Burial Service
April 16, 2018The place they put him seemed extravagant —
Sprawling flowers, hovering crowd, artificial grass
To cover up plain dirt.
The coffin shone, wood lustrous as the new organ
DiaBLOGue
A House of Order
April 16, 2018Three weeks had passed since Howard and Sylvia Rockwood last made love. Earlier, before the days of silence, they could have begun casually, prompted by any minor conversational motion, finally drawing close enough for physical…
The “New Mormon History” Reassessed in Light of Recent Book on Joseph Smith and Mormon Origins
April 16, 2018In 1959, while a graduate student at the University of Chicago, I wrote a review of the historiography of Mormonism for Church History which incorporated the major books and articles from 1832 to 1959 in…
A Stench in the Nostrils of Honest Men: Southern Democrats and the Edmunds Act of 1882
April 16, 2018Senator George F. Edmunds of Vermont stood before his colleagues 12 December 1881 to introduce Senate Bill Number 353, the latest in a series of measures aimed at the Mormon practice of polygamy. The Edmunds’…
From Calcutta to Kaysville: Is Righteousness Color-coded?
April 16, 2018Dialogue 21.3 (Fall 1988): 89–91
A personal account of a racist statement a bishop made about people from India, while author’s adopted daughter was from India.
The Need for a New Mormon Heaven
April 16, 2018Dialogue 21.3 (Fall 1988): 73–85
I used to love this description because my Mormon heaven seemed far superior to this standard Christian heaven that Twain’s Satan describes. Sexual intercourse does have a place in Mormon heaven, though not as an end in itself. Heavenly residents are busy with activities. Those righteous individuals who become gods in Mormon heaven will certainly be using their intellects as they create worlds and keep them running, and they will undoubtedly be learning continuously. Mormonism never suggested there would be continual music, nor continual church or Sabbath days in heaven.
Voyage of the Brooklyn
April 16, 2018On 8 November 1845 Saints in the eastern states gathered together in conference at American Hall in New York City and listened to Apostle Orson Pratt deliver an impassioned call to exodus: “Brethren Awake !!…
The Trial of the French Mission
April 16, 2018Short, solid, bull-necked Elder William Tucker, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, would grip your hand firmly and ask earnestly, “How are you, Brother?” (Harvey, April 1986) Elder Loftin Harvey, Jr., several months senior…
Freeways, Parking Lots, and Ice Cream Stands: The Three Nephites in Contemporary Society
April 16, 2018In the 1892–93 issue of The Folk-Lorist, a publication of the old Chicago Folk-Lore Society, the Reverend David Utter, from Salt Lake City, published a short piece entitled “Mormon Superstition.” He recounted Mormon beliefs about…
For Bonnie
April 16, 2018Ever since the homestead days, when you,
The eldest, baked the bread for barefoot boys
Flushed from the corn for lunch, the care we knew
Was testimony of your oaken poise.