Questions on Mormon Women answered by “Real Live Mormons” in a Religious Studies Classroom

My contribution fits under the Mormonism in the Classroom and Women’s History Month at JI.

During the spring semester, I took a course entitled “American Religious Innovation.” The course examined Mormonism, the Nation of Islam, and Scientology. Each unit covered the history of each religious movement and focused on different aspects of the religion’s beliefs, which encouraged discussion and comparison. The readings for Mormonism addressed American religious culture in the early 19^th century, the Book of Mormon, polygamy, Mormon Christianity, the Mormon community, and modern Mormonism.

At the end of the class’s section on Mormonism, a group of “real live Mormons” were invited to answer the class’s questions.[i] The panel was comprised of a PhD student in History, a worker at UVA’s hospital, a local bishop and his wife, and a set of Mormon elders (one from Southern Utah and one from Taiwan). As might be expected, there were many questions about the role of women in Mormonism and Mormon history.[ii] I’ve included the answers given (if any were addressed on the panel) in italics.[iii]

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Weekly Round-Up

After a brief hiatus, we are back with the weekly round-up. Let’s go!

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JI March Madness Bracket 2014

It’s that time of the year, when the snow begins to melt (hopefully) and a hoops fan’s heart turns to March Madness. This year, we at Juvenile Instructor are hosting a March Madness bracket challenge for our loyal followers. Join us!

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Mormon Studies Weekly Roundup 3/1-3/8

Hello and welcome to this week’s Mormon Studies Weekly Roundup! As always, if we missed something, please let us know in the comments.

If you’re looking for a great volume to teach material religion, Samira K. Mehta has a review of A History of Religion in 5 ½ Objects.

Dieter F. Uchtdorf spoke at the BYU Church History and Doctrine/LDS Church History Department’s Symposium. He told the audience, among other things, “Truth and transparency complement each other,” he said. “We always need to remember that transparency and openness keep us clear of the negative side effects of secrecy or the cliché of faith-promoting rumors.” Jana Reiss also has an excellent writeup on what she calls “this breath of fresh air.” If you attended the symposium, let us know your thoughts on the speakers!

Neylan McBaine is calling for women’s experiences working with ward and stake leadership for a future book project. If you have any experiences, positive or negative, please be sure to let Neylan know. Her project is sure to be useful in the academic sphere for those interested in Mormon religious practice.

Along those same lines, the New York Times published another article on Mormon women. The article addresses, among other things, holding children during baby blessings and the confession/church court process (and its lack of women in the process for other women). The LDS Church’s Newsroom blog re-blogged the first piece in its “Getting It Right Series.” It’ll be interesting to see if this one is as well.

The Society for the History of Women in the Americas is is hosting a writing workshop for postgraduate students on Wednesday 11th December at UCL, Institute of the Americas. Those interested should e-mail the organizers; their address is found in the link.

“The Bible in American Life” is a national study by the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture. The purpose of the study is to understand better how Americans use the Bible in their personal daily lives and how other influences, including religious communities and the Internet, shape individuals’ use of scripture. Apparently most Americans agree with J. Reuben Clark, whether they care or not, and use the KJV more than any other translation of the Bible.

If you’re in the UK April 3-5, you can hear our own Christopher present on itinerant Methodist preachers in British North America and the Carribean. For those interested in Mormons, be sure to check out Benjamin Lindquist?s presentation on “Mission, Migration, and Memory: Childhood and the Latter-Day Saints’ Trek to Salt Lake City.”

Finally, Matthew Garrett, who has shared his thoughts on the convergence of Mormon and Native American History, was interviewed this week about the Indian Placement Program in the 1970s. It was not discontinued until 2000 when the last student graduated.

Let us know what we missed. We would also love to hear about your experience at the symposium!

Black Mormon Families React to Official Declaration 2: Tales from the Daily Universe

In honor of Black History Month, I wanted to contribute a small piece on the reaction to the LDS revelation on race and priesthood, Official Declaration 2 (ODII). ODII was released by President Spencer W. Kimball, N. Eldon Tanner, and Marion G. Romney, and reads in part:

“The long-promised day has come when every faithful, worthy man in the Church may receive the holy priesthood, with power to exercise its divine authority, and enjoy with his loved ones every blessing that flows therefrom, including the blessings of the temple. Accordingly, all worthy male members of the Church may be ordained to the priesthood without regard for race or color. Priesthood leaders are instructed to follow the policy of carefully interviewing all candidates for ordination to either the Aaronic or the Melchizedek Priesthood to insure that they meet the established standards for worthiness.”[1]

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Book Review: Mormon Christianity: What Other Christians Can Learn from the Latter-day Saints

Mormon Christianity: What Other Christians Can Learn from the Latter-day Saints. By Stephen H. Webb. Oxford University Press, 2013. 203 pages (with appendices). $27.95

Stephen Webb, a Roman Catholic philosopher and theologian, attempts to introduce non-Mormons to Mormon metaphysics and theology with a “rosy” outlook onto his subject (42). Although Mormon Christianity is published by Oxford University Press, its tone and Webb’s frank admission that he is a practicing Catholic may help Mormon Christianity to gain wide distribution from Christian bookstores, as well as Deseret Book (the LDS Church owned bookstore-which does carry the book). Webb’s means of understanding Mormonism are derived from his argument that Mormonism is a positive, Christian amalgamation of Catholicism and Protestantism. He employs each religious tradition to explain Mormonism to a non-specialized audience (15).

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Mormon Studies Weekly Roundup

Hey gang, let’s recap what happened this week in Mormonism and Mormon History. Vamos!

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Where is Mormonism in the study of post-World War II Religion and Politics?

This past semester, I wrote a brief historiography of American religion and Evangelicalism in my American Religious History course. For the assignment, I read several books released in the past 5 years regarding this sub-field of American religious history (I addressed one of my favorites here). While writing the paper, my mind kept returning to a sermons of Ezra Taft Benson’s in 1962.

Benson’s sermon, excerpted below, highlights the possibilities of studying church leader’s political views and potential ramifications in shaping their believer’s politics.[1] For a bit of context, Benson gave these remarks after visiting the Soviet Union, and one year from the Bay of Pigs Invasion. The political and economic overtones not have been out of place in Evangelical sermons in the South at the same time (at least in my reading of post-WWII Evangelicalism and politics).

• We must never forget exactly what communism really is. Communism is far more than an economic system. It is a total philosophy of life–atheistic and completely opposed to all that we hold dear. 
• We believe in a moral code. Communism denies innate right or wrong. As W. Cleon Skousen has said in his timely book, The Naked Communist, the communist “has convinced himself that nothing is evil which answers the call of expediency.” This is a most damnable doctrine.
• We believe in religion as a mode of life resulting from our faith in God. Communism contends that all religion must be overthrown because it inhibits the spirit of world revolution. Earl Browder, a long-time leader of the Communist Party in the U. S. A., said, “. . . we Communists do not distinguish between good and bad religions, because we think they are all bad.”
• I visited the Soviet Union last fall; I saw no evidence that the communist leaders have altered their goal of world conquest”by economic if not by military means.” [But]It takes a month’s wages to buy a pair of shoes and two months or more to buy a suit of clothes.  
• What can you and I do to help meet this grave challenge from a godless, atheistic, cruelly materialistic system–to preserve our God-given free way of life? This is a choice land …Blessed by the Almighty, our forebears have made and kept it so. It will continue to be a land of freedom and liberty as long as we are able and willing to advance in the light of sound and enduring principles of right. Let us stand eternal watch against the accumulation of too much power in government. Finally, let us all rededicate our lives and our nation to do the will of God. 

Researchers may be able to answer important questions stemming from this sermon and others. To what degree was Benson in line with other conservative religious leaders at the time? Did Mormons have a peculiar form of political conservatism, tied to their canonical statements on the Constitution? Who were the movers and shakers in Mormon anti-Communism outside of Benson, McKay, and Cleon Skousen? How did they work together to shape the Church’s public political positions? How important was financial prosperity a key to Christian anti-communism? These questions could easily be extended to other religiously motivated political movements after the Second World War. These questions could also help historians of Mormonism move their projects further into the twentieth century.

The study of Mormonism seems particularly apt for studying Christian anti-Communism, beyond its embodiment in Ezra Taft Benson, David O. McKay, W. Cleon Skousen, and others. Such a study could elucidate particular strains of Mormon conservatism mingled with its theology; it could also show how Mormon yearnings to be both “Christian” and “American” may have led them to ally politically with Evangelicals–bringing Mormonism into broader historiographies and conversations.

Joseph Smith Papers Release: Documents Volume 2 (July 1831-January 1833)

Last week, the Joseph Smith Papers Project released their newest volume: Documents Volume 2 (July 1831-January 1833). (You can find a report from the launch party for the first Documents volume here.) There are more than 40(!) copies of revelations included in the new volume, as well as several letters between Joseph and Emma Hale Smith, meeting minutes and licenses for church leaders (more on that later).  The documents in this collection offer special insight to the developing administration of the Church, as well as Joseph Smith coming into his own as a Church administrator. Researchers will find the first written copies of the preface to the Book of Commandments (Doctrine and Covenants 1), the revelation now canonized as (Doctrine and Covenants 76), and the revelations that became the basis for the delineation of the Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthoods (Doctrine and Covenants 84).

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Brigham Young, Karl Maeser, and Mormon Idealization at BYU

This post may be construed as too idealizing of BYU, especially during “Rivalry Week” with the University of Utah. It is not meant to idealize, but rather to try and interpret what is idealized by the LDS Church broadly and BYU specifically.

In my first few weeks at the University of Virginia, I am beginning to both love and roll my eyes at the constant mention of Thomas Jefferson in student conversations, on posters on campus, or at any opportunity in class to bring him up. This affection for Mr. Jefferson reminded me of two statues on the campus of BYU, and what the likenesses of the two men portrayed mean in relation to BYU’s Honor Code, and what that means for Church culture generally.

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