The Deer
April 25, 2018There is little sound, only the gulls’
Sailing song, way off, and the gush
On the grass more muted now and slow.
DiaBLOGue
Brother Anderson Counsels His Son the Night Before Being Sealed “For Time and All Eternity” in the Salt Lake Temple
April 25, 2018and
whatever you do, don’t
go smiling
totally into it
Among the Mormons: A Survey of Current Literature
April 25, 2018As Hemingway put it, “A writer’s problem does not change. He himself changes and the world he lives in changes but his problem remains the same. It is always how to write truly and, having…
The Aaronic Order: The Development of a Modern Mormon Sect
April 25, 2018Social scientists have frequently remarked on the proliferation of religious denominations, sects and cults in the United States. Since its early history, Mormonism has spawned a large number of sects directly or indirectly. At least…
Nineteenth-Century Mormons: The New Israel
April 25, 2018The Mormons of the nineteenth century saw themselves as a new Israel very much like the old. They appropriated ancient Israel’s sentiments and traditions, and its special status as God’s covenant people. For a Christian…
Faith and History: The Snell Controversy
April 25, 2018In early March, 1937, Elder Joseph Fielding Smith, of the Council of the Twelve, sent a strongly worded letter to church Commissioner of Education Franklin West. The subject of Elder Smith’s criticism was a pair…
Mormonism and Capital Punishment: A Doctoral Perspective, Past and Present
April 25, 2018On January 17, 1977, Gary Mark Gilmore’s execution by a Utah firing squad ended an almost ten-year moratorium on capital punishment in the United States. The death penalty, at least in Utah, had again become…
Natural Theology | Herbert Hovenkamp, Science and Religion in America, 1800–1860
April 25, 2018The birth of modern science in the seventeenth century fostered an intellectual climate which favored the growth of Natural Theology. Conditions were such during this period that scientific and religious views complemented and supported mutual intellectual…
Panorama of the First Century | Chad Flake, ed., A Mormon Bibliography, 1830–1930: Books, Pamphlets, Periodicals, and Broadsides Relating to the First Century of Mormonism
April 25, 2018Confirmed scholars are a tenacious lot, and when a combination of learned men pool their genius great things occur. Such is this magnum opus. The product of over a quarter century of labored research, this…
The Last Anecdotes | Spencer J. Palmer, ed., Deity and Death
April 25, 2018This book includes seven essays, divided into two groups. The first three essays, collected under the heading, “Death and Dying,” deal with a variety of practices, attitudes and beliefs on the significance of death and…