God and the People: Theodemocracy in Nineteenth-Century Mormonism

Abstract

The Westphalian system that has governed international relations for the past three and a half centuries came about in part as a response to the problem of religion in political life, particularly as manifested in the great “wars of religion” of early modern Europe. Consensus has never been reached, however, on precisely what role religion should play in the contemporary system of nation-states. The global resurgence of religion since the late 1970s, memorably dubbed the “revenge of God” by one scholar, has featured a newly invigorated assertion by religious believers and institutions that religion should have a significant, even determinative, voice in the public sphere.1 This revival of public religion has dramatized the complaints of secular modernity's discontents, and catalyzed the sentiments of many religious believers who have long been uncomfortable with secularization in its most extreme forms. Nineteenth-century Mormons protested both the spiritual disharmony they encountered in an increasingly cluttered American religious landscape and the early processes of what they perceived already as excessive secularization. Proclaiming their allegiance to God in all human affairs while also maintaining a sincere faith in American republicanism, early Mormons, under the direction of founding prophet Joseph Smith, sought to create a sociopolitical order that combined the virtues of government by God (theocracy) and by the people (democracy). Rather than seeing these systems as being competitive or contradictory, Smith and his followers viewed them as complementary; indeed, many argued that they were inseparable and could not be fully enacted one without the other, that theos and demos were in fact part of an organic system of government that permeated not only earthly but also heavenly realms. To this end, inasmuch as Mormons offered something resembling a distinctive political theory, particularly in the period from their settlement in Nauvoo, Illinois, until the abandonment of plural marriage in 1890, it can most succinctly be captured by the term coined in the midst of Joseph Smith's 1844 presidential campaign: “theodemocracy.”

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