Welcome to Mormon heartland... Chorley, Lancs
By Finlo Rohrer
BBC News Magazine
With a Mormon vying to be the Republican candidate for president, all eyes
in the church's heartlands will be on the primaries, but one of those
heartlands is Chorley in Lancashire.
Driving down the M61 in west Lancashire one is struck by an extraordinary
sight.
On the edge of Chorley, nestled near the motorway, is a gleaming off-white
church-like building, a sharp spire topped with a gold angel.
But this is not a church, its lines are not that of a Norman chapel or a
Gothic masterpiece. This religious building takes its cue from Salt Lake City,
Utah. It is the main North West base of the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints, perhaps better known as the Mormons.
MORMONS IN THE UK
190,000 members
First landed at Liverpool in 1837
Oldest branch in Preston
New chapel every two months
4,900 new missionaries trained at Chorley since 1998
Source: LDS
Republican Presidential nominee Mitt Romney's religion means all things
Mormon have been more in the news than usual. But how many people know that the
Mormons' association with the North West of England goes back further than
their association with Salt Lake City?
The oldest surviving branch of the church is not in the US, but in Preston.
And at nearby Chorley, the church has one of its two UK temples as well as its
missionary training centre.
This is the place where the clean-cut young men and women who turn up on
doorsteps around Britain every day get their grounding in spreading the word.
Since it opened in 1998, it has churned out 4,900 missionaries, only half of
them from the US or Canada.
Christian dispute
While the temple at Chorley obviously has a definite religious - if slightly
space age - feel, the plain brick buildings that surround it look more like a
£39 a night motorway travel tavern than anything ecclesiastical.
And many of those locals who pass by have little idea of the exact nature of
the religious grouping behind their doors.
Members of the church categorise themselves as Christians, although many in
the Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox traditions have little truck with them.
But if ordinary people know one thing about the Mormons, it's polygamy. The
mere mention of the word sees a flicker of momentary discomfort pass across
the faces of members, before they patiently explain the practice of having more
than one wife was outlawed by the church in 1890.
But Mormons don't get upset when you ask them to tackle certain accusations
that float around on the internet.
President Dean Richard Sorensen, a twinkly-eyed Mormon from Palm Springs, who
heads the missionary training centre at Chorley, is all smiles as he
dismisses the notion that Mormons are made to keep massive stocks of tinned goods in
their home as insurance against the Apocalypse.
"We have a year's supply of food and other essentials. That is not to do with
the end of the world. Every family comes on hard times and we believe it is
prudent to prepare."
MORMON BELIEFS
God, Jesus and Holy Spirit are separate entities
Founder Joseph Smith a prophet
Book of Mormon is a last testament of Bible
Baptism for the dead
Emigration from Middle East to America in 600 BC
No longer practise polygamy
But ask anyone about Romney and you get a poker face. With the church having
a strict doctrine of political neutrality, endorsement, even of the personal
kind, is out of the question.
Their missionaries stick to religious matters. President Sorensen describes
them thus.
"Their hair is cut and they are very clean and wholesome-looking. They are to
live the commandments."
Typically aged between 19-21 for the men and 21 up for the women, they spend
three weeks here before embarking on a two-year mission.
Paul Crapo, 21, is typical of those passing through the training centre.
Clear-skinned, upstanding and besuited, a smiling paragon of all things Mormon.
A senator's son from Idaho, he is currently pounding the streets of
Manchester.
PRACTICES
Do not smoke or drink alcohol
Tea and coffee also forbidden
Give 10% of earnings to church
Homosexual sex forbidden
Parishes called wards or congregation
Dioceses called stakes
Women cannot be priests, but can work as missionaries
"Every time I tell people about Jesus Christ, there's nothing like that
feeling. It puts a fire inside you," he says.
"I've been slapped in the face, I've been knocked on my head - a bit of
physical, a bit of verbal abuse. It doesn't get me down. The thing which is the
hardest is when people feel the same kind of spirit and decide to reject it."
But what of the sacrifices of Mormon life? While their peers in the US and UK
are enjoying weekends of inebriated hedonism, these young people accept a
life not just without alcohol and tobacco, but without the possibility of tea
and coffee, all forbidden by the church.
Matthew Robinson, 22, from Sheffield, shrugs off the notion that he is
enduring some sort of privation in missing out on an alcopop binge every Friday.
"The reasons I follow the guidelines is because I know it's true. Because I
know it's true it alters the way I behave," he says.
And his fellow missionary, 20-year-old Derek Hull from Oregon is even more
emphatic in his belief in a clean life.
"I have a friend in jail, I have a friend that has got several girls pregnant
I have a friend that was arrested and kicked out of school for selling
cocaine."
Dorm messages invite occupants to consider the spirit in all their thoughts
and actions and "wear proper clothing".
The temple here at Chorley is not a destination for day-trippers. It is not a
cathedral, even members will only visit after being given a written
"recommend". But some other parts of the complex are open to the non-Mormon
population, and particularly the family history centre. The church is a major player
in the genealogy sector because of its belief in the baptism of the dead.
Reserved Britons
In an office there is a corporate-type slogan, encouraging members with the
words "Let's all work to grow the stake". Stake is the Mormon equivalent for a
diocese, a grouping of wards or congregations, which are the equivalent of
parishes.
And the parallels with business continue in the training centre. The casual
observer might see something of their sales pitch buried in their manner. And
at least a small part of their training covers how to deal with British
reserve while getting all of the message across.
Missionaries sit in a mock-up of a living room, a camera pointed squarely at
their head, practising what they would like to preach on two church members
pretending to be receptive unbelievers. The footage is then analysed in
adjacent observation rooms.
But the church's affable public affairs manager David Fewster is adamant that
the church, despite its thorough organisation, hefty funding and rapid
growth has nothing in common with a business.
"We will never be in a situation where we teach missionaries to get their
foot in the door," he argues. "They are not salesmen, they speak to people who
are genuinely interested."
And the church now has a massive presence in Britain. In the 19th Century
members usually emigrated to the US, throwing up strange streets of Lancashire
terraces in the heart of Utah. But from the 1960s the pattern has been for
converts to remain and the church has now grown to 190,000 members in the UK. A
chapel is built every other month in the UK.
The church also has influence in the agricultural sector, owning 16,000 acres
of farmland, much of it concentrated in East Anglia and focused on raising
funds for charitable programmes.
But the impression it leaves on its non-Mormon neighbours in surrounding
Chorley seems generally to be a good one. Walk around in the immediate vicinity
of the temple complex and you struggle to hear a bad word for the church.
At the nearby Hartwood pub, barmaid Joanne Callander says they are good
customers. Fruit juice is all they quaff, but "they're just really nice and
pleasant".
Customer Tony Knight, who sports a ring indicating membership of an
organisation that has had its own problems with PR, the Freemasons, speaks of
"absolutely marvellous boys".
All in all it seems many in Chorley barely notice their Mormon neighbours,
but despite this unobtrusive presence, the church continues its march in the
UK.
**************Biggest Grammy Award surprises of all time on AOL Music.
(http://music.aol.com/grammys/pictures/never-won-a-grammy?NCID=aolcmp003000000025
48)
¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤
To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface
at: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/gambia-l.html
To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://listserv.icors.org/SCRIPTS/WA-ICORS.EXE?S1=gambia-l
To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to:
[log in to unmask]
¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤
|