By Steve FlemingMay 29, 2009
So I was thinking about Edje’s comment on Russell’s “Why I am a Tory” post:
If the British had stuck to the Proclamation of 1763 indefinitely (forbidding English subjects from settling west of the Appalachians) I think it would have made it rather difficult to implement any sort of centralized gathering scheme. The reaction would have been similar to what actually happened in the US, but with centralized law enforcement and nowhere to go, the Mormons would have been eradicated.
If I recall the diggers attempted a commune in 17th century England and were eradicated. Yet, if I recall, a major reason for the Proclamation of 1763 was to keep the colonists from encroaching on native lands. Since Russell had us on the topic of 1 Nephi 13, I’ll quote verse 14: “And it came to pass that I beheld many multitudes of the Gentiles upon the land of promise; and I beheld the wrath of God, that it as upon the seed of my brethren; and they were scattered before the Gentiles and were smitten.”
If the Mormons needed to have a frontier to flee to, were they a part of the manifest destiny movement, or were they fleeing from it?
By Ben PMay 29, 2009
As one whose ?to-read? pile lends a large shadow over both my desk and nightstand, devotional history books put out by publishers like Deseret Book or Covenant Press don?t usually make the list. However, a couple weeks I decided to download the audio version of a recent ?popular? devotional/historical work.[1] While this post is formatted like a standard book review, I hope that it will serve as a ?springboard? of sorts to discuss the practice of writing history for the faithful masses.
Continue Reading
By Steve FlemingMay 28, 2009
Today while going door to door collection money for our kids’ school with my almost eight-year-old daughter, I asked her what she wanted to do when she grew up. She said “I don’t know, maybe I want to be an artist or a student like you,” and she affectionately kissed me on the arm. While she meant it as a sign of affection I had to interject, “Wait honey, a student isn’t something you do when you grow up, it’s something you do in order to do something else. You see, I want to be a professor.” To this she responded in a very sympathetic voice, “Do you really think you’ll be able to do that?” To which I responded, “Yes, of course.” To which her reply (having lost the sympathetic tone) “Yeah right, in like 10 years or something.”
Continue Reading
By ChristopherMay 27, 2009
What follows is a portion of the paper I presented at the annual meeting of the Mormon History Association last week in Springfield, IL. The paper focused on the religious lives of Latter-day Saints in the American South in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. My aim was to move narratives of the LDS experience in the South beyond analyses of missionaries who served there and the persecution and violence they encountered; to explore the lives of those Saints who were baptized but didn’t migrate West. One of the most interesting aspects of the lives of these “un-gathered” Saints was their patterns of worship.
Continue Reading
By GuestMay 26, 2009
Admin: Guest post by Russell.
Perhaps it is the heretical imp in me, but I have often shifted in my seat uncomfortably as I sit in classes at BYU and in the church house while folks accept as axiomatic all the talk about the American revolution as merely the harbinger of the Restoration. The argument goes like this: the gospel could not be established in a land of tyranny, it is argued. Whatever the errors or skeletons of our founding fathers (if they be admitted at all), they served as Cyrus figures for the Saints. They were “wise men” who helped to shake the shackles of tyranny from the colonists (“shake” here should be read as war and destruction of human life–just so we’re on the same page). I have two problems with this: 1) I hate war. Elder McConkie is correct: war is one of the greatest tools of Satan and 2) while no nation is free from the blood of innocents, for being the land of freedom, America has not been kind to LDS ideals to say nothing of the LDS people. To soothe my theo-ideological angst, I sometimes engage in a rather subversive counterfactual: could the Lord have carried out the restoration in a British America?
Continue Reading
By David G.May 25, 2009
After months of cajoling, Steve Fleming has finally agreed to join the Juvenile Instructor on a permanent basis. Here’s a short bio:
Stephen J. Fleming is a PhD. candidate at UC Santa Barbara in Religious Studies and a 2008 Bushman fellow. Steve received his B.A. in history from BYU and his M.A. from UC Stanislaus, also in history. He would like to write a dissertation on survivals of crypto-Catholicism and resistance to disenchantment from the Reformation to the Industrial Revolution. He has been published in Church History, Religion and American Culture, and Max Weber Studies, as well as various Mormon journals and he is currently revising his MA thesis, which treats Mormonism in the Delaware Valley (Philadelphia and surrounding regions) for publication.
Here are the links for Steve’s guest posts:
http://www.juvenileinstructor.org/what-is-our-obligation-the-2008-bushman-seminar/
http://www.juvenileinstructor.org/science-as-a-vocation/
Join us in welcoming Steve.
By May 23, 2009
We greet you from Springfield, Illinois, the Land of Lincoln. It’s been a good conference so far. We’ve here combined our notes from the respective sessions we attended. Our notes are fragmentary, but will give our readers a sense of the presentations.
Continue Reading
By Ben PMay 23, 2009
Award Recipients from the 2009 MHA Awards Banquet.
Continue Reading
By Jared TMay 19, 2009
Well, this week the Mormon History Association Conference will be in full swing at Springfield, Illinois. The preliminary program is here.
Panel Changes:
There has been at least one change to the schedule that you should be made aware of. The panel I’m a part of with Paul Reeve and Stan Thayne has moved to 2B, Friday 2:00 to 3:30 pm. It had been on Saturday. Presumably (we haven’t gotten any definite word), our panel switched with Chris, Ed and Mark Brown’s panel, which would place them in our old spot of 6A. So, be tuned to that and come out to see us!
Continue Reading
By GuestMay 15, 2009
Admin: Guest post by Russell.
*A caveat: I am taking a conscious cue from Richard Hofstadter–this is a line of inquiry rather than a footnote-drenched piece of archive-based scholarship.
Continue Reading
Older Posts
Recent Comments
Christopher on LATTER-DAY SAINT THEOLOGY &: “Blake, I get a kick out of your poor reading comprehension skills. If your comment is directed to Joseph, who posted this description, please understand that…”
Eric Nielson on LATTER-DAY SAINT THEOLOGY &: “Matt, I have signed up with a friend account, but when I try to open the file I am told that I do not have…”
Terry H on LATTER-DAY SAINT THEOLOGY &: “I mean, I know its in the link, but just curious.”
Terry H on LATTER-DAY SAINT THEOLOGY &: “Perhaps I missed something, but when and where is it?”
Matt Witten on LATTER-DAY SAINT THEOLOGY &: “This one? https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/handle/2027.42/157453”
Eric Nielson on LATTER-DAY SAINT THEOLOGY &: “I would like to read Paulsen's dissertation. Does anyone have some link or way to access it?”