Religion Commons^™

City Of Tranquil Light (Book Review), James C. Schaap

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Reviewed Title: Caldwell, Bo. City of Tranquil Light. Henry Holt & Co., September 28, 2010. Hardcover, 304 pages. ISBN: 978-0805092285.

Latter-Day Saint Courtship Patterns, Jennifer Hurlbut, Thomas B. Holman, Kristi A. Young, Mary J. Woodger

BYU Studies

This book is a collection of twelve sociological studies that examine how active, faithful Latter-day Saint singles go about deciding to marry and selecting a mate. Since most of the research was conducted via surveys of BYU students and asks the question "What makes the Mormon marriage process different from the typical American process?" it accounts for a very narrow part of the worldwide LDS community. Focusing on this small segment is a good start but shows that research in LDS sociology is still often limited in its scope.

An introductory chapter by Thomas B. Holman provides the backdrop necessary …

The Schooled Heart: Moral Formation In American Higher Education, Ronald E. Bartholomew, Michael D. Beaty, Douglas V. Henry

BYU Studies

The Schooled Heart: Moral Formation in American Higher Education is a deeply provocative work. Editors Michael D. Beaty and Douglas V. Henry, both of Baylor University, put forth the objectives of the book in what I found to be an enlightening and engaging introduction. Tracing the history of the institutional position of moral formation once held in higher education, they argue that the traditional emphasis on building morality was displaced primarily by the epistemological shift that occurred during the 1930s. According to their view, in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, liberal education at universities embraced revelation from God as …

What Americans Really Believe, Roger Terry, Rodney Stark

BYU Studies

Forty years after Rodney Stark and Charles Y. Glock published the results of the first two major surveys of American religious beliefs and practices, Stark finally picked up where American Piety (Berkeley: University of California, 1968) left off. Now codirector of the Institute for Studies of Religion at Baylor University, Stark has published an analysis of data gathered in two Baylor Surveys of Religion--one in 2005, the other in 2007--as well as a 2006 survey focusing on economics and religion. The results are surprising in many regards. In fact, Stark delights in debunking popular misconceptions and myths about what Americans …

Desiring The Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, And Cultural Formation (Book Review), Laurence C. Sibley

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Reviewed Title: Smith, James K. A., Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2009. 240 pages. ISBN 978-0-8010-3577-7.

Erratum: The last line of the third paragraph should read, “His Desiring the Kingdom argues that it is the heart that leads because it is the heart that hungers for and loves the kingdom; and imagines what that kingdom might be" (32).

By Good And Necessary Consequence: Preliminary Genealogy Of Biblicist Foundationalism (Book Review), Calvin Jongsma

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Reviewed Title: Bovell, Carlos R. By Good and Necessary Consequence: A Preliminary Genealogy of Biblicist Foundationalism. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2009. xiv + 173 pages. ISBN: 978-1-60608-457-1.

Devil Reads Derrida (And Other Essays On The University, The Church, Politics, And The Arts) (Book Review), David Schelhaas

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Reviewed Title: Smith, James K. A. The Devil Reads Derrida (and Other Essays on the University, the Church, Politics, and the Arts). Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2009. 163 pages. ISBN 978-0-8028-6407-9.

Christians, The Care Of Creation, And Global Climate Change (Book Review), Delmar Vander Zee

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Reviewed Title: Scott, Lindy (ed). Christians, the Care of Creation, and Global Climate Change. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2008. 144pp. ISBN 13:978-1-55635-844-9.

Outrageous Idea Of Academic Faithfulness (Book Review), Ryan G. Zonnefeld

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Reviewed Title: Opitz, Donald, and Derek Melleby. The Outrageous Idea of Academic Faithfulness. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2007. 144 pages. ISBN-978-1-58743-210-1.

On Zion's Mount: Mormons, Indians, And The American Landscape, Jill T. Rudy, Jared Farmer

BYU Studies

On Zion's Mount: Mormons, Indians, and the American Landscape tells the tale of a beloved mountainous landmark and a disregarded lake. Jared Farmer's penetrating and sweeping gaze invites readers to view connections between land, landscape, and peoples that have remained, like Poe's purloined letter, hidden in plain sight. Farmer's story of "Timp" relates directly to the story of Indians native to the land and Mormon settlers who became "neonatives," in part by creating a significant landmark in Timpanogos and seeing imagined Indians while forgetting and displacing Utah Lake and real Indians. By illuminating these interwoven narratives with interdisciplinary research involving …

The Temple Of Jerusalem: Past, Present, And Future, John M. Lundquist, Jared W. Ludlow

BYU Studies

John M. Lundquist is the Susan and Douglas Dillon Chief Librarian of the Asian and Middle Eastern Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences Library within the New York Public Library. He has written many books and articles on diverse subjects for both general and Latter-day Saint audiences. The title of this book--The Temple of Jerusalem: Past, Present, and Future--captures well the scope of Lundquist's work. He addresses the role of the Jerusalem temple in ancient Israelite society, its role in the contemporary world, and the prophecies and apocalyptic notions about its future. The book mostly focuses on …

Christian People Across The Centuries (Book Reviews), Keith C. Sewell

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Reviewed Titles: Christian People Across the Centuries. Richard A. Horsley (editor), Christian Origins; Virginia Burrus (editor), Late Ancient Christianity; and Derek Krueger (editor), Byzantine Christianity, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 of A People’s History of Christianity, Denis R. Janz (General Editor). Minneapolis MN: Fortress Press, 2005, 2005 and 2006, respectively. ISBN: 0-8006-3411-X, -3412-8, and -3413-6.

Religion, Politics, And Sugar: The Mormon Church, The Federal Government, And The Utah-Idaho Sugar Company, 1907-1921, Matthew C. Godfrey, Barnard S. Silver

BYU Studies

Matthew C. Godfrey. Religion, Politics, and Sugar: The Mormon Church, the Federal Government, and the Utah-Idaho Sugar Company, 1907–1921. Logan: Utah State University Press, 2007.

The Five Books Of Moses: A Translation With Commentary, Roger G. Baker, Robert Alter

BYU Studies

There are Bibles aplenty in our world, hundreds if Amazon.com is any guide. In late 2009, Amazon listed over one thousand books on its Bible hit list that have not even been released yet. Over one thousand new books of the roughly 450,000 listed Bible hits portend heavy reading this year for those who try to keep up with things biblical. A beneficial search in this swim through the Amazon of books is for new Bible translations, which now seem plentiful, although there were very few in the years after King James. An almost three-century gap separates the King James …

The Tree House, Philip A. Snyder, Douglas Thayer

BYU Studies

Douglas Thayer. The Tree House: A Novel. Provo, Utah: Zarahemla Books, 2009.

Joseph Priestley: Scientist, Philosopher, And Theologian: Book Review, Michael Austin

Religion in the Age of Enlightenment

I n two hundred or so published works between 17 60 and his death in 1804, Joseph Priestley established himself as an important voice in more than a half a dozen important fields. He was a grammarian and pedagogue, philosopher and political theorist, historian, world famous scientist who played a major part in the discovery of oxygen, and important figure in the development of Unitarianism. Covering all of this in a single introductory volume is a big job, and Joseph Priestley: Scientist, Philosopher, and Theologian does it well, providing a much needed introduction to the thought of one of the …

Plato's Ghost: The Modernist Transformation Of Mathematics (Book Review), Calvin Jongsma

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

Reviewed Title: Plato's Ghost: The Modernist Transformation of Mathematics by Jeremy Gray. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008. 515 pages. ISBN 9780691136103.

Liberty To The Downtrodden: Thomas L. Kane, Romantic Reformer, Matthew J. Grow, Charles S. Peterson

BYU Studies

In this heartening book, Matthew J. Grow examines the life of Mormon friend Thomas L. Kane in terms of the reform impulses that propelled America during the antebellum and succeeding decades of the nineteenth century. Born to a well-situated Pennsylvania family early in the Jacksonian era, Kane reached maturity before the economic and social opportunities of the "gilded age" opened the modern era of industrial urbanism and professional specialization. Like many of his contemporaries, he was almost forced to become a reformer, a career he later integrated with the development of an upstate Pennsylvania area where his family had long-standing …

Science And John Calvin: A Review Essay, John Zwart

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No abstract provided.

Worship Words: Discipling Language For Faithful Ministry (Book Review), Leah A. Zuidema, Todd M. Zuidema

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Reviewed Title: Rienstra, Debra, and Ron Rienstra. Worship Words: Discipling Language for Faithful Ministry. Engaging Worship Series. Eds. Clayton J. Schmit and Todd E. Johnson. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2009. 286 pages. ISBN-978-0-8010-3616-3.

Constantine's Bible: Politics And The Making Of The New Testament, David L. Dungan, Carl W. Griffin

BYU Studies

The canon of Christian scripture has received much scrutiny since the rise of historical criticism in post-Enlightenment Europe. Nineteenth-century discoveries of new apocryphal gospels and epistles also fueled academic debate over canonicity, which has reached an even higher pitch since 1945, with the discovery of a corpus of Gnostic Christian "scriptures" at Nag Hammadi, Egypt. More recently, best-selling works by scholars like Bart Ehrman and Elaine Pagels, as well as Dan Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code, have introduced to a wide nonspecialist audience the historical problems surrounding the formation of Christian scripture.

Into this crowded conversation enters David …

Making Space On The Western Frontier: Mormons, Miners, And Southern Paiutes, W. Paul Reeve, Jay H. Buckley

BYU Studies

University of Utah historian W. Paul Reeve has written an intriguing and engaging monograph examining the dynamic interchange between Mormons, miners, and Southern Paiutes along the Great Basin's southern rim. Broadly covering the last four decades of the nineteenth century, Reeves focuses his lens most closely on southwestern Utah and southeastern Nevada during the turbulent 1860s and 1870s when the clash of cultures reached its zenith.

Paiutes, Mormons, and miners possessed quite different worldviews relating to their notions about identity. The "complicated and messy" story that unfolds tackles the economic, cultural, political, and religious clashes that intertwine (and entangle) these …

Book Of Mormon Stories That Steph Meyer Tells To Me: Lds Themes In The Twilight Saga And The Host, Jana Riess, Stephenie Meyer

BYU Studies

Publishing professionals call it a phenomenon. In 2008, Little, Brown sold 27.5 million copies of Stephenie Meyer's four vampire novels; the Twilight movie grossed $191 million in domestic box office sales; and Meyer's adult novel, The Host, sold an additional million copies. Publishers Weekly crowed, "A new queen has been crowned." USA Today reported that Meyer was the bestselling author in the world for the year 2008, accounting for one in five of the books sold from Thanksgiving to Christmas.

That's not bad for an author who, as the media incessantly reminds us, is little more than a "Mormon …

Matters Of The Mind: Latter-Day Saint Helps For Mental Health, W. Dean Belnap, Marleen S. Williams, James D. Macarthur, John P. Livingstone

BYU Studies

Mental health continues to be difficult for many people to understand. We seem to grasp physical ailments; bruises and cuts and headaches are pains we all have experienced. More serious health troubles--diabetes, cancer, or the physical pain associated with a broken arm or surgery--are still in the realm of the tactile and thus are fairly easy to grasp conceptually, even by those who have not gone through any such trauma. But when it comes to the realm of mental illnesses--bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, or even more common ailments like dysthymia--we may find ourselves scratching our heads. What is the nature of …

The Joseph Smith Papers, Journals, Volume 1: 1832-1839, Dean C. Jessee, James B. Allen, Mark Ashurst-Mcgee, Richard L. Jensen

BYU Studies

Several years ago, when I heard that the Joseph Smith Papers Project was approved for publication, I was delighted for at least two reasons. First, I considered Joseph Smith's papers to be the most valuable resource extant for researching early Latter-day Saint history. Making them available to all would enhance the accuracy of future scholarship. Second, it would be clear that the Church had nothing to hide concerning Joseph Smith. For too long, stories had circulated that the archives were closed, and the Church History Department did not allow access to important documents. The stories were partially true, though scholars …

Mormonism: A Very Short Introduction, John G. Turner, Richard L. Bushman

BYU Studies

Combining history, theology, and contemporary observations, Richard L. Bushman has crafted an engaging introduction to Mormonism, aimed primarily at outsiders to Latter-day Saint traditions and related movements. Anticipating skeptical non-Mormon readers, Bushman centers his book on several fundamental questions, including "How can twenty-first-century Americans believe in a prophet who translated golden plates and claimed constant revelations?" and "How can a religion that runs against the grain of modern secularism evoke such strong loyalties?"

Bushman's latest work may indeed be "very short," but it simultaneously provides eloquent and sophisticated answers to such questions. Although he discusses post-Manifesto polygamists and the movement …

Polygamy On The Pedernales: Lyman Wight's Mormon Villages In Antebellum Texas, 1845 To 1858, Melvin C. Johnson, Ken Driggs

BYU Studies

Polygamy on the Pedernales is about the Mormon settlements in Texas during the 1840s and 1850s, whose primary allegiance was to Lyman Wight. Christened the "Wild Ram of the Mountains" by the New York Sun, Wight was ordained an Apostle by Joseph Smith in 1841. Because he was "charismatic, intensely personal, and often domineering in his dealings with others," writes author Melvin C. Johnson, "the Wild Ram became influential with Joseph Smith." Wight's group broke with Brigham Young and the Quorum of the Twelve, and they pursued Wight's vision of a Latter-day Saint safe haven in Texas, which Wight …

Against The Grain: Christianity And Democracy, War And Peace, George Weigel, Gary P. Gillum

BYU Studies

Deification has been a difficult theological concept for mankind to accept. St. Augustine's doctrine of original sin and the depravity of man helped spur on a deep skepticism to the idea that God's children could become anything like God, let alone progressing to the eventual state of gods or goddesses. Latter-day Saints have often been cautious about broaching the topic of deification around most Catholics and Protestants, for fear that our Christian brethren would brand us as blasphemers and cease any further discussion about Mormonism. But the climate surrounding deification and other doctrines, such as baptism for the dead, seems …

Leonard J. Arrington: A Historian's Life, Thomas G. Alexander, Gary Topping

BYU Studies

Gary Topping, a professor at Salt Lake Community College, has previously published a number of books and articles on Utah environmental history and historians who have lived in Utah. In some ways, Topping's article on Robert Dwyer and his book on historians Bernard DeVoto, Juanita Brooks, Wallace Stegner, Dale Morgan, and Fawn Brodie can be considered precursors to this book.

In other ways, this book is also somewhat of a new foray; unlike most of the other historians Topping has treated, Leonard Arrington was neither a non-Mormon nor a lapsed Mormon. He remained an active Latter-day Saint throughout his life. …

Divine Voice: Christian Proclamation And The Theology Of Sound (Book Review), Teresa Terhaar

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Reviewed Title: Webb, Stephen H. The Divine Voice: Christian Proclamation and the Theology of Sound. Grand Rapids, Michigan, Brazos Press, 2004. 244 pages. ISBN 9781587430787.