A Word on Words; 4108; Stephen Mansfield

from nashville public television's studio way it's celebrated authors literature and ideas for more than three decades and this is a word on workers' jobs johnson you know welcome once again to award on words my guest today is a new york times bestselling author stephen mansfield best known for his groundbreaking books on the role religion and history in history and in modern culture first gained international attention with the faith of georgia the bush followed that up with another bestseller the faith of brock a bomb he's here today to talk about his new book the moment as an american sets out to discover how this once disregarded religion has become one of the most influential movements in the united states today thanks for being here this idea very early in the book that in the writing process you and councilman members

of all of us and that play you even though the required by the subject matter as questions that might've been intrusive even embarrassing that they were never like openness us friendship ah and this sort of loving kindness that this might not have been expected i really did i lectured at byu they i asked to do research there and they knew i'd written some of these books and after the lecture and i'd been welcomed me up a temple square amongst executives and so on and i was i was very moved by how opening gracious they are i'd made a quip in a classroom of students you know throw a common i use about will you adopted me and a date they'd sell it as be how i'd been treated as a wonderfully what we do about a twelve day without them yes absolutely and they began the ride to the house for dinner and the kids to decide what's called

an ally and i thought ok well i need a story that officially but that's how responsibly and i began to realize that a fractured lonely society where families often our working people are alone people are in need of community of belonging neither the saints know how to lose around somebody how to wrap around someone to bring them into community and in a society where people want to belong before they believe it's working for them you know you say at the outset look on and i'm not here to defend ought to prosecute on the non mormons exploring the growth of those a religious movement oh what a quote about that growth from you point out the nineteen forty million maybe the whole world and more mormons and now those numbers of mouth what you make of those numbers in and how and how successful was mr rubin in attracting

people to the court yet this actually one of the great stories of mormonism and that it's not actually their missionary activity primarily strong numbers are taking nothing away from them it's been the power of celebrity that has won them acceptance in american society they were they were vilified hated up until the end of the eighteen hundreds of mormonism only officially went away in at ninety but in nineteen hundred a man named reed smooch those were an economics for a host of holy terror something comparable to the great depression this man that was a us senator for from utah his confirmation hearing because of all the biases mormons took forty eight years when he was the first nationally pro i'm a prominent mormon and theodore roosevelt welcomed it was excited that he was confirmed as sutter the first time that the nation saw a mormon and a high position doing well and for some reason from that point on it was mormon olympic athletes and gold medal winners it was jack subject and see you at least wrestling mormon it was moribund war heroes during the two wars

right up to what we all know is the big mamas the donny and marie show in the nineteen seventies and now of course we have a whole slew of mormon celebrities so it's it's both a bit of a bad thing that the acceptance is come through prominent likeable people on the public stage the downside which when i do it eventually is that it's not as though mormonism's been vetted theologically by the american people or that or that even a distinctly sure around seventy percent didn't know or they believe they just oh they like it they like romney or they like back or they like stephanie meyer the author of the twilight series so it's that their acceptance and their growth has come largely by this modeling that happens from their celebrities and now and the mormons really i don't gain that many converts to the missionaries who go out the the benefit to them from that is that what happens in the youth themselves young men come home some some young women come home from that as well and then they become the ceo's of jet blue or the marriott's audit such a vast bachelor how the mormons are benefiting from that missionary effort but in terms of actually gaining souls from those two year

intercollegiate missionary efforts that if it's not a very significant number you know you a deal with them at some point in the book review with every day in question that from the mossad and don't know about mormons would be astonished to read in it's interesting you you really tell a story through a series of antidote to begin in that byu in on a racquetball court but in the process of telling these anecdotes the subjects that as i said would astonish some americans enrich us and there's no dogs there it is native to defend not prosecute bought the accounts of joseph smith not well known but if i said

to you i'm i guess if i said to ninety percent of the american people that i love right here kind of elements of ministers and i don't believe most people would certainly would've heard it and not really believe it and that's the big chasm and an element of american approach the mormons we'd end with a specific show the way america knows a mormon it into like mormonism so they know this individually like they like mormonism then later what had happened so what comes one says well probably has nine children because he believes that family system in a pre mortal stay before they all were took on human form other is a covenant made in the sort of spiritual tree mortality state and there they added parents probably had the stammer children possibly because someone prophesied that was the number that they have had in the prewar to

stay on a tilt their there that people go hold up there you mean john the guy who runs the holiday inn he believes that probably yes and you go to a few others and this is the this is the thing that that is that is working in american society because celebrity has one acceptance because of their accepted because we know john the manager of a restaurant or build a teacher or folks we like locally their doctrines never explored and then you get into the doctor and you know all i couldn't possibly believe that he's such a nice guy and that's the dynamic that's going on right now you know politically in america and you know that there are but a number of low of no nos in so far as they're concerned words mean something to the manager one out mormon church that picky about what they're called just have to use your phrase i thought that many violin and the young and an on one hand mormon church is outrage love of science the knife into the brain properly then hyphenated i've got as i was part of that that it has an end and

it's interesting it's interesting to me how one how carefully you long to i think to make sure that that this was an illinois and a factual way for example there's a sentiment that what mormons believe in plain lemon and all i found things where i'm sure i've read about all the mormon church and a half dozen times in depth and how much i had forgotten and how much i think i really never knew but it's right there as you say and plainly was as a chronology the evolution of of mourners in america which is which is you're very valuable was the purpose i know which purpose was bought but it was thoughtful to include

those aspects also quotations you wouldn't normally does mean as a whole as a whole section dedicated to that talk about the process of putting into the book come in different ways little devices that help you understand what you didn't understand about mormonism well i i knew why i myself have gotten lost in the systems of thought of certain religions as hard to get your mind around bits and bits and pieces of mormonism's very much that way that joseph smith didn't receive from an angel of the religion and toto and under the assumption that it received from an angel he didn't he didn't see that as a as a total body he received some revelations in the next year you have more revelations and brigham young have further revelations in some of the revelations are scattered really up until sunrise in revelations as you point out well how does anybody get their

mind around this we don't really teach these religions and schools you know really a russia specialist at as oliver houck i tell an interesting story but also provide a little bit of a reference book a little bit of that maybe maybe be the go to a little bit of marketing here in the silent and look people go to to get the information some thought it if i could simplify this now because i've never seen in that for my head almost every major book on mormonism in many they've written themselves of course as i was writing the book i thought this is just not done in a part of the reason is the doctrines not simple for them this is one of the great disconnect with between mormons and non mormons for mormons themselves it's the fact that they believe that mormonism is the restoration of priesthood authority that the ironic priesthood of the old testament book has a dickey is milk isn't it because of that all the big old just reprise just come to fulfillment and mormonism that's how they think they think in terms of supernatural endowment powered prophecies of things about major doctrines there but its second or so the priesthood is really vital because the executive is really vital to its essential core the libyans when i'm

sitting in solitary talking to a mormon about mormonism he's talking about the time he was in the hospital and that was a priest a blessing given he's talking about maybe speaking in tongues he's talking about when the spirit fell at the recent state meeting he sounds a lot but it cost to make outsiders are thinking temple garments some polygamy and lax project over there that's that's the normal culture perspective so i wanted to cut through all that and provide something that would be solid and debatable ivan senators a mormon friends and said tell me that i haven't overstated are understated here there's no that's the core right there and i can't find any other statement like that i'm saying he repeated on websites because i think we've boiled it down to the essentials it's just a very hard thing to teach my round let me pitched to you three four forces and let you respond by a given an extra measure the golden

plate golden plates are assumed to be a revelation in history buried by a largely jewish civilization and about four hundred ad somewhere in the western hemisphere the people of that time would had appearances of jesus in his post resurrection experiences according to mormon doctrine they're buried in there hidden from him in time until joseph smith directed by angel ideas them up in the eighty and thirties well eighteen points i am ed angel is angels <unk> famous for a lie he tells about you translate them which does not mean to read the line was like am i read german you might read french but rather by revelation are looking at characters you don't know and revelations coming just what they make and that the quote unquote translation those gold plates becomes the book of mormon and that's that's how they can about a legal plates are essential of the joseph smith said that then the brain tumor and i came and got the plates back so they were never verified by anybody extra melissa for that except for those who were mormons and sell them our

revelation let me just outside of those who just joined us we policy lens feel about his boat more menacing america and didn't let's talk about the visitation of most of the saints the mormons believe that that visitation did take place in the joseph smith was close to but actually by apostles jesus is like he would play visitation by john the baptist john peter i mean many of them i eventually ally germany he believed he received many revelations and that's for non mormons that's disturbing or ot enough i'll bet he's receiving revelations but but the the thing that is interesting are not just the report of the room revelations of people of the dissertations of people but the docks are revelations that he received the things that he thought he heard heavenly father say and i don't do that very firmly in the book yes i mean i i mean just imagine for mama knew that my

wife imagine for a moment i simply walked up to her where she'll are disagreeing about something and i say you know the save the heavenly father you know shall come in line with my husband or thou shall be destroyed about a quote thou shall be destroyed that's the country is not working in our modern world the justice with the daily role as wife relied several times once on polygamy with revelations that threatened to destroy her about what's hard to talk about her and her ordeal and for our marriage as it all with a problem for her and she did not want him to learn and being wedded to other women will and the way came about not about you that is a huge challenge but they are hosting of a couple women in their home she notices that the saudis were overly familiar with her husband she kicked them out as we realize it delighted they're great quarter she cursed them as pitchers and the next thing we find

out is that he's married to them and she did not know that could not have started the discussion about polygamy after itself from there i just i i find it again again i found things as i said that i must agree what that i i simply didn't know it strikes me as i did and i deeply in into the book that he understood that his stories about the revelations we're being doubt and so he gets colleagues to go with them for example to examine the plights yes and there are at least two instances in which when you recite the need to invade your testimonials let's say we've been going we've seen and they layer of a

real an estimated three talk a little bit about that revelation because you don't deal in in depth with whether he had a chance i'm paraphrasing number but at some point it comes close to question willie an active imagination but it also i think he was the kind of personality wheel well today the bubbly personality a very magnetic able to manipulate people without that without really much effort i am and so after he had translated suppose of the plate and end and therefore gives took a warm and i he had a number of men brought the woods with him and pray and walk out says that they they prayed i prayed he said do you see them meeting the plates and they hadn't seen them and they were all condemn when in spiritual or pressing him and spiritual mission by the way do you see them to see them and many have rebuked them and why you're sort of really they were hungry you know soul starvation factor jason and working them and whispers are

friendly to friends and finally go holly we've seen the place now almost all of them won or announced that later in life but that's the documented evidence that's actually printed that statement is actually printed with the book of mormon today and it has information i guess one of the questions raised about them potential for an active imagination to me it makes proliferation of mencia mormon church almost on it that i mean i when i read the book you're welcome and this is not an attack on mormonism minute stretch of imagination but as i read it in fairness i say i don't believe i could be drawn to

that to that religion and yet people who are have proliferated and i think a number of reasons for that the first of all the mormons tend to teach what is quote unquote faith promoting that's perfect for its part of the crisis today is the seventeen year old who's been in their various schools all through his life can go on the internet now and get information that previous generations of mormons didn't have and sometimes they're leaving the faith not because they they hadn't been told about these various troubling episodes polygamy or whatever but i haven't told the truth the whole truth so so they're losing people because of the this issue of the big river facts that what's in the faith promoting crippling they have that there's another issue too and that is that the mormons are billy either functioning at its most of them anyway are spiritual plane that is not at the rational level they want you to have at a testimony which is not like speaking out in church which you believed but an inner knowing from that from god that these things are true

that's it that's what you're going for without looking for scientific verification without looking for historical confirmation is almost no historical evidence all to supporting it so that it doesn't mean you pretty much have to suspend reason to believe a tire civilizations existed in designing a shard of pottery summer but maude my mormon friends look we're faced with original some say of course and then but what we want we believe this is a spiritual and a spiritual confirmed and we won heavenly father to give you an inner knowing that it's true when your functioning at that level say them scholarship departs but but this is this is well known amongst the scholars of the scholars now are wrestling with that and having this this contention and people in fire from berlin university over these sorts of academic issues area is it credible is irrational doesn't make sense is there any evidence for and that's that i think is is what now is creating a crisis from for mormonism if there is a mormon moment as newsweek's that happening right now part of that warm the moment is that is that mormonism is being confronted with facts and science and i think many of the more thinking mormons are in crisis

we're just right now i said you deal with these controversial subjects with without hesitation fought with but without botha bias isn't a combination of the facts of their as you found out so let me ask you about a couple of social issues inevitably come up and in this political season versus with the rules of love with a black senator talk about about yvette emotional strong well i suspect the church went through before it found its way and that conservative judge was wielded yesterday to say baptist methodist church that theirs was a little bit different because they have walden their

view of blacks into a federal theology whereas that wasn't quite the case with both with other religions but that's not done in a way to be pejorative joseph smith was a man of his age and looked down upon blacks and eventually through revelations wold into the faith the idea that blacks could not be priests and could not be welcomed into the temple which is a sacred place that no outsiders allowed to enter that continued until about nineteen seventy eight now by nineteen seventy eight many of the ohio river or more influential mormons themselves were do lobbying for change and then that the lds the mormon president had a revelation so you've got that with him and told him it was time to just end that may be the good side of progress of revelation in the things can stop well many of the skull older scholars at byu at brigham young university so we went that day we help each other and wept we have longed for this for so long but it had been a long i've been a many many decades

and that the more that mormon theology have fed into much of racism in america now the fastest growing ethnic segment for mormonism is african americans are deftly move beyond it and you often see in the i'm a mormon campaign commercial campaign on television black faces black or red high ranking officials officials and again like what the problems for marco polo women in the church and the story there so it strikes me that but it's one thing to be ingrained in our culture as it has been that it's another thing to harriet as a theological as a as a theological tenet an early early days the movement in those early meetings of the suffragists and there were christian preachers who stood up and recite it all on the violence so this is wrong but there are specific theological

sentence the mormon faith again slowly developed that that's actually true i mean the mainstream christianity has always been moving towards you know in christ as the male or female you know that that means that their gender is a physical thing and not another set of spiritual thing of it therefore you could have the numbers are what have you within mormonism it that it's it's not believe that women can be produced only males can be priests so this makes a pretty dramatic chasm between the two as a catholic convert it as well in which all struggle with was headed out there but but that the fact is that this has continued its continued relatively unchallenged by dissidents have been asked to leave the church we we are an a very old school yeah and i would say the majority opinion is and biblical view of women and that this massive chasm between males and females is as

dramatic end and i think one day in history was not time there will be another revelation by another profit at some point and this will be undone as has happened with black some with polygamy but it doesn't look like it's coming soon i'm a lot of that has to do with the eternally of marriage the idea that i was married to my spouse and the mortality of my children were predetermine i will be married to them over there to her and all throughout eternity we will rule together over some kind of terra firma and and that that's that's her role is to be michael regent or my spouse or produce the spirit children that populate realm is yet to come and so that whole failed you have to somehow be entitled to loosen up a way to allow for change in the role of women and it's great to have you here and and i'm hoping i'll have you back with us the next move i'm reading that right now on the kurds

well you know here in nashville we have many many kurds and the northern iraq they've accomplished an absolute miracle of what they call kurdistan having been flat lined in the early nineties through the castings of saddam hussein they are rising so much that recently forbes said it was one of the top twenty vacation spots in the world for war zone so i'm writing about their rise in the religious liberty i worked over there for many years and i'm very excited about well actually i am a look for them back when you apportion thank you today for coming thank you i wanna thank all of you you must've you're interested in them in the mormon faith in the church the latter day saints you must read mormonism america thanks all of you for watching for warlords and dancing and the love he agreed