Arts and Humanities Commons^™

[Introduction To] The Columbia Sourcebook Of Mormons In The United States, Terryl Givens, Reid L. Nielson

Bookshelf

This anthology offers rare access to key original documents illuminating Mormon history, theology, and culture in the United States from the nineteenth century to today. Brief introductions describe the theological significance of each text and its reflection of the practices, issues, and challenges that have defined and continue to define the Mormon community. These documents balance mainstream and peripheral thought and religious experience, institutional and personal perspective, and theoretical and practical interpretation, representing pivotal moments in LDS history and correcting decades of misinformation and stereotype.

The authors of these documents, male and female, not only celebrate but speak critically and …

Foreword: Dead Wood And Rushing Water: Essays On Mormon Faith, Family And Culture, Terryl Givens

English Faculty Publications

The essay is a form particularly well suited for Mormon writers, for it blends a number of their cultural and religious imperatives. We are a confessional people, in both senses of the word. In keeping with Augustine’s principal employment of the term, we are committed to the public profession of our faith. Not merely as an act of evangelizing, but among the more reflective Saints, as an articulated meditation on our yearning for the divine, and a psalmic celebration of God’s gifts. We are also confessional in the more conventional sense: journal keeping, the informality of Mormon worship, public testimony …

Mormonism And The Family (Forum), Terryl Givens

English Faculty Publications

When we speak of the family in Mormonism, the term can mean many things. There is an idealized Mormon family, the one described in church magazines, General Conference talks, and Mormon public service commercials. There is the family of the Mormon theological tradition, stretching endlessly off into the eternities, bound together with temple ordinances, the forever family of Mormon bumper stickers. There is another family, product of a more speculative bent in Mormon theology, which comes of an eschatological reading of the Abrahamic covenant, and which imputes to a temple-sealed Mormon couple the right to an endless seed, a posterity …

[Introduction To] Parley P. Pratt: The Apostle Paul Of Mormonism, Terryl Givens, Matthew J. Grow

Bookshelf

After Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, Parley P. Pratt was the most influential figure in early Mormon history and culture. Missionary, pamphleteer, theologian, historian, and martyr, Pratt was perennially stalked by controversy--regarded, he said, "almost as an Angel by thousands and counted an Imposter by tens of thousands."

Tracing the life of this colorful figure from his hardscrabble origins in upstate New York to his murder in 1857, Terryl Givens and Matthew Grow explore the crucial role Pratt played in the formation and expansion of early Mormonism. One of countless ministers inspired by the antebellum revival movement known as the …

Latter-Day Saints, Church Of Jesus Christ Of, Terryl Givens

English Faculty Publications

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints emerged in the 19th c. out of a Restoration* rather than a Reformation* ideology. Joseph Smith* organized the Latter-day Saints in Fayette, New York, in 1830, shortly after he produced the Book of Mormon* which, he claimed, he received from the angel Moroni and translated from an ancient record.

Mormon, Book Of, Terryl Givens

English Faculty Publications

In 1830 Joseph Smith* published a book he claimed to have translated "by the gift and power of God" from ancient gold plates buried in a hillside in upstate New York. The book records the details of three ancient peoples who had inhabited the North American continent.

Mormon Worship, Terryl Givens

English Faculty Publications

Mormons, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints*, (LDS), worship God, the eternal Father, and Jesus Christ.

LDS doctrine designates temples as the most sacred sites of worship, the believers' homes as the second most privileged spaces for devotional acts, and the chapels, or meetinghouses, as the third most important. A temple (more than 100 worldwide in 2000) is a holy place, a "house of the Lord."

Smith, Joseph, Terryl Givens

English Faculty Publications

An influential 19th-c. US religious figure, Joseph Smith was a 14-year-old boy living in New York, when, by his own account, God the Father and Jesus Christ appeared to him.

Young, Brigham, Terryl Givens

English Faculty Publications

Upon Joseph Smith's murder in 1844, Young, as president of the Quoram of the Twelve Apostles, was recognized as the new leader by most members of the Church of the Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

[Introduction To] Joseph Smith Jr.: Reappraisals After Two Centuries, Terryl Givens, Reid L. Nielson

Bookshelf

Mormon founder Joseph Smith is one of the most controversial figures of nineteenth-century American history, and a virtually inexhaustible subject for analysis. In this volume, fifteen scholars offer essays on how to interpret and understand Smith and his legacy. Including essays by both Mormons and non-Mormons, this wide-ranging collection is the only available survey of contemporary scholarly opinion on the extraordinary man who started one of the fastest growing religious traditions in the modern world.

"Common Sense" Meets The Book Of Mormon, Terryl Givens

English Faculty Publications

Thomas O'Dea's opinion of the Book of Mormon's importance in Mormonism is evident in his choice to make it the first chapter following his introduction. He spends little more than a page summarizing the Book of Mormon before he immediately turns to the question that seems inevitably to impose itself at the forefront of so many Book of Mormon discussions: how do we explain its origin? Such a preoccupation does not self-evidently present itself; one would not expect to find, and in fact does not find, that accounts of the Qur'an, for instance, typically exhibit the felt burden of "explaining" …

[Introduction To] People Of Paradox: A History Of Mormon Culture, Terryl Givens

Bookshelf

In People of Paradox, Terryl Givens traces the rise and development of Mormon culture from the days of Joseph Smith in upstate New York, through Brigham Young's founding of the Territory of Deseret on the shores of Great Salt Lake, to the spread of the Latter-Day Saints around the globe.

Throughout the last century and a half, Givens notes, distinctive traditions have emerged among the Latter-Day Saints, shaped by dynamic tensions--or paradoxes--that give Mormon cultural expression much of its vitality. Here is a religion shaped by a rigid authoritarian hierarchy and radical individualism; by prophetic certainty and a celebration …

The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints, Terryl Givens

English Faculty Publications

Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as the Mormon or LDS church, constitute an organization that transcends simple denominational status. Though the Mormons were originally one of a multitude of restorationist churches emerging out of the ferment known as the Second Great Awakening in the early nineteenth century, a number of factors conspired to forge an entity variously considered a religion, a people, a global tribe, and a New Religious Movement (NRM), the only "indigenously derived ethnic group" in the United States and an emerging world religion. Mormonism's distinctive doctrines challenge the boundaries of …

Mormons, Terryl Givens

English Faculty Publications

Mormonism was one of many religious movements that emerged in antebellum American during the ferment known as the Second Great Awakening. In 1820 a youthful Joseph Smith (1805-1844) told his family and skeptical neighbors that he had been visited by Jesus Christ in response to his prayerful request for guidance in choosing a true religion. All Christian denominations had gone astray, the personage told him. Smith created little subsequent stir on the religious stage until ten years later, when he produced the Book of Mormon, a lengthy narrative purportedly written by ancient American prophets of Israelite origins and revealed to …

Joseph Smith: Prophecy, Process, And Plentitude, Terryl Givens

English Faculty Publications

Joseph Smith was an explorer, a discoverer, and a revealer of past worlds. He described an ancient America replete with elaborate detail and daring specificity, rooted and grounded in what he claimed were concrete, palpable artifacts. He recuperated texts of Adam, Abraham, Enoch, and Moses to resurrect and reconstitute a series of past patriarchal ages, not as mere shadows and types of things to come, but as dispensations of gospel fullness equaling, and in some cases surpassing, present plenitude. And he revealed an infinitely receding premortal past—not of the largely mythic Platonic variety and not a mere Wordsworthian, sentimental intimation—but …

[Introduction To] The Latter-Day Saint Experience In America, Terryl Givens

Bookshelf

Provides the most comprehensive overview of Mormonism—one of the fast growing religions in the World—available in one volume.

Scholars have labeled the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or Mormonism as it is better known, both the American Religion, and the next world faith. The Mormon saga includes early persecution, conflict, and pioneer resilience, against a backdrop of revolutionary religious, social, and economic practices. The greatest colonizing force in American history, Mormonism has outgrown its 19th-century isolation and theocratic roots to become one of the most prosperous and respected Christian communities in the country. This book examines the history …

[Introduction To] By The Hand Of Mormon: The American Scripture That Launched A New World Religion, Terryl Givens

Bookshelf

With over 100 million copies in print, the Book of Mormon has spawned a vast religious movement, but it remains little discussed outside Mormon circles. Now Terry L. Givens offers a full-length treatment of this influential work, illuminating the varied meanings and tempestuous impact of this uniquely American scripture.

Givens examines the text's role as a divine testament of the Last Days and as a sacred sign of Joseph Smith's status as a modern-day prophet. He assesses its claim to be a history of the pre-Columbian peopling of the Western Hemisphere, and later explores how the Book has been defined …

Book Review: The Mormon Question: Polygamy And Constitutional Conflict In Nineteenth-Century America, Terryl Givens

English Faculty Publications

Polygamy makes for fascinating social history and for best-selling potboilers as well. This study by Sarah Barringer Gordon, who teaches both law and history at the University of Pennsylvania, is the first attempt to write a full-length legal history of “the Principle.” It turns out that even in this dry-as-dust genre, polygamy fuels a very dynamic story indeed, one that reveals the rich malleability of the Constitution, the endless resourcefulness of determined guardians of public morality, and the resilience of a peculiar people committed to the practice of plural marriage.

"This Great Modern Abomination": Orthodoxy And Heresy In American Religion, Terryl Givens

English Faculty Publications

In chapter 4, Terryl Givens provides a new view not only of the Christianity of Mormons but also more specifically of the religious motivations and methods for persecuting LDS people in nineteenth-century America. Givens's chapter is especially important as an examination of one of the worst examples of systematic religious intolerance in American history. According to Givens, for Americans' self-conception as a religiously tolerant nation to remain intact, a hegemonic rhetoric needed to emerge in the public sphere that denied the religious nature of Mormonism and instead described it as a political threat or social evil. Under the cover of …

[Introduction To] The Viper On The Hearth: Mormons, Myths, And The Construction Of Heresy, Terryl Givens

Bookshelf

Nineteenth-century American writers frequently cast the Mormon as a stock villain in such fictional genres as mysteries, westerns, and popular romances. The Mormons were depicted as a violent and perverse people--the "viper on the hearth"--who sought to violate the domestic sphere of the mainstream. While other critics have mined the socio-political sources of anti-Mormonism, Givens is the first to reveal how popular fiction, in its attempt to deal with the sources and nature of this conflict, constructed an image of the Mormon as a religious and social "Other."

"Murder And Mystery Mormon Style": Violence As Mediation In American Popular Culture, Terryl Givens

English Faculty Publications

Terryl Givens's discussion of popular representations of Mormonism ("'Murder and Mystery Mormon Style': Violence and Mediation in American Popular Culture ) is a case in point, emphasizing the violence inherent in the acts of sociocultural and fictional mediation that have tried to contain the heretical challenge of Mormon theocracy. Mormonism has a complex cultural identity, as a religious group clearly outside the American mainstream and yet historically and ethnically American to the core. Nineteenth-century fictional representations of Mormonism tended to demonize the religion while at the same time deploring the violence of anti-Mormon bigotry; such representations mediated social violence …

Predicting Missionary Service, Bert Burraston

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis was to test the antecedents of religiosity on religious commitment. Specifically, what dimensions of religiosity predict if a young-adult Mormon male will serve a mission. Both Logistic Regression and LISREL were used to examine data from the Young Men's Study, in order to predict Mission. The six variables, Religious Intention, Public Religiosity, Religious Negativism, Family Structure, Tithing, and Smoking were found to have direct effects on missionary service. Four more variables were found to have important indirect effects on Mission. The four variables are Parents Church Attendance, Home Religious Observances, Agree With Parents' Values, and …

A Descriptive Analysis Of The Current Status Of Paid Religious Broadcasting On National Television, Wayne R. Bills

Theses and Dissertations

In examining the use of paid television by various evangelical organizations (the "Electronic Church") as contrasted with its use by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), several important differences were discovered. First, the programs of the electronic church are usually designed much like a normal Sunday service with a "preacher" and "congregation" (the T.V. viewers). The LDS approach has been to communicate religious principles through the use of a story. Their productions are attractive to a large audience because they often feature a well-known television or motion picture celebrity, and are aired during prime-time viewing hours.

The …

How I Spent My Summer Vacation: Three Essays On Place And Meaning, Reed Evan Richards

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis consists of three personal essays and a postface, in part experiments in genre, mode, and structure, and in large part explorations of the meanings of specific places in culture and on the self-definition of the observer-writer, the first essay being set in Florida and centered at Disneyworld; the second consisting of fragments of observations along the route from St. Augustine to Washington, D.C., and ending with a brief fiction; the third, a speculative/anti-speculative rumination over many things, including meaning, death, faith, and enshrinement, and set in Illinois, Missouri, and South Africa; and the postface a theoretical/descriptive theoretical defense …

Is There A Significant Relationship Between Teacher Credibility And Teacher Effectiveness?, Blake D. Madsen

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis was designed to determine if a significant relationship exists between credibility and effectiveness in seminary teachers.
Teacher credibility was determined by an adaptation of McCroskey's semantic differential scales used for measuring teacher credibility. Teacher effectiveness was determined by a matching scripture test.
Chi square tests produced significant relationships between teacher credibility and the following: student religiosity, teacher influence and class attitude. The tests also produced significant relationships between teacher effectiveness and these variables: sex, student religiosity, teacher influence and class attitude. These relationships largely were what one would expect. The chi square test also produced a significant relationship …

Lds Church Educational Objectives And Motivational Influences For Seminary Attendance: A Comparative Analysis, Linda Brockbank

Theses and Dissertations

This study addressed itself to identifying dominant motivational influences prompting seminary attendance of ninth and eleventh grade students living along the Wasatch Front in the state of Utah and to determine if these motivational influences were related to stated objectives of the LDS seminary program. The sample consisted of twelve randomly selected cluster groups of seminary classes from the Ogden, Salt Lake City, and Provo-Orem areas. Factors relative to stated objectives and to entertainment were incorporated in the survey questionnaire, Survey of Attendance Rationale, used for data collection. Data were collected in February 1981 and submitted to factor analysis, …

Chinese Christianity Since 1949: Implications For The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints, Bruce J. M. Dean

Theses and Dissertations

In the last thirty years, Chinese Christianity has experienced severe persecution. Communism actively sought its subjugation. Despite this, Chinese Christians maintained their faith. When their church organizations became puppets of the state, Christians went underground and continued to worship in house churches. The recently li eralized political climate in China has allowed Christians to more openly practice their faith. The official Protestant and Catholic churches have been rehabilitated. House churches have come out of the closet. Capitalizing on an acute spiritual malaise in China, Christians are experiencing a major and sustained revival. There are ample opportunities for The Church of …

Measuring The Reading Level Of Lds Materials: A Supplement To The Dale Word List, Linda Stahle

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to supplement the Dale word list with a list of terms that are familiar to most members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and thus increase the precision of the Dale-Chall readability formula when it is applied to LDS materials. The Dale word list consists of 3,000 words that are familiar to 80 percent of fourth graders. The procedure involved identifying non-Dale words that occur frequently in LDS church publications and testing them on LDS fourth graders in a three-alternative multiple-choice format.

Of the 850 words tested, 249 were identified correctly …

The Heiress, Mccaye Christianson

Inscape

No abstract provided.

Dance In The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints 1830-1940, Karl E. Wesson

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to compile a history of dance in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1830 to 1940.
The following subproblems have been investigated:
1. What was the history of dance in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?
2. What was the philosophy of dance in the LDS Church?
3. What were the dance forms, music, and attire in dance within the LDS church?
4. What was the contribution of the LDS Church towards the preservation of folk dances in America?