The Role of History in Religion: Two Diverging Views
By February 19, 2008
We as Latter-day Saints love to quote Ralph Waldo Emerson.
By February 19, 2008
We as Latter-day Saints love to quote Ralph Waldo Emerson.
By February 15, 2008
When Joseph the Prophet and Hyrum the Patriarch were murdered, the Mormon community felt as if the worst event possible had happened.
By February 7, 2008
This last weekend, while reading a book discussing the transition of Mormonism in the early twentieth century, the same thought came to my mind that has come hundreds of times (and I’m sure that it is the same for many of you): someone needs to write a scholarly biography on Joseph F. Smith.
So, this got me thinking. What other books on Mormon history still need to be written? The comments in a past post show that more work still needs to be done on persecution narratives. In a graduate course the other day, several of us co-bloggers discussed the need for a book to explore the idea of “theo-democracy,” as seen in the early Church. Another book on my “wish list” would be a biography on Oliver Cowdery.
What unwritten books are on your “wish list”?
By January 23, 2008
In his 1993 Tanner Lecture delivered to the Mormon History Association, historian Richard Hughes suggested that “romanticism quickly emerged as the defining intellectual influence [of the Mormon Church] … and this was the difference that made all the difference.”[1] In a similar vein, Jacksonian scholar and Joseph Smith biographer Robert Remini concluded that “Joseph was a romantic to his innermost fiber.”[2] The connection between romanticism and early Mormonism is a fascinating one that deserves further attention.
By January 7, 2008
In elders quorum yesterday, we discussed the first chapter in the new Joseph Smith Manual. Expectedly, it treated the First Vision and the class discussed how the First Vision was the great starting point of the Restoration and Joseph Smith’s prophetic career.
By December 10, 2007
In her novel A Little Lower than the Angels, Virginia Sorensen writes of a fictional family living in Nauvoo, Illinois.
By December 3, 2007
While in Liberty Jail, Joseph had a lot of time to meditate upon his latest year’s experiences. The Church had been forced from Ohio, some of his closest friends had turned on him, and now his followers were being expelled from the state of Missouri. After spending four months in prison, he reflects on many of these topics in a letter dictated to the rest of the church. Full of emotion, struggle, and comfort, this letter has become famous among LDS circles, and parts of it were extracted to form three revelations in the Doctrine and Covenants. However, while going over it again recently, a portion which was not canonized caught my attention
By November 15, 2007
Continuing on a previous post from earlier this week, I would now like to discuss a specific example of Mormon folklore. In preparation for the Folklore Society of Utah Conference this Saturday, I have collected close to 100 interviews of college-aged students regarding the practice of polygamy. I have discovered that as a result of the Church being virtually silent when it comes to the purposes of polygamy in authoritative discourse and writings, the most common way of learning about it is through folklore. This has lead to a wide diversity on when it was initiated, why it was practiced, and what will happen with it concerning the future.
By November 14, 2007
We have all heard the stories. Joseph never losing a game in stick-pull, the Japanese bomber who’s bomb wouldn’t release while flying over the Laie Temple during the attack on Pearl Harbor, the hundreds of Three Nephite Stoies, the thousands of J. Golden Kimball stories, etc. Our culture is absolutely filled with folkloric stories. This has been noticed by outside scholars, and almost every major folklore conference has several sessions discussing Mormon folklore. Some have even suggested the the Mormon Culture has more folklore stories than any other subculture in America.
By November 10, 2007
One of the objectives for most Mormon historians today (including this blog) is to attempt to place Joseph Smith within his American framework. One author who has succeeded the most in this attempt is Richard Bushman, author of Rough Stone Rolling. However, in his address at The Worlds of Joseph Smith Symposium in the Library of Congress, he spoke about putting limits on this type of approach. In it, he makes several arguments as to why Joseph should be placed within a larger framework than just American religious history.
First, he stated why he feels this “transnational” approach is necessary.
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