The ‘Heartland movement’ is gaining steam in Mormonism – but critics say it has disturbing racist undertones

A new article published by the Salt Lake Tribune explains the so-called "Heartland movement," which is a group of Church of Latter-day Saints (LDS) members who believe the Book of Mormon events took place in Missouri, Indiana, Iowa and other places throughout the United States. Belief in the theory is on the rise thanks to Christian nationalists and white nationalists.

"Speaking to packed conference halls and Latter-day Saint chapels, [Heartland theorist Wayne May] alludes constantly to a conspiracy by sophists in the ivory tower and — in some cases — the suits in Salt Lake City to obscure the truth that a once-great people of the eastern United States, known as the Hopewells were the warring clans whose bloody saga constitutes the majority of the Book of Mormon," said the report.

May and his allies are being treated as some kind of old prophet, and he's slowly gaining power in the religion. Meanwhile, critics are saying that Heartland theorists are cherry-picking and misconstruing the facts. Doing so also attempts to rewrite the history Native Americans lived and know.

The Book of Mormon explains that the church's founder, Joseph Smith, was told by an angel about a set of gold plates, which detailed the migration of families from Jerusalem to the United States in 600 B.C. They then formed different civilizations like the "dark-skinned Lamanites," who are seen as cursed, and the "righteous" white Nephites. After interpreting the plates, the angel took them away.

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It's a kind of religious justification for white supremacy, whether or not it can be justified by archeology, anthropology or geography.

Elise Boxer, an assistant professor and coordinator of Native American studies at the University of South Dakota explained “there’s a lot of people who have internalized their own colonization” and “who have bought into the idea that white is better.”

The Book of Mormon portrays the Lamanites as a group that became “white and delightsome people.” Smith later changed the language to “pure and delightsome.” It persists a "white is better" narrative, which some Indigenous people have bought into.

May has spent the past several years pushing his philosophies online and in several books by him and his allies.

The piece cited a March 2021 blog post by Rian Nelson shared on the website BookofMormonEvidence.org, which is by the prominent Heartlander theorist Rod Meldrum. It makes the case that Americans should oppose immigration from anyone coming from central or South America.

“If they were chosen by the Lord to come to America,” he wrote, “the Lord would allow them here without a lot of legal hankering.”

May had no idea that there were white supremacist undertones in his movement.

“That just flies in my face big time,” he said. “Absolutely bogus.”

Read the full report from the Salt Lake City Tribune.