Mexico border killing highlights confusion between different Mormon groups; USU religious scholar says mainstream Mormons won’t be ‘able to shake the ghost of polygamy anytime soon’

By BRADY McCOMBS Associated Press
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — After nine people belonging to a Mormon offshoot community were killed in Mexico this week, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints issued a short statement expressing sympathy for the victims while clarifying that they didn’t belong to the mainstream church.
That the faith widely known as the Mormon church would feel the need to make such a clarification amid a tragedy underscored the conundrum the church faces when big news happens with splinter groups that practice polygamy. Plural marriage was key during the faith’s founding days, but the Utah-based church denounced it more than a century ago.
The victims’ connection to Mormonism featured prominently in headlines this week about the drug cartel attack on a caravan of American women and children living in Mexico, though there’s no indication they were targeted for their religion.

FILE – In this Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2019, file photo, Austin Cloes points to a photo of his relative Rhonita Miller and her family, who were killed in Mexico, on a computer screen, in Herriman, Utah. The faith issued a statement this week expressing sympathy for the nine people who belonged to a Mormon offshoot community who were killed in Mexico earlier in the week, while clarifying that they didn’t belong to the faith. That the faith would feel the need to make such a clarification amid a tragedy underscored the conundrum the church finds itself in when big news happens with splinter groups who practice polygamy, which the mainstream church disavowed more than a century ago. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, File)

Church leaders were likely hoping to end widespread confusion among outsiders about the faith’s stance on polygamy and links to the offshoots, said Patrick Mason, a religious scholar who is the Arrington Chair of Mormon History and Culture at Utah State University.
Church spokesman Eric Hawkins declined to elaborate on how the church handles the confusion, saying it wants to respect the grieving families.

Family and friends carry the coffins that contain the remains of Dawna Ray Langford, 43, and her sons Trevor, 11, and Rogan, 2, who were killed in an ambush earlier this week, to a small cemetery in La Mora, Mexico, Thursday, Nov. 7, 2019. As Mexican soldiers stood guard, the three were laid to rest in a single grave at the first funeral for the victims of a drug cartel ambush that left nine American women and children dead. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)

Similar confusion was common more than a decade ago when a group led by Warren Jeffs was in the news over allegations of child sexual abuse and a raid on its Texas ranch.
“The LDS church isn’t going to be able to shake the ghost of polygamy anytime soon,” Mason said. “That history will continue to haunt every aspect of Mormonism for a long time to come. It’s too powerful an image, it’s too powerful a cultural memory.”Mason pointed to a 2007 study by the Pew Research Center during church member Mitt Romney’s first run for president, which found “polygamy” was the most common word associated with members of the faith.

Mitt Romney visits Utah State University on Mar. 14, 2018, as part of his campaign for Utah Senator. (Megan Nielsen)

Popular TV shows about polygamous families, including the reality series “Sister Wives” and the fictional show “Big Love,” only exacerbated the confusion, he said.

FILE – In this July 10, 2013, file photo, Kody Brown of “Sister Wives,” a popular TV reality series about a polygamous family, poses with his wives, at one of their previous homes in Las Vegas. After nine people belonging to a Mormon offshoot community were killed in Mexico the first week of November 2019, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints issued a short statement expressing sympathy for the victims while clarifying that they didn’t belong to the mainstream church. ( Jerry Henkel/Las Vegas Review-Journal via AP, File)

Many people don’t know the difference between Methodists and Baptists, let alone the different factions of Mormonism, Mason said.
“In the minds of the wider public, everyone who goes by the term Mormon is lumped into one group, whether they are polygamous or monogamous or which group they adhere to,” said Barbara Jones Brown, executive director of the Mormon History Association, an independent organization.
The nine women and children killed by drug cartel gunmen in northern Mexico on Monday lived in a remote farming community where residents are descendants of former church members who fled U.S. prosecution of polygamy in the late 19th century.

Early church members practiced polygamy in the 1800s at the instruction of founder Joseph Smith, but the church disavowed it in 1890.
The Mexican community is one of a handful of Mormon splinter groups who still practice plural marriage. The most well-known is a community on the Utah-Arizona border known as the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints that was run by Jeffs, who is now serving a life sentence in Texas for sexually assaulting girls he considered brides.

FILE – In this Sept. 26, 2015, file photo, community members from Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz., attend a memorial service in Hildale, Utah, for 12 women and children swept away in a deadly flash flood in a community on the Utah-Arizona border. The community has been home for more than a century to a polygamous sect that is an offshoot of mainstream Mormonism. After nine people belonging to a Mormon offshoot community were killed in Mexico the first week of November 2019, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints issued a short statement expressing sympathy for the victims while clarifying that they didn’t belong to the mainstream church. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, File)

There are other smaller groups around Salt Lake City and in Missouri.
The church in recent years has been more open about how polygamy was a key part of its history. It published an essay in 2014 detailing that Smith had a teenage bride and was married to other men’s wives during the faith’s early polygamous days. In 2015, it included a small exhibit about polygamy in its revamped history museum in Salt Lake City.
A recent push by church President Russell M. Nelson to eradicate the use of previously embraced shorthand terms for the faith — “Mormon,” ”LDS” and “Mormon church” — has added an interesting wrinkle to the discussion, said W. Paul Reeve, the Simmons Professor of Mormon Studies at the University of Utah.

FILE – In this Oct. 6, 2018, file photo, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints President Russell M. Nelson prays during the church’s twice-annual conference, in Salt Lake City. After nine people belonging to a Mormon offshoot community were killed in Mexico the first week of November 2019, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints issued a short statement expressing sympathy for the victims while clarifying that they didn’t belong to the mainstream church. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, File)

When Jeffs’ stories were generating attention, church officials argued that people should only call members of the mainstream church Mormons and avoid the term “fundamentalist Mormon,” Reeve said.

People attend the funeral of Dawna Ray Langford, 43, and her sons Trevor, 11, and Rogan, 2, who were killed in an ambush earlier this week, in La Mora, Mexico, Thursday, Nov. 7, 2019. As Mexican soldiers stood guard, the three were laid to rest in a single grave at the first funeral for the victims of a drug cartel ambush that left nine American women and children dead. (AP Photo/Christian Chavez)

“The interesting irony is now the Salt Lake City-based church has said, ‘Don’t use the word Mormon in association with us,’ and yet they’re still fighting the same public affairs issues,” Reeve said.
Also muddling the issue is Smith’s revelation that God told him to practice plural marriage remains canonized in church scripture, the scholars noted.
The faith also allows men to be “sealed” for the afterlife to more than one wife if they remarry after their first wife dies, they said. Nelson, the church president, and one of his top counselors have remarried and been sealed to their second wives, Mason said.
“Still in Latter-day Saint theology, we have polygamy,” said Mason, who’s a member of the faith. “It just happens in heaven, not here on Earth.”