Despite its more playful tone and approach, this became one Berlin’s most popular works–ironic, given the breadth, depth, and sophistication of a long and prolific scholarly career. He would later admit, “I never meant it very seriously. I meant it as a kind of enjoyable intellectual game, but it was taken seriously.” But he also added this important point: “every classification throws light on something.”[2] Indeed.

As Berlin took license in expanding Archilochus’s statement, it is fun to expand Berlin’s categorizational schemes of great writers and use it on much more mundane historians. Speaking of American history, with which I am most familiar, you can see most historians break down into these types of divisions. Gordon Wood, who always writes on the cultural and intellectual shifts surrounding the revolutionary period, is a classic hedgehog, and very willingly admits as much.[3] Other historians, on the other hand, bounce around to different topics in order to explore various themes of the American experience. For instance, my advisor has written on several diverse topics: while focusing on southern history, he has explored the categorization of the “South” in American historiography, Southern belles in antebellum America, southern thought and culture through the Civil War, and has recently even broadened his focus to write excellent materials on the John Adams family, twentieth century public historians, and now a history of American intellectual life since the seventeenth century. Some other historians make the process more tricky. At first glance, someone like Sean Wilentz—who has written on democratic practice in early New York, the religious figure Matthias in antebellum America, the history of democracy from Revolution to Civil War, US politics since Watergate, and now Bob Dylan—may seem classic fox, but his underlying interest in how democracy interacts with public and religious life make a consistent theme through all his works, making him more like a hedgehog.

Indeed, it seems like in today’s historical world, there has been a blending of the fox and hedgehog approach. The first thing most graduate students learn when they arrive in their PhD programs is to learn what “questions” interest them the most, and then allow those questions to drive your research. This can allow you to even jump different chronological periods because you are just exploring how your “pet” tension plays out in different contexts. Recently, David Farber, professor at University of Temple and well-respected historian of twentieth century America, visited Cambridge and nailed this principle into our heads. It is through fastening onto an organizational theme, he argued, that will make you connect with other department faculty members (thus getting a job and tenure) and reach a broader audience (thus making your work more relevant). It is also through this type of approach that you can reach larger conclusions and address the bigger picture. This approach allows someone like me, who focuses on the first few decades after the American Revolution, to discuss my work with someone like Farber, who focuses on the late twentieth-century, because we are both interested in how “the people” and “democracy” clash together on the popular level.

So what about Mormon history? I think it’s safe to say that we have prime examples of both approaches. However, when I thought about it more I realized that we have more of one than the other, and that this difference “throws light” on the practice, as Berlin would put it.

On the one hand, we do have some hedgehog-like elements found in those who trace a narrow topic or theme. There are historians like B. Carmen Hardy on polygamy, Alex Baugh on Missouri Mormonism, and others I’m sure I’m overlooking who have specific research parameters. But I think we have lots and lots of foxes. It is not rare to see a historian jump from polygamy to the Word of Wisdom, or from twentieth century conservatism back to the western migration of 1846. Most of these movements in topics or periods have little in common other than they include Mormonism. Perhaps this is due to the largue influence of amateur history, for a general person interested in Mormonism, especially if they are Mormons, don’t feel bound to stick with one topic too long. Or perhaps this is also due to the fact that most people who examine LDS history are from that tradition themselves, and thus all aspects of their church’s past seem equally fascinating and important. Or third, perhaps this is due to a presentist perspective of the LDS past that still lingers within Mormon studies, in which it doesn’t seem odd to believe it easy to jump from 1840s Illinois to 1980s Utah, because it is all part of the same tradition and therefore isn’t much different. It is likely a combination of all of these, in varying degrees.

But I think there is another reason this is the case, and perhaps even more dominant. This struck me a couple years ago while reading through Reid Neilson‘s helpful edited collection Global Mormonism in the Twenty-First Century. While I was thrilled to see more treatment of the international church, I was somewhat surprised at the presumed audience Neilson was speaking to in his introduction titled “A Recommisioning of Latter-day Saint Historians.”[4] While I agree that the field of Mormon history needs “to refocus their scholarly gaze from Palmyra, Kirtland, Nauvoo, and Salt Lake City to Tokyo, Santiago, Warsaw, Johannesburg, and Nairobi,” I find it interesting that we expect historians who do “American” Mormon history to change their geographic field of study merely because it shares the “Mormon” subject; the hypothetical group of historians that Neilson is attempting to “recommission” are people willing and prepared to move through historic time and space, with the only anchor being the Mormon religion. I need to emphasize, though, that there is nothing wrong with this approach in itself; a lot of work done by people who cover vastly different geographies, chronologies, or topics do so in exceptional ways, Neilson among them.

But I think this points to—the ”every classification throws light on something” part of this post—the fact that most historians who do work on Mormonism remain, well, “Mormon historians” who look at American history, religious studies, international issues, or gender tensions, as opposed to “American historians,” “religious studies scholars,” “international experts,” or “gender studies specialists” who work on Mormonism. We have lots of “foxes” in Mormon history because when looking for a new project, most historians look for a hole that is present within the LDS tradition, no matter the time and place, and seek to fill it.

It seems the next step in Mormon history (the “Post-New Mormon History,” the “New-New Mormon History,” etc.) is to include more “hedgehog” work that explores central tensions and issues not just in Mormonism, but outside fields. So, besides merely asking what needs more study within the Mormon tradition (which will always remain important and worthwhile), we will also need to ask what “single, universal, organizing principle[s]” the outside academic community is looking for, and address them with the Mormon tradition.

So, I guess I’m trying to say is we need more general hedgehogs to go along with our parochial foxes.

_____________________________

[1] Isaiah Berlin, The Hedge and the Fox: An Essay on Tolstoy’s View of History (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1953), 1-2.

[2] Quoted in Ramin Jahanbegloo, Conversations with Isaiah Berlin: Recollections of an Historian of Ideas (London: Phoenix Press, 2000), 188.

[3] Gordon S. Wood, The Idea of America: Reflections on the Birth of the United States (New York: The Penguin Press, 2011), 1-3. It should be noted that it was reading Idea of America this morning that inspired this post.

[4] Reid L. Neilson, “Introduction: A Recommisioning of Latter-day Saint Historians,” in Neilson, ed., Global Mormonism in the Twenty-First Century (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center at Brigham Young University, 2008), found here.

The conference schedule is available at https://sites.google.com/site/mormonconceptionsofapostasy/.

The notion of an apostasy from the primitive gospel and the original church has been a key animating feature in Mormonism since its inception and in other “religions of the book.” Apostasy as a concept, however, has proven to be tremendously fluid, with individual, institutional, communal, and historical meanings and applications all proliferating in religious thought throughout the ages. Fifteen faithful Mormon scholars from many scholarly backgrounds and methodologies, will explore the concept of apostasy in various historical and religious contexts as we consider how to narrate apostasy in ways that remain historically authentic and cohere with Mormon theology. Proceedings will be published by Greg Kofford Press in the series Perspectives on Mormon Theology.

This conference is organized by Miranda Wilcox, assistant professor of English at Brigham Young University, with financial assistance from an Eliza R. Snow Faculty Grant.

Mormonism, like Methodism and Catholicism, was a transnational movement from the beginning. Mormons were no more or less “American,” and no more or less “western.”  Indeed, the church was international almost from its beginnings, and at times members abroad outnumbered the members in the U.S.

Yes, yes, yes. I don’t think this can be emphasized enough and regrettably early Mormonism’s transnational history has been woefully understudied (though a handful of insightful studies on the subject exist). My own sense is that closer attention to British converts, their interaction with missionaries from America, subsequent conversions, and migrations to North America will yield a more diverse portrait of early Mormonism, one we don’t fully understand quite yet.

Nonetheless, one might still persist, something important happened in the American West.  Brigham Young and subsequent LDS leaders shaped a Great Basin Zion that was, for several decades, a theocratic kingdom unto itself.  Their patterns of living, economic systems, and family arrangements were unique and distinctively adapted to the material environment of the West.  They achieved a remarkable level of interdependence and collective independence in their new home.

While this narrative of origins is true, it also reflects the romanticized and hopeful account of LDS believers, and avoids the splintering of the Mormon movement that gave rise to alternate, much less “western” tales of development.  One-third of the Mormons living in the vicinity of Nauvoo at the time of Joseph Smith, Jr.’s murder in 1844 did not venture to the far west.  They set up shop in Iowa, in Michigan, in Ohio, and eventually even Texas.  Some went home to Pennsylvania or New York, and reorganized there.  Many Mormons considered themselves diasporic, waiting for the day when a return to the Zion of Missouri was possible.  It’s not that the Utah story is not true; it just isn’t the whole story, and it is a tale told by the larger, ultimately more successful branch of the family tree.

Others have stated the same before, and the John Whitmer Historical Association’s annual conferences and publications—continues to attract a number of insightful studies on “midwestern Mormons” and “prairie Saints,” but it bears repeating again and again. In a survey of the state of American religious historiography published in JAAR a couple of years ago (highlighted here) Paul Harvey and Kevin Schultz conclude with the following reflection on denominational studies:

What is missing from the recent historiography? There is plenty but here we will mention only a few omissions and underdeveloped areas worthy of future invetigation. … We need more books to explain, for example, the lineage of Presbyterianism, or the divisions within Methodism. … Only when these kinds of studies emerge will it be possible to envision a history of what people call “Maineline American Protestantism.” What is that? Is it a movement? A collection of denominations?

I would argue similarly that in order to fully understand Mormonism and what it is—a new world religion? a radical Protestant sect? something else altogether?—we need to pay closer attention to its historical lineage and the divisions within Mormonism (or Latter Day Saintism, if you prefer). And as Maffly-Kipp points out in her blog post, such an approach also forces us to ask important questions about Mormonism’s regional and religious identities:

Rather than taking an up or down vote (western or not?  American or not?), perhaps we can turn the questions around.  What is at stake for various parties (LDS, non-LDS, scholars of religion, scholars of the West, etc.) in using the label “western”?  What does it stand in for?  Why does it persist in the face of countervailing trends or descriptions?

I’ve designed the course as if it were simply another world religion course. In fact, my driving method of organization has been to think how I would teach a course on Islam. I’ve done this for a couple of reasons. I do think that Islam and Mormonism have many similarities (in the monotheistic tradition, prophet-founder, new scripture, etc.) Also, I find this a very different class to teach than I’ve ever taught before. I’ve been a TA at BYU and Yale, taught institute several times, been a Sunday school teacher, served a mission, for the past few years have been teaching first-year writing at a local community college, and did teach an introductory religion class at Georgetown last semester. Clearly I’ve been around the block as far as teaching. But to me, this is a very different kind of class, hence my patterning it after a hypothetical class about a faith that is not my own, but is very similar. There are a few variables that make it a different kind of class than I have taught before.

First, I’m teaching my own tradition, but not preaching to the choir. The purpose of institute, or seminary, or Sunday school, is not solely to learn. It’s to build faith, to help people come to their own knowledge of the gospel. Though I think, say, institute can be more “academic,” if its purpose becomes merely academic, then something crucial has been lost. I think primarily the purpose of all of these classes is more devotional than merely for learning. This course at Georgetown is obviously very different. How to teach your own faith tradition without proselytizing or imposing your beliefs on the students? It’s a dilemma that thousands of teachers of religion wrestle with, but is a new challenge to me personally.

Second, because I’m so steeped in Mormonism, it will be difficult to translate. Usually I’m pretty good in switching vocabulary in my conversations. If I’m with my fellow PhD students from CUA, I’ll use “sacraments” instead of “ordinances,” or “Eucharist” instead of “the sacrament.” Things like that. But to maintain such a self-awareness for every class period is going to be impossible. As an active, temple-recommend holding Latter-day Saint, I’m very liable to drop in terms like “active,” “temple-recommend holding” and “Latter-day Saint” without properly explaining them.

Third, I find I may be caught between a rock and a hard place with regard to how to approach the course. Some members of the church will be dismayed that I am using Richard Bushman’s Rough Stone Rolling as a textbook, because they think that it focuses on and emphasizes the wrong aspects of Joseph Smith’s life. Yet other people will be dismayed because I actually believe that Joseph saw God and Jesus in the sacred grove in the spring of 1820, and that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the “only true and living church” (D&C 1:30,), which of course makes me a “gullible dupe,” at least in their eyes. They would ask if such a person can possibly be objective? I suppose in some ways their question is the flip side of point one, wherein I ask myself if I can be objective. (My answer is “yes,” I think I can be, if you were wondering.)

In crafting this course I’ve solicited various opinions and thoughts, whether from genius Yale LDS undergrads, fellow LDS graduate students in religion, my father (a former mission president), other LDS scholars, and even the local institute director (a former colonel in the Air Force chaplain reserves). But ultimately, of course, the class is mine. I think with what I have planned, it will go well.

So, as I embark on teaching this new and interesting class, I invite you all to follow along. My next post will be a basic overview of what the course will be like, and then I’ll begin reporting on how it actually goes over in class itself.

Welcome aboard!

What is Christian depends on one’s point of view.  Medieval Christianity was very different from Protestantism.  As I’ve noted around here a few times, Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England 1400-1580 presents a very different picture of traditional Christianity than do Protestants.

So what is “traditional/historical” Christianity?  As Karen Jolley, a scholar who focusses on Anglo-Saxon Christianity, asserts, “Because of the amorphous nature of Christian practice as it changed through time, it is hard to isolate what Christianity is or was….  Theology seeks a timeless definition, a set of standard by which to measure what is Christian and what is not ….  But from a historical standpoint, this is impossible” [1].

Theologians will debate and discuss what they believe proper Christian belief and practice is, as they have always done.  But this is not the same a describing what Christian practice actually was historically.  In the words of Norman Tanner, “Christianity, however, has never existed in a ‘pure’ form except in the person of Jesus Christ….  It does not exist in the abstract, rather in individuals and particular historical situations”  [2].

The truth is, you can find even the most radical Mormon ideas and practices throughout the history of Christianity.  Such doctrines were usually seen as unorthodox and often suppressed, but they still existed in “historical/traditional” Christian practice and belief.  Pre-existence, deification, heavenly marriage, marital experimentation, utopianism, continuing revelation, heavenly mother, etc. all have a history within Christian practice.

Kocku von Stuckrad argues in his brilliant new book Locations of Knowledge in Medieval and Early Modern Europe:  Esoteric Discourse and Western Identities, that there have always been multiple Christianities. ”It is not that Christian Europe never existed; instead, Christianity in Europe has always been diverse and comprised many forms of beliefs and practices that populated the minds of believers” [3]. Von Stuckrad traces the “esoteric” components of Western Christianity (where one finds most the Mormon-looking ideas mentioned above) which are often overlooked or suppressed in narratives of Christian history.

 Von Stuckrad goes so far as to call the word tradition “a polemical term.”  This is because traditions are constructed by those in power to differentiate between what they see as legitimate and illegitimate.  ”It is not a candidate for an analytical term in the study of religion.  Although there are identifiable continuities in the history of religions, these continuities do not necessarily constitute tradition.  Instead, tradition is the evocation and application, if not the invention, of a set of continuities for certain identifiable purposes” [4].  

Thus theologians will seek to define and claim “traditional” Christianity in opposition to that Christianities they do not like.  This is quite natural (Mormons do it too, there’s nothing wrong with it).  But we ought to be aware, as von Stuckard warns, of the theological premises behind such actions and the difference between history and theology.  “Master narratives, even if they are based on historically dubious material, are capable of creating structures of power and society realities” [5].

At the first European Mormon Studies Association meeting, someone asked Douglas Davies if Mormonism was Christian, to which he responded, “Well, yeah, because to scholars, Christians are simple people who say they are Christians.”  I agree, which makes my medieval advisors’ thesis suggestion not really feasible since there’s nothing really to defend.  Of course practitioners have always debated how to define Christianity, and Mormonism (as well as the various strains on which it drew) has been very controversial.  Why that is is a topic worth exploring.

___________

[1] Karen Louise Jolley, “Magic, Miracle, and Popular Practice in the Early Medieval West: Anglo-Saxon England,” in Religion, Science, and Magic: In Concert and Conflict, ed. Jacob Neusner et. al (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 179.

[2] Norman Tanner, The Ages of Faith: Popular Religion in Late Medieval England and Western Europe (London: I. B. Tauris, 2009), 195.

[3] Kocku von Stuckrad, Locations of Knowledge in Medieval and Early Modern Europe: Esoteric Discourse and Western Identities (Leiden: Brill, 2010) 14.

[4] Ibid., 42.

[5] Ibid., 4.

This book made my head spin.  Coudert sets about attacking cherished ontologies and historiographical dogmas in ways I’m overwhelmingly in agreement with, but the book still left me dizzy.  Coudert comes out swinging and doesn’t let up.   Most brilliant is the way Coudert blends these categories with each other and the social history of the periods she covers.

After citing various critics who have questioned the reality of religion, magic, and science as ontological categories,

The response to such a wholesale rejection of the topics of this book cannot be in the same vein as the famous remark made by Justice Potter when called upon to define pornography, ‘I know it when I see it.’  Many of us may think we know religion, magic, and science when we see them, but the truth is we don’t, and this book is about why we don’t and how what we think we know about all three came into existence during the early modern period itself.  Our definitions of religion, magic, and science are just that, ours, modern definitions that have a long and contested history.  Words, like ideas, beliefs, and institutions have not always been the same but change with changing circumstances.  While this seems obvious, the implications are not always understood, much less accepted (xiii).

Furthermore, Coudert notes that these categories overlapped and the separation of the categories “tell us more, however, about those who made them then the actual situation. Being ‘modern’ meant that one rejected magic as ‘primitive’ and embraced science as ‘rational’ and ‘civilized.’ It also meant that one drew a line separating the human from the non-human nature from culture, and the natural form the supernatural. The problem was and still is that most people do not really hold to these lines of separation” (xvi).

Coudert begins her story by describing the optimism of the Renaissance being snuffed out by the pessimism of the Reformation: “one of the bloodiest, most intolerant, and pessimistic periods in European history” (6). Coudert calls the era “The Age of Augustine,” “because of the harsh and unflattering view of human nature prevailing among both Protestants and Catholics.” “Augustine had originated the term ‘original sin,’” explains Coudert “and claimed that as a result of the Fall human nature was ‘wounded, hurt, damaged, destroyed. This was the view accepted by Lutherans, Calvinists, and many Catholics in the early decades of the Reformation. Not only had the Fall made it impossible for humans to act morally, but it had irreparably damaged Adam’s intelligence and ability to reason” (xxi).

In addition to the turmoil of the Reformation, the era brought a number of scientific shifts in world view, particularly Copernicus’s sun-centered universe and the discovery of the New World. “However disastrous the Fall and the expulsion from the Garden of Eden was in the minds of believing Christians, the fall from the pre-Copernican into the post-Copernican universe was even more traumatic” (8).  ”With the demise of this worldview went the framework that had allowed Europeans to understand the world, their place in it, and their purpose and identity for centuries” (7).  The universe now contained “unfathomable vastness.” There was “no longer a clear sense of ‘up’ or ‘down’ and hence no commonsensical place for heaven and hell” (9).

Numerous other developments called into questions old authorities. The discovery of the New World rearranged all sorts of categories of description for flora and fauna as well as humans. The printing press made the comparison of texts much easier, facilitating the discovery of disagreements and contradictions between texts. Rapid urbanization seemed to undermine the foundations of society.

“A new system of order was desperately needed, and in major respects it was built on the backs of women, especially witches” (80). The Reformation was the era of the great witch-hunts, and 71-92 percent of the condemned were women (64). “Between 1480 and 1700 more women were executed for this crime than for all other crimes put together” (65).  While it’s important to note that most early modern people really did believe that there were evil people (mostly women) out there doing harmful magic, “disorderly” (outspoken, unmarried, assertive) women were the overwhelming targets of such accusations.  Coudert cites Mary Douglas’s work on purity and danger and how sacrifice is used to restore purity.  “In early modern Europe witches were forced to assume the role of sacrificial scapegoats. Their elimination would restore social equilibrium and eradicate pollution” (81).

Persecution of women in the early modern are was not confined to witch-craft prosecution. The Reformation also spawned The “Godly State”: “church and secular authorities on both sides of the religious divide joined forces to establish efficient and stable bureaucratic societies grounded in an obedient, disciplined, and orthodox citizenry, whose primary allegiance was to church and state” (83).

Authorities worked to reform all levels of society, but disorderly women were a principal target. Things were particularly bad for Protestant women. “With the abolition of saints, including female ones, and the demotion of Mary to a suitably subservient position, Protestant women were deprived of female role models other than that of an obedient wife.” Coudert quotes Luther: “The woman… is like a nail driven into a wall. She sits at home … as one who has been deprived of the ability of administering those affairs that are outside and concern the state…. In this way Eve is punished.” “Catholic women could a least for a priest when things got tough at home; but for Protestant women in a very real sense the priest, pope, and king lived at home.”  Thus, Coudert concludes, “It is impossible to accept Steven Ozment’s contention that Reformation morality allowed women ‘a position of high authority [as mothers] and equal respect [to men]” (94-95).

Coudert has a number of great quotes about Protestent men hating their bodies and attempting to stamp out any vestiges of medieval fun. “A new world order had indeed been created” (109).

Yet a new light was to break forth amid the darkness of the era. Positive views of humanity began to reemerge in the lead up to the Enlightenment. Augustine’s pessimism was rejected in favor of a loving and kind God. If Adam had been damaged by the Fall, could humans regain their original condition? “As a result of these speculations and attempts to restore man to Adam’s original perfection, by the end of the seventeenth century what might be described as an ‘anthropological revolution’ had occurred: a more optimistic view of human nature emerged and along with it a positive attitude toward life and the ability of humans to change and improve their world and themselves” (xxi).

Coudert argues that alchemy provided the link between the Renaissance and Enlightenment. “Alchemists were essentially a fifth column within every Christian denomination; they carried forward the optimistic ideals of Renaissance Platonists into the age of the Enlightenment.”  Rejecting Augustine’s notion of original sin, alchemists and Christian Platonists in general believed that by diligent study and holy living, humans and the world in general could re-obtain Adam’s state before the fall (170).

Further, both the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment were founded on alchemy, argues Coudert (164). Both Isaac Newton (the founder of modern physics) and Robert Boyle (the founder of modern chemistry) were deeply immerse in alchemy and their scientific discoveries were fundamentally indebted to their alchemical studies. Fundamental to alchemy was the belief that “human beings had the intelligence and ability to improve the world. Alchemists tipped the scales in favor of art over nature and in so doing fostered the belief in progress that became the hallmark of modern science” (165). “The old idea that religion and magic, as well as esoteric thought of all kinds, had to disappear before science could emerge is quite simply wrong” (131).

The work of Roy Porter has shifted the center of the Enlightenment away from Voltaire and Paris (as Peter Gay would have it) to England and Newton and Locke.  Thus it was interesting to see that John Locke was a student a student not only of alchemy but also of kabbalah.  What are we to make of the idea that the Enlightenment and our notions of modernity were built on modes of thought that they were supposed to have rejected?

Thus Coudert demonstrates the ways religion, science, and magic had always intermingled, casting additional doubt on scholarly attempts to draw boundaries between the categories.  “The years Newton spent studying the Book of Daniel and Revelations and pouring over alchemical books and manuscripts in the laboratory he set up in Cambridge were of the utmost importance in shaping his ultimate view of the mechanics of the universe and his concept of gravity” (195).  “What becomes apparent,” Coudert concludes, “is that our categories and definitions of religion, magic, and science do not fit the way people viewed the world in the early modern West. Given the fraught history and contentious nature of the way these terms have been defined, they may not even fit the actual thinking of most people in the world today, but that is another subject” (196).

______________

Full disclosure: Dr. Coudert just recently agreed to be on my dissertation committee (Catherine Albanese dropped out).  I’m thrilled.

All my syllabi have some generalized instructions. I include some boilerplate stuff on every syllabus: use of phone and laptops in class, something about attendance and participation to the effect that just showing up is necessary but not sufficient, something about disability accommodations, and so on.

But for a course that studies religion, somehow, I feel there needs to be something more along the lines of ground rules. These were mine from my last version of the syllabus and although they’re very blunt, I’m thinking of keeping them as is (the reference to the first writing assignment is to a paper that asks for a reflection on one’s own personal religious history).

Things That Must Be Said Up Front

Religious history brings up special considerations for scholars and students, and so there are some ground rules for this course.

1) All religions are true to their believers. All religious rituals, acts, beliefs, and doctrines make sense in context. If something doesn’t make sense to you, then you need more context. Don’t think “how could they believe that?” but instead seek understanding: “Why was this believable to them?” Take statements of religious belief or disbelief at face value (but not necessarily as historical fact).

2) No religious concept should be dismissed as weird, crazy or abnormal. There is no “normal.” You can certainly have your own opinions and personal beliefs about religion, but those don’t belong in our classroom discussion.

3) Except for the first writing assignment, you will approach your scholarship as a historian, rather than as a believer or a skeptic. This is a history class, not a CCD or Sunday School class. While religious doctrines will be discussed, it is never with the intent to prove a religion right or wrong. No one may use our class as a platform for either proselytizing their faith to convert others, or debunking the faith of others to lessen their commitment. Our class is going to be made up of a variety of faiths and degrees of religious involvement which we should all respect.

What do you think? What else would you say that beginning religious history students should know, be aware of, or be cautioned against up front?

There was surprise among the researchers and advisory board (including myself), and no doubt among the General Authorities when it turned out that 77% of Mormons in America attend church every week, because it is received common knowledge among most who care about such things that the actual rate of attendance (and tithepaying &etc) is nowhere near this high.

This likely tells us not that the survey’s incorrect – though it’s sparked a new front in the building war over who owns the term “Mormon.” Rather, it tells us that people who call themselves “Mormon” attend church at pretty high rates, or say they do. And it tells us that, perhaps, Mormons who don’t go to church much might not call themselves “Mormon.” The dynamics of semi-/in-/or (sigh) less- activity are murky and fascinating, and the results of this survey seem to indicate that the inactive engaged Mormons (those who care about the church even though they don’t go) are probably vastly outnumbered by the inactive disengaged.

That said, a few interesting tidbits that David Campbell and I discussed in the conference call this morning.

Culture
+Mormons seem remarkably ambivalent about their place in America. Nearly half say that Mormons face discrimination in America. Fewer than that a third believe that Americans think Mormonism is mainstream. But more than half think America is ready for a Mormon president. Lots of aspirational Romney voters out there.

This, though, gets at something I sense running through the entire survey: Mormons are not yet ready to surrender their insularity, their sense of being a peculiar people, their powerful community. Nearly six in ten Mormons say that all or most of their friends are also Mormon. To some extent, Mormons value being different. We’ll see this again when we talk about helping the poor.

+Also, 90% of Mormons like their lives.

Politics

+77% of Mormons identify as sympathetic to the Republican party. However, on one major hot-button issue – immigration – Mormons are way more moderate than nearly every other conservative religious group.

+Additionally, Mormon conservatism is a wine of relatively recent vintage: unlike nearly every other group in America, younger Mormons identify as more conservative than older Mormons.

+Despite all this more Mormons believe that gay people face discrimination in America than who think Mormons face discrimination in America.

+75% of Mormons say they want a smaller government with fewer services, but . . .

Religion

+ 73% of Mormons said that helping the poor is essential to being a good Mormon. This is more than the number of Mormons who believe that obeying the Word of Wisdom, having Family Home Evening, or not watching R-rated movies. It’s close to the number that believe that you have to think Joseph Smith saw God. So Mormons may not be big on the welfare state, but they do believe in helping the poor. This likely reflects the Welfare Program.

+Finally, going on a mission makes you like other religions more. It’s true. Look it up.

• The big buzz this morning is the release of the Pew Forum’s new study on Mormons in America. There have been excellent commentary on the results here, here, and here (just to link to a few), as well as a cordial response from LDS PR man Michael Otterson and a supportive write-up from the LDS Newsroom. Make sure to follow the live-blogging on the Pew’s conference call with the media over at BCC. Our own Matt Bowman is on the advisory panel for the survey, and will be writing up his thoughts later.
• As highlighted in Jared’s write-up, the Church announced today that Elder Jensen will be stepping down as Church Historian in October, to be replaced by Elder Steven E. Snow. All accounts of Elder Snow thus far are glowing, but he will have some huge shoes to fill since Elder Jensen has become a hero in many people’s eyes (including my own). Make sure to go offer your appreciation to a modern-day hero on Jared’s post.
• Matt Bowman’s forthcoming The Mormon People: The Making of an American Faith (Random House) is now available on Google Books, and should be released in two weeks. It’s a phenomenal book, and is already getting rave reviews.
• The first volume of Women of Faith in the Latter Days is now available, and looks phenomenal. Ardis’s review of it made me even more excited about finally getting my hands on a copy.
• Plans are continuing to come together for MHA’s 2012 conference in Alberta, Canada. Make sure to plan early, as plane tickets can be pretty expensive. Those who wish to do the scenic tours to and from Calgary (looks like a blast) need to RSVP ASAP. Also, if you haven’t heard yet, Glenn Leonard has been elected President-Elect for the organization, which is a fitting tribute to a great historian. And finally, the Journal of Mormon History has a new online home at the Utah State University website, where all issues prior to 2009 can be downloaded. (Also, rumor has it that MHA will be launching a newly-designed and more user-friendly website sometime soon.)
• The Restoration Studies Symposium will hold its annual meeting April 13-15, 2012, in Independence, Missouri. The deadline for paper submissions is January 31, 2012. Those wishing to submit papers, with the theme “American Restorationism,” must include a “300-word abstract of your proposal with a 100-word biographical introduction” to rssapril2012 AT yahoo DOT com.

I don’t know a lot about Elder Snow, but I do know that Elder Jensen will be sorely missed. He has been a tremendous advocate for Church History and those who have had even the most passing personal contact with him know him to be a genuine gem of a person.

Back when I was an undergraduate and still very unsure about the course my life would take (I’m a little more sure now, but only a little), through an interesting series of events I was given the opportunity to have lunch with Elder Jensen and Rick Turley in Elder Jensen’s office. Their candor and compassion as well as the wisdom they shared on that occasion gave me some much needed encouragement and helped me move forward. Somewhere in there Elder Jensen made the remark that Rick Turley would be there for a while but he “was just passing through.” Now, that reality is at hand.

Please join me in expressing a heartfelt thank you to Elder Jensen for all of his labors and a hearty welcome to Elder Snow.