Until quite recently, there has been relatively little systematic, social-scientific work on the politics of American Mormons. This omission is striking, given that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS) is America's largest home-grown religion — and its fastest-growing faith of any significant size (2010 U.S. Religious Census: Religious Congregations & Membership Study). There are more Mormons in the United States than Jews, Episcopalians, or Muslims. Seven United States Senators (including the minority leader) and 10 Representatives in the 114th Congress were Mormons, and the Republican nominee for president in 2012 was famously a member of the Church. It is only in the last couple of years, however, that we have seen the emergence of in-depth treatments of Mormon political behavior and identity — Campbell, Green, and Monson's Seeking the Promised Land: Mormons and American Politics, and Balmer and Riess's edited volume Mormonism and American Politics. Fortunately, these two volumes are both excellent, rigorous, and engaging. Taken together, they provide an enlightening portrait of where Mormons have come from politically and where they are going, highlighting at the same time a range of challenges presented by more extensive LDS engagement with the mainstream of a diverse and changing nation.

While both books obviously deal with Mormons’ place in the American political order, there are some important differences between the two volumes. The Campbell, Green, and Monson book is very much focused on the present era, referencing LDS history only as necessary to elucidate and contextualize aspects of contemporary Mormon attitudes and behavior. Its approach is highly quantitative — there are empirical data, most notably from the authors’ own “Peculiar People Survey,” in every chapter — and richly sociological, exploring contemporary Mormons’ group identity and perceptions of the non-Mormon world as predictors of their political behavior. The Balmer and Riess book, by contrast, is deeply historical; its chapters trace the evolution of Mormon political engagement with broader American society from the Church's founding in the antebellum era up through the Mitt Romney candidacy. Its approach is also almost entirely qualitative, with chapters drawing primarily on religious texts, historical documents, and personal interviews (the only exception, interestingly enough, being Campbell, Karpowitz, and Monson's Chapter 9). As a result of these differences, the books are neither conflicting nor redundant, but complementary. Between them, they offer important insights into three key questions: Who are Mormons, both culturally and politically? What is the relationship between Mormonism and Americanism? And finally, what challenges are on the horizon as Mormons seek to engage the American political process?

Despite Mormonism's nearly two centuries in America, its extensive missionary efforts, and the increasing prominence of LDS political figures, most Americans — including many scholars — have only vague notions about the teachings and practices of the Church. The Campbell, Green, and Monson book thus begins with a chapter entitled “Meet the Mormons,” an invaluable succinct introduction to the most socially and politically relevant aspects of LDS belief and ritual. Likewise, the various chapters of the Balmer and Riess volume shed considerable light on key aspects of LDS doctrine, from revelation (Chapter 6), to human moral progress (Chapter 4), to race (Chapter 10), and marriage (Chapter 12). One laudable feature of both books is that they take theology seriously; while Mormons are a sociological group held together by strong community bonds (a point especially emphasized by Campbell, Green, and Monson), they are not just that. More than the members of any other major religious tradition in America, Mormons both know and accept the core teachings of their faith. As Campbell, Green, and Monson document, Mormons are significantly more likely than members of any other group to believe that their “church should preserve its traditional beliefs and practices,” and that “there is only one true way to interpret the teachings” of their faith (47). Clearly, this relative doctrinal conformity suggests that those seeking to explain the political attitudes and behavior of ordinary Mormons would do well first to understand the teachings of the institutional Church. While no group is entirely monolithic, and there is some degree of division in LDS congregations on certain controversial issues (as Chapter 11 of the Balmer and Riess volume documents on the question of homosexuality), the dominant message that emerges from both of these studies is one of in-group belief solidarity. The diversity and heterodoxy of belief that scholars so often find in studies of American Catholics, Jews, mainline Protestants, and even evangelicals is simply less a feature of contemporary Mormonism.

One important insight from the Campbell, Green, and Monson book is the extent to which sociological solidarity and doctrinal conformity reinforce one another. To a significant degree, Mormons are socially insular because of their doctrinal peculiarities, and maintain widespread adherence to doctrinal orthodoxy through their very robust and exclusivist social networks. LDS Church members face a variety of doctrinally-rooted expectations that are both demanding and distinctive: literal tithing, strict Sabbath observance, abstinence from alcohol and tobacco, large families, and substantial service to the Church, among others. In this sense, Mormonism is the paradigmatic example of a “strict church” (Iannaccone, Laurence R. 2015. “Why Strict Churches are Strong.” American Journal of Sociology 99:1180–1211). Fulfilling these obligations almost requires a certain sense of religious exceptionalism, or belief that Mormonism represents a singular sacred community possessed of a specially revealed religious truth; otherwise, the lure of less demanding religious communities would be strong. As Chapter 7 points out, “claims to be the restored and uniquely true church retain majority status in Mormon discourse” (Balmer and Riess, 104). Similarly, Campbell, Green, and Monson show that Mormons are much more likely than members of any other religious group to believe that their “religion is the one true faith leading to eternal life” (47). These exclusivist beliefs, coupled with the desire for affirmation and support in living out culturally distinctive lifestyles, tend to produce extensive patterns of within-group interaction and solidarity. Campbell, Green, and Monson even go so far as to ask whether Mormons are so culturally distinctive that they might be considered essentially an ethnic group. While they ultimately stop short of endorsing this classification, the fact that the question could even be asked indicates that Mormons exhibit a degree of cultural and ideological homogeneity unrivaled by other major American religious groups.

This distinctiveness and intra-group unity clearly manifests itself in Mormons’ engagement with politics. While, obviously, not all LDS Church members are Republicans, Mormons exhibit a greater homogeneity in their partisan identification and vote choice than do Catholics, mainline Protestants, or even evangelicals. Moreover, Mormons’ general respect for and nuanced understanding of their church's teachings on important socio-political questions are reflected in their issue stances. On the contentious issue of abortion, for example, Mormon stances tend to reflect the specific position of their church: that abortion is generally unacceptable, but should be permitted under a very narrow set of specifically delineated conditions. Thus, as Campbell, Green, and Monson report, Mormons are more likely than members of other religious groups to support legal abortion in cases of rape or danger to the mother's health, but significantly less likely than other religious Americans to take a generally pro-choice stance (117). Similarly, Mormons are simultaneously less likely than other religious Americans to support same-sex marriage, but more likely to support civil unions — exactly in line with the teaching of their church. In addition, LDS church members stand out from other conservative Republicans in their relative openness to immigration and aversion to a hardline stance against the undocumented, a position again in keeping with their church's approach. Finally, it is important to note that this Mormon unity of outlook and receptivity to church cues on political questions goes beyond simply attitudes, extending to activism as well. LDS church members have been characterized politically as “dry kindling” (Campbell, David E., and J. Quin Monson. 2007. “Dry Kindling: A Political Profile of American Mormons.” In From Pews to Polling Places: Faith and Politics in the American Religious Mosaic, ed. Wilson, J. Matthew), ready to be mobilized by Church leaders on issues of moral concern (like gambling, alcohol, or — as chronicled in Chapter 12 of the Balmer and Riess volume — same-sex marriage). Clearly, the theme that emerges from these studies is that, while some level of within-group variation does exist, Mormons are decidedly more politically cohesive and responsive to ecclesiastical cues than members of other major religious traditions in America.

Another intriguing aspect of LDS political identity highlighted by these two books is the historically complex relationship between Mormons and the American nation. On one hand, contemporary Mormons are generally quite patriotic, revering the United States Constitution, celebrating free enterprise, and enthusiastically embracing patriotic organizations like the Boy Scouts; they have long seen themselves as “the consummate Americans” (Balmer and Riess 36). Moreover, this Mormon ardor for America is not merely cultural, but theological. Campbell, Green, and Monson provide ample survey evidence that Mormons tend to conceptualize their patriotism in religious terms, and both books are replete with references to the Mormon belief that America is a chosen land with a special role to play in salvation history. According to LDS doctrine, the Garden of Eden was located in America (in present-day Missouri, to be precise), and America was the land to which Lehi led his family from a corrupted Israel in the sixth century B.C. It was in upstate New York that the golden plates of the Book of Mormon would await Joseph Smith's discovery in the 1820s, and it was Utah that would serve as the Mormon Promised Land, the prophesied new Zion for God's Latter Day Saints. For Mormons, the unlikely triumph of the United States in the American Revolution, the crafting of a Constitution and Bill of Rights that have endured for more than two centuries, and the growth of the United States from a small nation at the periphery of global civilization to a large, prosperous super-power are not accidents of history; they are unfoldings of the Divine Plan, the means by which God prepared a special home for His Church. To be sure, Mormons are not alone in their theologizing of American history and American exceptionalism. Elements of such thinking are found from the Puritans to Abraham Lincoln, and remain relatively common among contemporary evangelical Protestants. The beliefs, however, are more central and explicit in the LDS worldview, and Mormons differ from evangelicals in tangibly linking America to biblical history and in seeing the nation as providentially provided for the birth and nurture of their particular faith. Clearly, no group is more religiously invested in the idea of America than the Mormons.

Perhaps as a result, most Mormons believe not only that America has providentially nurtured them, but that they, in turn, have an obligation and a destiny to help the nation. As early as the end of the 19th century, Mormons sought to convince their skeptical fellow Americans of their good-citizen bona fides. As Chapter 3 of the Balmer and Riess book explains, Mormons insisted “that they were the most patriotic of Americans” (41). “They noted repeatedly,” the chapter continues, “the distinctive Mormon belief that the U.S. Constitution was a divinely inspired document, framed by God, and also reminded their critics that one of their Articles of Faith called them to be subject to rulers and the laws of the land.” During the course of the 20th century, there developed among many Mormons a sense that they did and should uphold the most quintessentially American values: faith, family, free enterprise, pioneer spirit, and patriotism. As Chapter 5 of the Balmer and Riess book points out, this thinking was driven in large part by Mormon Apostle and United States Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson, who would become President of the LDS Church (“The Prophet”) in the 1980s. His distinctly right-leaning, strongly anti-communist vision for Mormons’ American nationalism laid the groundwork for the cohesively conservative social and political vision that Campbell, Green, and Monson document among LDS church members today. Finally, as perhaps the ultimate expression of their sense of religious mission to the nation, Mormons widely believe that they as a people will someday be called on to rescue American constitutional governance. An apocryphal (according to LDS Church authorities) but widely-circulated prophecy of Joseph Smith holds that one day the Constitution will “hang by a thread,” only to be saved by a group of Mormons. According to Campbell, Green, and Monson, a strong majority of LDS church members are familiar with this prophecy and believe it to be true, notwithstanding its non-canonical status (111). Thus, most Mormons believe both that America has providentially nurtured them and their church, and that they will in turn one day save the nation's revered founding document.

Of course, as several chapters in the Balmer and Riess book make clear, this enthusiastic Mormon embrace of the American nation and system of government is historically ironic. Mormons’ early history is a near-continuous record of persecution at the hands of their American neighbors in New York, Ohio, Illinois, and Missouri, often aided and abetted by governmental authorities. The most dramatic manifestation of this tension was Missouri Governor Lilburn Boggs’ 1838 “Mormon Extermination Order,” which directed that all Latter Day Saints be either killed or expelled from the state. This persecution, coupled six years later with Joseph Smith's murder by an anti-Mormon lynch mob in Illinois (in the midst, ironically, of his quixotic campaign for the American presidency), prompted the great Mormon migration to the wilds of Utah. There, they instituted a church-led form of government called “theodemocracy” and began openly to encourage polygamy — two practices that situated them decidedly outside the American political and legal mainstream. In the face of governmental pressure to conform to American norms, Brigham Young (Joseph Smith's successor as leader of the Church) was defiant: “‘No officer of the United States should ever dictate to him in this valley,’ he vowed, ‘or he would hang them on a gibbet as a warning to others’” (Balmer and Riess, 19). This sentiment is reflective of the Mormon desire, during their first half-century in the Utah Valley, to keep the United States government and the culture of non-Mormon Americans very much at arms’ length. In the relative haven of their new Zion, Mormons “experimented with radical social and economic systems” (Balmer and Riess, 74), defiantly persisted with plural marriage, insisted on a dominant role for the Church in political life, and routinely fought (sometimes literally) United States government officials seeking to bring them to heel. These long-running conflicts fostered a “near-antinomian opposition…between the early LDS Church and both America's federal government as well as its pluralistic popular culture” (Balmer and Riess, 89) — a far cry indeed from Ezra Taft Benson's 20th century vision of a conservative, patriotic, law-abiding Mormon community, and from most 21st century Mormons’ conception of themselves.

These tensions between contemporary Mormon socio-political reality and the complex record of LDS history — highlighted so nicely by reading these two books in tandem — suggest some challenges for Mormons as they engage the American political system going forward. One important issue will be their attitude toward the authority of the United States government. As both the Campbell, Green, and Monson and (especially) the Balmer and Riess books show, Mormonism in the 20th century moved decisively toward acceptance and even endorsement of the power and legitimacy of the American state. A view of the American founding documents and political system as providential, a strong moral emphasis on the obligation to obey duly constituted authority, and the lack of any coherently articulated theology of civil disobedience leave Mormons little room to dissent from or resist edicts of the state. Under the Obama administration, however, the United States government enacted a variety of policies, mostly dealing with marriage and sexuality, that the LDS Church finds deeply disturbing. Will Mormons once again find themselves at odds with the United States government over whether marriage is the union of one man and one woman (although, ironically, on the opposite side of the issue this time)? Will Mormons submit to laws, whether mandating provision of services for same-sex weddings or transgender bathroom access, that they see as violating their religious conscience rights? While these conflicts may go into abeyance during a Trump administration, they are unlikely to vanish forever. One wonders, moreover, if contemporary Mormonism has the theological and cultural resources to resist a hypothetical Trump policy of mass deportations, in some LDS version of the 1980s Sanctuary Movement. Whatever the specific flashpoints may be, it is clear that a wholehearted embrace of the American state may once again become problematic for Mormons. How the Church chooses to navigate between the contrasting approaches to American civil power taken by Brigham Young and Ezra Taft Benson will be important in shaping Mormons’ political future.

Another key challenge facing the LDS Church and its political outlook is the increasing diversification of the faith. Historically, Mormons have been overwhelmingly white and heavily concentrated in the Mountain West. Due to extensive missionary efforts and population diffusion, however, there are now more American Mormons outside Utah than within and, more importantly, more global Mormons outside the United States than in it (Balmer and Riess, 109). With this geographic dispersion has come racial and ethnic diversity as well, as multi-racial Mormon congregations have proliferated in the United States and, especially, in Latin America. The comfortable embrace of American exceptionalism and of white, middle-class, American conservative values, such a natural fit for the mid-20th century Mormons, is increasingly fraught and complicated for the contemporary global Church. How does a theologizing of the American founding play to Mormons or prospective converts in Brazil and Nigeria? What does Mormon doctrine say about obedience to regimes whose founding documents are not sacred, and that may well be corrupt and despotic? The issues that matter to new Mormons in the developing world — global economic inequality, freedom of migration, the effects of climate change, etc. — may be very different from the priorities of American church members. These are issues of which the Church is well aware, as it seeks to balance doctrines and practices nurtured in a uniquely American context with an increasingly global presence. As Chapter 7 (in Balmer and Riess) notes, “a central pre-occupation of Mormonism for the past 40 years, amid its vast international growth, has been how to shed its American presumptions and function in and honor the diverse cultures of the world” (109). This problematic imperative will only become more acute as time goes on.

One great advantage that the LDS Church has in working through these challenges is its comparative youth and dynamism. It is important to remember that, relative to other major world religions, Mormonism is barely in its adolescence. Catholicism, Judaism, Islam, and Hinduism all have millennia of accumulated doctrines, writings, and practices behind them, creating (for good or for ill) a certain amount of inertia. Mormonism, by contrast, was founded less than two centuries ago, and has been growing and changing at a rapid pace ever since. In the last hundred years or so, the LDS Church has profoundly shifted its teachings on both marriage and race, and has dramatically re-oriented its approach to American government and society. Campbell, Green, and Monson's Seeking the Promised Land and Balmer and Riess's Mormonism and American Politics remind us that, as a hierarchical, centralized church explicitly open to ongoing revelation, with members who are socially cohesive and who take ecclesiastical direction seriously, Mormons are well positioned to pivot nimbly in response to social and political challenges. Whether and how they choose to do so in the coming decades will be both consequential for American public life, and fascinating for students of religion and politics.