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Globalizing Mormonism
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Globalizing Mormonism

A special issue of Religions (ISSN 2077-1444).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (1 May 2021) | Viewed by 19482

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Matthew Bowman

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Religion, Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, CA 91711, USA
Interests: Mormonism; 20th-century religion; secularization
Dr. Caroline Kline

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Religion, Claremont Graduate University, 831 N Dartmouth Avenue, Claremont, CA 91711, USA
Interests: Mormonism; global Mormonism; women’s studies in religion
Dr. Amy Hoyt

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Religion, Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, CA 91711, USA
Interests: Mormonism; gender; lived religion

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues:

We invite submissions for a Special Issue of Religions focused on globalizing Mormonism. We are interested in the impact of globalization on the various arms of the Mormon tradition. Often defined as the process of crossing and even dissolution of traditional economic, political, and social boundaries, globalization has been steadily accelerating for centuries, driven by technological and economic changes. Religion has been variously interpreted as an engine of and a brake on globalization; it may offer human networks that cross political and economic boundaries, but also cultural traditions that resist integration. The various churches that make up the Mormon tradition have participated in globalization since the tradition’s founding, and we are interested in submissions that explore the impact of the process of globalization on the practices of these churches, and how these churches either seek to further or to resist that process: or perhaps both at the same time.

Dr. Matthew Bowman
Dr. Caroline Kline
Dr. Amy Hoyt
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Religions is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • globalization
  • Mormonism

Published Papers (7 papers)

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Research

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15 pages, 624 KiB  
Article
Mauritians and Latter-Day Saints: Multicultural Oral Histories of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints within “The Rainbow Nation”
by Marie Vinnarasi Chintaram
Religions 2021, 12(8), 651; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12080651 - 17 Aug 2021
Viewed by 3473
Abstract
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints emerged within the Mauritian landscape in the early 1980s after the arrival of foreign missionary work. With a population of Indian, African, Chinese, French heritage, and other mixed ethnicities, Mauritius celebrates multiculturalism, with many calling [...] Read more.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints emerged within the Mauritian landscape in the early 1980s after the arrival of foreign missionary work. With a population of Indian, African, Chinese, French heritage, and other mixed ethnicities, Mauritius celebrates multiculturalism, with many calling it the “rainbow nation”. Religiously, Hinduism dominates the scene on the island, followed by Christianity (with Catholicism as the majority); the small remainder of the population observes Islam or Buddhism. Although Mauritian society equally embraces people from these ethnic groups, it also has historically marginalized communities who represent a “hybrid” of the mentioned demographic groups. This article, based on ethnographic research, explores the experiences of Mauritian Latter-day Saints as they navigate the challenges and implications of membership in Mormonism. Specifically, it focuses on how US-based Mormonism has come to embrace the cultural heritage of people from the various diaspora and how Mauritian Latter-day Saints perceive their own belonging and space-making within an American born religion. This case study presents how the local and intersecting adaptations of language, race, and local leadership within a cosmopolitan society such as Mauritius have led to the partial hybridization of the Church into the hegemony of ethnic communities within Mauritian Latter-day Saint practices. These merging of cultures and world views prompts both positive and challenging religious experiences for Mauritian Church members. This article illustrates the implications and pressures of the Church trying to globalize its faith base while adapting its traditionally Anglocentric approaches to religious practices to multiracial, multicultural cosmopolitan communities such as Mauritius. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Globalizing Mormonism)
9 pages, 181 KiB  
Article
Isolation and Integration: Case Study of Latter-Day Saints in South-Western Nigeria
by Amaechi Henry Okafor
Religions 2021, 12(6), 445; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12060445 - 16 Jun 2021
Viewed by 2268
Abstract
Isolation and integration are two sides of the same coin, the former denoting negativity with the latter denoting positivity. The penetration of the LDS church into Nigeria in general and south-western Nigeria in particular has been faced with a considerable amount of opposition [...] Read more.
Isolation and integration are two sides of the same coin, the former denoting negativity with the latter denoting positivity. The penetration of the LDS church into Nigeria in general and south-western Nigeria in particular has been faced with a considerable amount of opposition from the populace and the government. Nigeria is one of the most religious countries in Africa. Due to the vast demographic space, I am limiting our study to the south-western states, where it seems the church is growing more. The eastern region, to an extent, has also been experiencing considerable growth. Our queries are: what are the elements that depict isolation from other religious sects and society? What are the parameters for this phenomenon? Is there any evidence of integration? If so, how is this manifested? How are the male and female members of the LDS church trying to integrate into society and how has the response been? These among other questions are examined. Nigeria is originally a Catholic and Pentecostal religious environment, where open miracles, wonders and other phenomena are visible. These are hardly visible in LDS services, and this serves as motivation for non-members to oppose and isolate members of the LDS church from the fibers of society. The undetermined position of the LDS church and its non-registration with the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) has and continues to have relevant effects on the integration of the church and its members into the Christian circle of the country in general and the south-west in particular. I have discovered that, though the church’s growth in the south-west is visible, the possibility of integration has proven difficult. Due to the limited literature on this subject in the country, I have utilized semi-structured direct and indirect interviews of pioneers of the wards/units in the south-west, and also those who have investigated the church, many of whom still view the church as a cult. I also used an analytic approach that straddles critical discourse analysis and postcolonial theory. This paper proposes ways in which the members of the LDS church can better integrate themselves in a society that has a very different religious and cultural background to that of American society, where the church has more fully moved from isolation to integration. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Globalizing Mormonism)
14 pages, 251 KiB  
Article
‘Come, Follow Me’, The Sacralising of the Home, and The Guardian of the Family: How Do European Women Negotiate the Domestic Space in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints?
by Alison Halford
Religions 2021, 12(5), 338; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12050338 - 12 May 2021
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2083
Abstract
In October 2018, the Prophet Russell M. Nelson informed members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that the Church teaching curriculum would shift focus away from lessons taught on Sunday. Instead, members were now asked to engage with ‘home-centred, church-supported’ [...] Read more.
In October 2018, the Prophet Russell M. Nelson informed members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that the Church teaching curriculum would shift focus away from lessons taught on Sunday. Instead, members were now asked to engage with ‘home-centred, church-supported’ religious instruction using the Church materials ‘Come, Follow Me’. In a religion where Church leaders still defend the idealised family structure of a stay-at-home mother and a father as the provider, the renewed emphasis on the domestic sphere as the site for Church teaching could also reinforce traditional Mormon gender roles. This article draws upon the lived religion of Latter-day Saint women in Sweden, Greece and England to understand how they negotiate gender in their homes. Looking at the implementation of ‘Come, Follow Me’ of sacralising of the home as a gendered practice, there appears to be a reinforcing of the primacy of the domestic space in the reproduction of religious practices and doctrinal instruction. Simultaneously, in conceptualising a gender role, the guardian of the family, I show the ways that European Latter-day Saint women are providing, protecting and nurturing their families. The domestic space then becomes instrumental in providing space for more nuanced, complex gender constructs that accommodate Mormon beliefs, cultural context and secular notions of gender without destabilising the institutional structure. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Globalizing Mormonism)
15 pages, 235 KiB  
Article
Not a Country or a Stereotype: Latina LDS Experiences of Ethnic Homogenization and Racial Tokenism in the American West
by Brittany Romanello
Religions 2021, 12(5), 333; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12050333 - 11 May 2021
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 3413
Abstract
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS), also called Mormonism, has experienced rapid changes in its US demographics due to an influx of Latinx membership. The most recent growth in the US church body has been within Spanish-speaking congregations, and many [...] Read more.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS), also called Mormonism, has experienced rapid changes in its US demographics due to an influx of Latinx membership. The most recent growth in the US church body has been within Spanish-speaking congregations, and many of these congregant members are first or 1.5-generation immigrant Latinas. Using ethnographic data from 27 interviews with immigrant members living in Utah, Nevada, and California, LDS Latinas reported that while US Anglo members did seem to appreciate certain aspects of their cultural customs or practices, they also reported frequently experiencing ethnic homogenization or racial tokenization within US Church spaces and with White family members. Our findings indicate that the contemporary LDS church, despite some progressive policy implementations within its doctrinal parameters, still struggles in its ever-globalizing state to prioritize exposing White US members to the cultural heterogeneity of non-White, global LDS identities and perspectives. Latina LDS experiences and their religious adjacency to Whiteness provide a useful lens by which researchers can better understand the ways in which ethnic identity, gender, legal status, and language create both opportunities and challenges for immigrant incorporation and inclusion within US religious spaces and add to the existing body of scholarship on migration and religion. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Globalizing Mormonism)
14 pages, 258 KiB  
Article
A Divine Rebellion: Indigenous Sacraments among Global “Lamanites”
by Daniel Hernandez
Religions 2021, 12(4), 280; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12040280 - 19 Apr 2021
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2250
Abstract
This essay engages with some of the experiences and metaphysics of Indigenous peoples who are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormonism/LDS/the Church) by responding to their structural construction as “Lamanites”. Lamanites have been interpreted within Mormonism to be [...] Read more.
This essay engages with some of the experiences and metaphysics of Indigenous peoples who are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormonism/LDS/the Church) by responding to their structural construction as “Lamanites”. Lamanites have been interpreted within Mormonism to be ancestors of various global Indigenous peoples of the “Americas” and “Polynesia”. This essay reveals how contemporary Indigenous agency by presumed descendants of the Lamanites, who embrace both an Indigenous and a Mormon identity, shifts the cosmology of the Church. Interpretations of TheBook of Mormon that empower contemporary Indigenous agency paradoxically materialize a divinely inspired cultural rebellion within the Church itself. However, this tension that is mediated by Lamanites in the Church is not framed as an exclusive response to the Church itself but, rather, to a larger global hegemony of coloniality to which the Church is subject. These Lamanite worldviews can be understood as a process of restoring ancestral Indigenous sacraments (rituals) through Mormon paradigms, which are found and nurtured in the cracks and fissures of both the material and ontological infrastructure of Mormonism’s dominant paradigm. When Indigenous Mormons assert autonomous authorship of their own cosmogony and metaphysics, the Church beliefs of restoring a ‘primitive Christian church’ and ‘becoming Gods’ is creatively transformed into a more relevant and liberating possibility here and now. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Globalizing Mormonism)
23 pages, 12505 KiB  
Article
Be Careful, Ye Catholic: The Entanglement of Mormonism and Money in Peru
by Jason Palmer
Religions 2021, 12(4), 246; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12040246 - 31 Mar 2021
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2291
Abstract
Globalization is not only the feverish insistence that land’s superfluity is increasing exponentially, but it is also the willful ignorance of the reality underlying that illusion: Distance has not been annihilated. Distance, and the land it spans, is more important than ever. Globalization [...] Read more.
Globalization is not only the feverish insistence that land’s superfluity is increasing exponentially, but it is also the willful ignorance of the reality underlying that illusion: Distance has not been annihilated. Distance, and the land it spans, is more important than ever. Globalization imagines away the land’s importance because of whom it imagines to be “of the land”. This entity, indigeneity, threatens to expose the lie upon which globalization is founded. According to many people of the land surrounding the mid-Andean city of Arequipa, Peru, globalization’s promise of unidirectional wealth accumulation severs their connection to sustainable, terrestrial cyclicity. For some of these arequipeños, few institutions embody this existential disruption more menacingly than The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Mormonism, therefore, becomes a material and mythological threat to the lifeways of their land. This article grounds the fraught, mimetic relationship between globalization and land in Peru through the lens of anti-Mormonism. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Globalizing Mormonism)
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15 pages, 302 KiB  
Review
A Review of Mormon Studies in China
by Hongmeng Cheng
Religions 2021, 12(6), 375; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12060375 - 21 May 2021
Viewed by 2120
Abstract
Mormon studies in China began in the early 1990s and can be divided into three phases between the years of 2004 and 2017. The first Master’s and Doctoral theses on Mormonism were both published in 2004, and journal articles have also been increasing [...] Read more.
Mormon studies in China began in the early 1990s and can be divided into three phases between the years of 2004 and 2017. The first Master’s and Doctoral theses on Mormonism were both published in 2004, and journal articles have also been increasing in frequency since then. The year of 2012 saw a peak, partly because Mormon Mitt Romney won the Republican nomination for the 2012 US presidential election. In 2017, a national-level project, Mormonism and its Bearings on Current Sino-US Relations, funded by the Chinese government, was launched. However, Mormon studies in China is thus far still in its infancy, with few institutions and a small number of scholars. Academic works are limited in number, and high-level achievements are very few. Among the published works, the study of the external factors of Mormonism is far more prevalent than research on its internal factors. Historical, sociological, and political approaches far exceed those of philosophy, theology, and history of thoughts. To Mormon studies, Chinese scholars can and should be making unique contributions, but the potential remains to be tapped. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Globalizing Mormonism)
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