Still, the Small Voice: Narrative, Personal Revelation, and the Mormon Folk Tradition
416
Still, the Small Voice: Narrative, Personal Revelation, and the Mormon Folk Tradition
416Paperback(1st Edition)
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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781646423842 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Utah State University Press |
| Publication date: | 10/24/2022 |
| Edition description: | 1st Edition |
| Pages: | 416 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x 1.00(d) |
| Age Range: | 18 Years |
About the Author
Tom Mould is professor of anthropology at Butler University, where he teaches and conducts research in the areas of folklore, sacred narrative, language and culture, native studies, and contemporary legend. He is the author of the books Choctaw Prophecy: A Legacy of the Future, Choctaw Tales, and Overthrowing the Queen: Telling Stories of Welfare in America, which won the Chicago Folklore Prize and the Brian McConnell Book Award from the International Society for Contemporary Legend Research. He is also co-editor of two books including Latter-day Lore: Mormon Folklore Studies.
Read an Excerpt
Still, the Small Voice
Narrative, Personal Revelation, and the Mormon Folk TraditionBy TOM MOULD
Utah State University Press
Copyright © 2011 Utah State university PressAll right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-87421-817-6
Chapter One
THE BROAD STROKES OF TRADITION
The Mormon Folk Tradition
From one perspective, the idea of a single Mormon folk tradition is absurd. As in any culture or community, there are hundreds of folk traditions. These traditions can be explored according to patterns in form, function, or group. A single umbrella for both the tradition of ballads sung primarily by Mormons in the Intermountain West that memorialize the trek of Mormon pioneers and the tradition of the customary lore of Mexican Mormon converts in the process of building new churches in a predominantly Catholic land would be unbearably large. While shared patterns might be found, they would no doubt pale next to the rich complexity of each tradition interpreted through more relevant contexts than a single unifying folk tradition. No single set of themes, patterns, or ideas could possibly hope to encompass all of the varied performances of expressive culture by Mormons the world over.
However, it is possible to talk about Mormon folklore as a cultural tradition contrasted with other types of cultural production. A simple dyad between formal and informal culture, for example, positions folklore in contrast with institutionalized and formal aspects of culture. Barre Toelken has argued that folklore's distinguishing characteristic "is that its ingredients seem to come directly from dynamic interactions among human beings in vernacular performance contexts rather than through the more rigid channels and fossilized structures of technical instruction or bureaucratized education, or through the relatively stable channels of the formally taught classic traditions" (1996:32). The prevailing view of folklore as an approach to analysis rather than as a set of inherent objects makes it clear that the folk tradition is neither static nor absent in institutional culture. Nonetheless, the assumptions of the field lead folklorists to feed from a well-worn trough.
Broadly speaking, the Mormon folk tradition is that constellation of informal traditions—verbal, material, and customary—shared among people who identify religiously or culturally as Mormon. In religion, the dyad between formal and informal culture contrasts doctrine and religious prescription set forth by scripture with the interpretation and practice of beliefs and behaviors of laity and leadership alike. Because Mormon folklore is defined according to group membership in a particular faith, canonical religious doctrine and the institution of the LDS Church serve as the primary formal structures from which the Mormon folk tradition is distinguished.
Some LDS traditions engage only loosely with the religion that bounds them. Hay derricks, Jell-O salad, and father/son campouts do not directly purport to express doctrinal belief, even if general values of thrift, hard work, and gender roles can be abstracted and connected to religious belief and church hierarchies. Other traditions, however, are intentionally tied to the practice of religion and can cause religious crisis or anxiety when defined in contrast to formal church beliefs and structures. The serving of the sacrament, the concept of stewardship, the rules laid out for missionaries—all have important prescriptions that guide their interpretation and enactment.
The divide between informal and formal traditions is not exclusive; traditions learned and practiced informally draw heavily upon institutional structures and teaching, just as formal instruction relies heavily on folk traditions and personal experiences. Further, because the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a lay church, the development of informal religious folk traditions is great; all members are expected to engage actively in the running of the church without specific formal training. The folk are the church. Weekly Sunday worship services are led by members from both the pews and the local leadership, none of whom are formally trained theologians. Local leaders in the church—at the level of wards and stakes—are drawn from the lay membership and, after serving in leadership roles, often return to the general membership. This process blurs the lines between the leadership and the laity, between formal and informal religious boundaries. This blurring and blending is most easily seen in how often church members will be talking about a particular topic, sharing a personal story, and then open their scriptures and begin quoting a relevant passage to underscore or clarify a point. It is a process well practiced among missionaries but used almost as heavily by adult members, whether former missionaries or not. Rather than downplay this practice to artificially preserve a more coherent divide between official and folk, I have highlighted it to reveal a common, indigenous hermeneutic that reveals the intersection between formal scriptures and the construction of religious belief in daily life.
This intersection nonetheless belies division. While blurred, the lines are hardly erased, existing ideologically as well as practically. A person serving in a presiding leadership position is granted keys—specific powers and duties for the execution of their position—that they maintain only as long as they serve their role. Once a leader returns to the pews, those keys are revoked. Power is contingent on the role, not the person. Former leaders often carry the respect of their peers back to the pews with them but not the prophetic power they once had.
This formal, hierarchical distinction between church leadership and laity creates the space for variation and divergence. Divergences are often subtle and serve to clarify doctrine for an individual, filling in gaps where understanding of LDS theology runs thin. In other cases, those divergences may run counter to the church leadership. Such contradictory interpretations may be unintentional. In his study of LDS folk belief, Richley Crapo found substantial variation between official doctrine as espoused by the General Authorities and the beliefs held by the general membership, attributing this variation to the structure of the church (1987). Divergence, however, is rarely intentional. All of the participants in Crapo's study either thought their beliefs were in sync with the church leadership or were not aware that the church took a formal stance on the particular issue.
Variation between the beliefs espoused by the General Authorities and the general membership is compounded by the fact that the church is founded on the concept of a living prophet and continuous revelations which, despite being disseminated in church literature and general conferences, are rarely codified in a single stable scripture (see Buerger 1982, Crapo 1987, McMurrin 1974). The Doctrine and Covenants is the most likely scriptural home for continued revelation, but of its 138 chapters, 134 record the revelations of Joseph Smith between 1823 and 1846. Only four other chapters have been added since, and only two of those are revelations. Two official declarations have also been added, the first in 1890 by President Wilford W. Woodruff to outlaw polygamy; the second by President Spencer W. Kimball in 1978 to allow all worthy men, regardless of color, to be ordained in the Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthoods.
Church leaders have hardly been idle, however. They have worked to clarify doctrine and disseminate their interpretations through official church publications and general conference—a biannual event that allows all Mormons to gather and listen to the General Authorities provide religious instruction. These talks and publications can be found online on the church's website. Despite these avenues and resources, maintaining a clear division between those revelations and interpretations of doctrine sanctioned by the church and those developed at the local level is a perennial problem. While the hierarchy allows for clear, systematic transmission from the prophet to each and every ward and branch, and manuals and teaching resources from Salt lake City guide weekly services and meetings, the translation and practice of religious beliefs is carried out among peers at the local level. Fellow Mormons from the general membership command the stage most of the time, everyone taking turns preparing lessons and teaching doctrine. Combined with a church open to continuous revelation, discerning doctrine from speculation, revelation from rumor, can be difficult. Gaps between official church doctrine and the beliefs and stories shared widely among the general membership are particularly noticeable in cases when the church has actively sought to refute a particularly widespread rumor. An example is illustrative.
In the 1960s as fears of civil unrest swept through the nation, a prophecy was circulating that claimed, among other things, that militant blacks would march on Temple Square, rioting, ravaging, and terrorizing church members. The prophecy was said to have been given by President John Taylor in 1885, but it was not written down until 1951, by Edward Lunt. Lunt claimed his mother heard Taylor make the prophecy at the hotel in Cedar City, Utah, where she worked. Writer and columnist Norman C. Pierce claims to have been the first to publish the prophecy in his book The 3&fra12; Years (1963). Pierce maintains there was no mention of blacks in the prophecy. Yet soon after publication, the prophecy had spread widely, with the prophesied ruin coming at the hands of black men. William A. Wilson collected two versions of the prophecy, each with violence perpetrated by blacks (1976a:131–2), and the church historian's office noted that one of the five versions of the prophecy they had on file also included violence perpetrated by blacks, though not the "original" Lunt version.
The prophecy spread so vigorously that the First Presidency issued a formal statement renouncing the prophecy as false. On March 30, 1970, the statement was mailed to stake presidents, mission presidents, and bishops to announce in formal church meetings. A few days later, on April 4, the statement was published in the Church News (Turley 1970, Fife Archives; Wilson 1976a:147). The statement provided eight points of refutation of the prophecy and closed with a plea to local leaders:
We would urge you to caution our people against accepting these purported statements of the presiding brethren, past or present, without verification. You may be sure if there is anything of substance in regard to the safety and welfare of our people, we will see that the leaders of the Church are immediately advised so that we might act wisely and unitedly in order to not overreact to present situations.
The real danger lies in our people becoming confused and frustrated and looking elsewhere than to their Church leaders or to civil authorities in matters pertaining to their welfare. (Church News; cited in Turley 1970:19–20, Fife Archives)
Not surprisingly, such statements may serve as bandages for specific rumors and legends but seem to have had little effect on the larger tradition. In 2008, a rumor that had been circulating for at least a decade gained new traction among Mormon youth following the death of President Gordon B. Hinckley. During family home evening at Ken and Lee Mullen's home with three of their four children—Kenny, Christina, and Phil—conversation turned to the announcement the bishop had read in church the day before. Kenny recalled when he first heard the story from his sister Nicole:
Kenny: I remember being ... I don't remember how old I was. I was in Primary, so I was probably under ten years old.
And I was right out here in the driveway with my older sister.
And I don't remember what we were talking about, what was going on, all I remembered was that she said, "Well," like she knew.
Ken: of course. She always knew everything [laughter].
Kenny: She said ... I think she said something along the lines of "After the judgment, when we walk into Heaven, we will be asked, 'In what time did we live?' And we say, 'In the last days' or 'In the times of President Hinckley,' 'and that "the hosts of Heaven will bow out of respect for us for living in these last and perilous times.'"
And I remember going, "Wow, that's cool" [laughter]. I mean, I was a little kid.
And my whole life up until last Sunday, I have remembered. I never dwelled on it, like, "I can't wait for that moment." or, I never was a total believer in that. I just remember that being stated. Don't know where it came from, never really cared. And then when he read the statement, I was like, "Aw" [laughter].
Ken: dang [laughter].
Kenny: Even as deep as the Primary, those false statements get. It shocked me.
Kenny believes the story was circulated in Primary when he was younger, perhaps even by Primary teachers. His sister had heard it and reinforced it in retelling. Ten years later, with President Hinckley's death, the story had spread widely enough to give church leadership pause. Once again, the First Presidency responded with a letter to church leaders, including the General Authorities; Area Seventies; stake, mission, district, and temple presidents; and bishops and branch presidents. On Sunday, March 9, Bishop Michael Doyle read the announcement during sacrament meeting of the Burlington First Ward:
A statement has been circulated that asserts in part that the youth of the Church today "were generals in the war in heaven ... and [someone will] ask you, "Which of the prophet's time did you live in?" and when you say "Gordon B. Hinckley" a hush will fall, ... and all in attendance will bow at your presence." This is a false statement. It is not Church doctrine. At various times, this statement has been attributed erroneously to President Thomas S. Monson, President Henry B. Eyring, President Boyd K. Packer, and others. None of these Brethren made this statement.
The letter went on to advise: "Stake presidents and bishops should see that it is not used in Church talks, classes, bulletins, or newsletters. Priesthood leaders should correct anyone who attempts to perpetuate its use by any means, in accordance with 'Statements Attributed to Church Leaders,' Church Handbook of Instructions, Book 1 (2006), 173" (office of the First Presidency 2008).
Local church leaders have also spoken out against widespread legends, prophecies, and rumors, such as stories of the current church president warning a ward or an individual on an elevator that the end is near and they had better put up their food storage (Smurthwaite 1977:9, Fife Archives). Yet despite the modern power of satellites to beam general conference talks around the world and the highly ordered hierarchy for the transmission of information through stakes and wards, such official declarations can rarely compete with a vibrant, informal, and ever-changing legend tradition shared among church members that continues to circulate long after official declarations have been read and forgotten.
So while it would be misguided to define the Mormon folk tradition in opposition to scripture or church officials, the cultural expressions enacted daily and in rich variety by people who share a common religion are not identical to formal scripture. And the declarations of the few General Authorities who have the weight of the entire church behind them stand separate from the declarations of church members during fast and testimony and sacrament meetings in wards across the country and around the world.
The Mormon oral Tradition
Within the Mormon folk tradition lies a vibrant oral tradition that includes ballads, songs, myths, prophecies, legends, memorates, personal anecdotes, and jokes. Proverbs and other conversational genres clearly exist as well, although the scholarly literature has remained fairly quiet on these genres. At the very heart of the oral tradition lie stories of personal revelation. But not to hear scholars tell it. Instead, the Mormon oral tradition has been studied primarily according to character and theme that cut across, rather than along, the concept of personal revelation. In the first book-length study of Mormon folklore, Hector Lee examined Three Nephite legends, a topic narrow in scope but broad in significance and prevalence in Mormon narrative folklore. Yet legend is not a particularly apt term, as Lee acknowledges in the conclusion of his book: "It is no simple matter to classify the Nephite stories. They are not wholly myth, legend, tale or historical narrative; yet they partake of characteristics of all these types" (1949:116). Lee's classification problem is actually simpler than he believed; by organizing his corpus according to character, he was not dealing with a single form but rather multiple types of stories. It was not that Nephite stories exhibited elements of all these different genres but rather that different narrative genres were being used to recount encounters with the Three Nephites.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Still, the Small Voice by TOM MOULD Copyright © 2011 by Utah State university Press. Excerpted by permission of Utah State University Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
Literary Tradition 2
Approach 3
Methods 8
Names and Pseudonyms 11
Texts and Transcriptions 13
Chapter 1 The Broad Strokes of Tradition 15
The Mormon Folk Tradition 15
The Mormon Oral Tradition 21
Personal Revelation Narratives 23
Conclusion 50
Synthesis: The Boundaries of Genre 52
Chapter 2 Sharing the Sacred 60
Defining Performance 60
Norms for Performance 61
Strategies to Negotiate the Paradox 76
Evaluating Performance 82
Variation in Performance 96
Conclusion 128
Synthesis: The Paradox of Performance 129
Chapter 3 Transforming Life into Story 137
Genre 137
Prescriptive Revelation 140
Descriptive Revelation 159
Experience and the Narrative Tradition 173
Conclusion 180
Synthesis: The Interpretive Challenge of Religious Memorates 181
Chapter 4 The Building Blocks of a Narrative Tradition 192
Narrative Patterns 193
Personal Revelation as Motif 215
Retroactive Revelation 226
Conclusion 240
Chapter 5 Echoes of Culture 242
Danger 244
Domestic Life 261
Church Work 288
Thematic Variation 313
Conclusion 317
Synthesis: Pattern in Performance 320
Chapter 6 A Record-Keeping People 327
The Written Tradition in Mormon Folklore 329
The Written Tradition for Personal Discovery 330
The Written Tradition in Family Records 333
The Written Tradition in Publication 346
Conclusion 372
Synthesis: Oral and Written Traditions 373
Afterword 381
Appendix 389
Notes 394
Works Cited 423
Index 441