Mormon Studies Commons^™

The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints In National Periodicals, 1982-1990, Matthew E. Morrison

Theses and Dissertations

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has continued to receive exposure in national periodicals. This thesis will explore that image from 1982 to 1990. During those years, the church continued to grow in membership and expand its existing programs.

National periodicals can assist in assessing the public image of the Church because they help "mould public attitudes by presenting facts and views on issues in exactly the same way at the same time throughout the entire country." In this manner, they help to form the public opinion about the Church. They also reflect existing opinions because magazine publishers …

The Etoile Du Deseret: Portrait Of The French Mission, 1851-1852, Douglas James Geilman

Theses and Dissertations

One of John Taylor's most significant achievements during his mission to France, 1849-1851, was the publication of a French-language Latter-day Saint periodical, the Etoile du Déséret. Appearing in twelve issues from May 1851 to December 1852, the Etoile served a variety of functions for the earliest missionaries and members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in France. A study of its historical context and of its contents allows readers a glimpse into the circumstances under which the missionaries labored and into the needs of the growing Church. Furthermore, the Etoile provides a vivid example of John …

What Does God Think About America?: Some Challenges For Evangelicals And Mormons, Richard J. Mouw

BYU Studies

I visited an Evangelical church once in my younger years where the sermon of the day featured a straightforward exposition of the teachings associated with dispensationalist premillennialism. The signs of the time are clear, the preacher said. Wars and rumors of wars. Earthquakes and famine. Widespread lawlessness. The prophetic clock is ticking. God's plan for the future of the earth centers on the Jewish people, who will eventually recognize the true Messiah and inherit all the earthly promises given to them of old. All other nations are doomed to pass away. The destiny of Gentile Christians is a spiritual and …

Instructing Teachers Of Children With Disabilities Within The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints, Katie E. Sampson

Theses and Dissertations

This study investigates benefits of in-service training on LDS primary teachers' ability to state an objective, obtain and keep attention, use wait time, incorporate active participation, teach to the multiple intelligences, and employ positive behavior management techniques. Two groups of 30 viewed either a video-tape or read a handout. Pre and post surveys were used to determine mean gain.
Using an ANCOVA, comparisons were made of overall mean gain for each group. Results showed participants made a gain of approximately 1/2 point per question on a 4-point scale on the video and the handout (video gain = .6032 p<.01; handout gain = .6264 p<.01). The results of this study support the hypothesis that teachers receiving one in-service will increase their perception of their ability to teach students with special needs.

"Initiates Of Isis Now, Come, Enter Into The Temple!": Masonic And Enlightenment Thought In The Magic Flute, Paul E. Kerry

BYU Studies

Habakkuk exclaimed that in the presence of Lord the "sun and moon stood still in their habitation." The Empryean (Canto XXXII) of Dante's Paradiso concludes with the splendid phrase "l'amor che move il sole e l'altre stelle" (the Love which moves the sun and the other stars). And in 1945 when Harry S Truman realized the weight of the office he would inherit upon the death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, he declared, "I felt like the moon, the stars, and all the planets had fallen on me." It seems that when prophets, poets, and presidents have the need to …

Toward An Anthropology Of Apotheosis In Mozart's Magic Flute: A Demonstration Of The Artistic Universality And Vitality Of Certain "Peculiar" Latter-Day Saint Doctrines, Alan F. Keele

BYU Studies

It seems there are certain notions held by Latter-day Saints, deviating almost diametrically from those promulgated by orthodox Christianity, that have the power to evoke form certain conservative Christian quarters the most vituperative fulminations. One thinks immediately of the idea expounded by Joseph Smith at King Follett's funeral that humans have the potential to become gods through a process of perfection experienced by the gods themselves. The orthodox response to this notion in the form of the Godmakers films and other manifestations of righteous indignation has been extraordinary. The paradox, however, is this: Scratch the orthodox surface of Christianity, explore …

From Arcadia To Elysium In The Magic Flute And Weimar Classicism: The Plan Of Salvation And Eighteenth-Century Views Of Moral Progression, John B. Fowles

BYU Studies

The painful sighs are now past.

Elysium's joyful banquets

Drown the slightest moan—

Elysium's life is

Eternal rapture, eternal flight;

Through laughing meadows a brook pipes its tune.

..........

Here faithful couples embrace each other,

Kiss on the velvet green sward

As the soothing west wind caresses them;

Here love is crowned,

Safe from death's merciless blow

It celebrates an eternal wedding feast.

—Friedrich Schiller

Measuring Prejudiced Attitudes Toward Mexicans In Latter-Day Saint Missionaries During Missionary Service In The American Southwest, Jared A. Montoya

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate the foundations of prejudiced attitudes toward Mexicans held by White Americans and to investigate a means of reducing it, paying specific attention to prejudice found within a subpopulation of White Americans. The origins of American prejudice toward Mexicans are outlined using both historical and psychological explanations. An understanding of these origins leads to the notion that increased favorable contact is the best method for reducing prejudice. A field study focusing on prejudice toward Mexicans among ecclesiastical volunteers demonstrated that missionary service can be considered a means of favorable contact. Eighty-one White American …

Qualities That Count: Heber J. Grant As Businessman, Missionary, And Apostle, Ronald W. Walker

BYU Studies

No abstract provided.

Growing Up In Early Utah: The Wasatch Literary Association 1874-1878, Ronald W. Walker

BYU Studies

One day in early February 1874, Jim Ferguson, sensing the forlorn hope of advancing his courtship with Minnie Horne, suggested to Ort (Orson F.) Whitney and another of the boys that they organize a reading society. Ferguson "had heard, no doubt, of fond couples 'reading life's meaning in each others eyes,'" Whitney later mused, "and that was the kind of reading that most interested him." Since the seventeen-year-old Whitney found himself "in the same box with Ferguson on the girl question," the suggestion found a ready response. Whitney immediately invited those who "would make desirable members" to meet at the …

Young Heber J. Grant: Entrepreneur Extraordinary, Ronald W. Walker

BYU Studies

When lecturing at the Harvard Law School, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes told students they could do anything they wanted to in life, if only they wanted to hard enough. Later in a private aside he added, "But what I did not tell them was that they had to be born wanting to."

Young Heber J. Grant's Years Of Passage, Ronald W. Walker

BYU Studies

As Heber J. Grant came of age, Mormonism was as much a part of the Utah landscape as the territory's dusty valleys and vaulting mountain walls. Young Heber met religion everywhere—in his Salt Lake City home and neighborhood, at the Tabernacle on Temple Square, in the offices of Church and civic leaders where he sometimes ventured, and certainly in his native Thirteenth Ward, one of the most innovative and organizationally developed Latter-day Saint congregations of the time. Slowly young Heber internalized his religious culture, but not before encountering the usual perils of adolescence and coming of age. The process tells …

Strangers In A Strange Land: Heber J. Grant And The Opening Of The Japan Mission, Ronald W. Walker

BYU Studies

When Heber J. Grant returned from a two-week vacation in Pacific Grove, California, in February 1901, the news he heard at first seemed favorable. One of his associates in the Quorum of the Twelve, Francis M. Lyman, had been asked to preside over the Church's European Mission. Elder Grant congratulated himself that "missionary lightning had once more escaped me," "heaved a sigh of relief," and embraced Lyman in mock celebration.

Crisis In Zion: Heber J. Grant And The Panic Of 1893, Ronald W. Walker

BYU Studies

In late June 1893, Heber J. Grant, a pencil-thin, bewhiskered young man, waited nervously in the downtown office of New York businessman John Claflin. Thirty-six years old and conservatively dressed, Grant was a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and president or director of at least a dozen Salt Lake City-based businesses. A financial panic had struck the nation and the Mormon businessman was urgently seeking a loan to save himself and his church from bankruptcy. Although similar dramas were being enacted in business and banking houses across the …

Jedediah And Heber Grant, Ronald W. Walker

BYU Studies

On December 1, 1856, Elder Wilford Woodruff and Elder Franklin D. Richards left the Church historian's office for the home of Jedediah Grant, less than a block away. The hour was late, about 10:30 in the evening. It had snowed several inches during the day, and the weather was turning cold.

Heber J. Grant And The Utah Loan And Trust Company, Ronald W. Walker

BYU Studies

Before 6:00 A.M. on May 29, 1897, the portly and veteran Apostle Brigham Young Jr., himself ailing due to an attack of dropsy, called at the Heber J. Grant household to pray a blessing upon his associate. He found that "Bro Grant... had a poor night but he was going to the hospital with firm faith that all would be well." The day before, Grant awoke with sever lumbar and abdominal pain. The doctors diagnosed a ruptured appendix and advanced peritonitis and advised immediate surgery. As the hour-and-a-half operation progressed, the nine attending surgeons found "extraordinary suppuration and commenced mortification." …

Grant's Watershed: Succession In The Presidency, 1887-1889, Ronald W. Walker

BYU Studies

Events during 1887-89, during Elder Wilford Woodruff's succession to the Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, remains an important but largely untold story—a time when differing views divided the Church's General Authorities and when the policies and procedures for installing a new president of the Church were tested and confirmed. These years are also important for the insights they offer in understanding the life of Heber J. Grant, who himself regarded that time as a personal watershed. While it is clear that he acted with candor, energy, and idealism throughout the episode, with hindsight he believed …

A Mormon “Widow” In Colorado: The Exile Of Emily Wells Grant, Ronald W. Walker

BYU Studies

As the southbound Denver & Rio Grande train pulled out of the depot at Salt Lake City in November 1889, Emily Wells Grant breathed a sigh of relief, and relaxed. As a plural wife of Elder Heber J. Grant, she was used to dodging United States marshals. Her recent crisis, she admitted, was of her own making. Why had she insisted on attending her father's seventy-fifth birthday celebration in the Twelfth Ward after five years of secrecy? She had been spotted there, the grand jury had reopened her husband's cohabitation case, and she had been forced to flee again. The …

Young Heber J. Grant And His Call To The Apostleship, Ronald W. Walker

BYU Studies

A year following his call to become president of the Tooele Stake, twenty-four-year-old Heber J. Grant stopped by the Salt Lake studio of Charles Savage, the pioneer photographer. The conversation took an unexpected turn. Elder Grant wrote in his journal that Savage told him "to put it down that within one year I would be a member of the Twelve Apostles."

Rachel R. Grant: The Continuing Legacy Of The Feminine Ideal, Ronald W. Walker

BYU Studies

We can imagine ourselves visiting Aunt Rachel Grant, longtime president of the Thirteenth Ward Relief Society and one of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint's "leading ladies," at her home on Salt Lake City's Second East Street. In the year of our visit, 1890, her two-story, plastered adobe home partakes of the prevailing feminine ideal that stresses homemaking and handicraft. The stove is highly burnished, while the arms of each chair are covered with homemade lace crocheting. A corner "whatnot" meticulously displays pictures, small framed mottoes, wax and hair flowers, and other curios. Rachel's person also reflects her …

Heber J. Grant's European Mission, 1903-1906, Ronald W. Walker

BYU Studies

Elder Heber J. Grant landed in Liverpool, England, in November 1903, and by the first of the year he officially assumed his new position as president of the European Mission. The mission began at Tromso, Norway; and ran to Cape Town, South Africa; with Iceland and India serving as distant east-west meridians. While the church had branches in each of these extremities, Grant's field of labor was more compact. Most of the mission's effort was reserved to the Netherlands, Germany, Scandinavia, and Switzerland, where he had a general superintendency, and especially in the British Isles, where he had duties that …

John B. Fairbanks: The Man Behind The Canvas, Rachel Cope

Theses and Dissertations

A biographical sketch of artist John B. Fairbanks, this thesis primarily probes Fairbanks' evolution as an artist. From amateur, to art missionary, to professional artist, Fairbanks influenced his cultural surroundings in Utah and in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. His commitment to his career and his impact on others significantly affected Utah and Mormon art. Thus it is important to understand and recognize the full portrait of John B. Fairbanks.

John B. Fairbanks, born on 27 December 1855, developed an interest in art while still young. Until reaching the age of thirty-four, he often worked as an …

A History Of "Especially For Youth" - 1976-1986, John Bytheway

Theses and Dissertations

The summer of 2002 marked the 26th anniversary of the youth camp “Especially for Youth” (EFY). Over 34,000 teenagers from across the United States, Canada and several foreign countries gathered on thirty-one different college campuses to attend one of the sixty-four sessions of the five-day program. Since the first session in 1976, Especially for Youth has enjoyed steady increases in attendance and popularity. Beginning in the early 1980s, the program's success reached the point that applicants were turned away because there was not enough space to house all those who wanted to attend.

EFY is sponsored by Brigham Young University …

Latter-Day Saints In Popular National Periodicals 1970-1981, Adam H. Nielson

Theses and Dissertations

The public image of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the product of several factors. This thesis investigates that image as presented in national periodicals from 1970 to 1981. During this time "Mormons" and "Mormonism" was a popular topic as the religion gained notoriety, and as an awareness of its peculiar beliefs and practices increased.

The rationale for using national magazines to assess public image is the assumption that they "reflect prevailing points of view" and help "formulate public opinion." Since popular attitudes are one of the factors that influence how the Church is accepted in the …

A Latter-Day Saint Perspective On Evaluation, Courtney Miriam Glenn Peck

Theses and Dissertations

Evaluation scholars argue that evaluation as a discipline has traditionally rested on the assumption that knowledge should and can be evaluated objectively. As a result, evaluation has focused too much on techniques and methods, becoming paramountly an objective and technical enterprise that disregards any personal or moral responsibility that evaluators have.

How would a Latter-day Saint perspective of evaluation reframe evaluation as a moral rather than technical enterprise? The doctrine of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints provides powerful insights for evaluation that place moral responsibility in the forefront of evaluation. Knowledge in an LDS perspective is not …

The "Unidentified Pioneers": An Analysis Of Staffordshire Mormons, 1837 To 1870, Stephen G. Arrowsmith

Theses and Dissertations

The evidence presented in this thesis advocates an increased level of scholarly interest in English working-class Mormon converts. To illustrate who these people were, and what their roles were as part of Mormon story, this regional study introduces and makes available over twelve hundred Staffordshire Mormons, and asks questions of the collected statistical information. The conservative Staffordshire Mormons clearly assisted the establishment, and continuation, off a Zion in the American West. Much of the data confirms previous scholarship; however, those with “differing visions” of Mormonism (for example, the RLDS Church) attracted Staffordshire converts in larger numbers than previously suggested. The …

A History Of The Latter-Day Saints In The Columbia Basin Of Central Washington 1850-1972, Rick B. Jorgensen

Theses and Dissertations

The Columbia Basin of Central Washington has a relatively recent Latter-day Saint history among the regions of the western states. Most of the sparsely populated rural areas in the west that have large concentrations of Latter-day Saints were originally established as "Mormon" settlements. The basin referred to lies between the Snake and Columbia Rivers and now has thousands of Latter-day Saints who have chosen to inhabit the historically barren land and call it their home. A brief visit or casual observance of the area leads many to question what were the major factors and characteristics leading to the twentieth century …

“How Long, Oh Lord, How Long?” James E. Talmage And The Great War, Richard E. Bennett

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

No abstract provided.

Faith, Femininity, And The Frontier: The Life Of Martha Jane Knowlton Coray, Amy Reynolds Billings

Theses and Dissertations

Through examining the life of Martha Jane Knowlton Coray, a nineteenth-century Mormon woman, this thesis establishes an analytical framework for studying the lives of Mormon women in territorial Utah. Their faith, femininity, and the frontier form the boundaries in which their lives are studied. Their faith was primarily defined by the doctrines of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, such as a belief in a restored gospel and priesthood, temples, and polygamy. These unique beliefs also fostered an identity as a chosen people and contributed to hostile feelings from their neighbors. Persecution followed and the Latter-day Saint community …

Time As Motivation: Selected Theories As Compared To Modern Revelation, Jill Judkins

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis proposes that human beings by virtue of living in each new present moment are motivated to develop strategies to secure the best possible outcome in their lived experience. A personal account of the phenomenological experience of time is presented and a brief history is given. The implications associated with being thrown into the present moment make apparent the weaknesses of the current assumptions that the slices of the present moment form a continuity of past and future and create a coherent synthesis of life. The assumption that human beings are intentional, goal-directed, and prone to seek meaning in …