Mormon Studies Commons^™

From Housewives To Protesters: The Story Of Mormons For The Equal Rights Amendment, Kelli N. Morrill

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

On November 17, 1980, twenty Mormon women and one man were arrested on criminal trespassing charges after chaining themselves to the Bellevue, Washington LDS Temple gate. The news media extensively covered the event due to the shocking photos of middle-aged housewives, covered in large chains, holding protest signs and being escorted to police cars. These women were part of the group Mormons for the Equal Rights Amendment (MERA) and were protesting the LDS Church’s opposition to the ERA. The LDS Church actively opposed the ERA and played an important role in influencing the vote in key states leading to its …

Using Women’S Voices In Teaching History And Doctrine, Jennifer Reeder

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

In early July 1830, shortly following her baptism, Emma Smith received a revelation through her husband, Joseph Smith, about her position and responsibilities in the new Church of Christ. In the revelation (now known as section 25 of the Doctrine and Covenants), the Lord described Emma as an “elect lady” and charged her to “expound scriptures and exhort the church according as it shall be given thee by my spirit.” The responsibilities were weighty: the 1828 American Webster dictionary defines exhort as “to encourage, to embolden, to cheer, to advise, to excite or to give strength, spirit, or courage.” Likewise, …

Full Issue

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

No abstract provided.

Focus On Faith, Jean B. Bingham

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

Assembled dignitaries, honored guests, ladies and gentlemen: I am honored to be here today to discuss the role of faith-based organizations in relieving suffering and building self-reliance among the peoples of the world—particularly those who are most vulnerable. I am grateful to be in the midst of so many friends who recognize the tremendous good that is achieved when people of faith come together.

End Matter

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

No abstract provided.

Questions In The Book Of Mormon, Holt Zaugg

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

Questions are the catalyst that drives learning, providing a focus on what an individual wants or needs to know. They are the drivers that move knowledge acquisition to realms of greater understanding and wisdom. Karen Brown, a professor at Dominican University, describes questions as the heart of learning and the impetus for building knowledge. Teachers and students use questions to vet information and allow them to develop the ability to see when change is coming and to manage changes when they occur. Questions help people to zone in on important details that help to sharpen and refine their thinking.

The Book Of Mormon In American Missions At The Turn Of The Twentieth Century, John C. Thomas

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

Historians describe the opening decades of the twentieth century as a challenging time of transition for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Manifesto on plural marriage in 1890 and the successful bid for Utah’s statehood in 1896 pointed toward rapprochement with American culture. But in an era of potential assimilation, tensions lingered as Mormons labored to “translate the things America demanded of them into the language and imperatives of their own faith.” Thomas G. Alexander observed that ongoing controversy in the era prompted Church leaders to search for “a new paradigm that would save essential characteristics of …

“Torah In The Mouth”: An Introduction To The Rabbinic Oral Law, Avram R. Shannon

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

One of the primary characteristics of modern Judaism, as it developed from its earliest forms, is the acceptance of what is commonly known as the oral law. Over the thousands of years of Jewish/Christian interaction and discourse, Christians—including Latter-day Saints—have tried to understand the oral law and how it relates to their own beliefs and practices. In the historical relationship between Christianity and Judaism, this has sometimes led to the propagation of anti-Semitic beliefs, even unknowingly. When teaching about Judaism, whether in the context of the New Testament or world religions, it is important for Latter-day Saint teachers and religious …

Abish, Theophanies, And The First Lamanite Restoration, Matthew L. Bowen

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

Abish and her secret conversion to the Lord “on account of a remarkable vision of her father” “many years” before the conversion of Lamoni’s household (Alma 19:16–17) emerge at a crucial moment in the Lamanite conversion narratives (Alma 17–27). In terms of a timeline of events, this “remarkable vision” stands first in a sequence of visions that result in the conversion of numerous Lamanites. Moreover, these visions, and the mass conversions that follow, precipitate seismic events on the landscape of Lamanite-Nephi history as Mormon recounts it. He mentions Abish’s name, gives a brief biography, and references the “remarkable vision of …

Sitting Enthroned: A Scriptural Perspective, Jennifer C. Lane

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

Putting scriptural texts into historical and cultural context has the potential to open up new insights and reveal what may have been hiding in plain sight. By allowing what might seem familiar in a modern perspective to be seen in the new light of a different cultural world, the ancient meaning can become clear.

Principles And Practices For Motivating Youth For Scripture Literacy, Eric D. Rackley, John Hilton Iii

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

Brother Howard enjoys teaching his students, and his students look forward to coming to class because they know they will learn important gospel truths. But there is a problem: students are not reading their scriptures as often or as carefully as they should. After careful consideration, Brother Howard decides to encourage students to complete their daily scripture reading by assigning course grades based, in part, on how often they read, and giving students daily quizzes that ask them to recall information from their reading. Brother Howard also plans a series of rewards if students complete their reading for a set …

Front Matter

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

No abstract provided.

Atonement In The Book Of Mormon And In The New Testament, Noel B. Reynolds

Faculty Publications

New Testament writers consistently and vigorously testify that Jesus Christ has atoned for the sins of all mankind and has provided for their resurrection from the dead. In so doing they point to historical facts, the things he did to accomplish this—to his sufferings in Gethsemane and to his crucifixion and resurrection. Some of these writers also offer explanations or characterizations of that atonement intended to illuminate how it was possible or how it works. The various explanations offered are not identical or even always consistent with each other as they vary somewhat between writers, or sometimes even within the …

Cohabs And Toughs In The Pen: Mormon Polygamists In The Utah Territorial Penitentiary, Rebecca A. Wiederhold

Faculty Publications

Approximately 1,300 Mormon men were convicted and sent to prison for polygamy in the 19^th century, most of them serving time in the Utah Territorial Penitentiary during the late 1880s and early 1890s. Although it was generally understood that by renouncing the practice of polygamy one could avoid a prison term, this was considered by some to be a dishonorable shirking of one’s faith. Mormon polygamist prisoners began to be called “cohabs,” the word being a shortened version of “unlawful cohabitation,” the crime of which the majority of them were convicted. Referred to as “toughs,” non-Mormon prisoners were generally …

Review Of At Sword’S Point, Part 1: A Documentary History Of The Utah War To 1858; At Sword’S Point, Part 2: A Documentary History Of The Utah War, 1858-1859, Edited By William P. Mackinnon., Brent M. Rogers

Mormon Studies Review

In two hefty and wide-ranging volumes that represent the culmination of some sixty years of dedicated and careful labor, William P. MacKinnon delivers the most thorough investigation into the complex history of the Utah War to date. Readers will have to wade through more than eleven hundred pages of documents and editorial commentary— as well as more than fifty pages of bibliographic data—to realize the benefits of MacKinnon’s sleuthing, but anyone who takes the time to carefully sort through the unexpected turns and intrigue of MacKinnon’s presentation will ultimately be rewarded with a deeper

understanding of a significant federal-territorial conflict …

Review Of Mormonism And The Making Of A British Zion, By Matthew Lyman Rasmussen, Douglas J. Davies

Mormon Studies Review

Through eight chapters and four appendixes, Rasmussen develops a book from a previous postgraduate dissertation on the emergence and organization of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Great Britain. As with numerous regional-national histories of Mormonism, Mormonism and the Making of a British Zion includes basic elements of Mormonism’s emergence in the US, but always with a keen

eye on the UK and, more specifically still, on North West England. While Liverpool was the key seaport for early missionaries traveling to the UK, and for the emigration of converts to the US in the last half of …

Review Of Charles Ellis Johnson And The Erotic Mormon Image, By Mary Campbell, Leigh E. Schmidt

Mormon Studies Review

Through the lens of photographer Charles Ellis Johnson (1857– 1926), Mary Campbell captures the subtleties of Mormon visual culture at the turn of the twentieth century as the Latter-day Saints struggled to jettison plural marriage and adapt themselves to the demands of American citizenship. In Johnson’s vast stereographic archive, Campbell has a treasure trove, which she frequently alchemizes into interpretive gold on everything from Victorian tourism to chorus-girl sexuality to Mormon historical memory to women’s rights activism. Hers is a visually sumptuous book, filled with close and often sparkling explications of particular images. At its center is the enigmatic Charles …

The Medium Is The Institution: Reflections On An Ethnography Of Mormonism And Media, Rosemary Avance

Mormon Studies Review

I began studying media in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 2009 as a doctoral student at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication. The field of communication, and more specifically the disciplines of media studies and critical cultural studies, provides important frameworks for a rich understanding of the nuances of religious messaging, including proselytization, ritual, institutional control, identity, and belonging. When I’m asked why I chose Mormonism as the focus of my research, I tend to give an easy answer: Mormonism, more than any other faith, is a media religion. But the truth is more …

Review Of When Race, Religion, And Sport Collide: Black Athletes At Byu And Beyond, By Darron T. Smith, Richard Kimball

Mormon Studies Review

On the cusp of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament in March 2011, Brigham Young University announced the suspension of star center Brandon Davies for violating the school’s honor code. Until that point in the season, the African American Davies had helped the Cougars to a number-three ranking in the national polls and had established himself as an outstanding sophomore center. The suspension became fodder for commentators on every side and spent a short time in the national spotlight. Davies’s reinstatement for the following season prompted

much less discussion and seemed to forestall further dialogue about the handling of the suspension …

Review Of The Bible, Mormon Scripture, And The Rhetoric Of Allusivity, By Nicholas J. Frederick, Cory Crawford

Mormon Studies Review

In this monograph Nicholas Frederick tackles the directional literary relationship between canonical Mormon scripture and the King James Bible with a methodology more secure and transparent than has been applied in the past. He advances substantively the study of Latter-day Saint sacred texts by trying to get an analytical handle on what attentive readers detect easily, namely, that the rhetorical space created and occupied by Joseph Smith’s canonized writings, produced in English, is inseparable from the English of the King James Bible in ways that complicate the question of historicity and translation. For Frederick, detecting and decoding allusion in LDS …