Religion Commons^™

Perfectionism’S Influence On Adolescent Mental Health, Mark D. Ogletree

BYU Studies

Years ago, I was sitting in my counseling practice with a sixteen-year- old young man. He was a great teenager with many positive qualities. However, on this particular summer day, he came in a somber mood. I asked him what was bothering him. He began to share some of his problems with me. In my opinion, none were out of the ordinary. Nevertheless, I could see his lips begin to quiver, and then he broke down in tears. When he could compose himself, he uttered, “I know that God hates me.” And with that declaration, I knew that we had …

On The Road With Richard Bushman, Grant Wacker

BYU Studies

Richard Bushman invited me to respond to his essay, given my long-standing interest in the Protestant encounter with world religions. With this very short essay of my own, I am pleased to offer a few words of appreciation and thoughts about further inquiries.

The Man With No Name: The Story Of The Brother Of Jared As An Anti-Babel Polemic, Walker Wright

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

Within the text of the Book of Mormon, the name of Jared’s brother is never revealed. Various reasons have been offered for the lack of a name, but nothing conclusive has been offered. Taking a cue from the polemical nature of Old Testament theology, this paper argues that the opening of the book of Ether is a polemic against Babel, with the brother of Jared being contrasted against the people and ruler of Babel. Led by the mighty hunter Nimrod, the people of Babel refused God’s command to multiply and fill the earth. Instead, they gathered together, built a tower …

The Pathophysiology Of The Death Of Jesus The Christ, C. Thomas Black

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

Centuries-long speculation continues regarding the circumstances surrounding the death of the Savior. Over the past century, the Savior’s tribulations between the Last Supper and his death on the cross have been scrupulously examined from a medical viewpoint. In this article I review many of these studies and, using current medical acumen, propose additional inferences and explanations based on scriptural, medical, and historical accounts. The evidence suggests that at some point between Gethsemane and his last moments on the cross, the Lord’s body was pushed beyond the limit that a normal mortal could endure. The Lord did, however, endure and completed …

Creating The Book Of Mormon Art Catalog Why Religious Art Matters, Jennifer Champoux

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

The Book of Mormon Art Catalog allows users to access and study a greater volume and variety of art based on this book of scripture than ever before. This open access digital database includes more than four thousand images from seven hundred different artists hailing from fifty-five nations. The catalog provides a resource for teachers, enhances possibilities for scholarship, and creates new opportunities for artists. As an ongoing gathering of art, the catalog can also inspire new production, including scenes or approaches currently underrepresented in the art. Incorporating more art into our study and teaching of the Book of Mormon …

Teaching That Leads To Enduring Conversion, Shon D. Hopkin, Ross Baron, Rob Eaton, Phillip Allred

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

This article includes four presentations centered on teaching that leads to enduring conversion. To integrate and nuance the concepts into a cohesive whole, the four ideas were followed by a dialogue discussion between the four authors. Following the dialogue, each presenter provided brief concluding thoughts. While this article follows the basic organization of the presentations, the authors have refined and expanded on the comments delivered at the conference.

Black Sheep, Merrijane Rice

BYU Studies

You don’t want to come to our party,

you say. No one here knows you

even though we all grew up together

in the same home. No one understands

how being with us feels

The Nahom Convergence Reexamined: The Eastward Trail, Burial Of The Dead, And The Ancient Borders Of Nihm, Neal Rappleye

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

For decades, several Latter-day Saint scholars have maintained that there is a convergence between the location of Nahom in the Book of Mormon and the Nihm region of Yemen. To establish whether there really is such a convergence, I set out to reexamine where the narrative details of 1 Nephi 16:33–17:1 best fit within the Arabian Peninsula, independent of where the Nihm region or tribe is located. I then review the historical geography of the Nihm tribe, identifying its earliest known borders and academic interpretations of their location in antiquity. My investigation brings in data on ancient Yemen and Arabia …

Broken Shelves Or Continuing Revelation? Extending The Shelf Life Of Faith, Jared M. Halverson

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

Many former members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints explain their loss of faith with the phrase “My shelf broke.” This is in reference to a well-known analogy by Camilla Kimball in which her shelf was where she kept the questions she could not yet answer, not as a way to avoid those questions but with faith that God would eventually answer them. Based on Sister Kimball’s analogy and the ninth article of faith, this paper suggests that there are actually three shelves rather than one, with a constant interplay between revelation past (shelf 1), revelation present …

Paul Sighs Under House Arrest, James Goldberg

BYU Studies

I longed to be with you—

to bask in the warmth of bodies

clustered in a kitchen. Cradled

between two conversations,

sipping wine, waiting up late

for an old friend to arrive.

Assuming Stewardship: Notes On The Recent Transfer From Community Of Christ, Keith A. Erekson, Matthew J. Grow

BYU Studies

On March 5, 2024, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Community of Christ jointly announced that “the responsibility and ownership for the Kirtland Temple (fig. 1), several historic buildings in Nauvoo, and various manuscripts and artifacts” had “officially transferred” between the two churches. In the joint statement of announcement, President Russell M. Nelson observed, “We are deeply honored to assume the stewardship of these sacred places, documents, and artifacts. We thank our friends at Community of Christ for their great care and cooperation in preserving these historical treasures thus far. We are committed to doing the same.” …

The Curse Of The Covenant: The Deuteronomic Curses In The Book Of Mormon, T. J. Uriona

BYU Studies

The ancient Near East had a rich and well-developed covenant tradition that helped to define the relationships between covenant parties. Much like modern contracts, which tend to follow a conventional construction, there is within the ancient Near East tradition a prominent covenant construction known as the suzerain-vassal treaty. Covenant treaties of this type stipulated the conditions of loyalty between a lord or suzerain to the vassal or subject. A major feature of this type of treaty was the promise of blessings as well as the threat of curses. The blessings and curses ensured covenant fidelity and maintained the social and …

Lessons We Can Learn From The Mountain Meadows Massacre, Richard E. Turley Jr.

BYU Studies

The Mountain Meadows Massacre of 1857 has been called the worst incident in Utah, Latter-day Saint, and northwest Arkansas history. I don’t remember the first time I heard about it, but I coauthored my first publication about the atrocity more than thirty years ago, an article on the subject published in a multivolume encyclopedia set issued by Macmillan Publishing Company of New York in 1992.

Ten Views On The Falling Away, John Gee

BYU Studies

Latter-day Saints have long known about the falling away or Apostasy of Christianity from the Church established by Jesus Christ. The two terms both come from 2 Thessalonians 2:3. Falling away is the expression used by the King James translators to render the Greek word apostasia, which came into English as a loan word: apostasy. The terms are thus synonyms for the same thing. The term apostasia was a later form of the classical term apostasis and a more intense form of the term stasis, all of which mean “dissension,” “revolt,” or “rebellion.” The Septuagint uses both the …

Temple Marriages Are Less Likely To End In Divorce: Insights From The B. H. Roberts 2023 Current And Former Latter-Day Saint Survey, Stephen Cranney, Joshua Coates

BYU Studies

It is a commonly held truism that temple marriages are less likely to end in divorce. But is it true? How do we know? The fact is that this popular belief is primarily based on surveys that are now forty to fifty years old. A popular statistic of temple marriages having a 6% divorce rate is cited by the Gospel Topics essay on “Temple Marriage,” which in turn cites an article from the Los Angeles Times. However, the Times article came from a 1985 Church study that used 1981 data, making this 6% number more than forty years out …

Front Matter

BYU Studies

No abstract provided.

What Jesus Didn’T Do: The Discipled Pursuit Of Less, Greg Mckeown

BYU Studies

The soft, muted lighting reflected off wooden pews in a local church building, casting a glow on the faces of leaders gathered for a stake meeting. Among those on the stand was the young bishop of the Sixth-Seventh Ward in the Temple View Stake. Tall, with a commanding presence, he was known for his dedication, but tonight, he felt restless. He had promised to visit an older ward member in the hospital right after this stake meeting was over. As the meeting progressed, he felt a strong impression to leave the meeting and rush to the hospital. The feeling became …

Parental Influence On Adolescent Perfectionism, Jenet Erickson, Olivia Forsberg, Mckenna Schmidt

BYU Studies

I (primary author) will never forget a poignant moment in the mother’s lounge at church when our first child was about nine months old. Two other mothers with younger babies were in the lounge at the same time, and we talked as our babies nursed, then played. As I watched the two younger children crawl around, I became acutely aware that our daughter, who had not yet started to crawl, was clearly behind these other children. A panicky feeling overtook me as I wrestled with what it meant to me that these children appeared to be ahead of mine. I …

Response To Grant Wacker, Richard Lyman Bushman

BYU Studies

As so often happens when Latter-day Saint historians discuss Joseph Smith with their non-LDS compatriots, Grant Wacker wants to welcome Joseph Smith into the company of American prophets, while I insist that Smith is bizarre, strange, and other. Wacker sees Smith as a recognizable figure on the American religious landscape; I see him as an outlander notably because he presented himself initially as a translator. I admit it had never occurred to me to think of Pentecostal speakers in tongues as translators, but of course they were. It seemed a natural connection to Wacker, who is deeply conversant in Pentecostal …

Ward Choir, John Alba Cutler

BYU Studies

We brought no gold to make an offering, no goat, no lamb, no blood on the lintel— only voices.

Like A Fiery Meteor: The Life Of Joseph F. Smith By Stephen C. Taysom, Matthew B. Christensen

BYU Studies

Like a Fiery Meteor: The Life of Joseph F. Smith by Stephen C. Taysom dives into the extraordinary life of Joseph F. Smith, the sixth president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Taysom expertly navigates the complexities of Smith’s life, offering readers a comprehensive and insightful biography of this important Church leader.

Empty Spaces, Jolyn Brown

BYU Studies

Sometimes my children slept in his place.

Review: A Word In Season: Isaiah’S Reception In The Book Of Mormon By Joseph M. Spencer, Joshua M. Sears

BYU Studies

This groundbreaking study by Joseph Spencer, who teaches in Religious Education at Brigham Young University, invites both Latter-day Saints and those outside our faith to consider what the Book of Mormon has to say about the relevancy of prophecy and scripture in our modern world.

Appendix

BYU Studies

All unique analyses in the articles “Perfectionism Across Adolescence,” “Parental Influence on Adolescent Perfectionism,” “Perfectionism’s Influence on Adolescent Mental Health,” and “Religion and Perfectionism” were conducted by Justin Dyer. Details of the data collection and analysis are contained in this appendix. All code and detailed outputs are available from Justin Dyer upon request.

Love Is A Law, Not A Reward, Adam S. Miller

BYU Studies

1. Love is the substance of God’s law. As Paul puts it: “If there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself ” (Rom. 13:9). Or, as Jesus summarizes the law: “On these two commandments”—love of God and love of neighbor—“hang all the law and the prophets” (Matt. 22:40). What’s more, this love can’t be treated as a special reward. “Ye have heard that it hath been said,” Jesus acknowledges, “thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies” (Matt. 5:43–44). …

Who Holds The Keys?, Daniel C. Peterson

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

While, for understandable reasons, Protestant Christendom tends to downplay the question, the more ancient Christian churches have historically placed considerable weight on what is often termed “apostolic succession.” The Catholic church, for instance, strongly affirms the “primacy of Peter” and the status of the Bishop of Rome, the Pope, as ancient Peter’s lineal successor. Curiously, perhaps, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, although it was founded on the American frontier in the early nineteenth century, takes a view of the matter that crucially resembles the Catholic viewpoint more than it does a western Protestant one. But the Latter-day …

“Words Of Plainness” Jacob’S Apology, His Addendum, And The Competing Forms Of Nephite Worship, Dan Belnap, Rob Hernandez

Faculty Publications

Jacob’s powerful essay in Jacob chapters 4–6 ends with this statement: “I bid you farewell, until I shall meet you before the pleasing bar of God, which bar striketh the wicked with awful dread and fear. Amen” (Jacob  6:13). The essay represents Jacob’s teachings as a Nephite priest concerning the centrality of Christ in the religious and doctrinal framework of his Nephite congregation. It fits within the greater structure of the book of Jacob, which appears to be governed by Nephi1’s instructions concerning what should be included on the small plates. Recorded by Jacob in Jacob 1, the instruction suggests …

Religion And Lgbtq Suicidality: A Systematic Review, Michael A. Goodman

Faculty Publications

Studies have consistently shown that LGBTQ individuals are at increased risk for several mental and physical health challenges including suicidality. The relationship between religion and LGBTQ wellbeing in general and LGBTQ suicidality in specific has increasingly been the subject of scholarly investigation. This systematic review examines all peer-reviewed articles included in the EBSCO PsychInfo database since 2000 (49 studies in all). These studies reveal a complex relationship which is both nuanced and at times contradictory. The majority of studies (65%) found at least one religiosity related predictor to be a risk factor for LGBTQ suicidality, 53% found at least one …

Review Of Tyler Lefevor And Lisa Tennsmeyer-Hansen Presentation, Peder Schillemat

Issues in Religion and Psychotherapy

No abstract provided.

Review Of Wendy Ulrich's Presentation, Joseph Chamberlain

Issues in Religion and Psychotherapy

No abstract provided.