Author’s Note: This was based on a term paper I for graduate school in 2006. I thought this would be of interest to those interested in topics like church-and-state separation, Utah history, and the history of religion, specifically the LDS Church.

Introduction: “You can’t have just one.”

In January of 2002, Salt Lake City became the host of the XIX Winter Olympic Games. With 78 events, nearly 2,400 athletes, and over 6,000 broadcasters – not to mention the millions upon millions watching the Winter Olympics on television – Salt Lake City became the center of the world.¹ While the athletes, broadcasters, and tourists reveled in the snow-topped mountains and the icy blue sky, they also had to contend with Salt Lake City as a city central to the faith of millions, in much the same way as Jerusalem, Mecca, and Rome are cities of faith and power. In the case of Salt Lake City, the faith was that of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.²

While Salt Lake City was the spiritual home to millions of Mormons, this did not stop Greg Schirf, of Schirf Brewing Co., maker of Wasatch Beers. Only a few short months before the commencement of the Winter Games, Wasatch Beers introduced Polygamy Porter in a brilliant marketing coup.³ With the slogan “You can’t have just one”, Polygamy Porter made light humor of the tradition of polygamy as church doctrine within the LDS Church. Since it was an alcoholic beverage, Mormons were forbidden from consuming it. As a marketing campaign, Schirf Brewing Co. made millions off the controversy. But it also inadvertently undermined the legitimacy of the LDS Church on the world stage. The humor and catchy slogan reflected a darker tradition of Mormon history, one filled with extermination orders, the martyrdom of the Prophet Joseph Smith, and persecution of the faithful, forcing them to flee to the then sparsely populated western frontier of the Wasatch Mountains and into the basin of the Great Salt Lake. The eccentricities of the Mormon faith would impact the struggle for Utah statehood, only arriving after in 1896, six years after the Supreme Court ruled against the practice of polygamy. Even with its obscure beginnings and controversial practices, the relationship between the federal government and the Mormons created a ripple effect, influencing and codifying what constitutes a legitimate marriage and the limits of the free exercise of religion.

This bibliography will address the genealogy of Mormon studies, tracing its origins and developments, and concluding with an outline of the current factions within the field. A variety of sources, both academic and popular, will be investigated. With the groundwork for Mormon studies established, a closer analysis of Mormon theology will be analyzed, tracing the development of the doctrine of polygamy within the Church. The examination of polygamy will trace the contours of the competing discourses, most notably feminist discourse. The paper will address with the convergence of Mormon studies and the phenomena of utopian communities. A conclusion will delineate the contentious nature of the archive in relation to Mormon studies, confronting the issues of blasphemy, access, and sensitivity.

Mormon studies: Genealogies and factions

The genealogy of Mormon studies is intertwined with the Mormonism itself. Throughout the history of the LDS Church, there have been periods of openness followed by periods of secretiveness. The disputed 1828 meeting between Martin Harris, a supporter of Joseph Smith, and Charles Anthon, Columbia University professor of ancient languages, was Mormonism’s first attempt to use the imprimatur of academia to legitimize the religion.⁴ As more and more Mormons (both migrants and immigrants) settled in Utah territory, LDS Church members dominated government posts, which “effectively meant theocracy by other means.”⁵ After the confrontation over polygamy, the Church eventually faded into the background, attaining the desired status of normalcy.

In 1966 Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought was published by a small group of LDS graduate students at Stanford University. The civil rights movement forced Church members to debate the doctrines restricting African-Americans from the priesthood.⁶ While the official Church hierarchy was “sometimes troubled,” a group of Mormon intellectuals began carving out their own niche in the embryonic field of Mormon studies. The hierarchy faced challenges to this new resurgence, since “the official Church Historian’s Office had been largely inactive since the early 1930s.”⁷

Studies of Mormonism reached their climax with the ‘Arrington Spring,’ named after the prolific historian Leonard Arrington. The ‘Arrington Spring’ lasted from 1972 to 1978. As Church leaders began to limit access, Arrington himself stated, “Some authorities apparently preferred that we have no history except that kept by public-relations writers.”⁸ Arrington desired to write about “people of the pen,” the “scribes and scholars” who contributed to “the rich past of Mormonism.”⁹ The “tension between the traditionalists (who champion “faith building” narratives of the past) and the revisionists (who bring a variety of secular methodologies and concerns to their scholarship) has become the status quo of Mormon intellectual life.”¹⁰

Traditionalists like Coke Newell, author of Latter Days, write Mormon history to the outsider. As a media spokesman for the Church, he presents a history of positive affirmations and triumphs over adversity. While the authenticity of the historical events remains credible, his treatment of polygamy and racially restrictive doctrines are troubling. He states “Rather, the fundamental doctrine of Mormonism is, and always has been, that the true Church of Jesus Christ will be led by direct revelation of God to His current prophet. … His [God’s] reasons for doing either [mandating and abolishing polygamy] are not entirely known to us. And that’s all we can say about it.”¹¹ This represents why the study of Mormonism is so contentious. One cannot ask the motivations of God without appearing blasphemous to Church members.

Tensions also come from outside of the Mormon Church. One of these critics is Richard Abanes, author of One Nation Under Gods, a scathing, vituperative, and abrasive critique of Mormon history and doctrine. The chapter titles are sensational, guaranteed to make copies fly off the shelves. Although historically accurate, his criticism of Church doctrine reveals his quest to delegitimize Mormonism as a religion and characterize it as an evil cult. Through the use of charts, he compares Mormon beliefs about Jesus with “Christian beliefs about Jesus.”¹² With his firm establishment that Mormons are not Christians, he assumes Christians to be an invisible doctrinal monolith.¹³

Richard and Joan Ostling’s Mormon America remains a comprehensive text for investigating Mormon history. A reputable work admired by both Mormons and non-Mormons, covers issues like polygamy in a less bombastic manner. As a writer on religion for the Associated Press, Richard Ostling traces the origins of Mormonism and follows it through to the present day. Unlike Newell’s unquestioning summary of the polygamy controversy, Ostling analyzes the Woodruff Manifesto of 1890 against Doctrines and Covenants 132. While Woodruff’s Manifesto forbids the practice, D & C 132, still a part of Mormon scripture, was a politically motivated document, not a revelation from God.¹⁴

One of the more prolific publishers of Mormon studies is the University of Illinois-Urbana. Illinois is central to the Mormon migration narrative, since the city of Nauvoo was founded and it became the site of Joseph Smith’s prolific rise to power. The city became abandoned and the Nauvoo Temple was razed to the ground. The middle point between Smith’s New York origins in Palmyra County and the Mormon trek to the Great Salt Lake, led by Brigham Young, Nauvoo has become an important site for Mormon pilgrims.

Mormon history

Abanes, Richard. One Nation Under Gods: A History of the Mormon Church. New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2003.

Arrington, Leonard. Adventures of a church historian. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998.

________________. Brigham Young: American Moses. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1985.

________________. Great Basin Kingdom; an economic history of the Latter-Day Saints, 1830-1900. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1958.

________________ and Davis Bitton. The Mormon experience : a history of the Latter-Day Saints. Second edition. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992.

Church Educational System. Church History in the Fulness of Times: The History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Revised edition. Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1992.

Beecher, Maureen Ursenbach and Lavina Fielding Anderson, eds. Sisters in Spirit: Mormon Women in Historical and Cultural Perspective. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987.

Bigler, David L. and Will Bagley, editors. Army of Israel: Mormon Battalion Narratives, Salt Lake City: Utah State University Press, 2000.

Bitton, Davis and Leonard J. Arrington. Mormons and Their Historians. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1988.

Burton, Sir Richard F. The City of the Saints: Among the Mormons and Across the Rocky Mountains to California. Santa Barbara, CA: The Narrative Press, 2003.

Campbell, Eugene E. Establishing Zion: The Mormon Church in the American West, 1847-1869. Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1988.

Firmage, Edwin Brown and Richard Collin Mangrum. Zion in the Courts: A Legal History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1830-1900. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988.

Garr, Arnold K., Donald Q. Cannon, and Richard O. Cowan, eds. Encyclopedia of Latter-day Saint History. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 2000.

Hallwas, John E. and Roger D. Launius. Cultures in Conflict: A Documentary History of the Mormon War in Illinois. Salt Lake City: Utah State University Press, 1999.

Mauss, Armand L. The Angel and the Beehive: The Mormon Struggle with Assimilation. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994.

Newell, Coke. Latter Days: An Insider’s Guide to Mormonism, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. New York: Saint Martin’s Press, 2000

Ostling, Richard N. and Joan K. Mormon America: The Power and The Promise. New York: Harper Collins, 1999.

Quinn, D. Michael, editor. The New Mormon History: Revisionist Essays on the Past. Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1992.

________________. Wayward Saints: The Godbeites and Brigham Young. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998.

_________________, David J. Whittaker, and James B. Allen. Mormon History. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2001.

Joseph Smith: Wrestling with the Angel

A major challenge in Mormon studies is the characterization of Joseph Smith. According to the faithful, he was the chosen Prophet, given revelation directly from God. “For anti-Mormons, too, the matter is clear: Smith was a charlatan, a psychotic, or some combination thereof.”¹⁵ Unfortunately, this dichotomy leaves little to work with, since both sides assume a single Truth. The choice of Joseph Smith as Prophet or fraud is a false choice to historians.

Richard Lyman Bushman’s Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling gives a detailed and magisterial account of the culture and life of the Mormon prophet. As a practicing Mormon, Bushman’s biography represents a new level of analysis. Bushman’s analysis of the polygamy revelation is compared to Noyes Oneida community and Udney Hay Jacob’s The Peace Maker, or the Doctrines of the Millennium. Bushman summarized Smith’s revelation as one about “bonding, not dominance; its concern was to preserve the family into eternity.”¹⁶ Although the biography ends with the martyrdom of Joseph Smith, state historians, feminists, and specialists in utopian communities have analyzed polygamy as a conceptual framework.

Joseph Smith biography

Anderson, Robert D., Inside the Mind of Joseph Smith: Psychobiography and the Book of Mormon. Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1999.

Brodie, Fawn M. No Man Knows My History: the life of Joseph Smith. New York: Vintage Books, 1995.

Bushman, Richard Lyman. Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling, a cultural biography of Mormonism’s founder. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005.

Remini, Robert V. Joseph Smith. New York: Penguin, 2002.

A Note on Sacred Texts

Unlike Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, the Latter-day Saints believe in revelation as “the standard and regular channel of communication between God in his heaven and humans on the earth.”¹⁷ With the other branches of Middle Eastern monotheism, the sacred texts are self-contained. Because of their enclosed nature, only commentary can be made, nothing can be added to the original scriptures.¹⁸

Besides the standard texts considered sacred (The Bible JST,¹⁹ The Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price), “the General Conference talks given by General Authorities every six months; and in various other documents and official records of the church” are considered sacred.²⁰

Sacred texts

Holy Bible (Joseph Smith Translation) * The Book of Mormon * Doctrine and Covenants * Pearl of Great Price. Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1979.

Challenges of genre: Positioning Mormon theology in a historical context

Because the LDS Church is considered the restored church of Christ, they adamantly disavow any relations to Protestant denominations.²¹ This makes for a fascinating, some say “syncretic,” American religion. Considering the LDS Church as an American syncretic religion allow for an intellectual unpacking of Jewish, Christian, and Masonic symbols and rituals. Discussing the origins of these practices and symbols make discussions controversial among outsiders and grounds for disciplinary action to insiders.

Newell lays out the challenges facing researchers:

Most religions outside of Protestantism have proprietary ceremonies, none of which contemplate the explanatory “right to know” to outsiders of the faith. Those committed by covenantal integrity to the sacred rites of their own Hopi, Hindu, Muslim, or Mormon faith would no more pry into the secret ceremonies of another than reveal their own. The very thought is absurd.²²

As imposing as this sounds, the very informality of the religion offers available informants. Colleen McDannell’s exploration of the history and practice of the “temple garment” included antecedents in Masonic initiation ceremonies and the Jewish arba kanfot. “By insisting on silence, rather than conformity of thought, church authorities tacitly create an environment for a variety of personal interpretations.”²³ She goes on to explain how the history of persecution and doctrinal uniqueness creates a double consciousness similar to other minority ethnic groups.²⁴

John L. Brooke’s The Refiner’s Fire: The Making of Mormon Cosmology, 1644-1844, periodizes Smith’s transformations from “prophet of the “Word” … and transformed himself and the Mormon priesthood into Christian-hermetic magi, a role previously manifested in the medieval alchemist, the Renaissance hermetic philosopher, and the perfectionist sectarians of the Radical Reformation.”²⁵ He traces deification, restorationism, and plural marriage to similar groups in the Anabaptist movement, especially the Münsterites. The book represents the bountiful conjunction of Mormon and Reformation studies.

Leo Rosten’s Religions in America: Ferment and Faith in an Age of Crisis is a contemporary work that compares numerous religious groups, from Baptist to Christian, Scientist to scientific atheism to Mormons. Each group has a representative answer questions in an interview format. In addition, there is an appendix that supplies demographic data for religious communities in 1970s America. This work gives the best expression of Mormon theology in an easily understood format. It is advantageous because it places Mormonism within a spectrum of other faiths.

Because of the issues of sensitivity and the hermetic nature of Mormonism, investigation into theology and religious practices is more challenging than other faiths. Both believers and non-believers have created a flourishing subfield that disproves Mark Twain’s comment that The Book of Mormon is “Chloroform in print.”

Mormon Theology

Brooke, John L. The Refiner’s Fire: The Making of Mormon Cosmology. 1644-1844. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

Givens, Terryl L. The Viper on the Hearth: Mormons, Myths, and the Construction of Heresy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.

______________. By The Hand of Mormon: The American Scripture that Launched a New World Religion. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.

MacDannell, Colleen. Material Christianity: Religion and Popular Culture in America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995.

Metcalfe, Brent Lee, editor. New Approaches to the Book of Mormon: Explorations in Critical Methodology. Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1993.

Quinn, D. Michael. Early Mormonism and the Magical World View (revised and enlarged). Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1998.

Rosten, Leo, editor. Religions in America: Ferment and Faith in an Age of Crisis. New York: A Touchstone Book, 1975.

Underwood, Grant. The Millenarian World of Early Mormonism. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993.

Legitimizing power: Coercive citizenship and the compromises for statehood

The struggle for statehood was premised on a quid pro quo relationship between the LDS Church and the federal government. One of the major impediments to statehood was the Mormon practice of polygamy. The concept of coercive citizenship can be readily applied to the Mormon case. Polygamy violated Victorian conceptions of gender roles, while Mormons adopted the rhetorical defense of the slaveholder: “Ours is a domestic relation, and can no more be interfered with than with slavery in the Southern states.”²⁶

Edwin Brown Firmage and Richard Collin Magnum’s Zion in the Courts, has an entire section on polygamy, exploring the legal issues, examining specific cases and explaining relevant legislation. The Reynolds case (1875) and the Edmunds Act (1881) are given major treatment. The coercion of normalcy became explicit when other anti-polygamy measures included barring Mormons the right to vote and a test oath that “operated as an ex post facto law imposing a civil disability on Mormons.”²⁷ The Reynolds case and the Edmunds Act will come to effect the definition of family in later immigration legislation, while the test oath operated like loyalty oaths during the 1950s Red Scare.

Thomas G. Alexander’s Mormonism in Transition covers the period when statehood status was threatened by plural marriage. Difficulties arose when Mormons had to choose between loyalty to their religion and loyalty to the government, usually with political parties thrown in to make things even more complicated. In contrast, Gustive Larson’s The “Americanization” of Utah for Statehood starts with the entrance of the Mormons into the Great Salt Lake Basin in 1847 and ending with statehood. Larson positions the battle for statehood as the battle for citizenship, something not possible with territory status.

In 1996 Ken Verdoia and Richard Firmage’s wrote Utah: The Struggle for Statehood to commemorate the centennial anniversary of Utah’s admittance as a state. It is a celebratory work, heavily illustrated and avoiding polemical language. Native Americans and previous explorations of the region are given short shrift; with Mormons being covered the most. The text is valuable as a starting point in examination of Mormon visual culture, with a large amount of photos, cartoons, and documents.

The battles for Utah statehood are inextricably linked with the Mormons. This makes it challenging to researchers. What is of interest are the various other ethnic groups and religions making a place for themselves in a seemingly one-religion, one-party state.

Utah statehood and Salt Lake City history

Alexander, Thomas G. Mormonism in Transition: A History of the Latter-day Saints, 1890-1930. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1996.

___________________ and James B. Allen, Mormons & Gentiles: A History of Salt Lake City. Boulder: Pruett Publishing Company, 1984.

Arrington, Leonard and Thomas G. Alexander. A dependent commonwealth : Utah’s economy from statehood to the Great Depression. Provo, UT: Brigham University Press, 1974.

________________. From wilderness to empire; the role of Utah in western economic history. Salt Lake City: University of Utah, 1961.

Flake, Kathleen. The Politics of American Religious Identity: The Seating of Senator Reed Smoot, Apostle. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2004.

Larson, Gustive O. The “Americanization” of Utah for Statehood. San Marino, CA: The Huntington Library, 1971.

Lyman, Edward Leo. Political Deliverance: The Mormon Quest for Utah Statehood. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1985.

Verdoia, Ken and Richard Firmage. Utah: The Struggle for Statehood. Salt Lake City: The University of Utah Press, 1996.

“Relic of barbarism” and “prophesied by God”: Contending with the discourses of polygamy

Like the coercive concept of statehood, the concept of polygamy also involves discourses of coercion. Polygamy has been covered in a multitude of contexts: personal accounts, sociological studies, feminist critiques, and comparative studies with other utopian communities. The personal accounts can tend towards the sensational. Comparative studies have either compared Mormonism with other nineteenth century utopian communities or with other global examples, such as cultures Africa and Asia.

The female coercion involved in polygamous relationships has been firmly established in the academic community. What has not been adequately discussed is the examination of male coercion by the state to adopt monogamous relationships. Tales of crackdowns and prison time are repeatedly featured in state and Mormon histories. What makes the case of male coercion less persuasive is Mormonism’s adamant patriarchal doctrine. It is challenging to position men as victims in this religious schema.

Helen Lefkowitz’s Rereading Sex: Battles over Sexual Knowledge and Suppression in Nineteenth Century America explores four sexual frameworks: American vernacular sexual culture, evangelical Christianity, obscenity, and the rise of reform physiology. Mormon plural marriage and the Oneida commune’s complex marriage are compared, exploring the convergence of medical knowledge and alternative methods of cohabitation. While Mormonism rested upon the potency of males to propagate, Noyes separated sexual relations from childbearing.²⁸

In the works of Louis J. Kern and William W. Zellner, Mormonism is compared with other utopian communities. Kern examines the Shakers, Mormons, and the Oneida Community. Zellner explores the “extraordinary lifestyles” of the Old Order Amish, the Oneida Community, the Gypsies, the Unitarian Universalists, the Church of Christ, Scientist, the Hasidim, the Father Divine Movement, the Mormons, and the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Zellner is more expansive and sociological (comparisons can be made to Rosten’s work) whereas Kern keeps within the boundaries of “Victorian Utopias.” These works are useful since they contextualize Mormonism within discourses of utopia, sexuality, and the self. All three of the discourses created challenges with the rapid American industrialization, the Gold Rush, and the definition and codification of marriage. In order to maintain cohesiveness with the greater national agenda, Mormons had to sacrifice their utopian ideals now that their Western spiritual enclave, once separated and nearly uninhabited, became part of the greater imperial dreams of the United States.

Polygamy

Cairncross, John. After polygamy was made a sin: the social history of Christian polygamy. London: Routledge, 1974.

Embry, Jessie L. Mormon Polygamous Families: Life in the Principle. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1987.

Gordon, Sarah Barrington. The Mormon Question: Polygamy and Constitutional Conflict in Nineteenth-Century America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002.

Hardy, B. Carmon. Solemn Covenant: The Mormon Polygamous Passage. Urbana: The University of Illinois Press, 1992.

Horowitz, Helen Lefkowitz. Rereading Sex: Battles over Sexual Knowledge and Suppression in Nineteenth-Century America. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002.

Kilbride, Philip Leroy. Plural marriage for our times: a reinvented option? Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey, 1994.

Nichols, Jeffrey. Prostitution, Polygamy, Power: Salt Lake City, 1847-1918. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2002.

Solomon, Dorothy Allred. Predators, Prey, and Other Kinfolk: Growing Up in Polygamy. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2003.

Torpey, William George. Judicial Doctrines of Religious Rights in America. New York: Da Capo Press, 1970.

Van Wagoner, Richard S. Mormon Polygamy: A History. Second Edition. Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1989.

Utopian communities

Hayden, Delores. Seven American Utopias: The Architecture of Communitarian Socialism, 1790-1975. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1976.

Kern, Louis J. An Ordered Love: Sex Roles and Sexuality in Victorian Utopias—the Shakers, the Mormons, and the Oneida Community. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1981.

Zellner, William W. Extraordinary Groups: An Examination of Unconventional Lifestyles, Seventh edition. New York: Worth Publishers, 2001.

Confronting the Archive: Research challenges, material access and cultural sensitivity

Today the field of Mormon studies presents a contentious zone of investigation. With the “Mormon Murders,” a plot involving homicide and forged documents, the LDS Church has been more reluctant to open its archives to historians. Other related factors, including the proprietary nature of religious practice and the siege mentality of the Church hierarchy.

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1 http://www.olympic.org/uk/games/past/index_uk.asp?OLGT=2&OLGY=2002; Internet; accessed on May 16, 2006.

2 While the term “Mormon” is a common misnomer (Cf. Mohammedan in reference to Islam), the terms LDS, Mormon, and Saints will have interchange usage. All refer to the congregation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

3 Donna Fenn, “Marketing: Honeys, Hand Me a Polygamy Porter”, Inc. Magazine, August 2002, Inc.com, The Daily Resource for Entrepreneurs, http://www.inc.com/magazine/20020801/24464.html; Intenet; accessed May 16, 2002.

4 Scott McLemee, “Latter-day Studies: Scholars of Mormonism confront the history of what some call ‘the next world religion,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, March 22, 2002, http://chronicle.com/weekly/v48/i28/28a01401.htm; Internet, accessed May 16, 2006.

5 Ibid.

6 Ibid.

7 Ibid.

8 Arrington in McLemee.

9 Davis Bitton and Leonard J. Arrington, Mormons and Their Historians (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1988), ix.

10 McLemee, “Latter-day Studies.”

11 Coke Newell, Latter Days: An Insider’s Guide to Mormonism, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (New York: Saint Martin’s Press, 2000), 207.

12 Richard Abanes, One Nation Under Gods: A History of the Mormon Church (New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2003), 378.

13 The confessional allegiance of Abanes appears to be “nondenominational Christian,” a sect that is as guilty of the charges of cult as Mormonism. Abanes’s recent books condemning the demonic nature of J.K. Rowling’s best-selling Harry Potter novels and other secular entertainments make his accusations seem all the more comical.

14 Richard N. Ostling and Ostling, Joan K., Mormon America: The Power and The Promise (New York: Harper Collins, 1999), 87. Because of this, doctrinal debates still rage between mainline Mormons and “fundamentalist Mormons” who practice polygamy and consider the post-1890 Mormon Church akin to “the Whore of Babylon.” This doctrinal difference has led to a second fracturing of the LDS Church, the first fracture occurred with the struggle for succession in the Mormon leadership following the death of Joseph Smith. Today “more than 200 factions exist” (Ostling, 334-6).

15 McLemee, “Latter-day Studies.”

16 Richard Lyman Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling, a cultural biography of Mormonism’s founder (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005), 440-6.

17 Newell, Latter-days, 259.

18 See Newell, pp. 62,66 for an explanation between Lutheran Reformation and LDS Restoration. While Luther in the 1520s wanted to reform a corrupt Catholic Church, Joseph Smith sought to restore the church of Christ after “The Great Apostasy” (Newell, 74).

19 JST means the Joseph Smith Translation.

20 Ibid., 259.

21 Richard L. Evans (1906-1971), member of Council of the Twelve of LDS, in Leo Rosten, editor, Religions in America: Ferment and Faith in an Age of Crisis (New York: A Touchstone Book, 1975), 187.

22 Ibid., 102.

23 Colleen MacDannell, Material Christianity: Religion and Popular Culture in America. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995), 199.

24 Ibid., 206.

25 John L. Brooke, The Refiner’s Fire: The Making of Mormon Cosmology. 1644-1844 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 4.

26 Unknown source in McLemee.

27 Edwin Brown Firmage and Richard Collin Mangrum, Zion in the Courts: A Legal History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1830-1900(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988), 231.

28 Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz, Rereading Sex: Battles over Sexual Knowledge and Suppression in Nineteenth-Century America (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002), 256.