By May 23, 2008
Alas, I spent all my travel money going to an academic conference in the first Zion (Missouri), so I’m stuck in the second Zion (Utah) and getting regular dispatches from Christopher in the Almost Zion (California). Here’s the list of winners from this year’s awards ceremony.
Best Undergrad Paper: John Brumbaugh, “Return of Anti-Mormonism: Fred Dubois and the Reed Smoot Hearings.”
By May 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.
By May 14, 2008
I found this while going through the Times and Seasons, and it reminded me of Chris’s post on Mormonizing John Wesley. Apparently Mormon J. M. Grant (Jedediah, I presume) wrote a letter to the New York Messenger, and included an excerpt from a letter from Jefferson to John Adams, and asked his readers if they thought Thomas Jefferson was a Mormon. Grant’s letter was later republished in the Times and Seasons.
…
An extract from a letter written to JOHN ADAMS BY THOMAS JEFFERSON, of Virginia, published by Mr.
By May 11, 2008
I spent way too much time on Saturday going through the Virginia Sorensen papers collection in BYU’s Special Collections.
By May 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.
By May 10, 2008
Before we can ask whether a Mormon theology of the movies is a viable idea, I suppose that making the case that a theology of the movies in general works would be useful.
By May 9, 2008
I decided to take a little break from my weighty posts of the last few weeks and ask everyone if they find anything particularly Mormon in the following passage:
I am proud that I am an American citizen of Japanese ancestry, for my background makes me appreciate more fully the wonderful advantages of this nation. I believe in her institutions, ideals, and traditions; I glory in her heritage; I boast of her history; I trust in her future. She had granted me liberties and opportunities such as no individual enjoys in this world today. She had given me an education befitting kings. She has entrusted me with the responsibilities of the franchise. She has permitted me to build a home, to earn a livelihood, to worship, think, speak, and act as I please-as a free man equal to every other man.
By May 7, 2008
Be sure to check out and support Ardis’ new blog, Keepapitchinin.org, which went live today.
By May 6, 2008
This is not one of my normal posts, which are usually pretty detached and scholarly. Rather, I’m going to share a personal experience about bringing in academic history to the ward setting. Sunday before last I gave a talk in sacrament meeting, with the assigned topic being scriptures and their value in my life. Initially, the second counselor in my bishopric asked me to address the FLDS situation and continuing revelation, a topic that I was initially excited about but with further reflection I realized that it would be altogether too difficult to do justice in a 10 minute presentation that is supposed to be faith promoting. So I backed off, opting instead to tackle a slightly less
By May 3, 2008
Joe asked some good questions in the comments section of part 4. As I began to write a response, I found that I had quickly written almost 3 pages of response, so I figured that would make a pretty annoying comment. I here reproduce his questions and my response. Now I really am finished with posting on this topic. I thank everyone for their longsuffering and comments up to now, I didn’t mean to hijack the blog for the last day or so, I appologize.
© 2025 – Juvenile Instructor
Recent Comments
Steve Fleming on BH Roberts on Plato: “Interesting, Jack. But just to reiterate, I think JS saw the SUPPRESSION of Platonic ideas as creating the loss of truth and not the addition.…”
Jack on BH Roberts on Plato: “Thanks for your insights--you've really got me thinking. I can't get away from the notion that the formation of the Great and Abominable church was an…”
Steve Fleming on BH Roberts on Plato: “In the intro to DC 76 in JS's 1838 history, JS said, "From sundry revelations which had been received, it was apparent that many important…”
Jack on BH Roberts on Plato: “"I’ve argued that God’s corporality isn’t that clear in the NT, so it seems to me that asserting that claims of God’s immateriality happened AFTER…”
Steve Fleming on Study and Faith, 5:: “The burden of proof is on the claim of there BEING Nephites. From a scholarly point of view, the burden of proof is on the…”
Eric on Study and Faith, 5:: “But that's not what I was saying about the nature of evidence of an unknown civilization. I am talking about linguistics, not ruins. …”