To justify its existence, every religion must differentiate itself from secular culture—but not too much, or the sect will repel non-members.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
(Mormonism) walks an especially narrow line between being too ordinary and too strange, because it is based on the truth claims of infallible “living Prophets.” Some of these fall outside secular norms, or have been scientifically disconfirmed (LDS scholars are occasionally excommunicated for research that contradicts doctrine).
So the public presentation of Mormonism must skirt issues that defy American secular beliefs—for example, the concept of God as Caucasian man who lives near the planet Kolob; the idea that native Americans are descended from refugees from Jerusalem; and the assertion that until 1978, God barred people of African descent from holding priesthood authority. Such delicate issues, termed “the meat of the Gospel,” are generally kept from outsiders.
The church’s rawest nerve concerns polygamy, which founder Joseph Smith proclaimed “the true and eternal order of marriage.” Modern LDS policy prohibiting polygamy rests on uneasy legalism (polygamy has been temporarily suspended, but is still correct, and will be re-instated by God through the living Prophet).
Though Mormon leaders manage the church’s image brilliantly, the success of media offerings like Jon Krakauer’s Under the Banner of Heaven, or the HBO series Big Love, both about fundamentalist Mormon polygamists (not mainstream LDS), indicates that many Americans still find the church peculiar.
Keeping Mormonism palatable to non-Mormons will require continued tightrope-walking for the foreseeable future.
Martha Beck is the best-selling author of Leaving the Saints, a controversial 2005 memoir which includes claims of sexual abuse by her father, the late and noted Mormon scholar Hugh Nibley. Beck is a monthly columnist for O, The Oprah Magazine. She lives in Phoenix.
