Mormon fundamentalism
Based on Wikipedia: Mormon fundamentalism
In 1904, the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints issued a directive that would fracture a movement and birth a shadow lineage. Joseph F. Smith, facing relentless federal pressure and the specter of losing Utah's statehood, declared that the era of plural marriage was over. He promised that any member entering into a new polygamous union would be excommunicated. Yet, in the dusty canyons of the American West, in isolated colonies stretching from northern Mexico to southern Canada, a different interpretation took root. These men and women did not believe the revelation was divine; they saw it as a political maneuver, a desperate bargain struck to appease a government they viewed as hostile to God's law. They believed the priesthood had been severed from the main body of the church, carried away by a faithful remnant who refused to compromise. This is the genesis of Mormon fundamentalism, a complex and often misunderstood phenomenon where the past is not merely remembered, but actively practiced as the only path to salvation.
To understand Mormon fundamentalism, one must first discard the notion of a monolithic entity. There is no single headquarters, no central pope, and no universal council that speaks for all fundamentalists. Instead, it is a tapestry of small, often rival sects, bound together by a shared conviction: that the mainstream LDS Church, now headquartered in Salt Lake City, abandoned essential doctrines in its bid for social acceptance. These doctrines, they argue, were taught and practiced during the "golden era" of the nineteenth century, under the administrations of the movement's founding fathers: Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, and John Taylor. The most prominent of these abandoned tenets is plural marriage, a form of polygamy that remains the defining characteristic of the movement in the public eye. But it is not the only one. Closely tied to it is the United Order, a radical form of communalism where private property is surrendered for the common good. For the fundamentalist, these are not historical footnotes; they are eternal principles, wrongly discarded and urgently in need of restoration.
The numbers tell a story of a significant, if hidden, demographic. Sources estimate that the number of North American adherents to these fundamentalist beliefs ranges between 20,000 and 60,000. Of this population, roughly half live in polygamous households. The vast majority of these believers, approximately 75% as of a 2020 estimate, are affiliated with just three major groups: the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS), the Apostolic United Brethren (AUB), and the Latter Day Church of Christ (often called the Kingston Group). These organizations, while distinct, share a lineage that traces back to a specific moment of schism in the early twentieth century. The founders of these mutually rival denominations—men like Lorin C. Woolley, John Y. Barlow, Joseph W. Musser, Leroy S. Johnson, Rulon C. Allred, Elden Kingston, and Joel LeBaron—are the patriarchs of a movement that continues to thrive in the shadows of the Mormon Corridor, a region encompassing parts of the Western United States, Western Canada, and northern Mexico.
The Origins of a Schism
The story of the split begins long before the 1904 Manifesto, rooted in the murky waters of the movement's earliest days. The LDS Church practiced plural marriage covertly from the 1830s or early 1840s, though the precise timelines remain a subject of historical debate. It was not until 1852, after the bulk of the members had migrated to the Utah Territory, that the practice was publicly acknowledged. By 1876, it was formally canonized in the Doctrine and Covenants, one of the church's standard works of scripture. At its height, it is estimated that between 20% and 30% of LDS households were polygamous.
This practice, however, became a lightning rod for controversy. To the general American populace and the federal government, polygamy was an affront to civilized society. The 1856 platform of the Republican Party famously characterized polygamy and slavery as "the twin relics of barbarism." As the United States expanded its reach into the West, the federal government viewed the existence of a polygamous state as an unacceptable challenge to its authority. The pressure mounted. Utah could not achieve statehood while the practice of plural marriage remained legal.
The turning point came in 1890. Under immense pressure from the U.S. government, which was threatening to confiscate church assets and deny Utah statehood, church president Wilford Woodruff issued the "Manifesto." This declaration prohibited the contracting of new plural marriages within the United States. To the mainstream LDS Church, this was a divine revelation, a necessary step to preserve the church. To the future fundamentalists, it was a political expedient, a temporary measure to buy time. They argued that the Manifesto was not worded in the style of a true revelation given to Smith, Young, or Taylor. They believed that once Utah joined the Union, it would have the sovereignty to enact its own marriage laws, rendering the federal ban irrelevant.
The federal government, however, was not to be outmaneuvered. Before granting statehood in 1896, Washington demanded that Utah include a provision in its state constitution stating that "polygamous or plural marriages are forever prohibited." The state complied, but the fundamentalist argument persisted: the 1890 Manifesto was a mistake, a capitulation to the state rather than the church of God. They pointed to the Edmunds–Tucker Act of 1887, a brutal piece of legislation that dissolved the LDS Church as a legal entity, disenfranchised women who had voted in Utah since 1870, and required voters to take an anti-polygamy oath. To them, the Manifesto was a direct result of this coercion, not a genuine change in doctrine.
Even after 1890, the practice did not vanish. It went underground in the United States and continued openly in Mormon colonies in northern Mexico and southern Alberta, Canada. Some sources suggest that many polygamous men in the U.S. continued to live with their plural wives with the tacit approval of church presidents Woodruff, Lorenzo Snow, and Joseph F. Smith. The tension came to a head in 1903 with the selection of Reed Smoot, a Latter-day Saint, to the U.S. Senate. His confirmation hearings, known as the Reed Smoot hearings, dragged on for years, with national attention focused on the continued practice of polygamy in Utah.
In 1904, Joseph F. Smith issued the "Second Manifesto." This was not a mere suggestion; it was a policy of excommunication. Those who entered into or solemnized new polygamous marriages were cast out. The seriousness of this shift was underscored in 1911 when Apostle John W. Taylor, the son of the church's third president, was excommunicated for his continued opposition to the Manifesto. From that moment on, the LDS Church established a hard line: to advocate for plural marriage or to practice it was to be cut off from the community. Today, the church continues to excommunicate members who support fundamentalist groups or enter into plural marriages, regardless of where they occur.
The Woolley Legacy and the Priesthood Lineage
If the 1904 Manifesto was the spark, the 1920s provided the fuel for the formation of a distinct fundamentalist movement. The central figure in this development was Lorin C. Woolley, a church dissenter who claimed to have received a separate line of priesthood authority. Woolley argued that the mainstream LDS Church had lost its authority to perform sacred ordinances because it had abandoned the commandments of God. He claimed that the true priesthood had been passed down through a specific, unbroken chain of lineage, distinct from the hierarchy in Salt Lake City.
Woolley's claims effectively set in motion the development of Mormon fundamentalism as a coherent, albeit fragmented, movement. Most of the polygamous groups that exist today can trace their spiritual and organizational roots to Woolley's legacy. For these groups, the concept of authority is paramount. Unlike the mainstream LDS Church, which views authority as residing in a centralized organization and its living prophet, fundamentalists tend to locate authority within the "Priesthood" itself. They view this priesthood as a charismatic, often physical lineage, passed from father to son or from mentor to disciple. In this worldview, an external organization like a church can "lose" its theological validity if it strays from the truth, but the priesthood authority remains with the faithful remnant.
This belief in a "lineage" of authority explains why fundamentalist groups are often so insular and why they are frequently at odds with one another. Different groups claim different lines of succession. The FLDS, the AUB, and the Kingston Group all trace their roots back to Woolley, but they interpret the chain of succession differently. This has led to a landscape of rival denominations, each believing they are the sole custodians of the true priesthood.
The FLDS Church, led for decades by the late Warren Jeffs and now by others, is perhaps the most notorious of these groups. Known for its strict isolationism and the centralization of power in a single president, the FLDS has been the target of intense law enforcement scrutiny. The Apostolic United Brethren (AUB), often called the Allred Group after its founder Rulon C. Allred, tends to be more integrated into mainstream society, with members often holding jobs in the broader economy while maintaining their fundamentalist beliefs and practices. The Latter Day Church of Christ, or Kingston Group, follows a similar pattern to the AUB but with its own distinct leadership lineage.
Despite their differences, these groups share a common set of core beliefs. They reject the 1890 and 1904 Manifestos as illegitimate. They believe that the LDS Church has fallen from grace by abandoning the United Order and plural marriage. They hold that the "fulness of the gospel" requires the practice of these doctrines. For them, salvation is inextricably linked to the faithful observance of these ancient commands.
The United Order and the Rejection of Materialism
While plural marriage captures the public imagination, it is not the only doctrine that separates fundamentalists from the mainstream. The United Order, a form of communalism, is equally important to many fundamentalist sects, though it has not attracted the same level of scrutiny or condemnation. The United Order was an early Mormon experiment in economic cooperation, where members consecrated their property to the church and received back only what they needed. It was a radical attempt to create an egalitarian society, free from the inequalities of capitalism.
For the mainstream LDS Church, the United Order was a historical experiment that was eventually abandoned as impractical. For fundamentalists, it remains a vital principle. In some fundamentalist communities, the United Order is still practiced, albeit in varying degrees of intensity. Members may pool resources, share labor, and distribute goods according to need. This aspect of fundamentalism is often ignored by the mainline church, which has never issued a revelation or statement explicitly condemning the United Order. It simply faded from practice, replaced by a system of tithing and self-reliance.
The persistence of the United Order among fundamentalists highlights a deeper philosophical divide. Fundamentalists often view the modern world as corrupt and materialistic. They see the abandonment of communalism as a sign of the church's drift away from its revolutionary roots. By practicing the United Order, they are not just following a rule; they are making a statement about the nature of society and the role of the individual within it. They believe that true discipleship requires a total surrender of the self and one's possessions to the community of believers.
This communal lifestyle is often a defining feature of fundamentalist communities. In places like Colorado City, Arizona, or Hildale, Utah, the lines between the church and the community are blurred. The church is the government, the economy, and the social fabric. This level of integration is a double-edged sword. It provides a strong sense of belonging and purpose for its members, but it also makes it difficult for individuals to leave. The social and economic consequences of apostasy can be severe, leading to ostracism and poverty.
The State of the Union: Law, Society, and Survival
The relationship between Mormon fundamentalists and the state has been fraught with tension for over a century. For the most part, the Utah state government has adopted a policy of non-interference, leaving the fundamentalists to themselves unless their practices violate laws other than those prohibiting bigamy. The legal landscape is complex. Bigamy itself is illegal in all 50 states, but enforcement has been inconsistent. The government has often turned a blind eye to polygamous cohabitation, focusing instead on more egregious crimes such as fraud, child abuse, and the trafficking of women.
There have been exceptions to this hands-off approach. The most notorious government crackdown occurred in 1953 in what is today Colorado City, Arizona. Known as the Short Creek Raid, it was a massive law enforcement operation involving hundreds of officers from Arizona and Utah. They arrested over 200 men and seized nearly 300 children, placing them in foster care. The raid was a disaster for the government; the children were eventually returned to their families, and the public outcry was so great that it led to a reevaluation of law enforcement tactics. The raid demonstrated the difficulty of policing these isolated communities without causing a social upheaval.
In recent years, the focus has shifted to the protection of children and the prevention of abuse. In 2004, a highly publicized case in Colorado City saw a man and one of his polygamous wives lose custody of all but one of their children until the wife separated herself from her husband. This case highlighted the vulnerabilities of women and children within fundamentalist households. The government has also cracked down on the practice of marrying underage girls, a practice that has occurred in some fundamentalist communities.
The legal battles continue to shape the fundamentalist landscape. In 2008, the Texas state government conducted a raid on the Yearning for Zion Ranch, a FLDS compound, removing over 400 children. Although the Texas courts eventually ruled that the state had no evidence of abuse and ordered the children returned, the raid sent shockwaves through the fundamentalist community. It reinforced their belief that the government is an enemy, bent on destroying their way of life.
Despite the legal challenges, the fundamentalist movement continues to grow. Estimates suggest that the population of fundamentalists is increasing, driven by high birth rates and a strong culture of conversion. The FLDS and AUB have established new communities in Mexico and Canada, seeking to escape the reach of U.S. law enforcement. These communities are often self-sufficient, with their own schools, farms, and businesses. They are a testament to the resilience of a belief system that refuses to die.
The Enduring Legacy
The story of Mormon fundamentalism is a story of faith, defiance, and the search for truth. It is a movement that has been shaped by the conflicts of the past and the challenges of the present. The fundamentalists believe that they are the guardians of a lost heritage, the keepers of a flame that the mainstream church has allowed to flicker out. They see themselves as the true heirs of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, the only ones who have remained faithful to the original commandments.
For the mainstream LDS Church, fundamentalism is a painful reminder of a controversial past. The church has worked hard to distance itself from the practice of polygamy and the image of the fundamentalist. It has excommunicated those who advocate for these doctrines and has barred fundamentalists from entering its temples. The church teaches that the Manifesto was a divine revelation and that the practice of plural marriage is no longer required for salvation.
Yet, the fundamentalist movement persists. It is a reminder that religious traditions are not static; they are living, breathing entities that evolve in response to the pressures of history. The fundamentalists have chosen a path of isolation and resistance, a path that has led to persecution and hardship but also to a deep sense of community and purpose. They are a small but significant part of the American religious landscape, a testament to the enduring power of belief in the face of opposition.
The debate over the legitimacy of the 1890 Manifesto and the nature of priesthood authority continues to divide the Mormon world. For the fundamentalists, the question is not whether the past was wrong, but whether the present has lost its way. They believe that the restoration of plural marriage and the United Order is not just a matter of tradition, but a matter of salvation. As long as there are those who believe that God's law has not changed, the fundamentalist movement will continue to thrive, a shadow lineage living in the canyons of the West, waiting for the day when the truth will be restored to the earth.
In the end, the story of Mormon fundamentalism is a mirror held up to the complexities of religious belief in America. It challenges us to think about the nature of authority, the cost of dissent, and the power of community. It is a story of men and women who have chosen to live by a different set of rules, in a world that often does not understand them. And in that choice, they have carved out a space that is uniquely their own, a space where the past is not just remembered, but lived.