Mormons as “Natural Storytellers” and Blogging as Gathering

You’ll see on our sidebar that Religion Dispatches has done a follow-up article on the debate over the relationship between Mormon Mom blogs and the ‘nacle. While I believe that the reporter misread the debate that occurred over her initial article (I’m not sure many people were really arguing that Mommy Blogs should be excluded from the ‘nacle, but rather that the initial article had ignored and obscured the origins of the ‘nacle), I’m not all that eager to revisit that debate.  Rather, I’m interested in interrogating some of the other claims made in the two Religion Dispatches articles.

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Larry EchoHawk’s Mormonism, Casinos, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs

Word leaked out on January 23 that the Obama administration was vetting BYU law professor Larry EchoHawk for a potential nomination as Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Indian Affairs. Echohawk is well-known in Indian Country for his advocacy for various tribal groups, and has served as an Idaho State Representative and Idaho Attorney General. EchoHawk’s relative, John, was one of the founders of the Native American Rights Fund, a major Indian law firm. If appointed, EchoHawk would not be the first Mormon Assistant Secretary of the Interior (H. Rex Lee served in the position in the 1950s), but he would likely be the highest-ranking American Indian Latter-day Saint in government service.

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Thomas S. Monson and the Paradoxes of the Utah Jazz

“You go live in Utah.”

– Point guard Derek Harper to reporters, explaining why he refused to report to the Utah Jazz after being traded to the Salt Lake team

I’ve been alarmed to note that a particularly symbolic cultural recalibration that the Monson administration has wrought has gone largely overlooked.[1]  We used to have a church president who visited the locker rooms of the BYU football team in order to instruct the players not to “muff it.”   Today, however, the team that reaps the undoubtedly vast rewards of prophetic beneficence is the Utah Jazz. [2]

Now, granted, Thomas Monson may be indifferent to the larger circles of meaning rotating around his choice of entertainment, and nothing more than a pro basketball fan.  These are not unusual creatures along the Wasatch Front  However, as will be further explored below, the cultural significance of their presence there is often missed.  So it behooves us to think a bit more deeply about the sport and its particular manifestations in the geographical and cultural landscapes of Mormondom.

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“[I]t is a moral evil for any person…to deny any human being the right…to every privilege of citizenship”: Civil Rights in General Conference, 1963

Although it has been described as such, the following document is not an official declaration by the First Presidency supporting civil rights. It wasn’t even written by the First Presidency, but rather by Sterling M. McMurrin. However, President Hugh B. Brown read the statement as part of his October 1963 General Conference address with the approval of Pres. McKay and it was later reprinted in the Deseret News as a quasi-official statement of the Church’s position on civil rights. The statement was drafted in an attempt (that proved to be successful) to avoid protests at conference by the NAACP, which had requested and was denied a meeting with the First Presidency to discuss the Church’s position on civil rights legislation in Utah. Despite its semi-official status, the document is an anomaly, a lone representation of racial liberalism in a sea of conservatism.

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Intellectuals in Mormon History

Almost fifty years ago, Leonard J. Arrington sent out a questionnaire to fifty prominent Mormons asking who they thought were the “five most eminent intellectuals in Mormon history.”

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In defense of the Pew survey: a recap

This is, quite simply, the single most extensive canvass of American religious life ever achieved.

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The Prophet is Dead. Long Live the Prophet.

As many, if not most, have heard by now, President Hinckley died today. I have vague memories of Presidents Kimball, Benson, and Hunter, but the prophet of my youth will be President Hinckley. I remember vividly him coming to Houston in 1998, just prior to my mission. I distinctly recall watching as he left the Summit on his cart, as we sang We Thank Thee of God for a Prophet, and he turned to wave to the audience. I felt tremendous love for that man at that moment and an incredibly poignant feeling of gratitude for such a warm leader. I recall desiring him to stay with us, as did the Nephites with Christ in 3 Nephi 17:4-6, but alas it was his time to go. That memory comes powerfully to me now, as I internalize this death, and I desire President Hinckley to tarry with us a little longer, but alas it is his time to go. The prophet is dead. Long live the prophet. May our prayers be with the Hinckley family.

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Latino/a and Mormon

This is cross-posted at Times and Seasons, the last of my guest stint there. 

America, as they say, is browning. Latina/os recently surpassed African Americans as the largest minority group in the United States, and the Church is experiencing that browning along with the rest of the nation. “According to Church statisticians, the future of the Church does not lie in Europe, Canada, or the United States but rather in Latin America, Asia, Africa, and among the ethnic groups in this country.”[1] Given this fact, it is surprising that so little is known about the history and experiences of those that identify themselves as both Latino/a and Mormon. There is only one thin book on the subject, written by BYU historian Jessie L. Embry that is based on oral histories of BYU students and handful of Latina/o Mormons from Southern California. “In His Own Language”: Mormon Congregations in the United States is a start, but according to Ignacio M. Garcia, Lemuel Hardison Redd Chair of Western History at BYU, we need to know much more about Latino/as Mormons themselves.

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Narrating the Priesthood Ban and Constructing Selves

This is cross-posted at Times and Seasons.

The way we see and define who we are is usually closely related to how we understand the past. Most of us have overlapping identities that require us to negotiate compromises between them and these compromises shape our narratives of history. African American members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have two dominant identities, black and Mormon, and as such, they have the burden of negotiating a compromise between these identities

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Mormon Folklore, Part One

We have all heard the stories. Joseph never losing a game in stick-pull, the Japanese bomber who’s bomb wouldn’t release while flying over the Laie Temple during the attack on Pearl Harbor, the hundreds of Three Nephite Stoies, the thousands of J. Golden Kimball stories, etc. Our culture is absolutely filled with folkloric stories. This has been noticed by outside scholars, and almost every major folklore conference has several sessions discussing Mormon folklore. Some have even suggested the the Mormon Culture has more folklore stories than any other subculture in America.

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