In many ways, Dee Dee Squires is a typical Mormon. She is a native of Charleston, South Carolina and converted to Mormonism shortly after graduating from college in 1975. Her husband, whom she married in 1983, is also a convert, and they have three sons (G. Hill 2005). Dee Dee’s self-created profile on Mormon.org, an official church web site designed for outreach by ordinary Mormons, provides a window into her background and shows that she is a typical Mormon in ways that go beyond marriage and family. First, she is very involved in her local Mormon ward (congregation) as well as her community, having had many “callings” (volunteer jobs that fill pastoral roles). These callings can range from teaching children’s classes to coordinating humanitarian service for congregation members to leading the ward’s program for teenage boys or girls. In describing herself, she writes:

The commitment that Mormons demonstrate, especially within their ward, distinguishes them from their neighbors and helps define the contours of the secular boundary of the “sacred tabernacle” described in Chapter 2, or what we have called the first front of the two-front war.