Are unique Mormon communities like Laie, in Hawaii worth celebrating?
Absolutely.
Mormon communities like Laie on Hawaii’s North shore, which are uniquely indigenous Mormon, have made good homes that have been blessed by the confluence of culture, faith, history, structure, spirituality and solidarity.
But, that’s not the whole story.
This conversation is an invitation to think about the shadow side of the church’s involvement in places like Laie in Hawaii and Temple View in New Zealand.
There’s a pattern in the LDS Church’s involvement, in these places, of blatant litigious disregard for Indigenous rights, Indigenous relationships with the land and water, Indigenous people’s labour and the appropriation of their culture for financial gain.
This is also an invitation to consider how faithful the LDS Church has been to native people’s in the light of advances in United Nations and domestic legislation that have sought to place protections around Indigenous people that the LDS church has neglected to offer.