The Critic in Zion
May 4, 2018The best of words, like the best of men, may suffer the woes of slander. Such a word is “criticism,” and such a man was Socrates. Socrates, though slandered and finally slain, achieved a lasting…
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Brigham H. Roberts: Notes on a Mormon Philosopher-Historian
May 4, 2018Although the fundamentals of Mormon thought were quite firmly established in the Church’s first generation, it was the second generation which pulled the philosophical and theological strands together. It was the intellectual leaders of this…
Ezekiel, Dr. Sperry, and the Stick of Ephraim
May 4, 2018In writing a comment of this sort, one runs the risk of having it construed as a boorish intrusion into a private argument among gentlemen; and the only excuse I can offer is that a…
A Survey of Current Literature
May 4, 2018Politics is perhaps the only profession for which no preparation is thought necessary. Robert Louis Stevenson As is all too evident from the newspapers, we are again approaching that quadrennial time when nominations for the…
An Experiment in Mormon Publishing | Gordon T. Allred, The Valley of Tomorrow, and Sara and Irene Black, Strangers on Earth
May 4, 2018The publishers of The Valley of Tomorrow and Strangers on Earth are moving to fill a very real need for suitable reading for young adults. Most books for younger readers are appropriate for all children,…
God, Man, and Art | Carol Lynn Pearson, Beginnings
May 4, 2018If you think you don’t like poetry, be prepared for a surprise when you pick up Carol Lynn Pearson’s new book, Beginnings. I have yet to talk to a person who was not impressed with…
Mormon Lives | No Author Given, Melvin J. Ballard: Crusader for Righteousness, and Robert H. Malan, B.H. Roberts: A Biography
May 4, 2018Among Mormon leaders of the past generation few were as charismatic as Melvin J. Ballard and B. H. Roberts. Both, in different ways, were significant in the shaping of twentieth-century Mormonism. Both deserve solid biographies.…
A Small Helping of Mormonism | Edgar Reitz, dir., Mahlzeiten
May 4, 2018Mahlzeiten is one of Germany’s most discussed current films, and one which will be of special interest to Latter-day Saints. The plot could be reduced to sound like a sensational nineteenth-century thriller: a young married…
What the Church Means to People Like Me
May 4, 2018A natural reaction to my title—since this is not a testimony meeting in which each speaker is his own subject—might be, “Who cares?” For who in this congregation, with the possible exception of my brother,…