Kinder Forum on Constitutional Democracy Community Seminar September 2015 - April 2016 MORMONISM AND THE AMERICAN POLITICAL TRADITION
| Led by Benjamin E. Park |
Seminar Purpose
To facilitate a broader understanding of American constitutional and democratic tradition, in this instance through the case study of Mormonism. Seminar Logistics
Meetings will take place the second Thursday of every month, except for October (when it will meet on the second Tuesday), and will meet in TBA at 7pm. Dinner will be provided for all attendees. Seminar Overview Mormonism has played an important role in American Seminar Registration religious and political history. One of the few innovative sects birthed in the antebellum period that survived the nineteenth- All who wish to participate century, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has should contact Dr. Benjamin Park at [email protected]. thrived over the last 180 years. Today, the Church claims over Registration costs $50 per six million adherents within the United States and over fifteen participant, and checks can million worldwide. And though those figures make made out to “The University of Mormonism a distinct minority, the faith has had a Missouri.” Students and others disproportionately large impact on American political may request to be exempt from discourse even before Mitt Romney’s unsuccessful presidential the registration fee by contacting candidacy in 2008 and 2012. (Continued on Page 2.) Dr. Park.
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From its role in demonstrating the “dangers” of disestablishment in the 1830s to the revision of first amendment liberties concerning religious practice in the 1870s-1880s, and from congressional debates over Apostle Reed Smoot’s senatorial office in the 1900s to the Mormon opposition to the ERA in the 1980s and 1990s, the LDS Church’s interaction with national laws offer a potent microcosm for understanding American politics in A Note on Seminar general. This reading group, then, will use Mormonism as a case Discussion study to understand the American political tradition writ large.
It is commonly expressed that Seminar Format religion and politics are the two Participants will receive brief readings for monthly meetings, topics you should never bring up accompanied with particular study questions. The seminar will be at dinner. Given that we’ll be based around discussion, led by Dr. Park, and it is hoped that all discussing those very things over in attendance will participate. Dinner will be catered for every a catered meal, we are already fringing on the taboo. Religion meeting. can be an especially difficult concept to unpack in a secular setting. I’d therefore like to remind all participants that we are discussing these topics within an academic framework, meaning that matters of “truth” and “heresy” are not the point of dialogue. We are approaching Mormonism as a historical artifact that represents its broader culture, not as a specimen to decipher its level of theological or moral validity.
On the politics side, we will be addressing similarly potent topics: the role of religion in the public sphere, federal regulation over sexual policies, and other issues at the heart of today’s cultural divide. Participants’ opinions will land on different points in a broad, if heated, spectrum, so I hope mutual respect will be the governing principle for all discussion.
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About the Forum About the Seminar’s Leader
The Kinder Forum on Constitutional Democracy at Benjamin E. Park ([email protected]) is a the University of Missouri (democracy.missouri.edu) postdoctoral fellow with the Kinder Forum and also is a new initiative to promote excellence in teaching teaches in the Department of History. Dr. Park and scholarship about the American constitutional received his bachelor’s degree from Brigham Young and democratic traditions. The forum’s educational University, a master’s degree in historical theology mission extends into the city of Columbia, however, from the University of Edinburgh, and a master’s as various community seminars engage members of degree in political thought and a doctorate in the local area in the study of key themes and figures history from the University of Cambridge. He is in the history of political thought. completing a book on the political culture of nationalism in early America and currently serves as associate editor for the Mormon Studies Review.
Readings
Participants will receive an email with required readings at least three weeks in advance of each group discussion. Primary reading will focus on historical texts from Mormon and American history, and they will be short in nature. (They should not take more than one or two hours of careful reading.) I will also recommend secondary sources—articles or books written by specialists on the topics in question—that participants might find interesting, but it will be up to the participant to acquire those texts. A useful volume, Mormonism and American Politics (co-edited by Randall Balmer and Jana Reiss), will appear in December, and will prove useful for the last four meetings. Essays from that book will appear in the suggested readings followed by the acronym MAP. All primary texts will be provided in PDF format. Below you will find other books that are directly relevant to our topic and provide a broader overview for our discussions; participants are encouraged, but not required, to consult them.
1. Matthew Bowman, The Mormon People: The Making of an American Faith (Random House, 2012).
2. Richard Lyman Bushman, Mormonism: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2008).
3. David E. Campbell, John C. Green, and J. Quin Monson, Seeking the Promised Land: Mormons and American Politics (Cambridge UP, 2014).
4. Sarah Barringer Gordon, The Mormon Question: Polygamy and Constitutional Conflict in Nineteenth- Century America (UNC Press, 2002).
5. Kathleen Flake, The Politics of American Religious Identity: The Seating of Senator Reed Smoot, Mormon Apostle (UNC Press, 2004).
6. Gregory A. Prince and Wm Robert Wright, David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism (University of Utah Press, 2005).
7. Armand L. Mauss, The Angel and the Beehive: The Mormon Struggle with Assimilation (University of Illinois Press, 1994).
8. J. B. Haws, The Mormon Image in the American Mind: Fifty Years of Public Perception (Oxford UP, 2013).
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Reading Schedule
Date Topic Reading Assignment
Sept 10 Readings: 2 Nephi 5; Mosiah 2, 11, 23, 29; Alma 30, Mormon Scripture and Helaman 6; 3 Nephi 6-7; 4 Nephi 1; Ether 8, 10; D&C American Political 45:62-75; D&C 58:19-23; D&C 78; D&C 134 Theologies Background Reading: Richard Bushman, “The Book of Mormon and the American Revolution”; Mark Ashurst- McGee, “Zion In America: The Origins of Mormon Constitutionalism”
Oct 13 The Missouri/Mormon War Readings: D&C 57:1-7; D&C 101, 103, 105; Manifesto of the Jackson County Mob; Sidney Rigdon, “Salt and the Perils of Localism Sermon”; Rigdon, “4th of July Sermon”; Missouri (Note this is a Executive Order 44 (Extermination Order); Joseph Tuesday) Smith’s Liberty Jail Letter
Background Reading: Matthew Lund, “A Society of Like- Minded Men: American Localism and the Mormon Expulsion from Jackson County”
Nov 12 Joseph Smith’s Readings: Joseph Smith, Views on the Power and Policy of the Government of the United States; Smith, Theodemocracy and the “Theodemocracy”; Smith, Appeal to the Green Mountain Boys; selections from Jedediah S. Rogers, The Religious Critique of Council of Fifty: A Documentary History
Democracy Background Reading: “Richard Bushman, “Joseph Smith’s Presidential Ambitions” (MAP); Benjamin Park, “Early Mormon Patriarchy and the Paradoxes of Religiosity in the Age of Jackson”; Patrick Mason, “God and People: Theodemocracy in Nineteenth-Century Mormonism”
Dec 10 The Utah War and the Readings: Brigham Young, “Beating Against the Air”; Young, “Discourse, 16 August 1857”; selections from the Limits of Federal Power letters of Brigham Young and Thomas Kane
Background Reading: “John Turner, “Unpopular Sovereignty: Brigham Young and the U.S. Government, 1847-1877” (MAP); William McKinnon, At Sword’s Point: A Documentary History of the Utah War
Jan 14 Polygamy, Suffrage, and Readings: Selections from the Woman’s Exponent; Selections from Orson Pratt, The Seer the Freedom of Religious Background Reading: Sarah Barringer Gordon, The Practice Mormon Question: Polygamy and Constitutional Conflict; Christine Talbot, “‘More the Companion and Much Less the Subordinate’: Polygamy and Mormon Woman’s Citizenship”; Nathan Oman, “Natural Law and the Rhetoric of Empire: Reynolds v. United States, 4 Polygamy, and Imperialism” Kinder Forum on Constitutional Democracy Community Seminar September 2015 - April 2016
Date Topic Reading Assignment
Feb 11 Readings: Joseph F. Smith, “Why the People of Utah Reed Smoot and the Should Vote Republican”; Charles Penrose, “Why the Politics of Becoming People of Utah Should Vote Democrat”; Selections from the Reed Smoot Trials American Background Reading: Kathleen Flake, The Politics of American Religious Identity: The Seating of Senator Reed Smoot, Mormon Apostle; Matthew Bowman, “Eternal Progression: Mormonism and American Progressivism” (MAP)
March 10 Mormonism and the Rise of Readings: Ezra Taft Benson, “The Proper Role of Government”; Benson, “The Book of Mormon Warns the Religious Right America”; Excerpts from Sonia Johnson, From Housewife to Heretic
Background Reading: Gregory A. Prince, “The Red Peril, the Candy Maker, and the Apostle: David O. McKay’s Confrontation with Communism,” Dialogue; JB Haws, The Mormon Image in the American Mind: Fifty Years of Perceptions; Martha Bradley, Pedestals and Podiums: Utah Women, Religious Authority, and Equal Rights; Jan Shipps, “Ezra Taft Benson and the Conservative Turn of ‘Those Amazing Mormons’” (MAP)
April 14 Mitt Romney’s Run for the Readings: Damon Linker, “The Big Test”; Mitt Romney, “Faith in America”; Harry Reid, “Faith, Family, and Presidency and Twenty-First Public Service”
Century Politics Background Reading: David Campbell et. al., “A Politically Peculiar People: How Mormons Moved Into and then out of the Political Mainstream” (MAP); Claudia Bushman, “Mormon Women Talk Politics” (MAP); Joanna Brooks, “On the ‘Underground’: What the Mormon Yes on 8 Campaign Reveals about the Future of Mormons in American Political Life” (MAP)
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