American Zion: A New History of Mormonism

American Zion begins with the 2009 opening of the new five-story, 230,000-square-foot Church History building. Drawn to the building and all of the stories and histories housed inside, Benjamin E. Park began to explore its gifts. As he did, he soon realized “that the faithful stories I had been raised on did not entirely match the records I was now encountering nor the scholarship I was simultaneously digesting.” He slowly came to understand that Latter-day Saint history—its sources, its contours, its questions, and its conclusions—were “far more complicated and divisive than I had come to—been led to—believe.” (2) And with that description, Park takes his readers on a journey of learning about the more complicated and divisive aspects of Latter-day Saint history that they, too, may not have been taught. Any book that can begin with the story of the opening of an archive and, through its description, grip a reader from the first page, is a book worth reading and celebrating. It is a social, intellectual, cultural, and political history all wrapped in one volume.American Zion has something for everyone. Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will find their history told in engaging and exciting ways. They will learn aspects and nuances of their history that don't often get discussed in church settings. They will hear about the experiences of Latter-day Saints whose voices have been lost or left out of traditional narratives. They will see that these marginalized voices make up a vital part of the Church's history. Scholars of the Mormon diaspora will also find this work a compelling and helpful addition to their libraries. Park's narrative style is a model for thorough and refined stories that maintain the complexity of the past they are re-telling. For all of these reasons, I look forward to using the book the next time I teach my Religion in America class.Park's choice to highlight marginalized voices, his argument that they have helped to shape the Church, is what makes the book such an important contribution to the field. He highlights the dialectical nature of the tradition through emphasizing both individuals who had the power to transform the institution and those who did not but who nonetheless engaged their faith in significant and creative ways. As he explores marginalized voices, he acknowledges that he does not engage global voices as much as he could, an absence that stands out and a silence that needs to be addressed by other historians.Park's approach that explores “forgotten alternative trajectories” is important for the field of Mormon studies. So often, narratives get told with an aura of inevitability or divine sanction. Those narratives suggest or claim outright that the way things happened was the way they were supposed to happen. That there were no serious alternatives. It is important for us to challenge this type of history-telling and explore those alternatives, as important as it is for us to study all of the movements that sprang from Joseph Smith, in order for us to more fully make sense of the tradition both historically and today.American Zion strikes a balance that connects larger historical debates about citizenship, sovereignty, the line between church and state, and what being “American” ought to look like, with histories of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This is a task that can be so difficult in a short (at least for what it is trying to accomplish in 473 pages of text!) book. Park skillfully explores the tensions between believers and non-believers, between church leaders, between those same leaders and the larger membership, between the progressive and conservative pushes and pulls among the faithful.It seems to me that one of the tensions in Park's book—the tension between conservative and progressive perspectives—is the umbrella under which other tensions, like differing views of gender, sexuality, and race, are explored. The power of that umbrella tension has to do with another or underlying project of the book, presenting “alternative trajectories” to a wider audience. That seems like an important task and, at times, it feels as if it also carries with it Park's vision of a different future for the Church. The alternative trajectories he presents are often more inclusive and democratic visions of what church could look like. Sharing alternative trajectories with a wider audience offers a measuring stick through which readers can engage with the current Church both as it is and as it could be.Here the book has in its pages a contemporary purpose or project that can help church members make sense of today and the possibilities for alternative visions found with their traditions. My one concern is that, at times, this history may suggest that the alternative trajectories are equal in tension with the power of the institutional push toward conservatism. Striking a balance between the social and theological creativity of church members and the centripetal pull of an institutional conservatism is difficult. The institutional authority of the past, at times, had a crushing power over other claims to authority and alternative visions. While those visions may be powerful and persuasive to some people today, the imbalance in power behind those visions needs to always be central in our consideration of them.Park's work uncovers alternative and marginalized voices and shows how church history is a product of dialogue and conversation between church members and between the Church and the broader culture. It is a fantastic exploration of the tensions that caused change and produced the version of the Church that exists today. The book's beauty lies in its ability to capture the voices and visions of many believers who saw different futures for their Church and who engaged in creative and lively theological and cultural debates about who they wanted their community to be.