As I approach this project, I reflect on my own religious identity. In particular, I reflect on my experience as my sense of religious identity evolved as I shifted from Evangelical Christianity to Christian Universalism. As I made the shift (I resist the term "convert" because Christian Universalism still recognizes, grew out of, and still is a form of Christianity), I felt the pressure from Evangelical Christians and the church through various media to maintain an Evangelical Christian identity as I drifted further from it. These were, as I would describe them, efforts to dictate my religious identity. This led me to consider how a religion might convey a preferred identity to members, especially when the religion seemed to be under threat as my own identity was. To conduct the research in this thesis, I have chosen one specific religion in this thesis: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as the Mormon Church. The choice to study the Mormon religion is personal for me. At the same time my religious identity was shifting, my political identity was as well. The first U.S. election I was able to vote in was the 2012 General Election. Having been raised in a Republican, moderate home, I had not yet formed my own progressive views. As I debated whether I would vote for President Barack Obama or former Massachusetts Governor and Mormon Mitt Romney, I had to confront what Evangelical Christianity always taught me: Mormons were heretics. Confronting what I had always been taught was difficult and deciding that what I had been taught throughout my childhood was wrong was when I first became aware of how intertwined an Evangelical identity was with my own worldview.