some people get Mormons, but lots of people don't

4 June 2024 - 3 minutes read - 622 words - kudos:

A lot of Mormons¹ have a persecution complex that isn’t really well founded, but it is true that a lot of people don’t really get Mormons. One of my favorite stories from my time as a Latter-day Saint missionary is when a well-meaning friend of ours told us to get rid of our distinctive nametags, because they made us look too much like Jehovah’s Witnesses (the joke here is that Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t wear nametags—it’s Latter-day Saint missionaries who do that). I’ve really enjoyed the first two entries in Cory Doctorow’s Martin Hench trilogy, but I have to admit that I’m a little nervous about the third volume, which will feature a Utah-based computer scam involving a Latter-day Saint bishop. I’m not concerned about negative portrayals of Mormons, but it takes some real familiarity going beyond superficial cultural understandings to write Mormons correctly, and it will bug me if he gets the details wrong (that said, Doctorow’s casual reference to White Horse Prophecy Doomsdayers” in a recent book of his has given me reason to hope that Doctorow’s done his research).

This has played out in an entertaining-but-frustrating way on Dan McClellan’s TikTok/YouTube channel recently (I can’t be bothered with TikTok, so I subscribe to his content through YouTube). McClellan is a Bible scholar who frequently takes on other TikTokkers’ Bible-related content, and it’s not uncommon for there to be responses to videos, responses to responses, etc. Recently, one of these other accounts tried to take down McClellan’s own takedown of the other account’s original video, and frequently appealed to McClellan’s Mormonism as a reason that his content couldn’t be trusted. This is kind of hilarious because, as McClellan eventually pointed out, his takes on Biblical scholarship are just as problematic for traditional Mormon views as they are for other fundamentalist Christians. Of all the misunderstandings of Mormonism that this other account showed, the one that struck me as the most baffling was that McClellan’s scholarly approach to the Bible was somehow representative of Mormon takes on the Bible, which couldn’t be further from the truth.

Earlier today, though, when I went to pick up a hold at one of UK’s many library locations, I got a chance to talk to someone who gets Mormons, and it was kind of refreshing. I was picking up a book on ecclesiology (partly out of personal interest and partly for an essay I’m slowly putting together), he was curious what I was writing that would need that book as a source, and we got to chatting about my work, religion, and all of that sort of thing. It was clear from the get-go that this guy knows his way around Mormonism. I don’t know that he’s an expert, but he’s the kind of guy who knows Joseph Smith was from New York, understands Mormons’ historical connection with Scouting, and immediately demonstrated that he’s not the kind of guy who’s going to mix up Mormons with the Jehovah’s Witnesses. For the record, I don’t think it’s insulting to be compared with a Jehovah’s Witness, and I’ve always been kind of impatient with Mormons who do. My only issue with the mix-up is that the traditions are pretty distinct from each other, and casual conflation is a sure sign that someone doesn’t really know much about either. Even if I’m not a practicing Latter-day Saint anymore, it’s nice to talk with someone who really gets your people and doesn’t reduce them to an ambiguous stereotype.

In this post, I intentionally use the term “Mormon” rather than the preferred term “Latter-day Saint,” because I’m mostly interested in cultural identities and cultural perceptions, not in formal membership in the church that’s trying to distance itself from the nickname “Mormon.” ↩︎

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