In 1879 a young Mormon missionary named Rudger Clawson watched as an anti-Mormon mob in Georgia killed his companion. Through bluff and bravado Clawson survived the assault and brought his companion’s body back to church…
About fifteen years ago, Maureen Ursenbach Beecher invited Franklin Fisher, a young and aesthetically bearded professor of English at the University of Utah, to read from his novel in progress at a gathering of the…
Historians of American religion often see a connection between Mormons and Puritans, if only because most early Saints came from New England. However, many studies which have mentioned similarities between these religions have done so…
Cool, waist-high,
shallowerthanremembered;
eight years ago, it seemed
that I would float.
Anyone who has worked with Mormon music has likely experienced the frustration of being unable to learn much about its past —such things as composers, per formers, and institutional policy and practice. Collections of folk…
A drum was beating that night as my family and I entered the elementary school gymnasium. Animal skins were stretched across a portion of hollowed-out tree, two flat brown hands pounding on their surface. Instantly…
All morning: rainwater
off the roof onto pebbles
washed smooth of pale soil
in the garden.
Anthony Hutchinson’s A Mormon Midrash?: LDS Creation Narratives Reconsidered (DIALOGUE, Winter 1988) is a heroic and important article that deserves careful examination. Hutchinson’s provocative and illuminating themes range from modern scholarly techniques, through King James…
It wasn’t the silver balance scale the teacher used for a centerpiece. Initially I thought it attractive, effective as a visual aid. It wasn’t her manner or her voice, all appealing, that offended me. It…
Ane PEdersdatter of Sjaelland, Denmark, entered Bear River Valley in northern Utah much as if she were going to jail. Her granddaughter Elvina told the story long afterwards: About April 15th [of 1866] Ane left…