“A Hall of Mirrors”: Two Recent Works in Mormon Studies

Abstract

A Hall of Mirrors: Two Recent Works in Mormon Studies BRIGHAM YOUNG: Pioneer Prophet. By John G. Turner. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Uni- versity Press. 2012.A PECULIAR PEOPLE: Anti- Mormonism and Making of Religion in Nineteenth-Century America. By J. Spencer Fluhman. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. 2012.In his preface to Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet , John Turner argues that the field of Mormon history is a hall of mirrors, full of distorted and incomplete reflections of nearly any event (viii). Turner's metaphor points to mass of textual evidence and competing claims found in short history of Latter-day Saints (LDS). As do most historians, Mormon Studies scholars must sift through contradictory accounts that change over time; added to that, documents are often chock-full of angels, golden tablets, and divine revelations. And Mormon Studies scholars are not often left wanting for documentation. After all, it was on April 6, 1830, at first meeting that organized new church, that Joseph Smith, Jr., presented a revelation that instructed church members that [t]here shall be a record kept among you (Doctrine and Covenants 21:1). Contribut- ing to hall-of-mirrors effect is fact that scholars of Mormonism have not always had access to documents that they need to help clarify story, documents that are housed in church's archives. New scholarship in field of Mormon Studies has to confront hall of mirrors with a careful historical eye and a strong theoretical approach, as it attempts to clarify workings of this relatively new religious movement.Turner's Brigham Young and J. Spencer Fluhman's A Peculiar People: Anti-Mormonism and Making of Religion in Nineteenth-Century America represent this new scholarship in field of Mormon Studies. In researching their books, authors enjoyed greater access to documentation than scholars in past. As part of growing field of Mormon Studies, these two books avoid parochialism and polemicism that has been endemic to Mormon his- tory (Turner, viii). Instead, they seek to contextualize Mormonism within broader narratives of American history in order to better understand both histories. Using different approaches, both texts explore dialectic of identity formation within and outside Mormon community. Mormon identity was forged and changed over time in conversation with outsiders. Both Turner and Fluhman take that identity formation seriously and explore it through lenses of critical race and gender studies, providing us with narratives that help us better understand role of Mormonism in American history.Even though Latter-day Saints make up only two percent of population of United States, movement has achieved an outsized cultural relevance (2). Debates about Mormonism-on whether or not it is a Christian tradition, on whether it can produce a trusted president of United States, on its revela- tion that prohibits hot drinks, alcohol, and tobacco-continue today, and both Turner and Fluhman investigate role of history-telling in those debates. In his introduction, Fluhman examines differences between discussions about Mormon history within LDS community and within academy. Within LDS community, Joseph Smith's life, the emergence of Book of Mor- mon, and persecution of early Mormons [and] heroism of western trek begin narrative of Mormon tradition. Then that narrative skips to late twentieth-century international growth, leaving gaps in chronology that contain elements that fit awkwardly with Mormons' current emphasis on public relations (6). Those gaps would include church's culture in state of Utah and formation of reorganized church that gathered around Joseph Smith's son in Missouri. In work that runs counter to LDS narrative, academic historians have had an ongoing fascination with Mormon cultural deviance-particularly its embrace of polygamy and theocracy-that upsets strategic forgetting within LDS community but has its own bias. …