Jack Mormon once meant something else
The Salt Lake Tribune
01/13/2008
While rooting around in old Tribune files, Robert Kirby came upon
this little gem and forwarded it to me. I pass it on to you.
"A gentleman writing us from Boise, asks us, 'What is a jack-
Mormon?' It is a nondescript between a Gentile and Mormon; in the
animal kingdom known as the mule. In some countries it is better known
as the What-is-it, and is without gender. In Utah it does the dirty
work for the Mormon Priesthood, who first grease it, then pat it, and
finally kick it because it has no friends. Tom Fitch, of Nevada, ex-
Governor Fuller, of New Jersey, George Seizer, of Michigan, are all
fair samples of the jack-Mormon. Others, fresh from the green pastures
of the East, are traveling the same road. The jack is a dirty
animal . . . ."
The Salt Lake Tribune, Feb. 17, 1875.
The gentlemen mentioned in the article were "gentiles" on good
terms with the LDS Church.
I always thought a Jack Mormon was a nominal member of the LDS
Church who had outsourced his or her moral compass to hard-partying
secular humanists. But the Tribune's definition from 123 years ago
makes it clear it used to mean something quite different.
Sometime between then and now, "Jack Mormon" was transformed in
popular usage from a non-Mormon who was friendly to Mormons, to a
Mormon who is way too casual with regard to his church's values.
Several people think the term denotes Mormons with a fondness for
Jack Daniel's. Actually, it goes back to early meanings of "Jack."
As early as the 14th century, the poet Geoffrey Chaucer used the
term "Jakke fool." Jack of beanstalk fame was a gullible dimwit who
traded the family cow for half a handful of beans. And, of course,
there are jackasses of animal and human origin.
On the early frontier, "Jack Mormon" couldn't mean anything other
than a dupe with some connection to Joseph Smith's new religion.
The Story of The Latter-day Saints explains, "Because of their
friendliness toward the beleaguered Saints, the helpful citizens of
Clay and other counties were criticized by hostile elements in Jackson
County and dubbed 'Jack Mormons,' a term applied widely in the 19th
century to friendly non-Mormons."
The first use of the term is credited to Thomas C. Sharpe, a
ferocious anti-Mormon from Illinois. Sharpe lobbed verbal bombshells
at nearby Mormon Nauvoo, Ill., from his newspaper, the Warsaw Signal.
In 1846 the following item appeared in his paper:
"A certain Jack-mormon of Hancock county, we won't call him big-
head, (but the Saints used to) is in the habit of shaving the hair off
his forehead, in order to give it an intellectual appearance."-'Warsaw
(Ill.) Signal,' 6 Feb., page 3/1.
Somewhere in the early 20th century, Jack Mormon came to its
current meaning. LDS author Preston Nibley used the term, in its
turned-on-its-head incarnation, in the 1940s. Since then, Jack Mormon
is another term for those straddlers who, in LDS theology, fence-sat
during the War in Heaven.
Jack Mormon is mildly derogatory, and can carry a sense of shame
with it. The lapsed LDS fighter Jack Dempsey reportedly wrote, "I'm
proud to be a Mormon. And ashamed to be the Jack Mormon that I am."
It is also a kind of war wound, proudly worn by many who are still
technically "in" the dominant culture, but not "of" it.
http://www.truthandgrace.com/mormonhistory.htm
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