William D. Russell

WILLIAM D. RUSSELL is professor of American history and govern￾ment at Graceland University in Lamoni, Iowa. He has published widely in Mormon studies and is a past president of both the Mormon History Association and the John Whitmer Historical Association. His special in￾terest has been recent divisions in the RLDS Church, now Community of Christ. He presented an earlier version of his paper at the 2005 Sunstone Symposium in Salt Lake City (audiocassette SL05-111)

Establishment Bias: To The Glory of God: Mormon Essays in Great Issues edited by Truman G. Madsen and Charles D. Tate, Jr

Articles/Essays – Volume 8, No. 2

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The Rise and Fall of Courage, an Independent RLDS Journal

Articles/Essays – Volume 11, No. 1

Dialogue 11.1 (Spring 1978): 115–119
Although Courage struck a responsive chord in quite a few hearts, its readers did not support it to the extent the editors had expected. Appealing only to a minority in a small church, and without either sufficient subscribers or a financial “angel/  Courage died after its eleventh number (Winter/Spring 1973).

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A Priestly Role for a Prophetic Church: The RLDS Church and Black Americans

Articles/Essays – Volume 12, No. 2

Dialogue 12.2 (Summer 1979): 37–50
In recent years many RLDS Church members have been proud of the fact that the church has been ordaining blacks into the priesthood since early in its history. Sometimes they have made unfavorable comparisons between RLDS policy and that of their cousins in Utah who denied holy orders to black men and women until last year when half of the restriction was lifted.

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Investigating the Investigation: Investigating the Book of Mormon Witnesses by Richard Lloyd Anderson

Articles/Essays – Volume 16, No. 2

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Swarming Progeny of the Restoration: Divergent Paths of the Restoration: A History of the Latter Day Saint Movement

Articles/Essays – Volume 16, No. 4

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Faithful History: The Heavens Resound: A History of the Latter-day Saints in Ohio, 1830-1838 by Milton V. Backman, Jr.

Articles/Essays – Volume 18, No. 3

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Beyond Literalism

Articles/Essays – Volume 19, No. 1

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Mormondom’s Second Greatest King: King of Beaver Island: The Life and Assassination of James Jesse Strang by Roger Van Noord

Articles/Essays – Volume 22, No. 3

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Bringing Balance to Our Historical Writing: From Mission to Madness: Last Son of the Mormon Prophet by Valeen Tippetts Avery

Articles/Essays – Volume 33, No. 1

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Bring Them Unto Christ

Articles/Essays – Volume 34, No. 3

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Ordaining Women and the Transformation from Sect to Denomination

Articles/Essays – Volume 36, No. 3

Dialogue 36.3 (Fall 2003): 61–64
Over the past forty years the top leadership of the Community of Christ church (until recently the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ o f Latter -Day Saints) has gone through significant changes in religious thought. I have contended elsewhere that the decisive changes occurred in the 1960s.

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The LDS Church and Community of Christ: Clearer Differences, Closer Friends

Articles/Essays – Volume 36, No. 4

Dialogue 36.4 (Winter 2003): 177–192
In this paper I will briefly discuss what I see as the six major differences between the two churches during the first century of their existence, and then I will look at eight new differences that have emerged over the past forty years or so. I make no claim that either is a complete list.

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“He Was ‘Game'”: Joseph Smith: The Making of a Prophet by Dan Vogel

Articles/Essays – Volume 38, No. 3

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The Remnant Church: An RLDS Schismatic Group Finds a Prophet of Joseph’s Seed

Articles/Essays – Volume 38, No. 3

Dialogue 38.3 (Fall 2005): 26–54
When the 1984 conference approved Section 156 , which also indicated that the soon-to-be-built temple in Independence would be dedicated to the pursuit of peace, it became clear that the largest “schism”—separation from the unity of the Church—in the history of the RLDS Church was in the making.

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Grant McMurray and the Succession Crisis in the Community of Christ

Articles/Essays – Volume 39, No. 4

Dialogue 39.4 (Winter 2006): 67–90
Members of the Community of Christ were shocked when our president, W. Grant McMurray, announced that he had resigned on November 29, 2004 , effective immediately.

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