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Evolution Of The Research On Mormonism In Asia, Pierre Vendassi

Mormon Studies Review

The first Mormon attempts to put down roots in Asia date back to 1851. Today the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as well as other Mormon denominations such as the Community of Christ are officially present in about twenty Asian countries. While many student dissertations and essays as well as testimonial or devotional books have been written on different aspects of Mormonism in Asia, including both the Latter-day Saints and Community of Christ traditions, the allotted space for this paper as well as my own resources prevented me from providing an exhaustive survey. Instead, I chose a few …

Faith Across Cultures: Research On Mormonism In Oceania, Ian Barber

Mormon Studies Review

Oceania describes the largely marine Pacific basin divided (on moot ethnographic grounds) between Polynesia in the east and Melanesia and Micronesia to the southwest and northwest respectively. The continent of Australia lies on Oceania’s southwestern border. T he first Oceanic settlers arrived in the western Pacific tens of thousands of years ago from Asia. Human settlement of the increasingly depauperate and largely noncontinental islands in eastern Melanesia to Polynesia and Micronesia was accomplished within the last five thousand years. The remote Eastern Polynesian islands were colonized largely if not entirely within the last millennium. These vastly different time scales of …

Review: Brent M. Rogers. Unpopular Sovereignty: Mormons And The Federal Management Of Early Utah Territory. Lincoln: University Of Nebraska Press, 2017., William Deverell

Mormon Studies Review

Unpopular Sovereignty: Mormons and the Federal Management of Early Utah Territory accomplishes a number of impressive feats. In the hands of a less-skilled scholar, these objectives might clash and unduly complicate a book and its narrative. Not so in historian Brent M. Rogers’s fine study of antebellum tensions regarding the Mormon political and cultural experiment in the Great Basin.

Review: Matthew J. Grow And R. Eric Smith, Eds. The Council Of Fifty: What The Records Reveal About Mormon History. Provo, Ut: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City, Ut: Deseret Book, 2017., Janiece Johnson

Mormon Studies Review

Since the late 1960s, the minutes of the Mormon Council of Fifty in Nauvoo have been the Mormon documentary “holy grail” (p. viii). What Mario DePillis called “one of the most secret of the Mormons’ sub rosa organizations” and Klaus J. Hansen labelled the “most important key to an understanding of the Mormon past” was a topic for speculation over decades.1 Lack of prior availability did not inhibit prior commentary, but also spurred on attentive archival work. Code words veiling theocratic claims topped with rumors of a self-appointed king could only be met with great suspicion in a democratic republic. …

Is Diversity Possible In An Integrative Psychology-Transpersonal As A Whole Person-All Person Approach, Glenn Hartelius

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

N/A

2019 Graduate Theological Studies Journal And Newsletter

Graduate Theological Studies Journal and Newsletter

Graduate Theological Studies is published by the Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, CA.

Exploring The Lived Religious Experiences Of Gay And Lesbian Ordained Clergy In The United Methodist Church, Tracy Allen Temple

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The United Methodist Church (UMC) as an institution has strict language against lesbian and gay people and against the ordination of the lesbian and gay people. Prior research has focused on how denominations and congregations discuss issues around sexuality, how attitudes have shifted around issues of sexuality, and how to provide spiritual care for the LGBTQ+ community. This qualitative study interviewed lesbian and gay ordained elders in the UMC to learn about their experiences of serving as clergy people in the UMC even though there are prohibitive statements in church documents. Firstly, the interviews revealed that the participants feel loved …

Neither Fairyland Nor Dystopia: Taking Western Europe Seriously In Mormon Studies, Julie K. Allen

Mormon Studies Review

Although Mormonism is intimately associated, externally and internally, with American history and culture, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has older ties to western Europe than to anywhere else outside the United States and Polynesia. Without the influx of approximately eighty thousand convert-immigrants from the UK and continental Europe in the mid-nineteenth century, the fledgling church would not have been able to successfully colonize the intermountain West. Although church membership levels in Europe have remained low in the twentieth- and twenty-first centuries, a robust network of Latter-day Saint congregations across the European continent and the British Isles supports …

Faith-Promoting History/ History-Promoting Faith, Martin E. Marty

Mormon Studies Review

An excerpt from a long poem by W. H. Auden comes to mind as a framework for assessing these two publications featuring Mormon historian Leonard J. Arrington. He was poised—we might say surefooted—in his Mormon faith and by commitments to the church. At the same time, Arrington consistently made clear that his calling was to be a scholar who excelled in the writing of history in modes acceptable among university-based researchers and writers of many faiths, or of non-faith. There was never any doubt that he pursued his vocation imaginatively and steadfastly through the decades. While these books give evidence …

Prospering In The Land: A Comparison Of Covenant Promises In Leviticus And First Nephi 2, Kerry Muhlestein

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship

A careful examination of the Abrahamic covenant, as contained in Leviticus 26, and the covenant established with the Lehites during their exodus to the New World, found in 1 Nephi 2, shows deliberate similarities. These similarities are important to understand, as the role of covenant is central in both ancient Israelite practice and current Latter-day Saint theology.

Recent Reflections While Partaking Of The Sacrament, Daniel C. Peterson

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship

Sometimes, obedience to the principles of the Gospel and tending faithfully to our stewardships can seem — and can be — a burden. Moreover, we mortal humans are fallible and weak, and we’re free. Accordingly, I’m convinced that the Father (a supremely masterful strategist and tactician) builds in redundancies so as to ensure that his purposes will be achieved even when his mortal servants falter. At the very heart of his plan, though, there could be no redundancy. Only one person could do what absolutely, desperately, needed to be done.

The Stromata Vol. 61, No. 1, Calvin Theological Seminary

Stromata (1956-2020)

Inside This Issue

5- Finding Hope while Struggling by Isaias D’Oleo-Ochoa

7- Liturgical Theology in the Psalter by Andrew J. Belcher

22- Plantinga’s Ontological Argument of God by Jung-Yao Wang

43- Worshipping with Our Children by Sewon Jang

Heroes In The Midst Of Gods: A Narratological Study Of Heroes And The Divine In Mesopotamian, Greco-Roman, And Abrahamic Otherworldly Journeys, Zachary James Dey

MA in Religion Theses

The project at hand uncovers two dominant morals of Western otherworldly journeys: herocentrism and theocentrism. The former moral stresses the heroism of the protagonist; the latter stresses God’s presence and power in the universe. Although otherworldly journeys from various traditions present certain similarities, the underlying morals provide profound differences that warrant consideration. Joseph Campbell’s “monomyth” and this thesis’ proposed Otherworldly Paradigm bring to light these underlying morals. This thesis demonstrates that Mesopotamian and Greco-Roman otherworldly journeys present a hero-centered moral, as shown through the monomyth, and the Abrahamic traditions present a Divine-centered moral, as shown through the proposed storyline.

Europe With(Out) A Heart And A Soul?, András Máté-Tóth

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

"You don't know what kind of spirit you are," Jesus said to his disciples, James and John, as they wanted to condemn a Samaritan village because it didn’t want to receive him (Luke 9:55). I would like to start my article by transforming Jesus' statement and by using it for Europe: “Europe – Jesus could say today – You don't know of what kind of spirit you are.” But Europe has many answers to Jesus' statement. Europe is not without a soul, it was never an empty body and it is not one today

“Stepsons And Stepdaughters”: Chosen Communities, Religion, Faith, And Lgbt Liberation, John Michael Erickson

CGU Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation explores the new roles the LGBT movement took on in place of religious and faith-based communities. The new discourse behind the LGBT rights movement’s recent popularity and credibility in popular culture in the U.S. created a generation of activists who grew up both within and outside of religious communities that affirmed an individual’s sexuality as an important part of their identity rather than a sinful one. While newer generations of both closeted and open LGBT individuals and religiously affiliated men and women grew up knowing about the fight for and against gay marriage, equal rights, and fair and …

Review: Marjorie J. Spruill. Divided We Stand: The Battle Over Women’S Rights And Family Values That Polarized American Politics. New York: Bloomsbury, 2017., Colleen Mcdannell

Mormon Studies Review

With polarization in American politics possibly at an all-time high, historians frantically search the past for the origins of our current malady. When did we become so alienated as a people, and why is it that we seemingly cannot understand each other’s behaviors? Marjorie J. Spruill provides another reflection on how we came to be what we are in Divided We Stand: The Battle Over Women’s Rights and Family Values that Polarized American Politics. Spruill sees gender as the theoretical place where we need to begin our exploration and the 1970s as the defining years. Passing up the easy targets …

Participatory Research Methods In Transpersonal Studies: Introduction To The Special Topic Section, Olga R. Sohmer

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

N/A

The Book Of Mormon: Another Testament Of Jesus Christ, Maxwell Institute Study Edition, Roger Terry

BYU Studies

The Maxwell Institute’s study edition of the Book of Mormon is both an update and an expansion of Grant Hardy’s The Book of Mormon: A Reader’s Edition, published in 2003 by the University of Illinois Press. Among the many differences between the two volumes, I find two most significant. First, the base text for the Maxwell Institute edition is the 2013 version of the Book of Mormon, used currently by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. A Reader’s Edition used the 1920 version because it was the most recent edition available in the public domain. The Church …

Kalaupapa: The Mormon Experience In An Exiled Community By Fred E. Woods (Provo, Utah: Religious Studies Center,, Emily Cook

BYU Studies

As Hansen’s Disease (also known as leprosy) spread rapidly throughout Hawaii in the nineteenth century, the Kalaupapa peninsula was selected as an “isolation settlement for confirmed cases” of leprosy and the location of “a receiving hospital where suspected cases could be treated” (20–21). These individuals were essentially exiled, and one might think that such an isolated community would be a place of loneliness, but Kalaupapa: The Mormon Experience in an Exiled Community explores how, instead, the community was built on love and inclusion and began to thrive and became a sacred space. According to author Fred E. Woods, professor of …

Human Rights And Religion In Central And Eastern Europe, András Máté-Tóth, Kitti Sándor

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

In this article we try to delineate the mutual relationship between human rights and religion in the cultural region of Central and Eastern Europe (hereafter CEE).1 We will do it by using the theoretical framework "wounded collective identity" elaborated in recent years by András Máté-Tóth.

Constructing A Theology Of Relational Life Through The Themes Of Creation, Incarnation, And Re-Creation As An Alternative To Current Categories Of Religions, Andrew Tompkins

Dissertations

This dissertation argues that current categories of religions are overly reliant on Western Enlightenment-based presuppositions and academic thinking that creates barriers in understanding God’s desire for all people to have abundant life. Many theologians and missiologists utilize these inherited categories without first subjecting them to the biblical canon. As a result, the theological and missiological discourse on religions is often grounded in extra-biblical presuppositions rooted primarily in an overly high view of human reason that do not accurately portray a biblical approach to relational life. These presuppositions do not accurately portray a biblical approach to relational life. I, therefore, compared …

Practical Theology In The United States, Brett C. Hoover

Theological Studies Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

One Hundred Years Of The Art And Architecture Of The Laie Temple

Mormon Pacific Historical Society

PowerPoint slide notes from a presentation by Sharon R. Gray, November 16, 2019, for the Mormon Pacific Historical Society (MPHS) Conference celebrating the Centennial of the Dedication of the Laie Hawai’i Temple.

Slide 1. Title Page 100 Years of the Art and Architecture of the Laie Hawai’i Temple. Image of the Laie Temple watercolor drawing by Paul L. Anderson.

Review: David T. Smith. Religious Persecution And Political Order In The United States. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015)., Charles Mccrary

Mormon Studies Review

In this careful comparative study, David T. Smith develops a useful framework for analyzing US state actors’ reactions to and participation in religious persecution. To set up the problem, Smith identifies three interlocking puzzles: (1) the United States has always valued religious tolerance and has had legal frameworks preventing persecution; and (2) these protections have worked, in large part; but (3) when state agents have persecuted religious groups or encouraged or at least allowed for their persecution, it has been against those we might not expect, namely Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses. Derived from these puzzles are two basic questions that …

We’Ll Sing And We’Ll Shout: The Life And Times Of W. W. Phelps By Bruce A. Van Orden, Donald Q. Cannon

BYU Studies

Latter-day Saints who know of William W. Phelps tend to associate him with the hymns that he wrote. In fact, the words in the title of Bruce A. Van Orden’s biography, “We’ll Sing and We’ll Shout,” are taken from one of his most famous hymns, “The Spirit of God.” As influential as his hymns have been to Latter-day Saints then and now, Phelps contributed much more than that in his efforts to build the Church. Van Orden’s book is a detailed biography of this interesting and influential writer and Church leader. The book provides insight into both his ecclesiastical contributions …

Seeing Psalms As The Libretti Of A Holy Drama, Janet Ewell

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship

Psalms was the favorite Old Testament book at Qumran and in the New Testament; the Book of Mormon contains more than three dozen allusions to Psalms. While Psalms contains both powerful, poetic words of comfort and doctrinal gems, many psalms also seem to careen between praise, warning, comfort, military braggadocio, and humility, sometimes addressing the Lord, sometimes speaking in the voice of the Lord or his prophets. The texts that most strongly exhibit such abrupt shifts may yield greater meaning if they are read as scripts or libretti of a sacred, temple- based drama.

Review: Rachel Cope, Amy Easton-Flake, Keith Erekson, And Lisa Olsen Tait, Eds. Mormon Women’S History: Beyond Biography. Madison, Nj: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2017., Laurie F. Maffly-Kipp

Mormon Studies Review

“Women shaped Mormonism from its outset.” Simple, isn’t it? With all that scholars now know about the distinctive emphasis on family and childbearing in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint tradition, it seems obvious that women have played a crucial role in the development of Mormon history and community life. Yet, as the framing essays in Mormon Women’s History: Beyond Biography so amply demonstrate, the broader narrative histories of the tradition remain willfully fixed on its patriarchal organizational structure and male leadership. Despite an abundance of work in social and cultural history beginning in the 1970s, women’s roles …

Review: Max Perry Mueller. Race And The Making Of The Mormon People. Chapel Hill: University Of North Carolina Press, 2017., Brandi Denison

Mormon Studies Review

Max Perry Mueller’s Race and the Making of the Mormon People argues that “for early Mormons, the construction and deconstruction of what it meant to be, to act, and to look black, white, and red were as much literary projects and they were literal ones” (p. 8). Mueller positions his book as both a case study of how nineteenth-century Americans wrote about and constructed race through text as well as a “particular case unto itself” (p. 9). Through the book, Mueller aimed to capture the voices of nonwhite Mormons in the nineteenth century and how they “resisted, acquiesced, and sometimes …

Doing Business In The World Without Becoming Worldly, Lindon J. Robison, David R. Just, Jeffery R. Oliver

BYU Studies

Doing business in the world consists of, among other things, exchanging goods and services. One way people reflect who they are and what they love most is by what they exchange and by the quantities and terms with which they exchange goods and services.

The Life Of The Other: An Analysis Of Puerto Rico Within The United Nations, Angelica Roman

Honors College Theses

No abstract provided.