Glory, Glory, Hallelujah!

By Quincy D. Newell

As I write this, I am returning to Laramie from Salt Lake City, where I spent a jam-packed two days with seventeen scholars from all over the world who were there to learn about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The scholars, selected by the U.S. Department of State to participate in a summer institute called “Religion in the United States: Pluralism and Public Presence,” began with a month at UC-Santa Barbara. They then embarked on a study tour, beginning in Los Angeles and then traveling to Salt Lake. Today, they move to Atlanta, and they will finish their tour in Washington, D. C. In Salt Lake, the office of Church Hosting took good care of us, arranging tours of Temple Square, the Humanitarian Center, and Welfare Square. They also hosted a formal dinner for the group, after which we got to attend a rehearsal of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

Thursday night choir rehearsals are open to the public, and we were one among many groups that attended the rehearsal. As it turned out, the American Legislative Exchange Council (more commonly known as ALEC) was also holding a conference in Salt Lake City, and many of their attendees were also at the choir rehearsal. As a special treat, the choir gave a mini-concert of American songs, including works by several popular American composers. These included the most upbeat version of “This Land is Your Land” that I have ever heard, and a toe-tapping rendition of “Seventy-Six Trombones.” They concluded with two well-known patriotic songs: Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America” and one of the choir’s signature songs, “Battle Hymn of the Republic.”

It has always seemed a bit odd to me that the Mormon Tabernacle Choir should be singing such songs. They are, after all, a church choir. It is incongruous, in a city with a temple at its center, to hear the church choir singing tunes from The Music Man. But Ronald Reagan also famously called the Mormon Tabernacle Choir “America’s Choir,” and the group has toured throughout the world, performing in all sorts of venues for all kinds of occasions. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised when members of the audience rose, standing through the last chorus of “God Bless America.” Nor should I have been surprised when the same thing occurred during “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Nevertheless I was dismayed: the scholars in our group, hailing from countries ranging from Australia to Venezuela, Cameroon to Sri Lanka, had no reason to stand during these songs. They are not American. But a row of seventeen, in a crowd of perhaps a thousand or more, had no recourse. They had to stand in order to see, and in order to respect the culture of the country in which they found themselves. This spontaneous display of patriotism probably bothered me more than it did them; in conversations afterward, they told me they didn’t mind. One remarked teasingly that she felt more American at that moment than ever before.

As we were leaving the concert, several of the scholars were still singing the “Battle Hymn of the Republic”: “Glory, glory hallelujah! Glory, glory hallelujah!” they sang, as we crossed North Temple Street. “Glory, glory hallelujah!” They were a little unclear on the words after that. One of them leaned over to ask me: “Is this a nationalistic song, or a religious song?”

Well. Perhaps this tune is a fitting signature song for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir after all: a nationalistic and religious song, for a religious and national choir.

Salt Lake both is and is not really the place where one expects to encounter the utter fusion of religion and nationalism: the Latter-day Saints fled the United States in 1847. They maintain a strong collective memory of their persecution at the hands of the United States – by individuals, groups, and American governments (local and federal). On the other hand, they actively sought statehood. They believe the U.S. Constitution is a divinely inspired document. Joseph Smith ran for president of the United States. And, since 1976, Utah has moved ever more rightward, becoming (for a time) the reddest state in the nation. (For much of this information, I am indebted to W. Paul Reeve of the University of Utah, who presented an overview of Utah religion and politics to the group.)

The “Battle Hymn of the Republic” originated around the time of the Civil War and was sung by Northern troops. We might, then, call it a Republican song – a song of the party of Lincoln, the party that most actively persecuted the LDS Church in the nineteenth century. As the LDS Church struggled to Americanize in the late nineteenth century, Latter-day Saints joined the Democrats in droves. LDS leaders had to actively encourage Saints to become Republicans. It is ironic, then, that today some 70% of Mormons are Republicans and one of the signature songs of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir is the “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” The Americanization process that began in the late nineteenth century, it seems, is complete.

I’m not sure I can say that this episode is peculiarly Western. Instead, it seems to demonstrate to me a rather generic fusion of religion and patriotism (albeit one that may help explain how Mitt Romney can mobilize the support of non-Mormons using a religiously-infused nationalism). But the scholars I was working with, I suspect, won’t encounter a similar demonstration anywhere else on their study tour.

Casual Friday: Pioneer Day

This past Tuesday, July 24, was Pioneer Day in Utah and throughout western Mormondom (and slightly beyond). The date memorializes the entrance of Mormon pioneers into the Salt Lake Valley. In particular, it celebrates the moment when Brigham Young mythically raised himself up on an elbow (he was riding sick in the back of a wagon, as the story goes) and declared, "This is the right place--move on!" Well, that's how it's remembered and told to many a young Utah history student. There have been some efforts to make the holiday a more inclusive event, even if Mormon actors remain central.

David Grua, at the Juvenile Instructor (a Mormon history blog), discusses one such effort in his pioneer day post on the dedication of the "This is the Place" Monument, which was dedicated on Pioneer Day in 1947 at the base of Emigration Canyon, just outside of Salt Lake City. David's thoughtful post considers the role of monument making in the molding of American memory and asks whether this particular monument was successful in its goal to situate the Mormon people in a place of prominence in American history--what Laurie Maffly-Kipp has referred to as "The Long Approach to the Mormon Moment."

 Others in the Mormon bloggernacle have also noted, and blogged about, the occasion of this Western holiday. At Mormon Times, Emily Jensen provides a roundup of the blogs and their ideas for Celebrating Pioneer Day. Check it out.

Mormon History Association meeting recap

By Stan Thayne

This past weekend (June 28-July 1) the Mormon History Association held its annual meeting in Calgary, Alberta, Canada--a city that was getting all ramped up for their annual Calgary Stampede: a week of cowboy and cowgirl hats, boots, getup and rodeos that I unfortunately missed. (There were hay bales in the lobby of our hotel in preparation.) The conference's Canada setting broadened the perspective of Mormonism as, whatever else it is (see Laurie Maffly-Kipp's post), a movement of the North American West. Several sessions were focused on the church in Canada, where Mormonism has had a significant presence, particularly in southern Alberta, since at least 1895 when Charles Ora Card (whom one presenter referred to as a Canadian Brigham Young) led a group of Mormon settlers to Canada to escape the persecution of U.S. federal officials over the practice of polygamy. Though the mainline LDS Church has abandoned that practice, including those in Alberta, there is still a significant presence of "fundamentalist" Mormons in Alberta who have kept "the principle," as they refer to it, alive--a practice which is causing a lot of current controversy in Canadian courts, which was also the subject of some sessions. It is difficult to summarize the wide array of topics covered, particularly when I was only able to make it to a few sessions, but topics included the history of Mormons in high school basketball in Alberta, the mounted police and Mormonism, Mormon charisma, farming, and sugar factories in Canada, women's history, magic and the supernatural, the Cardston (Alberta) Temple, the growth of the church in Canada and a host of other topics. And topics were not limited to Canadian focused issues but ranged into the Pacific Basin, Asia, and Africa.

The Tanner Lecture (a plenary keynote session) was delivered by David B. Marshall, associate professor of History at the University of Calgary. In the talk he referred to what historian of Mormonism Jan Shipps has dubbed the "doughnut" phenomenon--the tendency of Western historians to write around Mormonism, leaving a void in the middle of the story. He suggested that the same is true of Mormonism in Canada--it is a story that remains to be written. But what he could do is provide some context for the story. He did so by addressing a secularization thesis of sorts, detailing the decline of religiosity in Canada since the 1960s. Accordring to census data, "no religion" is the third largest religious affiliation (or non-affiliation) in Canada--and it is the leading category in British Columbia--behind Catholicism (#2) and Protestantism (#1), which is in sharp decline, particularly in the mainline denominations. Mormonism has enjoyed steady if modest growth in Canada despite this decline and religious "turmoil"--though it is most concentrated in southern Alberta and remains less than 2% of the population in other parts of Canada. He accounted for the decline in religion in Canada to a number of demographic shifts and also to the influence of a document known as the Charter of Rights and Freedoms--a sort of Canadian Bill of Rights passed in the aftermath of WWII . This document, he suggested, led to further secularization of Canadian public institutions, most significantly schools. This aggresive separation of church and state, he suggested, was not only opposed by many Canadian Christians but also caused difficulties for non-Christian immigrants to Canada. He shared a number of anecdotes to demonstrate this and concluded with the results of a Parliament commissioned study into the issue--conducted by Gérard Bouchard and Charles Taylor--that concluded that an open rather than a closed secular model that seeks to instruct the public about religions (rather than separate them from it completely through ostensible neutrality) is the best solution to the problem. This, Marshall suggested, is the only hope for Canada's multicultural future. And as a student and hopefully future instructor in Religious Studies, I have to agree with at least that part of Marshall's comments!

What is Right and What is Legal: Arizona Mormons

by Brett Hendrickson

According to a recent story in the Arizona Republic, the new anti-immigrant legislation in that state is having a negative effect on Latter-day Saint efforts to proselytize Hispanics. The problem for many potential converts is Russell Pearce. A Republican state senator, he has been the gasoline driving almost all immigration crackdown legislation in Arizona. He is also a Mormon.

Kenneth Patrick Smith, a lawyer and the president of a Spanish-speaking LDS branch in Mesa (Pearce’s home turf and a Mormon stronghold) said, “It's a great disconnect because on one hand the missionaries are out there preaching brotherly love, kindness, charity, tolerance, faith, hope, etc., and then they see on TV a quote-unquote Mormon pushing this legislation that makes them not only . . . terrified but terrorized.”

Another leader in Arizona Hispanic LDS circles, Jorge Pimienta, said, “I don't know Russell Pearce. I don't know where he is coming from. All I know is that what he is doing is not what Jesus Christ taught.”

Naturally, Pearce defends his faithfulness and refers his detractors to The Articles of Faith of the Mormon Church. Number twelve of the thirteen articles reads: “We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law.” Illegal immigrants, Mormon or otherwise, cannot follow this article.

This division among the Saints on the issue of immigration presents heaps of fodder for classroom discussion. A short list of topics could include the separation of church and state, the role of authority in Mormon scripture vs. ongoing revelation in LDS immigrant fellowships, and how a global church with U.S. headquarters does or does not monitor and influence public perceptions of the Church.

But my go-to discussion would have to be how far Russell Pearce has deviated from the central Mormon narrative of being a persecuted and unwelcome people in the United States. A little over one hundred sixty years ago, Mormons en masse entered what is now Utah but was then Mexican territory (without papers) to get away from the sort of intolerance for difference that Pearce seems to be promoting. On the other hand, Mormon leaders from Joseph Smith on down have been keen on participating fully in American government, and there is no doubt that the United States has a very unique place in Mormon self-understanding.

So which is it? Is it Mormon to reach out to the dispossessed, even those who are here illegally? Or is it Mormon to stand firmly behind American laws?