“I am finally no longer asked to believe in things for which not only is there no evidence, but which the evidence strongly condemns on fair inspection. . . . Let me be clear: I believe in God,…
For Mormonism’s nearly two-century existence, few subjects have brought it more into the public spotlight than polygamy. Most writers and scholars have focused on Joseph Smith as they told this story. Until Todd Compton came…
When I picked up William V. Smith’s The King Follett Sermon: A Biography, I was expecting to find a history of the text of the famous sermon from April 1844. I found that it was…
The life of Maurine Whipple, lauded Mormon author of the 1941 novel The Giant Joshua, is one of the saddest stories in LDS literature. She loved her people, the tough and hardscrabble settlers of St.…
When the Dialogue office moved from Stanford to Los Angeles, it found a home in the University Religious Conference, which was kitty-corner from the UCLA School of Dentistry, where I was a student. Occasionally, I…
When I received a copy of Dialogue volume 8 in the spring of 1973, my mind was immersed in Watergate, Vietnam, and civil rights. Lester Bush’s article on the evolution of a policy relative to…
Those of you who have paid attention along the way know quite a bit about Lester’s 1973 article, particularly because of the follow-up article he published in the Journal of Mormon History in 1999 that…
On this the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Lester E. Bush’s landmark Dialogue article “Mormonism’s Negro Doctrine: An Historical Overview,” I, along with other knowledgeable students of Mormon studies, gratefully acknowledge the crucial role…
Typical of far too many youths of my generation, I grew up in a racist home, a racist community, and in racist Latter-day Saint congregations. As a young man, I harbored deep racist sentiments and…
Listen to an interview about this piece here. Last night, I sat on the ballroom’s hardwood floor and laced up my practice shoes. Their black canvas fabric hugged the contours of my feet as I…