DiaBLOGue

Was Joseph Smith a Monarchotheist? An Engagement with Blake Ostler’s Theological Position on the Nature of God

Dialogue 55.2 (Spring 2022): 37–72
Joseph Smith’s teachings on God found in his preaching at the April 7, 1844 general conference, known as the King Follett Sermon, and Smith’s Sermon in the Grove, given at a meeting held just east of the Nauvoo Temple on June 16, 1844, have appeared to many to give strong support to this view. There, he taught that God was not always God but developed into God over time.

Portrait of a (Latter-day) Saint

I miss Gene England! I have especially missed his voice these past twenty years. So many times, I have wondered, “What would Gene have said about . . .” as we have stumbled and bungled…

World Without Masks

Today, June 20, 2021, is the first day since March 15, 2020 that we in the Stanford First Ward have been allowed to attend service in our own building without masks and social distancing. As…

Dialogue and the Daring Disciple

One thing a reader learns from Terryl Givens’s new biography is that no one who knew Eugene England could claim to be an objective appraiser of his life. Countless individuals revered him; he had guided…

Paper Route

Podcast version of this piece. Sabbath afternoon in summer sometimes feelslike those February mornings I’d wedge thedamp butt of each newspaper in friend’s saddlepack clouded gray with his indistinguishablefingerprints. Their buckling mouths a smudgedbouquet of…

From the Angels’ Perch at Mount Moriah

Podcast version of this piece. Scene: Thicket for a Slaughter We have seenbets, contests— only the greatones sent tospar with God: father, son,sacrifice. Scene: An Examination Question:the brain, a tangledbramble—the fire and the knife,a fearsomebinding.…

Recreating Abraham’s Star Charts

Podcast version of this piece. I pause on the path, drop my sticks,and bend to read them like runes.Tell the stars, They said. So I do daily— I chart their breathless turning asI gather berries…