Mormon history is part of the colonization history of the American West; and the LDS Church, as a major player in that process, still bears a colonization imprint in many ways. The colonizing days are over now, and the Church is part of a major political presence in the world, no longer the colonized, but rather the colonizer.
The "Tribe" of Deseret
The Deseret tribe inhabits a remote hinterland of the continent, occupying a large territory with fuzzy boundaries, united by its one important ritual center. The people are bound to the land by a mythical charter using ancient images such as "the everlasting mountains," a new Jordan river with another Dead Sea, and the "people of Israel." Effectively they see themselves as a chosen people who fled from an oppressing government to an unpolluted land. The promised land is considered to have been prepared by deity. They view themselves as a replica of a mythical tribe that once, on another continent but in similar surroundings, possessed such a land. The area was considered to have been empty, despite the presence of a small remnant of an old population. These remnant people (in African situations often considered half-mythical creatures) enjoy a special status in the founding myths of Deseret.
The "blood of Ephraim" is called upon to explain how all those who heeded the call and gathered from the recesses of the world in fact belong to one of the tribes of the Israelite diaspora. The tribe has a very strong tendency towards marriage within the group (endogamy). As in any tribe, marriage is an important concern for the elders: women form a very important asset, and procuring progeny (the more the better) is a focal point of the religion. Ancestor Worship of the Africans resembles that of the Mormon's.
Polygyny forms one of the most obvious parallels with Africa, as throughout that continent polygyny is the rule.
They call themselves "the elect," "Saints" or "God's people," thus drawing a clear boundary between themselves and others, for whom counter-names are employed, such as "the world," or "gentiles". Still, these out-groups are not considered evil per se, as they contain actual kinsmen and potential tribe members. So out-group relations are, on the whole, on a double footing: The difference between the tribal society and the outer world is stressed, yet the larger society is defined as a recruitment area.
People tend to restrict their social encounters to tribesmen. With them they share the same language, values, and social (including authority) structure. Consequently, they rely on them for help and support, the extended kin group being important in this respect. As is usual among tribes, they have a more complex folk sociological model in which they differentiate between kindred tribes containing potential kinsmen and tribes to which no kinship can be traced.
The paramount chief enjoys tremendous popular respect, though on a basis of affective kinship rather than in especifically "political" sense. He may be affectionately called "Brother,"though usually the formal title of the chieftainship, "President," applies. In daily life he distinguishes himself as little as many African chiefs do, wearing about the same outfit as any of his people. People listen with respect; and when he sends people off to distant places to enlarge the tribal territory, normally they go unquestioningly.
Chiefs are seated higher than the commoners and always face them. The authority structure is reinforced in a semi-annual rite with all those attending raising their right arm in support of the chief leaders. Authority is, in fact, unchallenged.
The chief's appointed community and lineage elders try to follow his example. They lead their communities as undisputed authorities. They, like the chief, have their own businesses to tend, their fields to plow, and their harvests to reap.
Religion, as in any well-organized tribe, is of prime importance for the unity of the tribe.
Patriarchal blessings as divination, a sacred initiation at the start of adulthood for boys, and girls' initiation into the tribal secrets at the age of marriage. African tribal religion usually is rooted in its geography: sacred places, holy mountains, shrines along the footpaths of the ancestors.
Deseret religion has its holy grounds as well. The main messianic message is couched in territorial terms: the tribe has a gathering place for eschatological times. Its relations with the neighboring tribes are often stated in terms of this messianic territoriality. Characteristically, for any tribe, the future holiness of a territory links to prehistoric elements: gathering places of ancestors, high points of the tribe's specific history, and spots significant to the founding hero. As with any tribe, the landscape of Deseret is part of sacred history and future eschatology.
This only partially tongue-in-cheek description of a few aspects of early Deseret Mormonism—perhaps an exercise in what Nibley called" the art of telling tales about Joseph Smith and Brigham Young" —shows how apt is our depiction of the Mormons of the mid-nineteenth century as a tribal group: that is, as a group of people bound together.
Claims of universality and exclusivity belong in the Christian/Moslem sphere, not in the tolerant and easy-going traditional religions of Africa and elsewhere. It is this feature, however, that will transform the colonized Deseret people into the religious colonizer of the rest of the world.
From "Tribe" to American Colony: Deseret's Domestication
The usual historical way that African groups entered into the wider world was through the colonization process of being conquered and defined as part of an empire, often British and French, but sometimes Portuguese, Spanish or Dutch. In any case, inclusion in a colonial state transformed the African groups, in fact "domesticating" them into citizens of a larger empire. This domestication entailed the installation of markets (for imperial products), the extraction of minerals and primary products (for imperial use), the establishment of education, health services, and a new religion, plus occasional conscription for imperial wars. Deseret Mormons followed quite a similar process.
For the tribe of Deseret, domestication came quickly. This first transformation, usually dubbed the "Americanization" of the LDS Church, started at the end of the nineteenth century, though many processes had been set in motion much earlier.
Domestic Mormons no longer occupied a distinct territory, though there still was a recognized Mormon core area or corridor in the American West. A latent ideology of gathering still prevailed, and people still tended to settle in the core area, although lack of economic opportunity there resulted in a near-balance between immigration and emigration a searly as the 1920s. In the face of economic realities (lack of arable land, obstacles to dramatic industrialization, etc.), in the last three-quarters of a century, leaders of the Domestic Church have had to move away from the nineteenth-century ideology of the territory and of gathering in Zion. The external holy place outside the tribal boundary (Missouri-as-Zion) decreased in ritual importance, and statements of the founder about the larger definition of Zion (America-as-Zion, read United States of America-as-Zion) were stressed.
The colonized Domestic Church no longer differentiated itself from mainstream America in many respects, save by a general conservative stance, trailing slightly behind the changes in the society at large; although it should be noted that, from a European viewpoint, American denominations are very conservative indeed. Genealogy continues as a serious, though rather esoteric, interest.
Traditional societies, even if they relegate women to a seemingly lower social status, in fact leave women considerable leeway in fulfilling their own goals and objectives. Inclusion in a larger society often puts this freedom at risk. The same process happened in the Domestic Church. Women's influence in official matters has always been marginal. But, as elsewhere, their influence was maximal in times when the structure of society was weakest.
African groups often used to decry their own backwardness, yearning for modernization as a way to respectability. Americanization, as the domestication of Deseret is usually called, resulted in a similar search for respectability by the Domestic Church. The link between Mormons and American culture always was strong and grew even stronger. In fields that have no direct bearing on its fundamental message, such as sports and athletics, the Church proudly advertised the achievements of its members, following the American appreciation of competitive sports and national media exposure; a sports hero who competes on Saturdays but not on Sundays is considered a good role model and, except for the last quarter century, might be called to speak in general conference. Though not uncritical of present-day American life, Mormon society enthusiastically embraced those elements that led to acceptance of Mormons as respectable Americans.
"Tribal" self-sufficiency had to go in this transformation. The territory of Deseret had become the much smaller state of Utah (and environs), and the colony was increasingly drawn into a larger world. At first the old Deseret furnished the American metropolis raw materials (e.g.,through mining companies) and uninhabited expanse (for military exercise grounds and nuclear testing grounds); in this the new Utah showed itself a colony of the United States, with a definite dependency on the metropolises on either coast of the United States. As development continued, the Domestic Church (albeit reluctantly) settled into its function as apart of a larger machine. Though the general implications of this growing dependency were hardly seen as a problem, a marginal tendency to fight dependency remained. Self-help and self-reliance were highly valued, community orientation applauded, and welfare programs developed to heighten individual and local Church self-sufficiency. The ideal of a self-reliant, autonomous community or society continued to live on in modified fashion as family independence.
From Colony to Colonizer
In the 1960s most African countries became independent, and the situation of the local groups changed to some extent. The "tribal" labels imposed by the colonizer were not removed, and relations with the former empire became very ambivalent. On the one hand, the newly independent states tried to put as much political distance between themselves and the colonizer as possible; but on the other, they remained highly dependent on their former overlords. In economy, education, technology, health, and in almost every other sector, they had to rely on expertise, help, and financial aid from the North. As a result, what emerged from the colonial states were not independent entities, but neo-colonial states—in name independent, but de facto satellites of the old imperial center.
In anthropology this situation has been expressed in the dependencia model, developed primarily to characterize the relationship between the United States and Latin America. In this model the "metropolis" creates "satellites" through inequalities in political power and economic exchange. The metropolis is not only enriched by this relation, but also keeps satellites subdued; the process has been called the "development of under-development." This relation holds for Africa vis a vis Europe: African countries, with the exception of South Africa, can be considered neo-colonies or satellites of the European metropolis, and the political unification of Europe has even stipulated this relationship. For example, most French-speaking African countries use a currency that is directly dependent upon the Euro.
For their part, the Mormons, who had been a more or less "tribal"society during the nineteenth century, became an American colony beginning in the early twentieth century, and then gradually gained their own power. The Domestic Church had become part of the metropolis, and—by virtue of its own ideology—even became colonizer. It now colonized the rest of the world, the mission field, in a curious reversal of history. So here our narrative switches from the relationship between the Church and the United States toward the relationship within the Church between metropolis and periphery, or between what Quinn calls the Headquarters TO Culture and International Church. The reason to link the two relationships is obvious: the same processes that shaped Deseret and the Domestic Church are now impinging upon the Church Abroad. With international expansion, the notion of the "Domestic Church" changes from a"domesticated American Church" into "homeland headquarters" versus the international periphery.
The mission field had always been the feeding ground for the growth of Deseret, the Utah-based Church growing from both its own dynamics and input from various mission fields. After domestication, the outer world was no longer a recruiting ground for new homeland inhabitants, as immigration gradually slowed. Colonial units away from the Mormon core area were established in most regions where formerly the new tribesmen had been recruited. The main characteristic of these units has been their dependence on the Domestic Church, in ideology, leadership, mission personnel, and finances. The relation is characterized by a clear hierarchy between colonizer and colonized, uncritical adoption of the colonizer's culture, view of the colony as an area to be developed. These colonial wards and branches were explicitly seen to represent a stage in a process of growth, a transition toward greater autonomy, but not independence—following the model of the erstwhile African colonies.
This colonial relationship came under tension in the period of rapid expansion between World War II and 1980. Spectacular growth erupted, presenting new challenges to domestic Mormonism, both in terms of control and theology. Any African colonial system has a dual society—in fact, a two-tiered system. The colonizer and colonized are different, but the colonized have to be as equal as possible among themselves. A colony is a foreign territory ruled by law, which should apply to all subjects equally, at least to all subjects within the colony. Thus, the colonizing Domestic Church, now a metropolis creating satellites, had to undo all internal differences among the people it ruled over. But here was a problem. Basing itself upon a fully tribal myth of dispersed Israelite tribes, the old Deseret theology had compared missionizing to the calling home of dispersed kinsmen, especially from the tribe of Ephraim. However the Church grew rapidly in Latin America, Asia, and Africa, areas where descent and kinship through ancient Israel were not particularly obvious or explicable. The notion of Latter-day Saints as descendants of Ephraim had to be deemphasized, which, in fact, happened. Even more important was the change toward color-blindness.
Growth into a large Church also raised other doctrinal problems. A focus on the elect, hunted out among the masses of the unrepentant, has been part of the Mormon heritage. The paths to Zion are repeatedly defined as narrow and steep, trodden by few. The notion that all people might, but will not, be saved because of their love for worldly things is a central doctrine. With growth in membership and recruitment area, the notion of "elect" has been redefined in asimilar way as the notion of "gathering."
Any colonizing project also changes the colonizer profoundly. The Netherlands has in the past colonized what is now Indonesia, just as England and France have colonized most of Africa. These European countries cannot be understood apart from the influence their colonies exerted upon them. The colonization project changes everyone involved. The same happened within Mormon history, as exemplified in some theological concepts. The idea of gathering in Zion formerly, implicitly as well as explicitly, meant immigration to the core region of Deseret; now Zion was stressed as a ubiquitous presence, a tree to be planted deeply in foreign soils. The stakes of Zion (Deseret at first had been but a single stake) were the new gathering nodes. Thus, territory had been rendered abstract. Formerly Zion was a particular place in America; now it can be anywhere.The spiritualization of goals, well-known in expanding African churches, has occurred for Mormonism, too. From a specific place, Zion has been spiritualized into the "pure of heart," a fairly easy transformation thanks to scripture allowing this definition received even before the Deseret period. Of course, there still is a notion of a center stake, although it is now seen in the popular mind as Salt Lake City. Even so, Missouri ideology, though latent, also lingers vaguely on.
A correspondingly gradual decrease in the immediacy of eschatological expectations has set in. This is less clear than the territorial change but can be gleaned from various sources. One indication is that, in patriarchal blessings bestowed around World War II, one frequently heard the phrase"marching up to Zion," while in present blessings, this phrase rarely appears, at least in the Dutch stakes. The eschatological climax has been postponed a bit.
The Mormon Periphery: Satellite and Metropolis
Relations between the Domestic Church and the Church Abroad changed during the years of expansion, from 1980 onwards. The colonial churches have increased in numbers and leadership potential, though by varying rates in different areas. Where strong enough, they have developed into units equivalent to those in the core area in the abilities of their local leaders and in their financial self-support. Still, policy is made by the Domestic Church, and the top leadership generally comes from the core region. Decisions on leadership beyond the local level, on building and missionary policies, and on stake formation are also made there. So the former colony has developed into a satellite, and the former colonizer has changed into a metropolis. The metropolis has not only retained financial and political control over the satellites, but the lines of command have been strengthened at regular intervals. Administrative centralization has countered the centrifugal forces of expansion. One example is the metropolis's ambivalent relationship toward the internet. At first, the central Church strongly discouraged private or regional websites, as everything had to be centralized from Utah. When this no longer proved possible, strong directives enabled a limited number of strictly supervised local and regional websites to flourish. In fact, this change came rather late, in 2003; by then the Dutch stakes had already had their unofficial website for five years.
Expansion means internal growth, too. The administrative apparatus has mushroomed; what used to be a tribal council now is a multinational board of directors. Still, this professionalization of the apparatusis strictly administrative and, in line with fundamental policy, has not resulted in the emergence of a class of theologians. Specialists of many extractions populate the administrative offices of the Church. Whole careers have sprung up, wholly within the Church but apart from any ecclesiastical work, though some of the top leaders are recruited from these ranks. Consonant with this accent on administration, the personal charisma of the leaders, though occasionally still considerable, has followed the route Weber outlined with his concept of the "routinization of charisma." Charisma devolves from persons to positions, into a positional charisma that proves quite stable and adaptive. Satellite status implies that the status of the LDS Church inside these countries is different from that in the core region. Mormonism closely fits the Weberian type (work, frugality, and capitalism). Whereas the Domestic Church is now the fifth largest American denomination, a major player in a major country, the situation of satellites is different. Abroad they are anomalies on the religious scene, often dubbed "sects." One can expect satellites to identify with those colonial models they know, usually older ones than those currently de rigueur in the metropolis.
There seems to be a perceptible time-lag in institutional and doctrinal developments between metropolis and satellite. For instance, inthese satellite churches the expectation of a literal gathering seems to have lost less of its appeal than in the domestic stakes. In Europe, for example, members still expect a literal, massive gathering to the central United States—still "marching up to Zion." Church programs aimed at self-reliance and self-help, like food storage. During the late 1980s the first item in food storage for Dutch members was the backpack, filled with food for the long march to Zion. Likewise, I have the impression that, in the overseas areas, the ideals of self-sufficiency and autonomy are voiced much louder than in the United States.
Inside the European Periphery
Most colonial regimes in Africa had their anthropologists, sometimes in official "government anthropologist" positions. Their recording of the tribal ways was appreciated, and the records generated were occasionally used in the mission civilizatrice of the empire. Despite knowledge of the other cultures, however, what was passed on to the colonies was the exact replica of the political system of the metropolis, with all of its implicit cultural values.
Now the view from the Mormon satellites will replace the view from Africa. The dilemma in the title is clear: Are the LDS Church members in the satellites "European Mormons"? Are they first and foremost in their own self-definitions "Mormon," and secondly "European," be it Dutch, English, French or Portuguese? Or are they "Mormon Europeans,"? The message of the LDS Church, both in its voiced texts and in its organizational routines, has American overtones and is part of American culture, an aspect that has been amply demonstrated and commented upon in the literature. Here are some examples of this hegemony by pointing out afew Americanisms in Mormon Church culture. I later go into detail onthe question of where European culture is different from American.
First, the hegemony of the metropolis. The literature points out he-gemonic elements in some detail. The fact that lesson materials are made in the Domestic Church, to be translated afterwards, indicates that information flows only one way: from the center to the satellite Church, and not vice versa. This direction holds not only for the tiny Dutch-speaking part, but also for the huge Spanish-speaking portion of the Church. This fact is more than a matter of convenience; those who write (and publish) define! The hegemony even extends to the translation itself. According to all known international standards of translation.
While the LDS Church does have translation departments in the various language areas, it retains a central translation office in the Domestic Church. From there, it exercises considerable control on the translation, even specifying which Bible translation is officially approved for Church use in various areas. The recent Book of Mormon retranslation project into several European languages (Danish, German, Swedish, Dutch) provides an example. The effort was heavily supervised from Utah with full authorization from the highest levels. Since the project was about scripture, and thus highly sensitive, the Church authorities wanted as literal a translation as possible within the confines of both languages. This of course is a possible and, in the case of scripture, comprehensible choice.
The same holds for simultaneous translations of General Conference. Until recently, the central office had Dutch immigrants do the interpreting. After years of listening to these "Dunglish" performances, the professional Dutch translation department was allowed to do it, but only with equipment that allowed Salt Lake to operate the controls.
The missionary organization is replete with corporate Americanisms: numerical goal setting, the almost strangling focus on baptisms, and of course the small power games between missionaries who vie for enviable positions of leadership inside the mission.
Another example is the separation between the sexes. The Mormon separation of the sexes in Church services is regarded as a strange American phenomenon. As one consequence, Dutch Church leaders decided early on that youth camps would have to be mixed, a fact they carefully concealed from their American superiors.
The importance of dress codes is a sign of institutional prudishness on the one hand and of corporate culture onthe other. Recently an apostle argued for white shirts in Church on the basis of a color symbolism (white = pure) that not only is definitely Atlantic (white is the color for mourning in East Asia, and for fertility in Africa) and not universal at all, but also freezes an outdated clothing fashion that once was in vogue in corporate America. It's correct in assuming that German culture asserts more links to the Wild West than Dutch culture.
Mormonism never was simply a faith; it always was a "way of life." In the nineteenth century, this way of life was realized by the "gathering,"
With Americanization, the Church's inclusiveness dwindled. The life of Mormons became more secularized, consonant with the general American movement toward a more secular society. But the Deseret period plus the subsequent period of Americanization involved a culture region with Mormon dominance where a Mormon (sub)culture could evolve, supporting both the implementation of the belief system and people's accommodation to it and to the mainstream American culture.
The European Church is dominated by the second and third generations who descend from the autochthonous population, while a small margin of immigrant people keeps coming in and filtering out. The result is a small, inward-looking denomination, largely invisible to the outside, in which leadership simply passes to successive generations of insiders.
Like all European countries, the Netherlands ("Holland" for short) isa very secular country, much more so than American visitors realize in their visits to the "old country." The issue is that Holland has turned secular in the last half century. Up until World War II, the Dutch social landscape was dominated by denominational competition. Each major sector of the population had its own denomination, whether Roman Catholic or one of the manifold versions of the ever-splitting Protestant Churches, divided roughly by a north-south division. Each of these denominations had its own social world, a so-called "pillar," consisting of an educational system, health services, social services, and even a broadcasting system. The Socialist (not Communist!) part of the population, dispersed throughout the country, had its own "pillar" as well. Someone who grew up within a—say Protestant—Church joined a "school with the Bible," played on a Protestant soccer club, went to a Protestant university, married a Protestant woman, had children delivered in a Protestant hospital and monitored by a Protestant health service organization, listened to Protestant radio, voted the Protestant political party, and eventually, in a Protestant old age home, died a pious death, and was buried by an undertaker from his or her own faith. The rest of Holland did the same in their respective pillars.
This "pillarization" started at the turn of the twentieth century with a struggle for the control of schools. Its heyday lasted half a century. After World War II, the pillar system crumbled with increasing speed in a process called "depillarization" that not only divided social and welfare services from denominations but eroded the whole confessional basis of Dutch society. Holland went from a fully religious society, not to a civil society with strong churches, but to a civil society in which churches had lost their raison d'etre. Of course, industrialization and continuing urbanization contributed to this trend as well, but the main religious trend was a massive leave-taking by members, a progressive drop in attendance.
The role of the churches changed from a major structural element in society into a peripheral institution, taking as their main function the preservation of some elements of Calvinist culture as well as providing a general conscience for the nation as a whole, albeit often through individual voices of warning. The churches compete not with one another, but with non-church organizations, voluntary organizations, welfare organizations, pressure groups, etc. It has been argued that organizations such as Green Peace, Foster Parents (now "Plan International"), Amnesty International, and the Red Cross better represent the general Christian culture in the Netherlands than the remaining churches do. The fact that Holland routinely gives the highest percentage of GNP in the world (together with the Scandinavian countries, to which Holland is culturally very close) in development aid is indicative. So, not only are the churches empty, but they have lost to secular organizations their main power to provide meaning. After decades of attendance losses, averaging 2 percent per year, the trend seems to have slowed somewhat, however. Sociologists of religion now dare to speak of a rock bottom of Dutch religiosity, embodied in small, isolated, but stable religious communities, small islands in a secular sea.
Other European countries followed different pathways to secularization, resulting in effectively similar situations. Belgium, predominantly Roman Catholic, never had strongly competing pillars, but here the Catholic Church became heavily engaged in movements for social welfare and equity. There, the Roman clergy, also with the help of some charismatic personalities, became the country's major voice of conscience, displacing other-worldly goals in favor of this-worldly objectives. Germany experienced a process more like Holland's, though pillarization never was as fully expressed. Germany always had known secular civil society and non confessional service organizations, but here the people's retreat from religion meant simply declining church attendance, not abandoning the church altogether (the Dutch option). People stay on as members of record, still paying church taxes, which are collected through the state tax system. In fact, most of Europe's interchurch and ecumenical activities are financed by this Kirchensteuer (church tax) from Germany, where religion has become a default option.
These varieties of secularization are quite different from the U.S. situation. Of course, the genesis of the United States has been a thoroughly religious process, and civil society in the United States rests upon the denomination as the second of two foundations (the other is the school system). Churches operate in a denominational market, but choosing a denomination is a normal option. The default option in Germany is paying a church tax, in Holland joining a preservation project, in Belgium going to mass for the wedding and funeral; but in the United States, one joins a denomination of one's choice.
The vast majority of Dutch and European culture lies beyond the realm of religion, and anyone joining or being active in a church has to explain why. Colleagues, fellow students, neighbors, and family routinely suppose one is not affiliated with a church. As any membership needs constant explanation, membership in a small and unusual group, such as the Mormon Church, demands double explanation. Explaining why one is religious is easier than explaining adherence to something often dubbed a "sect." This change has been obvious from the 1970s onward, when depillarization shook the foundations of Dutch society, changing the political landscape, health services, education and—yes—even broadcasting. It also coincided with a diminishing role for the Netherlands' age-old Calvinist culture, with its Bible scholarship and general scriptural proficiency. The values remained but more as general norms of a welfare-oriented society than as part of a religious legacy. In this society, large differences in wealth were intolerable, and tolerance of cultural and social differences was the norm. The Netherlands became an anti-hegemonic society with deeply embedded values of social justice and equity.
Although this culture is changing, moving toward the political right in its confrontation with another hegemonic ideology, Islam, these are the values Dutch Mormons are not only familiar with, but also deeply share. The base culture for LDS membership is Dutch social culture, with compassion for the less fortunate, tolerance toward different opinions, and the notion that one not only has to cooperate but also to compromise to reach one's goals. Political parties never rule alone, but always in coalitions, often through long and difficult negotiations. No one stands out, and no one has the right to hegemony, since consensus can always be reached through constant consultation. No longer is the social model a multiconfessional one as in the past; rather, it is now called a "polder" model (the Dutch term for a reclaimed low flatland), suggesting a consensus reached where everybody has all relevant information and decisions are taken together, shouldered by as large a majority as can be found—perhaps a rather "flat" compromise.
Permissive Dutch society bears the stigma of drugs and other vices among some outsiders (especially for the French and Americans), but most Dutch do not experience any drug problems at all, and a permissive drug policy finds massive support in Dutch society, including among LDS members.
The general European notion is that permissiveness diminishes the attraction of moral vices. One should not prohibit sinful behavior by law, and Europeans do have some powerful scriptural references in this regard—about forcing people to heaven. The deep European conviction is that alcohol prohibition stimulates drinking, prudishness generates teenage pregnancies, and the war on drugs produces addicts. A restrictive society is the least efficient way to combat vice. European Church members share these opinions, which run deeply against the American grain.
In conclusion, the members in Europe are not European Mormons, but definitely Mormon Europeans. One last reason will be discussed below: the diminishing status of the United States, the colonizer.
The U.S. Connection: From Asset to Liability
In the twentieth century, the expansion of the Domestic Church coincided with the expansion of U.S. influence and power, a situation reminiscent of the growth of the first Christian Church together with the Roman Empire. In the latter case, the empire provided the political and economic context for the spread of Christianity, but this relationship is more complicated in the Mormon case. Mormonism never was dominant inthe United States, but the American political and security umbrella for the non-Communist world furnished a platform of political respectability for LDS expansion, enabling the Church to present an economic role model as well as a material success story underlying the spiritual message. With the specific role of America in LDS sacred history—a unique Mormon feature—Mormonism tied in well with a positive general evaluation of the United States. After World War II, the Mormons could bask in the sunshine of the successful pacifier (likewise, most colonizations in Africa started out as a pacification as well as a conquest) and deliver their message within a framework of political success.
However, colonization processes move ever faster, and likewise decolonization dynamics. Any colonizer inevitably faces the loss of prestige and status among its colonies, satellites, and other dependent entities. The status of France in West Africa, of Great Britain in East Africa, and of the Netherlands in Indonesia, has suffered severely because of their presence-in-power there (It's the same in many ex-communist countries toward the Russian Federation, heir of the failed Soviet Union). Decolonization comes with demystification of the former colonizing power, and the colonizers fall from grace. France is quite unpopular in West Africa, the Netherlands likewise in Indonesia, and the former French colony of Vietnam turned to the United States for protection. So, being a former colonizer is not an asset, but rather a liability.
The LDS Church is facing the same dilemma in many countries, especially those in Europe. Considering the fact that European Mormons are full members of their own native culture, the reputation of the United States in Europe is highly relevant, both for the membership and in explaining the lack of proselytizing success. The LDS Church is inevitably, and in many ways correctly, seen as an American church, and outsiders fully perceive the metropolis-satellite situation.
But the status of America has changed considerably over the past decades. U.S. status, in addition to secularization and adherence to national cultures, is the third factor influencing membership in Europe. The Church is not only American in culture, but politically clearly pro-American as well. It is this U.S. connection that, in just a few decades, has shifted from an asset to a liability. The Domestic Church has also become a major player in the American political and religious arena, while almost never being seen as criticizing American actions or issues. The sole remaining superpower after the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall, America views itself as the policeman of the world. Of course, the United States was instrumental in the liberation of Europe from the Nazi yoke, and of course most Europeans would rather have the United States patrolling the world than the former USSR. Yet one has to remember that gratitude is a fleeting feeling, one that cannot be cashed in on any longer.
Though few Europeans would prefer a different policeman, most would prefer none at all. Americans, though, prefer to be liked as nice people, an assessment that most of the time is correct; but then they forget that power can be envied, emulated, or admired, but never liked. A major power must flex its muscles from time to time to remain strong and be seen as such, and indeed, that is what the United States does. It has participated in, and recently even instigated, wars in other parts of the world and is now seen not as a peacekeeper but as a warlike nation. In a recent survey in Holland among secondary school girls, George W. Bush came out as the major threat to world peace just ahead of Osama Bin Laden. True, the girls might have been mistaken or misinformed, but the sentiment is clear and pervasive.
Three rules stand out in European history: (1) Colonial wars will always be lost, e.g., the Netherlands in Indonesia; (2) Wars of liberation will always be won by the population, e.g., Vietnam against the French and the Americans; and (3) Winning the peace is more important than winning the war—the lesson Germany taught England after World War II, as the Western allies failed to learn it after the First World War.
The European impression is that America is fighting a colonial war in Iraq, which might be turning into a liberation war and which definitely risks losing the peace. This kind of problem is seldom discussed in LDS Church circles, but the war is very unpopular with the general European public. Europe has seen enough of its own such drive to recognize it in someone else and has no drive to empire left. Europeans are comfortable not being part of a world power; in fact when traveling abroad, not being an American is much safer than being one.
Furthermore, the United States is not only the sole remaining superpower in the world, but it is also, to a great extent, the defining power of the world, attempting to define for the rest of the world what is a "terrorist" or a "fundamentalist," what is "democracy" or "liberty," and of course what are "weapons of mass destruction." This effort, again, has eroded the credibility of the center of power.
Dutch Church members of long standing have come to terms with this decline in American credibility, even though, for instance, the absence of LDS Church warnings against war and in favor of peace were sorely missed with the American decision to wage war on Iraq. Only Dialogue and Sunstone featured some discussion, but these are out of reach for most Dutch members.
Historically, through the 1980s, the status of America was quite high, as the vanguard of liberty and democracy, eventual defender against the Soviet presence, and of course the liberator of old. But things changed with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991. The Soviet threat disappeared overnight and seemed to have been overestimated anyway. Europe was burdened with the colossal failure of a socialist Utopia, in fact the most dramatic failure of an ideological system the world has ever witnessed. Reunited Germany is still paying the huge price attached to that patriotic ideal.
The American role became unclear. With one superpower gone, the reason for the other evaporated. The liberator became the policeman, and the policeman then instigated colonial wars. It is during this period, the 1980s and the 1990s, that the numbers of Dutch converts declined, only partly replaced by immigrant conversions as European societies became immigration societies.
Thus, the United States in tandem with the Domestic Church makes its position as metropolis very clear by defining Europe as a satellite, both in geopolitical terms and in Church terms. The combination of factors at play—secularization, the continuing adherence to European culture, and the diminishing status of the United States—may be viewed as a silent rebellion of the satellite against the metropolis, in which the rebels simply vote with their feet.
Suscribirse a:
Enviar comentarios (Atom)
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario