Mormons and Tea Parties: “When the Constitution of the United States hangs, as it were, upon a single thread”

I think I agree with Joanna Brooks (see bio-pic at end of article.)

Who Says the Tea Party is not a Religious Movement?   - Religion Dispatches oline magazine

Excerpt:

A) the Tea Party movement is not monolithic but rather deeply inflected with and informed by local and regional histories, concerns, rhetorics, and cultural nuances; and

B) among its LDS supporters in the American West, the Tea Party bears features of a religious movement. Especially in the intermountain west, the Tea Party movement has been fueled by and become co-articulated with deeply held Mormon beliefs that the U.S. Constitution is a divinely inspired document, that in the last days the Constitution will “hang like a thread,” and that a righteous remnant from the Rocky Mountains will save it. 

What about that “constitution hanging by a thread” stuff?

I can’t speak for the generation of Mormons after my own, but as a younger active member of the LDS Church, I knew about the thread prophecy which was as common a speculation as the future time when Mormons would be returning to Jackson County Missouri to help establish the New Jerusalem at the Second Coming of Christ.

Brigham Young quoting Joseph Smith is the principal source of this particularly revered part of LDS folk lore:

When the Constitution of the United States hangs, as it were, upon a single thread, they will have to call for the "Mormon" Elders to save it from utter destruction; and they will step forth and do it. 2:182. (Brigham Young, Discourses of Brigham Young, selected and arranged by John A. Widtsoe, p.360, 361) – Mormon wiki.org

But Brigham has not been the sole source for Mormons. LDS President Joseph F. Smith 1912:

Now, these are the commandments of God, the principles contained in these commandments of the great Eternal are the principles that underly the Constitution of our country, and all just laws.

Joseph Smith, the prophet, was inspired to affirm and ratify this truth, and he further predicted that the time would come, when the Constitution of our country would hang as it were by a thread, and that the Latter-day Saints, above all other people in the world, would come to the rescue of that great and glorious palladium of our liberty(Joseph F. Smith, Gospel Doctrine, p. 403 & Conference Report, October 1912, p. 11) - Mormon wiki.org

Or this:

But beyond all that, the Latter-day Saints have a responsibility, that may be better understood when we recall the prophecy of Joseph Smith who declared that "the time would come when ( the destiny and ) the Constitution of these United States would hang as it were by a thread, and that this people, the sons of Zion, would rise up and save it from threatened destruction." (Conference Report, April 1942) - Mormon wiki.org

Ezra Taft Benson, LDS President from 1989-1994 had this to say which would fit in with much of the Tea Party and anti-socialist paranoia and rhetoric  making the rounds today":

The Lord told the Prophet Joseph Smith there would be an attempt to overthrow the country by destroying the Constitution.

Joseph Smith predicted that the time would come when the Constitution would hang, as it were, by a thread, and at that time "this people will step forth and save it from the threatened destruction" (Journal of Discourses, 7:15).

It is my conviction that the elders of Israel, widely spread over the nation, will at that crucial time successfully rally the righteous of our country and provide the necessary balance of strength to save the institutions of constitutional government.

If the Gentiles on this land reject the word of God and conspire to overthrow liberty and the Constitution, their doom is fixed, and they "shall be cut off from among my people who are of the covenant" (1 Nephi 14:6; 3 Nephi 21:11, 14, 21; D&C 84:114-15, 117). (Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson, p. 618-619 & God, Family, Country, p. 345.) - Mormon wiki.org

Again Joanna Brooks:

This complex of beliefs, often referred to as the “White Horse Prophecy,” originated in statements attributed to LDS Church founder Joseph Smith in 1843 but never canonized and yet reiterated time and time again over the last 167 years by Mormon leaders and the Mormon faithful.

(In January, after news broke that Idaho gubernatorial candidate Rex Rammell was convening a series of closed-door “White Horse Prophecy” study groups, the LDS Church issued an official statement clarifying that the “White Horse Prophecy” is not doctrinal.) 

 

FAIR (The Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research) has this pdf file on the White Horse Prophecy at its site

Brooks also points out that beyond the “constitutional thread” prophecy, conservative activists in Utah recently rejected the re-nomination of incumbent Republican Senator Bob Bennett for not being sufficiently and radically conservative, despite Bennett’s recent published paean to the Book of Mormon.

Brooks also refers to the following from the Daily Herald in Utah Valley: Parents accuse BYU, Alpine district of socialist conspiracy

Brooks:

For Mormons including Tea Party media powerhouse Glenn Beck (who consistently uses unmarked Mormon rhetoric in his national broadcasts), the U.S. Constitution is a religious matter. 

It would be interesting – if such a poll were possible – as to what percentage of Mormons are assuming that the presidential candidacy of Mitt Romney was/is directly connected to the prophecy.

Sam Keen has described myth as referring to

 "an intricate set of interlocking stories, rituals, rites and customs that inform and give the pivotal sense of meaning and direction to a person, family, community or culture.

The myths we carry around inside include unspoken consensus, the habitual way of seeing things, unquestioned assumptions, and our 'automatic stance'."

A society dominated by myth and tradition lives on its own unconscious conspiracy to consider a myth the truth, the way things really are. 

Such could be said about the majority of citizens within the LDS sphere of influence; persons who are literal without thinking; men and women who are not critical or reflective about the guiding "truths" - myths - of their own group.

As Keen implies,

“To a tourist in a strange land, an anthropologist studying a tribe, or a psychologist observing a patient, the myth is obvious.

But to the person who lives within the mythic horizon, it is nearly invisible."

 

 

 

 

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• • Joanna Brooks grew up in a conservative Mormon home in the orange groves of Orange County, California. Now, she's an award winning American religion scholar and writer.