Saints Under Siege: The Texas State Raid on the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints

3. The Struggle for Legitimacy: Tensions between the LDS and FLDS

80 | 3 The Struggle for Legitimacy Tensions between the LDS and FLDS Ryan T. Cragun, Michael Nielsen, and Heather Clingenpeel The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) has spent a considerable amount of time, money, and effort to distance itself from polygamy and those who continued the practice since it stopped performing plural marriages in the early 1900s (Cragun and Nielsen 2009). Those efforts were redoubled as a result of the Texas state raid on the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints (FLDS) in April 2008. Herein we describe the efforts, measures, and strategies employed by the LDS to marginalize the fundamentalist Mormons following this incident. The reason why the LDS has spent so much time and capital to distance itself from the FLDS is best understood as an issue of legitimacy. Legitimacy is defined in various ways; however, in reference to organizations (as opposed to individuals or beliefs), it generally implies the organization’s cultural acceptance or “taken-for-granted” status. To a religious organization, legitimacy is important because it translates into social acceptance, which, in turn, means a reduction in persecution and unfavorable treatment (Lythgoe 1968). Establishing legitimacy is a fundamental process that is basic to social organization. All organizations intending to survive or grow require widespread acceptance and some degree of congruence with the surrounding culture (Johnson et al., 2006). The pursuit of legitimacy is what drove the ordination of women in mainline Protestant churches in the United States (Chaves 1997), and it is also the underlying motivation as religions transition from cult or sect to denomination (Johnson 1957, 1963; Lawson, 1995a, 1995b). In Stark and Finke’s (2000) model of religious economies, religions and societal religiosity cycle over time; large churches lose their appeal, opening the religious marketplace to smaller, more motivated competitors (sects and cults). The smaller sects and cults eventually become churches, and the cycle repeats. Inherent in this model, although not generally discussed by its advo- The Struggle for Legitimacy | 81 cates, is the process of legitimation (Cragun and Nielsen 2009). In order to become widely accepted and to grow, sects and cults must legitimize to some degree or remain too esoteric to have broad appeal. However, they must also balance that legitimacy with niche appeal—they must distinguish themselves from religious competitors. Thus both legitimacy and niche appeal are essential components of religious evolution. Mauss (1994) describes the legitimation of sects and cults as a process of “assimilation” or “accommodation,” which he phrases as a “quest for respectability.” Cragun and Nielsen (2009) describe attempts by religions to appeal to specific religious market niches as religious “differentiation.” One important goal of religions is to increase membership (i.e., market share). Increasing membership requires an accurate estimate of consumer demand and the product being sold; thus both must be evaluated. Religions, like corporations, evaluate consumer demand and their product, changing each based upon the goal of increasing membership, as depicted in Figure 3.1. For example, expanding priesthood to African Americans could be seen as product innovation within Mormonism, and modifying temple garments and clarifying questions to be asked in temple-recommended interviews could be seen as responding to consumer demand (Buerger 1994). Religions grow by increasing legitimacy but simultaneously by illustrating how their “product” is better than another, particularly for specific consumers. The aim of this chapter is to illustrate how the LDS has been and continues to be engaged in a struggle for legitimacy with a dissident sect that significantly threatens its hard-earned legitimacy: polygamists in general and the FLDS in particular. The very presence and occasional notoriety— for instance, the raid in Texas—reawaken in the public mind the issue of polygamy which is intimately tied to the history of the LDS. To illustrate the struggle for legitimacy between the LDS and FLDS, we first outline why the LDS cannot return to polygamy as a practice. We then examine efforts by the LDS to distinguish itself from the FLDS and other polygamists prior to the raid in 2008. The final section of this chapter examines efforts by the LDS to distinguish itself from the FLDS after the raid. Modernization of the LDS Many advocates of religious economies models, when discussing the religious marketplace, fail to note that the demands of religion consumers change over time (Bruce 2002; Stark and Finke 2000). Although the model of religious marketplace adaptation outlined above suggests oscillation between differen- 82 | Ryan T...