The politics of American religious identity

the seating of Senator Reed Smoot, Mormon apostle

  • 3 Want to read

My Reading Lists:

Create a new list

  • 3 Want to read

Buy this book

Last edited by MARC Bot
September 25, 2024 | History

The politics of American religious identity

the seating of Senator Reed Smoot, Mormon apostle

  • 3 Want to read

Between 1901 and 1907, a broad coalition of Protestant churches sought to expel newly elected Reed Smoot from the Senate, arguing that as an apostle in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Smoot was a lawbreaker and therefore unfit to be a lawmaker. The resulting Senate investigative hearing featured testimony on every peculiarity of Mormonism, especially its polygamous family structure. The Smoot hearing ultimately mediated a compromise between Progressive Era Protestantism and Mormonism and resolved the nation's long-standing "Mormon Problem." On a broader scale, Kathleen Flake shows how this landmark hearing provided the occasion for the country--through its elected representatives, the daily press, citizen petitions, and social reform activism--to reconsider the scope of religious free exercise in the new century. Flake contends that the Smoot hearing was the forge in which the Latter-day Saints, the Protestants, and the Senate hammered out a model for church-state relations, shaping for a new generation of non-Protestant and non-Christian Americans what it meant to be free and religious. In addition, she discusses the Latter-day Saints' use of narrative and collective memory to retain their religious identity even as they changed to meet the nation's demands.

Publish Date
Pages
238

Buy this book

Edition Availability
Cover of: The politics of American religious identity
The politics of American religious identity: the seating of Senator Reed Smoot, Mormon apostle
2004, University of North Carolina Press
Cover of: The politics of American religious identity
The politics of American religious identity: the seating of Senator Reed Smoot, Mormon apostle
2004, University of North Carolina Press
in English
Cover of: The Politics of American Religious Identity
The Politics of American Religious Identity: The Seating of Senator Reed Smoot, Mormon Apostle
December 3, 2003, The University of North Carolina Press
Hardcover in English
Cover of: The Politics of American Religious Identity
The Politics of American Religious Identity: The Seating of Senator Reed Smoot, Mormon Apostle
December 3, 2003, The University of North Carolina Press
Paperback in English

Add another edition?

Book Details


Edition Notes

Published in
Chapel Hill, NC

Classifications

Library of Congress
BX, 2003014536 [BX], BX8695.S74 F57 2004

The Physical Object

Pagination
xiii, 238 p. :
Number of pages
238

Edition Identifiers

Open Library
OL22577250M
ISBN 10
0807855014
LCCN
2003014536
OCLC/WorldCat
52554149
LibraryThing
1091749
Goodreads
515434

Work Identifiers

Work ID
OL8467526W

Community Reviews (0)

No community reviews have been submitted for this work.

Lists

Download catalog record: RDF / JSON