On Methodist Weddings, Holy Envy, and Mormon Self-Identity

This previous week, while I was home in Texas for the Thanksgiving holiday, my wife and I attended the wedding of an old friend from high school.  This friend, who grew up a member of the Wesleyan Church, was married at Perkins Chapel (located on Southern Methodist University’s campus at the Perkins School of Theology).  The ceremony was beautiful, and it was fun to see old friends and catch up with each of them.  Much to my wife’s chagrin, though, I couldn’t set aside the aspiring religious scholar in me, and was fascinated with the chapel’s architecture and layout, the wedding liturgy, and everything else. 

The following are a few of my observations.

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Mormonism at the American Society of Church History

I received in the mail yesterday the program for the Winter Meeting of the American Society of Church History, to be held January 3-6, 2008 in Washington, D.C.  Because of all of the discussion lately on how Mormonism fits into larger American historical frameworks, I was anxious to see how many sessions of the ASCH meeting discussed Mormonism. I knew of one already, and was pleased to find an additional session focusing on Mormonism, both of which look great.  Both sessions are

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From the Archives: “A most important mission” in the Yuma Territorial Prison

In 1884, William Jordan Flake, Mormon pioneer and co-founder of Snowflake, Arizona, was charged with unlawful cohabitation.  Because he pleaded guilty to the charge, he was sentenced to six months in the Yuma Territorial Prison (as opposed to other Arizona polygamists who fought the charges and were consequently sentenced to three and-a-half years in the Detroit House of Corrections in Michigan).[1]

Flake’s oldest son, Charles Love Flake, was serving a mission in the Southern States at the time of his father’s

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Welcome

Welcome to the new home of The Juvenile Instructor. We hope the new features make it easier and more convenient for all of our readers.  A big thanks to J. Stapley of Splendid Sun and By Common Consent for creating the new layout. 

JWHA Update

The latest John Whitmer Historical Association newsletter arrived in the mail this week, and it contained some exciting information about the future of JWHA. In addition to including David King Landrith’s summary of the Kirtland Conference in September (originally posted at Mormon Mentality), the newsletter discussed some of the new directions John Hamer is steering JWHA, including the advent of John Whitmer Books. I picked up a copy of Scattering of the Saints: Schism within Mormonism (ed. by Newell G. Bringhurst and John Hamer) at the conference in September, and have thoroughly enjoyed it. It includes essays on various Latter Day Saint schisms by a variety of noteworthy authors, including Robin Jensen, Vickie Speek, Michael Marquardt, Craig L. Foster, David Howlett, and Roger Launius. All of the books printed thus far are available only in paperback, though I have heard rumors that there are plans to begin publishing hardcover books.

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Comparing the 1981, 2004, and 2006 Book of Mormon Introductions

The news that the introduction to the 2006 Doubleday edition of The Book of Mormon contains significant changes seems to be all the rage on the bloggernacle today.  Peggy Fletcher Stack’s article in the SL Tribune this morning announced that the introduction’s previous claim that the Lamanites “are the principal ancestors of the American Indians” has been altered to read that the Lamanites “are among the ancestors of the American Indians.”

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Folklore Society of Utah Annual Conference

On Saturday, November 17 at the Utah Cultural Celebration Center in West Valley City, the Folklore Society of Utah will be hosting its Annual Conference.  The keynote speaker is William A. “Bert” Wilson, Emeritus professor of English at BYU and past president of the Association for Mormon Letters.  He will be speaking on “What’s True in Mormon Folklore?” The Contribution of Folklore to Mormon Studies.” 

In addition, two of our permabloggers–Stanley Thayne and Ben Park–will be presenting pap

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From the Archives: John Wesley, the Latter-day Saint

Modern Mormons, it seems, are quite fond of “romanticizing the Reformation,” meaning that Mormons often portray Luther, Arminius, and other Protestant Reformers as being sort of proto-Latter-day Saints.  In my experience, this tendency is not limited to seeing Reformers as such, but often extends to Christopher Columbus and America’s Founding Fathers.  However, this is far from being a recent development in Mormonism’s worldview.  Parley P. Pratt, noted apostle and editor of The Latter-day Saints’ Millennial Star, included the following in the June 1841 (Vol. 2, No. 2) issue of that periodical.

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Jeffs Attempted Suicide

As a follow-up to the previous post on the latest in the Warren Jeffs saga, it appears that Jeffs attempted to hang himself while imprisoned in Purgatory Correctional Facility in January.  Brooke Adams of the Salt Lake Tribune reports that despite a motion opposing their release, court documents released today reveal that shortly after Jeffs’s confession to his brother that he was not a Prophet in January, he attempted suicide.  The new documents also explain that Jeffs admitted that William E. Jessop was the rightful FLDS prophet and that he had usurped the position. 

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Meet the Mormons: From the Margins to the Mainstream

Matthew N. Schmalz, associate professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the College of Holy Cross, has an article entitled “Meet the Mormons: From the Margins to the Mainstream”  over at Commonweal: A Review of Religion, Politics, and Culture (hat-tip to American Religious History blog).  Schmalz discusses his personal history with Mormonism (“It was Kolob and associated exotica that first drew me to the study of Mormonism” he says), as well as how his students at Holy Cross react to the study of Mormonism (“I’ve found that my students combine a personal openness to Mormonism . . . with deep skepticism about details of Mormon belief”). 

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