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.

scholarly journals “This Incredible Monster Was Always in the Way”: The Moral Career of a Sexual Sinner in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Sumerau ◽  
Ryan Cragun ◽  
Harry Barbee
Keyword(s):  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Scientific Study ◽  
Latter Day Saints ◽  
Religious Leaders ◽  
Symbolic Interactionist ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Moral Career ◽  
The Church ◽  
Interactionist Approach ◽  
The Way

This article elaborates a symbolic interactionist approach to the scientific study of sexual sin. We draw on archival materials from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), and explore recurring themes within the archival materials that signify and outline stages of a sexual sinners’ moral career. Our findings demonstrate how LDS leaders constructed a sinner’s moral career as characterized by (1) seeking out sinful temptation; (2) causing social and spiritual destruction; and (3) seeking and finding redemption. Further, we draw out implications for understanding the ways religious leaders conceptualize sexual sins for their followers, and the usefulness of conceptualizing various religious traditions, adaptations, and conceptualizations of sin as moral careers.

scholarly journals The Role of Religious Leaders in Religious Heritage Tourism Development: The Case of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

Religions ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 256
Author(s):  
Daniel H. Olsen ◽  
Scott C. Esplin
Keyword(s):  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Heritage Tourism ◽  
Latter Day Saints ◽  
Religious Institutions ◽  
Religious Leaders ◽  
Sacred Sites ◽  
Heritage Sites ◽  
Religious Rituals ◽  
The Church

For centuries, people have traveled to sacred sites for multiple reasons, ranging from the performance of religious rituals to curiosity. As the numbers of visitors to religious heritage sites have increased, so has the integration of religious heritage into tourism supply offerings. There is a growing research agenda focusing on the growth and management of this tourism niche market. However, little research has focused on the role that religious institutions and leadership play in the development of religious heritage tourism. The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of religious leaders and the impacts their decisions have on the development of religious heritage tourism through a consideration of three case studies related to recent decisions made by the leadership of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

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.

Polynesians and Mormonism

2014 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 83-101 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Morris
Keyword(s):  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Pacific Islands ◽  
Religious Affiliation ◽  
Latter Day Saints ◽  
Scholarly Literature ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Lds Church ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Church

Polynesia has a particular place in the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). The region that heralded the Church’s first overseas missions includes seven of the world’s top ten nations in terms of the proportion of Mormons in the population, and it is home to six Mormon temples. The Polynesian Latter-day Saint population is increasing in both percentage and absolute numbers, and peoples in the Pacific “islands of the sea” continue to play a central role in the Mormon missionary imaginary. This article explores Polynesians in the LDS Church and critically evaluates different theories seeking to explain this growing religious affiliation. Scholars of Mormonism and commentators explain this growth in terms of parallels between Mormonism and indigenous Polynesian traditions, particularly family lineage and ancestry, and theological and ritual affinities. After evaluating these claims in light of scholarly literature and interviews with Latter-day Saints, however, I conclude that other reasons—especially education and other new opportunities—may equally if not more significantly account for the appeal of Mormonism to Polynesians.

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.

Mormonism (or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Terryl Givens
Keyword(s):  
Jesus Christ ◽  
First Century ◽  
Latter Day Saints ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Book Of Mormon ◽  
The Face ◽  
Religious Sect ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
The Church

Mormonism, or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is America's most successful-and most misunderstood-home grown religion. The church today boasts more than 15 million members worldwide, a remarkable feat in the face of increasing secularity. The growing presence of Mormonism shows no signs of abating, as the makeup of its membership becomes progressively diverse. The heightened contemporary relevance and increasingly global membership of the Church solidifies Mormonism as a religious sect much deserving of awareness. Covering the origins, history, and modern challenges of the church, Mormonism: What Everyone Needs to Know offers readers a brief, authoritative guide to one of the fastest growing faith groups of the twenty-first century in a reader-friendly format, providing answers to questions such as: What circumstances gave rise to the birth of Mormonism? Why was Utah chosen as a place of refuge? Do you have to believe the Book of Mormon to be a Latter-day Saint? Why do women not hold the priesthood? How wealthy is the church and how much are top leaders paid? Written by a believer and the premier scholar of the Latter-day Saints faith, this remarkably readable introduction provides a sympathetic but unstinting account of one of the few religious traditions to maintain its vitality and growth in an era of widespread disaffiliation.

scholarly journals Toleration of new Faith in Ukraine: a Study of the Churh of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (19) ◽  
pp. 77-85
Author(s):  
Howard L. Biddulph ◽  
Laurel C. Biddulph
Keyword(s):  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Religious Faith ◽  
Latter Day Saints ◽  
Lds Church ◽  
The Church

This study briefly presents our personal observations of how a religious faith new to Ukraine has sought and obtained legitimate standing in the Ukrainian state. We are both American members of that faith—The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) - who now reside in Ukraine.

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

2011 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 42-63 ◽  
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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