A Peculiar People: Anti-mormonism And The Making Of Religion In Nineteenth-century America
by J. Spencer Fluhman /
2012 / English / PDF
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[Read by John Pruden]
[Read by John Pruden]
Though the Constitution guarantees the free exercise of religion,
it does not specify what qualifies as a religion. From its founding
in the 1830s, Mormonism, a homegrown American faith, has drawn
thousands of converts but far more critics. In
Though the Constitution guarantees the free exercise of religion,
it does not specify what qualifies as a religion. From its founding
in the 1830s, Mormonism, a homegrown American faith, has drawn
thousands of converts but far more critics. InA Peculiar
People
A Peculiar
People, J. Spencer Fluhman offers a comprehensive history of
anti-Mormon thought and the associated passionate debates about
religious authenticity in nineteenth-century America. He argues
that understanding anti-Mormonism provides critical insight into
the American psyche because Mormonism became a potent symbol around
which ideas about religion and the state took shape.
, J. Spencer Fluhman offers a comprehensive history of
anti-Mormon thought and the associated passionate debates about
religious authenticity in nineteenth-century America. He argues
that understanding anti-Mormonism provides critical insight into
the American psyche because Mormonism became a potent symbol around
which ideas about religion and the state took shape.
Fluhman documents how Mormonism was defamed, with attacks often
aimed at polygamy, and shows how the new faith supplied a social
enemy for a public agitated by the popular press and wracked with
social and economic instability. Taking the story to the turn of
the century, Fluhman demonstrates how Mormonism's own
transformations, the result of both choice and outside force,
sapped the strength of the worst anti-Mormon vitriol, triggering
the acceptance of Utah into the Union in 1896 and also paving the
way for the dramatic, yet still grudging, acceptance of Mormonism
as an American religion.
Fluhman documents how Mormonism was defamed, with attacks often
aimed at polygamy, and shows how the new faith supplied a social
enemy for a public agitated by the popular press and wracked with
social and economic instability. Taking the story to the turn of
the century, Fluhman demonstrates how Mormonism's own
transformations, the result of both choice and outside force,
sapped the strength of the worst anti-Mormon vitriol, triggering
the acceptance of Utah into the Union in 1896 and also paving the
way for the dramatic, yet still grudging, acceptance of Mormonism
as an American religion.