ABSTRACT
One of the world’s more distressing neologisms, “post-truth,” appears to have held liberal elites and progressives tongue-tied and aghast as once-trusted platforms of liberal ideals—journalism and higher education chief among them—seem neutered in a seismic shift of public opinion away from objectivity and toward emotional and personal belief as the most influential tenets shaping reality. The musical The Book of Mormon makes for a compelling case study of this phenomenon, not least because of the great theological prominence actual Mormons afford to American musical theater. Lauda refers to a sacred vernacular song style popular in Italy in the late medieval period that was especially associated with mendicant, or traveling, preachers. The street singers acknowledge in the end the usefulness, even the necessity, of the Celebrant’s faith by placing his simple message within the intellectual complexity of a canon—his simple song growing from an invitation to join to a statement on belonging.
