The Mormonism(s) of the FIRM Foundation

Last week, people flocked to Layton, UT, for the 29^th annual Book of Mormon Evidence conference, hosted by the FIRM Foundation. Headline speakers included Heartland apologist Rod Meldrum, Wayne May, publisher of Ancient American Magazine (a publication with historic connections to the American Nazi Party), Eric Moutsos, an activist who became known in the state for his stance against pandemic restrictions, Hannah Stoddard of the Joseph Smith Foundation, and Tim Ballard, the Executive Director of OUR Rescue.

The list of speakers represented a particular Mormon identity: politically and theologically conservative, orthodox, and traditional in their approach to apologetics. In her self-published apologetics videos on faith crises and Mormon apologetics, Hannah Stoddard noted that there are progressive and traditional approaches to understanding the history and doctrine of the LDS Church. In her words, she takes a traditional approach and finds the growing movement toward secular scholarship concerning. According to the Joseph Smith Foundation, for example, secular approaches to Mormon history and doctrine have expedited faith crises and caused young members of the Church to question core doctrines. Contrary to the scholarship ushered into the Church by Leonard Arrington and his sucessors, attendees of the FIRM foundation argue that traditionalism and adherence to a perceived past are the ways to retain the youth.

Central to the traditional approach to the Book of Mormon is Heartlanderism. The Heartland model is an American-centric way of interpreting the Book of Mormon. Proponents argue that the narrative held within the Book of Mormon happened in the United States. The position led to such events as the excavation of Iowa to find Zarahemla and gatherings of Latter-day Saints who find the Church’s current stance on Book of Mormon geography a derivation from historic teaching.

More than just a location of the Book of Mormon, Hearltanderism argues that their position is the historic position of the LDS Church and that the United States is the promised land foretold in the Book of Mormon and spoken about by the Church’s earliest leaders.

Because of their apologetic approach, the FIRM Foundation is also home to a second segment of Mormonism. The first time I traveled to the Expo was to meet up with friends who traveled from Nevada for the conference. Prior to the start of the conference, we met at Joe Vera’s Mexican Restaurant. I sipped a Diet Coke as they had horchata and chatted about their most anticipated presentations. They had horchata because caffeine is against their Word of Wisdom.

They are Mormon fundamentalists and represent a growing segment of FIRM’s fanbase. For clarity, “fundamentalism” in this context does not refer to a more conservative or orthodox way of being Mormon, akin to the Christian fundamentalism that emerged in the early twentieth century. It refers to the historic LDS way of designating Mormons who are not part of the LDS Church and practice polygamy with living partners.

This year, in addition to the usual speakers who have participated in the conference for years, FIRM hosted a large number of Mormon fundamentalists. Their religious affiliation is not listed nor advertised by either the individual speakers or the foundation’s website. But, their presence reinforces the stark reality that the formation of the fundamentalist movement in the 1920s did not create the clear boundaries that the LDS Church anticipated.

The FIRM Foundation is a space where Mormon fundamentalism is familiar and mundane. It is not the religious tradition associated with sensationalist reporting or compound raids but simply another way to be Mormon.

There are Heartlanders and participants in FIRM who are faithful members of the LDS Church and sustain President Nelson as both President of the Church and President of the Priesthood. But, because those are not the only Mormons present, the FIRM foundation is a stark example of why it is worth questioning what we’re talking about when we talk about Mormonism.

Review: Mormonism, Empathy, and Aesthetics: Beholding the Body (Palgrave Macmillan)

Jennifer Champoux is a scholar of Latter-day Saint visual art and a co-editor of Approaching the Tree: Interpreting 1 Nephi 8, forthcoming from the Neal A. Maxwell Institute. Her current projects include directing the Book of Mormon Art Catalog (a digital database launching soon) and writing a book on artist C. C. A. Christensen for the Introductions to Mormon Thought series published by the University of Illinois Press.

I write this from 40,000 feet over the Atlantic, returning home after the Mormon Scholars in the Humanities (MSH) conference at Pembroke College, Oxford. This year’s theme of “aesthetics” fostered a lively discussion about the meaning and function of art within The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Among the presenters was Mark Wrathall, who, drawing on Nietzsche, postulated that the experience of true beauty (encompassing the lovely and agreeable as well as the challenging and painful) creates a new reality and teaches us to feel differently.[1] His remarks made me wonder, does Latter-day Saint religious art allow for true beauty understood this way? Can it initiate an emotional response that opens a space for discovery and revelation? Does it make us uncomfortable in a way that reorients us? Or does it sanitize our experience of discipleship and keep us at arm’s length from the messiness of life?

              These are the kinds of questions asked in Gary Ettari’s new Mormonism, Empathy, and Aesthetics: Beholding the Body (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022), which makes a significant contribution to the growing field of art scholarship in the Latter-day Saint tradition. Ettari is an associate professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Asheville. His fascinating book fruitfully draws from early Christian thinkers, Latter-day Saint rhetoric and scripture, and contemporary neurological and aesthetic theories to examine religious art.

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