Depression is a common problem in Western societies; various studies have reported that between 3.2 and 9.3 percent of the population suffers from clinical depression. Women seem to be at least two times more likely…
Section 82 of the Doctrine and Covenants, dated 26 April 1832, guided the formation of a united order in the Joseph Smith era. Until recently, code names were shown for the nine participants: Ahashdah (Newel…
3 September 1984
Today my youngest child went to school all day for the first time. Every mother approaches this milestone with both anticipation and dread. I reached this point once before, six years ago, before the adoption of our third baby swept me suddenly back to square one. If it was a setback, it was the happiest one imaginable. Now, however, poised between treatment for a serious illness and hope for a plunge into a new phase of life, I would like to use the gift of uninterrupted time, a scarce commodity for fourteen years, for some written reflections.
As I look back over the years at my own perspective on the Mormon experience, I find that the most compelling doctrines of Mormonism can all be subsumed under the heading of “eternalism,” that felicitous…
Thoreau wrote in the beginning of Walden, “I have lived some thirty years on this planet, and I have yet to hear the first syllable of valuable or even earnest advice from my seniors.” I can roughly paraphrase Thoreau and say, “I have lived some thirty years among the Mormons and have yet to record the first syllable of valuable or even earnest advice about how I have managed to do it.”
I am the wife of Orson Pratt .. . I was formerly a member of the Mormon church. . . . I have not been a believer in the Mormon doctrines for thirty years, and am now…
The Restoration movements have tended to elevate historical claims to the level of theological dogma. But in our defense of historical beliefs we have often denied the reality of historical process by asserting that ideas,…
As the Church moves into societies and culture never a significant part of its historical past, it will encounter new configurations of religion that it must understand to achieve its prophetic promise. Countries that have…
Joseph Smith was not the first person to use the plurality of worlds concept. In the early seventeenth century, natural philosophers began speculating on the idea of multiple world systems. By the eighteenth century, Protestant…
Northrop Frye, perhaps North America’s pre-eminent literary critic, is not a name ordinarily associated with scriptural exegesis. Yet his name virtually assures that this volume will be read and analyzed by those in literary fields,…