Item Detail
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27899
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1
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0
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English
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Mormons and Materialism : Struggling against the Ideology of Separation
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Secularization and Religious Innovation in the North Atlantic World
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Oxford, UK
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Oxford University Press
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121-140
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This chapter argues that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) is the most material of the material Christianities. Mormonism, more than other forms of Christianity, currently rejects the Enlightenment project of separate spheres and, in doing so, has constructed a sophisticated and successful proselytizing effort. Its missionaries, as of 2016 numbering over 74,000, carry a message of material Christianity across the globe. From the tangible character of Christ's body, to the insistence of the physical reality of the Joseph Smith's visions, to the sophisticated media technology by church professionals, Mormons have embraced the conflation of the spiritual and the material.