Contents

Articles/Essays

Mormons and Psychiatry

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Among many Mormons there exists a genuine distrust of psychiatry. Apprehensions arise partly from misconceptions about psychotherapy and partly from a stigma that many attach to anything associated with emotional disorders. Many believe “If you live your religion, you won’t need a psychiatrist.” For many, to visit a psychiatrist would be to admit emotional and spiritual failure. Mormons might enter psychotherapy with not only the usual fears and anxieties concerning an unknown experience that lies ahead…



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B.H. Roberts as an Historian



In 1930, when B. H. Roberts published his six-volume Comprehensive History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, learned journals were silent. But he himself, with pardonable pride, had described his work as “monumental.” One Mormon, answering Bernard De Voto’s contemptuous description of Utah as an intellectual desert, hailed Roberts as “another Gibbon.” Although hyperbolic, the favorable judgment was in general well deserved….



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The Changing Image of Mormonism



The ultimate fate of American minorities is to become tourist attractions. . . . But the tourist boom means the same thing in Utah that it means in Vermont, the same thing it means wherever the past has been piously “restored,” roped off, and put on display—not the vitality but the decadence of a way of life.
Such is the devastating indictment of Mormonism by Christopher Lasch in the January 26, 1967, New York Review of Books



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Interview

Letters to the Editor

Letters to the Editor



Dear Sirs:  I enjoyed William Robinson’s article [Autumn, 1968], “Mormons in the Urban Community.”  In order to expose our children to something other than our very isolated Mormon community (Utah Valley), two years ago we…



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Notes

“If Thou Wilt Be Perfect”



One of the most obvious forms of Mormon adjustment to contemporary American society is our increasing acceptance of its economic doctrines and attitudes concerning the proper accumulation and uses of material wealth. Indeed, to many…



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Poetry

The Unhobbled Mare



From a lace-curtained upstairs window, 
She absently watched the cluttered farmyard below.
In the shadow of the shed she saw his cold forge,
His heavy hammers, his grindstone and his powerful vise—
Beyond this the sheds and pens for his gentle cows and mares
And the high, strong corrals for his bull and stallion. 



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Reviews

Among the Mormons: A Survey of Current Literature



Are Mormons Christians? The official name of the Church includes the words “Jesus Christ” within it, and we consider Him our Savior. Our scriptures include the Bible, and, as Anthony Hoekema suggests, “Many people have the impression that the Mormon teachings are not basically different from those of historic Christianity.” Yet Dr. Hoekema has decided that “The Christ of Mormonism is not the Christ of Scripture.” The good doctor came to this conclusion by asking—and himself answering—the following ten questions: …



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Roundtable

Law and Order — A Two Way Street



Our society is afflicted with a tumorous disrespect for law. Ordinary citizens and public figures reject the requirements of law and boldly substitute some other set of values to justify clearly illegal behavior. Widely publicized…



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