“A Uniformity So Complete”: Early Mormon Angelology

By July 15, 2010


[To continue my attempt to post something without much work on my part, what follows is the introduction to my recent article, just put online by the Intermountain West Journal of Religious Studies. I post this also to encourage other graduate students to consider submitting to IMW Journal in the future; while it is a student-run production, it boasts an impressive academic review board with professional and respected scholars to help improve your submission; I received great feedback on my earlier drafts that significantly improved the article. To view the articles from the most recent issue, as well as to see submission guidelines,  click here.]

?An angel of God never has wings,? proclaimed Joseph Smith in 1839, just as the LDS Church was establishing itself in what would come to be known as Nauvoo, Illinois.

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Set Aside Whether Or Not Mormon Fundamentalists Are Mormon. The Better Question Is, Are They Fundamentalist?

By July 13, 2010


A lot of people would say no,

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Adoption

By July 12, 2010


I knew something was up when my wife?s high-school Spanish teacher came by. ?I feel like I?m losing a daughter.? We were in my wife?s hometown of Sonora, California, one week before our wedding. Even before we started dating I learned that my wife was an only child of divorced hippy parents. ?Great,? I thought, ?no pressure to be a high achieving son-in-law.? Little did I know?

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Rethinking the Reformation

By July 11, 2010


I?ve argued around here that we Mormons have tended to borrow the Protestant metanarrative of history in seeking to lay out how we get from Apostasy to Restoration: early Catholics corrupt the church, on come the dark ages, Luther brings light back into the world by focusing on the scriptures and breaking with the wicked pope, setting the stage for the Restoration.

A little more autobiography if you?ll indulge me.

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[Updated] Event Reminder: Program for the Mormon Scholars Foundation Summer Seminar Symposium, July 8, 2010

By July 7, 2010


The Mormon Scholars Foundation Summer Seminar, hosted by the Neal A. Maxwell Institute, under the direction of Richard Bushman and taught by Terryl Givens, will present the quasi-annual MSF Symposium.

Date:  Thursday, July 8.

Location: Auditorium of the McKay Building, BYU Campus [Building number 59 on this map]

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Review Essay: Edward Bever, The Realities of Witchcraft and Popular Magic in Early Modern Europe

By July 4, 2010


Bever, Edward. The Realities of Witchcraft and Popular Magic in Early Modern Europe: Culture, Cognition, and Everyday Life. Houndsmill, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. 2008.

I read this book recently at the recommendation of my adviser, Ann Taves, because she is now focused on the cognitive science aspect of religion. This book is an attempt by Bever, a historian by training, to apply some of the cognitive science methods to the study of early modern witchcraft. This review is a little long but I thought it suggested a number of interesting approaches for the study of supernatural beliefs in a historical setting.

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