Mormon Heretic

Since today is MLK day, I thought it might be nice to talk about the first Black Mormon leader.  In his book on The Historical Setting of Joseph Smith’s Ohio Revelations, Mark Staker spends a surprising amount of time discussing the first Black Mormon Convert–a former slave known as Black Pete, and notes that he was an early leader in Kirtland.

Read more…

After welcoming everyone with a “Happy New Year”, the Salt Lake Tribune posted a headline “LDS view on role of governing is distinct.”  What caught my attention was the subheadline: “Church doctrine says it is unjust to mix religion and civil government.”  As I mentioned in a previous post, even Richard Bushman has called Brigham Young’s government in Utah a theocracy, so I was curious to read the Tribune article.

Read more…

Not sure what to get for someone who knows everything about Mormon history?  Here’s a last minute gift-idea: The Nauvoo City Council and High Council Minutes.  The book is due to be released on Dec 19 and is edited by John Dinger.  This is the first time that the City Council Minutes have ever been available to the public.

Read more…

Soon after the publication of the Book of Mormon, critics believed that Joseph must have plagiarized it from another source.  One of the most prominent theories since the 1830’s is the Spaulding (or Spalding) Theory.  Briefly, the theory states that Joseph Smith plagiarized (or at least used as a source) an unpublished book written by Solomon Spaulding.  Spaulding died in 1816, so the book must have been written before then.  There has been a relative resurgence of the theory because Stanford University published a statistical study in support of the theory.  BYU recently posted a rebuttal to the Stanford study.

Read more…

Dimensions of Faith:A Mormon Studies reader is a collection of essays on varying topics in Mormon studies.  I previously discussed Wilford Woodruff’s vision of the Founding Fathers.  One of the most entertaining essays was titled “A Mormon Bigfoot” by Matthew Bowman.  In the essay, Bowman discusses how Cain seems to have morphed into Bigfoot.

Read more…

I know I’m behind the times. I don’t watch television very often, and I don’t have cable or satellite tv. But I recently got a Netflix subscription, and I discovered that Sister Wives was on. Over the past few weeks, I’ve watched all 18 episodes of season 1 and season 2. It really is entertaining. Over and over, I kept asking myself, “how do they afford such a large family?” Season 2, episode 3 answers the question. Read more…

KC Kern did a series of guest posts at Wheat and Tares called “Legend of the Lost Book of Gold”.  I thought he did a fantastic job discussing the theory.  In part 1, he discussed a story of Christian missionaries taught a group called the Karens that already worshiped a god called Y’wa.  Part 2 discusses the actual theory in more depth.  Part 3 discusses common objections to the theory, and Part 4 gives a conclusion to the series.  If you haven’t read the series, please check it out.

How do you write a Mormon-themed Halloween post?  Thanks to SamBee at StayLDS, I was reminded that Oct 27 marks the 173rd “anniversary” of the Extermination Order.  Even more gruesome is the fact that today, Oct 30, is the 173rd anniversary of the Haun’s Mill Massacre–a true horror-story fit for any Halloween tale.

Read more…

Stephen Taysom put together a collection of essays in a new book titled Dimensions of Faith: A Mormon Studies Reader.  Topics include biographies, theory, experience, memory, and media/literature with authors such as Newell Bringhurst, Larry Foster, and Jonathan Stapley (to name a few.)

Many of us are familiar with Wilford Woodruff’s vision of the Founding Fathers in the St. George Temple.  Brian Stuy gives some interesting background on this story.  Just after the temple was dedicated in 1877, apostle and temple president Wilford Woodruff had a dream on two successive nights.  The signers of the Declaration of Independence said to Woodruff, Read more…

It’s been quite some time since I blogged about Book of Mormon geography theories.  KC Kern runs a website called Book of Mormon Online, and has recently updated his website with satellite images with Google maps of some of the theories.  (Click here.)  I always post stuff on my blog first, but there have been quite some heated comments with some imaginative maps at Mormon Matters (where I used to blog), such as the Malay Theory, the Baja Theory, Peru,  and the Great Lakes Theory.  KC has added the Sri Lanka Theory, as well as Rodney Meldrum’s Heartland Theory and the more conventional Central American Theory. I’m also impressed that he has Lehi’s route in the Arabian Peninsula (which seems to have more credibility than some of the other theories.)

The maps are pretty cool.  What do you think?

Back in 2008, Jeff Spector introduced me to the concept of proof-texting.  I think we’re all familiar with the idea of taking a scripture out of context to support a certain religious belief.  However, I didn’t realize that this practice goes back thousands of years.  Charles Harrell and Greg Kofford Books has recently published a new book This is My Doctrine: the Development of Mormon Theology.  They noted that New Testament writers were guilty of proof-texting as well.

On page 8, Harrell describes what a proof-text is.

Read more…

In 1969 Leonard Arrington asked 50 prominent Mormons to identify the “five most eminent intellectuals in Mormon history.” The list was published in Dialogue.  Twenty-four years later, Dialogue decided to run the survey again.  It was re-published a few month ago in the Deseret News, and it has been a favorite bloggernacle topic for the past few months.  BH Roberts was #1 in both surveys.  In the 1969 survey, Joseph Smith was #3, but fell to #5 in 1993.

Concerning these surveys, Yale University Professor Harold Bloom said, Read more…

Due to a scheduling conflict, Sunstone was forced to find a new venue for this year’s conference. Rather than stay at the Sheraton in Salt Lake City as they have for the past few years, the conference moved to Weber State University in Ogden. I was only able to attend the Saturday conference, but wanted to give a recap of some of the presentations I attended.

Read more…