Unsettling Mormonism
an archive of unsettling histories, mythistories, and mystories
from U.S. & Mormon settler colonialism, white supremacy, and imperialism
from U.S. & Mormon settler colonialism, white supremacy, and imperialism
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This is my testimony of the Corporation of the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, of which my entire family have been followers of since 1884.  Mormon Mythistries I’d like to bear my testimony: I know this church is an overtly white-settler-Christian-imperial-capitalist-hetero-supremacist corporation which refuses to apologize, acknowledge, or be accountable to the ongoing harms they’ve enacted. I know Joseph Smith was a pedophile, (attempted) murderer, & con-man who stole millions in contemporary dollars from his members and constantly ran from being held accountable for any of his crimes. I know Brigham Young was an imperial genocidal terrorist who also controlled his own people (my ancestors) through blood-atonements (divine murder) & other abuses of power. I know The Book of Mormon, Pearl of Great Price, and D&C were made up by Joseph Smith as part of his financial con in the form of a religious corporation and they are each book teaches that white-supremacy, heteropatriarchy, settler-colonialism, classism, Christian-supremacy, & antisemitism are divine. I know the Mormon doctrine of eternal families is rooted in anti/philosemitism, misogynistic polygamy, and classist pedophilic eugenics—that Joseph threatened to murder his own wife in the same revelation in Joseph describes the doctrine of eternal families & polygamy. I know Mormon temples, priesthood, and Israeli-identity are examples of anti/philosemitic, hetero-patriarchal, and white-Christian-settler-supremacist practices. I know Mormon end-times beliefs are far-right, Christian-Nationalist/supremacist, anti-queer, and contribute to the destruction of the livability of our planet (the only one we’ll ever know). I know this church sided with & assisted Nazis during & after WWII—that its leaders (using their religious and US gov authority) actively fought against allowing Jewish refugees (even those converted to Mormonism) from emigrating to the U.S. I know the contemporary church uses their mass fortune (the results of the financial con that their founder started) to defend, enable, and assist child abusers while they abuse survivors of child abuse—and to create deadly anti-queer laws globally. I know they use their missionary program to colonize Indigenous Peoples across the world spreading this white-Christain-supremacy & nationalism comminting genocide through cultural assimilation. I know the Mormon God is openly white-supremacist as he uses whiteness as a mark of his Chosen People and uses “a skin of blackness” as a mark of evil. And openly advocates for segregation and anti-miscegenation (in both scripture and the words of his prophets). I know the current Prophet & other leaders were all grown ass men as this church assisted Nazis, committed genocide through the Lamanite Placement Program, openly practiced anti-Black segregation, fought against civil rights, homosexual marriage rights, and women’s rights. And they do it all with the word love on their lips. I know this church learned everything it knows from the U.S. settler-colonial project in which it was conceived. That the only thing Mormon leaders and the U.S. government have ever fought over is who will dominate the masses, the land, and it’s Peoples. I know that it is our responsibility as heirs & products of these projects to, like Jesus, destroy those which seek to hoard and abuse power and wealth through the subjugation and exploitation of people and that which gives us all life. Amen This essay is also featured in Testimony "Vol. 3" by Related Records
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National Sacrifice: Cross as in Crosshairs
Our world was made (of horrors beyond our comprehension). Our apocalyptic destiny manifested. Murder-made innocence thru our mythistoric national divinidentity. Nephites and Lamanites. Cowboys and Indians. Civilization and Wilderness. Capitalists and Communists. Pioneering terra nulliparous farms seeded in Genocide. Blossom as the rose under the All-Seeing Eye’s orbit Nearer my God to thee's End Times Mormons, Jews, and Nazis Collage featuring the Mesa AZ baptismal room (a Lamanite temple). In the baptismal font stand a group of Jews inside of a concentration camp, Hitler with his head bowed, and Jesus being baptized by John the Baptist. Helmuth Hübener looks in through both entrances. Mormons vicariously baptized about 650,000 Jews who were killed in the Holocaust. They’ve also baptized Hitler and other famous Nazis. “Holocaust victims (were killed because) they were Jews. Now [this church] is basically killing them again by eliminating their Jewishness.” - director of the Anti-Defamation League. For some Jews it's a reminder of when their People were given the choice to be baptized or be killed. In 1995, this church agreed to remove 380,000 names of Jews murdered in the Holocaust from their baptismal records and stop this practice. They got caught baptizing Jews killed in the holocaust again in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2008, 2012, & 2017.         Unfortunately the worst part of this story isn't that Mormons wouldn't stop baptizing dead Jews after repeatedly being asked to, but how Mormons end up with the genealogy records of Holocaust victims in the first place. In Pre-Nazi Germany, Germans kept their records closed from Mormons so that their ancestors didn't get converted in their deaths. But when Nazis began forcing folks to prove their “Aryan blood” the records were opened. And Mormons took "advantage of the... unusual opportunity.” Through their genealogy work in Nazi Germany this church helped Hitler identify Jews. Then Mormons did posthumous temple work for these same people against their living-relatives’ wishes. 
A 1933 Deseret News article published in the church section praised this "unusual opportunity" as well as many of the programs and practices of Hitler and his Nazi party. Most of the praised programs were things this church shared with the Nazis, like "Fast Sundays", the abstinence guidelines of the Word of Wisdom, and a general focus on making “capable bodies and clear brains … trained like athletes.”  Heber J. Grant visiting Nazi Mormons in Nazi Germany in 1937 In 1937, under a Nazi flag, Prophet Grant instructed German Mormons to ““Stay here. Keep the Commandments…We want to keep the Church intact and the missionaries working.”
Hitler and Hübener Collage featuring a Mormon temple sealing room with Hitler and his wife, Eva Braun, kneeling at the alter. Helmuth Hübener glares in through the window and a mirror. In 1993 in the Jordan River Utah temple (named after the Jordan river in Palestine) Adolf Hilter and Eva Braun were sealed together for time and all eternity. But this church doesn’t want you to know that. In 1998, Don McAreavy asked FamilySearch (this church genealogy arm) if any temple work had been done for Hilter. Seven months and several emails later FamilySearch finally lied and said no. They also attempted to scrub these records from their index. But Mormon Baptism researcher Helen Radkey found these records anyway and wrote about it: “The Mormon Church Attempts to Conceal Temple Records for Adolf Hitler”. This church hid their relationships with Hitler and continued/s to baptize Jews Hitler massacred against the wishes of their living relatives. And even though Mormon helped train the 1936 Nazi Olympics basketball team, there is one Mormon famous for resisting the Nazi party: Helmuth Hübener.  Helmuth Hübener mug shots from the day he was executed by Nazis. Helmuth was youngest resistance fighter executed by Nazi Germany. He'd just turned 17 when he was beheaded at Plötzensee Prison. "German boys! Do you know the country without freedom, the country of terror and tyranny? … Yes you are right; it is Germany – Hitler Germany! Through their unscrupulous terror tactics against young and old, men and women, they have succeeded in making you spineless puppets to do their bidding." - anti-Nazi pamphelt written & distrubed by Helmuth Hübener Helmuth Hübener was a Mormon German boy who was beheaded in 1942 for his opposition to the Nazi regime. When President Grant visited the Nazi Mormons in 1937, he encouraged members to fall in line with the Nazis in order "to keep the church intact." Because of this Prophet's words, Helmuth was seen as a troublemaker by most in his congregation. His Nazi Mormon Branch President even excommunicated Helmuth after his arrest, though he did so without the consent of the First Presidency. About 30 years after his execution Brigham Young University's theater department put on play about Helmuth. Apostle and furture Prophet Thomas S. Monson went to see it, but according to witnesses, he didn’t seem to like it . Two days later BYU President Dallin H. Oaks canceled the play. At this same time, (1970s) President Oaks was also spying on and torturing gay BYU students, mostly within the theater department.  Helmuth Hübener, flanked by his friends and accomplices Rudolf "Rudi" Wobbe (left) and Karl-Heinz Schnibbe (right) White supremacy in genealogyPart 1 is about how Mormonism foundationally used genealogy to reify its white-supremacist doctrines which teach that Euro-Mormons—as the keepers of the keys of THE “One True Church,” and descendants of Ephraim’s tribe of Israel—are God’s Chosen Race and People. Part 2 is about how this shows up in Mormon temple work, eternal families, & genealogy. Part 3 is on the classist, femicidal violences of Mormon doctrine on Eternal Families, Polygyny, and Godhood. Part 4 shares my personal experience with using genealogy in an anti-racist way. Part 5 is on the ways antisemitism and anti-Indigeneity overlap in Mormonism Part 6 builds on part 5 through a critical analysis of the art and history in the Manti temple and it's grounds. Part 7 addresses the Baptisms for the Dead that Mormons did for Jews killed in the Holocaust along with Hitler and other Nazis. This post explores the way Mormonism frames both Jews & Peoples Indigenous to this continent as formerly-Chosen, now-fallen Peoples and Northern European Mormons as the new Chosen People having replaced Jews as heirs of the Kingdom of God and Indigenous Peoples as heirs of this so-called Promised Land. I explore this by analyzing two murals in the Manti, Utah temple, which was completed in 1888. The Timanogos land this temple occupies was at the center of both the Wakara & the Black Hawk wars (which are really one war started by Mormon colonizers). Minerva Teichert's “World Room" mural (1947) Detail of Minerva Teichert's World Room Mural (1947) in the Manti Utah temple. The first mural (1947) is by Minerva Teichert and covers the walls of the “World Room.” This “mural shows the history of the world.” One wall “generally follows the history of the gentiles; one can see crusaders, monarchs, explorers, and the poor and destitute." On the opposite wall “is the history of Israel, with paintings of Abraham, Joseph, Moses, and Pilgrims."  Visitors enter through the east wall which features the Tower of Babel is under construction. From here, the story of mankind splits in two--the story of the gentiles and the story of Israel.  The south wall holds the story of Israel in four stories. First, Abraham, Sarai, and Lot entering Canaan, symbolic of the Abrahamic covenant and the beginning of Israel. Next, Joseph sold into Egypt by his brothers. Then, Moses confronting the people of Israel who are worshiping a golden calf. Finally, the Pilgrims boarding the Mayflower which Minerva called "Israel...embarking to the West for the New World."  On the opposite side, the north well tell a series of stories of the "gentiles." First, Esau sells someone into enslavement. Next "the Orient section", showing Asian people with religious symbols. Followed by a procession of crusaders. Finally, Christopher Columbus on a ship.  The Israel and Gentile walls meet on the West wall which symbolizes this continent. On the south corner, a Pilgrim. On the north, a trader. A "Native American" in a headdress stands between them in a Jesus-like open armed pose seeming to welcome these invaders. Above the Native figure is Mormon Zion depicted as a Utah settlement. “Both of these histories meet…on the American Continent, where a Native American figure stands at the center. Above him… is a… a small city and a temple. The city represents Zion… It looks a lot like Manti.” - ldspioneerarchitecture.blogspot.com This mural illustrates well the way in which Mormonism’s anti/philosemitic supersessionism meets with their anti/philo-Indigenous settler-nativism. Mormonism teaches that Indigenous peoples are descendants of white ancient-Israelis who migrated here in 600 AD and so-called America is the “Promised Land.” Thus this painting is illustrating the Mormon-specific mythology that the history of Israel (Old Testament) and the history of the gentiles (Christianity) will by fulfilled via the gathering of Israel (millenarianism) in a new Zion located in the stolen lands occupied and colonized by the United States. C.C.A. Christensen's pair of paintings depicting “temple hill" (1889) Timpanogos land BEFORE Mormon colonization  Timpanogos land AFTER Mormon colonization The second mural is a pair of paintings by C.C.A. Christensen depicting “temple hill" (1889). “One shows the temple hill how it looked when pioneers first arrived in the (Sanpitch) Valley... The other shows the temple completed.” In the second Timpanogos People are conspicuously displaced by the temple & figures wearing affluent Euro-settler styles of the era. Timpanogos lost 90% of their people within the first 30 years of Mormon colonization, 40% from the Black Hawk War alone. Mormons lost ~0.0017% of their population from the Black Hawk War. Mormon population in Utah Territory tripled from 1850-1880. “(Wakara) wished to keep the valley of the San Pete, and desired to leave the valley of Salt Lake, as he could not live in peace with the whites—but that the Whites had taken possession of this valley also… He said he had always wished to be friendly with the whites—but they seemed never to be satisfied—the Indians had moved time after time, and yet they could have no peace.” - Wakara Statement, 1853  According to the Wikipedia page on “Manti, Utah” “Manti (named after a Book of Mormon city) was one of the first communities settled in what was to become Utah. Chief (Wakara, a Timpanogos leader), invited Brigham Young to send pioneers to the area to teach his people the techniques of successful farming. In 1849, Young dispatched a company of about 225 settlers, consisting of several families, to the Sanpitch (now Sanpete) Valley.” This may have been the case in 1849, but by 1853 Wakara told interpreter M.S. Martenas: “He wished to keep the valley of the San Pete (Manti), and desired to leave the valley of Salt Lake, as he could not live in peace with the whites—but that the Whites had taken possession of this valley also—and the Indians were forced to leave their homes, or submit to the constant abuse of the whites. He said he had always wished to be friendly with the whites—but they seemed never to be satisfied—the Indians had moved time after time, and yet they could have no peace.” But as wikipedia puts it: “Relations with the local Native Americans deteriorated rapidly, and the Walker War (first part of Black Hawk War soon ensued.) The war consisted primarily of various raids conducted by the Native Americans against Mormon outposts in Central and Southern Utah.” This is fully false. From the beginning of the “Walker War” to year they set as the beginning of the “Black Hawk War” Mormons killed 187 Timpanogos persons and Timpanogos killed 41 Mormons. Also during this time Mormons killed about ~250 non-Mormon Euro-settlers at Mountain Meadows and blamed it on the Nuwu People. Wikipedia goes on with its fiction: “In 1865 Utah's Black Hawk War erupted when an incident between a Manti resident and a young chieftain exploded into open warfare between the Mormon settlers and the local Native Americans.” (This war started in 1848 when Mormons first began to occupy Timpanogos land against the wishes of the People. The war escalated in 1865 because Timpanogos began being forced onto reservation in 1864) “In the fall of 1867, Chief Black Hawk made peace with the settlers, but sporadic violence occurred until 1872, when federal troops intervened (finish forcing Timpanogos People onto the Uintah Reservation). Many Mormon settlers who fought and died in the wars are buried in the Manti Cemetery.” (Black Hawk's grave was robbed by Mormons in 1919 and his bones put on display at Temple Square for 60 years. His remains weren't reburied until 1996. "It took an act of Congress, the help of National Forest Service archeologist Charmain Thompson, and the humanitarian efforts of a boy scout Shane Armstrong to find and rebury the remains of Black Hawk at Spring Lake.”)
White supremacy in genealogyPart 1 is about how Mormonism foundationally used genealogy to reify its white-supremacist doctrines which teach that Euro-Mormons—as the keepers of the keys of THE “One True Church,” and descendants of Ephraim’s tribe of Israel—are God’s Chosen Race and People. Part 2 is about how this shows up in Mormon temple work, eternal families, & genealogy. Part 3 is on the classist, femicidal violences of Mormon doctrine on Eternal Families, Polygyny, and Godhood. Part 4 shares my personal experience with using genealogy in an anti-racist way. Part 5 is on the ways antisemitism and anti-Indigeneity overlap in Mormonism Part 6 builds on part 5 through a critical analysis of the art and history in the Manti temple and it's grounds. Part 7 addresses the Baptisms for the Dead that Mormons did for Jews killed in the Holocaust along with Hitler and other Nazis.  I woke up this morning under blankets in a bed in a house all of which are made of materials from “I don’t know where” – all of which currently occupy stolen Tiwa lands. I looked at content on my minicomputer made of minerals extracted from US military-occupied, colonized lands often by enslaved colonized children. The content that told me about these injustices is stored in computers made of minerals from those same lands which are cooled w water extracted from the Rio Grande & San Juan, the waters of Pueblo and Diné. I feed my cats whose ancestors are from “I don’t know where” but “certainly not here”. They eat dry foods harvested from exploited animals, processed by exploited workers, which profit Nestle via Purina, both of which are int’l megacorps preying on stolen life, land, & water. I drink coffee grown in Colombia, stolen lands populated by exploited Peoples who’ve been under the thumb of US-backed narco-politicians for decades. The water for the coffee came from the Rio Grande & the San Juan. Rivers that have been in a mega drought for more than half my life. I drank that coffee from a mug made of clay I harvested from the lands my people killed for so that I could exist. I ate yogurt made by “I don’t know who” extracted from cows whose ancestors were imported to these stolen lands by colonists. Cows which now are the leading cause of species extinction and endangerment here in the so-called southwest. Cows which defined a Cowboys and Indians era of settler-nostalgia. Dairy cows live a quarter of their lifespan from being constantly pregnant and milking. This cow was most likely milked by an exploited migrant worker who came to US likely out of desperation brought on by the violence the US regularly enacts on those settler nations south of our settler nation in order to concentrate the wealth of this continent within our militarized nation’s borders. It’s not even 7 a.m. and I am connected / displaced / scattered to Peoples and lands across the continent and the world. I’m not yet fully conscious and already my day is flooded with settler-colonial, militarized imperial, extractive capitalists realities. I’ve been out of bed for less than an hour and already the violent reality my existence contributes to, and is held hostage by, has been spread across this continent, to the point that I only notice it academically, only in story form. The visceral reality, like these lives, have been displaced, dispersed, ungrounded. I wonder if I’m still asleep living the nightmare that is the American dream. May we all wake up again and again and tomorrow and continue to build more relational, connective, and collaborative ways of living so that we may all be liberated from the cult of death, dominance, and profit
Not in an individualists escape into some transcendent personal purity but in communal integrated reckon/gnition of our messy interdependence through time across lands. May we build worlds of reckoning and reconnecting like our lives depend on it |
AuthorI am nicholas b jacobsen, an artist, researcher, historian, educator, and organizer. I am a trans-non binary Euro-settler raised in the Nuwu lands of so-called Utah. My family has been Mormon and Utahn for as long as either of those concepts have existed. My ancestors sacrificed everything--their identities, homelands, jobs, health, & safety to become Mormon, Utahn, U.S. American, & white--to settler their Zion. They also sacrificed their humanities as they committed genocide against Kuttuhsippeh (Goshute), Timpanogos Shoshone, Shoshone-Bannock, Eastern Shoshone, Ute, Nuwu (Southern Paiute), and Diné (Navajo). Because my ancestors made my home through Indigenous genocide in their home/lands––I take it as my personal responsibility to unsettle what my ancestors settled, while helping my fellow settlers do the same through reading, writing, art, and community building. Archives
June 2023
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