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Why We're Afraid of Mormons

BU-trained scholar says uninformed prejudice abounds

Why is this man smiling? Anti-Mormon prejudice could hobble Mitt Romney's campaign, a BU-trained scholar warns. Photo by Austen Hufford

By their underwear ye shall know them.

A contempo Usa Today story highlights how many Americans are "uninformed" about, and "wary" of, Mormonism, put off by such practices as the wearing of blessed undergarments as the sign of total fellowship in the church. And even though the Church 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 inside the fold of the church," says scholar Cristine Hutchison-Jones (GRS'xi).

In fact, she says, "no i has been more aggressive about prosecuting polygamists in this land in the 20th and 21st century than Mormons." Equally for that underwear affair, 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 Academy 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 Mitt Romney's kickoff run for president, respectively.) She began with the supposition that this would exist another American story of a minority's assimilation into, and acceptance by, the mainstream culture. To her surprise, she learned that Mormonism remains "really problematic for a lot of people. The negative images of Mormons far outlasted my expectations." If voters' cocky-clarification can exist trusted, things may non be and so grim. A Pew Forum poll in July establish 81 pct saying that they were comfortable with, or indifferent to, Romney'southward faith.

BU Today spoke with Hutchison-Jones almost what prejudice against Mormons says about us and the prospects for Romney's second bid for the White Business firm.

BU Today: What do Americans in 2012 think of Mormons, and how much of what they think is accurate?

Hutchison-Jones: I think a lot of what Americans call back they know about Mormonism is wrong. Nosotros recall of Sister Wives and Big Love [Idiot box shows about polygamous backslider Mormons]. In that location'south been a strong theme in the last 30 years in popular representations of Mormons of Mormon violence against non-Mormons, pioneer violence. There was a film in 2007 called September Dawn, about the Mountain Meadows massacre in 1857 [the slaughter of a wagon train by Mormon militia]. It is very historically inaccurate. I have gotten calls from friends and family unit who take hold of it on HBO and say, "I learned so much from that flick."

Why do negative images of Mormons linger?

At that place are a couple of reasons. You had the rise of evangelical Christianity in politics, and for bourgeois Protestant Christians, Mormons are non Christians; Mormons are a cult. So you had an increase in the corporeality of anti-Mormon propaganda coming out of religious communities.

The other people who are uncomfortable with Mormons are socially and politically liberal Americans. Polls ask, would you vote for a Mormon presidential candidate? People who self-identify every bit liberal have a tendency to say no. In that location's a tendency to come across Mormons as a hegemony, as if they were en masse in thrall to church leadership. The Moral Majority reached out to Mormons, and because of that association, liberals tend to encounter Mormons as off-limits. I had to get over some of that myself. That was the expectation I came into my research with. I headed off to the Mormon History Association national briefing, and the group of scholars in that location are past and big Mormon, and they are not in any kind of political lockstep. In that location's a wide diversity of stance.

With the Moral Majority, it 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 equally a conservative Republican Mormon. Then conservative Republicans proposed a school prayer amendment to the Constitution. He said, "Absolutely not. I am part of a minority religion that has been abused, and I am not going to be party to telling anyone how they should or should not pray." Hatch famously went on to work with Ted Kennedy for federally funded children'south health intendance. Mormons have a very stiff sense of the mutual good.

The guys who did South Park did Book of Mormon on Broadway.

I would debate, vulgarity aside, that they take one of the most sympathetic and understanding perspectives on Mormons of contemporary representations. They never talk about polygamy, because they come across information technology as 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 course that'south taught in the section of religion is going to cover it. How well it's covered, that'south some other question. Mormonism usually gets a day. Whether or not you lot can justify an entire form, because they are less than 2 percent of the U.S. population, might be a little difficult. On the other hand, Jews are an extremely small-scale minority, and every academy worth its salt has some kind of Judaic studies. And Mormonism is growing by leaps and bounds. The last fourth dimension I saw a syllabus for [College of Arts & Sciences religion professor] Steve Prothero's undergraduate course on religion in the United States, it included Jan Shipps' volume on Mormonism. Information technology isn't simply a i-mean solar day passing affair. It'south reaching a point where it probably deserves some discussion in the context of globe faith classes.

What do Americans' views of Mormonism say near our ethics and values?

It boils down to our sense of ourselves as a nation in which church building and state are separate. I would argue that Americans aren't separating all religion from all politics. We're just non comfortable with groups that don't fit into a generally moderate, Protestant mold. I've got a colleague who did his PhD on images of conservative Christians as villains in Hollywood cinema. You can almost certainly tell in any crime drama that if somebody quotes the Bible, you're later on going to find out that they're a psychopathic killer.

And nosotros're nervous well-nigh groups who openly say the church building should be involved in our politics, any that church building might be for that group. And Mormons wearable their religion on their sleeve. The average Mormon spends something like twenty hours per week in activities at their local congregation. It'south really the core and heart of their community, and they are admittedly open that their faith informs their social and political values. And Americans don't like that.

Practice y'all call back Romney might lose the election because of his organized religion?

I think if Romney loses, it'due south going to be for a diverseness of reasons. And yes, Mormonism may be problematic for him going forward. Conservative voters might be a footling less enthusiastic nearly getting out the vote considering they're nervous that he's a Mormon, and they're the ones he needs. And yous may find independents who find his politics appealing, but some of them might exist 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/

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