I did a post early in my blogging days (April 2008) about a phenomenon many of us in the church have seen: the tendency for Utah culture to be exported to areas outside of Utah as if it is a requisite part of living the gospel. In that post I cited two examples:
- The first “Utah” Mormons I ever met, when I was in my late teens, growing up in PA. This transplant immediately set about making changes in the Young Women’s program, highjacking the planning so that the leaders rather than the girls were in charge of the activities, and introducing a lot of crafts, something we had previously not done. Pioneer Day was also celebrated for the first time, unusual for us since very few had any pioneer heritage.
- The second was an older sister in my mission who was appalled to discover that the local Relief Society sisters didn’t know how to knit. She immediately took over the weekly meetings to ensure that this vital skill was taught. Nevermind that people living in a tropical island really didn’t need knitwear. *facepalm*
I’ve seen a lot more of it since then! When we moved to Singapore, our new bishop explained to us that whether we liked it or not, the locals had separate meetings from the expats, and he testified that “Utah Mormonism is not true.” He explained the reasons for keeping the two groups separate: that the long-term members, particularly those from Utah [1] had a tendency to explain how things should be done to the locals who would eagerly adopt whatever they thought was “the right way,” when there should be a “right way” that made sense in the context of locals’ lives, not a place so completely foreign as the United States or Utah. What he was describing was a form of colonialism, [2] something that as expats, we were conscious of on a daily basis.
Does correlation create cultural colonialism?
Correlation is creating a standard set of publications for the church (magazines, hymn books, and manuals), and is a term used more generally to refer to the church after all auxiliaries were brought under priesthood oversight, which also means we have a centralized power structure rather than a localized one and centralized budgeting rather than different budgets based on local congregations’ donations. [3] By contrast, some churches have a very local flavor to congregations, catering to the preferences of locals rather than enforcing a strict structure. Everything in the Mormon church is correlated, from the design of our buildings to the three hour meeting block. If local wards made these decisions, I can guarantee you there are a few that would have adopted a shorter meeting block by now! Can you imagine local congregations conducting a referendum on what course of study they wanted to adopt in the coming year or the theme for the primary program? Well, these are the types of things that are in fact decided by congregations in decentralized churches.
Correlation is the effort to make church a repeatable service experience, roughly the same from place to place. It is similar to colonization, but correlation can be done without importing cultural norms as well as doctrinal ones. For example, some other churches have a synod for doctrinal matters, but allow local congregations great latitude in meeting content and local structure.
So what are the cultural norms that get imported?
- BYU dress standards have infiltrated the world-wide church, even in areas where they don’t make a lot of cultural sense. See this guest post. Given the role of BYU which has long been a place for Mormon families to send their kids to university where they can meet, date, and marry other church members even if they live in areas where members are scarce, it has a strong influence on how culture spreads throughout Mormonism.
- When the church began in New Zealand, Maoris were told their facial tattoos were against the Word of Wisdom.
- Including cheers and other Americanisms in international EFYs.
The internet age has just exacerbated the proliferation of cultural dogma to the hinterlands of the church. Sites like Pinterest and Sugardoodle make it easy to share lesson helps, and those same teaching aids come with an interpretation or spin that is often cultural in nature. Experiences like pioneer-themed treks are replicated and exported to all corners of the globe.
The internet is all about sharing ideas and interpretations. One of the things I found in my travels abroad is that the Bloggernacle seems to be better known and more read among expats than among lay members in the US, and I have often wondered why that is. Perhaps it’s because being an expat forces you to confront your cultural assumptions, to set aside the script you’ve been handed, and to determine with deliberation what you really believe and what you value. In becoming an outsider, you view your own culture through foreign eyes, including church culture.
And to me, that seems like the most important thing we can do in the Bloggernacle, setting aside our script, unboxing and examining our cultural artifacts, and interpreting anew our values and beliefs in a way that makes sense on a global and human level.
Like all expats, we fail at this, but we still feel compelled to travel, to explore.
[1] He was from Idaho, which he said was “just as bad.”
[2] Or as the Borg would call it “assimilation.”
[3] Better preaching = mo’ money. I remember the annual ward budget meeting in which ward adults, like my parents, would meet together to discuss the budget and determine how much each of them could donate to accomplish whatever they wanted to in the coming year.
Wheat & Tares 
I remember coming across a quasi-academic article in 2003 in which someone argued that missionaries especially were engaged in the work of spreading the “Celestial Culture” (or some other such term. I can’t find the article now). “Celestial Culture,” if I recall correctly, sounded and awful lot like Utah Culture.
I certainly remember many moments when I would watch missionaries proclaim to developing branches in Ukraine that “this is the way we did it back home [almost always in Utah] and this is the way it should be done here.” Such experiences helped me develop my compulsion to ask “Is the way we’ve always done it really the right way to do it now?”
Almost 15 years later and nearly every year I find myself mocking my Ohio ward’s Pioneer Day celebrations. Every year I’m met with disbelief for my objections to celebrating a holiday that has no significance or sentimental value to any of the permanent residents of the ward. (Though I’ll admit, of all the battles I could lose, this is one I’m willing to lose)
I will say, however, that I pine for the days when we had more local control. I don’t feel like our up and coming generation (those currently about 20-35) really feel any ownership of the church. At least in my ward, they don’t want to help clean the building (it’s too hard to do that when you have children), don’t want to help maintain the building, etc.
I started a rather contentious debate about using paper plates versus real plates for ward dinners. The chief complaint was that it was too much effort to clean all those dishes. Everyone wanted to spend the additional $400 per year to just show up and get out as quickly as possible. My insistence that the act of working together to do all that cleaning was going to pay off in social dividends that couldn’t be quantified.
Mormons don’t really work together any more, and I think it’s starting to show.
Benjamin, Good points on lack of ownership and doing stuff together as wards. In part that has to do with all the adults seeming so much busier than in our parents day, but I don’t think that’s all of it.
We don’t enjoy getting together for scheduled activities unless they really mean something to us as a community rather than something we’re obliged to do, so the annual ward Christmas party was a dead loss last Christmas. Some were pushing for one, others just didn’t want to cope with one more thing going on in December. The ones who wanted it organised it, but were pretty much the only ones there. In contrast, last January we had an excellent Burn’s Night – a British cultural event, and this month the ward were invited to a 16th birthday party which went with a swing and included other church members from other wards/stakes and family members of the individual whose birthday it was.
But yes we all seem to burnt out when it comes to the stuff we are told we’re supposed to be running. and ticked off about stuff we want to do but are told we can’t do.
I think hawkgrrl has it backward. As I heard a Marylander describe a sojourn there, Utah is a place where everyone is some variety of Mormon, even the non-Mormons. Sunstone magazine, for example, tasted to me like an intra-mural endeavor of apostles’ granddaughters and Church Office Building employees’ fellow ward members; if “Sugarhouse” and “the Avenues” didn’t mean anything to you, as it didn’t to me, then you weren’t the audience. The John Dehlin Experience and Robert Kirby’s writing have similarly Utah-centric flavors.
Most other places there is barely enough mass for even one common LDS experience. Expats reading blogs aren’t looking for ways to enhance the experience of being foreigners. They’re trying to connect with something broader than the thin interactions with those around them are providing, something with a large Utah component.
I think John Manfield is on to something. I think that the concept of the “Devout Utah Mormon” is a bit of a stereotype and very localized to particular areas like Happy Valley. If ever there was a place where “cultural Mormonism” thrives, it is Utah. Because of the high concentration in the State, you really have a much greater variety of observance than just about anywhere else on earth (except for parts of Eastern Idaho/ Arizona, perhaps)
I have seen and heard about the export of Utah/American cultural norms to the hinterlands of the Church, but I suspect, in some cases, those hinterland Mormons wanted to be just like their “zion” brothers and sisters. So in some cases, they willing embraced some of it.
The other key point is that just because something is a cultural norm does not mean it is appropriate in the Gospel construct. Alcohol use is a particularly easy example.
There is, IMO, nothing wrong with incorporating cultural norms into the operation of the Church where it is appropriate. And the forcing of members to embrace and American/Utah practice which has no Gospel purpose should be minimized.
I am frankly amused seeing Pacific Islanders in Lava-Lava, wearing white shits and ties. Doesn’t seem right to me when the standard is “best dress.”
I’m thinking of two different wards:
One in Hawaii where the older women in RS deferred to the young American wives of servicemen on everything, including interpretations of scripture. The older women had so much experience and wisdom among them, yet they felt that the younger women had “the right answers” because the young ones were from the states.
And another ward in the rural Midwestern US where we could have used more correlation, not less. People were born there and died there and never moved away, so old traditions lasted forever. Some things were so backwards and painful to participate in, that I would desperately hope for someone from UT to move there–someone who knew what the church was “supposed” to look like.
So I guess my ultimate conclusion is that whether or not local is best depends on whether I agree with the local or not. 🙂
Hurray for lava-lavas. Just make sure to wear flip-flops and not dress shoes.
Yes, John M’s point is an interesting one to consider. Do local Mormon congregations have enough cohesiveness to create a local culture? I do wonder. Even in the branches I served in during my mission, they often wanted to know how to replace local culture with the church’s culture, not how to infuse local culture into the gospel framework. The pacific islanders probably do this better than any other group, simply because there are enough of them to create a culture.
The expats I knew who were so aware of and active in the Bloggernacle, though, just seemed to be the sort of people who questioned their cultural roots but part of that examination is to sift through it, choosing what to keep and what to throw out. I would imagine that most of them had some level of disdain for the pioneer worship that occurs in Mormon-heavy areas, even if they had pioneer ancestry, just because it’s provincial. They prefer to think of themselves as pioneering or the locals as the pioneers in their area, not of people who traveled to Utah many years ago, when Utah is not the “gathering place” anymore, and we are to build Zion where we are.
But it is an interesting question – do they go to the ‘nacle to examine culture or to participate in it from afar?
Having attended church on three continents, here are some observations:
1) Basketball courts as part of every worship facility. Really? With the worldwide regularity of the hoop and complete absence of the cross, no wonder there’s some doubt about what we worship.
2) Written–and then read verbatim–talks.
3) Similarly, the same hymns played on the same instruments (organ!) worldwide.
4) Dress standards: White shirt/tie/clean-shaven.
One would think that no other church has the broad cultural understanding at the lay level that Mormons do, thanks to foreign missions. So I suspect any cultural conformity comes indirectly from Church headquarters.
My experience is that non-US wards and branches are weaker in many respects as far as the practical running of the church and understanding of doctrine, though they might have a more refreshingly honest and sincere faith.
The Utah church culture is a strong culture because it has been marinating for 150 years, and is built upon pioneer sacrifice and generations of faithful worship and BYU attending. No other church culture from another country can compete with this because all others are small, new, and made up of converts from generally poor, lesser educated backgrounds.
So if the Utah church wants to foster diversity of culture, they have to work really hard at empowering and fostering that culture and trying to stay in the background. But that’s not a priority. The priority is to baptize more people and get them to the temple.
Its interesting that Hawkgrrrl’s Singapore bishop wanted to separate the gringos from the natives for culture’s sake, yet what about being “one in the body of Christ?” How do you avoid tribalism with this approach? And how do you help the natives to progress if they are doing things in very ineffective ways, simply because they lack leadership, experience, and all the positive aspects of Utah culture: obedience, sacrifice, work, etc.?
It’s sad but it’s fate. Weaker cultures will die, and stronger ones will thrive. It’s Darwinian, and God ordained it, just as He ordained that many beautiful species routinely become extinct, even without man killing them. Culture must always change. Some die, some thrive, but all must change constantly.
I think that the strong culture must try to learn from and adopt aspects of the weaker culture, grafting them into the central tree. There seems to be some of that in Hawaii and other areas where membership is strong and multigenerational. You can say “aloha” in sacrament meeting all around the world! If the church were as strong and culturally proud in Germany, everyone would say “guten tag” in sacrament meeting. But it’s not. It’s weak.
The Other Clark: good point about the basketball. There were basketball courts outside our Singapore church building, although basketball is not nearly as popular in Singapore as net ball or other sports (perhaps because Singaporeans aren’t that tall?). Basically, the expats played basketball. I’m not sure how often locals used the court.
When we start talking about weak cultures and strong cultures, we start to miss the point. How we run local congregations shouldn’t have anything to do with the various cultural backgrounds at play (although they will inevitably have some influence in the process).
I used to get people all sorts of flustered when I was on the ward council because I would challenge pretty much anything and everything. The closer we were to unanimity in the group, the more likely I was to challenge the idea. What I would tried very hard to get at was that we shouldn’t be making decisions based on “what we’ve always done,” “what we’ve always known,” or “what we’re supposed to do.” Instead, if I could get the group or individual to say with conviction “I believe it’s the best decision for this circumstance,” I would consider it a victory (even if it meant doing it the “Utah way”).
Congregations are societies in and unto themselves. We shouldn’t be trying to implement a culture onto it, but act in ways that allow a culture to grow and thrive in ways that benefit that local society. it will be organic and it will evolve. And that’s okay. In fact, that’d be ideal.
Benjamin, I think there is a case to be made for ward traditions, though, bringing people close together, whatever the origin of those traditions. Maybe it’s a pancake breakfast, a rafting trip, an annual service event, or whatever. Perhaps the most local is the way to go.
My experience is that nothing will be done differently unless it comes from leadership above. I am in Australia. Our Bishop won’t even authorise standing for the intermediate hymn unless told to from above.
The area Presidency seem to have total control. The modesty standards for the FSY programs were on LDS.org and unified.
We have had no money for anything for 12 to 18 months. Our understanding was budget going to some legal battle about tax exemption, when so little money spent on charity.
Have just heard that a container load of handcarts have been ordered from Utah, for QLD youth to push. The cost of these plus shipping, plus trucking 500k to where they are to be used and back, when we have no money in the budget, for faith in God etc, seems like a strange priority.
I can only imagine this comes from Area Presidency (americans).
Our Utah culture is imposed from above, we have no option for local culture. Perhaps because we speak English we are assumed to not have individual culture.
I have noticed that in less conservative areas of the church, in other states, where the obedience culture is less powerful, there were more options, and a much nicer spirit. In one ward I was in, we did Gregorian chants for the Easter service.
We are also getting the ‘meet the Mormons film”.
I don’t see the church growing much until we divest ourselves of this Utah culture.
Geoff-Aus: They are shipping handcarts to Australia?? That sounds like a ridiculous and pointless expense. I understand doing a handcart trek as an alternative to Youth Conference where there are enough pioneer-descended members to truly make it meaningful for them, but as someone not descended from pioneers who grew up in a ward where there was only one family descended from pioneers, this would have irritated our ward members to no end.
Our stake has announced a trek this summer, and I noticed in the fireside that probably 60% of the youth descended from pioneers. Although I didn’t, my kids did through their father. I think it’s fine to do something that’s a themed youth conference. But it’s just not as meaningful to those whose ancestors pioneered in other ways.
Re Pioneer Day specifically: I think there’s something to be said for using a (theoretically) shared heritage to try to bind a diverse people together, even if some of those people actually have no historical link to that heritage. Plenty of Americans commemorate Thanksgiving (instituted 1620) and the Fourth of July (instituted 1776) even though their own ancestors may not have arrived in the country until a century or two later–but they do it, because they now view themselves as “Americans”; and the Pilgrims and the Founders are part of that shared identity.
The trouble comes in situations like Geoff-Aus describes, where that heritage is imposed in such a way as to supersede something that the newcomers find deeply important or otherwise substantially inconveniences them.
I hope I never get asked to chaperone a pioneer trek. If it happens though, I will demand to be assigned multiple “wives”, and then have the youth stage a reenactment of the Mountain Meadows Massacre. Historical accuracy is very important to me.
The mixture of church doctrine, church policy and utah culture is toxic in Australia. I have lived in Utah and visited there several times. I have many, many friends who live there. Utah culture in Utah – great, but the culture that we are silly enough to import – lock, stock and barrel – only makes us look stranger than what we already are. Dress codes above and beyond the “church” standard (perhaps more BYU policy than Utah culture) are inappropriate in our climate and culture. Policing of those standards in ways that demean, sexualise and destroy our youth are just depressing. Comments like, “the pioneers did it – so can you” are unhelpful. Focus on numbers rather than people, to me is all part of a business, Utah generated culture. Our Area President (from utah) was recently quoted by some serving missionaries as telling them that Good is not good enough, that they were “chastised” for 10 hours and that he “tore the zone leaders apart” – those were the missionaries words, not mine. I’m sure he said some good things as well….
The Utah generated quest for doing measurable, outward and pharisaical behaviours at the almost complete exclusion of anything that might actually make you a better person – or heaven forbid – to help anyone else – is, to me, our biggest downfall….
Not all Utah’s fault – we are dumb enough to want to make it ours too…
I think there has been some very good observations.
One of the great characteristics of a mature civilisation is that it can not only tolerate difference but absorb it, particularly the more enriching aspects. I think the Lord did create what was surely a marvellous, fertile and rich environment where a cultures best young people were sent out to other cultures all over the world to see them operate, to see how people solved issues, where a foreign language offered the new speaker a new view of life…….brilliant!
BUT
Having lived and worked in ” Western American Romanticism” (the west) I saw a restrictive, conservative culture still rooted in the historical model of the ” foreign” to be thought of as suspicious. So this wonderful opportunity of importing the best from the world was trampled on….and still is!
In Australia as some have mentioned we have been really ” hammered” into cultural submission.
This has been at least on two levels:
The missionaries which have imported ” the centre stake of Zion culture”
But
More aggressively what I see as a real destructive ” middle management” the mission presidents and even worst still the Area Presidencies who seem to project a cultural superiority. Where the circa 1970 Utah concept of ” abuse as motivation” seems to be the modus operandi …this ” method ” seems to have a particular Church flavour where ” principles” like obedience are used as a threat, a weapon as a poor excuse to punish our missionaries and us members too as I experienced a resent “Area Meeting” …..I won’t be back!
Obedience is something we teach 2 year olds so they don’t hurt themselves…..perhaps love might be a better motivation.
I see a more restrictive conservatism in our country where the Utah model is inappropriate not only to our culture but also to our development and it is another reason why things like the missionary program will continue to really struggle and the church too.
Jack Hughes FTW
Kangaroo – this is an interesting observation about cultural values being imported, which is more problematic on a deeper level than superficial programs being imported. Cultures do have values that differ. Trying to force staid Brits to do a Texas-style cheer or to beat the conformity drum in Australia, these seem like values mismatches, ones that are in fact entirely unnecessary and harmful as they aren’t part of the gospel.
Interesting observations.
About the “white shirt” thing, that definitely varies from place to place. In our U.S. congregation on a typical Sunday maybe half of men not on the stand are wearing white. My husband feels that when he is not conducting or speaking, he gets to wear blue oxford cloth, which he prefers. So when we were on vacation in Mexico, he wore the blue shirt…and was the only one in the congregation not wearing white, and got stared at. Not sure if the white shirt in integral to the Mexican identity–many of the presumably non-LDS travel guides also wore them–or if at some point the saints there tried to adopt it as a cultural import.
In Brasil, there were some differences. Free buses were provided for transport to stake conference and the temple, since most members (85% in our ward) did not have a car. Also, temple trips left at 10 p.m. arriving after midnight, they did two sessions, and returned to town in time to go to work the next day–since folks can’t just take a day off to go to the temple. They also planned YM/YW camps to get the youth out of town during the often raunchy “Carnival” (Mardi Gras) celebrations rather than during summer vacation.
The 7 p.m. weeknight meeting time that is common in the US was not seen there. Since evening meal time is typically 8 p.m. or later, our activities were typically at 6 p.m. so that people could go there after work, before supper. When we were in London, they also held RS meetings about that time, in order for people to tube over from work, then go home afterward.
I think people do celebrate local holidays, at least in some places. When we were in Taiwan, they were planning a branch party for the Moon Festival.
One of the very tricky aspects is how to preserve worthwhile local customs, without endorsing sexist practices that are harmful to women. Elder Oaks has spoken about this various times including a 2012 regional broadcast to Africa on “Gospel Culture” in which he says, “For example, some African husbands have the false idea that the husband rests while the wife does most of the work at home or that the wife and children are just servants of the husband. This is not pleasing to the Lord because it stands in the way of the kind of family relationships that must prevail in eternity and it inhibits the kind of growth that must occur here on earth if we are to qualify for the blessings of eternity.”
So that is kind of a tough one, drawing that line between importing cultural practices that are mindlessly colonial versus bringing in practices that will empower women and help them fulfill their potential.
This reminds me of eastern European Jews wearing long coats and fur hats. And seeing the
orthodox adopt the same dress in Israel. Culture is very interesting.
Naismith – funny you mention the white shirt thing in outlying areas. When we were on vacation in Kauai, we decided to attend church in Lihue at the last minute. My husband hadn’t brought his white shirt, so I suggested he just wear a Hawaiian shirt since it was the “culture of Aloha” and all that jazz. Nope, he was the only guy there not in a white shirt.
I remember the first time our ward introduced Pioneer Day. I was confused by it as I had never before heard of it and wondered why we were doing it. To me it seemed stupid and weird. The Utah members were so excited about it as though it had been something they were missing by living in the “mission field”. They acted like they had been dropped into the wilderness with wild beasts and had been rescued and brought to safety.They had their kids bring their little red wagons and decorated them like covered wagons and everyone dressed like pioneers. I really didn’t feel that it added anything to my spirituality. It sort of creeped me out. Maybe I will never understand the worship of pioneer heritage since I don’t come from a pioneering family heritage. There seems to be a serious sense of pride about pioneer heritage that I may never get. I don’t understand bragging about something that an ancestor did as though it was something you did yourself. At BYU it seemed to be a deep sense of pride to be of pioneer stock. I had nothing to say since I don’t come from pioneer stock so I tried to be provocative and say my ancestors were from Illinois and persecuted the saints. Not fully accurate but I thought it was funny at the time. My ancestors did come from Illinois but I can’t honestly say they ever met a Mormon. I have always called it the difference between Mormon culture and the gospel of Jesus Christ. I don’t embrace Mormon culture. I think it detracts from the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Ok. Let me start by saying I’m a born and breed “Utah” member of the church still here. Let me just say, Utah culture freaks me out. Pioneer day is largely a waste of time imo. It adds nothing spiral even if they are your direct ansestors-i think we would get more out of it if we talked about the reasons they converted and how sacrifice improved thier lives rather than how they dragged handcarts to save the church money. Similar conversations could be had in each area- why did the church grow here? On White shirts please-wear a bow tie and people act like you are wearing A swimsuit sking. The problem I think is that with correlation and things like for the strength of youth, people don’t know how to separate standards from principles, so we end up with people freaking out over a 2 year wearing a two piece swimsuit because it’s not modest.
With regard to the picture with the OP:
What an engineering feat…drain a riparian lake, pave it and build a large (>100K sf) store on it. I don’t see how WM ties into LDS culture in the US and its export (intended or not) to “der Auslander”, nor that of itself it’s a BAD thing.
I’ll let Penn Jillette and Raymond Teller give a more concise perspective on Wal-Mart and what THEY think of those that oppose it:
However, I do agree that oft we fail to distinguish between carrying forth the Gospel to all nations versus “Truth, Justice, and the AMERICAN way”. The latter (pun intended) worked well for 1950’s TV (not so for George Reeve’s further acting career!)
The church is now establishing a new “self reliance” program in 2017. I wonder how it is becoming another layer of colonization and Americanism being touted as the better way.