My audience is made up of African American women from the “Bible Belt,” who were born and raised in the Baptist church. When it comes to Mormons, my audience believes that they all believe in and practice polygamy. Anything other than the King James Bible is a gift from hell, and those who follow other religions will soon be sent there. My culture knows little to nothing about the different types of Mormons that exist, yet assumes that every Mormon is a fundamentalist Mormon. Therefore, my audience doesn't care about Mormons, especially not in a good way. If my audience read my article, they would argue that the creation of Mormonism overshadows the story of Jesus Christ, even though Mormons are also Christians. They also would not see fundamentalist Mormons as normal people with normal lives. Unknown to my personal culture, Mormons, fundamentalist or otherwise, have values ​​and beliefs in common with us. Along with a shared Protestant belief, Mormons also believe in charity, family, and worship. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essayFour wives, seventeen children, and one man all live under the same roof, living day to day in a polygamous marriage. Reality shows that glorify stereotypes of fundamentalist Mormons like TLC's Sister Wives represent the entertainer's perspective on their way of life. However, not all Mormons believe in polygamy, and the few who do are called fundamentalist Mormons. Despite their controversial beliefs, they are still part of the Christian denomination and share some values ​​with some of the traditional religions. What led to the creation of the Fundamentalist Church of Latter-day Saints (also known as the FLDS) was the difference in their teachings and rules based on the community's shared values ​​of dedication to the cause, understanding the role of the family, missionary work inside and outside the church and the practice of polygamy to please God. The Mormon faith began in the early 1840s, and Joseph Smith was its founding father (see figure 1). Richard Wagoner argues that Smith privately held that polygamous marriages were "the holiest and most important doctrine ever revealed to man on earth," and it was not until 1852 that Mormons publicly announced to the world their defense of polygamy (IX). However, Wagoner states that, due to public outcry, the U.S. government outlawed the practice of polygamy in 1890 (IX). Indeed, Wagoner explains that the practice of polygamy continued until 1904, when Joseph F. Smith, president of the religion, was under enormous pressure to begin excommunicating those who practiced it (IX). Refusing to change, some Mormons nevertheless continued to practice polygamy as well as the teachings of the broader Mormon religion, and Wagoner believes this led to the creation of the FLDS (IX). Today, many people still believe that fundamentalist Mormons and the Church of Latter-day Saints are one and the same. Therefore, other religions, including those of the Christian faith, assume that polygamy is an important part of the Mormon faith. When Wagoner finally published his book in 1949, there were approximately one million Mormons in the world and 30,000 fundamentalist Mormons (IX-X). In 2009, the Census Bureau estimated that there were six million Latter-day Saints and less than three percent were fundamentalists (Section 1 Population). However, fundamentalist Mormons still hold close to the traditional values ​​of Protestant beliefs, with the addition of polygamy. Dedicating yourself to your religion through faith is a small value that the churchFLDS holds dear. Believers think the fundamentalist Mormon faith won't work unless members want to be there. Volunteer work, mission trips, and charity work are done by people who want to do it, because the work is hard and has little reward. Conducting an interview to properly understand the dedication of missionary work in the FLDS, Nate Tabak introduces Daniel Harlow, a young European, who spent many months in Kosovo, with limited communications back home ("The Mormon Missionary"). Harlow's dedication to his faith pushed him to overcome isolation and distance from the people he knew and loved. Richard Foltz reveals that at the age of twelve, fundamentalist Mormons allow their sons to work to become priests and encourage them to dedicate two years of their lives to missionary work or studies (5). Foltz also shows that all Mormons believe that there are lost “souls” waiting to be born, and that parents are dedicated to bringing them back to earth (5). This is why fundamentalist men take so many wives who bear them many children: to bring back lost souls. Mosiah of the Book of Mormon tells his people, “Are we not all beggars? We are not all dependent on the same Being, that is, God, for all the substance that we have” is why fundamentalists are so devout, since God is the reason humans are here (Mosiah 4:19). However, Foltz reveals that some believers think that through much devotion and dedication they themselves can become gods (5). Therefore, fundamentalist Mormons give it their all and dedicate themselves to their faith for fulfillment and a bright afterlife. Having large families consisting of more than one man, his wife and his two children is why the importance of family is a strong value in fundamentalists. Mormon culture. The more people in the family, the more sacrifices will have to be made. The FLDS members understood this and added their special religious touch. “Every sacrifice we made for each other was rewarded tenfold. We have learned to worship together, to suffer together, to play and rejoice together, to unselfishly pool all our resources for the good of the family” is a quote from a polygamous wife (qtd by Wagoner in 94). The wife is a symbol of the love one had for one's family and the importance it had in their daily life. The parents of these large polygamous families sacrificed themselves for the entire family, and the wives also sacrificed themselves for the children of other wives. Once they entered the sanctity of the first, second and even third marriages, Wagoner highlights how men were obliged to take care of their wives and children even in the event of divorce (48). Wagoner goes on to quote the apostle George Cannon, who explains that "not only is the man bound to respect the expression of her desire to that effect," meaning divorce, "but he is also bound to give to her and to his offspring a proportionate share of all his property” (qtd in 93 The Polygamy and its Impact Journal states that in polygamous marriages, the man may have one sterile wife and others who may have many children (“Polygamy and its Impact). ”). Therefore, the couple should not consider divorce as an option. William Jankowiak states that “sister wives” believe that the family bond extends beyond the grave and that the entire family should be of one mind (166) Jankowiak brings further research to the table by explaining that the father-son relationship is the most crucial in Mormon fundamentalist culture (166). Abraham passes the keys of the kingdom to hisson Isaac, who passes them on to his children and so on (166). Families are valued because everyone has a purpose and role in the family. Fundamentalist Mormons show that dedication to family is not an option but a full-time responsibility, no matter what. The FLDS believes that all members of the church should engage in missionary works, to model the Lord. As a result, missionary work is a huge value shared within this culture. In the Doctrine and Covenants the Lord commands His people to "proclaim my gospel from land to land and from city". here, members of the fundamentalist faith send missionaries to spread the word of the Mormon faith and to increase the population. Missionaries are usually dressed in business clothes and are never seen in casual clothes while at work (see figure 2 in the interview. by Tabak with Daniel Harlow reports that the young missionary says: “Our purpose is to invite others to come to Christ) anyone who tries to do something” (“The Mormon Missionary”) Although most mission trips consist of distributing flyers and telling people about conversion, FLDS Church missionaries find charitable work to occupy even the months or years they spend away. During mission trips, Tabak captures how missionaries have limited contact with friends and family and are trained to focus hard on their work (“The Mormon missionary,” he is only 19). waking up at half past six in the morning and falling asleep at half past ten at night, Tabak records. He is only allowed weekly emails and two calls a year to his friends and family back home. Tabak says Harlow is only allowed to talk to a woman if it's about his missionary work, because he isn't allowed to date either. Another example of the importance of missionary work would occur in the early 1830s, at the beginning of Mormonism. Kim Ostman states that LDS missionaries who traveled from North America to Europe, and from Europe, emigrating to Finland and Sweden, began to have civil disputes with the authorities in these locations (268). Ostman writes that civil authorities threaten missionaries to remove them from their land. The missionaries refused, and Ostman states that they continued to hold house meetings to tell citizens about converting to the FLDS church (269). Willing to risk prison and their lives, fundamentalist Mormons sincerely believe in missionary work to make the world, as they see it, a better place. The greatest value associated with the belief of fundamentalism in the Mormon religion is polygamy. Polygamy is defined as the practice or custom of having more than one wife at the same time (usually wives). The most popular modern polygamy practices have been made into hit television shows such as Sister Wives, Big Love, and Escaping Polygamy (see figure 3). However, the original Church of Latter-day Saints banned polygamy in the mid-1800s, and Wagoner decries the few radical believers who decided to go their separate ways and form their own church, the FLDS. Joseph Smith believed in polygamous marriage but only in private (29). O'Kendall White and Daryl White explain that after his death, Joseph Smith published private journals in which he exposed his private lifestyle, as well as a book that erased the damnation of polygamous acts (166). Wagoner adds to this by recalling that Joseph Smith realized that polygamy was permitted in the Old Testament, so he decided it was a “true principle” for his people (107). The fundamentalists took this new book and held onto it, thus earning their name.