My audience is African American women from the Bible Belt who were born and raised in the Baptist Church. When it comes to Mormons, my audience thinks they all believe in and practice polygamy. Anything different from the King James Bible is a gift from hell, and those who follow other religions will soon be sent there. My culture knows little or nothing about the different types of Mormons, however, they assume that every Mormon is a fundamentalist Mormon. Therefore, my audience doesn't care about Mormons, especially not in a positive way. If my audience read my article, they would say that the creation of Mormonism tarnishes the story of Jesus Christ, even though Mormons are also Christians. Nor would they consider fundamentalist Mormons to be normal people living normal lives. Unknown to my personal culture, Mormons, whether fundamentalist or not, have common values ​​and beliefs with us. In addition to a common Protestant belief, Mormons also believe in charity, family, and worship. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essayFour wives, seventeen children, and a man all live under the same roof, living day to day in a polygamous marriage. Reality television shows that reinforce stereotypes of fundamentalist Mormons, such as TLC's Sister Wives, represent the artist's view of their lifestyle. 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 faith and share certain values ​​with some of the dominant 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 which were based on the community's shared values ​​of devotion to their cause, understanding the role of the family and missionary work. entering and leaving the Church and practicing 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 most holy and important doctrine ever revealed to man on earth", and it was not until 1852 that Mormons publicly announced to the world their plea in favor of polygamy (IX). However, Wagoner claims that due to public outcry, the United States government banned the practice of polygamy in 1890 (IX). In fact, Wagoner explains that the practice of polygamy continued until 1904, when Joseph F. Smith, the religion's president, came under immense pressure to begin excommunicating those who continued (IX). Refusing to change, some Mormons continued to practice their polygamy as well as the teachings of the broader Mormon religion, and Waggoner 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 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 calculated that there were six million Latter-day Saints and less than three percent were fundamentalists (Section 1 Population). However, MormonsFundamentalists still hold the traditional values ​​of Protestant beliefs at heart, with just the addition of polygamy. Devoting yourself to your religion through belief is a small value that the FLDS church holds dear. Believers believe that the fundamentalist Mormon faith will only work if 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 poorly rewarded. Conducting an interview to fully understand the dedication of missionary work within the FLDS, Nate Tabak introduces Daniel Harlow, a young European man 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 age twelve, fundamentalist Mormons allow their male children to work to become priests and encourage them to devote two years of their lives to either missionary work or study (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 give them birth to many children: to bring back lost souls. Mosiah of the Book of Mormon said to his people, “Are we not all beggars? Do we not all depend on the same Being, even God, for all the substance we have? is why fundamentalists are so dedicated, because God is the reason humans are here (Mosiah 4:19). However, Foltz reveals that some believers believe that with great devotion and dedication, they themselves can become gods (5). Therefore, fundamentalist Mormons give their all and dedicate themselves to their faith to flourish and have a brilliant afterlife. Having large families consisting of more than a man, his wife, and two children is why the importance of family is a strong value among fundamentalist Mormons. Mormon culture. The more people in the family, the more sacrifices have to be made. The members of the FLDS understood this and added their own religious dimension. “All the sacrifices we made for each other were rewarded a hundredfold. We have learned to worship together, to suffer together, to play and rejoice together, to selflessly pool all our resources for the good of the family” is a quote from a polygamous wife (quoted by Wagoner in 94 ). The woman is a symbol of the love one had for one's family and the importance that this had in one's daily life. The parents of these large polygamous families sacrificed themselves for the whole family, and the wives also sacrificed themselves for the children of the other wives. Once entering into the sanctity of the first, second, and even third marriage, Wagoner points out that men were obligated to care for their wives and children even if they divorced (48). Wagoner continues and quotes the Apostle George Cannon, who explains that "not only is a man bound to respect the expression of his wish for this purpose," that is, divorce, "but he is also bound to give him and his offspring a proportionate share of all his property” (qtd. in 93). The journal Polygamy and its Impact states that in polygamous marriages, one man may have an infertile wife and others may have several children (“Polygamy and its Impact”). The couple is therefore not obliged to consider divorce as an option. William Jankowiak says that "sister-wives" believe that the family bond extends beyond thefalls and that the whole family should have one spirit (166). Jankowiak provides further research by explaining that the father-son relationship is the most crucial in fundamentalist Mormon culture (166). This is how the social and cultural rules of faith are transmitted from generation to generation. An example given by Jankowiak is that Abraham passed the keys of the kingdom to his son Isaac, who passed them to his sons and so on (166). Families are valued to the extent that everyone has a purpose and a role within the family. Fundamentalist Mormons show that devotion to family is not an option but a full-time responsibility, no matter what. The FLDS believes that all members of the Church should be involved in missionary works, to model the Lord. Therefore, missionary work is a massive shared value within this culture. In the Doctrine and Covenants, the Lord commands His people to “proclaim my gospel from country to country and from city to city…bear witness in every place to every people” (Doctrine and Covenants 66:5). From there, members of the fundamentalist faith send missionaries to spread the word of the Mormon faith as well as increase the population. are usually dressed in professional attire and are never seen in casual attire when at work (see Figure 2). Tabak’s interview with Daniel Harlow relates that the young missionary said, “Our goal is to invite others to come to Christ. anyone to try to do things” (“The Mormon Missionary”) Although most mission trips involve handing out flyers and talking to people about conversion, FLDS church missionaries also find the charity work to occupy the months or years they spend away from home. When going on a mission, Tabak shows how missionaries have limited contact with friends and family and are trained to be very focused on their work ("The Mormon Missionary"). waking up at six thirty in the morning and sleeping at eight thirty in the evening, reports Tabak. He is only allowed weekly emails and two calls a year to 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's also not allowed to date anyone. Another example of the importance of missionary work was in the early 1830s, the beginning of Mormonism. Kim Ostman says that Church missionaries who traveled from North America to and from Europe, migrating to Finland and Sweden, began to have civil conflicts with the authorities in those places ( 268). Ostman writes about civil authorities threatening missionaries in order to expel them from their lands. The missionaries refused, and Ostman states that they continued to hold meetings in their homes to tell citizens about their conversion 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 faith of fundamentalism in the Mormon religion is polygamy. Polygamy is defined as the practice or custom of having more than one wife at a time (usually wives). The most popular modern polygamy practices have been transformed into hit television shows like Sister Wives, Big Love, and Escaping Polygamy (see Figure 3). However, the original Church of Latter-day Saints outlawed polygamy in the mid-1800s, and Waggoner denounces the few radical believers who decided to break away and found their own church, the FLDS. Joseph Smith.