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Building Zion: Sacred Space, The United Order, And Mormon Successor Groups, Stephen Cameron

CGU Theses & Dissertations

Building Zion, for Mormonism, is a crucial element in both temporal and spiritual matters. Joseph Smith established the foundation upon which the religion would build decades after his death. Three successor groups, each claiming to be the true inheritor of Smith's prophetic mantle, from Brigham Young and the Utah Pioneers to the early Short Creek fundamentalists and lastly, the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, took on the challenge of creating Zion on earth through the creation of sacred spaces and sacred communities. By using Mircea Eliade and Mary Douglas to frame the discussion, this study will …

Authoring Authority: The Apostle Paul And The Prophet Joseph Smith--A Critical Comparison Of Texts And Power In The Generation Of Religious Community, Alonzo Huntsman

CGU Theses & Dissertations

. . . believe in God, believe also in me . . . --John 14.1

"Authoring Authority" analyzes the ways texts function to generate social cohesion while at the same time advancing the power interests of their authors. The study is a comparative, critical, and interdisciplinary/transdisciplinary excavation of the religion-making efforts of the first-century Christian Apostle Paul and the nineteenth-century Mormon Prophet Joseph Smith.

This comparison defamiliarizes and recharacterizes the heroes and origin-stories of the dominant (and my own) tradition to force important questions about scholarly perspectives, interests and deferences (protection, exceptionalization), self-reflexivity, and politics. The project's critical orientation deploys …