ARTICLES AND ESSAYS The Glory of God? Education and Orthodoxy in Mormonism David Knowlton I BEGIN WITH A PARADOX. Sociologists of religion have found that religious orthodoxy tends to decline with educational attainment. However, among Mormons religiosity actually tends to increase with education. This is paradoxical because Mormonism apparently enjoys a differ- ent relationship with education than other American religions. Within that positive relationship, however, is a second paradox. Religiosity for Mormons tends to decline the more one studies the arts, humanities, and social sciences, while exposure to other fields seems to have no effect on, or even to strengthen, religiosity. Thus Mormons educated in the arts, humanities, and social sciences tend to follow the national trend of de- creased religiosity, while those trained in all other fields buck it. 1 (I should note another group of Mormons among whom religiosity tends to decline as education increases: women. 2 For the purposes of this essay, however, let us focus on the question of Mormonism's positive re- lationship with education except for the social sciences and humanities.) For me, this paradox is much more than of passing academic interest. It defines much of my life and that of my friends. I not only live and ex- perience it externally, but it lives within me, nesting among the contours of my soul. Not only am I an anthropologist, but I am also the son of a Mormon sociologist and a Mormon musician, two of the problematic fields. How do we account for this paradox? What is different in the way 1. Armand Mauss, The Angel and the Beehive: The Mormon Struggle for Assimilation (Ur- bana: University of Illinois Press, 1994), 68-70. 2. Kristen L. Goodman and Tim B. Heaton, "LDS Church Members in the U.S. and Can- ada: A Demographic Profile," AMCAP Journal 12 (1986): 1:88-107. See also the work of Marie Cornwall, e.g., "The Institutional Role of Mormon Women," in Marie Cornwall, Tim B. Heaton, and Lawrence A. Young, Contemporary Mormonism: Social Science Perspectives (Urba- na: University of Illinois Press, 1994), 239-64.