Race and the Making of the Mormon People

Nonfiction, Religion & Spirituality, Christianity, Denominations, Mormonism, Social & Cultural Studies, Social Science, Discrimination & Race Relations, History, Americas, United States, 19th Century
Cover of the book Race and the Making of the Mormon People by Max Perry Mueller, The University of North Carolina Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Max Perry Mueller ISBN: 9781469633763
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press Publication: August 8, 2017
Imprint: The University of North Carolina Press Language: English
Author: Max Perry Mueller
ISBN: 9781469633763
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
Publication: August 8, 2017
Imprint: The University of North Carolina Press
Language: English

The nineteenth-century history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Max Perry Mueller argues, illuminates the role that religion played in forming the notion of three "original" American races—red, black, and white—for Mormons and others in the early American Republic. Recovering the voices of a handful of black and Native American Mormons who resolutely wrote themselves into the Mormon archive, Mueller threads together historical experience and Mormon scriptural interpretations. He finds that the Book of Mormon is key to understanding how early followers reflected but also departed from antebellum conceptions of race as biblically and biologically predetermined. Mormon theology and policy both challenged and reaffirmed the essentialist nature of the racialized American experience.
           
The Book of Mormon presented its believers with a radical worldview, proclaiming that all schisms within the human family were anathematic to God's design. That said, church founders were not racial egalitarians. They promoted whiteness as an aspirational racial identity that nonwhites could achieve through conversion to Mormonism. Mueller also shows how, on a broader level, scripture and history may become mutually constituted. For the Mormons, that process shaped a religious movement in perpetual tension between its racialist and universalist impulses during an era before the concept of race was secularized.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

The nineteenth-century history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Max Perry Mueller argues, illuminates the role that religion played in forming the notion of three "original" American races—red, black, and white—for Mormons and others in the early American Republic. Recovering the voices of a handful of black and Native American Mormons who resolutely wrote themselves into the Mormon archive, Mueller threads together historical experience and Mormon scriptural interpretations. He finds that the Book of Mormon is key to understanding how early followers reflected but also departed from antebellum conceptions of race as biblically and biologically predetermined. Mormon theology and policy both challenged and reaffirmed the essentialist nature of the racialized American experience.
           
The Book of Mormon presented its believers with a radical worldview, proclaiming that all schisms within the human family were anathematic to God's design. That said, church founders were not racial egalitarians. They promoted whiteness as an aspirational racial identity that nonwhites could achieve through conversion to Mormonism. Mueller also shows how, on a broader level, scripture and history may become mutually constituted. For the Mormons, that process shaped a religious movement in perpetual tension between its racialist and universalist impulses during an era before the concept of race was secularized.

More books from The University of North Carolina Press

Cover of the book Vance Packard and American Social Criticism by Max Perry Mueller
Cover of the book Habits of Industry by Max Perry Mueller
Cover of the book Havana and the Atlantic in the Sixteenth Century by Max Perry Mueller
Cover of the book Igniting the Caribbean's Past by Max Perry Mueller
Cover of the book School Resegregation by Max Perry Mueller
Cover of the book Progressive Evangelicals and the Pursuit of Social Justice by Max Perry Mueller
Cover of the book Books and the British Army in the Age of the American Revolution by Max Perry Mueller
Cover of the book In the Shadow of Auschwitz by Max Perry Mueller
Cover of the book Benjamin Elijah Mays, Schoolmaster of the Movement by Max Perry Mueller
Cover of the book Wilhelm II by Max Perry Mueller
Cover of the book Dealing with the Devil by Max Perry Mueller
Cover of the book Channels of Discourse, Reassembled by Max Perry Mueller
Cover of the book Death Squads or Self-Defense Forces? by Max Perry Mueller
Cover of the book Martha Jefferson Randolph, Daughter of Monticello by Max Perry Mueller
Cover of the book The World of Ovid's Metamorphoses by Max Perry Mueller
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy