One of them has been the development of discursive strategies used by Mormons to maintain theocratic sovereignty in the face of outside pressure even after the abandonment of open polygamy. These strategies include nontransparency in public relations, cultivation of distinct “insider” and “outsider” narratives of belief and practice, and careful public speech to protect private knowledge. An ethos privileging opacity, institutional loyalty, hierarchy, and guardedness developed in LDS Church institutions (including Deseret Book and Brigham Young University) as Mormons attempted to preserve a
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