America's Saints
Bradford, Mary L.
More on Mormonism AMERICA'S SAINTS THE RISE OF MORMON POWER Robert Gottlieb and Peter Wiley G. P. Putnam's, $16.95, 278 pp. Mary L. Bradford THE TITLE of this book is calculated to attract the...
...After a brief account of the "mark of Cain" and the ' 'lineage problem,' * they declare that the "revelation" constitutes another difficult "accommodation" like the manifesto eliminating polygamy...
...The book reads well and it reads fast...
...A closer look would have revealed that it was not an accommodation but truly a reevalua-tion, an important watershed that redirected the thinking of the church and made major changes in the lives of its members...
...It is revealing that in Special Affairs Director Richard Lindsay's unfavorable notice in the Mormon Church News, the subtitle was deleted...
...Therein lies the tension...
...Although they cover the plight of the intellectual in the church, commenting on personal problems of members of all stripes, they virtually ignore what O'Dea so tellingly pointed out in 1957: "Those who see Mormonism as obsolete, underestimate its contribution to character formation and the moral life and the importance of its strictly religious tenets in the eyes of its adherents" (The Mormons, p. 261...
...In some way, Gottleib and Wiley fail to sound the depths...
...The intellectual realignment here could lead to other theological change...
...Anyone wishing to check accuracy would be driven to reconstructing the research for herself...
...We all suffer from such retrograde procedures...
...They describe roadblocks raised through restrictions on documents in the church archives...
...It is the worship part that Gottlieb and Wiley finally neglect...
...The authors praise the church's Media Council for its role in calling off those who would censor and censure independent voices, and conclude that although the church seems monolithic and centralized, it is diverse...
...wary of the present and fearful of the future...
...They avoid inspection of truth claims and concentrate on culture and behavior, confessing that their approach is "critical" of the church...
...and Mark Leone's Roots of Modern Mormonism (1979...
...They describe the paranoia of church leaders and rank-and-file members who refused to grant interviews or who insisted on anonymity...
...Even rigid authoritarians cannot govern in a vacuum and are influenced by the dynamic people they must lead...
...Gottleib and Wiley have really tried to understand Mormons without condecension...
...But the fact that these well-known historian-journalists have chosen the Mormon church for their intense three-year study is one indication that after 150 years, the church has come into its own...
...I believe it is wrong of church leaders to refuse interviews, and I believe it is wrong for them to close the archives to responsible researchers...
...As Mark Leone and others have pointed out, Mormonism is basically creedless and given to instant revelation through its living prophets...
...To Gottlieb and Wiley, the church is a corporate state, deeply political and, like any other comparable group, willing to lobby for its rights and its policies with muscle, money, and influence...
...Mary L. Bradford THE TITLE of this book is calculated to attract the non-Mormon reader and to strike fear into the heart of the Mormon reader...
...This book is must reading for Mormons and Mormon-watchers...
...This leads me to a deeper problem: the authors are refreshingly honest in admitting to their limited access, but this does not mask the fact that limited access really does limit the power of the book...
...Finally, after much digging and patience, they were granted audiences with two members of the Council of the Twelve—the highest ruling body...
...It is also a disturbing book for reasons other than those mentioned above...
...That makes for change...
...Wallace Turner's The Mormon Establishment (1966...
...The authors cover the early history of the church with dispatch and they move on to analyze the church's "secular compulsion," its economic power, its international goals, its internal organization (with an astute discussion of the little known Correlation program that disenfranchised the women...
...But Wiley and Gottleib have also limited themselves...
...Although they give credit to friendly public communications officials, they reveal that when they presented their list of twenty general authorities whose views would have lent balance to their work, they were repeatedly denied access...
...Mormons are apolitical people, drawn to power, with a strong interest in material success...
...Their materialism and their literal-mindedness have led them into prickly paths...
...Rather it should join the thoughtful company of studies that have emerged in the last twenty-five years: Thomas F. O'Dea's The Mormons (1957...
...The portrayal can only leave the keepers of the image sputtering...
...It was a harbinger that might well include change in the status of women and additions to the ongoing dialogues within the ranks on aspects of church history, like the First Vision and infallibility...
...And the authors don't hold out much hope for the church's ability to withstand 19 April 1985: 251 tension and solve its internal problems in a way that matches its international ambitions...
...They do so by design and they are honest about it, but the neglect distorts any prophecy they may make about the Mormon future...
...Independents are described as a ' 'small but distinct minority . . . wishing to explore their past yet hampered in their attempt...
...Yes, the church is a corporate state, but it is more than that—it is way of life and a place of worship...
...It has been several years since Mormonism in all its contemporary facets has been viewed under such a strong searchlight...
...It moves on to treat racial attitudes and practices through a scathing indictment of Mormon relations with the American Indians and detailed accounts of the black ' 'revelation.' ' It devotes a whole chapter to the troublesome woman problem, and ends with a look at the "multiple cultures of Zion"— the varying characteristics of mainstrean Mormons as they grapple with the liberal, racial, and "autonomous" Mormons...
...Boyd K. Packer and Neal A. Maxwell provided them with a "rare glimpse of church leaders on a one-to-one basis...
...This book discounts that dynamism when it describes independent scholars and members as wary of the present and fearful of the future...
...They declare themselves to be "journalists discovering information and analyzing materials that the church leadership had no desire to make public...
...The authors have apparently not grasped the full import of the commitment of young scholars within the church who are still unafraid to debate issues, young survivors who may yet rise to the top, as did Dallin Oaks and Russell Nelson, the new apostles from the worldly professions of law and medicine...
...It would be a mistake for Mormon leaders and lay members to relegate the book to the "anti-Mormon" shelf...
...The public relations image, so carefully nurtured by the church's public communications arm is that of an apolitical, worshipful body of saints who define power as the ability to act in God's name...
...This may seem like caviling, but clear academic documentation would have made a better book...
...The word "power" is a dirty word in most Mormon circles...
...In the end, the tone of the book seems to reflect the feelings of the tired reporters who finally grew weary of knocking at the gates of the fortress...
...The publishers, obviously in the name of readability, insisted the authors use the modern method of simply listing names and sources after each chapter without footnotes...
...They prophesy a bleak future in which an authoritarian bureaucracy promotes ' 'restrictive notions of the family'' and campaigns against ERA and homosexuality, thereby becoming increasingly "torn by different conceptions of the meaning of modern Mor-monism...
...Though they uncovered many important facets and were astute in their interpretations, they have deliberately chosen to stay with social and political trends to the detriment of intellectual and personal ones...
...The half chapter on blacks is a case in point...
...Though this probably overstates the case, it nonetheless touches on an important trend...
...The questions it raises about human rights, in America and abroad, and church and state political issues should be addressed...
Vol. 112 • April 1985 • No. 8
