Mormons as Puritans

Posted on November 16, 2008
Filed Under Politics, Religion |

Razib had up a great post last week I’d mentioned on the sideblog. It was about Mormon voting habits being tied to Puritan influence. It’s worth reading if you haven’t yet (and be sure to scan the comments). As Razib says:

When I say Mormons are “Puritan,” I’m not saying this as a figure of speech; Mormon America is to a great extent both a direct cultural and genetic descendant of New England Puritanism! The proportion of “English” ancestry in Mormon America is somewhat exaggerated by the fact that missions were sent to England and so you had direct migrants from Europe to Utah. But this can’t explain the whole of the phenomenon…

The conclusion is thus

Mormon America is a representative of the New England Puritan cultural tradition in “Red America.”

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He does later in the comments add a bit of a caveat.

I think there are plenty of differences between Puritans, modern New England Protestants and Mormons. Rather, I’m trying to suggest that the differences between Southern Protestants and Mormons, who are politically aligned and in agreement on culture wars issues, are likely rooted in their ancestral heritages. Of course, some of it is just ecological & historical; Mormons were shaped by Utah. But I think the Puritan antecedent also adds explanatory value.

When put like this I agree completely. I just think there’s a big danger of downplaying the influence of the constant influx of converts as well as the influence of the environment in Utah, Missouri and Illinois.

I should note that Razib’s thesis is hardly new. Writing several decades ago Church historian Leonard Arrington in his seminal economic history of the Mormons stated that

The Mormon Church claimed to be a restoration of Primitive Christianity, and its religious beliefs included worship of a personal God, acceptance of the Bible and Book of Mormon as divine scriptures, emphasis upon education and group progress, and conviction that divine authority had been granted to Joseph Smith and his associates to establish “the one true church.” Mormonism thus had a particularly strong appeal to the descendants of the New England Puritans. Its comprehensive theology, Old Testament literalism, militant faith, and providential interpretation of history, coupled with the “chosen people of God” concept, attracted particularly the sons and daughters of New England who were discontented with the theology and polity of contemporary Calvinism. The closeness of the Mormons to their fatherly God, His believed interest in thier daily affairs, and the direct and complete influence of church over their spiritual and temporal lives indicate a considerable and significant reaction against contemporary Calvinist absolutism and deistic secularism. Most of the early members, and virtually all of the early leaders who shaped the faith, including Brigham Young, were born in New England or were of New England parentage. On the whole, the creed and practices of the Mormons were relatively conservative and uemptional, although contemporary observers sometimes stressed the exceptions. (Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom, 3)

Arrington continues in his introduction noting many parallels between the Puritans and Mormons. When you read through the parallels it’s hard not to note the similarity to Reagan Republicanism.

Comments

7 Responses to “Mormons as Puritans”

I really enjoyed reading Val Rust’s “Radical Origins.” Rust shows that some large fraction of those baptized between 1830 and 1835 (I think it was quite a majority) had ancestors who had belonged to various “radical” protestant sects, and in fact most of their families had been in New England for 200 years.

What I find interesting about this thesis is the idea that the earliest saints’ radical origins continue to have a measurable effect on their spiritual descendants even after so many converts (with non-Puritan heritages) another 200 years later.

The problem with this line of thinking, of course, is that there is not much uniquely Puritan about anything Arrington mentions.

Yeah, this is pretty much crap. English does not equal Puritan. See: Steven Fleming, “The Religious Heritage of the British Northwest and the Rise of Mormonism,” Church History 77 (March 2008): 73-104.

Thanks for that ref Ben. I’d never heard of that book before.

Christopher, so you think the parallels are just too muddled and broad to be meaningful?

J. Stapley, thanks for that reference. It’s actually available online so it’s worth reading.

Instead, the United Brethren made such easy converts to Mormonism because
of a shared religious expectation of the active presence of the divine in everyday
life. The early Mormons, Joseph Smith included, were products of a British
subculture that held to this worldview despite the disenchantment of much of
the broader society. Thus Mormonism demonstrates the persistence of this
culture, which stretched back well beyond the nineteenth century and its social
conditions. This study concurs with John Brooke that Mormonism was “shaped
by strands of culture inherited from the past” but argues for a different
orientation to that heritage.8 Rather than being rooted primarily in popular
manifestations of Renaissance Hermeticism, Mormonism was in many ways
the fruition of the radical edge of centuries of Anglo-American religious
awakenings among peoples seeking the direct divine experience that orthodox
Protestantism generally suppressed. Though what Brooke calls Hermeticism
became a tool in this quest, Mormonism came out of a broader cultural milieu
that found its roots within particular regions of Great Britain.

The other point the author raises is an obvious one. A large number of early Mormons were Methodists. But didn’t Methodism come out of a kind of Puritan revival? (With some theological differences obviously) As I recall Razib mentions Puritanism but there seems to be a strong backlash against Calvinism among Mormons or their forebearers but aren’t Calvinism and Puritanism closely related? I confess I’m a tad confused here not knowing the ins and outs of all the various religious movements in the 17th century.

so you think the parallels are just too muddled and broad to be meaningful?

To some degree, yes. Perhaps more significantly, though, is that many of the characteristics of Puritanism that Arrington points out as being similar to Mormonism can be found in the more immediate past of early LDS converts. Eight of the original twelve apostles, for instance, affiliated with Methodism at some point in their lives (either being raised as Methodists or being adult converts to the sect), and Methodism fits almost perfectly the description of Puritanism offered above–they too, were Old Testament literalists, practiced a “militant faith”, held a “providential interpretation of history” and saw themselves as the “chosen people of God.” Perhaps more importantly (and much of Fleming’s research really makes this point) is that Methodists were a charismatic and visionary group that accepted to varying degrees the reality of visions, miracles, personal revelation, and spiritual gifts.

To clear up any confusion on Protestant history, the Puritans emerged in the 16th century as a group of strict religionists who felt that the English Reformation had come up short in its attempts to reform the Church of England.

didn’t Methodism come out of a kind of Puritan revival?

No. Methodism began as a study group at Oxford University in the 1730s by John and Charles Wesley. John had spent a couple of years in Savannah, Georgia during the 1730s as an Episcopalian missionary and had come into contact with the Moravians he encountered there. Impressed with Moravian piety, Welsey adopted and adapted such practices within his own religiosity and began creating Methodist societies (”classes”) wherever he went. The first Methodists arrived in America on the eve of the Revolution, and in the early Republic grew from a small sect to the largest denomination by the Civil War. Methodists are distinguished most obviously from Puritans by their general acceptance of Arminian theology (as opposed to the Calvinism of the Puritans).

Methodists are distinguished most obviously from Puritans by their general acceptance of Arminian theology (as opposed to the Calvinism of the Puritans).

I should note that some Methodists (though only a small minority) maintained a Calvinistic theology. Disciples of George Whitefield are the most obvious examples of this group in America.

Thanks Chris, even if the thesis of the post was wrong I learned a ton.

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