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- 01 29, 2025
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JOSEPH SMITH, like so many Americans in the 19th century, looked west. Mormonism’s founder and prophet led his followers through New York, Ohio, Missouri and Illinois. They sought Zion: a place where the faithful could be safe and sovereign. Their ultimate destination, , became the promised land.That may sound a little too star-spangled and modern to be properly biblical. But as Benjamin Park, the author of “American Zion”, a new history of Mormonism, argues, that is the point. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as it is, has long defined itself simultaneously as a product—and an opponent—of America.