Jana Riess

JANA RIESS is a senior columnist for Religion News Service and the author or co-author of many books, including The Next Mormons: How Millennials Are Changing the LDS Church and Mormonism and American Politics. She has a PhD in American religious history from Columbia University and is the president-elect of the Mormon Social Science Association.

A Question of Authority

Articles/Essays – Volume 56, No. 3

I was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on September 25, 1993, almost immediately after Lavina Fielding Anderson was forced out of it.[1] Her stake disciplinary council had convened on September…

Exploring Disenchantment | E. Marshall Brooks, Disenchanted Lives: Apostasy and Ex-Mormonism among the Latter-day Saints

Articles/Essays – Volume 53, No. 4

More Americans are leaving organized religion, and the fastest-growing faith tradition in the United States for some years now has been “no religion.” The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has not been as…

The Word of Wisdom in Contemporary American Mormonism: Perceptions and Practice

Articles/Essays – Volume 51, No. 1

Brigham Young University made headlines in 2012 for a series of controversies that would be, to say the least, unusual on most college campuses: a student-led push for the university to sell caffeinated beverages at student vending locations. Although a staple throughout the United States, caffeinated sodas had long been restricted from sale at BYU due to “lack of demand,” according to university officials.Five years later, however, caffeinated soda was, at last, approved for sale on BYU’s campus.

“Infected With Doubt”: An Empirical Overview of Belief and Non-Belief in Contemporary American Mormonism

Articles/Essays – Volume 50, No. 3

Daniel, twenty-eight, is an active Church member and temple worker who served a mission and now holds a calling as a young single adult representative for his stake. He says he has both seen and performed miracles, and has a strong belief in Jesus Christ. But he has also struggled at times with doubt, which he says has “come along in many different forms” throughout his adult life.

The Woman of Worth: Impressions of Proverbs 31:10-31

Articles/Essays – Volume 30, No. 1

I am neither a scholar of the Hebrew Bible nor a theologian, yet very occasionally some unsuspecting soul asks me to preach or speak about the Bible. In 1994 I substituted one Sunday for a…

A Test Case for Heresy and Gender Discourse | Terryl L. Givens, The Viper on the Hearth: Mormons, Myths, and the Construction of Heresy, and Joan Smyth Iversen, The Antipolygamy Controversy in U.S. Women’s Movements, 1880-1925: A Debate on the American Home

Articles/Essays – Volume 32, No. 1

The nineteenth century saw the rise and fall of many “crusades” that have been painstakingly examined by scholars, including abolition, temperance, and nativism. Yet the equally important campaigns to eradicate polygamy and stem the tide…

Book of Mormon Stories | Mark D. Thomas, Digging in Cumorah: Reclaiming Book of Mormon Narratives, and Terryl L. Givens, By the Hand of Mormon: The American Scripture That Launched a New Religion

Articles/Essays – Volume 35, No. 3

After decades of neglect by scholars, theologians, and even rank and-file Latter-day Saints, the Book of Mormon may be finally getting its due. Recently, several books have under scored the importance of this controversial work…

Letters to the Editor

Articles/Essays – Volume 37, No. 4

D. Jeff Burton, Tolerance for “Cultural Mormons”
Gerry L. Ensley, Joseph, Peepstones, and Pirates
Dan Vogel, Serving Two Masters
Gary James Bergera, Civility, Compassion, Honesty
Richard L. Bushman, Fair-Minded People
Sarah Barringer Gordon, Jana Riess, and Valeen Tippetts Avery, An Excess of Zeal
Ralf Gruenke, Room for Reason and Study
Doug Ward, Respecting Opposite Opinions