From the Archives: Interview with a (Strawman?) Clergyman
By April 30, 2008
The following was printed in Times and Seasons, September 1, 1842.
By April 30, 2008
The following was printed in Times and Seasons, September 1, 1842.
By April 27, 2008
Five years before the 1920s, a decade in which he did a least as much as John T. Scopes to instigate warfare between Protestant liberals and fundamentalists, and fifty years before Martin Luther King praised him as the greatest preacher of the century, the Baptist minister Harry Emerson Fosdick was appointed to the Jessup Chair in Practical Theology at Union Theological Seminary. [1]
Fosdick was not really an original thinker, but he was a master teacher and popularizer. And, perhaps because of the agonies that he struggled through on his own route to faith, he had a powerful understanding of the anxieties that plagued his age. Because of the new Biblical criticism, Fosdick wrote,
The old use of the Bible became impossible to many preachers who, as much as ever was true of their fathers, believed in Jesus Christ as the world?s Saviour and wanted to proclaim his Gospel as the power of God unto salvation.[2]
In other words, these preachers – like Fosdick himself – believed passionately in God revealed in Christ. But they no longer accepted the accuracy of Biblical history. And they did not know what to do.
By April 24, 2008
Harry Emerson Fosdick was among the most popular preachers and writers of the first half of the twentieth century. He’s particularly known for a trilogy of devotional works called “The Three Meanings:” The Meaning of Prayer, the Meaning of Faith, the Meaning of Service. These books have sold millions of copies; there are reports that Gandhi read them in prison; and they’re still in print today.
Despite Fosdick’s high profile,* however, it was the RLDS, not Harold B. Lee or J. Reuben Clark, who stepped up to the plate to represent Mormonism to Fosdick.
By April 22, 2008
Before anything else, I want to wish everyone good luck or congratulations on their end of semester work–which ever option best fits your own situation. After having done my best to diagram the historical craft in my previous post and postulate what such observations might mean for the study of Mormon history, I have decided today to tackle the role of theory in historical inquiry. Once again, I am treating an extremely complex topic, but I hope to present my ideas in a clear and concise manner. As such, I will probably oversimplify some concepts for which I profoundly apologize-this topic has proven much more difficult than I initially thought.
By April 22, 2008
One topic I find most interesting about Mormonism is the ability of the Latter-day Saints to create the sacred.
By April 22, 2008
In honor of Earth Day, here is an excerpt from an 1860 sermon by Brigham Young. I’m intrigued by how his counsel to cultivate the earth figures into his eschatology.
By April 21, 2008
By Margaret Young
I won’t give his real name. Apparently, he is a remarkable man, a supremely talented jazz musician who has played with Duke Ellington’s orchestra. He joined the Church before the priesthood revelation in 1978 and so, as an African American, he understood that he would not have the same privileges as white Mormons. The Era magazine (precursor to the Ensign) did a story about him, which inspired at least one other Black musician to stay in the Church during some difficult times.
By April 17, 2008
This is not a verbatim report. It has been slightly reworked for clarity and smoothness from notes I took as I typed almost as fast as I could. Any errors in facts, or lack of grace in delivery are my responsibility. Enjoy!
By April 16, 2008
If you live practically anywhere on the Wasatch Front, you are within range of one of Bill MacKinnon’s speaking engagements in his whirlwind book tour, promoting his latest publication, At Sword’s Point, Part 1: A Documentary History of the Utah War to 1858, volume one of a two volume history of the Utah War and the tenth volume in the Kingdom in the West Series.
By April 16, 2008
It is my pleasure to announce another big addition to the Juvenile Instructor…Matt Bowman. Matt joins Heidi, Stan, and myself as Bushman Summer Seminar alumni that blog at the JI. He joins us after a successful tenure at Mormon Mentality. Here’s what he has to say about himself.
Matt Bowman is a doctoral candidate in American religious history at Georgetown, and holds a master’s in American history from the University of Utah. He’s interested in Christian theology, evangelicalism, fundamentalism, and, occasionally dabbles in Mormon history, noir, and the movies. He’s published in Religion and American Culture: a Journal of Interpretation, The Journal of Mormon History, the John Whitmer Journal, and the Utah Historical Quarterly.
Let’s welcome Matt.
© 2024 – Juvenile Instructor
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