DiaBLOGue

Joseph Smith, Captain Kidd Lore, and Treasure-Seeking in New York and New England during the Early Republic

March 15, 2018

In his 2003 Dialogue article, Ronald V. Huggins discussed the possibility that Joseph Smith’s ostensible encounter with the angel Moroni was the invocation of a long-held folk tradition of treasure guardians in a milieu of treasure seeking and folk magic in the northeast.Huggins concluded that “Smith must have learned of the [treasure-guardian] motif while helping his father dig for Kidd’s treasure and while studying Kidd’s life and lore as a boy.” Some Latter-day Saint scholars, however, maintain that the figure Moroni was a visiting angel, as has been represented in official LDS accounts. 

Comparing Mormon and Adventist Growth Patterns in Latin America: The Chilean Case

March 15, 2018

Mormonism, Adventism, and Jehovah’s Witnesses are the three great American religions of the nineteenth century.Although they started out as radical groups led by charismatic prophets, each ultimately followed a different trajectory of opposition and accommodation to U.S. mainstream society.One thing they had in common was their missionary zeal, which was strengthened by the fact that each was certain that it was the only true Christian church on Earth. This missionary zeal led to extensive proselytizing efforts, first in the United States and soon abroad.

“As Our Two Faiths Have Worked Together”—Catholicism and Mormonism on Human Life Ethics and Same-Sex Marriage

March 15, 2018

Dialogue 46.3 (Fall 2013): 106–141

Wilfred Decoo writes in 2013 ““As Our Two Faiths Have Worked Together”— Catholicism and Mormonism on Human Life Ethics and Same-Sex Marriage.” He expains, “I analyze a number of factors that could ease the way for the Mormon Church to withdraw its opposition to same-sex marriage, at least as it concerns civil society, while the Catholic Church is unlikely to budge.”

Winter 2013 Art: Jared Clark

March 14, 2018

Jared Lindsay Clark is a visual artist who mainly constructs installations,  sculpture and drawings. During his years at Brigham Young University where he earned a BFA, he found himself drawn to abstraction and minimalism. Today…

Ode to Joy!

March 14, 2018

One of the joys of being married to my late wife Ruth is that she opened the world of sacred music to me. I had grown up in a culturally deprived home, with no inkling of another world with such creatures in it as Bach, Mozart, Byrd, Beethoven, Hayden, and Handel. Shortly after we were married, Ruth took me to hear Bach’s great Passion According to St. Matthew at the First Congregational Church in Madison, Wisconsin. My feeling was like that of a man I once saw in a film. After being institutionalized for some years, he had gone to a performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.

Not a Rigid Framework | Patrick Q. Mason, J. David Pulsipher, and Richard L. Bushman, eds., War and Peace in Our Time: Mormon Perspectives

March 14, 2018

The authors of this volume’s concluding essay argue that “Latter-day Saint theology does not constitute a rigid framework which insists on either an idealist or realist approach to war in the scheme of human existence” (262). It is this room for ambiguity that makes War and Peace in Our Time such a valuable contribution, as it highlights the diversity of perspectives on war and peace that can be informed by LDS teachings and history.

Eternal Families: Persecution Day or Rapture? | Jenn Ashworth, The Friday Gospels

March 14, 2018

In his introduction to the 1996 Signature publication Tending the Garden, Gene England refers to “President Kimball’s 1977 call for a literature that includes the full range of Mormon experience: ‘struggles and frustrations; apostasies and inner revolutions and counter-revolutions . . . counter-reactions . . . persecution days . . . rapture.’” I love that list—persecution days and rapture, yes! 

The ISPP Way and the Navajo Way | Robert S. McPherson, Jim Dandy, and Sarah E. Burak, Navajo Tradition, Mormon Life: The Autobiography and Teachings of Jim Dandy

March 14, 2018

Months after we moved to Blanding, Utah, an LDS Navajo neighbor asked if my ten-year-old daughter would like to play a role in the Voices of San Juan Pageant, a local, outdoor LDS production then staged every year. I’d never seen the pageant but said I thought that she’d like taking part. Then my neighbor told me my girl would be playing a Navajo toiling among other Navajos in a scene portraying the Long Walk. The suggestion that my very white child assume the role of a Navajo in this reenactment of one of the most tragic events in Navajo history startled me so deeply that I laughed out loud. My neighbor laughed, too. But she still wanted my daughter in the role. 

The Gift of Tongues

March 14, 2018

Dead. The rose bushes, the dogwood, the spirea, and the green spreading yews, all dead: the entire hillside, a dusty memorial to her beautiful yard. The dry leaves crumbled between Mary’s fingers and fell into…