Mormon Studies Commons^™

A Sociological Exploration Of Schisms In The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints: 1830-1985, Krista Lynn Smith

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis examined schisms in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1830-1985, concentrating on the relationship of religious organizational development and propensity to schism. It was hypothesized that as a religious group institutionalizes, it experiences crises that increase the likelihood for schism. This study used the LDS Church as a case study to analyze how organizational development correlates with schismatic activity.

It was found that a church is most safe from schismatic movements when the church is organizationally stable, but before major accommodation has taken place. For the LDS Church, this occurred from 1850-1890 when the church …

An Exploratory Study Of Female Networking In A Mormon Fundamentalist Polygynous Society, Janet Bennion Cannon

Dissertations and Theses

The present study is comprised of two parts: 1) an exploratory ethnography of a contemporary polygynous community governed by a strong patriarchal ideology in Pinesdale Montana with emphasis on social relationships, and 2) an analysis of the factors which have allowed women's groups to develop in Mormon fundamentalism. The ethnographic account of the community contextualizes the occurrence of female groups in Pinesdale. A model of the formation of female groups designed by Nancy Leis (1974) in her study of the West African Ijaw is used to provide a better understanding of how female groups are formed, and is applied to …