Out of Obscurity Mormonism since 1945

In the years since 1945, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has grown rapidly in terms of both numbers and public prominence. Mormonism is no longer merely a home-grown American religion, confined to the Intermountain West; instead, it has captured the attention of political pundits, Broadway audiences, and prospective converts around the world. While most scholarship on Mormonism concerns its colorful but now well-known early history, the essays in this collection assess recent developments, such as the LDS Church's international growth and acculturation; its intersection with conservative politics in recent decades; its stances on same-sex marriage and the role of women; and its ongoing struggle to interpret its own tumultuous history. The scholars draw on a wide variety of Mormon voices as well as those of outsiders, from Latter-day Saints in Hyderabad, India, to "Mormon Mommy blogs," to evangelical "countercult" ministries. Out of Obscurity brings the story of Mormonism since the Second World War into sharp relief, explaining the ways in which a church very much rooted in its nineteenth-century prophetic and pioneering past achieved unprecedented influence in the realms of American politics and international business.

Patrick Q. Mason is the Howard W. Hunter Chair of Mormon Studies and Associate Professor of Religion at Claremont Graduate University.

John G. Turner is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at George Mason University.

Contributor biographies

Introduction
Patrick Q. Mason

Part I. Internationalization
1. International Legal Experience and the Mormon Theology of the State, 1945-2012
Nathan Oman
2. The Internationalization of Mormonism: Indications from India
Taunalyn Rutherford

Part II. Political Culture
3. Ezra Taft Benson and Modern (Book of) Mormon Conservatism
Patrick Q. Mason
4. The Romney Lens: A Bifocal Approach to Mormonism, American Religion, and Politics in the Past Half-Century
J. B. Haws
5. "The Puritan Ethic on High": LDS Media and the Mormon Embrace of Free Enterprise in the 20th Century
James Dennis LoRusso
6. The Pageantry of Protest in Temple Square
Max Perry Mueller
7. Mormons and Same-Sex Marriage: From ERA to Prop 8
Neil J. Young

Part III. Gender
8. Mahana, You Naked! Modesty, Sexuality, and Race in the Mormon Pacific
Amanda Hendrix-Komoto
9. Mormons and Housework during Second Wave Feminism
Kate Holbrook
10. Saying Goodbye to the Final Say: The Softening and Reimagining of Mormon Male Headship Ideologies
Caroline Kline
11. Blogging the Boundaries: Mormon Mommy Blogs and the Construction of Mormon Identity
Kristine Haglund

Part IV. Religious Culture
12. The Evangelical Countercult Movement and Mormon Conservatism
Matthew Bowman
13. Holding on to the "Chosen Generation": The LDS Church and the Battle for Youth in the Late 1960s and Early 1970s
Rebecca de Schweinitz
14. Everyone Can Be a Pioneer: The Sesquicentennial Celebrations of Mormon Arrival in the Salt Lake Valley
Sara M. Patterson
15. "All the truth does not always need to be told": The LDS Church, Mormon History, and Religious Authority
John G. Turner

Index