Religious Education Commons^™

Nauvoo Polygamy: " . . But We Called It Celestial Marriage", Thomas G. Alexander

BYU Studies

Although focusing on the introduction of plural marriage by Joseph Smith, Nauvoo Polygamy is also an analysis of the background of pre-Mormon polygamy, a consideration of the expansion of the institution, and the testimony of those who entered it. Significantly, it is the first attempt since Todd Compton's In Sacred Loneliness to provide a critical list and analysis of the women whom Joseph married. It is not, however, an attempt to provide a statistical analysis of plural marriage, and its consideration of the operation of plural family life is much shorter than we find in the works of Kathryn Daynes …

American Grace: How Religion Divides And Unites Us, James W. Phillips, Robert D. Putnam, David E. Campbell, Shaylyn R. Garrett

BYU Studies

American Grace is the next pivotal work within the social scientific study of religion that LDS readers should find interesting on many levels, including the extensive attention it gives to Mormonism. In this work, Robert Putnam (author of the national bestseller Bowling Alone) teams up with David Campbell (editor of A Matter of Faith: Religion in the 2004 Presidential Election) and field researcher Shayln Romney Garrett to examine the many facets of contemporary American religious pluralism. The authors use data from the nationally representative 2006 and 2007 waves of the Faith Matters survey, in addition to other surveys, …

The Book Of Mormon: The Earliest Text, Robert L. Maxwell, Royal Skousen

BYU Studies

The Book of Mormon: The Earliest Text begins with a twenty-two-page introduction by Grant Hardy about the nature and coming forth of the Book of Mormon, together with an inviting call for the further study of that book within LDS, American, and world contexts; and also with a seventeen-page editor's preface by Skousen, describing the nature of the Book of Mormon text and the goals and typographical conventions of this "Yale Edition." The bulk of the book (1-738) consists of a presentation of the complete text of the Book of Mormon itself, a stemma showing the genealogy of the various …

Eliza R. Snow: The Complete Poetry, Karen L. Davidson, Susan E. Howe, Jill Mulvay Derr

BYU Studies

It is unfortunate but nevertheless true that most of today's educated readers do not understand, are indifferent to, or even dislike poetry. Given that fact, many readers might pass up Eliza R. Snow: The Complete Poetry without so much as a glance at its contents. That would be a mistake. In preparing this comprehensive collection of Eliza R. Snow's poetry, editors Jill Mulvay Derr and Karen Lynn Davidson have rightly understood that Eliza's writings have great significance in their relationship to her personal life as well as the religious and historical events to which she was responding. Derr and Davidson …

A Search For Place: Eight Generations Of Henrys And The Settlement Of Utah's Uintah Basin, David S. Carpenter, F. Lamond Tullis

BYU Studies

LaMond Tullis, emeritus professor of political science at Brigham Young University and author of Mormons in Mexico and Lord and Peasant in Peru, among other works, tries in his latest book to put his ancestors in their rightful place. He tells the story of the Henrys, from the Scotch-Irish John Henry who settled in Rhode Island in the late 1600s down to the generation of his mother's family, who settled in the Uintah Basin. Migrating from New England through New York to the Midwest and the Rocky Mountains, these westering Henrys are placed by Tullis into larger contexts, their stories …

God And Sex: What The Bible Really Says, Michael Coogan, Eric A. Eliason

BYU Studies

Once, while serving as a military chaplain, I attended a training event in Colorado Springs. There we toured the world headquarters of the Evangelical "Focus on the Family" ministry. Our friendly guide explained to us that their organization existed to promote the "biblical model" of the family in the modern world. A cheeky question popped into to my mind: "By 'biblical model' do you mean the polygamy practiced in the Old Testament, or the celibacy encouraged in the New Testament?" But I held my tongue, as I wanted to be a polite guest. But since this event, I have often …

Muhammad: Prophet Of God, Thora Qaddumi, Daniel C. Peterson

BYU Studies

Islamic studies scholar Daniel C. Peterson has written a small book that speaks volumes about the man who, in about the year AD 610, while meditating in a cave near Mecca in Arabia, received a prophetic call that led to the establishment of a religion that today is claimed by almost a quarter of the world's inhabitants. It adds to the growing body of research by Peterson and other Latter-day Saint scholars that strengthens the Church's role as a voice of reason in an area rife with misunderstandings and ignorance--the Islamic world.

Although written from a strongly academic and scholarly …

The Faith Instinct: How Religion Evolved And Why It Endures, Brian Jackson, Nicholas Wade

BYU Studies

"People of faith may not warm to the view that the mind's receptivity to religion has been shaped by evolution," writes Nicholas Wade, science writer for the New York Times, in his new book The Faith Instinct. If religion evolves with cultural circumstances, then it loses some of its immutable, supernatural qualities. On the other hand, atheists "may not embrace the idea that religious behavior evolved because it conferred essential benefits on ancient societies and their successors." If we accept the proposition that faith endures because cultures select it (perhaps unconsciously) as a necessary attribute of their survival, then we …

Excavating Nauvoo: The Mormons And The Rise Of Historical Archaeology In America, Richard K. Talbot, Benjamin C. Pykles

BYU Studies

During a recent coordination meeting, an archaeologist employed by the state of Utah tried to explain how the science of archaeology can help Native Americans to know their history. In response, one of the Native American participants exclaimed, "We already know our history!" This statement sheds light on tensions that arise when reconstructing the past. To those living in a postmodern world, history can serve many purposes and many masters; for this particular Native American, the oral history that had been passed down generationally to her presented her past in a context and form with which she was accustomed and …

Backyard Alchemy, Casualene Meyer, Lance E. Larsen

BYU Studies

Fatherhood is an immediate, fruitful theme in Lance Larsen's Backyard Alchemy, from the title with its combination of hominess and intellectual magic to the dedication page honoring his wife, Jacqui, and his recently deceased father, Veryl Larsen. Several poems in Larsen's book feature fathers, inviting readers to ponder the subject.

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 …

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 …

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.

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 …

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. …

Surprised By Hope: Rethinking Heaven, The Resurrection, And The Mission Of The Church, N. T. Wright, Noel B. Reynolds

BYU Studies

Many Latter-day Saints are showing an increased sympathy for the writings of Anglican bishop N. T. Wright of Durham, England, and others in the Emerging Church tradition. Such LDS interest derives from the movement's emphasis on returning to basic Christian living modeled in the New Testament and adherents' willingness to back away from those churches that have systematic theologies and a seeming addiction to the discourse of power while pursuing their agendas. The Emerging Church is more of a conversation than an organization, and it crosses denominational boundaries around the world. It is characterized by a deep interest in interpreting …

Enhancing Evolution: Posthumanous Dreams And The Moral Complexity Of Biomedical Aspirations, David L. Paulsen, Clark H. Pinnock

BYU Studies

A noted academic bioethicist and British media pundit with a named chair at the University of Manchester, John Harris has recently given birth to an odd literary child. His latest book, Enhancing Evolution: The Ethical Case for Making Better People, hails from an esteemed university press, but it is informal and tendentious, often jeering at opponents, both popular and academic. Despite his credentials (an Oxford PhD in philosophy, co-editorship of the British Journal of Medical Ethics, a lengthy curriculum vitae), Harris has created a popular polemic better fitted for the entertaining and energetic repartee of the Daily Show with Jon …