Consider two different Mormon reactions to state-sponsored repression: the anti-polygamy crusade and Mormons in East Germany.<\/p>\n
The anti-polygamy crusades represent full throated opposition to the law. From roughly 1878 until 1890, Mormons were the subject of more or less unremitting legal pressure to abandon polygamy. For most of that period the reaction of the Mormons was frankly defiant. They hid from federal marshals, lied in court when perjury would secure and acquittal, and all else failing took their lumps and went defiantly into the penitentiary. The government ratcheted up the level of pressure and the Church finally cracked when it look like it had not choice by capitulation or annihilation. Even after 1890 there were decades of shadowy and ambiguous resistance to the law until Joseph F. Smith firmly ended mainstream Mormon polygamy in the wake of the Smoot hearings.<\/p>\n
Mormons in East Germany, by contrast, did everything possible to avoid confrontation with the state. They had the luxury of not being specifically targeted in the way that 19th century polygamists were, but they also ran higher risks. The Stasi were considerably more brutal than the federal marshals, and the American justice system for all its faults was infinitely better than what Mormons could expect at the hands of the communists should the Saints excite their ire. Why the difference?<\/p>\n
Well there are obviously lots and lots of reasons, but let me focus in on one: Nineteenth century Mormons had much more imminent millennial expectations than did twentieth century Mormons. I don’t want to ignore the widespread belief among twentieth century Mormons that Armageddon and the Second Coming were just around the corner, but I don’t think such beliefs oriented church policy in the same way that they did in the nineteenth century. John Taylor and Wilford Woodruff stood up to the federal government with the firm expectation that Christ’s arrival would decide the issue. It was only in the last extremity when a very old Woodruff seemed willing to allow the possibility of a much delayed millennium that the Church backed down. (And even then, there were many in the highest leadership who saw the Manifesto as a faithless disgrace.) In contrast, I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think that David O. McKay or Spencer W. Kimball had the same, short millennial time line in their minds as they counseled the Saints in the GDR.<\/p>\n
If this is right, then the Mormon experience of civil disobedience was part and parcel to radical Mormon millenialism. The delay of the millennium – or at the very least the refusal of the current prophets to actively encourage belief in its immediacy – may also account for the rather more staid and patient attitude that the Church takes to offensive laws and repressive governments. The current posture lacks the legal fireworks of previous eras, but I suspect that Mormonism’s decision to wait out communism in the GDR rather than attack it in a Quixotic moment of millennial fervor represents the wiser course.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Consider two different Mormon reactions to state-sponsored repression: the anti-polygamy crusade and Mormons in East Germany.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corn"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1950"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1950\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}