Movie Review: Emma Smith: A Really Great Catch

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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From the Archives: Joseph Smith or the Sword!?

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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New Book: Mormonism in Dialogue with Contemporary Christian Theologies

Recently released from Mercer University Press, Mormonism in Dialogue with Contemporary Christian Theologies, edited by Donald W. Musser and David L. Paulsen, promises to be a tome of interest to both Mormons and Christians alike who are interested in dialogue. Martin Marty seems to think so. “When I agreed to read the manuscript and write the foreword,” Marty writes, “I don’t think I anticipated the scope, detail, and depth of this one. Now I pass it along to other readers who will find that such scope, detail, and depth represent gifts to everyone who has interest and concern for ‘the

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Mormon Folklore, Part Two (Polygamy)

Continuing on a previous post from earlier this week, I would now like to discuss a specific example of Mormon folklore. In preparation for the Folklore Society of Utah Conference this Saturday, I have collected close to 100 interviews of college-aged students regarding the practice of polygamy. I have discovered that as a result of the Church being virtually silent when it comes to the purposes of polygamy in authoritative discourse and writings, the most common way of learning about it is through folklore. This has lead to a wide diversity on when it was initiated, why it was practiced, and what will happen with it concerning the future.

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Which Mormon Historian Is the Best Writer?

Over at Religion in American History, John Fea asks:

Which American religious historians are the best writers?

Being unimaginative today, we’re going to ask the same question at the Juvenile Instructor, but modified to Mormon history. Who’s the Joseph Ellis of Mormon history/studies?

Mormonism at the American Society of Church History

I received in the mail yesterday the program for the Winter Meeting of the American Society of Church History, to be held January 3-6, 2008 in Washington, D.C.  Because of all of the discussion lately on how Mormonism fits into larger American historical frameworks, I was anxious to see how many sessions of the ASCH meeting discussed Mormonism. I knew of one already, and was pleased to find an additional session focusing on Mormonism, both of which look great.  Both sessions are

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From the Archives: “A most important mission” in the Yuma Territorial Prison

In 1884, William Jordan Flake, Mormon pioneer and co-founder of Snowflake, Arizona, was charged with unlawful cohabitation.  Because he pleaded guilty to the charge, he was sentenced to six months in the Yuma Territorial Prison (as opposed to other Arizona polygamists who fought the charges and were consequently sentenced to three and-a-half years in the Detroit House of Corrections in Michigan).[1]

Flake’s oldest son, Charles Love Flake, was serving a mission in the Southern States at the time of his father’s

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An Insider’s View of the Princeton Conference

Mark Ashurst-McGee is an editor for the Joseph Smith Papers, Journals Series. His M.A. thesis, which treats Joseph Smith’s involvement in folk magic, has received some attention here in the ‘nacle, and everyone wants to know when he’ll get around to publishing it. Mark is currently a PhD. candidate at Arizona State University, writing his dissertation on Joseph Smith’s political thought. He was kind enough to provide a writeup of the recent Princeton Conference for the

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Mormon Folklore, Part One

We have all heard the stories. Joseph never losing a game in stick-pull, the Japanese bomber who’s bomb wouldn’t release while flying over the Laie Temple during the attack on Pearl Harbor, the hundreds of Three Nephite Stoies, the thousands of J. Golden Kimball stories, etc. Our culture is absolutely filled with folkloric stories. This has been noticed by outside scholars, and almost every major folklore conference has several sessions discussing Mormon folklore. Some have even suggested the the Mormon Culture has more folklore stories than any other subculture in America.

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Welcome

Welcome to the new home of The Juvenile Instructor. We hope the new features make it easier and more convenient for all of our readers.  A big thanks to J. Stapley of Splendid Sun and By Common Consent for creating the new layout.