The Developing Inclusion of Micronesia into the Utah Mormon Missionary Movement (Review)

Johnson, Melvin C. (2024-04-01). "The Developing Inclusion of Micronesia into the Utah Mormon Missionary Movement (Review)". Dialogue a Journal of Mormon Thought. 57 (1): 178–181. doi:10.5406/15549399.57.1.24. ISSN 0012-2157.

Abstract: Since the 1840s, the leadership and members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, even with its global missionary program, has been centered with a focus on the North American Great Basin westward to California. Inevitably, the history and biography of the LDS Church and its members have mostly emphasized the foundational events of the great move and the colonization of Utah Territory and adjacent regions. However, the missionary outreach to the world has shouldered its way into the literature of culture, history, and politics of members far and away from "Zion" at home. Battlefields to Temple Grounds: Latter-day Saints in Guam and Micronesia is a thoroughly entertaining and worthwhile read, perhaps the best such endeavor as well as primer so far for history of the LDS mission fields. The studies of scholars led by R. Devan Jensen and Rosalind Meno Ram chronicle the Church's entry and into Micronesia in the vastness of the Pacific. Battlefields to Temple Grounds generates a unique record of the Indigenous cultures of Micronesia and their intersections with the colonial imperialism of the nations of Europe, Asia, and the United States. The extensive narrative extends from Magellan's landing in the early sixteenth century. The major emphasis explores and explains the coming of Saints to Micronesia in the Pacific battles of World War II and develops the presence and growth of the Church to the present day in Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Saipan, Guam, Truk (Chuuk), Pohnpei, Palau, Yap, and many other islands.1Latter-day Saint missionaries came to Micronesia in the 1960s. Protestant and Catholic missionaries came much earlier. As sea currents intermingle as they roll across the ocean, strong waves of colonial cultures, Christian and non-Christian, vigorously challenged and interacted with the Indigenous cultures. European, Asian, and American nations variously claimed or colonized the…

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OpenAlex: W4393150850