Very early in our history, we Mormons began to identify ourselves symbolically with ancient Israel as a chosen people. We too, we believed, were heirs to the covenant and blessings of Abraham because of God’s…
Like the early Mormons whose beliefs she would eventually adopt, landscape artist Ella Smyth Peacock early on sought refuge in the west.[1] She was born in 1905 in Germantown, near Philadelphia, a city created in…
On June 5th, 1996, Assistant Professor Gail Houston of the Brigham Young University English Department was denied tenure and promotion at BYU.[1] In compliance with typical university procedures, Professor Houston quickly appealed the decision.[2] Members…
I’m going to risk starting with an impression I will not try to document but suspect many Mormons would share: that in the church, when we attempt to teach chastity to youth (say in Sunday…
History itself—and historians in particular—will for years to come continue to assess the importance of Leonard J. Arrington to Mormon and western thought. From 1972, when he was appointed Church Historian, to his retirement as…
Mormons associate Mahonri Young with his LDS sculptures: Seagull Monument and This Is the Place Monument in Salt Lake City, and the Brigham Young statue in Washington, D.C. Yet Young was internationally known for his…
A number of years ago when I was attending Bowling Green University as a graduate student, I was introduced to the writings of John Muir, the American naturalist. One of the approaches we used in…
Recent years have seen a revival of interest in the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS) among Latter-day Saints, prompted in part by the appointment of several BYU faculty (Donald W. Parry, David R. Seely, Dana M.…
The air above my parents’ roof is cold.
It pushes smoke back down the chimney,
forcing me to turn off the fire alarm
and open both windows.
Membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is expanding rapidly. As the church passes the ten-million member milestone, social science researchers have raised a number of important questions about the rapid growth of Mormonism. Issues include changing Mormon demographics, cultural tensions of church globalization, and the evolution of Mormon identity and assimilation. Another topic of research focuses on mass media use and the role it plays in the ways Mormons accommodate the larger society. What has not been examined, however, are the ways mass media, such as movies, television, newspapers, etc., tend to describe Mormons.