Terryl Givens took anti-Mormonism seriously in Viper on the Hearth. This is a point so obvious that it seems self-evident now. He viewed anti-Mormonism not just as an expression of underlying economic grievances, political jealousies, or social abnormalities, but argued instead that American Protestants disliked Mormonism for the very reasons they said they did not like them. American Protestants found the Mormon belief in a God that continued to reveal Himself into modern times heretical and the Mormon posture of exclusivity filled with hatred and vitriol. The problem, according to Givens, was that nineteenth-century American Protestants had no simple way to respond to these criticisms. Protestant practice and theology overlapped with many Mormon beliefs, so Christian commentators faced a dilemma. If they criticized Mormonism on these overlapping grounds, they might unintendedly undermine the basis of Christianity itself.
American Protestants resolved this predicament, according to Givens, by portraying Mormonism as...
