J. Spencer Fluhman

Before starting this book, I just understood that it was one of those respected works in Mormon studies of recent years. I knew that Fluhman is a former BYU religion teacher, turned straight history professor, and that he directs BYU's revamped Maxwell Institute and edits its Mormon Studies Review journal, and that book was based on his dissertation. I thought he might be trustworthy, and treat this polemical topic with a dispassionate, academic voice. I think he did a good job of that, not trying to demonize Mormons or their critics, and engaging with both viewpoints. But maybe a little too academic with his use of theoretical concepts from religious studies. I'm just a general reader, not an expert.

But this wasn't really a book about juicy religious controversies. It was really a case study of how society evolves in its views of religion. Many early Mormon critics thought this new church was just a fraud, a scheme for power. Then more and more critics recognized the sincerity of the Mormons, but that having such different practices they didn't qualify as a religion. Then there were those who granted that it was a religion, but was too fanatical and took religion too far. Then it was permitted among world religions, if still incorrect in its doctrine and a heresy of Christianity. In each of these stages, society wasn't just permitting more ground to Mormonism, but was also reflecting changes in how it defined the concept of religion itself. Religion could be an inner belief, and not just outer practices and observances. Sometimes those changes of viewpoint were actually in response to society's encounters with Mormonism, since Mormonism repeatedly made waves and challenged American society (from the Book of Mormon, to the conflicts in Missouri, to the politicking for Mormon refuge, to the conflicts in Illinois and murder of the prophet, to the exodus to Utah, to the escalations over polygamy, to the question of political control in the West, to Utah statehood and the admission of Mormons in Congress). I wish I had better grasped the details of these evolutionary changes in society's views, and whether this was unique to Mormonism or resembled the eventual accommodation of other new religions. But some parts of the book got a little too technical and dry for me. Maybe listening to the audio book wasn't the best way to digest the details.

Interestingly, this book addressed how Mormons were not classified as white by so many thinkers in their day, because of their polygamy, their frontier homeland, and their foreign doctrines. This predates Paul Reeve's groundbreaking book on this subject from 2015.… (altro)