The Power of Godliness

Abstract

The Power of Godliness explores Mormon liturgical history to elucidate Mormon cosmology and lived religion. Mormons use rituals, patterns of worship, and conceptions of priesthood to order their lives and the universe. What Mormons have meant by “priesthood” has evolved over time and in relation to ecclesiology, authority, gender, and race. For much of the nineteenth century, Mormons conceptualized their family relationships formalized through sealing rituals over their temple altars, as a priesthood and materialized heaven. This heavenly structure was eternal, and consequently church leaders struggled to fairly manage its construction. Ultimately, church leaders changed their emphasis from a gender-inclusive priesthood of heaven to a priesthood on earth that is discursively male. Baby blessings demonstrate this shift: from serving as an important delimiter of communal salvation among Mormons in the faith’s earliest years, they grew into an annunciation of the heaven created in temples and then became an important public demonstration of a priestly fatherhood. Mormon authority is further explored in the analysis of female ritual healing and in association with the creation of formal “ordinances” of the church. Last, Christian folk practice that has often been denigrated as “magic,” such as the use of seer stones, among Mormons is contextualized as part of a transatlantic exchange of ideas and peoples. Mormons integrated folk practitioners who believed in an open heaven by channeling their impulses through the formal liturgy of the church and organizing them through the priesthood bureaucracy.