The power and the Glory: Idaho's religious history

Idaho's published religious history looks much like the state itself: bottom-heavy and abundantly Mormon. Historians have concentrated their research on nineteenth- and early twentieth-century religious stories, many of which involve the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS). The amount of research thins considerably for the period between 1920 and 1970, just as the middle of the state does in population. One finds small clusters of studies on particular sociopolitical religious topics between the 1970s and 2000, particularly those related to modern-day culture wars, just as one encounters scattered population centers when reaching Idaho's panhandle. For anyone interested in religious history, therefore, Idaho is still a frontier; it contains vast areas of uncharted terrain, especially with respect to twentieth-century religious ideas but poses as challenge for those attempting to analyze the state's full religious past.