October 2022 – Oklahoma Councilor for Public Accountability

I first visited San Diego almost forty years ago and since have spent more time there, second only to the Tulsa area, than any other place primarily because it is the home of my first-born child. My most recent visit added a third experience with religion that I associate with San Diego. This is my first of three posts describing those three experiences and it is about my encounter with the Mormon religion.

Let’s kick it off with one of the three phenomena, unrelated to my topic, that I call the San Diego trifecta, namely the Green Flash:

Now to my actual topic, the Mormon religion. My San Diego son joined a boys volleyball program coached by Tulsan Peggy McCaw his senior year in high school, 1990, and, after graduation, played with Peggy’s club team in the Junior Olympic volleyball competition held in Albuquerque that summer. He was scouted by a coaching friend of BYU volleyball coach Carl McGown and recruited by him to enroll that fall as a member of the Cougar volleyball team.

Linda and I were delighted that he would have the opportunity to play volleyball at a fine university, but as long-time mainstream Protestants, we were more than a little concerned about the attendant exposure to the Mormon faith about which we knew so little. When the time came for him to attend orientation some thousand miles away at a place he had never seen, we decided that I would go with him. The trip began with meeting his coach, who assured me he would receive no pressure to convert through the volleyball program but added that there are a lot of young Mormons at the university who are very enthusiastic about their faith. Following a couple of days of freshman orientation, we took a weekend backpacking trip to successfully climb the high point of Utah, Kings Peak in the nearby Uinta Mountains.

I said good bye to our son the following morning as he began his four-year stint as a student athlete at BYU and drove to Salt Lake City to await my return flight departing a few hours later. I spent that time tearfully scouring a couple of bookstores near Temple Square for a variety of books about Mormons that Linda and I could read and learn more about the culture our son would be immersed in. One I remember well is: Salamander: The Story of the Mormon Forgery Murders (1989) by Linda Sillitoe and Allen Roberts.

After devouring those, a couple of years later I concluded my Mormon obsession by reading Secret Ceremonies: A Mormon Woman’s Intimate Diary of Marriage and Beyond, a 1993 autobiographical book written by American journalist and columnist Deborah Laake.

By then we were fairly certain our son would not become a “hormone Mormon” as I had come to respectfully label those young male athletes who converted so that they could call the love of their lives into heaven (read the book).

There you have it, in my mind the Mormon religion will always be associated with San Diego through my son’s BYU experience. There are more connections I will mention later. Here is a video I found by “Saints Unscripted” that is a nice introduction to the Mormon faith:

So as they described, in 1820 Joseph Smith had his first vision in Palmyra, New York during the Second Awakening. After the Book of Mormon was transcribed and followers recruited, Smith leads the new group of saints in 1931 to Kirtland, Ohio where the first Temple is built.

At some point it is revealed to him that Jackson County, MO is the Garden of Eden and they try to establish themselves there, but are violently resisted by its residents. During this time the Mormon center locates at Nauvoo, IL which is kind of a jumping off point for their ventures into Jackson County and later to Utah. Joseph Smith is jailed in Liberty, MO

In 1844 Joseph Smith was killed by a violent mob in Carthage, IL. The Mormon faithful then divided into those who believed Brigham Young was the right leader and those who believed Smith’s son, Joseph Smith III should be the leader.

Note: This split is similar to what happened after Mohammed died, Shias, a term that stems from shi’atu Ali, Arabic for “partisans of Ali,” believe that Ali and his descendants are part of a divine order. Sunnis, meaning followers of the sunna, or “way” in Arabic, of Mohammed, are opposed to political succession based on Mohammed’s bloodline.

Those following Brigham Young re-located by handcarts to Utah and Salt Lake City, in 1847 “This is the place”. It is the political center and location of the signature Temple and Brigham Young University less than an hour south in Provo, Utah becomes the epi-center of young, faithful Mormons. The church is officially known as the Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints, or LDS.

Those following Joseph Smith, III, remain in the Illinois/Missouri area and are initially known as the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints, or RLDS. Their political center and signature Temple are in Independence, Jackson County, Missouri (as is the Harry Truman Presidential Library). The RLDS founded/sponsored university is Graceland University in Lamoni, Iowa, just off I-35 as you go north from Missouri. While he was not, many of my Linda’s father’s family from Hulett, Wyoming were and are faithful RLDS, now Community of Christ, members. She had cousins living in the Lamoni area we have visited.

Some further trivia:

Mormon Temple off I 5 in San Diego. OKC has one also. Can you see Moroni?

Mormon Battalion Historical Site in Old Town San Diego, 1846 leave Council Bluffs, IA, arrive 1847

Salamander pipe bombings and RLDS and the new world history in the Book of Mormon.

Olympian Bruce Jenner, now Caitlyn Jenner

Joseph Smith’s mother was Presbyterian.