Book Review: Mormon Christianity: What Other Christians Can Learn from the Latter-day Saints

Mormon Christianity: What Other Christians Can Learn from the Latter-day Saints. By Stephen H. Webb. Oxford University Press, 2013. 203 pages (with appendices). $27.95

Stephen Webb, a Roman Catholic philosopher and theologian, attempts to introduce non-Mormons to Mormon metaphysics and theology with a “rosy” outlook onto his subject (42). Although Mormon Christianity is published by Oxford University Press, its tone and Webb’s frank admission that he is a practicing Catholic may help Mormon Christianity to gain wide distribution from Christian bookstores, as well as Deseret Book (the LDS Church owned bookstore-which does carry the book). Webb’s means of understanding Mormonism are derived from his argument that Mormonism is a positive, Christian amalgamation of Catholicism and Protestantism. He employs each religious tradition to explain Mormonism to a non-specialized audience (15).

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Young girls in Primary in the 1920s and 1930s

(or more accurately titled “How I Justify my Facebook Procrastination”)

A question I am usually asked about my research is why I end my study of Mormon adolescent girls and young women in 1930? The beginning year for my research 1869 is a pretty obvious choice?at least to me! 1869 is the year the Retrenchment Association was established and certain monumental events such as when the transcontinental railroad first traversed Utah and just a few short years before Mormon women could exercise suffrage in the territory. So why then end my study in 1930? First of all, the church celebrated its centennial year. Secondly, the year of 1930 (or thereabouts) is historiographically considered to be the end of the church?s transformation to be considered a part of mainstream America. In Mormonism in Transition: A History of the Latter-day Saint, 1890 ? 1930, Thomas Alexander writes: ?In the view of the relative isolation of Church members in the nineteenth century from the currents of social change in the remainder of the nation, the alteration of Mormon society by 1930 was nothing less than miraculous.? What did this so-called end of this transitional period specifically mean for adolescent girls and young women? Can it be considered a turning point for the young females adherents of the church?

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Responses: Susanna Morrill responds to Boyd Petersen’s JMH article

Susanna Morrill is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon. She is the author of White Roses on the Floor of Heaven: Nature and Flower Imagery in Latter-day Saints Women?s Literature, 1880-1920 and several excellent articles. She has previously guest blogged for JI here and here. 

In the latest issue of the Journal of Mormon History, Boyd J. Petersen effectively and succinctly describes Mormon women?s dialogic literary conversations about Eve in the Woman?s Exponent: ?The speaking of many voices created a carnivalesque atmosphere where language was at once serious and subversive.? [1] This is a really great description of what was going on in Emmeline B. Wells? Exponent. This periodical gave Mormon women a distinct, authoritative bandwidth within the community to express their views, views that as Petersen notes sometimes ?subvert[ed] and sometimes co-opt[ed] the patriarchal gaze that watched over the publication.? [2] Petersen adds much to our understanding of how the present-day understanding of Eve developed as he meticulously chronicles the diversity of interpretations of Eve that appeared on the pages of the Exponent: she was alternately a hero, a goddess, ?the hapless and unintentional instigator of the Fall.? [3]

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Mormon Studies Weekly Roundup

For this week’s edition of the MSWR, I have all kinds of lovely links for your perusal.

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Journal Overview: BYU Studies Quarterly 52:4 (Winter 2013-14)

If you subscribe to BYU Studies Quartely like I do, you?ll know that the latest issue is no longer hot off the press. Not even warm, really. Mine has been lying around for a while, clamoring for recognition, languishing for want of care. Without further neglect, then, the JI brings you another content overview for BYUSQ 52:4. Three historical articles in the issue may be of interest to JI’s readers:

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Breaking the Airport Bookstore Barrier

A sign that your book has truly “made it”: people purchase the text as an impulse buy between ordering their Starbucks and boarding their plane.

There are many different types of books on Mormon history: faith-promoting, exposé, amateur, academic, and popular, not to mention the many books that blur those boundaries. Here at JI, we usually focus on the academic variety, which usually implies those published by university presses, though we also often engage the many top-rate amateur books that make our field so lively and exhaustive. These are the type of books that are directed at the audience with which we are most familiar: either the small group of people especially interested in Mormon history in particular, or the broader academic community interested in religious history more generally.

But I’d like to spend a post, and hopefully a discussion, on the popular.

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Mormon Studies in Unexpected Places: Volume 2 – Beastie Boys; Or, “No Man Knows My Lyrics”

This is the second entry in the recently launched, occasional, not-at-all regular, sporadic  JI series, Mormon Studies in Unexpected Places. The basic idea is fairly straightforward: to identify instances in which Mormon Studies authors and/or their books, articles, etc. make an unexpected appearance in popular culture, political discourse, etc. Read the first entry here.

I’m like Fawn Brodie?

A few weeks ago, my cousin excitedly asked me on facebook if I knew that a Beastie Boys song contained a lyric referencing Fawn Brodie. I wasn’t aware, but it seemed plausible enough — the band is known for their clever lyrics, the late Adam “MCA” Yauch was reportedly somewhat eclectic in his own approach to religion, and their 1994 hit single, “Root Down,” referenced the band’s preference for snowboarding the powder of Utah’s slopes. Still, I was surprised to learn of the Fawn Brodie lyric.

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on chewing gum and conversion stories

In reading a collection of German Mormon WWII stories  for a project,[1] I came across a story told by the Uchtdorfs. Both Dieter and Harriet Uchtdorf were not members by birth; rather, their families converted after the war. President Uchtdorf’s grandmother was actually the one to encounter Mormonism first, when she met “a wonderful white-haired lady with a kind expression on her face” while standing in line one day (queuing up for supplies, any supplies, was part of post-war life for many Europeans, Germans included). 

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Article Highlight: Quincy Newell on Jane Manning James

Occasionally, I do a keyword search for ?Mormon? in JSTOR and Project Muse to see if anything comes up.  A few days ago, I got a hit for a journal article that I didn?t know had been published or was even in the works. Quincy Newell, a religious studies professor at the University of Wyoming, has an article in the Journal of Africana Religions about Jane Manning James. Newell?s article is meant to showcase two significant documents: the autobiography that James dictated to Elizabeth Roundy around 1902

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The latest Journal of Mormon History

The latest Journal of Mormon History has been reaching subscribers’ mailboxes this week, which means it’s time for the JI’s semi-regular brief reviews of the issue.

Ronald W. Walker, joined by Matthew J. Grow, completes his two part analysis of the 1851-1852 “Runaways” incident in “The People Are ‘Hogaffed or Humbugged’: The 1851-52 National Reaction to Utah’s ‘Runaway’ Officers, Part 2,’ 1-52. The first installment, which appeared in the last issue of JMH, chronicled the origins of the crisis with the first non-Mormon federal appointees in Utah Territory. This second part continues the story as the scene shifts to the nation’s capital, and follows the public affairs and behind-the-scenes activities of Jedediah Grant, John M. Berhisel, and Thomas L. Kane. Walker and Grow not only tell a gripping tale, but also demonstrate the importance of this event in the long and tortured history of Mormon-federal relations from the late 1840s through the 1890s. Unlike the similar struggle with federal appointees in the lead-up to the Utah War, the 1852 even actually turned out in the Mormons’ favor. The article provides a teaser for Walker and Grow’s forthcoming documentary volume on Brigham Young and Thomas L. Kane’s correspondence.

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