“The Mormon People: The Making of an American Faith”

A new book by religious historian Matthew Bowman. With a striking number of the credible Republican presidential candidates coming out the Mormon faith, I wanted to learn more.

I thought it was an excellent book and a reasonably quick read (for a history volume). It is fascinating to observe a religion evolve so quickly in changing times. The hyper-speed institutionalization and resemblance to Catholic organization is striking. Weber’s routinization of charisma in real time.

One thing I was surprised to learn: Repeated attempts by Joseph Smith and Brigham Young to institute a kind of theocratic communism. I will resist making a poke at uber-capitalists George and Mitt Romney. Rejecting theocratic communism reflects good judgment, even if it’s a departure from (some takes on) doctrinal orthodoxy.

One interesting passage:

Frustrating to many traditional Christians who seek to engage Mormons in dialogue or even debate is the seeming lack of interest or education most Mormons—even the First Presidency or the Quorum of the Twelve—have in theological discussion. There is no trained Mormon clergy. The Church Educational System… resembles a youth ministry more closely than it does the seminaries of other faiths.

Similarly, leaders of the church today… avoid writing books about theology in favor of devotional or homiletic texts. This trend is likely intentional. After the public disputes over evolution in the 1930s and after correlation (a preemptive strike against potential doctrinal schism) the leaders of the church have decided to leave theological dispute alone. They conceive of their task largely in terms of ministry and pastoral work, consonant with modern Mormons’ conception of their faith as a way of life and a system of ethical behavior rather than a theological argument. It is thus difficult to pin down what precisely orthodox Mormon belief is.

I am curious what Mormon readers would say to this, and how Bowman was received.

 

18 Responses

  1. Amusingly, when I answer “yes” to the question “is fire hot?” I get told that the answer is “hot”. But when I answer “hot”, I get told that it’s “yes”. Am I just supposed to get it wrong the first time no matter what and prove that I’m not a robot by trying again?

  2. Wait, we’re claiming that serious theology is relevant to anyone other than the .01% of the believers at the center of the belief structure in other religions? Because, um, it isn’t. Orthopraxy is the beginning, middle, and end of religious faith for most people, who don’t care much about what happens after one dies and mostly care about keeping their standing in the community.

  3. As for many of the other comments, I think the argument here is that the type of issues that have generated a lot of intellectual heat in other parts of Christianity, such as when exactly the Rapture will occur (in contemporary Evangelical Protestantism), issues surrounding free will and election (Calvinism), the perpetual virginity of Mary (in Catholicism), Christology (in the Early Church), etc. just aren’t important to the LDS Church. I could be wrong, but I don’t get the impression there’s much systematic theology (Thomas Aquinas style, let’s say) about the Heavenly Mother or exhalation or the G-dhead or things like that because, I assume, the institutional LDS Church doesn’t think that stuff is as important as how one should live in day to day life. I assume these type of issues are what the author means when he says “It is thus difficult to pin down what precisely orthodox Mormon belief is.” Alternate hypothesis to “what the leadership thinks is important”: because the Church still has active prophecy, it doesn’t need to rely on the logic games of theology.

    If it wanted to, the Church could open a whole theology department at BYU about it, but instead they have departments of “Religious Education” and “Recreation and Youth Leadership”. BYU is very much geared towards education and the church as a whole rather than philosophical discussion and an elite slice. The closest things to a theology department that exists at BYU are “Ancient Scripture” and “Church History and Doctrine,” who methodologically seem to be more like religious studies departments than theology departments. From glancing at sylabii, the BYU class on the Book of Mormon is just reading it, there’s not supplemental material (compare that to a Catholic or Protestant theology class). “Pearl of Great Price” and “Doctrines and Covenants” are revelation based; they’re not like argumentative commentary like, say, Calvin’s “Institutes of Christian Religion”. Doctrine matters a lot in Mormonism, of course, but, to the best of my knowledge, detailed, abstract theology in the LDS church does not hold a privileged place like it does in, say, Catholicism. I believe the author is not saying that Mormonism does not have meaningful and well-developed set of beliefs, but that it doesn’t really value what’s called “systematic theology”.

  4. Another argument worth glancing at about the LDS church is Rodney Stark’s “The Rise of Mormonism” which is demographically predictive rather than historical, but it argues that Mormonism will take its place as a major “World Religion” by the end of the 21st century. Stark is very rat choice (sociology of religion is counter-intuitively one of the few sociological subfields where rational choice is thriving) but I think the broad sketch of his narrative is pretty accurate. It’s a nice case study showcasing almost all of Stark’s theories from the previous 40 (!) years in one place.

  5. I agree with the general thrust of many of these comments–I think that the LDS leadership AND membership have focused much more on orthopraxy (learn a new word every day) than orthodoxy. I also think most Mormons are extremely well informed regarding the rules they are expected to live by (Word of Wisdom, etc). Where I diverge from Madeleine is that I emphatically do not think most members have engaged in personal study of deep theology in any meaningful way whatsoever. I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing, but I do think it’s true. The Pew Forum questions are absolute softballs by Mormon standards–I can’t imagine someone could go through the discussions necessary even for baptism without knowing the LDS stance on those questions. But I don’t consider those things “deep theology” at all, so YMMV.

  6. I’d agree that Mormons’ education in basic theology is pretty standardized and thorough. A recent Pew Research Center study shows that Mormons have the greatest knowledge of the Bible, (http://www.pewforum.org/Christian/Mormon/mormons-in-america-beliefs-and-practices.aspx?src=prc-section), and another Pew study shows a 91-98% unanimity in core LDS doctrine-based beliefs (http://www.pewforum.org/Christian/Mormon/mormons-in-america-beliefs-and-practices.aspx#beliefs). If that’s not orthodoxy of belief, I’m not sure what is. However, I would also say that when it comes to more complex issues, Mormons are encouraged to learn for themselves through personal study. This leads to both a general sparsity of conversation about deep theology and a wide range of perspectives. But I’d argue that many-to-most committed LDS members (and definitely the higher leadership of the LDS Church) have indeed engaged in this personal education into the deeper questions of theology, based on the ideal that we would rather have God tell us about himself through inspired and individualized study than be educated secondarily by the theorizing of mortal minds.

  7. I’m a practicing Mormon, and thought Bowman’s book was an excellent introduction to Mormon history for Mormons and non-Mormons alike.

    I do agree with Bowman that there is more emphasis in the Mormon church today on orthopraxy than orthodoxy. Fortunately, for those of us Mormons who are theologically inclined, there is a robust, albeit unofficial, ongoing discussion about Mormon theology in the Blogosphere (colloquially referred to as the “Bloggernacle” after the famous Tabernacle in Salt Lake City). Some representative blogs include Times and Seasons and By Common Consent. Here is BCC’s review of Bowman’s book: http://bycommonconsent.com/2012/01/31/review-matthew-bowman-the-mormon-people/

  9. The quoted text seems to be conflating two things–academic theology and beliefs. He’s right that the LDS church does not do academic theology. There are no Mormon Thomas Aquinases.

    But this does not mean there’s no precise orthodox Mormon belief. Most of what we do in church (3 hours on Sunday and 1 hour every weekday for high school students) is teach that belief. Ask any practicing Mormon the following: Where did we come from, why are we here, and where are we going? And you’ll get the same answer. You can attend LDS Sunday School in any part of the world and will be taught a very clear belief system from the exact same manuals (translated of course), which are easily available online at http://www.lds.org/manual?lang=eng.

    A good primer for Mr. Bowman, or anyone who’s curious about Mormon beliefs, is the manual called “Gospel Principles,” which is designed for new members or non-LDS visitors to our services. You can access it here: http://www.lds.org/manual/gospel-principles?lang=eng

  10. I was raised Mormon — I do like to remind my Mormon friends about the United Order when they complain about “socialism”.

    I totally agree with the idea that it’s not a religion that emphasizes theology in any meaningful way.

    That being said there are occasionally doctrinal battles that lead to excommunication, but most of the membership is pretty unaware of those, see for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_Six

    I haven’t read Bowman’s book, but I can recommend Ostling and Ostling’s “Mormon America” — it’s a pretty even handed account from a journalistic perspective, not a historical one. http://www.amazon.com/dp/0061432954 Even my pretty conservative grandfather thought it was fair.