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Why Nosotros're Afraid of Mormons
BU-trained scholar says uninformed prejudice abounds
Past their underwear ye shall know them.
A recent The states Today story highlights how many Americans are "uninformed" about, and "wary" of, Mormonism, put off by such practices as the wearing of blest undergarments as the sign of full fellowship in the church building. And even though the Church building of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints renounced polygamy in the 1890s (with the exception of a militant sliver), some non-Mormons suspect that "fundamentalist groups were somehow hiding in plain sight within the fold of the church," says scholar Cristine Hutchison-Jones (GRS'11).
In fact, she says, "no one has been more aggressive nigh prosecuting polygamists in this country in the 20th and 21st century than Mormons." As for that underwear matter, she notes that other religions invest certain garb with sacred significance. Facts aside, Mitt Romney's Mormonism has alarmed some bourgeois Christian voters pondering his run for president.
Hutchison-Jones, a Harvard University administrator, is not Mormon, but an interest in religious intolerance led her to write her BU doctoral dissertation on "Reviling and Revering the Mormons: Defining American Values, 1890-2008." (Those years marked the official Mormon abandonment of polygamy and Hand Romney's first run for president, respectively.) She began with the assumption that this would exist another American story of a minority'south absorption into, and credence by, the mainstream culture. To her surprise, she learned that Mormonism remains "actually problematic for a lot of people. The negative images of Mormons far outlasted my expectations." If voters' self-clarification tin can exist trusted, things may not be so grim. A Pew Forum poll in July found 81 percent saying that they were comfortable with, or indifferent to, Romney's faith.
BU Today spoke with Hutchison-Jones about what prejudice against Mormons says about u.s.a. and the prospects for Romney'south 2nd bid for the White Business firm.
BU Today: What practice Americans in 2012 think of Mormons, and how much of what they recollect is accurate?
Hutchison-Jones: I call back a lot of what Americans recall they know about Mormonism is incorrect. We think of Sis Wives and Big Love [TV shows about polygamous apostate Mormons]. There'south been a strong theme in the last 30 years in popular representations of Mormons of Mormon violence confronting non-Mormons, pioneer violence. There was a motion picture in 2007 called September Dawn, nearly the Mountain Meadows massacre in 1857 [the slaughter of a wagon train past Mormon militia]. It is very historically inaccurate. I accept gotten calls from friends and family who grab information technology on HBO and say, "I learned so much from that movie."
Why do negative images of Mormons linger?
At that place are a couple of reasons. You lot had the rise of evangelical Christianity in politics, and for bourgeois Protestant Christians, Mormons are not Christians; Mormons are a cult. And then yous had an increase in the amount of anti-Mormon propaganda coming out of religious communities.
The other people who are uncomfortable with Mormons are socially and politically liberal Americans. Polls enquire, would you vote for a Mormon presidential candidate? People who self-place as liberal accept a tendency to say no. There's a tendency to see Mormons as a hegemony, every bit if they were en masse in thrall to church building leadership. The Moral Majority reached out to Mormons, and because of that clan, liberals tend to see Mormons as off-limits. I had to become over some of that myself. That was the expectation I came into my research with. I headed off to the Mormon History Association national conference, and the group of scholars there are by and large Mormon, and they are not in whatsoever kind of political lockstep. There's a wide diverseness of stance.
With the Moral Bulk, information technology seems Mormons were crawling into bed politically with people who had a prejudice against them.
It's true. In the 1980s, the New York Times didn't know what to do with Orrin Hatch, who rode into the Senate as a conservative Republican Mormon. Then conservative Republicans proposed a school prayer subpoena to the Constitution. He said, "Absolutely not. I am part of a minority religion that has been abused, and I am not going to exist party to telling anyone how they should or should not pray." Hatch famously went on to piece of work with Ted Kennedy for federally funded children'south health care. Mormons accept a very strong sense of the common good.
The guys who did South Park did Book of Mormon on Broadway.
I would argue, vulgarity aside, that they take i of the most sympathetic and understanding perspectives on Mormons of contemporary representations. They never talk about polygamy, because they see it equally ancient history, which it is.
If there is so much misperception, do universities need to offer more course work on Mormonism?
Whatever religion-in-the-United States form that'due south taught in the section of faith is going to encompass it. How well it's covered, that'due south some other question. Mormonism usually gets a mean solar day. Whether or not you can justify an entire course, because they are less than ii percent of the U.S. population, might be a lilliputian difficult. On the other hand, Jews are an extremely minor minority, and every university worth its salt has some kind of Judaic studies. And Mormonism is growing by leaps and bounds. The last time I saw a syllabus for [College of Arts & Sciences religion professor] Steve Prothero's undergraduate form on religion in the United States, it included January Shipps' book on Mormonism. It isn't but a i-day passing thing. It's reaching a point where it probably deserves some give-and-take in the context of earth religion classes.
What do Americans' views of Mormonism say nearly our ethics and values?
It boils downwardly to our sense of ourselves every bit a nation in which church building and state are separate. I would fence that Americans aren't separating all organized religion from all politics. We're just not comfy with groups that don't fit into a more often than not moderate, Protestant mold. I've got a colleague who did his PhD on images of bourgeois Christians equally villains in Hollywood cinema. Y'all can almost certainly tell in any crime drama that if somebody quotes the Bible, you're afterwards going to find out that they're a psychopathic killer.
And we're nervous about groups who openly say the church should be involved in our politics, whatever that church might be for that group. And Mormons article of clothing their religion on their sleeve. The average Mormon spends something similar twenty hours per week in activities at their local congregation. It's really the core and center of their community, and they are absolutely open that their religion informs their social and political values. And Americans don't like that.
Do y'all think Romney might lose the election because of his religion?
I think if Romney loses, it'due south going to be for a diversity of reasons. And yeah, Mormonism may exist problematic for him going frontwards. Conservative voters might exist a trivial less enthusiastic nearly getting out the vote considering they're nervous that he'south a Mormon, and they're the ones he needs. And you may discover independents who find his politics appealing, but some of them might be put off by the association with Mormonism and the business organization that Mormons are all conservatives.
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Source: https://www.bu.edu/articles/2012/afraid-of-mormons/