An optimistic title and bright red pomegranate on the cover suggest a fresh approach to perennial gender problems in Mormonism— “a feminism that is about ‘cooperation and compassion.’” Fresh Courage Take is a positive motto…
I—along with many men of my generation—was brought up believing that men and women are equally equipped to be parents. Many men like me feel a deep desire to be hands-on fathers who claim responsibility for many of the tasks that previous generations assigned principally to mothers; to not perform these duties for us is unacceptable. Despite these personal convictions, I have continually found it a challenge to achieve a fair and equal share of parenting duties; however, it is a goal that I remain committed to attaining. I am not alone in my desire or in the obstacles I face. I feel that a tremendous potential opportunity awaits today’s fathers through seeking and achieving intimacy with our children.
How much formal schooling did Joseph Smith obtain in his youth and early adulthood? Such a question might appear innocuous, but it is fraught with implications that extend beyond a simple historical account of his educational opportunities. The amount of Smith’s formal education, or rather the various assumptions surrounding his presumed lack of it, has been enlisted by followers and detractors alike in order to frame Smith’s life within the narratives of divinely-inspired prophet or deceptive fraud, perhaps most acutely in the context of attacking or defending the origin and authenticity of the Book of Mormon.As Dennis Wright and Geoffrey Wright observe, “Ironically, both perspectives use the Prophet’s lack of formal education to strengthen their respective views.”Any attempt to isolate the amount of time Joseph may have actually spent in classrooms thus presents a challenge with deeper implications.
. . . we are passengers on the train of the Church . . . the luxury of getting on and off the train as we please is fading. The speed of the train is…
The continual rising interest in all things Mormon, whether they be historical, cultural, social, doctrinal, or even theological, has led to a number of interesting publication projects. The texts gathered in this review represent a…
We all know the Sunday School answers, but life rarely, if ever, plays out like a seminary video. So what do love, sex, and marriage look like in the lived experience of Mormon women?
Journalist, poet, and “spinster who thinks and writes a great deal about marriage” (1) Holly Welker has compiled a collection of essays that unapologetically reveals the intersection of Mormon theology, culture, individuality, and relational living in her latest book, Baring Witness: 36 Mormon Women Talk Candidly about Love, Sex, and Marriage.
Dialogue 50.1 (Spring 2017): 193–200
In looking at the definition of Mormon womanhood, it seems to me that the boundaries of that community have shifted over the past almost two hundred years from being initially proscribed by the institution, in the early days of the Nauvoo Relief Society, to essentially being defined by the Mormon women themselves in today’s modern global Church.
Greg Prince published David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism in 2005 to mostly critical acclaim. His study of Mormon historian Leonard J. Arrington is patterned after that work in its style, its…
When I was growing up, comic strips provided part of the ontology of my world. I devoured regular comic books, graphic novels, and other bubble-voiced media, but comic strips played a different and more important…
The Vision (1832)is one of the most important revelations of the formative period of Mormon theological development, where novel and controversial doctrines of the afterlife first made their appearance.In a recent study I explored how The Vision expanded upon revealed teachings from the Book of Mormon and prior revelations, resolved some inherited theological problems, and set the stage for the unfolding of uniquely Mormon doctrines and practices.There I observed that The Vision appears to be a conflation of several independent sources. Literary evidence for this conclusion includes duplications, interruptions, awkward transitions, deletions, and variances in vocabulary, style, and setting.