Mormon studies

With two new publications, the Museum of Mormon History in Mexico has firmly established itself as a leading venue for the production of Mormon history in Mexico. The Spanish translation and English commentary on Part 1 of F. LaMond Tulllis's Mormons in Mexico is a significant contribution to both Spanish and English readers. This text, published through Deseret Book, makes a valuable resource available to Spanish speakers. It also offers an impressive correction of documentary errors in Tullis's interpretation and historical data. A second significant contribution to the literature on the same subject is a series of four articles available in Spanish or English by Fernando R. Gómez Páez (museum president). Read side by side, the translation of Tullis's book and this new selection of articles by the museum's president provide a worthwhile and balanced introduction to Mexican Mormon history. Readers will recognize that Mormon history in Mexico extends well beyond the colonies in Chihuahua and Sonora. The most interesting stories may very well come from central Mexico. Mexican Mormons now have a significant voice in the writing of their own Mormon histories.

Mormon Women’s History: Beyond Biography demonstrates that the history and experience of Mormon women is central to the history of the Church and to histories of American religion, politics, and culture. Yet the study of Mormon women has mostly been confined to biographies, family histories, and women’s periodicals. The contributors to Mormon Women’s History engage the vast breadth of sources left by Mormon women—journals, diaries, letters, family histories, and periodicals as well as art, poetry, material culture, theological treatises, and genealogical records—to read between the lines, reconstruct connections, recover voices, reveal meanings, and recast stories.

The United States has long grappled with the question of how to maintain an appropriate combination of religion and politics in the public sphere. The current electoral cycle is no different, as Presidential candidates attempt to negotiate both the political and religious landscapes. This essay introduces a special forum on rhetoric and religion in contemporary politics and touches on some recent instances of how religious differences have played out in the current political environment. Some of the issues discussed include the separation of church and state, Mitt Romney’s membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons), Rick Santorum’s conception of the “war on religion,” and the controversy over contraceptives at religious institutions and Rush Limbaugh’s attacks on a Georgetown law student.

A list of members from the Minute Book of the Nauvoo Relief Society linked with profiles found on the Church Historians Press book The First Fifty Years of Relief: Key Documents in Latter-day Saint Women's History.

Members listed were born outside the U.S.

A 2017 Project for the Joseph Smith Historic Site.

A list of members from the Minute Book of the Nauvoo Relief Society linked with profiles found on the Church Historians Press book The First Fifty Years of Relief: Key Documents in Latter-day Saint Women's History.

Percent of Members Born Outside the U.S. vs Inside the US

A 2017 Project for the Joseph Smith Historic Site.

While the Book of Mormon recounts a variety of miracles, two miraculous events have special significance, the illuminated night and associated signs and wonders and the appearance of a new star in Mesoamerica previous to the birth of Christ, and the darkness and destruction which occurred upon his death.  In a previous work, The Geology of the Book of Mormon, I elucidated a scientific explanation of the destruction, here I will provide the most likely scientific explanation for the illuminated night and signs and wonders.  Also established is the correlation of the day of Christ’s birth with a solar eclipse, seen both in Mesoamerica and Mesopotamia, and the Old World astrological calculation used by the Magi of the day of Christ’s birth, together with a planetary Bethlehem Star and a separate Mesoamerican new star as a comet.  Exact dates are then determined for Christ’s birth and death based on this astronomical information and information from the Book of Mormon and associated information.

Review of Simon Southerton. Losing a Lost Tribe: Native Americans, DNA, and the Mormon Church. Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2004. 270 pp. Appendices, glossary, index. Paper $24.95. ISB 1-56085-181-3. While Southerton's honesty ultimately cost him his membership in the LDS Church, his book should make a lasting impact on the debates about the historicity of Latter-day scriptures within and beyond restoration communities.

Unpublished graduate paper, 2006. A reflexive reflection on reflexivity, in relation to my relation to the field of Mormon studies.

"I want to examine how reflexivity not only announces a religious studies scholar’s position in relation to those he or she studies but also seeks to position the scholar in relation to those who read his or her work. Furthermore, because rhetoric is about suasion, and thus about interests and agendas, examining reflexivity as rhetoric can throw light on where scholars stand politically in relation to the religions they study (a question, we shall see, on which even religious studies scholars who espouse reflexivity have not been very forthcoming)."

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is known for its doctrine of exaltation: the belief that human beings can become gods who create and reign over their own worlds, even as God the Father has done with this world. The Church also teaches that God the Father is male and that gender is an essential and immutable characteristic of being. Though it intermittently proffers a “God the Mother” whose image women were created in, little has been officially declared of her other than that she exists. As such, while exaltation for men means the relative clarity of looking forward to becoming what God the Father is, exaltation for women is marked by considerable uncertainty.

While seldom examined directly in Mormon theological discourse, exaltation for women receives ancillary illumination when other theological areas of Mormonism are in focus, especially in regards to women and the priesthood, celestial marriage, temple ordinances, and Heavenly Mother. An examination of these four areas paints a clearer picture of what exaltation means for women, revealing that, while there are some promising areas of parity between women and men along with numerous broad affirmations of equality of the sexes, the specifics of liturgy, teaching, practice, and policy in these particular areas depict an androcentric exaltation in which women are lesser deities subordinated to their husbands.

This study was conducted in order to determine if members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS)
make attributions consistent with the idea that wealth and righteousness are related. Results indicated that Church
members are more likely to attribute righteousness to a wealthy church member than a poor one. Potential reasons
for these findings are explored, along with the ramifications such beliefs might have for members of the LDS Church.

What did Brigham Young, John Taylor, Wilford Woodruff, Lorenzo Snow, Joseph F. Smith, George Q. Cannon, and seventeen other early LDS leaders teach about building Zion that we today have forgotten?
Quite a bit, it turns out!

Chapter Five – Our Obligations Regarding Zion

As in the last chapter, around 50 of the 700+ quotes by early LDS leaders about building or establishing Zion are covered in this chapter.  Our Champions for Zion specifically spoke about our obligations as members of the LDS Church to build Zion.  Their quotes fell neatly into 6 subcategories:
1. Building Zion is the work we've been given to do.
2. It is our duty & responsibility to build up Zion.
3. Building Zion is one of our callings from God.
4. We are obligated to build Zion.
5. The Priesthood obligates us to build Zion.
6. Building Zion is the whole point of receiving the Priesthood.

Those last two subcategories were a complete and total surprise!  In fact, later we'll see some evidence that building Zion is perhaps also the whole point of the temple endowment.  But first, let's read all the apostolic quotes, spanning from 1857 to 1884, about how it's our obligation as Latter-day Saints to build Zion.

Joseph Smith died before the practice of sealings had been wholly unfolded and implemented. In particular, what Brian Hales calls the “vertical” sealing of parents to children (as opposed to the “horizontal” sealing of men and women as husbands and wives) was never performed by the time of Joseph’s death, though there had been hints that sealings could be performed for relationships other than marriages. Brigham Young’s introduction of the “law of adoption”—which allowed couples to be sealed to a married priesthood leader as a father figure—was another further development. But it was in 1894, under the presidency of Wilford Woodruff, that the tradition of sealings reached the form that has not been significantly altered since, setting the stage for the Latter-day Saint emphasis on the importance of biological families that continues to this day.

This analysis will make clear that the final development—Woodruff’s— is the most theologically complete (though not without its own complications) and that there have been no major structural developments of vertical sealings since then because of this theological completeness. Woodruff’s developments added a coherence and a theological rigor, with compelling practical implications, which had been lacking previously. This coherence and theological rigor are the major reasons why no major developments in the Latter-day Saint vertical sealing rituals have been enacted since 1894.

O processo de diversificação religiosa do Amazonas comporta grupos alternativos àqueles geralmente observados nas pesquisas, a saber, católicos e evangélicos. Desde os anos 1960, A Igreja de Jesus Cristo dos Santos dos Últimos Dias também se estabeleceu em Manaus, no contexto de ampliação do polo industrial e, dali, expandiu-se para os interiores do estado. O presente artigo busca apresentar a ação missionária mórmon na cidade de Parintins a partir de 1994, partindo dos registros oficiais da igreja, principalmente atas e fotografias, e da memória de missionários e presidentes da Igreja. Destacamos a atenção especial dedicada pelos Mórmons à liberdade de escolha e à tolerância religiosa, elementos presentes da doutrina da Igreja e que tem implicado em uma postura ativa das suas lideranças em defesa da paz e do diálogo entre as religiões.

A list of members from the Minute Book of the Nauvoo Relief Society linked with profiles found on the Church Historians Press book The First Fifty Years of Relief: Key Documents in Latter-day Saint Women's History.

A 2017 Project for the Joseph Smith Historic Site.

2021 Best Book Award, John Whitmer Historical Association.
Finalist for Best Book in "Excellence in the Study of Religion, Textual Studies" by the American Academy of Religion.
Finalist for Best Book in Religious Non-Fiction, the Association for Mormon Letters.

Publishers Weekly, Starred Review: https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-46965-566-6

Publishers Weekly, Top Ten Pick for the Week of May 25, 2020: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/tip-sheet/article/83347-pw-picks-books-of-the-week-may-25-2020.html

Roundtable Reviews by Dr. Elizabeth Fenton, Dr. Brian Hauglid, and Dr. Michael Austin, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought:  https://www.dialoguejournal.com/2020/05/dialogue-roundtable-william-l-davis-visions-in-a-seer-stone-joseph-smith-and-the-making-of-the-book-of-mormon/

The Association for Mormon Letters, review by Andrew Hamilton: http://associationmormonletters.org/blog/reviews/current-reviews/davis-visions-in-a-seer-stone-joseph-smith-and-the-making-of-the-book-of-mormon-reviewed-by-andrew-hamilton/

The University of North Carolina Press (2020).
https://uncpress.org/book/9781469655666/visions-in-a-seer-stone/ 

In this interdisciplinary work, William L. Davis examines Joseph Smith's 1829 creation of the Book of Mormon, the foundational text of the Latter Day Saint movement. Positioning the text in the history of early American oratorical techniques, sermon culture, educational practices, and the passion for self-improvement, Davis elucidates both the fascinating cultural context for the creation of the Book of Mormon and the central role of oral culture in early nineteenth-century America.

Drawing on performance studies, religious studies, literary culture, and the history of early American education, Davis analyzes Smith’s process of oral composition. How did he produce a history spanning a period of 1,000 years, filled with hundreds of distinct characters and episodes, all cohesively tied together in an overarching narrative? Eyewitnesses claimed that Smith never looked at notes, manuscripts, or books—he simply spoke the words of this American religious epic into existence. Judging the truth of this process is not Davis's interest. Rather, he reveals a kaleidoscope of practices and styles that converged around Smith's creation, with an emphasis on the evangelical preaching styles popularized by the renowned George Whitefield and John Wesley.

Jews and Mormons have pasts as racialized Others. Although they appear dissimilar, both groups have been inscribed historically as non-White. Both groups responded to these inscriptions by attempting to achieve Whiteness, making numerous and radical concessions to U.S. American culture. As a result, both groups became "liminally White." We argue that such liminal status demonstrates the fissures in Whiteness and provides creative new grounds for critiquing Whiteness as a rhetorical construct.

This article documents one strain of Mormon thought concerning the Woman of Endor narrative in 1 Samuel 28, in which the woman was interpreted as a prophetess enabled to raise the dead through her spiritual gifts. Church leaders eventually condemned this narrative because of its similarities with Spiritualist exegesis and American Christianity's use of the narrative to condemn Spiritualism as necromancy. Through establishing an orthodox reading of the passage, leaders strengthened the boundaries separating the two faiths – boundaries that many Spiritualists had argued were at best blurry and overlapping.

Mormon’s Chronological Summary of the Period from the 19th Regnal Year of the Reign of MosiahI to the Coming of the Limhites and Mormon’s Synopsis of the Book of Mormon Prophetic Calendar
A small scrap of paper entitled “Caractors” (also known as the Anthon Transcript) that contained Reformed Egyptian characters copied from the plates from which the Book of Mormon was translated has remained an enigma for more than a hundred years.  Finally, the characters have been successfully translated. In a book that is the first of its kind, Jerry Grover, a professional civil engineer, geologist, and translator, has been able to crack the code of the “reformed Egyptian.” The author’s approach is meticulous and scientific. This book is a landmark event in Book of Mormon studies and is a book that must be read by every serious student of the Book of Mormon and of Mesoamerican studies. The author is dedicating all proceeds from the book to additional scientific studies to cast further light on the ancient setting of the Book of Mormon.

Microhistory of the interactions between a Kentucky folk magic practitioner, English astrologers and occultists, and a young English scryer in the new environment of pioneer Mormon Utah.
My capstone research project for my undergraduate program.  I plan on doing a thorough revision at some point due to my limited understanding of some of the subjects treated here when I wrote it.

The history of Mormonism in Mexico reached a new landmark early in 1997 when Colonia Industrial, a United Order community founded by Margarito Bautista Valencia, achieved, its fiftieth successful year. Second, third, and fourth generations of Mexican Mormons in Colonia Industrial celebrated through sermons and activities that remind them of their legacy. Colonia Industrial, a small, unimposing, exclusive colony of Mexican Mormons, lies in the municipio of Ozumba at the base of Popocatepetl, an active volcano in the central valley of Mexico. While the growth of the LDS church in Mexico (claimed 720,000 members in 1995) dwarfs the small offshoot in Colonia Industrial, these Mexican Mormons' tenacious adherence to the socioeconomic principles of the United Order and plural marriage is a tribute to the testimony and fervor of their founder, Margarito Bautista Valencia.

An introduction to the four "standard works" of the LDS religion (KJV Bible with Joseph Smith's changes; the Book of Mormon; Doctrine and Covenants; Pearl of Great Price) and a discussion of the LDS teaching that the authority of the "living prophet" is greater than that of written scriptures.

Nearly two centuries ago the earliest Mormon scripture, the first half of the 'abridged' account of the Book of Mormon's narrator Mormon was stolen, never to be seen again. Consequently, within the Latter-day Saint community the situation has long been that everybody knows a large portion of the foundational scripture is missing, but nobody knows what was in it.

In this book I identify the evidence within the extant Book of Mormon text and assemble the external sources (e.g, accounts from the father of the person who dictated the text and the brother of the scribe who recorded it), and, using methods similar to those used in reconstructing ancient Greek plays and other missing texts, I piece together what can be known of the book's missing narrative. The Book of Mormon's lost text, as it emerges from the available evidence, presented a narrative that was both very Judaic, responding to the Jewish problem of Diaspora, and very Mormon, portending the distinctive doctrines of the Latter-day Saint faith.

This publisher's preview includes an Introduction, discussing the book's purposes and methodology, and Chapter 13--"God and Aminadi in the Temple"--which reconstructs and contextualizes the lost Book of Mormon narrative of Aminadi,  referenced in the extant text in Alma 10:2 as "Aminadi who interpreted the writing which was upon the wall of the temple, which was written by the finger of God."

A frequently told story in Church history concerns the call of Artemus Millet to work on the Kirtland Temple. With variations here and there, historians have related the story as follows: Joseph Smith, in the company of other brethren, is walking where the Kirtland Temple will be built. He wonders aloud who could superintend its construction, and Joseph Young (or Brigham Young or Lorenzo Young) recommends an acquaintance named Artemus Millet, who lives in Canada. The Prophet then sends Brigham Young to Canada to baptize Millet and bring him to Kirtland with one thousand dollars. Historians then relate that Brigham Young fulfilled his mission with exactness, baptizing Millet in January 1832 (or 1833). Millet sells the family farm, takes his family to Kirtland, and labors on the temple from the laying of the cornerstone to the project's completion, having full charge of the work. The differing details within the story depend upon the source cited by the historian—Millet's diary, autobiography, biography, or family records and histories. Our purpose in this article is to examine the existing sources on Millet's conversion and his call to Kirtland in order to identify the elements of the story that can be historically corroborated and to demonstrate that Artemus Millet's greatest legacies of faith are his conversion and his lifelong commitment to establishing Zion.

Arranged marriage, apocalyptic prophecy, and religious abuse are some of the most identifiable practices of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or FLDS. Though their infamous leadership has brought negative attention to this religious movement under their current prophet Warren Jeffs, the leadership of previous prophets established foundations for many of the practices associated with the FLDS today. The patriarchal nature of this religious community altered the role women played in the 1970s and 1980s and developed through the 1990s and into the 2000s in Short Creek, Arizona. While domesticity was their primary function, polygamous women under the three most recent prophets of the FLDS faced increased political arranged marriages, husband reassignment, dependency on the church, and familial estrangement during a leadership crisis with an underlying apocalyptic threat. The present thesis is about the effects of leadership crises, destruction doctrine, and family rearrangement on the reaction of women in religiously taxing circumstances over the course of four decades, three prophets, two schisms, and many fauxpocalypses. For this research, interviews, memoirs, religious sermons and testimonies, FLDS church texts, and legal documents, as well as relevant Mormon scripture, from men and women spanning many levels of socio-religious status, and from both faithful practitioners and ex-members were analyzed using textual analysis, gender theory, and methods of anthropology. The Fundamentalist society kept gender norms from the period in which Mormonism grew in the nineteenth century. In the twentieth century, the Fundamentalist Mormon women of Short
Creek, particularly mothers, reacted to religious and cultural crisis through either excessive fervor or costly resistance. The separation of families, the threat of apocalyptic damnation, and demands for loyalty to the prophet caused women to prioritize their faith, virtue, and moral standing for family or salvation.

This study will explore academic freedom issues that have caused Brigham Young University, which is a private, religious university, which was placed on the censure list of the American Association of University Professors for academic freedom violations.  Like many religiously affiliated schools, Brigham Young University imposes some censorship on many controversial subjects.  At Brigham Young University, there are limits on what students and faculty can say and publish.  Several faculty have been dismissed by the school because of things they have said and published.    This study will trace the history of academic freedom in higher education in this country, with a focus on academic freedom in the context of religious institutions.  This includes cases associated with Brigham Young University, and look at how these issues have affected the students and faculty, both past and present, of Brigham Young University.
Academic freedom is a set of principles that have evolved over the last half century. Some of these principles are legally enforceable, and some are not.  Often times it is not always clear where the principles of academic ends and the law begins.  Nowhere is the this line more blurred that with colleges and universities in the United States, who have established traditions and policies that influence the expectations and the conduct of their governance with regards to academic freedoms. This is most true with religious intuitions of higher education.
This study will review origins of academic freedom in America, trace its evolution over the course of the last two centuries, and look at how the current principles of academic freedom are interpreted and enforced by our court system.  Specifically this study will look at how academic freedom is perceived and applied at Brigham Young University, which is a private religious school that is owned and operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
This paper is organized through headings that review the history of higher education and the history of academic freedom in America.  This includes sections on the founding and importance of the American Association of University Professors, Scope of Academic Freedom, and the history of cases involving academic freedom at religiously affiliated universities.  A review of the history and background of Brigham Young University follows this which provides detail on the issues leading up to the university being censored by the American Association of University Professors. This paper concludes with sections discussing possible warranted actions.