Equal Rites: The Book of Mormon, Masonry, Gender, and American Culture

Review
"Forsberg's work is unique in basing its secular analysis so solidly on a book that has been typically dismissed as an eccentric religious text. Beyond his Masonic reading of the Book of Mormon, the major contribution of the work is its ability to see Mormonism in the widest context of religious systems of the time. Forsberg's scholarly perspective and his wide sophistication in the study of religion give the book a special interest to students of religion. The book's insights into the connections and contrasts of religious ideas from a vast canvas make it not only a new view of Mormonism but, perhaps more important, a new view of America of the period." -- Alfred L. Bush, curator of Princeton Collections of Western Americana, Princeton University

Book Description
Both the Prophet Joseph Smith and his Book of Mormon have been characterized as ardently, indeed evangelically, antimasonic. Yet in this sweeping social, cultural, and religious history of nineteenth-century Mormonism and its milieu, Forsberg argues that masonry, like evangelical Christianity, was an essential component of Smith's vision.

About the Author
Clyde R. Forsberg, Jr. is a CEP (Civic Education Project) Fellow and teaches American studies at the American University Central Asia in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.


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Both the Prophet Joseph Smith and his Book of Mormon have been characterized as ardently, indeed evangelically, anti-Masonic. Yet in this sweeping social, cultural, and religious history of nineteenth-century Mormonism and its milieu, Clyde Forsberg argues that Masonry, like evangelical Christianity, was an essential component of Smith's vision. Smith's ability to imaginatively conjoin the two into a powerful and evocative defense of Christian, or Primitive, Freemasonry was, Forsberg shows, more than anything else responsible for the meteoric rise of Mormonism in the nineteenth century.


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