“It’s hokey and didactic, but it works”: on the Mormon Miracle pageant in Manti, Utah*

In June, I went to Manti to witness the Mormon Miracle Pageant that is put on there every year. In many ways, it was an indescribable experience (which is slightly problematic seeing as the pageant is supposed to make its way into one of my dissertation chapters). I’ve pulled together some thoughts for this post, and would be interested to hear yours.

Those of you that have been to the pageant will likely remember the proselytizing that goes on before the show. Signs had been put up on church grounds that proselytizing was not allowed. Understandable, but a tad ironic, given the LDS Church’s emphasis on missionary work and the vast resources it expends to send missionaries all over the world. It raises interesting questions about center vs. periphery and the ethics of missionary work that I would be happy to debate at some other time (or in the comments, if anyone’s interested). In any case, the signs did not help much, as there were an abundance of people (very careful to stay on public roads) wanting to engage with Mormons about the alleged false doctrine in the church. They ranged from the three or four hecklers shouting at the top of their lungs, to the somewhat bitter ex-Mormons wanting to save their former brothers and sisters, to people calmly handing out pamphlets. Of the latter group, I got the impression that many had been recruited to do their Christian duty and probably could not have told you much about the church except that it was wrong. (This went for some of the hecklers as well: Mormon doctrine was heavily misrepresented in their talk of Mormon polytheism, for example.) In his dissertation, Policing the Borders of Identity at the Mormon Miracle Pageant (2005), Kent Bean writes that the Manti pageant should be framed as a power struggle, between evangelicals, LDS, and Mormon fundamentalists. While I do not entirely agree with his characterization of the Mormon-evangelical debate, there is something to be said for the issue of power being central. I’ll come back to that.

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Mormon Studies Weekly Roundup

We’re back with another weekly roundup of links from the world of Mormon Studies. Let’s jump into it:

Alex Beam’s examination of Joseph Smith’s murder continues to garner attention. Check out the Salt Lake Tribune‘s coverage, including Peggy Fletcher Stack’s write up and Jennifer Napier-Pierce’s video interview with the author at Trib Talk.

In other news, the LDS Church History Library celebrated Canada Day by posting this fantastic souvenir card from the dedication of the Cardston Temple on their facebook page. Moving even further beyond U.S. borders, Al Jazeera America examined “The rise of Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses in the Caucasus.” It’s a fascinating read, and might provide some fodder for researchers interested in digging further. 

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Scholarly Inquiry: Dan Belnap on Ritual, Pt. 1

This post belongs to our occasional “Scholarly Inquiry” series which facilitates conversations with important scholars in Mormon history and studies. Today we reprise our focus on religious practice and ritual from a few months ago and hear from Dan Belnap, professor in the Department of Ancient Scripture at BYU. Belnap, who has a particular interest in ritual in both ancient and contemporary contexts, is the editor of a book entitled By Our Rites of Worship: Latter-day Saint Views on Ritual in History, Scripture, and Practice, and published by the Religious Studies Center at BYU and Deseret Book last year. (And it features, one must add, a stellar chapter from our very own J. Stapley on the development of Mormon ritual!) We appreciate Professor Belnap’s responses and invite your thoughtful engagement. Also, stay tuned for Part 2.

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The Secret Tradition, Part 3: The Debate over the Validity of Clement’s Letter to Theodore

As mentioned in my previous post, Clement’s letter to Theodore has been very controversial and its authenticity has been heavily debated.  Again, I’m not an expert on the topic, but the controversy seems to be over a few particular issues.  The claim that Mark wrote “a more spiritual gospel,” or that Mark had additional information that he intentionally left out is an anathema to the Protestant doctrine of sola scriptura, or the idea that the biblical canon is the complete and total word of God.  Mark’s secret gospel also suggested that Jesus had esoteric teachings, or teachings that were kept hidden from regular believers and reserved for the more spiritually advanced, another idea that Protestants don?t like.  The reference to the young man coming to Jesus by night who was naked underneath a linen cloth suggests some kind of secret ritual (a claim that Morton Smith, the document?s finder, stressed; see my next post); esoteric rituals are another concept that Protestants reject.  As Scott Brown argues, ?Bear in mind that when scholars form opinions on non-canonical gospels they rarely stray from their religious commitments.  Nowhere is this more obvious than in the assessments of longer Mark.?[1]  Finally, Smith made rather wild claims about what the secret ritual might have been like (see my next post), which made the document even more controversial.

What follows is essentially a review of Scott G. Brown, Mark?s Other Gospel: Rethinking Morton Smith?s Controversial Discovery. 

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