ABSTRACT
PURPOSE Despite canonic admonition to “renounce war and proclaim peace,” widespread support for war persists among members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The purpose of this research was to: 1) identify common attitudes among Mormons concerning war, and 2) identify the sources of those attitudes, whether cultural, scriptural, doctrinal, etc.
METHODS Interviews were conducted with Brian Birch (UVSC chair of Religious Studies), Michael Minch (UVSC professor of political philosophy), and Grant Skabelund (co-editor of A Time to Kill: Reflections on War). Thirty survey questions were formulated based on these interviews (not including statistical questions) and administered online. Questions focused on perceptions of leaders, perceptions of war, and the scriptural or doctrinal support of both.
RESULTS Common attitudes emerged regarding righteous, moral leadership, the tragic necessity of war, and cultural patriotism. The “likening” of scriptural narratives as allegories of contemporary events emerged as a strong subtextual factor.
CONCLUSIONS The Mormon cultural experience appears to play a larger role in the formulation of political worldviews than official policy or doctrinal precedent, ostensibly reducing religious canon, in the political realm, to something of a Rorschach test.
