'In many ways, we don't always agree with this administration," Dieter F. Uchtdorf, one of the leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said after meeting with President Barack Obama in the spring. The comment was an exercise in understatement, of course: From gay marriage to government-funded social programs, the president and the Mormons are on opposite ends of the political spectrum. Oddly, though, they have roughly similar views about immigration. In addition to pushing for national immigration reform, the LDS church supported a guest-worker initiative in Utah a couple of years ago. Rank-and-file Mormons, heavily Republican, are much less likely than other Republicans to see immigrants as a burden to the American economy.
What accounts for this gap? "When LDS leaders speak, Mormons listen." So say the authors of "Seeking the Promised Land," an investigation of the political dimensions of Mormonism by David Campbell of Notre Dame, John Green of the University of Akron and J. Quin Monson of Brigham Young University. The authors are veteran researchers who present their findings in clear, readable prose. (Mr. Campbell helped to do survey research for my own 2013 book on interfaith marriage.)
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