History of the Church — Part One
March 28, 2018I feel grace descend like whiskey-scented
oil poured over me in the upper room on
my way to heaven. I dance in the heat of
a fire, like ghosts following Sitting Bull
DiaBLOGue
David O. McKay and the “Twin Sisters” Free Agency and Tolerance
March 28, 2018On a spring day in 1955, a group of distinguished gentlemen gathered at a White House dinner at the request of President Dwight Eisenhower. The guests included founding partners of three law firms, the President of the Teamsters’ Union, three Army Generals, a Cabinet Secretary, the publisher of the Boston Globe, the Vice President of ABC, the Chairman of CBS, the President of MIT, four CEO’s and one clergyman—David O. McKay, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
An Expanded Definition of Priesthood? Some Present and Future Consequences
March 28, 2018Dialogue 34.4 (Winter 2002): 319–325
But the fact that we must look at organizational dynamics before we can begin to understand the issues that would be raised by expanding priesthood to include women is an apt commentary on the complex and sometimes confused role that priesthood authority has come to play in the modern church.
Women and Priesthood
March 28, 2018I smiled wryly at the cartoon on the stationery. The picture showed a woman standing before an all-male ecclesiastical board and asking, “Are you trying to tell me that God is not an equal opportunity…
Mormonism’s Negro Doctrine: An Historical Overview
March 28, 2018There once was a time, albeit brief, when a “Negro problem” did not exist for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. During those early months in New York and Ohio no mention was even made of Church attitudes towards blacks. The Gospel was for “all nations, kindreds, tongues and peoples,” and no exceptions were made. A Negro, “Black Pete,” was among the first converts in Ohio, and his story was prominently reported in the local press. W. W. Phelps opened a mission to Missouri in July, 1831, and preached to “all the families of the earth,” specifically mentioning Negroes among his first audience. The following year another black, Elijah Abel, was baptized in Mary land.
Seers, Savants and Evolution: The Uncomfortable Interface
March 28, 2018Ever since his great synthesis, Darwin’s name has been a source of discomfort to the religious world. Too sweeping to be fully fathomed, too revolutionary to be easily accepted, but too well documented to be…
The Making of a Mormon Myth: The 1844 Transfiguration of Brigham Young
March 28, 2018The brethren testify that brother Brigham Young is brother Joseph’s legal successor. You never heard me say so. I say that I am a good hand to keep the dogs and wolves out of the…
Nauvoo Roots of Mormon Polygamy, 1841-46: A Preliminary Demographic Report
March 28, 2018Polygamy, marriage to more than one spouse at a time, cannot be seen in the fossil record of our primitive ancestor, Homo erectus, and no one knows if Lucy of the African Rift, reputed to…
The Development of the Mormon Temple Endowment Ceremony
March 28, 2018Dialogue 34.1 (Spring/Summer 2001): 87
However, the temple has maintained its central role in the lives of
Latter-day Saints by being able to create a point of intersection between
human desires for righteousness and the divine willingness to be bound
by covenant. This point has remained constant, even though emphases
in the church have changed over time, also bringing change to the endowment ceremony itself
Bird Island
March 28, 2018It will come as news to all Latter-day Saints that after many years of deep scholarly research the Hill Cumorah has finally been located—at the north end of Bird Island in Utah Lake. Those familiar…