American Heretics by Peter Gottschalk

Author:Peter Gottschalk
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2013-09-22T16:00:00+00:00

After the Election

Mitt Romney’s tie for second in the 2008 Republican nomination race and his win of the nomination in 2012 demonstrated conclusively what George Romney’s political fortunes already had hinted: Mormons have won increasing cultural recognition and acceptance through the occasional success of members in gaining notoriety. Beginning in the 1960s and ’70s, the popular singers Donny and Marie Osmond brought their toothy winsomeness from their Provo, Utah, home to a national (and international) audience as singers, actors, and television stars. When Ronald Reagan dubbed the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, which sang for his 1981 inauguration, “America’s choir,” he reflected the views of those who consider the 360-member group an American musical icon. The short-running (1978–1979) yet long-remembered Battlestar Galactica projected Mormon history into a science fiction future with a planetary exodus searching for a lost tribe in a promised land. Even if its more successful successor (2004–2009) reprised some Mormon themes more accidentally than Glen A. Larson’s original did, it nevertheless helped increase attention on the impact of the Saints on popular culture.56 Meanwhile, Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series of books (2005–2008), then films (2009–2012), reaffirmed that message with a nationally bestselling story, perhaps only slightly more improbable in its portrayal of a girl falling in love with a vampire than that its unwed high school protagonists eschew sex and alcohol. This cultural prominence only reflects the Mormons’ demographic size: today, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints represents the fifth-largest denomination in the United States, with about 6 million members. Nevertheless, anti-Mormon representations remain evident in popular entertainment (at least). Perhaps the surest, if most unlikely, sign of the church’s contested acceptance in the American mainstream is offered by the skeptical creators of South Park, who have managed to fashion a hit Broadway musical entitled The Book of Mormon, which critics have alternatively decried as a cynical lampoon and embraced as an endearing endorsement of its eponymous subject.

*The church initially went by the name Church of Christ, taking the LDS title in 1838. As a title, “Mormon”—deriving from the name of a prophet—originated as a derogatory term used by critics but was gradually embraced by church members who otherwise have referred to themselves as “Saints.”

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