Dr. Benjamin E. Park is a historian who has become a national voice on issues related to religion and politics, particularly as they relate to the Church of Latter Day Saints. His work has appeared at the Washington Post, Newsweek, Houston Chronicle, Religion & Politics, Talking Points Memo, Religion Dispatches, Dallas Morning News, Salt Lake Tribune, Religion News Service, and Patheos.
He speaks to Brad about the hidden histories of Christian nationalism and triumphalism in the LDS Church and how they are manifest in the politics of current Utah senator Mike Lee. This history is contrasted to the more moderate wing of Mormon politics as represented by Mitt Romney--the other senator from Utah--and his dad, George, before him.
Using Lee and Romney as a means to understanding LDS politics illuminates how and why so many members of the LDS church have become part of MAGA Nation.
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Welcome to Straight White American Jesus.
I'm Brad Onishi.
Our show is hosted in partnership with the Kapp Center at UCSB.
I have a special guest today who has stuck with me through some weird technical difficulties that are mystifying, and the universe is throwing all kinds of curveballs, but We're going to make this crossover happen because we need to do it.
Twitter demanded it, and we're not going to let it go.
So, I'm joined today by Dr. Benjamin Park, who is Assistant Professor of History at Sam Houston State University.
Dr. Park is a national voice surrounding issues concerning American religion and politics, has written everywhere from the Washington Post, Newsweek, Houston Chronicle, Religion and Politics, Talking Points Memo, and many, many others.
He is currently the co-editor of the Mormon Studies Review and the author of two books, Kingdom of Nauvoo, The Rise and Fall of a Religious Empire on the American Frontier, which appeared recently, from W.W.
Norton and Liveright, and his first book, American Nationalism's Imagining Union in an Age of Revolutions, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2018.
And so, with all of that said, Dr. Park, thank you for being here today.
I really appreciate it.
I'm glad to be here too.
And just so you know, Brad, Joseph Smith claimed that in his first vision, when he met God, that before he was able to have that vision, he had severe temptations and opposition and persecution from Satan.
So I think the same thing is going on here.
The evil forces are trying to keep this from happening, but we are pressing forward.
I feel good about that precedent.
This is good.
Okay, you just relaxed me.
I feel good now.
Let's do this.
All right.
Well, I'm not gonna lie, I have had people writing to me for over a year now saying, hey, you all do a great job talking about Christian nationalism, you talk about white evangelicals, you touch on Catholics.
We really need more, though, on the LDS Church, on the Latter-day Saints.
We need to understand what's happening in LDS politics, especially as it relates to Christian nationalism.
You wrote an amazing piece for Religion and Politics in April, and you really get into this issue by looking at the two senators, the two contemporary senators from Utah, Mitt Romney and Mike Lee.
For you, these senators represent kind of two wings or two factions in LDS politics at the moment, and you really use them to open up some fascinating histories.
I'd love to talk first about Romney.
So you say Mitt Romney, and most of us are familiar with Mitt Romney, ran for president, is in the top 1% in the world in terms of hair, just some amazing world-class hair.
You say he's positioned himself as a centrist figure.
I guess if we can start with Romney, it seems like for you and for other historians, when people think of recent Mormon politics, they think of someone like Romney—kind of a centrist, stays out of the polarization and the division that is rife in other circles, and kind of picks his battles and picks his spots.
Does that make sense?
How does that work?
Yeah, so Mitt Romney does reflect a pretty strong and mainstream trajectory in Mormon conservatism in the last 50 years.
This idea that Mormonism is conservative, I think it tells a lot about the Mormon tradition that the two primary trajectories of Mormon political discourse are both just varieties of conservatism.
And Mitt Romney reflects a sense of, yes, we're conservative, but we're compassionate about it, right?
We're very kind.
We're willing to talk.
The difference between partisanship and collaboration.
And in Utah, of course, which is a Mormon-dominated state, they even have, you know, phrases that go along with it.
The Utah way of politics.
Rejecting the divisiveness of the national stage.
And Mitt Romney, I think, reflects a lot of that.
I mean, I think it's significant that he was governor of Massachusetts, otherwise very liberal state to kind of reflect that he was a mainstream person.
This is how you kind of picture a general stereotype of Mormons of, yes, they're conservative.
Yes, they're white.
Yes, they probably don't align with a lot of progressive visions.
But gosh darn it, they're very kind in their positions regardless.
And I think Mitt Romney represents very much that kind of a mainstream image.
There's a temptation for me as an outsider to draw a conclusion, and I want to test that conclusion on you because I think it's actually probably shallow and misguided.
So one of the things that I've thought over the last year and a half or two years is that A lot of Mormon politicians have been molded in that Romney kind of model, because if you are part of the Latter-day Saints Church, in some sense your identity aligns with what we think of as the dominant white Christian nationalist strains in the country.
As you just said, you're white, you're Christian, your politics are very conservative, But the Latter-day Saints have not been allowed the privileged position at the heart of American religious life that, say, the white evangelical has.
My take has been maybe that leads to what we see with Romney, this sort of Utah style of politics that is not as embroiled.
Does that fit at all?
I mean, does that make sense coming from my kind of outsider perspective?
Yeah, I think it is.
For over a century now, Mormon politicians and Mormon leaders have bent over backwards trying to assimilate into modern-day culture, right?
There's always been a sense of a suspicion toward the Latter-day Saints that even as they Americanize, even as they assimilate, I don't know if we can fully trust them.
And I think this is especially true given that the cultural group that Mormons have, you know, attached themselves the most with are right-wing evangelical Christians, who are those who are perhaps most skeptical of the Mormons' theological bona fides.
So they're constantly... So the question is, on what values, on what principles, can we find a sense of collaboration?
And for the Mitt Romney wing, that sense of collaboration is being much more open and inclusive while still being deeply committed to those rooted conservative values.
I mean, I can tell you I grew up in Southern California.
I converted to evangelicalism in a predominantly white church when I was 14.
And at our lunchtimes, there was often debates.
I mean, like, biblical debates between Mormon teenagers and evangelical teenagers, and neither of them considered the other as, you know, quote-unquote, real Christians or real people of the Bible, whatever.
I also remember when Mitt Romney visited Billy Graham on the presidential campaign trail, and as soon as Mitt Romney pulled out of station, it seemed Billy Graham's website had taken the Mormons off of his list of, quote-unquote, cults.
And so, There are some weird politics here.
This leads us to the other senator of Utah, which is Mike Lee, a drastically different figure.
I believe he traded BFF rings with Ted Cruz at some point two or three years ago.
He is a lightning rod of a figure.
He is not the polite guy that Mitt Romney is.
How did Mike Lee come into this prominent national role in Utah?
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