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For much of the twentieth century, evangelicals and Latter-day Saints occupied distinct corners of American Christianity—yet in recent decades, they’ve often found themselves aligned politically. In this episode of Dialogue Unbound, host Margaret Olsen Hemming talks with historian Benjamin Park and scholar Nicholas Shrum about how theology, race, and nationalism shape this unlikely alliance. Together, they trace the evolution of evangelical–Mormon relations, explore how partisan identity has come to override religious difference, and consider what this partnership reveals about the changing face of American Christianity.
TRANSCRIPT
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Evangelicals, Mormons, political alliances, theological differences, culture wars, anti-Mormon rhetoric, Christian nationalism, LDS Church, religious identity, political violence, Mark Driscoll, Mitt Romney, Christian right, social reforms, religious assimilation.
Margaret Olsen Hemming 00:00
Hi. Welcome to dialog Unbound, where we explore the intersections of Mormonism, current events and scholarly thought. I’m Margaret Olsen hemming, co editor of dialog. Today we’re taking a close look at the complicated relationship between evangelicals and Mormons. For much of the 20th century, evangelicals viewed Mormons with suspicion and even outright hostility, branding the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as a heretical sect. And yet, beginning in the 1970s and 80s, we see evangelicals and Mormons coalesce politically, often standing shoulder to shoulder in the so called culture wars on issues like abortion, same sex marriage and religious liberty, despite theological differences and at times, hostility, this tension has come to the forefront again in the wake of the recent shooting of Charlie Kirk and the shooting at a Michigan stake center the day after the Michigan shooting turning point, USA Kirk’s organization invited evangelical pastor Mark Driscoll to speak at turning point. Driscoll has long preached that Mormons are Satanic and destined for hell. So what does it mean that evangelicals and Latter-day Saints continue to form political alliances, even when the language of condemnation by many evangelicals hasn’t softened to help us untang untangle this fraught history and its present implications, we will be speaking with two scholars who have written about the intersections of politics and Mormonism. Benjamin Park is a professor of American history at Sam Houston State University and the author of American Zion, a new history of Mormonism, as well as kingdom of Nauvoo, the rise and fall of a religious empire on the American frontier, and also to Nicholas Shrum, whose research focuses on the intersections of religious and state identity, nationalism, race and sacred space in the United States. Nicholas is a PhD candidate in religious studies at the University of Virginia. Ben is a former member of the Board of dialog and Nicholas published a fantastic article on the NCCS pocket constitution and dialog last year. Welcome to both of you.
Nicholas Shrum 02:29
glad to be here. Yeah, that’s great.
Margaret Olsen Hemming 02:34
So to start out, can you walk us through the historical arc of evangelical Mormon relations and what forces brought these two groups into political alignment Despite long standing theological hostility.
Benjamin Park 02:49
I think it’s important to remember how recent and unexpected this cultural alignment was for much of these two traditions history, the Latter-day Saints and the evangelicals, they saw each other as enemies, and in fact, evangelicals waged plenty of ideological and legal battles against Latter-day Saints throughout the 19th century, but then in the 20th century, as Latter-day Saints took their tepid steps toward cultural assimilation and started becoming much more conservative on social and political matters, they start aligning with Evangelicals, at least from a distance, on crucial matters. And then that really takes up, picks up steam during the 1970s with the fusion of what scholars call the religious right coalition, where, in the wake of a number of social revolts and legal decisions like the Roe v Wade and political disputes like the Equal Rights Amendment, Latter-day Saints proved their worth on these national battles, so much so that the same evangelicals who had previously demonized the Mormons as cults saw them as usable friends, at least for pragmatic purposes.
Margaret Olsen Hemming 04:05
So tell us a little bit more about the the 1970s and 1980s culture wars and and how these two groups were interacting in the public sphere.
Benjamin Park 04:14
It’s it’s good to remember that the 1970s also saw a rise in counter cult movement within the evangelical tradition, meaning that at the very moment when Mormons could have proved themselves useful, there were some evangelicals who saw who were renewing the war on them as heretics. This is during the time that leads up to the god makers movie and then best selling book and the king of the cults work, but evangelicals soon realized that they had bigger enemies, bigger fish to fry in the terms of the social reforms and revolts taking place in the nation over gender, race and sex and so you. Have a number of evangelical leaders like Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson who started talking to their friends and saying, Hey, we need to put aside our theological squabbles that had long divided the evangelical movement on the national stage, and instead, we need to find allies. And so I actually think one of the crucial moments in this Mormon and Evangelical Alliance was when one of these counter cult institutes approach Pat Robertson and his Christian Broadcasting Network and want to air the god makers. And pat robertson says, No, we don’t want to alienate the Latter-day Saints. They might be willing to help us on these matters. So in other words, the same political issues that start animating evangelicals are also animating Latter-day Saints, and so they’re going to be able to see each other as the enemy of my enemy is my friend, and we might be able to form an alliance.
Margaret Olsen Hemming 05:57
So initially, there’s sort of a rise in anti Mormon rhetoric, and then there’s a deliberate choice to tamp it down in in pursuit of political ends.
Benjamin Park 06:08
Yep, they say politics makes strange bedfellows, and I think that was especially the case with the Latter-day Saints and evangelicals, due to those broader, broader political concerns,
Margaret Olsen Hemming 06:19
okay, but it hasn’t gone entirely away. So why or that that really harsh rhetoric? So why do some evangelicals continue to use this really harsh theological rhetoric against Mormons, even as they partner on political issues?
Nicholas Shrum 06:36
So I can take a stab at this one. I especially in the wake of the shooting of Charlie Kirk, and then seeing how things have played out since the shooting in Michigan, I think we see really old rhetoric that comes back up again about the situation, the position of Latter-day Saints within the landscape of American Christianity, and evangelicals have typically been the most vocal about that relationship, even though the majority, I think, of Christianity, especially in the United States, they’re not going to consider Latter-day Saints Christian. They’re not going to consider them a denomination in kind of the classical 19th century sense, non ecumenical, all these extra biblical things, but evangelicals have always had, I think, of a stronger push with from within the movement to identify enemies to this more pure Christianity, even the mainline Protestant denominations that you know, start to decline after the mid 20th century. They’re not looked at kindly by evangelicals either. However, there are more similarities, I think, theologically, but Mormonism, from its beginnings, is seen as just a cult. It’s something that’s seen as perverse. It’s delusional, and I mean, even in the rhetoric of Mark Driscoll as of couple of days ago, right? It’s the same thing that Mormonism is deluded. It is satanic, it’s demonic, right? So I I think that evangelicals, for a number of political, theological reasons, we can talk about like, what even how do we define evangelicalism, which is an interesting question, and one that scholars to this day still don’t agree on, but one of those major focuses is on this idea of reform, on the the activism of evangelicalism, whereas other other religions, other Christian denominations, I think, are more willing to be pluralistic in the public sphere, evangelicals feel a much stronger need to combat what they see as unpure or impure Christianity in the public sphere. They see the influence and that’s seen as something that needs to be tamped out.
Margaret Olsen Hemming 09:02
But this is interesting, because it sounds like evangelicals like what Mormons, at least collectively. Do they like how they vote, they like how they engage in in sort of public sphere, they just don’t like what they believe and that that’s kind of a different kind of prejudice than you usually see.
Benjamin Park 09:25
Yeah, I always love it when significant historical figures say exactly what I want them to say for quotes in the books and and one example of that that captures exactly what you’re saying is the Baptist minister Robert Jeffers. Who Jeffers or Jeffreys? I might be misremembering his name. Very prominent Baptist minister out of Dallas who opposed Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign in 2008 saying, We can’t normalize Mormon normalize Mormons. That would be bad. But then comes to support Mitt Romney in 2012 because he is the standard bearer for. The Republican Party. And the way he justified that excuse is he said, Well, Mormons may be a theological cult, but they’re not a sociological cult, and we’re willing to to work with them because they’re they’re on these same social boundaries. And by the way, it was only in 2012 due to Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign that Billy Graham’s website removed Mormons from their list of cults that kind of was giving this impromptu of approval. But that’s very superficial, and so maybe to build off of the great comments from Nick when evangelicals were wanting to work with Mormons, one of the reasons was, you know, they’re trying to be ascendant. They are working from in their minds the margins of society, and trying to take down the secular giant. Now evangelicals probably feel in power now. They feel like they have control, which means they can likely be a bit more selective with who they work with.
Margaret Olsen Hemming 10:57
Okay, so the the definition of who is a friend can narrow because they’re less they need people
11:06
less. Yeah, they’re less desperate.
Margaret Olsen Hemming 11:09
Do you see therefore the Do you see a rise right now in evangelical circles of anti Mormonism?
Benjamin Park 11:19
It’s a good question. I think that there has always been this segment of evangelical anti Mormonism that has been below the surface, and maybe it’s just those voices are getting their platform now, whether that reflects a wider acceptance of those beliefs, I genuinely don’t know.
11:37
Yeah, I
Nicholas Shrum 11:39
might. I might add to that that, I think from the Mormon moment of the early 2000 and 10s, I think there is more of a need because of the just how prominent Mormonism is in American political and cultural discourse, with various series on streaming channels and That kind of thing that are that are, in effect, normalizing Mormonism, right? There’s more of a, you know, maybe during the 90s and the the odds, there wasn’t as much of a need to combat Mormonism. But when it is so prominently placed, and you have, you know, the Washington Post, and you have, you know, excellent op eds by people like Ben park that are talking about, you know, the the influence of of Mormonism in conservative politics in the United States. It’s, you know, that that practical usefulness for Mormonism as a conservative voting block kind of goes away, and it’s more of a we feel the need to how do I put this? To make clear, really what our relationship is, and I think that a lot of the comments that you do see from the more extreme rhetoric from prominent evangelicals like Mark Driscoll, and honestly, even some of the comments from Charlie Kirk that praise Mormonism. It is very practical, right? It is about how you know, you might know Mormons. They’re really, really good people. They’re really misled. So we can say they’re really, really good when it comes to voting, when it comes to raising big families that can therefore contribute to our voting block. But once the rubber hits the road, theologically, it’s nope, nope. Have to maintain this distinct, these distinctions and these
Margaret Olsen Hemming 13:28
boundaries. I’d like to, I’d like to dig into this power dynamic a little bit more of of who, who sees which group as sort of more powerful on, on the American national stage right now. I mean, think about like the, it’s no longer called the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, but the the the group formally known
Benjamin Park 13:54
as the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square.
13:57
That’s right, the tab cats. You know they’re, they’re singing at the the
Margaret Olsen Hemming 14:06
inaugural, the inauguration of President Trump. Very looking, very mainstream America at that point, sort of powerful within the within the religious right, within right wing politics. And then you have this Charlie Kirk shooting and and the turning point decision to host Mark Driscoll. So who do you? Do you see both as rising powers or who, who is directing the relationship? Do you think,
Benjamin Park 14:35
I think it’s moved beyond a typical denominational boundary of which groups are supreme or dominant. The goal to go back to a smart point that Nicholas was making earlier, the very notion and boundaries of evangelicalism has changed over the last few decades, or at least how scholars have defined them. Where it used to be. You know, this. Complicated theological matrix, this catechism that scholars say, Well, if they believe in x, y and z, that makes them an evangelical. But recent scholars have said that actually know that evangelicals who are ascendant aren’t dedicated to theological fidelity. They’re actually committed to particular social and cultural values and prioritization, especially the patriarchy and and, you know, anti progressivism, and so that’s why, if you reframe the evangelicals, that means that the election of Donald Trump, with overwhelming evangelical support, doesn’t come as a surprise, because evangelical because Donald Trump clearly doesn’t believe in the theological tenants of evangelicalism, but it comes as a culmination, because now evangelicalism is defined by power and this Dominionist approach to controlling and influencing the public sphere. And so I think that sentiment, it’s what is, what’s currently transcendent. So those latter a saints who can match that framework, like a Mike Lee, so to speak, are able to thrive in this new environment, while those latter saints who cannot, like Mitt Romney, are no longer able to be elected in Utah.
Margaret Olsen Hemming 16:14
So then is there a divide within Mormonism of who can be called an evangelical or not?
Nicholas Shrum 16:22
Within the the church, within Mormonism itself. Well, so here’s as Ben was talking about that it reminded me of a really, kind of groundbreaking article that a historian named Matthew Sutton wrote, I believe is, a year and a half ago or so about how we define evangelicalism, and let me read you his definition, because it makes you wonder if Mormonism could fit into that. And so maybe even if Mormonism could be considered evangelical I think, well, so here we go. He says that post World War Two evangelicalism is best defined as a white, patriarchal nationalist religious movement made up of Christians who seek power to transform American culture through conservative leaning politics and free market economics. I mean, that’s his definition of what evangelicalism is. And I think for a lot of outsiders of Mormonism, and then even insiders, right? If Mormons consider themselves Christian, which I think the majority of them do, right, they’re going to think of themselves as, yeah, we’re part of a movement. Are we patriarchal? Sure, are the majority of Mormons in the United States white? Yes, probably right. Or, I actually don’t know the demographics on that, but I’m pretty sure it’s still most likely majority white in the United States. And you know, conservative leaning politics. They’re Evangelical, right? That they are, as Ben said, right? They are this movement, right that somebody like Mike Lee could be brought into and operate within? Right? They’re aiming towards the same goals that are typically conservative leaning politics, at least in the cultural sphere. I don’t know that the church itself necessarily does all the time, but those are nuances we can talk about.
Benjamin Park 18:07
And I think it’s important to add to that that maybe it’s because of those dissolving boundaries between Latter-day Saints and evangelicals that are that’s causing the anxiety of the mark driscolls of the world, because now they might see this, this political alliance, as a Trojan horse, and even further, going along with what Nicholas was was saying about Mormons, almost identifying as evangelicals in this new political tradition, I think we saw this in the LDS church during the covid crisis, where Russell M Nelson, the Prophet, comes out and says, You all should get vaccinated. You should mask. You should social distance. And a lot of Latter-day Saints American were like, no because they define their religious authorities along now these partisan boundaries, and when the latter a saint leaders no longer fit that cultural framework. They’re more willing to listen to Newsmax than they are. Russell M Nelson,
Margaret Olsen Hemming 19:07
yeah, yeah. So political identity trumped religious identity. Okay, so I want to back up to a little bit to something Nick touched on. So what role does whiteness and a shared vision of Christian nationalism play in sustaining these partnerships.
Nicholas Shrum 19:27
That’s a tough one, because I think that there, there has been a lot of work within Mormonism to distance itself, at times, from this identity, or this, this marker of identity in American Evangelical culture, with the props up a white Christian nation? One of the things that I have found the most fascinating in the sociological research on Mormons in relationship to these markers of Christian nationalism, things like, should the United States be declared a Christian nation? And laws should be patterned after Christian values. There’s, there’s a whole bunch of them. There should be, you know, Christianity should be taught in schools. The United States plays a part in a Christian divine eschatology or teleology, right? Mormons, I think, for the most part, are scoring really, really high on these kinds of questions, but so I think that as far as markers of identity and what they believe, yeah, I think that Latter-day Saints are oftentimes Christian nationalist, right? So I wrote a piece for the conversation just before the election last year where I made the case that Mormons are Christian nationalists, but I don’t think that they’re on board with Christian nationalism, because I think there is a recognition, whether through its historical trauma or their, you know, individual Latter-day Saints, interactions with the this so called Moral establishment of white American Protestantism that we don’t fit in. And they know that from their missionary work. When they get they begin Bible bashing with somebody, and they just know, you know, intrinsically inside, that we just don’t belong. The Mormons don’t belong. They’re not on board with that. But at the same time, they align in with Christian nationalist goals, sometimes higher than white evangelicals in certain things. Now, one of the things that I’ll just as a caveat to that is I don’t think that there’s as much of a Latter Day Saint approval when it comes to things like immigration, which are inherently tied to whiteness in the United States, I think that in the, you know, maybe in the Western United States, with politics that are driven by the more reactionary Maga politics that we see in in Utah and Arizona, those things come to the forefront. But I think broadly across the United States. I think the sociology research on this shows that’s just not necessarily the case for most Mormons in the United States. But Maybe Ben has something to add there.
Benjamin Park 22:01
No, I think, I think that captures it. I will just note that, or I will emphasize the point that this is where we see a distinction between what the LDS institution is doing and what the LDS laity is doing. I think the institution, no matter where you can critique them on other points, they have done a lot in recent years to downplay the whiteness that had been in the heart of the of LDS theology, Dallin H oaks spoke to BYU and used the words Black Lives Matter as what he framed as a useful slogan. Russell M Nelson called for Latter-day Saints to root out racism from their lives. The church just, you know, put out both statements and pages and books saying that we can view a more diverse Jesus Christ with different racial backgrounds and legacies. But at the same time, while many Latter-day Saints are getting that message from the institution, there are also still listening to the broader voices that are doubling down on whiteness in America, which they see as congruent with the teachings they used to receive from LDS leaders and the institution. So I think there’s a question of whether the current Church’s folkness Focus on destabilizing that whiteness rhetoric is enough for American Latter-day Saints to overcome what they’re hearing from society as well as overcome the their own traditional practices within the LDS
Margaret Olsen Hemming 23:28
faith. Yeah, yeah. Okay, add
Nicholas Shrum 23:31
something to that really quick, because Ben made such a good point here. And I think that one that is important, at least historically, for from Latter-day Saints to remember is that when we say things like, the United States should be a Christian nation historically, that has meant white, right? Like when we say that United States is a Christian nation that’s wrapped into all kinds of discourses about civilization, and civilization as being white, that has been particularly Protestant, right? So Ben makes an excellent point here that when, when you when Mormons hear certain things they think you know in the 21st Century, sure, I wish that it reflected more Christian values. But there may be, unknowingly sometimes tapping into these longer discourses of how what that really means is, you know, replacement theory is, is one of the great underlying parts of whiteness discourse in the United States.
Margaret Olsen Hemming 24:27
That makes me wonder whether Mormons and evangelicals mean the same thing when they’re saying the same words.
Benjamin Park 24:38
Yeah, I think that’s exactly right. Those words are often so these words are utilized and they’re important, like white nationalist or federalism or belonging. Those words are useful because they can be abstract and used in different contexts, not despite that right that that the white Christian nationalist. Movement survives because it can mean different things to these different communities, and so that then causes this shock when some people realize that they are not included in that vision that they just assumed everyone shared. And I can think of one historical example in the past, in the 1960s in the wake of the apotheosis of this civil religion and Christian libertarianism in the 1950s where one nation under God is added as a national motto, and In God We Trust is added to coins and and people emphasize that we should be able to, you know, use the Bible in schools and reference the 10 Commandments. And then the 1960s come around, and there are several Christian groups that are like, Wait, we’re now realizing we’re not included in this Christian vision that that has been pushed and is at the center, and that’s what leads to these schisms and divisions that end up resulting in the banning of school of prayer in schools and the Bible use in the classroom. And so I think the Mormons are just the latest example of people who are buying into a religious and political terminology only to later discover that those terms did not mean and did not include what they expected.
Margaret Olsen Hemming 26:17
And would you then expect that that realization to increase as what you were describing earlier, with the evangelical rise to power, there is less and less of a need for including Mormons in their discourse.
Benjamin Park 26:33
I think we can see a couple of potential trajectories of what comes next. One is Latter-day Saints may realize that, hey, we’re not part of this vision of the Christian nationalists, and it turns out we’re going to be one of the first targets of their group, of the group, when they come in charge. Or they can conclude that their allegiances to both these groups are incongruous, and maybe they side more with the Maga politics than they do with the LDS institution. And that might lead to, you know, some more cognitive dissonance there. Historians make horrible profits. So I don’t know which of those trajectories and potential other trajectories can take, but I do assume it’s going to cause a bit of a discontinuity in their understanding of these twin allegiances that many American Latter-day Saints believed were synonymous and now are. Now are and are now realizing are not
Margaret Olsen Hemming 27:26
so last question in this moment of rising political violence, what lessons can we draw from this uneasy partnership about the risks of coalitional politics built on shared enemies rather than shared values.
Nicholas Shrum 27:42
So in preparation for this discussion, I went and listened to a bunch of Mark Driscoll sermons, including the one there was one about three months ago that was titled, Mormonism is a cult, and how Mormonism is Satanic and gets into, honestly, more into the theology, which I hope that a lot of Mormons would watch that and recognize that a couple of things. One, there is quite a bit of hostility. Theologically, I actually think that there is, there is hostility culturally, though, that that subsides with with pragmatic political reasons, but that there is, there are accurate, I mean, disagreements right at the same time. Which is so fascinating is that my hope is right as both a scholar, but then also as a citizen, right? I think it is possible to have pluralistic, multi group political movements, right? And if that’s on the right, that’s possible that there are evangelicals that do not see Latter-day Saints as Christian as part of their own, not in part of their maybe their vision, but that there is some kind of usefulness. But then even on the left, or any other kind of movement like there is there could be a possibility. But I think that the way that somebody like Mark Driscoll and I was not aware of this until I had listened to one of his his sermons after Charlie Kirk’s assassination, he does directly tie Mormonism to a motivation for Tyler Robinson, I had heard things like that that had been floating around or in the comments, but he, you know, definitively ties a motivation for the assassination of a figure like Charlie Kirk to the delusions of Mormonism as demonic that is, I hope that Mormons take that seriously, and that they think seriously about how a very prominent movement in the United States that is gaining a lot of influence and power does see you. It’s kind of frightening. Yeah,
Benjamin Park 29:59
Just to add to that, first of all, I think one big lesson we can take from this discussion is that Nicholas is a better researcher than me, because I was not going in to listen to Mark Driscoll sermons in preparation for this. But second, I think the LDS church, or at least many members of the of the church, so I want to emphasize that this is a laity issue rather than institutional leadership issue. In this case, they probably recognize that this cultural alliance with evangelicals have brought them a degree of assimilation and power in America that the faith has never experienced before, right? But now they’re going to have to weigh that against the corrosive aspects that come with that, and and that’s not just being denounced by the mark driscolls of the world and being outed as cult members, but further, what are some of the other cultural attachments that are being adopted through this affiliation, this demonic language of hate coming from the mark driscolls of the world and this Other evangelicals, I would instead hope that many Latter-day Saints might instead follow one of the legacies of the recently deceased Prophet Russell Nelson, of instead being peacemakers and instead, instead of embracing this partisan mindset of seeing the other side of his enemy, instead trying To find peace and alliance and friendships as a as a stronger form of political involvement.
Margaret Olsen Hemming 31:28
Yeah, thank you. I really appreciate both of those thoughts, incredibly important and relevant for for this moment, and thank you to to both of you for joining us today and helping us think more about how history and theologies and politics collide in these complicated ways. I think the events of this past week have been disturbing for many of us, and they remind us how tenuous these partnerships can be and how dangerous they can be and how we need to interrogate them carefully. Thank you listeners for joining us for this conversation on dialog unbound. If you’d like to explore more, you can find related scholarship and dialog a journal of Mormon thought, We’ll link to key articles in the show notes. And as always, we invite you to continue this dialog with us. Please get in touch with us with any comments or questions, and if you enjoyed this episode, feel free to share it with friends or colleagues, and don’t forget to leave us a review. We hope that you will tune in for future episodes until next time. Thank you again. Nicholas and Benjamin for being here.