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making-mormonism · 1 year ago

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Some relevant paragraphs from the essays in Grant Hardy’s new Oxford Annotated BoM:

Coming at a time when many citizens of the United States were trying to imagine what their national destiny might be, the Book of Mormon taught that America, no less than the Holy Land, had a key role to play in God’s plans for humankind, particularly in the last days leading up to the Millennium. According to the new scripture, European settlers were only the most recent immigrants to be led by God to the New World, and they had a chance to avoid the tragic fates of the Jaredites and the Nephites who had preceded them. As Mormon prophesied, addressing his readers directly:

We can behold the decrees of God concerning this land, that it is a land of promise; and whatsoever nation shall possess it shall serve God, or they shall be swept off when the fulness of his wrath shall come upon them. … And this [the Book of Mormon] cometh unto you, O ye Gentiles, that ye may know the decrees of God—that ye may repent … that ye may not bring down the fulness of the wrath of God upon you as the inhabitants of the land have hitherto done. (Ether 2.9, 11)

This ominous warning of recurring destruction reflects the book’s premillennial temperament, which stood in contrast to competing ideas of American progress. The land was especially blessed, but the inhabitants could come and go in typological reenactments orchestrated by God. Thus the American experiment from Columbus to the Puritans to the Revolution (all alluded to in 1 Ne 13.10–19), which came at the expense of indigenous peoples, was not necessarily bound to succeed. The Book of Mormon evinces considerable anxiety about the precariousness of freedom, morality, and Providential favor as it illustrates the dangers of pride, rebelliousness, false religion, and corrupt government, along with class and ethnic divisions.

White Americans were meant to identify with the “Gentiles” in the Book of Mormon (as in 1 Ne 13–14), while Native Americans were to see themselves as the descendants of the Lamanites. The relationship was to be proselytizing with the assistance of European settlers to indigenous peoples rather than conquest, with Indians eventually being restored to a position of prominence. Unrepentant, disbelieving Gentiles, however, would be scourged by latter-day Lamanites (3 Ne 20–21)—a threat that seemed to envision a resurgence of the sort of tribal alliance that Tecumseh had put together before his death in 1813. Early Latter-day Saints believed that these events were imminent and would take place within the territory of the United States, though uncertainties in prophetic chronology and geography left open the possibility of later fulfillments across North and South America.

Perhaps unexpectedly, the ancient inhabitants of the New World were described more in biblical terms than in nineteenth-century Indian stereotypes. The Book of Mormon mentions in passing the “Great Spirit” (eighteen references, all in Alma 18–19; 22), mound-building (Alma 16.11), and burying weapons (not explicitly identified as hatchets or tomahawks [Alma 24]), but Lamanites are never described as red men, and there are no references to wigwams, moccasins, blankets, feathers, or canoes, all of which appear in the “Book of Pukei” (an 1830 parody of the Book of Mormon), Oliver Cowdery’s 1831 address to the Delaware Indians, and an 1835 LDS hymn. Nephite relations with the Lamanites roughly paralleled those of white settlers to Native Americans in scenes of missionizing and warfare, but the ethnic boundaries were more porous in the Book of Mormon, with Nephites becoming Lamanites and vice versa, and a surprising reversal of spiritual roles in the generation before Jesus’s visitation. In the Mormon scripture, the Nephites were generally more civilized and blessed than the Lamanites, yet the book’s prophecies foretold a time when American Indians would enjoy divine favor as covenant Israel, while European immigrants would be guests on land that God had given to the indigenous peoples as their perpetual inheritance. That is to say, white settlers would gain salvation and a share of that inheritance only if they were adopted into the covenant that God had made with the Lamanites and their native descendants.

(p. 789–90)

For what it’s worth, I don’t necessarily agree with Hardy’s reading. I think the adoption of Gentiles into the Lamanite covenant as discussed in the BoM should be understood as a kind of trans-racial adoption, wherein Gentiles become not just part of the Kingdom of God in America alongside and underneath the Lamanites, but are made indistinguishable members of the One People Israel in America, mirroring JS’s thoughts on Gentile Christians and their not-necessarily-supersessionist relationship with Jews, but also the ways in which white settlers adopted American Indian names, imagery, children, and practices as they—especially on the Western frontier (consider someone like Davy Crockett, or any number of other settlers who “went savage,” many of whom were storied in JS’s day, or even the Mormons, who were themselves regularly targeted by Gentiles for becoming too much alike the Indians [see W. Paul Reeve’s Religion of a Different Color: Race and the Mormon Struggle for Whiteness (OUP, 2015) for more on this])—came to understand themselves as emphatically American, firmly attached to the American continent, rather than as temporarily removed Europeans.

I should also note that “and build a power independent of the US government in those regions, along "theodemocratic" lines” is a bit ahistorical/presentist here. JS’s original intent was almost certainly to redeem the whole of the American people and the US government along with them; he didn’t really turn towards his more nationalistic understanding of the Mormons as a separate covenantal people group who deserve religious autonomy within the US government until the Missouri period (1837–1841), and given his presidential election campaign in 1844 he doesn’t seem to have ever truly given up the idea in the way that Brigham Young had in the aftermath of the Martyrdom. Theodemocracy as we think of it today also wasn’t developed until much later on. While there are inklings in the BoM of a state ruled by godly judges who listen to the “voice of the people” after the abdication of Mosiah II, the book also speaks just as highly of a more traditional theocratic monarchy under Benjamin and the Mosiahs. Outside of the text, it’s not until the Missouri and Nauvoo (1841–1844) periods when JS really moves beyond more traditional notions of a theoretical kingdom of God represented on Earth by a church whose members vote on church matters (found in any contemporary congregationalist or synodal church) to one where the Kingdom of God shall be made manifest on Earth as a liberal state “where God and the people hold the power to conduct the affairs of men in righteousness[, a]nd where liberty, free trade, and sailor’s rights, and the protection of life and property shall be maintained inviolate, for the benefit of ALL” [Times and Seasons 5:510 (Apr 15, 1844). Also important to note that this system, as spoken of by JS and WW Phelps here, is strongly predicated on exaltation, a concept which is theologically absent from the BoM], and only later still under the heights of Young’s presidency in the 1860s and 1870s that the term reaches our modern understanding of it, where the Church maintains significant control over large-scale civil institutions through the control and devotion of rank-and-file members. (Though, of course, we can—and probably should—read the Nauvoo period as a precedent to this, and certainly anti-Mormon activists from the surrounding area did. We should also, for what it’s worth, consider these developments within the context of American popular anti-Catholicism, which targeted the Mormons under similar anti-popery and anti-clerical messaging.)

other future plot points:

- Founderism (Protestantism + American Civic Religion with canonized myth-historic Founding Fathers) has a religious schism between the Founderist pope (based in Disneystadt) and the Founderist antipope (based in the Bass Pro Shop Pyramid).

- the State Pantheon’s prophecy regarding the next Contingent, a figure capable of embodying the Contradictions of the Material (in the same ballpark as the Innocents from Disco Elysium). Most of the cast will attempt to claim that they are the Contingent at one point or another.

- The governors of the American League’s constituent states being like “can you believe people elected a vtuber? what an embarrassment” as if they aren’t all just as embarrassing.

- whirlwind romance B-plot where Liam becomes Jacob’s newest maidboy and Sunny recruits him to discreetly keep an eye on Jacob because she doesn’t trust him not to leave confidential information lying around. When asked why she doesn’t just hire some traditional opsec agents, she replies “because that would be boring.”

- Orbital fabricators exist in space but they’re mostly an excuse to dodge earth-based labor laws.

- there’s this guy who claims to be an ancient Jaredite who has conquered a large portion of former Iowa and claims that it’s the ‘Narrow Neck of Land’ from the Book of Mormon and he’s being revenge-funded by Marcus Aurelius Bezos in order to cause headaches for Sunny. There’s an actual plot here trust me

#BoM discourse #theodemocracy #reblog #and if we go to hell we will turn the devils out of doors and make a heaven of it

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michaelgogins · 7 years ago

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Reflections on Salt Lake City 2

One of my direct maternal ancestors was a Mormon pioneer, and a plural wife. My mother’s parents were officially Mormon, but drank and otherwise ignored Church teaching; my grandfather Mick however wanted and received a Mormon funeral, at which I played Red River Valley on the flute. I have cousins who live in Delta, out in the Great Basin desert. One of my contemporary cousins was, I was told, a contemporary polygamist.

My mother Barbara was what we call a jack Mormon, somebody of Mormon background who is no longer a practicing or even a believing Mormon. My father Laird, of Lutheran background but filled with his own personal idiosyncratic religious views (“I’m going to rewrite the Bible”), and later a practicing Unitarian, constantly poked fun at and belittled Mormonism. After divorcing Laird, Barbara went on to become a disciple of John-Roger Hinkins, an ex-Mormon guru of New Age views.

In reflecting on the history of Utah, I see that the Mormon settlers put up an armed resistance to the United States federal government for about a year. Then Millard Fillmore appointed Brigham Young Governor of the Territory of Utah. Other church leaders were also appointed to political offices in the Territory, thus subverting, to a considerable extent, the separation of church and state ordained by the United States Constitution. Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon religion, called this design for government “theodemocracy.”

As it happens, there is a strand in contemporary conservatism, informed by variant views in Evangelical Protestant and even conservative Catholic teaching, known today by scholars as “Dominionism” or “theonomy,” that closely mirrors Joseph Smith’s theodemocracy. It is notable that Mormons used to hold racial views related to those of Kinism, a contemporary ethno-nationalistic form of Christianity.

The United States should take notice that about a quarter of its population is potentially theocratic and inclined towards a segregated society. Although many Evangelicals are not consciously Dominionists, those who assert that the United States was once, or should become, a Christian society are implicitly Dominionist. It is of course simply not true that the society created by the American Revolution was an explicitly Christian society. It was an Enlightenment society with a clear separation between church and state.

There is a huge divide in Utah between the educated classes on the Wasatch Front, who are either middle of the road, liberal, or even progressive, and the people in the rest of Utah, who are overwhelmingly Republican. The former view the landscape of Utah as a superb playground for hiking, biking, skiing, and so on; the latter also like the outdoors but also view the landscape as a harsh environment that must be exploited.

During my lifetime Salt Lake City has changed from a modest city of 200,000 to a big city of 2,250,000 extending for 150 miles along the Wasatch Front. Most of the place is now a strange kind of urbanized suburb, filled with new houses or rows of townhouses and giant shopping centers, the ultimate “strip.” Interstate 15 ties the Wasatch Front together and reinforces the feeling of the “strip,” but rising above the freeway and the chain stores are the Wasatch Mountains, relatively protected and pristine, where deer, mountain goats, and even bears thrive.

The people of Utah have never overcome their contradictions, and similar contradictions among the American population are driving wedges into the cracks in our Constitution.

In spite of the tremendous growth along the Wasatch Front, the hundreds of campers up on the high Wasatch Plateau, and the grotesque development of Park City, the center of Salt Lake City retains much of its character, and so does the wilderness not that far from the crowded strip along the Wasatch Front. What is different is that “strip” along I-15. That is the ominous sign of overpopulation and heedless development. Another ominous sign is dedicated effort of many Utah politicians to regain control of much of the 70% of Utah that is owned by the federal government. They did not seem to understand or care that the main value of Utah to the world is its easily accessible wildness.

This view to the West, across the stark desert south of the Great Salt Lake and Antelope Island, always represented freedom to me: leaving Salt Lake City for larger places, especially Los Angeles, where I did eventually live.

The Utah State Capitol at twilight. Tomorrow, Monday July 24, is Pioneer day, with fireworks and parades to celebrate the conquest (they don’t call it that) of Utah by the Mormons.

Modern homes of the upper-middle and upper classes, on the heights above the Capitol, with stunning views. For several years, my father, Dorene, and her children lived in one of these houses, where I stayed when I visited from Los Angeles.

The Wasatch Mountains at sunset: Mt. Olympus, Twin Peaks Broad Fork, and Thunder Mountain.

This chapel follows the design, and incorporates some parts, from a Mormon pioneer church. Note the pentagram in the window, not usually a Christian symbol. Indeed, theologians in other denominations do not usually consider Mormonism to be a form of Christianity. The Mormons, however, do consider themselves to be Christians.

I have not studied Mormon teaching in detail, but the basic idea is that ultimate reality is a valorization of family life. God has a Mrs. God, God used to be less than God, and some of us may, in the afterlife, become as Gods. Somehow or other the Christian concept of redemption by Jesus’ sacrifice fits into this. I am certain that the development of these thoughts is much more sophisticated than I have presented it.

The state symbol, a beehive representing Industry, bears truth. The population of Utah has indeed worked hard and fruitfully. Before my time Utah farmer Philo T. Farnsworth invented television, and tried to invent fusion power. Utah in my childhood was the location of Hercules and Thiokol who manufactured rocket engines, Caterpillar who manufactured earth-moving equipment, and Sperry Rand who manufactured computers. The University of Utah invented 3-D computer graphics and the artificial heart. Utah today continues to be a home to new technology.

This is the Meditation Chapel in Memory Grove, viewed from Capital Hill. Yet another structure that appears in my dreams. Usually it was locked, but once I was able to go inside.

On the sidewalk a few yards from where I am staying on Capitol Hill, a cottontail rabbit, no doubt eating apricots that have fallen from the tree. When I was a boy and an adolescent living on the Avenues or on Capitol hill, I could walk just a few hundred yards up into the foothills and see rabbits, owls, chukar partridges, and deer. I once walked unknowing within a few feet of a resting doe, which startled me by explosively leaping away. This rabbit probably indicates that those other creatures still live in the foothills.

#utah #the west #photography #theocracy

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