Year: 2013
Type: article
Abstract: When one reminisces about the turbulent time in American history known as the sixties, images of psychedelic drug users, the Beatles and Martin Luther King come to mind.Strangely, religion seems to have flown under the radar in memories of this period, unless one is discussing Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam.Although not often associated with the 1960s, religious tolerance was at quite possibly its highest point in the history of the United States. 1 This period in fact proved to be a critical turning point for one major religious body: the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints."Mormons," as followers of the faith were referred to by outsiders since their religion's inception in the 1820s, have always been known as the strange, cultish stepcousin of Protestant Christianity.In the 1960s however, something palpably changed in how outsiders perceived Mormonism and the Mormon Church.Religious groups have traditionally been wary of conforming to cultural expectations and norms, and Mormonism was no exception.The slow acceptance of Mormonism by mainstream America seemed slow at best and nonexistent at worst from the founding of Joseph Smith's religion in the early 19 th century through the mid-twentieth century.Suddenly, in the 1960s, the Church appeared to have magically embodied those qualities that American outsiders stood for.How then did the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints change from being a religious outsider to part of mainstream American culture during this era?This is a complicated question, and not one with straightforward answers.Currently, historiography is quite expansive yet at the same time inconclusive.The major works on the 1 Trepanier, L. and L. Newswander, LDS in the USA : Mormonism and the making of American culture.
Source: The Iowa historical review
Author: James Crockett Harris
Institution: Virginia Tech
Language: English
Subfield: History
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W81182269