History of the Church Archives - Page 4 of 6

6 Aug 2019

Four LDS Views on Harold Bloom

by Trey Wallis | | 0

A fascinating book about the Mormons and other religious groups in the United States is Harold Bloom’s The American Religion. Bloom is an internationally recognized literary critic. What he says about the LDS tradition, Joseph Smith, and the future of the Church, has engendered a wide range of responses. Accordingly, BYU Studies has gathered four discussions of this book, one by an essayist, another by a Mormon philosopher, a third by one of Bloom’s current students, and a fourth by a physicist.

6 Aug 2019

Contemporary Mormonism

by Trey Wallis | | 0

This book is a welcome addition to a growing list of solid introductory works on the Latter-day Saints. The increasing number and prominence of Saints in the United States and the emerging academic discipline of Mormon studies have combined to necessitate a variety of such one-volume introductory texts, each aimed at a somewhat different kind of audience. Among the most recent of this introductory genre is Terryl Givens’s The Latter-day Saint Experience in America, which combines history, literature, and contemporary LDS life in a dignified but readable academic style. In contrast is the lighter Mormonism for Dummies, by Jana Riess and Christopher Bigelow, which, despite its whimsical title and style, is both thorough and reliable. Claudia L. Bushman co-authored two earlier historical overviews with her husband, Richard L. Bushman, but the present book, with Claudia as sole author, focuses less on history and more on contemporary LDS experience. It takes an appealing middle ground between the lighter Dummies and the more academic Latter-day Saint Experience. It is not only a thorough introduction to the Saints and their religion for the curious and intelligent non-Mormon in general, it would also make an ideal textbook for an upper-division or graduate college course in Mormon studies.

6 Aug 2019

All Abraham’s Children

by Trey Wallis | | 0

Like many members today, early members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints considered themselves to be of the House of Israel. According to Armand L. Mauss, an emeritus professor of sociology from Washington State University, this identity affected the relationship that members of the Church had with other groups, primarily Native Americans, Jews, and those of African descent. These changing and expanding relationships are the topic of his most recent book, All Abraham’s Children.

Perhaps the best chronicler of minority relationships in the LDS Church, Mauss examines the extensive historical record through a sociological lens. His documentation is likely the best of any researcher examining these issues today. Most readers will find the history of these views to be much more complicated, contradictory, and even conflicted than they might have imagined. Mauss’s recounting of the history is both insightful and unsettling.

6 Aug 2019

World Religion

by Trey Wallis | | 0

Mormonism as a world religion and Joseph Smith as its originating prophet furnish the subject of this paper. A brief theoretical reflection on approaching The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints provides both an opening context for the quantitatively focused debate on Mormonism’s potential for growth into world religion status and an introduction for a more extensive consideration of several factors of a more qualitative kind that may foster or inhibit that development. The paper then ponders the issue of identity in relation to Joseph Smith.

6 Aug 2019

Avenues toward Christianity

by Trey Wallis | | 0

This is not a book to be read in one session. Its title is well chosen because of the richness in diversity and tradition that is reflected in this work. The book does not address a narrow issue, but, as the word avenues indicates, takes a broader perspective on the Restoration, Mormon history, and doctrines. The authors, with their heritage in Germany, provide appropriate insights into Mormonism for German readers. At the same time, any reader unfamiliar with Latter-day Saint history in Germany will find that this work provides valuable information, especially about the early days of the Church in Germany and Denmark. The book also covers much of the historical development of Mormonism in the United States, and selective issues and key Mormon doctrines are thoughtfully discussed. Such discussion include perspectives on the Book of Mormon as an extension of the canon of scripture testifying of Christ.

6 Aug 2019

Accommodating the Saints at General Conference

by Trey Wallis | | 0

Accommodating the many Latter-day Saints who faithfully assemble every April and October to receive counsel and direction from prophetic leaders has always been a formidable challenge. This article surveys how general conferences were held, beginning with early territorial Utah in 1848 with a small bowery, only 40 feet by 28 feet. The first tabernacle was built in 1851, and the Great Tabernacle was built by 1867. By the 1880s, inadequate space led to the decision to provide concurrent sessions of conference, held in the Tabernacle and the Assembly Hall. By 1916 it became standard procedure to hold as many as four overflow sessions on Sundays in various venues around Temple Square. Speakers struggled to make themselves heard, and in April 1923, the Church used amplifiers for the first time in general conference, and proceedings were piped to four thousand Saints in the buildings of Temple Square. Concurrent, separate sessions of conference were discontinued in 1928. Radio changed everything in 1924. Today’s beautiful Conference Center and widely available broadcasting is the fulfillment of the dream of early Church leaders.

6 Aug 2019

Three Reviews of Mormon America: The Power and the Promise

by Trey Wallis | | 0

The cover of Mormon America promises information about “the beliefs, rituals, business practices, and well-guarded secrets of one of the world-s fastest growing and most influential religions.” Richard and Joan Ostling deliver a tremendous amount of information, providing a history of the growth of Mormonism from a small band of individuals in the early nineteenth century to an eleven-million-member, global religion of the twenty-first century.

As a journalistic endeavor, Mormon America is an update (and expansion) of earlier treatments of Mormonism such as America’s Saints: The Rise of Mormon Power and The Mormon Corporate Empire—only more. The authors attempt once again to estimate the Church’s financial empire, but, much to their credit, they pay attention to other aspects of Mormonism as well.

6 Aug 2019

The Viper on the Hearth

by Trey Wallis | | 0

For those who take interest in how Mormonism is portrayed in the public media, Viper on the Hearth is a stimulating read. On one level, it is perhaps the most detailed and sophisticated study to date of patterns of representation in nineteenth-century anti-Mormonism moving beyond a mere recitation of the already well-documented “proclivity to depict the Mormons as a violent and peculiar people.” Its novelty lies in its explanation of the origins of anti-Mormon literature, with implications down to the present day.

Author Terryl Givens’s argument is that in nineteenth-century America “the pressures of pluralism made it desirable to cast the objectionability of Mormonism in nonreligious terms.” The rootedness of religious tolerance in America’s ideological mythology made it virtually impossible to extirpate a religion from the body politic. Thus, the Mormon “other” had to be constructed in such a way that its persecution was a manifestation of patriotism rather than bigotry. In this way, specious claims about Mormonism being a social and political threat were reified.

6 Aug 2019

Inventing Mormonism

by Trey Wallis | | 0

Regardless of what agenda motivated this volume, it merits a careful reading by students of Latter-day Saint history. The text is comparatively brief but highly detailed (almost tediously so in places). The accompanying notes and appendixes are useful, and the bibliographical essay is especially helpful. It is apparent the authors have paid their research dues, having painstakingly combed through sundry archives, searching for obscure tax and assessment records and censuses to supplement the often familiar statements by contemporaries who remembered the Joseph Smith family. Much of the authors’ information and many of their arguments are familiar, some dating as far back as the late 1960s. But in this culminating study, they have added some new wrinkles, tightened their prose, and, in their minds, further buttressed their basic arguments.

6 Aug 2019

The Journey of a People (2 vols.)

by Trey Wallis | | 0

In the first official history in twenty years, Mark A. Scherer–world church historian of the Community of Christ (formerly known as the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or RLDS)– offers a much-needed update giving the position of Community of Christ theologians, historians, and leaders on Restoration history. Currently available are the first two volumes of Scherer’s trilogy, The Journey of a People. Volume 1 covers the period from 1820 to 1844, and volume 2 treats the years 1844 through 1946. The anticipated third volume will focus on the period from 1946 to the present and is due to be available in June 2016–just in time for the next world conference of the Community of Christ. This is an important series for those who closely follow Mormon studies and other fields connected to the restorationist movements, along with those who study interfaith dynamics, Mormon history, and the modern approaches to that history. These works also have value for the general membership of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; the laity of the Utah-based faith are likely unaware of the current position of the Community of Christ on key Restoration events, doctrines, and rites.

History of the Church

Four LDS Views on Harold Bloom

Contemporary Mormonism

All Abraham’s Children

World Religion

Avenues toward Christianity

Accommodating the Saints at General Conference

Three Reviews of Mormon America: The Power and the Promise

The Viper on the Hearth

Inventing Mormonism

The Journey of a People (2 vols.)

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