Responses: The Blythes Take on Succession

First of all, we hope you enjoy JI’s new look. And yes, we are aware that the “music notes” can easily catch your attention.

If the recent resurgence in Mormon schism studies did nothing more than give room for John Hamer’s phenomenal images, then it has served a noble purpose indeed.

But the blog is not the only thing that was in need of a facelift recently–so was the historiography surrounding the “succession crisis.” One of the popular topics that was repeatedly researched during the rise of New Mormon History, the story of how Mormonism became/remains so prone to schism has received a lot of attention. Historians like Michael Quinn, Andrew Ehat, Ron Esplin, and many others laid the archival groundwork for much of the narrative—and that’s just for the period immediately following Joseph Smith’s death. The John Whitmer Historical Association, which sponsors an annual conference as well as a biannual journal dedicated to the various traditions that race their roots back to Joseph Smith, continues to pump out fascinating scholarship year after year. And most of the major works in Mormon history now realize they must address these schism issues—think of the recent biographies of Parley Pratt and Brigham Young—it has begun to infiltrate the mainstream of Mormon studies.

But just like any topic within the wild and still inchoate (sub)field of Mormon history, its approaches have continued to evolve. In the beginning, very few works, besides that of Danny Jorgensen, invoked a theoretical methodology in tracking what Jorgensen called “Mormon Fissiparousness.” Rather, most narratives, while grounded in ground-breaking archival research, relied on basic teleological trajectories and focussed on seemingly objective tools like facts, dates, names, and words.

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Joseph Smith on the Jersey Shore: In Search of NJ’s Nauvoo

A couple of weeks ago, my wife, kids, and I closed out our summer vacation with a quick trip “down the shore” (we’d been staying with my in-laws in northern New Jersey, and I’ve been assured that’s the preferred terminology of locals for what the rest of America calls “going to the beach.”) Thanks to the wonderfully helpful research of our own Steve Fleming, I knew that Mormonism’s history in the Garden State dated back to the late 1830s, but I wasn’t sure if there was much activity along the Jersey Shore. Re-reading Steve’s article, along with a short piece in the April 1973 issue of The Ensign by Stanley B. Kimball (hey, remember when The Ensign used to publish short historical essays by actual historians? That was awesome.), I learned that not only did Mormonism’s history there date back to the 1830s, but that Joseph Smith himself preached in the region. From Kimball’s article:

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Review: Haws, “When Mormonism Mattered Less in Presidential Politics: George Romney’s 1968 Window of Possibilities”

Mitt Romney?s 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns came to seem, in the media frenzy of the last few years, like bookends to America?s much-touted Mormon moment. But Americans? fascination with the Latter-day Saints did not begin or end with Mitt Romney. This is not the first period in American history when non-Mormon Americans have, to some extent, embraced their LDS neighbors. In fact, Mitt Romney isn?t even the first Republican Romney whose religious affiliation has colored his national political image. His father George, the successful head of the American Motor Company in the 1950s and popular governor of Michigan in the 1960s, was a prominent candidate for the 1968 Republican nomination for President. Also like Mitt, George owed at least some measure of his political success to a period of increased interest in and positive feeling towards the Mormons. As J.B. Haws, Assistant Professor of Church History at BYU, shows in his article in the most recent issue of the Journal of Mormon History, George Romney?s candidacy was not seen as tainted by a ?Mormon problem,? as were his son?s campaigns a half-century later. [1] In the United States in the 1960s, the Romneys? Mormonism simply ?mattered less? than it does in the 21^st century. And if it mattered at all, Haws argues, it did so by lending George Romney the air of ?benign wholesomeness? that characterized public perceptions of the Latter-day Saints in this period (99).

Haws? current article is based on the research for his forthcoming book The Mormon Image in the American Mind: Fifty Years of Public Perception (OUP, November 2013), and essentially lays the groundwork for that longer study, in which he traces public perceptions of Mormonism in the American media across the last half-century. In the 1960s, he argues, George Romney ran for the Republican nomination for the presidency and faced remarkably few challenges to his religion?or at least what look like remarkably few challenges to those of us who lived through the most recent Mormon moment. By comparing political polling data from both Romneys? campaigns and examining news coverage of the elder Romney?s presidential aspirations and editorial commentary on his campaign and on the larger question of the role a candidate?s religion should play in voters? assessment of his fitness for office, Haws convincingly demonstrates that Americans were less concerned in the 1960s?or at least said they were less concerned?by the possibility of having a Mormon in the White House than were their early 21^st-century counterparts. While George Romney?s religion was occasionally challenged?primarily, Haws claims, regarding the Church?s policies on race (remember, George Romney was running for the presidency in the midst of the Civil Rights movements, and a decade before the Church lifted its ban on blacks in the priesthood)?according to Haws it was not Romney?s religion but his moderate politics and his ill-advised declaration in 1967 that he had been ?brainwashed? into supporting the Vietnam war that sunk him with American voters. In short, Haws argues that political views, not religious beliefs, were the elder Romney?s greatest obstacles.

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The Mormon Cancer, 2 of 2: Republican Virtue and the Civil War

Last week I wrote about ?the Mormon cancer? in connection with the Mountain Meadows Massacre. This week I want to look at how the metaphor fared from the 1870s to the 1920s. The take-home message is mostly the same: Mormons, with good reason, interpreted the metaphor as a call for violence against them.

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Mormon Studies Weekly Roundup

Has LL Cool J been keeping his faith in Mormonism secret?

In the Mormon Studies Weekly Round-Up, we try to present some of the most interesting and fun news items concerning Mormonism from the past week.  We also link to any relevant conferences, book announcements, and calls for papers.  This week, a New York rapper and former TV and movie star tweets a quote from Gordon B. Hinckley while a former NFL quarterback comes out publicly in support of gay rights.  Matt Bowman also chronicles the strange world of the Mormon supernatural and Blair Hodges provides a helpful guide to debates about the viability of Mormon studies as discipline.

General Mormon History

LL Cool J, accidental Mormon? Chris Jones and the Deseret News investigate.

Steve Young: Hall of Fame Quarterback, BYU Graduate, and Supporter of LGTBQ rights

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Hemming Village: Val and Alice Hemming and Memorializing Mormon Women’s History in Public Spaces

In yesterday?s post, “Eliza R. Snow as Dorm Mother and Concert Master” here, I wrote about the challenges faced when institutions fall short of representing their female members? historical presence, and how the limited efforts of BYU and BYU-Idaho have tried to meet those challenges in sometimes interesting ways, but have often fallen short. In contrast, I have also found an example, right here in Rexburg, Idaho, of how private individuals, families, or businesses, when equipped with adequate resources and far-sighted motives, can advance the purposes of public history, choosing to represent the contributions of women and other underrepresented groups in ways that tradition-bound institutions might not.

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Eliza R. Snow as Dorm Mother and Concert Master: Memorializing Mormon Women In Campus Spaces

One trip through Rexburg, Idaho, or any amount of time spent there, reminds visitors of the methods of honoring the institutional, religious, and pioneering heritage of western settlements, in ways that often emphasize the prominence of male actors in that history, and the absence, or lesser importance, of female actors.

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Mormons and the Mythology of the “Greatest Generation”

This post is my contribution to our August theme highlighting the history of 20th Century Mormonism. A quick disclaimer–in the post I critique the idea of “The Greatest Generation.” This does not mean that I am degrading the patriotism or valor of men or relatives that served in the military during World War II. Many served valiantly and admirably. I am writing to expose some of the blind spots created by solely focusing on the pluck of individual soldiers and their commanders. Also, I know this post is a little long, so gird up your loins and ring the bell when you get to the top (how’s that for a mixed metaphor?)

The series of worldwide conflicts now collectively known as World War II transformed the sociopolitical landscape of both the Global North and South. The fighting redistricted the ongoing European ideological struggles between fascism, communism, and capitalism. It inspired anti-colonial movements throughout the world to fight the bonds of European imperialism. It also caused more deaths than any other conflict in human history with estimates of total deaths ranging between 50 and 85 million. From a global perspective, U.S. participation in the conflict appears relatively small–at least in terms of actual soldiers and casualties. Nevertheless, the number of U.S. deaths suffered during World War II exceeded the total from any other conflict except the American Civil War, and the actual number of combat deaths were probably greater. Somewhere around 275,000 Americans lost their lives in the fighting of World War II. In addition, a larger percentage of U.S. men of military age served in World War II than in any other U.S. conflict. Consequently, like the Civil War, World War II looms large in the American memory and consciousness. Historians, journalists, and novelists have written more books about these great 19th and 20th century conflicts than any other event in U.S. History. [1]

The great paradox of U.S. involvement in World War II is that Americans affected this world conflict disproportionately to the loss of life they experienced. Yet the scope of the United State’s casualties and its influence on the war’s outcome has made World War II one of the most significant military engagements in U.S. History. Most Americans, including members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, have shown little interest in understanding the war’s complexities, but feel a personal connection to the conflict through relatives or acquaintances who fought in Europe or the Pacific. This combination of ignorance and fascination has created a market for popular representations of World War II which both obscure the real horrors of war and reveal the contours of human courage. One popular solution for resolving America’s oblivious captivation with World War II has been the creation of the idea of the “Greatest Generation.” Mormons have embraced this popular conception with equal, if not greater vigor. This post seeks to investigate this trope, demonstrate its significance to Mormon Studies, and illustrate its limitations.

Beginning in the 1990s, the United States seemed to experience a renaissance in the history and memory of World War II. This key moment in the creation of public and historical memory about the war emerged from the confluence of many demographic and cultural factors. The end of the Cold War made it appear that Democracy, so fervently defended by World War II soldiers, had won and led to an end of history. The fiftieth anniversary of the conflict created a motivation and deadline to recover and share lost histories from the war. The temporal distance from the trauma had helped many veterans find the perspective and strength to speak about their wartime experiences, and their advanced age led chroniclers to try and record this history before too many passed away. While this trend normally might have run its course after ten years of commemoration, the events of September 11, 2001 and the ambivalence caused by subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq led many to long for the nostalgia of the “good war” of their fathers and grandfathers. Consider one of the most memorable images from the aftermath of the bombing, the photograph of firefighters raising the American flag over the wreckage and debris at Ground Zero. Many have pointed out that this image consciously drew from the famous iconography of marines raising the flag at Iwo Jima. [2]

Many American journalists, authors, and filmmakers worked diligently to capture and generate this nostalgia. They created an industry of memory production about World War II in these years surrounding the turn of the twenty-first century. Consider the following works: Band of Brothers (1992) and other works by “historian” Stephen Ambrose, The Greatest Generation (1997) by Tom Brokaw, Saving Private Ryan (1998) by Stephen Spielberg, Spielberg also produced the Band of Brothers (2001) miniseries for HBO. These were only the most universally acclaimed offerings from what became a cottage industry of World War II memory production–remember Michael Bay’s Pearl Harbor (2001). During this same period of time, the 1993 proposal for a National World War II Memorial led to fundraising, construction, and its dedication in April of 2004–a correlation in time frame which seems more than coincidental. [3]

One hallmark of all of these portrayals of World War II was their focus on the valor, strength, and fortitude of individual soldiers. Brokaw observed about those who lived through the World War II era which he called “the Greatest Generation”:

It is a generation that, by and large, made no demands of homage from those who followed and prospered economically, politically, and culturally because of its sacrifices. It is a generation of towering achievement and modest demeanor, a legacy of their formative years when they were participants in and witness to sacrifices of the highest order. . . Millions of men and women were involved in this tumultuous journey through adversity and achievement, despair and triumph. Certainly there were those who failed to measure up, but taken as a whole this generation did have a “rendezvous with destiny.” [4]

Brokaw wrote of his parent’s generation, and understandably engaged in a certain amount of hyperbole. Nevertheless, his descriptions, along with the other portrayals previously discussed, have become the primary basis for public memory of World War II in the last twenty years.

Following the example of Brokaw and other popularizers of soldiers’ stories, producers of Mormon culture made sure that the contributions and faith of Latter-day Saint servicemen played a role in the mythology of the war. Since many of the leaders of the church had served in World War II, the idea that were no atheists in the foxholes of war had become an origin story for many leaders’ spiritual dedication and service. Before many of his stories proved fictional, Elder Paul H. Dunn had personified this mythology. In 2001, Covenant Communications, a popular Mormon press, released Robert Freeman’s and Dennis Wright’s Saints at War. The two authors, who at the time taught in BYU’s Department of Church History and Doctrine, claimed that they had been inspired by Brokaw and Ambrose to create an archive of Mormon soldiers’ accounts of military service during times of war. The book and its related CD and DVD offered short vignettes from different LDS soldiers’ World War II experiences. Unlike Brokaw, the authors of Saints at War allowed their subjects to speak for themselves, but in very short spurts. Most accounts focused on individual heroism, spiritual guidance on military missions, or soldiers’ efforts to maintain fellowship in the battlefield. Freeman and Wright also chose to edit out any derogatory terms used by their subjects to refer to the Japanese, Germans, or Italians. Consequently, Saints at War, as Freeman and Wright admit, “should not be seen as a history of World War II.” It offers an account of Mormon soldiers trying to hold on to the doctrines and practices of their church in an atmosphere often inimical to religious faith. It is a PG rendering of history meant to develop the faith of the reader. [5]

At about the same time, film director Ryan Little offered his film Saints and Soldiers (2005) which placed a Mormon soldier suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder within a story of courage and intrigue supposedly inspired by real-life events. The Mormon soldier, along with several other escaped prisoners of war, struggled to help a crashed British pilot carry essential intelligence back to Allied lines. Mormon Corporal Nathan Greer gained his gentile companions’ respect and ultimately lost his life in his efforts to protect their lives and mission. Greer demonstrated his ability to follow Christ by giving his life for the sake of his friends. Similar to the argument made through the editing choices in Saints at War, Saints and Soldiers offers a portrayal of how Mormons lived their religion while in the trenches.

In many ways, such Mormon popular portrayals of Latter-day Saint wartime service followed the same basic pattern set by secular portrayals of World War II in the last two decades. This occurred, in part, because stories about Mormon participation in World War II fit into a narrative of Mormon integration into mainstream American society. World War II represented a moment when Mormons answered a call to service in the same way as other communities throughout the country. Popular Mormon portrayals of World War II generally focus on individuals rather than institutions. While revealing occasional weaknesses or misjudgments, LDS soldiers demonstrated the ability to hold to a set of admirable principles. These Mormon popularizers added the component of faith to the courage, humanity, patriotism, and loyalty that defined the “greatest generation.” Personal flaws were ignored, downplayed, or utilized as adversities overcome by courage. In popular LDS portrayals, Mormons emerged as premier examples of the “greatest generation” elevated by their willingness to adhere to values above and beyond their ordinary companions and consequently blessed with an insight that allowed them to achieve and endure great and difficult things. Should anyone doubt the enduring legacy of the “greatest generation” on popular Mormon thought, consider Coach Bronco Mendenhall’s decision to brand his BYU football team a “Band of Brothers.”

Historians must hold the Mormon appendix to the “greatest generation” myth up to the same critiques forcefully advanced by Kenneth Rose in his book Myth and the Greatest Generation: A Social History of Americans in World War II. The focus on exemplary soldiers during their most courageous moments obfuscates the many terrible injustices perpetrated by American soldiers and society during the war. Rose busts myths about the conflict both at home and abroad. For example, the legacies of sexual violence in every theater of war. American supplies placed U.S. soldiers in a position of abundance as the war forced them into environments of scarcity. For every soldier who used this abundance to give candy to children and feed starving refugees, there were other soldiers who leveraged their access to food into sexual violence. One of the terrible legacies of American occupation was the girth of illegitimate children they left in their wake. Sometimes they found women eager to please them, at other times they took what they wanted. U.S. victory and U.S. immunity from local law enforcement allowed a certain segment of American soldiers the freedom to rape and pillage and they worked to make the world safe for democracy. [6]

In addition, focusing on individual stories of valor keeps the U.S. public from dealing with the legacy of mass slaughter of civilians perpetrated by the U.S. military and its allies during the war. More civilians died in World War II than actual soldiers. Americans pilots indiscriminately bombed civilian targets throughout Germany and Japan. In Dresden alone, over 20,000 people, many of them civilians, perished by fire. The firebombing in Tokyo killed 100,000 people and left almost no building standing. The atomic bomb at Hiroshima directly killed 80,000 people, and the completely unnecessary bombing of Nagasaki killed upwards of 50,000 people. Tens of thousands more died from the effects of radiation. Military leaders advanced theories that such tactics saved U.S. lives, but this argument cannot mitigate the fact that Americans purposely targeted hundreds of thousands of civilians during the war. [7]

While historians offer many other criticisms of U.S. war strategy and policy abroad, my work focuses particularly on the injustices perpetuated by the U.S. military and government at home. The World War II army was a segregated army. African American soldiers often performed more menial tasks than white soldiers. They faced discrimination from officers and other soldiers. Often, the discrimination proved so terrible that soldiers returned home to the United States determined to fight for Civil Rights so that they might avoid such degrading service in the future. Another little known tragedy of the war was the treatment of pacifists such as Quakers. Men subject to the draft, whose religious convictions kept them from fighting, were placed in work camps in rural places such as Eastern Oregon where they worked cutting lumber for the war effort under very difficult conditions. It is fairly well-known that Franklin Roosevelt denied many Jews trying to escape the coming Holocaust access to the United States. American officials denied the existence of Concentration Camps until their own soldiers started encountering them first-hand. Such willful ignorance demonstrated the wide-spread anti-Semitism held by many Americans before and during the war. Finally, the government incarcerated more than 100,000 Japanese Americans–most of them without any evidence besides the country from which their parents emigrated. The justification that the necessities of war justified this blatant of Japanese American citizens’ civil rights proved inadequate, and government officials lied to the Supreme Court in their effort to cover their mistakes.

In the end, historians agree that leaders and soldiers from Germany, Japan, and Italy committed terrible atrocities both at home and abroad. Hitler lived up to almost every villainous claim made against him and more. Many of the people in these countries bought in to the hateful policies and rhetoric propagandized by their leaders. Historians also acknowledge the bravery and conviction held by soldiers like the ones depicted in recent popular culture both Mormon and secular. While the stories often omit darker details and have been reformulated to fit into popular narratives, many American soldiers fought bravely and with great humanity. Nonetheless, the conception of World War II as a “good war” and its soldiers as the “greatest generation” offers a representation of a struggle that never existed. American leader made difficult and sometimes evil choices. When Americans and Mormons forget that all conflicts create as much darkness as light, it becomes easy to forget that “war is hell.”

___________________________

[1]  J.M. Winter, “demography of the war,” in The Oxford Companion to World War II, eds. I.C.B. Dear and M.R.D. Foot (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 289-292; the Companion also makes clear that casualty statistics are notoriously unreliable.

[2] Guy Westwall, “One Image Begets Another: A Comparative Analysis of Flag-raising on Iwo Jima and Ground Zero Spirit,” Journal of War and Culture Studies 1, no. 3 (2008): 325-340.

[3] Stephen E. Ambrose, Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest, S & S Classic Edition (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2001); Tom Brokaw, The Greatest Generation, 2^nd edition (New York: Random House, 2004).

[4] Brokaw, 11-12.

[5] Robert C. Freeman and Dennis A. Wright, Saints at War: Experiences of Latter-day Saints in World War II (American Fork: Covenant Communications, 2001).

[6] Kenneth Rose, Myth and the Greatest Generation: A Social History of Americans in World War II (New York: Routledge, 2007).

[7] Oxford Companion to World War II, s.v. “strategic air offensives.”

Responses: Patrick Mason on David Pulsipher on Mormon Civil Disobedience

This post continues the JI’s occasional “Responses” series and contributes to the August theme of 20th Century Mormonism. Semi-regular guest and friend of the JI Patrick Mason, Howard W. Hunter Chair of Mormon Studies at Claremont, contributes this installment.

Review of David Pulsipher, “Prepared to Abide the Penalty’: Latter-day Saints and Civil Disobedience,” JMH 39:3 (Summer 2013): 131-162.

Pop quiz: Which group maintained the longest civil disobedience movement in American history, and the first such movement not to descend into violence? Since you’re reading a Mormon history blog, the question is a bit like asking who’s buried in Grant’s tomb. Yet even with the prodigious output of scholars working on Mormon related topics in recent years, there are relatively few offerings that not only give us new details but also really help us see Mormonism through a new perspective. David Pulsipher’s recent JMH article is one of those.

I should reveal my biases up front: David is a good friend, and the two of us are (slowly) working together on a book-length treatment of a Mormon theological ethic of peace. So I’m naturally inclined to say nice things about him and his work. This post will be no exception. The basic historical trajectory of Pulsipher’s article, covering the twenty-eight years from the first federal anti-polygamy legislation until the Manifesto, doesn’t cover any particularly new ground for students of Mormon history. It’s what Pulsipher does in covering that ground that is innovative. In a subfield that is always striving for relevance to broader themes and narratives, Pulsipher shows persuasively that Mormon polygamists (mostly the male priesthood leadership) anticipated many of the strategies that would be employed in the twentieth century by nonviolent civil disobedience movements led by Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. The Mormon case demonstrates how nonviolent social movements can “emerge from unexpected quarters” (134). More significantly, I think, the article shows how Mormon history profits from engagement with political theory–plenty of John Rawls here, in easily digestible form–and that Mormonism can contribute to and substantially nuance established political theory.

Pulsipher begins with definitions. The Latter-day Saints’ nineteenth-century civil disobedience, like that of later theorists and practitioners, had three key characteristics: “(1) a fundamental distinction between just and unjust laws, (2) a conscientious, public, and nonviolent breach of an unjust law, seeking to change that law either through moral suasion or by frustrating its enforcement, and (3) fidelity to the rule of law generally, demonstrated by a willingness to obey just laws and to submit to the legal penalties for disobeying unjust laws” (138).

A typically telling illustration of the Mormons’ approach is offered by John Taylor, who relates being brought into court to give evidence in a polygamy trial: “I was asked if I believed in keeping the laws of the United States. I answered Yes, I believe in keeping them all but one. What one is that? It is that one in relation to plurality of wives. Why don’t you believe in keeping that? Because I believe it is at variance with the genius and spirit of our institutions–it is a violation of the Constitution of the United States, and it is contrary to the law of God.” Taylor then said that he was “prepared to abide the penalty” of taking such a stance. (144)

Pulsipher also traces the Latter-day Saints’ twentieth-century retreat from the civil disobedience and in some ways their own history. He offers several compelling reasons for why the heritage of civil disobedience didn’t take hold in twentieth-century LDS culture: its failure to achieve its explicit purpose (to preserve plural marriage); the wide unpopularity of that proximate purpose, increasingly among the Saints themselves; Mormons’ shift to emphasize loyalty to the nation and their excellence in Victorian moral virtues; the continued use of the rhetoric and strategies of civil disobedience by Fundamentalist LDS groups; and the church leadership’s conservative reaction to the “disrespect for law and order” characteristic of the late 1960s.

But not all is lost: Pulsipher intriguingly provides an extended quote from a 2009 speech at BYU-Idaho in which Elder Dallin H. Oaks glowingly approved of a “national anti-government movement” led by a Mongolian woman (161). The lesson here is that Mormons are just like other Americans–we like civil disobedience, especially in retrospect, when it achieves goals we deem worthy, and castigate it as unpatriotic and dangerous when applied toward goals we don’t share.

I take minor exception to one small point made in the article. Pulsipher demonstrates persuasively how the Latter-day Saints relied upon biblical, not American, precedents in justifying their civil disobedience–Daniel, not Thoreau, was their archetype. Their remarkable persistence in the face of increasingly overwhelming pressure was rooted in large part in their millennial faith that Christ would rescue them from their oppressors. It is true, no doubt, that nineteenth-century Mormons had a more robust premillennialist outlook than did Martin Luther King, as Pulsipher points out. But black civil rights workers at the grassroots level–those without doctorates from liberal northeastern seminaries–carried their movement out in prophetic, ecstatic biblical tones.”[1] Twentieth century southern black millennialism no doubt looked different than nineteenth-century Mormon millennialism. But both the Mormons’ resistance to federal anti-polygamy law and grassroots southern blacks’ resistance to Jim Crow arguably drew more deeply from the Hebrew prophets than from the American liberal tradition.

For those of us who know David, this article displays the quality of his mind and his character. It is expertly researched, with strong documentation. It is perceptive and measured in tone. It is fair-minded, fully acknowledging the twentieth-century critique of civil disobedience but gently suggesting that those critiques were shaped by a particular historical moment. And the article reminds us, in the grand tradition of the vaunted southern historian C. Vann Woodward, that the past is strewn with “forgotten alternatives” for our (re-)discovery and (re-)consideration.[2]

______

[1] David Chappell, A Stone of Hope: Prophetic Religion and the Death of Jim Crow (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004), 102.

[2] See C. Vann Woodward, The Strange Career of Jim Crow (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002 [1955]), chap. 2.

Correlation and the Home, circa 1968

This is from John Fugal, A Review of Priesthood Correlation (Provo: BYU Press, 1968). There are any number of interesting points about correlation we can derive from this image, but most fundamental is this: though contemporary Mormons often speak of correlation as the formative era of the modern church, there is much that is foreign to present-day Mormons about material like this.

I want to make two related observations, though I’m sure there’s far more than that we can pick out.

1) Note the names of things. “Priesthood home teaching;” “Priesthood welfare;” “Priesthood missionary work.” Though correlation is often assumed to be somehow ‘secular’ – insofar as it is a form of bureaucratic reorganization and many Americans, steeped in Protestant notions of liberty, tend to find bureaucracy and the sacred a difficult reconciliation – there is intense linguistic effort here to interpret the institutional efforts of correlation as expressly religious. Indeed, according to its advocates and this chart, the purpose of correlation was to reinvigorate those aspects of church organization considered “sacred” – namely, the priesthood hierarchy. Notice how marginalized the auxiliaries are. Correlation was less, then, purely a secularizing force than a reorganization of ideas about the sacred and the secular in Mormon life, a narrowing and focusing of whence the sacred might come.

2) That process also may go a long way, I think, toward explaining the male paternalism of the correlated church. Another striking aspect of this image is its incorporation of the “home” into the structure of the church as another priesthood organization, like the Quorum of the Twelve or the ward. Centering correlation upon priesthood leadership necessarily exalts the status of men in the church, and the way this diagram reads the home is an excellent example.