Although often regarded as marginal or obscure, Mormonism is a significant American religious minority, numerically and politically. The successes and struggles of this U.S. born religion reveal much about how religion operates in U.S. society. Mormonism: The Basics introduces the teachings, practices, evolution, and internal diversity of this movement, whose cultural icons range from Mitt Romney to the Twilight saga, from young male missionaries in white shirts and ties to polygamous women in pastel prairie dresses.

This is the first introductory text on Mormonism that tracks not only the mainstream LDS but also two other streams within the movement—the liberalized RLDS and the polygamous Fundamentalists—thus showing how Mormons have pursued different approaches to defining their identity and their place in society. The book addresses these questions.

Are Mormons Christian, and why does it matter?

How have Mormons worked out their relationship to the state?

How have Mormons diverged in their thinking about gender and sexuality?

How do rituals and regulations shape Mormon lives?

What types of sacred spaces have Mormons created?

What strategies have Mormons pursued to establish a global presence?

Mormonism: The Basics is an ideal introduction for anyone wanting to understand this religion within its primarily American but increasingly globalized contexts.

Table of Contents

Introduction. 1. A Brief History of Mormons 2. Are Mormons Christian? Why Does It Matter? 3. Building God’s Kingdom: Mormons and Church-State Relations 4. Mormons and Sex: Gender, Sexuality, and Family 5. The Shape of a Mormon Life: Lived Religion 6. Making a Place: Sacred Space in Mormonism 7. Taking Mormonism Global: Challenges of International Expansion Chronology

For the last several decades, at the far fringes of American evangelical Christianity, has stood an intellectual movement known as Christian Reconstructionism. The movement was founded by theologian, philosopher, and historian Rousas John Rushdoony, whose near-2000-page tome The Institutes of Biblical Law (1973) provides its foundation. Reconstructionists believe that the Bible provides a coherent, internally consistent, and all-encompassing worldview, and they seek to remake the entirety of society-church, state, family, economy-along biblical lines. They are strongly opposed to democracy and believe that the Constitution should be replaced by Old Testament law. And they carry their convictions to their logical conclusion, arguing, for example, for the restoration of slavery and for the imposition of the death penalty on homosexuals, adulterers, and Sabbath-breakers. In this fascinating book, Julie Ingersoll draws on years of research, Reconstructionist publications, and interviews with Reconstructionists themselves to paint the most complete portrait of the movement yet published. She shows how the Reconstructionists' world makes sense to them, in terms of their own framework. And she demonstrates the movement's influence on everything from homeschooling to some of the more mainstream elements of the Christian Right.

True story of survivalMother and unborn child beat cancer through faith and determination One of the truly remarkable stories of faith and determination: At age 29, Heather Choate was diagnosed with breast cancer. She was ten weeks pregnant with her sixth child. Her unborn baby became victim to the fast-spreading and highly dangerous cancer in Heather's body that already spread to her lymph nodes. Doctors told her she needed to abort her baby to save her life. Heather told them, "I'd rather die than take the life of my baby." Heather and her husband set out to find a way to save both mother and baby. The journey pushed them to the fringes of their stamina, tested the strength of their familial relationships and found them clinging to their faith like it was the last bit of thread on a lifeline. Reading true stories of survival may change your life: We all have unexpected adversity in life. It's those things that we think "will never happen to us." It could be the loss of job, the birth of a special needs child, the downturn of the economy or an unexpected health challenge. Most of us would easily crumble under such circumstances, but Heather found that its not about what happens to you, its about what you do with it. You don't have to almost die, to learn how to live and Heather shows us how. Despite adversity, nearly impossible challenges can be met, families can be strengthened and faith can sustain even the most desperate souls on their journey. She brings her role as cancer warrior into the real lives of readers, addressing topics that affect them most: dealing with doubt and insecurity, discovering who they really are, renewing their passion, negotiating family strife, releasing relentless regrets, succeeding against temptation, weathering their worst fears, pressing on against fatigue and illness, uprooting bitterness and more. Fighting for Our Lives will take you on a journey of self-examination and appreciation of the beauties of today, and the book could actually change your life. What you'll learn in Fighting for Our Lives: Don't just survive challenges, thrive through them How to use your power of choice, because it's not what happens to you that matters, its what you do about it Practical ways that faith sustains and strengthens How to deal with doubt and insecurity Best ways to release negativity and find forgiveness How to trust your inner voice

This book shows that new centers of Christianity have taken root in the global south. Although these communities were previously poor and marginalized, Stephen Offutt illustrates that they are now socioeconomically diverse, internationally well connected, and socially engaged. Offutt argues that local and global religious social forces, as opposed to other social, economic, or political forces, are primarily responsible for these changes.

Latter-day Saints have a paradoxical relationship to the past; even as they invest their own history with sacred meaning, celebrating the restoration of ancient truths and the fulfillment of biblical prophecies, they repudiate the eighteen centuries of Christianity that preceded the founding of their church as apostate distortions of the truth. Since the early days of Mormonism, Latter-day Saints have used the paradigm of apostasy and restoration in their narratives about the origin of their church. This has generated a powerful and enduring binary of categorization that has profoundly impacted Mormon self-perception and relations with others. Standing Apart explores how the idea of apostasy has functioned as a category to mark, define, and set apart "the other" in Mormon historical consciousness and in the construction of Mormon narrative identity. The volume's fifteen contributors trace the development of LDS narratives of apostasy within the context of both Mormon history and American Protestant historiography. They suggest ways in which these narratives might be reformulated to engage with the past, as well as offering new models for interfaith relations. This volume provides a novel approach for understanding and resolving some of the challenges faced by the LDS church in the twenty-first century.

Over the last four decades, evangelical scholars have shown growing interest in Christian debates over other religions, seeking answers to essential questions: How are we to think about and relate to other religions, be open to the Spirit, and at the same time remain evangelical and orthodox? Gerald R. McDermott and Harold A. Netland offer critiques of a variety of theologians and religious studies scholars, including evangelicals, but also challenge evangelicals to move beyond parochial positions. This volume is both a manifesto and a research program, critically evaluating the last forty years of Christian treatments of religious others and proposing a comprehensive direction for the future. It addresses issues relating to the religions in both systematic theology and missiology, taking up long-debated questions such as contextualization, salvation, revelation, the relationship between culture and religion, conversion, social action, and ecumenism. It concludes with responses from four leading thinkers of African, Asian, and European backgrounds: Veli-Matti Karkkainen, Vinoth Ramachandra, Lamin Sanneh, and Christine Schirrmacher.

In recent years evangelical Christians have been increasingly turning their attention toward issues such as the environment, international human rights, economic development, racial reconciliation, and urban renewal. Such engagement marks both a return to historic evangelical social action and a pronounced expansion of the social agenda advanced by the Religious Right in the past few decades. For outsiders to evangelical culture, this trend complicates simplistic stereotypes. For insiders, it brings contention over what "true" evangelicalism means today. Beginning with an introduction that broadly outlines this 'new evangelicalism', the editors identify its key elements, trace its historical lineage, account for the recent changes taking place within evangelicalism, and highlight the implications of these changes for politics, civic engagement, and American religion. The essays that follow bring together an impressive interdisciplinary team of scholars to map this new religious terrain and spell out its significance in what is sure to become an essential text for understanding trends in contemporary evangelicalism.

Jon Krakauer's literary reputation rests on insightful chronicles of lives conducted at the outer limits. He now shifts his focus from extremes of physical adventure to extremes of religious belief within our own borders, taking readers inside isolated American communities where some 40,000 Mormon Fundamentalists still practice polygamy. Defying both civil authorities and the Mormon establishment in Salt Lake City, the renegade leaders of these Taliban-like theocracies are zealots who answer only to God.
At the core of Krakauer's book are brothers Ron and Dan Lafferty, who insist they received a commandment from God to kill a blameless woman and her baby girl. Beginning with a meticulously researched account of this appalling double murder, Krakauer constructs a multi-layered, bone-chilling narrative of messianic delusion, polygamy, savage violence, and unyielding faith. Along the way he uncovers a shadowy offshoot of America's fastest growing religion, and raises provocative questions about the nature of religious belief.

How is it that some conservative groups are viscerally antigovernment even while enjoying the benefits of government funding? In "Piety and Public Funding" historian Axel R. Schafer offers a compelling answer to this question by chronicling how, in the first half century since World War II, conservative evangelical groups became increasingly adept at accommodating their hostility to the state with federal support.Though holding to the ideals of church-state separation, evangelicals gradually took advantage of expanded public funding opportunities for religious foreign aid, health care, education, and social welfare. This was especially the case during the Cold War, when groups such as the National Association of Evangelicals were at the forefront of battling communism at home and abroad. It was evident, too, in the Sunbelt, where the military-industrial complex grew exponentially after World War II and where the postwar right would achieve its earliest success. Contrary to evangelicals' own claims, liberal public policies were a boon for, not a threat to, their own institutions and values. The welfare state, forged during the New Deal and renewed by the Great Society, hastened--not hindered--the ascendancy of a conservative political movement that would, in turn, use its resurgence as leverage against the very system that helped create it.By showing that the liberal state's dependence on private and nonprofit social services made it vulnerable to assaults from the right, "Piety and Public Funding" brings a much needed historical perspective to a hotly debated contemporary issue: the efforts of both Republican and Democratic administrations to channel federal money to "faith-based" organizations. It suggests a major reevaluation of the religious right, which grew to dominate evangelicalism by exploiting institutional ties to the state while simultaneously brandishing a message of free enterprise and moral awakening.