Mormon Studies Commons^™

Review: Richard Neitzel Holzapfel And David M. Whitchurch, Eds. My Dear Sister: Letters Between Joseph F. Smith And His Sister Martha Ann Smith Harris. Salt Lake City And Provo, Ut: Deseret Book And Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2019., Natalie Rose

Mormon Studies Review

decades of letters exchanged between the sixth church president and his sister from the 1850s to the 1910s. A majority of these letters are provided by Carole Call King, the great-granddaughter of Martha Ann Harris, who had the well-preserved letters in her possession. Following her father’s death in 1993, King inherited several items from her father including these letters that remained in a box left “on a closet shelf ” in her home for some time (xiv). In the box were almost one hundred letters written to her great-grandmother Martha Ann Harris by Harris’s brother Joseph F. Smith, the nephew …

Review: Harvard Heath, Ed. Confidence Amid Change: The Presidential Diaries Of David O. Mckay, 1951–1970. Salt Lake City, Ut: Signature Books, 2018., Matthew Bowman

Mormon Studies Review

The complete diaries of David O. McKay, held in the special collections

of the J. Willard Marriott Library at the University of Utah,

run some forty thousand pages long. Such length seems appropriate

for the man who served as president of the Church of Jesus Christ of

Latter-day Saints for nearly twenty of his ninety-six years, from 1951

to 1970. When he was born many Americans believed his church to be

a strange and threatening polygamous cult; when he died Mormons were widely celebrated as model Americans. These pages help us to

understand that change.

About fifteen thousand of those …

University Of Illinois Press

Mormon Studies Review

No abstract provided.

Review: Gregory Prince. Gay Rights And The Mormon Church: Intended Actions, Unintended Consequences. Salt Lake City: University Of Utah Press, 2019., Elizabeth Alice Clement

Mormon Studies Review

With an accessible writing style and startlingly short chapters, Gregory Prince analyzes three aspects of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint’s engagement with homosexuality in the postwar US.1 First, he carefully traces the evolution of the church’s understanding of the causes of homosexuality and the policies the church developed to address same sex attraction among the faithful. Second, he analyzes the church’s participation in both state and national debates around public policy towards homosexuality, with a particular focus on the campaigns against gay marriage. Finally, he explores the harm the church’s analysis, policy, and public involvement have done …

Review: Daniel P. Stone. William Bickerton: Forgotten Latter Day Prophet. Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2018., Christopher James Blythe

Mormon Studies Review

Daniel Stone’s William Bickerton: Forgotten Latter Day Prophet is a biography of a significant nineteenth-century Latter Day Saint “prophet, seer, and revelator.” It is as much a story about the founding of the Church of Jesus Christ in 1850s Pennsylvania as it is an account of the life of this fascinating man. The Latter Day Saint tradition encompasses hundreds of denominations that have a heritage in the Church of Christ founded in 1830 by Joseph Smith. Scholars have spent most of their attention on the largest division of the tradition, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, based in …

The Latter-Day Saints And Race Issues In South Africa, Khumbulani D. Mdletshe

Mormon Studies Review

When Jesse Haven and his two missionary companions, all white elders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, landed on the African continent in 1853 to preach the gospel in the country of South Africa, they had no intention of preaching to the nation’s black inhabitants. Just the year before, Brigham Young, president of the LDS Church, declared to the Utah legislature that “a man who has the African blood in him cannot hold one jot nor tittle of Priesthood.”1 T hese comments fit the governing ideology of South Africa, where the black majority was treated as second-class …

A Scholar In Zion, Anthea Butler

Mormon Studies Review

When I received my copy of Sister Saints: Mormon Women Since the End of Polygamy, I stared at the cover for a while. Surely Colleen McDannell did not pick this image, I thought, because the cover is reminiscent of what I would consider to be a nineteenth-century version of Mormon womanhood: a young mother playing with her children, looking down upon them lovingly, seemingly free from care. Thankfully, a) the cover was NOT her first choice for the book; and b) the statue is not quite what Sister Saints is all about.

Review: Hokulani K. Aikau. A Chosen People, A Promised Land: Mormonism And Race In Hawai’I. Minneapolis: University Of Minnesota Press, 2012., Sujey Vega

Mormon Studies Review

I want to begin by referencing a particularly moving scene depicted in A Chosen People, a Promised Land that speaks to the beauty and hardship of what it means to reclaim faith and culture for one’s own. In her narrative, Hokulani Aikau depicts the 2001 launching of the wa’a kaulua ‘o Iosepa, a voyage canoe made by and for Polynesian Latter-day Saints. Long before it was the “latest attraction” to the Polynesian Cultural Center (PCC), this wa’a served an inspiring purpose. Aikau describes in vivid detail the beachside ceremony and the communal effort to set this majestic canoe into the …

Review: F. Lamond Tullis. Martyrs In Mexico: A Mormon Story Of Revolution And Redemption. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 2018., Angela Tarango

Mormon Studies Review

F. LaMond Tullis’s book Martyrs in Mexico begins with an evocative quote from one of the Zapatista executioners of Rafael Monroy and Vincente Morales—that the two men died bravely and “with their boots on” (1). The men faced their execution by firing squad resolutely and refused to repudiate their “foreign” faith. Accused of hiding military weapons for the Zapatistas’ enemies, the men stated the only “arms” they harbored were their copies of the Book of Mormon and the Bible. For this they were executed during the height of the Mexican Revolution.

Review: Irén Annus, David Morris, And Kim Östman, Eds. Mormonism In Europe: Historical And Contemporary Perspectives. Szeged, Hungary: Americana Ebooks, 2018., Mees Tielens

Mormon Studies Review

If books about Mormonism “abroad” (that is, Mormonism outside the United States) have a formula, it tends to be along the following lines: focusing heavily on missionary work, they list dates that missionaries arrive, successes and failures in opening up a country to the gospel, perhaps culminating in the triumphant announcement of or, better yet, the actual building of a temple to prove the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ viability and longevity in that place. Rarely are local contexts taken into account or meaningfully explored; rarely are these books written from anything other than the perspective of an …

Review: Megan Sanborn Jones. Contemporary Mormon Pageantry: Seeking After The Dead. Ann Arbor: University Of Michigan Press, 2018., Jill Hemming Austin

Mormon Studies Review

Outdoor historical pageants hold a long and steady presence in the informal and grassroots culture of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. There are several reasons for the robust health of this tradition: theology that implicates living church members in the salvation of their ancestors; an enthusiastic proselytizing culture that seeks to spread the good word; and a tendency towards large-group events and performance. In her book, Contemporary Mormon Pageantry: Seeking After the Dead, Brigham Young University theatre professor Megan Sanborn Jones takes on the task of examining four of the largest church pageants in the United States: …

Front Matter

Mormon Studies Review

No abstract provided.

Confronting And Condemning “Hard Doctrine,” 1978–2013, Matthew L. Harris

Mormon Studies Review

Although Spencer W. Kimball’s 1978 revelation in the Salt Lake Temple ended the 126-year-old priesthood and temple ban affecting persons of African descent, questions about racial teachings in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints lingered. The revelation, canonized as “Official Declaration 2” in Latter-day Saint scripture, failed to repudiate the theology justifying the ban.1 Some members, consequently, continued to assert that black people were cursed, equating their dark skin with misdeeds they allegedly committed in a pre-earth life.2 Anguished over these microaggressions, black Latter-day Saints petitioned church officials to condemn racism within the church as well as remove …

End Matter

BYU Studies

No abstract provided.

The Teachings Of Church Leaders Regarding The Crucifixion Of Jesus Christ: 1852–2018, John Hilton Iii, Emily K. Hyde, Mckenna Grace Trussel

BYU Studies

From the beginnings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (herein referred to as “the Church”), the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ has been at the heart of its theology. In numerous revelations received by Joseph Smith, the Savior is identified as having been “crucified for the sins of the world” (D&C 53:2; see also 21:9, 35:2, 46:13, 54:1, 76:41). President Brigham Young taught that salvation was only “through the name and ministry of Jesus Christ, and the atonement he made on Mount Calvary.”¹ President John Taylor said that Christ “was crucified and put to death to atone …

Good Grief, Sarah Hafen D'Evegnee

BYU Studies

Having happily served a mission myself, I was convinced that the only tears I would shed when I said goodbye to my oldest son would be tears of maternal joy. However, as his departure date loomed larger on the calendar, the metal harness of time strapped me in, and I felt nauseous as I anticipated the whoosh of the release of air just before being whisked straight upward and then plummeted to certain death—the thrill and the terror of knowing that I had not only signed up for this ride, but I had waited in line and I was the …

Sacred Time, Sacred Space, Sacred Meaning : Proceedings Of The Third Interpreter Matthew B. Brown Memorial Conference "The Temple On Mount Zion" 5 November 2016, Matthew L. Bowen, Jeffrey M. Bradshaw, David M. Calabro, Camille Fronk Olson

Interpreter Foundation Books

The temple is central to Latter-day Saint worship. Through modern revelation Joseph Smith restored the ancient tradition of temples and the ordinances performed therein. Studies of ancient temples can shed much light on latter-day temples and temple worship. Several years ago Latter-day Saint scholar Matthew Brown planned a conference entitled The Temple on Mount Zion and began to invite participants. Matthew Brown loved the temple and temple worship and studied and published on ancient and modern temples. His interests and knowledge were vast. When Matthew passed away very unexpectedly in 2011, his friends decided to organize a series of conferences …

Review: Larry E. Morris. A Documentary History Of The Book Of Mormon. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019., Janiece Johnson

Mormon Studies Review

Initially called Mormonites and then Mormons, the most

famous epithet of the followers of Joseph Smith was always about the Book. Without the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith would likely have

become just one more in the far-flung field of nineteenth-century

prophets. Over time, however, a fantastical origin story has often garnered

more outside attention than the book’s content—an impulse that

started with the beginning of the Book itself. Moreover, the origin of

the Book of Mormon is consistently contested ground—albeit a much

more accessible nineteenth-century narrative than the origin stories of

many sacred texts. Smith himself never said much …

Review: Matthew L. Harris, Ed. Thunder From The Right: Ezra Taft Benson In Mormonism And Politics. Urbana: University Of Illinois Press, 2019., Lauren F. Turek

Mormon Studies Review

The Cold War looms large in Thunder from the Right, an edited volume that offers readers an incisive appraisal of the religious and political career of Mormon leader Ezra Taft Benson. As the collected essays reveal, a profound anxiety about Soviet communism and, more specifically, the perception that internal socialist subversion threatened the United States and its core values, impelled Benson to speak out widely and vociferously. His zealous anti-communism infused every aspect of his life and his work, from the policy positions he advocated for as President Eisenhower’s secretary of agriculture to the religious teachings he shared as a …

Race And The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints In India, Taunalyn Rutherford, Joe Chelladurai, Vinna Chintaram

Mormon Studies Review

Paul Reeve has argued that the Book of Mormon’s imperative, “all are alike unto God,” “met its match in an American religious and racial culture which insisted otherwise.”1 The complexity of race and its construction in “Indian culture” over the course of a much longer history has created a formidable match for a Mormonism characterized at times by its “whiteness” and “Americanness.”2 Race in India is a multifarious and changing phenomenon. Contemporary scholars claim that India is facing “a race problem made up of a combination of ignorance and denial.”3 The policy of geographic boundaries rather than self-selection creates diverse …

“By Study And Also By Faith”, J Gordon Daines Iii

BYU Studies

At their inception, universities were places where all branches of learning—both the sacred and the secular—were studied. At the great medieval universities, for instance, faith and academic excellence were intertwined,¹ and this strong connection continued in the universities of the New World. Most American research universities began as religiously affiliated colleges whose missions were to develop Christian character and foster faith in order to prepare men for the ministry or work in the government.² But, beginning in the late nineteenth century and continuing over the course of the twentieth century, the vast majority of these research universities abandoned …

Mormonism And The Limits Of Scripture, Vincent L. Wimbush

Mormon Studies Review

The complex, modern, US-founded but now international, social-cultural phenomenon categorized most popularly by insiders and outsiders as “Mormons,” the “Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” and/or simply by analysts as a provocative example of modern “religion,” is, as it should be, approached by the latter through many different disciplines and areas and fields of study and in myriad and overlapping ways. From the historical to the literary-rhetorical, from the scientific/social-scientific to the materialist, from the theological and psycho-social to the aesthetic, and from the comic-farcical to the political—whatever approach has been attempted in terms of examining historical and ongoing …

The Mobility Of Race: An Indigenous Feminist View From Aotearoa/New Zealand, Gina Colvin

Mormon Studies Review

This paper provides a commentary on how race and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints intersect in Aotearoa/New Zealand and will include an exploration of the mobility of race through an analysis of hermeneutics in the LDS Church. I will argue that while the interpretative lens of sacred texts, including the four standards works of the LDS Church, is shaped by and enforced by an American patriarchal leadership, the redemptive power of scripture will be lost to a population who can least afford another spiritual deprivation.

Full Issue

BYU Studies

No abstract provided.

James E. Talmage And Scientific Consulting In Early Modern Utah, Gregory Seppi

BYU Studies

A devout member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, James E. Talmage (1862–1933) is perhaps best remembered today for his classic theological text Jesus the Christ.¹ He is also remembered by some for his extensive academic ties to Brigham Young Academy, the Latter-day Saints College, and the University of Utah.² Yet the image many Latter-day Saints have of Talmage sedately writing Jesus the Christ in the Salt Lake Temple has seemingly little in common with the trail-worn scientist covered in mining debris who emerges from his journals. Talmage spent much of his time from the …

Front Matter

BYU Studies

No abstract provided.

Grace, Legalism, And Mental Health Among The Latter-Day Saints, Daniel K. Judd, W. Justin Dyer

BYU Studies

Martin Luther (1483–1546), a central figure of the Protestant Reformation, is one of many who have experienced tension between the perceived necessity of their own good works and the grace of God in the process of salvation. Soon after the young Luther entered the monastery in preparation to become a priest, he began to experience the consequences of his legalistic beliefs. Reflecting on this experience later in life, he wrote:

The History Of The Book Of Mormon Text, Royal Skousen

BYU Studies

In this paper, I will provide an overview of the two latest published books in the Book of Mormon critical text project:

Part 5: The King James Quotations in the Book of Mormon

Part 6: Spelling in the Manuscripts and Editions

As the numbers indicate, these two books form a part of a much larger publishing project. The fundamental work in the project is The Book of Mormon: The Earliest Text, published in 2009 by Yale University Press and now in its fourth printing. Supporting this single volume of the text are the volumes of the critical text project …

The Strengths And Challenges Of Contemporary Marriages Of Members Of The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints, Dean M. Busby, David C. Dollahite

BYU Studies

Many people follow religious beliefs, principles, and practices because they believe these will lead to a higher quality of marriage and family life.¹ It is clear from the extant research that belonging to and practicing a religion can lead to improved outcomes that benefit couples and families. A large body of social science research indicates that religion has salutary influence on a number of personal and relational outcomes, including greater physical and mental health,² positive psychological outcomes in adolescence,³ better marital relationships and higher fidelity,⁴ transformation in marital relationships,⁵ reduced anxiety,⁶ marital stability,^{7 …}

The Rain On Alan Avenue, J. S. Absher

BYU Studies

How the Missionaries Came to Marion, Virginia, 1955

In that far year when I was a child (you were not yet), I saw how rain on long afternoons can chitter and chat, gurgling and chortling out the downspout, its sing-song tune boring a brat with nothing to do.