‘Do Mormons think The Book of Mormon is funny?’

Abstract Public ridicule of a minority typically predicts a defensive response from the target of that humor. This is because public ridicule provides a polarizing spectacle, where the majority enjoys a humorous face reward, and solidarity, at the expense of that minority. Logically, we could expect a faith-based minority to be especially sensitive to public ridicule, since their face investment is greater, in inverse proportion to their social position and power, and because their group (and personal) identity is linked inextricably to what would normally be inviolable: a sacred text, a prophet, or deity. However, the official response from the LDS Church to the musical comedy The Book of Mormon defies this expectation. This paper analyses this response, in order to understand why a religious minority chose to creatively engage with what should have been a highly face-threatening satire.

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Canadian Islamic Schools

American Journal of Islam and Society ◽

10.35632/ajis.v26i2.1401 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 26 (2) ◽

pp. 127-130

Author(s):

Adis Duderija

Keyword(s):

Central Place ◽

Immigrant Parents ◽

International Affairs ◽

Minority Communities ◽

Liberal Democracies ◽

Religious Minority ◽

Faith Based ◽

Current State ◽

Number Of Factors ◽

Liberal Societies

Over the last two to three decades, a number of factors have ensured thatwestern Muslims and Islam have become socially and politically far moreembedded and visible in western liberal democracies. For example, a largesegment of new (post-1965) immigrant religious minority communities settlingin western liberal democracies, including Canada, are of the Muslimfaith. Moreover, an increasing number of educated, professional westernbornMuslims consider, unlike their immigrant parents, their countries ofbirth as their “home.” Furthermore, the politicization of Islam and the natureof the current state of international affairs, in which issues pertaining toMuslims and Islam often take central place, have highlighted the publicprominence of Islam and its adherents in theWest.This situation has problematized and generated a number of debatesrelating to the philosophical, religious, cultural, political, and social underpinningsof western liberal societies vis-à-vis their Muslim communityconstituency. In addition, it has induced several profound identity-relatedquestions pertaining to what it means to be “western” or “a westernMuslim”or, for some, a “Muslim” in theWest. One aspect of this overall dynamic isthe question of the role and the function of faith-based Islamic schoolsoperating in western liberal democracies, as their numbers have mushroomedover the last two decades ...

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Vampires and Werewolves: Rewriting Religious and Racial Stereotyping in Stephenie Meyer's Twilight Series

International Research in Children s Literature ◽

10.3366/ircl.2012.0063 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 5 (2) ◽

pp. 195-211

Author(s):

Georgina Ledvinka

Keyword(s):

Native American ◽

Cultural Practices ◽

Family Values ◽

American People ◽

Latter Day Saints ◽

Active Member ◽

Book Of Mormon ◽

Lds Church ◽

History Of ◽

Twilight Series

Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series (2005–8) demonstrates a strong connection with the theology, cultural practices and history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), of which Meyer is an active member. One of the strongest ways in which this connection is demonstrated is through characterisation: specifically, by featuring vampires and werewolves as prominent supernatural characters in the text. Twilight employs vampires as a metaphor for the LDS Church. By eschewing literature's traditional association of vampires with subversive acts, especially subversive sexuality, and rewriting them as clean-cut pillars of the community, Twilight not only charts but promotes the progression of Latter-day Saints from nineteenth century social pariahs to modern day exemplars of conservative American family values. The series represents its Native American shapeshifting werewolves as an ancient group of people from LDS scriptural history called Lamanites, who were cursed by God with ‘a skin of blackness’ for their ‘iniquity’ (Book of Mormon, 2 Nephi 5:21). The construction of the werewolves as impoverished and socially marginalised yet with strong family ties enables the treatment of race in Twilight to move beyond a standard white/non-white binary frame to engage at a deeper level with LDS stereotyping of Native American people.

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Book of Mormon Poetry

Americanist Approaches to The Book of Mormon ◽

10.1093/oso/9780190221928.003.0018 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 420-438

Author(s):

Edward Whitley

Keyword(s):

Indigenous Peoples ◽

Sacred Text ◽

Book Of Mormon ◽

Privileged Status ◽

Truth Claims

For years, scholars have identified elements of Hebraic poetry in the words of Book of Mormon prophets as evidence of the book’s ancient origins. This effort to make poetic forms proof of the book’s truth claims finds a parallel in the hundreds of poems that have been written about The Book of Mormon, a topic to which scholars have paid little attention. This essay shows how the logic behind Book of Mormon poetry runs counter to Lawrence Buell’s formulation of “American literary scripturism,” which argues that “the erosion of the Bible’s privileged status acted as a literary stimulus” for American writers. But poetry about The Book of Mormon does not rise from the ashes of a discredited sacred text. Rather, Latter-day Saint poets treat the book as generative of poetic genres such as epic and elegy, genres that provide their own commentary on The Book of Mormon and its relationship to US nationalism, indigenous peoples, and the nature of history in the Americas.

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LDS Church Presidency Years, 1985–1994

Thunder from the Right ◽

10.5622/illinois/9780252042256.003.0009 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 208-238

Keyword(s):

Gender Roles ◽

Public Affairs ◽

Book Of Mormon ◽

The Family ◽

Lds Church ◽

Mormon Church

This chapter considers the doctrinal implications of Benson’s LDS church presidency, specifically his emphasis on the Book of Mormon and how it transformed and shaped the contemporary Mormon Church. The essay further explores the challenges and controversies of Benson’s presidency: his teachings on gender roles in the family, the fallout of the Mark Hoffman forgery scandal, the “September Six” excommunications, Steve Benson’s publicized disaffection from the Mormon Church, Benson’s oversight of the new church public affairs department, and many other issues that defined and shaped his presidency.

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The Cold War and the Invention of Free Agency

Thunder from the Right ◽

10.5622/illinois/9780252042256.003.0007 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 159-177

Keyword(s):

Political Philosophy ◽

Central Place ◽

Free Agency ◽

Book Of Mormon ◽

Foundational Principle ◽

Political Activist ◽

Lds Church ◽

The Cold War ◽

The Church ◽

Moral Capacity

This chapter focuses on Benson’s contributions as a vocal political activist in the 1950s and 1960s through his assumption of the presidency of the Church in the mid-1980s. In particular, it grapples with his elaboration of the notion of “free agency,” a foundational principle of Mormon theology enunciated in the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith’s teachings, which emphasized individual moral capacity and responsibility. Benson in particular rearticulated this idea to emphasize dual, and seemingly contradictory, principles: a moralistic libertarian political philosophy, which asserted that too much government was morally corrupting and a threat to “free agency,” and at the same time, loyalty and commitment to the institution of the LDS church. This chapter shows how Benson developed the notion of free agency from the Mormon tradition and the central place it assumed in Mormon theology by the end of his career.

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Matthew Philip Gill and Joseph Smith: The Dynamics of Mormon Schism

Nova Religio The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions ◽

10.1525/nr.2011.14.3.42 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 14 (3) ◽

pp. 42-63 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Matthew Bowman

Keyword(s):

Jesus Christ ◽

Latter Day Saints ◽

Joseph Smith ◽

Book Of Mormon ◽

Lds Church ◽

The Relationship ◽

The Church

In 2007, Matthew Philip Gill, a resident of Derbyshire, England, announced the formation of the Latter Day Church of Jesus Christ. He claimed to be acting under angelic direction, and produced a new scripture, the Book of Jeraneck, to usher in his new faith. Gill's church is a restoration of a restoration: he claims to have restored the Mormon movement, which Joseph Smith founded as a restoration of the church Jesus organized, but which Gill claims has fallen into apostasy——particularly its primary iteration, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), which Gill was raised in but has abandoned. This article analyzes the relationship between Gill's movement and the LDS church, pointing out the ways in which Gill draws upon the Mormon tradition to claim authority for his new church, but also the ways in which Gill seeks to alter the balance of tension between the LDS church and the culture around it. The article particularly explores Gill's founding narrative, comparing its language, motifs, and forms of spirituality with those of Joseph Smith; the Book of Jeraneck's intertextual relationship with the Book of Mormon; and Gill's story of LDS apostasy.

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Spiritual Healing, Sick Kids and the Law: Inequities in the American Healthcare System

American Journal of Law & Medicine ◽

10.1017/s0098858800002847 ◽

2003 ◽

Vol 29 (2-3) ◽

pp. 269-299

Author(s):

Janna C. Merrick

Keyword(s):

Medical Science ◽

Spiritual Healing ◽

Best Interests ◽

Legal Rights ◽

High Tech ◽

Divine Love ◽

Religious Minority ◽

Human Need ◽

East End ◽

The Church

Main Street in Sarasota, Florida. A high-tech medical arts building rises from the east end, the county's historic three-story courthouse is two blocks to the west and sandwiched in between is the First Church of Christ, Scientist. A verse inscribed on the wall behind the pulpit of the church reads: “Divine Love Always Has Met and Always Will Meet Every Human Need.” This is the church where William and Christine Hermanson worshipped. It is just a few steps away from the courthouse where they were convicted of child abuse and third-degree murder for failing to provide conventional medical care for their seven-year-old daughter.This Article is about the intersection of “divine love” and “the best interests of the child.” It is about a pluralistic society where the dominant culture reveres medical science, but where a religious minority shuns and perhaps fears that same medical science. It is also about the struggle among different religious interests to define the legal rights of the citizenry.

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