182 Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought
New York Believers
New York Glory : Religions in the City,
have evolved in New York. It is more a
edited by Tony Carnes and Anna
Karpathakis (New York City: New
random sampler of some religious cultures in the city and the unique issues
Reviewed by Tania Rands Lyon, Ph.D.
candidate in sociology, Princeton University.
Church going is not usually one
of the primary images associated with
New York City, but it seems that "the-
city-that-never-sleeps" may not be
they face in its hyper-urban, transient,
diverse environment. Rather than
being organized along denominational
lines, some chapters focus more on
ethnic groups (i.e., assimilation in Italian parishes, religious diversity among
Latinos, or African-American church
leaders) or on religious sub-groups
within denominations (i.e., Orthodox
Jewish women studying the Torah, re-
such a godless metropolis after all.
ligion class at Sing-Sing prison, or
New York Glory is an anthology of
therapeutic counseling in "neo-puritan" evangelical churches). Although
the writing is somewhat uneven in
quality across chapters and could have
benefited from more careful editing,
twenty-five articles that challenges the
assumption that New York City is an
exception to America's high levels of
religiosity. Most of the contributors are
sociologists, anthropologists, or historians; some, like Manhattan lawyer
James W. Lucas, who wrote the chapter
on Mormons, are religious insiders.
The book's territory covers all of
New York City's five sprawling boroughs: Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens,
Staten Island and the Bronx. As it turns
out, there are more Roman Catholics,
Muslims, Hindus, Rastafarians, Jeho-
vah's Witnesses, Greek Orthodox,
Russian Orthodox, and religious Jews
in New York City than in any other
the book is a fascinating romp through
this dense religious landscape.
The chapter on Mormons, titled
"Mormons in New York City," is located in the "ethnic diversification"
section of the book (along with Islam,
which now sports a Spanish-speaking
mosque in East Harlem, and Seventh-
Day Adventism, which claims the
highest percentage of immigrants of
any denomination). Although hampered in his research by the lack of eth-
nic data in church records and by the
U.S. city. Church is the fastest growing
fact that most church statistics are not
institution in Hispanic neighborhoods
and about 20% of all New York school-
made public at the stake level, Lucas
children are in religious schools. In
1991, 90% of New Yorkers identified
lived as a Mormon in New York for
with a religious group and believed
in God, 82% said that religion was
important to their lives, and 46%
(co-author of Working Toward Zioń) has
nearly thirty years. He served on the
high council when all five boroughs of
the city constituted a single stake
(three stakes and two districts now
atended religious services at least once
cover the same territory). For his chap-
New York Glory is not a comprehensive survey of religions as they
ter Lucas attended multiple wards and
branches in every borough and interviewed stake, district, and unit lead-
a month.
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York University Press, 2001), 440 pp.
Reviews 183
ers, as well as a small cross-section of
members.1
Written for a non-LDS audience,
levels of transience among church
members in New York City. Perhaps
the most interesting contributions
Lucas makes for LDS readers concern
the issues of retention and ethnic inte-
gration. Thus, his chapter is a helpful
addition to the literature on Mormonismi struggles with rapid growth
and increasing diversity.
Of the 46 units in New York City
in 1998, 21 were Spanish-speaking,
two used American Sign Language,
and one unit each spoke Chinese and
Korean, thus, putting English-speaking units into the minority. Lucas (like
many sociologists of religion) argues
that social networks are critical to retention and that the large Spanishspeaking wards, with their commonality in culture and language, are doing
the best job of holding on to their
members and keeping them active.
The second most successful units in
terms of retention are the more diverse
English-speaking wards: "when no
one ethnic group is dominant, the congregation can develop a culture-neutral ethos that facilitates the adoption
ing wards due to family ties or a desire
to maintain their heritage, culture, and
language. This trend, however, would
mean that the church would gradually
become more split by ethnic than by
linguistic lines - something antitheti-
cal to the emphasis church leaders
place on unity over diversity (208).
Given that abolishing language wards
would be seen as insensitive coming
from a predominantly white Anglo
leadership, Lucas suggests that the
best course may be simply to encourage the slow integration into Englishspeaking wards that takes place now,
facilitated by the fact that every Span-
ish-speaking unit shares a building
with an English-speaking unit. Although it is a constant balancing act,
Lucas argues that by emphasizing language rather than ethnicity as the line
of separation, the LDS church is in a
good position to retain second-generation ethnic members, whom other, eth-
nic-based churches are prone to lose as
they assimilate to American society.
New York Glory is a wonderfully
eclectic read for anyone fascinated
with the many faces of religion in
America. The example of Mormonism
in New York, which enjoys the same
kind of ethnic diversity that Mormonism is projected to have world-
of an LDS religious identity and
wide in five to ten years, may well be a
lifestyle" (206). This may be an important lesson to learn for a rapidly expanding multi-cultural church.
microcosmic proving ground for the
church as it learns how to integrate
Lucas also makes an important
multiple cultures and grow worldwide.
1. Telephone interview with James W. Lucas, October 13, 2001.
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the chapter contains background on
how the church is organized, describes
the demographics of Mormons in each
borough, and details several salient issues, including economic disparity,
gender and leadership, and the high
point about the long-term retention of
ethnic Mormons. He finds that many
second-generation Mormon Hispanics
prefer to stay in their Spanish-speak-