“Mormonism, Whether Found … in Kentucky, or at Nauvoo”

Type:

Book Chapter

Author:

Nathaniel Wiewora

Published:

2024

Publisher:

University of Illinois Press

Much of evangelical criticism of Mormonism coalesced around the founding of the Mormons’ city of Nauvoo in the 1840s. Evangelicals identified a spiritist, martial, and sectarian fanaticism at Nauvoo. They continued to see Mormons participating in popular supernaturalism with the consequence of fostering a blind and dangerous belief. Evangelicals also charged the Mormon community at Nauvoo with acting aggressively through their military displays. Nauvoo finally revealed to evangelicals a sectarian fanaticism, one that encouraged Mormons to see themselves in exclusive terms. The problem for a growing group of evangelicals critical of the revivals of the Second Great Awakening was that evangelicalism itself suffered from the same variety of fanaticisms, and many moderate critics of revivalism began to conclude that the excesses of their own movement were responsible for the rise and shape of Mormonism. These moderate critics of revivalism saw camp meetings replete with popular spiritism and enthusiastic extremes. Revivals, according to these moderate evangelicals, had a militaristic character that led to an aggressive arrogance and inauthentic conversions. Moderates finally came to conclude that some of their more radical coreligionists shared with Mormonism a common sectarian fanaticism.

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