“It’s like Methodism, only more”: Mormon Conversion and Narratives of the Great Apostasy

February 4, 2013 By 13 Comments

A couple of weeks ago in Sunday School, a middle-aged woman shared her conversion story to Mormonism. Born and raised a Methodist, she noted that she always felt like something was lacking. When she discovered Mormonism, she explained, “it was like Methodism, only more.”

I smiled to myself as she said this, recognizing in her own conversion narrative a common refrain that dominates the autobiographical writings of her 19th century predecessors. Among the first generation of converts to Mormonism, roughly one-third of them came from Methodist backgrounds, including Emma Smith, Brigham Young, and John Taylor. Even Joseph Smith remembered being “somewhat partial to the Methodist sect” and feeling “some desire to be united with them” before his own visionary experience. He would later tell Methodist preacher Peter Cartwright, in words foreshadowing those of the woman in my Sunday School, that “We Latter-day Saints are Methodists, as far as they have gone, only we have advanced further.”[1] And Smith wasn’t alone in expressing such sentiments. Methodist converts to Mormonism  routinely portrayed their former faith as an important stepping stone on their path to discovering Mormonism, a sort of Elias that prepared the way for the fulness of the truth. [Read more...]

Filed Under: American society, Christianity, conversion, Culture, diversity, Modern Mormonism, Mormon origins, Mormonism, Mormonism, politics, Romney, Protestantism 13 Comments

French Polynesia and Mormonization: Rethinking Mormon Origins

January 14, 2013 By 4 Comments

On January 3, the Community of Christ’s First Presidency called Maureva M. Arnaud Tchong to serve in the Council of Twelve Apostles. The current mission center president over 60 congregations in French Polynesia, Arnaud will be the first individual of native Polynesian heritage to serve as an apostle in any church descended from Joseph Smith’s nineteenth-century Restoration movement. She will also be the first woman from outside of the United States to serve in the Community of Christ’s Council of Twelve Apostles. [1] Even though Arnaud represents a breakthrough for women in Mormon churches, she stands in a long line of matriarchs who have sustained the Community of Christ in generation after generation. In fact, Arnaud can trace her spiritual heritage through a line of matriarchs that stand at the very origins of the church—all the way back to Tupuai.

In April 1844 on the island of Tupuai, a woman named Tehinaarrii encountered three strangers. Addison Pratt and two other missionaries from Nauvoo, Illinois, were hungry and a long ways from home. They needed help. Tehinaarri took them into her home and “gave them food, housing, and much needed assistance.” [2] Her act of hospitality marked the beginning of the church on the island.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Community of Christ, French Polynesia, Gender, Mormon origins, Mormonism, Priesthood Tagged With: , , , 4 Comments

A Church without Words

January 2, 2013 By 14 Comments

I go to a church where there are no words.

Well, that’s not entirely true.  To be more honest, I would have to say that I go to a church where there are many words, but none for me.  You see, for the past year and a half, I’ve been attending a German LDS congregation and, let’s be real here, I simply do not know the language.

True, I can pick out pieces from a heartwarming story about a loyal cat or generally understand that there may (or may not) be a meeting of some sort on the 15th, but for all intents and purposes, my church experience is generally one of personal meditation with some distracting yet interesting background noise. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Modern Mormonism, Mormonism 14 Comments

Finding a Bit of Comfort in the Image of Mormonism That Americans Most Respect

December 19, 2012 By Leave a Comment

About a week ago, I decided to write my next post on a recurrent popular representation of the Mormons that we didn’t see much of during Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign: the image of Mormon violence. I was going to talk about why I think this image didn’t surface during the recent Mormon moment, and whether or not I think it has a future now that the moment is over. But since last Friday, we have all watched in horror as unspeakable violence and its aftereffects have unfolded in Newtown, Connecticut, brought simultaneously into our homes in real time on 24-hour cable news outlets, online news media, and social networking sites.

I don’t want to think about violence right now—real or imagined—or distance myself from it with objective academic arguments. So that left me wondering, what do I want to think about and write about? What aspect of my research can I discuss, in this moment of national grief, that doesn’t feel utterly trivial and irrelevant—not to mention disrespectful?

I decided to focus this post on the major recurrent theme in positive American representations of the Latter-day Saints across the last century. For at least the last one hundred years, in troubled times when Americans have sought to stress national unity over internal differences, representations of the Saints have highlighted Mormon solidarity and community support. In fact, at times, the Saints’ sense of community has been held up as a model to be followed by the nation. [Read more...]

Filed Under: American society, Culture, diversity, Mormonism Tagged With: , , Leave a Comment

Mormon Supplemental Worship

November 29, 2012 By 9 Comments

I’ve long held an interest in Mormons who supplement their weekly worship in Latter-day Saint congregations with occasional (or in some cases, very regular) attendance and participation in some other tradition’s meetings. That interest was initially sparked by my study of ungathered Latter-day Saint converts in the American South around the turn of the 20th century who, left to make of their new religion what they could in the absence of ordained priesthood and regular church meetings, continued to attend Methodist revivals or nearby Baptist meetings in between the often lengthy periods they would meet with other Mormons under the direction and priestly authority of the itinerant missionaries. That interest also results from my own appreciation (and in some cases, holy envy) for the liturgies of other Christian traditions’ as well. I’ve long loved the high church liturgy of Latin Mass in more traditional Roman Catholic churches and it will come as a surprise to no one that I hold a particular soft spot for the hymnody of the Methodist tradition. (It even appears that this has rubbed off on my wife a bit, who once attended a Methodist service in place of finding the local Latter-day Saint congregation while on a work trip in South Carolina).  [Read more...]

Filed Under: American society, Christianity, Culture, Modern Mormonism, Mormonism, Protestantism 9 Comments

Latter Day Conversions: Divided Families and Reconciled Relationships

November 11, 2012 By 4 Comments

As a twenty-year old leader in my college youth group, I was asked one day to call a friend who had been active in our youth group but lately had been meeting with the Mormon youth group on campus. Her parents were quite concerned, as she also had begun meeting with two LDS missionaries who were set on baptizing her. And, she was romantically interested in an LDS boy. “Not good…not good at all,” I mumbled to myself.

Now, you should know that my youth group was affiliated with a church that was definitely NOT Mormon. We were former members of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS), and we called ourselves “Restorationists.” We met in independent congregations away from the more liberal RLDS church who we saw as engaged in doctrinal apostasy. While we were religious and social conservatives, we strongly disagreed on doctrine with the similarly socially conservative LDS church—a group that we simply referred to as the “Utah Mormons.” We didn’t believe in multiple gods, the Book of Abraham, section 132 (the revelation on polygamy), or any kind of celestial marriage or ordinance for the dead. And, like all traditional RLDS, we all knew proof texts from the Bible and the Book of Mormon that we could whip out and wield against any Mormon missionary who called at our door. My friend who was talking to the Mormons knew better than to take them seriously, so I thought.

I dutifully called my friend, and we chatted for a few minutes. Then, she informed me that she did not want to talk on the phone again unless “the [LDS] elders” were present in the room with her. They had told her to do so, she told me. “Unless the elders were present?” I thought to myself. “What kind of manipulators are these guys, anyways?” The conversation ended. In the weeks that followed, my friend pulled away completely from my youth group and from her old church. She even cut off contact with her parents for months. Her family was heartbroken. And I was incensed at some nineteen-year-old Mormon missionaries whom I never met. “Didn’t they care about how they tore apart a family?” I remember wondering to myself. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Christianity, Community of Christ, conversion, family, Modern Mormonism, Mormonism, Protestantism 4 Comments
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