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 Jared TDecember 13, 2007
In reading through The Evening and the Morning Star, I came across an interesting piece in volume 1, #10 under the heading “Children”. It reads in part:
“When the Lord gave the children of Israel commandments through Moses, he said, And these words which I command thee this day, shall be in thy heart: and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shall talk of them when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.
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By ChristopherDecember 11, 2007
In 1925, French anthropologist Marcel Mauss termed the cross-cultural transmission of values, habits, and goods from one community to another after the two communities encountered each other, “contact and exchange.” He argued that the “ritual exchange” of these “gifts” served as a way to define the social order of society. [1]
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By Ben PDecember 10, 2007
In her novel A Little Lower than the Angels, Virginia Sorensen writes of a fictional family living in Nauvoo, Illinois.
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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 StanDecember 7, 2007
I was in Special Collections the other day, going thru the diaries of Mark H. Forscutt, a Latter-day Saint who left the Brighamites and became a Latter Day Saint when the Josephite movement started up. I came across an entry in which he describes an interesting encounter with one Mr. Moore, whom he describes as a “Brownite.” I’m not sure who Brown is (any who can enlighten us on that, please do), but I found the passage quite intriguing, and so I quote:
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By ChristopherDecember 6, 2007
Admin. Note: Comments have been closed on this thread, as the nature of the comments degenerated into irrelevant (or, at best, tangentially relevant) discussion. Thank you everyone for your thoughts and comments.
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 ChristopherDecember 5, 2007
A couple of notes of interest for the ever-growing Spanish-speaking population within the LDS Church …
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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. …”