Mormon Studies Commons^™

Review: Jared Hess And Tyler Measom, Dirs. Murder Among The Mormons. Bbc Studios, 2021., Hillary Kirkham

Mormon Studies Review

The three-part Netflix miniseries Murder Among the Mormons by directors Jared Hess and Tyler Measom is a story about construction— of forged documents and lethal bombs, but also of memory and meaning. The documentary details the story of Mark Hofmann, the master document forger who murdered two individuals as his web of deceptions unraveled. Despite the title, however, the docuseries is not centered on the murders of Hofmann’s victims Steve Christensen and Kathy Sheets; rather, the nearly three-hour docuseries focuses on Hofmann, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ relationship with its past, and Hofmann’s impact on the religious …

Review: Ronald O. Barney. Joseph Smith: History, Methods, And Memory. Salt Lake City: University Of Utah Press, 2020. & Michael Hubbard Mackay. Prophetic Authority: Democratic Hierarchy And The Mormon Priesthood. Urbana: University Of Illinois Press, 2020., John G. Turner

Mormon Studies Review

“By what authority doest thou these things?” Jerusalem’s religious leaders ask Jesus. “And who gave thee this authority to do these things?” What are this man’s credentials? Who has authorized him to teach and preach, heal on the Sabbath, cast out money-changers from the temple, curse fig trees, and forgive sins? Jesus answers their question with a question of his own. “The baptism of John,” he asks, “was it from heaven, or of men?” They are afraid to answer, because the masses believe that John—another uncredentialed, rustic man—was a prophet. So they tell him they do not know. “Neither do …

Review: Elizabeth Fenton. Old Canaan In A New World: Native Americans And The Lost Tribes Of Israel. New York: New York University Press, 2020., Matthew W. Dougherty

Mormon Studies Review

This study tracks the emergence and transformation in Anglophone America of the “Hebraic Indian theory”—that is, the idea that Indigenous people are descended from Israelites, most often members of the so-called Lost Tribes of Israel. In such theories, the European “discovery” of Indigenous peoples was an event of apocalyptic significance because the reemergence of the Lost Tribes was assumed to herald a new age of the world. Fenton approaches the material from the study of early American literature and brings perceptive and wide-ranging analyses to a variety of texts. She examines not only religious narratives— including the Book of Mormon—but …

Review: John Sillito. B. H. Roberts: A Life In The Public Arena. Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2021. & Val Holley. Frank J. Cannon: Saint, Senator, Scoundrel. Salt Lake City: University Of Utah Press, 2020., Dave Hall

Mormon Studies Review

Forty years ago, I picked up a copy of Truman Madsen’s biography of B. H. Roberts, Defender of the Faith. About the same time, I also checked out of a college library Frank Cannon’s Under the Prophet in Utah. Even with my knowledge of Mormon history in its infancy, it was clear that these were very different men. Now two recent biographies have reaffirmed that point. In B. H. Roberts: A Life in the Public Arena, John Sillito does not attempt to provide a comprehensive treatment of Roberts: his focus is not on Roberts’s contributions to Mormon …

Review: Michael Austin. Vardis Fisher: A Mormon Novelist. Introductions To Mormon Thought. Urbana: University Of Illinois Press, 2021., Rachel Hunt Steenblik

Mormon Studies Review

Michael Austin’s book Vardis Fisher: A Mormon Novelist is a remarkably well-written, engaging, and informative read. It starts with a dedication to Eugene England, a founding figure in Mormon letters “who got here first,” and a foreword to the Introductions to Mormon Thought Series by the editors, Matthew Bowman and Joseph Spencer. These are followed by four brief chapters and a very useful bibliographic essay.

Review: Samuel Morris Brown. Joseph Smith’S Translation: The Words And Worlds Of Early Mormonism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020., Douglas J. Davies

Mormon Studies Review

Why do we write books? Why did Joseph Smith write his, and why does Samuel Brown write on Smith writing his? I suppose this regressive query may sound mildly absurd coming from one academic to others, largely alert to career, pride, obligation and, optimistically, to the love of shared knowing. Perhaps I have written too many myself, read far more and—just now—for whatever reason, find this rhetorical question springing to mind. By contrast, it is usually easy to answer the question of how someone has written their book, ascertain its genre, and comment on its single disciplinary driver or, as …

Free Agency, Hard Work, And The Justification Of Economic Inequality In The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints, Allison M. Kelley

Mormon Studies Review

How did we go from Joseph Smith saying “it is not given that one man should possess that which is above another” (D&C 49:02) to a multimillionaire openly expressing his indifference toward Americans who make less than fifty thousand dollars a year?3 I propose that two interrelated developments helped Saints normalize and justify economic inequality. First, beginning in the mid-twentieth century, church leaders used the theological term “free agency” to criticize economic interventionism and tax-funded antipoverty programs. Instead, they argued that the only way to preserve Americans’ free agency was to ameliorate poverty through voluntary acts of charity. While these …

Front Matter

BYU Studies

No abstract provided.

It Takes Two, Jenet Jacob Erickson

BYU Studies

In 2006, Canadian fathering scholar Andrea Doucet shared an illuminating moment from her extensive research with single dads. After a long evening discussing these fathers’ experiences, Doucet asked, “In an ideal world, what resources or supports would you like to see for single fathers?” She expected to hear that they wanted greater social support and societal acceptance, more programs and policies directed at single dads. Instead, after a period of awkward silence, one dad stood and said, “An ideal world would be one with a father and a mother. We’d be lying if we pretended that wasn’t true.” Nods of …

Charity As An Exegetical Principle In The Book Of Mormon, Matthew Scott Stenson

BYU Studies

The eclectic Book of Mormon effectively collapses intellectual and sacred history. Anachronisms have drawn and do currently draw the attention of some Book of Mormon students and researchers. Nicholas J. Frederick, for instance, has written extensively on the presence of New Testament language in the largely pre–Christian Era record. Not all anachronisms are so extensive and involved as those Frederick traces. Some are minor and comparatively unimportant. However, there is a significant and pervasive conceptual anachronism that deserves critical attention. I speak of the primary narrators of the Book of Mormon using faith, hope, and charity (or love) as textual …

Fired From Carpool, Cristie Cowles Charles

BYU Studies

"I don’t think this is working out.” “What do you mean? What part isn’t working out?” “I just feel like we have different styles. I mean, I miss my kids so much while they’re at school that I want to see them as soon as possible afterward. And you seem to have . . . different priorities.” My neighbor Julie’s blown-out blonde hair shakes at that last word, and she shifts in her doorway.

Perspectives On Latter-Day Saint Names And Naming: Names, Identity, And Belief, Edited By Dallin D. Oaks, Paul Baltes, And Kent Minson, Matthew B. Christensen

BYU Studies

Perspectives on Latter-day Saint Names and Naming: Names, Identity, and Belief, edited by Dallin D. Oaks, Paul Baites, and Kent Minson, is an exploration of the significance and practices surrounding names within the context of the faith and culture of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Wild Fruit, Victoria Web Rutherford

BYU Studies

Unlike when my parents euphemistically said they purchased me on sale at Kmart, my husband and I actually did get our children from a McDonald’s PlayPlace, where they showed distinctive signs of having been formed from McNugget-clay paste, salt, and ketchup. The older boy, a five-year-old dynamo, was high powered, fast talking, and quick, but he wasn’t childlike. He was a T-Rex, or so he rasped over and over from his perch on the play structure before shaking the tenuous plastic or bounding on top of the tube slide and jolting the riders inside. Brother, an observant two-year-old, was almost …

Full Issue

BYU Studies

No abstract provided.

The Stewardship Of Our First Freedom, Elder Clark G. Gilbert

BYU Studies

When Elder Quentin L. Cook of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints spoke at the University of Oxford’s Pembroke College about the impact of religious freedom on public morality, he charged people of faith to be effective stewards of religious freedom. Elder Cook stated, “There is no better demonstration of the great benefits associated with religious liberty than for devoted members of various faiths who feel accountable to God to model principles of integrity, morality, service, and love.” In this sense, our religious freedom stewardship extends not only to society but …

On Gospel Methodology At Brigham Young University, Richard D, Osguthorpe, Justin Collings

BYU Studies

In recent years, both university and Church leaders have placed renewed and welcome emphasis on President Spencer W. Kimball’s “Second Century Address,” one of the central texts in the BYU canon. Of the many stirring ideas in that landmark address, one of the most evocative is President Kimball’s declaration that “gospel methodology, concepts, and insights can help us to do what the world cannot do in its own frame of reference.” Current BYU leaders have reflected on the concept of “gospel methodology,” and at the August 2022 university conference, Academic Vice President C. Shane Reese invited BYU faculty to explore …

The Psalm Of Nephi In An Age Of Anxiety And Division, Patrick Q. Mason

BYU Studies

It is probably fair to say that readers over the years have responded more positively to the Book of Mormon’s religious teachings and spiritual power than to its purely literary merits. When Parley P. Pratt famously wrote that “sleep was a burden when the night came, for [he] preferred reading to sleep,” it was not because of the Book of Mormon’s page-turning plot. Rather, Pratt testified, “As I read, the spirit of the Lord was upon me, and I knew and comprehended that the book was true.” On the other hand, those uninspired by what they discovered in the book’s …

Richard Bushman’S Byu Years: The Beginnings Of An Influential Career, J. B. Haws

BYU Studies

The case can be made—and has been made—that Richard Lyman Bushman has been as influential as anyone in his generation in shaping the way that Latter-day Saints think about, write about, and talk about our shared history. His seminal books on Joseph Smith, his essays on historical philosophy, his two decades of mentoring graduate students every summer—all of these have had a real and discernible impact on Church publications and paradigms.

One Day’S Return, Long Past Childhood, Dixie L. Partridge

BYU Studies

You walk out beyond pasture

to see where it will take you. Dawn

blossoms from the hilltops. No breeze.

You come to still drowsing fields, a rock slope

with buttercups congregating.

Knit Together, Liz Busby

BYU Studies

The unusual thing about knit fabric is that it’s one continuous strand. Woven fabric consists of a warp and weft where individual strands arranged in a grid weave in and out, touching but ultimately separate. The knit fabric on everything from an ugly Christmas sweater to your favorite soft t-shirt looks like it’s made of hundreds of little “v” shapes, but it’s not. It loops in and through itself over and over and over, but it’s all connected. One long piece of yarn.

When Paul wrote to the Colossians that we should have our hearts knit together in love, did …