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Volume 20, No. 4

Winter 1987

Articles/Essays

Reflections from Within: A Conversation with Linda King Newell and L. Jackson Newell

Lavina Fielding Anderson

The Development of the Mormon Temple Endowment Ceremony

David John Buerger

Dialogue 20.4 (Winter 1987): 75–122
Buerger outlines the history of the endowment ceremony but does not share anything that he has covenanted not to divulge.

Culture, Charisma, and Change: Reflections on Mormon Temple Worship

Armand L. Mauss

Dialogue 20.4 (Winter 1987): 33–76
Mauss encourages an openess about the temple to help better prepare future endowment holders and to create a better understanding among members and nonmembers.

“The Truth Is the Most Important Thing””: The New Mormon History According to Mark Hofmann

Allen D. Roberts

The Successful Marketing of the Holy Grail

Linda Sillitoe

Methods and Motives: Joseph Smith III’s Opposition to Polygamy, 1860-90

Roger D. Launius

Dialogue 20.4 (Winter 1987): 77–85
When Joseph Smith III preached his first sermon as a leader of the Reoganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints at Amboy, Illinois, on 6 April 1860, he expressed his unqualifed aversion to the Mormon doctrine of plural marriage.

In Defense of a Mormon Erotica

Levi S. Peterson

Groping the Mormon Eros

B. W. Jorgensen

On Fidelity, Polygamy, and Celestial Marriage

Eugene England

Dialogue 20.4 (Winter 1987): 138–154
England shares his reasons for why Joseph Smith introduced polygamy and then removed it as one of the commandments. England argues that polygamy was a faith testing experience which lead them to in his words “worthy to build God’s kingdom.”

Burden or Pleasure? A Profile of LDS Polygamous Husbands

Jessie L. Embry

Dialogue 20.4 (Winter 1987): 158–166
Despite what researchers have said over the years regarding for why men married plural wives, Embry argues that a significant portion of husbands married plural wives because of their religious beliefs.