Still, the Small Voice: Narrative, Personal Revelation, and the Mormon Folk Tradition

Notes

394 Notes Introduction 1. The religious landscape of New England at the turn of the nineteenth century has been explored in depth by a number of works (e.g., Carroll 1997, Gaustad 1974, Hughes and Allen 1988, Marsden 1970, Pointer 1988, Sandeen 1970, Schlesinger 1967). Within this historical context, often termed the Second Great Awakening, the “primitive gospel” movement most clearly articulated the need for a more personal connection to God, one that the individual could attain without the intercession of trained clergy. Mormonism fits within this larger religious context in its demand for a restoration of the gospel, the reliance on a lay church, and its belief in a personal relationship with God available to all people. 2. A number of scholars have argued that these gaps have resulted in only the broadest outlines of a coherent Mormon theology. In his comparative study of doctrine developed at the local level and doctrine espoused by church presidents, Richley Crapo argues, “The church has not formalized an officially sanctioned theology beyond a surprisingly small number of central beliefs, most of which were set forth by the church’s founder, Joseph Smith, Jr.,” citing substantial scholarship that supports this view (1987:467). 3. A keyword search for “personal revelation” in the gospel library database on the church’s website, for example, returns literally thousands of articles. The exact number of hits was 3,802 when I typed it in on December 1, 2008, and had increased to 3,947 by August 29, 2009. However, a number of sources were repeated in the returned list. 4. One of the most well known and heavily used series of books is the Faith Promoting Series developed by the Juvenile Instructor Office of the church. The stated goal of the series is to serve “as a means of promoting a home-produced alternative to popular novels.” The series includes seventeen volumes. Some are devoted to church leaders: volume 1 describes George Q. Cannon’s missionary work, and volume 3 draws pages from Wilford Woodruff’s journal. Others are compilations of stories from pioneer men and women that provide testaments to the righteousness, fortitude, and courage of church members who otherwise would be lost to history outside their family records. Today, stories from the series are regularly used in Sunday school instruction and in church talks. 5. The Fife Folklore Archives at USU, for example, has copies of BYU student papers from 1968 to 1978, while the BYU archives has copies of USU student papers from 1978 to 1984.For a discussion of the origins of these archives, see “College and University Folklore Archives” in Stanley 2004:262–7. 6. For readers not familiar with the tale, see Louise and Yuan-His Kuo’s book Chinese Folk Tales (1976:83–5). The story dates back to the Han Dynasty (202 BC–220 AD), though there are early versions in India and Africa as well. Today, the story is spread widely across the globe. 7. The reason for this shift is not particularly interesting, though I will provide an explanation for those contemplating their own analysis. I found ATLAS.ti cumbersome in adding my own thoughts and comments as I coded. The same was true for identifying correlations between codes. This is not meant as an indictment of ATLAS.ti, as I am sure with more patience I could have learned to manage these issues more efficiently. However, by Notes 395 creating a basic but extensive Excel spreadsheet (it ultimately included seventy columns), I was able to constantly sort my data in an easy-to-view format that facilitated my analysis considerably. Chapter 1 1. Divisions between formal religions and folk religions are archaic. At least since Jack Santino ’s article on Catholic folklore (1982), scholars have recognized the fallacy of assuming some religions have no formal institutional structures and others have no folklore. Leonard Primiano goes further, arguing against the division between official and unofficial church structures within a particular religion as commonly applied by scholars, a division that suggests church leaders practice religion in an official way while folk practice it in an unofficial way. He acknowledges, however, that people within a religion may in fact distinguish an official church, a designation useful for scholars to address (1995:45). This is clearly the case with Mormon religion, despite the fact that it is a lay church. 2. Chapter 134 is a declaration of belief by church leaders in 1835. Chapter 135 is an eyewitness account by...