I need to divest myself of stuff. I have decided that I am not a librarian or archivist, and that I don’t need to keep every book that I currently own, or every journal that I have ever acquired. But, I want to make sure that I remember what I have owned in the past, especially if I haven’t yet read it; I mean, after all, I picked up the book or journal for a reason in the first place.
So, I will create a reading list to keep track of those books and journal articles I wish to read. This will allow me to divest myself of the books and journals that I have, while preserving the information necessary to find them elsewhere (like a real library).
Peri has suggested an approach to the proposal in which I use three
different theoretical approaches to assess the question of why the LDS
Church act politically (see the discussion in my post
on 18 Nov 2003). Why use three different approaches to
explanation for the same question?
Therein lies the answer to my question about the thesis of the proposal. My study is not a
normative one in which I assess whether or not the Church
should act politically. That is not my question. My
question is why does the Church act politically. This is an
empirical question; not a question then about what ought to be
(normative theory), but a question of what is (description), why it is
(explanation), and whether we can tell if it will be (prediction).
The role of empirical theory is to construct, or find, a theoretical
framework that will answer these questions.
I had originally thought that I might tease out a political
philosophy for the church, but the more I think about it, the more I
think that “political philosophy” is the wrong term. I think a
better term is “world view”, something akin to Peter Berger’s
“sacred canopy”. Michael Leming calls Berger’s sacred canopy humanity’s use of “religion [as]
the audacious attempt to conceive of the entire universe as being
humanly significant”. At a more fundamental and, importantly,
testable level the canopy is a method of giving sense to the world and
identifying the individual’s (or the group’s, in the case of the
Church) place and role in it.
So, the proposal becomes a competition of sorts in which each
theoretical framework is tested by asking each to describe Church
political action, explain Church political action, and predict Church
political action. And thus, when Peri is suggesting to me that I
need to create ideal types from two perspectives, rational choice and
Foucaultian, she is in fact asking me to create expected
descriptions and explanations of Church activity based upon these
perspectives, and then compare these creations to the historical record.
Brinkerhoff et al. (1987) observe two characteristics of the LDS
Church that might be viewed as impediments to formal LDS involvement
with Conservative Christians in political causes: 1) the desire to
appear respectable (and acceptable) which entails a certain moderation
in statement and action; and 2) a focus on its own growth as the
Church’s primary mission and a concomitant marginalization of any
activity that might detract from that mission. These two
characteristics, coupled with an abiding respect held by members of
the LDS Church for authority (particluarly the authority of the
Church) make a formal linkage between the Church itself and
Conservative Christians unlikely.
Nevertheless, Brinkerhoff et al. point to situations in which
“[o]n a self-defined and relatively narrow political/moral agenda the Mormon
Church has mobilized resources to become a dominant force in defeating
ERA initiatives in several states …, and abortion reform reform
legislation in Nevada… . As the LDS Church acted vigorously to
defeat what it considered immoral legislation, Mormons (encouraged
by both their local and central leaderships) worked through
citizen groups composed of conservative Christians, right-wing
activists and Catholics. [emphasis mine.]
Things to do
See if Brinkerhoff et al. have served as the basis for later
work.
Get a copy of Brinkerhoff et al. (this article) “Mormonism and
the Moral Majority Make Strange Bedfellows?: An Exploratory Critique.”
Review of Religious Research vol. 28 no. 3 (March 1987):
236-251.
Review the following works:
Alexander, Thomas G. 1986. Mormonism in Transition: A History
of the Latter-day Saints, 1890-1930. Urbana, Ill.: University
of Illinois Press.
Gotlieb, Robert and Peter Wiley. 1984. America’s Saints:
The Rise of Mormon Power. New York: G.P. Putnam.
Miller, Arthur H. and Martin P. Wattenberg. 1984. “Politics
from the Pulpit: Religiosity and the 1980 Elections.” Public
Opinion Quarterly 48:301-317.
Richardson, James T. 1984. “The ‘Old Right’ in Action: Mormon and
Catholic Involvment in and Equal Rights Amendment referendum.” In Davd
Bromley and Anson Shupe (eds.) New Christian Politics.
Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press.
