Contemporary Mormon Religiosity and the Legacy of “Gathering”

2013 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 77-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rick Phillips ◽  
Ryan Cragun
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Church Attendance ◽  
Latter Day Saints ◽  
Attendance Rates ◽  
Intermountain West ◽  
The Past ◽  
Member Retention ◽  
Lds Church ◽  
Mormon Church ◽  
The Church

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—the LDS, or Mormon church—has dominated the state of Utah both culturally and politically since joining the Union in 1896. Scholars note that LDS majorities in Utah and other parts of the Intermountain West foster a religious subculture that has promoted higher levels of Mormon church attendance and member retention than in other parts of the nation. However, after rising throughout most of the twentieth century, the percentage of Utah's population belonging to the church began declining in 1989. Some sources assert Utah is now less Mormon than at any time in the state's history. This article examines the degree to which this decline has affected LDS church activity and retention in Utah and adjacent environs. We find evidence suggesting church attendance rates may be falling, and clear evidence that rates of apostasy among Mormons have risen over the past decade.

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 “How Low Can Humans Plunge!”: Facilitating Moral Opposition in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-59
Author(s):  
J. E. Sumerau ◽  
Ryan T. Cragun
Keyword(s):  
Social Inequality ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Sexual Minorities ◽  
Latter Day Saints ◽  
Religious Leaders ◽  
Negative Outcomes ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
The Past ◽  
Lds Church ◽  
The Church

In this article, we examine how religious leaders teach their followers to protect themselves and others from pornography. Based on archival materials from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS, LDS Church, or Mormons), we analyze how LDS leaders, responding to the expansion of pornographic influence over the past 40 years, facilitated moral opposition to pornography by teaching their followers to (1) set moral examples for others, (2) save their women, and (3) protect their children. In so doing, however, LDS leaders, regardless of their intentions, reproduced cultural and religious discourses that facilitate the subordination of women and sexual minorities. Likewise, these discourses suggest strong negative outcomes associated with pornography. In conclusion, we draw out implications for understanding the facilitation of moral opposition across religious traditions, and the consequences these actions may have for the reproduction or reduction of social inequality.

“The Woman’s Movement Has Discovered a New Enemy—the Mormon Church”

2020 ◽  
pp. 58-70
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Political Influence ◽  
Political Mobilization ◽  
Latter Day Saints ◽  
Equal Rights Amendment ◽  
Equal Rights ◽  
National Organization For Women ◽  
Mormon Church ◽  
The Church

This chapter talks about the woman's movement that considered the Mormon church as a new enemy because of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). It illustrates the Church of Latter-day Saints of Jesus Christ's sudden and successful political mobilization against the ERA ratification that caught the country by surprise. It examines how ERA proponents reacted to and interacted with the Mormon church during the ERA ratification process, which elucidates the power of the church's political influence in the last quarter of the twentieth century. The chapter discusses how the Mormon church's successful mobilization pushed ERA supporters, specifically the National Organization for Women (NOW), to wholly reconceptualize parts of their own mobilization. It recounts the clear success of the anti-ERA Mormon counterforce due to their ability to reach people on the local level.

The Spiritual Evolution of Margarito Bautista

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisa Eastwood Pulido
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
Latter Day Saints ◽  
The Third ◽  
Book Of Mormon ◽  
The World ◽  
Magnum Opus ◽  
Mormon Church ◽  
Spiritual Conquest ◽  
The Church ◽  
The U.S

A spiritual biography, this book chronicles the journey of Margarito Bautista (1878–1961) from Mormonism to the Third Convention, a Latter-day Saint (Mormon) splinter group he fomented in 1935–1936, to Colonia Industrial/Nueva Jerusalén, a polygamist utopia Bautista founded in 1947. It argues that Bautista embraced Mormon belief in indigenous exceptionalism in 1901 and rapidly rose through the ranks of Mormon priesthood until convinced that the Mormon hierarchy was not invested in the development of native American peoples, as promoted in the Church’s canon. This realization resulted in tensions over indigenous self-governance within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon Church) and Bautista’s 1937 excommunication. The book contextualizes Bautista’s thought with a chapter on the spiritual conquest of Mexico in 1513 and another on the arrival of Mormons in Mexico. In addition to accounts of Bautista’s congregation-building on both sides of the U.S. border, this volume includes an examination of Bautista’s magnum opus, a 564-page tome hybridizing Aztec history and Book of Mormon narratives, and his prophetic plan for the recovery of indigenous authority in the Americas. Bautista’s excommunication catapulted him into his final spiritual career, that of a utopian founder. In the establishment of his colony, Bautista found a religious home, free from Euro-American oversight, where he implemented his prophetic plan for Mexico’s redemption. His plan included obedience to early Mormonism’s most stringent practices, polygamy and communalism. Bautista nonetheless hoped his community would provide a model for Mexicans willing to prepare the world for Christ’s millennial reign.

scholarly journals Not a Country or a Stereotype: Latina LDS Experiences of Ethnic Homogenization and Racial Tokenism in the American West

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 333
Author(s):  
Brittany Romanello
Keyword(s):  
Legal Status ◽  
Latter Day Saints ◽  
Immigrant Incorporation ◽  
White Family ◽  
1.5 Generation ◽  
Cultural Heterogeneity ◽  
The Us ◽  
Lds Church ◽  
Progressive Policy ◽  
The Church

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS), also called Mormonism, has experienced rapid changes in its US demographics due to an influx of Latinx membership. The most recent growth in the US church body has been within Spanish-speaking congregations, and many of these congregant members are first or 1.5-generation immigrant Latinas. Using ethnographic data from 27 interviews with immigrant members living in Utah, Nevada, and California, LDS Latinas reported that while US Anglo members did seem to appreciate certain aspects of their cultural customs or practices, they also reported frequently experiencing ethnic homogenization or racial tokenization within US Church spaces and with White family members. Our findings indicate that the contemporary LDS church, despite some progressive policy implementations within its doctrinal parameters, still struggles in its ever-globalizing state to prioritize exposing White US members to the cultural heterogeneity of non-White, global LDS identities and perspectives. Latina LDS experiences and their religious adjacency to Whiteness provide a useful lens by which researchers can better understand the ways in which ethnic identity, gender, legal status, and language create both opportunities and challenges for immigrant incorporation and inclusion within US religious spaces and add to the existing body of scholarship on migration and religion.

Pentecostals and Charismatics in America

2019 ◽  
pp. 241-260
Author(s):  
Cecil M. Robeck
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Holy Spirit ◽  
First Century ◽  
1 Corinthians ◽  
The Past ◽  
Family Tradition ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Christian Family ◽  
The Church

This chapter traces Pentecostal and related congregations, churches, denominations, and organizations that stem from the beginning of the twentieth century. They identify with activities at Pentecost described in Acts 2 and in the exercise of charisms in 1 Corinthians 12–14. Each of them highlights is the significance of a personal encounter with the Holy Spirit leading to a transformed life. These often interrelated organizations and movements have brought great vitality to the Church worldwide for over one hundred years, and together, they constitute as much as 25 per cent of the world’s Christians. This form of spirituality is unique over the past 500 years, since it may be found in virtually every historic Christian family/tradition, and in most churches of the twenty-first century.

A Snake in the Sugar

2020 ◽  
pp. 146-164
Keyword(s):  
Jesus Christ ◽  
American West ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Latter Day Saints ◽  
Beet Sugar ◽  
Political Dominance ◽  
Mormon Church ◽  
The Church

This chapter talks about the remarkable partnership and political alliance between the Mormon Church and the Sugar Trust that was intended for the domination of the beet sugar business of America. It mentions Judson Welliver, an essayist for Hampton's Magazine, who wrote the most startling revelation of the power of Mormonism and of the business intrigue and political inside workings of the Sugar Trust. The chapter looks into Welliver's article that outlines how the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was a dangerous political power. It describes the Mormon church's influence that forced senators from Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Oregon, and Nevada to uphold the sugar tariff. It describes the suspicion on how the Latter-day Saints had used beet sugar to gain complete economic and political dominance over the American West through the mechanism of the Utah-Idaho Sugar Company.

scholarly journals Future-Day Saints: Abrahamic Astronomy, Anthropological Futures, and Speculative Religion

Religions ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (11) ◽  
pp. 612
Author(s):  
Jon Bialecki
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Outer Space ◽  
Speculative Fiction ◽  
Church Leaders ◽  
Latter Day Saints ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Church

In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, there is an intense interest in creating “speculative fiction”, including speculative fiction about outer space. This article ties this interest to a broader tradition of “speculative religion” by discussing the Mormon Transhumanist Association. An interest in outer space is linked to nineteenth and twentieth-century speculation by Mormon intellectuals and Church leaders regarding “Abrahamic Astronomy”. The article suggests that there is a Mormon view of the future as informed by a fractal or recursive past that social science in general, and anthropology in particular, could use in “thinking the future”.

Mormon Mobilization in Contemporary U.S. Politics

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew R. Miles ◽  
Jason M. Adkins
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
Republican Party ◽  
The Political ◽  
Latter Day Saints ◽  
Lds Church ◽  
Mitt Romney ◽  
Religious Aspects ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
The Church ◽  
The U.S

In 2012, the Republican Party selected a Mormon, Mitt Romney, as their nominee for U.S. president. After decades of persecution and suspicion, many felt like the LDS Church was finally being accepted as a mainstream religion and an equal player on the national political stage. From a different perspective, the “acceptance” of the LDS Church by the U.S. government and the Republican Party has come at a tremendous cost. Unlike those who joined other religious denominations in America, 19th century converts to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints gave everything they had to the church. The 19th-century LDS Church controlled not just the political, but the economic, social, and religious aspects of its members’ lives. The LDS Church has traded immense power over a few dedicated members for a weaker political voice in the lives of millions more members. From this perspective, the LDS Church has never been more politically weak than they were in the 2012 presidential election. Previous LDS Church presidents endorsed non-Mormon candidates Cleveland, Taft, and Nixon more enthusiastically than President Monson endorsed Mitt Romney—one of his own. In the 20th century, the power of the LDS Church over the lives of its members has waned considerably, significantly hindering the institutional church’s ability to politically mobilize its congregants. Even in Utah, only the most ardent LDS Church members are swayed by the political dictates of LDS Church leaders.

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