Cultural Configurations of Mormon Fundamentalist Polygamous Communities

2004 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martha Bradley
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Belief System ◽  
The United States ◽  
Latter Day Saints ◽  
Learned Behaviors ◽  
Lds Church ◽  
Plural Marriage ◽  
The Church

““The Principle”” or plural marriage, as practiced by the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) during the nineteenth century, evolved to encompass a culture of life practices, ideas and meanings for the fundamentalist Mormon polygamists who continue in the practice to the present day. For the modern-day polygamists, the culture that surrounds this doctrine includes a set of learned behaviors and strategies, symbols, and a compelling vision of an ideal community. This highly effective culture has helped plurality persist and grow in the intermountain western part of the United States, perpetuating a belief system but also a distinctive lifestyle wrapped around the doctrine of a plurality of wives. This article sketches out the parameters of the culture of polygamy, describes the key groups that continue in the practice, and discusses the connection between the fundamentalist polygamist groups and individuals and the LDS Church.

Aftermath

2021 ◽  
pp. 199-206
Author(s):  
Spencer W. McBride
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
The United States ◽  
Church Leaders ◽  
Latter Day Saints ◽  
Decision To Leave ◽  
Joseph Smith ◽  
The Church

This chapter describes the aftermath of the assassination of Joseph Smith. This aftermath includes mourning and a funeral in Nauvoo, debates over who should succeed Smith as the president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who the Mormons should vote for in the election, and the decision to leave the United States altogether. The Mormons were contemplating leaving the United States before Smith’s murder, but the violent act seemed to make this departure the only way forward in the minds of many church leaders. They had come to realize that without significant reform, the United States was incapable of protecting them. This chapter also considers the result of the presidential election of 1844 and what became of each of the candidates in the years that followed.

Terrible Revolution

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher James Blythe
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
The United States ◽  
American People ◽  
Latter Day Saints ◽  
History Of ◽  
National Norms ◽  
Violent Images ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church

The relationship between Mormons and the United States was marked by anxiety and hostility. Nineteenth-century Latter-day Saints looked forward to apocalyptic events that would unseat corrupt governments across the globe but would particularly decimate the tyrannical government of the United States. Mormons turned to prophecies of divine deliverance by way of plagues, natural disasters, foreign invasions, American Indian raids, slave uprisings, or civil war unleashed on American cities and American people. For the Saints, these violent images promised an end to their oppression. It also promised a national rebirth as part of the millennial Kingdom of God that would vouchsafe the protections of the U.S. Constitution. Blythe examines apocalypticism across the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, particularly as it would take shape in localized and personalized forms in the writings and visions of ordinary Latter-day Saints outside of the church’s leadership. By following the official response of church leaders to lay prophecy, Blythe shows how the hierarchy, committed to a form of separatist nationalism of their own, encouraged apocalypticism during the nineteenth century. Yet, after Utah obtained statehood, as the church sought to accommodate to national norms for religious denominations, leaders sought to lessen the tensions between themselves and American political and cultural powers. As a result, visions of a violent end to the nation became a liability, and leaders began to disavow and regulate these apocalyptic narratives especially as they showed up among the laity.

Introduction: Vernacular Religion and Mormon Apocalypticism

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Christopher James Blythe
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Church Leadership ◽  
The United States ◽  
Latter Day Saints ◽  
Vernacular Religion ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Church

This introduction explains the book’s basic arguments and methodology. The book examines the place of apocalypticism in the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as a means of responding to what they perceived as persecution from the United States. It is particularly interested in how last days prophecies and visions have been told by those outside of church leadership. It defines the idea of apocalypticism and argues that Mormon Studies scholars have not sufficiently integrated their work with the field of lived or vernacular religion. This book seeks to remedy this neglect. A summary of each of the six chapters is provided.

The Mormons in Mexico, 1875–1901

2020 ◽  
pp. 26-43
Author(s):  
Elisa Eastwood Pulido
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Hierarchical Control ◽  
The United States ◽  
Latter Day Saints ◽  
Central Plateau ◽  
Mormon Church ◽  
The Church

This chapter summarizes the origins of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Mexico, from the 1875 journey of the first missionaries to Mexico to the 1887 establishment of polygamous Mormon Colonies in the northern Mexican wilderness. The chapter argues that early converts to Mormonism in Mexico were attracted first to etiological narratives from Mormon scripture expounding on the chosen-ness of indigenous Americans and second to Mormon communalism. Early converts included Plotino Rhodakanaty, the father of Mexican anarchism, who sought to build a colony in collaboration with the Mormon Church. His aversion to hierarchical control soon separated him from Mormonism. Agrarian peasants from villages on Mexico’s Central Plateau found Mormon narratives regarding Mexico’s prophetic past and future compelling. In 1887, the Mormon Church turned its attention from proselytizing in order to build colonies in Mexico as safe havens for polygamists fleeing federal prosecution in the United States.

MARITAL FERTILITY AND INCOME: MODERATING EFFECTS OF THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS RELIGION IN UTAH

2012 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 239-248 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOSEPH B. STANFORD ◽  
KEN R. SMITH
Keyword(s):  
Jesus Christ ◽  
The United States ◽  
Latter Day Saints ◽  
Moderating Effects ◽  
Annual Household Income ◽  
Younger Age ◽  
Lds Church ◽  
Children Ever Born ◽  
Mormon Church ◽  
The Church

SummaryUtah has the highest total fertility of any state in the United States and also the highest proportion of population affiliated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the LDS or Mormon Church). Data were used from the 1996 Utah Health Status Survey to investigate how annual household income, education and affiliation with the LDS Church affect fertility (children ever born) for married women in Utah. Younger age and higher education were negatively correlated with fertility in the sample as a whole and among non-LDS respondents. Income was negatively associated with fertility among non-LDS respondents. However, income was positively correlated with fertility among LDS respondents. This association persisted when instrumental variables were used to address the potential simultaneous equations bias arising from the potential endogeneity of income and fertility. The LDS religion's pronatalist stance probably encourages childbearing among those with higher income.

scholarly journals Tar & Feathers: Agnotology, Dissent, and Queer Mormon Polygamy

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 135-149
Author(s):  
Nerida Bullock
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Queer Theory ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Latter Day Saints ◽  
Joseph Smith ◽  
Mormon History ◽  
Lds Church ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
The Church

In 2014 the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) updated their official website to include information about the polygamy/polyandry practiced by Joseph Smith, their founder and prophet, and his many wives. The admission by the LDS Church reconciles the tension between information that had become readily available online since the 1990s and church-sanctioned narratives that obscured Smith’s polygamy while concurrently focusing on the polygyny of Brigham Young, Smith’s successor. This paper entwines queer theory with Robert Proctor’s concept of agnotology—a term used to describe the epistemology of ignorance, to consider dissent from two interrelated perspectives: 1) how dissent from feminists and historians within the LDS Church challenged (mis)constructions of Mormon history, and; 2) how the Mormon practice of polygamy in the late nineteenth century dissented from Western sexual mores that conflated monogamy with Whiteness, democracy and social progression in the newly formed American Republic.

An Earth used with Judgment, not to Excess: Distilling a Mormon Approach to Environmental Law

2008 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 673-723
Author(s):  
Micah J.B. McOwen
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
United States Senate ◽  
Latter Day Saints ◽  
Great Success ◽  
Success Story ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The Church

“[T]he fulness of the earth is yours, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air … and the herb, and the good things which come of the earth … [a]nd it pleaseth God that he hath given all these things unto man; for unto this end were they made to be used, with judgment, not to excess, neither by extortion.”The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the “Church”) is the great success story of American religion. Members of the Church (“Mormons”) now constitute more than five percent of the populations of Arizona, Hawaii, Nevada, and Wyoming, a far higher percentage of Idaho and Utah, and nearly two percent of the United States as a whole. Mormons fill five seats in the United States Senate (including the majority-leader chair) and about a dozen in the House. A Mormon recently completed a serious bid for the United States presidency. And their numbers are growing worldwide.

God (Sometimes) Loveth His Children

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 198-211
Author(s):  
Tessa Vaschel
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
The United States ◽  
Latter Day Saints ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Performative Writing ◽  
Same Sex Marriage ◽  
Conservative Christian ◽  
Mormon Church ◽  
The Church

One of the most staunchly conservative Christian sects in the United States, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, or the “Mormon Church” as it is colloquially known, has led the charge in opposition to same-sex marriage for more than 20 years. In this article I use the tools of performative writing and autoethnography to examine how Mormonism and queerness as identities collide and how changing acts result in a changed identity.

Utilizing Brief Spiritual Assessments with Clients who belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints:

2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (4) ◽  
pp. 30-44
Author(s):  
Gordon Limb ◽  
David Hodge ◽  
Richard Alboroto
Keyword(s):  
Jesus Christ ◽  
The United States ◽  
Assessment Instrument ◽  
Latter Day Saints ◽  
Church Culture ◽  
Spiritual Assessment ◽  
Mental Health Settings ◽  
Consistency Strengths ◽  
Growing Churches ◽  
The Church

 In recent years social work has increasingly focused on spirituality and religion as key elements of cultural competency.  The Joint Commission—the nation's largest health care accrediting organization—as well as many other accrediting bodies require spiritual assessments in hospitals and many other mental health settings. Consequently, specific intervention strategies have been fostered in order to provide the most appropriate interventions for religious clients. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the fourth largest and one of the faster growing churches in the United States.  In an effort to facilitate cultural competence with clients who are members of the Church of Jesus Christ, a brief spiritual assessment instrument was developed.  This mixed-method study asked experts in Church culture (N = 100) to identify the degree of cultural consistency, strengths, and limitations of the brief spiritual assessment instrument. Results indicate that the framework is consistent with Church culture and a number of practice-oriented implications are offered.

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