Complex of Mormonism Past Salient conference themes that most clearly belong to a past era include church government, kingdom of God, Zion, plural marriage, persecution, enemies, and gentiles. Church Government For the first time in my life, for the first time in your lives, for the first time in the Kingdom of God in the 19th century, without a Prophet at our head, do I step forth to act in my calling in connection with the Quorum of the Twelve, as Apostles of Jesus Christ unto this generation—Apostles whom God has called by revelation through the Prophet Joseph, who are ordained and anointed to bear off the keys of the Kingdom of God in all the world . . . Twelve are appointed by the finger of God. Here is Brigham, have his knees ever faltered? Have his lips ever quivered? Here is Heber and the rest of the Twelve, an independent body who have the keys to the priesthood—the keys of the Kingdom of God to deliver to all the world . . . They stand next to Joseph, and are as the First Presidency of the Church . . . Brother Joseph, the Prophet, has laid the foundation for a great work, and we will build upon it; you have never seen the quorums built one upon another. There is an almighty foundation laid, and we can build a kingdom such as there never was in the world. —Brigham Young, Special Conference, August 1844

The general topic of church government includes such matters as the duties and authority of the various ecclesiastical offices in the church hierarchy, particularly of general authorities, and the institutional procedures for

TA BLE 4. 2. MOR MONISM’S MOST SA LIEN T CONFER ENCE THE M ES, 1830 –1979 (PA R EN THESIZED VA LUES W I THIN COLUM NS = R A N K OF THE M E SA LIENCE)

 

RHETORICAL THEMES

I

II

III

IV

V

1830–1859

1860–1889

1890–1919

1920–1949

1950–1979

A. Utopian Church Government

0.091

(5)

0.053

0.040

0.005

0.007

Enemies

0.060

(8)

0.061

(9)

0.035

0.005

0.002

Gentiles

0.038

0.068

(7)

0.001

0.000

0.000

Kingdom of God

0.114

(2)

0.151

(3)

0.029

0.004

0.010

Persecution

0.093

(4)

0.161

(1)

0.040

0.009

0.004

Plural Marriage

0.003

0.079

(5)

0.020

0.007

0.000

Zion

0.057

0.058

0.047

0.002

0.001

(9)

B.Authority/Legitimacy Blessings

0.017

0.047

0.067

(7)

0.026

0.031

Church Divinity

0.038

0.051

0.063

(8)

0.033

0.026

God’s Will

0.037

0.063

Gospel

0.018

0.056

0.063

Jesus Christ

0.036

0.022

0.050

Joseph Smith

0.108

(8)

(3)

0.076

(6)

0.024

0.081

0.017 (8)

0.026

0.050

(5)

0.033

(9)

0.042

(6)

0.104

(1)

(4)

0.066

(2)

0.023

Knowledge

0.016

0.060

(10)

0.037

L. D. Saints

0.135

(1)

0.159

(2)

0.183

(1)

0.061

(3)

0.022

Missionary Work

0.051

(10)

0.045

0.091

(2)

0.091

(1)

0.059

(2)

Obedience

0.064

(7)

0.080

0.083

(3)

0.057

(4)

0.049

(5)

(6)

(4)

0.025

0.032

(10)

Priesthood

0.077

0.042

0.068

(6)

0.024

0.041

(7)

Prophets

0.041

0.052

0.056

(10)

0.042

(7)

0.049

(4)

Restoration

0.017

0.049

0.048

0.035

(10)

0.024

Family

0.010

0.006

0.018

0.011

0.034

(8)

Marriage

0.004

0.020

0.015

0.005

0.042

(6)

C. Family/Respectability

Parenthood

0.013

0.048

0.070

0.020

0.057

(3)

Church Growth

0.016

0.005

0.016

(5)

0.033

0.032

(10)

Church Reputation

0.004

0.008

0.034

0.039

(8)

0.016

Word of Wisdom

0.019

0.026

0.033

0.036

(9)

0.011

Utopia, Family, and Authority 77

governing the church. These themes were relatively persistent for three generations, especially during the first thirty years of Mormon history. They include: the tasks of generating commitment to a new religious order and laying the institutional foundation for the continuity of the movement; the frequent challenges to Joseph Smith’s authority; the early schisms; the crisis of succession at the time of Smith’s assassination; the struggle for control of the church; and the apostles’ need to legitimate their claims of authority (and subsequently, Brigham Young’s need to do the same). All these particular issues reflect some of the critical collective experiences that combined to make the theme of church government an ascendant conference topic during the period 1830–1859. Over the next thirty years the authority of church officials was subjected to the challenge of several additional schisms and to the growing pressure of secular power in opposition to Mormon theocracy and the practice of polygamy. Also, the current procedure for succession in the First Presidency was not thoroughly institutionalized until 1898 and thus was a topic of considerable concern for almost sixty years.1 Once Mormonism passed through the transition from despised, heretical sect to a more or less respectable religious minority (beginning after the turn of the twentieth century), questions of church governance and procedure have become less urgent, more taken for granted, and have thus receded greatly in conference emphasis.2 Zion and the Kingdom of God Without Zion, and a place of deliverance, we must fall . . . and none can escape except the pure in heart who are gathered. —Joseph Smith, April Conference, 1834 We know that the kingdom of God, which is established among us, will continue to spread until it covers the earth. —John Taylor, April Conference, 1866

In addition to the question of legitimate authority, the topic of church government in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was inseparably linked to the theme of the kingdom of God on earth. Submission to the theocratic rule of the kingdom of God essentially meant submission to the

78  CHAPTER 4

rule of church government. In turn, the kingdom of God and the Mormons’ concept of Zion go hand in hand. Both of these themes were among the most prominent conference topics from 1830–1889, and both continued to be somewhat emphasized during the transition period of 1890–1919. Ultimately both themes suffered a dramatic decline in emphasis during the subsequent years of conference history, especially explicit references to materially building and gathering to Zion. Major subthemes of the kingdom of God stressed during the nineteenth century reveal a conspicuous eschatological strain (i.e., establishment of God’s kingdom in the last days and the anticipated submission of all nations to its authority), emphasis on the sacrifices required in building up the kingdom, and emphasis on the kingdom’s temporal or material features rather than its spiritual aspects. In the period coinciding with Mormonism’s protracted struggle with the federal government (1860–1889), a great deal of stress by conference speakers was centered on reinforcing faith in the kingdom’s ultimate triumph over the secular forces and contentious religious antagonists aligned against it. In parallel fashion, among the most common Zion themes dwelt on at conference was the Saints’ sacred duty to build Zion—a separate and holy community safe from the contaminating evils of the world. During the first thirty years of conference history the “redemption of Zion” (i.e., recovery of Mormon properties, including a designated temple site in Missouri, and return of the Latter-­day Saints to repossess the lands of their promised inheritance) was a favored subtheme with definite eschatological implications (the eventual return to Missouri was expected to herald the Second Advent of the Messiah). For a second generation of Saints, emphasis was changed from the nominal redemption of Zion in Jackson County, Missouri (though this still received attention) to identification of Zion as at least temporarily located in the Rocky Mountains, Mormonism’s new center and gathering place. Plural Marriage We cannot withdraw or renounce it [plural marriage]. God revealed it, and He has promised to maintain it, and to bless those who obey it. —Epistle of the First Presidency, October Conference, 1885

Utopia, Family, and Authority 79

Authorities of this Church under the administration of Heber J. Grant as President, have never taught, have never encouraged, have never sustained any human being in entering pretended plural marriage. —Heber J. Grant, April Conference, 1932

Although it was the most famous of all Mormon heresies, plural marriage or polygamy3 was an ascendant conference topic for only a single generation. It was not until the federal government began legislating against polygamy in the 1860s that Mormon leaders speaking at general conference began to make a concerted defense of both the doctrine and its practice. First and foremost plural marriage was justified as a divine commandment on which the Latter-­day Saints’ personal salvation depended and which could not be set aside without violating God’s will. The morality, blessings, and advantages of plural marriage also were expounded (as opposed, for example, to the presumed promiscuity and infidelity promoted in monogamous societies). Thus, not only was the righteousness of the Latter-­day Saints defended but also the unrighteousness and hypocrisy of their adversaries were counter proclaimed. Government interference with Mormon marital practices was denounced as an abridgment of religious freedom, and anti-­ polygamy laws were repudiated from the pulpit as unconstitutional. This defiant stance continued until the Woodruff manifesto of 1890, at which time official church sanction of plural marriage was withdrawn. From this point on, preoccupation with the topic of polygamy as a public conference theme dwindled rapidly, especially after the turn of the twentieth century. What discussion there was of the subject by conference speakers in this period was primarily devoted to rationalizing the church’s abandonment of the practice and urging compliance by a new generation of members to the norms of monogamy.4 Polygamy was the most sensationalized feature of Mormon theocracy, part of a larger complex of utopianism framed by LDS conceptions of Zion and the kingdom of God. This utopian complex stressed at general conference during the first two generations of Mormon history was precisely what polarized Mormons and non-­Mormons. As long as these were the most conspicuous themes of the community, isolation, exclusiveness, and conflict with outside groups were the common fare, and corresponding conference themes of gentiles, enemies, and persecution were equally prominent.

80  CHAPTER 4

Gentiles, Enemies, and Persecution I would rather go and kill wolves in the forests and mountains, and skin them and tan their skins and wear wolf skin pantaloons, and wolf skin coats and vests, and have everything I wear the skin of beasts, than spend one dime with one outsider in the Territory of Utah. —Orson Pratt, October Conference, 1868 This which we are now passing through is religious persecution and nothing else . . . Men are beginning to understand the motives and objects of those who are engaged in it, and history will set its seal of condemnation upon it and them. —Epistle of the First Presidency, April Conference, 1886

For nineteenth-­century Latter-­day Saints, “gentile” was the collective label they employed to categorize virtually all outsiders: nonmembers and nonbelievers, critics and antagonists. As such, gentiles were scarcely discernible from avowed enemies, for both opposed the kingdom of God. The period of greatest conference reaction toward gentiles was 1860–1889 when Mormon leaders tried to preserve the self-­sufficiency and autonomy of their mountain kingdom by urging the boycott of gentile businesses throughout the Utah territory. When discoursing directly about their enemies, Mormon authorities commonly excoriated what they viewed as lies circulated to poison public opinion against the church and gave frequent reassurances of God’s protection of his covenant people. During the first thirty years of Mormon history (a period featuring armed conflicts with mobs and militia in Missouri and Illinois, and the Utah War against the U.S. Army in 1857–1858), conference speakers were more prone to advocate for physical self-­defense of the Latter-­day Saints against their enemies than during the following thirty years (1860–1989), a period that showed a stronger fatalistic tendency, with leaders emphasizing patience and faith in God’s ultimate protection. All three themes of gentiles, enemies, and persecution reached their zenith during the period 1860–1889, especially persecution, which was the single-­most salient conference topic of that generation. From 1830–1859 “gentiles” were identified as the Saints’ major persecutors, and a catalog

Utopia, Family, and Authority 81

of reasons rationalizing their persecution was developed that emphasized the obligation of martyrdom to which God’s people are subject: as fulfillment of God’s plan, as a test, and as a witness to truth. During the period 1860–1889 it was the United States government, rather than gentiles in general, that was perceived as the prime tormentor of the Mormon people. To the themes of testing and martyrdom were added frequent assertions that persecution was an ultimately futile means by which to attack God’s work, and that its primary consequence was to merely strengthen the resolve of the faithful. In the aftermath of the 1890 Woodruff manifesto, which signaled formal abandonment of the earthly practice of polygamy, the U.S. government was no longer singled out by conference speakers as persecutors of the church. The apparent defeat of the church by its enemies was again rationalized as a test, as part of God’s foreordained plan. Adverse emphasis on gentiles plummeted immediately after the manifesto, but the themes of enemies and persecution continued to be fairly common topics for another generation. After 1920, however, neither these nor any of the other topics of the Mormon utopian complex received major attention at general conferences of the LDS Church. They have been largely forsaken and replaced by other themes less repugnant to the values of contemporary American society.5

Respectability and the Family Complex of Modern Mormonism Major conference themes that have become more popular in modern periods of Mormon history reflect an accentuated interest in promoting the respectability of the church and its members. These themes include increasing concern for reputation and publicity, church growth, and the related topics of spiritual and physical health through observance of the Word of Wisdom and, especially, the closely related topics of family, marriage, and parenthood. Church Reputation, the Word of Wisdom, and Church Growth Wherever I have traveled . . . I have found a feeling of respect . . . in the hearts of many for the Latter-­day Saints . . . of those not of our faith.

82  CHAPTER 4

I heard many very splendid compliments . . . by members of the President’s cabinet, by senators and representatives, and by officials of the government in the Federal Reserve banking departments. —Heber J. Grant, April Conference, 1920 We now have members of the church in sixty-­six countries, and we teach . . . congregations in South America, the Orient, the South Seas, South Africa, Europe, and many other places—and we bring in great numbers of people. —Spencer W. Kimball, April Conference, 1976

Prior to its capitulation to federal power in the 1890s, the LDS Church maintained a defiant attitude toward the outside world and its opinions. It mattered not what the world thought of the Latter-­day Saints—they believed they were God’s people, doing God’s will, persecuted for their steadfast commitment to the truth by corrupt and evil foes. Beginning in the transition period of 1890–1919, and especially in the subsequent generation of 1920–1949, conference speakers showed a much greater concern for Mormons’ rising social status and respectability vis-­à-­v is public opinion. Favorable impressions and comments about the church and its programs made by important non-­Mormon figures were basked in, church-­sponsored activities that reflected favorable publicity on the faithful were recounted, and the socially recognized and praiseworthy accomplishments of the church and its representatives were duly celebrated. One good example of the Mormons’ publicly valued image is that of a clean-­living, healthy people who don’t smoke tobacco or drink alcohol, coffee, or tea.6 These substance prohibitions are, of course, incorporated in the Mormon dietary law known as the Word of Wisdom, as discussed in Chapter 3. Observance of this health code has, in the public mind, become one of the most indelible of contemporary Mormon images. Although observance of the Word of Wisdom has been urged during all periods of Mormon history, insistence on strict adherence as a requisite for full member status only emerged after the turn of the twentieth century.7 Furthermore, modern conference speakers have been much more inclined, when addressing this topic, to exploit the public relations potential of the Mormons’ health code by citing comparative health statistics and contemporary

Utopia, Family, and Authority 83

scientific findings that corroborate the validity of revealed truth. Interestingly enough, the pattern of rhetorical salience for the Word of Wisdom is a virtual mirror image of the salience pattern for church reputation commencing in the early decades of the twentieth century, both themes reaching their zenith as the ninth and eighth most salient conference concerns, respectively, during the period 1920–1949—arguably the most self-­ consciously modern generation in twentieth-­century Mormon history.8 Hand in hand with the modern concern for the LDS Church’s public image is a kind of self-­congratulatory pride in the rapid rate of church growth. Such growth means, among other things, increasing worldly acceptance. Of particular significance is the emphasis placed by conference speakers since the Second World War on membership growth in foreign lands (a major trend that has become even more pronounced in the twenty-­first century).9 This is in distinct contrast to the nineteenth-­century themes of building Zion on the American continent and the doctrine of the gathering, which encourage foreign immigration and the concentration of Latter-­day Saints in a single, self-­sufficient commonwealth. Mormon leaders now promote the church’s international status as a respectable member of the world community. Family and Marriage The family is the most important organization in time or in eternity. Our purpose in life is to create for ourselves eternal family units. —Joseph Fielding Smith, April Conference, 1972 There should be total chastity of men and women before marriage and total fidelity in marriage. —Spencer W. Kimball, October Conference, 1975

Just as a number of overlapping topics emphasized in nineteenth-­century conferences coalesced to form a utopian complex, so too in recent decades we see the emerging salience of topics that revolve around a central theme of family life. The family as a basic social unit only began receiving prominent attention by LDS conference speakers after World War II. The cognate themes of marriage and especially parenthood have received somewhat

84  CHAPTER 4

more attention in other periods as well. Together the topics of family, marriage, and parenthood clearly represent a major preoccupation of contemporary leaders at general conferences of the LDS Church.10 Today the Mormon nuclear family, rather than Zion or the kingdom of God, has become the major sociological frame of reference for conference speakers. The LDS Church is portrayed by its leaders as serving the basic needs of the family, and the family in turn is defined as the foundational unit of the church. Traditional family life—in which the father is provider and head of the house, the mother bears and nurtures children, children respect and obey their parents, and parents strive to set a proper example for their children—is idealized and legitimated as a divine institution that must be strengthened as a bulwark against the disintegrating forces and immoralities of the modern age. Sexual immorality is perceived as a prime evil to be guarded against, and the expectations of marriage—particularly an LDS temple marriage—have been more strongly emphasized, beginning in the 1950s, than in any previous conference generation. Temple marriage is, of course, a powerful mechanism of religious endogamy and commitment to the faith. Both marriage partners must be members of the church in good standing before they can be sealed in the eternal covenant of celestial marriage. Temple vows are expected to fortify the family against the dissolution of divorce, and the importance of maintaining strong marital ties has become a common theme in contemporary LDS conferences. Conspicuous by their relative absence in our conference data up to 1979 are direct references to feminist issues of gender inequality, both in and out of the church. For the most part conference speakers have simply reiterated customary beliefs that legitimate traditional gender roles in a patriarchal family and religious system. While a small group of articulate Mormon women—in resonance with the national feminist movement of the 1970s—began to address the issues of sexual inequality from a Mormon perspective, male LDS authorities at general conference did not.11 Parenthood Many of the children, whose parents have neglected to teach them in their childhood, will grow up . . . indifferent to the work of God. It

Utopia, Family, and Authority 85

is the duty of Latter-­day Saints to teach their children the truth, to bring them up in the way they should go, to teach them in the first principles of the Gospel. —Joseph F. Smith, April Conference, 1912

The duties of parenthood have received off-­and-­on attention as conference themes during much of Mormon history, but particularly began to be emphasized, relative to other themes, in the 1950s. It is the prominent combination of parenthood themes with those of marriage and family in the last several generations of LDS history that is distinctive. Parenthood has been defined by conference speakers as parents’ religious obligation to teach their children the principles of the restored gospel. Conference attention to the responsibilities of parental teaching was unremarkable during the formative period of Mormon history. As a rule the problems of cultural transmission and continuity do not become pressing for newly formed religious groups unless they last long enough for a new generation to arise. As this happens, we expect to see growing concern for proper indoctrination of the young. In fact, we do see increased attention given to the topic of parenthood in the second generation of LDS conference history (1860–1889). During the transition period that followed (1890–1919), parenthood themes received major conference emphasis. This was a time of considerable insecurity for the church. The Latter-­day Saints were exposed to the humiliation of being forced to compromise basic religious values which they had long defended and, having compromised, their children—now more than ever—would be subject to skepticism and worldly alternatives. Having finally made peace with the legal and political requirements of American society, the church’s greatest challenge was to modify its direction while maintaining the faith and commitment of future generations of LDS youth.12 Hence, we see Mormon leaders responding at general conference by instructing parents more frequently in their primary duties as religious teachers of their own children. (Not to be overlooked is that by being urged to teach the rudiments of the faith to their children, parents’ own religious commitments are, consequently, also reinforced.) This emphasis declined during the period 1920–1949 but reemerged with renewed intensity following the Second World War to become part of a definite complex

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of themes that exalted the role of the nuclear family in the religious life of the Latter-­day Saints. In contrast to the opprobrium generated by its nineteenth-­century utopian ideals, the LDS Church’s contemporary emphasis on the family and the many programs it promotes for strengthening traditional family unity is eminently respectable; it has become a fixture of modern Mormonism’s generally conservative public image. For both Mormons and non-­Mormons alike, the public image of radical nineteenth-­century Mormonism has given way to one of a wholesome and socially conservative group of people who, in practicing their religion, prize and implement traditional family values.

Legitimations of Authority and Exclusive Truth Our statistical analysis of conference addresses shows a major transition in rhetoric from defiance and utopian themes in the earlier periods of Mormon history to respectability and conservative family themes in more recent times. These rhetorical changes correspond with a transformation in Mormonism’s relationship to the world both as a religious and cultural system. But our data also show the relative persistence of more than a dozen conference topics in most, if not all, periods of Mormon history. The majority of these thematic constants reflect the fundamental rhetorical legitimations for Mormon beliefs and institutions. They reveal, in spite of major accommodations to the political and economic demands of American society (not to mention the denominational norms of the American religious economy), the LDS Church’s essentially sectarian commitment to belief in its proprietary possession of exclusive religious truth and authority. These latter themes include, in order of our discussion, the following topics: God’s plan, Latter-­day Saints, missionary work, the gospel, restoration and divinity of the church, blessings, priesthood, Joseph Smith, prophets, obedience, knowledge, and Jesus Christ. God’s Plan and the Latter-­day Saints The servants of God must be armed with righteousness, and with the power of the Almighty . . . They [the nations] will muster their forces and try to destroy the Saints of the living God . . . There is no

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possibility of the wicked triumphing over this Latter-­day Kingdom. There may be many who will have to suffer. —Orson Pratt, April Conference, 1860

As I think of the wonderful prosperity of the Latter-­day Saints . . . of what they are accomplishing, and of the respect that is being shown them today . . . I certainly feel to thank the Lord for all of his mercies and blessings to us. —Heber J. Grant, October Conference, 1919 Most Western religious traditions either postulate the existence of a transcendent God who is concerned with and capable of intervention in human affairs or at least assume the operation of divinely ordained forces that guide human history toward some ultimate purpose.13 Millennial Christianity in all its contending guises—including, of course, Mormonism’s own theodicy of the latter days—is an example par excellence of this basic attitude. In particular, the LDS Church’s sectarian stance regarding its own divine origins, mission, and institutional programs greatly intensifies the conviction that God’s hand is present in all that happens. Indeed, the restored church, through its prophetic guidance and priesthood authority, is conceived of by Mormons as the principal earthly agency for implementing God’s designs and accomplishing his purposes. Thus all Mormon experience—past, present, tragic, triumphant, or compromised—is justified, recast, and understood as the necessary expression of God’s own unfolding plan.14 Our conference data confirm that Mormon leaders have consistently interpreted church history and current events within the context of a divine plan, resorting also to a variety of relevant subthemes including God’s will, God’s intervention, and his promises to and assistance of the Latter-­day Saints. Rhetoric regarding God’s plan was greatest during the period 1860– 1889, precisely when a new generation of Saints had more reason than ever to wonder how their own collective experiences as a despised, religious minority might soon culminate in God’s ultimate purpose. While conference emphasis on the Latter-­day Saints’ specific relationship to God’s plan has diminished somewhat in modern times, this, nevertheless, is a theme that remains central to Mormonism’s definition of itself.

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Thus, for the first one hundred and twenty years of Mormon history, rhetoric centering on the explicit status of Mormons as the Latter-­day Saints (or Saints) was always among the three most prominent themes emphasized by speakers at general conference. The notion of being Latter-­day Saints implies a corporate identification as God’s covenant people—including a favored relationship with God, special obligations and blessings as an elect community, and, in fact, a divinely appointed mission to carry out God’s plans for the world in the last days. Sociologically, group identification with a divine mission is commonly associated with high levels of group commitment, solidarity, exclusiveness, and relative intolerance of alternative systems. Though it continued to receive a fair amount of attention in the post–World War II period (1950– 1979), the chosen people concept implicit in the designation of Latter-­Day Saints suffered a relative decline in popularity as a conference theme. It could be argued that the latter result indicated the beginning of a trend away from Mormon exclusivity claims, a question we consider further in subsequent chapters. But taken in historical perspective it is clear that the Saints’ insistence that they are a divinely commissioned group has been a prominent and persistent theme linking the attitudes of modern Mormons with their nineteenth-­century progenitors. Gradual changes in the ways conference speakers characteristically express the elect status of the Latter-­day Saints have occurred, however, as the church emerged from its nineteenth-­century conflicts into the modern era. For example, references to Mormon suffering and hardships and to God’s protection of his people were salient during the first several generations of Mormon history and are correlated with that era’s utopian motifs. As the rhetoric of combative defensiveness and martyrdom declined following the relaxation of theocratic rule, the rhetoric of self-­congratulation appears to have increased in relative importance as a mode of Mormon group identification. Thus, in the transition period of 1890–1919, the theme of “Latter-­day Saints” was by far the single-­most salient conference topic, but emphasis on their suffering and hardships began to be replaced by emphasis on their blessings, special virtues, and elevated status in the sight of God. It would appear, then, that during a time of defeat and adjustment, Mormon leaders increasingly attempted to maintain group identity by stressing themes that stimulated a sense of gratitude and moral fitness.

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In short, reassurances were given that the Saints remained God’s chosen people, even though they had been forced to compromise the faith. Their blessings and virtues, along with their divinely appointed mission to the world, have subsequently been stressed much more than perils confronting them or their need for divine protection. Missionary Work If the work rolls forth with the same rapidity it has heretofore done, we may soon expect to see flocking to this place, people from every land . . . who shall worship the Lord of Hosts in His holy temple. —Report of the First Presidency, October Conference, 1840 We explained to them [foreign leaders] that our missionaries not only brought into their countries American dollars but became ambassadors for the country where they served. They develop a great loyalty and love for the country, and they teach the new members to be loyal and upright and full of integrity. —Spencer W. Kimball, October Conference, 1975

The millennialism implicit in the designation of Latter-­day Saints is linked in both the past and present to Mormon missionary efforts. The Saints’ chief task as God’s end-­time agents is generally understood by them to mean preparing the world for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ by converting worthy souls to the restored church. As a conference topic the importance of missionary work has been stressed in all periods of Mormon history, but especially since commencement of the twentieth century when, during the three generations between 1890 and 1980, it ranked between first and third in conference salience.15 In earlier periods of Mormon history, missionary recruitment meant religious conversion plus migration and active participation in the building of a new social order and was thus a key aspect of the original Mormon utopian impulse. With the end of Mormon economic and political theocracy in the Utah Territory around the turn of the twentieth century, the spiritual rather than material preparation of the world through missionary efforts has been emphasized. In practice this means winning converts by

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persuading people to change their personal habits in compliance with LDS standards, accept the authority of the church and its priesthood leadership, and devote their personal resources to church programs—wherever their place of residence in the world—without setting them at odds with existing social institutions or established forms of government. The most favored subtheme of missionary rhetoric in the twentieth century through 1979 was the progress and productivity of missionary efforts. This emphasis correlates with the self-­conscious attention given to advances in church growth discussed earlier, reflecting the church’s growing worldly success. In this sense the major function of Mormon missionary work has undergone a transformation from mechanism of utopian change to a mechanism of organizational growth, respectability, and social accommodation. The systematic rationalization of missionary work in an effort to make it a more productive tool of both conversions and goodwill began in earnest after World War II. From that time forward, conference rhetoric on missionary work displayed concern for the spiritual preparation and training of missionaries and their personal growth and faith-­promoting experiences. Emphasis was also given to the development of various member missionary programs that promote the lay responsibility of each church member for sharing the gospel with friends and associates.16 The Gospel Do you love the cause? . . . What the devil is the reason, then, you don’t live according to it? What keeps you from that? —Brigham Young, October Conference, 1852 The gospel is our anchor . . . If we live it and feel it . . . we shall feel happier . . . The duty devolves upon each of us to proclaim that good news every day of our lives . . . in our acts. —David O. McKay, April Conference, 1968

Missionary work and the Mormons’ conception of the restored gospel are closely aligned. “The gospel” (a generic Christian label for the good news of Christ’s saving ministry) provides Mormons with a summary term that refers to all aspects of their own religious belief system, which they take to

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express the theological foundations of the true and restored church of Jesus Christ. The Latter-­day Saints concede that other religious systems have elements of truth, but all of them are regarded as incomplete; ultimate salvation and spiritual progress depend on conversion to the LDS Church. Thus, when Mormons speak of the gospel, what they have in mind is their definition of the restored gospel, the full gospel, the One True Unified Gospel of Jesus Christ as distinct from other incomplete and ultimately invalid versions of Christianity. For Mormons, like evangelical Christians, righteous possession of the truth entails the responsibility of offering it to others; accepting the truth entails conversion to the LDS Church. This has been the basic rationale for Mormon missionary work in both the past and present centuries. It is a recruitment rationale shared with other religious traditions that lay claims to exclusive truth. Conference references to the gospel as an entire religious way of life have been common throughout Mormon history. Today, however, emphasis on living the gospel has become the functional equivalent for Latter-­day Saints of building the kingdom of God so strongly urged in the nineteenth century. For the first three generations of Mormon history the most common conference subtheme associated with the gospel was the preaching of restored gospel truth to all nations of the earth. This may be regarded primarily as an expression of Mormon eschatology. Similar to evangelical Christians, Mormons believe that preaching the restored gospel is a process that must be accomplished in the last days prior to Christ’s Second Coming. Over the past four generations this particular conference subtheme has declined dramatically in emphasis, as have most other topics with LDS eschatological or millennial implications. Another gospel subtheme with diminishing rhetorical salience in conference sermons concerns the consequences of rejecting the LDS gospel message. In the nineteenth century, to reject the truth as conveyed by the Lord’s appointed servants suggested more than obstinacy or ignorance but was often construed as opposition based on Satan’s efforts to thwart the latter-­day restoration of Christ’s church. However, it is highly uncommon for contemporary Mormon leaders to express these kinds of sentiments at general conference. Instead, the happiness and well-­being that come from living or applying gospel standards in everyday life are typically stressed. Non-­Mormons are invited from the pulpit to investigate and

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test the Mormon way of life but are not threatened with the wrath of God should they fail to convert. The positive consequences of accepting rather than the negative results of rejecting the restored gospel are emphasized. The failure of members to live the gospel, however, is still publicly reproved by conference speakers. Restoration and the True Church The Church of Jesus Christ has again and for the last time, been set up and made the depository of God’s truth. —Brigham H. Roberts, April Conference, 1930 The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-­day Saints is literally the authorized kingdom of God upon the earth today . . . the Lord Jesus Christ himself stands at the head of this church. —Spencer W. Kimball, April Conference, 1976

In the Mormon lexicon, the organizational counterpart to the restored gospel is the restored church. In the same way that they believe there is only one true gospel, Mormons also believe that there can be only one true church, which is organized to facilitate the realization of gospel principles in people’s lives. As a social organization the LDS Church is conceived by its members as a divine institution whose lay ecclesiastical structure and institutional programs are the result of revelation from God to their prophet leaders. While our conference-­coding scheme differentiates between restoration and church divinity themes, these are intrinsically related ideas in Mormon teachings. It is not surprising, therefore, that the salience patterns of both themes are very similar—indeed, they achieved virtually identical scores during three of five designated time periods referenced in our original survey. The persistent emphasis on restoration and church divinity during virtually all periods of conference history is undoubtedly connected to their thematic value as key legitimations for the active participation requirements that the LDS Church imposes on its lay membership. It is interesting to note that the period when affirmation of church divinity was greatest was the generation following the official discontinuation of polygamy proclaimed by the Woodruff manifesto of 1890. This

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finding is consistent with others already discussed, revealing the efforts made by Mormon authorities to preserve faith in the unique and exclusive truth of their religion while in the process of compromising with the world. Rhetoric that underscores the divinity of the church is naturally linked to rhetoric regarding the Latter-­day Saints as an elect covenant community. This is most clearly seen in the subthemes of God’s guidance and Mormons’ divinely mandated mission that are common to both topics. Though still emphasized, the closely connected topics of restoration and church divinity have received less attention after World War II relative to earlier periods of conference history. Blessings The Lord has prospered us amazingly . . . Notwithstanding all the difficulties that seemingly have arisen to make trouble for the Latter-­day Saints, we are pleased to find that it has all tended to good . . . Ought we not to be thankful, therefore . . . Everything is for us and nothing can prevent our moving forward now. —Lorenzo Snow, April Conference, 1900

Conference rhetoric regarding blessings dovetails with the themes of being a chosen people, of possessing the “fullness of the restored gospel,” and of being members of the one true church. Blessings are represented by Mormon authorities as the positive consequences of accepting and living the true gospel; they are viewed as signs of God’s favor, as rewards for exercising faith and conforming to the principles of the LDS religion. Mormonism’s worldly asceticism leads the faithful to expect material as well as spiritual blessings—specific earthly rewards for their religious devotion in this life and additional promised rewards in the life to come. For devout Mormons, the meaning they attach to their personal experiences, including the most commonplace transactions of everyday life, is imbued with religious significance. The basic premise of their faith is that conduct in harmony with gospel principles will always be blessed, while failure of the same ultimately results in a forfeiture of blessings. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the implicit calculus of specific rewards in exchange for obedience to specific principles lies near the heart of many Mormons’ religious motivations. Calling attention to blessings is therefore an important

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rhetorical device regularly employed by Mormon authorities at general conference for strengthening faith and commitment.17 In only one of the five historical periods (1890–1919) designated in our original survey, however, was the topic of blessings among the ten most salient conference themes. To a large extent this is probably an artifact of our coding scheme that includes blessings as a subtheme of a number of other general topics (e.g., Latter-­day Saints, blessings of; missionary work, blessings of; obedience, blessings of; etc.). Blessings are thus a much more pervasive conference theme than indicated in Tables 4.1 and 4.2. The most common rhetoric surrounding blessings is the topic of gratitude. Not only should the Latter-­day Saints anticipate specific rewards, they should be grateful for what they have already received. The importance of gratitude was particularly accentuated during the three decades of accommodation and adjustment following the Woodruff manifesto. The sense of humility and collective dependence that this type of rhetoric functions to encourage is further discussed in the chapter on religious commitment mechanisms. Priesthood By that power [priesthood] these valleys of the mountains have been filled with the inhabitants of the world . . . this Tabernacle has been built . . . the Elders, performed their work. . . . Every man should have the Holy Priesthood with him . . . when he goes to preach the Gospel. —Wilford Woodruff, October Conference, 1897 Priesthood is the authority of God bestowed upon men to represent Him in certain relationships between and among men and between men and God . . . Upon the Priesthood in its organized form . . . rests the responsibility of instructing, encouraging, and admonishing the people. —J. Reuben Clark, April Conference, 1940

For Latter-­day Saints, the authority of the church to teach and implement the principles of the true gospel is based on their claims of modern revelation and priesthood authority, restored to the world through the agency of Joseph Smith, the first prophet of the last dispensation. Since all other

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aspects of their religious faith hinge on these beliefs, it is not surprising that the topics of priesthood, Joseph Smith, and prophets have generally been accorded major attention by conference speakers in both early and modern periods of Mormon history. The Mormons’ conception of the priesthood has a dual purpose. For one, it is believed to be a sacred power that can be employed by lay priesthood holders to accomplish worthy ends (such as healing, protection, and the performance of religious ordinances). It is also an organizational hierarchy that allocates resources and supervises all church-­related activities. The priesthood, then, is an authority system that links the individual to the religious group. It encompasses the autonomous exercise of God’s power by individuals for coping with personal problems but simultaneously requires submission to the hierarchical discipline of a priesthood organization. As a rule the latter meaning of priesthood has been stressed more frequently at general conference than the former. Emphasis on the organizational character of the priesthood is indexed by such subthemes as duties of the Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthoods, the keys of the priesthood (i.e., delegation of priesthood authority), ordination to the priesthood, priesthood quorum unity, etc. The subtheme of priesthood power—entailing the exercise of supernatural gifts—was most salient during the first two periods of conference history (1830–1889) but has been less conspicuously emphasized in later periods. From 1890–1919 the subthemes of failure to perform priesthood duties and irreverence toward the priesthood were prominent concerns expressed by Mormon leaders, perhaps reflecting their reaction to decline in the theocratic authority of the church during that period. Concomitantly, the importance of magnifying the priesthood (i.e., exercising individual initiative) was more frequently emphasized during this same period than before or after. Thus, focus on the metaphysical power of the priesthood and on the magnification of that power—topics which draw attention to the capacities of the individual priesthood holder—have been stressed from time to time, but considerably less so than the priesthood as an ecclesiastical hierarchy. Joseph Smith and the Prophets I am going to inquire after God; for I want you all to know Him, and to be familiar with Him; and if I am bringing you to a knowledge of

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Him, all persecutions against me ought to cease. You will then know that I am His servant; for I speak as one having authority. —Joseph Smith, April Conference, 1844 I wanted to be blind to the faults of the man of God . . . God had chosen him [Brigham Young] out of all the men on earth to hold the keys—that power . . . which God commits to one man on earth at a time . . . And who was I that I should sit in judgment upon him and criticize him? —George Q. Cannon, April Conference, 1900

Given its founding character as a prophetic religion, the LDS Church cannot be disassociated from the ideas and acts of its leadership. The principal prophetic personality in Mormon history is, of course, Joseph Smith. The history of early Mormonism correlates in large measure with the history of its founder, and the truth claims of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-­day Saints rest on Smith’s biography as an authentic, modern-­day prophet. With the notable exception of more recent generations, conference rhetoric concerning Joseph Smith’s character and mission ranked among the six most salient themes addressed by LDS authorities from 1830 to 1919. In general the most repetitious subthemes regarding Smith were of his prophetic status, including his divine calling, his prophecies and revelations, and his extraordinary accomplishments. During the first generation of conference history, speakers (including Smith) were especially sensitive to attacks on Smith’s character and credibility, which they attempted to refute. In subsequent generations, as Smith’s life and prophetic career became increasingly venerated by his followers, defensiveness of this sort, along with public refutations of Smith’s detractors, declined. At the same time, during the period 1890–1919 the prophet’s persecutions and ultimate martyrdom were commonly reiterated subthemes, projected as a model of heroic suffering and faith for the Latter-­day Saints while the church was submitting to the exigencies of religious accommodation. The relative decline in conference references to Joseph Smith since 1950, however, is noteworthy. The legitimating functions of general conference remain central to LDS conference proceedings today as in the past. But with the social respectability of their church now well established, Mormon

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leaders seem less preoccupied with the need to constantly legitimate their religious origins. On the other hand, while relatively less attention might be given now to Smith’s role as Mormonism’s founder, the religion is continually legitimated by conference speakers’ references to the generic role of prophets as God’s chosen representatives through whom the affairs of the church are directed by revelation. Conference rhetoric concerning prophets both ancient and modern—including their accomplishments, divine callings, inspiration, leadership, and counsels—has consistently been stressed in all periods of Mormon history. During the first several generations of LDS general conference, emphasis on heeding the prophets’ counsels was an especially prominent subtheme. Though this is the implicit message in an all-­prophetic religion, heeding the counsels of the living prophet has not been as frequently intoned by conference speakers since 1920 as in earlier generations. It should be remembered that in the nineteenth century admonitions by Mormon prophets were systematically entangled with the Latter-­day Saints’ temporal concerns as a people. Counsel in that era was as likely to involve guidance in economic, political, and civic affairs as it was to provide direction in purely religious or ecclesiastical matters. The decline in theocratic authority after 1890 meant that the church could no longer expect to regulate its members by prophetic counsel to the same extent and in the same manner as before. Notwithstanding its twentieth-­and twenty-­first-­century modifications, however, the LDS Church continues to sponsor a religiously demanding, prophet-­centered religion in the sense that all church programs and policies are ultimately legitimated by shared belief in prophetic inspiration. Whoever occupies the exalted position of “prophet, seer and revelator” is revered by the Mormon people as a living symbol of their religious faith.18 Obedience and Knowledge We say . . . they are very far from taking all the counsel given them of the Lord through His servants. But were they to be counseled to go to the gold mines, many of them would obey with alacrity. If they were to be counseled to chew or smoke tobacco, many would lift up both hands . . . and shout for joy. If counseled to continue the use of

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tea and coffee they would sit up all night to bless you. When we are counseled to do that which pleases us then we are willing to obey. —Brigham Young, April Conference, 1868 Wouldn’t it be a great thing if all who are well schooled in secular learning could hold fast to the “iron rod” or the word of God, which could lead them, through faith, to an understanding, rather than have them stray away into strange paths of man-­made theories and be plunged into the murky waters of disbelief and apostasy? —Harold B. Lee, April Conference, 1971

The quintessential Mormon beliefs in the divinity of the restored church and restored gospel, as well as the legitimacy of the LDS priesthood and prophetic authority, are rounded off by the themes of knowledge and obedience—especially obedience. Our original conference data revealed that obedience was the only topic that ranked among the ten most salient themes in every generation of conference history from 1830 through 1979. Though rhetoric regarding human knowledge has been less salient as a conference topic, it too has been consistently emphasized by conference speakers in virtually all periods of Mormon history. Sociologically, obedience entails conformity of individuals to the control of group standards and is thus a central concern in all forms of social life. The commitment process of securing and maintaining obedience among the Mormons is a subject that we pursue at length in the next two chapters. Here we simply mention some of the conference variations on the theme. The primary obedience categories revealed in our data include obedience to the following: God’s commandments, the gospel, priesthood authority and church leaders, and to the civil law. Of these, obedience to God’s commandments and the gospel have been the most universally urged; while in comparison, references to civil obedience have almost always been infrequent. Rhetoric that functions to legitimate obedience to church leaders’ priesthood authority was much more common through the first two periods of LDS history (1830–1889) than in subsequent generations. This finding goes hand in hand with the relative decline in theocratic prophetic counsel as a conference topic since roughly the turn of the

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twentieth century. However, an obedience subtheme stressed by conference speakers in every generation focuses on the blessings of obedience. The promise of both heavenly and earthly rewards for compliance with the demands of the faith is, as discussed, a major source of religious motivation for devout Latter-­day Saints. The Mormons’ conception of human knowledge, much like their conception of the priesthood, involves the juxtaposition of autonomous individuals and religious obedience. At least in some respects, it is a democratic conception within a larger and conditioning context of authoritarian control. In principle, Latter-­day Saints must not merely obey God’s will, they must choose to obey, and their choice must be based on knowledge and understanding. In practice, of course, apparent human choices are commonly the product of inculcation and longstanding habits that are normatively reinforced. Any institutional system has done its job well to the extent that its members are socialized to take for granted the options that the system defines for them. In any event, just as the priesthood is not a limited priestly privilege but accessible for use by individual lay members, so too does Latter-­day Saint theology regard the acquisition and exercise of knowledge for making morally correct choices to be a major individual responsibility. Knowledge may be derived through reason or experience, but for Mormons, the most important medium is revelation, which all spiritually qualified members believe they are entitled to receive. But in the same way that the personal prerogatives of a lay priesthood holder are subject to the authority of the church’s priesthood organization, the personal revelations or inspiration of the individual are superseded by church policies revealed through the prophet and other church officials. Of the several knowledge subthemes addressed throughout general conference history, the two most consistently common are, in fact, knowledge through revelation and spiritual knowledge. Spiritual knowledge is contrasted with the “philosophies of men” and unaided human reason. Spiritual knowledge involves understanding God’s eternal plans and is obtained through individual study of the scriptures, heeding the words of the prophets, faith, prayer, and “the witness of the Holy Spirit.” In short, when Mormon authorities speak of spiritual knowledge, they are speaking foremost of orthodox acceptance and obedience to the teachings of the restored church.

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Jesus Christ The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the most stupendous miracle of all time. In it stand revealed the omnipotence of God and the immortality of man. —David O. McKay, April Conference, 1966 Jesus taught that an unsullied character is the noblest aim in life. No man can sincerely resolve to apply to his daily life the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth without sensing a change in his own nature. —David O. McKay, April Conference, 1960

The titular head of the LDS Church is Jesus Christ. At its theological roots, Mormonism is essentially Christological. The living prophets are represented as appointed spokesmen for Jesus, the Son of God, who in turn mediates with the Father for the salvation of humankind. As a conference topic, the personage of Jesus Christ has been regularly addressed throughout the course of Mormon history; but, interestingly, only since the 1950s has rhetoric regarding Jesus Christ emerged among the top ten conference themes. This pattern contrasts with the attention given to Mormonism’s other heroic figure, Joseph Smith, whose salience as a conference subject was pronounced throughout the first four generations of Mormon history but has declined in relatively recent times—a period during which attention to the life and ministry of Jesus Christ has been the single most salient subject at LDS general conference. In general, conference references to Jesus Christ may be divided into those that emphasize his superhuman nature (his divinity, resurrection, atonement, miracles performed, etc.) and those that emphasize his moral example (his character, moral teachings, personal life, etc.). Generally, the former have exceeded the latter in conference emphasis. The preeminence of Jesus Christ as a conference subject since 1950, however, has been accompanied by a significant increase in the attention given to the perfection of his mortal life and character as a model for human emulation. The salience of the divinity and life of Jesus Christ as a contemporary conference theme, relative to reduced emphasis on the prophetic role of Joseph Smith in the last days, undoubtedly makes Mormon conference

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proceedings more congenial for non-­Mormon and orthodox Christian audiences. In part, this rhetorical shift may be understood as a latent outreach measure to attenuate charges made by religious competitors that Mormonism is a cult and not a true Christian religion.19 To summarize, our analysis of the statistical distribution of rhetorical conference trends throughout the first one hundred and fifty years of Mormon history (1830–1979) suggests three major categories: (1) utopian and millennial themes clearly associated with early Mormonism; (2) respectability and family themes most strongly identified with the modern LDS Church; and (3) ultimate authority and exclusive truth claims that have been more or less regularly emphasized in both early and modern periods of Mormon history. The utopian themes of early Mormonism reflect the Latter-­day Saints’ conflict with both Christian antagonists and the political authority of secular government, while the family and respectability themes of the modern LDS Church reflect its contemporary social integration within American society and expanding presence in the global religious economy. But the persistence of exclusive truth and authority themes also reveals the continuity of a fundamentally sectarian orientation that is characteristic of the church both past and present. All three general thematic patterns are relevant for further analyses of Mormon development, and all remain highly visible as basic reference points for our discussion of member commitment, organizational transformation, and official LDS responses to the secularizing trends of contemporary society in the remaining chapters of this book.

5

Mormon Commitment Mechanisms

All groups depend to some degree on the assimilation of egocentric individuals into a cohesive whole in which a collective identity is shared. This is particularly true of utopian communities and religious societies in which the rigorous subordination of personal gratification to the welfare of the group is a defining characteristic. If, initially, the group is small, unpopular, and perceived as deviant by outsiders (as were the Mormons), then the need for generating member loyalty and group identification becomes very great in order to resist powerful pressures for dissolution that exist in the outside world. We believe that an understanding of the ways the LDS Church has achieved this internal bonding of its people to its organization and purpose—how it has generated commitment among its members—is essential to understanding the functioning and relative success of Mormonism as a religious movement. In our judgment the most perceptive and comprehensive sociological account of the ways in which group commitments are made and maintained is the theory of commitment mechanisms proposed by Rosabeth Kanter in her study of nineteenth-­century utopian communities.1 Applying Kanter’s analysis to our own purposes, we have found her conceptual scheme to be very useful in comprehending the LDS Church’s historical capacity for preserving relatively high levels of commitment

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among its members. This chapter, therefore, is devoted to elaborating the meaning, substance, and varieties of group commitment practices. At the same time, we indicate some of the past and present features of the LDS religion that correspond to Kanter’s commitment categories in order to establish their relevance for our own study. Because our initial description and examples of group commitment mechanisms are fairly lengthy, we reserve discussion of our conference data findings on Mormon commitment patterns for the next chapter.

Commitment: Its General Meaning Kanter identifies the initial and permanent problem for utopian communities as translating “abstract ideals of brotherhood and harmony, of love and union . . . into concrete social practices.”2 This problem may be summarized as one of commitment: how to promote member devotion to the community’s work-­related goals, to its values, and to each other, and how much of their former independence members may be induced to suspend in favor of group interests. Committed members work hard, participate actively, derive love and affection from the communal group, and believe strongly in what the group stands for.3 In general, then, commitment may be defined subjectively as the extent to which members identify their own values, interests, and goals as coterminous with those of the group to which they belong. In behavioral terms, commitment represents the voluntary expenditure of one’s time, energy, and material resources. Given that such resources are finite, it follows that to the extent that commitments are made to a particular cause or purpose, commitments to other causes are diminished or even precluded. Various organizations compete for member or clientele commitments, and exclusive organizations attempt to win almost total commitment from their adherents.4 Utopian communes, as Kanter has shown, are particularly good examples of exclusive organizations. The LDS Church, it may be argued, is also a good example as it does not merely advertise itself as a religious faith but as a religious way of life that, in its earlier years, was also characterized by explicit utopian and communitarian experimentation. The Mormons have, in fact, been eminently successful in creating and sustaining the commitment of a core body of members, although, as we

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will see, Mormon commitment patterns have substantially changed over the course of their history. Distinctive organizational practices that increase group identity and loyalty are classified by Kanter into three types of commitment categories. Each category is conceptualized as representing two opposite but complementary strategies that correspond to the fundamental group needs of member retention, unity, and social control.5 These three sets of complementary commitment strategies are called: (1) sacrifice and investment— both of which are related to the need of member retention, (2) renunciation and communion—both related to the production of group unity, and (3) mortification and transcendence—both of which are related to the exercise of social control (i.e., the need to regulate individual behavior in conformity to group norms). Each pair of commitment categories consists of a positive and negative element; specific actions construed as positive commitment mechanisms entail some explicit benefit for individuals, and specific negative commitment mechanisms refer to various individual, social, and economic costs which must be suffered by members in order to obtain benefits. The theoretical distinction between cost and benefit is always much more ambiguous in real-­life circumstances than these categorical abstractions, especially those that involve an eternal perspective promoted by many religious belief systems. Virtually all objective costs (as designated by outside observers) have the potential of being subjectively transformed by believers into benefits. At the very least, when such “negative” demands as sacrifice, renunciation, and mortification occur, they are typically regarded as necessary means to realize desired ends, as precursors to the ultimate experiencing of sacred promises.6 In the more detailed discussion of Mormon commitment that follows, we caution readers to remember that positive and negative are relative distinctions, and that the various commitment mechanisms used by different groups are mutually intertwined and complementary. Indeed, the meaning of each general commitment category (e.g., member retention) is significantly heightened by the interaction between its complementary opposites (e.g., sacrifice vs. investment).7 It is also the case, as suggested in several of our subsequent examples, that some specific religiously sponsored activities may serve a variety of commitment functions.

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Member Retention through Sacrifice

In exclusive organizations the novice is typically required to undergo some form of initiation or period of indoctrination before being accepted as a full-­f ledged member. Among other things, one must understand and accept the price or costs of membership. One must be willing to relinquish former commitments and sacrifice for the organization, both at the outset and later on as circumstances may require. Sacrifice, in turn, stimulates the rationalization of costly commitments, as cognitive dissonance theorists have shown.8 Psychologically, the effect of such rationalization is usually to increase the perceived value of group membership. Two common forms of sacrifice imposed by utopian groups are abstinence and austerity. Members are typically required to abstain from pleasures of the flesh (hedonism runs directly counter to community commitment) including various kinds of food, drink, psychoactive substances, sex, fashions, and other worldly things. For many utopian communities, existential conditions alone make austerity a reality for members. Nonetheless, luxurious living is repudiated while simplicity, hard work, and collective struggle are esteemed. Poverty, as in various monastic orders, may be defined as a desirable virtue. Mormon Applications

The principle of sacrifice has always been emphatically taught as part of the Mormon belief system. Thus, for example, emphasis on sacrifice is a cardinal aspect of the Mormon endowment ritual which functions to reinforce members’ most important religious commitments, as previously discussed. The Word of Wisdom, and its subsequent interpretations by LDS authorities, imposes explicit abstinence requirements concerning the use of alcohol, tobacco, coffee, and tea. Dating back to public condemnation of polygamy as a moral evil, Mormon leaders have shown a defensive preoccupation with sexual purity; youth are admonished to abstain from premarital sex, and married couples are warned in the strongest possible terms to guard against infidelity. Dress standards are linked to chastity and overly revealing fashions are condemned; so too are certain kinds of music and dancing, gambling, Sabbath breaking, and other worldly entertainments. Many of these restrictions are, of course, shared by Mormons with other highly moralistic religions.

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It may be supposed that as the prosperity of the LDS Church and the general socioeconomic status of its members have increased, the earlier pioneer emphasis on the virtues of austerity has decreased. In general, if prosperity is eventually achieved, a latent problem of accommodation may be unwittingly posed for originally utopian movements. O’Dea notes that “ascetic attitudes often lead to hard work and hard work to increasing prosperity. Prosperity tends to make the sectaries conservative; they tend to become better adjusted to the social order.”9 Increasing prosperity does not necessarily mean, however, that a religious movement will choose to accommodate the world rather than maintain an antagonistic stance toward it. But prosperity does represent an important vector in the direction of accommodation, and it does seem to correlate in many ways with the historical experience of the Mormons, especially in the twentieth and twenty-­first centuries. In any case, Latter-­ day Saints continue to maintain that a genuine commitment to their faith requires them “to be in the world but not of the world.” At the same time Mormons continue to extoll the virtues of a strong work ethic and the value of collective, cooperative struggle in meeting the challenges of daily life in order to ultimately obtain salvation in a celestial life to come. Member Retention through Investment

Investment possibilities theoretically represent a positive counterpart to the requirements of sacrifice. Of all the complementary categories of commitment, the distinction between investment and sacrifice is the most difficult to make in practice. The difference here revolves almost entirely around subjective understanding of the payoff possibilities of commitment and the degree to which this reward theme is emphasized in peoples’ thinking. Sacrifice may simply represent what fate or the law require. Virtue is typically associated with requisite losses, but concrete recompense beyond acceptance within the group may not be explicit. However, while sacrifice may simply require giving up desirable personal ends to demonstrate worthiness and loyalty to collective goals, investment behaviors stress the potential for personal benefits should group ends become realized. In this event, reward expectations are concrete and explicitly attached to specific activities. The exclusive community recognizes that the investment of both labor and material resources function to integrate and cement members into a

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community structure, contributing to their sense of mutual identification and belonging. Through one’s own contributions the individual creates a personal stake, a set of increasingly vested interests in favorable group outcomes. Furthermore, initial involvements may entail additional unanticipated investments, such as risk of reputation or personal integrity, all of which add their own weight to the individual’s sense of merger with the community’s destiny. An often-­added feature to utopian investment is irreversibility; among the most radical groups studied by Kanter, no financial records were kept and no reimbursement given to defectors who failed to maintain their group commitments. Mormon Applications

One of the earliest Mormon expressions of investment activity was clearly reflected in several attempts to apply the law of consecration via communitarian socioeconomic orders. Among other things, such collectives involved signing over material possessions to the church for egalitarian redistribution as stewardships within the LDS community. In recognition of their relative failure to successfully implement these practices, ecclesiastical authorities eventually compromised the original law of consecration by stressing the law of tithing instead (members in good standing are required to donate ten percent of their gross income to the church) as a less radical kind of member investment.10 In addition to their tithes, Mormons may be asked to render additional support for tens of thousands of missionaries as well as extra donations to the church welfare system. In some individual cases the total financial commitment to the church may approximate twenty percent of one’s income. Time and labor investments are, if anything, even more pronounced. Ubiquitous church callings can consume many hours of one’s free time, and massive amounts of volunteer labor are donated to various service and welfare projects. It should be pointed out that, in apparent violation of the principle of irreversibility, the modern LDS Church keeps scrupulous records of member donations of both time and money. In turn, these records are used as indices of member worthiness and, in part, function to determine access to institutionally controlled benefits, such as entrance into temples. Thus, for the Mormons, recordkeeping is an important mechanism of internal control and corresponding religious rewards. At the same time, the church is not a stockholding company. Should members choose to withdraw their fellowship

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from the church (or if it is taken away by the church) they may anticipate no return or reimbursement on their investments of capital or labor. As in many religious systems, long-­term investment incentives abound in Mormons’ conception of the grand purposes of human existence. Obedience to the commandments of God and revealed laws of the church will result in heavenly blessings as well as earthly ones. Obedience–blessing themes have been, as shown in Chapter 4, among the rhetorical constants of LDS conference history. Mormons have elaborated their own distinctive versions of how rewards will be earned and distributed in life after death. According to Mormon teachings, salvation hinges on one’s performance in the period of mortal probation, after which a person will be rewarded by assignment to one of several possible kingdoms or degrees of glory. The highest glory is the Celestial Kingdom, where God dwells, the second is the Terrestrial Kingdom, and the third is the Telestial Kingdom. (Each of the latter two kingdoms are removed by degrees from God’s presence and, for those who dwell there, opportunities for future progression in the afterlife are correspondingly limited.) The unredeemed—those who have received the “testimony of the Holy Ghost” but willfully reject it and actively fight against the restored gospel—receive no glory but are to be cast into outer darkness, or perdition, with Satan and his minions. It should be mentioned that various degrees of glory are thought to also exist within each of the three kingdoms. Only those who attain the highest degree within the Celestial Kingdom can go on to become gods and creators. Thus, in contrast to the traditional Christian bifurcation of heaven and hell, Mormon theology postulates a stratified afterlife that corresponds to demonstrated degrees of worthiness in probationary earth life experience. Mormons are taught that qualification for the Celestial Kingdom is their chief errand in life, which can only be achieved through commitment to the Latter-­day Saint religion and in obedience to the ritual sealing ordinances of the temple.

Group Cohesiveness through Renunciation Renunciation, Kanter’s third category of commitment, represents the disjunctive side of achieving and preserving group solidarity, the specifically social costs of exclusive membership. Renunciation means giving

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up previous social relationships that are perceived by the community as potentially disruptive to its own solidarity. In the broadest sense, renouncing ties with all others but fellow believers may be seen as a form of sacrifice. However, the distinction made by Kanter between these two categories highlights the special importance of interpersonal loss (versus material or strictly personal costs) in forging a new social identity. Common categories of renunciation include the outside world and its ways, intimate dyadic relationships, and even family ties. Utopian communities insulate themselves from the larger society through geographical isolation, rules which minimize contact with outsiders, objectives of self-­sufficiency, rites of purification, and distinctive modes of language and dress, to indicate the more typical group strategies of renunciation. Insulation

Mormon renunciation concerns were clearly more prominent in the nineteenth century than in modern times. Past renunciation attitudes were most obviously expressed in the Mormons’ flight into the western wilderness of the Rocky Mountains, which was done both to escape persecution and to withdraw from American society. Shortly thereafter the struggle to resist gentile influence in Utah played a dominant part in church history during the last half of the nineteenth century. Thus, for example, our conference findings show rhetorical renunciation of gentiles as one of the more prominent nineteenth-­century themes at general conference. Latter-­day Saints were urged to shun gentile associations and boycott their businesses while, at the same time, gentiles charged LDS leaders with priestcraft, interference in their business affairs, and unjust control of territorial politics. Within Mormon society nineteenth-­century home industries were promoted and self-­sufficiency preached as a moral necessity. New converts to Mormonism were heavily pressured to leave family, friends, and homes and gather to Zion with the rest of God’s covenant people. Even conventional linguistic forms became an object of Mormon experimentation, resulting in the creation of the new Deseret Alphabet. The application of this alphabet was advocated for over a dozen years in church schools during the early 1850s through the mid 1860s and resulted in the printing of thousands of books that appear as foreign to the eye of one accustomed only to the English alphabet as would ancient Greek or Hebrew.11

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In their aloofness and sought-­after independence, the Mormons were often accused of secret plotting and disloyalty to both local and national governments. Indeed, certain early paramilitary groups like the Danites and later parapolitical groups such as the Council of Fifty were secretly organized among the Mormons, albeit for avowedly different motives than those attributed by their enemies. The abolition of plural marriage by the church in 1890 and Utah’s elevation to statehood in 1896, however, contributed to more relaxed Mormon–gentile relations and, as much as anything else, functioned to symbolize a change in isolationist attitudes. In speech and dress, manner and appearance, Mormons today are indistinguishable from their counterparts among the conservative middle class. And yet, renunciation strategies, some relatively subtle, continue to be employed. Self-­sufficiency, for instance, is still advocated. This is revealed in such church programs as the LDS welfare system (the church rejects government welfare assistance) and occasional preparedness admonitions in which members are encouraged to keep enough food and other basic supplies in reserve to withstand a short-term natural disaster or personal emergency. Members are encouraged to fraternize with nonmembers insofar as the ultimate goal of proselyting and positive public relations are facilitated, yet youth are warned against bad companions and are constantly encouraged to center their social activities around church-­ sponsored programs and events. Though not forbidden, marriage to nonmembers is strongly discouraged. Another form of boundary control between the church and the world is the Mormon temple, defined by Mormons as a sacred sanctuary into which one self-­consciously enters to leave behind the material concerns of the outside world. The holy spirit of the temple may not be defiled by those who have not sufficiently purified their thoughts and actions or have not been morally certified by local ward bishops and stake presidents. Non-­Mormons may not enter the temple at all nor witness its ritual ceremonies. In part, temple ceremonies constitute a ritual-­purification process in which both a sense of spiritual unity and separateness from outsiders is achieved. The temple initiate commences to wear a special undergarment that, though never conspicuously displayed, continues to symbolize his or her commitment to the faith and separation from the world.12

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Intimate Relationships

Since in utopian orders commitment to the community represents the paramount value, the counter demands posed by intimate sexual and family relations are problematic. Celibacy and various forms of free love or group marriage have been alternative renunciation strategies historically for dealing with the commitment problem posed by couples. The community is often defined as a surrogate family, appropriating for itself conventional family functions and responsibilities such as socialization and sustenance. Community members may refer to one another as brother and sister (a practice followed by Mormons) as an expression of the community’s familial status. It may be argued that nineteenth-­century plural marriage among the Mormons was a renunciation process which, in part, functioned to diffuse interpersonal and sexual commitment between spouses. The Mormon patriarch had to divide his time and affection among a number of wives, while, at the same time, each wife could claim only a portion of his attention. Thus one’s fundamental commitment to the church was less likely to be challenged by exclusive personal commitments in a monogamous marital relationship.13 Nevertheless, far from renouncing the family, Mormons—especially in modern times—have glorified it as the basic unit of the church. Many of society’s modern ills are regarded by Mormons to be a result of the apparent breakdown of traditional family life. As indicated by our conference analysis of family-­related themes, it is apparent that few other admonitions have been given greater emphasis in recent times by LDS authorities than the need to strengthen family unity. The integration of family and church commitments is undoubtedly one of Mormonism’s most significant achievements. Family commitment to the church is maintained by providing a sizeable number of church programs and activities for all age categories. The men have their own organizations, the women have theirs, the youth and children theirs—yet all such organizations are correlated and centrally directed by priesthood authority, requiring both adults and their children to mutually recognize and support one another’s assorted religious responsibilities as members of a lay religion.14 Not only do Latter-­day Saints enter into church programs as family units, but in return the church penetrates the privacy of the family with such programs as family home evening, a weekly evening set aside by the

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church for individual families to engage in activities and a certain amount of informal religious indoctrination. Mormon preoccupation with genealogy and the salvation of their ancestors is another way family and church commitments interpenetrate. In addition, both the Mormon family and Mormon priesthood have self-­consciously modeled themselves after the patriarchal mode of authority and consequently reinforce one another as complementary institutions. For all of its success as a family religion, it must be recognized that the LDS Church has not fully succeeded in resolving the inherent tension between family and church commitments. Mormon lay bishops and stake presidents, ironically, are notoriously pressed for time to spend at home with their families because of church responsibilities, and this, not surprisingly, may be resented by all family members. Many Mormons feel that the cumulative demands of the church on their personal or family lives are excessive. Consequently, a fair number may choose to withdraw their commitment.15

Group Cohesiveness through Communion Among other things, the social costs of community cohesiveness entailed by renunciation are counterbalanced for the faithful by the intensely rewarding experience of communion or community, engendered as a consequence of participating in group activities. There exist several communion practices including communal sharing, communal work, regularized group contact, ritual, and recitation of shared persecution experiences that function to unify the group. These practices constitute the positive side of social cohesiveness for members of exclusive groups. Communal Work and Sharing

Mormon communitarian experiments and economic cooperation in the nineteenth century represent major instances of communal sharing already mentioned. Modern Mormons also continue to invest considerable time in collective labor. Today, community work and sharing is institutionalized and administered through the LDS Church Welfare Department and closely related LDS Humanitarian Services. As described in some detail on the church’s official website (lds.org), the modern LDS welfare system

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is comprehensive and complex. It includes employment centers, bishops’ storehouses, home storage centers, clothing distribution centers, farms, canneries and processing plants, family services, and humanitarian outreach programs in cooperation with government relief agencies and various NGOs worldwide. These various welfare operations provide food, clothing, employment assistance, work training, and adoption/counseling services. All of these operations require a fair number of paid professional staff or technical specialists, and some may involve profit-­generating activities and therefore taxable income for the church. As modern agriculture has become more sophisticated and other related services more technical and specialized—not to mention imposition of more restrictive government and union regulations—the twenty-­first-­century church relies less than in times past on mobilizing volunteer labor for its multilayered welfare system.16 But the underlying principle of all LDS welfare programs is one of compassionate church service and mutual aid through members’ financial contributions, volunteer labor, and donated material goods and services to be distributed to those in need. Thus, for example, church welfare farms, utilizing member volunteer labor whenever practical (especially during harvesting seasons),17 produce grain, vegetables, and fruit, as well as meat and dairy items, for processing at church canneries and packaging plants (which also rely to some extent on donated labor). These items are transported to bishops’ storehouses where foodstuffs and other household goods are distributed to local members in need as requested by ward bishops and overseen by ward welfare councils and the women’s Relief Society president.18 It is through member participation in church welfare programs that Mormonism’s initial communitarian impulses and shared concern for both the material and spiritual well-­being of the community are sustained in the modern church. While the church preaches the values of self-­sufficiency and personal responsibility for the material well-­being of one’s self and family, the volunteer service components of the modern welfare system reinforce contemporary Latter-­day Saints’ sense of belonging to a reciprocating moral community.19 Another prominent source of communitarian feeling within the LDS Church, at least among male members, is the elaborate organization of lay

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priesthood offices. Because all worthy Mormon males share in the same basic priesthood authority, they are all potentially able to administer the many religious ordinances and fulfill local leadership roles when called upon. Local ward and stake organizations are not dependent upon trained experts or seminarians imposed from without, rather they are completely staffed from the ranks of their own local members. While the existence of a priesthood hierarchy in the church clearly contributes to status distinctions and obedience to external controls, it is also clear that common access to priesthood privileges and responsibilities is a rewarding device that bolsters self-­esteem, encourages participation, and reminds male priesthood holders, according to Mormon doctrine, of both their divine origin and divine potential. Regularized Group Contact

Regularized group contact is maintained by a plethora of church meetings and activities. These include the work projects already mentioned, church socials and recreational activities, preparation and planning sessions for the various priesthood quorums and auxiliary organizations, religious indoctrination classes for all ages, as well as the regular worship services and devotionals. The frequency of such activities, of course, tends to maximize commitment to the group while minimizing the time that members have to spend alone or to devote to other outside commitments. Thus, not only does intense intra-­Mormon activity reinforce feelings of fellowship and identification with church programs, it also represents a subtle functioning of renunciation processes, since involvement in such a pervasive set of obligations makes it difficult to sustain meaningful non-­Mormon relationships. Ritual

With the highly notable exception of various temple rites, Mormonism is not a very liturgical religion. The formal ceremonies conducted in Mormon chapels such as sacrament service and the blessing of children—the Mormon equivalent of communion and christening, respectively—are few in number and simple in their performance. One particularly distinctive LDS ritual is enacted when individual church members receive a personalized patriarchal blessing from an ordained patriarch. As previously noted,

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the patriarch of the church was a novel ecclesiastical office instituted by Joseph Smith for his father and his father’s male descendants.20 The patriarch was authorized to bestow special blessings believed to be divinely inspired and thus contributed to the prophetic development of early Mormonism.21 Today, Mormons receive their patriarchal blessings, usually as young adults prior to accepting a missionary calling or entering the temple, from local stake patriarchs. Among other things, patriarchal blessings confer promises of future benefits or rewards that are contingent on the recipient’s faithfulness and obedience to the requirements of the religion. Additionally, the musical aspects of religious ritual have always played a significant role in Mormon worship. Mormons sing from a hymnal that contains a number of standard Protestant hymns, but most favorites are by Mormon composers who celebrate Mormon beliefs and experiences. “Come, Come, Ye Saints,” to cite one example, is perhaps the best-­known Mormon hymn, written at the behest of Brigham Young as the Saints struggled to reach their mountain sanctuary. “Come, Come, Ye Saints” Come, come, ye Saints, no toil nor labor fear; But with joy wend your way. Though hard to you this journey may appear, Grace shall be as your day. ‘Tis better far for us to strive Our useless cares from us to drive; Do this, and joy your hearts will swell— All is well! All is well! We’ll find the place which God for us prepared, Far away in the West, Where none shall come to hurt or make afraid; There the Saints will be blessed. We’ll make the air with music ring, Shout praises to our God and King; Above the rest these words we’ll tell— All is well! All is well! And should we die before our journey’s through, Happy day! All is well!

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We then are free from toil and sorrow, too; With the just we shall dwell! But if our lives are spared again To see the Saints their rest obtain, Oh, how we’ll make this chorus swell— All is well! All is well!22 Common Persecution Experience

The singing of such hymns as “Come, Come, Ye Saints” serves a communion function which not only unites members with one another here and now but also links them to a past history and tradition with which they can identify. The theme of persecution functions to heighten in-­g roup solidarity and commitment while strengthening member resolve to withstand future adversities. Emphasis given to a common persecution experience was unquestionably much greater in the nineteenth century when the Mormons were, in fact, beleaguered and despised from virtually all quarters. 23 Our statistical analysis of major conference themes in Chapter 4 verifies the extent to which the rhetoric of persecution played a major role in early periods of Mormon history. Today the suffering and struggles of their forebears against adversaries is a point of community pride for Mormons. The exploits of the pioneers are memorialized and recounted as lessons of faith and courage and of extraordinary commitment. To this day, the celebration of the entrance of the Mormon pioneers into the valley of the Great Salt Lake on July 24, 1847, is arguably a bigger holiday in Salt Lake City than national Independence Day, celebrated three weeks earlier.

Social Control through Mortification Every group, every community, is confronted with the problem of maintaining at least some level of control over the beliefs and activities of its members. Religious groups in particular develop concerns over perceived heretics’ deviant pronouncements or religious interpretations that depart from orthodox beliefs. As with the previously discussed topics of retention and cohesiveness, social control may be accomplished by an application of both individual costs and benefits.

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Mortification represents the negative aspect of control discussed by Kanter; it is involved in the reconstruction of personal identities based on member conversion to community values and submission to community discipline. In general, it may be said that humility is a virtue prized by most cohesive communities (especially religious) while pride is frequently regarded as a sin. Humility implies subservience or commitment to the community; pride implies commitment to no other interests higher than one’s self. Among some of the more prominent mortification procedures encountered in Kanter’s study were public confession and mutual criticism, negative group sanctions, spiritual or moral differentiation among group members, and “de-­individuating” mechanisms. Confession and Surveillance

Whether through confession or group criticism sessions, internal community control is exercised by means of some type of surveillance system. Though the Mormons formally repudiate Catholic-­style confessionals, they have instituted their own forms of member surveillance. Perhaps the most obvious controls are applied through a system of priesthood interviews. Virtually every time a member is called to occupy a church position, he or she submits to a personally probing interview conducted by someone of higher authority, typically the ward bishop or stake president. In this interview the presiding authority not only outlines the responsibilities of the new calling but also attempts to determine the worthiness of the candidate. Worthiness is usually defined in terms of such things as sexual morality, payment of tithes, compliance with the Word of Wisdom, attendance at meetings, willingness to accept and perform church assignments, and support of church officials’ pronouncements and directives. Similar (but much more thorough) interviews are required for those who wish to obtain permission to enter a temple and for those who serve full-­time missions for the church. Another Mormon practice that has important surveillance implications is the home teaching system in which two priesthood holders are assigned to make monthly visits to Mormon families in a local church unit. They are directed to inquire with respect to the families’ material and spiritual welfare, determine their problems, encourage them to comply with church standards, challenge them to meet various spiritual goals, and report back

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to priesthood authorities.24 Perhaps no other priesthood program in the church has received greater emphasis in recent decades, or has caused more consternation and frustration for local authorities when it fails to be fully implemented, than the home teaching system. A parallel system of visitations is also conducted monthly by the women’s Relief Society organization; these, however, are directed only to adult women rather than to an entire family. Finally, a third organizational format providing for community control is the institution of fast and testimony meeting. Once a month, in lieu of the regular Sunday worship service, an open-­ended meeting is conducted in which those attending are encouraged to stand and, impromptu, share their testimonies (religious convictions, gratitude, and faith-­promoting experiences) with the congregation. In preparation for these meetings members are supposed to fast for two meals, with the manifest purpose of heightening humility and promoting an increased sense of spirituality. In addition, the amount of money saved on the foregone meals is supposed to be turned over to the church in the form of “fast offerings” for the poor. Not uncommonly, public expression of testimonies may contain elements of the sinfulness-­ conversion-­ regeneration theme observed by Poblete and O’Dea among Pentecostal migrants.25 In other words, testimony meetings may become a forum for public confession. Not all confess their sins, but almost all confess gratitude for their blessings, families and friends, church callings and programs, inspired leadership, and opportunities to serve. In essence, they confess their dependence on the religious community to which they belong.26 Not infrequently those who testify are reduced to tears and to a considerable demonstration of emotion. Though not permitted in modern times to take the form of Pentecostal displays, such emotion is, in fact, implicitly encouraged and condoned by the nature of the service and may be seen as a clear example of self-­ mortification.27 In addition, there exists a certain subtle pressure on members to add their testimonies to the others being offered. Should one go too long without participating in testimony meetings, other members are bound to begin questioning the depth of his or her convictions. It should be observed that both the home teaching program and testimony meetings not only serve latent church surveillance functions but also substantially contribute to the communion experience.

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Group Sanctions

All communities are prepared to impose sanctions against deviance or against those who fail to live up to their commitments, and virtually all religious sanctions involve the withdrawal of certain privileges.28 The most prominent sanctions exercised by the LDS Church include the withholding of temple privileges, disfellowshipment, and excommunication. Inactivity (failure to attend church meetings and accept or carry out church callings) and failure to comply with the Word of Wisdom or pay tithes constitute for the ward bishop the most common grounds for denying a temple recommend (an official document that permits one to enter an LDS temple), though other infractions may also be cited. Since recommends must be renewed annually the procedure serves an important surveillance function, as mentioned. For members wishing to go to the temple who are deemed unworthy by their bishop or stake president, genuine repentance must be demonstrated before a recommend will be issued. Such penitence then becomes another instance of self-­mortification. More serious breaches of church discipline lead to disfellowshipment or excommunication. Persons who are disfellowshiped lose a number of member privileges, including the rights to speak in church meetings, offer public prayer, partake of the sacrament, attend priesthood meetings or exercise any priesthood authority, or hold any church office. Disfellowshipment is regarded as a probationary period, and full fellowship may be restored following appropriate restitution. The excommunicant, however, is cut off entirely and is quite literally no longer considered a member of the religious community. The road back to membership following excommunication is difficult, requiring a lengthy period of contrition and self-­mortification. Should the excommunicant ultimately prove sufficiently penitent, he or she must submit to rebaptism as a new member. 29 The salvation of those excommunicated who fail to return to the fold is, of course, believed to be in the greatest possible jeopardy. Anxiety with respect to the latter state is a prepotent incentive for believers to maintain their commitments. Grounds for excommunication include heresy (e.g., advocating or practicing plural marriage, opposing church authorities, etc.) and more serious violations of the moral code, mostly sexual offenses such as adultery or child molestation. Misappropriation of church funds is another ground for

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institutional dismissal, and convicted violators of the civil law involving certain kinds of serious crime (e.g., murder, kidnapping, rape, blackmail, extortion, robbery, etc.) may also be punished by the church by having membership privileges withdrawn. Both the severity of the punishment (i.e., excommunication vs. mere disfellowshipment) and the ease with which reinstatement can occur appear to be a function of the violator’s expressed remorse and previous spiritual standing or positions of responsibility in the church. Based on the principle that “to whom much is given much is expected,” the higher the offender’s office the more likely that excommunication will be imposed and reinstatement made difficult. The defiantly impenitent or recalcitrant also, of course, are more likely to be severely dealt with. Spiritual Differentiation

The manner in which excommunication procedures operate points to patterns of spiritual differentiation that often emerge in religious communities. All human societies are stratified in some way. In secular societies social standing is most commonly indexed on the basis of material possessions, political power, and economic function in the division of labor. In newly founded religious societies, O’Dea suggests that “differences, social and ethnic, of the old world and the pre-­conversion life are left behind and often explicitly repudiated.” However, “while there is often a high degree of fraternal equality, new differences based upon position and function within the new group emerge and are often explicitly recognized and approved.”30 Status and recognition bestowed by the religious organization for participation in its programs become important incentives for motivating commitment. Status distinctions among members have mortification implications because they are based on criteria defined by the institution, are conferred and controlled by the institution, and usually involve subordination and bending of personal desires to comply with the institutional reward system. In the LDS Church, numerous lay priesthood and auxiliary organizations constitute interlocking systems of “spiritual stratification.” Within each suborganization spiritual progress is informally associated with advancements to higher positions of greater authority and responsibility. Leadership skills are taught and their development encouraged,

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and consequently—though this might be denied—invidious aspirations for leadership callings are promoted. The apex of the LDS spiritual hierarchy comes with a rare call to be one of the general authorities of the church. Though not clergy in the conventional sense, Mormon general authorities give up their secular occupations, devote their lives full time to the administration of the church’s affairs, and are accorded the greatest reverence and respect by church members. General authorities must be Melchizedek priesthood holders and are therefore necessarily adult males. In addition to actively participating in lay church callings, temple recommend holders are apt to be regarded as occupying a higher spiritual plane. Interestingly, new converts are typically denied the privilege of obtaining a temple recommend for a relatively lengthy probationary period, even though it may be apparent that they currently qualify as worthy by all other evaluational criteria. Compliance with such requirements as obeying the Word of Wisdom and paying tithes obviously functions to discriminate between members of greater or lesser spiritual status. As observed earlier, adherence to the principle of plural marriage was the chief test for spiritually differentiating members in the nineteenth century.31 Finally, the Mormons’ conception of both a pre-­earth and post-­earth life contains explicit theological legitimations for an eternal system of spiritual stratification. According to Mormon belief, prior to obtaining a mortal body and earthly existence, all living beings led a preexistent life as spirits or “intelligences.” Spiritual differentiation existed even in this preexistent state. Thus, in Mormon scripture, Abraham was informed by God that “if two things exist, and there be one above the other, there shall be greater things above them.” And if there be “two spirits, one being more intelligent than the other, there shall be another more intelligent than they; I am the Lord thy God, I am more intelligent than they all.”32 From among the preexistent intelligences, God then identifies for Abraham “the noble and great ones” who are preordained to be his rulers because of their greater spiritual superiority and goodness. We have previously summarized Mormonism’s three-­tiered conception of heaven and its investment appeals. We may now also note that a stratified afterlife is but a continuation of the spiritual differentiation model posited by Mormonism’s conception of a preexistence, and therefore it also functions as a mortification theme in Mormon theology.33

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Deindividuation

The final mortification process described by Kanter is deindividuation. This includes many of the organizational strategies observed by Erving Goffman in his analysis of total institutions, such as the issuance of standardized uniforms, the systematic invasion of personal privacy, the bureaucratic management of individuals as batches to be processed, the regimentation of all group activities, and so on.34 These and other organizational procedures function, whether by design or not, to counter a person’s sense of individuality and uniqueness. It may be argued that among the Mormons, deindividuation has not been a primary commitment mechanism. Humility, obedience, and subservience to authority are all stressed, but the more extreme forms of deindividuation have not been widely practiced. Though the administration of the church is highly bureaucratic, and has become increasingly so over the years, bureaucratic trends have thus far been tempered by doctrinal regard for each individual as a literal offspring of God and for the supreme importance of the individual’s moral agency. A good deal of emphasis is placed on personal growth and development, on personal achievement within the framework of church guidelines, on the strengthening of individual character, and so on. And yet a goodly amount of regimentation does occur. In years past, for example, Mormon missionaries were required to teach investigators from a set of standard discussion plans, and they continue to be subjected to very tight controls and uniform requirements of dress and conduct.35 The church building program assembles carbon copy chapels both nationally and internationally. Priesthood and auxiliary teachers in all parts of the world give the same correlated lessons to students. Statistical quotas are set for such programs as missionary work, temple trips, home and visiting teaching, and genealogy. And local ward and stake programs and procedures have come under the increasing scrutiny of a centralized bureaucracy that is housed primarily in a twenty-­seven-­story office building in Salt Lake City. The LDS Church is plagued with its fair share of bureaucratic regulation and legalism. To the extent that such forms of regimentation are practiced, they may be regarded as deindividuating processes. Whether they are fated to increase in importance at the expense of member individuality, and as part of the bureaucratization of the church, remains to be seen.

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Social Control through Transcendence The basic emphasis of Kanter’s last commitment category is to locate the mortified and powerless individual within the positive context of a larger entity that is far more meaningful and potent than the self. Social control is promoted because members are awed by and dependent upon the collective strength of community resources and the unified resolve of the group. Transcendence, then, involves the surrender of self to the comforting protection and solutions of exclusive group life. Specific solutions and protection are to be found in the group’s ideology or belief system, in its authority structure and programmatic guidance, in conversion experiences, and in group tradition. Ideological Beliefs

One social-­psychological task of the community, especially the religious community, is to provide for the individual a sense of meaning and purpose. In their quest for meaning, many seek ultimacy, a beyond which transcends the facts of everyday existence. Pursuit of the beyond often leads to charismatic experiences, which can constitute a radical break with established social routines, and to contact with the sacred. O’Dea suggests, “The sacred arouses feelings which are simultaneously characterized by terror and attraction, fear and love, horror and fascination; and there accompanies these feelings a conviction in the believer that he is somehow caught up and enveloped in an overarching destiny.”36 Through institutional awe, generated and sustained by ritual and ideology, the community attempts to preserve contact with the sacred. Community control over access to the sacred then becomes a crucial mechanism of commitment. As Sociologist Peter Berger points out, “All socially constructed worlds are inherently precarious,”37 and they must be maintained through the fundamental processes of socialization and social control. Socialization and social control are, in turn, supported by the process of legitimation. “By legitimation is meant socially objectivated ‘knowledge’ that serves to explain and justify the social order . . . Legitimations are answers to any questions about the ‘why’ of institutional arrangements.”38 Berger goes on to demonstrate that, historically, religion has functioned as the most important and pervasive vehicle for the legitimation of social realities. The reason religion “legitimates so effectively” is that “it relates the precarious

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reality constructions of empirical societies with ultimate reality. The tenuous realities of the social world are grounded in the sacred realissimum, which by definition is beyond the contingencies of human meanings and human activities.”39 As in other religious communities, Mormon theology and beliefs function both to sustain institutional awe and to provide legitimations of its own group life. How and in what ways this has been done represent, of course, some of the central analytical tasks of our study. But at the very least, one transcendent belief element was clear from the very foundation of the Mormon religion. God had chosen and spoken directly and literally to a modern prophet and, indeed, continued to speak to all those who would heed and follow. Furthermore, those followers comprised a spiritual elect, a veritable chosen people, whose sacred destiny was to establish the kingdom of God on earth. When Latter-­day Saint converts united their faith and efforts in this work, they associated themselves with the mighty rock of Daniel’s prophecy that would fill the whole world in the last days.40 Such beliefs as these, when accepted as truth, exercise the strongest kind of motivational attraction for collective participation and, indeed, continue to infuse modern Mormons’ vision of the preeminent role of their church in the latter days of human history. Authority Structure

In her assessment of relatively successful utopian movements, Kanter observes that one means employed by these groups for reinforcing institutional awe is to increase the distance of the ultimate decision-­making process from ordinary members, even though members are often highly involved in daily decisions. Another means of stimulating institutional awe is to enhance the sense of mystery surrounding the organization, so that obedience and moral conviction are absolute. Distance and mystery are promoted by several mechanisms: an authority hierarchy insulated from ordinary members, physical separation of leaders from members, special leadership prerogatives, and an irrational basis for making ultimate, as opposed to routine, decisions.41 There is no question that the Mormon hierarchy has expanded over the years as the size and organizational complexity of the church have increased. One product of this growth has been the interposition of an

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expanding body of functionaries and administrators between the general authorities of the church and the general membership. It is no longer possible, as in the days of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, for rank-­and-­file members to enjoy routine contact with such leaders.42 Today the visibility of general authorities is, in fact, maintained primarily through their official conference appearances and writings for church publications. This increased distance undoubtedly contributes to the awe in which church authorities are held and to the successful routinization of charisma in the ecclesiastical structure. Alternatively, it may also contribute to a growing sense for some of alienation—a consequence conducive to the deterioration, rather than maintenance, of community cohesion. At the local level, members still maintain intimate contact with their ward and stake leaders. Yet even here a certain distance is preserved between member input and ultimate decision-­making prerogatives. Decisions that are made at and affect the local ward unit, for example (such as whether to remodel the chapel or to release or appoint individuals in ward callings), are not based on the congregational principle of democratic input. The bishop may be counseled by others on local questions, but the ultimate decisions on such matters are his alone. The doctrinal legitimation for this procedure is contemporary revelation and the principle of common consent. By virtue of his position as patriarch of the ward, the bishop is believed to be divinely inspired in his judgments. Once the bishop claims to have prayed about a particular question and to have received providential guidance, there can be little questioning of his decision. This, of course, is precisely the sort of procedure referred to by Kanter as an “irrational” basis for removing the ultimate decision-­making power from the hands of the community’s rank and file. The bishop’s judgment is then presented to the congregation for its common consent or sustaining vote. As explained by one Mormon authority, the principle of common consent means that when the presiding authority presents any person or policy to the body of the church to be sustained, the only power which the assembly can exercise is to vote, by uplifted hand, either to sustain or not. All debate, all proposals of other names, all discussions of merit and worthiness are wholly out of order in such an assemblage.43 Proposals made by Mormon leaders to their congregations almost invariably receive a unanimous sustaining vote, even though individual

126  CHAPTER 5

members may be in private disagreement. The principle of common consent, and the belief in divine revelation upon which it rests, operate at every level of church organization. Linking all levels of institutional authority, another Mormon apostle asserts that “a man who says he will sustain the president of the church or the general authorities, but cannot sustain his own bishop is deceiving himself. The man who will not sustain the bishop of his ward or the president of his stake will not sustain the president of the church.”44 It is, indisputably, at the level of the president of the church that decisions are imbued with the greatest sense of mystery and awe. Momentous decisions on church policy—such as the discontinuation of polygamy, ending the practice of prohibiting black ordination, or lowering the age eligibility for female missionaries—are entirely removed from the scrutiny and conscious input of ordinary church members. They are taken to be direct revelations from God to his spokesman on earth, the president and prophet of the church.45 Reverence for the oracular authority of the prophets has, as our data show, been a consistently powerful conference theme throughout Mormon history. It should be clear that Mormon beliefs and authority structures serve as powerful instruments of institutional awe and community transcendence. Three remaining organizational means to be discussed, which also contribute to these ends, are programmatic guidance, conversion, and community tradition. Programmatic Guidance

Ideologies function not only to provide moral and metaphysical certainties, but also, very commonly, to lay down a systematic regimen for the conduct of everyday life. Such programmatic guidance is closely linked to the process of regimentation mentioned earlier. Programmatic guidance of the lives of Mormons has been quite pronounced during particular moments of their history, as, for example, the strict order of march and conduct given by Brigham Young to the Camp of Israel in their journeying to the West.46 Life in such communitarian towns as Orderville, Utah, was also, undoubtedly, programmatically routinized.47 Today, however, aside from such generalized norms as dress standards and the Word of Wisdom, the closest things to programmatic guidance by the church in the private lives of its

Mormon Commitment Mechanisms 127

members are probably its emphasis on the family home evening program, regular family prayers, and attendance at church meetings. For full-­time missionaries, however, routinization of activities is explicit.48 Mission rules are numerous and are usually quite strictly enforced by a system of supervisors. Missionaries arise by a certain hour (around 6:00 a.m.), leave their lodgings to proselytize by a certain hour (around 9:00 a.m.), retire by a certain hour (around 10:00 p.m.), are restricted to certain kinds of conservative dress (suits and ties for males, modest skirts and dresses for females), and strive to meet daily goals in hours spent seeking and teaching people and in the amount of time spent in personal study of lessons, scriptures, and church doctrine.49 Fraternization with members of the opposite sex is strictly forbidden to missionaries (sexual intimacy, if discovered, means automatic expulsion from the mission and excommunication from the church), and they are required to make weekly reports documenting their compliance with mission rules and quotas. For non-­missionary members of the church, however, such explicit, authoritatively based control of daily activities is simply not a part of their expected religious commitment. Conversion

The power of religious ideology to influence the life of an individual presupposes to a great extent his or her conversion to a religious community consisting of a network of people united by mutual moral obligations.50 Conversion in turn implies a fundamental transformation of commitment— the giving up of old commitments for new ones and, correspondingly, avowing different group attachments and a different personal identity. As observed earlier, exclusive organizations typically require prospective members to undergo some type of conversion process and a probationary period in which the genuineness of their conversion can be validated. Thus, in most cases, the church requires investigators to submit to a complement of missionary lessons before receiving baptism. At the end of the lessons they must then pass a worthiness interview where they are required to express their acceptance of and willingness to comply with church teachings as well as their submission to the priesthood authority of church officials. As with other relatively exclusive organizations that endure beyond their founding generation, the LDS Church is faced with the problem of

128  CHAPTER 5

converting children who are born into the community.51 The church’s solution is to postpone baptism until a child reaches a designated age of accountability, operationally defined in LDS scripture as eight years old.52 According to Mormon theology, at this age one is held responsible for his or her actions and can make genuine choices with respect to religious commitments. In practice, the baptism of children of active Mormon parents is taken for granted and is typically done as an automatic matter of course. For these children, then, conversion is a matter of their primary socialization into the church in conformity with their parents’ religious commitments. Mormon leaders have placed increasing emphasis on the teaching responsibilities of parents and church organizations for inculcating youth with the values and normative expectations of their inherited religion. The problem of retaining the religious commitment of its youth is, in fact, a major task long recognized and undertaken by Mormons through a proliferation of youth-­oriented programs and activities.53 In summary, it may be said that the conversion of children born into the church is accomplished through the process of primary socialization, while the conversion of adults not born into the church theoretically represents a process of resocialization in which one’s commitment to previous roles and values is substantially reorganized. This latter process differs from the former in that it involves the deliberate and self-­conscious alteration of an already existing set of commitments and personal identity, while the former involves the construction of a social and personal reality that initially is taken for granted from a child’s point of view but which may be later called into question as children age. In actual practice both the religious socialization of children and the recruitment of adults by missionaries may fail to produce permanent religious identities or lifelong active commitments. Member retention has, in fact, become an increasing concern for LDS officials in the twenty-­first century.54 Tradition

The final commitment mechanism contributing to institutional awe and organizational transcendence is the development of tradition. The sheer perpetuity of tradition confers legitimacy on the community and on the demands that it imposes on its members. Tradition becomes not only a complex of taken-­for-­granted routines and organizational structures but

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also, as noted previously, constitutes a source of pride, inspiration, and self-­identification. It is in the tradition of the community that ideology and myth become most inextricably mixed. A religious group’s founding figures, such as Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, are immortalized; even the recounting of their human foibles is done in such a gentle way as to contribute to, rather than detract from, their bigger-­than-­life images cherished by their people. Portentous events in the history of the community—such as the entry of Brigham Young into the valley of the Great Salt Lake and the “miracle of the gulls” where pioneer crops were allegedly rescued from destruction by hoards of crickets—become dramatized and mythologized.55 For most members, traditional myths become their version of the movement’s history, a history that shows the genuine goodness and nobility of their own institutional motives which at the same time execrates the wickedness and evil of their enemies.56 The myth-­building enterprise is a function of religious leadership and is apparent in the discourses of Mormon authorities as the LDS Church becomes increasingly institutionalized and distant from its tumultuous past. In a final comment on group commitment, we need not expect that all of the commitment practices discussed will be exploited equally by church leaders. As Kanter points out, It is possible that there can be a surfeit of commitment mechanisms. That is, up to a point the greater the number of commitment mechanisms a group uses, the stronger the commitment of its members. But past that number, commitment mechanisms may become dysfunctional for the group: they may be perceived as oppressive and may stifle the person’s autonomy to the extent that he becomes less rather than more committed.57

If this is true, the central questions for our study are: Which commitment mechanisms have been stressed most by Mormon authorities, and which least? In particular, has the emphasis on specific commitment mechanisms shifted and changed as the LDS Church has undergone adaptive transformations since its founding in 1830? And, if so, in what ways? We attempt to answer these questions in the next chapter with findings from our content analysis of Mormon general conferences.

6

Patterns of Mormon Commitment Rhetoric

While our discussion of Mormon commitment mechanisms in the last chapter is by no means a complete summary, it is clear that Mormonism quickly evolved institutionalized ways to express all of the major categories of commitment identified in the communal studies of Rosabeth Kanter. Given early Mormonism’s stubborn persistence and the eventual flourishing of the LDS religion in many parts of the world today, a roughly appropriate mixture of type and amount of commitment emphasis evidently has been exercised by Mormon leaders over time. The interplay between constants and adaptive variations in commitment rhetoric throughout Mormon history is the primary focus of the present chapter. To remind the reader of the basic elements involved, we outline here the theoretical linkage between major commitment mechanisms and their corresponding group functions. GROUP COM M I TM EN T C ATEGOR IES Commitment Functions

Costs

Benefits

Member Retention

Sacrifice

Investment

Group Cohesion

Renunciation

Communion

Social Control

Mortification

Transcendence

130

Patterns of Mormon Commitment Rhetoric 131

Even though this summary is quite schematic, one should not conclude that these particular commitment categories are either exhaustive or mutually exclusive. But they do provide a way to interpret the complex interaction that takes place among a variety of commitment practices essential to the making and maintaining of group life. It should be reemphasized that commitment decisions entail a certain trade-­off or exchange between the perceived benefits of commitment and the corresponding costs. The greater the commitment requirements for membership in a particular group, the greater the perceived benefits or costs are likely to be. For deeply committed members of exclusive groups, the considerable costs of sacrifice, renunciation, and mortification—which their membership requires—may be so trivialized by the great value they attach to the corresponding benefits of group investment, communion, and transcendence that individual demands are not perceived as costs at all but are willingly and gladly endured for the sake of involvement and identification with the group. Thus, group membership may be experienced as a priority end in itself. Conversely, for unsympathetic outsiders or disaffected members, the costs of group commitment may be perceived as greatly outweighing the putative benefits so much that the commitment of devoted members may seem incomprehensible—even fanatical—and, therefore, potentially dangerous. Mormonism has survived many adversities and denunciations, retained a core of committed followers, eventually prospered, and continues to attract devoted new believers worldwide. However, the LDS Church has also undergone significant organizational and doctrinal modifications. We should expect, therefore, to find patterned changes in the ways that Mormon leaders have induced commitment and in the relative importance they have attached to different types of commitment practice. An investigation of changing commitment patterns is of interest precisely because it may contribute to a better understanding of Mormonism’s historical survival and success as a new religion.1

Measuring Mormon Commitment Rhetoric Analyzing Kanter’s six commitment categories are a way of summarizing a much larger number of specific group behaviors that function to connect and subordinate individuals to the group. Empirical investigation of

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commitment is based on identifying concrete group activities that serve essential group functions and consequently employing those activities as indicators of different types of commitment. For her purposes, Kanter defined a list of 120 specific commitment indicators. She then resorted to a variety of sources (e.g., contemporary news accounts, letters, diaries, group records, descendant interviews) to establish the presence or absence of each commitment behavior for each group in her sample survey of nineteenth-­century utopian communities. In our own analysis of the Mormons, however, the major problem is not merely to identify the existence of commitment mechanisms, but to assess the relative intensity or salience such mechanisms demonstrate throughout Mormon history. Since our data source for this information is the LDS general conference reports, we are restricted to measuring Mormon leaders’ rhetorical concerns about issues relevant for commitment rather than the actual organizational structures and commitment practices discussed in preceding chapters. In short, in our study we are unable to directly measure the types and degrees of commitment shown in the actual behavior of LDS members over the years. But we are able to measure a major organizational strategy for stimulating and reinforcing commitment behaviors, namely, the Mormon general conference and the rhetorical themes therein expounded over time. Such rhetorical strategies are important. After all, specific behavioral norms for building commitment—such as dietary restrictions or abstinence, investment of material resources in particular programs, geographic and social isolation, shared labor, group rituals, public confession, refinements and modification of sacred ideologies, and so on—do not typically emerge full-­blown during the initial phases of group life. Nor can it be said that the operation of such commitment mechanisms is mostly intentional, that they have been knowingly contrived by leaders or ordinary group members who are perfectly clear about the commitment consequences of such practices. It cannot even be said that when certain social expectations with commitment implications do begin to appear that they are spontaneously accepted by group members and unwaveringly adhered to throughout the group’s life span. Rather, many doctrinally based commitment norms (such as plural marriage, the Word of Wisdom, the United Order, etc.) must first be convincingly articulated, rationalized, and legitimated before they become fully incorporated into the behavioral routines

Patterns of Mormon Commitment Rhetoric 133

of group culture. We would again emphasize the significance of general conference as a sounding board, educational forum, and catalyst for Mormon culture and the LDS religion. While we are certainly not claiming that Mormon commitment has its origins in leader-­imposed rhetoric, such rhetoric has prima facie importance in the commitment process.2 It is possible that our assessment of a particular type of LDS commitment emphasis for a particular period may be modestly distorted by analyzing only general conference addresses. For instance, it may be that some activities with commitment implications have become so routinized and taken for granted (e.g., public bearing of testimony) that they are not commented on by Mormon authorities in proportion to their actual frequency and significance in the experience of members. Or it may be that certain commitment activities are primarily discussed, organized, and administered within local organizational units (e.g., fundraisers, welfare projects, priesthood interviews, etc.) and therefore escape mention in general conference. Nevertheless, given the legitimating and indoctrinating character of LDS conferences, we are confident that Mormonism’s primary commitment activities are fairly well reflected in the official statements of Mormon authorities. This should especially be true over relatively long periods of time. Any commitment theme that is consistently emphasized or ignored by designated generations of conference speakers is clearly relevant to the functioning of the LDS Church. Neither the literal content of the conference reports nor our theme index derived from them is wholly concerned with topics relevant to commitment. For this chapter, therefore, we identify only those concepts that can be theoretically tied to one or more major commitment categories. As Kanter has pointed out, there exists no fixed non-­overlapping set of commitment mechanisms common to all communities. The 120 specific commitment mechanisms she identified for her own diagnostic purposes were not intended as ”an exhaustive list; there may be other ways in which the same commitment functions can be served, and many mechanisms may serve more than one function. Some of the specific practices reported may also be peculiar to nineteenth-­century America and may take slightly different forms in cultures with different premises.”3 While we did not feel limited to the specific behavioral mechanisms identified by Kanter, we did use them as guidelines for developing categories of Mormon commitment rhetoric from our theme index. Space

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limitation does not permit an exhaustive listing of all index items that we used to define each of our six commitment categories. To provide a general understanding of the operational content of our definitions, we simply summarize here a handful of key themes that are typical of different LDS commitment concerns. They include: 1. Sacrifice: Indicators of concern for what Kanter calls the abstinence aspects of sacrifice include conference rhetoric regarding appetites of the flesh, chastity, temptations, Word of Wisdom, and worldliness, etc. Austerity aspects of sacrifice are indicated by admonitions entailed in such concepts as not to borrow, not to seek earthly wealth, not to waste, etc., and by reflections about various tests and trials through adversity, hardships, poverty, and so on, especially as suffered by the Mormons. Overall, sacrifice is measured by a total of fifty conceptually relevant items from our index of conference themes. 2. Investment: Our conference theme index yields a variety of capital and labor investment measures included in such topic items as callings, the law of consecration, service, stewardship, tithing, and the virtues of work. Potential investment outcomes are catalogued by a wide range of potential reward items including blessings, prosperity, Celestial Kingdom, eternal life, progression, perfection, and salvation. Altogether, Mormon investment concern is defined by a total of sixty-­five specific index items. 3. Renunciation: Isolationist aspects of renunciation are indicated by such index themes as gathering and Zion; opposition to the world by themes that denounce such entities as gentiles, churches, secular government, and the philosophies of men; self-­sufficiency by themes that stress home industry, food storage, etc.; and Mormon distinctiveness by themes dealing with plural marriage, the Latter-­day Saints as a peculiar people, and so on. Altogether, sixty-­nine index items comprise our measurement of Mormon renunciation themes. 4. Communion: Sharing and contact aspects of communion are indexed by such theme items as cooperation, unity, the United Order, church activity, meetings, and programs. Ritualistic aspects of communion are indicated by themes like worship, ordinances, temple work, and baptism for the dead. Persecution themes

Patterns of Mormon Commitment Rhetoric 135

involving gentiles, sectarians, the U.S. government, etc., are also included. Ultimately, we identify 102 index items as indicators of Mormon communion activities. 5. Mortification: We index general mortification themes by such items as pride, humility, sin, and obedience. Surveillance and confession aspects of mortification are indicated by conference topics like requirements, worthiness, guilt, repentance, and spiritual reformation. Sanctions are reflected in such index themes as apostasy, excommunication, punishment, hell, and damnation, while spiritual differentiation is indicated by such topics as foreordination and degrees of glory. Our measure of mortification is comprised by a total of sixty index items. 6. Transcendence: Ideological legitimacy, authority, and programmatic guidance are reflected in a large number of conference index themes that imply the ultimate divinity of the LDS Church. These include such topics as authority, true church, God’s guidance, chosen people, kingdom of God, priesthood, revelation, prophet, restoration, last days, and so on. Conversion aspects of transcendence are indicated by items such as testimony, Holy Ghost, and a variety of teaching obligations associated with parenthood. Tradition and mythical aspects of transcendence are present in themes about Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, the pioneers, miracles, etc. Transcendence references were measured by the largest number of specific index items, totaling 209.4 Designation of different theme items as indicators of particular commitment categories does not, of course, guarantee that a given conference address will actually contain any of the designated items. The scoring of whichever commitment items that do occur in our sample of conference addresses, however, represents the crux of our analysis. This scoring is accomplished by simply adding the calculated ratio scores of individual theme topics present in an address assigned to a particular commitment category. The result is a summary score of the relative emphasis that conference speakers have given to a particular commitment dimension. For example, if three different topical themes related to sacrifice are found in a conference address with ratio scores of .05, .10, and .20, respectively, then the total salience for sacrifice in this address equals .35.

136  CHAPTER 6 TA BLE 6.1. M E A N SA LIENCE SCOR ES OF COM M I TM EN T C ATEGOR IES FOR THIRT Y-Y E A R TI M E PER IODS, 1830 –1979 1830– 1859

1860– 1889

1890– 1919

1920– 1949

1950– 1979

Grand Mean

0.070

0.086

0.122

Sacrifice

0.137

0.178

0.137

Investment

0.271

0.307

0.274

0.186

0.153

0.238

Renunciation

0.179

0.317

0.170

0.054

0.062

0.156

Communication

0.335

0.448

0.236

0.118

0.124

0.252

Mortification

0.208

0.230

0.239

0.121

0.172

0.194

Transcendence

0.817

1.051

1.040

0.581

0.557

0.809

Grand Mean

0.325

0.422

0.349

0.188

0.192

0.295

Given the large number of index themes and subthemes, the relatively large number of conference addresses in our sample, and our objective of uncovering general long-­term patterns of commitment, we again found it both necessary and desirable to condense our data into a manageable format. We achieved this reduction by computing, for every thirty-­year period, a mean salience score for each of the six commitment categories. This mean is based on aggregating the salience scores of the specific index items that define each general category; mean salience scores thus provide a summary measure of the rhetorical salience of each of Kanter’s six categories of commitment for every generation of Mormon history from 1830 through 1979.5 These data are presented in Table 6.1, allowing us to propose answers to the following questions: Which categories of commitment did leaders emphasize most and least during the first one hundred fifty years of Mormon development? What is the interrelationship within and between these commitment concerns over time? And how did different commitment concerns coincide with critical historical events that impinged on Latter-­day Saints’ adaptive efforts to sustain their religion?

Patterns of LDS Commitment Rhetoric The results summarized in Table 6.1 yield several intriguing patterns. These results may be examined within two different comparative frameworks: We can (1) compare the salience of all commitment categories, relative to each other, for designated time periods; and (2) compare the salience of each commitment category, relative to itself, for designated time periods. The first approach deals with the question: Which commitment categories

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are emphasized most and which least? The second approach answers the question: Which are the time periods of greatest and least emphasis for a particular commitment category? Since both approaches provide useful information, we will alternate between them in the discussion that follows. If we concentrate first on the emphasis given to all the different dimensions of commitment relative to each other, the overall (or grand mean) salience scores produced for each category indicate the following rank order of importance, from highest to lowest: (1) transcendence, (2) investment, (3) communion, (4) mortification, (5) renunciation, and (6) sacrifice. Interestingly, this order neatly divides the “positive-­benefit” categories from the “negative-­cost” categories, with the former all ranking higher than the latter. Such a result corresponds to a commonsense psychology that stresses rewards over punishments, the subordination of the stick to the carrot. Appealing as this result might be for theoretical reasons (and as a testament to the pragmatic good sense of Mormon leaders), this summary ranking of commitment themes over the entire history of general conference is not a precise portrayal of relative emphasis for particular periods of designated time. Only the category of transcendence, for instance, consistently maintains its rank order (number one) for each generation of conference addresses sampled. Sacrifice—the next most consistent category—only alternates between fifth and sixth place in the rankings, but the remaining four commitment categories vary from three to four salience ranks, in relationship to one another, over five generations of Mormon history. Nevertheless, a rather stable pattern of conference commitment emphasis became established throughout most of the twentieth century in which mortification concerns replaced communion as the third most salient category, and renunciation supplanted sacrifice as the least salient. These various fluctuations in commitment emphasis are significant in light of Mormon history, as well as suggestive in their application to group and community processes generally, as we shall now see.

Changing Mormon Commitment Concerns Changes in the relative salience of Mormon commitment concerns reflect the impact of specific historical events, environmental circumstances, and the more general dynamics of institutional development. Perhaps the best

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example of these interacting conditions occurred during Mormonism’s second generation (1860–1889), a period when the Mormons’ long struggle with the United States government over the issues of polygamy and theocratic rule in the Utah territory coincided with what our data reveal as the period when commitment themes were most strongly emphasized by conference speakers. Particularly in the 1880s, Mormonism was faced with an overall survival crisis as great as or greater than any other in a history spectacularly filled with crises. The need for commitment was at a premium, and consequently Mormon leaders exhorted faithfulness of their followers and condemned their enemies to a degree not generally matched before or since. Following this watershed period in Mormon history, leaders self-­consciously began to cultivate acceptance and approval from the outside world, and the integration of Mormonism and the LDS Church into the mainstream of American life commenced. An important factor in understanding the relative success or failure of new religions that, like the Mormons, are founded on belief in revelation and divine guidance concerns their effective deployment of dissonance management strategies for coping with failed or disconfirmed prophecies. Effective dissonance management is particularly crucial for understanding the survival (and even eventual flourishing) of prophetic religions that have suffered humiliating political defeats or military conquest. As both Jon Stone and Lorne Dawson argue,6 millenarian groups that sustain themselves over time nourish a religious culture of both prophetic expectation and prophetic adaptation. Within this culture prophetic leadership and guidance become important variables in shaping how groups socialize their members to receive prophecy, respond theologically to disconfirmations, and mobilize in-­group social support. In particular, effective dissonance management requires the reinterpretation or spiritualization of prophecy in response to apparent disconfirmation of religious expectations, supplemented by communal celebrations and reaffirmation rituals that strengthen solidarity and commitment. Ineffective management of a group’s organization and, especially, ineffective theological interpretation of disconfirming events impair group morale, making it difficult for new religions to sustain their identities or membership. A central thesis of this book is that LDS general conference became and continues to be a crucially important institutional vehicle for sustaining and reinforcing Mormon commitment. Its annual and

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semiannual proceedings constitute a form of communal celebration and ritual reaffirmation in which, through prophetic rhetoric, Mormon authorities explain, interpret, exhort, and reinterpret LDS doctrines that justify members’ faith even when confronted with apparent religious disconfirmations and temporary defeats. It is thus instructive to note that transcendence and mortification themes both achieved their most salient level in the decade following the Woodruff polygamy manifesto (1890–1899). It does not seem unreasonable to speculate that these two emphases were the most effective means of rationalizing the dissonance and disillusionment generated by a forced compromise. An increase in the rhetoric of transcendence functioned to bolster the credibility of leaders and provide reassurance about the changed but ultimately providential direction of the church. And an increase in the rhetoric of mortification suggests the arousal of introspection and self-­blame for recently undergone ordeals and a need for humility, repentance, and rededication to the cause.7 Other revealing fluctuations in the salience of particular commitment categories are noticeable when smaller units of time such as decades are analyzed. For instance, during the 1880s emphasis on sacrifice was significantly higher than the levels it subsequently reached in all other decades. But investment concerns during the 1880s behaved in just the opposite way, becoming the least emphasized of all commitment categories during that decade, sinking to a salience level that was the lowest for investment themes in conference history until the mid-­t wentieth century. Thus, under conditions of extreme external pressure, the response of LDS officials was to demand of church members extraordinary demonstrations of loyalty and worthiness. And while faith in an eventual glorious triumph did not officially waver, the immediate future was gloomy and uncertain indeed. It was not a time propitious for thoughts of material rewards and beneficial returns on expenditures, particularly in light of the dissolution of the church as a corporate entity, the escheatment of church properties and monies, the political disfranchisement of adult LDS citizens, and the threat of prison for polygamists, including and especially the general authorities. However, once these collective disasters began to dissolve under the conciliatory consequences of the church’s capitulation on the issues of polygamy and political control, leaders again began to reemphasize Mormonism’s commitment benefits and downplay its costs. These changes are

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reflected in the substantial resurgence of investment salience in the 1890s and early 1900s from its nadir in the 1880s, and by a corresponding deflation of sacrifice salience from its highest level in the 1890s to its fourth-­ lowest level during the decade 1900–1909. Patterns of rhetorical commitment during Mormonism’s first generation (1830–1859) generally show increasingly strong levels of salience that carry over and eventually culminate in the next generation, as just discussed. Several revealing variations in this overall tendency emerge, however. Our data show, for instance, that commitment concerns were especially prominent in the 1840s, a decade which witnessed the perfecting and flowering of an effective missionary system in the eastern United States, Canada, and Great Britain; the emergence of a successful emigration program that funneled thousands of the newly converted for absorption into the Mormon community; the burgeoning growth of Nauvoo; the assassination of Joseph Smith; the confusion over authority and direction; the forced flight from Illinois; the organized march to the Rocky Mountains; and the first years of uncertain existence in the harsh valleys of the Great Basin. Great risk is universally a source of great doubt, and this was a decade in which ultimate risk became manifestly attached to virtually every Mormon enterprise. In their conference addresses, however, leaders did not attempt to minimize the difficulties. While sacrifice themes remained relatively low in emphasis compared to other commitment concerns of the time, the salience of sacrifice in the 1840s is nevertheless almost double its own level achieved in both the previous and following decade and, indeed, is only succeeded in magnitude during Mormon history by the calls for sacrifice in the 1880s and 1890s. Increased emphasis on sacrifice was not balanced by a proportionate increase in references to investment potentials. But correspondingly great increases did occur in the salience of communion and transcendence, the remaining two positive categories of commitment. Thus, the required hardships were especially softened with increased reflections on the virtues of participating in a united, caring community that enjoyed God’s sanction and guidance. Apart from the Utah War, which dominated the latter part of the decade as both portent and catalyst for Mormonism’s direct conflict with the U.S. government in the years to follow, the 1850s was a comparatively calm and optimistic period in early Mormon history. Established in their

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mountain retreats, the Mormons were never more insulated against enemies, persecutions, and interference from the outside world. While physical circumstances continued to exact severe penalties, eased political conditions and security of place allowed the church to divert more of its energies to internal concerns. These included spiritual reassessment and reformation,8 consolidation of resources, and expansion of purpose; in short, the firm establishment of a new spiritually based socioeconomic political system in the wilderness. The greatest shifts in commitment rhetoric during the 1850s involved relatively steep declines in two of the previous decade’s largest gainers: sacrifice and transcendence. The decline in emphasis on sacrifice was countered with a substantial increase in the salience of investment. But the relative drop in transcendence themes was matched by a corresponding de-­emphasis of mortification, with both of these categories registering their lowest salience levels in conference history until the Great Depression decade of the 1930s. Thus, during a critical period of respite and regeneration, practicality and payoffs were accorded more attention than previously, while institutional abstractions and consoling pieties were resorted to relatively less often. Since the turn of the twentieth century, commitment concerns have achieved a more stabilized configuration within an overall pattern of declining salience. The most visible differences between modern and early commitment patterns are the steady emergence of mortification as one of the higher-­ranking categories of salience and a sharp drop in salience suffered by communion, relative to the attention received by other commitment categories. Today, as the church generates ever-­larger and variegated numbers of adherents on a worldwide basis who are increasingly enmeshed in the structures and concerns of separate, secular communities, there is perhaps less appeal—certainly less feasibility—in the ideal of maintaining a unique cultural or ethnic identity. However, by virtue of these same conditions— increasing membership numbers as well as diversity and complexity against the backdrop of secular anomie—the religious themes of mortification assume greater scope; they function more effectively to lay the groundwork for a religious identity that has not declined in appeal, namely, attachment to a transcendent, institutionally directed purpose. Based on this analysis, our commitment data lend support to the overarching thesis of our study,

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which is that the LDS Church—as the ecclesiastical structure for a distinctive lay religion—has ultimately flourished and spread within the world’s religious economy, not Mormonism and its people as a distinctive ethnic group. Transcendence themes have, in fact, constituted by far the most salient commitment category during all periods of Mormon conference history. The salience of transcendence at least doubles that of the next highest commitment category in any given decade or generation. This magnitude of difference is so striking that the general nature of transcendence themes warrants further comment.

The Importance of Transcendence By strongly emphasizing transcendence themes at general conference, Mormon leaders, we surmise, have been much more preoccupied with the organizational problem of social control than with the related problems of member retention and social cohesion. Also, in emphasizing transcendence themes, leaders have been much more inclined to stress the positive side of social control rather than the costs entailed by the self-­mortification of individual believers. But why should transcendence themes be so overwhelmingly prominent in the commitment rhetoric of Mormon leaders? We believe it is because a sense of transcendence is a fundamental basis of collective life—not just for Mormons, but for all stable enduring groups that seek and successfully establish a community identity.9 To be sure, there do exist some a priori reasons for expecting transcendence themes to be more prominent in the rhetorical history of religious groups, such as the Mormons, compared to nonreligious groups. For instance, while Mormonism arguably constitutes a society in addition to being a religion, it is, as regarded by its most devout members, a “sacred” society. Furthermore, by definition transcendence is an aspect of group life made much more visible in religious organizations than in most secular organizations. Finally, transcendence is the least behavioral of all commitment categories. It lends itself most readily to being expressed verbally and abstractly through group ideology, sacred myth, and the like. Transcendence can take on concrete form through organizational hierarchy and authoritative decision-­making processes, but such structures are themselves based on beliefs about special grace, divine favor, historical inevitability, or other extraordinary sources of power.

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These acknowledgments, however, do not necessarily mitigate the relative importance of transcendence for cohesive, long-­enduring organizations. The transcendent qualities of group life have been recognized in sociology at least since Durkheim’s famous formulation connecting the social and the sacred. Many modern sociologists of religion have, of course, extended Durkheim’s insight to the functional analysis of ideologically based secular entities ranging from political systems to nation-­states.10 In these, and many other ongoing collective enterprises, the role of leader rhetoric is no less important than in specifically religious groups. The transcendent aspects of the group (whether movement, organization, community, or society) must be interpreted, explained, justified, and extended through talking and writing. Transcendence is not something that can be done, although it can be experienced. But even the personal charismatic experiences of individuals eventually come to be defined, rationalized, and constrained by organizational officials. If one of the primary tasks of leadership is to persuade group members that the costs of group commitment are compensated for or outweighed by the benefits, then this task is greatly aided by establishing a conviction of the group’s specialness, efficacy, and ultimate mission—in a word, its transcendence. Transcendence, after all, encompasses the fundamental meaning of a community as understood by its members, the sufficient justification for the community’s existence. The validity and perceived reasonableness of other commitment concerns ultimately depend upon a conception of transcendent group qualities and purpose. Identification of self with a greater collective good and a transcendent sense of power creates an internalized moral order that strongly reinforces one’s willingness to submit, to give up, or to sacrifice in behalf of group interests with which one has become intimately aligned. Control, then, emerges as the paramount commitment concern, at least for the Mormons. But it is not ultimately control through coercive means resulting in mere outward conformity to organizational rules. Rather, it is the control of ultimate meanings and intrinsic patterns of life deducible from these meanings. Group discipline and individual abasement—mortification—are powerful elements in the overall commitment process. But operating alone, mortification is only capable of producing a superficial order that is dependent on the constant presence of external sanctions. Mortification, alone, is not capable of motivating individuals to want to

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conform, to want to be part of a larger whole, to be self-­controlling in the service of a great purpose shared by others. Similarly, group cohesiveness is subordinate to transcendent controls. Expressions of communion are both stimulated by and reinforcing of a transcendent group identity. The “we” feeling, the sense of oneness with the group, constitutes some of the most profoundly satisfying emotions in human experience. If such feelings are infused with a conviction of participating in a sacred cause, then the feelings themselves are elevated to a level of sacredness. Expressions of renunciation sharpen the sense of specialness. The world outside the group is confused, off the right path, and spiritually inferior. “They” are not favored with the blessings enjoyed by us; they are cut off from the face of God; we are God’s elect. One “feels” these claims to be true in the very act of sharing them with fellow believers. Staying involved, or member retention, is an outcome proportional to the degree of satisfaction obtained from collective beliefs and collective practices. Requirements to sacrifice are not repellent within the context of a sacred community. Giving of self and personal possessions prove worthiness, reinforce selectivity of belonging, and augment the sacredness of the enterprise. Ultimately, all sacrifices have the potential of becoming sanctified, transcendent investments, either in the concrete sense of anticipating specific blessings and rewards or in the more general sense of contributing resources that make the pleasures of community life possible. Perhaps the reason Mormon leaders have placed relatively less rhetorical stress on sacrifice issues is simply because these are implicit corollaries of a transcendent social order. Tests and demands are difficult to bear without sufficiently developed rationale and legitimacy. But once the meaningfulness of group life is established, the costs of maintaining community solidarity—and the benefits to be derived from so doing—may become more taken for granted when not confronted by desperate crises.

The General Career of Mormon Commitment Rhetoric While it is clear that commitment concerns voiced in the LDS general conference are capable of both mirroring major episodes in Mormon history as well as informing us about the nature of community commitment in

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general, we should not lose sight of the larger developmental trends that are also reflected in our data. Even though differences between the various commitment categories tend toward consistency, the salience of each category does change over time. The most striking feature of these historical changes is that most of the commitment categories produce roughly the same pattern of change, namely an increasing emphasis from the inception of Mormonism until around the turn of the twentieth century and then a noticeable decline thereafter. This curvilinear pattern of Mormon commitment rhetoric over time is clearly congenial with general sociological models of institutional accommodation and change. Social movements are often described as being prone to structural, purposive, and orientational changes by compromising with the larger systems in which they operate. Compromising changes are also common, of course, among newly founded and heretical religious groups. The more or less accepted models of change in these kinds of organizations usually begin by describing the emergence of relatively radical or heretical groups that depart from and challenge the established social order. Then, through a mixture of success and accommodation, such groups are described as gradually being divested of their initial radicalism, becoming more conservative, and, if they endure long enough, becoming themselves part of the established institutional landscape. While this general model has many shortcomings,11 it is still applicable to a number of diverse historical cases, including the transformation of the LDS Church from a marginal, utopian, socially despised, and exclusive religion to an increasingly prosperous, socially respectable, and politically conservative organization of international scope. Having made a mutually comfortable peace with the world, the religion no longer requires the same intensity of commitment to ensure its survival. Not only has accommodation brought acceptability and growth but also potential realization of new organizational goals. Concomitantly, certain previously established group mechanisms for generating and sustaining exclusive commitments are now perceived as liabilities that require softening, modification, or altogether abandonment. Mormon leaders’ changing rhetorical concerns faithfully reflect these changes over time. Additional indicators of Mormonism’s transformation, and a more detailed discussion of its amalgam of new and former organizational patterns, are the subjects of the remaining chapters. Meanwhile, what can be

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said about the future of Mormon commitment patterns? As we have seen, rhetorical emphasis on all varieties of commitment has lessened in modern times, presumably as other topics began to receive a proportionately larger amount of attention from LDS authorities speaking at conference. And there seems little doubt, based on formal program changes and informal observations of Mormon community life, that actual levels of commitment expected of and obtained from ordinary members have declined from previous levels in the nineteenth century. Does all this imply that official Mormon concern for commitment is fated to diminish to a point of negligible significance? Neither our data nor the theoretical assumptions underlying our study would support such a conclusion. All organizations must be able to sustain some level of shared commitment among their members (although this level may be much lower than was stressed during an earlier phase in an organization’s history). Conference data from our original survey, for instance, suggested a leveling off or even a slight, overall increase in emphasis placed on commitment. Since World War II, the greatest resurgence of commitment concerns occurred during the 1950s, when Mormon growth on an international scale first became noticeable, and again during the 1970s—a period of highly accelerated LDS growth, especially in international areas outside the United States. During this latter decade, the only commitment categories that continued in the historical pattern of overall decline were investment and mortification (although in relative terms, both still ranked second and third, respectively, compared to the salience levels of all other commitment categories). This leveling off of a decline in twentieth-­century commitment rhetoric in our data—and even slight increases in some areas—provided empirical support for Armand Mauss’s well-­known retrenchment thesis regarding modern LDS institutional development.12 We will examine this in more detail in Chapter 9 when we introduce our new analysis of the past thirty years of conference rhetoric subsequent to the first edition of Kingdom Transformed. We noted in our first edition circa 1980 that the LDS Church had been authoritatively secure and confident about its policies for a long time, but that there was perceptibly renewed concern about the encroaching dangers emanating from the values, lifestyles, and political directions of the secular world. (This was particularly the case in the aftermath of the youth rebellions and political/cultural upheavals of the 1960s.) The concern was

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how to inoculate and coordinate a far-­flung organization, growing rapidly in foreign cultures, with doctrinally correct, standardized programs as antidotes for these perceived dangers. LDS officials continue pursuing a variety of traditional and innovative organizational solutions to these problems, some of which we comment on in the remaining chapters. At the same time, our post–World War II conference data suggest that Mormon leaders are not unmindful of the rhetorical commitment strategies so successfully employed by their forebears. We make one final observation on the continuing significance of transcendence themes expressed by Mormon leaders at general conference. While its absolute level of rhetorical emphasis has declined since the nineteenth century, the proportional emphasis on transcendence, relative to other categories of commitment rhetoric, actually increased during the modern era. Thus, between 1830 and 1889, transcendence accounted for 42 percent of all conference rhetoric devoted to commitment themes. From 1890 through 1979, however, transcendence rhetoric increased to 50 percent of the total amount given to commitment concerns. All other commitment categories in our data show either negligible change in proportional emphasis or slight decreases since 1890. These findings strengthen our hypothesis that transcendence represents the core category of Mormon commitment. They also support the Weberian view that accommodation processes are facilitated by the routinization of charisma through increasing attribution of power and awe to institutions.13 LDS institutional control in modern times, while vastly more restrained than in earlier years, has not diminished in principle. Indeed, in some ways, including its enormously expanded bureaucracy, the increasing detachment of its highest authorities from access and direct member contact, and its greatly superior command of technology and material resources, the organizational machinery of the LDS Church may elicit even more awe from the faithful than in days past. Some of the ways these emergent organizational properties reflect and facilitate accommodation to the secular world become our focus in the next two chapters.

7

Mormon Accommodation

Scholars of religion have long focused attention on the emergence and subsequent histories of heretical religious groups.1 By “heretical” we don’t mean intrinsically wrong or wicked. We simply mean doctrines and their corollary practices that are at fundamental variance with the authority of established orthodoxies. The term “sect” is usually applied to groups that deliberately split off from an already established parent organization. Such splits typically occur over doctrinal or policy disputes and a desire to return to a former purity of the faith and practice that disgruntled reformers perceive have become diluted or corrupted over time. Thousands of such schisms have, of course, occurred in the history of Christianity alone. The term “cult” has been applied more often to religious innovations— not merely sectarian schisms—that deviate markedly from already existing faiths. Cult organizations are typically founded by prophetic figures who attract followers on the basis of charismatic claims to transcendent insight and instruction or a divinely appointed mission.2 The origin of Christianity in the form of the incipient Jesus Movement serves as a prime example. Formed initially as a heretical Jewish sect, Christianity began when disciples imputed to Jesus the divine status of the messianic Son of God following his death and subsequently transcended the confines of Jewish law to propagate a new religious tradition.3

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Unfortunately, the sociological concept of a cult as a certain type of religious innovation has not retained its morally neutral meaning in the arena of public discourse. Interview a hundred people at random about what the term conjures for them, and you will likely hear ninety-­nine allusions to frighteningly bizarre and menacing organizations that are fanatically engaged in fraudulent or immoral activities under the quasi-­hypnotic control of a maniacally disturbed leader. Groups approximating such a caricature do, from time to time, emerge, including those that advocate violence.4 But the majority of new religious movements are nonviolent, sincere, and legally compliant, however strange their beliefs may seem to unsympathetic outsiders. For this reason, the morally neutral term of new religious movement (NRM) has come to replace the pejorative label of cult in the lexicon of most social science scholars of new religions.5 To the degree that NRMs are able to attract even a small following, a major obstacle to their ultimate survival, let alone widespread growth in membership, is the concerted public opposition against them that is aroused by discovery of their presence and perceived deviant practices in host communities. How do such heretical groups survive and even prosper in the truly unusual case? The Mormons provide an exceptionally informative case study for illuminating these questions. Was early Mormonism a cult, exploited by maniacal leaders such as Joseph Smith and Brigham Young? We trust that our summary review of Mormon history, core LDS beliefs, and analysis of official conference rhetoric up to this point helps dispel such vacuous simplifications. Cult stereotypes reinforce smug moral condemnations but do not produce any genuine understanding or appreciation for the complex social processes in which some heretical groups may mature into religious traditions that satisfy the spiritual longings of millions of religious seekers. The basic thesis of this chapter concerns Mormon accommodation, i.e., LDS officials’ reactions to powerful pressures to change beliefs and practices deemed by other Americans to be socially unacceptable. A little more conceptual scaffolding should help clarify the historical details painted by our statistical analysis of conference rhetoric in response to Mormon accommodation pressures.

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Church-­Sect Theory The dominant mode of interpretation that has emerged from the work of scholars who address the origins and impact of influential movements on social change appears to correspond fairly well to the institutional history of the Mormon religion. Basic elements of this interpretive model (as also summarized in the previous chapter) include minority dissatisfaction with the status quo arrangements of existing institutions; collective dissent and significant departure from conventional ways of thinking and acting in the form of new social movements; internal and external pressures toward modifying heretical ideas and deviation from conventional norms; and, finally, growing mutual acceptance between the heirs of a successful social movement and the larger institutional order within which the movement increasingly becomes integrated. (This said, there is no guarantee that movements promoting social change actually will be successful in achieving any of their objectives or have any impact on the host society in which they emerge.) In the study of religious institutions, these elements of change have often been translated into some version of church-­sect theory. As a theoretical type, the church is prototypical of religious organizations that have become accommodated to the world, endorsing and legitimating the authority of prevailing cultural institutions. In contrast, the prototypical sect is fundamentally at odds with the world and its ways and rejects the accommodating posture of the church as a corruption of true religion. Both church and sect represent hypothetical, ideal types. In reality, religious organizations fall somewhere on a continuum between these two extremes, showing varying degrees of churchlike or sect-­like tendencies. The basic thesis of this typology emphasizes the dialectical relationship between church and sect: the sect is a schismatic offshoot of an established church; the church is an organization which typically began its career as a schismatic sect or NRM but which has been divested of its original radicalism in the irresistible process of compromising with the world. Church-­sect theory and the protest-­accommodation model on which it is based have produced a large literature in the social sciences, much of which has been critical of the oversimplifications of this approach.6 The study of a wide variety of sects has led many scholars to question the inevitability of the accommodation model. For example, Bryan Wilson contends

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that only certain kinds of sects (i.e., conversionist sects that feature aggressive programs for proselytizing and change) operating within certain sociohistorical conditions (such as an expanding economy and corresponding opportunities for social mobility) are likely to undergo transformations in the direction of an established church.7 Similarly, Mayer Zald and Roberta Ash criticize traditional accommodation theory for being limited to only certain kinds of social movement organization and overlooking other possible institutional outcomes, such as the formation of coalitions, organizational disappearance, and increasing rather than decreasing radicalism. Finally, according to Milton Yinger, the standard church-­sect typology fails to account for the possibility of “established sects,” which are “somewhat more inclusive, less alienated and more structured than an emergent sect,” but which retain religiously exclusive identities and a critical stance toward the outside world over several generations.8 An initial orientation that is opposed “to the dominant secular structure can itself become an established value, perpetuated by normal socialization and reinforced by various cycles of interaction between a sect and the larger society.”9 Persecution, isolation, deprivation, and radicalism of dissent— all indelible features of early Mormonism—are some of the initial conditions Yinger associates with the retention of sectarian characteristics in religious organizations. In a somewhat different vein, Rodney Stark and William Bainbridge argue that the basic insights of church-­sect theory can only be realized by reducing the proliferation of traits presumed to differentiate churchlike from sect-­like organizations to a single core attribute: the degree of tension between a religious group and its social environment.10 In turn, degree of tension tends to be inversely related to a group’s size and rate of growth. Thus, the conditions that promote or hinder organizational growth must be more thoroughly investigated in order to understand the accommodation process. This we should keep in mind as we consider the LDS Church’s accelerated growth rates in the twentieth-­and twenty-­first centuries. Such growth augurs for accommodating changes and greater integration into the institutions of the larger society. We find that the systematic analyses developed several decades ago by both Stark and Bainbridge as well as Zald and Ash still provide useful .

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frameworks for interpreting the institutional transformation of the Mormon religion. As follows, we summarize and then apply some of the major propositions of these theorists, beginning first with the conceptual distinctions made by Stark and Bainbridge to which we will then link the organizational change hypotheses of Zald and Ash. In doing this, we remind readers of the limitations of our conference data. There are many aspects of organizational transformation that cannot be gauged by reliance on an analysis of leaders’ public rhetoric alone. Nonetheless, Mormon conference addresses can be counted on to reflect major shifts in attitude and subject matter that correspond with important institutional changes, especially those that express alteration in the degree of tension between Mormonism and the larger society.

The Innovational Character of Cults as New Religious Movements According to Stark and Bainbridge, the origins of specific religious movements can be accounted for in one of three ways: schism, innovation, or importation. As already discussed, by definition the sect is schismatic; it breaks off from an established group because of disagreements over authority, doctrine, or policy. The schismatic group does not proclaim a new faith but seeks what it claims is a return to the authentic purity of the old. From the sectaries’ perspective the original faith has been corrupted and must be reestablished. In contrast, the sect’s justifying religious ideology is predictably perceived by the dominant religious tradition as an aberrant heresy. Seeking renewed purity, the sect sets itself in opposition to worldly compromise and therefore, relative to its social environment, becomes a high-­tension group. However, not all schismatic groups move in the direction of increased societal tension. Some may break off from a parent body to achieve lower tension with the social environment. Stark and Bainbridge refer to this as a church movement. Schismatic church movements seek reconciliation with dominant traditions or established social norms (e.g., nineteenth-­and twentieth-­century Reform Judaism in both Western Europe and the United States). Sects are not the only form of religious heresy from an orthodox perspective. Stark and Bainbridge reserve the designation of cult for heretical

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movements that are not the product of schism from “an established religious body in the society in question.”11 The cult or NRM represents a religious novelty rather than a reform effort. It is not genealogically linked in a direct organizational sense to any of the orthodox religious traditions of the host society. New religious movements may emerge through borrowing or “importing” their essential elements from an alien cultural tradition (e.g., the Hare Krishnas as a Hindu sect in the United States and other Western nations) or through the religious innovations of charismatic leaders who assert a new order of belief and practice independent of established religious traditions (e.g., L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology). Stark and Bainbridge’s intent in formulating these definitions is to simplify the “theoretical wilderness” of religious typologies, which has grown up in the literature on religious organization, and to make possible the unambiguous measurement of particular cases of religious movements. They contend that while NRMs and sects are both deviant religious categories from the perspective of orthodox authority, they represent different kinds of religious movements. A theory of sect formation may be used to understand the process of schism within NRMs, but a theory of sects cannot serve as a theory of NRM formation because the origins of NRMs are different from those of sects. In the case of Mormonism, however, we find that Stark and Bainbridge’s theoretical distinction between sects and NRMs is not crystal clear. Over the course of its history Mormonism has spawned numerous splinter groups or sect movements.12 But what of the original Mormon movement? Should we classify it as a cult or a sect? Arguably, the origins of Mormonism show important characteristics of both. First, we must recognize that Mormonism was a religious innovation. Its institutional history does not begin as an organizational schism from any previously existing religious body but with the charismatic assertions of its youthful prophet-­founder, Joseph Smith. As with most NRMs, early Mormonism was dominated by the personality of its founder—a personality sacralized in death to mythic proportions by Smith’s loyal disciples and subsequent generations of Mormon believers. Taken individually, many of Mormonism’s most distinctive beliefs and practices, as we argue in Chapter 3, are derivable from the religious and secular currents of nineteenth-­ century American society. However, Smith’s creative eclecticism and

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capacity for synthesis of existing ideas can scarcely be overestimated.13 What made Mormonism an innovation was not so much the uniqueness of particular tenets but its novel amalgamation of both Old and New Testament antecedents into a coherent system that, in Jan Shipps’ language, constituted a “new religious tradition.”14 Mormons themselves insist on the independent origin of their religious institutions. Clearly recognizing their lack of schismatic linkage to a parent religious body, Mormons have eschewed any classification as Protestants. The cult-­like origins of the LDS religion are further evidenced by the fact that they have often had to combat the popular misconception that their religion is not a Christian faith at all. This was even truer in the nineteenth century than today, due to the much greater degree of deviance imputed to Mormonism during its polygamy era. Because NRMs represent both religious and cultural novelties, they are often not accorded a legitimate religious status by the larger society in which they emerge.15 In spite of its essentially innovative character as a new religious movement, Mormonism’s basic legitimating ideology of the restoration cannot be overlooked. It is this doctrine that categorically links Mormonism to Protestant Christianity. From the Mormon perspective the religion proclaimed by Joseph Smith was not new but ancient. Mormonism’s original attractive power lay in its claim as the pristine gospel espoused by the primitive Christian church, indeed, its simplicity and power restored through revelation after centuries of worldly corruption. This is the typical ideology of the sect. The original converts to the Mormon restoration were Christian seekers and primitivists—Bible reading and Bible believing literalists who were convinced that Catholicism and established Protestant faiths had strayed from the principles of true Christianity.16 They did not renounce their Christianity for the enticements of an exotic and alien cult. To the contrary, these converts believed that in Mormonism they had discovered a pure expression of the true Christian religion. In addition to its restorationist ideology, early Mormonism demonstrated organizational features more characteristic of sects than of cultic NRMs. NRMs typically depend on the compelling presence of the founder for their persistence and continued vitality. Upon the demise of their leader, they are more prone than sects to flounder and disappear. As a rule, then, sects have better survival rates than cults—due, in part, to their

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greater tendency to institute an administrative structure for regulating the movement’s affairs.17 In the aftermath of Joseph Smith’s unexpected assassination, Mormonism proved to be more than a mere personality cult by successfully falling back on an elaborate organizational structure to maintain the commitment of a majority of its adherents. Smith’s legacy to Mormonism was both himself, as a cult hero, and a disciplined organization capable of functioning without his personal leadership. We conclude that insofar as Mormonism began its career as a religious innovation it was a cult, or NRM. But it was an NRM with the typical ideological and organizational tendencies of a sect. Theoretically speaking, then, early Mormonism was a mixed type. Stark and Bainbridge’s insistence that a theory of cult formation must be different from a theory of sect formation is undoubtedly valid in a narrow sense. However, we suspect that the larger social conditions that stimulate religious innovations are not entirely different from those that lead to religious schism. Increasing social cleavages in society, various forms of deprivation and inequality, and resentful frustrations and social instability create conditions of unrest conducive to the emergence of many types of social movements, including both religious sects and NRMs. We should not be surprised to see that historical periods in which sectarian schism is common are also periods which generate cults in the form of new religious movements, and vice versa. That the theoretical distinction between sects and NRMs may not always be easy to make in practice should not deter us from appreciating the essential facts they share in common: both are typically regarded as heretical or deviant groups by the larger society, and they are both relatively high-­tension groups that must face the institutional challenges of either maintaining or reducing their tension with society and its legal agencies. Our purpose in the remainder of this chapter is to assess and interpret shifting levels of tension between Mormonism and its social environment over five generations of institutional history. In so doing, we find it useful to make frequent reference to Zald and Ash’s analysis of the different kinds of pressures that shape the transformation of social movement organizations.18 Major categories of pressure include: (1) external pressures generated by the social and legal opposition of outside groups to curb the movement’s deviation from cultural norms; (2) internal pressures

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generated in a movement by growing social disparities among members and by conflict between those members who desire greater respectability and those who oppose compromising principle to appease the movement’s opponents; and (3) pressures of success generated by increases in member growth, outside recognition, and greater social influence.

Pressures from Without An important point made by Zald and Ash is that the transformation of social movement organizations occurs at different rates as a function of several structural factors, the chief being: (1) the nature of the organization’s membership requirements and (2) the focus of its primary goals for social change. Membership requirements are classified in terms of the degree of commitment and participation expected, while organizational change goals focus either on the institutional order as the priority target of change or on individual character. Zald and Ash refer to organizations that require minimal member commitment as inclusive organizations, while those that demand great amounts of commitment are called exclusive organizations. Employing additional social science terminology, movements that directly seek to change society by reforming or revolutionizing major social institutions may be called outward-­oriented movements, while those that believe society cannot be fundamentally changed unless individuals are changed first through moral regeneration may be called inward-­oriented movements.19 Virtually by definition, outward movements are political while inward movements are typically religious. In reality, of course, political and religious approaches to social change often become mixed. Certain religious movements have attempted to gain control of political institutions in order to impose their moral imperatives on society as a shortcut to winning souls through spiritual conversion or pietistic example. Zald and Ash hypothesize that the more exclusive an organization is, the less susceptible it is to pressures of accommodation and the less likely it is to depart from its original program. Similarly, they hypothesize that inward movements are less prone to external pressure for organizational transformation than are outward movements. These hypotheses are based on the following reasoning. First, by its nature, commitment implies

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a narrowing of devotion toward a particular object and the parallel exclusion of other alternatives, hence the resistance of high demand, exclusive organizations to accommodating their principles. Second, the goal of individual moral regeneration is usually perceived by institutional authorities in the larger society as less threatening than movement goals aimed at changing the existing normative or legal order; hence, less outside force is directed at inward-­oriented movements to compromise their programs. Our previous discussion of Mormon commitment requirements speaks to the relatively exclusive character of the LDS Church, especially in the nineteenth century. At the same time, the Mormon’s emphasis on the church as an organization for the “perfecting of the Saints,” for programmed service opportunities and righteous living, suggests that the primary goal of the church is inward rather than outward. When combined, its relative exclusiveness and religious inward orientation should mean that Mormonism is considerably strengthened against accommodation and external pressures to compromise its beliefs or normative practices. Consideration of the facts of Mormon history, however, does not lead to an unambiguous confirmation of this hypothesis. In the nineteenth century, fierce outside pressure compelled the church to compromise central tenets of the faith, such as the practice of plural marriage and theocratic politics, with all the attendant consequences for greater acceptability into the mainstream of American society. Likewise, in the mid-­t wentieth century it could be argued that the church’s reversal of its longstanding prohibition against blacks holding the priesthood was due in part to years of adverse public opinion. In addition to accepting major doctrinal and policy changes such as polygamy and priesthood eligibility, most Mormons today are unquestionably more worldly and respectable in the view of outsiders than were their pioneer forebears. On the other side, one may argue that Mormons have been uncommonly slow to change core commitments; that, for instance, virtually every institutional resource was exhausted for upwards of a quarter of a century before nineteenth-­century authorities officially submitted to federal anti-­ polygamy statutes; that priesthood discrimination against blacks was not halted until a decade or more after the peak of the civil rights movement of the 1950s and ‘60s, while the likelihood that women will eventually be ordained to the Mormon priesthood remains highly contestable.20

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The proposition that exclusive organizations are resistant to accommodation does not mean, of course, that they will never compromise, but only that they are less likely to do so. Then, too, it should not be forgotten that organizational exclusiveness is a matter of degree. To say that the LDS Church is relatively exclusive today is not to say that it is as exclusive as it was a hundred years ago. Notwithstanding the relatively high degree of commitment currently required of members in good standing, the LDS religion, as we have argued, is substantially less exclusive now than it was in the past. To be a devout Mormon in the nineteenth century meant to be greatly at odds with the conventional secular and religious institutions of American society and, if necessary, to put at risk one’s life, property, and family tranquility in defense of one’s religious faith. Today, however, claiming LDS affiliation is quite compatible with active involvement in both the civil and religious arenas of American life and in most other countries around the world. Contemporary Latter-­day Saints are scarcely required to make the kinds of personal sacrifices endured by their nineteenth-­century forebears. But if Mormonism is primarily an inward movement, emphasizing personal moral development in pursuit of the ultimate goal of salvation and eternal life, why the intense external pressure so characteristic of its early history to modify its basic tenets? The answer is that in the nineteenth century Mormonism was not unambiguously an inward movement. Mormon goals of moral regeneration and individual perfection were intimately mixed with goals of building the kingdom of God on earth, of erecting a material Zion. The Mormons intended not only to reach heaven but also to restructure human society. In a qualifying statement, Zald and Ash make it plain that inward or religious movements “may be less threatening to dominant values and other institutions.” This depends on “the extent that operative goals are restricted to membership proselytization and are not relevant to control of institutional centers, to political action or to central societal norms.” If these conditions hold then “counter pressures are less likely to be brought to bear on them.”21 Zald and Ash go on to note that theocratic movements, regardless of whatever other goals they might espouse, represent a direct challenge to the larger society. Inferences about shifts in the degree of tension between Mormonism and society may be drawn from our previous analyses of utopian rhetoric

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Figure 7.1. Recapitulation of Rhetorical Emphasis on (A) Utopian and (B) Commitment Themes as Indicators of Tension Between Mormonism & Society

in Chapter 4 and commitment rhetoric in Chapter 6, trends recapitulated graphically in Figure 7.1. Since the implementation of utopian aspirations requires extraordinary commitment, these two theme categories are closely related. Both utopian and commitment rhetoric serve as good indicators of societal tension: the greater the salience of utopian and commitment themes, the greater the level of tension between the group that espouses these themes and the established social order from which it departs. The Mormons have been in a high state of almost continuous tension with other groups from the beginning of their history. This tension is reflected by the prominence of utopian and commitment rhetoric in the first generation of conference history (1830–1859). But it was not until the Mormons isolated themselves in the Rocky Mountains, gained dominance of the Great Basin region, and publicly proclaimed their most flagrant social and religious heresies that they became universally despised by other Americans and openly opposed by the United States government. Our statistical analysis shows that the salience

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of conference rhetoric expressing both utopian and commitment themes peaked in Mormonism’s second generation (1860–1889). Though still high, tension between Mormons and non-­Mormons began to ease in the years following the polygamy manifesto and the accompanying political and economic concessions of the Mormon kingdom. This reduction of tension is evidenced by a moderate decline in the overall salience of commitment rhetoric and a substantial decline in utopian rhetoric during the period of 1900–1919. Since 1920, commitment rhetoric has leveled off to a point substantially lower than that produced by earlier generations of conference speakers, while the salience of utopian themes has plummeted to a mere token of its former predominance. Mormon aspirations for Zion, the Old Testament practice of polygamy, and theocratic political principles ran counter to dominant American mores and institutions and was intolerable to both secular and American religious authorities. One important hypothesis emerging from Mormon adjustment to nineteenth-­century opposition is that the religion of the Latter-­day Saints has increasingly become more inward oriented. That is, the church has largely given up its former goals of societal reconstruction to focus almost entirely on its own institutional programs for the participation, development, and self-­improvement of its members. This, we propose, represents one of the major transformations of the LDS Church in modern times. Analysis of the various goal orientations manifest in conference rhetoric largely supports this transformation hypothesis. From our index of conference topics, we constructed summary measures of relative concern for social reform and individual reform. Our social reform measure included economic and political topics ranging from the United Order and the law of consecration to labor unions, welfare, and the election of honest government officials. It also included social issues of a broader scope ranging from the gathering and plural marriage to prohibition and racial integration. In contrast, our measure of individual reform was derived from topics encompassing such concerns as marital, parental, and family ideals; sin, repentance, and forgiveness; the Word of Wisdom; ethical practices; faith; and a host of additional character traits. The amount of attention given by Mormon conference speakers to these two types of reform goals from 1830 through 1979 is shown in Figure 7.2 .

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Figure 7.2. Mormon Rhetorical Emphasis on (A) Individual Reform and (B) Social Reform over Thirty-Year Time Periods

For the first two generations of Mormon history, social reform themes were more salient as conference topics than individual reform themes. Beginning in the period 1890–1919, however, these priorities were reversed: the salience of individual reform themes continued to increase while the relative emphasis given to social reform dropped sharply. In the period of conference history following the Second World War (1950–1979), the disparity in emphasis between individual reform and social reform was remarkable. The rhetoric of social reform so prominent in early Mormon preaching appears to have virtually disappeared while rhetoric stressing personal purity and character reform is overwhelmingly favored at contemporary conferences. Interestingly, at roughly the same time Mormon authorities in the late nineteenth century began to turn away from their previous conference emphasis on social reform themes, the division in American Protestantism between proponents of the social gospel movement and the fundamentalist

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movement was beginning to take shape. Martin Marty summarizes this split as a division between public and private Protestants, a distinction that parallels our discussion of outward and inward movements.22 The social gospelers were public Protestants who sought to reconcile their Christianity with the social, economic, and political needs of the growing urban masses in American cities (many of whom were ethnic immigrants) and who agitated for social reforms. In contrast, fundamentalists were private Protestants consisting largely of white Anglo-­Americans who looked with apprehension at the growing tides of alien immigrants and, concomitantly, harbored antisocial gospel sentiments.23 The fundamentalists adhered to the nineteenth-­ century religious strategies of revivalism and evangelism, stressing the need for personal (rather than collective) salvation through fervent acceptance of Jesus Christ and righteous living (rather than social reforms). While repudiating the reformist ethic and social activism of the social gospel movement, fundamentalists were themselves more than willing to meddle in politics when it came to moral issues such as gambling, drinking, Sabbath restrictions, and the teaching of evolution in public schools. In the twentieth century the LDS Church increasingly became identified with the latter approach. Though crucially differing on many theological points, the contemporary church has come to share a number of basic social orientations with conservative Protestantism, especially its contemporary evangelical wing.

Pressures of Success According to Zald and Ash’s analysis, a social movement organization is successful when it achieves its objectives and a failure when society decisively rejects its goals, in which case the movement may be discredited to the point that it loses membership and disappears. They also identify an intermediate possibility as a becalmed movement, in which a fairly stable membership base is achieved but the movement is no longer growing or attracting new members, emotional enthusiasm has waned, and the ultimate achievement of organizational goals is not expected in the near future. Movement success is not always easy to determine, especially if goals are general (e.g., the reform of human nature or society at large) rather

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than specific (e.g., the reform or abolition of social practices such as drinking, child abuse, abortion, prostitution, etc.). Provided that a movement succeeds in achieving some or most of its objectives, what are the consequences for the life of the movement? Zald and Ash suggest two major possibilities: either the movement organization goes out of existence or it develops new goals to pursue. In the latter case, a primary shift of organizational concern from particular targets of either social or individual change to sheer organizational maintenance is common. In particular, if original change goals are abandoned in favor of providing conventional services for a designated clientele, the organization can no longer be regarded as a social movement. Though Mormonism failed in its original goal to build a literal Zion—a permanent utopian community—the LDS Church, it must be admitted, has been highly successful in other respects. Its membership growth has been sustained and substantial, its political and social influence is not trivial, and its corporate wealth is considerable. Has Mormonism—organizationally embodied in the LDS Church—ceased to be a social movement? Has it largely abandoned its earlier change goals to concentrate primarily on organizational maintenance and providing its members with conventional religious services? A good case can be made in the affirmative. At the same time we would argue that the Mormons’ continued commitment to missionary proselytizing and recruitment through conversion is not only a defining characteristics of the faith, but that the objective of “perfecting” (changing) the individual character and lives of members, both old and new, to conform to religious ideals is an authentic motive central to the operation of church programs. It would be a mistake not to recognize the organizational maintenance tendencies of the Mormon bureaucracy. But insofar as the religion retains its original dedication to changing the world, we continue to suggest that today it has essentially become an inward-­oriented movement, focused on changing its adherents’ inner lives and moral character. With respect to the consequences of both movement success and failure, Zald and Ash hypothesize that movements that aim to reform individual character and employ “solidary incentives” (such as prestige, respect, and friendship) are less likely to vanish than movements with social goals and “purposive incentives” (i.e., personal fulfillment through

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the realization of organizational objectives). Due in large measure to its social objectives, the existence of the LDS church was, in fact, seriously threatened numerous times in the nineteenth century by both its religious and secular opponents. The contemporary growth and worldly success of the modern church would be virtually inconceivable had leaders remained intransigently committed to nineteenth-­century Mormon theocracy and unwilling to reorient the institutional character of their religion in the direction of a more conventional form of Christianity. By relinquishing social change objectives and concentrating on objectives of personal moral regeneration, the church greatly enhanced its survival chances and has consequently flourished in the twentieth and twenty-­first centuries. Once acquired, the Mormons’ appetite for social respectability has become a powerful force for shaping their religion’s course in the modern world.

Pressures from Within Movement organizations must not only respond to pressures from without but also to pressures from within. Zald and Ash cite heterogeneity of a movement’s social base of supporters and a doctrinal basis of authority as the two major sources of internal pressure conducive to organizational transformation. As Richard Niebuhr showed back in the 1920s, social class and ethnic divisions have been prime sources of denominationalism in European and American religious history.24 Movements that depend on a comprehensive, dogmatic worldview for their coherence are subject to intramural disputes regarding the purity with which the movement adheres to its doctrines. As a result, the legitimacy of organizational authority in such groups is often thrown into question. Both member heterogeneity and doctrinal disputes are internal forces that ultimately may lead to factionalization and schism. In our judgment, division over doctrinal differences, though invariably a potential source of conflict, no longer threatens the LDS Church today as in the past, while the potential for internal conflict based on social differences is perhaps increasing as the church continues to expand, attracting new converts from all walks of life in most parts of the world. Factionalism and schism were both frequent and intense during Mormonism’s early years. The social dynamics of internal dissent, which we

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reviewed in Chapter 2, account for some of the most significant turning points in early Mormon history. Dissent erupted in every major Mormon locale throughout Joseph Smith’s prophetic career—in Fayette, New York; in Kirtland, Ohio; in Jackson County and Far West, Missouri; and in Nauvoo, Illinois. Smith spent no less time and energy contending with disaffected disciples than with enemies outside the church. It was not until Smith’s assassination triggered by the dissent movement in Nauvoo in 1844, however, that Mormon schismatic tendencies came to a truly decisive crisis. Hurrying back from the East, where he had retired in a state of coolness toward Smith, Sidney Rigdon arrived at Nauvoo in time to present his claims as logical successor to the prophet. Rigdon’s argument was that no man could actually succeed Joseph. He proposed, instead, that the church must be built up to the dead prophet as a martyr. Meanwhile, Rigdon would act as guardian of the church and spokesman for Joseph, for Rigdon had been first counselor to the prophet in the First Presidency. To bolster his status, Rigdon also claimed having had a vision to instruct him in his duties. With church members uncertain but desiring direction, and against the backdrop of impending schisms from several sources, Brigham Young stepped forward to challenge Rigdon’s claims. Young was then president of the Twelve Apostles. In the church hierarchy the Twelve constitute the next presiding priesthood quorum to the First Presidency. In fact, although the Twelve act under the direction of the First Presidency, they may be considered equal in authority and power as a body.25 This interpretation of church government seemed to be little known among ordinary members and even less appreciated at the time, but upon this point Young rested his own claims to authority.26 Thus, it has been noted that “only Brigham Young had the sagacity to claim his authority as president of the apostles rather than as an opportunistic revelator.”27 Brigham’s appeal to the people’s desire for order and stability along institutionalized lines of leadership is a prime indicator of his practicality and insight—traits that would soon serve him well under conditions that demanded tenacity and common sense. The main body of the Latter-­day Saints acquiesced to Young’s leadership and within two years followed him in the epic migration to the Rocky Mountains. Many did not, however. Some—including Joseph Smith’s

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mother, wife Emma, and three sons—stayed behind in Nauvoo. Others followed a variety of aspirants to Smith’s mantle. 28 Later on in Utah, several schismatic movements were generated, most notably the Gladdenite secession of 1852 in protest of polygamy, the Morrisite schism in 1861 based on yet another zealot’s claims to prophetic authority, and the Godbeite rebellion of 1869, spearheaded by a group of Mormon businessmen who contested Brigham Young’s claims to temporal as well as spiritual authority. 29 But the largest and most enduring schism was created by the formation of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-­day Saints (RLDS Church) at Amboy, Illinois, in 1860. There, a group of Mormon dissidents who had refused to follow Young to the Salt Lake Valley finally prevailed upon Joseph Smith III, Joseph Smith’s oldest son, to take the reins of the Reorganized church. Based on the claim of direct lineal authority through the son of the martyred prophet, the RLDS Church repudiated the Utah Mormons as having been led astray by Young. Today the former RLDS Church has renamed itself the Community of Christ and is fairly well established throughout the Midwestern United States.30 Both the Godbeite and Reorganization movements in Mormon history are good examples of what Stark and Bainbridge call church movements, i.e., religious schisms that are aimed at achieving greater reconciliation rather than departure from prevailing cultural traditions. Both schisms gained momentum during the generation when Mormon alienation from American society was moving toward its apogee. The RLDS Church repudiated the doctrines of plural marriage, plural Gods, temple ordinances, and communitarian economics. In the twenty-­first century the Utah-­based LDS Church staunchly continues to maintain its claims to exclusive truth and authority. In comparison, the Community of Christ has adopted a fair number of Protestant worship forms, such as permitting greater congregational autonomy and diversity, de-­emphasizing the oracular role of prophetic leadership, emphasizing the preaching of Christ rather than salvation through the doctrines and ordinances of the restored church, and, perhaps most significantly, instituting the ordination of women to the lay priesthood and to upper echelon positions in the ecclesiastical hierarchy.31 Following the death of Brigham Young in 1877, there was some continued internecine membership disagreement over the Utah church’s commitment to plural marriage and its involvement in political affairs. But

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Figure 7.3. Mormon Rhetorical Emphasis on Dissension over Thirty-Year Time Periods

since the turn of the twentieth century, the ideological basis and authority structure of the main LDS Church seem established beyond serious internal dispute. Periodic grumblings from the more estranged elements of the Mormon intelligentsia may be discerned,32 and there remain a number of secessionist groups devoted to implementing the law of consecration and plural marriage,33 but neither represent serious challenges to the authority of the church today One indicator of internal stability is the degree to which LDS conference speakers have felt it necessary to criticize and warn against member doubts and dissatisfactions. The historical pattern of this particular leadership concern is measured in our conference index by items such as personal apostasy, denial of testimony, disloyalty, false doctrines, false teachers, etc., as graphically summarized in Figure 7.3. Our data show that conference preoccupation with themes of internal dissent was most salient during the first thirty years of Mormon history and has been on the decline, especially in the generations since 1920. These findings parallel the decline

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of excommunications among church authorities34 and attest to decreased apprehension over the threat of doctrinal schisms.35 Mormon authorities today face the complex problems of administrating an international church. It is this fact, perhaps more than any other, that shapes the institutional concerns of the contemporary LDS Church. Though the church encourages its worldwide proselyting missions to concentrate efforts on recruiting individuals with leadership potential from the professional and middle classes, many converts from poorer, non-­ Western countries are, in fact, impoverished, speak a multitude of different languages, are lacking in higher education, and have very little experience participating in the administrative routines of a formal lay organization. Consequently, in a manner reminiscent of the massive international diversity of Roman Catholicism, cultural and economic differences are growing within the global church. It is precisely this worldwide growth through unrelenting missionary activity that has undermined nineteenth-­century Mormonism’s unifying ethnic or “peoplehood” characteristics and, in contrast to Judaism, has propelled the doctrines and active lay requirements of the religion to the forefront of the recruitment-­ oriented Mormon movement. We can only speculate about the ultimate effects of increasing cultural diversity in the LDS Church. Perhaps, like Catholicism, Mormon leaders will ultimately adjust the church’s rudimentary religious principles and its lay programs and member requirements in a way that new converts’ religious commitments are welded to the church without need to forsake their own cultural identities. At the same time, at least the potential for denominational divisions based on ethnic and social class differences within the church should not be overlooked. For the past fifty years the church’s greatest missionary success and new member growth has come from Latin American countries, especially Brazil and Mexico. During this time, millions of Spanish-­speaking converts have joined Latter-­day Saint ranks.36 By and large the religious integration of many of these converts into active leadership roles in the church appears to have been accomplished in a relatively smooth fashion.37 But as early as the 1930s, the church had to deal with incipient nativist stirrings in Mexico City as a number of Mexican members seceded on the grounds that Mexicans ought to administer the church in Mexico.38 This particular episode required a personal visit

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in 1945 from then president of the church, George Albert Smith, to heal the breach, and, though contained and isolated, could conceivably be prototypical of future problems.39 Closer to home, divisions based on socioeconomic standing remain a potential source of discontent within the church. Salt Lake City, LDS headquarters, may itself be cited as an example. For at least a century the eastern rim and foothills of the Salt Lake Valley have been favored locations for middle-­and upper-­middle-­income residents. Similar to other urban areas throughout the United States, Salt Lake’s central city area has economically declined over the years. There the residential population has diminished. Many of those who remain are lower income, elderly, or of minority status. On the eastern foothills of the city and in the southern reaches of the valley the church flourishes; member activity rates in these locations are high. In the central city area chapels have been closed down, congregations consolidated, and often there is an acute shortage of able personnel for staffing the numerous church programs. In addition, it may be presumed that most of the valley’s demands on the LDS welfare system come from the central city area. It would be unusual for Mormons from prosperous suburbs to not hold a condescending attitude toward their brothers and sisters in the central city; it perhaps would be equally unusual for Mormons from the central city to not resent their more affluent counterparts in the outlying suburbs. (It must be acknowledged, however, that social class divisions to date within the church have been attenuated successfully by the unifying ideology of the latter-­day restoration.) To concerns involving cultural, ethnic, and socioeconomic divisions among modern Mormons must be added the subordinate status of LDS women in the ecclesiastical hierarchy. As observed earlier, this issue lay dormant for many years. While a majority of LDS women today seem willing to defend an all-­male priesthood, more are speaking out on the need for women’s voices to be heard in the governing councils of the church. The potential for future cleavage with regard to women’s issues in the church cannot simply be dismissed. (We further discuss LDS women’s issues in Chapter 9 and the Epilogue.) These are among the more significant inner social tensions visible within the LDS Church today. Whether they will fester into forces powerful

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enough to produce modern schisms, or whether church leaders will continue to manage and diffuse them, remains to be seen.

Leadership Pressures A final set of internal organizational variables outlined by Zald and Ash that have a significant impact on movement transformation deal with problems of leadership succession, leadership commitment to fundamental change, and differing leadership styles. The crisis of succession in social movements and NRMs is, of course, well known to students of social change and institutionalization through the work of Max Weber. According to Zald and Ash’s analysis, the death of a charismatic founder is likely to (1) result in a decline of group membership, (2) increase the probability of factionalization, and (3) lead to the professionalization of a core, executive staff and increased attempts to rationalize the administrative structure of the organization. We have already recounted Mormonism’s original succession crisis. The precedent established by Brigham Young has, in fact, become institutionalized as the procedure for determining a new president upon death of the old. That is, the senior member of the Twelve Apostles becomes the heir apparent to the prophet, seer and revelator, or president of the church.40 It should be noted that Brigham Young ruled the church for three and a half years by virtue of his office as president of the Twelve Apostles before finally ascending to the ultimate office of president in 1847. In like manner, Brigham’s successor John Taylor was not sustained as president of the church until three years after Young’s death; Wilford Woodruff, the fourth church president, waited an interregnum of two years in his position as leader of the Twelve before accepting the nomination of his fellow apostles and the sustaining vote of the membership.41 In modern times the successor to a deceased president is confirmed as quickly as the Twelve are able to assemble for the purpose of a pro forma nomination. The entire membership of the church is then called upon to sustain the new prophet at the next general conference. Although the immediate impact of Joseph Smith’s death on the membership of the church in 1844 may have been to scatter if not diminish the ranks of his disciples, it cannot really be said that the Latter-­day Saint

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movement suffered a debilitating decline in members. Instead, new converts continued to pour in, especially from England and Scandinavia, even after the Mormons had been driven from Nauvoo into the western deserts. By 1860—a little over a decade after the arrival of the first Mormon pioneers—census figures show Utah as having a population of over 40,000, the great majority of whom we can assume were Latter-­day Saints.42 At the same time, Smith’s death was the signal for an internal power struggle and fresh factionalism, as described earlier, and may also be seen as the critical impetus behind the routinization of power in the succession procedures and other administrative innovations instituted by Brigham Young and his successors.43 Too, it must be conceded that the professionalization of the upper echelons of the Mormon hierarchy has certainly occurred. Even though Mormon authorities are not formally trained ecclesiastics or theologians, their years of full-­time tenure in church offices provide them with a thoroughly grounded institutional perspective. The proliferation of a professional staff of administrators to help execute many of the policies and programs sponsored by the general authorities is, of course, an important aspect of the rationalization of church organization. As Zald and Ash have concluded, the more bureaucratized a social movement organization becomes, the less likely that replacement of a leader will inspire fundamental organizational transformations. These are all trends that go hand in hand with the traditional sociological model of institutionalization. We shall return to consider further the implications of the bureaucratization of the LDS Church in Chapter 8. Perhaps one of Zald and Ash’s most intriguing propositions regarding leadership behavior is the hypothesis that if leadership is committed to radical goals to a greater extent than members, then member apathy and group oligarchical tendencies facilitate greater rather than less radicalism. This, to some extent, appears to have been true in the early decades of Mormon history but certainly is not the case today. To begin with, commitment levels required of its lay members have always been relatively high among the Mormons. Compared to most voluntary organizations, member apathy among devout Mormons has not been a characteristic feature of religious life. At the same time, the authoritarian top-­down structure of the LDS Church creates a potential for leaders to impose radical goals upon the

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membership, should they so desire. The law of consecration and plural marriage in the nineteenth century were radical enough and leader imposed. Sidney Rigdon is often credited with promoting the former doctrine, while the latter apparently resulted from the wishes and heretical theologizing of Joseph Smith alone.44 Given as revelations, it was up to the Twelve Apostles and other high officials in the church to put them into practice. This was not an entirely easy matter; many were lukewarm, at best, concerning implementation. With respect to plural marriage, several of the leading brethren professed to be stunned at the revelation of their new duty. Typical of the anguished feelings which wrenched some church leaders at that time was Brigham Young’s reaction: “I was not desirous of shrinking from my duty, nor of failing in the least to do as I was commanded, but it was the first time in my life that I had desired the grave . . . When I saw a funeral, I felt to envy the corpse in its situation and to regret that I was not in the coffin.”45 Orson Pratt, another prominent member of the early Twelve Apostles, was excommunicated for his initial opposition to plural marriage but was later reinstated and, in Utah, became the church’s most able defender of the doctrine.46 Eventually, it was the leadership of the church that put a final stop to Mormon polygamy and began leading Mormonism away from the pursuit of many of its original radical goals in the direction of greater accommodation to the world. For two decades after the 1890 Woodruff manifesto forbidding plural marriage, church leadership had to contend with a fair amount of member resistance to the ideological reversal, as already discussed. Initially the hierarchy was itself highly ambivalent—even duplicitous—in its new stance on polygamy. But finally, under the ongoing weight of external pressures, there were purges among the general authorities, excommunications of those unwilling to accept the official direction set by the First Presidency, and the splintering of various dissenting fundamentalist Mormon groups.47 Today it can only be said that the orientation of church leadership as a body is conservative, both religiously and politically. As a modern proselytizing religion, it is highly unlikely that the LDS Church will be guided by its leaders in the direction of anything resembling a radical social cause. Based on the seniority principle, leadership advancement within the ranks of general authorities results in a gerontocracy typically inclined toward

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conservative positions on both social and religious issues. Religiously, the church joins other conservative Christians in rejecting “higher criticism” of the Bible and the tenets of liberal Protestantism. Politically and socially the church is foursquare against abortion and same-­sex marriage while staunchly supporting traditional family values. At the same time, its U.S. membership overwhelmingly votes for conservative Republicans and supports the latter’s anti-­tax policies and opposition to “big government” social programs. In addition to issues of leader succession and the nature of leader commitment to social change, leadership style is another correlate of organizational transformation. Two major leadership styles have been delineated by Joseph Gusfield: mobilization and articulation.48 Leadership aimed at mobilization emphasizes the exclusiveness of an organization and the absolute nature of its mission. Mobilization involves the reaffirmation of the organization’s fundamental goals and values and is directed at building member commitment. In contrast, the leadership of articulation attempts to link the organization and its goals to similar organizations and to the larger society. Emphasis on the uniqueness of the movement is softened and greater tolerance for outside groups is promoted. As contrasting theoretical types, leadership that mobilizes is exclusive and intransigent; leadership that articulates is inclusive and conciliatory. It should be noted that these two leadership styles are not necessarily mutually exclusive. It is quite possible, for example, that different spokespersons for the same organization may express contrasting styles. Historically and sociologically the question is, which type of leadership pattern tends to predominate throughout the course of an organization’s history? Zald and Ash link leadership styles with organizational goals and structure. They hypothesize that leadership of exclusive organizations is more likely to focus on mobilizing members for tasks, while leaders of inclusive organizations are more likely to stress articulation. In addition, they propose that inward-­oriented movements are more likely to stress mobilization, while anticipating that outward-­oriented movements are likely to require both styles of leadership, depending on the organization’s stage of development. Based on our previous discussion, we can interpolate these hypotheses to the Mormon experience in the following way: the relative exclusiveness

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Figure 7.4. Mormon Rhetorical Emphasis on (A) Mobilization and (B) Articulation over Thirty-Year Time Periods

of the LDS Church and its predominating inward orientation in modern times combine to suggest a leadership that is more likely to emphasize mobilization rather than articulation. Yet the fact that the church has become substantially more conciliatory toward the outside world since the nineteenth century suggests a certain amount of articulation as well. Mormon history is, of course, complex enough to admit to both types of

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direction. In the long run, emphasis on articulation should increase over time as the church eases its earlier tension with society, while mobilization should correspondingly become somewhat de-­emphasized. Our conference data are well suited to provide empirical tests for hypotheses concerning these shifting leadership styles. Mobilization themes are apparent in a large number of our index topics, for instance: Zion and building the kingdom of God, priesthood duties and following the counsels of church leaders, missionary work and preaching the gospel to the nations, the apostasy of Christianity and the Mormon restoration, and the corruptions of secular government, to identify but a few. In contrast, we measured articulation concerns by such themes as the brotherhood of man, fellowship with other faiths, cultural and religious tolerance, the blessings of citizenship, patriotism, the greatness of American institutions, and so on. The summary trends for both leadership styles are presented in Figure 7.4. Our measures of Mormon leadership style show that the salience of mobilization themes at general conference has always been higher than the salience of articulation themes. At the same time we see that emphasis on mobilization peaked during Mormonism’s polygamy era and has declined considerably since. (The latest historical period accounted for in our original survey, 1950–1979, showed a moderate increase in mobilization emphasis over the preceding thirty-­year period, but this increase did not approach the level of earlier generations.) The historical trend of articulation themes at general conference follows a different path, steadily increasing through the first three generations of Mormon history (even while emphasis on mobilization was also increasing) and then, from 1920 through 1979, holding quite constant at a moderate level.49 Thus, though the gap between mobilization and articulation emphases historically narrowed, the convergence of the two leadership styles tapered and mobilization themes continued to be the dominant rhetorical style at general conference. In 1984 we concluded that while the modern LDS Church had become less exclusive and more conciliatory toward the world, it continued to maintain enough of its original sectarian character to be regarded as an established sect rather than a fully accommodated Christian denomination in the U.S. religious economy.50 In retrospect, Jan Shipps’ designation of Mormonism as a “new religious tradition”51 arguably provides a more apt nomenclature for classifying modern Mormons than does Yinger’s category

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of an established sect. In any event, our analysis of LDS exclusiveness tendencies should be tempered by recognizing that the degree of sectarian tension between an organization and its social environment is not only a variable in time but also in space—the character of Mormon and non-­ Mormon tensions and conflict is relative to different geographical contexts. In Utah and various communities throughout the Intermountain West, Mormonism is the dominant religious tradition. In these areas the church assumes the status of a majoritarian church and not of a sect; its pervasive integration with secular institutions generates and maintains a regional Mormon culture. In Utah, majority-­minority relations are reversed. Utah Mormons do not experience pervasive deviant labeling or discrimination for adherence to their religion by outsiders. It is they who must more often respond to the protests of non-­Mormon minorities against the insensitivity of their own cultural hegemony. Arguably it is in the headquarters region of the LDS Church—not in its national or international locations—that “Mormonism” still displays some of the distinctive characteristics of an ethnic community. In the following chapter we continue to comment on some of the contemporary LDS Church’s conservative sectarian traits as we consider the reaction of authorities at general conference to the secularizing trends of the modern world.

8

Mormon Responses to Secularization

The chief challenge for Mormons in the nineteenth century was to build and preserve a theocratic commonwealth in the regions where they settled as a people. The result was an entity that was at odds with the sectarian orthodoxy and social mores of the day, the expanding authority of the federal government, and the master trends of industrial capitalism. Having survived these irresistible counterforces by ultimately making major doctrinal and policy concessions, the LDS Church today is principally challenged in the same manner as all organized religion by the secularizing tides of modern society. How have Mormon authorities responded to the challenges of secularization? Our attempt to address this question will be preceded by a brief overview of the concept of secularization.

Secularization as a Social Process and Theoretical Concept As one of the major trends commonly associated with the emergence of modern societies, secularization involves, explains O’Dea, the progressive “disenchantment of the world,” the “evolution of an idea of the world no longer sacred and one understandable by human reason . . . [and] the emergence of a world where mysteries are replaced by problems”1—most of

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which are presumed to have technological solutions. All informed observers would agree that the pace of institutional change, including religious change, has accelerated in the modern world. But the meaning of secularization—its essential character and consequences—is not a subject that has achieved consensus among social theorists. To a considerable extent one’s definition of secularization depends on one’s definition of religion. If one defines religion substantively, in terms of its orthodox institutional forms and traditional beliefs, one is more likely to associate secularization with the inexorable decline of religion in society. If, however, religion is defined functionally, in terms of the emotional, cognitive, and solidarity needs which it addresses, one is more likely to associate secularization with the transformation of religion into new expressions adapted to the circumstances of modern life. In a review of the social science literature on secularization, Richard Fenn explores the implications of these definitional issues and identifies two general, contrasting views of society, which he labels the “mythic” and the “discursive.”2 The mythic view is most compatible with functional definitions of religion and assumes the necessary existence of widely shared value commitments among the institutions of society. According to this perspective, the major legitimating values of society have been, and continue to be, generated by religion. Religious forms may change, drastically in some cases, but their end is not in sight. Functional theorists argue that society as a whole will always require some form of religion to integrate and sustain its component parts. In this view the major threat to society in the modern world is rampant individualism that weakens social unity and commitment to community institutions. In contrast, the discursive view of society is most compatible with substantive definitions of religion and contemplates the emergence of a world without religion. Expelled from the center of modern life by science and increasingly rational modes of conduct, supernatural religion is seen as inexorably pushed to the periphery of the social order where it will become largely irrelevant. In this view the real threat to modern society is not individualism but impersonal and evermore dominating bureaucratic structures in both government and commercial institutions that strangle personal freedom and responsibility. The mythic approach is clearly more congenial with religion’s own perception of its role in the world, while the discursive perspective appeals

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most strongly to humanists and anti-­religionists. Fenn’s interpretation concedes the partial validity of both models. His basic thesis is that secularization involves a complex and ambiguous process in which the boundary between the sacred and the secular is constantly contested, obscured, expanded, and contracted by competing groups. There is no single outcome of secularization, no simple, linear development. Rather, secularization is characterized by the dialectical push and pull of social contradictions that simultaneously become both cause and effect of new religious movements and new definitions of reality.3 These shifting trends may alternately increase and decrease the influence of religion in different societies. Subsequent to Fenn’s analysis of religion and secularization, a “new paradigm” emerged in the sociology of religion,4 represented especially in the work of Rodney Stark and assorted collaborators.5 Compatible with both Kanter’s and Fenn’s earlier work, the new paradigm explicitly treats religious commitment from the standpoint of rational choice theory in economics6 and features the following premises: (1) There is a deep-­seated, human demand for transcendent meaning and supernatural compensation for life’s limitations and uncertainties. (2) The human religious quest is especially likely to be stimulated in pluralistic environments where religious choice is countenanced by the political institutions of the state. (3) Religions that effectively meet religious consumers’ demands for meaning and purpose retain their members and successfully compete for new adherents in a religious economy. (4) Consistent with what Fenn calls the mythic view of religion, rational choice theory posits that modern secularization does not spell the end of religion but engenders constant religious change through revivals, reformation, and new religious movements, as discussed previously. (5) In the context of competitive religious economies, older establishment religions (especially those that have moved too far in the direction of secular accommodation) may undergo decline, but more spiritually vigorous religions, which continue catering effectively to religious demand for supernatural compensators, predictably arise in their stead. In our own initial effort to understand Mormonism’s response to secularization, we were influenced by the insightful work of Peter Berger. In more recent years Berger has disavowed his earlier “discursive” view of “secularization theory” that gave credence to religion’s inevitable decline

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worldwide, particularly in technologically advanced countries like the United States. In retrospect, Berger recanted and now says that it is useful to let go of two widely held notions. The first is that religion is part of “American exceptionalism” . . . With regard to religion it [America] is very much like the rest of the world— namely, very religious. The exception is Europe . . . Most of the world today is characterized by an explosion of passionate religious movements. Europe is a geographical exception to this characterization . . . The other notion to be discarded is that modernity brings about a decline of religion, a notion dignified by the term “secularization theory.” Most sociologists of religion now agree that this theory has been empirically shown to be false. (I myself held to the theory until, beginning in the 1970s, the data made it increasingly difficult to do so.) The theory fails spectacularly in explaining the difference between the United States and Europe . . . Secularization theory was an extrapolation of the European situation to the rest of the world . . . It was helped along by the fact that theories are the product of intellectuals, who mainly talk to each other and who, like everyone else, tend to see the world from their own point of view.7

Traditional, supernatural forms of religion are not rapidly receding worldwide or in the United States, only in Western Europe (the erstwhile cradle of organized Christianity). According to Berger, it is European exceptionalism that needs explanation. What Berger has abandoned is the extinction hypothesis of secularization theory.8 Taken to its extreme conclusion, secularization theory projects the end of religion as it has traditionally been understood. Rejecting this conclusion, however, does not invalidate recognition that secular modes of organization and thinking have become widespread in the modern world, with attendant large-­scale social and personal consequences.9 In this regard we still find Berger’s earlier observations concerning the consequences of secularizing trends in modern life—to which organized religions have, in fact, responded and adapted—to be valuable contributions to our understanding of religious change.10 In his earlier writings, Berger perceived the historical decline (not necessarily extinction) of religious

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influence in Western societies relative to the contemporary power of secular institutions of the state and corporate capitalism. At the same time, he focused on the ways religious organizations have adapted to the circumstances of modern life by incorporating secular methods and a rationalistic mentality. After summarizing Berger’s analysis of these organizational adaptations, we attempt to determine the extent to which LDS authorities— in guiding their church to growth and increased influence in the twentieth and twenty-­first centuries—have conformed to typical patterns of modern religious adaptation.

Secularization and Pluralism Berger views the secularization of Western culture (particularly in Europe) as the result of a complex set of interacting historical forces, chief of which were the Protestant Reformation and the emergence of capitalist industrial economies. This, of course, is terrain tread earlier by Max Weber.11 Berger’s contribution is to detail the consequences of the “disenchantment of the world” for the transformation of religious institutions that must respond in some way to bolster their diminished influence in secular societies. Perhaps the single most important religious consequence of secularization is the creation of a pluralistic situation whereas, in times past, religious monopolies were the rule. As Berger points out, under conditions of religious monopoly, religious legitimations of existence are imbued with a taken-­for-­granted character. When metaphysical hegemonies are fractured, such as occurred in Western history as a result of the Reformation and the ascendance of secular and scientific thought, the world becomes steeped with doubt, with “metaphysical anxiety,” to use Brinton’s term.12 Former definitions of reality are no longer self-­evident. Competing—often conflicting—conceptions struggle for plausibility and acceptance. The sway of mystery, miracle, and magic is reduced. The rationalization of most aspects of life is accelerated. (Note: Rationalization refers to a systematic attempt to maximize realization of goals and corresponding benefits while minimizing costs, not to “excuse-­making.”) So, too, is accelerated the increasing complexity of society’s division of labor that weakens traditional communities and spreads the malaise of social anomie. The quest for new communities, new meanings, and new coherence is inaugurated.13 Only now, the

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catholicity of legitimating meanings is no longer possible. With particular regard to religious legitimations, it may be said that the modern situation represents a rupture of the traditional task of religion, which was precisely the establishment of an integrated set of definitions of reality that could serve as a common universe of meaning for the members of a society. The world-­building potency of religion today is more narrowly restricted to the construction of subworlds, of fragmented universes of meaning.14 It should be recalled that Mormonism had its origin in the turbulent time that Alice Felt Tyler called “Freedom’s Ferment” in American history, a period of early secularization during the first half of the nineteenth century.15 The implications of democratic principles were being explored and tested; European enlightenment and scientific advances had been disseminated to American shores; industrialization was underway; the roots of modern capitalism were spreading and deepening; the first concentrated waves of alien immigrants had already begun to arrive, and the gateways to the western frontier were teeming with settlers searching for a new life. Though religious hegemony had never taken permanent root in American soil, the promises of Christian salvation were still very powerful. Evangelical revivals, the overnight birth of new religious movements (including Mormonism), and the multiplication of utopian orders discussed previously were all an essential part of the age, reflecting in large measure the apprehensive reaction of many Americans to the breakdown of traditional verities and to the encroaching secularization of the world. What are some of the specific effects of secular pluralism on religious institutions? Berger concludes that a pluralistic situation is a market situation. This is as true for religious institutions as it is for business and commercial institutions. (We should note that while rejecting the extinction hypothesis of secularization theory, proponents of the rational choice paradigm fundamentally share Berger’s economic analogy of religious markets in pluralistic societies.) Religion that is no longer a monopoly cannot take for granted the allegiance of its client population. In a situation of religious pluralism, religious meanings and programs must be marketed rather than authoritatively imposed. It follows that a good deal of institutional religious behavior in the modern age will be dominated by the logic of market economics. Berger proceeds to trace the consequences of this situation

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for both the social structure of religious organizations and the content of religious beliefs.

Secular Influences on Mormon Organization The nature of our conference data is much better suited to drawing inferences about the interaction between secularization and Mormon beliefs than it is to drawing conclusions about developments in LDS church organization. Nonetheless, we comment briefly on the latter. Berger’s analysis leads to the following generalizations about the consequences of secularization for the structure of modern religious organizations. 1. As competitive marketing agencies, religious organizations are under pressure to produce results. Emphasis on results stimulates the rationalization of organization and administrative procedures—which is to say, the bureaucratization of the church. The bureaucratic organization of economic corporations is, in fact, emulated by modern religious organizations. 2. Internal as well as external social relations of contemporary religious organizations tend to be dominated by the problems and logic of bureaucratic administration. This includes the daily internal operations of the church and its interaction with other institutions in society. With regard to the latter, it means activity in the areas of public relations, lobbying, fundraising, and financial investments in the secular economy. 3. Bureaucracies encourage certain kinds of personnel for administrative positions. The types of individuals who come to predominate in religious leadership positions are similar in many respects to their counterparts in other bureaucratic organizations; they are likely to be highly task oriented (doers rather than philosophers), pragmatic but rule oriented, dynamic in personality (skilled in interpersonal relations), and relatively conservative in their decision-­making proclivities. To what extent have these secularizing, organizational trends been reflected in the developmental history of the LDS Church?

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The centralized and hierarchical structure of church organization instituted by Mormonism’s founders in the nineteenth century provided the foundation for a complex lay organization. But the elaboration of church bureaucracy into its present form unquestionably represents an adaptation to some of the secularization motifs identified by Berger. Beginning in the 1960s as an internal organizational reform movement called the Priesthood Correlation Program, the administrative structure of the LDS Church was explicitly modeled along the same bureaucratic lines as large, secular corporations in both government and business. Today, all LDS-­sponsored policies, programs, and educational materials—including missionary lessons and teaching approaches—are approved, standardized, promoted, and coordinated through the Correlation Department, which in turn is overseen by the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and the First Presidency. Through administrative correlation, the church strives to maintain the same local ecclesiastical organizations, the same policy regulations and practices, the same worship meetings, and the same doctrinal lessons and sermon topics delivered on an annual calendar basis in every LDS ward and stake in the world.16 Many Mormons, as well as non-­Mormons, may be unaware of the extent to which the administration of the LDS Church has become professionally bureaucratized. Active Mormons are familiar with church operations at ward and stake levels, which are entirely lay administered, and most keep informed of the publicized, ceremonial activities of the church’s general authorities. But the professionalized central bureaucracy that administers daily church operations is not highly visible to most observers, even though it has assumed an increasingly significant role in the development of the modern church.17 Some of the organizational responses to secular developments suggested by Berger, as we see reflected in the administration of the modern church, are briefly summarized here. Results

The emphasis on results is evident in virtually every church-­sponsored program or endeavor. Careful statistics are kept to measure organizational productiveness and program success. Statistical quotas are imposed to stimulate greater productivity in such areas as convert baptisms, meeting attendance, performance of religious ordinances in temples, member

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visitations through home teaching programs, and contributions of time and money to the church welfare program. Operational goals are funneled down the levels of church organization from central headquarters in Salt Lake City to regional, stake, and ward officials throughout the world. Conscientious records are kept by local secretaries and clerks who forward detailed statistical reports upward through the hierarchical echelons of church administration. As in secular bureaucracies, these reports provide the basis for policy formation and decision making in various church programs. Public Relations

Beginning in the early twentieth century, self-­conscious improvement of favorable public relations increasingly became a major concern of Mormon leaders. This concern is evidenced in conference rhetoric on church reputation which, as we demonstrated in Chapter 4, increased substantially in the modern era while rhetorical attacks on the church’s enemies dramatically declined to a point of near insignificance. Favorable publicity is programmatically cultivated through such devices as the Mormon Tabernacle Choir (which generates a steady stream of publicly well-­received musical performances on CDs and DVDs and periodically embarks on goodwill tours both abroad and throughout the United States); television commercials; the building of elaborate visitors centers equipped with the latest audiovisual technologies adjacent to Mormon temples; and the restoration of church historical sites for tourists in such places as Salt Lake City; Palmyra, New York; Kirtland, Ohio; and Nauvoo, Illinois. In recent decades church publicity has been systematically promoted and coordinated through a professional public communications department which is charged with “improving the image of the church” through utilization of mass media technology. Most recently the church has made major investments in online Internet sites to promote its doctrines, programs, and policy positions and present its analysis and interpretation of new events that concern or affect the church.18 Political Lobbying

Though it relinquished overt pretentions to political power long ago, the LDS Church still lobbies local and national government on political questions that it perceives as vital to its own interests or relevant to moral issues.

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Over the years this has included involvement with such issues as prohibition, right-­to-­work laws, Sunday closing laws, and organized opposition to cigarette advertising, abortion, and pornography. In the 1970s the church emerged as one of the country’s most influential groups in opposition to passage of the Equal Rights Amendment and also became a weighty foe of basing the MX missile system in Utah and Nevada deserts. More recently, in 2008 the church was a significant institutional actor in mobilizing repeal of California’s Proposition 8 permitting same-­sex marriage.19 And, of course, in 2012 Mormon Mitt Romney (former governor of Massachusetts and also a former LDS stake president) became the Republican’s presidential candidate in a failed campaign to defeat Democratic president, Barack Obama.20 Fundraising and Finances

With respect to fundraising, the LDS Church does not solicit from outside sources but depends entirely on tithing income obtained from its membership base, voluntary donations from individual members, and profits and investment income from its own commercial enterprises. The payment of tithing is, of course, doctrinally mandated and considered a fundamental requirement of the faith. As discussed previously, careful tithing records are kept by local church officials and forwarded to Salt Lake City headquarters as a way of defining worthiness for such religious benefits as entrance into temples. In addition to the rationalization of tithing practices, church wealth is augmented by financial investments in secular commodities ranging from real estate to sugar beets. The business acumen and shrewd investing skills of Mormon leaders have, in recent decades, become rather legendary. Although the exact income of the LDS Church is not divulged by church authorities, it is known to be considerable. A recent estimate based on available records places yearly income from tithing alone (which is tax free) to be around seven billion dollars, with property holdings and investments amounting to many billions more.21 Whatever its actual current income, it would be no exaggeration to say that the LDS Church is one of the most financially sound religious organizations in the world. Bureaucratic Personnel

The types of individuals drawn into the higher ranks of church authority have, predictably, changed with the times. In the early days of the restoration movement, Mormon leaders were principally farmers or craftsmen.

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Today they are gathered primarily from the ranks of business executives or law firms, with occasional educational administrators included.22 The organizational and administrative skills of these men are not only compatible with ecclesiastical roles in church bureaucracy, leaders in turn reinforce church bureaucracy by formulating and implementing rational procedures that they have learned in the corporate world and through their own secular education. The expansion of church growth and organization has inevitably led to the proliferation of a large, professional administrative staff to manage the daily affairs of numerous church departments ostensibly directed by ecclesiastical authorities. Bureaucratic Rationalization

In addition to administrative leadership styles, other examples of the application of modern technology to the rationalization of church procedures may be cited. The church recordkeeping systems for both membership and genealogy and the streamlining of LDS temple ceremonies are examples. Membership information worldwide—including such items as residential address, gender, age, marital status, children, and priesthood offices—are updated by clerks at the level of local ward units and forwarded to Salt Lake City. There the information is processed and stored electronically in master membership files. Whenever a member moves from a particular ward or local congregational unit, Salt Lake is notified and his or her membership records are forwarded to the new local unit where home teachers are immediately assigned to begin making visitations. Once a person becomes a member, it may be fairly difficult to elude eventual contact by local church officials.23 With respect to genealogical activity, the LDS Church sponsors professional genealogists who microfilm genealogical data from all over the world. Millions of genealogical records on microfilm and microfiche are cumulatively assembled at the church’s genealogical library and are computer accessible to those trying to track down deceased ancestors. Consequently, the church has become internationally recognized for the superiority of its genealogical resources. Finally, the Mormon endowment ceremony and other temple rituals have been streamlined in order to process more patrons more efficiently. This has been accomplished by utilizing professionally produced films in lieu of the traditional live enactments of the creation and plan of salvation stories and through digitalized records

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that provide verified lists of deceased ancestors for proxy ordinances, such as baptism for the dead and temple sealing ordinances. Several of the older pioneer-­constructed temples have been extensively modernized in order to accommodate the more efficient procedures, while smaller “mini-­ temples” have been constructed in most U.S. states and in numerous countries throughout the world.24 It may be concluded with some confidence that secularizing influences have had a major impact on the elaboration of the LDS Church’s organizational structure and administrative routines. What may be surmised with respect to the influence of secularization on the nature of Mormon theological beliefs? This is a question that lends itself directly to the kind of data generated by our content analysis of general conference rhetoric.

Secular Influence on Religious Belief We summarize Berger’s propositions regarding the impact of consumer preference on religious teachings in a secular age as follows. 1.

Since, in a pluralistic religious economy, different religions must compete with one another for adherents, the dynamics of consumer preference encourage the principle of changeability in religious doctrines and corollary practices. Such changeability is, of course, inimical to religious traditionalism. While changeability is easier for some religions than for others (being particularly difficult for religions historically committed to official dogmas), all religious organizations are susceptible to this pressure in a secularized environment. 2. On the whole (but varying proportionally with social class and educational attainment), religious consumers in the secular world will tend to prefer religion that is consonant with a secularized consciousness. This means pressure exists to expunge supernatural or mythological elements from religious theologies. In other cases it may simply mean an inclination of consumers to de-­emphasize supernatural elements while other aspects of the faith more congenial with secular consciousness are stressed. 3. Squeezed out from its former locus of supreme social authority by secular state and economic institutions, religion is perceived by

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contemporary consumers to have greatest relevance for the family and private spheres of people’s lives. Thus religious beliefs are more easily marketed by stressing their primary application to families and the moral or therapeutic needs of individuals rather than the larger public questions of political and economic policy. 4. Consumer influence on religious belief in a religious market encourages both standardization and marginal differentiation of content among competing religious traditions. The standardization of belief involves a de-­emphasis of traditional doctrinal cleavages, and this is a powerful force in the direction of modern ecumenism. At the same time, denominational differences are maintained through the marginal, oftentimes superficial, marketing of distinctive beliefs and practices. To what extent have these secular-­related trends of changeability, demythologizing, privatized ethics, standardization, ecumenism, and marginal differentiation of religious differences been incorporated in the contemporary teachings and programs of the LDS Church? Changeability

Several major reversals or changes in Mormon practice, if not belief—such as abandonment of nineteenth-­century polygamy, the communitarian United Order of Enoch, and proscriptions against the ordination of black males to the priesthood—have already been commented on as accommodations to the normative demands of American society. Dramatic twentieth-­ century changes in Mormon utopian rhetoric were revealed by our statistical analysis of major conference themes in Chapter 4. In all cases belief in contemporary revelation has been used as a means for rationalizing changes in policy or doctrinal emphasis. Mormon pragmatism supports the belief that God will not require obedience to a commandment with which earthly circumstances make it impossible to comply. Mormons also believe that God’s will may be imposed through revelation and later withdrawn on certain matters, depending on the worldly circumstances of his people. This provides the church with an ideological mechanism of potentially great flexibility. The flexibility implicit in the LDS Church’s concept of modern revelation is crucial to Leone’s hypothesis that Mormonism is prototypical of

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a creedless, individualized “modern religion.” As previously noted, one aspect of revelation stressed by Mormons is, in fact, its individual accessibility. Thus, in making personal decisions all members are believed entitled to divine inspiration—even direct revelation—through the agency of God’s spirit that is believed to resonate within every human being. While such a doctrine is certainly conducive to the kind of personalized religious interpretations imputed to Mormonism by Leone, it is a doctrine within the LDS faith tradition that is subordinate to the echelon authority of the priesthood and to the principle of authorized revelation through the prophet in behalf of the church as a whole. Willingness by the vast majority of active members to obediently follow major policy decisions announced by the prophet and other prominent ecclesiastical leaders has not noticeably declined in modern times, even though occasions for such decisions may be fewer than in the past. Given the official nature of conference addresses, perhaps one would not expect to find evidence strongly favoring individual interpretations of religious truths. Nevertheless, personal revelation is an important Mormon tenet, and we did identify several items in our original conference theme index that are relevant for religious individualism. These include personal revelation, member inspiration, spirit of prophecy, personal prayer (in its various guidance functions), knowledge through study and revelation, free agency, the value of individuals, and so on. The results of this individualism measurement over time are presented in Figure 8.1. Clearly, individual free rein in the religious realm has not been a priority theme for conference speakers. Furthermore, instead of showing increasing emphasis in modern times, our data indicate there has occurred a slight decrease in reference to individualism themes.25 Essentially, the salience of individualism rhetoric in conference history, as of 1980, remained at a constant and quite low level. (We pursue this issue, as well as the remaining Berger hypotheses that follows, in light of more recent conference data for the years 1980– 2009 in Chapter 9.) Our analysis of Mormon changeability, therefore, leads us to the conclusion that personal theologizing and interpretation of Mormon doctrine is officially tolerated only within narrowly prescribed boundaries. Institutional change, however, while often resisted by the Mormons, is greatly eased, when it does occur, by belief in the principle of ongoing revelation when officially proclaimed by general authorities.

Mormon Responses to Secularization 191

Figure 8.1. Mormon Rhetorical Emphasis on Individualism over Thirty-Year Time Periods

Core Mormon Beliefs and Doctrinal Differentiation

Belief in modern revelation and certain elementary facts of their history commit Mormons to a relatively inflexible set of core beliefs. One of these is their conception of the essential character and nature of God. Mormon theology takes as its beginning point Joseph Smith’s claim that he saw and spoke with God, a perfected, exalted being, not an amorphous spirit or immanent divine principle. Mormon anthropomorphism is reinforced by the religion’s principal metaphysical tenet: the eternal development and progression of the universe, most notably involving the perfecting of human souls in the direction of personal deification. These beliefs could not be easily abandoned or modified without unraveling other elements of the Mormon belief system. Neither could the Mormons’ belief in Joseph Smith as a literal prophet or his explicit message of the restoration be abandoned or easily modified. These theological commitments have in turn their irresistible correlates for the LDS faith: revelation itself cannot be denied; divine intervention in the affairs of individuals and human history cannot be denied; and the authenticity of the Book of Mormon and other sacred writings cannot be fundamentally denied or easily modified. Neither can belief in the divine atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ be modified or abandoned. The church claims to be the restoration of the primitive New Testament Church of Christ. In his revelations Joseph Smith reports receiving personal communications from the resurrected Christ in which the latter’s central role in the plan of salvation is explicitly detailed. Mormon Christology leads to

192  CHAPTER 8

unequivocal commitment to belief in the universal resurrection and the immortality of the soul. These are among the central doctrines that cannot admit to fundamental change but which must be marketed to an incredulous secular world. The LDS Church has remained essentially true to this theological core—indeed, it has both glorified itself to insiders and advertised itself to outsiders in precisely the terms of our doctrinal summary. As we showed in Chapter 4, the legitimization of exclusive LDS truths has characterized conference rhetoric in both early and modern periods of Mormon history. However, the degree to which uniquely Mormon beliefs are publicly stressed at general conference may be considered a variable that is susceptible to social and historical pressures. In our original analysis, we attempted to measure this variability by combining the salience scores of a multitude of designated items from our conference theme index. This measure includes such concepts as the prophetic calling and leadership qualities of Joseph Smith, the restoration of the true church and priesthood authority, the authenticity of the Book of Mormon, the principles of modern revelation and prophetic leadership, the status of the Latter-­day Saints as a chosen people, and a variety of other beliefs which are characteristically Mormon, including pre-­earth life, personal deification and plurality of Gods, temple work, celestial marriage, the Word of Wisdom, etc. The results of this measure over time are summarized in Figure 8.2. The thematic salience produced by our measure of doctrinal differentiation is very similar to the overall pattern of commitment rhetoric that we saw in Chapter 6. For the first three generations of conference history doctrinal differentiation was relatively high, peaking in Mormonism’s second generation (1860–1889). Subsequently, from 1890–1979 emphasis on uniquely Mormon beliefs dropped off substantially. Thus a modern decline in commitment rhetoric appears to be accompanied by a decline in the rhetoric of Mormon distinctiveness.26 Decreasing conference emphasis on doctrinal points of difference in the twentieth century, however, needs to be interpreted in light of the immutability of Mormonism’s core beliefs and the apparent leveling off of this decline during the post–World War II era, 1950–1979. First we should note that enunciation of certain distinctive Mormon doctrines has always

Mormon Responses to Secularization 193

Figure 8.2. Mormon Rhetorical Emphasis on Doctrinal Differentiation over ­ hirty-Year Time Periods T

been frequent, even during periods of relative decline. Second, the peak period of differentiation occurred from 1860–1889, a time when Mormon doctrinal peculiarities first became widely known and condemned, and when the LDS Church was aggressively defending itself against attack for these very peculiarities. Third, the modern decline in our measure largely represents abandonment of the nineteenth-­century utopian themes of Zion, theocratic politics and communitarian economics envisioned in the kingdom of God, and plural marriage, but not a retreat from such fundamental claims as Mormonism’s supreme truth and authority based on prophetic revelation. The modern church, through conference proclamations of its leaders, appears to be insisting that it is importantly different in its authorized possession of irreducible truths, but the latter are increasingly represented within the boundaries of conventional acceptability, not as dangerously radical ideas that might appear unreasonable to contemporary understanding. This modification of conference rhetoric can, in large part, be understood as a compromising adaptation to secular consciousness and the competitive pressures of modern religious pluralism for recruitment-­ oriented religions.

194  CHAPTER 8

Secular Consciousness and the Rhetoric of Family Morality In the context of Mormon beliefs about the inspired nature of conference utterances, it could very well be argued that virtually every theme articulated by conference speakers is ultimately imputed to involve some type of supernatural source or referent. Clearly, however, certain topics suggest a stronger supernatural emphasis than others. To test Berger’s hypothesis that modern religions cater to secular consciousness by de-­emphasizing supernatural myths, we originally selected for statistical analysis a large number of mythic LDS conference themes, most of which fall within the framework of the orthodox Christian tradition. These include Mormon conceptions of the creation (Adam and Eve, the Garden of Eden, etc.), supernatural beings (angels, spirits, and Satan) believed capable of influencing human action, manifestations of supernatural power (miracles, prophecies, etc.), and human destiny (resurrection and atonement, salvation and exaltation, heaven and hell, etc.). We combined these kinds of topics to index the salience of supernatural themes at general conference over time. The results in Figure 8.3 provide support for Berger’s hypothesis: there has occurred a moderate, linear decrease in the salience of supernatural rhetoric in every generation of general conference since 1860.27 For the most recent period of conference history included in our original survey (1950– 1979), the relative emphasis placed on supernatural themes was only half that generated by speakers in Mormonism’s first generation, when such topics were apparently at the peak of their popularity. Even more striking was the decline in the rhetoric of Mormon eschatology, also shown in Figure 8.3. 28 Throughout the nineteenth century Mormon leaders were preoccupied with the imminent Second Coming of Jesus, the Millennium, and other associated events of the last days. As with other thematic measures discussed previously (such as utopianism, commitment, mobilization, and doctrinal differentiation), the salience of eschatological themes was most acute during the period 1860–1889. Intensified millennial expectations are typically associated with periods of institutional crisis, and this certainly seems to have been the case with the Mormons. Eschatological rhetoric diminished drastically after 1920 as the church became more securely established in its new course of accommodation to secular power. Even though an apocalyptic scenario of the last days is still a central Mormon doctrine, it is no longer enunciated by

Mormon Responses to Secularization 195

Figure 8.3. Mormon Rhetorical Emphasis on (A) Eschatology, and (B) the Supernatural over Thirty-Year Time Periods

modern conference speakers with anything like the emphatic fervor of nineteenth-­century leaders. This result, as well as the subdued emphasis on supernatural rhetoric, is consistent with Berger’s hypothesis regarding the influence of secular consciousness on the articulation of traditional religious beliefs. Such beliefs for the Mormons are still fundamentals of their faith, but they simply are not publicly expressed to the extent they were in times past. Not only has modern conference rhetoric become doctrinally less esoteric, less prone to dwell on supernatural themes, and much less millenarian, it also has, in conformity with Berger’s analysis of modern religious beliefs, concentrated on family institutions and personal morality. These latter conference trends were discussed previously in Chapters 4 and 7. Mormonism’s original conception of the kingdom of God was premised on an implicit critique of major nineteenth-­century trends in American society, including growing cultural pluralism and individualism. The social order of the early LDS Church represented a reversion to the totalistic authority of the traditional New England community.29

196  CHAPTER 8

Today it would appear that Mormonism’s original social ethic has become considerably privatized. Contemporary leaders present to their conference audiences a view of society in which the etiology of modern social problems is overwhelmingly attributed to the apparent demise of spiritual and family values in a secular age rather than to deficiencies in American political or economic institutions. Prayer, pious living, and obedience to God’s revealed commandments are the prescribed remedies, not institutional reforms or government-­sponsored social programs. And for modern Mormons it is the nuclear family, rather than the traditional community, in which moral traits are presumed to be most effectively cultivated. All of these shifts in outlook harmonize with the social and political perspectives of other conservative evangelical Christian churches in the religious economy of contemporary U.S. society.30

Resistance to Secularization These conference trends are consistent with our earlier characterization of Mormonism becoming an inward-­oriented movement, and they demonstrate some of the ways that Mormon doctrines have been made more palatable to the consumer preferences of secular consciousness. It would be a distortion, however, to portray the LDS Church as unambiguously endorsing the values of secular society. To the contrary, though contemporary Mormon leaders strongly identify with national patriotic values and entertain an idealized conception of traditional American virtues, they regularly excoriate what they perceive to be the many permissive, self-­indulgent, and licentious currents of modern life presumably encouraged by the spread of secular consciousness. Reduced to their basic messages, most conference sermons include some kind of appeal to forsake worldly ways and have faith in the simple verities of the old-­time gospel. It is in this latter regard that the LDS faith enjoys its closest religious affinity with conservative Christian denominations.31 Church membership trends in recent years do not appear to support the thesis that organized religion as a whole is declining in American society. Rather, denominational growth rates suggest that only certain religious organizations are threatened by decline while others are apparently flourishing. Ironically, it is the old mainline “liberal” churches—those that

Mormon Responses to Secularization 197

have accommodated most to secular thought—that have suffered membership declines in recent decades, while evangelical, charismatic, Pentecostal, and non-­denominational megachurches—which most oppose liberalizing accommodations to secular thought—have been growing.32 Thus the contemporary religious situation remains complex. Consistent with Fenn’s analysis of contemporary secularization, the appeal of orthodox, supernatural religion seems to be simultaneously waxing and waning within different subpopulations of society. The complexity of this situation is compounded when conservative religions, such as the modern LDS Church, steadfastly continue urging commitment to traditional religious values while also showing definite signs of accommodating certain beliefs and practices to the pressures of secular pluralism. Standardization of belief is a predisposing factor in the development of denominational cooperation and religious coalitions. Our content analysis of conference addresses indicates that a certain amount of standardization of Mormon belief has occurred, at least a rearranging and polishing of creedal priorities so that they fit more comfortably into a conventional Christian mold. How has this affected the Mormon response to the numerous upheavals in twentieth-­century Christianity? What part, for instance, has the LDS Church taken in the Christian ecumenical movement?33 Though Mormon leaders have curtailed public expression of sectarian antipathies, they have shown little interest in ecumenism. This represents yet another attitude shared in common with many conservative Protestants. Zald and Ash’s hypothesis that exclusive organizations are less likely to seek coalitions than inclusive organizations may be cited at this point.34 The Mormon claim to exclusive truth as the restored church is one of those core beliefs that militates against the ecumenical spirit. No matter how this position might be softened by conceding the possession of partial truths in other religions, the LDS faith—in order to remain true to its essential restorationist tenets—must conclude that every other religion in the world is in ultimate error. Concomitantly, any ecumenical cooperation between agencies of the church and other religious bodies is likely to be viewed by Mormons primarily as offering additional opportunities for missionary work and favorable publicity. The responses of Mormon authorities to the secularization of society reveal a basic ambivalence. On one hand, Mormonism has embraced with

198  CHAPTER 8

apparent enthusiasm rational forms of secular organization and technological innovations and has managed to attract and coordinate a rapidly growing global membership. On the other hand, the complex and expanding bureaucratic hierarchy of the church is offset by the continued monopoly of its lay leadership and involvement of that leadership in all but the highest levels of organization. Few would argue with the observation made by Leone and others that the lay makeup of the Mormon religion has exercised an impeding influence on the progressive rationalization of its theology.35 The innovative vigor of early Mormon thought appears to have withered and become increasingly timid and conservative, less true to its original theological heresies, and more in tune with orthodox Christian fundamentalism.36 Although the LDS Church supports and operates private colleges and universities, it graduates no theology students or seminarians groomed for eventual church leadership. Instead, as already observed, church leaders today are mostly recruited from business and professional circles. These leaders are charged with managing the daily affairs of the church and with maintaining the elemental faith of the people, not with refining the religion’s theology toward greater technical coherence. The systematic rationalization of Mormon organization has far outpaced the rationalization of Mormon beliefs. Though less blatantly sectarian today, the church remains committed to exclusive beliefs that in most respects are in opposition to ecumenism. Its missionary message is premised on the view that the LDS faith is the only wholly legitimate system of religious truth. To summarize, in spite of significant accommodations to the secularization of society, the contemporary LDS Church continues, in sectarian fashion, to insist on its proprietary possession of exclusive religious truth and authority, while at the same time marketing its claims to a modern, largely conservative clientele.37 In many respects, rhetorical trends at general conference conform fairly well to Berger’s analysis. Mormon officials no longer stress their religion’s original commitment to utopian experimentation and social reform. They do continue emphasizing certain distinctive Mormon beliefs, eschatology, and supernatural themes, but considerably less so than in the past. Family, individual character, and personal morality themes are ascendant contemporary topics. And yet while these Mormon trends parallel some developments in modern American religion as a

Mormon Responses to Secularization 199

whole, there is little evidence that the church has, or ever will have, a genuine interest in embracing ecumenical ties to other Christian churches. The LDS Church has often been at the forefront in accepting and implementing secular methods while simultaneously vigorously attempting to resist the encroachment of secular values and lifestyles. These apparent contradictions are not unique to the church, and their ultimate historical consequences have not yet been fully realized or understood.

9

Contemporary Developments LDS Conference Trends from 1980–2009

When first published in 1984, A Kingdom Transformed represented a novel approach to the institutional study of Mormonism through a statistical content analysis of LDS conference addresses from 1830–1979. Our analysis of conference reports, grouped into five generations of Mormon history, allowed us to document and analyze changing thematic trends in the official rhetoric of church leaders that corresponded to changes in doctrinal emphasis and organizational developments over a span of one hundred and fifty years. Subsequent to our original edition, another thirty-­year period has passed in the contemporary history of the LDS Church. What rhetorical changes in conference addresses, if any, have occurred during this time? Have trends noted in the 1984 edition continued, or have they been dramatically replaced by new trends as the church continues to navigate its position as a rapidly growing and influential denominational actor in the national as well as global religious economies?

The LDS Conference Corpus: Advantages and Problems of a New Methodology Our original methodology involved drawing a systematic, random sample of six hundred conference addresses from which we then coded by hand 200

Contemporary Developments  201

the thematic contents of each photocopied address, producing a Theme Index of 216 core conference themes and over one thousand subthemes. Hundreds of hours went into the construction and application of this index as we coded our conference sample. However, this labor-­intensive method is no longer necessary. Mark Davies, a linguist at Brigham Young University, has inaugurated an online site entitled Corpus of LDS General Conference Talks.1 This site contains every conference address delivered from 1850 to the present and is structured so that one can enter any word or phrase and get instant frequency word counts for every decade of LDS conference history. This huge technological advance in archival storage and retrieval capacity is a tremendous boon to linguists, historians, and other scholars like us who want to draw reliable inferences from a body of documents. For us in particular it means we no longer need to conceptualize and implement a strategy for drawing a random sample of conference addresses.2 It especially means that we no longer need to spend laborious hours coding each address, one line of text at a time. However, relying on Conference Corpus to update our analysis poses several problems for us. Our original methodology was committed to a theme analysis of documents, not merely recording word counts. A theme analysis requires coders to exercise personal judgments in classifying verbal statements into thematic categories. When carefully done, this kind of coding allows trained researchers to discern more complex and nuanced meanings from verbal statements. In contrast, sheer word-­count methods for analyzing documents are entirely word dependent. A digitalized search engine mechanically identifies and counts only the exact word or words entered by the researcher. No judgments are made from the larger rhetorical context or unit of meaning (such as a paragraph or sequence of paragraphs) concerning a speaker’s or writer’s intentions. Guided by our original data set, we searched the Corpus for all of the key words and phrases contained in the 216 core themes of our original conference theme index. It was specification of all the subthemes coded in our index that became most problematic, because classification of these in conference addresses most required coder judgments in the original survey. Furthermore, we didn’t use sheer frequency counts to score themes in our original survey. Instead, we computed salience scores by dividing the number of paragraphs coded for particular themes in a given address by the total number of paragraphs in the address (see Chapter 4 and Appendix

202  CHAPTER 9

A for details). To make our census3 of the most recent thirty years of conference history comparable to our earlier survey we again needed to calculate salience scores, but changes in our methodology required adopting a different scoring procedure. Consequently, for the most recent period we calculated the overall median frequency of specified word themes in the Corpus and then divided each theme by this median value.4 This gave us a measure of theme salience based on word frequencies relative to the median word frequency count rather than the ratio of theme frequency to paragraph units, which we had used in our original study. Thus, in our updated analysis our altered scoring procedures provide us with an alternative metric for assessing conference trends from 1980–2009. Even though the calculation of thematic salience is different for the latter period, we trust the larger rhetorical trends that our new methods reveal are compatible with those uncovered in our original survey.

On Mormon Assimilation and Retrenchment Motifs Following our publication of Kingdom in 1984, more than a dozen other significant scholarly works on Mormonism and the LDS Church particularly related to our concerns have been published that should now be taken into consideration. These include Robert Gottlieb and Peter Wiley’s America’s Saints: Rise of Mormon Power (1984); Jan Shipps’s Mormonism: A New Religious Tradition (1985) and Sojourner in the Promised Land: Forty Years Among the Mormons (2000); Thomas Alexander’s Mormonism in Transition: A History of the Latter-­day Saints, 1890–1930 (1986); Armand Mauss’s The Angel and the Beehive: The Mormon Struggle with Assimilation (1994) and All Abraham’s Children: Changing Mormon Conceptions of Race and Lineage (2004); Richard and Joan Ostling’s Mormon America: The Power and the Promise (2000); Claudia Bushman’s Contemporary Mormonism: Latter-­day Saints in Modern America (2006); Matthew Bowman’s The Mormon People: The Making of an American Faith (2012); and Melvyn Hammarberg’s The Mormon Quest for Glory: The Religious World of the Latter-­day Saints (2013). Of these and many other more recent books on Mormonism, it is Mauss’s work that is most pertinent to our revision of A Kingdom Transformed. In Angel and the Beehive, Mauss puts forward his “retrenchment” thesis of modern Mormon development. Mauss argues that after decades of pursuing a policy of deliberate assimilation in American society, the

Contemporary Developments  203

post–World War II LDS Church retrenched, reversing course in an effort to preserve its religious and cultural distinctiveness. Supported in part by our earlier conference data, Mauss devotes most of his book to detailing mid-­t wentieth-­century LDS retrenchment trends in scriptural literalism, corporate church government, traditional gender role definitions, youth indoctrination, and political conservatism. In this regard it should be recalled that LDS retrenchment ran parallel to the evangelical revival in post–World War II America, summarized in Chapter 2, as conservative Christians increasingly dissented from the liberal social and political stances taken by the clergy of mainline Protestant denominations. Mauss concludes that in reversing its previous assimilationist posture in relationship to the normative and legal demands of American society, the contemporary church also had begun listing in the direction of conservative Protestantism and consequently was in some peril of losing its distinctive identity in the global religious economy.5 More recently, however, Mauss published a 2011 article titled “Rethinking Retrenchment: Course Corrections in the Ongoing Campaign for Respectability.” Here Mauss reconsiders his retrenchment thesis and concludes that for the past two decades LDS general authorities have gradually “introduced a series of changes in church policy that have had the cumulative effect of pulling the pendulum of ecclesiastical culture back somewhat from the retrenchment mode and toward assimilation.”6 In his latest analysis, this partial reversal of retrenchment has occurred primarily in the areas of LDS scriptures and doctrinal exposition, gender and family policies, issues of homosexuality, and rapprochement with independent scholarship in Mormon studies. Mauss is careful to qualify his observations by saying “I haven’t yet gathered the kind of systematic data needed for reliable conclusions. Nor am I claiming here that there has been a wholesale rollback of the retrenchment policies, but only some relatively modest ‘course corrections.’”7 His principal theoretical argument is that adaptive religious change in a competitive religious economy requires “optimal” tension between a religious organization and its surrounding social environment. Striving to maintain the optimal level of tension in a changing historical environment generates a pendular, dialectical process in which the growth and strength of the church depend on periodic “course corrections” to maintain an optimum level of cultural

204  CHAPTER 9

tension with the surrounding society, which itself is constantly changing . . . Each new retrenchment campaign seems to start from a more advanced stage of assimilation than the last one did, so that the ecclesiastical culture is never pulled all the way back to the tension level from which it started . . . The end result is typically still a well assimilated religious community in the long term. In the short term, though, we might see the opposite—a strong retrenchment thrust followed by a partial retreat again toward assimilation, which is what I think has occurred during the past two decades.8

Later in this chapter we return to scrutinize more critically Mauss’s theoretical formulations concerning retrenchment and assimilationist phases of LDS development (with particular focus on assimilation), but here we simply ask, in what ways and to what extent are Mauss’s reflections on partial reversal of LDS retrenchment motifs supported by the last thirty years of our conference data?9

Most Salient Conference Themes, 1980–2009 In Table 9.1 we have listed the twenty most salient conference themes, decade by decade, over the past thirty years of LDS conference history. These twenty themes, in order of their thirty-­year salience rankings are: Jesus Christ, Family, Love, Children, Truth, Faith, Prophets, Priesthood, Gospel, Blessings, Spirit, Church Government, Testimony, Marriage, Temples, Missions/Missionaries, Scripture, Happiness, Knowledge, and Prayer (followed by Parents/Parenthood and the Book of Mormon). Several preliminary observations need to be made about these thematic topics. First, the reader should note that all of the salience score values summarized in Table 9.1 are substantially larger than the salience scores we calculated in our original conference survey ending in 1979. This is because of the different methodology and scoring procedures we used in our second survey, as already noted. Salience scores calculated for this second survey of conference addresses from 1980–2009 inform us how each designated theme compares to the median frequency of all themes included in our theme index. A salience score of 1.00 would indicate that a designated theme’s frequency is equal to the median frequency of all coded themes in the index for the same period of time. A salience score smaller

4. Love

5. Prophets

17.91

16.56

3. Family

4. Children

7.98

7.29

6.76

19. Temples

20. Book of Mormon

8.20

16. Knowledge

7.35

9.84

15. Missions

18. Happiness

10.12

14. Testimony

17. Scripture

11.06

11.12

11. Church Gov.

10.88

11.59

9. Spirit

10. Blessings

12. Marriage

9. Spirit

12.53

8. Priesthood

13. Faith

8. Blessings

13.01

12.69

7. Prophets

8.68 8.68

20. Parents

8.95

9.23

9.28

9.35

11.16

11.53

11.83

13.16

13.29

13.85

14.24

15.24

16.37

16.41

17.20

20.68

21.59

22.82

28.70

Salience Scores

20. Knowledge

19. Missions

18. Prayer

17. Scripture

16. Happiness

15. Temples

14. Marriage

13. Church Gov.

12. Testimony

11. Gospel

10. Priesthood

7. Truth

6. Faith

15.78

13.97

5. Truth

6. Gospel

3. Children

2. Family

1. Jesus Christ

23.98

19.62

2. Love

THEMES

Salience Scores

THEMES

1. Jesus Christ

1990–1999

20. Knowledge

19. Happiness

18. Scripture

17. Prayer

16. Missions

15. Marriage

14. Temples

13. Spirit

12. Testimony

11. Church Gov.

10. Truth

9. Prophets

8. Blessings

7. Gospel

6. Priesthood

5. Faith

4. Children

3. Love

2. Family

1. Jesus Christ

THEMES

2000–2009

9.04

9.21

9.39

10.41

10.77

10.85

11.31

13.70

14.19

14.62

15.42

15.45

15.46

15.74

16.57

19.41

19.44

20.49

23.79

30.75

Salience Scores

7.19 5.46

21. Book of Mormon

8.61

8.64

8.64

8.88

9.55

9.92

11.15

12.49

12.52

13.49

14.10

14.33

14.37

15.22

15.56

16.01

19.08

20.65

21.51

27.81

Salience Scores

20. Parents

19. Prayer

18. Knowledge

18. Happiness

17. Scripture

16. Missions

15. Temples

14. Marriage

13. Testimony

12. Church Gov.

11. Spirit

10. Blessings

9. Gospel

8. Priesthood

7. Prophets

6. Faith

5. Truth

4. Children

3. Love

2. Family

1. Jesus Christ

THEMES

30-Year Totals

TA BLE 9.1. MOST SA LIEN T CONFER ENCE THE M ES BY DEC A DE , 1980 –2009

1980–1989

206  CHAPTER 9

than the median frequency would be a decimal value ranging between .01 and .99. Themes with salience scores greater than the median frequency would begin at 1.01, with no upper limit. As the twenty most salient conference themes by decade over the past thirty years, all of the themes listed in Table 9.1 are considerably greater than 1.00. Thus, for example, from 1980–1989 the Book of Mormon was mentioned by conference speakers 6.76 times more frequently than the median conference theme, and, during that same decade, Jesus Christ was referred to a whopping 23.98 times more frequently than the median theme frequency. In fact, scanning the decades from 1980 through 2009, we see, by a large margin, that Jesus Christ has been conference speakers’ single most salient thematic reference of the contemporary era. Over the entire thirty-­ year period summarized in Table 9.1, mention of Jesus Christ was 1.29 times more common on average than references to the period’s second most frequent conference topic, Families. It should be noted that the thematic topics of Jesus Christ and the nuclear family unit both gained ascendancy in the generation of post–World War II conference speakers, as detailed in Chapter 4. The continued salience of these themes in the most recent generation of conference history strongly reinforces our original analysis of Christian respectability aspirations pursued by the modern LDS Church. Rather than an item-­by-­item analysis of top-­ranking conference themes for each decade over the past thirty years, it is arguably more instructive to comment selectively on particular themes and subsequently look for theme clusters that indicate larger patterns of conference concern. Thus, for example, even though we see some shifting in rank-­order salience, the great majority of all the themes listed in Table 9.1 consistently show up among the top twenty in every decade. We can thus infer a considerable amount of consistency of conference focus over the past thirty years. Only three themes—parents, prayer, and the Book of Mormon—failed to make our list for every decade. The Book of Mormon was only a top-­t wenty concern from 1980–1989; parents ranked on our list only during the period 1990–1999; while prayer was a top-­t wenty item in two of the three decades. Constructing “top ten” or “top twenty” lists, of course, requires setting arbitrary cutoff points. But the fact remains that the great majority of the themes identified in Table 9.1 were consistently high in every decade

Contemporary Developments  207

and the relatively less consistent themes of the Book of Mormon, parents, and prayer—while always much more frequently mentioned than median conference topics—had relatively lower thirty-­year salience scores than the other themes shown in Table 9.1. In particular, the Book of Mormon’s relative salience as a conference topic from 1980–1989 overlapped with the administration of Ezra Taft Benson, who, as an exceptionally conservative church president, personally crusaded for increased emphasis on the Book of Mormon in all church programs and publications.10 Benson’s administration (1985–1994) also coincided with the peak of Mauss’s retrenchment period of modern LDS history. Subsequent relative decline of conference references to the Book of Mormon in the latter part of the twentieth century and the first decade of the twenty-­first century is consistent with Mauss’s revised analysis of modest reversals in Mormon retrenchment and lends some support to his optimal tension theory of religious change. Of the top-­twenty conference themes listed in Table 9.1, a majority (thirteen) attained their highest salience in the last decade, 2000–2009. At the same time, seven of the top-­t wenty themes declined to their lowest salience level during the last decade. Most of these decreases were very small, and, of the latter themes, only two (in addition to the Book of Mormon) seem obviously pertinent to Mauss’s thesis concerning recent official efforts to reduce tension with other faith traditions: truth and prophets. While these two themes remain very salient topics, a small reduction in their relative emphasis at general conference over the past decade is statistically compatible with Mauss’s course corrections thesis, i.e., that Mormon authorities have been pulling back (albeit in small increments) from dogmatic retrenchment on foundational Mormon beliefs. Examples of foundational beliefs would certainly include exclusive truths channeled through prophets and contained in the Book of Mormon. It may also be noted in Table 9.1 that for the last decade of conference reports there was a modest downturn in the salience of children themes and also very small decreases in the themes of marriage and Spirit (connoting God’s presence and influence). Correspondingly, marriage and children are both identified as retrenchment issues by Mauss. In addition, Mauss also identifies emphasis on the conversion process as a retrenchment issue. Insofar as God’s Spirit is associated with conversion to the LDS Church, a

208  CHAPTER 9

conference decline in Spirit themes may be considered as another partial indicator of some mitigation of the church’s retrenchment stance compared to previous decades. We conclude that decreased salience of certain top-­t wenty conference themes during the past decade lends some credence to Mauss’s theory of tension reduction. At the same time, all of these recent decade changes were small, and the themes in question all remain among the most prominent of conference topics. We comment further on these doctrinal issues later in the chapter and also on the obvious connection of marriage and parents to family themes that have consistently received major emphasis in the rhetoric of conference speakers over the past thirty years. Whether the small declines in salience noted in Table 9.1 continue in the years ahead remain to be seen. In Chapter 4 we formatted Mormonism’s most salient conference themes over five generations of LDS history into three superordinate theme clusters, namely what we identified as (1) Utopian, (2) Authority/Legitimacy, and (3) Family/Respectability themes. With the addition of thirty more years of conference proceedings we can apply these same categories to our new data. Various Utopian themes that had dwindled to near insignificance by the 1950s have never been resuscitated, virtually vanishing in the rhetoric of contemporary conference speakers. At the same time, later twentieth-­century Family/Respectability themes have been solidified as foundational Mormon motifs in the twenty-­first century. But also persisting is a particular set of LDS Authority/Legitimacy themes. To spotlight these twenty-­first century concerns with greater specificity, we have reformatted our most salient conference themes into five generic theme categories, as shown in Table 9.2. The organization of rhetorical conference themes into larger thematic units in Table 9.2 produces the following general categories: Authority, Truth Claims, Means of Knowing Truth, Religious Goals and Responsibilities, and Rewards of Religious Commitment. In turn, these thematic categories suggest an outline for a standard LDS conference sermon, which might go something like this: (1) Jesus Christ is the savior of humankind and head of a church that he has authorized and guides on earth through prophets and a priesthood organization constituting a divinely sanctioned form of church government. (2) The function of the church, through its authorized

Contemporary Developments  209 TA BLE 9. 2 . GENER IC LDS GENER A L CONFER ENCE THE M E C ATEGOR IES, 1989–2009: AU THOR I T Y, TRU TH, K NOW ING, GOA LS, A ND R EWA R DS MAJOR RHETORICAL THEMES

30-Year Mean Salience

1. Authority Jesus Christ

27.81

Prophets

15.22

Priesthood

14.37

Church Government

12.52

2. Truth Claims Truth

16.01

Gospel

14.33

Missions/Missionaries

9.55

Scripture

8.88

Book of Mormon

5.51

3. Means of Knowing Truth Faith

15.56

Spirit

13.49

Testimony

12.49

Knowledge

8.64

Prayer

8.61

4. Primary LDS Goals and Responsibilities Families

21.51

Children

19.08

Marriage

11.15

Temples

9.92

Parents/Parenthood

7.19

5. Rewards of LDS Faith and Practice Love

20.35

Blessings

14.10

Happiness

8.64

programs, is to implement the true gospel of Jesus Christ for mortal living and ultimate salvation as expounded in holy scripture, including the Book of Mormon, the glad tidings of which are proclaimed by authorized missionaries whose duty is to seek out and win converts in every country of the

210  CHAPTER 9

world. (3) Conversion to the gospel and commitment to the church can be obtained through study, but ultimate conviction requires faith, prayer, and the gift of God’s Holy Spirit—all of which constitute a personal testimony that must be shared with others. (4) Among the major goals and responsibilities of church members is making themselves worthy to participate in temple ceremonies essential to their salvation, especially commitment to a temple marriage with an equally worthy partner. Marriage entails shared parental responsibilities to raise children in the church so that a couple and their offspring, through temple sealing ceremonies, may become an eternal family unit.11 (5) As a result of their commitment to the gospel and active service in the church, faithful members may expect to experience the love of God along with other rich blessings—both material and spiritual—that ensure true happiness. Notwithstanding small declines during the last decade in the salience of specific theme items noted in Table 9.1 (Book of Mormon, prophets, truth, Spirit, marriage and children), our conference data overwhelmingly demonstrate that the interconnected themes aggregated in Table 9.2 constitute the LDS Church’s primary message to both its members and the world in the early twenty-­first century.

Issues of Retrenchment and Moderation In comparison to conference addresses of earlier eras, we again note that contemporary LDS speakers increasingly have tempered and streamlined their comments for a global Mormon and non-­Mormon audience. Not only missing from current conference addresses are the kinds of utopian rhetoric favored by nineteenth-­century authorities, but also gone is emphasis on the implications of more esoteric doctrines and theology. A stereotypical conference sermonette, as sketched previously, manages to convey conservative, family-­values themes in a manner that is not calculated to offend middle-­class Christian sensibilities, while simultaneously insisting on the ultimate verities of the Mormon faith. Often, however, the expression of Mormon exclusive truth claims at contemporary general conferences may be fairly subtle. Many speakers may simply refer to “the gospel,” for example, or “the church,” without stressing that what they actually mean is the restored gospel and the

Contemporary Developments  211

restored Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-­day Saints, reestablished on earth in the latter days by God’s chosen prophet, Joseph Smith, and subsequently led up through the present day by divinely authorized successor prophets. This is the implicit taken-­for-­granted meaning that a Mormon audience imputes to any statements about the church or the gospel. In contrast, a non-­Mormon audience often assumes references to generic Christian themes that resonate with their own religious vocabularies. Even frequent references to temples—where the most sacred ordinances of the LDS religion are exclusively performed only by worthy members of the faith—typically are understated so that a non-­Mormon audience can infer that the word temple is merely a preferred Mormon term for their religious edifices.12 To what extent are unique, exclusive LDS teachings, in fact, plainly expressed at contemporary general conferences? If Mauss is right about a partial reversal of Mormon retrenchment trends over the past two decades, this should be reflected by a corresponding decline in the articulation of distinctive LDS doctrines that set Mormons apart from other Christian faith traditions. In Table 9.3 we have listed a set of distinctive LDS doctrinal teachings included in conference addresses and their corresponding salience values for the decades 1980 through 2009. The doctrinal items listed are essentially the ones we combined in Chapter 8 to construct an overall index measure of doctrinal differentiation. Here we list them separately under two general headings (Restoration and Salvation Themes) to see which, if any, have declined in their conference salience from the 1980s, a decade which Mauss identifies as the peak of twentieth-­century LDS retrenchment. Keeping in mind that the themes displayed in Table 9.3 refer to distinctive LDS teachings, the first, most obvious observation to make about the majority is how low their relative salience has been in all three decades of general conference since 1980. Only three of the twenty-­three distinctive LDS doctrines we selected for testing had salience values that were substantially above the median frequency of all themes listed in our conference word index, namely: (1) Joseph Smith’s prophetic stature, (2) the Book of Mormon and, to a lesser degree, (3) restoration of the gospel. Furthermore, while all the latter are basic restoration themes, only one was referenced frequently enough by conference speakers to be included in our analysis of top-­ twenty conference themes over the past thirty years: the Book of Mormon

212  CHAPTER 9

during the decade 1980–1989, as previously mentioned. While also mentioned fairly frequently in conference addresses, the topic of Joseph Smith, Mormonism’s prophet-­founder, never was included among the top-­twenty decade themes of the past thirty years. In comparison, generic conference references to Jesus Christ were, on average, almost 4.5 times more frequent than references to Joseph Smith during this same period. If we focus on decade comparisons rather than thirty-­year totals, we again see selective evidence to support Mauss’s view of relaxing retrenchment trends in more recent times. Thus, while demonstrating relatively weak salience scores over the past thirty years, the subthemes of Joseph Smith’s First Vision and Modern Prophets also show modest consecutive decline in each of the past three decades. The figures are small but they are consistent with Mauss’s thesis. It also is clear that specification of distinctive LDS salvation themes has been especially neglected by Mormon authorities during the last thirty-­ year period of conference history. Instead, authorities tend to address salvation themes by using a more standard Christian vocabulary. Thus, for example, the Mormon doctrine of exaltation in the Celestial Kingdom achieved an average salience of only .76 during this period in comparison to generic references to salvation, which had an average salience of 2.77 in our theme index.13 For that matter, simple references to heaven (average salience 6.01) were far more frequent than remarks concerning the distinctive LDS concept of the Celestial Kingdom (average salience .30), not to mention only miniscule reference was made to Mormons’ three-­tiered heaven or degrees of glory (average salience .02). To further test Mauss’s partial reversal hypothesis concerning Mormon retrenchment trends of the past century, we must also look to see if distinctive LDS teachings have declined in salience since the 1980s. Here, for the most part, we again are hindered by the low salience scores of almost all of the selected items for comparative analysis. Relatively small decade shifts between such low scores is not conducive to confident comparisons. Nonetheless, if we concentrate on just the most recently analyzed decade of 2000–2009, we find that four distinctive LDS salvation themes (Eternal Progression, Exaltation, Temple Work, and Genealogy) in fact slipped to their smallest salience in that decade, providing some additional support for Mauss’s theory.

TA BLE 9. 3. CONFER ENCE SA LIENCE OF DISTINCTI V E LDS TE ACHINGS, 1980 –2009 R ESTOR ATION A ND SA LVATION THE M ES 1980–1989

1990–1999

2000–2009

30-Year Totals

Salience

Salience

Salience

Mean Salience

LDS Restoration Themes Joseph Smith’s Prophetic Stature

5.74

5.84

7.17

6.25

Joseph Smith’s First Vision

.20

.17

.16

.18

Modern Prophets/Modern Revelation

.45

.42

.38

.42

Book of Mormon

6.76

4.13

5.50

5.46

Restoration of Gospel

1.10

1.64

3.11

1.95

Restoration of Priesthood

.02

.09

.16

.06

Restoration of Church

.25

.25

.40

.30

(LDS) Church Divinity

.58

.48

.54

.53

(LDS) Chosen/Covenant People

.12

.16

.15

.14

Patriarchal Blessings

.20

.20

.30

.23

Last Days

1.06

.93

1.01

1.00

16.48

14.31

18.88

16.52

Godhead

.14

.25

.29

.23

Gods/Plurality of Gods

.28

.27

.32

.29

Preexistence

.15

.26

.19

.20

Eternal Progression/Perfection

.61

.72

.29

.54

Exaltation

.83

.74

.70

.76

Degrees of Glory

.02

.02

.01

.02

Celestial Kingdom

.33

.42

.33

.30

Temple Work

.38

.45

.18

.34

Temple Marriage/Celestial Marriage

.31

.18

.33

.27

Baptism for the Dead

.07

.04

.07

.06

Sealings

.39

.54

.49

.47

Genealogy

.19

.17

.05

.14

3.70

4.06

3.25

3.62

TOTALS LDS Salvation Themes

TOTALS

214  CHAPTER 9

However, if we shift attention from particular theme items to overall decade totals, we may conclude that for restoration themes collectively there actually was an increased (rather than decreased) emphasis in the past decade (due primarily to the continued relative attention given to Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon). In contrast, the salience of distinctive LDS salvation themes as a whole revealed a small slippage in the third, most recent decade. Keeping this in mind, we nonetheless may summarize that the salience of distinctive LDS salvation themes has, in fact, remained relatively low for the past thirty years. These data are consistent with our larger conclusion that LDS conference speakers are (and have been since at least the mid 1940s) consciously tailoring their addresses to a global audience. In the process they have scaled back exclusive sectarian pronouncements about their religion’s most controversial doctrinal claims and have attempted to portray LDS beliefs and values in ways more congenial with contemporary Christian sensibilities. Conference speakers are much more inclined to offer homiletic sermons on righteous living than to expound and broadcast contentious theological issues as in times past.14 Our analysis also provides partial support for some particulars of Mauss’s reversal hypothesis, as discussed. The validity of his more conventional historical analysis—which is based on a wide variety of documentary sources, interviews and insider information, and numerous other events beyond official conference rhetoric—does not, of course, depend solely on tidy correspondence with all our conference data. In a final section of this chapter we revisit one of Mauss’s central concerns, namely progressive assimilation (albeit in bumps and starts) of the LDS religion into a form of belief and practice that is ultimately scarcely distinguishable from conservative Protestantism. First, however, we will extend our related analysis of LDS authorities’ responses to some of the secularization trends discussed in Chapter 8.

Contemporary Conference Rhetoric Addressing Supernatural Beliefs and LDS Eschatology In the previous chapter we combined a large number of conference items that referenced explicit supernatural entities and myths in Mormonism

Contemporary Developments  215

and other Christian faith traditions in order to test Peter Berger’s thesis that modifying or even curtailing public emphasis on such doctrines has been one consequence of secularizing trends for many mainstream Christian denominations in a modern, pluralistic world. Our analysis of Mormon supernatural and eschatology rhetoric over the first one hundred fifty years of conference history supported Berger’s thesis, demonstrating a moderate, declining emphasis of supernatural rhetoric and a precipitous drop in eschatological references concerning the end-­times. In Table 9.4 we specify the particular word items used for indexing these two thematic topics in order to see their more recent relative salience in conference rhetoric during the three decades since 1979. In general, LDS supernatural rhetoric since 1979 looks very much the same as it did in the previous thirty years. Our more recent census is divided between topics with salience scores less than and greater than 1.00. Among contemporary supernatural themes with low conference salience are some distinctive LDS doctrines (degrees of glory, exaltation, and preexistence) and several others common to the foundational beliefs of most Christian denominations (faith healing, hell, prophecy, and spirits). Supernatural topics with greater than average salience at contemporary LDS conferences—all representing basic Biblical teachings—include Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden, angels, atonement, heaven, eternal life, miracles, resurrection, salvation, and Satan. Once again we note that for themes with consistently small salience values it is difficult to discern unambiguous thirty-­year patterns. Among the more salient supernatural theme items in Table 9.4 we see both modest increases and decreases over the past three decades, but there are no dramatic variations from one decade to the next indicating clear-­cut trends. We are left to conclude that LDS supernatural rhetoric has remained relatively consistent with what we observed in our original survey, that certain supernatural themes (including several distinctive LDS teachings) receive only marginal attention by contemporary conference speakers. Distinctive LDS supernatural themes that continue to be marginalized by conference speakers include degrees of glory, exaltation, and preexistence. Other marginalized conference topics during the past thirty years include healing of the sick, hell, prophecy, and (supernatural) spirits. At the same time, some generically Christian supernatural beliefs—especially

216  CHAPTER 9 TA BLE 9.4. SA LIENCE OF SELECTED SUPER NAT UR A L A ND ESCH ATOLOGY CONFER ENCE THE M ES, 1980 –2009 1980–1989

1990–1999

2000–2009

30-Year Totals

Salience

Salience

Salience

Mean Salience

Adam and Eve

1.91

2.31

1.72

1.98

Angels

2.90

1.91

2.42

2.41

Atonement

2.22

4.40

4.32

3.65

Degrees of Glory

.06

.02

.01

.02

Eternal Life

3.39

3.68

3.21

3.43

Exaltation

.83

.74

.68

.75

Supernatural Themes

Healing of the Sick

.05

.03

.03

.04

Heaven

6.25

6.09

5.69

6.01

Hell

.61

.33

.30

.41

Miracles

1.88

2.08

2.03

2.00

Preexistence

.15

.26

.16

.19

Prophecy

1.04

.65

.81

.83

Resurrection

2.31

2.08

2.10

2.16

Salvation

3.12

2.70

2.48

2.77

Satan (Devil, Lucifer)

3.50

3.53

2.90

3.31

Spirits

.75

.86

.78

.80

Election/Chosen People

.112

.16

.14

.14

Gathering

.46

.54

.73

.58

Eschatology Themes

Judgment Day

.07

.09

.08

.08

Last Days

1.06

.93

.98

.99

Last Dispensation

.08

.10

.11

.10

Millennium

.05

.16

.08

.10

Restoration

2.61

3.32

4.78

3.57

Second Coming

.37

.27

.38

.34

Zion

1.77

1.64

1.61

1.67

those associated with the literal atonement of Jesus Christ, heaven, and eternal life—continue to be regularly addressed by contemporary authorities.

Contemporary Developments  217

As one additional note, LDS references to Satan, as humanity’s supernatural archenemy, have persisted with fair regularity into the twenty-­first century. Interestingly, however, conference references to hell are relatively miniscule (mean salience .41), especially when compared to heaven references (mean salience 6.01). If nothing else, this rhetorical contrast highlights the optimistic quality of LDS theology. Contemporary Mormon leaders are far more likely to emphasize the transcendent rewards of their religion for obedient church members and new converts rather than grim torment and everlasting suffering for their sins and failures. The LDS faith is not a fire and brimstone religion. When we look at conference eschatology rhetoric over the past thirty years we observe continued low emphasis of all but two major Mormon themes associated with the end-­times: Restoration and Zion. Earlier, when we specified important components of the Mormon restoration (of the gospel, priesthood, and church), we obtained relatively low salience scores for each (especially priesthood and church restoration themes). When we combined all restoration references in our search, however, we produced moderately salient scores per decade since 1980, as shown in Table 9.4. Zion references during this same period were also moderate but persistent. We remind readers that for modern Mormons, Zion no longer denotes a specific physical location where Christ is expected to return and rule during the Millennium. Rather, today it signifies a spiritual network of all Latter-­day Saints worldwide who live in harmony with the requirements of their religion. In this rendering, Zion is virtually equivalent to “the church,” or body of Christ’s latter-­day disciples. Given that the LDS faith is predicated on its sacred narrative of the restoration and the current meaning attached to Zion, it is little wonder that these two themes continue to be given fair attention by conference speakers. The wonder, perhaps, is that they are not given greater attention. In any event, all of the other eschatology themes selected for comparison in Table 9.4 (chosen/covenant people, gathering, Judgment Day, last days, last dispensation, Millennium, and Christ’s Second Coming) show salience scores of 1.00 or less, and a few (Judgment Day, last dispensation, and Millennium) produced miniscule salience values of .10 or less. Most of what we see in Table 9.4 harmonizes with our earlier assessment of the declining salience of LDS supernatural rhetoric in the twentieth

218  CHAPTER 9

century and the virtual disappearance of most eschatological references, with the notable exceptions of Mormons’ fundamental restoration narrative and the concept of Zion as a global spiritual community of Latter-­day Saints. A de-­emphasis on supernaturalism and the marketing of religious beliefs in ways that seem more reasonable to secular consciousness are also consistent with Berger’s secularization thesis, as noted. Do any of these additional considerations lend support to Mauss’s analysis of LDS course corrections over the past two decades, which, he says, have produced a partial relaxation of Mormon retrenchment that began taking root after World War II? Very minor downturns in the salience of several of the selected themes shown in Table 9.4 for the first decade of the twenty-­f irst century can be cited as evidence of modest secularizing trends in more recent years which indirectly, it may be argued, are related to declining LDS retrenchment. At the very least, it can be said that neither supernatural nor eschatology rhetoric has increased significantly at LDS conferences over the last three decades. For that matter, neither has the rhetoric of Mormon doctrinal distinctiveness, which, if anything, has declined even more in recent years in favor of a more generic Christian rendition of LDS beliefs. If Mormon retrenchment has been hardening rather than softening, we would be looking at higher, not lower, numbers for most if not all our selected conference themes dealing with supernaturalism and the once urgently anticipated end-­t ime of human history. Aside from the themes of LDS scriptures and doctrinal exposition, Mauss’s thesis deals primarily with other areas of concern not included in the previous discussion, namely, gender and family policies, homosexuality, and independent scholarship in Mormon studies. In these areas Mauss documents various publicized events, policy announcements, media statements, and anecdotal evidence to support the conclusion that LDS authorities in recent years have begun relaxing the institutional strictures of retrenchment. By searching our conference theme index we have identified the items listed in Table 9.5 for their potential relevance to Mauss’s analysis. Once again, several preliminary observations are in order as we scan the theme items summarized in Table 9.5. Arguably, there may be other vocabulary terms that would serve as valid or even superior indicators of the gender, family, and scholarship issues we address. But for the most

Contemporary Developments  219 TA BLE 9.5. GENDER, FA M ILY, HOMOSE XUA LI T Y, A ND INDEPENDEN T SCHOL A R SHIP THE M ES 1980 –2009 1980–1989

1990–1999

2000–2009

30-Year

Salience

Salience

Salience

Mean Salience

Gender Themes Manhood/Manliness

.17

.38

.14

.23

Womanhood/Feminine

.13

.23

.46

.27

Women’s Relief Society

2.09

4.06

4.49

3.55

Women’s Rights

---

---

---

---

Mother in Heaven

.03

.04

---

.02

Lady/Sister Missionaries

.09

.05

.06

.07

Husbands

2.29

3.15

5.47

3.64

Wives

4.53

4.91

4.82

4.75

Spouse Abuse

.01

.02

.01

.01

Procreation

.06

.08

.04

.06

Birth Control

.02

.01

---

.01

Abortion

.32

.30

.01

.22

Fathers/Fatherhood

2.12

2.14

2.24

2.17

Mothers/Motherhood

1.30

1.97

2.10

1.79

Homemaking

.35

.19

.09

.21

Working Mothers

.05

.01

---

.02

Divorce

.57

.43

.50

.50

Family Themes

Homosexuality Themes Gays/Homosexuals

.22

.12

---

.11

Lesbians/Lesbianism

.02

.03

---

.02

Gay Rights

.02

.01

---

.01

Same-Sex Marriage

---

.04

---

.01

220  CHAPTER 9 TA BLE 9. 5. CON TIN UED 1980–1989

1990–1999

2000–2009

30-Year

Salience

Salience

Salience

Mean Salience

Independent Scholarship Themes Scholars

.12

.07

.09

.09

Scholarship

.12

.13

.04

.10

Mormon Studies

---

---

---

---

Intellectuals

.02

---

.01

.01

Professors

.02

.05

---

.02

Higher/Secular Education

.04

.07

.01

.04

Philosophy of Men

.02

.06

.04

.04

Science

.33

.14

.16

.21

Evolution

.02

---

.01

.01

Disbelief/Cynicism

.08

.09

.18

.12

False Doctrine

.12

.06

.04

.07

part, we limited our analysis to terms that were already in the word index constructed for our original survey. New terminology and modes of expression gradually enter a group’s lexicon while others may become outdated or obsolete over time. However, for comparative purposes we decided to be as faithful as we could to our original theme lexicon derived from conference addresses through 1979. An important additional point worth repeating is that there are likely to be organizational concerns or membership issues that are not directly addressed by religious officials in their public rhetoric, which are dealt with in other ways and in different institutional settings. Keeping these disclaimers in mind, the principal conclusion to draw from our current salience data is how infrequently over the past thirty years conference speakers have addressed most of the topics identified in Table 9.5. Of the seventeen items listed under the general headings of Gender and Family, only five produced salience scores substantially exceeding 1.00, while the fifteen themes listed

Contemporary Developments  221

under Homosexuality and Independent Scholarship failed to produce any with salience scores in excess of 1.00. From these results we infer that many of the issues implicated within these topic areas—while unquestionably important to the contemporary LDS Church and its members—are not routinely talked about by church authorities at general conference. In contrast to other topics we included under gender concerns, conference references to the women’s Relief Society organization have been fairly frequent and, in the past two decades, have in fact doubled in salience compared to the 1980s. We lack detailed data on what aspects of this organization are highlighted or in what rhetorical contexts, but whatever the latter, increasing salience as a conference topic means a brighter spotlight on LDS women’s organizational and leadership roles outside of the home—a finding consistent with Mauss’s analysis of gradually moderating Mormon views on gender. At the same time, during the last thirty years of conference addresses, there has been zero mention of women’s rights in the larger society nor, until very recently, any mention concerning ordination of women to the all-­male LDS lay priesthood.15 Conference references to early LDS belief concerning God’s marital partner Mother in Heaven have been virtually nil and, after 1999, have—like other esoteric Mormon doctrines—disappeared from the conference corpus.16 Specific references to female or sister missionaries through 2009 were very infrequent. This likely will change in the coming years because of the announcement made at the October 2012 general conference reducing the minimum age for sister missionaries from 21 to 19. Within a few short months of that announcement there was an unprecedented surge of female missionary applications and sudden prospects for virtually doubling the size of the already massive LDS missionary force.17 This fundamental change in missionary recruitment should have increasingly significant consequences for moderating Mormon views of gender roles in the years ahead.18 Conference addresses adumbrating the putative gender quality themes of manhood/manliness and womanhood/feminine virtues have been relatively infrequent over the past three decades. But it should also be noted that comments concerning womanhood doubled on a small scale from a salience measure of .23 to .46 in the most recent decade (2000–2009) while, correspondingly, emphasis on manhood declined from .38 to a negligible

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.14. Whereas these small changes are congruent with a thesis of moderate, liberalizing trends in gender definitions, the larger picture gleaned from our data is that even though gender issues have become a major concern for LDS leaders, members, and especially critics and detractors, they are not commonly discussed in the mass media forum of general conference. Overall there is only suggestive evidence from our recent conference data that church officials have begun paying significantly more attention to women’s concerns or relaxing traditional gender role definitions that primarily reinforce subordination of women to domestic partnership roles in marriage and the nuclear family.19 For Mormons, gender issues naturally blend with family concerns. In this area, conjugal references to the duties of husbands and wives and the corresponding responsibilities of fatherhood and motherhood have been relatively persistent conference themes over the past thirty years. On average, reference to wives’ marital roles have been somewhat more frequent than husbands’ roles. However, in the last decade there was a substantial jump in conference rhetoric concerning husbands’ responsibilities, implying increased awareness of the need to stress the Mormon ideology of marriage as an equal partnership rather than as an institution of male dominance. In congruent fashion, for every decade since 1980 a small but persistently greater emphasis has been placed on the fatherhood duties of men in comparison to the motherhood duties of women. Consistent with Mauss’s partial reversal hypothesis, these latter conference trends provide some evidence for relatively minor adjustments being made by general authorities in response to growing demands both outside and inside the church for greater recognition and empowerment of women. At the same time, we see either negligible mention or small declines in conference salience of the issues of spouse abuse, procreation, birth control, abortion, homemaking, and working mothers. In particular, the religiously divisive topics of birth control and homemaking roles for women were only weakly mentioned over the past thirty years and completely vanished from conference rhetoric in the most recent decade, 2000–2009. Mention or discussion of divorce as a threat to fundamental Mormon family values has never been prominently emphasized at LDS general conferences, although it consistently has received minor attention over the past thirty years.

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Generally speaking, conference authorities have continued to emphasize both men’s and women’s marital and parenting responsibilities while, in recent years, admonishing men more often to function equally in the performance of these roles. Considered jointly, these particular family themes have increased in conference salience every decade since 1980. Other related family concerns—such as spouse abuse, birth control, and especially abortion—have become major social and political issues in American society and are seldom if ever addressed by contemporary LDS conference speakers.20 When looking at both homosexuality and independent scholarship themes, we again note the universal lack of attention given to any of the corresponding topics identified in our theme index. This is especially true for homosexuality topics, none of which received any conference mention whatsoever in the first decade of the twenty-­first century, a decade when gay rights and same-­sex marriage issues assumed major prominence in American legislative and judicial politics.21 This, we would argue, demonstrates LDS authorities’ general reluctance to address conference audiences on topics that have become divisive political issues rather than indicating an erosion of the church’s stand against homosexuality and same-­sex marriage as contrary to its basic religious beliefs.22 The list of topics we adduced from our theme index to measure greater openness of LDS authorities to independent scholarship and science in areas that might challenge official church teachings and traditional faith-­ promoting historical narratives showed only tiny salience values over the past thirty years. While very small, we do see recent salience declines in several topic items under independent scholarship (such as scholarship, professors, and higher/secular education). And when looking at decade totals for the aggregated salience of all items related to scholarship, we see small, progressive declines over the past three decades that are consistent with Mauss’s theorizing. In terms of the larger picture portrayed by the data in Table 9.5, however, we again are led to conclude that many issues relevant to Mauss’s analysis of recent pendulum shifts away from twentieth-­century LDS retrenchment do not always show up prominently on our conference radar and, for the most part, feature relatively small salience values that are not always consistent or clear-­cut. One plausible inference is that contemporary

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LDS general authorities are far more concerned about the public relations implications of general conference broadcasts for promoting a positive, wholesome image of the religion without engaging in political controversies and polemical discourse. At the same time, our salience measures of conference themes during the past three decades of Mormon history confirm many of the assimilationist trends we observed emerging in our original study; contemporary conference speakers downplay certain supernatural beliefs, including especially distinctive LDS salvation doctrines and other esoteric theological claims. They emphasize their commitment to the integrity of traditional marriage and the nuclear family unit as the foundations of a morally fit society, and likewise their commitment to a Christ-­centered theology in which the exemplary model of Christ’s earthly ministry is extolled and the redeeming sacrifice of his death and resurrection are represented as the essential grounds for human salvation and eternal life. The conference salience of all of these latter themes—with minimal attention drawn to unique Mormon doctrines concerning the Trinity, Godhood, and the afterlife—is perfectly compatible with standard Christian teachings in both American Catholicism and evangelical Protestant denominations. However, the apparent reluctance of Mormon officials at conference to publicly address specific controversial social and political issues (such as gay rights and abortion) associated with traditional conceptions of divinely mandated gender-­role distinctions and the procreative purpose of marriage may seem surprising. Furthermore, moving in a mildly moderating direction, LDS authorities speaking at conference less frequently praise the virtues of female homemakers, have largely ceased preaching against working mothers, and have increased their admonitions to men to be better husbands and fathers in a more egalitarian relationship with their wives. These particular trends appear supportive of Mauss’s course corrections thesis. At the same time, we cannot fail to note, as of this writing (June 2014), that optimism concerning continued moderation of LDS authorities’ attitudes toward women’s issues—and greater openness to expressions of diversity and inclusiveness within the church generally—have been put abruptly on hold by the sudden disciplinary actions taken against Ordain Women leaders and others for publicly advocating the ordination of women

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in defiance of officials’ admonitions to cease and desist.23 Whether these events signal the onset of a new retrenchment era of renewed stifling of members’ public dissent by LDS authorities in their conference rhetoric and organizational decisions remains very much to be seen.

Conclusion: Mormon Accommodation vs. Mormon Assimilation Minor inconsistencies notwithstanding, the bulk of our data is compatible with the conclusion that, in the twenty-­f irst century, the LDS Church has continued to move toward conservative Protestantism as indexed by the public declarations of its general authorities at general conference. Having said this, we also caution against the verdict that this gravitational pull spells ultimate assimilation of Mormonism with conventional Christianity. Assimilation, as we noted in the Preface, denotes a historical process in which individuals or groups, through various forms of intimate contact, lose their unique differences while developing ties of mutual support and a shared identity. In lieu of the definitive concept of assimilation, we prefer to simply employ the more flexible and less deterministic concept of accommodation in describing and analyzing Mormonism’s historical transformation from heretical religious innovation to relative global prominence. Accommodation is a process of adjustment and modification of people’s beliefs or practices to changing environments, in which group differences are preserved but open conflicts are avoided. While less powerful groups are more likely to make asymmetrical compromises or accommodating changes in relationship to the demands of dominant groups, to some degree dominant groups also compromise and are changed in the process. At the same time, while minority groups’ accommodating changes are a necessary element in the process of assimilation, not all accommodation necessarily produces assimilation, especially if maintaining a distinctive identity is prioritized by the groups undertaking adaptive changes. As Mauss notes, in the process of accommodating, “once we recognize that religious organizations, like other social systems, are dynamic, tension management systems, it becomes apparent that they can move as logically to increase tension as to reduce it.”24 Granting agency to human

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actors—with no guarantee of achieving their goals or correctly anticipating the end results of their policy decisions—religious leaders may alternately increase or decrease their resistance or accommodation to pressures for change. This to us seems a fair description of LDS retreats and advancements over the past six generations of Mormon history, during which time a distinctive religious identity has been tenaciously preserved. As described in previous chapters, Mormonism’s nineteenth-­century developmental experience on the shifting frontiers of the American West can be understood as a series of intense conflicts with Protestant sectarians and civil authorities. When late-­nineteenth-­century Mormon leaders finally capitulated to the irresistible powers of the federal government, their objective was never assimilation as such but rather accommodation to the laws of the land to preserve the church as an organized entity in the religious economy of pluralistic America. Subsequent to this pivotal break from their defiantly uncompromising past, Mormon leaders have assiduously steered a cautious course, within the parameters of the law, to avoid the kinds of social and political conflicts characteristic of their early history. Consequently, over time the Mormons have become solidly integrated within the political, economic, and cultural arenas of modern America. 25 However, within a relatively tolerant pluralistic environment, integration is not the equivalent of assimilation. As we noted in the Preface, Jews with some or even no affiliations in the various denominational branches of Judaism are well integrated within every institutional domain of American life while preserving their ethnic Jewish identity. Roman Catholics, representing a wide array of historical ethnic groups, are equally well integrated in American society but staunchly retain their separate religious identity. Today, like both Jews and Roman Catholics, American Mormons are securely integrated in the secular communities in which they reside while, like Catholics, they are identified worldwide by their attachments to a distinctive religious faith rather than a peculiar set of ethnic characteristics. As a relatively high-­demand religion, the LDS faith does, of course, prescribe and implement a religious way of life, or what Melvyn Hammarberg calls “the religious world of the Latter-­day Saints.”26 The Mormon life-­world is organized around the kinds of religious commitments that we elaborated in Chapter 5, such as regular attendance at sacrament meeting

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and priesthood, Relief Society, and Sunday school classes; acceptance of lay church callings and participation in children, youth, and adult organizations throughout the week; daily Seminary classes during the school year for adolescents and Institute courses for young adults; participation in monthly fast and testimony meetings; once-­a-­week family home evenings; monthly home teaching and Relief Society visitations; payment of a ten-­percent tithe on income as well as periodic welfare donations; abstinence from alcohol, tobacco, coffee, or addicting drugs; maintenance of a year’s food storage supply; periodic temple trips to participate in vicarious ceremonies for deceased ancestors; preparation of youth for missionary service, patriarchal blessings, and temple marriages; annual bishop and stake president worthiness interviews; family observance of biannual general conference; and so on. While compliance with these standardized member expectations may vary significantly in different communities and world regions where LDS congregations have been established, they constitute a normative religious way of life characteristic of committed Mormons, regardless of their nationalities or ascribed ethnic statuses. Thus standardized member norms constitute is a religious lifestyle that reinforces fundamental belief in LDS restorationist teachings and devotion to the church but no longer bestows an ethnic connotation reciprocally applied by both members and nonmembers. It is the modern LDS Church and religion that endures as a distinctive entity, not remnants of ethnic Mormonism. With respect to ultimate long-­term assimilation, it is possible our perspective is too shortsighted. Herbert Gans, for example, has argued that social scientists who study assimilation of ethnic groups in American society have been too ready to dismiss “straight line” assimilation theory in favor of a pluralistic model that supports continued diversity and multiculturalism in the contemporary United States.27 As a conceptual modification, Gans employs the term “bumpy line” theory, suggesting that over much longer periods of time what currently looks like reversals in ethnic assimilation may eventually give way to the long-­term eroding effects of impersonal economic, demographic, and political pressures in modern America. With respect to the LDS Church, it still may be argued that in spite of Mormon authorities’ initial intentions, history’s shaping forces as generated by the interaction of contending groups may produce additional latent consequences; even though second-­and third-­generation LDS leadership

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did not plan to assimilate, the gradual modification of distinctive beliefs and the correlative impact on religious practices and social attitudes may eventually produce Mormon religious assimilation. In language compatible with Gans’s bumpy line theory, Mauss also acknowledges this possibility, as cited at the beginning of this chapter. Consistent with an assimilationist interpretation, our conference data demonstrate the precipitous decline of certain distinctive LDS teachings (especially original utopian aspirations that challenged the supreme authority of the civil government) and the increasing tendency to represent LDS doctrines in language familiar to evangelical Christians while avoiding elaboration of Mormonism’s more heretical theological suppositions. Projected forward in time, these rhetorical conference trends certainly appear consonant with a course leading to ultimate assimilation. We are drawn to a different conclusion, however: that the LDS religion will continue to evolve by accommodating to changing political, cultural, and religious circumstances—even in surprising ways—while, in Mauss’s terminology, pursuing optimal tension with competitor religions and a global, secular environment. In other words, the church is bound to change but is unlikely to relinquish its essential religious distinctiveness and the particularistic lay commitment requirements imposed on its members. Whatever doctrinal or policy course corrections might emerge in the process, Mormon missionaries will continue disseminating the LDS restorationist message, recruiting new converts, and stimulating new infrastructural development for local congregations both at home and abroad. This expansionist enterprise has always been at the heart of the Mormon faith—not merely winning souls for Jesus in the mode of evangelical Christianity, but building God’s kingdom on earth by mobilizing converts to actively participate in a lay religion whose organizational programs and worship forms are believed to be directed through modern revelation. Both now and in the foreseeable future the LDS religious enterprise is sustained by Mormonism’s fundamental prophetic narrative of the restoration. It is within this narrative context that Mormons define God’s preoccupation with human destiny and his ultimate plan of salvation through the atonement of Jesus Christ. As we earlier emphasized, for Mormons the fundamental Christian units of Christ’s gospel and church mean the restored

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gospel and the restored church, both of which they resolutely insist reappeared in the world through God’s appointed latter-­day prophets and continuous revelation through the church president. It is precisely this narrative and extra-­Biblical scripture, including the Book of Mormon, which most Christian clergy find highly objectionable. It is primarily on these grounds (as well as LDS salvation doctrines and associated temple rituals) that Mormons are often excluded from full fellowship among other Christian faiths. The fact that early Mormonism was a new religious movement founded in novel prophetic claims, and not merely a schismatic sect that splintered from a parent religious body, binds the modern LDS Church to its originating narrative and basic restorationist beliefs. These beliefs form the core of the LDS faith and a distinctive Mormon religious identity. Whatever modifications in doctrinal emphasis the future might produce, it seems highly unlikely that Mormons will ever shed their restorationist fundamentals to achieve doctrinal assimilation with other Christian faiths. To do so would smother the motivational fervor that has always characterized LDS proselyting and expansion—persistent objectives to which the modern church appears irreversibly committed. We should reiterate here that while our conference data show substantial decline in the salience of certain distinctive LDS teachings, authority and legitimacy themes have been persistently salient—including Joseph Smith’s status as prophet-­founder and other corollary restorationist themes. The ascendant conference rhetoric in recent years of Christian moralism, redemption, and conservative family-­related values does not cancel the insistent expression of exclusive Mormon truth claims in every period of LDS conference from 1830 to the twenty-­first century. The five-­point conference sermonette we adduced from salient conference themes as shown in Table 9.2 serves to illustrate the basic Mormon message tailored for current members, prospective converts, and a wider international audience. In asserting our conclusions about the relative continuity of Mormons’ religious identity and doctrinal distinctiveness in the foreseeable future, we are mindful of the pitfalls of making overly confident predictions concerning long-­term trends and institutional transformations. Most observers in the nineteenth century of Mormonism would be incredulous to learn of the international expansion and organizational development of the modern LDS Church following its abandonment of plural marriage

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and theocratic rule, both considered at that time as central to the practice of the Mormon faith. An instructive assimilation example, with cautionary undertones for LDS leaders, is provided by looking at the Community of Christ (formerly RLDS Church), the other major branch of nineteenth-­century Mormonism. It has deliberately pursued a path of assimilation and in recent times has sought official recognition as a Christian denomination by the National Council of Churches (NCC) in conformity with the latter’s views on what constitutes a Christian religion. To gain the NCC’s recognition would require, among other things, that Community of Christ officials abandon fundamental LDS restorationist claims, including the Book of Mormon as canonical scripture on par with the Bible, and core Joseph Smith revelations recorded as God’s verbatim instruction on various doctrinal and cosmological issues. While Community of Christ officials are entertaining these requirements for recognition by the NCC, there is zero indication that LDS authorities have ever broached the possibility of seeking the good graces of the NCC or any other Christian authenticating organization.28 Might not LDS authorities at some future time—for any multitude of reasons—change their minds and sufficiently bend their religion’s doctrinal claims to re-­chart Mormonism’s current course in the direction of full assimilation, like their theological cousins the Community of Christ? We would have to answer that the likelihood appears exceedingly slim. The gaping difference between Community of Christ and LDS leaders’ twenty-­first century visions is the enduring consequence of the doctrinal and authority issues that originally split the Latter-­day Saint community. As will be recalled, the Utah Latter-­day Saints rallied to support Brigham Young and the apostles’ claim to revelatory authority and their continued commitment to plural marriage, temple sealings, and theocratic governance. In oppositional contrast, the Reorganized Latter-­day Saints repudiated all of these. Utah Mormons, insulated by their organized colonization of the sparsely inhabited Great Basin region of the American West, were able to build and strengthen community institutions that reinforced a fierce resolve to defend their religious peculiarities against all detractors, including the United States Government. True, in this struggle Utah Mormons were eventually forced to make major compromising concessions of their religious

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beliefs and practices. But they were also able to continue preaching of the restoration and refining their proselyting strategies to support a large-­scale and productive missionary enterprise whose primary marketing appeal is the claim of authoritative religious truth through modern revelation. In contrast, Reorganized Mormons remained in the rapidly growing centers of the American Midwest and, by emphatically disclaiming their doctrinal attachment to radical Mormonism, began blending in socially, economically, and politically within the religiously pluralistic communities where they resided. Utah Mormons’ commitment to the most radical doctrines of the restoration was fortified by cultural isolation and was generationally galvanized by two decades of defiant political struggle with the national government. Undergoing no such trials as a people and, in fact, supporting the nineteenth-­century antipolygamy campaign to stamp out plural marriage in Utah Territory,29 Reorganized Mormons failed to cultivate the same intensity of commitment to defending heretical doctrines and never propagated the kind of unremitting institutional support for proselyting so characteristic of the Utah church. Key turning-­point differences in the institutional histories of religious movements have major generational consequences that point heirs in a variety of different directions. The contemporary Community of Christ is an example of what true religious assimilation looks like in the American religious economy. The contemporary LDS Church and its future looks very different from the former. Feeling entitled at this stage in their history to reflect with some satisfaction on their strides forward in spreading their message and consolidating their church’s stature as an international religion, Mormon leaders and devout members nonetheless continue to seek recognition and respect as a legitimate Christian faith. They are nonplussed by persistent failure to gain this acknowledgement from other Christian denominations and are affronted by derogatory statements that stigmatize Latter-­day Saints as members of a cultic religion. With an eye to ameliorate what they see as misconceptions of their faith that hinder missionary proselyting, Mormon leaders look for ways to soften the church’s public image (which for many is rooted in Mormonism’s tumultuous past and nineteenth-­century advocacy of plural marriage) and display their Christian bona fides.30 It is this urge to be recognized as an authentic Christian religion that has pressed Mormon

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authorities at general conference and elsewhere to employ a more standard Christian vocabulary in their public remarks, emphasize their faith in Jesus Christ, and avoid tendentious references to disputed theological topics. At the same time, even a scaled-­back version of unique Mormon restorationist claims remains the bedrock for Mormon missionary efforts, exclusive rites in LDS temples, and a distinctive religious identity that energizes devout Mormons to commit their personal resources to active involvement in the many programs of a lay church. These doctrinal pillars of the LDS faith are unlikely to be satisfactorily reconciled with the orthodox theological and historical claims of conventional Christianity. As we look ahead to the unfolding future of the LDS Church in the twenty-­first century, we concur with Jan Shipps’s judgment that contemporary Mormonism (or, as we would specify, the LDS church) is not merely another Christian religion, but a new religious tradition.31

Epilogue

Through our study of LDS general conference rhetoric we have portrayed Mormonism as a “kingdom transformed.” In many respects the concept of a Mormon kingdom is primarily a metaphor or, perhaps more accurately, a profound aspiration—a vision—of the LDS religion that has shaped the character of Mormon attitudes and institutions since its nineteenth-­century founding. Transformations of this vision are revealed in the words of the kingdom’s own official spokespersons as they have addressed the Mormon people over time. And yet, while major changes in both the form and content of conference addresses have undeniably occurred, there remain persistent themes that would be as familiar to the first Mormons as they are to the current generation. The history of the Mormon kingdom is one of both change and continuity. What was the original Mormon kingdom? What has it become? What does its future portend? The answers to these questions are complex and open to divergent interpretations. We do not presume that our conference analysis can generate definitive answers. But we would like to summarize some general conclusions. It was in its nineteenth-­century guise that Mormonism could most easily be characterized as a literal kingdom, replete with paramount central authority exercised within an autonomous territorial unit. It was the Mormons’ struggle to secure the sovereignty of their kingdom that dominated the first two generations of their history. The basic Mormon program for kingdom building was to aggressively proselytize new recruits, concentrate them and all their resources in theocratically organized communities,

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and, consequently, maximize self-­sufficiency and minimize the influence of unsympathetic detractors. The nineteenth-­century Mormon religious enterprise was motivated and rationalized by the doctrines of Zion, the gathering, and the Millennium. As they unfolded, the first two generations of Mormon history were a period of increasing divergence from and tension with the outside world. Our measures of conference emphasis on Mormon utopianism, social reform, eschatology, commitment, mobilization, and doctrinal differentiation may all be construed as indicators of tension, and they are all themes which reveal the same general trend: a high level of tension in the first generation of Mormon history followed by an even higher level in the second. A religious novelty to begin with, Mormonism became increasingly radicalized through its interaction with opposing groups, both religious and secular, in the larger society. It was during these early decades of religious and cultural polarization that the Mormons solidified as a people and acquired many of the characteristics of a distinctive ethnic group. The tension created by the contradiction of a Mormon kingdom expanding within the boundaries of American society could only be carried so far. At a certain point Mormonism had to bend or be broken. Mormon leaders eventually chose to bend. To preserve the church, claims to temporal sovereignty over a political and economic empire were given up. This transformation of the Mormon kingdom did not take place overnight, however. Our conference data demonstrate that an additional generation was required in order to realize the transition of Mormon attitudes and priorities in relationship to the outside world. During this period, much of the tension-­filled rhetoric of earlier periods, which emphasized Mormon exclusiveness, began to decline. Though persisting as an ideal and ultimate aspiration, the Mormon kingdom of God on earth eventually gave way to the modern LDS Church, a religious denomination with the same circumscribed powers as other denominations in a pluralistic society. By mid-­t wentieth century, and concurrent with its post–World War II global expansion through increased missionary mobilization, the distinctive peoplehood qualities of ethnic Mormonism were on the wane. Retrospective views of the Mormon kingdom—what it was and what it aspired to be—seem relatively clear. Perhaps somewhat less clear, but nevertheless quite discernible, are perceptions of what the LDS Church

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has become today. The concept of a Latter-­day Saint kingdom has become for modern Mormons a theological abstraction rather than a literal reality, and this single fact succinctly implies most of the specific changes discussed throughout this book. American LDS members, especially those who reside in the Mormon cultural region of the Intermountain West, do not view themselves as ethnic-­religious outsiders. To the contrary, they view themselves as patriotic Americans whose conservative, religiously mandated lifestyle expresses the true virtues and values of American democracy and free enterprise. As our conference data show, the emergence of the modern LDS Church has been accompanied by an increase in the rhetoric of public relations, family unity, and personal morality. These are not themes calculated to offend the religious mainstream. To the contrary, they appear to be typical expressions of contemporary religion in secular society. It would be a great oversimplification, however, to conclude that Mormonism has become a thoroughly accommodated religion in relation to mainstream Christianity. It is our view that the tension between Mormonism and American society increased over time during the first two generations of Mormon history, crested in the late nineteenth century, declined considerably over the next two generations, but leveled off in the two most recent generations. The LDS Church’s peculiar version of Christianity, theological heresies, and claims to unique truth and authority are inherent doctrinal sources of tension with other religious groups. These are beliefs essential to Mormons’ religious identity, and they impede involvement in serious efforts at Christian ecumenical unity. This speaks not only to Mormonism’s attitudes toward itself in relationship to other groups, but also to the attitudes of other groups toward the Mormons, who are still widely viewed with suspicion as a peculiar and clannish people. Contemporary LDS leaders wish to dispel these suspicions—viewing them primarily as misunderstandings that can be softened through greater transparency and public information campaigns—but are determined to maintain allegiance to their religion’s claims of ultimate truth and authority.1 Though we commented earlier that changes in the Mormon missionary program—emphasizing public relations and the development of local congregations rather than migration to Zion—have contributed to accommodation, the modern LDS Church’s resolute commitment to missionary

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work continues to be an important source of tension with other religions. As a rule, Mormons are less committed to authentic religious dialogue than to zealous evangelism. The manifest aim of the Mormon missionary program is not merely to win souls for Jesus in the manner of traditional evangelical Protestantism, but to convert both Christians and non-­Christians to the LDS Church for the promulgation of a religiously mandated way of life. Wherever its missionary program is winning converts, the church is bound to be perceived as an unwelcome threat by older established churches that, in truth, are at risk of losing members to Mormon missionary appeals. Mormon proselytizing has, in fact, been uncommonly productive. Even though retention and activity rates have become serious concerns, the number of converts added to LDS membership roles in recent years has been impressive. What are the underlying characteristics of the LDS religion that contribute to its modern-­day attraction? Some have emphasized Mormonism’s ideological flexibility, its ability to adapt to rapid social change and accommodate a wide range of personalized religious meanings. The church has indeed demonstrated proficiency in modern administrative methods and the ability to coordinate standardized religious programs for its expanding global membership. But our analysis leads to the conclusion that the primary appeals of the religion in the present century are not so different from those that emerged from the vision of the Mormon kingdom in times past. These appeals include an unquestioned central authority, moral certitude, a strong sense of community identification, and active involvement for religious seekers in an avowedly transcendent cause. These kinds of appeals, both at home and abroad, as a basis for the continued rapid growth of the LDS Church within certain subpopulations are importantly a function of the pervasive forces unleashed and enhanced by global modernization. One force of ironic but great importance in Mormonism’s present American popularity is the augmented secularization of modern life. The church offers a stable social identity that is invested with sacred meanings in a world where sacred meanings are increasingly limited to the personal domain of private feelings or state-­sponsored symbols. Commitment to the Mormon religion functions as an alternative to the confusing diversity, complexity, and moral ambiguity of the secular age. The order and discipline of the church attract those who are seeking refuge

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from the apparent disorder, cynicism, and lack of transcendent meaning in the world around them. The LDS Church does not stand alone, of course, in offering a socioreligious prescription for modern anomie. Among the various fundamentalist and evangelical religions that prescribe similar antidotes, however, Mormonism has managed to establish a special place for itself. It has eliminated most of the Pentecostal emotional displays that make the professional and middle classes uncomfortable while maintaining the primary connecting bonds these groups revere but sense are lacking in their lives. A vision of what the LDS religion may yet become is not entirely clear. Such a vision is obscured within the dynamic matrix of history and large-­ scale social processes operating outside Mormon institutions. Of course, the vagaries of future conditions do not always deter writers from indulging in prophecy. Hundreds of books have been written about the Mormons, and in many the authors have ventured predictions ranging from Mormonism’s imminent collapse to its imminent realization of the kingdom of God on earth. The inadequacy of these projections, extreme and moderate alike, is evident, and we are not much inclined to add our own speculations. However, it is both possible and appropriate to identify some of the major concerns confronting the modern LDS Church and to anticipate that the way these problems are handled is bound to have significant impacts on its ultimate destiny. Thirty years ago we identified three key future issues for the church that we again conclude continue to have long-­term implications for the Mormon religion. They are: (1) sheer growth in church membership and (2) beliefs being challenged concerning the status of women, both in society and within the ecclesiastical organization of the church. Both concerns are mediated by an important third factor: (3) the LDS Church’s global expansion. The remarkable increase in Mormon numbers during the last half century has been disproportionately contributed to by converts in developing countries, particularly in Latin America. It is now in fact the case that the number of American Mormons has been eclipsed by their non-­American brothers and sisters. A basic corollary of large-­scale organizational growth is increased bureaucratization and program rationalization. The potential corollary of disproportionate growth in foreign cultures may be internal

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divisions stemming from both ethnocentric attitudes and differences in fundamental motivations. Generally speaking, the modern LDS Church in North America appears to be increasingly attractive to a professional and conservative middle-­class clientele that is seeking a return to organized community values and traditions.2 In developing countries, however, the LDS Church is more likely to appeal to people who entertain upwardly mobile aspirations within the context of considerably unstable social and economic circumstances. For these groups, as for their convert counterparts of the nineteenth century, it is Mormonism’s resonance with their future hopes, rather than their past and present situations, that brings them into the fold. A movement that is simultaneously conservative and liberal in the outlooks it produces in different societies need not necessarily result in a fatal contradiction. But given the cultural distances involved in the Mormon case, it will require considerable sensitivity to manage and synthesize the differences. It will also require greater integration of non-­U.S., non-­white members into the LDS ecclesiastical structure, not only at local levels (which has typically been successfully accomplished) but at the general authority level as well.3 The issue of women’s roles in the church and in society generally is also likely to result in problems of a culturally different magnitude. While the LDS Church remains officially opposed to feminist redefinition of gender roles, American values and perceptions concerning women have undeniably changed and are increasingly becoming the accepted gender perspective of middle-­class America. If Mormon views persist in not changing, it is possible that Mormonism’s appeals to this same middle-­ class clientele may become offset by what is already perceived as intransigent sexism by more progressive groups and organizations. From within the church, nascent feminism among growing numbers of younger Mormons is also likely to become increasingly problematic. In particular, the issue of female ordination to the priesthood—with its corollary presumption of women rising in ecclesiastical ranks to participate on par with men in church policy formulation and institutional decision making—is not going to subside any time soon. To the contrary, the issue of female ordination is likely to become an evermore divisive concern for Mormons and especially for the top echelons of the aging and conservative male priesthood hierarchy. Is it conceivable that a hundred years hence the LDS Church will steadfastly continue

Epilogue 239

to bar women from its priesthood organization and ecclesiastical leadership while secular institutions in both government and industry (not to mention other religious denominations) inexorably move toward full gender equality? Can the church continue to risk alienating the younger, educated, professional women and allies in its membership ranks? What kinds of new members will it be able to attract and retain in the years ahead if persistently refusing to ordain women to its lay priesthood?4 While gender issues have become ascendant in American and European churches, patriarchal gender role definitions generally prevail in most developing countries and seem unlikely to be significantly altered in the near future. Thus, the attraction of the church in these countries— and the active participation of its female members—are not likely to be diminished as much by egalitarian trends mostly confined at present to developed Western societies. The net result of these considerations is the prospect of an even larger future disparity between the social views of American and non-­American Mormons.5 Projected Mormon growth virtually guarantees continued proliferation of bureaucracy at administrative levels. However, professional administrators and the encroachment of impersonal relations entailed in rational procedures are countered by at least two other features of Mormon organization that will also continue into the foreseeable future. The first is the charismatic authority vested in the offices of the First Presidency and Quorum of Twelve Apostles (and even extending to some degree to local stake presidents and ward bishops). Charismatic authority means that when deemed necessary, important decisions are made not within the established structure of rational rules, but because of perceived promptings of God’s Spirit. Surely the evolutionary unfolding of Mormon history demonstrates that such promptings are influenced by the pressures of human events and deeply felt issues that reflect the dominant concerns of new generations of Latter-­day Saint constituents. Revelations that dictate fundamental policy changes and major course corrections in the interpretation of religious doctrine are likely to occur whenever the church’s ability to retain its core membership and realize its restorationist growth agenda appear critically compromised or threatened. The second and arguably more important hedge against bureaucratic remoteness and impersonality is lay organization at local levels. The LDS ward and to some extent the LDS stake have always been the fundamental

240 Epilogue

organizational units of Mormon group life. There, one may join with neighbors in full participation, discuss the teachings of the kingdom, assume church callings and responsibilities, absorb a theological perspective, and become socially committed within the framework of a supportive community. Ultimately, then, the key to Mormonism’s future has not been wholly removed from its own institutional control. Above all else, this key will turn on the LDS Church’s continuing capacity to engender a sense of community identity within a sacred purpose as well as a commitment strong enough to override the objections of critics, the force of historical events, and Mormonism’s own internal contradictions.

Appendix A

Content Analysis Procedures for Obtaining and Evaluating a Representative Sample of LDS General Conference Addresses, 1830–1979

Reliance on various types of content analysis has had a long history in both the humanities and social sciences. In relatively recent times content analysis has developed into a systematic, empirical method for drawing inferences from documentary sources. A standard work on the methodology of content analysis defines it as “a research technique for making replicable and valid inferences from data to their context,” (Krippendorff 1980, 21) in which “context” is taken to mean a particular social, historical environment. In this appendix we describe the procedures that we followed in our analysis of Mormon general conference addresses. This review includes a description of our sample of addresses, the coding categories we created as the basis for analyzing the contents, and the scoring procedures we used to quantify our results for statistical analysis.

I. Sampling Design There are two levels of inferences made in this study. The first is the inference of institutional processes in the historical development of Mormonism 241

242  APPENDIX A

as reflected in the authoritative speeches made by Mormon leaders at general conference. Our argument for the validity of this inference is made in Chapter 1. The second is the inference of particular historical conference themes based on a sample of conference addresses. We outline here our rationale for this latter set of inferences by describing (1) the universe of all conference addresses for which we want to generalize, (2) the sampling frame of existing conference documents from which samples may actually be selected, (3) the size of the sample (or number of addresses) selected for analysis, and (4) our procedures for drawing the sample. Universe

Our universe of study is comprised of all addresses delivered by Mormon general authorities at general conferences of the LDS Church from 1830 through 1979. The number of official talks or sermons given at general conference since the founding of the LDS Church in 1830 cannot be determined precisely. This is due primarily to incomplete conference records in the nineteenth century, especially during the first decade of Mormon history, and also to historical changes in the regularity, functions, and format of general conference that render deductive estimations imprecise. Since 1840, LDS conferences have been convened on a regular biannual basis in April and October. Each conference typically lasts for a period of several days (this has varied historically from as many as four to five days in the nineteenth century to two days, the current practice instituted in 1977), and each day is divided into a morning and afternoon session. The conference addresses are almost always delivered by Mormon general authorities, including, with rare exception, at least one major address by the current prophet and president of the church. Occasionally, non-­general authorities have been permitted to speak at general conference, but such cases are excluded by definition from our universe of study. Modern conferences, with their more streamlined and encapsulated speeches (relative to their nineteenth-­century counterparts), average roughly between thirty and forty addresses. Altogether we estimate that the total number of conference addresses delivered over one hundred fifty years is somewhere in the vicinity of nine thousand to twelve thousand.

Content Analysis Procedures 243

Sampling Frame

Since 1897 the LDS Church has recorded and published a complete record of all conference proceedings in a series entitled the Conference Reports. Subsequently, the church has also made a practice of publishing verbatim reports of conference addresses in special conference issues of its family magazines Improvement Era and its successor, Ensign. Prior to 1897, however, conference addresses were not all systematically recorded and preserved. In general, the unavailability of a complete record of conference proceedings becomes progressively problematic going backward in time from 1897. The problem of missing reports is compounded during the earliest years of Mormon history (1830–1850) by the fact that most existing conference reports for this period take the form of synoptic minutes that only provide summaries of proceedings rather than verbatim accounts. There are, however, a number of nineteenth-­century Mormon sources which did, from time to time, publish more or less verbatim accounts of selected conference speeches. These include Journal of Discourses, The Deseret News, The History of the Church, Journal History of the Church, Millennial Star, and Times and Seasons. While these sources constitute a restricted sampling pool of conference addresses, we surmise that they tend to represent what were probably the more important addresses made by Mormon leaders, as perceived in their own time. It is, in part, undoubtedly for this reason that these particular discourses were reported. Where verbatim materials for particular conferences are missing, recourse to minutes or synoptic summaries is often the only suitable alternative. Where conference synopses are also missing or inadequate, the only alternative to leaving certain years unrepresented is to select appropriate substitute addresses or statements made by key Mormon authorities outside of general conference. This we elected to do because of the obvious importance of these early years in Mormonism’s development. Our approach to the problem of selecting substitute documents is discussed further in our section on sampling procedures. To summarize: for the period from 1897 to the present there exists a complete listing, or sampling frame, of all conference addresses and their verbatim contents from which representative samples can be drawn. From 1830 through 1896 the sampling frame is less than perfect. This means that the available sampling pool is substantially reduced for given years. The lack of an all-­inclusive sampling frame led us to compensate, when

244  APPENDIX A

necessary, by accepting some conference synopses or appropriate nonconference substitute documents in place of verbatim conference addresses. Sample Size

The two basic determinants of the accuracy of any sample are its size and the procedures employed to obtain it. Assuming random selection of cases, the larger the sample the smaller the probability that the sample will be unrepresentative. At the same time the sample should not be so large that it overwhelms the resources and assimilating capacity of the investigator. Based on a preliminary review of conference history and existing documentary source materials, we concluded that the following formulation would produce a sample adequate to satisfy both methodological and practical requirements: four conference addresses per year x 150 years = 600 addresses. Sampling Procedures

The validity of simple random sampling can be increased when certain known characteristics of a designated universe of study are incorporated into the sampling design. We wanted a sample that would ensure representation of all periods of Mormon history. We also wanted systematic inclusion of addresses by the church presidents, whose words are automatically accorded the highest import by Mormons and whose speeches may establish a central theme for the entire conference. These aims were achieved by structuring the random selection of addresses according to the following format. (1) We randomly drew four sample addresses from the existing pool of addresses for every year between 1830 and 1979. (2) We alternated between annual and semiannual conferences to make our yearly selections (because of incomplete conference records, this was not always possible in the nineteenth century). (3) We always selected at least one of the current president’s addresses from every sampled year. On rare occasions a president failed to speak at a general conference, usually because of illness. On other occasions the First Presidency (the president and his counselors) issued a joint statement to the church at conference time. We have regarded such statements as the equivalent of the president’s own remarks for our sampling purposes. Wherever the documentary record was complete we randomly selected presidential addresses

Content Analysis Procedures 245

by alternating between opening and closing speeches. Once a presidential address was selected, three other addresses delivered by other general authorities at the same conference were randomly selected (providing, again, that the documentary record was complete). Our strategy for dealing with those years in which conference reports were not systematically recorded and preserved was, first, to locate those conference addresses that have been preserved, and secondly, to randomly select addresses from this reduced pool of addresses. For those years in which there were insufficient conference records to meet our quota of four addresses, we identified a pool of acceptable substitutes. Such substitutes were found in a variety of sources, especially the revelations of Joseph Smith recorded in the Doctrine and Covenants that were proclaimed just prior to, during, or after a general conference. We also included some important nonconference speeches, sermons, and declarations of other Mormon general authorities which were published in various Mormon journals, newspapers, and periodicals during roughly similar time periods in which general conferences were held but not adequately reported. As an example, consider the year 1886. During this period most Mormon leaders (including President John Taylor) were in hiding to avoid arrest and prosecution for violation of antipolygamy laws. General conference for April of that year was held in Provo, Utah, instead of Salt Lake City; only some church authorities were in surreptitious attendance, and the proceedings were only sketchily reported in the media of the day. We have identified two substitute sermons for 1886, both delivered by apostle Lorenzo Snow (in January and March) at local conferences in Logan, Utah. The rationale for including these discourses as substitutes for our sample include their verbatim coverage in the Journal of Discourses (and hence also their exposure to a general church audience beyond the congregational confines of the Logan tabernacle); the fact that Lorenzo Snow was a leading church authority and exponent of Mormon doctrine who eventually acceded to the office of church president a decade later; and because these addresses just preceded Snow’s own imprisonment on charges of unlawful cohabitation, making the content of his remarks very topical indeed. Altogether we have included a total of thirty-­nine substitute documents in our sample of conference addresses. This amounts to 6.5 percent of the entire sample.

246  APPENDIX A

In sum, our sampling design contains both random and purposive elements. It resorts mostly to official conference reports but also draws upon a few supplementary nonconference materials. Upon completion the sample consisted of six hundred documents: four conference addresses (or conference substitutes when necessary) for each year from 1830 through 1979. A complete listing of our sample is provided in Appendix B.

II. Coding Categories The most critical step in any content analysis is the derivation and operationalization of relevant coding categories on the basis of which the study’s empirical inferences are made. In what follows we outline (1) our conceptualization of conference materials into various units of analysis, (2) the derivation of conference themes and subthemes into a comprehensive coding framework, (3) the procedures followed in recording the themes expressed in each conference address, and (4) an evaluation of the reliability of our procedures. Units of Analysis

In studies based on content analysis, three different units of analysis may be distinguished: sampling units, recording units, and context units (Krippendorff 1980). Sampling units are the particular items or cases that constitute the sample. In our study the sampling units were individual conference addresses; these have already been discussed. Sampling units may be broken down into context units and context units into recording units. Recording units are the specific segments of content that are categorized and tabulated by the investigator (Holsti 1969). In our study the recording units were identified by reference to a large set of typical conference themes and subthemes, the derivation of which we describe shortly. Context units define the boundaries within which particular recording units can be identified. A single context unit may contain many separate recording units (Krippendorff 1980, 59). In our study the separate paragraphs of each address were designated as our context units. Thus, each paragraph of each address was analyzed separately. Any and all themes contained in each paragraph were identified and recorded for each address.

Content Analysis Procedures 247

Derivation of Themes and Subthemes

There are several different ways to define recording units, ranging from the designation of single words to general themes. The former approach increases coding reliability because it does not require interpretive judgments, but it may greatly reduce the ability to draw conceptually meaningful inferences. The latter approach maximizes the attempt to draw meaningful inferences but does require interpretive judgments and consequently requires that those doing the coding have a thorough “understanding of the source language with all its shades and nuances of meaning and content” (Krippendorff 1980, 63). We opted to attempt a thematic analysis. First we read through a substantial cross-­section of the conference reports that had been sampled, listing as many specific theme categories from our reading as we could. From this list we created a topical index that contained 1,050 separate conference theme items. Thus, our overall approach was inductive; coding categories were derived from the source material itself rather than being imposed, a priori. To simplify coding, our set of theme items was grouped into a series of 216 thematic units in which subthemes, if any, were associated with more general themes. For example, we identified “Kingdom of God” as an important general theme. Particular subthemes which we categorized under Kingdom of God included: (1) establishment of in last days; (2) sacrifices in building up; (3) spiritual aspects of; (4) submission of nations to; (5) temporal aspects of; and (6) ultimate triumph of. (One not inconsequential benefit of grouping subthemes under more general theme categories is an increase in coding reliability; as a rule, coders will be in greater agreement over the identification of general themes than they will over more finely differentiated subthemes.) The organization of a theme index such as ours is, of course, a matter of interpretive judgment. It would be absurd to assume that there is a universally correct way to classify themes encountered in such a complex data source as the general conference reports. We did aim, however, to derive an exhaustive set of themes for a comprehensive analysis of all conference materials. Our theme index is reproduced in full as Appendix C. Coding Procedures

The recording of paragraph themes for each conference address was structured by reference to a set of questions designed to clarify the contextual

248  APPENDIX A

meaning of particular themes. These questions were: (1) Is the speaker’s objective in expressing this theme exposition or admonition? (2) If exposition, what type does the speaker employ? (3) If admonition, (a) who is admonished, and (b) what type of admonition does the speaker employ? In short, before any theme was recorded, the coder first had to determine a specific semantic context in which the theme occurred. The basic distinction between exposition and admonition makes it possible to separate existential or metaphysical expressions from ethical expressions. In exposition the speaker attempts to articulate the meaning of various religious concepts or definitions of reality. In admonition the speaker gives counsel or warning with respect to conduct or duties. The basic types of exposition that we specified were explanation, justification, repudiation, and narration. Thus, in addition to merely elaborating an exegesis of particular Mormon beliefs (explanation), speakers may explicitly attempt to defend Mormon teachings and practices from attack or criticism made by adversaries (justification). Similarly, speakers may not only defend the faith but also attack and condemn the beliefs and practices of other groups that are contrary to their own (repudiation). Finally, speakers may simply report certain statistics, relate stories or anecdotes, or pronounce benedictions of various kinds (narration). Where a coder judged a speaker to have expressed an admonitory theme rather than expository, the particular persons or social categories being admonished were identified along with the type of admonition made. (In most cases those admonished are the general membership of the LDS Church, but Mormon leaders also admonish specific categories of members such as priesthood holders, husbands, wives, parents, youth, etc., and from time to time such non-­church entities as the “world” and national or local governments.) Three possible types of admonition were specified by the coder: prescription, proscription, or chastisement. In some cases people are admonished by speakers to engage in certain activities (prescription), while in others they are admonished to refrain from certain activities (proscription). Finally, in some cases speakers directly criticize people for their apparent failure to meet certain expectations (chastisement), whether prescriptive or proscriptive. In summary, a comprehensive index of conference themes and subthemes was inductively derived from the conference addresses themselves.

Content Analysis Procedures 249

Using the theme categories from this index, coders recorded themes contained in every paragraph of every address. The recording of paragraph themes was structured by a set of contextual categories which differentiated themes according to various types of exposition and admonition. Coder Reliability

As indicated, thematic analysis does make possible more meaningful interpretation of content, but it also makes the reliability of coding decisions more problematic. In our study we recognized the need for coders to have an adequate grounding in the beliefs and history of the Mormon religion. Mere training in the mechanics of our coding categories would not be sufficient, since coding decisions of the type required by our objectives often depend upon sensitivity to subtle distinctions and cultural-­ historical meanings of terms. Due primarily to limited resources of time and money, we found it necessary to do all of the coding for the entire sample of conference addresses ourselves. To help reduce the potentia1 distorting effects of individual coder bias, we divided the coding of addresses between us on an odd-­year versus even-­year basis. This solution reduced concern about thematically naïve and invalid coding judgments and systematic coder bias but did not directly address the problem of coding category reliability. We still needed to know how well our analysis procedures guided us to make consistent decisions that could be replicated between ourselves or among other knowledgeable judges. To find out, we randomly selected five addresses and then both separately coded each. A simple comparison between the resulting two sets of coded general themes revealed a mean percentage agreement of .83 across all five addresses, with a low percentage agreement of .69 and a high percentage of .92. We further checked the general reliability of our coding procedures by obtaining three independent codings of one of five selected addresses; these codings were performed by Mormon acquaintances who were well versed in Mormon beliefs and culture. The mean percentage agreement on general themes between these three for the same coded address was .86. The mean percentage agreement between the outside coders and our own coded version of the same address was .81. Although these results were derived from comparing only a small subsample of addresses, they do imply that our procedures are capable of generating acceptable levels

250  APPENDIX A

of coding reliability, particularly in light of the kind of interpretive judgments required by our categories.

III. Scoring Procedures The initial objective of our analysis was to identify variation in the emphasis given to conference themes over time. We therefore developed a summary measure of the relative importance accorded to particular themes in a given conference address. This measure, which we call a salience score, can be aggregated across conference addresses by designated units of time. Our basic procedures for calculating and aggregating individual salience scores are as follow. Calculation of Salience Scores

Paragraphs were the context units within which we identified particular themes. In general, a given theme (e.g., obedience) was counted once for each separate paragraph in which it appeared. A number of additional themes might also be identified as existing within the same paragraph (e.g., priesthood, revelation, prophet, etc.), and each of these would also be counted once. Occasionally, themes might be employed in several different rhetorical ways in the same paragraph (e.g., involving such contextual categories as explanation of the principle of obedience, admonition of church members to be more obedient, repudiation of “false” notions about Mormon obedience, etc.). In these cases, each different contextual category for a particular theme would only be counted once within the relevant paragraph. If, for instance, the paragraph contained several “explanations of obedience,” our coding would still only produce a count of one for “explanation of, obedience.” This is because in a given paragraph we were only interested in recording the appearance of a theme, not how many times it may have appeared within the paragraph. We were, however, interested in tallying the frequency of paragraph counts for themes so that we could calculate the proportion of paragraphs in which a given theme appeared (see Holsti’s discussion of “Systems of Enumeration,” 1969, 119–22). For example, if the theme of obedience was counted as appearing in five different paragraphs within an address consisting of a total of twenty paragraphs, then the ratio of theme to

Content Analysis Procedures 251

paragraphs would be .25. This ratio would then be regarded as a measure of the relative importance of the obedience theme in this particular address, i.e., a salience score. While paragraph construction was sometimes eccentric in some of the conference texts in our sample, it may generally be assumed that most designated paragraphs function to distinguish logical subtopics. Therefore, for purposes of analysis, a paragraph that contains only one reference to obedience is nevertheless advancing the same basic theme, within its own logical boundary, as a paragraph in which obedience is referred to several times. Resulting salience scores are not unduly biased, since, as a rule, texts that feature long paragraphs also have relatively fewer paragraphs, whereas short paragraph construction tends to result in a larger total number of paragraphs. Thus, ratios of themes to paragraphs retain their essential meaning as indicators of salience. All other themes appearing at least once in the same address would be similarly scored, providing us not only with a summary of all the thematic content of the specific address but also with an indication of the relative attention given to each theme in the address.

IV. Aggregation of Salience Scores for Designated Units of Time Once thematic salience scores were calculated for each conference address in our sample, we wanted to aggregate all individual scores for various units of time. An aggregated salience score then reflects the relative emphasis given to a particular theme across conference addresses for a particular historical period. The unit of aggregation may represent any desired time period. We initially aggregated scores for individual years, then for decades, and finally for thirty-­year periods, or “generations.” Our procedures for aggregating salience scores for these three timeframes were as follows. First, for each theme we simply calculated a mean salience score for each yearly subset of addresses in our conference sample. Later, mean decade scores for themes were computed by summing the previously computed mean scores for each year and then dividing by ten. Finally, generation mean scores were obtained by summing the decade means and dividing by three.

Appendix B

Listing of Addresses in the LDS Conference Sample, 1830–1979

Reference Source Abbreviations (Conference Substitutes are Indicated by *) CR = Conference Reports D&C = Doctrine and Covenants DHC = Documentary History of the Church DN = Deseret News E = Ensign JD = Journal of Discourses JHC = Journal History of the Church LDS ARCH = Latter-­day Saint Church Archives MFP = Messages of the First Presidency MS = Millennial Star WCJ = William Clayton Journal YEAR

MO.

SPEAKER

SOURCE

1830

Apr

Jos. Smith

D&C 20

1830

Sept

Jos. Smith

D&C 28

1831

Jan

Jos. Smith

D&C 38

1831

Jun

Conf. Synopsis

DHC 1:176

1831

Aug

Jos. Smith

D&C 58 252

Listing of Addresses in the LDS Conference Sample, 1830–1979  253 YEAR

MO.

SPEAKER

SOURCE

1831

Sept

Jos. Smith

D&C 64

1831

Oct

Conf. Synopsis

DHC 1:220

1831

Nov

Jos. Smith

D&C 133

1832

Jan

Jos. Smith

D&C 75

1832

Apr

Jos. Smith

D&C 82

*1832

Jun

Council

DHC 1:273

*1832

Sept

Jos. Smith

D&C 84

*1833

May

Jos. Smith

D&C 93

*1833

Jun

Council

DHC 1:317

*1833

Aug

Jos. Smith

D&C 97

*1833

Dec

Jos. Smith

DHC 1:453

*1834

Feb

Jos. Smith

DHC 2:25

*1834

Apr

Conf. Synopsis

DHC 2:53

*1834

Apr

Jos. Smith

D&C 104

1834

May

Conf. Synopsis

DHC 2:62

1835

Feb

Jos. Synopsis

DHC 2:181

*1835

May

Jos. Smith

DHC 2:219

*1835

Jun

Jos. Smith

DHC 2:229

1835

Aug

Conf. Synopsis

DHC 2:243

*1835

Nov

Jos. Smith

DHC 2:307

*1836

Mar

S. Rigdon

DHC 2:413

*1836

Mar

Jos. Smith

DHC 2:420

1836

Dec

Conf. Synopsis

DHC 2:468

*1837

Apr

Conf. Synopsis

DHC 2:475

1837

Sept

Conf. Synopsis

DHC 2:509

1837

Nov

Conf. Synopsis

DHC 2:522

1838

Apr

Conf. Synopsis

DHC 3:13

*1838

May

Jos. Smith

DHC 3:28

1838

Jul

S. Rigdon

LDS ARCH

1838

Apr

Jos. Smith

D&C 115

*1838

Dec

Jos. Smith

DHC 3:226

1839

Mar

Conf. Synopsis

DHC 3:283

1839

May

Conf. Synopsis

DHC 3:344

*1839

Jun

Jos. Smith

JD 1:237

*1839

Jul

Council

DHC 3:393

1839

Oct

Conf. Synopsis

DHC 4:12

1840

Apr

Conf. Synopsis

DHC 4:105

254  APPENDIX B YEAR

MO.

SPEAKER

SOURCE

1840

Oct

Jos. Smith

DHC 4:207

1840

Oct

Council

DHC 4:212

1841

Jan

Council

DHC 4:267

1841

Apr

Council

DHC 4:336

1841

Aug

Conf. Synopsis

DHC 4:402

1841

Oct

Conf. Synopsis

DHC 4:423

1842

Apr

Conf. Synopsis

DHC 4:583

*1842

Jun

Jos. Smith

DHC 5:23

1842

Aug

Jos. Smith

DHC 5:137

*1842

Sept

Jos. Smith

DHC 5:148

1843

Apr

Jos. Smith

DHC 5:327

1843

Apr

Jos. Smith

DHC 5:339

1843

Apr

Jos. Smith

DHC 5:349

1843

Oct

Jos. Smith

DHC 6:47

1844

Apr

H. Smith

DHC 6:298

1844

Apr

Jos. Smith

DHC 6:302

1844

Aug

B. Young

DHC 7:231

1844

Oct

B. Young

DHC 7:284

*1845

Jan

Council

DHC 7:356

1845

Oct

P. Pratt

DHC 7:463

1845

Oct

H. Kimball

DHC 7:466

1845

Oct

A. Lyman

DHC 7:468

*1846

Oct

B. Young

DHC 7:478

*1846

Dec

Council

DHC 7:571

*1846

Jan

B. Young

DHC 7:573

*1846

Apr

B. Young

DHC 7:608

*1847

Jan

B. Young

D&C 136

*1847

May

B. Young

WCJ 189

*1847

Dec

B. Young

MS l0:114

*1847

Dec

B. Young

MS 10:84

1848

Apr

B. Young

JHC 2

*1848

Mar

O. Spencer

MS 10:88

1848

Oct

Conf. Synopsis

MS 10:14

1849

Oct

Conf. Synopsis

MS 12:132

1849

Jul

B. Young

MS 11:355

*1849

Jan

O. Spencer

MS 11:1

1850

Sept

Conf. Synopsis

DN

1850

Sept

Conf. Synopsis

DN

Listing of Addresses in the LDS Conference Sample, 1830–1979  255 YEAR

MO.

SPEAKER

SOURCE

1850

Sept

Conf. Synopsis

DN

1850

Sept

B. Young

MS 13:21

1851

Sept

Conf. Synopsis

DN

1851

Sept

Conf. Synopsis

MS 14:33

1851

Sept

Conf. Synopsis

MS 14:35

1851

Sept

Conf. Synopsis

MS 14:35

1852

Apr

B. Young

JD 1:198

1852

Oct

H. Kimball

JD 1:294

1852

Oct

H. Kimball

JD 1:204

1852

Oct

B. Young

JD 1:209

1853

Apr

B. Young

JD 1:31

1853

Apr

P. Pratt

JD 1:6

1853

Oct

O. Hyde

JD 1:121

1853

Oct

F. D. Richards

JD 1:316

1854

Oct

B. Young

JD 2:49

1854

Oct

O. Pratt

JD 2:54

1854

Oct

J. M. Grant

JD 2:71

1854

Oct

O. Hyde

JD 2:61

1855

Apr

B. Young

JD 2:266

1855

Apr

B. Young

JD 2:357

1855

Oct

J. M. Grant

JD 3:125

1855

Jul

P. Pratt

JD 3:127

1856

Apr

G. A. Smith

JD 3:280

1856

Apr

P. Pratt

JD 3:307

1856

Oct

B. Young

JD 4:112

1856

Oct

F. D. Richards

JD 4:112

1857

Apr

D. Wells

JD 4:311

1857

Apr

W. Woodruff

JD 4:320

1857

Oct

E. Snow

JD 5:285

1857

Oct

B. Young

JD 5:327

*1858

Jan

O. Hyde

JD 6:150

*1858

Jan

G. A. Smith

JD 6:159

*1858

Jan

J. Taylor

JD 6:162

*1858

Jan

B. Young

JD 6:169

1859

Oct

D. Wells

JD 7:244

1859

Oct

B. Young

JD 7:276

1859

Oct

J. Taylor

JD 7:317

1859

Oct

H. Kimball

JD 7:328

256  APPENDIX B YEAR

MO.

SPEAKER

SOURCE

1860

Apr

B. Young

JD 8:39

1860

Apr

O. Pratt

JD 8:44

1860

Oct

H. Kimball

JD 8:247

1860

Oct

G. A. Smith

JD 8:253

1861

Apr

B. Young

JD 9:1

1861

Apr

J. Taylor

JD 9:8

1861

Apr

L. Snow

JD 9:20

1861

Oct

H. Kimball

JD 9:264

1862

Apr

W. Woodruff

JD 9:324

1862

Oct

B. Young

JD 10:17

1862

Oct

A. Lyman

JD 10:83

1862

Oct

C. Rich

JD 10:90

1863

Apr

G. A. Smith

JD 10:143

1863

Apr

E. Benson

JD 10:151

1863

Oct

O. Hyde

JD 10:261

1863

Oct

B. Young

JD 10:265

1864

Oct

B. Young

JD 10:339

1864

Apr

B. Young

JD 11:289

1864

Oct

G. Cannon

JD 11:340

*1864

Dec

O. Hyde

JD 11:373

1865

Oct

B. Young

JD 11:137

1865

Oct

H. Kimball

JD 11:143

1865

Oct

G. Cannon

JD 11:167

1865

Oct

A. Lyman

JD 11:142

1866

Apr

A. Lyman

JD 11:198

1866

Apr

H. Kimball

JD 11:208

1866

Apr

J. Taylor

JD 11:216

1866

Apr

B. Young

JHC 1

1867

Apr

J. Taylor

JD 11:353

1867

Apr

G. A. Smith

JD 11:359

1867

Apr

W. Woodruff

JD 11:369

1867

Apr

B. Young

JD 11:371

1868

Apr

B. Young

JD 12:192

1868

Apr

E. Snow

JD 12:211

1868

Oct

G. Cannon

JD 12:289

1868

Oct

O. Pratt

JD 12:302

1869

Apr

G. A. Smith

JD 12:20

1869

Apr

D. Wells

JD 13:22

Listing of Addresses in the LDS Conference Sample, 1830–1979  257 YEAR

MO.

SPEAKER

SOURCE

1869

Apr

B. Young

JD 13:29

1869

Oct

O. Pratt

JD 13:183

1870

Oct

B. Young

JD 13:261

1870

Apr

O. Pratt

JD 13:124

1870

Apr

Conf. Synopsis

DN

1870

Apr

B. Young

DN

1871

Apr

B. Young

JD 14:91

1871

Apr

G. Cannon

JD 14:122

1871

Oct

J. Taylor

JD 14:245

1871

Apr

O. Pratt

JD 14:271

1872

Apr

W. Woodruff

JD 15:7

1872

Apr

O. Pratt

JD 15:44

1872

Oct

E. Snow

JD 15:197

1872

Oct

B. Young

JD 15:220

1873

Apr

O. Hyde

JD 16:12

1873

Apr

B. Young

JD 16:15

1873

Oct

G. Cannon

JD 16:241

1873

Oct

L. Snow

JD 16:273

1874

Apr

O. Pratt

JD 17:24

1874

Oct

C. Rich

JD 17:169

1874

Oct

A. Carrington

JD 17:165

1874

Oct

G. A. Smith

JD 17:195

1875

Apr

B. Young

JD 17:360

1875

Apr

O. Hyde

JD 17:350

1875

Oct

D. Wells

JD 18:95

1875

Oct

J. F. Smith

JD 18:133

1876

Apr

W. Woodruff

JD 18:186

1876

Apr

J. Taylor

JD 18:193

1876

Oct

B. Young

JD 18:257

1876

Oct

L. Snow

JD 18:298

1877

Apr

B. Young

JD 18:353

1877

Apr

L. Snow

JD 18:371

1877

Oct

J. Taylor

JD 19:119

1877

Oct

G. Cannon

JD 19:230

1878

Apr

W. Woodruff

JD 19:295

1878

Apr

J. Taylor

JD 19:300

1878

Apr

O. Pratt

JD 19:330

1878

Apr

G. Cannon

JD 20:1

258  APPENDIX B YEAR

MO.

SPEAKER

SOURCE

1879

Apr

L. Snow

JD 20:187

1879

Apr

M. Thatcher

JD 20:192

1879

Oct

J. Taylor

JD 20:316

1879

Oct

O. Pratt

JD 20:321

1880

Oct

W. Woodruff

JD 21:316

1880

Oct

O. Pratt

JD 22:27

1880

Oct

J. Taylor

JD 22:38

1880

Apr

Conf. Synopsis

MS 42:308

1881

Apr

E. Snow

JD 22:144

1881

Oct

F. Lyman

JD 22:245

1881

Oct

J. H. Smith

JD 22:269

1881

Oct

J. Taylor

JD 22:290

1882

Apr

J. Taylor

JD 23:47

1882

Apr

J. F. Smith

JD 23:69

1882

Oct

G. Cannon

JD 23:271

1882

Oct

D. Wells

JD 23:303

1883

Apr

M. Thatcher

JD 24:110

1883

Apr

F. D. Richards

JD 24:117

1883

Apr

G. Cannon

JD 24:339

1883

Oct

J. Taylor

JD 24:287

1884

Oct

J. Taylor

JD 25:303

1884

Apr

J. F. Smith

JD 25:97

1884

Apr

M. Thatcher

JD 25:113

1884

Apr

B. Young, Jr.

JD 25:117

1885

Apr

F. D. Richards

JD 26:164

1885

Apr

J.H. Smith

JD 26:174

1885

Apr

M. Thatcher

JD 26:327

1885

Apr

First Presidency

MFP 3:4

1886

Oct

First Presidency

MFP 3:72

*1886

Jan

L. Snow

JD 27:364

*1886

Mar

L. Snow

JD 27:369

1887

Oct

First Presidency

MFP 3:133

1887

Oct

L. Snow

DN

1887

Oct

W. Woodruff

DN

1887

Oct

F. D. Richards

DN

1888

Apr

First Presidency

MFP 3:156

1888

Apr

L. Snow

DN

1888

Apr

J. W. Taylor

DN

Listing of Addresses in the LDS Conference Sample, 1830–1979  259 YEAR

MO.

SPEAKER

SOURCE

1888

Apr

H. Grant

DN

1889

Oct

W. Woodruff

DN

1889

Oct

F. Lyman

DN

1889

Oct

M. Thatcher

DN

1889

Oct

B. Young, Jr.

DN

1890

Oct

First Presidency

MFP 3:194

1890

Apr

B. Roberts

DN

1890

Apr

G. Cannon

DN

1890

Apr

F. D. Richards

DN

1891

Oct

W. Woodruff

DN

1891

Oct

J. F. Smith

DN

1891

Oct

C. Penrose

DN

1891

Oct

G. Cannon

DN

1892

Apr

W. Woodruff

DN

1892

Apr

G. Cannon

DN

1892

Apr

J. F. Smith

DN

1892

Apr

J. Morgan

DN

1893

Oct

W. Woodruff

DN

1893

Oct

G. Cannon

DN

1893

Oct

L. Snow

DN

1893

Oct

F. D. Richards

DN

1894

Apr

Conf. Synopsis

DN

1894

Apr

Conf. Synopsis

DN

1894

Apr

Conf. Synopsis

DN

1894

Oct

M. Merrill

MS 56:709

1895

Oct

W. Woodruff

DN

1895

Oct

Conf. Synopsis

DN

1895

Oct

Conf. Synopsis

DN

1895

Oct

Conf. Synopsis

DN

1896

Apr

First Presidency

MFP 3:271

1896

Apr

Conf. Synopsis

DN

1896

Apr

Conf. Synopsis

DN

1896

Apr

Conf. Synopsis

DN

1897

Oct

W. Woodruff

CR 22

1897

Oct

A. Lund

CR 2

1897

Oct

M. Merrill

CR 4

1897

Oct

J. W. Taylor

CR 7

1898

Apr

W. Woodruff

CR 89

260  APPENDIX B YEAR

MO.

SPEAKER

SOURCE

1898

Apr

A. Woodruff

CR 19

1898

Apr

M. Cowley

CR 22

1898

Apr

B. Young, Jr.

CR 25

1899

Oct

L. Snow

CR 23

1899

Oct

G. Cannon

CR 46

1899

Oct

J. Kimball

CR 53

1899

Oct

S. Young

CR 55

1900

Apr

L. Snow

CR 1

1900

Apr

B. Young, Jr.

CR 4

1900

Apr

F. Lyman

CR 7

1900

Apr

G. Cannon

CR 10

1901

Oct

L. Snow

CR 60

1901

Nov

J. F. Smith

CR 69

1901

Nov

A. Lund

CR 73

1901

Nov

B. Young, Jr.

CR 76

1902

Apr

J. F. Smith

CR 85

1902

Apr

R. Wells

CR 11

1902

Apr

B. Roberts

CR 13

1902

Apr

S. Young

CR 16

1903

Oct

J. F. Smith

CR 1

1903

Oct

A. Woodruff

CR 21

1903

Oct

J. McMurrin

CR 24

1903

Oct

R. Wells

CR 28

1904

Apr

J. F. Smith

CR 73

1904

Apr

R. Clawson

CR 42

1904

Apr

H. M. Smith

CR 50

1904

Apr

G. Smith

CR 62

1905

Oct

J. F. Smith

CR 1

1905

Oct

R. Wells

CR 49

1905

Oct

R. Smoot

CR 17

1905

Oct

B. Roberts

CR 43

1906

Apr

J. F. Smith

CR 1

1906

Apr

J. H. Smith

CR 82

1906

Apr

C. Penrose

CR 85

1906

Apr

F. Lyman

CR 92

1907

Oct

J. F. Smith

CR 1

1907

Oct

J. Winder

CR 7

Listing of Addresses in the LDS Conference Sample, 1830–1979  261 YEAR

MO.

SPEAKER

SOURCE

1907

Oct

A. Lund

CR 8

1907

Oct

F. Lyman

CR 13

1908

Apr

J. F. Smith

CR 1

1908

Apr

J. H. Smith

CR 21

1908

Apr

H. Grant

CR 26

1908

Apr

R. Clawson

CR 30

1909

Oct

J. F. Smith

CR 123

1909

Oct

R. Clawson

CR 64

1909

Oct

R. Smoot

CR 68

1909

Oct

H. M. Smith

CR 72

1910

Apr

J. F. Smith

CR 1

1910

Apr

O. Whitney

CR 85

1910

Apr

D. McKay

CR 105

1910

Apr

A. W. Ivins

CR 110

1911

Oct

J. F. Smith

CR 128

1911

Oct

A. W. Ivins

CR 70

1911

Oct

C. Hart

CR 83

1911

Oct

J. F. Smith

CR 118

1912

Apr

J. F. Smith

CR 134

1912

Apr

A. Lund

CR 12

1912

Apr

G. Richards

CR 37

1912

Apr

J. Talmage

CR 124

1913

Oct

J. F. Smith

CR 1

1913

Oct

J. McMurrin

CR 28

1913

Oct

F. Lyman

CR 33

1913

Oct

C. Hart

CR 40

1914

Apr

J. F. Smith

CR 2

1914

Apr

G. Richards

CR 35

1914

Apr

O. Whitney

CR 38

1914

Apr

D. McKay

CR 86

1915

Oct

J. F. Smith

CR 2

1915

Oct

A. Lund

CR 9

1915

Oct

C. Penrose

CR 33

1915

Oct

F. Lyman

CR 73

1916

Apr

J. F. Smith

CR 1

1916

Apr

H. Grant

CR 37

1916

Apr

R. Clawson

CR 43

262  APPENDIX B YEAR

MO.

SPEAKER

SOURCE

1916

Apr

G. Smith

CR 45

1917

Oct

J. F. Smith

CR 1

1917

Oct

H. M. Smith

CR 34

1917

Oct

G. Smith

CR 39

1917

Oct

O. Whitney

CR 49

1918

Apr

J. F. Smith

CR 168

1918

Apr

J. Field. Smith

CR 155

1918

Apr

J. Talmage

CR 159

1918

Apr

S. Richards

CR 163

1919

Oct

H. Grant

CR 1

1919

Oct

A. Lund

CR 35

1919

Oct

C. Penrose

CR 45

1919

Oct

R. Clawson

CR 55

1920

Apr

H. Grant

CR 2

1920

Apr

M. Ballard

CR 35

1920

Apr

R. Lyman

CR 41

1920

Apr

S. Richards

CR 96

1921

Oct

H. Grant

CR 2

1921

Oct

J. Widstoe

CR 43

1921

Oct

J. Wells

CR 51

1921

Oct

D. Smith

CR 57

1922

Apr

H. Grant

CR 164

1922

Apr

J. Talmage

CR 70

1922

Apr

M. Ballard

CR 92

1922

Apr

S. Young

CR 91

1923

Oct

H. Grant

CR 156

1923

Oct

G. Smith

CR 69

1923

Oct

R. Smoot

CR 74

1923

Oct

B. Roberts

CR 88

1924

Apr

H. Grant

CR 2

1924

Apr

C. Penrose

CR 10

1924

Apr

J. Wells

CR 17

1924

Apr

C. Nibley

CR 45

1925

Oct

H. Grant

CR 2

1925

Oct

G. Smith

CR 28

1925

Oct

G. Richards

CR 34

1925

Oct

R. Pratt

CR 56

Listing of Addresses in the LDS Conference Sample, 1830–1979  263 YEAR

MO.

SPEAKER

SOURCE

1926

Apr

H. Grant

CR 2

1926

Apr

J. Kimball

CR 45

1926

Apr

R. Wells

CR 73

1926

Apr

S. Richards

CR 81

1927

Oct

H. Grant

CR 2

1927

Oct

J. McMurrin

CR 58

1927

Oct

M. Ballard

CR 63

1927

Oct

C. Hart

CR 70

1928

Apr

H. Grant

CR 2

1928

Apr

J. Field. Smith

CR 64

1928

Apr

R. Wells

CR 68

1928

Apr

R. Lyman

CR 71

1929

Oct

H. Grant

CR 181

1929

Oct

D. McKay

CR 10

1929

Oct

J. McMurrin

CR 51

1929

Oct

R. Pratt

CR 58

1930

Apr

H. Grant

CR 181

1930

Apr

B. Roberts

CR 41

1930

Apr

S. Cannon

CR 51

1930

Apr

R. Smoot

CR 58

1931

Oct

H. Grant

CR 2

1931

Oct

J. Talmage

CR 49

1931

Oct

J. Kimball

CR 55

1931

Oct

L. Young

CR 58

1932

Apr

H. Grant

CR 117

1932

Apr

A. R. Ivins

CR 71

1932

Apr

A. W. Ivins

CR 80

1932

Apr

R. Clawson

CR 85

1933

Oct

H. Grant

CR 4¥

1933

Oct

S. Richards

CR 63

1933

Oct

J. Clark

CR 100

1933

Oct

G. Richards

CR 113

1934

Apr

H. Grant

CR 7

1934

Apr

J. Field. Smith

CR 17

1934

Apr

D. McKay

CR 20

1934

Apr

G. Smith

CR 25

1935

Oct

H. Grant

CR 2

264  APPENDIX B YEAR

MO.

SPEAKER

SOURCE

1935

Oct

A. Hinckley

CR 23

1935

Oct

R. Hardy

CR 31

1935

Oct

M. Ballard

CR 44

1936

Apr

H. Grant

CR 6

1936

Apr

J. Widtsoe

CR 69

1936

Apr

D. McKay

CR 45

1936

Apr

J. Clark

CR 46

1937

Oct

H. Grant

CR 129

1937

Oct

J. Widstoe

CR 62

1937

Oct

J. Merrill

CR 71

1937

Oct

S. Bennion

CR 81

1938

Apr

H. Grant

CR 10

1938

Apr

A. Bowen

CR 6

1938

Apr

J. H. Taylor

CR 85

1938

Apr

C. Callis

CR 98

1939

Oct

H. Grant

CR 126

1939

Oct

S. Bennion

CR 176

1939

Oct

J. Merrill

CR 116

1939

Oct

S. Cannon

CR 122

1940

Apr

H. Grant

CR 2

1940

Apr

J. Clark

CR 12

1940

Apr

S. Cannon

CR 23

1940

Apr

G. Richards

CR 30

1941

Oct

H. Grant

CR 6

1941

Oct

R. Lyman

CR 25

1941

Oct

D. McKay

CR 52 CR 31

1941

Oct

S. Bennion

1942

Apr

H. Grant

CR 2

1942

Apr

S. Richards

CR 64

1942

Apr

H. Lee

CR 85

1942

Apr

First Presidency

CR 88

1943

Oct

H. Grant

CR 9

1943

Oct

J. Clark

CR 10

1943

Oct

S. Kimball

CR 15

1943

Oct

E. Benson

CR 19

1944

Apr

H. Grant

CR 3

1944

Apr

G. Smith

CR 26

Listing of Addresses in the LDS Conference Sample, 1830–1979  265 YEAR

MO.

SPEAKER

SOURCE

1944

Apr

J. Field. Smith

CR 48

1944

Apr

T. McKay

CR 60

1945

Oct

G. Smith

CR 18

1945

Oct

A. Callis

CR 80

1945

Oct

J. W. Taylor

CR 83

1945

Oct

M. Petersen

CR 88

1946

Apr

G. Smith

CR 181

1946

Apr

J. Wirthlin

CR 160

1946

Apr

M. Hunter

CR 141

1946

Apr

A. Bowen

CR 176

1947

Oct

G. Smith

CR 164

1947

Oct

J. Merrill

CR 32

1947

Oct

M. Romney

CR 38

1947

Oct

H. Moyle

CR 42

1948

Apr

G. Smith

CR 11

1948

Apr

A. R. Ivins

CR 40

1948

Apr

L. Richards

CR 43

1948

Apr

B. McConkie

CR 48

1949

Oct

G. Smith

CR 167

1949

Oct

M. Cowley

CR 45

1949

Oct

J. Widstoe

CR 61

1949

Oct

J. Field. Smith

CR 87

1950

Apr

G. Smith

CR 3

1950

Apr

H. Lee

CR 96

1950

Apr

R. Evans

CR 102

1950

Apr

J. Clark

CR 114 CR 4

1951

Oct

D. McKay

1951

Oct

H. Moyle

CR 12

1951

Oct

T. McKay

CR 16

1951

Oct

M. Petersen

CR 19

1952

Apr

D. McKay

CR 11

1952

Apr

T. Issacson

CR 16

1952

Apr

S. Kimball

CR 20

1952

Apr

S. Young

CR 28

1953

Oct

D. McKay

CR 5

1953

Oct

J. Wirthlin

CR 12

1953

Oct

C. Young

CR 20

266  APPENDIX B YEAR

MO.

SPEAKER

SOURCE

1953

Oct

H. Lee

CR 23

1954

Apr

D. McKay

CR 140

1954

Apr

J. Clark

CR;37

1954

Apr

S. Young

CR 47

1954

Apr

A. R. Ivins

CR 50

1955

Oct

D. McKay

CR 4

1955

Oct

L. Richards

CR 27

1955

Oct

J. Longden

CR 31

1955

Oct

L. E. Young

CR 32

1956

Apr

D. McKay

CR 4

1956

Apr

A. Bennion

CR 9

1956

Apr

R. Evans

CR 51

1956

Apr

D. Stapley

CR 53

1957

Apr

D. McKay

CR 4

1957

Apr

J. Field. Smith

CR 60

1957

Apr

E. Christianson

CR 62

1957

Apr

S. Richards

CR 95

1958

Apr

D. McKay

CR 4

1958

Apr

S. Sill

CR 9

1958

Apr

A. Sonne

CR 51

1958

Apr

C. Buehner

CR 53

1959

Oct

D. McKay

CR 122

1959

Oct

M. Hanks

CR 24

1959

Oct

G. Morris

CR 47

1959

Oct

H. Brown

CR 106

1960

Apr

D. McKay

CR 24

1960

Apr

E. Benson

CR 96

1960

Apr

H. Lee

CR l06

1960

Apr

M. Romney

CR 110

1961

Oct

D. McKay

CR 5

1961

Oct

S. Kimball

CR 29

1961

Oct

H. Moyle

CR 43

1961

Oct

W. Critchlow

CR 54

1962

Apr

D. McKay

CR 5

1962

Apr

A. Dyer

CR 9

1962

Apr

N. Tanner

CR 50

1962

Apr

G. Hinckley

CR 70

Listing of Addresses in the LDS Conference Sample, 1830–1979  267 YEAR

MO.

SPEAKER

SOURCE

1963

Oct

D. McKay

CR 5

1963

Oct

E. Smith

CR 60

1963

Oct

B. Packer

CR 62

1963

Oct

B. Brockbank

CR 65

1964

Apr

D. McKay

CR 3

1964

Apr

A. Tuttle

CR 7

1964

Apr

H. Hunter

CR 33

1964

Apr

J. Vandenberg

CR 46

1965

Oct

D. McKay

CR 144

1965

Oct

J. Field. Smith

CR 27

1965

Oct

N. Tanner

CR 45

1965

Oct

H. Brown

CR 107

1966

Apr

D. McKay

CR 55

1966

Apr

B. McConkie

CR 78

1966

Apr

H. Taylor

CR 82

1966

Apr

P. Dunn

CR 121

1967

Oct

D. McKay

CR 4

1967

Oct

T. Burton

CR 79

1967

Oct

H. Brown

CR 115

1967

Oct

T. Monson

CR 129

1968

Apr

D. McKay

CR 144

1968

Apr

F. D. Richards

CR 13

1968

Apr

G. Hinckley

CR 21

1968

Apr

D. Stapley

CR 26

1969

Oct

D. McKay

CR 5

1969

Oct

S. Kimball

CR 18

1969

Oct

N. Tanner

CR 48

1969

Oct

A. Dyer

CR 53

1970

Apr

J. Field. Smith

CR 4

1970

Apr

R. Evans

CR 14

1970

Apr

H. Lee

CR 54

1970

Apr

J. Cullimore

CR 94

1971

Oct

J. Field. Smith

CR 5

1971

Oct

B. Packer

CR 7

1971

Oct

L. Richards

CR 83

1971

Oct

B. McConkie

CR 166

1972

Apr

J. Field. Smith

CR 12

268  APPENDIX B YEAR

MO.

SPEAKER

SOURCE

1972

Apr

E. Benson

CR 48

1972

Apr

M. Ashton

CR 59

1972

Apr

M. Hanks

CR 125

1973

Oct

H. Lee

CR 3

1973

Oct

M. Romney

CR 50

1973

Oct

H. Rector

CR 132

1973

Oct

V. Brown

CR 137

1974

Apr

S. Kimball

CR 4

1974

Apr

H. Hunter

CR 21

1974

Apr

R. Pinegar

CR 94

1974

Apr

S. Young

CR 87

1975

Oct

S. Kimball

CR 3

1975

Oct

L. Perry

CR 46

1975

Oct

N. Tanner

CR 51

1975

Oct

R. Hales

E 90

1976

Apr

S. Kimball

CR 169

1976

Apr

T. Monson

CR 13

1976

Apr

M. Petersen

CR 19

1976

Apr

L. Dunn

CR 98

1977

Oct

S. Kimball

E4

1977

Oct

A. Komatsu

E 28

1977

Oct

E. Benson

E 30

1977

Oct

B. McConkie

E 33

1978

Apr

S. Kimball

E4

1978

Apr

M. Maxwell

E 10

1978

Apr

D. Haight

E 22

1978

Apr

O. Stone

E 56

1979

Apr

S. Kimball

E4

1979

Apr

G. Durham

E 10

1979

Apr

M. Ashton

E 67

1979

Apr

B. Packer

E 79

1980

Apr

First Presidency

E 52

1980

Apr

S. Kimball

E4

1980

Apr

H. Hunter

E 24

1980

Apr

H. Pinnock

E 78

Appendix C

General Conference Topic Index with Salience Scores for Thirty-­Year Periods, 1830–1979

Topic

I

II

III

IV

V

1830–59

1860–89

1890–1919

1920–49

1950–79

001 – Accountability (responsibility)

.003

.002

.003

.003

.001

002 – Activity

.000

.000

.003

.001

.002

01-­church meetings (attendance)

.000

.004

.014

.002

.003

02-­church programs

.000

.000

.001

.000

.001

03-­inactivity

.000

.001

.001

.000

.004

04-­reactivation

.000

.000

.004

.000

.004

Totals

.003

.005

.023

.003

.014

003 – Adam

.003

.000

.001

.000

.000

01-­as God

.001

.000

.000

.000

.000

02-­reality of

.001

.000

.000

.001

.000

03-­transgression of (fall of man)

.000

.001

.000

.001

.002

Totals

.005

.001

.001

.002

.002

004 – Adversity (trials, suffering, tribulation)

.000

.007

.005

.002

.001

01-­collective

.008

.003

.005

.002

.001

02-­personal

.000

.000

.000

.000

.006

Totals

.008

.010

.010

.004

.008

269

270  APPENDIX C

Topic

I

II

III

IV

V

1830–59

1860–89

1890–1919

1920–49

1950–79

005 – Angels (heavenly messengers)

.012

.003

.001

.000

.000

01-­false conceptions of

.000

.001

.000

.000

.000

Totals

.012

.004

.001

.000

.000

006 – Apostasy

.002

.001

.001

.000

.005

01-­apostate groups

.004

.005

.001

.002

.000

02-­of individuals

.024

.014

.010

.004

.001

03-­of primitive church

.000

.002

.007

.002

.001

Totals

.030

.022

.019

.008

.007

007 – Associations

.000

.000

.000

.000

.000

01-­f riendships

.000

.000

.001

.002

.003

02-­members

.000

.000

.000

.004

.000

03-­nonmembers

.000

.002

.004

.000

.000

04-­righteous

.001

.001

.003

.000

.001

05-­w icked

.001

.002

.007

.000

.001

Totals

.002

.005

.015

.006

.005

008 – Atonement (redemption)

.000

.000

.000

.001

.002

01-­universal atonement

.000

.002

.003

.002

.004

Totals

.000

.002

.003

.003

.006

009 – Authority

.002

.001

.001

.000

.001

01-­divine necessity

.006

.004

.009

.005

.005

02-­lack of, in other churches

.000

.004

.003

.001

.000

03-­power

.002

.000

.000

.001

.000

Totals

.010

.009

.013

.007

.006

010 – Baptism

.000

.001

.000

.001

.001

01-­correct method of (immersion)

.001

.002

.003

.000

.000

02-­covenants of

.000

.000

.000

.000

.001

03-­for dead

.006

.002

.002

.000

.001

04-­qualifications for

.000

.001

.000

.000

.000

05-­requisite for salvation

.003

.001

.002

.001

.002

06-­symbolism of

.001

.000

.001

.000

.001

Totals

.011

.007

.008

.002

.006

General Conference Topic Index with Salience Scores for Thirty-­Year Periods, 1830–1979  271

Topic 011 – Beautification

I

II

III

IV

V

1830–59

1860–89

1890–1919

1920–49

1950–79

.000

.000

.001

.000

.001

01-­community

.000

.001

.001

.001

.000

02-­home

.000

.001

.000

.001

.002

Totals

.000

.002

.002

.002

.003

012 – Bible

.000

.001

.001

.000

.000

01-­insufficiency of, errors in

.002

.000

.002

.002

.000

02-­literalism of (word of God)

.001

.001

.000

.000

.000

03-­modern criticism of

.000

.000

.000

.000

.000

04-­study of

.000

.000

.000

.000

.001

Totals

.003

.002

.003

.002

.001

013 – Blessing

.000

.000

.000

.001

.001

01-­administration to sick

.000

.000

.001

.001

.003

02-­father’s

.000

.000

.000

.000

.001

03-­patriarchal

.000

.000

.000

.002

.000

Totals

.000

.000

.001

.004

.005

014 – Blessings

.000

.004

.004

.000

.001

01-­g ratitude for

.009

.011

.047

.019

.016

02-­ingratitude for

.000

.003

.001

.001

.002

03-­spiritual

.000

.003

.005

.001

.002

04-­temporal

.001

.007

.008

.001

.000

05-­as specific rewards

.007

.019

.002

.004

.010

Totals

.017

.047

.067

.026

.031

015 – Body, Physical

.000

.000

.001

.000

.001

01-­purpose of

.000

.001

.000

.001

.001

02-­sanctity of

.000

.000

.000

.003

.001

03-­appetites of flesh

.000

.001

.000

.001

.004

Totals

.000

.002

.001

.005

.007

016 – Book of Mormon

.001

.003

.000

.002

.000

01-­criticisms

.002

.001

.001

.000

.000

02-­discovery of

.006

.000

.002

.001

.001

03-­missionary value of

.000

.000

.000

.002

.005

272  APPENDIX C

Topic 04-­physical evidence for

I

II

III

IV

V

1830–59

1860–89

1890–1919

1920–49

1950–79

.000

.001

.002

.002

.000

05-­scriptual evidence for

.000

.004

.001

.000

.000

06-­study of

.000

.001

.000

.003

.005

07-­w itness for Christ

.000

.000

.002

.002

.002

08-­translation of, by revelation

.001

.000

.003

.003

.001

Totals

.010

.010

.011

.015

.014

017 – Brigham Young

.001

.001

.000

.000

.000

01-­character of

.003

.002

.000

.001

.000

02-­contributions/ accomplishments of

.008

.011

.003

.001

.001

Totals

.012

.014

.003

.002

.001

018 – Brotherhood (fellowmen)

.000

.000

.000

.000

.000

01-­brotherhood of man

.002

.002

.001

.006

.003

02-­church brotherhood

.006

.001

.001

.005

.003

Totals

.008

.003

.002

.011

.006

019 – Business

.000

.004

.000

.002

.000

01-­gentile

.003

.000

.000

.000

.000

02-­honesty in

.000

.001

.000

.000

.000

03-­support of church’s

.000

.002

.003

.001

.000

04-­unethical practice in

.002

.003

.001

.000

.000

Totals

.005

.010

.004

.003

.000

020 – Calamities

.000

.001

.000

.000

.002

01-­as signs of last days

.000

.000

.004

.000

.000

02-­as judgments

.000

.000

.001

.001

.000

Totals

.000

.001

.005

.001

.002

021 – Callings

.000

.002

.001

.000

.000

01-­by inspiration

.000

.002

.003

.000

.001

02-­setting apart

.000

.000

.000

.000

.001

03-­magnification of

.003

.011

.008

.002

.002

04-­acceptance of

.002

.002

.003

.007

.001

05-­worthiness/qualifications for

.000

.000

.001

.003

.000

Totals

.005

.017

.016

.012

.005

General Conference Topic Index with Salience Scores for Thirty-­Year Periods, 1830–1979  273

Topic

I

II

III

IV

V

1830–59

1860–89

1890–1919

1920–49

1950–79

022 – Carnality (flesh)

.001

.000

.000

.000

.002

023 – Catholic Church

.000

.001

.000

.000

.000

01-­authority/claims of

.000

.000

.000

.000

.000

02-­doctrines/practices of

.000

.000

.000

.000

.000

Totals

.000

.001

.000

.000

.000

024 – Celestial Kingdom

.001

.002

.002

.000

.001

01-­as goal

.004

.004

.002

.002

.000

02-­prerequistes for

.001

.007

.004

.005

.004

Totals

.006

.013

.008

.007

.005

025 – Character

.000

.000

.000

.000

.001

01-­development of

.000

.001

.001

.003

.008

02-­traits

.001

.001

.000

.000

.003

03-­anger/temper

.000

.001

.001

.000

.002

04-­complacency

.000

.000

.001

.000

.001

05-­courtesy

.000

.000

.001

.000

.001

06-­dishonesty

.007

.002

.003

.001

.002

07-­envy/covetousness

.004

.005

.003

.003

.001

08-­generosity

.001

.000

.002

.001

.000

09-­g reed

.004

.002

.000

.002

.000

10-­hate

.000

.001

.000

.003

.001

11-­honesty/integrity

.001

.004

.007

.002

.002

12-­humility

.003

.000

.006

.001

.003

13-­hypocrisy

.002

.000

.002

.000

.002

14-­idleness

.000

.003

.003

.002

.000

15-­industriousness

.001

.006

.002

.002

.001

16-­k indness

.000

.000

.000

.000

.001

17-­loyalty

.000

.000

.001

.000

.001

18-­mercy

.000

.000

.000

.000

.000

19-­patience

.000

.004

.003

.002

.004

20-­pride/arrogance

.002

.001

.000

.000

.002

21-­resentment

.000

.000

.000

.000

.002

22-­selfishness

.003

.003

.001

.005

.006

23-­self-­discipline

.003

.004

.001

.006

.006

274  APPENDIX C

Topic

I

II

III

IV

V

1830–59

1860–89

1890–1919

1920–49

1950–79

24-­soberness

.003

.000

.001

.000

.000

25-­talents

.000

.002

.000

.000

.000

26-­sharing

.000

.002

.000

.003

.006

27-­excuse making

.000

.000

.000

.000

.002

28-­moral courage

.000

.005

.006

.004

.005

29-­self-­righteousness

.005

.002

.002

.000

.000

30-­compassion

.003

.001

.002

.004

.002

31-­ingratitude

.001

.000

.000

.000

.000

32-­discouragement

.001

.000

.000

.000

.003

33-­improvement

.001

.004

.001

.000

.002

34-­fear (alarm/worry)

.000

.005

.000

.000

.001

35-­habits

.000

.000

.001

.000

.002

36-­preparation/preparedness

.001

.002

.000

.001

.001

37-­self-­respect

.000

.000

.000

.000

.003

38-­judging others

.007

.000

.000

.000

.001

Totals

.055

.061

.051

.045

.078

026 – Charity

.002

.003

.002

.003

.001

027 – Chastity

.002

.001

.005

.001

.005

028 – Children

.000

.000

.002

.002

.001

01-­damnation/innocence of

.000

.000

.008

.000

.000

02-­honor/obedience to parents

.002

.001

.003

.001

.004

03-­neglect of/abuse of

.000

.000

.000

.000

.001

Totals

.002

.001

.013

.003

.006

029 – Christianity

.000

.000

.000

.001

.000

01-­belief in

.000

.000

.001

.002

.002

02-­as fellowship with other faiths

.000

.001

.000

.001

.003

03-­opposition of, to church

.004

.004

.002

.000

.000

04-­confusion/error within

.005

.008

.005

.007

.004

05-­hypocrisy of churches

.003

.005

.000

.000

.000

06-­loss of fundamental beliefs

.002

.002

.000

.001

.002

Totals

.014

.020

.008

.012

.011

General Conference Topic Index with Salience Scores for Thirty-­Year Periods, 1830–1979  275

Topic

I

II

III

IV

V

1830–59

1860–89

1890–1919

1920–49

1950–79

030 – Church, Building and Finances

.000

.000

.000

.000

.000

01-­buildings, construction of

.001

.005

.005

.005

.001

02-­chapel facilities, utilization/ maintenance of

.001

.000

.000

.001

.001

03-­f inances

.014

.000

.004

.010

.001

04-­properties/business

.000

.000

.005

.005

.000

Totals

.016

.005

.014

.021

.003

031 – Church Divinity

.001

.013

.010

.002

.003

01-­God’s guidance of

.030

.021

.020

.010

.004

02-­correct name of

.002

.000

.000

.003

.000

03-­one true church

.003

.003

.008

.003

.006

04-­church mission/purpose

.002

.010

.016

.009

.004

05-­true church, characteristics of

.000

.004

.001

.003

.005

06-­invalid authority claims

.000

.000

.003

.001

.000

07-­the primitive church

.000

.000

.005

.002

.004

Totals

.038

.051

.063

.033

.026

032 – Church Government

.007

.005

.000

.002

.000

01-­offices in

.003

.005

.005

.000

.002

02-­apostles, authority/duties of

.035

.011

.007

.000

.001

03-­First Presidency, authority/ duties of

.007

.001

.006

.000

.000

04-­First Presidency, reorganization of/succession in

.013

.008

.001

.001

.000

05-­local officers, authority/duties of

.013

.012

.011

.001

.001

06-­other general authorities, authority/duties of

.005

.001

.006

.000

.000

07-­theocracy

.001

.007

.000

.000

.000

08-­based on priesthood

.007

.003

.004

.001

.003

Totals

.091

.053

.040

.005

.007

033 – Church Growth

.010

.004

.016

.013

.008

01-­in foreign lands

.005

.001

.000

.018

.018

02-­international scope

.001

.000

.000

.002

.006

Totals

.016

.005

.016

.033

.032

276  APPENDIX C

Topic 034 – Church History

I

II

III

IV

V

1830–59

1860–89

1890–1919

1920–49

1950–79

.000

.000

.000

.000

.000

01-­study of

.001

.002

.002

.010

.005

02-­in Kirtland

.001

.002

.002

.000

.001

03-­in Missouri

.003

.000

.003

.002

.000

04-­in Nauvoo

.003

.000

.003

.007

.001

Totals

.008

.004

.010

.019

.007

035 – Church Organization (programs)

.000

.001

.001

.003

.002

01-­auxiliary organizations

.000

.002

.011

.006

.005

02-­M. I. A.

.000

.000

.002

.001

.001

03-­Primary

.000

.000

.000

.001

.003

04-­Relief Society

.003

.002

.002

.001

.001

05-­Sunday School

.000

.000

.002

.001

.000

06-­development of/challenges in

.001

.004

.000

.000

.000

07-­lay basis of

.000

.000

.000

.001

.000

08-­perfection of

.000

.004

.011

.001

.002

Totals

.004

.013

.029

.015

.014

036 – Church Reputation and Publicity 01-­favorable reputation/publicity

.000

.000

.000

.000

.000

.003

.001

.023

.026

.011

02-­praiseworthy accomplishments

.000

.000

.002

.007

.000

03-­public relations efforts

.000

.001

.001

.002

.002

04-­unfavorable reputation/publicity

.001

.006

.008

.004

.003

Totals

.004

.008

.034

.039

.016

037 – Citizenship

.000

.000

.000

.000

.000

01-­blessings of

.000

.000

.000

.000

.001

02-­responsibilities of

.000

.000

.002

.003

.005

03-­rights, deprivation of

.000

.002

.002

.002

.000

04-­rights of

.000

.001

.001

.000

.001

Totals

.000

.003

.005

.005

.007

038 – Cleanliness

.000

.001

.000

.000

.000

039 – Colonization

.003

.001

.002

.000

.000

01-­leadership necessary for

.000

.002

.001

.000

.000

02-­plans for

.019

.001

.001

.000

.000

03-­progress/achievements of

.002

.009

.004

.000

.000

General Conference Topic Index with Salience Scores for Thirty-­Year Periods, 1830–1979  277

Topic

I

II

III

IV

V

1830–59

1860–89

1890–1919

1920–49

1950–79

04-­problems of

.000

.002

.000

.000

.000

Totals

.024

.015

.008

.000

.000

040 – Commandments

.000

.003

.000

.002

.001

01-­eternal nature of

.000

.000

.000

.001

.006

02-­modern commandments

.000

.002

.000

.000

.000

03-­superiority of to laws of man

.000

.006

.001

.000

.001

04-­ten commandments

.000

.000

.000

.001

.002

Totals

.000

.011

.001

.004

.010

041 – Communism

.000

.001

.000

.000

.001

01-­evils/threat of

.000

.000

.000

.000

.006

02-­v igilance against

.000

.000

.000

.000

.001

Totals

.000

.001

.000

.000

.008

042 – Community

.000

.001

.000

.001

.000

01-­participation in affairs of

.000

.001

.000

.000

.000

Totals

.000

.002

.000

.001

.000

043 – Confession

.000

.006

.000

.000

.000

044 – Consecration, Law of

.006

.005

.003

.001

.000

045 – Conspiracy

.000

.000

.000

.000

.000

01-­ancient

.000

.001

.000

.000

.000

02-­modern

.000

.003

.001

.000

.000

Totals

.000

.004

.001

.000

.000

046 – Conversion

.001

.000

.005

.006

.005

047 – Converts

.002

.000

.002

.000

.000

01-­fellowshiping of

.002

.002

.000

.000

.001

02-­problems of

.002

.000

.000

.000

.000

03-­unrealistic expectations of

.002

.001

.001

.000

.000

Totals

.008

.003

.003

.000

.001 .000

048 – Counsel

.000

.000

.000

.000

01-­of church leaders

.005

.011

.012

.007

.005

02-­of general authorities

.010

.006

.019

.006

.002

278  APPENDIX C

Topic 03-­of local authorities 04-­of parents

I

II

III

IV

V

1830–59

1860–89

1890–1919

1920–49

1950–79

.000 .000

.000 .000

.005 .002

.000 .000

.001 .001

05-­political

.001

.000

.005

.000

.001

06-­temporal/economic

.020

.021

.006

.002

.001

07-­temporal/economic, rejection of

.002

.003

.000

.000

.000

Totals

.048

.041

.049

.015

.011

049 – Courtship

.000

.000

.000

.000

.000

050 – Covenants

.002

.003

.002

.001

.000

01-­v iolation of

.002

.002

.000

.000

.001

02-­honor, uphold

.002

.008

.005

.000

.003

Totals

.006

.013

.007

.001

.004

051 – Creation

.000

.000

.000

.000

.000

01-­of man

.002

.000

.000

.003

.002

02-­of earth/universe

.002

.001

.001

.007

.003

Totals

.004

.001

.001

.010

.005

052 – Crime

.000

.000

.001

.001

.001

01-­increase in

.000

.001

.000

.000

.000

02-­lack of, among Saints

.000

.001

.000

.001

.000

03-­prevalence of, among gentiles

.000

.001

.000

.000

.000

Totals

.000

.003

.001

.002

.001

053 – Death

.001

.000

.000

.000

.000

01-­of church leaders

.000

.004

.007

.003

.002

02-­physical

.000

.001

.001

.000

.004

03-­spiritual

.000

.000

.003

.000

.000

04-­belief in life after

.001

.002

.001

.001

.014

05-­disbelief in life after

.000

.000

.000

.000

.002

Totals

.002

.007

.012

.004

.022

054 – Debt

.001

.000

.000

.003

.001

01-­church

.005

.000

.001

.001

.000

02-­individual

.002

.000

.010

.004

.000

03-­paying back of

.011

.001

.003

.002

.000

04-­borrowing

.000

.000

.002

.000

.000

Totals

.019

.001

.016

.010

.001

General Conference Topic Index with Salience Scores for Thirty-­Year Periods, 1830–1979  279

Topic

I

II

III

IV

V

1830–59

1860–89

1890–1919

1920–49

1950–79

055 – Disobedience (rebelliousness) 01-­punishment for

.002 .013

.006 .012

.002 .011

.004 .001

.010 .019

Totals

.015

.018

.013

.005

.029

056 – Disunity

.000

.009

.004

.000

.003

01-­complaining

.010

.001

.000

.000

.000

02-­contention

.010

.002

.003

.000

.001

03-­criticism of leadership

.003

.004

.014

.002

.004

04-­disloyalty to leadership

.003

.002

.001

.000

.000

05-­fault-­f inding

.002

.004

.004

.001

.002

06-­economic

.000

.001

.001

.000

.000

Totals

.028

.023

.027

.003

.010

057 – Doctrine

.000

.000

.000

.001

.004

01-­false

.002

.000

.002

.005

.000

02-­mysteries of

.009

.001

.000

.000

.000

Totals

.011

.001

.002

.006

.004

058 – Duty, Church

.009

.020

.025

.005

.002

059 – Earth

.000

.001

.000

.000

.000

01-­celestialization (redemption of)

.001

.002

.000

.001

.001

02-­curse of

.001

.000

.000

.000

.000

03-­ecology of

.000

.001

.000

.000

.000

Totals

.002

.004

.000

.001

.001

060 – Economy

.000

.000

.000

.000

.000

01-­conditions of, larger society

.000

.003

.000

.015

.000

02-­depression

.000

.000

.001

.001

.000

03-­economic/temporal cooperation Totals

.001

.032

.001

.006

.000

.001

.035

.002

.022

.000

061 – Eden, Garden of

.000

.000

.000

.001

.001

062 – Education

.000

.002

.000

.000

.000

01-­of church to world

.004

.000

.010

.009

.004

02-­schoolteachers, atheistic

.000

.001

.000

.002

.000

03-­secular, value of

.001

.006

.000

.001

.002

04-­secular, dangers of

.000

.003

.000

.002

.001

05-­seminary, institute programs

.000

.001

.001

.000

.000

280  APPENDIX C

Topic 06-­self-­education

I

II

III

IV

V

1830–59

1860–89

1890–1919

1920–49

1950–79

.000

.002

.000

.001

.000

07-­f inancial support of

.000

.004

.001

.001

.000

08-­gentile schools

.000

.002

.000

.000

.000

09-­high level among Mormons

.000

.001

.003

.001

.000

10-­church schools

.001

.000

.001

.001

.002

Totals

.006

.022

.016

.018

.009

063 – Election (foreordination)

.001

.008

.001

.000

.003

01-­covenant/chosen people

.008

.008

.001

.000

.001

Totals

.009

.016

.002

.000

.004

064 – Emigration

.001

.001

.000

.000

.000

01-­converts, emigration of

.017

.001

.000

.000

.000

02-­Perpetual Emigration Fund

.014

.009

.000

.000

.000

03-­preparations for

.006

.000

.000

.000

.000

Totals

.038

.011

.000

.000

.000

065 – Endurance (faithfulness)

.010

.006

.009

.004

.002

066 – Enemies

.001

.003

.001

.000

.001

01-­charity for

.002

.007

.008

.000

.000

02-­destruction of

.006

.003

.000

.000

.000

03-­forgiveness of

.002

.000

.001

.000

.000

04-­God’s protection from

.011

.020

.002

.000

.000

05-­k nowledge of

.000

.000

.002

.000

.001

06-­lies of

.017

.017

.019

.005

.000

07-­punishment of

.007

.006

.000

.000

.000

08-­defend selves against

.014

.005

.002

.000

.000

Totals

.060

.061

.035

.005

.002

067 – Equality

.003

.000

.001

.000

.000

01-­inequality

.000

.000

.005

.000

.000

Totals

.003

.000

.006

.000

.000

068 – Eternal Life (immorality)

.009

.007

.004

.008

.015

01-­increasing posterity

.000

.001

.001

.000

.001

Totals

.009

.008

.005

.008

.016

General Conference Topic Index with Salience Scores for Thirty-­Year Periods, 1830–1979  281

Topic

I

II

III

IV

V

1830–59

1860–89

1890–1919

1920–49

1950–79

069 – Exaltation

.001

.003

.011

.003

.003

070 – Example

.000

.002

.002

.003

.002

01-­of church to world

.004

.000

.010

.009

.004

02-­of members to neighbors/ nonmember

.003

.001

.007

.004

.002

Totals

.007

.003

.019

.016

.008

071 – Excommunication

.007

.002

.001

.001

.000

01-­disfellowship

.004

.002

.002

.000

.000

Totals

.011

.004

.003

.001

.000

072 – Farming (agriculture)

.001

.002

.000

.002

.000

01-­methods of

.003

.003

.002

.003

.001

02-­v irtues of

.000

.001

.000

.007

.001

03-­care of stock

.002

.003

.001

.000

.000

Totals

.006

.009

.003

.012

.002

073 – Faith

.003

.007

.007

.006

.006

01-­in God

.000

.014

.010

.011

.009

02-­in Christ

.000

.000

.002

.001

.002

03-­w ithout works

.000

.000

.001

.002

.000

Totals

.003

.021

.020

.020

.017

074 – Family

.000

.000

.000

.000

.000

01-­as basic social unit

.000

.000

.000

.004

.005

02-­breakdown of

.000

.000

.000

.000

.001

03-­divine institution of/eternal nature of

.000

.001

.006

.001

.010

04-­righteousness in

.002

.001

.001

.002

.006

05-­strengthening of

.001

.000

.010

.004

.010

06-­temporal caring for

.007

.002

.001

.000

.000

07-­protection of

.000

.002

.000

.000

.000

08-­secular threats against

.000

.000

.000

.000

.002

Totals

.010

.006

.018

.011

.034

075 – Family Home Evening

.000

.000

.000

.000

.001

282  APPENDIX C

Topic 076 – Fasting

I

II

III

IV

V

1830–59

1860–89

1890–1919

1920–49

1950–79

.000

.000

.000

.001

.001

01-­fast offerings

.000

.001

.004

.004

.000

Totals

.000

.001

.004

.005

.001

077 – Fatherhood

.000

.000

.000

.002

.002

078 – Finances, Personal

.000

.000

.000

.000

.001

01-­living within income

.000

.000

.001

.001

.001

02-­thrift/savings

.000

.002

.002

.003

.000

Totals

.000

.002

.003

.004

.002

079 – Food Storage

.006

.001

.001

.001

.001

080 – Forgiveness

.000

.000

.000

.001

.000

01-­for offenses of others

.008

.003

.002

.000

.002

02-­of God for men

.006

.006

.002

.002

.001

03-­seeking of, for self

.000

.000

.000

.002

.001

Totals

.014

.009

.004

.005

.004

.005

.009

.009

.012

.010

081 – Free Agency (accountability) 01-­coercion

.001

.004

.003

.004

.003

Totals

.006

.013

.012

.016

.013

082 – Freedom

.001

.001

.000

.002

.005

01-­blessing of in U.S.

.001

.001

.003

.002

.004

02-­limits of

.000

.003

.002

.000

.000

03-­need to defend

.001

.000

.000

.000

.005

04-­political freedom 05-­political freedom, threats against 06-­religious freedom 07-­religious freedom, threats against 08-­of gospel

.001

.001

.004

.001

.001

.002

.007

.003

.000

.000

09-­threats against

.002

.002

.001

.002

.005

Totals

.013

.027

.016

.009

.021

083 – Gathering

.004

.011

.004

.001

.000

01-­physical

.038

.023

.019

.001

.000

.000

.001

.000

.001

.000

.002

.006

.003

.001

.001

.003

.005

.000

.000

.000

General Conference Topic Index with Salience Scores for Thirty-­Year Periods, 1830–1979  283

Topic 02-­spiritual

I

II

III

IV

V

1830–59

1860–89

1890–1919

1920–49

1950–79

.000

.001

.004

.000

.000

03-­non-­Zion/Utah residence

.000

.000

.006

.000

.000

Totals

.042

.035

.033

.002

.000

084 – Genealogy

.000

.001

.004

.006

.004

085 – General Authorities 01-­contributions/ accomplishments of 02-­health of

.000

.000

.000

.000

.000

.002

.003

.017

.005

.005

.001

.000

.001

.007

.001

03-­as servants of God

.005

.007

.013

.006

.002

04-­temporal reimbursement of

.001

.000

.000

.000

.000

Totals

.009

.010

.031

.018

.008

086 – Gentiles

.004

.000

.000

.000

.000

01-­conspiracies of

.002

.009

.000

.000

.000

02-­distrust of

.005

.002

.000

.000

.000

03-­lies of

.000

.003

.000

.000

.000

04-­merchants, trade with

.008

.017

.000

.000

.000

05-­sexual immorality of

.000

.003

.000

.000

.000

06-­w ickedness of

.006

.006

.000

.000

.000

07-­righteousness among 08-­opposition of to truth, Kingdom of God 09-­punishment of

.005

.005

.001

.000

.000

.003

.015

.000

.000

.000

.003

.002

.000

.000

.000

10-­charity for

.002

.003

.000

.000

.000

11-­refuse to help Mormons

.000

.003

.000

.000

.000

12-­envy of

.000

.000

.000

.000

.000

Totals

.038

.068

.001

.000

.000

087 – God, character of

.001

.000

.000

.000

.000

01-­attributes

.005

.007

.006

.012

.006

02-­false conceptions of

.001

.002

.003

.004

.002

03-­love of

.000

.001

.001

.002

.003

04-­plurality of

.001

.001

.000

.000

.000

05-­worship of

.002

.000

.003

.002

.006

06-­Trinity/Godhead

.000

.000

.001

.000

.001

Totals

.010

.011

.014

.020

.018

284  APPENDIX C

Topic 088 – God, Will/Plan of

I

II

III

IV

V

1830–59

1860–89

1890–1919

1920–49

1950–79

.024

.029

.006

.007

.007

01-­dependency of man on

.002

.010

.004

.005

.005

02-­intervention in human affairs

.001

.004

.004

.002

.008

03-­promises of to Saints

.007

.010

.004

.000

.004

04-­assistance of

.003

.010

.006

.003

.002

Totals

.037

.063

.024

.017

.026

089 – Godhood

.004

.002

.001

.000

.001

090 – Gospel

.001

.002

.001

.002

.000

01-­application of

.001

.015

.008

.018

.008

02-­investigation/acceptance of

.001

.003

.004

.006

.010

03-­preached to all nations

.009

.016

.026

.011

.004

04-­rejection of

.002

.010

.013

.007

.001

05-­principles of

.004

.007

.005

.005

.005

06-­failure to live

.000

.003

.006

.001

.005

Totals

.018

.056

.063

.050

.033

091 – Gossip (backbiting, slander)

.002

.000

.000

.000

.000

092 – Government, Secular

.002

.001

.000

.000

.000

01-­correct principles of

.000

.005

.002

.003

.003

02-­democracy

.001

.003

.000

.001

.001

03-­international policy of

.000

.000

.002

.003

.001

04-­officials, corruption of

.002

.009

.001

.000

.000

05-­officials, duties of

.001

.002

.000

.000

.000

06-­officials, failure to protect Saints

.010

.003

.000

.000

.000

07-­officials, lack of faith in God

.000

.000

.000

.000

.001

08-­officials, qualities of

.000

.000

.001

.001

.002

09-­separation of church and state

.001

.004

.001

.000

.001

10-­weakness of

.002

.003

.001

.000

.000

11-­w ickedness of

.003

.002

.000

.000

.000

12-­aid/assistance from

.002

.000

.000

.002

.000

13-­taxation

.000

.000

.000

.000

.000

14-­support of

.000

.000

.001

.003

.000

Totals

.024

.032

.009

.013

.009

General Conference Topic Index with Salience Scores for Thirty-­Year Periods, 1830–1979  285

Topic

I

II

III

IV

V

1830–59

1860–89

1890–1919

1920–49

1950–79

093 – Guilt (remorse)

.000

.002

.000

.000

.000

094 –Happiness (joy)

.003

.005

.001

.010

.007

095 – Health

.000

.000

.000

.000

.000

01-­doctors

.000

.002

.000

.000

.000

02-­of LDS

.000

.000

.000

.001

.000

03-­sickness

.002

.001

.000

.000

.000

Totals

.002

.003

.000

.001

.000

096 – Heaven

.000

.001

.001

.002

.000

01-­degrees of glory

.002

.003

.004

.000

.001

02-­false conception of

.001

.001

.000

.000

.000

Totals

.003

.005

.005

.002

.001

097 – Hell

.001

.000

.001

.000

.000

01-­damnation

.002

.003

.001

.000

.001

02-­false conceptions of

.000

.000

.000

.000

.000

03-­perdition, sons of

.003

.000

.000

.000

.000

04-­reality of

.000

.000

.000

.000

.000

Totals

.006

.003

.002

.000

.001

098 – Holy Ghost/Spirit

.005

.009

.004

.002

.000

01-­g ift of (conscience/Comforter)

.014

.017

.004

.016

.009

02-­Godhead, member of

.000

.000

.000

.000

.000

03-­sin against

.000

.001

.001

.001

.000

Totals

.019

.027

.009

.019

.009

099 – Indians (Lamanites)

.002

.001

.000

.000

.001

01-­ancestry of

.000

.000

.000

.001

.000

02-­curse of 03-­pacification of/forbearance toward 04-­promises to

.000

.000

.000

.000

.001

.000

.001

.000

.000

.000

.001

.001

.000

.000

.005

05-­responsibility of church toward

.005

.001

.000

.000

.007

06-­progress of

.000

.000

.000

.000

.000

Totals

.008

.004

.000

.001

.014

286  APPENDIX C

Topic 100 – Individuality

I

II

III

IV

V

1830–59

1860–89

1890–1919

1920–49

1950–79

.000

.001

.000

.000

.000

01-­individual(s), value of

.000

.001

.000

.000

.005

02-­regimentation, problem of

.000

.001

.000

.000

.000

Totals

.000

.003

.000

.000

.005

101 – Industry

.000

.004

.000

.000

.000

01-­home manufacture

.005

.022

.003

.000

.000

02-­mining/mineral resources

.002

.005

.002

.000

.000

03-­home industry, patronization of

.000

.008

.001

.002

.000

Totals

.007

.039

.006

.002

.000

102 – Inspiration

.001

.000

.006

.000

.000

01-­members entitled to

.005

.002

.006

.004

.002

02-­of church leaders

.001

.004

.006

.006

.001

03-­of secular leaders

.000

.001

.000

.000

.000

Totals

.007

.007

.018

.010

.003

103 – Intelligence

.004

.001

.000

.001

.001

104 – Israel (Jews)

.005

.000

.000

.000

.002

01-­house of

.003

.001

.001

.000

.001

02-­Jews, restoration of

.009

.002

.008

.001

.000

03-­Jews, scattering of

.001

.001

.001

.001

.000

04-­LDS as modern

.004

.001

.001

.000

.001

Totals

.022

.005

.011

.002

.004

105 – Jesus Christ

.002

.001

.000

.001

.000

01-­appearance in America of

.000

.001

.000

.002

.001

02-­as Creator/Jehovah

.001

.000

.001

.002

.001

03-­character of/attributes

.003

.001

.003

.001

.014

04-­correct date of birth

.000

.000

.000

.000

.000

05-­divinity of

.002

.003

.013

.007

.020

06-­divinity, rejection of

.000

.000

.003

.003

.003

07-­literal resurrection of

.003

.000

.001

.007

.010

08-­millennial reign of

.005

.005

.008

.001

.001

09-­mission to spirit world of

.002

.002

.003

.001

.001

10-­salvation/redemption through

.003

.004

.011

.009

.016

General Conference Topic Index with Salience Scores for Thirty-­Year Periods, 1830–1979  287

Topic 11-­way of life, example of

I

II

III

IV

V

1830–59

1860–89

1890–1919

1920–49

1950–79

.006

.003

.005

.002

.018

12-­way of life, rejection of

.001

.000

.000

.000

.002

13-­teachings of

.006

.002

.002

.006

.017

14-­prophecies of

.002

.000

.000

.000

.000

Totals

.036

.022

.050

.042

.104

106 – Joseph Smith

.001

.000

.000

.000

.000

01-­belief in as prophet

.027

.023

.029

.021

.004

02-­contributions/accomplishments of

.017

.010

.013

.013

.004

03-­credibility/character, attacks on

.012

.002

.002

.004

.000

04-­f irst vision of

.000

.002

.002

.005

.003

05-­martyrdom of

.010

.004

.006

.001

.001

06-­persecutions of

.007

.006

.007

.002

.000

07-­prophecies of (and revelations)

.022

.022

.016

.010

.004

08-­f uture role of

.001

.001

.001

.000

.000

09-­characteristics of

.007

.002

.003

.007

.001

10-­teachings of

.004

.004

.002

.003

.006

Totals

.108

.076

.081

.066

.023

107 – Judgment Day

.003

.001

.001

.001

.000

01-­assignment to kingdoms

.001

.001

.001

.001

.001

02-­nearness of

.000

.001

.001

.000

.000

03-­punishment of wicked

.001

.004

.001

.000

.001

Totals

.005

.007

.004

.002

.002

108 – Justice

.003

.000

.001

.000

.000

01-­divine

.001

.001

.005

.000

.001

02-­injustice

.000

.000

.001

.000

.000

03-­secular

.008

.001

.001

.000

.000

Totals

.012

.002

.008

.000

.001

109 – Kingdom of God

.014

.022

.001

.001

.004

01-­establishment of in last days

.028

.033

.006

.001

.003

02-­sacrifices in building up

.022

.021

.004

.002

.001

03-­spiritual aspects of

.003

.001

.003

.000

.000

288  APPENDIX C

Topic 04-­submission of nations to

I

II

III

IV

V

1830–59

1860–89

1890–1919

1920–49

1950–79

.013

.016

.003

.000

.001

05-­temporal aspects of

.022

.019

.001

.000

.000

06-­ultimate triumph of

.012

.039

.011

.000

.001

Totals

.114

.151

.029

.004

.010

110 – Knowledge

.002

.001

.000

.000

.001

01-­experience

.000

.000

.000

.000

.001

02-­ignorance

.001

.004

.000

.000

.000

03-­obedience

.000

.003

.003

.000

.007

04-­of men, limitations of

.002

.008

.003

.003

.004

05-­philosophy of men

.001

.005

.002

.002

.004

06-­reason

.000

.000

.002

.001

.001

07-­requisite for salvation

.001

.002

.002

.001

.000

08-­revelation

.005

.013

.008

.006

.000

09-­spiritual (of gospel)

.003

.021

.014

.010

.006

10-­sudy/struggle (quest)

.001

.003

.001

.002

.002

11-­learning process

.000

.000

.001

.000

.006

Totals

.016

.060

.036

.025

.032

111 – Last Days

.008

.001

.000

.001

.000

01-­destruction of wicked in

.011

.014

.004

.001

.002

02-­events of

.015

.016

.005

.005

.006

03-­prophecies fulfilled/evidence of

.010

.015

.007

.003

.003

04-­return to Jackson County

.000

.003

.004

.000

.000

05-­preparation for

.000

.002

.005

.000

.000

Totals

.044

.051

.025

.010

.011

112 – Law

.000

.000

.000

.000

.002

01-­civil, submission to

.002

.007

.003

.003

.006

02-­constitutionality of 03-­lawlessness (civil disobedience, protest demonstrations) 04-­lawsuits

.000

.003

.001

.000

.000

.001

.005

.002

.003

.005

.001

.001

.000

.000

.000

05-­lawyers

.003

.000

.000

.000

.000

06-­majority rights, protection of

.000

.001

.000

.000

.000

07-­minority rights, protection of

.000

.003

.001

.000

.000

08-­respect for

.001

.000

.001

.003

.001

General Conference Topic Index with Salience Scores for Thirty-­Year Periods, 1830–1979  289

Topic

I

II

III

IV

V

1830–59

1860–89

1890–1919

1920–49

1950–79

09-­unjust/unrighteous, resistance to

.000

.011

.000

.000

.002

10-­order/control

.005

.005

.001

.002

.007

11-­courts, actions of

.000

.003

.000

.000

.000

12-­legal protest against

.000

.003

.000

.000

.001

Totals

.013

.042

.009

.011

.024

113 – Leadership

.001

.001

.001

.000

.000

01-­skills/development of

.000

.003

.001

.001

.007

02-­sustaining of church

.020

.009

.023

.007

.003

Totals

.021

.013

.025

.008

.010

114 – Love (Compassion)

.002

.000

.009

.003

.004

115 – Man

.000

.000

.000

.000

.000

01-­divine origin of

.000

.007

.002

.005

.011

02-­manliness/masculinity

.000

.002

.003

.000

.000

03-­perfectibility of

.002

.009

.006

.002

.007

04-­sinful nature of (natural man)

.001

.003

.001

.001

.002

05-­goodness of

.000

.001

.000

.000

.005

06-­male rights/responsibilities

.000

.002

.002

.000

.002

Totals

.003

.024

.014

.008

.027

116 – Marriage

.001

.002

.006

.001

.002

01-­appreciation of wives

.000

.000

.001

.001

.006

02-­divorce

.000

.001

.001

.000

.003

03-­f idelity in

.000

.001

.000

.000

.002

04-­infidelity

.002

.000

.000

.001

.001

05-­interfaith

.000

.000

.000

.000

.000

06-­love of spouse

.000

.000

.000

.000

.000

07-­monogamy

.000

.001

.001

.000

.005

08-­postponement of

.000

.003

.000

.000

.000

09-­sacredness of

.000

.003

.000

.000

.000

10-­spouse abuse

.000

.002

.002

.000

.004

11-­sustaining of husbands

.000

.000

.000

.000

.000

12-­temple, blessings of

.001

.001

.000

.001

.002

13-­temple, eternal nature of

.000

.000

.000

.000

.003

290  APPENDIX C

Topic

I

II

III

IV

V

1830–59

1860–89

1890–1919

1920–49

1950–79

14-­temple, preparation for

.000

.004

.003

.001

.012

15-­husband authority

.000

.000

.001

.000

.001

Totals

.004

.018

.015

.005

.041

117 – Millennium

.001

.004

.001

.000

.002

01-­conditions in

.004

.000

.002

.000

.001

02-­nearness of

.000

.001

.003

.000

.000

Totals

.005

.005

.006

.000

.003

118 – Miracles

.000

.000

.000

.000

.000

01-­harmony of with natural law

.001

.001

.000

.000

.001

02-­reality of

.000

.000

.004

.002

.000

03-­insufficiency of, for faith

.000

.002

.000

.000

.000

04-­denial of

.000

.000

.000

.000

.000

Totals

.001

.003

.004

.002

.001

119 – Missionary Work

.032

.008

.009

.009

.007

01-­blessings of

.002

.002

.000

.002

.005

02-­commitment of LDS to

.001

.001

.017

.010

.003

03-­f inancial support of

.003

.004

.004

.001

.001

04-­hardships of

.001

.003

.000

.001

.001

05-­in spirit world

.001

.003

.002

.001

.000

06-­member missionary program(s) .000 07-­missionaries, called by .001 revelation 08-­missionaries, spiritual growth of .000

.002

.009

.009

.007

.001

.002

.003

.000

.004

.001

.004

.005

09-­missionaries, training of

.000

.001

.005

.005

.003

10-­missionaries, worthiness of

.001

.003

.009

.005

.003

11-­of LDS servicemen

.000

.000

.000

.001

.004

12-­preparation for

.001

.006

.013

.002

.003

13-­progress of

.004

.005

.025

.022

.010

14-­testimony-­building experiences

.003

.002

.001

.011

.007

15-­by example

.001

.001

.007

.002

.000

16-­missionaries, health/safety of

.000

.000

.001

.003

.00

Totals

.051

.046

.105

.091

.057

120 – Modesty (dress, standards)

.000

.000

.000

.000

.000

01-­immodesty

.000

.000

.002

.000

.000

Totals

.000

.000

.002

.000

.000

General Conference Topic Index with Salience Scores for Thirty-­Year Periods, 1830–1979  291

Topic

I

II

III

IV

V

1830–59

1860–89

1890–1919

1920–49

1950–79

121 – Morality

.000

.000

.003

.002

.003

01-­relativism

.000

.000

.000

.000

.000

Totals

.000

.000

.003

.002

.003

122 – Mormonism

.001

.002

.005

.001

.004

01-­only system of salvation

.001

.002

.001

.002

.000

Totals

.002

.004

.006

.003

.004

123 – Mortality

.000

.001

.000

.000

.003

01-­experience gained in

.000

.003

.011

.003

.004

02-­probationary state of

.002

.006

.007

.006

.005

03-­blessings of

.000

.000

.000

.000

.001

Totals

.002

.010

.018

.009

.013

124 – Motherhood

.000

.000

.000

.002

.005

01-­working mothers

.000

.000

.000

.000

.005

Totals

.000

.000

.000

.002

.010

125 – Murder

.000

.001

.000

.000

.000

01-­abortion

.000

.007

.000

.000

.002

02-­capital punishment

.000

.000

.000

.001

.000

Totals

.000

.008

.000

.001

.002

126 – Music

.000

.001

.000

.000

.000

01-­Tabernacle Choir

.000

.000

.003

.003

.002

02-­spiritual/worship aspects of

.000

.000

.002

.002

.000

Totals

.000

.001

.005

.005

.002

127 – Negroes

.000

.000

.000

.000

.000

01-­slavery

.000

.001

.000

.000

.000

Totals

.000

.001

.000

.000

.000

128 – Obedience

.000

.003

.003

.001

.005

01-­blessings of

.019

.026

.029

.026

.016

02-­to commandments

.021

.023

.024

.020

.019

03-­to gospel 04-­to priesthood authority/church leaders 05-­to law

.005

.010

.019

.008

.004

.019

.017

.008

.001

.005

.000

.001

.001

.001

.000

Totals

.064

.080

.084

.057

.049

292  APPENDIX C

Topic

I

II

III

IV

V

1830–59

1860–89

1890–1919

1920–49

1950–79

129 – Opposition

.002

.003

.001

.000

.002

130 – Ordinances

.007

.000

.002

.000

.000

131 – Parenthood

.000

.001

.001

.000

.000

01-­birth control

.000

.001

.001

.001

.002

02-­procreation

.000

.002

.005

.002

.003

03-­teaching children

.001

.004

.001

.002

.008

04-­attendance at meetings

.001

.002

.001

.000

.000

05-­character development

.000

.002

.000

.000

.001

06-­chastity

.000

.001

.003

.000

.002

07-­courtesy

.001

.000

.000

.000

.000

08-­dating

.000

.000

.000

.001

.000

09-­domestic skills (girls)

.000

.001

.002

.000

.000

10-­education (secular)

.001

.007

.000

.000

.000

11-­f riends

.000

.000

.002

.000

.000

12-­gospel principles

.004

.010

.026

.007

.014

13-­industriousness

.000

.004

.003

.000

.001

14-­marital obligations

.000

.000

.000

.000

.002

15-­marriage within church

.000

.000

.000

.000

.000

16-­modesty

.002

.000

.001

.001

.000

17-­obedience to law

.000

.000

.001

.000

.002

18-­obedience to priesthood

.000

.002

.007

.002

.000

19-­pioneer heritage

.000

.001

.000

.000

.000

20-­respect teachers

.000

.000

.000

.000

.000

21-­temple marriage

.000

.000

.001

.000

.003

22-­tithing

.002

.000

.001

.002

.000

23-­Word of Wisdom

.002

.000

.003

.000

.000

24-­disciplining/teaching faith to children

.000

.000

.000

.000

.003

25-­obedience to parents

.000

.002

.001

.002

.003

26-­mission preparation

.000

.002

.001

.000

.000

27-­prayer

.001

.004

.001

.000

.000

28-­importance of example

.001

.002

.007

.000

.010

29-­f rugality/thrift

.000

.000

.000

.000

.000

30-­affection/love for children

.000

.000

.001

.000

.003

Totals

.016

.048

.070

.020

.057

General Conference Topic Index with Salience Scores for Thirty-­Year Periods, 1830–1979  293

Topic

I

II

III

IV

V

1830–59

1860–89

1890–1919

1920–49

1950–79

132 – Patriarchal Order

.000

.001

.000

.000

.003

133 – Patriotism

.002

.001

.002

.001

.002

134 – Peace

.000

.000

.001

.000

.002

01-­among nations

.000

.000

.004

.010

.002

02-­of mind/spirit

.000

.000

.000

.006

.005

Totals

.000

.000

.005

.016

.009

135 – Perfection

.000

.004

.004

.002

.001

136 – Persecution/Opposition

.004

.009

.005

.005

.000

01-­by gentiles

.031

.009

.002

.000

.000

02-­by sectarians

.002

.005

.000

.000

.000

03-­by U.S. govt.

.004

.019

.001

.001

.000

04-­endurance of

.001

.017

.002

.000

.001

05-­f utility of

.005

.019

.009

.001

.000

06-­strengthening effects of

.010

.028

.002

.000

.001

07-­reasons for

.006

.000

.000

.000

.000

08-­beliefs/practices

.004

.007

.001

.001

.002

09-­envy

.001

.006

.000

.000

.000

10-­punishment

.000

.003

.005

.000

.000

11-­Satan

.000

.003

.002

.000

.000

12-­testing

.005

.020

.002

.000

.000

13-­fear of LDS unity

.001

.002

.000

.000

.000

14-­for truth’s sake

.005

.006

.004

.000

.000

15-­persecutors, fate of

.002

.001

.000

.000

.000

16-­f ulfill God’s plans

.009

.006

.004

.001

.000

17-­by apostates

.003

.001

.001

.000

.000

Totals

.093

.161

.040

.009

.004

137 – Pioneers

.000

.001

.000

.000

.000

01-­achievements of

.002

.002

.005

.002

.001

02-­hardships endured by

.000

.001

.004

.002

.001

03-­heritage of

.000

.000

.002

.003

.001

Totals

.002

.004

.011

.007

.003

294  APPENDIX C

Topic 138 – Plural Marriage (polygamy)

I

II

III

IV

V

1830–59

1860–89

1890–1919

1920–49

1950–79

.001

.005

.002

.001

.000

01-­advantages/blessings of

.000

.007

.000

.000

.000

02-­abandonment of/manifesto

.000

.002

.005

.001

.000

03-­as necessary for salvation

.000

.005

.000

.000

.000

04-­divine commandment of

.000

.018

.000

.000

.000

05-­evils/immorality of

.000

.001

.000

.000

.000

06-­govt. interference with

.000

.011

.000

.000

.000

07-­improper motives for

.000

.001

.000

.000

.000

08-­laws forbidding, unconstitutionality of

.000

.011

.000

.000

.000

09-­member opposition to

.000

.006

.000

.000

.000

10-­morality of

.000

.008

.000

.000

.000

11-­reasons for failure of

.000

.000

.000

.000

.000

12-­falsehoods regarding

.002

.003

.008

.003

.000

13-­law forbidding submission to

.000

.001

.005

.002

.000

Totals

.003

.079

.020

.007

.000

139 – Politics

.000

.001

.001

.000

.000

01-­false political philosophies

.000

.004

.001

.001

.008

02-­honest officials, elections of

.000

.000

.001

.000

.002

03-­political unity (block voting)

.000

.006

.000

.000

.000

04-­political unity, opposition to

.000

.003

.000

.000

.000

05-­politicians, corrupt

.000

.006

.000

.000

.001

06-­voting

.000

.000

.000

.000

.000

07-­church involved/interference with

.001

.000

.014

.000

.000

Totals

.001

.020

.017

.001

.011

140 – Poverty

.001

.000

.000

.000

.000

01-­of LDS

.003

.002

.000

.000

.000

02-­poor, responsibility of church

.017

.005

.004

.001

.001

03-­poor, responsibility of wealthy

.001

.000

.000

.002

.000

04-­poor, salvation of

.002

.002

.003

.000

.000

05-­poor, virtues of

.000

.001

.001

.000

.000

General Conference Topic Index with Salience Scores for Thirty-­Year Periods, 1830–1979  295

Topic 06-­reasons for

I

II

III

IV

V

1830–59

1860–89

1890–1919

1920–49

1950–79

.000

.001

.000

.000

.000

07-­indolence

.000

.000

.000

.000

.000

Totals

.024

.011

.008

.003

.001

141 – Prayer

.001

.003

.013

.002

.001

01-­abolition of in schools

.000

.000

.000

.001

.000

02-­as spiritual communion

.001

.007

.001

.000

.000

03-­as supplication

.000

.002

.001

.001

.001

04-­efficacy of

.001

.001

.007

.002

.003

05-­family

.002

.004

.004

.003

.004

Totals

.005

.017

.026

.009

.009

142 – Prayers, on Behalf of

.001

.000

.000

.000

.000

01-­church leaders

.007

.003

.004

.008

.007

02-­church members

.001

.004

.003

.006

.001

03-­LDS servicemen/families

.000

.000

.000

.003

.000

04-­missionaries

.000

.000

.000

.001

.001

05-­national leaders

.000

.002

.004

.001

.000

06-­peoples of the world

.000

.002

.002

.002

.001

07-­personal guidance

.003

.001

.000

.000

.001

08-­unfortunate

.000

.000

.000

.000

.000

09-­world peace

.000

.000

.002

.003

.000

10-­spiritual strength

.001

.004

.007

.002

.001

11-­acquiring testimony

.000

.001

.002

.000

.002

12-­overcoming evil

.001

.000

.004

.000

.001

Totals

.014

.017

.028

.026

.015

143 – Preexistence

.002

.005

.003

.004

.002

01-­council of heaven

.000

.001

.000

.002

.002

02-­valiant spirits in

.000

.001

.001

.000

.002

03-­war in heaven in

.000

.004

.000

.001

.001

04-­foreordination

.000

.003

.000

.001

.003

Totals

.002

.014

.004

.008

.010

296  APPENDIX C

Topic 144 – Priesthood

I

II

III

IV

V

1830–59

1860–89

1890–1919

1920–49

1950–79

.004

.004

.001

.002

.000

01-­Aaronic, duties of

.007

.001

.003

.002

.006

02-­activities

.000

.000

.001

.001

.001

03-­adult Aaronic/prospective elders

.000

.000

.001

.000

.000

04-­blessings of

.002

.004

.000

.000

.005

05-­exercise of in home

.001

.000

.000

.003

.001

06-­irreverence for

.000

.000

.010

.000

.000

07-­keys of

.016

.003

.002

.002

.001

08-­Melchizedek, duties of

.006

.001

.001

.002

.004

09-­magnification of

.001

.004

.013

.003

.003

10-­ordination

.011

.000

.001

.000

.000

11-­power/authority of

.013

.018

.008

.006

.006

12-­quorum, unity of

.001

.000

.006

.001

.007

13-­rejection of

.001

.001

.001

.000

.000

14-­correct order of

.009

.005

.005

.000

.005

15-­duties failure to perform

.001

.000

.012

.000

.000

16-­respect for

.001

.001

.003

.002

.002

17-­insubordination

.003

.000

.000

.000

.000

Totals

.077

.042

.068

.024

.041

145 – Progression

.001

.000

.000

.001

.001

01-­law of eternal

.001

.002

.005

.004

.007

02-­material progress

.000

.001

.000

.000

.000

03-­spiritual progress

.000

.004

.001

.000

.002

Totals

.002

.007

.006

.005

.010

146 – Prohibition (temperance)

.000

.000

.000

.001

.000

01-­benefits of

.000

.000

.000

.000

.000

02-­liquor by the drink

.000

.000

.000

.000

.000

03-­repeal of

.000

.000

.000

.001

.000

04-­support of

.000

.000

.002

.001

.000

05-­v iolations of

.000

.000

.000

.001

.000

Totals

.000

.000

.002

.004

.000

147 – Property

.000

.001

.000

.000

.000

01-­communal

.000

.001

.000

.000

.000

General Conference Topic Index with Salience Scores for Thirty-­Year Periods, 1830–1979  297

Topic 02-­destruction of

I

II

III

IV

V

1830–59

1860–89

1890–1919

1920–49

1950–79

.000

.000

.000

.000

.000

03-­private, right to

.000

.002

.000

.000

.000

04-­protection of

.000

.000

.000

.000

.000

Totals

.000

.004

.000

.000

.000

148 – Prophecies

.002

.002

.001

.000

.000

01-­f ulfillment of

.008

.001

.021

.011

.004

02-­ignorance of

.000

.000

.000

.000

.000

03-­made by speaker

.015

.001

.005

.001

.000

Totals

.025

.013

.027

.012

.004

149 – Prophet(s)

.001

.001

.000

.000

.000

01-­ancient

.006

.010

.001

.008

.008

02-­contributions/accomplishments of

.000

.001

.007

.002

.000

03-­divine calling of (pres. of church)

.006

.003

.004

.006

.011

04-­false

.001

.000

.001

.001

.000

05-­health of

.001

.002

.006

.003

.000

06-­heeding counsels of

.013

.018

.014

.005

.008

07-­inspiration of

.006

.002

.007

.012

.006

08-­role of

.005

.009

.010

.003

.007

09-­modern

.000

.006

.004

.001

.009

10-­false conception of

.000

.000

.001

.000

.000

11-­rejection of

.002

.000

.001

.000

.000

Totals

.041

.052

.056

.041

.049

150 – Prosperity

.000

.002

.000

.000

.000

01-­dangers of

.000

.007

.006

.000

.000

02-­of America/Americans

.000

.000

.000

.001

.000

03-­of LDS

.004

.005

.019

.001

.000

Totals

.004

.014

.025

.002

.000

151 – Protestantism

.000

.001

.000

.000

.000

152 – Public Works

.007

.003

.000

.000

.000

153 – Punishment (chastening/curse)

.006

.005

.001

.001

.001

01-­vengeance/retribution

.006

.002

.000

.000

.000

Totals

.012

.007

.001

.001

.001

298  APPENDIX C

Topic 154 – Race(s)

I

II

III

IV

V

1830–59

1860–89

1890–1919

1920–49

1950–79

.000

.000

.000

.001

.000

155 – Records

.000

.000

.000

.005

.000

01-­church (minutes, reports, etc.)

.009

.000

.000

.001

.000

02-­families (journals, histories, etc.)

.001

.000

.000

.002

.000

Totals

.010

.000

.000

.008

.000

156 – Reformation, Spiritual

.001

.008

.006

.001

.000

157 – Religion

.000

.004

.001

.001

.002

01-­living of

.003

.008

.006

.011

.003

Totals

.003

.012

.007

.012

.005

158 – Repentance

.015

.012

.017

.009

.013

159 – Reputation, Individual

.000

000

001

.000

.001

160 – Resurrection

.007

.002

.003

.001

.001

01-­universal

.001

.000

.004

.001

.005

02-­resurrected beings

.003

.001

.000

.000

.000

Totals

.011

.003

.007

.002

.006

161 – Restoration

.000

.000

.000

.000

.000

01-­dispensation of fullness of times

.006

.013

.015

.009

.004

02-­of full gospel

.002

.011

.014

.012

.015

03-­of true church (LDS)

.002

.008

.009

.005

.003

04-­priesthood (authority)

.007

.017

.010

.009

.002

Totals

.017

.049

.048

.035

.024

162 – Revelation

.001

.003

.002

.001

.004

01-­ancient

.006

.004

.000

.000

.001

02-­modern

.019

.034

.028

.009

.014

03-­personal

.011

.010

.005

.000

.002

04-­lack of, in churches

.006

.004

.000

.000

.005

05-­dreams/visions

.006

.001

.000

.003

.000

Totals

.049

.056

.035

.013

.026

163 – Reverence

.003

.000

.000

.002

.001

01-­irreverence

.004

.000

.001

.003

.000

Totals

.007

.000

.001

.005

.001

General Conference Topic Index with Salience Scores for Thirty-­Year Periods, 1830–1979  299

Topic

I

II

III

IV

V

1830–59

1860–89

1890–1919

1920–49

1950–79

164 – Righteousness

.008

.008

.013

.007

.000

01-­earthly rewards of

.002

.001

.000

.000

.002

02-­heavenly rewards of

.006

.001

.001

.000

.004

Totals

.016

.010

.014

.007

.006

165 – Sabbath

.000

.001

.009

.003

.001

01-­breaking of

.001

.000

.008

.002

.007

02-­Sunday closing laws

.000

.000

.000

.001

.000

Totals

.001

.001

.017

.006

.008

166 – Sacrament (Lord’s Supper)

.001

.000

.003

.000

.000

01-­covenants of

.000

.002

.000

.004

.000

02-­symbolism of

.000

.002

.001

.001

.000

03-­worthiness of partakers of

.000

.001

.001

.001

.000

Totals

.001

.005

.005

.006

.000

167 – Sacrifice

.002

.001

.000

.002

.006

01-­blessings associated with

.021

.003

.004

.002

.003

02-­expiatory

.002

.002

.000

.001

.001

03-­personal

.000

.009

.007

.004

.000

Totals

.025

.015

.011

.009

.010

168 – Saints, Latter-­Day

.001

.002

.000

.000

.000

01-­blessings given to

.013

.029

.032

.012

.005

02-­God’s protection of

.017

.023

.020

.000

.001

03-­peculiar people

.000

.007

.031

.008

.000

04-­v irtues of

.019

.020

.050

.014

.001

05-­duty/role of

.007

.032

.025

.008

.003

06-­suffering of

.011

.003

.001

.000

.000

07-­uncommitted, insincere

.008

.011

.000

.002

.011

08-­hardships faced by

.030

.009

.015

.004

.003

09-­faults/weakness of

.010

.009

.002

.001

.001

10-­commitment/dedication, requirement of

.019

.014

.007

.012

.007

Totals

.135

.159

.183

.061

.022

169 – Salvation

.007

.011

.003

.003

.005

01-­for dead

.005

.004

.015

.005

.003

02-­plan of

.002

.007

.012

.006

.006

300  APPENDIX C

Topic

I

II

III

IV

V

1830–59

1860–89

1890–1919

1920–49

1950–79

03-­temporal

.004

.003

.006

.002

.000

Totals

.018

.025

.036

.016

.014

170 – Satan (Devil, Lucifer)

.001

.000

.000

.000

.000

01-­power(s) of

.002

.007

.002

.005

.003

02-­reality of

.000

.000

.000

.000

.001

03-­sorcery/witchcraft

.000

.000

.000

.000

.001

04-­opposition of, to God’s work

.011

.012

.007

.007

.007

05-­attributes of

.001

.002

.001

.000

.000

06-­role of

.001

.001

.000

.000

.000

07-­defeat of

.002

.001

.003

.001

.000

08-­followers of, wicked

.001

.004

.000

.000

.007

09-­evil

.000

.000

.000

.001

.004

Totals

.019

.027

.013

.014

.023

171 – Science

.000

.000

.000

.000

.003

01-­conflict with gospel

.000

.000

.001

.002

.000

02-­truths

.000

.000

.000

.000

.000

03-­evolution

.000

.000

.000

.001

.000

04-­support of gospel truths

.000

.000

.001

.000

.001

Totals

.000

.000

.002

.003

.004

172 – Scriptures

.001

.000

.002

.000

.001

01-­study of

.002

.002

.007

.004

.005

02-­word of God

.000

.000

.008

.001

.001

Totals

.003

.002

.017

.005

.007

173 – Second Coming

.003

.003

.002

.003

.003

01-­nearness of

.012

.006

.004

.000

.000

02-­preparation for

.010

.011

.017

.002

.004

03-­r umors of

.000

.000

.002

.001

.001

Totals

.025

.020

.025

.006

.008

174 – Sectarianism

.001

.003

.000

.000

.004

01-­sects

.001

.000

.000

.000

.000

Totals

.002

.003

.000

.000

.004

General Conference Topic Index with Salience Scores for Thirty-­Year Periods, 1830–1979  301

Topic 175 – Self-­Sufficiency

I

II

III

IV

V

1830–59

1860–89

1890–1919

1920–49

1950–79

.002

.020

.000

.001

.001

176 – Service (selflessness)

.000

.001

.000

.000

.000

01-­blessings of

.000

.000

.000

.005

.003

Totals

.000

.001

.000

.005

.003

177 – Sexual Immorality

.001

.004

.006

.003

.009

01-­among youth

.000

.001

.001

.001

.002

02-­consequences of

.000

.001

.000

.000

.001

03-­adultery

.001

.003

.002

.000

.001

04-­homosexuality

.000

.000

.000

.000

.001

05-­necking/petting

.000

.000

.000

.000

.001

06-­porngraphy

.000

.000

.000

.000

.002

07-­prostitution

.000

.002

.002

.001

.003

08-­seriousness of

.000

.002

.002

.001

.003

Totals

.002

.013

.013

.006

.023

178 – Signs

.000

.000

.000

.000

.000

01-­of last days

.002

.006

.004

.000

.000

02-­seeking of

.000

.002

.000

.000

.000

Totals

.002

.008

.004

.000

.000

179 – Sin (wickedness)

.004

.002

.009

.000

.006

01-­bondage, unhappiness of

.001

.002

.000

.000

.003

02-­punishment of

.001

.004

.003

.001

.007

03-­struggle against

.001

.003

.003

.001

.001

Totals

.007

.011

.015

.002

.017

180 – Soul

.000

.000

.000

.000

.000

01-­immortality of

.000

.000

.000

.000

.001

02-­immateriality of

.000

.001

.000

.000

.000

Totals

.000

.001

.000

.000

.001

181 – Spirits

.005

.000

.001

.000

.000

01-­eternal nature of

.003

.001

.000

.000

.001

02-­g ifts of

.003

.007

.002

.001

.001

03-­healing

.002

.001

.002

.000

.001

04-­tongues

.001

.001

.000

.000

.000

302  APPENDIX C

Topic 05-­materiality of

I

II

III

IV

V

1830–59

1860–89

1890–1919

1920–49

1950–79

.001

.000

.000

.000

.000

06-­world of

.005

.006

.002

.001

.001

07-­communication with

.002

.002

.004

.000

.000

08-­of God/Lord

.003

.004

.009

.002

.001

09-­assistance of

.002

.002

.003

.001

.000

10-­of prophecy

.001

.001

.000

.000

.000

Totals

.028

.025

.023

.005

.005

182 – Spirits, Unclean/Evil

.002

.004

.001

.000

.001

183 – Spiritualism

.001

.004

.000

.003

.000

184 – Spirituality

.000

.004

.003

.005

.014

185 – Stewardship

.002

.003

.002

.001

.000

01-­spiritual

.001

.000

.001

.000

.000

02-­temporal

.006

.004

.001

.000

.000

Totals

.009

.007

.004

.001

.000

186 – Success

.000

.000

.000

.000

.000

187 – Teachings, Church

.000

.002

.003

.000

.000

01-­false teachers

.000

.001

.007

.003

.000

02-­teacher training program

.000

.000

.001

.002

.000

03-­teachers, qualifications of

.000

.001

.002

.005

.001

04-­teachers, responsibilities of to youth

.000

.005

.003

.000

.000

05-­home/ward teaching

.000

.000

.004

.000

.000

06-­revealed truths only

.002

.000

.000

.000

.001

Totals

.002

.009

.020

.010

.002

188 – Temples

.000

.001

.001

.000

.001

01-­completion/dedication of

.007

.007

.002

.001

.001

02-­construction of

.028

.023

.006

.000

.003

03-­sacredness of

.010

.006

.002

.000

.002

Totals

.045

.037

.011

.001

.007

General Conference Topic Index with Salience Scores for Thirty-­Year Periods, 1830–1979  303

Topic 189 – Temple Work

I

II

III

IV

V

1830–59

1860–89

1890–1919

1920–49

1950–79

.001

.002

.009

.001

.002

01-­blessings of

.000

.005

.003

.000

.002

02-­inspiration of

.000

.005

.002

.000

.000

03-­necessary for salvation

.000

.008

.003

.000

.003

04-­recommendations/requirements for 05-­sealing ordinances/ endowments Totals

.003

.001

.002

.000

.001

.019

.008

.008

.000

.003

.023

.029

.027

.001

.011

190 – Temptation(s)

.005

.012

.007

.004

.009

191 – Testimony

.004

.008

.015

.006

.005

01-­of Holy Ghost

.002

.024

.011

.004

.005

02-­denial/loss of

.000

.003

.003

.001

.001

Totals

.006

.035

.029

.011

.011

192 – Tithing

.017

.008

.019

.011

.008

01-­blessings of

.004

.001

.001

.004

.002

02-­nonpayment of

.006

.002

.004

.001

.001

03-­uses for

.005

.006

.011

.007

.000

Totals

.032

.017

.035

.023

.011

193 – Tolerance

.000

.001

.002

.000

.000

01-­intolerance, religious

.000

.002

.001

.000

.004

02-­intolerance, social/cultural

.000

.000

.000

.000

.004

03-­religious

.000

.005

.003

.000

.004

04-­social/cultural

.000

.000

.000

.000

.000

Totals

.000

.008

.006

.000

.012

194 – Traditions of Men

.003

.003

.002

.001

.004

01-­idolatry

.000

.002

.000

.000

.000

02-­priestcraft

.002

.002

.002

.000

.004

03-­superstition

.000

.001

.000

.000

.000

Totals

.005

.008

.004

.001

.008

195 – Tribute (praise and express appreciation)

.000

.000

.000

.000

.000

01-­auxiliary organizations

.000

.000

.000

.001

.004

304  APPENDIX C

Topic 02-­church leaders

I

II

III

IV

V

1830–59

1860–89

1890–1919

1920–49

1950–79

.003

.003

.003

.006

.008

03-­families of missionaries

.000

.000

.000

.000

.000

04-­LDS servicemen

.000

.000

.000

.000

.000

05-­missionaries

.000

.000

.000

.000

.001

06-­mothers

.000

.000

.000

.002

.001

07-­non-­Mormon leaders

.000

.001

.003

.000

.005

08-­Saints (church members)

.001

.001

.001

.000

.003

09-­women

.001

.000

.000

.000

.000

10-­youth

.000

.000

.001

.000

.001

11-­non-­Mormon political leaders

.005

.001

.001

.000

.002

12-­non-­Mormon religious leaders

.000

.000

.000

.000

.001

Totals

.009

.006

.009

.009

.026

196 – Truth

.001

.006

.000

.000

.005

01-­absolute quality of

.002

.003

.002

.001

.005

02-­falsehoods

.000

.004

.000

.000

.001

Totals

.003

.013

.002

.001

.011

197 – Tyranny

.001

.000

.000

.000

.000

01-­political (totalitarianism)

.000

.001

.000

.003

.007

02-­religious

.000

.001

.000

.001

.004

Totals

.001

.002

.000

.004

.011

198 – Unbelief

.000

.003

.000

.000

.000

01-­atheism

.000

.000

.003

.002

.003

02-­agnosticism

.000

.000

.000

.001

.000

03-­cynicism/skepticism/doubt

.005

.007

.005

.005

.001

Totals

.005

.010

.008

.008

.004

199 – United Order (Order of Enoch)

.002

.009

.001

.000

.000

01-­blessings of

.001

.014

.000

.000

.000

02-­failure of, reasons for

.000

.001

.000

.000

.000

03-­failure to live

.000

.000

.002

.000

.000

Totals

.003

.024

.003

.000

.000

200 – United States (America)

.000

.002

.000

.000

.000

01-­chosen land

.000

.001

.003

.007

.000

02-­founding fathers, inspiration of

.002

.000

.002

.002

.002

General Conference Topic Index with Salience Scores for Thirty-­Year Periods, 1830–1979  305

Topic 03-­g reatness of

I

II

III

IV

V

1830–59

1860–89

1890–1919

1920–49

1950–79

.001

.001

.003

.003

.005

04-­disloyalty, opposition to

.000

.000

.000

.000

.000

Totals

.003

.004

.008

.012

.007

201 – U.S. Constitution

.000

.001

.000

.000

.000

01-­allegiance to

.002

.008

.002

.000

.002

02-­divine inspiration of

.002

.007

.001

.005

.002

03-­elders to save

.001

.004

.000

.001

.000

Totals

.005

.020

.003

.006

.004

202 – Unity

.015

.052

.025

.003

.007

01-­lack of

.000

.004

.000

.001

.001

Totals

.015

.056

.025

.004

.008

203 – Utah

.000

.000

.000

.001

.000

01-­advantages/good qualities of

.001

.005

.008

.003

.001

02-­residence in

.000

.000

.003

.000

.000

03-­statehood

.000

.001

.001

.000

.000

Totals

.001

.006

.012

.004

.001

204 – War

.000

.001

.005

.008

.004

01-­in last days

.002

.002

.007

.001

.000

02-­military service

.002

.000

.000

.001

.001

03-­missionary work during

.000

.000

.002

.000

.000

04-­justification of

.000

.001

.001

.000

.000

05-­threat of

.000

.000

.002

.004

.001

06-­support of U.S. effort

.001

.000

.001

.001

.000

Totals

.005

.004

.018

.015

.006

205 – Waste

.002

.004

.001

.002

.000

206 – Wealth

.000

.000

.000

.000

.000

01-­acquisition of

.000

.003

.000

.001

.000

02-­utility of/righteous use of

.000

.007

.005

.002

.000

03-­unrighteous use of

.001

.014

.002

.000

.000

04-­danger of

.000

.003

.004

.000

.000

Totals

.001

.027

.012

.003

.000

306  APPENDIX C

Topic 207 – Welfare System

I

II

III

IV

V

1830–59

1860–89

1890–1919

1920–49

1950–79

.000

.000

.000

.008

.000

01-­correct principles of

.000

.000

.000

.003

.002

02-­development/expansion of

.000

.000

.000

.002

.001

03-­dole, evils of

.000

.000

.000

.001

.001

Totals

.000

.000

.000

.014

.004

208 – Women

.000

.000

.000

.000

.001

01-­abuse of, by gentiles

.000

.004

.000

.000

.000

02-­femininity of

.001

.003

.001

.000

.006

03-­homemaking role of

.001

.001

.003

.001

.001

04-­rights of

.000

.000

.001

.000

.001

05-­value of

.000

.006

.001

.001

.005

06-­women’s liberation

.000

.000

.000

.002

.001

07-­weakness of

.001

.000

.001

.000

.000

Totals

.003

.014

.007

.004

.015

209 – Word of Wisdom

.009

.008

.009

.016

.002

01-­alcohol/drinking

.005

.008

.012

.009

.004

02-­blessings of

.000

.001

.002

.004

.001

03-­coffee/tea

.002

.003

.002

.001

.000

04-­diet

.002

.002

.000

.000

.000

05-­drugs

.000

.000

.000

.000

.001

06-­tobacco/smoking

.001

.004

.008

.006

.003

Totals

.019

.026

.033

.036

.011

210 – Work

.000

.000

.000

.000

.000

01-­employment

.000

.000

.004

.005

.000

02-­labor unions

.000

.004

.003

.003

.000

03-­right to work

.000

.000

.001

.002

.000

04-­v irtues of

.001

.002

.004

.002

.003

05-­vocational preparation for

.000

.005

.001

.001

.000

Totals

.001

.011

.013

.013

.003

211 – Works

.001

.000

.002

.000

.001

01-­necessary for salvation

.005

.000

.009

.002

.006

Totals

.006

.000

.011

.002

.007

General Conference Topic Index with Salience Scores for Thirty-­Year Periods, 1830–1979  307

Topic 212 – World

I

II

III

IV

V

1830–59

1860–89

1890–1919

1920–49

1950–79

.000

.002

.000

.000

.000

01-­moral decay of

.000

.005

.000

.005

.008

02-­spiritual awakening of

.000

.001

.001

.001

.001

03-­w ickedness of (Babylon)

.006

.015

.007

.004

.004

04-­conflict, disunity in

.001

.001

.003

.007

.003

05-­overcoming of/coming out from

.003

.017

.010

.001

.003

06-­praiseworthy aspects of

.000

.002

.001

.000

.001

07-­opposition of, to church

.002

.003

.006

.000

.000

08-­opposition to wickedness in

.000

.001

.005

.000

.003

Totals

.012

.047

.033

.018

.023

213 – Worldliness

.005

.018

.016

.002

.002

01-­card playing

.001

.000

.002

.000

.000

02-­fashions

.000

.004

.002

.001

.001

03-­gambling

.000

.000

.000

.000

.001

04-­materialism

.001

.009

.002

.003

.004

05-­novels

.000

.001

.000

.000

.000

06-­profanity/cursing

.003

.001

.001

.002

.001

07-­saloons

.000

.002

.002

.000

.000

Totals

.010

.035

.025

.008

.009

214 – Youth

.000

.000

.000

.000

.002

01-­chosen generation of

.000

.001

.005

.001

.003

02-­church programs for

.000

.000

.005

.001

.006

03-­importance of church to

.000

.001

.002

.001

.001

04-­supervision of

.000

.000

.008

.002

.008

05-­temptations facing

.000

.001

.005

.001

.003

06-­juvenile delinquency

.000

.000

.001

.000

.004

Totals

.000

.003

.026

.006

.027

215 – Worship

.001

.004

.000

.000

.000

216 – Zion

.002

.010

.001

.000

.000

01-­in Rocky Mountains

.002

.013

.009

.000

.000

02-­New Jerusalem

.002

.004

.000

.000

.000

03-­pure in heart

.001

.001

.001

.000

.001

04-­Zionism

.000

.000

.005

.000

.000

308  APPENDIX C

Topic 05-­city of Enoch

I

II

III

IV

V

1830–59

1860–89

1890–1919

1920–49

1950–79

.000

.002

.000

.000

.000

06-­building up of

.015

.018

.013

.001

.000

07-­inheritance of

.008

.001

.001

.000

.000

08-­purging of

.005

.000

.002

.000

.000

09-­safety of

.007

.002

.010

.000

.000

10-­redemption of

.015

.006

.005

.001

.000

11-­Zion’s camp

.000

.001

.000

.000

.000

Totals

.057

.058

.047

.002

.001

Notes

Introduction 1. 2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

Nathan Glazer, American Judaism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957). Glazer’s revised, second edition of the book was published in 1989. Gordon Shepherd and Gary Shepherd, A Kingdom Transformed: Themes in the Development of Mormonism (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1984). An analysis of the historical development and ethical influence of monotheistic Judaism is provided by Max Weber, Ancient Judaism, edited by Hans H. Gerth and Don Martindale (New York: Free Press, 1967). The rule of matrilineal descent is stipulated by Orthodox and Conservative branches of Judaism as binding but is not maintained by Reform Judaism. For hundreds of scholarly references on Judaism, Jewish culture, and issues of Jewish descent, see Fred Skolnik, Encyclopedia Judaica (New York: Macmillan, 2006). Social science articles summarizing current understanding of the concepts of ethnicity and race can be found in numerous texts, journal articles, and encyclopedia articles. See, for example, Neil Smelser, Faith Mitchel, and William Julius Wilson, eds., America Becoming: Racial Trends and Their Consequences (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 2001); Ramán Grosfoguel, “Race and Ethnicity or Racialized Ethnicities? Identities within Global Coloniality,” Ethnicities 4, no. 3 (2004): 315–36; Stephen Cornell and Douglas Hartmann, Ethnicity and Race: Making Identities in a Changing World (Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press, 2006); and John Stone and Bhumika Piya, “Ethnic Groups,” in The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology, edited by George Ritzer (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-­Blackwell, 2007). Scholars of Mormon life who discuss the concept of Mormon ethnicity or “peoplehood” include Thomas F. O’Dea, “Mormonism and the Avoidance of Sectarian Stagnation: A Study of Church, Sect, and Incipient Nationality,”

309

310  Notes to pages xix–xx

7. 8.

American Journal of Sociology 60, no. 3 (1954): 285–92; O’Dea, The Mormons (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957); Jan Shipps, Sojourner in the Promised Land: Forty Years Among the Mormons (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000); O’Dea, “From Peoplehood to Church Membership: Mormonism’s Trajectory since World War II,” Church History 76, no. 2 (2007): 241–61; and Armand L. Mauss, “From Near-­Nation to New World Religion?” in Revisiting Thomas F. O’Dea’s The Mormons: Contemporary Perspectives, edited by Tim B. Heaton, John P. Hoffman, and Cardell K. Jacobson (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2008). In O’Dea’s words, as a consequence of early struggles and relative isolation in the Utah Territory, “the Mormons became something resembling an ethnic group formed and brought to awareness here in America. They became a “people,” to use the term they quite accurately use to describe themselves. The result is a specifically religious organization as the institutional core of a more diffuse social entity with its own history, its own traditions, its convictions of peculiarity, and even its native territory or homeland. What emerged was the Mormon Church as the organized core of the Mormon people.” Thomas F. O’Dea, The Sociology of Religion (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1966), 70. A summary of Jewish history in the United States is given in Nathan Glazer, American Judaism, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989). American Jewish identity issues and the challenging implications of continuing Jewish assimilation in American culture were the subject of a 2013 survey conducted by the Pew Research Center. See http://www.pewforum.org/2013/10/01/jewish-­american-­beliefs-­attitudes-­culture-­survey. As reported in an October 6, 2013, Arkansas Democrat-­Gazette news story (p. 4b–5b), “A new survey shows that American Jews are proud of their heritage, but have widely different views on what makes a person Jewish. The heart of the survey is about Jewish Identity. ‘Who is a Jew? Who qualifies?’ said Alan Cooperman, deputy director of the Pew Research Center Religion and Life Project, which conducted the survey . . . According to the report, ‘A Portrait of Jewish Americans,’ 78 percent of Jews surveyed claim Judaism as their religion, while 22 percent of those who identify themselves as Jews say they have no religion . . . Cooperman said the number of Jews of no religion is markedly different when comparing the ‘Greatest Generation’ born 1914–1927, with the ‘Millennial Generation’ born after 1980. Of those Jews in the Greatest Generation, 93 percent identify as Jewish based on religion and 7 percent claimed no religion, while 68 percent of millennials say they are Jewish by religion and 32 percent say they have no religion but still say they are Jewish . . . Of both Jews by religion and Jews of no religion, 62 percent said being Jewish is more about culture and ancestry than religion, while 15 percent said it was mainly a matter of religion . . . Cooperman said

Notes to pages xxii–1  311

9.

rates of intermarriage among Jews have risen in recent decades. Before 1970, he said, 17 percent of Jews had a non-­Jewish spouse. From the period 2005– 2013, 58 percent have mixed marriages. The exception can be found among Orthodox Jews, who tend to marry within their tradition. Rabbi Jacob Adler [of temple Shalom in Fayetteville, Arkansas] said he found statistics on child-­rearing troubling in light of the challenge of ‘Jewish continuity’ or the survival of Jews as Jews.” Jan Shipps arrives at roughly the same conclusion, using different evidence, in her analysis of changing public perceptions of Mormons over time along with Mormons’ own changing perceptions of themselves in relation to non-­ Mormons. Shipps, Sojourner in the Promised Land, 45–145.

Chapter 1 1.

Official membership figures are periodically updated on the LDS Church’s Newsroom website; see “Facts and Statistics,” last modified March 18, 2014, mormonnewsroom.org/facts-­and-­stats. Sociologist Rodney Stark has long been an observer of LDS world growth. In 1984 he made a startling projection that if church growth were to continue at the same rate that it had since the end of World War II, there would be, within one hundred years, up to 265 million Mormons in the world. Despite critics pointing to large-­scale dropout rates of new Mormon converts and the relative slowing of Mormon missionary success, Stark has not backed away in succeeding years from his contention that Mormonism is demographically destined to become a major world religion within a relatively short time. For a summary of his arguments and the data he marshals to support them (including the fact that current LDS membership has tripled in the thirty years since his first projection), see Rodney Stark and Reid L. Nielson, The Rise of Mormonism (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005). For critical analysis of discrepancies between officially claimed membership figures and much lower figures reported in census and other independent sources, as well as declining LDS conversion rates and rising apostasy rates, see Ryan T. Cragun and Robert Lawson, “The Secular Transition: Worldwide Growth of Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Seventh-­day Adventists,” Sociology of Religion 71, no. 2 (2010): 349–73; David C. Knowlton, “How Many Members are there Really? Two Censuses and the Meaning of LDS Membership in Chile and Mexico,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 38 (2005): 53–78; Ronald Lawson and Ryan T. Cragun, “Comparing the Geographic Distribution and Growth of Mormons, Adventists, and Witnesses,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 51, no. 2 (2012): 220–40; Rick Phillips, “Rethinking the International Expansion of Mormonism,” Nova Religio: The Journal of New and Emergent Religions 10, no. 1 (2006): 52–68; Rick Phillips and Ryan T. Cragun, Mormons in the United States 1990–2008: Socio-­demographic Trends and Regional

312  Notes to pages 2–4

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

Differences. A Report Based on the American Religious Identification Survey 2008 (Hartford, CT: Trinity College, 2011); and David Stewart, Law of the Harvest: Practical Principles of Effective Missionary Work (Henderson, NV: Cumorah Foundation, 2007). The judgment as to whether a movement is successful is commonly open to dispute, particularly if one defines success in terms of the realization of a movement’s goals. Organizational goals are typically achieved in partial rather than complete fashion. Furthermore, goals often change in such a way that an organization’s original intentions may be discarded or forgotten. From a founder’s point of view, such changes might seem like perversions rather than successful adaptations. From a more detached point of view, however, relative success may be imputed to movements or organizations that endure over time, experience growth, or have a visible impact on existing social institutions, regardless of whether they remain true to their original goals. With respect to gauging success in religious movements, Mormonism in particular, see Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity: A Sociologist Reconsiders History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996); Stark and Nielson, Rise of Mormonism. A comprehensive guide to nineteenth-­and twentieth-­century scholarly sources on Mormonism and the LDS Church can be found in James B. Allen, Ronald W. Walker, and David J. Whittaker, eds., Studies in Mormon History, 1830–1997: An Indexed Biography, with a topical guide to published social science literature on the Mormons, edited by Armand L. Mauss and Dynette Ivie Reynolds (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000). For a discussion of different leadership styles in the institutional careers of social movements, see Joseph R. Gusfield, “Social Structure and Moral Reform: A Study of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union,” American Journal of Sociology 61 (1955): 221–32. See Leland M. Griffen, “The Rhetoric of Historical Movements,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 38 (1952): 184–88; Herbert W. Simons, “Requirements, Problems, and Strategies: A Theory of Persuasion for Social Movements,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 56 (1970): 1–11; and John W. Bowers and Donovan. J. Ochs, The Rhetoric of Agitation and Control (Reading, MA: Addison-­ Wesley, 1971). Application of Max Weber’s theory of the “charisma of office” is highly pertinent to our understanding of Mormon history. Charisma is defined by Weber as that “quality of an individual personality by virtue of which he is set apart from ordinary men and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional powers.” These powers “are not accessible to the ordinary person, but are regarded as of divine origin and on the basis of them, the individual is treated as a leader” (Max Weber, The Theory of Social and Economic Organization, 1947, 358). Charisma, however,

Notes to pages 4–6  313

is generally incompatible with the rules and demands of everyday life and seems fated “whenever it comes into the permanent institutions of a community to give way to powers of tradition and of rational socialization” (Reinhard Bendix, Max Weber, 1960, 326). Consequently, we typically see the transformation of individual charisma into a depersonalized attribute that becomes an essential property of an emergent institution. Thus, the founder’s personal charisma becomes the “charisma of office” and is legitimized by belief that extraordinary powers are continued and embodied within institutional roles. The aura of charisma then clings to whichever individual comes to occupy the reverenced status, regardless of his or her personal qualities. The continued organizational operation of the LDS priesthood hierarchy after Joseph Smith’s death clearly illustrates the social process involved in the routinization of charisma. 7. Leone’s characterization of Mormonism as a modern religion is based on Bellah’s theory of religious evolution in which the modern stage of religious development makes possible religious systems capable of continuous self-­ revision. See Robert Bellah, “Religious Evolution,” American Sociological Review 29, no. 3 (1964): 358–74. 8. For an in-­depth discussion of the philosophical and theological implications of Mormon metaphysics, see Sterling M. McMurrin, The Theological Foundations of the Mormon Religion (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1965). 9. On the conceptual distinction between official religion and common religion, see John Wilson, Religion in American Society: The Effective Presence (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-­Hall, 1978), Chapter 2. 10. Official religion typically emerges out of the common religion as beliefs and practices are elaborated and standardized in the process of religious institutionalization. In this sense it could be argued that official religion is always the shadow of common religion rather than vice versa. The important thing to understand is that both types of religious expression typically operate in conjunction with one another. 11. Leone’s approach as a cultural anthropologist makes him sensitive to the folk or common religion aspects of Mormonism. Important portions of Leone’s conclusions about modern Mormonism are based on his field observations of Mormon life in several small Latter-­day Saint communities located along the Little Colorado River in Northern Arizona. 12. For collections and analysis of Mormon legends and folk beliefs, see Austin Fife and Alta Fife, Saints of Sage and Saddle: Folklore Among the Mormons (1956; Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1981); William Wilson, “A Bibliography of Studies in Mormon Folklore,” Utah Historical Quarterly 44 (1976): 389–94; and William Wilson, “Mormon Folklore,” in Mormon Americana: A Guide to Sources and Collections in the United States, edited by David J. Whittaker (Provo, UT: BYU Studies, 1995), 437–54.

314  Notes to pages 7–12

13. Doctrine and Covenants (Salt Lake City: Deseret Press, 1963), Sec. 68:3–4; hereafter cited as D&C. 14. A good survey of early Mormon conferences is carefully documented by Jay R. Lowe, “A Study of the General Conferences of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-­day Saints, 1830–1901” (master’s thesis, Brigham Young University, 1972). 15. In the early 1970s Jan Shipps (Sojourner in the Promised Land [Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000], 57–94) pioneered the use of content analysis techniques for Mormon studies in her analysis of changing public attitudes about Mormons. At about the same time, John Sorenson performed an exploratory word-­count analysis of most of the official communiqués of the Mormon First Presidency for the years 1833 to 1934 that parallels some aspects of our own analysis of general conference addresses (John L. Sorenson, “Word Frequencies in the Messages of the First Presidency, Nineteenth vs. Twentieth-­Century,” paper presented at the Conference on the Language of the Mormons, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, June 5, 1970). However, apart from the years not covered in this five-­volume set, the major weaknesses of “Messages of the First Presidency” as a data source are their relatively narrow content focus and irregular appearances over time. Sorenson’s rationale for analyzing the language of Mormon authorities, however, overlaps with our own: “Language serves as a mirror of the concerns of a society and culture,” and therefore “a historical record [of language change] may thus be interpreted as a picture of social and cultural change” (Sorenson, ibid., 70–73). 16. “Corpus of LDS General Conference Talks,” accessed March 2015, corpus. byu.edu/gc. 17. The first official name adopted for the new religion was the Church of the Latter Day Saints. Early members commonly referred to themselves as The Church of Christ. In 1838 the official name was changed to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-­day Saints. See D&C Sec. 115:3–4; Brigham H. Roberts, ed., History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-­day Saints (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1978), 2:63, 3:24, hereafter cited as DHC. 18. DHC 1:75–80. 19. Minutes of these early conference proceedings are published in DHC, vols. 1–3. Also see Lowe, “General Conferences.” 20. Leonard Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom: An Economic History of the Latter-­ day Saints, 1830–1900 (1958; Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1966), 32. 21. See Lowe “General Conferences,” chapters V and VI. 22. For expositions of frame analysis as a theoretical perspective employed in various social science fields, see Paul D’Angelo and Jim A. Kuypers, eds., Doing News Framing Analysis: Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives

Notes to pages 13–15  315

(London: Routledge, 2010); David A. Snow and Robert D. Benford, “Ideology, Frame Resonance, and Participant Mobilization,” in International Social Movement Research: From Structure to Action, vol. 1, B. Klandermans, H. Kriesi, and S. Tarrow, eds. (Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, 1988), 197–218; and Ervin Goffman, Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1974).

Chapter 2 1. 2.

3.

4. 5.

6.

John Kenneth Galbraith, Money (New York: Bantam Books, 1976). Whitney R. Cross, The Burned-­over District: The Social and Intellectual History of Enthusiastic Religion in Western New York, 1800–1850 (New York: Harper and Row, 1950). Smith’s account of his visionary experiences as a youth between the ages of fourteen and seventeen was not officially published until 1838 as the inaugural episodes in DHC. Contemporary debate concerning the date and circumstances of the first vision is aired in Richard L. Bushman, “The Visionary World of Joseph Smith,” BYU Studies 37, no. 1 (1997): 183–204; Richard L. Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York: Knopf, 2005); Marvin S. Hill, “The First Vision Controversy: A Critique and Reconciliation,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 15, no. 2 (2001): 31–46; H. Michael Marquardt and Wesley P. Walters, Inventing Mormonism: Tradition and the Historical Record (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1998); Michael D. Quinn, “Joseph Smith’s Experience of a Methodist Camp Meeting in 1820,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought—Dialogue Paperless: E-­Paper #3, (2006); and Dan Vogel, ed., Early Mormon Documents, vol. 1. (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1996). See Terryl L. Givens, By the Hand of Mormon: The American Scripture that Launched a New World Religion (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002). Arguably, the two most compelling and influential biographies of Joseph Smith published over the past seventy years are authored by Fawn M. Brodie, No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith, the Mormon Prophet (New York: Knopf, 1945); and Bushman, Rough Stone Rolling. While their underlying assumptions concerning the ultimate authenticity of Smith’s prophetic claims are diametrically opposed, both Brodie and Bushman portray Smith as a complex and creative personality who developed leadership and organizational skills as he matured and was significantly influenced by those he designated for high office in the church hierarchy. Gary Wills (Head and Heart: American Christianities, New York: ­Penguin, 2007) employs the term ultra-­supernaturalism to describe the religious beliefs of colonial Americans that emphasized the easy permeability of the boundary separating the spirit world from the natural world. In the ultra-­supernatural worldview, specific spirit entities, both good and evil,

316  Notes to pages 15–16

relentlessly labor to achieve their conflicting ends by deploying miraculous powers and recruiting human agents into a cosmic struggle. The comingling of these beliefs with magical artifices and occult practices is described in Michael Quinn, Early Mormonism and the Magic Worldview (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1998). Like most of their neighbors, Joseph Smith and his family embraced the ultra-­supernaturalism of their time and place. Smith and his father, Joseph Sr., actively engaged with other men in buried treasure hunts, an activity for which Joseph Jr., through supernatural aid, was thought to have special aptitude. Joseph’s treasure-­seeking activity overlapped with his proclaimed discovery of the golden plates from which he produced the Book of Mormon. According to his own report, the whereabouts of the plates were revealed to him by an angel, and he was empowered through the gift of God to transcribe their contents. For both believing and disbelieving accounts of the history of the Book of Mormon, see Brodie, No Man Knows My History; Bushman, Rough Stone Rolling; Givens, People of Paradox; Quinn, Magical Worldview; and Vogel and Metcalf, Advent of Mormonism. 7. Mormonism was, in fact, one of the five, nineteenth-­century religions (along with the Christian movement, Methodists, Baptists, and black churches) that Hatch chose as case studies to demonstrate the democratization of American religion through the agency of ordinary people rather than reliance on a trained clergy. See also Steven C. Harper, “Infallible Proofs, Both Human and Divine: The Persuasiveness of Mormonism for Early Converts,” Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation 10, no. 1 (2000): 43–105; and R. Laurence Moore, Religious Outsiders and the Making of Americans (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 25–47. 8. There is a large amount of social science literature on the topic of new religious movements. Sociologists in particular have focused on typical patterns of emergence and transformation processes in religious movements (which is, of course, the applied theme of this book). For summary reviews of this literature see Douglas E. Cowan and David G. Bromley, Cults and New Religions: A Brief History (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-­Blackwell, 2008); Lorne L. Dawson, Comprehending Cults: The Sociology of New Religious Movements (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008); John A. Saliba, Understanding New Religious Movements (Walnut Creek, CA: Alta Mira Press, 2003); and Bryan Wilson and James Cresswell, New Religious Movements: Challenge and Response (London and New York: Routledge, 1999). 9. For Joseph Smith’s account of these early challenges to his authority and his handling of them, see DHC 1:104–5, 109–20. 10. Parley P. Pratt, who was Rigdon’s own recent follower into the Campbellite Disciples of Christ, subsequently converted to Mormonism after obtaining and reading a copy of the Book of Mormon. Pratt, in turn, was instrumental

Notes to pages 17–19  317

11. 12. 13.

14.

15. 16.

17.

18.

19.

in bringing Rigdon, his former mentor, into the early Mormon movement. See Givens, People of Paradox; and Terryl Givens and Matthew Grow, Parley P. Pratt: The St. Paul of Mormonism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), for a thoroughly documented account of Rigdon’s conversion and the initial missionary activities that propelled Mormonism beyond the parochial boundaries of its western New York origins. D&C 38. Ibid., 57:1. Ibid., 42. A detailed exposition of the rapid development of Mormon institutions in Kirtland, including the law of consecration, is provided in Mark L. Staker, Hearken, O Ye People: The Historical Setting for Joseph Smith’s Ohio Revelations (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2009), a groundbreaking analysis of the historical setting for Joseph Smith’s important Ohio revelations. Smith and Rigdon’s efforts to revise the Bible were completed in manuscript form in 1833, but the work was never published during Smith’s lifetime. Smith’s widow, Emma, retained possession of the manuscript after the prophet’s death, and subsequently the RLDS Church (now Community of Christ) published the “inspired version,” which it accepts as canonical. Utah Mormons prefer to continue using the King James version “as far as it is translated correctly.” For minutes of these conferences, see DHC 1: Chapter 17. See, for example, D&C 101:1–6 in which, through Smith’s revelation, God rebukes “your brethren who have been afflicted and persecuted and cast out from the land of their inheritance . . . I, the Lord, have suffered the affliction to come upon them, wherewith they have been afflicted, in consequence of their transgressions . . . There were jarrings, and contentions, and envyings, and strifes, and lustful and covetous desires among them; therefore by these things they polluted their inheritance.” Mormons rationalize the Zion’s camp episode as a testing and training experience for future church leaders, such as Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, George A. Smith, and Wilford Woodruff. See Brigham H. Roberts, A Comprehensive History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-­day Saints, 1965, 370– 71, hereafter cited as CNC. This estimate of the cost of the Kirtland Temple is given in the 1980 Deseret News Church Almanac. Other estimates of the cost range as low as $40,000 (Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom, 13). Joseph Smith reports that toward the end of the long dedicatory services (and subsequent to a number of other “spiritual manifestations”), “Brother George A. Smith arose and began to prophesy, when noise was heard like the sound of a rushing night wind, which filled the Temple, and all the congregation simultaneously arose, being moved upon by an invisible power;

318  Notes to pages 19–20

20.

21. 22.

23.

24.

25. 26.

27.

many began to speak in tongues and prophesy; others saw glorious visions; and I beheld the Temple was filled with angels, which fact I declared to the congregation. The people of the neighborhood came running together (hearing an unusual sound within, and seeing a bright light like a pillar of fire resting upon the Temple), and were astonished at what was taking place” (DHC 2:428). This hypothesis is suggested by Jay R. Lowe, “A Study of the General Conferences of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-­day Saints, 1830–1901,” Master’s thesis, Brigham Young University, 1972, 32. DHC 2:509–12. Good historical sources on the Latter-­day Saints’ brief but foundational history in Kirtland include Milton V. Backman, The Heavens Resound: A History of the Latter-­day Saints in Ohio, 1830–1838 (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1983); Elwin Clark Robison, The First Mormon Temple: Design, Construction, and Historic Context of the Kirtland Temple (Provo: Brigham Young University Press, 1997); and especially Staker, Hearken, O Ye People. Historical sources for understanding early Mormonism in Missouri include Brandon G. Kinney, The Mormon War: Zion and the Missouri Extermination Order of 1838 (Pardley, PA: Westholme Publishing, 2011); Stephen C. Lesueur, The 1838 Mormon War in Missouri (Columbus: University of Missouri Press, 1987); and Thomas M. Spencer, ed., The Missouri Mormon Experience (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2010). According to Roberts, “Caldwell County in 1836 was a wilderness. By the spring of 1838 the population was more than 5,000; of which more than 4,900 were Latter-­day Saints . . . During the summer of 1838 the population of Far West, together with all other settlements of the Saints in upper Missouri, was greatly augmented from Canada—whence came one company of two hundred wagons from the eastern states, and especially from Kirtland, Ohio and its vicinity.” CHC 1:424–25. DHC 3:13–15. Among those excommunicated were Oliver Cowdery, Joseph Smith’s original right-­hand man and scribe in preparing the Book of Mormon, and also David Whitmer, one of the three original witnesses to the Book of Mormon, who claimed to have seen the angel Moroni and the gold plates upon which the ancient records were said to be engraved. The order of Governor Lilburn Boggs to the commanding general of the Missouri militia read, in part: “The Mormons must be treated as enemies and must be exterminated or driven from the state, if necessary, for the public good. Their outrages are beyond description. If you can increase your force, you are authorized to do so, to any extent you may think necessary.” DHC 3:175.

Notes to pages 20–24  319

28. Thomas F. O’Dea, “Mormonism and the Avoidance of Sectarian Stagnation: A Study of Church, Sect, and Incipient Nationality,” American Journal of Sociology 60, no. 3 (1954): 285–92. 29. Brigham Young’s somewhat implausible ascension to positions of influence and leadership within an emergent Mormon hierarchy is insightfully documented by John G. Turner, Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2012). 30. The excommunicants included such prominent early Mormon leaders as Thomas B. Marsh, Frederick G. Williams, W. W. Phelps, George M. Hinkle, John Corrill, Reed Peck, and Sampson Avard. See DHC 3:283–84. 31. Ibid., 3:335–36. 32. According to Joseph Smith, the word Nauvoo is of Hebrew origin and “signifies beautiful location; carrying with it also the idea of rest” (CHC 2:11). Subsequent to Smith’s assassination, at the April 6 conference in 1845 “it was moved by Brigham Young and carried by vote of the conference ‘that henceforth and forever, this city shall be called the City of Joseph.’” Ibid., 2:508. 33. Scholarly sources detailing early Mormon history in Nauvoo include Robert Flanders, Nauvoo: Kingdom on the Mississippi (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1965); and Glen M. Leonard, Nauvoo: A Place of Peace, a People of Promise (Salt Lake City: Shadow Mountain Press, 2002). 34. According to Arrington, Orderville Utah, 18, the Nauvoo Temple cost an estimated one million dollars and took approximately five years to build. 35. For a novelistic but historically documented description of the early practice of polygamy in Nauvoo during the 1840s, see Samuel W. Taylor, Nightfall at Nauvoo (New York: MacMillan, 1971). For scholarly analyses, see Richard S. Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy: A History (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1989); and Todd Compton, In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1997). 36. Lowe, “General Conferences,” 75–76. 37. Timothy L. Wood, “The Prophet and the Presidency: Mormonism and Politics in Joseph Smith’s 1844 Presidential Campaign,” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society (Summer 2000): 1–16. 38. For an in-­depth study of the assassination, including an analysis of the legal issues which resulted in the prophet’s arrest and the trial of the accused assassins after his death, see Dallin H. Oaks and Marvin S. Hill, The Carthage Conspiracy: The Trial of the Accused Assassins of Joseph Smith (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1975). 39. CHC 2:413. 40. For the minutes of this special conference to determine the succession in the first presidency, see DHC 7, chapters XVIII and XIX. 41. This interpretation is offered by Lowe, “General Conferences,” 92–93.

320  Notes to pages 24–26

42. DHC 7, Chapter XXIII. 43. At the time of the Mormon migration from Nauvoo, the Great Basin region was part of northern Mexico. Thus, the Mormons were not merely changing location but contemplating withdrawal from the United States. The ambiguity of American citizens attempting to build a commonwealth in a foreign country was resolved by the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, in which the new Mormon country was expropriated as United States territory. But this same act also set the Mormons on a collision course with the federal government concerning the issue of ultimate authority in the region. 44. The decision to complete the temple was made with full knowledge that it would immediately be abandoned. The Mormons regarded the completion of the temple as a sacred duty and were anxious to receive their temple endowments before beginning their trek to the Rocky Mountains. The temple was sold to the French Icarians, a utopian socialist society that bought up many of the former Mormon properties in Nauvoo. But the edifice was set ablaze by an arsonist in 1848, and the remaining structure was leveled in 1850 by a tornado. Rubble from the temple was carted off and used in the construction of other buildings in Nauvoo to the extent that scarcely one stone was left on top of another. See Devery Anderson and Gary Bergera, eds., The Nauvoo Endowment Companies, 1945–1846: A Documentary History (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2005). 45. Today the site of Winter Quarters is Florence, Nebraska, a suburb of Omaha. 46. Hal Knight and Stanley B. Kimball, 111 Days to Zion (Salt Lake City: Deseret Press, 1978), 3. 47. Ibid., 5. 48. In spite of their efforts, the pioneers’ first crop was almost a total failure, and they were forced to subsist over the winter of 1847–1848 mostly on the provisions which they had brought with them from Winter Quarters. 49. DHC 7:621. 50. O’Dea, “Sectarian Stagnation,” 97. 51. In 1849 the Mormons petitioned Congress for admission into the union as the State of Deseret. (The word deseret is taken from the Book of Mormon, meaning honeybee, the Mormon symbol for industry and hard work.) “The new state claimed a large region comprised of all of present-­day Utah and Nevada; small sections of Oregon, Idaho, and Wyoming in the north and of Colorado and New Mexico in the east; over two-­thirds of what is now Arizona; and a large section of California, including the San Bernardino Valley and the port of San Diego, thereby including the Mormon corridor to the sea” (Ibid., 97–98). Congress granted territorial status but withheld statehood for forty-­seven years. 52. For an analysis of Pratt’s speech, see Lowe, “General Conferences,” 308–13. 53. For a description of the institution of the Perpetual Emigration Fund and the various methods employed by the Mormons to transport converts to Utah,

Notes to pages 27–29  321

54.

55.

56.

57. 58.

59.

see Leonard J. Arrington and Davis Bitton, The Mormon Experience: A History of the Latter-­day Saints (New York: Knopf, 1979), Chapter 2. O’Dea, “Sectarian Stagnation,” 102. The Mormons’ fierce resistance (authorized by Governor Brigham Young’s decree of martial law in the Utah Territory) to what they saw as an aggressive invasion by federal forces precipitated a chain of events that resulted in the dreadful Mountain Meadows Massacre. Mormon militia from towns in the southwestern regions of the territory recruited local Indian tribes to help them attack and destroy a California-­bound immigrant wagon train that was perceived to be hostile. Over 120 people were killed, including women and children. See the classic account from Juanita Brooks, with a Foreword by Jan Shipps, The Mountain Meadows Massacre, 3d ed. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2012); as well as Ronald W. Walker, Glen M. Leonard, and Richard E. Turley, Massacre at Mountain Meadows: An American Tragedy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008); and Will Bagley, The Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2002) for two more recent but quite disparate treatments. For scholarly accounts of the Utah War and the events which led up to it, see Norman F. Furniss, The Mormon Conflict, 1850–1859 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1960); and William P. MacKinnon, At Sword’s Point, Part 1: A Documentary History of the Utah War to 1858 (Norman, Oklahoma: The Arthur H. Clark Company, 2008). A comprehensive history of the state of Utah—including the Mormons’ territorial struggles with outside business interests, federal officials, and the courts—is detailed by Thomas G. Alexander, Utah: The Right Place (Layton, UT: Gibbs Smith, 2003). For an analysis of the United Order movement in Utah during territorial days, see Arrington, Orderville Utah, Chapter XI. For an analysis of the constitutional issues provoked by Mormon polygamy, see Sarah Barringer Gordon, The Mormon Question: Polygamy and Constitutional Conflict in Nineteenth-­Century America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001). Excerpts from the 1887 U.S. Congress, Congressional Record, illustrate the Mormon and anti-­Mormon points of view as the House of Representatives debated the Edmunds-­Tucker bill: Ezra B. Taylor (Ohio): “An earnest, resolute, and even fanatical people have taken possession of one of the large Territories of the Union, seized upon the public domain, organized and established a church which absorbs as well as controls the state . . . and made it not an empire in an empire, but the empire itself. This people and this church defy the moral sense of the civilized world and are of necessity antagonistic to the principles and institution of the Republic. . . . They defy such laws as thwart their needs and interests, and the time has arrived when it must be decided whether they rule or obey.” John T. Caine (Utah):

322  Notes to pages 29–31

60. 61. 62.

63.

64. 65.

“This proposed legislation, which, while professing to be for the suppression of polygamy in the Territory of Utah, is actually a measure intended to suppress the Mormon Church and place its property in the hands of a receiver. . . . It is not the morals of the Mormon people or the contaminating influence thereof upon the public that is at the bottom of the persecution we have to endure. It is preposterous nonsense to talk about the “Mormon blot” upon the civilization of our age. If you were to undertake to eradicate blots upon your civilization you would have your hands full. . . . The Mormon Church establishment is the thing aimed at. . . . It is a religious problem you are endeavoring to deal with. . . . It is our ecclesiastical and not our moral polity that is aimed at. . . . You cannot afford to pursue a policy which is determined upon the destruction of a people whose only fault is, at worst, that they pursue the happiness of themselves and their fellows by methods which are different from your own.” John R. Tucker (Virginia): “It is useless to call such a measure as that now before the House, an assault upon a religion. It is an assault upon a band of men organized for the purpose of controlling exclusively the territory . . . what is this Mormonism? Is it merely polygamy? Are we dealing with the individual crime of the individual man? Not at all; or only incidentally. every Mormon member of the church is bound by his fidelity to the church to see that the state is run in favor of the Lord . . . The Mormon Church is a hierarchy that overrides the state” (House Congressional Record, Jan. 12, 1887:585–96). See James R. Clark, comp., Messages of the First Presidency, (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1965–71), 3:194–95. Ibid., 271–77. Even after major formal concessions were made by the Mormon hierarchy to end federal suppression and to bring about statehood and self-­rule for Utah, many antagonists remained unconvinced that the power of the LDS Church was sufficiently curtailed or that objectionable Mormon practices would really be changed. Thus, there was continued opposition to the introduction of an enabling act in the House of Representatives for Utah’s admission as a state. For an account of these views and of the political differences within the Mormon hierarchy itself, see Samuel W. Taylor, Rocky Mountain Empire (New York: MacMillan, 1978), Chapter 2; and Kathleen Flake, The Politics of American Religious Identity: The Seating of Senator Reed Smoot, Mormon Apostle (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004). For a discussion of the LDS Church’s changed economic role and its capitalist business ventures around the turn of the twentieth century, see Arrington, Orderville Utah, Chapter XIII. We systematically review these thematic changes at general conference in Chapter 4. Matthew Bowman, The Mormon People: The Making of an American Faith (New York: Random House, 2012), Chapter 6. For studies of the doctrinal,

Notes to pages 32–34  323

66.

67.

68.

69.

70. 71.

72.

political, and organizational reforms undertaken by early twentieth-­century LDS leaders, see Thomas G. Alexander, “The Word of Wisdom: From Principle to Requirement,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 14, no. 3 (Autumn 1981): 46–88; Flake, American Religious Identity; and Ethan R. Yorgason, Transformation of the Mormon Culture Region (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2010). Utah/Mormon politics during Roosevelt’s New Deal administration of the 1930s are discussed in Thomas G. Alexander, Utah: The Right Place (Layton, UT: Gibbs Smith, 2003), Chapter 12. The anticommunism apprehensions and rhetoric of LDS general authorities in the 1950s are reviewed in Gregory A. Prince and William Robert Wright, David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2005). Gordon and Gary Shepherd, “The Face of Modern Mormonism: The Missionary Program of the LDS Church,” forthcoming in The Mormon World, Richard Sherlock and Carl Mosser, eds. (London: Routledge). Official statements by the LDS First Presidency legitimating the “Negro doctrine” in the past were, as Mauss in “Mormonism and the Negro: Faith, Folklore, and Civil Rights,” 7, 19–39 puts it, “parsimonious.” Unofficial explanations and widely held Mormon folk beliefs almost always concluded that blacks were denied the priesthood on earth because of their “unworthiness” in the pre-­earth existence, and that the loss of priesthood privileges must therefore have been a form of punishment for prior transgressions. For a review of the historical factors associated with the development of this doctrine, see Lester E. Bush Jr., “Mormonism’s Negro Doctrine: An Historical Overview,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 8, no. 1 (1973): 11–68. Analysis of the events that led up to the change in priesthood policy is provided by Mauss (ibid.). The LDS Church’s current position—which retroactively rejects race as a condition of priesthood eligibility and is now in basic agreement with scholarly analyses concerning the historical evolution of LDS racial policies—is formally stated on the church website, accessed March 2015, at lds.org/topics/race-­and-­the-­priesthood?lang=eng. Deseret News, June 9, 1978. As of August 15, 2013, the following statement concerning “Women in the Church” was posted on the official LDS website (lds.org) under the link Gospel Topics: “As a disciple of Jesus Christ, every woman in the Church is given the responsibility to know and defend the divine roles of women, which include that of wife, mother, daughter, sister, aunt, and friend . . . They also have, by divine nature, the greater gift and responsibility for home and children and nurturing there and in other settings.” The excommunication of Sonia Johnson in 1979 for her public accusations against the male leadership of the church in sponsoring institutional sexism (particularly as expressed in their opposition to the national Equal Rights

324  Note to page 34

Amendment) received widespread coverage in the national media. For Johnson’s own account of her experience, see Sonia Johnson, From Housewife to Heretic (New York: Doubleday, 1981). More recently, Bowman, The Mormon People, 300, concludes that “the Mormon feminist movement is still active, though neither so vocal nor radical as it was in the 1970s and 1980s.” Concerning contemporary women with feminist sympathies, Mary F. Bednarowski in The Religious Imagination of American Women (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999), similarly identifies educated Mormon women who, like their counterparts in conservative, evangelical religions, reconcile professional careers with membership in male-­dominated churches through ambivalent “strategies of resistance, acceptance, and hope.” Mauss, “Rethinking Retrenchment: Course Corrections in the Ongoing Campaign for Respectability,” 8–12, also discusses reemerging Mormon feminism over the last decade, concurring that it is both relatively moderate and more widely accepted within LDS circles. Mauss credits the role of new social media and the “blogosphere” as significant venues for greater current expression of women’s voices within the LDS Church. These interpretations of modest agitation for feminist change may be upended by the dramatic actions undertaken by a new Mormon group called Ordain Women. At both the October 2013 and April 2014 LDS general priesthood conference sessions, OW attracted widespread media attention by seeking admission to the males-­only gathering on Temple Square in the heart of Salt Lake City. The leadership and active participants of Ordain Women are devout LDS women whose goal is to achieve ecclesiastical parity with men through ordination to the priesthood (see ordainwomen.org). Consequently, OW’s founder, Kate Kelly, was excommunicated on grounds of apostasy and other leaders of the movement were similarly threatened. The primary distinction between church authorities’ resistance to Ordain Women’s agitation for the priesthood and to the pressure exerted by black civil rights organizations against the church in the 1960s is that OW is an internal reform movement comprised largely of Latter-­day Saint members in good standing. Organized reform movements that criticize leader actions and do not comply with official mandates to curtail their agitation are perceived as heretics who undermine organizational authority and influence others to do the same. In the short run, events surrounding OW’s dissenting actions seem very likely to polarize the issue of women’s equality within the LDS faith, with additional fallout concerning the limits of dissent and grassroots reform in a conservative, hierarchical church. The long-­term consequences of OW’s organizing efforts for the LDS religion will merit close scrutiny in the decades ahead.

Notes to pages 35–39  325

73. In a lengthy investigative article published November 14, 2008, the New York Times summarized the role played by wealthy LDS members and the church’s auxiliary organizations in helping to pass California’s Proposition 8, banning same-­sex marriage under the headline: “Mormons Tipped Scale in Ban on Gay Marriage,” (See [accessed March 2015] nytimes.com/2008/ 11/15/us/politics/15marriage.html?pagewanted=1&_r=3&hp). Concerning LDS support for Proposition 8, Mauss (ibid., 13) writes in retrospect that “the public relations blowback for the Church from its political campaigns made clear the need to take new public positions on gay rights that would emphasize the need to distinguish its firm position on marriage from other questions about the rights of homosexuals, both in society generally and in the Church particularly.” 74. Mark Leone, Roots of Modern Mormonism (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979), 213–26. 75. See William Martin, With God on Our Side: The Rise of the Religious Right in America (Portland, OR: Broadway Books, 2005) for a historical review of the rising social and political influence in American society of the religious right over the past fifty years, a development that parallels the post–WW II national and international expansion of the LDS Church. 76. See Matthew Bowman, The Mormon People; Armand L. Mauss, The Angel and the Beehive: The Mormon Struggle with Assimilation (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994); Armand L. Mauss, “Rethinking Retrenchment: Course Corrections in the Ongoing Campaign for Respectability,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 44, no. 4 (2011): 1–42; Givens, People of Paradox; and Jan Shipps, “Mormonism and the Religious Mainstream,” in Minority Faiths and the American Protestant Tradition, Jonathan D. Sarna, ed. (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1998), 111–14.

Chapter 3 1. 2. 3. 4.

5.

Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1945), xiv. See, for example, Laurence R. Moore, Religious Outsiders and the Making of Americans (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 27–47. Ernest R. Sandeen, The Roots of Fundamentalism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970), 42. For Darby’s nineteenth-­century influence on evangelical Protestant notions of Christian Zionism, see Paul R. Wilkinson, For Zion’s Sake: Christian Zionism and the Role of John Nelson Darby in Evangelical History and Thought (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2008). Ibid., 68.

326  Notes to pages 39–42

6.

7. 8. 9.

10.

11. 12. 13.

14.

Grant Underwood, in The Millenarian World of Early Mormonism (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993), offers a systematic analysis of early Mormon millenarianism. Written by Parley P. Pratt; see Hymns: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-­day Saints (Salt Lake City: Deseret Press, 1948). Written by Joseph L. Townsend; ibid. For an analysis of the connection between millenarian movements and human disasters, see Michael Barkun, Disaster and the New Millennium (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974). Barkun argues that disasters (including, it might be argued, such disruptive social changes as those brought about by the rapid development and spread of nineteenth-­century industrial capitalism) are the cause of millenarian movements. “Men cleave to hopes of imminent worldly salvation only when the hammer blows of disaster destroy the world they have known and render them susceptible to ideas which they would earlier have cast aside” (ibid., 1). Ronald G. Walters, in American Reformers, 1815–1860 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1978) identifies and describes the overlapping religious values of the many antebellum reform movements in nineteenth-­century America. James E. Talmage, Articles of Faith (Salt Lake City: Deseret Books, 1961), Chapter 20. Thomas F. O’Dea, The Mormons (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957), 125. It should be noted that most premillennialists were theologically opposed to the spread of perfectionist ideas in American religion. Premillennialists found the older, Calvinistic emphasis on determinism and grace—as opposed to the efficacy of will and good works—more congenial to their prophetic interpretation of history. Sandeen (Roots of Fundamentalism, 177) concludes that “this antagonism toward the revival of perfectionism within American Protestantism helps to explain why the millenarian movement did not appeal to many Methodists or to the members of the Nazarene and Pentecostal groups which began to flourish later in the century. Through Charles G. Finney and Asa Mohan, the Oberlin perfectionism influenced the reform tradition in the United States, but it was opposed by the more conservative elements within the Presbyterian Church and by the millenarians as well.” At April conference in 1843 Joseph Smith remarked, “Were I going to prophesy, I would say the end [of the world] would not come in 1844, 5, or 6, or in forty years. There are those of the rising generation who shall not taste death till Christ comes. I was once praying earnestly upon this subject, and a voice said unto me, ‘My son, if thou livest until thou art eighty-­f ive years of age, thou shalt see the face of the Son of Man.’ I was left to draw my own conclusions concerning this, and I took the liberty to conclude that if I did live to

Notes to pages 43–46  327

that time, He would make His appearance. But I do not say whether He will make His appearance or I shall go where He is. I prophesy in the name of the Lord God, and let it be written—the Son of Man will not come in the clouds of heaven till I am eighty-­f ive years old”—an age, of course, which Smith failed to attain (DHC 5:336). 15. Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Commitment and Community (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972), 3. Timothy Miller, “The Evolution of American Spiritual Communities, 1965–2009,” Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions 13, no. 3, (2010): 15–31, argues that only a fraction of intentional communities founded in the United States have been identified. Miller’s own listing of communities (Timothy Miller, The 60s Communes: Hippies and Beyond [Syracuse University Press, 1999]) combined with a non-­ overlapping list compiled in Donald E. Pitzer, ed., America’s Communal Utopias (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997), totals over two thousand communities. But this merged list is still far from constituting a complete census. 16. Ronald G. Walters, American Reformers, 1815–1860 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1978), 40. 17. Information on these various utopian societies can be found in both Kanter, ibid., and Walter, ibid. 18. For a discussion of Mormon communitarian orders and their contributions to Mormon development, as well as the reasons for their ultimate failure as set forth by a Mormon economic historian, see Leonard J. Arrington, Orderville Utah: A Pioneer Mormon Experiment in Economic Organization (Logan: Utah State Agricultural College Monograph Series, vol. II, no. 2, 1954). 19. Irving Bartlett, The American Mind in the Mid-­Nineteenth Century (Wheeling, IL: Harlan Davidson, 1982). 20. A condensation of this perspective is articulated in a verse from the Book of Mormon: “Adam fell that men might be, and men are that they might have joy” (2 Nephi 2:27). 21. Sterling M. McMurrin, The Theological Foundations of the Mormon Religion (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1965), 83. 22. James E. Talmage, Articles of Faith, 220–23. 23. John A. Widtsoe, A Rational Theology as Taught by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-­day Saints (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1965). 24. McMurrin, Theological Foundations, 19–48. 25. DHC 5:306. 26. This theological notion is concisely captured in the popular Mormon couplet, enunciated by the fifth LDS president, Lorenzo Snow, in 1894: “As man now is, God once was; as God is now, man may be” (Deseret Weekly, Nov. 3, 1894, 610). 27. Contemporary LDS leaders shy away from emphasizing these radical theological themes precisely because their heretical nature fuels orthodox

328  Notes to pages 47–50

critics’ charges that Mormonism is a non-­Christian cult. We amplify this observation at greater length in Chapter 9. 28. For a discussion of how Mormonism’s conception of heaven as a place of activity is part of the “Mormon Rationalization of Death,” see Klaus J. Hansen, Mormonism and the American Experience (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), Chapter 3. 29. Whitney R. Cross, The Burned-­over District: The Social and Intellectual History of Enthusiastic Religion in Western New York, 1800–1850 (New York: Harper and Row, 1950), 145. 30. Journal of Discourses 4:24–25; hereafter cited as JD. 31. Quoted in M. R. Werner, Brigham Young (London: Jonathan Cope Ltd, 1925), 455. 32. On the protestant ethic, see Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, translated by Talcott Parsons (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1958). 33. Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom, 4. 34. Hansen, Mormonism and the American Experience, 25–26. 35. Presiding church patriarch was another important office in the LDS hierarchy of general authorities from 1835 until well into the twentieth century. The first patriarch was Joseph Smith Sr., followed by two of his sons, Hyrum and William. This was thus an office of family lineage and was invested with charismatic authority that in several respects made it both an independent position and a potentially rival source of influence within the church hierarchy. The office was downgraded in its functional importance during the early mid-­t wentieth century and was eliminated altogether in 1978. Thousands of local stake patriarchs now fulfill the function of this once-­powerful office by giving private patriarchal blessings to local members. But the latter have no organizational authority beyond the issuance of these blessings. In contrast, a presiding patriarch (church evangelist) still occupies a position in the top echelon of authorities for the Community of Christ (formerly the RLDS Church). For a historical account of the office of church patriarch, see Irene M. Bates and E. Gary Smith, Lost Legacy: The Mormon Office of Presiding Patriarch (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2002). For an analysis of the functional significance of patriarchal blessings in the early development of Mormonism, see Gary Shepherd and Gordon Shepherd, Binding Earth and Heaven: Patriarchal Blessings in the Prophetic Development of Early Mormonism (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2012). 36. In LDS ecclesiastical organization, a stake is comparable to a Catholic diocese and a ward is equivalent to a parish. 37. In the early decades of Mormon history, the kingdom of God and the organization of the church were theoretically viewed as separate entities. It was projected that the kingdom of God would exercise temporal and political power

Notes to pages 50–53  329

over all nations and might include non-­Mormons in its governing councils (such as the Council of Fifty), while the church would primarily be a spiritual organization for those converted to the restored gospel. The organization and growth of the church were nonetheless seen as preparatory to the millennial kingdom of God. See Klaus J. Hansen, Quest for Empire: The Political Kingdom of God and the Council of Fifty in Mormon History (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1967); Jedediah S. Rogers, ed. The Council of Fifty: A Documentary History (Salt Lake City: Signature Press, 2014). 38. O’Dea, The Mormons, 83–92. 39. Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom, 27. 40. A summary of the initiation of the LDS welfare system in the context of the Great Depression, along with Utah state and national politics in the New Deal era of Franklin Roosevelt’s administration, is given in Thomas G. Alexander, Utah: The Right Place (Layton, UT: Gibbs Smith, 2003), Chapter 12. 41. Gemeinschaft refers to a community in which people are united primarily through kinship, tradition, informal reciprocity, and shared commitment to the collective welfare rather than by rational legal codes, contracts, and calculated self-­interest. See Ferdinand Tonnies, Community and Society, translated by Charles P. Loomis (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1957). 42. O’Dea, The Mormons, 189. 43. Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom, 27. 44. See Arrington, Orderville Utah. 45. Complex marriage was John Humphrey Noyes’s term for sexual communism, or group marriage, which he advocated as spiritually superior to monogamy. Stirpiculture was the name members of the Oneida community gave to their controlled program of eugenic breeding. See Hilda H. Noyes and George W. Noyes, “The Oneida Community Experiment in Stirpiculture,” Eugenics, Genetics, and the Family l (1928): 374–86. For a comparison of the nineteenth-­century sexual and family experimentations of the Mormons, Shakers, and Oneida Perfectionists, see Lawrence Foster, Religion and Sexuality: Three American Communal Experiments of the Nineteenth Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981). 46. Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom, 27. 47. A good example of an early defense and exposition of Mormon theological materialism is a pamphlet published by Mormon apostle Orson Pratt in 1840 entitled Absurdities of Immaterialism, or a Reply to T. W. P. Taylder’s Pamphlet entitled “The Materialism of the Mormons or Latter-­day Saints, Examined and Exposed.” See also David J. Whittaker, The Essential Orson Pratt (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1991). 48. Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom, 6. 49. D&C 88:1.

330  Notes to pages 53–57

50. Ibid., 28:34. 51. Ibid., 131:7–8. 52. O’Dea, The Mormons, 89. 53. Written by Felicia D. Hemans and Edward L. Sloan; see Hymns: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-­day Saints (Salt Lake City: Deseret Press, 1948). 54. Written by Thomas Kelly, ibid. 55. Written by Charles W. Penrose, ibid. 56. John A. Widtsoe, The Conference Reports of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-­day Saints (Oct. 1949), 62. 57. For some observations by Mormon writers a generation ago on the implications of urbanization for the modern LDS Church, see Dialogue 3, no. 3 (1968). The entire issue addressed the theme of “Mormons in the Secular City.” Subsequent to that collection of essays there has been surprisingly little scholarly work on the subject of urban Mormonism. For one exception to this gap in the literature see Brigham Daniels, “Revitalizing Zion: Nineteenth-­Century Mormonism and Today’s Urban Sprawl,” Journal of Land, Resources and Environmental Law 28, no. 1 (2008): 1–40, who focuses on the challenges of urban sprawl in contemporary Utah communities that were originally planned and developed under Mormon priesthood authority. Urbanization is, of course, not only a transformative social change affecting U.S. Mormons. Mormon missionary success in making converts occurs overwhelmingly in urban areas around the world. See, for example, David C. Knowlton, “Mormonism in Latin America: Towards the Twenty-­f irst Century,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 29, no. 1 (1996): 157–76, for a statistical analysis of the regional spread and concentration of the LDS Church in urban centers throughout Latin America. 58. Joseph R. Gusfield, “Social Structure and Moral Reform: A Study of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union,” American Journal of Sociology 61 (1955): 221–32. 59. Walters, American Reformers, 127. 60. Ibid., 145–72. 61. D&C 89:18–20. 62. Hansen, Mormonism and the American Experience, Chapter 6 argues that Mormon identification with the House of Israel helped to unite heterogeneous groups of converts gathered from various parts of the world into a cohesive community, and that it was also instrumental in the development of Mormon racism. For a later, more comprehensive treatment of Mormon lineage beliefs and racial attitudes, see Armand L. Mauss, All Abraham’s Children: Changing Mormon Conceptions of Race and Lineage (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2003). 63. Ephraim Erickson, The Psychological and Ethical Aspects of Mormon Group Life (1922; Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1975), 5. A generation after Erickson’s analysis, the sociologist Thomas O’Dea (“Mormonism and

Notes to pages 58–60  331

the Avoidance of Sectarian Stagnation: A Study of Church, Sect, and Incipient Nationality,” American Journal of Sociology 60, no. 3 [1954]: 285) characterized Mormons congregated in the Utah culture region as closely resembling an ethnic group which had become a “near-­nation.” We address this theme in the new preface and last chapter of this book. 64. Book of Mormon, 2 Nephi 1:5. 65. The nationalistic, religious conviction that America is a land of special divine favor, destined to play a crucial role in the history of the world, is explored in Ernest L. Tuveson, Redeemer Nation: The Idea of America’s Millennial Role (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968). 66. Sandeen, Roots of Fundamentalism, 43. 67. The Mormons’ ambivalent attitude toward the federal government was well reflected in Brigham Young’s comments to Captain Stewart Van Vliet of the U.S. Army. Van Vliet was sent in 1857 to talk with Mormon leaders, procure supplies for the army then advancing toward Utah, and reassure Utahns of the military’s peaceful intentions: “’We do not want to fight the United States,’ remarked Brigham, ‘but if they drive us to it, we shall do the best we can . . . We are the supporters of the Constitution of the United States, and we love the Constitution and respect the laws of the United States; but it is by the corrupt administration of these laws that we are made to suffer’” (Hurbert Bancroft, History of Utah [San Francisco: The History Company, 1890], 565). 68. Sandeen, Reformer Nation, 27. 69. To a greater or lesser degree, most protestant denominations justify their historical existence on the grounds of Catholic doctrinal deviations and worldly corruption or apostasy from the original teachings of primitive ­Christianity. Baptists, Adventists, and Restorationists—including Mormons—are especially emphatic about what their theologians call “the Great Apostasy.” In the Mormon view, because of the Great Apostasy the Christian church could not merely be reformed; it had to be completely restored through prophetic revelation. See James E. Talmage, The Great Apostasy (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1994); also Hugh Nibley, Todd M. Compton, and Stephen D. Ricks, eds., Mormonism and Early Christianity (Deseret Book, 1987). 70. The cycle of apostasy, withdrawal of God’s favor, repentance motivated by prophetic leadership, and restoration of God’s favor is, perhaps, the major narrative theme throughout the Book of Mormon. 71. DHC 6:317. 72. Josiah Quincy, Figures of the Past (Boston: Little Brown, 1926), 321. 73. Ibid., 327. 74. Thomas Ford, A History of Illinois (Chicago: The Lakeside Press, R. Donnelly and Sons, 1945), 355. 75. Eber D. Howe, Mormonism Unvailed (Plainesville, OH: printed and published by the author, 1834), 12–13.

332  Notes to pages 61–64

76. Quoted in John Henry Evans, Joseph Smith, an American Prophet (New York: MacMillan, 1933), 326. 77. Competent histories have been published of all of these movements. For the general reader, good summary overviews of the Shakers, Oneidians, Seventh-­Day Adventists, Christian Scientists, and other nineteenth-­century religious movements (including Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses) are provided in Richard T. Schaeffer and William W. Zellner, Extraordinary Groups: an Examination of Unconventional Lifestyles (New York: Worth, 2001, 2010). 78. D&C 13. 79. Leonard J. Arrington and Davis Bitton, The Mormon Experience: A History of the Latter-­day Saints (New York: Knopf, 1979), 28. 80. John Turner, Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2012), repeatedly reports on the early employment of speaking in tongues by Brigham Young as a mechanism that served both his own personal spiritual confirmation and the charismatic leadership attributed to him by his peers. Mark Staker in Hearken, O Ye People: The Historical Setting for Joseph Smith’s Ohio Revelations (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2009) also highlights the issues of spiritual gifts and speaking in tongues as potentially disruptive problems for Joseph Smith to manage in Kirtland. 81. O’Dea, The Mormons, 156–60. 82. Ibid., 155–56. 83. It should be pointed out that Joseph Smith, his brother Hyrum, Brigham Young, Heber Kimball, and other leading elders of the early LDS Church became Masons and established a lodge in Nauvoo prior to the Mormons being driven out of Illinois. For an apologetic analysis of Mormonism and Masonry by a LDS ecclesiastical authority, see Anthony W. Ivins, The Relationship of Mormonism and Free Masonry (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1934). For more recent comprehensive and comparative analyses, see Michael W. Homer, “Similarity of Priesthood in Masonry: The Relationship between Freemasonry and Mormonism,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 27, no. 3 (1994): 2–113 ; and Michael W. Homer, Joseph’s Temples: The Dynamic Relationship between Freemasonry and Mormonism (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2014). 84. In particular, see 1 Corinthians 15:29. For a brief summary of the LDS doctrine and practice of proxy baptisms for the dead, see the link to “Baptisms for the Dead” under “Gospel Study: Study by Topic” at lds.org. 85. Through its Family History Library, the LDS Church collects and stores millions of genealogical microfiche and microfilm records that are also made available for onsite research at over 4,500 LDS family history centers worldwide. See Donald H. Akenson, Some Family: The Mormons and How Humanity Keeps Track of Itself (Montreal: McGill-­Queen’s University Press, 2007).

Notes to pages 64–65  333

In addition, Ancestry.com Inc., a privately owned internet company and the largest for-­profit genealogy company in the world, was founded by two returned LDS missionaries and is based in Provo, Utah. See the ancestry. com website. 86. George D. Smith, Nauvoo Polygamy . . . But We Called it Celestial Marriage (Salt Lake City: Signature Press, 2007). 87. Anthony W. Ivins, “Notes on Mormon Polygamy,” Western Humanities Review 10 (1956): 229–39. More recent scholarship on nineteenth-­century Mormon polygamy and fertility can be found in Lowell C. Bennion, “Mapping the Extent of Plural Marriage in St. George, 1861–1880,” BYU Studies 51, no. 4 (2012): 26–68; Kathryn M. Daynes, More Wives than One: Transformation of the Mormon Marriage System, 1840–1910 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2008); Larry M. Logue, “Waiting for Spirits: Monogamous and Polygamous Fertility in a Mormon Town,” Journal of Family History 10 (1985): 60–74; Larry M. Logue, A Sermon in the Desert: Belief and Behavior in Early St. George, Utah (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988); and Richard S. Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy: A History (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1989). 88. O’Dea, The Mormons, 140. 89. See Cardell K. Jacobson and Lara Burton, eds., Modern Polygamy in the United States: Historical, Cultural, and Legal Issues (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), for informative historical, sociological, and political analyses of the 2008 raid by Texas authorities on the Fundamentalist Latter-­ day Saints (FLDS) polygamous colony in Eldorado, Texas. 90. The irony of this situation is captured in Samuel W. Taylor’s account of a police raid conducted in 1953 by the state of Arizona against Fundamentalist Latter-­day Saints—an outcast Mormon splinter community in Short Creek, Arizona—which persisted in practicing polygamy. Following the raid, the church-­owned Deseret News published an editorial lauding the police effort: “Law-­abiding citizens of Utah and Arizona owe a debt of gratitude to Arizona’s Governor Howard Pyle and to his police officers who, Sunday, raided the polygamous settlement at Short Creek and rounded up its leaders for trial. The existence of this community on our border has been an embarrassment to our people and a smudge on the reputations of our two great states. We hope Governor Pyle will make good his pledge to eradicate the illegal practices conducted there before they become a cancer of a sort that is beyond hope of human repair.” Quoted in Samuel Taylor, Rocky Mountain Empire (New York: MacMillan, 1978), 101–2. 91. Such doctrinal reversals are not uncommon in religious history. An interesting case in point was the changing stand taken by the Roman Catholic Church to affirm the “reality” of witchcraft in Reformation times as opposed to its earlier official rejection of witchcraft as sheer superstition during the

334  Notes to pages 65–67

92.

93.

94. 95.

96.

97.

98.

Middle Ages. See H. R. Trevor-­Roper, The European Witch-­Craze of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (New York: Harper and Row, 1969). Though confining themselves to one spouse in actual practice since the late nineteenth century, Mormon couples today still enter the covenant of celestial or eternal marriage in a sacred temple ceremony. Mormon men who remarry in the temple do so again for eternity and thus, theologically, become polygamists in heaven. And additional wives so married to a husband are now, theologically, plural wives, also for eternity. In this way the original theological implication of celestial marriage is still maintained. Not counting the first Mormon temple in Kirtland, Ohio (which is now owned by the Community of Christ and functions primarily as a tourist site), there are, as of this writing, 146 Mormon temples in use throughout the world: 85 are in the U.S. (17 in Utah) and 61 are located in 43 countries abroad. Another several dozen temples have either been announced or are currently under construction. See lds.org/church/temples/find-­a-­temple?lang=eng, accessed March 2015. Church-­authorized descriptions and explanations of LDS temples and their ritual functions can be found in James E. Talmage, The House of the Lord (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1912) and Boyd K. Packer, The Holy Temple (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-­day Saints, 1982). Scholarly sources on LDS temples and temple ritual include David J. Buerger, The Mysteries of Godliness: A History of Mormon Temple Worship (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2002) and Devery Anderson, Development of LDS Temple Worship, 1846–2000: A Documentary History (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2011). This interpretation is summarized in Lowe, “General Conferences,” Chapter XV. For a historical overview of LDS temple doctrine and corresponding temple ordinances, see Buerger, Mysteries of Godliness. For a non-­Mormon scholar’s analysis and interpretation of temple rituals, see Douglas J. Davies, The Mormon Culture of Salvation: Force, Grace, and Glory (Surrey: Ashgate, 2000). A study by Dean May shows that a sizeable fraction of Latter-­day Saints from Nauvoo, who later joined with Brigham Young and the apostles in the Mormon exodus to Utah, were converts from the U.K. See Dean L. May, “A Demographic Portrait of the Mormons, 1830–1980,” in After 150 Years: The Latter-­day Saints in Sesquicentennial Perspective, edited by Thomas G. Alexander and Jessie Embry (Midvale, UT: Signature Books, 1983). Leonard J. Arrington and Davis Bitton, The Mormon Experience: A History of the Latter-­day Saints (New York: Knopf, 1979), 37–38, quoting from the Deseret News Weekly, Dec. 8, 1869. In the nineteenth century, Mormon missionary efforts to “gather out the pure in heart” meant locating and converting presumed lineal descendants of the anciently dispersed tribes of Israel from the nations of the world in fulfillment of Mormon interpretation of biblical prophecies. For a

Notes to pages 67–79  335

comprehensive analysis of these beliefs and practices as they have impacted LDS missionary work and racial thinking, and also how they have evolved in relation to Mormon international growth in modern times, see Armand L. Mauss, All Abraham’s Children: Changing Mormon Conceptions of Race and Lineage (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2003). 99. These statistics were reported in an online Mormon Newsroom article at mormonnewsroom.org/article/church-­provides-­additional-­missionary-­ statistics, accessed March 2015. 100. Sandeen, Roots of Fundamentalism, 10, 55. 101. In 1979 the LDS Church dedicated a memorial grotto and garden on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem commemorating the mission and dedicatory prayer of apostle Orson Hyde in 1841 (see the Deseret News Church Almanac 2012, 299). Orthodox Mormons continue to believe that the restored gospel ultimately will be received and accepted by the Jews prior to the apocalyptic end-­time of human history. 102. Pearl of Great Price, 60. 103. Book of Mormon, title page.

Chapter 4 1.

2.

3.

4.

On nineteenth-­century issues of succession to the LDS presidency and their resolution, see Leo Lyman, ”Succession by Seniority: The Development of Procedural Precedents in the LDS Church,” Journal of Mormon History 40, no. 2 (2014): 92–158; Ronald W. Walker, “Grant’s Watershed: Succession in the Presidency, 1887–1889,” BYU Studies 43, no. 1 (2004): 195–229; Ronald K. Esplin, “Joseph, Brigham and the Twelve: A Succession of Continuity,” BYU Studies 21 (1981): 301–41; and D. Michael Quinn, “The Mormon Succession Crisis of 1844, BYU Studies 16, no. 2 (1976): 1–44. Not reflected by conference rhetoric on church government, in proportion to its decisive contemporary influence, is the increasing administration of church programs through a professionalized central bureaucracy. We comment further on the bureaucratization of LDS church organization in Chapters 7 and 8. The particular type of polygamy (a term which refers to a general state of marriage involving multiple spouses) practiced by the Mormons is technically called “polygyny,” which signifies marriage between one husband and multiple wives. Cohabitation between husbands and already existing plural wives continued for many years following the polygamy manifesto, and, in spite of official LDS statements to the contrary, some Mormon general authorities continued to unofficially sanction the practice of taking on new plural wives, resulting in a number of polygamous marriages being secretly performed over a period of at least fifteen years after 1890. Lively (but documented) accounts of these transitional years—and the organizational and

336  Notes to pages 81–83

5.

6.

7.

8.

political consequences of “underground” polygamy for the church—are detailed in Samuel W. Taylor, Rocky Mountain Empire (New York: MacMillan, 1978). For a thorough scholarly analysis of post-­manifesto polygamy, see D. Michael Quinn, “LDS Church Authority and New Plural Marriages, 1890– 1904,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 18, no. 1 (1985): 9–105. For a scholarly analysis of the mounting political pressure on LDS authorities to cease and desist from supporting or even tolerating the practice of plural marriage in violation of both state and federal law, see Kathleen Flake, The Politics of American Religious Identity: The Seating of Senator Reed Smoot, Mormon Apostle (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004). Flake argues that the religious and political compromises made by LDS authorities with leaders of the U.S. Senate as a result of the Reed Smoot hearings of 1904–1907 put an eventual end to the Mormons’ fortress mentality and paved the way for their integration in both the American religious economy and national political system. As argued in Matthew D. Bowman, The Mormon People: The Making of an American Faith (New York: Random House, 2012), the Mormons’ early twentieth-­century emphasis on clean living and a wholesome lifestyle resonated with progressive-­era reformism and the latter’s moralistic stress on individual character, self-­discipline, and personal rectitude, thus helping to burnish the LDS Church’s tarnished public image. See also Jan Shipps, Sojourner in the Promised Land: Forty Years Among the Mormons (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000), 45–143 for a penetrating analysis of changing Mormon–non-­Mormon perceptions in the twentieth century. In contrast, the contemporary smash Broadway hit, The Book of Mormon, is extraordinarily profane and irreverent towards Mormon beliefs and practices. However, it could scarcely succeed as ribald, satirical humor if positive Mormon stereotypes (as well as negative ones) were not widespread in popular culture. For detailed discussions of the gradual transformation in status of the Word of Wisdom from counsel to commandment, see Thomas G. Alexander, “The Word of Wisdom: From Principle to Requirement,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 14, no. 3 (Autumn 1981): 46–88; and Robert J. McCue, “Did the Word of Wisdom Become a Commandment in 1851?” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 14, no. 3 (Autumn 1981): 46–88. “Self-­consciously” modern in the sense that by 1920 virtually all of the old antagonistic issues such as polygamy, territorial exclusiveness, and political control had finally been laid to rest. The leadership of this latter period consisted largely of third-­generation Mormons who had earlier perceived the inevitability of compromises, helped engineer those compromises, and now continued to secure and enjoy the hard-­earned rewards derived from integration into the national mainstream. For historical accounts of this period of Mormon history, see Thomas G. Alexander, Mormonism in Transition: A

Notes to pages 83–87  337

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

History of the Latter-­day Saints, 1890–1930 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1986); Bowman, The Mormon People; and Chad Flake, A Mormon Bibliography, 1830–1930: Books, Pamphlets, Periodicals, and Broadsides Relating to the First Century of Mormonism (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2004). LDS emphasis on international church growth can be indexed by the amount of attention it receives in the annual Deseret News Church Almanac. For example, of 624 total pages published in the 2011 Almanac, 459 pages (74 percent) were included under the heading “Worldwide Church,” which featured world maps, membership statistics by country, missionary statistics (numbers in service, number of convert baptisms, etc.), temples of the church by country, as well as the global distribution of LDS stakes, wards, and branches. These findings mesh very well with Sorenson’s conclusion that the First Presidency’s emphasis on family themes was a relatively new phenomenon (“Word Frequencies in the Messages of the First Presidency,” chap. 1, no. 15). Since Sorenson’s analysis of twentieth-­century First Presidency messages to church members only extends to 1934, and since his analysis is based on raw word counts rather than thematic coding, it is difficult to compare many of the statistical patterns reflected in our own data. It is interesting to note, however, that such utopian terms as Zion and kingdom occurred much less frequently in Sorenson’s early twentieth-­century count, while such authority/legitimacy terms as God, Christ, gospel, church, and priesthood retained their high-­f requency usage. Articles by Mormon women on women’s issues regularly appear in Dialogue and Sunstone—periodicals devoted to Mormon topics but which have no official connection with the LDS Church. Unlike official LDS publications, both Dialogue and Sunstone are willing to examine in a critical way Mormon beliefs and practices. Over the years, the editors of both these journals have frequently been women. Both Bowman, The Mormon People (Chapter 6) and Flake, A Mormon Bibliography (Chapter 5) consider the various ways ecclesiastical leaders successfully rallied the faith and commitment of early twentieth-­century Mormons (following fundamental concessions of their religion to federal authorities) by reconstructing Mormon historical narratives, abstracting and refining LDS theological principles to show greater congruence with progressive confidence in science and public education, and institutionalizing new church auxiliary programs that required the active participation of both adults and their children as measures of worthiness and moral fitness in the sight of God. See Max Weber, The Sociology of Religion, translated by Ephraim Fischoff (Boston: Beacon Press, 1963) for a comparison of world religious systems in which he traces the fundamental consequences of a transcendent conception of God versus an immanent conception of the divine. Two of the most

338  Notes to pages 87–97

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

notable correlates of belief in a transcendent God, namely a tradition of ethical prophecy and an attitude of worldly asceticism in the interest of a sacred cause, are intrinsic to the LDS religion. See Mark Leone, Roots of Modern Mormonism (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979), Chapter 8 for a provocative discussion of the ways the LDS Church controls its own image, neither distinguishing between past and present realities nor recognizing the role of objective conditions that shape historical realities. See also Leonard J. Arrington, “The Writing of Latter-­day Saint History: Problems, Accomplishments, and Admonitions,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 14 no. 3 (August 1981): 119–29 for a clear—and retrospectively poignant—assessment of the special problems and responsibilities of serious Mormon historians who must try to reconcile their professional standards of inquiry and scholarly judgment with their religious faith. It is instructive to note the frequency with which Mormons employ the term work in their religious discourse. The LDS religion is nothing if not an active religion that requires committed engagement by its lay members in church sanctioned programs. Heirs of the New England Puritan ethic of unrelenting, sober effort in performing one’s religious duty, all of the lay activities required of faithful Mormons are conceptualized as doing the “Lord’s work” on earth. Not only is active missionary effort defined as “missionary work,” but so too is regular participation in proxy temple ceremonies referred to as “temple work” and conducting genealogical research necessary for temple ordinances performed on behalf of the dead called “genealogy work,” etc. A summary article on LDS missionary history, evolving strategies, and institutional concerns since the end of WWII can be found in Gordon Shepherd and Gary Shepherd, “The Face of Modern Mormonism: The Lay Missionary Program of the LDS Church,” in Mormon Worlds, Carl Mosser and Richard Sherlock eds. (London: Routledge, forthcoming). See also Gary Shepherd and Gordon Shepherd, Mormon Passage: A Missionary Chronicle (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997). Rhetoric concerning blessings and other anticipated religious rewards represents what we define and analyze in more detail as “investment strategies” in chapters 5 and 6. See our theoretical typology of prophetic guidance in religious movements using the LDS Church and The Family International as comparative case studies (Gordon Shepherd and Gary Shepherd, “Prophecy Channels and Prophetic Modalities: A Comparison of Revelation in The Family International and the LDS Church,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 48, no. 4, 2009: 734–55). This study shows how the transformation of prophetic channels (from individual to group) and prophetic modes (from oracular to

Notes to pages 101–104  339

inspirational) has correlated over time with LDS accommodation and success in relation to antagonistic social environments. 19. There is no dearth of books advertised through Amazon, Google, or internet blog postings that characterize the LDS religion and its church as a “cult.” However, the term cult has largely been abandoned in contemporary social science discourse because of its highly pejorative connotation. In lieu of cult, most scholars prefer the value-­neutral term of new religion or new religious movement when discussing religious groups that have formed in dissent from established religious bodies or are religious innovations that deviate from current orthodoxies. See Gary Shepherd, “Cults: The Social Psychology of,” in The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology, George Ritzer, ed. (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007), 884–87. See also Chapter 7 of this volume for a more detailed discussion of this issue as applied specifically to Mormonism.

Chapter 5 1.

2. 3. 4.

5.

6.

Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Commitment and Community (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972). Interestingly enough, Kanter included one very early Mormon experiment in communitarian living in her sample of utopian groups—the 1831 settlement in Jackson County, Missouri (when the majority of Mormons were still centered in Kirtland, Ohio) in which members attempted to live according to the Order of Enoch until they were driven from their homes by hostile neighbors. Ibid., 75. Ibid., 65. Mayer Zald and Roberta Ash, “Social Movement Organizations: Growth, Decay, and Change,” Social Forces 44 (1966): 327–41. In contrast, inclusive organizations do not demand total commitment from their members, but recognize and tolerate the legitimate demands placed on their members’ resources from other groups. These contrasting forms of organization are theoretical types. In reality, groups vary in the degree to which they are exclusive or inclusive in their member requirements. Commitment then, as Kanter points out, is a unifying process involving people who already belong to a group. In studies of commitment, emphasis is not placed on strategies employed to recruit new members. Rather, the focus is on strategies for sustaining and strengthening the loyalty and devotion of already existing members. The ambiguous nature of religious rewards is a key element in Rodney Stark and William Bainbridge’s exchange theory of religion and religious commitment. See Stark and Bainbridge, “Of Churches, Sects, and Cults: Preliminary Concepts for a Theory of Religious Movements,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 18, no. 2 (1979): 117–31; The Future of Religion: Secularization, Revival, and Cult Formation (Berkley: University of California

340  Notes to pages 104–110

Press, 1985). Stark and Bainbridge regard religious organizations as systems that specialize in supernaturally based “compensators.” Compensators are intangible substitutes for rewards that cannot be unequivocally demonstrated but are nevertheless highly valued, such as promises of God’s spirit or eternal life. Thus, compensators function as rewards, and people are willing to expend costs to obtain them. Such costs are what we have in mind in applying Kanter’s categories of sacrifice, renunciation, and mortification to the history of Mormon commitment patterns. Stark and Bainbridge also note that some important religious exchanges involve real rewards, such as power, status, and meaningful associations with others that shape people’s identities. These generally constitute the meta-­content of the investment, communion, and transcendence categories of Kanter’s theory. 7. The complementary relationship between costs and rewards is also commented on by Stark and Bainbridge (ibid). Some valued rewards are obtained by expending less valuable rewards (i.e., accepting a cost). On the other hand, successful avoidance of cost becomes a reward. 8. The theory of cognitive dissonance was formulated initially in the book by Leon Festinger et al. When Prophecy Fails (New York: Harper and Row, 1964), regarding a field study of recruitment to a flying saucer group in the mid 1950s. Refined for purposes of laboratory research, cognitive dissonance theory subsequently has become one of the most influential and well-­tested theories in cognitive psychology for explaining human reaction to contradiction and failed expectations. At the same time, a much smaller but very interesting body of literature on failed prophecy also has developed, focusing on social interaction factors that shape the social construction of prophecy in new religions in ways that are meaningful to religious believers. For a review of the latter literature, see Diana Tumminia and William H. Swatos, How Prophecy Lives (Leiden-­Boston: Brill Publishers, 2011). 9. Thomas F. O’Dea, The Mormons (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957), 69. 10. Though the law of tithing was given to Latter-­day Saints in 1838 as “a standing law unto them forever” (D&C Sec. 119:4), its institution as a fundamental requirement of the faith was apparently not unequivocally established among the people until the reform movement initiated by President Lorenzo Snow in 1899 “for the financial deliverance of the Church” (CHG 6:357–60). 11. Anthony W. Ivins, “The Deseret Alphabet,” Utah Humanities Review 1 (1947): 223–39; Patricia A. Lynott, “Communicating Insularity: The Deseret Alphabet of Nineteenth-­Century Mormon Education,” American Educational History Journal 26, no. 1 (1999): 20–26. 12. David J. Buerger, The Mysteries of Godliness: A History of Mormon Temple Worship (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2002); Edward L. Kimball, “The History of LDS Temple Admission Standards,” Journal of Mormon History 24,

Notes to pages 111–112  341

no. 1 (1998): 135–76. In an age of electronic social media, Mormon protective norms concerning the particulars of temple ceremonies and the symbolic design of temple garments have been breached. Detailed information about these items is widely available through such public outlets as Google and YouTube. 13. The hypothesis that polygamy among the Mormons functioned to strengthen commitment to the church is also suggested by Leonard J. Arrington and Davis Bitton, The Mormon Experience: A History of the Latter-­day Saints (New York: Knopf, 1979), 204–5, who emphasize the linking of the most prominent and devout families in Mormondom with a large number of other families in the community, creating through plural marriages a wide web of reciprocal obligation and duty. See also Kathryn M. Daynes, More Wives than One: Transformation of the Mormon Marriage System, 1840–1910 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2008). Functional explanations are not, of course, to be equated with causal explanations. It is admissible to say that once established, the institution of plural marriage resulted in various group functions. But it may not be said that the eventual functions served are also the historical causes of the institution. For a review of the difference between functional and causal modes of analysis, and the logical problem of teleology, see Jonathan H. Turner, The Structure of Sociological Theory (Homewood, IL: Dorsey Press, 1977), 104–7. 14. For historical summaries of the rise of the correlation movement in structuring the administration of all LDS church-­sponsored programs and activities, see James B. Allen and Glen M. Leonard, The Story of the Latter-­day Saints (Salt Lake City: Deseret Press, 1995), Chapter 5; Gregory A. Prince and William Robert Wright, David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2005), Chapter 7; and Robert Gottlieb and Peter Wiley, America’s Saints: Rise of Mormon Power (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1984). 15. Several statistical studies have been done in recent years documenting LDS problems with member retention, especially of new converts outside the United States. See Ryan T. Cragun and Robert Lawson, “The Secular Transition: Worldwide Growth of Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Seventh-­ day Adventists,” Sociology of Religion 71 (2010): 349–73; David C. Knowlton, “How Many Members are there Really? Two Censuses and the Meaning of LDS Membership in Chile and Mexico,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 38 (2005): 53–78; and Rick Phillips, “Rethinking the International Expansion of Mormonism,” Nova Religio: The Journal of New and Emergent Religions 10, no. 1 (2006): 52–68. Some research also suggests that the twenty-­f irst century LDS Church may be losing more of its core young adult membership in the Utah-­Idaho Mormon heartland. See Rick Phillips and Ryan T. Cragun, “Contemporary Mormon Religiosity and the Legacy of

342  Notes to pages 113–115

16.

17.

18.

19.

20. 21.

Gathering,” Nova Religio: The Journal of New and Emergent Religions 6, no. 3 (2013): 77–94. For historical reviews of the LDS welfare system, see Mangum L. Garth and Bruce D. Blummell, The Mormons’ War on Poverty: A History of LDS Welfare 1830–1990 (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1993); and Glen L. Rudd, Pure Religion: The Story of Church Welfare Since 1930 (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-­day Saints, 1995). Other sources on LDS welfare principles and programs can be found in the Encyclopedia of Mormonism at eom.byu.edu/index.php/welfare, accessed March 2015, and the LDS Church’s own website at lds.org., with links to various welfare services programs. According to an LDS church news article concerning the productivity of church farms and ranches, “welfare officials are calling 2013 another bumper year thanks largely to the efforts of thousands of Latter-­Saint volunteers.” Also was noted the role “agent stakes” play in organizing volunteer efforts: ”It’s no small task mobilizing hundreds of workers when apples are ready for picking or beans are ripe for harvest” (accessed March 2015 at lds. org/church/news/another-­bumper-­year-­on-­church-­farms-­and-­ranches). In 2013 the LDS Church reported that a total of 4,498,617 hours of labor were donated to its many welfare services projects, including church storehouses, home storage centers, farms and ranches, food and commodity processing, storage and distribution facilities, employment resources, Deseret Industries thrift stores, and LDS Family Services offices (retrieved March 14, 2013, at providentliving.org). It should be noted that the full LDS welfare system is implemented primarily in the United States and Canada. Less developed or underdeveloped areas of the world where the church has expanded its global membership pose new challenges to LDS welfare resources and their comprehensive extension to members of the international church. Globally, the distribution of food, clothing, financial aid, and other welfare services to needy members is much more limited. Written two decades ago, Garth Mangum and Bruce Blumell’s description of the geographical concentration and relatively unequal distribution of LDS welfare services remains true today. See Garth L. Mangum and Bruce D. Blumell, The Mormons’ War on Poverty: A History of LDS Welfare 1830–1990 (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1993). This reality is clearly a challenge to the earthly realization of the religious ideals of Zion in the latter days. Richard L. Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York: Knopf, 2005). Irene M. Bates and E. Gary Smith, Lost Legacy: The Mormon Office of Presiding Patriarch (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2002); Gordon Shepherd and Gary Shepherd, Binding Earth and Heaven: Patriarchal Blessings in the

Notes to pages 116–119  343

22. 23.

24.

25.

26.

27.

28.

29.

Prophetic Development of Early Mormonism (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2012). Written by William Clayton; see Hymns: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-­day Saints (Salt Lake City: Deseret Press, 1948). Patrick Mason, in The Mormon Menace: Violence and Anti-­Mormonism in the Postbellum South (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), argues that ant-­ Mormonism became an important cultural mechanism for reconciling the North and the South following the American Civil War by uniting nominally decent, God-­fearing citizens in both regions of the country against what was increasingly portrayed by politicians, clergymen, and the popular press as a malignant religious tumor on the body of Christian America. William G. Hartley, “Home Teaching,” in Encyclopedia of Latter-­day Saint History, Donald Q. Cannon, et al., eds. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 2000), 508–9. Renato Poblete and Thomas F. O’Dea, “Anomie and the Quest for Community: The Formation of Sects among the Puerto Ricans of New York,” American Catholic Sociological Review 21, (1960): 25–26. Recognition that religion requires not only a system of belief and ritual but also a social organization—a moral community to which the individual is attached and depends on for support—finds its most emphatic exposition in Emile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, translated by J. W. Sain (New York: Free Press, 1965). Early religious expression among lay Mormons in public meetings was— though not, apparently, the norm—occasionally “enthusiastic” and included prophesying and the gift of tongues. The most spectacular public display of Pentecostal enthusiasm was witnessed during the rites associated with the dedication of the Kirtland Temple in 1836. For a description of the events surrounding that occasion, see DHC Vol. 2, Chapter XXVII. For a discussion of the need to limit Pentecostal gifts among the Mormons, see O’Dea, The Mormons, 156–60, for an analysis of “the containment of charisma.” For a discussion of the privilege system in total institutions and withholding or withdrawing of privileges as the primary means of internal social control in such institutions, see Ervin Goffman, Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates (Chicago: Aldine Publishing Co., 1961). Though a relatively exclusive organization in Zald and Ash’s sense, the LDS Church is not a total institution such as Goffman had in mind. Nonetheless, many of the organizational strategies observed by Goffman are different principally in degree and not in kind from strategies routinely practiced in highly regulated organizations. Information on disfellowshipment and excommunication proceedings can be found in the LDS Church Handbook of Instructions, Book 1: Stake Presidencies and Bishoprics (2010) at lds.org/handbook/

344  Notes to pages 120–124

handbook-­2-­administering-­the-­church?lang=eng and under “excommunication” at lds.org. An amplification of church policies in a new volume entitled Handbook 2: Administering the Church has been produced and is available at the same link. 30. O’Dea, The Mormons, 48. 31. Commitment to plural marriage as a kind of spiritual barometer for nineteenth-­century Mormons is described by Arrington and Bitton, The Mormon Experience, 204: “All the central church leaders were polygamists. From the president down through the apostles and the Presiding Bishopric during the period, no general authority was a monogamist; the same was true of most bishops and stake presidents, as well as, for all practical purposes, their counselors. The privilege of polygamy was granted to the pure in heart and hence was a clear sign of worthiness for promotion in the Mormon hierarchy. Although no one ever explicitly said so in the nineteenth century, it appears to have been an effective device for gauging and assuring loyalty. As those who entered polygamy learned at the very beginning, it brought such a difficult clash with general moral assumptions that accepting it was a declaration of irrevocable commitment to the Prophet and his movement.” 32. The Book of Abraham 3:16, 19. 33. Mormon teachings about the preexistence also imply an obedience-­reward model that reinforces investment themes. 34. Goffman, Asylums. 35. Gary Shepherd and Gordon Shepherd, in Mormon Passage: A Missionary Chronicle (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997), 48–50, summarize the evolution of LDS missionary teaching plans following World War II which, to a greater or lesser degree, emphasized structured sequential lessons and organized topics to be closely followed by missionaries in teaching investigators. In 2004 a new missionary manual was published (Preach My Gospel) that has been used since. Preach My Gospel also outlines basic lessons but informs missionary trainees that “you have the flexibility to teach lessons in whatever way best helps people fully prepare for their baptism and confirmation . . . Which lesson you teach, when you teach it, and how much time you give to it are best determined by the needs of the investigator and the direction of the spirit. Do not memorize the entire lesson” (vii). Thus, in contrast to the regimented lesson plans of the past, much greater personal discretion is now given to Mormon missionaries when teaching investigators about the LDS faith. 36. O’Dea, The Mormons, 22. 37. Peter L. Berger, The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion (New York: Doubleday, 1969), 29. 38. Ibid. 39. Ibid., 32.

Notes to pages 124–127  345

40. King James Bible, Daniel 2:31–44. 41. Kanter, Commitment and Community, 116. 42. It was apparently quite customary, in both Kirtland and Nauvoo, for visitors or new converts wishing to see the prophet to be readily granted a speedy and, oftentimes, highly informal interview in which Smith might pause, while in the process of carrying out some mundane task, to entertain his guest. As Brigham Young describes it, such was the case when he met Joseph Smith for the first time in 1832. “We proceeded to Kirtland and stopped at John P. Greene’s who had just arrived there with his family. We rested a few minutes, took some refreshments and started to see the Prophet. We went to his father’s house and learned that he was in the woods, where we found the Prophet and two or three of his brothers, chopping and hauling wood. Here my joy was full at the privilege of shaking the hand of the Prophet of God, and I received the sure testimony, by the spirit of prophecy, that he was all that any man could believe him to be, as a true prophet. He was happy to see us and made us welcome. We soon returned to his house, he accompanying us” (Latter-­day Saints’ Millennial Star, 25:439). 43. James R. Clark, comp., Messages of the First Presidency, vols. 1–5 (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1965–71, 1940). 44. Boyd K. Packer, Follow the Brethren (Provo: Brigham Young University Press, 1965), 4–5. 45. From among our personal contacts, many Mormons seemed less impressed by the racial equality implications of lifting the proscription on black priesthood holders than by the fact that a major revelation had been announced as coming directly from God once again in modern times. 46. D&C 136:1. 47. In 1873 Brigham Young sought to reestablish the United Order in Mormon communities throughout Utah, Arizona, and Nevada. The experiment quickly proved inoperable in most instances but did function on a relatively successful basis in some towns until the mid 1880s. In those towns, property was held in common, all labor was collective, meals were taken together in common dining halls, virtually all goods were self-­manufactured, and so on. See L. Dwight Israelsen, “United Orders,” in Encyclopedia of Mormonism, Daniel H. Ludlow, ed. (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1992), 1493–95. 48. LDS missionary rules and regulations are summarized at lds.org under the topic headings of missionary preparation, missionary training centers, and missionary work. 49. For a detailed case study of LDS missionary life in the field during the middle part of the past century, see Shepherd and Shepherd, Mormon Passage. More recent approaches to LDS proselytizing focus on Christian living and salvation themes in lieu of emphasizing the restoration ministry of Joseph

346  Notes to pages 127–128

Smith or the Book of Mormon, and de-­emphasize door-­to-­door “tracting” in favor of talking with people through member references. Other important changes include integrating unprecedented numbers of young female missionaries into leadership roles (since church authorities lowered their age eligibility from 21 to 19 in 2012), and implementing an online chat platform at mormon.org/chat, new social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, and other digital devices for amplifying missionary contacts with people who otherwise would not be reached. For news articles on these topics, see, accessed March 2015, nytimes.com/2014/03/02/us/a-­g rowing-­role-­for-­ mormon-­women.html?_r=0; also brianpellot.religionnews.com/2014/02/13/ mormon-­religious-­f reedom-­internet-­censorship-­social-­media. 50. For scholarly analyses of conversion as a social process in religious groups that requires changing people’s moral priorities and social commitments, see Lorne L. Dawson, Comprehending Cults: The Sociology of New Religious Movements (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008); Henri Gooren, Religious Conversion and Disaffiliation: Tracing Patterns of Change in Faith Practices (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010); Lewis R. Rambo, Understanding Religious Conversion (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993); Lewis R. Rambo and Charles E. Farhadian, eds., Oxford Handbook of Religious Conversion (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014); and Rodney Stark and William S. Bainbridge, “Of Churches, Sects, and Cults: Preliminary Concepts for a Theory of Religious Movements,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 18, no. 2 (1979): 117–31. In particular, for a summary review of conversion and related retention issues in the LDS Church, see Seth L. Bryant, et al., “Conversion and Retention in Mormonism,” in Oxford Handbook of Religious Conversion, Charles E. Farhadian and Lewis R. Rambo, eds. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014). 51. New England Puritans, for example, instituted the famous Half-­Way Covenant as a means for retaining their children and grandchildren in the church as probationary members until they were able to demonstrate the validity of their personal conversion to the satisfaction of full-­f ledged members of the religious community. See Sydney Ahlstrom, A Religious History of the American People (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965), Vol. 1, Chapter 10. 52. D&C 20:71; 68:25, 27. 53. Bowman, The Mormon People, Chapter 6. 54. According to Mormon researchers Phillips and Cragun, “Contemporary Mormon Religiosity and the Legacy of Gathering,” (2013): 77–94, disillusionment with their LDS faith has accelerated over the past two decades among Mormon adolescents and young adults—especially males. As for LDS adult converts, a large number who accept baptism in the church do not, in fact, fundamentally reorganize their commitments and religious identities. A growing concern among LDS officials and mission leaders is the relatively

Notes to pages 129–131  347

high percentage of Mormon converts who subsequently disaffiliate and no longer claim a Mormon identity. Phillips and Cragun in “Mormons in the United States,” Nova Religio: The Journal of New and Emergent Religions 10, no. 1 (2006): 52–68, report that annual LDS convert baptisms are almost equaled by those who leave the church, and that outside the United States “between half and two-­thirds of those on church rolls no longer self-­identify as LDS when asked their religion by census takers.” 55. The popular version of the Mormon pioneers’ entrance into the Salt Lake Valley would have Brigham Young in the lead wagon, making his famous “This is the Place” statement. In reality, Young, who had been ailing for several days with mountain fever, was practically the last of the vanguard company to enter the valley—the majority having entered July 22, two days before their famous leader. In his meticulously recorded journal, Wilford Woodruff gives only a mundane account of Brigham Young’s “satisfaction” with the valley. See Hal Knight and Stanley B. Kimball, 111 Days to Zion (Salt Lake City: Deseret Press, 1978), 252. But in a sermon thirty-­three years after the event, Woodruff is reported as giving the following highly dramatic version of the entrance. “On the twenty-­fourth I drove my carriage, with President Young lying on a bed in it, into the open valley, the rest of the company following. When we came out of the canyon, into full view of the valley, I turned the side of my carriage around, open to the west, and President Young arose from his bed and took a survey of the country. While gazing on the scene before us, he was enwrapped in vision for several minutes. He had seen the valley in a vision, and upon this occasion he saw the future glory of Zion and Israel, as they would be, planted in the valleys of the mountains. When the vision had passed, he said, ‘It is enough. This is the right place. Drive on.’” See Preston Nibley, Brigham Young, the Man and His Work (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1936), 98. 56. See Kurt Lang and Gladys E. Lang, Collective Dynamics (New York: Cromwell, 1961), 102, on the roles of devils and saints in the ideology of social movements. 57. Kanter, Commitment and Community, 32.

Chapter 6 1.

By extension, we may also obtain insights applicable to other social movement organizations and various marginal groups in general. The fact that Mormonism is a religious movement, embodied in a specifically religious organization, does suggest some limits on its comparability to strictly secular groups. On the other hand, many of the utopian communities studied by Kanter were also religiously based and, indeed, the more successful groups of those studied were all religious in nature. Kanter does not attribute this survival advantage to religion per se but does point out that religious beliefs

348  Notes to pages 133–136

2.

3. 4.

5.

and practices tend to be particularly well suited for facilitating a wide variety of commitment mechanisms (Rosabeth Kanter, “Commitment and Social Organization: A Study of Commitment Mechanisms in Utopian Communities,” American Sociological Review 35 [August 1968]: 499–517).  There are at least two additional benefits to be gained from focusing on the commitment characteristics of Mormon leader rhetoric. First, content analysis of leader rhetoric can measure intensity of concern—the importance attributed to different categories of commitment. Documentary sources of the sort employed by Kanter (e.g., contemporary accounts, letters, diaries, records, descendant interviews, etc.) are useful for identifying the presence of specific commitment activities, but, absent a content analysis coding methodology, do not provide measures of the salience such activities had for those who practiced them. Second, if, over time, leader rhetoric consistently has been preserved in a retrievable form, as with Mormon general conference addresses, then changes in commitment concerns can be charted that may correspond to the developmental history of the group. This result also contrasts with a direct observational approach in which actual commitment behaviors of contemporary groups can be recorded, and intensity of these behaviors may also be measured, but long-­term patterns of commitment emphasis over the lifetime of the group are difficult to ascertain. Both Gardner (1978) and Zablocki (1980), for example, paid attention to some of the developmental aspects of commitment in their observational studies of contemporary communes. However, none of the groups examined by these researchers had very lengthy histories, and many of them had highly transient memberships. Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Commitment and Community (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972), 138. Since items in our theme index were derived from reading the conference reports rather than being included on some a priori basis, disproportionate numbers of theme items relevant for different categories of commitment may themselves serve as rough indicators of the salience of particular commitment concerns. Thus, the sheer number of items in our theme index relevant to transcendence indicates the special importance of transcendent meanings in the religious commitment of the Latter-­day Saints. At the same time, since final salience scores representing different commitment categories— such as transcendence—are calculated as arithmetic means rather than as simple frequencies of all the combined theme indicators for a designated period of time, the number of items used to construct a given category does not affect the size of its salience score. See more on this point in Note 5. A typical generational period of conference history, for instance, is represented by 120 conference addresses in our original sample. Each conference address yields a salience score ranging from 0.0 to a theoretically undetermined value for each commitment category. All the address scores for each

Notes to pages 138–141  349

6.

7.

8.

category of commitment over a designated generation are then summed and divided by 120, which yields the mean salience of each commitment category for that period of time. Designation of historical generations as key indicators of time is both conceptually and statistically convenient but arbitrary, as we pointed out in Chapter 4. The raw data we have gathered may be aggregated into any time periods that seem desirable. Jon R. Stone, “The Festinger Theory on Failed Prophecy and Dissonance: A Survey and Critique,” in How Prophecy Lives, edited by William H. Swatos and Diana G. Tumminia (Brill: 2014); Lorne L. Dawson, “Clearing the Underbrush: Moving Beyond Festinger to a New Paradigm for the Study of Failed Prophecy,” ibid. Effective dissonance management is a challenging leadership task and cannot simply be taken for granted, regardless of established institutional procedures. Thus, as detailed by both Kathleen Flake in The Politics of American Religious Identity (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004) and Matthew Bowman in The Mormon People: The Making of an American Faith (New York: Random House, 2012), the period following Woodruff’s polygamy manifesto was fraught with disillusionment and defections as Mormon leaders struggled to rally believers’ faith by emphasizing both transcendence and mortification themes in their conference addresses and aligning Mormon doctrine with the values of American progressivism. Not coincidentally, this ultimately successful transition period was also accompanied by heightened emphasis on the sacred duty of regular participation in temple sealing ceremonies for members’ deceased ancestors. See Bowman, The Mormon People, Chapter 6 for another clear-­cut example of what Stone and Dawson refer to as successful reaffirmation rituals in response to deeply disappointed religious hopes and millennial expectations. During 1856–57, Brigham Young promoted an intense reformation campaign that emphasized renewed spiritual purification through repentance and rebaptism. He introduced the concept of blood atonement as a means for ameliorating otherwise unpardonable sins—a doctrine that undoubtedly impacted decisions and actions of Mormon leaders responsible for the Mountain Meadows Massacre that took place in September of 1857 while federal troops were approaching the Utah territory to suppress a supposed rebellion and install a new territorial governor to replace Brigham Young. See Gene Allred Sessions, Mormon Thunder: A Documentary History of Jedediah Morgan Grant (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993) for an account of the fiery pronouncements of Jedediah M. Grant, counselor to Brigham Young and the Mormon Reformation’s most avid exponent. Accounts of the Mountain Meadows atrocities are detailed in Juanita Brooks, The Mountain Meadows Massacre, 3d ed., Foreword by Jan Shipps (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2012); and Ronald W. Walker, Glen M. Leonard, and

350  Notes to pages 142–148

9.

10.

11.

12. 13.

Richard E. Turley, Massacre at Mountain Meadows: An American Tragedy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008). The presence of transcendence mechanisms in the thirteen contemporary American communes studied by Hugh Gardner, The Children of Prosperity: Thirteen Modern American Communes (New York: Saint Martin’s Press, 1978) showed little—or even negative—correlation with the group’s success (i.e., longevity). However, it is crucial to take into account the relatively short and transient careers of the groups Gardner studied. Our argument about the importance of transcendence is clearly more applicable to groups whose success is, in addition to longevity, also measured by stability of membership and strength of community identity. In ongoing communities, the rise of new generations adds to the importance of developing means to express and experience transcendence. These means need not include the kinds of authoritarian and hierarchical structures exemplified in the LDS Church, but they will at least include a sense of the transcendent worth and efficacy of the community as a whole. In particular, the theoretical concept of civil religion has been utilized as a way of explaining the basis for social and political unification in secularized, pluralistic societies. See Robert N. Bellah, “Civil Religion in America,” Daedalus 96 (1967): 1–21; Bellah, Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life (Berkley: University of California Press, 1985); R. C. Wimberley and J. A. Christenson, “Civil Religion and Church and State,” Sociological Quarterly 21 (1980): 35–40; J. A. Mathisen, “Twenty Years after Bellah,” Sociological Analysis 50 (1989): 129–46; and C. Marvin and D. W. Ingle, “Blood Sacrifice and the Nation,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 64 (1996): 767–80. For critiques, see Mayer Zald and Roberta Ash, “Social Movement Organizations: Growth, Decay, and Change,” Social Forces 44 (1966): 327–41; Rodney Stark and William S. Bainbridge, “Of Churches, Sects, and Cults: Preliminary Concepts for a Theory of Religious Movements,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 18:2 (1979): 117–31; and our own further consideration of these issues in Chapter 7. Armand L. Mauss, The Angel and the Beehive: The Mormon Struggle with Assimilation (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994). See Chapter 1, Note 6, in which we elaborate Weber’s concept of the routinization of charisma.

Chapter 7 1.

For sources on heresy and heretical movements in Christian history, see David Christie-­Murray, A History of Heresy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989); G. R. Evans, A Brief History of Heresy (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 2003); and John B. Henderson, The Construction of Orthodoxy

Notes to pages 148–150  351

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

and Heresy: Neo-­Confucian, Islamic, Jewish, and Early Christian Patterns (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998). For discussions of the theoretical distinction between religious cults and sects, see Gary Shepherd, “Cults: The Social Psychology of,” in The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology, George Ritzer, ed. (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007), 884-­87; and Rodney Stark and William S. Bainbridge, The Future of Religion: Secularization, Revival, and Cult Formation (Berkley: University of California Press, 1985). On the transition of the Jesus Movement as a Jewish sect into a new religious tradition, see Richard A. Harsley, Sociology and the Jesus Movement (New York: Continuum, 1994); Gerd Ludemann, Primitive Christianity: A Survey of Recent Studies and New Proposals (Edinburgh, Scotland: T & T Clark Publishers, 2004); Wayne Meeks, The First Urban Christians: The Urban World of the Apostle Paul (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003); and Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity: A Sociologist Reconsiders History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996). For analysis of the role played by the mass media in perpetrating cult stereotypes, see James A. Beckford, “The Mass Media and New Religious Movements,” in New Religious Movements: Challenge and Response, James Cresswell and Bryan Wilson, eds. (London: Routledge, 1999). Exploration of factors associated with episodes of antiestablishment tension and subsequent violence in certain types of new religions can be found in David Bromley and J. Gordon Melton, Cults, Religion, and Violence (Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press, 2002); and Catherine Wessinger, How the Millennium Comes Violently: From Jonestown to Heaven’s Gate (New York: Seven Bridges Press, 2000). For discussion of why many social science researchers have come to prefer the term new religious movement in lieu of cult, see Eileen Barker, New Religious Movements: A Practical Introduction (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1989); Lorne L. Dawson, Comprehending Cults: The Sociology of New Religious Movements (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008); and James Richardson, “Definitions of Cult: From Sociological-­Technical to Popular-­ Negative,” Review of Religious Research 34 (1993): 348–56. For critical reviews of church-­sect theory, see Nicholas J. Demerath, “In a Sow’s Ear,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 6, no. 1 (1967): 77–84; Allan W. Eister, “Toward a Radical Critique of the Church-­Sect Typology,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 6, no. 1 (1967): 85–90; Erich Goode, “Some Critical Observations on the Church-­Sect Dimension,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 6, no. 1 (1967): 69–77; Benton Johnson, “Church-­ Sect Revisited,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 13 (1975): 191–204; Rodney Stark and William Bainbridge, “Of Churches, Sects, and Cults,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 18, no. 2 (1979): 117–31; and Rodney

352  Notes to pages 151–154

Stark and Roger Finke, Acts of Faith: Explaining the Human Side of Religion (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000). 7. Bryan R. Wilson, “A Typology of Sects in a Dynamic and Comparative Perspective,” Archives de Sociologie de Religion 16 (1963): 49–63. 8. Milton Yinger, The Scientific Study of Religion (New York: MacMillan, 1970), 266. 9. Ibid., 270. 10. Stark and Bainbridge, “Of Churches, Sects, and Cults,” 117–31. 11. Ibid., 125. 12. Newell G. Bringhurst and John Hamer, Scattering of the Saints: Schism Within Mormonism (Independence, MO: John Whitmer Books, 2007); Steven L. Shields, Divergent Paths of the Restoration (Independence, MO: Herald Publishing House, 1990). 13. Joseph Smith’s intellectual eclecticism is analyzed by both Fawn M. Brodie, No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith, the Mormon Prophet (New York: Knopf, 1945); and Richard L. Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York: Knopf, 2005), as referenced in Chapter 2. 14. Jan Shipps, Mormonism: A New Religious Tradition (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1985). 15. The LDS Church is still attacked periodically as a “non-­Christian Cult” that propagates “bizarre” and even “satanic doctrines.” Such attacks are often prompted by Protestant clergy in regions where Mormon missionary success appears to be making threatening inroads. In the first edition of our book we cited the following examples. “‘Who are the Mormons?’ queried Dr. W. A. Criswell, Pastor of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas, in a series of radio ads. ‘They’re a cult. They believe in a Mrs. God. Their missionary tactics are deceptive. They’ve claimed 500 converts in the Dallas-­Fort Worth area alone this year. They don’t just want to come into your home they want to come into your life. They’re one of the richest churches in America and they want more” (Sunstone Review 2, no. 1 [1982]: 1). Similarly, Dr. Edmund Poole, an associate pastor of the Dallas First Baptist Church, proclaimed, “See how the cults come on [referencing the Mormons] and how Satan blinds us to the truth” (Sunstone Review 2, no. 5 [1982]: 9). This particular anti-­ Mormon crusade was apparently stimulated by the LDS Church’s announced plans to build a temple in Dallas. More recently, during Mitt Romney’s campaign for the U.S. presidency in 2012, famed evangelist Billy Graham had removed from his website references to Mormonism as a cult. Consequently, many evangelical Christians condemned Graham “for putting political partisanship above piety and risking Christian souls to help Romney, a Mormon, win the White House. ‘My question to Billy Graham is, What’s more important for the kingdom of God: politics or the message of Jesus Christ?’ said the Reverend Samuel

Notes to pages 154–162  353

16.

17. 18.

19.

20.

21. 22.

Wynn, a Methodist pastor from North Carolina. And further, “Bart Barber, pastor of First Baptist Church in Farmersville, Texas, said he had been prepared to vote for Romney—until last week. ‘The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association probably cost Mitt Romney my November ballot when it stopped calling Mormonism a cult explicitly because of this election,’ Barber wrote on his blog. ‘For the sake of my congregation, when Billy Graham is muddying the waters of the gospel, I have an obligation to provide clarity. For the sake of Mormons in my community who need to know of their need for the gospel of Jesus Christ and who are being reassured in their damnable heresy by none less than Billy Graham, I have an obligation to provide clarity’” (Huffington Post, October 25, 2012, accessed March 2015, huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/25/billy-­g raham-­website-­mormon-­cult-­removed-­ backlash_n_2012209.html). On the appeal of prophetic religion to nineteenth-­century Christian primitivists, see Leonard J. Arrington and Davis Bitton, The Mormon Experience: A History of the Latter-­day Saints (New York: Knopf, 1979), Chapter 2; Marvin S. Hill, “The Role of Christian Primitivism in the Origin and Development of the Mormon Kingdom, 1830–1844” (PhD diss., University of Chicago, 1968); Val D. Rust, Radical Origins: Early Mormon Converts and their Colonial Ancestors (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2004); and Dan Vogel, Religious Seekers and the Advent of Mormonism (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1988). Stark and Bainbridge, “Of Churches, Sects, and Cults,” 126. Even though Zald and Ash’s theoretical analysis dates back over forty years, it yields explicit hypotheses that remain valid and are empirically testable by our general conference data. The theoretical distinction between inward-­and outward-­oriented movements (and the practical mixing of organizational goals aimed at changing individuals and social institutions) is formulated in Ralph Turner and Lewis M. Killian, Collective Behavior (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-­Hall, 1972), 276–78. The continuing proscription against women holding the Mormon lay priesthood clearly is more entrenched than the former proscription against black males. Though it expanded the potential for Mormon recruitment, reversal of the ban against black priesthood holders has not visibly altered the fundamental structure of the LDS religion. Granting the priesthood to women would, on the other hand, revolutionize Mormon institutions at their core. Mayer Zald and Roberta Ash, “Social Movement Organizations: Growth, Decay, and Change,” Social Forces 44 (1966): 336. Martin Marty, Righteous Empire: The Protestant Experience in America (New York: Dial Press, 1970).

354  Notes to pages 162–166

23. For a comprehensive history of Protestant fundamentalism in the United States, see George M. Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006). Marsden repudiates the popular view of fundamentalists as overwhelmingly rural, small-­town folk whose limited education fostered anti-­intellectualism. He documents how fundamentalism actually emerged in major cities of the American North, particularly Philadelphia, Princeton, New York, and Minneapolis. Moreover, Marsden argues that as a religious movement, fundamentalism evinced a complex and nuanced intellectual world. More recently, Angie Maxwell in The Indicted South: Public Criticism, Southern Inferiority and the Politics of Whiteness (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2014), puts forward the thesis that while fundamentalism originated in northern cities, it quickly took hold in the American South as a religious worldview that functioned to preserve belief in the region’s moral superiority in spite of humiliating military conquest, political submission, and both material and cultural devastation at the hands of the industrial North. 24. H. Richard Niebuhr, The Social Sources of Denominationalism (New York: Henry Holt, 1929). 25. See D&C 107:23, 24. 26. For an official LDS account of Sidney Rigdon and Brigham Young’s claims to authority, see DHC, Vol. 7, chapters 13 and 14. 27. Brodie, No Man Knows My History, 136. 28. Hubert Bancroft, History of Utah (San Francisco: The History Company, 1890), 641–43, summarizes the activities of these schismatic groups as follows: “The Saints who followed Sidney Rigdon to Pittsburg in 1844 became gradually scattered among the gentiles, a few of them, with William Marks at their head, afterward rejoining the church. To J. J. Strang, a prominent elder, were vouchsafed, as he claims, numerous revelations that in Wisconsin was the true Zion, and several thousands accompanied him to that state. Strang afterward settled at Beaver Island, in Lake Michigan, where he retained a small following until the time of his death. Parties also accompanied William Smith, the only surviving brother of the prophet, to northern Illinois, Elder Brewster to western Iowa, Bishop Heddrick to Missouri, and Bishop Cutler to northern Iowa. All of them were soon afterward dissolved, the remnants of Brewster’s and Heddrick’s disciples forming themselves into a new sect, under the name of the Gatherers, and settling in Jackson County (Missouri) where they published a weekly periodical, styled the Truthteller. During the year 1846 a large Mormon settlement was made in Texas; and under the leadership of Apostle Lyman Wight the colony prospered and increased rapidly. Until 1852 they acknowledged allegiance to the First Presidency, but when the doctrine of polygamy was (officially) proclaimed, they separated from the church. After the death of Wight, which occurred a few

Notes to pages 166–168  355

29.

30.

31.

32.

33.

34.

years later, his flock was scattered . . . In addition to the various sects already mentioned . . . numerous parties and individuals fell away during the migration to Nauvoo, many of the stakes becoming settlements of recusant Mormons, while numbers of the saints settled at Omaha, Nebraska City, and other towns on the Missouri and its tributaries. Some, as I have said, merely remained in the western states to obtain means for their journey to Zion, but of the twenty thousand persons who followed the apostles from Nauvoo, it is probable that nearly one third were eventually absorbed among gentile communities.” The Godbeite schism, representing a significant religious division within the Salt Lake City LDS business community, is dissected in Ronald W. Walker, Wayward Saints: The Godbeites and Brigham Young (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998). For histories of the RLDS Church from 1860 through the early 1990s, see Inez Smith Davis, The Story of the Church (Independence, MO: Herald House, 1977); Paul M. Edwards, Our Legacy of Faith: A Brief History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Independence, MO: Herald Publishing House, 1991); and Richard P. Howard, Our Legacy of Faith: A Brief History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Independence, MO: Herald Publishing House, 1992). A more recent overview of the RLDS faith, including its renaming as the Community of Christ in 2001, is provided by David Howlett, John Hamer, and Barbara Walden, Illustrated History of the Community of Christ (Independence, MO: Herald Publishing House, 2010). Roger D. Launius, “The Reorganized Church, the Decade of Decision, and the Abilene Decision,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 31, no. 1 (1998): 47–65; William D. Russell, “The Last Smith Presidents and the Transformation of the RLDS Church,” Journal of Mormon History 35, no. 3 (2008): 46–84. In widely publicized proceedings, six Mormon intellectuals were excommunicated in 1993 on various apostasy charges ranging from publicly advocating greater church recognition of a Mother in Heaven implicit in LDS teachings to criticizing church authorities for engaging in several forms of ecclesiastical abuse. A compilation of brief historical vignettes of numerous Mormon splinter groups is provided by Steven Shields, Divergent Paths of the Restoration (Independence, MO: Herald Publishing House, 1990). According to Shields’s research there are fifty different Mormon schismatic groups currently operating, the majority of which have very small memberships. A more recent overview of Mormon schismatic groups is offered by Newel Bringhurst and John Hamer, Scattering of the Saints: Schism Within Mormonism (Independence, MO: John Whitmer Books, 2007). Only two general authorities have been excommunicated during the past seventy years, compared to twenty-­seven excommunicated during the

356  Notes to pages 168–169

35. 36.

37.

38. 39.

previous 110 years. This information can be obtained by consulting the “Historical Listing of General Authorities” published annually in the Deseret News Church Almanac. The overall decrease in conference rhetoric concerned with internal dissent in our sample of addresses was statistically significant at p < .03. According to official LDS statistics published in the 2011 Deseret News Church Almanac, 4:182–92, both Mexico and Brazil each reported having more than one million members. The total number of members claimed in Latin America as a whole (including all countries in Central and South America in addition to Mexico and Brazil) was over four million. While the accuracy of these figures is disputed (David Knowlton, “How Many Members are there Really? Two Censuses and the Meaning of LDS Membership in Chile and Mexico,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 38 [2005]: 53–78; Rick Phillips, “Rethinking the International Expansion of Mormonism,” Nova Religio: The Journal of New and Emergent Religions 10 no. 1 [2006]: 52–68), the big picture of Mormon growth shows a preponderance of new converts coming from outside the United States, including sub-­Saharan Africa and the Philippines. At the present time, the proportion of Mormons residing in North America has diminished to approximately 45 percent of total church membership. At the same time, retaining new converts after they join the church has become an increasingly serious concern for Mormon officials. See Lowell C. Bennion and Lawrence A. Young, “The Uncertain Dynamics of LDS Expansion, 1950–2020,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 29, no. 1 (1996): 8–32; Rick Phillips, ibid; and David Stewart, Law of the Harvest: Practical Principles of Effective Missionary Work (Henderson, NV: Cumorah Foundation, 2007). Agricol Lozano, Historia del Mormonismo en Mexico (Mexico: Editorial Zarahemla, 1983). In recent years the LDS Church has made efforts to internationalize the ecclesiastical ranks of its full-­time general authorities. For the most part, however, this effort has been confined to appointments to those mid-­level general authority offices known as the Presidency of the Seventy and the First and Second Quorums of the Seventy. In 2011, one-­third of these positions (28 of 84) were occupied by men whose native country was outside the United States. Of these, sixteen were from Latin American countries, five from European countries, five from Asian countries, and two from African countries. In contrast, among members of the powerful Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and also the Presiding Bishopric, virtually all are white American males. The only upper echelon general authority in 2011 who was not a U.S. citizen was Dieter Uchtdorf—a native of Germany—serving as second counselor to President Thomas Monson in the First Presidency. For

Notes to pages 170–172  357

40.

41.

42. 43.

44. 45. 46. 47.

biographical information on Mormon general authorities referred to here, see the 2011 Deseret News Church Almanac, 40–78, 82. See Edward Leo Lyman, “Succession by Seniority: The Development of Procedural Precedents in the LDS Church,” Journal of Mormon History 40, no. 2 (2014): 92–158 for the most recent and comprehensive examination of this procedure. Ronald Walker, “Grant’s Watershed: Succession in the Presidency, 1887– 1889,” BYU Studies 43, no. 1 (2004): 195–229, makes the case that LDS general authorities differed in their views concerning succession to the presidency until Wilford Woodruff finally was sustained as church president in 1889. See also Lyman, “Succession by Seniority,” 92–158. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States 1789–1945. It is apparent that the machinery of church government not only became more routinized with the ascendance of Brigham Young as head of the church, but also, in many respects, more authoritarian. In the earliest years of the church, conferences and other official meetings appear to have been much more open and democratic. At such sessions, the prophet himself might be overruled by other priesthood members on fundamental decisions. We cite as examples two cases in which the body of the priesthood denied Joseph Smith the prerogative of deciding on his own counselors in the First Presidency. In the first case, Frederick G. Williams was rejected as second counselor to Joseph Smith in 1837 by a conference of the church in Missouri, even though Joseph had made and supported the nomination. By 1843 Joseph wished to rid himself of Sidney Rigdon as first counselor, a man in whom he had lost trust and who, in fact, he suspected of plotting against him. The conference, however, voted to sustain Rigdon over Smith’s strenuous objections. “I have thrown him off my shoulders, and you have put him on me,” Smith remonstrated. “You may carry him but I will not.” (DHC 6: 49.) Today, such action taken by the body of the priesthood in direct opposition to the express will of the prophet would be virtually unthinkable. Joseph Smith’s lengthy revelation on the doctrine of plural marriage in 1843 is recorded as D&C 132:1–66. Journal of Discourses 3:266. Gary J. Bergera, ed., Conflict in the Quorum: Orson Pratt, Brigham Young, and Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2002). Two members of the Quorum of the Twelve (John W. Taylor and Mathias F. Cowley) openly interpreted the Woodruff manifesto as an injunction that only applied within the boundaries of the United States and publicly advocated the continuance of plural marriage by Mormon colonists in such places as Canada and Mexico. Due to widespread circulation of rumors that the church was still practicing polygamy, and under the pressure of a pending Senate investigation, President Joseph F. Smith issued a second

358  Notes to pages 173–175

48. 49.

50.

51.

manifesto at the 1904 April conference in which he declared “that if any officer or member should assume to solemnize or enter into any such marriage, they would be excommunicated from the Church” (CHC 6:400). Both Taylor and Cowley subsequently resigned their positions in the Twelve, and in 1911 Taylor was excommunicated and Cowley disfellowshiped. For a more jaundiced account of these events, see Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O’Higgins, Under the Prophet in Utah: The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft (Boston: C. M. Clark Publishing Co., 1911). Joseph R. Gusfield, “Functional Areas of Leadership in Social Movements,” Sociological Quarterly 72, no. 2 (1966): 137–56. Because the salience of articulation rhetoric in the twentieth century became relatively stable, overall variation in this measure over time failed to achieve statistical significance (p < .23). Variation in our measure of mobilization rhetoric, however, was highly statistically significant at p < .0005. For a discussion of the denomination as a sociological type, see Richard Niebuhr, The Social Sources of Denominationalism (New York: Henry Holt, 1929); Howard Becker, Systematic Sociology (New York: J. Wiley and Sons, 1932); and Milton Yinger, Scientific Study of Religion (New York: MacMillan, 1970). Sociologists prefer the term denomination rather than church to describe mainstream religious bodies in the United States such as Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and Methodists, which have become well integrated into the mainstream of American society. Denominations are established and legally recognized religions in a pluralistic society where the official norm is separation of church and state. In contrast to societies with state religions, denominations are prevented from attempting to impose universal jurisdiction and must compete with other denominations for religious adherents. Jan Shipps, Mormonism: A New Religious Tradition (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1985).

Chapter 8 1. 2.

Thomas F. O’Dea, The Sociology of Religion (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-­ Hall, 1966), 86. Richard Fenn, Toward a Theory of Secularization, Monograph Series No. 1 (Storrs, CT: Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, 1978). For earlier expositions of the argument that secularization meant a steady decline of religious influence in society, see Bryan Wilson, Religion in a Secular Society (London: Watts, 1966); Bryan Wilson, Contemporary Transformations of Religion (London: Oxford University Press, 1976); and Charles Glock and Rodney Stark, American Piety: The Nature of Religious Commitment (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968). In this debate, arguments that secularization meant religious transformation rather than decline were expounded in Robert N. Bellah, “Religious Evolution,” American Sociological Review 29, no. 3 (1964): 358–74; Robert N. Bellah, “Civil Religion in America,” Daedalus

Notes to pages 179–180  359

96 (1967): 1–21; Thomas Luckmann, The Invisible Religion: The Problem of Religion in Modern Society (New York: MacMillan, 1967); Rodney Stark and William S. Bainbridge, The Future of Religion: Secularization, Revival, and Cult Formation (Berkley: University of California Press, 1985). 3. Richard Fenn, Toward a Theory of Secularization, Chapter 3, emphasizes the ambiguous role played by sectarian groups in the process of secularization. On one hand, religious sects provide a reactionary haven against secular change by defending the traditional authority of the family, sacralizing group loyalties, and resisting rational education and scientific interpretations of reality. On the other hand, sects unwittingly contribute to the acceleration of secularization by challenging the latent religious orientations of the state (as occurred in the Mormon polygamy litigation). An important long-­term effect of religious protest against government interference in religious matters is for state authority to be increasingly legitimated in terms of purely secular criteria and for the scope of the sacred in public life to become correspondingly reduced. 4. Stephen R. Warner, “Work in Progress toward a New Paradigm for the Sociological Study of Religion,” American Journal of Sociology 98, no. 5 (1993): 1044–93. 5. Laurence R. Iannaccone, Roger Finke, and Rodney Stark, “Rationality and the Religious Mind,” Economic Inquiry 36 (1998): 373–89. 6. Lawrence A. Young, Rational Choice Theory and Religion: Summary and Assessment (London: Routledge, 1997). 7. Peter L. Berger, Grace Davie, and Effie Fokas, Religious America, S ­ ecular Europe? A Theme and Variations (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2008), 9–10. Berger’s earlier views on secularization were spelled out in his book, The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion (New York: Doubleday, 1969). 8. It was the empirical studies of Stark and Bainbridge (The Future of Religion) and other church-­g rowth scholars (e.g., Dean Hoge and David Roozen, eds., Understanding Church Growth and Decline, [New York: Pilgrim Press, 1979]; Dean Kelley, Why Conservative Churches Are Growing, [New York: Harper and Row, 1972]; David Martin, Tongues of Fire: The Explosion of Protestantism in Latin America, [New York: Basil Blackwell, 1990]) that compelled Berger to reject the secularization-­equals-­religious-­extinction thesis. 9. More recent scholarship on issues relevant to the secularization debate is finding middle ground between proponent and opponent camps in ways foreshadowed by Fenn’s dialectical analysis. See Phillip S. Gorski, et al., eds. The Post-­Secular in Contemporary Societies (New York: New York University Press, 2012); and Rob Warner, Secularization and Its Discontent (New York: Continuum, 2010). 10. Not only do some of Berger’s earlier propositions regarding religious organizations’ responses to secularization in modern society continue to be

360  Notes to pages 181–184

applicable to current circumstances, they, like the earlier propositions of Zald and Ash discussed in Chapter 7, are empirically testable from our general conference data. 11. Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, translated by Talcott Parsons (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1958). 12. Crane Brinton, Ideas and Men: The Story of Western Thought (New York: PrenticeHall, 1950), 335. 13. Robert A. Nisbet, The Quest for Community (New York: Oxford University Press, 1953), 9. 14. Berger, The Sacred Canopy, 134. 15. Alice Felt Tyler, Freedom’s Ferment (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1944). 16. The origins of the correlation program and analysis of LDS church bureaucracy are reviewed in James B. Allen and Glen M. Leonard, The Story of the Latter-­day Saints (Salt Lake City: Deseret Press, 1995); Gregory A. Prince and William Robert Wright, David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2005); Robert Gottlieb and Peter Wiley, America’s Saints: Rise of Mormon Power (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1984); and Warner Woodworth, “Brave New Bureaucracy,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 20 (1987): 25–36. 17. The following endnote appeared in the original edition of our book and was based on the list of major LDS administrative departments and auxiliary units published in the 1982 Deseret News Church Almanac. Since then, numerous organizational changes have occurred in the church’s central administrative structure. The Almanac, however, no longer publishes this information. Thus the organization of units listed as follows is much out of date. Nonetheless, including it again in this edition serves to illustrate the scope and complexity of the LDS central bureaucracy, which today is even more complex than thirty years ago. Major departments and auxiliaries include, in alphabetical order: (1) The Auditing Department, which conducts financial and operational audits of all departments and auxiliaries and monitors the auditing of all stakes and wards in the church. (2) Correlation Department, which monitors the volume of church programs, materials, and activities and winnows out topics, problems, and projects for the attention of general authorities. This department is made up of three divisions: Correlation Review, Correlation Evaluation, and Correlation Long-­Range Planning. (3) Deseret Management Corporation, which provides centralized management of “certain corporate organizations” (not listed) owned or controlled by the church. (4) Deseret Mutual Benefit Association, which provides insurance and retirement benefits for church employees. (5) Deseret Trust Company, which administers trusts established for the benefit of the church and acts as a “custodian for other church accounts.” (6) Distribution Center,

Note to page 184  361

which stores and distributes church publications, supplies, furniture, and equipment to church units or individuals around the world. (7) Educational System, which centrally administers all church educational programs and materials. Educational programs include: Seminaries (for high school age students), Institutes of Religion (for college age students, elementary and secondary schools, colleges, and universities), and Special Educational Programs. (8) Genealogical Department, which administers the genealogy programs of the church and produces and maintains the official file of temple ordinances. This department is made up of the following divisions: Priesthood Genealogy, Library Services, Temple Services, Administrative Services, Temple Ordinance Coordination, Public Relations, and Systems Section. (9) Historical Department, which oversees the preservation and distribution of all materials relevant to church history. This department is organized into four divisions: Curator’s Division, History Division, Library-­ Archives Division, and Meetinghouse Library Division. (10) Law Department, which represents various auxiliary corporations and church organizations and advises the general authorities on all legal matters, including corporate, tax, property acquisitions and sales, building projects, and investments. (11)) Management Systems Corporation, which provides data processing services for the church and church-­affiliated companies. The three divisions of this department are: Administrative Services, Industry Systems, and Production. (12) Missionary Department, which calls and assigns missionaries to their fields of labor throughout the world, develops proselytizing programs and techniques, coordinates missionary training, assists mission presidents, and supervises church visitors centers. (13) Personnel Department, which is responsible for hiring, salary administration, employee benefits, personnel development and training, safety, and worker’s compensation. (14) Priesthood Department, which is organized into Adult, Youth, and Curriculum Resources divisions. Subdivisions of the adult division include the Melchizedek Priesthood General Committee and the (Women’s) Relief Society. The youth division is subdivided into the Primary Association (for children under twelve), Sunday School, Young Men, Young Women, and the Military Relations Committee. Curriculum Resources includes Church Magazines (Ensign, New Era, and Friend), Graphics Editing and Text Processing, Instructional Development, and the Music Division. (15) Presiding Bishopric, which has responsibility for the temporal affairs of the church. Divisions include: Administrative Services; Central Purchasing; Distribution and Translation Services; Financial Department; Management Data Department (comprised of the Systems Development Division and Central Information Support Division); Member and Statistical Records; Physical Facilities Department (comprised of Real Estate, Building, and Operations and Maintenance divisions); and International Offices with supervisors over the

362  Notes to pages 185–186

Andes, Australia and New Zealand, Brazil, the British Isles and South Africa, Continental Europe, Japan, Korea and Southeast Asia, Mexico and Central America, South America, and the Pacific Islands. Finally, there is the Welfare Services Department (which is subdivided into the Storehouse Resource System, Employment System, Social Services, and Deseret Industries). (16) Public Communications Department, which is charged with improving the image of the church through news media and motion pictures and consists of the following divisions: Electronic Media and Communications Analysis, Press Relations, Stake and Mission Relations, Exhibits, Budget and Personnel Services, and Administrative Services and Hosting (a VIP hosting service in Salt Lake City and Washington, D.C. for “cultivating potential friends for the church”). (17) Temple Square Mission, which maintains and operates the visitors center in Salt Lake City and conducts tours of Temple Square. The complex organization of the central LDS administrative organization is staffed by thousands of full-­time personnel and supervised by professional administrators who work for the church as career employees, all of whom are under the ultimate ecclesiastical direction of the church’s general authorities. 18. The LDS Church’s primary website is lds.org. The church also sponsors several auxiliary websites, including mormon.org (which features exposition of basic LDS beliefs), mormonnewsroom.org (featuring LDS-­related news items that are regularly updated for “news media, opinion leaders, and the public”), familysearch.org (providing access to genealogical service links), and youth.lds.org (oriented toward church-­sponsored youth programs and activities). 19. The LDS Church’s involvement in mobilizing its members to support California’s 2008 Proposition 8, both through fundraising efforts for political advertising and active participation in rallies and other demonstrations, was widely reported by both the California and national news media. For an overview of this coverage, see Doe Daughtry, “The Mormon Proposition: California Mormons Answer Their Church’s Call to Fight Gay Marriage,” Religion in the News 11, no. 3 (2009). 20. The phrase “Mormon moment”—intimating the rising influence of Mormons and the LDS Church in American society—came into vogue in media accounts of Mitt Romney’s presidential candidacies in 2008 and 2012. See Jan Shipps, “Romney and the Mormon Moment,” Religion in the News 10, no. 1, (2007): 1–2; Jan Shipps, “The Saints Come Marching In,” Religion in the News 14, no. 2, (2012): 2–3. 21. Peter Henderson, “Mormon Church Earns $7 Billion a Year from Tithing, Analysis Indicates,” Reuters News Service, 2014.

Notes to pages 187–197  363

22. Brief biographical sketches of LDS general authorities, including their educational credentials and occupational backgrounds, can be perused in the annual Deseret News Church Almanac. 23. As Philip Kunz and Merlin Brinkerhoff put it, “If the Mormon migrant does not make contact in the new ward, the Church assumes the responsibility of searching for him. Anyone who is rumored to be Mormon and who does not begin to attend his own ward will be visited by the local bishop. In addition, he is visited by representatives from each of the ward’s departments or auxiliary organizations, that is, the Sunday School, Priesthood, Relief Society, Mutual Improvement Association, Primary, and so forth . . . It is somewhat difficult for those who may desire to be inactive in the Mormon Church because of these organizational pressures . . . If a Mormon does not report in at the new ward and has not allowed his past ward to ascertain his current residence, the Church then attempts to discover his whereabouts by contacting his relatives and others who know him. Their vast record system enables them to make these contacts” (“Growth in Religious Organizations: A Comparative Study,” Social Science 45 [1970]: 215–22). Thus, the methods of transference of membership records and the intensive effort on the part of the Mormons to be concerned with the member’s salvation and activity tend to pressure them toward conformity. 24. Information about LDS temple sites and construction facts worldwide is updated annually in the Deseret News Church Almanac and online under resources/temples at lds.org. 25. The statistical significance of decreasing emphasis on individualism over time is p < .04. It is interesting to note that the peak period of individualism emphasis in our conference data (1890–1919) corresponds roughly to the period in which Leone concentrates most of his attention. 26. Differences in doctrinal differentiation over time have an overall level of statistical significance at p < .002. 27. Differences in supernatural emphasis over time are statistically significant at p < .05. 28. Differences in the rhetorical salience of eschatological themes over time are statistically significant at p < .005. 29. Klaus J. Hansen, Mormonism and the American Experience (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981). 30. See Mark Silk, “How Mormons and Evangelicals Became Republicans,” Religion in the News 14, no. 2 (2012): 6–11, 28–29. 31. Dean M. Kelley, Why Conservative Churches Are Growing (New York: Harper and Row, 1972). 32. See Lawrence R. Iannaccone, “Why Strict Churches are Strong,” American Journal of Sociology 99, no. 5 (1944): 1180–1211, in which he argues that strictness (demanding rules and commitment requirements) makes organizations stronger and more attractive because it reduces the “free rider”

364  Notes to pages 197–198

problem by screening out members who lack commitment and stimulates participation among those who remain. The LDS Church clearly is a paradigmatic example of a growth-­oriented, strict religion. At the same time, member retention problems have become increasingly worrisome for LDS officials, as many new converts fail to meet the numerous lay membership requirements of the LDS faith, resulting in half to two-­thirds ultimately leaving the church after baptism. Also, see Rick Phillips and Ryan T. Cragun, “Mormons in the United States 1990–2008: Socio-­demographic Trends and Regional Differences. A Report Based on the American Religious Identification Survey 2008,” (Hartford, CT: Trinity College, 2011). Of course, member retention problems are not unique to Mormons. The great majority of all religious groups—including other growth-­oriented and relatively strict denominations like Catholics, Baptists, and Jehovah’s Witnesses—lose many of their members, even while they gain others through active recruitment and induction of children born into their parents’ religion. For net growth rates of American religious denominations, see “Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life,” U.S. Religious Landscape Survey: Religious Affiliation: Diverse and Dynamic (2008), accessed March 2015, religions.pewforum.org/pdf/report-­ religious-­landscape-­study-­f ull.pdf. 33. For a summary on Christian ecumenism, see William H. Swatos Jr., “Ecumenism,” Encyclopedia of Religion and Society (Hartford, CT: Hartford Institute for Religious Research, 1998), accessed March 2015, hirr.hartsem.edu/ ency/. 34. Mayer Zald and Roberta Ash, “Social Movement Organizations: Growth, Decay, and Change,” Social Forces 44 (1966): 327–41. In his study of ecumenical attitudes among different Protestant denominations, James Kelly (“Attitudes Toward Ecumenicism: An Empirical Investigation,” Journal of Ecumenical Studies, 1972) proposes an “ecumenical gradient” which measures the institutional exclusiveness of religious groups in contrast to their interests in cultivating ecumenical connections. According to Kelly’s gradient, those groups that were most exclusive and least ecumenical included Jehovah’s Witnesses, Evangelicals, Pentecostals, Church of Christ, Seventh-­ Day Adventists, and Mormons. 35. Mark Leone, Roots of Modern Mormonism (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979), 170–72. In spite of official resistance to instituting and operating LDS theological seminaries, a significant number of grassroots Mormon scholars have been entering graduate schools in the last several decades in order to earn advanced degrees in religion, including theology. As one significant case in point, see Armand Mauss, Shifting Borders and a Tattered Passport: Intellectual Journeys of a Mormon Academic (Salt Lake City: The University of Utah Press, 2012), Chapter 8. Mauss summarizes mid-­ twentieth-­century difficulties between professionally trained Mormon academics and LDS ecclesiastical authorities and then describes the lengthy

Notes to pages 198–202  365

negotiations undertaken more recently to establish a Mormon Studies program at the Claremont Graduate School in 2005. For other essays on the subject, see O. Kendall White Jr., Mormon Neo-­orthodoxy: A Crisis Theology (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1987) and O. Kendall White Jr., “Thomas F. O’Dea and Mormon Intellectual Life: A Reassessment Fifty Years Later,” in Revisiting Thomas F. O’Dea’s The Mormons: Contemporary Perspectives, Tim B. Heaton, John P. Hoffman, and Cardell K. Jacobson eds. (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2007). 36. Sterling M. McMurrin, The Theological Foundations of the Mormon Religion (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1965), 110–11; White, Mormon Neo-­ orthodoxy (1987); White, “Thomas F. O’Dea and Mormon Intellectual Life,” (2007). 37. The LDS Church is evidently attractive to a somewhat different clientele in underdeveloped countries, characterized by Klaus Hansen in Mormonism and the American Experience, (1981), 202, as consisting of “individuals who have been dislocated in a rapidly changing world, who are searching for stability and order, but who are at the same time looking for a better future.” For more recent material on those who convert to Mormonism, see the Pew U.S. Religious Landscape Study (2008); for Latin American Mormon converts in particular, see Henri Gooren, Religious Conversion and Disaffiliation: Tracing Patterns of Change in Faith Practices (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), Chapter 5. A very helpful website for obtaining statistical data on LDS conversion rates in different countries, as well as case study profiles of those who convert to the LDS Church, can be found at cumorah.com.

Chapter 9 1. 2.

3.

4.

Access to Davies’s conference Corpus can be found at corpus.byu.edu/gc. Beyond this convenience, having the entire population of conference addresses available for analysis means that descriptions of the content of conference addresses are no longer based on probability estimates calculated from samples but are exact representations of that content. A census is a complete count or measurement of every case within a population, whereas a survey is a measurement of only some cases that are sampled from a population. The selected cases in a sample may accurately represent all cases in the population if the sample has been constructed using probability techniques. We selected the median rather than the arithmetic mean as our measure of the average theme frequency because of how skewed the statistical distribution of conference word counts was. For example, a relatively small number of terms in our conference word index had very high frequencies while a large majority had fairly low frequencies. A positively skewed distribution pulls the mean toward the frequency extremes and gives an inflated value

366  Notes to pages 203–210

for the average. Since the median is the middle value in a distribution, it is not skewed by extreme frequencies and consequently, for this study, provides a more accurate measure of the average conference theme count. 5. In conjunction with the strident anticommunism of the post–WWII Cold War era—and especially in reaction to the tumultuous social and political upheavals of the 1960s—LDS retrenchment ran parallel to a massive conservative Christian backlash that was committed to reversing liberal social change. Conservative members of Protestant mainline denominations were unhappy with their clergy’s support of the civil rights and antiwar movements of the 1960s and the secular ideology of separation of church and state. Consequently, many were attracted to more conservative evangelical and nondenominational Bible churches that preached traditional morality, promoted evangelism, and threw their political support to candidates who opposed affirmative action policies in employment, secularization of public schools (i.e., busing as an instrument of racial desegregation and prohibition of prayer and religious texts), and especially the legalization of abortion. For analyses of the rise and relative decline of the historic mainline Protestant churches in contemporary America and the corresponding rise of the conservative Christian right, see Jason S. Lantzer, Mainline Christianity: The Past and Future of America’s Majority Faith (New York: New York University Press, 2012) and Elesha J. Coffman, The Christian Century and the Rise of the Protestant Mainline (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013). 6. Armand L. Mauss, “Rethinking Retrenchment: Course Corrections in the Ongoing Campaign for Respectability,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 44, no. 4 (2011): 1–42. 7. Ibid., 4. 8. Ibid., 21. 9. Due to space limitations, our different scoring system, and the absence of widespread dramatic changes in rhetorical patterns emerging over the last thirty years of general conference addresses, we have elected not to provide complete summary breakdowns of themes for 1980–2009 in Appendix C. Instead, in this chapter we present in several tables selected summary results of what we believe are the most significant contemporary rhetorical patterns from our new conference analysis. 10. For discussion of Benson’s political and religious conservatism, see D. Michael Quinn, “Ezra Taft Benson and Mormon Political Conflicts,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, 26 no. 2 (1993): 1–87; and Gregory A. Prince and William Robert Wright, David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2005), 72–73, 92–93, 473. 11. In 1995 the LDS First Presidency issued a statement entitled “The Family: A Proclamation to the World.” Subsequently, the proclamation has acquired a

Notes to pages 211–221  367

12.

13.

14.

15.

quasi-­scriptural status among Latter-­day Saints and is frequently referenced by both members and church leaders when defending conservative LDS policies with regard to marriage and family life, gender roles, and human sexuality. For the complete text of the proclamation, see, accessed March 2015, lds.org/topics/family-­proclamation. As of August 21, 2013, a quick search of the Conference Corpus showed that, since 1995, the family proclamation had been referenced a total of ninety-­eight times in general conference addresses. A central theological issue raised with reference to LDS temples (which goes virtually unaddressed by contemporary conference speakers) concerns Mormons’ belief that temple ordinances are necessary for ultimate salvation or exaltation in the Celestial Kingdom. In contrast, most Protestants repudiate sacramentalism and insist that God’s grace alone, through acceptance of Jesus Christ, is not only necessary but also sufficient as a condition for human salvation. Mormons believe that God’s grace through Jesus Christ’s atoning sacrifice is necessary for the universal resurrection of the dead but not sufficient for human exaltation. For the latter, individuals must also receive prescribed covenantal temple ordinances performed through authorized priesthood authority. The theological proposition that human beings are the literal offspring of God with the potential of becoming gods is one of the specific LDS doctrines that both Catholic and Protestant clergy strongly abjure as a fundamental heresy. As shown in our conference data, LDS authorities today downplay the radical implications of exaltation (human deification), emphasizing instead the corporate salvation of the nuclear family as an eternal unit in which parents will be reunited with their children in a celestialized afterlife. In his analysis of contemporary Mormonism, Matthew Bowman, in The Mormon People: The Making of an American Faith (New York: Random House, 2012), draws the same conclusion, writing that “the leaders of the church have decided to leave theological dispute alone. They conceive of their task largely in terms of ministry and pastoral work, consonant with modern Mormons’ conception of their faith as a way of life and a system of ethical behavior rather than a theological argument.” On the same day that several hundred LDS women and supporters of Ordain Women stood in line and were turned away from admission to the April 2014 priesthood session of general conference in Salt Lake City, Mormon Apostle Dallin Oaks delivered an address to the all-­male gathering entitled “Keys and Authority of the Priesthood.” Oaks made no mention of the demonstration outside. But, as reported by the church-­owned Deseret News, he emphasized that while presiding LDS authorities “hold and exercise all of the keys delegated to men in this dispensation, they are not free to alter the divinely decreed pattern that only men will hold offices in the priesthood.” Posing

368  Notes to page 221

the question of how priesthood authority applies to women, Elder Oaks quoted President Joseph Fielding Smith to the effect that though women are not given the priesthood, that doesn’t mean they are not given authority. “The Lord has directed that only men will be ordained to offices in the priesthood. But, as various church leaders have emphasized, men are not ‘the priesthood.’ Men hold the priesthood, with a sacred duty to use it for the blessing of all of the children of God.” Quoting J. Reuben Clark relative to the role of women as “a creator of bodies,” Elder Oaks declared, “In the eyes of God, whether in the Church or in the family, women and men are equal with different responsibilities.” Accessed March 25, 2015, at deseretnews. com/article/865600323/Elder-­Dallin-­H-­Oaks-­Keys-­and-­authority-­of-­the-­ priesthood. Within two months of Oaks’s address, local Virginia LDS authorities excommunicated Ordain Women’s Founder, Kate Kelly. 16. Sources on the seldom discussed LDS topic of Mother in Heaven can be found in David L. Paulson and Martin Pulido, “A Mother There: A Survey of Historical Teachings about Mother in Heaven,” BYU Studies 50, no. 1 (2011): 70–97. 17. For the announcement that lowered the age requirements for both male and female missionaries and the immediate increase in missionary applications, see the following news releases published by the LDS Church at mormonnewsroom.org, all accessed March 2015: “Church Statement Regarding Increase in Missionary Service Interest,” (October 23, 2012) and “Missions to Be Created to Accommodate Influx of new Missionaries,” (February 22, 2013). 18. Eighteen months after the LDS Church’s October 2012 announcement lowering the age requirement from 21 to 19 for female missionaries, the New York Times published an article entitled “Missions Signal a Growing Role for Mormon Women.” The article observed that “in the coming years, these women [young female missionaries] are expected to fundamentally alter this most American of churches, whose ruling patriarchs not long ago excommunicated feminist scholars and warned women not to hold jobs while raising children. Church leaders have been forced to reassess their views because Mormon women are increasingly supporting households, marrying later and less frequently, and having fewer children . . . Already the church has made small adjustments, inviting women to weigh in on local councils and introducing the first leadership roles for female missionaries . . . When a band of Mormon feminists staged a demonstration last year in Salt Lake City calling for women to be ordained as priests, their demands were felt in church headquarters—in part because the church’s own surveys also reveal streaks of female dissatisfaction . . . But if the church, which keenly polishes its image, does not update its ideas about gender, it may be seen as out of step with contemporary life, an untenable home for women who are leaders in

Notes to pages 222–223  369

their workplaces and breadwinners in their households. ‘The great unfinished business in the church is gender equality,’ said Joanna Brooks, an English professor at San Diego State University, who often writes about her experiences as a Mormon woman. ‘An increasing number of young Mormon women are growing up in a world where they not only can work, but have to work, and they are operating 12 hours a day in contexts where gender is irrelevant, but in a church structure where all financial and theological decisions are made by men. This will just stop making sense.’” (accessed March 2015 at nytimes.com/2014/03/02/us/a-­g rowing-­role-­for-­mormon-­ women.html?_r=0). 19. The small, incremental steps currently being undertaken by LDS authorities toward greater inclusion of women in performance of religious roles traditionally reserved for men is illustrated by the following headline published in the Salt Lake Tribune prior to the 2013 April conference: “April Mormon Conference May Make History: Female Mormons Set to Pray in April, Breaking New Ground for Church,” accessed March 24, 2015, at sltrib.com/sltrib/ news/56026380-­78/women-­general-­conference-­lds). 20. In contrast, Catholic bishops and many Protestant clergy routinely denounce government support of abortion clinics and dissemination of contraception in their public discourse. Though seldom discussed at general conference, the official LDS position is that “elective abortion for personal or social convenience is contrary to the will and the Commandments of God. Church members who submit to, perform, encourage, pay for, or arrange for such abortions may lose their membership in the Church.” This statement is posted in the Gospel Library under Gospel Topics on the LDS website at lds.org, accessed March 24, 2015. 21. At October conference in 2010, however, senior Apostle Boyd K. Packer delivered an address condemning homosexuality as “impure and unnatural,” which ignited a firestorm of controversy. Other members of the hierarchy engaged in immediate damage control through the church’s Public Affairs department to emphasize “compassion and understanding” for individuals “struggling” with homosexuality issues while, at the same time, continuing to oppose same-­sex marriage. On the official LDS website at lds.org the following statements (among others under the heading of Same-­Sex Attraction) were posted as of August 15, 2013: “The experience of same-­sex attraction is a complex reality for many people. The attraction itself is not a sin, but acting on it is. Even though individuals do not choose to have such attractions, they do choose how to respond to them. With love and understanding, the church reaches out to all God’s children, including our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters . . . While maintaining that feelings and inclinations toward the same sex are not inherently sinful, engaging in homosexual behavior is in conflict with the doctrinal principle, based on sacred

370  Notes to page 223

scripture, that marriage between a man and a woman is essential to the Creator’s plan for the eternal destiny of His children.” Several LDS authorities at the April 2015 conference strongly affirmed this position and condemned acceptance of same-­sex marriage, warning about the dangers of “counterfeit and alternative lifestyles.” Apostle L. Tom Perry specifically asserted that traditional families, based only on marriage between a man and a woman, “are not only the basic units of a stable society, a stable economy and a stable culture of values but . . . they are also the basic units of eternity, and of the kingdom and government of God” (Peggy Fletcher Stack, “Mormon leaders laud ‘traditional families,’ warn against ‘counterfeit’ lifestyles,” The Salt Lake Tribune, April 4, 2015). Thus, the LDS Church admits gay and lesbian individuals into its fellowship but requires them to remain celibate outside of church recognized heterosexual marriage. The evolving issue of homosexuality and same-­sex marriage in the LDS Church is reviewed in Melvyn Hammarberg, “The Current Crisis in the Formation and Regulation of Latter-­ day Saints’ Sexual Identity,” in Revisiting Thomas F. O’Dea’s The Mormons: Contemporary Perspectives, Tim B. Heaton, John P. Hoffman, and Cardell K. Jacobson eds. (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2008); and Alan M. Williams, “Mormon and Queer at the Crossroads,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 44, no. 1 (2011): 53–84. 22. As a result of a ruling by the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah, same-­sex marriage in Republican-­dominated Utah became legal on December 20, 2013. In less than three weeks’ time, however, the Utah State Attorney General’s office was granted a stay of the ruling by the United States Supreme Court, while the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver reviewed the case. For details, see, as accessed March 24, 2015, usnews.nbcnews. com/_news/2014/01/06/22201874-­us-­supreme-­court-­puts-­gay-­marriage-­in-­ utah-­on-­hold. In the meantime, similar rulings and stays have been issued in other conservative states as well, with litigants on both sides hoping for an eventual supreme court ruling in their favor. Should the court ultimately rule in favor of legalizing same-­sex marriage, we do not anticipate that LDS authorities would counsel disobedience to the law. But we do anticipate they would likely denounce it in forums outside general conference as pernicious and immoral and would insist that same-­sex marriages among Mormons will never be countenanced by the LDS Church. At the same time, to counter perceptions that the church is a homophobic institution that promotes generic LGBT discrimination, Mormon officials in early 2015 publicly announced strong support for passage of laws in the Utah legislature that would “grant statewide protections against housing and employment discrimination for gay and lesbian Utahns—as long as those measures also safeguard religious freedom” (Peggy Fletcher Stack and Robert Gehrke, “In

Notes to pages 225–230  371

23.

24.

25.

26. 27.

Major Move, Mormon Leaders Call for Statewide LGBT Protections,” The Salt Lake Tribune, Jan. 27, 2015). Kate Kelly’s June 23, 2014, letter of excommunication from her former bishop in the Vienna Ward of the Oakton Virginia Stake, outlining his and his counselors’ rationale for their judgment against her, is published in full online, accessed March 24, 2015, at scribd.com/doc/231051936/Kate-­Kelly-­ Excommunication-­Decision. Bishop Harrison wrote “my greatest desire has been to persuade you to desist from the course on which you have embarked so that you might remain in full fellowship in the church while also protecting the integrity of the church and its doctrine. The other members of the council and I have tried to weigh your interests with those of the rest of the membership of the church . . . We have approached this solemn and difficult task seeking only to know the Lord’s mind and will. Having done so, our determination is that you be excommunicated for conduct contrary to the laws and order of the church.” For Kelly’s full public response, see sltrib. com/sltrib/news/58104587-­78/church-­kelly-­women-­ordain, accessed March 2015, in which she was quoted: “I’ve done nothing wrong and have nothing to repent. Once the church changes to be a more inclusive place, and once women are ordained, that’s a place I’d feel welcome.” Armand L. Mauss, “From Near-­Nation to New World Religion?” in Revisiting Thomas F. O’Dea’s The Mormons: Contemporary Perspectives, Tim B. Heaton, John P. Hoffman, and Cardell K. Jacobson, eds. (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2008), 295. In 2012, while Mormon Mitt Romney was campaigning as the Republican candidate for president of the United States, New York Times bestselling author Stephen Mansfield published a book for a Christian publishing house entitled The Mormonizing of America: How the Mormon Religion Became a Dominant Force in Politics, Entertainment, and Pop Culture (Brentwood, TN: Worthy Publishing, 2012). While the title is overhyped, Mansfield’s book documents the integration of Mormons in major areas of contemporary American society. Melvyn Hammarberg, The Mormon Quest for Glory: The Religious World of the Latter-­day Saints (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013). Herbert J. Gans, “Ethnic Invention and Acculturation, a Bumpy Line Approach,” Journal of American Ethnic History 12 (1992): 42–51; and Herbert J. Gans, “Toward a Reconciliation of ‘Assimilation’ and ‘Pluralism:’ The Interplay of Acculturation and Ethnic Retention,” International Migration Review 31, no. 4 (1997): 875–92. For an overview of the concept of assimilation as it has been used, criticized, and modified in racial and ethnic immigration studies, see Richard Alba and Victor Nee, “Assimilation,” in The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology, George Ritzer, ed. (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-­ Blackwell, 2007).

372  Notes to pages 231–238

28. There are several different councils of Christian churches that specify different criteria for inclusion among their ranks as a Christian faith. The National Council of Churches in the USA (NCC) is an ecumenical organization of mainline American denominations (see nationalcouncilofchurches.us). In the context of American religion, the NCC is viewed as relatively liberal, both doctrinally and politically. In contrast, the American Council of Christian Churches (ACCC) is an organization of fundamentalist Christian denominations that oppose the doctrinal latitude and political positions of the NCC (see accc4truth.org; also Glenn H. Utter, and John W. Storey, The Religious Right: A Reference Handbook [Santa Barbara: ABC-­CLIO, 2001], 159–60). The ACCC’s doctrinal criteria are strict and deny membership to any denomination that affiliates with the NCC or the World Council of Churches (WCC). In turn, the WCC (oikoumene.org) is an ecumenical global organization that attempts to promote international Christian unity and cooperation. The LDS Church is not an affiliate of the NCC, ACCC, WCC, or any other Christian Council organization that presumes to define what entails recognition as a Christian faith. 29. Joseph Smith’s son, Joseph III, who became the first president of the RLDS Church in 1860, was especially adamant in his public opposition to the practice of polygamy by the nineteenth-­century LDS Church. See Roger D. Launius, Joseph Smith III: Pragmatic Prophet (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1995). 30. Mauss, “Rethinking Retrenchment,” (2011): 22–24, describes the increasingly proactive role played by the LDS department of Public Affairs in responding to criticism of church doctrine and policies and in promoting a positive public image of the church and its members through sophisticated use of both traditional and new social media outlets. 31. Jan Shipps, Mormonism: A New Religious Tradition (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1985).

Epilogue 1.

As discussed at length in Chapter 9, it is these tension-­management issues that Mauss centers attention on in his analysis of modern Mormonism. As he argues (and for which our updated conference data provide some limited support), twentieth-­century doctrinal and organizational retrenchment appears to have softened somewhat as LDS authorities have made various course corrections over the past two decades. Whether this signals a significant new phase of accommodation in the direction of ultimate assimilation—as we have emphasized in our own analysis—remains very much to be seen.

Notes to page 239  373

2.

3.

4.

5.

This suggestion was made by Brian Wilson in his critique of Daniel Bell’s redemptive-­t ype religion, “The Return of the Sacred,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 13:3 (1979): 268–80. Although a number of non-­A mericans occupy positions of high regional ecclesiastical authority, as of this writing only one non-­A merican occupies a position in the Quorum of Twelve Apostles and the First Presidency: Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf, a German, who is second counselor in the latter. Once again we note the organizational parallels between the LDS Church and Roman Catholicism and their all-­male priesthood hierarchies. Similar ecclesiastical structures have generated similar gender controversies in both religions. Like their Mormon counterparts, Vatican officials have continued to resist appeals for female ordination to the priesthood and have aggressively denounced such groups as Womenpriests (see romancatholicwomenpriests.org)—a small but growing network of Catholic women who claim authentic calling and ordination to the Catholic priesthood and who minister to small congregations of worshippers in North America and Western Europe—as heretics subject to excommunication for their illegitimate claims and arrogation of authority. Meanwhile, the Roman Catholic Church faces critical declines in both the number of ordained male priests and new seminarians preparing for ordination, which has stimulated renewed calls to preserve the church by permitting the ordination of women (see, for example, the article posted June 10, 2014, accessed March 2015, entitled “Irish Priests Call for Ordination of Women and Marriage” at irishcentral.com/news/Irish-­ priests-­calls-­for-­ordination-­of-­women-­and-­marriage-­in-­Church.html). Will Mormon authorities, like their Catholic counterparts, continue suppressing the current movement for ordination of women in the LDS Church through the threat of heretical branding and excommunication? Will the Catholic Church, a hundred years hence, continue to bar women from ordination to the priesthood and ecclesiastical equity with Catholic men? Or will both religious faith traditions, reluctantly but ultimately, reform to embrace the service and authority of women priests? These are questions for which historians of the future will have answers. Higher average birthrates, especially in Latin America and Africa, should also contribute to disproportionate growth of a non-­A merican Mormon population.

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Index

abortion, 186, 219, 222–23, 369 abstinence, 105 accommodation, 30–31, 72, 145, 148– 76, 235, 338; vs. assimilation, 225– 32, 372 accountability, 269 activity, 269 Adam and Eve, 216, 269 admonition rhetoric, 248, 250 adversity, 134, 269 agency. See free agency America: as chosen land, 58, 331; conservative political right, 196–98, 203, 325, 366; religious culture of, 15, 196–98; traditional values of, 32, 196 American Indians, 68–69, 285 American Judaism (Glazer), xvii–xxii Angel and the Beehive, The (Mauss), 202–3 angels, 216, 270 apostasy, 58–59, 270, 331. See also restoration Army, US, 26–27 Arrington, Leonard J., 10–11, 48, 50, 51–53 Articles of Faith, The (Talmage), 41

articulation, 173–76, 358 asceticism, 48, 93 Ash, Roberta, 151–76 assimilation, 230–31, 371; vs. accommodation, 225–32; Jewish, xix– xx, 310–11; Mormon, 202–4, 224 associations, 270 atonement, 216, 270, 349 austerity, 105–6, 134 authoritarianism, 4–5, 50, 63, 171–72 authority, 4, 7–8, 11, 124–26; themes, 75–77, 208–10, 229, 270. See also priesthood; see also under individualism; Smith, Joseph Bainbridge, William, 151–56, 166 baptism, 270; of children, 128; of converts, 33, 184, 347; for the dead, 22, 64, 213, 332 beautification, 271 beliefs, Mormon, 3–7, 224, 235, 367; changes in, 30–31, 36; core, 191–93; eschatological, 194–95, 214–25, 234, 363; variability in, 192. See also individual beliefs belief systems, 37–69 Benson, Ezra Taft, 207, 366

393

394 Index

Berger, Peter, 123–24, 179–99, 215 Bible, 6, 7, 14, 271; Smith revision of, 17, 317 birth control, 219, 222–23, 369 bishops, 110, 112, 117, 119, 125–26, 239. See also Presiding Bishopric Blacks, 291; and priesthood ban, 33–35, 157, 323, 345, 353. See also racial policies, Mormon blessing (prayer), 114, 271. See also patriarchal blessings blessings (rewards), 73, 76, 93–94, 205, 209, 271. See also under obedience blood atonement, 349 body, 271 Boggs, Lilburn, 318 Book of Commandments, 17 Book of Mormon (scripture), 14, 69, 191, 211–12, 229; on par with Bible, 21, 230; history of, 316; as theme, 205–7, 209–10, 213, 271–72 Book of Mormon, The (musical), 336 Bowman, Matthew, 30–31 brotherhood, 43, 51–53, 272 Buchanan, James, 26–27 bumpy line theory, 227–28, 371 bureaucracy, of LDS Church, 122, 147, 184–87, 198, 239 bureaucratization, 122, 171, 183–88 Burned-over District, 13–15, 43 business, 272 Butler, Jon, 15 Caine, John T., 321–22 calamities, 272 callings, 272 Campbellite Disciples of Christ, 59 Cannon, George Q., 96 carnality, 273 Catholicism, 226, 273; and Mormonism, xx–xxi , 63, 168, 373. See also Christianity Celestial Kingdom, 108, 212–13, 273

changeability, 157, 188–90. See also under organization, LDS character, 273–74 charisma, 63, 143, 239, 312–13, 328; of leaders, 153–54, 332; routinization of, 350. See also under Smith, Joseph charity, 274 chastity, 274. See also immorality, sexual children, 205, 207, 209–10, 274; blessings of, 114. See also under baptism chosen people, LDS, 87–88, 93, 124, 213, 216  Christianity, 148, 274; and conservative political right, 196–98, 203, 325, 366; Councils of, 371–72; Mormonism’s alignment with, xvii, xix, 154, 196–97, 206, 231– 32; groups’ rejection of Mormonism, 154, 166, 229, 366; themes of, 210–11, 215–16, 218. See also primitivists, Christian Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, xxi, 32–36, 176, 314; as alien from mainstream religions, 15, 37–38; attraction of, 236–37; as exclusive, 51, 103–4, 157; globalizing of, 168, 198, 214, 229–30, 236– 37, 239–40; as modern religion, 4, 189–90, 313; vs. “Mormonism,” xxi–xxii, 158, 227; projections for, 237–40; results-­orientation of, 184–85. See also divinity, LDS Church; government, LDS Church; growth, LDS Church; history, Mormon; Mormonism; organization, LDS Church church-sect theory, 150–62, 351–52 citizenship, 276 civil religions, 350 Clark, J. Reuben, 94, 368

Index 395

Clayton, William, 252 cleanliness, 276 cognitive dissonance, 138–39, 340 cohesiveness. See under groups; see also under renunciation colonization, 276–77 “Come, Come, Ye Saints,” 115–16 commandments, 98, 277 commitment, 104, 134, 145–46, 339; categories of, 130–47, 159–60; Mormon, 158, 234, 337; measuring rhetoric of, 131–36, 144–47; rhetoric, 130–47, 179, 348–49; as theme, 77. See also commitment mechanisms commitment mechanisms, 103–8, 348; of groups, 43–44; of LDS Church, 31–32, 51–52, 102–29, 138–39, 341. See also costs vs. benefits; rewards, religious common consent, 125–26 common religion, 5–6, 313 communion, 104, 112–16, 130–47 communism, 32, 52, 277, 323 communitarianism, Mormon, 327, 339. See also law of consecration; United Order community, 111, 277; cooperation, 50–51. See also groups; movements Community of Christ (formerly Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; RLDS), 166, 317, 328, 355; assimilation of, 230–31 compensators, 339–40 conference. See general conference Conference Reports, 243, 252 confession, 117–18, 135, 277 conservatism, 145, 183, 210, 238; of LDS Church, 32–36, 86, 172–73, 196–98, 235. See also under Christianity conspiracy, 277

Constitution, US, 58 content analysis. See under general conference addresses control: institutional, 143, 147; social, 104–47 conversion, 127–28, 135, 207–8, 277, 365; rates, 311–12; as social process, 346. See also converts; missionary work converts, 236, 277; European, 66, 140, 171; Latin American, 168–69, 237, 356. See also conversion; see also under baptisms Corpus of LDS General Conference Talks (web database), 201–2 correlation, 122, 184, 341, 360–62 costs vs. benefits, 104–6, 131, 137, 143– 44, 340. See also commitment mechanisms Council of Fifty, 110, 329  counsel, 277–78 Cowdery, Oliver, 62, 318 Cowley, Mathias, 357–58 creedlessless, 4–5 Cross, Whitney R., 13–14, 47 courtship, 278 covenants, 278 creation, 278 crime, 278 Criswell, W. A., 352 cults, 148–49, 152–56; and Mormonism, 149, 328, 339, 352; stereotypes of, 351. See also new religious movements Danites, 110 Darby, John Nelson, 38–39 Davies, Mark, 201 Davis, Andrew Jackson, 61–62 death, 278 debt, 278 degrees of glory, 108, 212–13, 216 deindividuation, 122

396 Index

democratization, 316 demythologizing, 188–89, 194. See also myth-building; leaders, Mormon denominationalism, 164, 189, 358 Deseret Alphabet, 109 Deseret News, 243, 252 Deseret News Church Almanac, 360–62 differentiation: doctrinal 191–93, 211, 234, 363; spiritual, 120–21, 135 digital media. See mass digital media discursive view, 178–79 disfellowshipment, 19, 119–20, 343–44. See also excommunication disobedience, 279 dispensationalism, 38–39 dissension. See divisions, within LDS Church; see also under Smith, Joseph dissonance management, 138–39, 340, 349 distinctiveness, Mormon, 211–12, 218, 226, 232, 234; Mormons giving up own features of, 35, 192, 212, 228 disunity, 279 divinity, LDS Church, 275; as theme, 73, 76, 92–93, 135, 213 divisions, within LDS Church, 167– 68, 239; ethnic, 168–69, 237– 38; socioeconomic, 169. See also under pressures, group divorce, 219, 222 doctrine, 279; false, 220; reversals of, 333–34. See also beliefs, Mormon Doctrine and Covenants, 18, 245, 252 Documentary History of the Church, 252 Durkheim, Emile, 143 duty, 279 earth, 279 economy, 279 ecumenism, 189, 197–98, 364

Eden, Garden of, 194, 215, 279 Edmunds-Tucker Act, 29, 321–22 education, 279–80 election, 280 emigration. See migration, Mormon. See also Perpetual Emigration Fund endowments, 64, 65, 187 endurance, 280 enemies, 73, 76, 80–81, 280 Ensign, 243, 252 equality, 280. See also gender issues Equal Rights Amendment, 186, 323–24 Erickson, Ephraim, 57 eschatology. See under beliefs, Mormon eternal life, 216, 280. See also exaltation eternal progression. See under progression ethnicity, xviii–xxii, 309. See also under divisions, within LDS Church Evangelicalism. See Protestantism evolution, 220 exaltation, 45, 213, 216, 281, 367 exceptionalism, 180–81 exclusive organizations. See under organizations; see also under Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints exclusive truth claims, 86–101, 197, 198, 208–11 excommunication, 20, 65, 119–20, 281, 318–19, 343–44; of general authorities, 168, 172, 355–56; of individuals, 323, 371. See also disfellowshipment exodus. See migration, Mormon extinction hypothesis, 180 factionalism, 164–66

Index 397

faith, 205, 209, 281 family, 64–65, 235, 337; integration with church, 111–12; church policies on, 52, 64, 112, 194–96, 218–24; as theme, 73, 76, 83–86, 205–9, 281. See also children; parenthood “Family: A Proclamation to the World, The,” 366–67 family home evening, 111–12, 227, 281 Family International, The, 338 farming, 54, 281 Far West, Missouri, 19 fast and testimony meeting, 118, 227 fasting, 118, 282 fast offerings, 118 fathers, 50, 52, 219, 282. See also parenthood feminine. See womanhood feminist issues. See gender issues Fenn, Richard, 178–79 finances: LDS Church, 183, 186, 275; personal, 282. See also tithing First Presidency, 165, 184, 239; charisma of, 153–54; statements of, 244, 252, 314, 337. See also succession food storage, 282 Ford, Thomas, 60 foreordination, 185, 280 forgiveness, 282 free agency, 45–46, 282 freedom, 182, 282 functional theory, 178 Fundamentalist Latter-day Saints, 333 fundraising. See finances Gans, Herbert, 227–28 garments, 110 Gatherers, 354 gathering, 57, 66–69, 134, 216, 234, 282–83. See also under Zion

gay rights. See homosexuality; samesex marriage gemeinschaft, 329 gender issues: and LDS Church policies, 33–35, 84, 157, 169, 218–24, 367–69; challenging policies on, 237, 238–39, 323–24. See also ordination, female; women, LDS genealogy, 64, 111, 187, 213, 282, 332–33 general authorities, 283, 363. See also First Presidency; leaders, Mormon; Quorum of Twelve Apostles; individual names general conference, 133, 243, 245; to reinforce commitment, 31–32, 138–39; first meeting of, 8–9, 14; frequency of, 9–11, 242; functions of, 9–11, 26, 22, 28; history of, 8–10. See also general conference addresses; general conference, time period divisions general conference, time period divisions, 72–74, 251; into decades, 139, 212, 251; into 30-year generations, 269–308, 348–49; first (1830–59), 71, 77–80, 140, 159, 243; second (1860–89), 72, 78, 81, 138–39, 160, 192–94; third (1890– 1919), 72, 78, 82, 160–61, 349; fourth (1920–49), 269; fifth (1950– 79), 161, 192–93, 194; sixth (1980– 2009), 200–240 general conference addresses, 252–68; content analysis of, 71–75, 241– 51; advantages and limitations of analyzing, 152, 200–202; as data and documentary source, xiii, 6–11; methodology of analyzing, 133–36; number of, 242; as record of official rhetoric, 7–8, 243; themes/subthemes in, 8, 28, 133, 201–10, 241–51; theme salience in,

398 Index

204–10, 269–308. See also rhetoric; scores gentiles, 73, 76, 80–81, 283; hostilities with Mormons, 18, 20, 24, 318; relations with Mormons, 21, 26–28, 57, 109–10 Gladdenites, 166 Glazer, Nathan, xvii–xxii goals, 185, 208–10, 312 God, 213; intervention in affairs, 87, 191; nature of, 46, 191, 337–38; plurality of, 46, 213; potential to become, 284, 367; will of, 73, 76, 87, 284. See also chosen people, LDS  Godbeites, 166, 355 gospel, 73, 76, 90–92, 98, 205, 209, 284. See also restoration gossip, 284 government, federal, 81, 284; and Mormon relations, 26–27, 58, 110, 304–5, 331 government, LDS Church, 25–26, 275; departments of, 360–62; routinization of, 357; as theme, 73, 75–77, 205, 209 Graham, Billy, 352–53 Grant, Heber J., 79, 82, 87 Grant, Jedediah, 47–48 gratitude, 94, 118 groups, 114; cohesion of, 130, 143– 44; commitment mechanisms of, 43–44, 102–29; sanctions in, 119–20, 135; tension in, 151, 156– 76. See also cults; millennialism; movements; new religious movements; pressures, group; sects; individual group names growth, LDS Church, 151, 170–71, 196– 98, 237–39, 275, 311–12; internationalizing of, 337, 356–57; as theme, 32–33, 76, 81–83, 141. See also membership

guilt, 285 Gusfield, Joseph, 173–76 Hammarberg, Melvyn, 226 happiness, 205, 209, 285 harmony, 44 Hatch, Nathan, 15 healing of the sick, 216 health, 82–83, 285; reform, 55–56 heaven, 47, 212, 216, 217, 285. See also degrees of glory Hebrews, ancient, 56–57 hell, 216, 217, 285 hierarchy. See organization, LDS Church; see also under priesthood higher education, 220 historians, Mormon, 338. See also scholars history, Mormon, xi–xiii, 14–16, 30–32, 276. See also under Book of Mormon; general conference; missionary work History of the Church, The, 243 History of Western Philosophy (Russell), 37 Holy Ghost, 7, 285. See also Spirit homemaking, 219, 222 home teaching, 117–18, 343 homosexuality, 218–24, 325, 369–70 Howe, E. D., 60 humility, 117 husbands, 219, 222, 223 hymns, 39–40, 54–55, 115–16 identity, 141–42, 226, 232, 240. See also chosen people, LDS ideology, 123–24. See also beliefs, Mormon immigration. See migration, Mormon immorality, sexual, 105, 119, 301 Improvement Era, 243 incentives, purposive and solidary, 163–64

Index 399

inclusive organizations. See under organizations Indians. See American Indians individualism, xx, 5–6, 178, 195, 286, 363; vs. authority, 190–91 industry, 286 initiation, 105 inspiration, 286 institutional change, xii, 145, 178 institutionalization, 171, 337 insulation, 109–10, 140–41 integration, 226, 238, 336 intellectuals, 220 intelligence, 46, 286 intentional communities, 327 interviews, priesthood, 117, 119–20, 127 investment, 104–8, 338; commitment rhetoric of, 130–47 inward-oriented movements. See under movements irreversibility, 107–8 isolation, Mormon, 134, 151, 230–31 Israel, 67–69, 286. See also gathering Jerusalem, 68–69 Jesus Christ, 100, 148, 191–92, 194; contrasted to Joseph Smith, 100– 101, 212; salience of theme, 206; as theme, 73, 76, 100–101, 205, 209, 286–87. See also atonement; Second Coming Jews. See Judaism Johnson, Sonia, 323–24 John the Baptist, 62 Journal History of the Church, 243, 252 Journal of Discourses, 243, 245, 252 Judaism, 67–68, 226, 310–11; ethnic vs. religious characteristics of, xx– xxii, 309–10; compared to Mormonism, xvii–xxii, 56–58 Judgment Day, 216, 287 justice, 287

Kanter, Rosabeth M., 43–44, 102–23 Kelly, Kate, 324, 368, 371 Kimball, Spencer W., 34, 82, 83, 89, 92 Kingdom of God, 195, 247; building of, 233–34; as metaphor, 233–40; as theme, 73, 76, 77–78, 287–88; as material and spiritual theocracy, 42, 328–29. See also Zion King Follett discourse, 22, 46 Kirtland, Ohio period, 16–20, 318 Kirtland bank, 19 Kirtland Temple, 18–19, 317, 343 knowledge, 73, 76, 97–99, 205, 209, 288 labor. See work; see also volunteer labor land ethic, 53–55 last days, 38, 213, 216, 288 last dispensation, 216 Latter-day Saint Church Archives, 252 Latter-day Saints, 38, 106; active and inactive, 47, 57, 363; special mission of, 39–40, 56–58, 143–44; as theme, 73, 76, 86–89, 299. See also chosen people, LDS law, civil, 98, 120, 288–89 law of consecration, 17, 28, 51–53, 166– 67, 172, 277; as social reform, 44. See also United Order lay structure, LDS Church, 4–5, 47, 120, 184, 198, 239–40 LDS Church. See Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; Mormonism leaders, Mormon, 4, 5, 77, 224, 242; as divinely appointed, 3, 129; gerontocracy of, 172–73; mythologizing of, 61, 129, 153, 155, 345; pressures of, 170–76; professionalization of, 171, 186–87, 198, 335; physical separation from members, 124–26; styles of, 173– 76. See also prophets; rhetoric;

400 Index

succession; individual leader names leadership, 289 Lee, Ann, 61 Lee, Harold, 98 legitimation, 77, 86, 97, 123–24; themes, 208, 229 Leone, Mark, 4–6, 35, 189–90 love, 205, 209, 289 Lyman, Amasa, 61 manhood, 219, 221–22, 289 Mansfield, Stephen, 371 marriage, 110; eternal/celestial in the temple, 84, 213, 334; as theme, 73, 76, 83–86, 205–10, 289–90. See also family; husbands; plural marriage; same-sex marriage; wives Marty, Martin E. 162 masonry, 64, 332 mass digital media, 7, 31, 185, 351, 362 materialism, 53 Mauss, Armand J., xiv, 146, 202–32, 372 McKay, David O., 32, 90, 100 membership, 1, 187, 311, 356; decline in, 346–47; requirements of, 156. See also growth, LDS Church; retention, member “Messages of the First Presidency,” 314 migration, Mormon, 89; in eastern US, 17, 19–20; European, 50, 280; to Utah, xviii–xix, 24–25 militia, Mormon, 20 millenarianism, 38–42, 58–59, 66, 87, 326. See also postmillennialism millennialism. See postmillennialism Millennial Star, 243, 252 Millennium, 194, 216, 234, 290 Millerites, 42 mind-body unity, 43–44, 53–56

miracles, 46, 62, 216, 290; of the gulls, 129 missionaries, 228; female, 219, 221, 346, 368; lay, 168, 290; life and rules of, 147, 345–46; lowered age for, 221, 368 missionary work, xxi–xxii, 26, 221, 235–36, 334–35; emphasis on, 66–67; history of, 338, 344; modern, 1, 33; pressure to perform, 158, 160; success of, 236; as theme, 73, 76, 89–90, 205, 209, 290 “Missions Signal a Growing Role for Mormon Women,” 368–69 Missouri period, 17–20, 317 mobilization, 173–76, 234 moderation, 210–14 modesty, 290 morality, 235, 291, 336 Mormon Church. See Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; Mormonism Mormon ethic, 48 Mormonism, xi–xv, 5–6, 43, 142, 163, 291; as American religion, xix, 1, 15, 38, 226; conflicts within and without, 16, 19, 22; preserving culture of, 25, 26; as ethnic group, xviii–xxii, 309–10, 331; compared to Judaism, xvii–xxii, 56–58; narrative of, 228–29; as a religious innovation, 153–54; sociological approach to, xi–xv; as successful, 1–2, 142, 162–64; term, vs. “LDS,” xxi–xxii. See also Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; distinctiveness, Mormon; history, Mormon; see also under Christianity Mormon moment, 362 Mormons. See Latter-day Saints

Index 401

Mormon studies, 2, 220 Mormon Tabernacle Choir, 185 Morrisites, 166 mortality, 291 mortification, 104, 116–22; commitment rhetoric of, 130–47, 349 Mother in Heaven, 219, 221, 355, 368 mothers, 219, 291; working, 222. See also parenthood Mountain Meadows Massacre, 321, 349–50 Mount of Olives memorial garden, 335 movements, 148–76, 312, 332; church, 152, 166; decline within, 162– 63, 179–80; heretical, 148–49, 155, 350–51; heterogeneity of, 164; inward-oriented, 156–62, 163, 173, 196, 353; outward-oriented, 156–62, 173, 353; political, 156; religious, 156; schismatic, 152–53, 164; social, 347–48; theocratic, 158, 160. See also groups; new religious movements; religious organizations; utopian communities murder, 291 music, 291. See also hymns myth-building, 129, 135, 142, 178– 79. See also demythologizing; see also under leaders, Mormon National Council of Churches (NCC), 230, 371–72 Native Americans. See American Indians Nauvoo, Illinois, 20–24, 319–20 Nauvoo Legion, 21 Nauvoo Temple, 21, 22, 24, 319, 320 New Jerusalem, 39, 54. See also Zion new religious movements, 149–62, 182, 316, 339; term, 351, 353 new religious tradition, 175–76, 232

Niebuhr, Richard, 164 No Man Knows My History (Brodie), 315 Noyes, John Humphrey, 62 Oaks, Dallin, 367–68 obedience, 99, 108; as theme, 73, 76, 97–99, 291 O’Dea, Thomas F., 25, 41–42, 63, 106, 120, 177 official religion, 5–6, 313  Oneida Perfectionists, 52, 329 opposition, 35, 134, 292 Ordain Women, 224–25, 324, 367–68 order, 48–51 Order of Enoch. See United Order ordinances. See under temples ordination, female, 157, 166, 221, 224– 25, 238–39, 324, 353, 373; rhetoric against, 367–68. See also gender issues organization, LDS Church, 276; change in, 5–6, 131, 183–88, 360–62; ecclesiastical structure of, 238, 373; as hierarchical, xx–xxi, 104, 111, 124–26, 147, 155; and priesthood, 62–63. See also lay structure, LDS Church organizations: exclusive, 156–57, 173, 339; inclusive, 156–57, 173, 339. See also groups; movements; religious organizations outer darkness, 108 outward-oriented movements. See under movements Packer, Boyd K., 369–70 parenthood, 128; as theme, 73, 76, 83–86, 206–7, 209, 292. See also fathers; mothers Partridge, Edward, 61 patriarchal blessings, 114–15, 213, 328

402 Index

patriarchs, 50–52, 114–15; presiding church, 328 patriarchy, of LDS Church, 34, 49–50, 52, 112, 293  patriotism, 58, 293 peace, 293 Pentecostalism, 62–63, 118, 197, 237, 343 perfectibility, 43, 44–48, 163, 293 Perpetual Emigration Fund, 26, 50, 320–21 Perry, L. Tom, 370 persecution, xviii–xix, 116, 151; as theme, 73, 76, 80–81, 134–35, 293 Phelps, William W., 61 philosophies of men, 220 pioneers, 116, 293–94, 347 plan, God’s, 86–89 pluralism, 181–83, 195, 226, 371 plural marriage, 157, 166–67, 172; as theme, 73, 76, 78–79, 294. See also polygamy political manifesto, 29 politics, 185–86, 223, 294. See also under Christianity; movements polygamy, Mormon, 21–22, 64–65, 245; as commitment mechanism, 51–52, 111, 341; defense of, 26; for gauging loyalty, 344; opposition to, 28–29, 321–22, 372; renunciation of, 65, 172, 229–30, 333–34; underground, 29, 335–36, 357– 58. See also plural marriage; Woodruff manifesto of 1890 Poole, Edmund, 352 pornography, 186 postmillennialism, 40–42 poverty, 105, 294–95 Pratt, Orson, 61, 80–81, 87, 172 Pratt, Parley, 26, 61, 316–17 prayer, 206–7, 209, 295 preexistence, 213, 216, 295

premillennialism, 40–42, 326 Presiding Bishopric, 49, 52, 356 press, destruction of in Nauvoo, 23 pressures, group: external, 155–62; internal, 164–70, 356; on leadership, 170–76; organizational, 363; of success, 156, 162–64 pride, 117 priesthood, 49–50, 114; Aaronic, 62, 95; and church organization, 62–63; hierarchy of, 4, 63, 114, 373; Melchizedek, 62, 95; as theme, 73–77, 94–95, 98, 205, 209, 213, 296. See also interviews, priesthood; ordination, female; see also under Blacks primitivists, Christian, 154, 353 privatized ethics, 188–89, 196 privilege system, 343 procreation, 219, 222 professors, 220 programmatic guidance, 126–27 progression, 46, 65, 296, 327; eternal, 31, 213 progressivism, 30–32, 349 Prohibition, 56, 296 property, 51, 296–97 prophecy, 216, 297; failed, 340 prophets, 97, 126, 138, 212–13; conference addresses of, 244–45; as theme, 73, 76, 95–97, 205–7, 209– 10, 213, 297. See also First Presidency; leaders, Mormon Proposition 8, 35, 126, 325, 362. See also same-sex marriage proselytizing. See missionary work prosperity, 297 protest-accommodation model, 150 Protestantism, 226, 297, 326, 331, 354; and Mormons, xxi, 154, 161–62, 197, 203 Protestant Reformation, 181

Index 403

public relations, LDS Church, 31–32, 235, 325; for controlling church image, 185, 224, 276, 336, 338. See also reputation, LDS Church public works, 297 punishment, 297 puritanism, 58, 338, 346 Pyle, Howard, 333 Quincy, Josiah, Jr., 60 Quorum of Twelve Apostles, 165, 184, 239, 372–73 quotas, 122, 184–85 race, 298. See also Blacks; ethnicity racial policies, Mormon, 33–34, 35, 238, 330. See also Blacks radicalism, 145, 151, 171–72, 234 rationalization, 104, 181, 198, 234 recording units, 246–47 record keeping, 107–8, 185, 186, 187 records, 298; member, 363 reform: individual, 160–62; social, 44, 234. See also under health reformation, spiritual, 298 regimentation, 122 relativism, 5 Relief Society, 34–35, 118, 219, 221 religion, 178, 298; deconstruction of, 177–81; marketing of, 182–83 religious organizations, 148–76, 178, 343. See also cults; groups; movements; new religious movements; sects renunciation, 104, 108–12, 130–47 Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS). See Community of Christ repentance, 119, 298. See also mortification repudiation rhetoric, 250

reputation, Church, 31–32, 185, 276; as theme, 73, 76, 81–83, 298. See also under public relations, LDS Church resocialization, 128 respectability themes, 208 restoration, 58–67, 154, 211, 228–29, 331; as theme, 73, 76, 91–93, 211– 13, 216–17, 298 restorationism, 38 resurrection, 53, 216, 298 retention, member, 104, 128, 130, 144, 341, 346–47, 356 “Rethinking Retrenchment” (Mauss), 203 retrenchment, 146, 202–32, 366, 372 revelation, 59–62, 191, 213, 239, 298; authorized, 3, 99, 126, 190; modern, 189–90; personal, 3, 99, 190 reverence, 298 rewards, religious, 108, 208–10, 217, 339–40. See also blessings; commitment; cost vs. benefits rhetoric, Mormon, xii–xiii, 2–3, 145; chastisement, prescriptive, and proscriptive, 248; explanation, 250; exposition, 248; patterns of, xii–xv, 76–101, 136–47. See also under commitment; general conference addresses; Smith, Joseph; Young, Brigham Rigdon, Sidney, 16–17, 60, 172, 316– 17, 357; and succession, 23–24, 165, 354 righteousness, 299 risk, 140 ritual, 114–18, 134 Roberts, Brigham H., 23, 92 Romney, Mitt, 186, 352–53 Roots of Modern Mormonism (Leone), 4–6 Rough Stone Rolling (Bushman), 315

404 Index

routinization, 10–11, 127, 171, 350, 357 Russell, Bertrand, 37 Sabbath, 299 sacrament, 114, 226–27, 299 sacrifice, 78, 299; commitment rhetoric of, 104, 105–6, 130–47 Saints. See Latter-day Saints salience. See under scores Salt Lake City, Utah, 169 salvation, 211–14, 216, 299–300, 367. See also exaltation same-sex marriage, 219, 325, 369–70 sanctions. See under groups Sandeen, Ernest R., 38–39, 58, 59, 326 Satan, 216, 217, 300 schisms, 77, 152–53, 164, 354–55; Mormon, 153–76. See also pressures, group; sects scholars, 220, 364–65 scholarship, 218, 220, 223–25 science, 220, 223–25, 300 scripture, 6, 205, 209, 300 scores: calculation of, 250–51; mean salience, 136, 209, 249, 251; median, 365; median frequency, 202, 204, 206; salience, 71–75, 136–47, 201–2, 204, 206–7; summary, 135 sealings, 213 Second Advent. See Second Coming Second Coming, 40–42, 68, 194, 216, 300 sects, 148–62, 175–76, 300, 343. See also church-sect theory secularization, 33, 177–99, 236–37, 358–60; Mormon perceived dangers of, 146–47 self-sufficiency, 109–10, 113, 134, 301 service, 301 sexism. See gender issues sexual experimentation, 111, 329

Shakers, 52 Shipps, Jan, 154, 175–76, 232, 311, 314 signs, 301 sin, 301 Smith, Emma, 166, 317 Smith, George A., 317–18 Smith, George Albert, 169 Smith, Joseph, 47, 172, 191, 230, 316; authority, challenges to, 16, 18–19, 22, 165; character traits of, 60–61, 352, 357; charisma and cult heroism of, 61, 155, 345; death of, 23, 165, 319; and first vision, 212– 13, 315; as founder of Mormonism, 14–24, 213, 229; rhetoric of, 46, 53, 68, 77, 95–96, 326–27; sustaining of, 17–18; as theme, 73, 76–77, 95–97, 211–12, 287 Smith, Joseph F., 84–85, 357–58 Smith, Joseph Fielding, 83, 368 Smith, Joseph III, 166, 372 Smith, William, 354 Snow, Lorenzo, 66–67, 93, 245, 327 social control. See under control socialization, 111, 123, 128, 151 Sorenson, John, 314 soul, 301 sources. See under general conference addresses speaking in tongues, 59, 62, 332, 343 special conferences, 11 Spencer, Orson, 61 Spirit, 205, 207–10, 285 spirits, 216, 301–2 spiritualism, 302 spirituality, 302 spiritualization, 138 spouse abuse, 219, 222–23 stakes, 63, 114, 122, 185, 239–40, 328, 337 standardization, 189, 197, 227 Stark, Rodney, 151–56, 166, 179

Index 405

status, 120–21 stewardship, 52 stirpiculture, 52, 329 Strang, J. J., 354 stratification, spiritual, 120–21 strictness, organizational, 363–64 success, 302. See also under missionary work; Mormonism succession, 170–71; crisis, 23–24, 77, 165–66, 170, 335, 357 suffering, 88 supernaturalism, 188–89, 194, 214–25, 363; ultra-, 315–16 surveillance, 117–18, 135 sustaining vote, 125–26 Talmage, James E., 41 Taylor, Ezra B., 321 Taylor, John, 61, 77, 170, 245 Taylor, John W., 357–58 teachings, 302. See also beliefs, Mormon; rhetoric Telestial Kingdom, 108 temperance movement, 55–56, 296 temples, 65–66, 187–88, 211, 227, 367; number of, 334, 363; ordinances in, 63–66, 187, 213, 292; protective norms concerning, 340–41; recommends for entering, 119–20; as theme, 205, 209, 213, 302–3. See also individual temple names temptation, 303 Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, 67–69 tension: with groups and host cultures, 151, 156–76; management, 372; between Mormonism and society/other religions, 158–59, 234–36; optimal, 203–4, 228. See also pressures, group Terrestrial Kingdom, 108 territorial period, 24–29 testimony, 205, 209, 303

themes. See under general conference addresses; individual theme names theocracy, Mormon, 25–26, 42, 328–29 theology. See beliefs, Mormon Times and Seasons, 243 tithing, 107, 119, 134, 186, 303, 340 tolerance, 303 tradition, 128–29, 135, 303 transformation hypothesis, 160 transcendence, 349–50; as commitment mechanism, 104, 123–29; commitment rhetoric of, 130–47 tribute, 303–4 truth, 205, 207, 209–10, 304 Tucker, John R., 322 Twelve Apostles. See Quorum of Twelve Apostles tyranny, 304 Uchtdorf, Dieter, 356–57, 372–73 ultimacy, 123 ultra-supernaturalism. See under supernaturalism unbelief, 304 United Order, 52–53, 304, 321, 339, 345. See also law of consecration unity, 104, 144, 305 urbanization, 55, 330  Utah, 305; Mormons in, 230–31; and statehood, 28–29, 320, 322. See also under migration Utah War, 26–27, 140, 305, 321 utopian communities, 42–43, 102–29, 347 utopianism, 38, 42–58, 234 utopian themes, 75–101, 159–60, 208 volunteer labor, 113, 342. See also work wards, 122, 125, 176, 184, 187, 328 waste, 305

406 Index

wealth, 305 Weber, Max, 48, 170, 181 welfare: farms, 113, 342; federal, 32; Mormon, 32, 50–51, 110, 112–13, 306, 329 White, Ellen, 61 Whitmer, David, 318 Whitney, Newell K., 61 Wight, Lyman, 354–55 Wilkinson, Jamima, 61 Williams, Frederick G., 357 Wilson, Bryan, 150–51 Winter Quarters, Nebraska, 24–25 witchcraft, 333–34 wives, 219, 222, 223 womanhood, 219, 221–22 women, LDS, 306, 337; rights of, 34, 219, 221. See also gender issues; ordination, female; Relief Society; womanhood; see also under missionaries Womenpriests, 373 Woodruff, Wilford, 29, 94, 170, 347 Woodruff manifesto of 1890, 79, 92–93 Word of Wisdom, 55, 56, 227, 336; as commitment mechanism, 105, 119; as theme, 73, 76, 81–83, 306 work (labor), 48, 53, 105–7, 134; communal, 112–14; as theme, 306,

338. See also missionary work; see also under mothers works (good deeds), 306 world, 307. See also secularization worship, 307 worthiness, 107, 117 Wynn, Samuel, 352–53 Yinger, Milton, 151, 175–76 Young, Brigham, 20, 90, 97–98, 172, 230–31, 272; character of, 47–48, 60, 61; and migration to Utah, 24–25, 347; rhetoric of, 52–54, 75, 331, 345, 349; and succession, 23–24, 25, 165–66, 170 youth, 85, 128, 307 Zald, Mayer, 151–76 Zion, 217, 234; Mormon conception of, xviii, 21, 30, 49, 57; gathering to, 109; literal building of, 158, 160; location of, 54; redemption of, 78; as theme, 73, 76, 77–78, 134, 216, 307–8. See also Kingdom of God Zionism, 68 Zion’s camp, 18, 317