Sarah M. Pratt: The Shaping of an Apostate
April 17, 2018I 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…
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The Restoration and History: New Testament Christianity
April 17, 2018The 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,…
The Ahmadis of Islam: A Mormon Encounter and Perspective
April 17, 2018As 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 and the Plurality of Worlds Idea
April 17, 2018Joseph 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…
The Code Revealed | Northrop Frye, The Great Code: The Bible and Literature
April 17, 2018Northrop 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,…
At Ease with His Past; At Home with His Art | Edward A. Geary, Goodbye to Poplarhaven: Recollections of a Utah Boyhood
April 17, 2018I discovered Ed Geary’s essays by chance — a friend happened to mention them to me: “You’ve got to read them; they’re about growing up in Utah, and they’re excellent.” Curious, but not so curious…
Not Enough Trouble | Ernest H. Taves, Trouble Enough: Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon, and David Persuitte, Joseph Smith and the Origins of the Book of Mormon
April 17, 2018At least once a decade, it seems, someone publishes a book about the Latter-day Saints without taking the necessary “trouble” to adequately research the subject. Stanley Hirshon was judged guilty of this offense in 1969…
A Survey of Current Dissertations
April 17, 2018“Knowledge is a comfortable and necessary retreat and shelter for us in advanced age,” Lord Chesterfield told his son in 1747, but “if we do not plant it while young it will give us no…
God of Our Fathers
April 17, 2018God gave David nightmares. The flame-eyed giant hurling thunderbolts from the mountain of heaven, hair and beard blown back by the storm of righteous wrath—it was he who haunted the boy. *** David knew his father…
Grandmother Envisions Her Own Death
April 17, 2018A white pillar will glow from the sand as I die.
Those backyard trees will shake their empty pods
against the sky. My moldy body will sink
into its bed, smothered by sinners.