By ChristopherSeptember 22, 2011
Over at The Immanent Frame, the always insightful and provocative Jon Butler offers “a historian’s reaction to American Grace,” a sweeping treatment of “how religion divides and unites us” in contemporary America that has rightly gained a fair amount of publicity and praise since its release last October. Butler’s thoughtful critique wonders whether authors Robert Putnam and David Campbell allow the “many and complex “beliefs'” they survey to “float too free from their historical moorings.”
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By Ben PSeptember 5, 2011
In order for the “Mormon Moment” (however you define it) to be successful, there must be able explicators. In the last half-dozen years, there have been few better faces of Mormonism than Richard Bushman. (See, for instance, the recent write-up here.) Whether the topic is Joseph Smith, religious fanaticism, or even the “Book of Mormon” musical, Bushman has been a go-to voice for reporters, and his insights are often poignant and insightful. He is the perfect blend of approachability, reasonable credentials (many of the highest academic awards, prestigious chair at an Ivy League institution), and brilliance. What makes him so likable in the public sphere is not just what he says, but how he says it.
Importantly, that is also one of the things that makes him so likable in academia.
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By JoelAugust 17, 2011
Neilson, Reid L. Early Mormon Missionary Activities in Japan, 1901-1924. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2010
Dr. Reid L. Neilson, managing director of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ history department, has written a fascinating account of the Mormon Japanese Mission at the turn of the 20th century. Neilson argues that the 19th century LDS missionary experience in the United States and Europe had calcified Mormon evangelizing strategies to a degree that ultimately determined their failure in the rapidly modernizing Japanese nation. While Neilson’s trajectory often wades a little shallow and missionary-centric, his transnational gaze at Mormon mission policy and practice, while situating his study in a comparative Christian missionary framework, offers important inroads for scholars of Mormon history who have too often found themselves mired in the nineteenth century American origins story of a 21st century global church.
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By David G.August 5, 2011
On December 29, 1890, the U.S. Seventh Cavalry surrounded a group of ninety Minneconjou Lakota men just west of Wounded Knee Creek, South Dakota. The wives and children of the Lakota warriors were camped a few yards to the south of the council ground. The Cavalry was engaged in disarming the warriors, who military leaders believed were part of a wide-ranging indigenous conspiracy to push back white settlement. The Lakota men were known to be adherents of the Ghost Dance, a religious phenomenon that originated with the Paiute prophet Wovoka in Nevada and had spread from the Great Basin to the Plains in 1889-1890. During the disarming, a struggle ensued between the troopers and a young Lakota who thought he could hide his rifle under his blanket, and a shot fired into the air. Chaos?and death?followed, as the five hundred members of the Seventh Cavalry proceeded to slaughter not only the by-then largely disarmed men but also the women and children as they fled the scene. Although exact numbers are unknown, perhaps as many as three hundred Lakotas died. It was shown in the aftermath of Wounded Knee that the Ghost Dance was not a broad-based scheme to overthrow U.S. authority, and, more to the point, that most if not all of the Lakotas who lost their lives on December 29, 1890 had died innocently after surrendering without resistance.[1] Although Latter-day Saints had nothing to do with the massacre at Wounded Knee, since 1890 commentators have speculated that Mormons were somehow connected and even the primary movers behind the Ghost Dance movement.
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By Jared TJuly 29, 2011
Drew Briney. Silencing Mormon Polygamy: Failed Persecutions, Divided Saints & the Rise of Mormon Fundamentalism, Volume 1. Hindsight Publications, n.p., 2008.
This book, a free review copy, has been sitting on my shelf for perhaps the last two years as I’ve done all I can to avoid a) reviewing it and b) paying for it. I think part of my trepidation was that the issues I had with it were so vast that I just didn’t know where to begin or how to possibly provide a glimpse of the web that the book weaves. I will not take the time to take you through all the twists and turns of the story the author tells, but will instead focus on some issues that make that story suspect. You’ll note in the picture that I read the book thoroughly (what can I say, the summer of 2009 must have been slow).
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By Jared TJune 4, 2011
Our own Chris Jones’ excellent article, “The Power and Form of Godliness: Methodist Conversion Narratives and Joseph Smith’s First Vision,” explores, first, the significance of the rebuke Joseph Smith related in his 1838 First Vision account that all other Churches had a form of Godliness but denied the power thereof.
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By Jared TJune 3, 2011
It’s that time again. The latest issue of the Journal of Mormon History is rolling out to a mailbox near you (if you’re lucky enough to be a subscriber–if not–what are you waiting for?).
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By Steve FlemingMay 14, 2011
D. Michael Quinn, Early Mormonism and the Magic World View, Revised and Enlarged Edition. Salt Lake City: Signature, 1998.
In reassessing Quinn’s classic study, I’ll simply say that Stephen Ricks’s and Daniel Peterson’s review of the first edition still applies to the second. The book “reflects deep erudition” and “offers considerable evidence indicating that Joseph Smith, members of his family, and some of his early associates were involved in the use of seer stones, divining rods, amulets, and parchments, as well as in the search for buried treasure.” In other words, Quinn effectively argues his chief assertions.
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By ChristopherMay 4, 2011
David F. Holland. Sacred Borders: Continuing Revelation and Canonical Restraint in Early America. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. 275pp. + index.
We spend a lot of time at this blog considering how Mormonism fits within larger frameworks in American religious history and what it uniquely reveals about the shape and contours of that past. Among the most obvious answers to the latter consideration is Mormonism’s prophetic tradition, with its adherence to a belief in continuing revelation and an expanded (and expanding) canon of scripture. In trying to tackle the complicated question of whether Mormonism can be accurately described as “Protestant” in any meaningful sense on a recent post, among the most significant reasons for those who answered “no” was Mormonism’s claims to revelation and scripture beyond the bounds of the Old and New Testaments.
But just how unique is Mormonism in this regard? What precedents are there in the American past for such beliefs and how do Mormon prophets and scriptures fit within the larger history of the
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By Ben PApril 28, 2011
Since we announced the journal’s first CFP, we are happy to broadcast their first issue. (Plus, the issue includes JI’s own Jordan W.!)
The Claremont Journal of Mormon Studies, the latest of the myriad of solid Mormon journals, has posted the first three articles in what will hopefully be a long and productive periodical and outlet for quality graduate work. Headed by qualified editors Dave Golding and Loyd Ericson, the journal describes itself as “a student-run online reviewed academic journal committed to the advancement of the field of Mormon studies and produced by the Claremont Mormon Studies Student Association in Claremont, California…The purpose of this journal is to establish a proficient and easily accessible forum for ongoing research in Mormon studies by qualified graduate students, exemplifying new research being done in various fields.” The first issue demonstrates their sophisticated, interdisciplinary, and intriguing potential.
Articles in the issue are:
- “The Inspired Fictionalization of the 1835 United Firm Revelations” by Christopher C. Smith
- “The Great God, the Divine Mind, and the Ideal Absolute: Orson Pratt’s Intelligent-Matter Theory and the Gods of Emerson and James” by Jordan Watkins
- “Prolegomena to Any Future Study of Isaiah in the Book of Mormon” by Joseph M. Spencer
The entire issue can be downloaded here.
The future is bright in Mormon studies!
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