Opinion
Recommended
Letters to the Editor
Letters to the EditorA Can of Worms, Sarah L. Smith
Response to Brigham D. Madsen, No. 1, Ed Kingsley
Response to Brigham D. Madsen, No. 2, Gerry L. Ensley
Response to Brigham D. Madsen, No. 3, Douglass F. Taber
Response to Brigham D. Madsen, No. 4, Gary Rummler
Letters to the Editor
Letters to the Editor“Coming Out” Again, Joanna Brooks
Building the Kingdom with Total Honesty, Boyd Kirkland
Dilemmas Everywhere, Armand L. Mauss
A Warm, Grateful Feeling, Lane J. Wolfley
True Intolerance, Thomas G. Alexander
Advice to Book Reviewers
Stanford J. LaytonRecently I came across a book published in 1927 by Knopf entitled Book Reviewing. In it Wayne Gard writes that a “review must be presented in non-technical, natural language, combining brevity with wit, so that…
God, Gold, and Newsprint | Monte Burr McLaws, Spokesman for the Kingdom: Early Mormon Journalism and the Deseret News, 1830–1898
K. Larry TomlinsonExpanded from Monte McLaws’ doctoral dissertation, Spokesman for the Kingdom is a terse, well-researched biography of the Deseret News and Mormon journalism from 1830 to 1898. The book is thematically organized around the topics of…
Writing: An Act of Responsibility
Phyllis BarberYou’re a writer who loves these big, tough songs that pierce your heart and make you feel alive all over again. You believe in literature with a soul—the book that makes you think, that makes you feel as though you’ve been somewhere and experienced something, that you’re a different person for having read it. Writing just to entertain isn’t your goal. Writing to impress others with your cleverness or hoped-for-brilliance doesn’t matter as much as it once did. Your desire is something like Chekhov’s who spoke about writers describing situations so truthfully that readers could no longer avoid them. Or in your own words, to wrangle with the tough places in yourself and your subject. That’s what matters to you.
Should Mormon Women Speak Out? Thoughts on Our Place in the World
Claudia L. BushmanI am happy to pay tribute to Gene England, a vivid and significant twentieth-century intellectual of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Gene influenced many Mormons with his rigorous ethics, his lived religion, his human interactions, and his ability to record his life and get it all down. He certainly influenced me.
What I Would Be If I Weren’t A Mormon
Kathleen PettyWhen I first asked myself the question in the title, I was wondering specifically what religion I would participate in if I weren’t Mormon. I soon tangled myself up in questions about what it means…
The Goodness of the Church
Robert A. ReesAttending sessions of April general conference with my wife in 2007, I was reminded in many ways of the goodness of the Church. Joining fellow Saints flowing into the Conference Center on a bright Sunday morning, I was aware that I was part of a body of believers whose collective faith and devotion constitute a vital force in the world. I was reminded of this goodness while watching the October 2007 general conference on television. The music for the Saturday afternoon session was performed by a chorus of young women in their midteens, all wearing a garden of blouses in solid colors. As the camera swept over that array of bright, beautiful faces, I was impressed by what they represented of the three great human quests—Truth, Beauty, and Goodness—whose fusion and harmony, as Wayne Booth argues, constitute God. Their faces, the words spoken during the conference sessions, the music, and the feelings—all of these things engendered in my heart a remembrance of the ways the goodness of the Church has blessed my life over the years.
Driving to Heaven
Tara Washburn ChristensenCory and I more or less live in the cab of a long-haul semi. We have a house in Indiana, but we don’t make it home very often. It’s not unusual for two months to…
Love Your Elders
Melissa McQuarrieNothing thrilled me more as a little girl than hearing my parents’ courtship story: my mother, diminutive and dimpled, was eighteen, Australian, and a recent convert to the Church, living with her parents and six…
Letters to the Editor
Letters to the EditorA Can of Worms, Sarah L. Smith
Response to Brigham D. Madsen, No. 1, Ed Kingsley
Response to Brigham D. Madsen, No. 2, Gerry L. Ensley
Response to Brigham D. Madsen, No. 3, Douglass F. Taber
Response to Brigham D. Madsen, No. 4, Gary Rummler
Letters to the Editor
Letters to the Editor“Coming Out” Again, Joanna Brooks
Building the Kingdom with Total Honesty, Boyd Kirkland
Dilemmas Everywhere, Armand L. Mauss
A Warm, Grateful Feeling, Lane J. Wolfley
True Intolerance, Thomas G. Alexander
Advice to Book Reviewers
Stanford J. LaytonRecently I came across a book published in 1927 by Knopf entitled Book Reviewing. In it Wayne Gard writes that a “review must be presented in non-technical, natural language, combining brevity with wit, so that…
God, Gold, and Newsprint | Monte Burr McLaws, Spokesman for the Kingdom: Early Mormon Journalism and the Deseret News, 1830–1898
K. Larry TomlinsonExpanded from Monte McLaws’ doctoral dissertation, Spokesman for the Kingdom is a terse, well-researched biography of the Deseret News and Mormon journalism from 1830 to 1898. The book is thematically organized around the topics of…
Writing: An Act of Responsibility
Phyllis BarberYou’re a writer who loves these big, tough songs that pierce your heart and make you feel alive all over again. You believe in literature with a soul—the book that makes you think, that makes you feel as though you’ve been somewhere and experienced something, that you’re a different person for having read it. Writing just to entertain isn’t your goal. Writing to impress others with your cleverness or hoped-for-brilliance doesn’t matter as much as it once did. Your desire is something like Chekhov’s who spoke about writers describing situations so truthfully that readers could no longer avoid them. Or in your own words, to wrangle with the tough places in yourself and your subject. That’s what matters to you.
Should Mormon Women Speak Out? Thoughts on Our Place in the World
Claudia L. BushmanI am happy to pay tribute to Gene England, a vivid and significant twentieth-century intellectual of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Gene influenced many Mormons with his rigorous ethics, his lived religion, his human interactions, and his ability to record his life and get it all down. He certainly influenced me.
What I Would Be If I Weren’t A Mormon
Kathleen PettyWhen I first asked myself the question in the title, I was wondering specifically what religion I would participate in if I weren’t Mormon. I soon tangled myself up in questions about what it means…
The Goodness of the Church
Robert A. ReesAttending sessions of April general conference with my wife in 2007, I was reminded in many ways of the goodness of the Church. Joining fellow Saints flowing into the Conference Center on a bright Sunday morning, I was aware that I was part of a body of believers whose collective faith and devotion constitute a vital force in the world. I was reminded of this goodness while watching the October 2007 general conference on television. The music for the Saturday afternoon session was performed by a chorus of young women in their midteens, all wearing a garden of blouses in solid colors. As the camera swept over that array of bright, beautiful faces, I was impressed by what they represented of the three great human quests—Truth, Beauty, and Goodness—whose fusion and harmony, as Wayne Booth argues, constitute God. Their faces, the words spoken during the conference sessions, the music, and the feelings—all of these things engendered in my heart a remembrance of the ways the goodness of the Church has blessed my life over the years.
Driving to Heaven
Tara Washburn ChristensenCory and I more or less live in the cab of a long-haul semi. We have a house in Indiana, but we don’t make it home very often. It’s not unusual for two months to…
Love Your Elders
Melissa McQuarrieNothing thrilled me more as a little girl than hearing my parents’ courtship story: my mother, diminutive and dimpled, was eighteen, Australian, and a recent convert to the Church, living with her parents and six…
Letters to the Editor
Letters to the EditorIn Memory of Dr. Bill
Mary Lythgoe BradfordDialogue—and, indeed, the world of Mormon literature and history—have lost a loyal friend and critic in William Mulder, who died quietly in his sleep in March 12, 2008, in his ninety-third year. The influence of “Dr. Bill,” as his former students affectionately call him, continued long after his retirement as a professor of English at the University of Utah. When my fellow classmate Fred Buchanan phoned me with the news of his death, saying, “The light has gone out. Our mentor has left us,” I thought, “No, the light will not go out until we stop hearing his voice in our heads.” Whenever I write anything, I hear his wise voice, speaking of the introduction to my M.A. thesis as “wooden and flatfooted” and advising me to put it aside until “You have something to introduce.” (I took his advice; and my introduction to Virginia Sorensen’s work, written after I finished the work, was much better.)
“The Day Not to Be Forgotten”: How I Learned What Happened in Tian’anmen Square
John M. PaxmanI was in Beijing during the first week of June 1989, ostensibly to explore legal and policy options relating to the “one-child” policy with China’s State Family Planning Commission. As it turned out, they wanted…
Letters to the Editor
Mary Lythgoe BradfordLetters to the Editor
Letters to the EditorThomas G. Alexander, Faithful Historian Responds
Dan Vogel, What Is a Revival?
Letters to the Editor
Letters to the EditorRoss C. Anderson, A Call for Compassion
John-Charles Duffy, Clarifying My Own Stance
Cheryl L. Bruno, Asherah Alert
Kevin L. Barney, Kevin Barney Responds
William P. MacKinnon, Rest of the Story
Letter to the Editor
Letters to the EditorDon B. Allen, Wonderful Personal Voice
Letters to the Editor
Letters to the EditorGeorge D. Smith, George D. Smith Responds
Emily Parker Updegraff, Unapproachable Nature
René Girard and Mormon Scripture: A Response
Joseph SpencerThis short piece responds to Mack C. Stirling’s article, “Violence in the Scriptures: Mormonism and the Cultural Theory of René Girard,” 43, no. 1 (Spring 2010): 59–105. I offer a counter-interpretation of what I take to be (1) the thrust of Girard’s own work on scripture and (2) the implications of that thrust for Girardian interpretation of specifically Mormon scripture.
Road Trip: The Strange Travels of Mark Sanford and Brigham Young
William P. MacKinnonIn the backwash from the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign, scandals at virtually all levels of government have plagued the American political landscape. Governors have been especially prominent in the media-intensive cavalcade of investigations, confessions, promises of redemption, and resignations. Illinois faces the prospect of having consecutive governors occupying the state penitentiary simultaneously. In New York, peccadillos atop the executive branch have come with such stunning rapidity that as many as six people may end up serving as the Empire State’s governor and lieutenant governor in less than two years.
Terryl Givens and the Shape of Mormon Studies | Terryl L. Givens, The Book of Mormon: A Very Short Introduction
Marc Alain BohnIn response to a review by Jan Shipps of Richard Lyman Bushman’s Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling, Bushman remarked: “As more and more historians work to situate Mormonism in American history, Mormons like me want to join the discussion. We will write better if we are less defensive, more open to criticism, more exploratory and venturous, but even with our inhibitions and parochialisms, we should come to the table with our Mormonism intact.”
Breaking New Ground | Grant Hardy, Understanding the Book of Mormon: A Reader’s Guide
Julie M. SmithIn On the Road with Joseph Smith: An Author’s Diary (2d ed., Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2007), we get a fascinating peek into Richard Lyman Bushman’s psyche immediately after the publication of his…
Letters to the Editor
Letters to the EditorGary Rummler, Deserted Promised Land?
Johnny Townsend, Sanctimonious Review
Christian Harrison, Christian Harrison Responds
Editor’s Comment
Eugene N. Kovalenko, Mind-Changing Issue
Letters to the Editor
Letters to the EditorEdwin Firmage Jr., Edwin Firmage Jr. Responds
Proofed, Typeset, and Bound for Glory: The Material History of the Book of Mormon | Richard E. Turley Jr. and William W. Slaughter, How We Got the Book of Mormon
Karen D. AustinThe appearance of Richard Turley and William Slaughter’s How We Got the Book of Mormon suggested that the volume’s intended audience might be investigators, new members and teens seeking to know more about the material…
A Big Task for a Small Book | Paul C. Gutjahr, The Book of Mormon: A Biography
(author)Paul Gutjahr’s The Book of Mormon: A Biography is one of the inaugural offerings from Princeton University Press’s Lives of Great Religious Books—a series that proposes a new lens for studying major religious texts such…
Dialoguing Online: The Best of 10+ Years of Mormons Blogging
Emily W. JensenBook Review: Shifting Attitudes: Nauvoo Polygamy Merina Smith. Revelation, Resistance and Mormon Polygamy: The Introduction and Implementation of the Principle, 1830–1853
Kathryn M. DaynesBook Review: Pre-Mortal Existence and the Problem of Suffering: Terryl Givens and the Heterodox Traditions Terryl L. Givens. When Souls Had Wings: Pre-Mortal Existence in Western Thought
James M. McLachlanLetters to the Editor
Letters to the EditorA Can of Worms, Sarah L. Smith
Response to Brigham D. Madsen, No. 1, Ed Kingsley
Response to Brigham D. Madsen, No. 2, Gerry L. Ensley
Response to Brigham D. Madsen, No. 3, Douglass F. Taber
Response to Brigham D. Madsen, No. 4, Gary Rummler
Letters to the Editor
Letters to the Editor“Coming Out” Again, Joanna Brooks
Building the Kingdom with Total Honesty, Boyd Kirkland
Dilemmas Everywhere, Armand L. Mauss
A Warm, Grateful Feeling, Lane J. Wolfley
True Intolerance, Thomas G. Alexander
Advice to Book Reviewers
Stanford J. LaytonRecently I came across a book published in 1927 by Knopf entitled Book Reviewing. In it Wayne Gard writes that a “review must be presented in non-technical, natural language, combining brevity with wit, so that…
God, Gold, and Newsprint | Monte Burr McLaws, Spokesman for the Kingdom: Early Mormon Journalism and the Deseret News, 1830–1898
K. Larry TomlinsonExpanded from Monte McLaws’ doctoral dissertation, Spokesman for the Kingdom is a terse, well-researched biography of the Deseret News and Mormon journalism from 1830 to 1898. The book is thematically organized around the topics of…
Writing: An Act of Responsibility
Phyllis BarberYou’re a writer who loves these big, tough songs that pierce your heart and make you feel alive all over again. You believe in literature with a soul—the book that makes you think, that makes you feel as though you’ve been somewhere and experienced something, that you’re a different person for having read it. Writing just to entertain isn’t your goal. Writing to impress others with your cleverness or hoped-for-brilliance doesn’t matter as much as it once did. Your desire is something like Chekhov’s who spoke about writers describing situations so truthfully that readers could no longer avoid them. Or in your own words, to wrangle with the tough places in yourself and your subject. That’s what matters to you.
Should Mormon Women Speak Out? Thoughts on Our Place in the World
Claudia L. BushmanI am happy to pay tribute to Gene England, a vivid and significant twentieth-century intellectual of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Gene influenced many Mormons with his rigorous ethics, his lived religion, his human interactions, and his ability to record his life and get it all down. He certainly influenced me.
What I Would Be If I Weren’t A Mormon
Kathleen PettyWhen I first asked myself the question in the title, I was wondering specifically what religion I would participate in if I weren’t Mormon. I soon tangled myself up in questions about what it means…
The Goodness of the Church
Robert A. ReesAttending sessions of April general conference with my wife in 2007, I was reminded in many ways of the goodness of the Church. Joining fellow Saints flowing into the Conference Center on a bright Sunday morning, I was aware that I was part of a body of believers whose collective faith and devotion constitute a vital force in the world. I was reminded of this goodness while watching the October 2007 general conference on television. The music for the Saturday afternoon session was performed by a chorus of young women in their midteens, all wearing a garden of blouses in solid colors. As the camera swept over that array of bright, beautiful faces, I was impressed by what they represented of the three great human quests—Truth, Beauty, and Goodness—whose fusion and harmony, as Wayne Booth argues, constitute God. Their faces, the words spoken during the conference sessions, the music, and the feelings—all of these things engendered in my heart a remembrance of the ways the goodness of the Church has blessed my life over the years.
Driving to Heaven
Tara Washburn ChristensenCory and I more or less live in the cab of a long-haul semi. We have a house in Indiana, but we don’t make it home very often. It’s not unusual for two months to…
Love Your Elders
Melissa McQuarrieNothing thrilled me more as a little girl than hearing my parents’ courtship story: my mother, diminutive and dimpled, was eighteen, Australian, and a recent convert to the Church, living with her parents and six…
Letters to the Editor
Letters to the EditorIn Memory of Dr. Bill
Mary Lythgoe BradfordDialogue—and, indeed, the world of Mormon literature and history—have lost a loyal friend and critic in William Mulder, who died quietly in his sleep in March 12, 2008, in his ninety-third year. The influence of “Dr. Bill,” as his former students affectionately call him, continued long after his retirement as a professor of English at the University of Utah. When my fellow classmate Fred Buchanan phoned me with the news of his death, saying, “The light has gone out. Our mentor has left us,” I thought, “No, the light will not go out until we stop hearing his voice in our heads.” Whenever I write anything, I hear his wise voice, speaking of the introduction to my M.A. thesis as “wooden and flatfooted” and advising me to put it aside until “You have something to introduce.” (I took his advice; and my introduction to Virginia Sorensen’s work, written after I finished the work, was much better.)
“The Day Not to Be Forgotten”: How I Learned What Happened in Tian’anmen Square
John M. PaxmanI was in Beijing during the first week of June 1989, ostensibly to explore legal and policy options relating to the “one-child” policy with China’s State Family Planning Commission. As it turned out, they wanted…
Letters to the Editor
Mary Lythgoe BradfordLetters to the Editor
Letters to the EditorThomas G. Alexander, Faithful Historian Responds
Dan Vogel, What Is a Revival?
Letters to the Editor
Letters to the EditorRoss C. Anderson, A Call for Compassion
John-Charles Duffy, Clarifying My Own Stance
Cheryl L. Bruno, Asherah Alert
Kevin L. Barney, Kevin Barney Responds
William P. MacKinnon, Rest of the Story
Letter to the Editor
Letters to the EditorDon B. Allen, Wonderful Personal Voice
Letters to the Editor
Letters to the EditorGeorge D. Smith, George D. Smith Responds
Emily Parker Updegraff, Unapproachable Nature
René Girard and Mormon Scripture: A Response
Joseph SpencerThis short piece responds to Mack C. Stirling’s article, “Violence in the Scriptures: Mormonism and the Cultural Theory of René Girard,” 43, no. 1 (Spring 2010): 59–105. I offer a counter-interpretation of what I take to be (1) the thrust of Girard’s own work on scripture and (2) the implications of that thrust for Girardian interpretation of specifically Mormon scripture.
Road Trip: The Strange Travels of Mark Sanford and Brigham Young
William P. MacKinnonIn the backwash from the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign, scandals at virtually all levels of government have plagued the American political landscape. Governors have been especially prominent in the media-intensive cavalcade of investigations, confessions, promises of redemption, and resignations. Illinois faces the prospect of having consecutive governors occupying the state penitentiary simultaneously. In New York, peccadillos atop the executive branch have come with such stunning rapidity that as many as six people may end up serving as the Empire State’s governor and lieutenant governor in less than two years.
Terryl Givens and the Shape of Mormon Studies | Terryl L. Givens, The Book of Mormon: A Very Short Introduction
Marc Alain BohnIn response to a review by Jan Shipps of Richard Lyman Bushman’s Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling, Bushman remarked: “As more and more historians work to situate Mormonism in American history, Mormons like me want to join the discussion. We will write better if we are less defensive, more open to criticism, more exploratory and venturous, but even with our inhibitions and parochialisms, we should come to the table with our Mormonism intact.”
Breaking New Ground | Grant Hardy, Understanding the Book of Mormon: A Reader’s Guide
Julie M. SmithIn On the Road with Joseph Smith: An Author’s Diary (2d ed., Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2007), we get a fascinating peek into Richard Lyman Bushman’s psyche immediately after the publication of his…
Letters to the Editor
Letters to the EditorGary Rummler, Deserted Promised Land?
Johnny Townsend, Sanctimonious Review
Christian Harrison, Christian Harrison Responds
Editor’s Comment
Eugene N. Kovalenko, Mind-Changing Issue
Letters to the Editor
Letters to the EditorEdwin Firmage Jr., Edwin Firmage Jr. Responds
Proofed, Typeset, and Bound for Glory: The Material History of the Book of Mormon | Richard E. Turley Jr. and William W. Slaughter, How We Got the Book of Mormon
Karen D. AustinThe appearance of Richard Turley and William Slaughter’s How We Got the Book of Mormon suggested that the volume’s intended audience might be investigators, new members and teens seeking to know more about the material…
A Big Task for a Small Book | Paul C. Gutjahr, The Book of Mormon: A Biography
(author)Paul Gutjahr’s The Book of Mormon: A Biography is one of the inaugural offerings from Princeton University Press’s Lives of Great Religious Books—a series that proposes a new lens for studying major religious texts such…