The Mormon church is putting its most treasured documents on show for the first time as one of the world’s richest religions strives to clear the aura of secrecy and suspicion that has long surrounded it.
The artifacts on display at the Church History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah, include a portion of the original Book of Mormon manuscript, which Mormons believe was translated from ancient Egyptian by Joseph Smith, the religion’s founder, 185 years ago.
Smith claimed to have found the text inscribed on gold plates, discovered in a field in upstate New York. He said he was aided in translating them by a pair of miraculous spectacles sent from God.
The decision to show the fruits of that labour comes as his religion battles a stubborn image problem. The Mormons who work today at the headquarters of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a towering complex of granite buildings in Salt Lake City, look in many ways like model American social conservatives.
The men wear suits, ties, and crisp white shirts. They don’t drink or smoke, are fiercely pro-life and believe that marriages are eternal and should only ever be between a man and a woman. Their belief in hard work and education have helped their religion amass an estimated $30billion.
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Yet in 2012 a poll found that a quarter of Americans recited negative words – such as “cult” and “polygamy” – when asked to sum up the faith. About half of America’s Mormons say there is “a lot of discrimination in the US” against them.
Aspects of the religion that are often mocked include rules that call for believers to wear special underwear, the belief that God lives near a planet called Kolob and the community’s history of polygamy.
Church leaders say that distrust is unfounded, and experts suggest that the new “Foundations of Faith” exhibit, at the church’s Salt Lake City history library, signals a new push by the religion to open its vault and answer questions.
“We need to be open and transparent,” said Steven Snow, the church historian and recorder, said. “There are questions that arise occasionally, and we need to deal with them in an honest, forthright way.”
The church now claims 15 million followers, with membership having tripled over the past 30 years, and in 2012 a presidential bid by Mitt Romney, a devout Mormon, put the religion in the spotlight.
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However, most Americans are still only familiar with a caricature of Mormonism, perpetuated by a salacious media, say church officials. Coverage often focuses on aspects such as polygamy, which was banned in 1890.
The religion again made itself more palatable in 1978, when it finally allowed black men to enter its lay clergy -- albeit 14 years after the Civil Rights Act.
For many observers, however, the faith’s beliefs appear outlandish. The Book of Mormon describes how two groups of Israelites travelled to the Americas, in about 2200BC and 600BC. These, it says, were the forebears of the indigenous American peoples – a theory discounted by historians.