Becoming American: The Welsh Mormon journey.

详细信息   

• 作者：Bingley ; F. James ; Jr.
• 学历：Doctor
• 年：2010
• 导师：Ittmann, Karl,eadvisor
• 毕业院校：University of Houston
• ISBN：9781124065724
• CBH：3414244
• Country：USA
• 语种：English
• FileSize：13094526
• Pages：310

文摘

Mormonism came to Wales in 1840, on the surface a strange new import from the backwoods of America, but in reality a faith whose tenets fit well with key elements of Evangelicalism, then expanding in Wales, and whose American heritage was more a positive than a negative. The Welsh who became Mormon saw in their new faith the answer to the secular and religious chaos they perceived in Wales and chose Mormonism because it offered a union of religious and secular life, what they believed was a restoration of original Christianity and the certainty of salvation. But, their new faith could only be fully realized in Zion, to be built in America to prepare for the Second Coming of Christ. The Saints, as they called themselves, left the secular chaos of the Industrial Revolution in Wales, traveled to America, crossed the plains to Utah, and began to build their Zion. What was their journey like, and did they find Zion? The answer to the question lies in the narratives, biographical and autobiographical, that Welsh Mormons left behind so that their posterity would understand their reasons for converting and emigrating --- and the trials and triumphs of the journey and building Zion in the wilderness. The narratives were found in an unexploited (from an historian's point of view) Internet database of some 5-6,000 records created so that the Welsh Mormon story would not be forgotten. Reading the narratives, generalizing the experiences and putting the results in the context of the times, in Wales and America, created the picture of a people reliving an Old Testament biblical journey from Babylon to the Promised Land. The way was hard and dangerous, but when Zion was reached an even harder road lay ahead as Zion became American soil after the Mexican War and Washington took a dim view of the theocracy the nation had acquired. True to their goal, Welsh Mormons melded into their American mainstream and joined the struggle against the government of the United States to see who would rule the Utah Territory. Polygamy was the issue over which the battle was joined. Welsh Mormons resisted, stood guard and went to jail but when it was all over and the Church had capitulated to the power of the Federal government, three Welsh Mormons helped write the Utah state constitution. The Welsh Mormon experience in Utah reflects the Americanizing journey all immigrants take in their new homeland on the way to becoming American. In the process, the nature of the Mormon secular and religious fusion was permanently altered to separate off the public aspect of the secular world, leaving only the private to fuse with religion, a necessary compromise between the absolute freedom America seemed to offer and the need to make a country for everyone. What had seemed possible in Wales was no longer possible once Utah became American soil. The nature of Zion changed, but it remained Zion just the same, only a different kind.