The Mormon Moment

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But it's not just the newly baptized in the far corners of the planet who are leaving. "I see a lot of my generation sliding out of the church," said Tom Kimball, marketing director of Signature Books, a liberal Mormon press in Salt Lake City.

He recalls a time when theological debate and doctrinal inquiry were integral to Mormon life. But in his eyes, Mormons are now discouraged from asking too many questions about faith--leading many to leave.

Beliefs vs. Science

The Mormon Church is no stranger to debate and controversy over everything from polygamy to the veracity of Mormon teachings on history and theology.

One issue sparking controversy in this year of Joseph Smith's bicentennial is the accuracy of some of his teachings--in particular, his identifying Native Americans as the Lamanites, a tribe descended from a family who, in the Book of Mormon, migrated from ancient Israel to America. DNA studies support the far more widely accepted anthropological theory that Native Americans came from Asia via a "land bridge" to Alaska.

This has led some Mormons to characterize the Book of Mormon as, at best, an "inspired" fiction. But committed Mormon academics are attempting to reconcile DNA evidence with orthodox belief.

One theory, known as "limited geography," posits that the Book of Mormon doesn't claim to be speaking of all Native Americans, said Dan Peterson, a BYU professor and director of the school's Institute for the Study and Preservation of Ancient Religious Texts.

In his view, a careful reading of the book suggests that a small number of Israelites arrived in the New World, probably somewhere in Central America. "The odds are very, very high you wouldn't be able to recognize the genetic contributions of a very small group," he said.

The LDS website calls DNA-related attacks on the Book of Mormon "ill conceived." But it also states that "nothing in the Book of Mormon precludes migration into the Americas by peoples of Asiatic origin" and links to several journal articles supporting the limited geography theory.

Mormons may debate Smith's teachings, but the prophet himself has undergone something of an image makeover in academia.

In the past, scholars tended to regard Smith either as benevolent, a "fabulous individual who comes out of nowhere" to found a major religious movement--or as a fraud, a fanatic, and an example of "the dark side of American religion," said Richard Bushman, author of the upcoming biography Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling.

But a third school of thought is emerging, one that examines the prophetic tradition in America through the lives of figures--religious and secular--who have exemplified the idea of modern prophesy, including Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., and Anne Hutchinson, the Puritan expelled from Massachusetts who helped found Rhode Island.

"In that story, Joseph Smith becomes a pre-eminent figure, because he's the one who takes this biblical potential and drives it to the extreme," Bushman said.

But even as the church Smith founded spreads ever wider, the descendants of those first pioneers who ventured westward to Utah still find comfort in their shared experiences.

One of those descendants is Tom Kimball, who despite his sharp criticism of the church's direction remains in the fold and affectionately refers to Mormons as "my tribe."

"There's elements of my culture that are absolutely beautiful, and that's what keeps me here," Kimball said.

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