It’d be cool to read a mass-market — non-scholarly — book on the culture of Mormonism that doesn’t take an overt side. In other words, not a Deseret Book public relations piece — slobbered over by the Mormon Times – masquerading as a book, or an unChristian attack from Christians who argue that Mormons — whom they love very much, by the way — reject Christ.
Unfortunately, a book, “The Mormonizing of America,” by Stephen Mansfield, isn’t it. The book, from Worthy Publishing, is a soft-sell piece of “Bible-bookstore” anti-Mormonism, in which the author tries to tone down his righteous indignation using a “I-have-a lot-of-Mormon-friends-I-admire” maneuver. Nevertheless, the hastily written, low-researched (there are precious few on-record interviews) book, timed to cash in on Mitt Romney’s candidacy, regurgitates scores of anti-Mormon canards that have been around for 180 years, and even attempts some resurrection, such as pitching the claim that the “Spaulding Manuscript” resembles the “Book of Mormon.” (One wonders what’s stopping author Mansfield from making a phone call to Oberlin College to learn about the Spaulding Manuscript?)
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