Review
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Title: American Zion: A New History of Mormonism
Author: Benjamin Park
Publisher: Liveright
Year Published: 2024
Pages: 510
Format: Hardback
Genre: Religious History
ISBN: 9781631498657
Price: $31.50
Reviewed by Kevin Folkman for the Association for Mormon Letters
Several hymns in the LDS Hymnal have verses about the peace the gospel brings. In addition, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Bible all warn against contention. And yet, the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is often a story of contention, lack of peace, and conflict. In Ben Park’s new history of Mormonism, American Zion, he writes of how the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has suffered through times of persecution, isolation, misunderstanding, and change through assimilation into the broader American culture. Tensions, both internal and external, have affected the Church since its founding in 1830. Park argues that in the intervening two centuries, the issues of race, gender, and hierarchal authority have aggravated those tensions. Drawing on previously unavailable sources, such as the journals of 19th century First Presidency member George Q. Cannon, or the letters to her children of Phoebe Pendleton Woodbury, a pioneer era convert, Park brings new perspectives and primary sources not available to previous historians.
Gender issues are one of the most obvious tensions, and a source of many contradictions, Park writes. Joseph Smith helped his first wife Emma build the Relief Society early in the church, only to have Brigham Young discontinue the organization for years during his presidency, before restoring it again. Over the church’s history, the Relief Society has seen its role expand and then contract in cyclical fashion, just as it has waxed and waned in its autonomy within the Church. LDS women in Utah were some of the first female voters in the nation and then were disenfranchised as a condition of statehood. Polygamy defined the Church from rumors of the practice in Nauvoo on through the manifestos announcing the ending of the practice in 1890 and 1904. However, fundamentalist offshoots of the restoration movement still cling to the principle down to the present day, complicated by post-manifesto plural marriages into the 20th century in the mainstream church. Gender-related LGBTQ issues have become a more recent source of tension within the Church, one that seems to loom large in the coming decades.
Park also tackles the issue of race, describing the murky beginnings of the temple/priesthood ban on members of African racial ancestry, and the controversies surrounding the practice that ended in 1978. 19th-century opposition to the church often focused on the Mormons as being a separate and inferior race, which led to leadership and members trying to emphasize their position as the whitest of White Americans. Even after the 1978 revelation ending the ban, some of the old and disavowed explanations persist down to the present day. While the church now sees its greatest growth in Latin America, Africa, and Asia, the leadership is still predominately North American and White. The Church and its leaders have repudiated and condemned racist attitudes and actions but have yet to apologize for the exclusionary policies of the past. While the priesthood/temple ban seemed to reflect prevailing attitudes of the 19th century, the pendulum of public opinion was moving in the opposite direction by the middle of the 20th.
Park argues that tensions over authority have also been a factor in the church since its earliest days. Church leaders have exerted control over church practices and narratives throughout its history. One of the earliest challenges involved Hiram Page and his claim to revelations that were rejected by Joseph Smith in the 1830s, resulting in disciplinary action against Page. On Smith’s death in 1844, competing claims were made to church leadership by multiple parties. Brigham Young made the case for leadership by the Quorum of Twelve, while Sidney Rigdon, as a member of the First Presidency challenged the Quorums’ authority. James J. Strang led many followers away with his claims of prophetic authority and new scriptures. And most famously, Smith’s wife and family did not follow Brigham Young West in the 1840s, which eventually led to the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, now known as the Community of Christ, the largest and most successful of the schismatic movements.
Centralizing the authority of church leadership led to the correlation movement of the mid-twentieth century. Efforts to control the church’s public perception as opposed to having it defined by outsiders have been an ongoing process, leading to a more open attitude toward the church’s history in the last several decades. The church’s hierarchical structure, Park assets, has always been at odds with concepts of American democracy, even as the church is recognized as America’s most successful home-grown religion. Challenging official narratives and resisting church policies has often led to disciplinary action. Park summarizes the 1993 September Six actions as another example, along with the more recent “Ordain Women” movement.
In an article for the January 2021 issue of The Atlantic, Mormon reporter McKay Coppins wrote of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ historical desire for acceptance within the broader American culture. Noting recent gains, such as the presidential campaign of Mitt Romney, Coppins warned of too much assimilation. “Taken too far, the Latter-day Saint longing for mainstream approval could turn the Church into just another mainline sect—drained of vitality, devoid of tension, not making any real demands of its members.”[1]
From Park’s perspective in American Zion, Mormonism’s essential tensions remain despite, or perhaps because of, cultural assimilation. Taken together, these same elements of race, gender, and authority offer continuing challenges. Park’s retelling of LDS church history, based on these tensions, represents a refreshing and occasionally challenging new approach. Other recent books and articles have dealt with these same issues, but none have done so as skillfully and comprehensively as Park’s American Zion. It’s a powerful, must-have volume that should be included in any serious study of the history of this most American of religions.
[1] McKay Coppins, The Atlantic, January 2021 issue, at https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/01/the-most-american-religion/617263/, accessed 16 February, 2024