AHC: Super-Mormonism

Here's a challenge: come up with a scenario where Mormonism is so widespread that it is comparable to modern, OTL Protestantism/Catholicism/Islam.

Your oldest possible PoD must still be within Joseph Smith Jr.'s life.
 
Here's a challenge: come up with a scenario where Mormonism is so widespread that it is comparable to modern, OTL Protestantism/Catholicism/Islam.

Your oldest possible PoD must still be within Joseph Smith Jr.'s life.

The Mormons keep going west until they reach California and settle there instead of Utah. During the Mexican-American war, they are able to break away and form their own nation. Once they take advantage of California's natural resources, they are able to set themselves up pretty well on the west coast and create a nearly theocratic state, which pumps out missionaries galore, spreading the mormon message all over the world.
 
Here's a challenge: come up with a scenario where Mormonism is so widespread that it is comparable to modern, OTL Protestantism/Catholicism/Islam.

Your oldest possible PoD must still be within Joseph Smith Jr.'s life.

Er... there are 14,000,000 Mormons... and they are everywhere... and they keep growing... so... er... it has already happened.
 
Er... there are 14,000,000 Mormons... and they are everywhere... and they keep growing... so... er... it has already happened.

Yes but, I think "Super-Mormonism" would entail something around more than a hundred million adherents, and perhaps a few nations where Mormons are a majority or plurality of the population.
 
Here's a challenge: come up with a scenario where Mormonism is so widespread that it is comparable to modern, OTL Protestantism/Catholicism/Islam.

Your oldest possible PoD must still be within Joseph Smith Jr.'s life.

19th century is already too late to create a religion comparable to OTL 500 millions - 1 billion members faith...
 
Here's a challenge: come up with a scenario where Mormonism is so widespread that it is comparable to modern, OTL Protestantism/Catholicism/Islam.

Your oldest possible PoD must still be within Joseph Smith Jr.'s life.

I don't think any OTL religions has achieved anything close to that level of growth you're talking about. Islam expanded geographically very rapidly, but it took a lot longer to get actual adherents.

One crazy thought: make the Taiping succeed in keeping at least part of China. I suspect that Mormon beliefs and Taiping belief can be made compatible easier than Taiping belief and traditional Christian belief--so thread the historical needle to have some kind of rappochement and doctrinal sorting out between the Taiping and the Mormons. Then have the Taiping pull a Meiji, which I think they are extremely apt to do. Bingo, a huge number of Chinese will be Mormon, with more becoming Mormon over time. Plus, Mormonism is now the successful model for native resistance to colonialism, so you might get Mormon movements elsewhere in Asia, in Africa, and even among Indians in Latin America (we Mormons would LOVE this last part). By the last half of the 20th Century, Mormonism is now, say, 5 to 6% of the world's population, several hundred million strong and still growing. That compares pretty well to the OTL Catholic percentage (17%), Protestants ( 9 - 10%), or Islam, (23%), or at least it puts Mormonism in the same conversation.

However, while this worldwide Mormonism is recognizably Mormon, its going to be different from OTL Mormonism in significant ways. Its not going to be run out of Salt Lake. It will be a worldwide religion but not a worldwide church. Successful Taiping are not going to take directions from to an American Westerner prophet and vice versa, probably not even formally. I think a modus vivendi that looks a lot like Eastern Orthodoxy could result, in which each culture or nation has its own Mormon church. The doctrinal basis for this would be (1) the fact that the Book of Mormon has a separate church organization and even a separate set of apostles for the New World, (2) the many references in Mormon scripture to the Father and the Son having separate dealings with the scattered peoples of the world, (3) Mormonism's doctrinal flexibility and pragmatism, (4) the fact that Mormons have always emphasized the need for modern prophets who can deliver God's message tailored to modern circumstances can develop nicely into a belief that each nation, culture, civilizational area, whatever, needs its own prophet who can tailor God's message for it, (5) the somewhat flexible hierarchical arrangments in the Bible, where there are multiple prophets from different areas, and in the Book of Mormon, where you have an outsider like Alma setting up a church organization that the ultimate insider (the Nephite King) goes along even though he apparently has significant religious authority himself, etc.

The American Mormon church probably retains some first among equals status, but conflicts of authority are likely. This much more widespread Mormonism is also a Mormonism that is going to contend more with schism, mutual excommunication, and all that sorry stuff.

BTW, what's with all the Mormon threads lately. I mean, Hail to the Prophet and all, but is there a reason for it?

Edit: We had some Taiping-Mormonism discussion in an earlier thread starting here:
https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showpost.php?p=2120471&postcount=16
 
Last edited:
Last edited:
In my CSA timeline, Deseret gets a leg up by enacting a Three-to-One Policy (three sons for every husband, three for every wife). Perhaps California-Deseret would expand fast by the Mormon's own breeding habits.
 
BTW, what's with all the Mormon threads lately. I mean, Hail to the Prophet and all, but is there a reason for it?

Something in the zeitgeist maybe?
Oh, and here is my simple solution: no Nephite apostasy. With a couple extra centuries to proselyte Native Americans, they build up a large scale egalitarian society somewhere in the Americas.
Sure the Europeans still think that they are heretics, etc. but maybe they get away with being a sort of American version of “Prester John” fodder for converts rather than cannons? Some battling back and forth, but the Natives keep their beliefs and start sending missionaries to Asia, Europe and Africa in the 1500's.
 
The Mormons keep going west until they reach California and settle there instead of Utah. During the Mexican-American war, they are able to break away and form their own nation. Once they take advantage of California's natural resources, they are able to set themselves up pretty well on the west coast and create a nearly theocratic state, which pumps out missionaries galore, spreading the mormon message all over the world.

I believe, though, that the Americans would come for gold in such numbers that they would quickly filibuster America. I'd think Deseret's only chance of survival would be if their army had Spartan or Israeli levels of badass.
 

mowque

Banned
Something in the zeitgeist maybe?
Oh, and here is my simple solution: no Nephite apostasy. With a couple extra centuries to proselyte Native Americans, they build up a large scale egalitarian society somewhere in the Americas.
Sure the Europeans still think that they are heretics, etc. but maybe they get away with being a sort of American version of “Prester John” fodder for converts rather than cannons? Some battling back and forth, but the Natives keep their beliefs and start sending missionaries to Asia, Europe and Africa in the 1500's.

Wait, the who? How did we teleport Mormons back before European colonization?
 

Zioneer

Banned
Wait, the who? How did we teleport Mormons back before European colonization?

He's talking about the civilizations mentioned in the Book of Mormon, which were supposed to be a Jewish Christian Native American combo. Of course, in that scenario, you'd have to assume that Mormon beliefs are correct, which while I personally believe they are, I don't use them in a serious historical context, since there's very little details about where they were in the Americas, and the fact that the Book of Mormon specifically mentions they were falling apart in barbarism in the 400s AD/CE.
 
Top