Armand Mauss

Armand Mauss is the sociologist whose 1994 book The Angel and the Beehive supplies the central interpretive frame in The Next Mormons. Mauss argued that Mormons always exist in a state of tension between a desire to accommodate their host culture and a simultaneous need to stand apart as a peculiar people. The “angel” is the other-worldly, charismatic strain that embraces exclusive truth claims and distinctive theology; the “beehive” is the industrious Mormon culture in its quest to assimilate into American society. In the notes, this assimilation-vs-retrenchment pendulum is treated as the best available sociological theory for where Mormonism now stands — better than O’Dea’s pessimism about secularization or Stark’s buoyant assurances — and it is used to explain how the church could jettison Polygamy (1890), theocracy, and the racial Priesthood/temple ban (1978) while still maintaining a distinctive edge.

Context: Armand L. Mauss (1928–2020) was an American sociologist of religion and a leading scholar of Latter-day Saint studies, best known for The Angel and the Beehive: The Mormon Struggle with Assimilation (1994).

Where this appears

• The Next Mormons — his Angel and the Beehive assimilation-vs-retrenchment thesis is cited as the book’s central sociological frame for interpreting Mormon change.