Mormons on the march

In any discussion of Mormons, it’s worth getting the gags out of the way first. There’s the chafing underwear they must wear to deter them from temptation, which looks like a cilice by Fruit of the Loom. There’s polygamy, which though rejected by the Mormon church in 1890, is still practised by a few perverted loons in remote corners of Utah and Colorado, who construct architecturally fascinating networks of trailers to house their multiple families. There’s Joseph Smith, who founded the Mormon Church after experiencing a vision in western New York State. The notion that God would choose to appear here seems hilarious to many who happily accept He would show himself in south-west France or the Levant. Smith spent his life in constant battle with his creditors, his neighbours and the government as he led his followers across America in search of a place where they could build their new Jerusalem. Remarkably, he still had time to marry some 30 or so women.

And then there is the culture of contemporary Mormonism, which seems so at odds with all that surrounds it. Devout Mormons are prim, hard-working, ascetic and reproductive. When they aren’t attending their temples or singing in their choirs, they are busy knocking out the next generation, oblivious to Malthusian population fears or the usual bourgeois fretting about extra bedrooms and school fees.

During the idle days between Christmas and New Year, I like to go through my stack of Christmas cards and play a game called Rich or Mormon. It goes like this. There are only two kinds of American families I know who have more than three children and they are either rich or Mormon. Since Americans like to send out Christmas cards showing pictures of their families, you can lay out the candidates and ask visitors to guess which they are.