By David G.December 19, 2007
This is cross-posted at Times and Seasons.
The way we see and define who we are is usually closely related to how we understand the past. Most of us have overlapping identities that require us to negotiate compromises between them and these compromises shape our narratives of history. African American members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have two dominant identities, black and Mormon, and as such, they have the burden of negotiating a compromise between these identities
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By David G.December 17, 2007
This is cross-posted at Times and Seasons.
In April 2005, I spent two weeks on assignment for the Joseph Smith Papers Project in Missouri and Illinois, visiting court houses and archives searching for documents pertaining to early Mormon history. On the second evening of my stay in northwestern Missouri, I drove down a lonely dirt road to a desolate place that had significant meaning for me as a Latter-day Saint. When I arrived, I found only a small creek surrounded by trees, grass, mud, and a small plaque that identified the site of the Haun?s Mill Massacre, where Missouri vigilantes murdered 17 Mormon men and boys in October 1838. As I looked over the site, I felt that I was standing on hallowed ground. I would not know until later that among the 17 wa
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By David G.December 14, 2007
Historians can learn a lot about a people by examining the stories that they tell about themselves to others. When people wish to communicate something about themselves, they will usually pick some elements from their past to share. These narratives are highly selective, not only in the elements that are chosen but also in the language used to describe them. Present concerns normally shape what people share about their past, leading to the axiom that memory usually has more to do with the present than with the past.
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By David G.December 8, 2007
Although Mitt Romney avoided a detailed discussion of Mormonism in his “Faith in America” speech, he did include a brief reference to Brigham Young and the trek west. Romney situated Mormon history within a narrative of religious intolerance in American history:
Today?s generations of Americans have always known religious liberty. Perhaps we forget the long and arduous path our nation?s forbearers took to achieve it. They came here from England to seek freedom of religion. But
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By David G.December 5, 2007
According to Tribune reporter Brooke Adams, Warren Jeffs has resigned as “President of the Corporation of the President of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints Inc.” All this really says is that Jeffs no longer is running the business side of things, which seems like a practical move considering his incarcerated position. I don’t know enough about FLDS theology to know what implications this has for Jeffs’ position as Prophet. Does anyone know how these positions relate to each other in the LDS church?
By David G.December 4, 2007
The summer and fall of 1838 were times of increasing tensions both within and without the Church. Internal dissent originating in the Kirtland banking crisis of late 1837 bled into 1838, and Missourian opposition to the increasing Mormon population in northern Missouri was rising to a boiling point. During the ensuing months, these tensions led to the outbreak of violence between Mormons and non-Mormons, a conflict in which neither side was guiltless, and one that resulted in the expulsion of the Latter-day Saints from Missouri in winter 1838-1839. Any discussion of Mormon vigilantism during this period must be framed within the context of what historian William G. Hartley [following Juanita Brooks] has called war hysteria.[1]
In June 1838 Mormon vigilantes formed an extralegal organization that came to be known as the Danites, apparently with the full knowledge and support of Church leaders Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon. Scholars have suggested that the
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By David G.November 30, 2007
This month’s Ensign contains a fascinating little article describing Joseph Smith’s seven journals. The authors, two friends of mine, are editors on the Joseph Smith Papers Project. Mark Ashurst-McGee (MA, USU; PhD. candidate, ASU) is editing journals from the 1830s. Alex Smith (MA, BYU) is editing Smith’s journals from 1841-April 1843. Mark is also editing the journals from April 1843 to June 1844. They’re both excellent scholars and likely know more about these journals, in terms of content, physical description, and provenance, than anyone alive. Alex has worked directly with the Nauvoo journal, The Book of the Law of the Lord, which previous scholars such as Scott Faulring and Michael Marquardt have not had access to.
The 6 page article gives summaries of the seven journals and also includes images of the artifacts. We also get
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By David G.November 18, 2007
Warning: Plot spoilers follow.
Tonight my girlfriend and I attended an advance screening of the forthcoming movie, Emma Smith: My Story. It was, to say the least, better than we had expected. I’m not a film critic, so I cannot critique the movie based on editing, music, camera angles, or even dialogue. However, none of these more aesthetic characteristics stuck out as being “bad” to me, despite being told before hand that the movie was still very rough. If I came into this movie with little historical
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By David G.November 17, 2007
Justin’s recent post at Mormon Wasp describes the latest Jack Chick anti-Mormon comic book, The Enchanter. Chick’s comic contains a picture of Joseph Smith, dressed in full Nauvoo Legion attire, saying: “If the people let us alone, we will preach the gospel in peace. But if they come on us to molest us, we will establish our religion with the sword. We will trample down our enemies and make it one gore of blood…from the Rocky Mountains to the Atlantic Ocean. I will be to this generation a 2nd Muhammad, whose motto in treating for peace was ?the Al-Qur’an or the sword.’ So sha
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