Abstract
To comprehend the emergence of modern Mormonism as a growing international religion, it is essential to comprehend the missionary theology and practices of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. For missionary religions to expand and flourish, they must effectively appeal to the religious aspirations of some segment of a “religious economy.” An active religious economy can exist when religious freedom, and therefore religious choice, is countenanced by the political institutions of the state. Where religious choice is possible and competition among different denominations for adherents is allowed by political authorities, we may speak of a religious market. As in other market economies, action in a religious economy is shaped by both supply and demand. In this chapter, primary emphasis is given to the supply side of the religious equation, namely the institutional resources and human capital invested in the LDS missionary enterprise.
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Notes
- 1.
Justice Anderson, “An Overview of Missiology,” in Missiology: An Introduction to the Foundations, History, and Strategies of World Missions, John Mark Terry, Ebbie Smith, and Justice Anderson, eds. (Nashville, Tenn.: Broadman & Holdman Publishers, 1998), 13–15.
- 2.
Significantly, it has been quoted in the interim (1843–present) by no less than 148 general authorities of the church in the Church’s General Conferences. See https://www.lds-general-conference.org/.
- 3.
Fred E. Woods, Go Ye Into All the World: The Growth and Development of Mormon Missionary Work; 2011 Church History Symposium (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2013), x.
- 4.
Dallin H. Oaks, and Lance B. Wickman, “The Missionary Work of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” in Sharing the Book: Religious Perspectives on the Rights and Wrongs of Proselytism, ed. John Witte Jr. and Richard C. Martin (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1999), 259–60.
- 5.
Gordon Shepherd and Gary Shepherd, “Sustaining a Lay Religion in Modern Society: The Mormon Missionary Experience,” in Contemporary Mormonism: Social Science Perspectives, Marie Cornwall, Tim B. Heaton, and Lawrence Alfred Young, eds. (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1994), 163.
- 6.
Shepherd and Shepherd, “Sustaining a Lay Religion,” 169.
- 7.
Oaks and Wickman, “Missionary Work,” 250.
- 8.
- 9.
To understand the impact of Church President David O. McKay’s coining of this phrase and subsequent reiterations by church leaders since, see Marianne Holman, ‘“Every Member a Missionary’ for Fifty Years,” Ensign (April 2009), 77.
- 10.
Reid L. Neilson, “Mormon Mission Work,” in The Oxford Handbook of Mormonism, eds. Terryl Givens and Philip L. Barlow (Oxford University Press, USA, 2015) 183.
- 11.
William Mulder, “Mormonism’s ‘Gathering’: an American Doctrine with a Difference,” Church History 23, no. 3 (1954): 248–264.
- 12.
This sentiment was perhaps best captured in Doctrine and Covenants, section 133, verses four through twelve, as a revelation to Joseph Smith Jr., dated November 1831. It reads: “Wherefore, prepare ye, prepare ye, O my people; sanctify yourselves; gather ye together, O ye people of my church, upon the land of Zion, all you that have not been commanded to tarry. Go ye out from Babylon… Send forth the elders of my church unto the nations which are afar off; unto the islands of the sea; send forth unto foreign lands; call upon all nations, first upon the Gentiles, and then upon the Jews. And behold, and lo, this shall be their cry, and the voice of the Lord unto all people: Go ye forth unto the land of Zion… Prepare yourselves for the great day of the Lord. Watch, therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour. Let them, therefore, who are among the Gentiles flee unto Zion.”
- 13.
Patrick Mason, The Mormon Menace: Violence and Anti-Mormonism in the Postbellum South (Oxford University Press, 2011), 27.
- 14.
See Doctrine and Covenants, section 88 verse 81.
- 15.
Since his installment as president and prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on January 14, 2018, Russell M. Nelson has directed church members worldwide to engage fully in the “gathering of scattered Israel” five different times: June 3, 2018; October 3, 2018; February 11, 2019; April 7, 2019; and October 2019. However, this is not a new directive. Church leaders have issued the same injunction in church-wide (worldwide) general conferences 86 times since the early 1850s. See https://www.lds-general-conference.org/.
- 16.
For excellent resources on both Mormon migration and immigration, see the “Immigrants Ancestor’s Project,” Center for Family History and Genealogy, Brigham Young University, accessed December 30, 2019, http://immigrants.byu.edu/; “Saints By Sea: Latter-day Saint Immigration to America,” Brigham Young University, accessed December 30, 2019, https://saintsbysea.lib.byu.edu/; and “Overland Travel Pioneer Database,” Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, accessed December 30, 2019, https://history.churchofjesuschrist.org/ overlandtravel/.
- 17.
For an example of the contemporary position, see W. Douglas Shumway, “Marriage and Family: Our Sacred Responsibility,” Ensign, 174th annual General Conference report in which he affirmed: “The current commandment is not to gather to one place but to gather in stakes in our own homelands.”
- 18.
Shepherd and Shepherd, “Sustaining a Lay Religion,” 164–165.
- 19.
Stephen Neill and Owen Chadwick, A History of Christian Missions (New York: Penguin Books, 1986), 256.
- 20.
Laurie F. Maffly-Kipp and Reid Larkin Neilson, eds., Proclamation to the People: Nineteenth-century Mormonism and the Pacific Basin Frontier (University of Utah Press, 2008), 4–5.
- 21.
Mason, Mormon Menace, 120–121.
- 22.
Oaks and Wickman, “Missionary Work,” 248.
- 23.
Lisa Olsen Tait, “‘I Quit Other Business’: Early Missionaries: D&C 42, 75, 79, 80, 84, 99,” in Matthew McBride and James Goldberg, eds., Revelations in Context: The Stories behind the Sections of the Doctrine and Covenants (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2016), 84–92.
- 24.
Neilson, “Mormon Mission Work,” 183.
- 25.
William E. Hughes, “A profile of the missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints 1849–1900.” (PhD dissertation, Department of History, Brigham Young University, 1986), 2–3.
- 26.
Ronald W. Walker, “Cradling Mormonism: The Rise of the Gospel in Early Victorian England,” BYU Studies Quarterly 27, issue 1(1987): 33.
- 27.
See Ronald E. Bartholomew, “The Role of Local Missionaries in Nineteenth-Century England,” in Go Ye Into All the World: The Growth and Development of Mormon Missionary Work, Reid L. Neilson and Fred E. Woods, eds. (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2012), 311, 314.
- 28.
Hughes, “A Profile,” 7–8.
- 29.
Hughes, “A Profile,” 11–20.
- 30.
Hughes, “A Profile,” 176–181.
- 31.
Oaks and Wickman, “Missionary Work,” 254.
- 32.
See Hughes, “A Profile,” 57.
- 33.
Ronald E. Bartholomew, “Nineteenth-Century Missiology of the LDS Bedfordshire Conference,” Journal of Mormon History 37, no. 1 (2011): 239.
- 34.
Oaks and Wickman, “Missionary Work,” 254.
- 35.
See Hughes, “A Profile,” 63.
- 36.
Bartholomew, “Nineteenth-Century Missiology,” 220–23, 239.
- 37.
Mason, Mormon Menace, 125.
- 38.
R. Lanier Britsch, “Mormon Missions: An Introduction to the Latter-day Saints Missionary System,” Occasional Bulletin of Missionary Research 3, no. 1 (1979): 24.
- 39.
Richard O. Cowan, “‘Called to Serve’: A History of Missionary Training,” in Go Ye Into All the World: The Growth and Development of Mormon Missionary Work, Reid L. Neilson and Fred E. Woods, eds. (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2012), 23.
- 40.
Hughes, “A Profile,” 37–41, 44.
- 41.
Hughes, “A Profile,” 85.
- 42.
Nielson, “Mormon Mission Work,” 185.
- 43.
R. Lanier Britsch, “By All Means,” in Go Ye Into All the World: The Growth and Development of Mormon Missionary Work, Reid L. Neilson and Fred E. Woods, eds. (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2012), 4–5.
- 44.
See, for example, Harold Bloom, The American Religion: The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), 127–28; J. Spencer Fluhman, “A Peculiar People”: Anti-Mormonism and the Making of Religion in Nineteenth-Century America (UNC Press Books, 2012), x; Eric Alden Eliason, ed. Mormons and Mormonism: an Introduction to an American World Religion (University of Illinois Press, 2001), and Richard Ostling and Joan K. Ostling, Mormon America—Revised and Updated Edition: The Power and the Promise (New York: Harper Collins, 2009).
- 45.
Figures shown in this table were obtained from Rodney Stark (edited by Reid L. Neilson), The Rise of Mormonism (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005), 211–12.
- 46.
Stark, Rise of Mormonism,” 210, 213–214.
- 47.
Britsch, “By all Means,” 4–5.
- 48.
Reid L. Neilson, Early Mormon Missionary Activities in Japan, 1901–1924, (Salt Lake City, Utah: The University of Utah Press, 2010), 35–36.
- 49.
As summarized from Neilson, “Early Mormon Missionary Activities” in Ronald E. Bartholomew, “Review of Early Mormon Missionary Activities in Japan,” Journal of Mormon History 39, no. 2 (Spring 2013): 239–241.
- 50.
Jonathan A. Stapley, “Mormon Missiology,” in Mormonism: A Historical Encyclopedia, W. Paul Reeve, and Ardis E. Parshall, eds. (Oxford, England: ABC-CLIO, 2010), 260–261.
- 51.
Cynthia Leah Hallen, “LDS Language Teaching and Learning: Highlights from 1830–1982,” (Master Thesis, Brigham Young University, 1982), 14–17.
- 52.
Richard O. Cowan, Every Man Shall Hear the Gospel in His Own Language: A History of the Missionary Training Center and its Predecessors, (Provo, Utah: Missionary Training Center, 1984), 15.
- 53.
Britsch, “Mormon Mission: An Introduction,” 24.
- 54.
Cowan, “Called to Serve,” 30.
- 55.
Stapley, “Mormon Missiology,” 265.
- 56.
Robert L. Lively Jr., The Mormon Missionary: Who IS That Knocking at My Door? (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2015), 70.
- 57.
Lively, Mormon Missionary, 71.
- 58.
Claudia L. Bushman, Contemporary Mormonism: Latter-day Saints in Modern America (Lanham, Maryland: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2006), 63–64.
- 59.
Stapley, “Mormon Missiology,” 265–66.
- 60.
Lively, Mormon Missionary, 113.
- 61.
Hughes, “A Profile,” 74.
- 62.
Calvin S. Kunz, “A History of Female Missionary Activity in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, 1830–1898” (Master’s Thesis, Brigham Young University, 1976), 13–14, 17, 57.
- 63.
Carol Cornwall Madsen, “Mormon Missionary Wives in Nineteenth-Century Polynesia,” in Proclamation to the People: Nineteenth-century Mormonism and the Pacific Basin Frontier, Laurie F. Maffly-Kipp and Reid Larkin Neilson, eds. (University of Utah Press, 2008), 142.
- 64.
Kunz, “History of Female Missionary Activity,” 27, 34–36.
- 65.
Jessie L. Embry, “Oral History and Mormon Women Missionaries: The Stories Sound the Same,” Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 19, no: 3 (1998): 174.
- 66.
Shepherd and Shepherd, The Mormon Missionary Experience, 170.
- 67.
Thomas S. Monson, “Welcome to Conference,” Ensign, November 2012, 5.
- 68.
Figures in this table were obtained from “Thousands More Mormons Choose Missionary Service,” Newsroom, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, accessed December 27, 2018, https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/thousands-more-mormons-choose-missionary-service.
- 69.
Lively, Mormon Missionary, 395–97.
- 70.
The accuracy of LDS membership records has been challenged in recent years, calling into question the actual number of Latter-day Saints worldwide. The accuracy of church records—which need to be constantly updated as individuals both affiliate and disaffiliate—and officially claimed membership numbers are problematic concerns in virtually all religious denominations. In the Mormon case, we are obliged to use official LDS statistics for want of superior alternative sources. While exact number counts in official statistics should always be taken with due caution, major statistical trends of growth or decline over time can certainly be inferred from them.
- 71.
Figures for these tables were accumulated from three different sources: Stark, Rise of Mormonism, 209; Church Almanac by the Deseret News, 1974–2013, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Historical Dept, (Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret News), 1974–2013 and “Statistical Report,” for 2014–2018, Newsroom, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, accessed December 27, 2019, at https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/ article/ statistics.
- 72.
LDS stakes are roughly the equivalent of a Catholic diocese. When a new stake is organized, it presupposes a sufficient number of active church members in a designated area to sustain the lay activity of at least five wards—congregational units comparable to Catholic parishes—and the infrastructural facilities needed to support them. As organizational units, stakes may be taken as better proxy indicators of the degree of active LDS growth and religious participation in designated geographical areas than nominal membership figures.
- 73.
The LDS Church released its year-end statistical report for 2019 on April 4, 2020 (https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/2019-statistical-report). The missionary and membership numbers in this report displayed modest upticks in the number of full-time missionaries serving in the field (67,021, a 2.8 percent increase), number of convert baptisms (248,835, a 5.8 percent increase), and total number of members worldwide (16,565,036, a 1.5 percent increase). The one key growth statistic that continued going down instead of up was the number of children added to church rolls (94,266, an 8.3 percent decrease). This was the first time since 2007 that children of record fell below 100,000, pointing to a declining LDS birthrate in those countries with the largest numbers of church members—especially the United States and also Mexico, and Brazil.
- 74.
Jan Shipps, “Is Mormonism Christian? Reflections on a Complicated Question,” in Mormons and Mormonism: An Introduction to an American World Religion, Eric Alden Eliason, ed. (Champagne, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 2001), 94–96.
- 75.
Spencer W. Kimball, “Planning for a Full and Abundant Life,” Ensign, May 1974, 86. Since President Kimball’s address, every subsequent president of the church has repeated the message that every worthy, able young man should prepare to serve a mission. See Ezra Taft Benson, Ensign, May 1986, 44–45; Howard W. Hunter, “Follow the Son of God,” Ensign, Nov. 1994, 87; Gordon B. Hinckley, Ensign, Nov. 1995, 51–52; and Thomas S. Monson, “As We Meet Together Again,” Ensign, October 2010, 4–5.
- 76.
Richard N. Ostling and Joan K. Ostling, “Almost Mainstream,” in Mormon America: The Power and Promise, Richard N. Ostling and Joan K. Ostling, eds., (San Francisco: Harper, 1999), 108.
- 77.
See Michael A. Goodman, “The Worldwide Reach of Mormonism,” in The Worldwide Church: The Global Reach of Mormonism, Michael Goodman and Mauro Properzi, eds. (Provo, Utah: Religious Studies Center and Deseret Book, 2016), 1–5.
- 78.
Figures for this table were obtained from Newsroom, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, accessed December 27, 2019, see https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/ statistics.
- 79.
Bartholomew, “Role of Local Missionaries,” 311–324.
- 80.
Bushman, Contemporary Mormonism, 73.
- 81.
Neilson, “Mormon Mission Work,” 190–193.
- 82.
Neilson, Early Mormon Missionary Activities, x.
- 83.
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Bartholomew, R.E. (2020). The Gathering of Scattered Israel: The Missionary Enterprise of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In: Shepherd, R.G., Shepherd, A.G., Cragun, R.T. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Global Mormonism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52616-0_3
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