2001 – Spring Newsletter

MORMON SOCIAL SCIENCE ASSOCIATION NEWSLETTER Vol. 22, No. 1 Spring 2001 Mary Lou McNamara, Editor Perry Cunningham, Designer In This Issue We hope to increase our numbers during the · Nov. 2000 MSSA Business Meeting coming years so that MSSA can remain a · Book Review: Leaving the Fold vital contributor to our understanding of · Article: “Tell Eve About Serpent!” religion and society in general, and · Article: Socioeconomic Attainment of Mormonism in particular. Mormons The MSSA webpage now is available · Announcements online. At this point it consists of the text found in the brochure. In the coming President’s Message There are several business items that I months, look for copies of articles that have would like to bring to your attention. appeared in the newsletter, links to relevant First and most importantly, it is time once sites and other features to be included on the again for elections of new officers. webpage. Its address is Included in the newsletter is a ballot of the http://www.psywww.com/psyrelig/mssa. If candidates. Please use it to vote for the new you have comments or suggestions about the officers. I want to thank the people who web page, please pass them along. have served as past-president and as board members. Gary Shepherd, as past president, Mike Nielsen and board members Cardell Jacobson, Mary Lou McNamara, and Grant Underwood, Minutes of the MSSA Business Meeting have served MSSA very well during the past held October 22, 2000 in Houston, Texas two years. Please extend to them your · Lynn Payne (secretary) reported on the thanks as their term of service comes to an finances and membership of the MSSA. end in the coming few months. If you have Tim Heaton donated the $200 any suggestions or ideas for MSSA, pass honorarium for the Glenn Vernon lecture them along to Gary, Cardell, Mary Lou, to the MSSA. The Association had Grant or me. about $1000 in a savings account and approximately $300 in checking before We are working on several fronts to bolster incurring costs for the MSSA breakfast. awareness of MSSA and to attract new (Those present made donations toward members to the association. The brochure is that cost.) now ready to be printed, thanks to the work of several people who contributed their time · Mary Lou McNamara (newsletter editor) and talents to its design and content. The asked for volunteers who might be next issue of the newsletter will include a willing to contribute a book review to copy of the brochure. Give some thought to the newsletter. Marcus Martins and Ken your colleagues, students and others who White volunteered. might benefit from membership in MSSA. 1 · A discussion ensued about finalizing the which will take place in the spring of MSSA brochure for recruitment (e.g., it 2001. These officers will begin their should be printed on light-colored, high two-year service in the fall of 2001 after quality paper; it could be mailed to the the SSSR/RRA meetings in Columbus, Mormon History Association, Sunstone, Ohio. and Dialogue subscribers; it needs logo). Contacts with MHA and Dialogue were Book Review: discussed. Leaving the Fold: Candid Conversations with Inactive Mormons. By James W. Ure, · An MSSA Web site was discussed. Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1999, 253 Mike Nielsen (president) offered to host pp. it at his psychology of religion web site to reduce upkeep and maintenance costs. Marcus H. Martins Book reviews are often prone to generate · Suggestions for sessions or participants disagreements and at times even resentment. in sessions were made for the In fact, in Brazil they are commonly called forthcoming joint meetings of the “book critiques,” which seems to more Society for the Scientific Study of accurately describe their function. So, as a Religion and Religious Research good Brazilian I will endeavor to write a Association in Colombus. Suggestions “critique” of Ure’s book. included Marcus Martins and Max Stanton from BYU Hawaii; something This book is not a social-scientific treatment from the Research Information Division of the subject, and it never claims to be. The (LDS Church); and a session on author, James Ure, begins by stating that this polygamy. book represented a personal journey in which he was trying to make sense of his · The SSSR/RRA meetings in Salt Lake own inactivity in the LDS Church by City in 2002 were discussed. Some of interviewing people who, like him, had the suggestions were have MSSA play a chosen inactivity in the Church. However more prominent role in SLC compared he emphasizes that this is not an anti- to last time the meetings were held there; Mormon work, and that its purpose is to encourage tours/recitals at the Joseph create and foster understanding. Smith Building and/or Conference Center; tap Marie Cornwall’s ideas I read the book from the perspective of a about how to make this a successful former LDS bishop trying to understand the conference; encourage participation dynamics of defection and inactivity, hoping from non-LDS churches, such as having to learn how to assist those who are the Calvary Baptist Choir sing and struggling in the LDS religion. Although I having the Hari Krishna’s from Spanish enjoyed reading the book, because of Ure’s Fork participate in some way; and have choice of respondents I could not obtain any an author meets critic session on the insights that might have widespread forthcoming book by Tim Heaton and application. Cardell Jacobson. The eighteen respondents were not chosen at random; in fact, one of them was Ure s · Nominations were obtained for elections ’ 2 mother. But the main problem is that it is political conservatism and perceived questionable whether this group of intolerance of liberals; (c) the priesthood ban respondents, during their years of activity, for Blacks; or (d) women’s issues, including would have ever been considered a the Church’s opposition to the Equal Rights representative cross-section of the Church Amendment and the powerlessness membership. For example, one respondent perceived by some LDS female intellectuals. claimed to have been not “a regular attender, As those familiar with the history of the but ... a frequent attender” who smoked even Church may see, such issues place the while holding Church callings, and never respondents’ loss of faith mainly around the believed in the authenticity of the Book of 1970's and 80's. Mormon. Another, in response to the question of ever possessing a testimony One of the problems in the interviews may answered, “I think that those who say they have been caused by Ure’s self- did are just saying they did . .” and later identification with the experiences of the claimed to have been married in the temple respondents. In some cases, he “goes without being active in the Church. Another native” and asks leading questions, offers stated that he not only did not have a his own opinions, or encourages speculation. testimony, but also served a full-time For example in one interview he asks, mission without ever bearing a testimony. “Today many people are disillusioned or become inactive because of the issues of If Ure had included a substantial number of censorship. In 1993 and since, we’ve had inactive Latter-day Saints who had once active Mormons resign or be been committed believers and who had lived excommunicated as a result of their desire to in harmony with the standards of the Church speak out on issues. For some women I before their defection, he would have think divorce and their status as divorcees provided a far more useful picture of the have alienated them. What’s your view?” dynamics of defection; one that might possibly even describe some of the If there is a significant lesson in this book it processes taking place in Chile, Philippines, may very well be the power of tradition and other areas of fast growth in among these inactive pioneer descendants, membership and high rates of inactivity. especially the legacy of sacrifice by pioneers. Since the interviews took place Yet the book is worthwhile in sharing the during 1996-97, the re-enactments of the experiences of a group of individuals whose trek across the plains and other events accounts seem honest and candid. Most of marking the sesquicentennial of the the respondents did not ask for anonymity, pioneers’ entrance in the Salt Lake Valley and given their inactive status one could no doubt made the pioneer theme influential. argue that they really felt free to speak their Almost all respondents stated that they minds. For an outsider, these stories draw a would rather not formally sever their ties picture of a specific time in which the with the Church by way of Church had to face head-on the challenges excommunication because, as one of modernity and diversity. Most of the respondent stated, “I’m proud of our 19th respondents identified the source of the century heritage of suffering for the right to challenges to their faith as being: (a) Church practice a peculiar religious tradition.” Or attacks on intellectualism; (b) the Church’s as another respondent put it, “You’re loyal 3 to it. By damn, you’re loyal to it.” On the one of four Mormons enrolled at the GTU at other hand, another respondent defended his the time, I chose as my thesis to do a membership saying, “I think that in the qualitative research project on the effects of small chance that I am wrong, that I want the temple in the lives of Mormons. that insurance policy.” With the permission of the stake president In conclusion, if one looks at Ure’s book as and the cooperation of three bishops, I began sort of a journalistic work that offers a to solicit participants from three wards in the snapshot of a narrow segment of the Church Oakland California Stake.

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