By StanMay 30, 2008
So I figured I’d follow Matt’s lead and post my MHA paper (in 2 parts) here. Since I already blogged my intro previously–on Joseph Fielding Smith’s reading of Darwin–I’ll skip that and proceed right into the Roberts library:
The B. H. Roberts Memorial Collection is housed in the Church Archives, in the Church History Museum in Salt Lake City. This intact collection, included as a part of the B. H. Roberts Collection, contains over 1,300 items, including most of B. H. Roberts’s personal books,
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By ChristopherMay 19, 2008
Recently, while reading Randall Stephens’ excellent new book, The Fire Spreads: Holiness and Pentecostalism in the American South (review here), I came across the following passage, which naturally intrigued me.
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By SC TaysomMay 10, 2008
All of the regular bloggers and readers here at JI are connoisseurs of the variety of treatments that Joseph Smith and the Mormons receive at the hands of historians who are themselves not experts in the field of Mormon studies. Such treatments range from the ridiculous to the not-quite sublime, and coming as they do in broadly-conceived syntheses, they tend to be derivative and rely heavily on a hodgepodge of secondary interpretations (which authors they choose to cite seems often to depend on what they find on the shelves of their institution’s library–lots of Brooke, Quinn and Brodie usually). Pulitzer Prize winning historian Walter A. McDougall’s view of Joseph Smith and early Mormonism in the newly-released second volume of his multi-volume history of the U.S. is surprising in its creativity.
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By Jared TMay 2, 2008
Entering chapter 9, I was expecting some level of technical analysis that would be beyond my comprehension but still accessible enough that I could form an opinion of my own, perhaps that was a mistake on my part. Opposite chapter 9’s first page are pictured nine proposed daguerreotypes. I remembered Ardis’ description of a foot-longish file of proposed Joseph Smith photos and immediately wondered why these specific daguerreotypes were chosen for consideration. One of these images even has a beard! Again, being that there is no stated criteria for consideration, it seems that the author alone knows why these images were included for consideration. This opens up the possibility that the author is constructing a series of straw man arguments.
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By Jared TMay 2, 2008
On page 51 and 52, Tracy then summarizes the physical features of Joseph Smith by topic and then chronologically (as given in the preceding pages) within each topic. Descriptions of stature, height, face and head, weight, eyes, hands, legs, feet, nose, complexion, and hair are so arranged. Tracy attempts to show how this arrangement is beneficial by showing that the description of what is described as the “July 1838” Joseph puts Joseph’s weight at 200 lbs.
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By matt b.April 27, 2008
Five years before the 1920s, a decade in which he did a least as much as John T. Scopes to instigate warfare between Protestant liberals and fundamentalists, and fifty years before Martin Luther King praised him as the greatest preacher of the century, the Baptist minister Harry Emerson Fosdick was appointed to the Jessup Chair in Practical Theology at Union Theological Seminary. [1]
Fosdick was not really an original thinker, but he was a master teacher and popularizer. And, perhaps because of the agonies that he struggled through on his own route to faith, he had a powerful understanding of the anxieties that plagued his age. Because of the new Biblical criticism, Fosdick wrote,
The old use of the Bible became impossible to many preachers who, as much as ever was true of their fathers, believed in Jesus Christ as the world?s Saviour and wanted to proclaim his Gospel as the power of God unto salvation.[2]
In other words, these preachers – like Fosdick himself – believed passionately in God revealed in Christ. But they no longer accepted the accuracy of Biblical history. And they did not know what to do.
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By matt b.April 24, 2008
Harry Emerson Fosdick was among the most popular preachers and writers of the first half of the twentieth century. He’s particularly known for a trilogy of devotional works called “The Three Meanings:” The Meaning of Prayer, the Meaning of Faith, the Meaning of Service. These books have sold millions of copies; there are reports that Gandhi read them in prison; and they’re still in print today.
Despite Fosdick’s high profile,* however, it was the RLDS, not Harold B. Lee or J. Reuben Clark, who stepped up to the plate to represent Mormonism to Fosdick.
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By ChristopherApril 22, 2008
In honor of Earth Day, here is an excerpt from an 1860 sermon by Brigham Young. I’m intrigued by how his counsel to cultivate the earth figures into his eschatology.
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By GuestApril 21, 2008
By Margaret Young
I won’t give his real name. Apparently, he is a remarkable man, a supremely talented jazz musician who has played with Duke Ellington’s orchestra. He joined the Church before the priesthood revelation in 1978 and so, as an African American, he understood that he would not have the same privileges as white Mormons. The Era magazine (precursor to the Ensign) did a story about him, which inspired at least one other Black musician to stay in the Church during some difficult times.
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By Jared TApril 17, 2008
This is not a verbatim report. It has been slightly reworked for clarity and smoothness from notes I took as I typed almost as fast as I could. Any errors in facts, or lack of grace in delivery are my responsibility. Enjoy!
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