The rise of the Mormons

Are Mormons going to inherit the earth? Or at least America? It is starting to look as though they might. The Mormon church is only 181 years old, and its followers make up just 2 per cent of the U.S. population. Yet they have an amazing number of the top jobs. It is well-known that two leading republicans, Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman, strong contenders for their party’s presidential nomination in 2012, are Latter-day Saints. It is less known that Mormons increasingly run corporate America. A new Bloomberg report offers an impressive list of Mormon business leaders here.

Bloomberg’s Caroline Winter attributes the success of Mormons to the Missionary Training Centre, a sort of indoctrination camp for the Mormon work ethic. And I’m sure that’s right. Yet Mormons also benefit from the fact they are devoted to their families and almost invariably likeable. For all their weirdnesses — and there are many — they tend to be incredibly nice, albeit often in a rather disturbing, Midwich Cuckoo way.