Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Byu–Idaho Pathway: A Gateway To Global Church Education, Benjamin C. Peterson

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

With the announcement of BYU–Pathway Worldwide on 7 February 2 017, President Dieter F. Uchtdorf identified the occasion as a “very special day for the Church Educational System (CES), and a day of hope and joy for many of our young people worldwide who are seeking to educate themselves and to prepare for successful livelihood.” This new higher education online organization continues to revolutionize the way in which the Church provides opportunities of higher education to an increasing number of individuals around the world. At the heart of BYU–Pathway Worldwide is the BYU–Idaho Pathway program that has for the last …

Stopping The Stigma: Lessons From Early Returned Missionaries, Kristine J. Doty-Yells

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

In 2002, my world changed when my oldest son returned home from his mission after only a few months. I was stunned and bewildered, and I had no idea what I should do. This is not something I knew how to prepare for. The idea of an early return never occurred to me. My son seemed to do just fine in his adjustment; I was the one who struggled with grief and loss. I mourned the spiritual experiences he would not have and the growth he would not gain. What made it worse was that I knew only one other …

Helping Female Students Rise To Their Spiritual Privileges, Barbara Morgan Gardner

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

Recently, I asked my class of fifty Doctrine and Covenants students if they felt confident with their knowledge of the doctrines, principles, and practices associated with the priesthood. Apparently all did! I was so happy at that moment thinking that we would save several hours of class time on the topic. In the silence of my office following class, however, I began to wonder how it was that they knew everything about the priesthood when I myself, and even Church leaders, were struggling to understand and explain some of the fundamentals. During the next class, therefore, I had them answer …

Review Of Council Of Fifty, Minutes, March 1844–1846, Benjamin E. Park

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

The Council of Fifty, a clandestine organization founded by Joseph Smith in the final months of his life, has remained one of the most controversial episodes in LDS history. Created during Smith’s 1844 presidential run and while internal and external tensions in Nauvoo were reaching a boiling point, the council embodied both the Church’s growing anxiety and its desperate attempts to find some path to resolution. And because the written records of the council have been restricted from scholars since their origin, the many historians who have tried to reconstruct these meetings were forced to do the equivalent of seeing …

Review Of Mormons In The Piazza: History Of The Latter-Day Saints In Italy, Richard N. Holzapfel

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

Mormons in the Piazza: History of the Latter-day Saints in Italy is a tour de force and has immediately become a model for future histories written about Latter-day Saints living, working, serving, and struggling to find a place in nations outside the United States.

“The Calamity That Should Come”, Richard E. Bennett

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

Speaking at Brigham Young University in 1981, Ezra Taft Benson, then President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, remarked as follows:

I realize this is an unpleasant topic on which to dwell. I take no delight in its portrayal, nor do I look forward to the day when calamities shall come with increasing number upon humanity. But these words are not my own; the Lord has spoken them. Knowing what we know as his servants, can we hesitate to raise a warning voice to all who will listen that they may be prepared for the days ahead? Silence in …

End Matter

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

No abstract provided.

Insights From The Ces Commissioner, Kim B. Clark, Barbara Morgan Gardner

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

This article is a four-part compilation of interviews with Commissioner of the Church Educational System, Elder Kim B. Clark, that Barbara Morgan Gardner performed from September 2015 to May 2017. In September of 2015, Elder Clark was just beginning his tenure as Commissioner of the Church Educational System. Therefore, the first interview focuses on his calling, experience, and expectations. In the second interview, held in August of 2016, nearly a year later, Elder Clark reflects on his first full year of service, new experiences, innovations, and student struggles. The third interview, conducted in February of 2017, was performed a couple …

Full Issue

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

No abstract provided.

“ America Reads” And The Book Of Mormon, D. Todd Christofferson

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

Between 1828 and 1831, the American Bible Society launched an aggressive campaign to put a copy of the Old and New Testament in every American home. During those three years, over 500,000 copies of “the Good Book” were printed and distributed across the country, illustrating just how much Protestant Americans considered themselves to be a God-fearing and Bible-believing people. At the same time of the American Bible Society’s ambitious initiative, a young man named Joseph Smith from upstate New York was translating and printing an additional sacred book of scripture, eventually published as the Book of Mormon.

How “Come Unto Me” Fits Into The Nephite Gospel, Noel B. Reynolds

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

Over the last several decades, Latter-day Saints have learned to rely primarily on the Book of Mormon for basic and extended explanations of the gospel of Jesus Christ. While several of its authoritative passages provide comprehensive definitions of the gospel, these are not matched with comparable passages in the New Testament or in the revelations received by Joseph Smith. In this article I will extend previous work with an analysis of six brief passages in which Mormon and Moroni record short statements of the gospel by Jesus Christ—all of which employ exactly the same distinctive rhetorical pattern and terminology. But …

Front Matter

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

No abstract provided.

Shifting Views On The Male-Female Relationship: Same-Sex Marriage And Other Social Consequences, W. Justin Dyer

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

The past two decades in the United States have seen the near-universal definition of marriage (between a man and woman) shift dramatically from majority acceptance to majority rejection. In 1996, 65 percent of Americans favored marriage as only between a man and a woman, but by 2015, the year the US Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage, only 39 percent favored maintaining marriage as between a man and a woman.

Joseph Smith And The Recovery Of “Eternal Man”, Robert L. Millet

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

Truman Madsen has been a hero of mine for many years, stretching back half a century to when I was serving in the Eastern States Mission. Several of his talks to the New England missionaries and members made their way into our mission. Truman had a way of blending seamlessly his academic training in philosophy and religion and his spiritual knowledge and conviction. He paid a significant price to learn by study and also by faith (D&C 88:118), and it was that concentrated and consecrated effort that allowed him, like his Master, to teach as one having authority (Matthew 7:29; …

The Authority Of Example: Emulation As The Path To Theosis, Matthew Scott Stenson

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

Since at least Plato and the patristic fathers, those interested in the things of God have expounded the doctrine of deification, or theosis. Although doctrines differ widely, each system admits to one degree or another what Wynand Vladimir de Beer has recently called “divine-human co-operation (synergeia).” For Plato, the back-and-forth of Socratic dialectic was a way for the rational part of man to ascend to God, or the Good. Augustine couched his anthropology of the soul’s ascent in biblical terms. In his view, founded on Proverbs 1:7, one unites (or reunites) with God by means of …

Developing Teenage Testimonies: Programs And Pedagogy With Spiritual Impact, John Hilton Iii, Anthony Sweat

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

One of the key objectives of religious educators is to facilitate spiritual growth that leads to the making and keeping of covenants. This purpose is stated in various ways by different organizations of the Church. For example, “the purpose of the Young Women organization is to help each young woman be worthy to make and keep sacred covenants and receive the ordinances of the temple.” The objective statement of Seminaries and Institutes (S&I) states in part, “Our purpose is to help youth and young adults understand and rely on the teachings and Atonement of Jesus Christ, qualify for the blessings …

Praying A Mission Into Existence: Frantiska “Mamousek” Vesela Brodilova, Mary Jane Woodger, Tyler Smith, Kiersten Robertson

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

After hearing about the death of Frantiska “Mamousek” Brodilova, President John A. Widtsoe of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles said, “Sister Brodil was a really marvelous woman. Her story must be preserved in Church history.” This paper preserves the memory of a woman whose faith and devotion to the truth and whose love for the Lord opened the door for an entire nation to receive the gospel of Jesus Christ. She was “a woman who prayed a mission into existence.”

Nonjudgmentalism Strikes Back: Moral Relativism And Conviction, Daniel H. Frost

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

In his 2011 book Lost in Transition, sociologist Christian Smith investigates the way “emerging adults” make sense of moral choices. Smith’s findings are not encouraging: many emerging adults are unable to engage questions about moral problems or dilemmas in a meaningful way and sometimes seem unaware that they ever confront such dilemmas. Six out of ten emerging adults in the study believed that “morality is a personal choice, entirely a matter of individual decision.” When asked to identify a moral dilemma they had faced in recent years, 66 percent of emerging adults in this study either could not think of …

Review Of Joseph Smith’S Seer Stones, Joseph M. Spencer

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

In 1961, Hugh Nibley published The Myth Makers, a creative analysis of Joseph Smith’s critics that exhibits what then-Elder Gordon B. Hinckley called a “Puckish delight” in satirizing those among the Prophet’s contemporaries who had unkind things to say about him. In the book, Nibley imagines a deposition, held preparatory to “the case of the World versus Joseph Smith.” The chairman of the deposition questions the critical witnesses in a sardonic critique of the reliability of the sources. In one scene, the chairman asks to “hear about the peepstone,” and he gets an earful. The witnesses clamor for attention, vying …

Discussing Difficult Topics: The Mountain Meadows Massacre, Patrick Q. Mason, Thomas A. Wayment

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

Wayment: Lead us up to Mountain Meadows, maybe not focusing as much on the event itself but on the forces that lead up to that. What was happening?

Mason: The Mountain Meadows Massacre was the tragic culmination of several different historical forces in early Mormonism. I do not think you can dissociate what happened at Mountain Meadows from the experience of the Saints earlier, before they got to Utah. You have to understand it in the context of what happened to them, especially in Missouri and in Illinois. I teach courses on religion, violence, and peacebuilding, and we …

Review Of An Experiment On The Word, Nicholas J. Frederick

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

In this remarkable little volume, a small group of Mormon scholars who form what they call the “Mormon Theology Seminar” perform an experiment on the Book of Mormon. They ask two questions: First, what would happen if the Book of Mormon were read theologically, instead of historically or doctrinally? Second, what would happen if this theological reading were done in a collaborative setting? Fittingly, they selected Alma 32 as the text to be experimented on, with the six essays in this small work (about 100 pages) as the result. The contributors, drawing upon backgrounds in philosophy, literature, biblical studies, and …

End Matter

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

No abstract provided.

“I Am The Bread Of Life”, Gerrit W. Gong

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

Dear brothers and sisters, it is a special privilege to gather this evening. Thank you to so many of you for your kind messages of love and encouragement. This evening, as we talk of Christ, rejoice in Christ,1 learn of Christ, I pray we may reverently draw closer to Him.

Full Issue

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

No abstract provided.

All Kindreds Shall Be Blessed: Nephite, Jewish, And Christian Interpretations Of The Abrahamic Covenant, Noel B. Reynolds

Faculty Publications

A review of current and traditional scholarship regarding the covenant God made with Abraham combined with a thorough review of Book of Mormon references shows that the Nephite understanding varies in important ways from traditional Christian and Jewish interpretations. However, some of the insights of contemporary scholarship are more compatible with the Book of Mormon perspective.

Beyond The Exodus: Nauvoo After 1849, Rebecca A. Wiederhold, Dainan Skeem

Faculty Publications

Nauvoo, the City Beautiful, was named by Joseph Smith in 1839 when the Mormons began settling the area. After seven short years, the Saints had built a city to rival Chicago at the time. In 1844, Joseph was martyred and in 1847 the Mormons fled the city, changing the makeup of the town’s population and the direction of its growth. Emma Smith eventually returned with the remainder of her family and was beloved of the neighborhood children. Many other families not associated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints continued to farm the land and raise families. As …

Speaking Of Gender, Generally: Analysis Of Gendered References And Speaking Opportunities In Lds General Conferences, Devon Tenney

FHSS Mentored Research Conference

This study seeks to examine the changing role of women in LDS General Conferences. Through text analysis and an exploration of speaking opportunities at General Conference, we find that women have been discussed more frequently and provided more opportunities to speak over time.

The Ancient Doctrine Of The Two Ways And The Book Of Mormon, Noel B. Reynolds

Faculty Publications

Scholars have long recognized that a number of ancient cultures shared a traditional doctrine of the Two Ways that could be used to instruct youth and others in the right way to live their lives. While the language of the Two Ways surfaces on occasion in both the Old and New Testaments, the doctrine is not developed or explained in any detail in the Bible. However, noncanonical texts of the Greco-Roman period display a highly developed and stylized form of the doctrine in both Jewish and Christian traditions. The earliest known version of these stylized forms of the doctrine occurs …

Depression, Religiosity, And Parenting Styles Among Mormon Adolescents, Courtney Kinneard, Mark Ogletree

FHSS Mentored Research Conference

We examined how religiosity and the parent-child relationship are associated with depression in 12-14 yr old teenagers of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint. A random sample of 493 revealed three correlations: girls who have a strong connection with their mother have a negative correlation with depression; daily spiritual experiences are negatively correlated with depression, and negative religious coping is positively correlated with depression symptoms.

The Word Made Flesh: Teaching The Gospel Concretely, Stephan Taeger

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

When compared to other Christian denominations, the restored gospel emphasizes the role of the body in unique ways. For Latter-day Saints, obtaining a body is not just a footnote in the plan of salvation; it is central to the very purpose of life. Joseph Smith taught, “We came to this earth that we might have a body and present it pure before God in the celestial kingdom. The great principle of happiness consists in having a body.”