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.




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