Mormon Heretic

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.

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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.

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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.

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D&C 132 was recorded on July 12, 1843.  In this section, God revealed to Joseph Smith the Celestial Law of Marriage, and showed that a man could be sealed to multiple wives if done with the proper priesthood authority.  On the other hand, women are not supposed to be sealed to multiple men.  However, verse 51 offers a vague reference:

A commandment I give unto mine handmaid, Emma Smith, your wife, whom I have given unto you, that she stay herself and partake not of that which I commanded you to offer unto her;

The subject of polygamy was quite controversial with Emma.  in a previous post, Richard Van Wagoner noted the issue of polygamy Read more…

The Deseret News reported that the U.S. Government designated Mountain Meadows as a national historic landmark last week.  For those who don’t know, in September 1857, 120 immigrants were killed by Mormons at Mountain Meadows near Cedar City, Utah.  Mormons tried to cover up the tragedy and blame it on the Indians.  I have previously discussed the massacre here and here, if you’re interested in more detail.  Families of the Fancher party along with the LDS Church worked together for the designation.  The Deseret News article notes that there is a “plan [for] another event in September, during which a plaque noting the landmark designation may be unveiled.”  Comments?

In a previous post, I documented Early Black Mormons, and gave a brief history of some of them.  William McCary is a little-known black Mormon from the early days of the church.  He was ordained an Elder by Apostle Orson Hyde in October 1846 and was known as the “black prophet.”  McCary claimed to be part-Indian, though historian Connel O’ Donovan said in my previous post that Read more…

You may think that we know all there is to know about polygamy in the LDS church.  However, historians continue to debate the issue.  A press release from Signature Books a few days ago let me know about some interesting developments.  In 2008, George D Smith released a book called Nauvoo Polygamy – …but we called it Celestial Marriage.  Apparently, the 2nd edition was just released with new charts and corrections.

As I understand it, the 2008 book caused a few waves among the Foundation or Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS–now known as the Neal A Maxwell Center).  According to the release, FARMS reviewer “Gregory L. Smith criticized Nauvoo Polygamy for assuming the founder had sex with his plural wives.”  The release notes the irony that “the reviewer then admitted Joseph Smith did had sex with at least nine women.”  Signature has hailed the review as the “landmark 2008 review [that] constituted the first-ever admission in an LDS publication that Smith was sexually active with his wives.”

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I just began reading Newell Bringhurst’s book Saints, Slaves, and Blacks: The Changing Place of Black People Within Mormonism.  It was printed in 1981, and is a hard book to find on the cheap.  Used copies are around $30 on Amazon, and the local booksellers tell me it is a highly requested book.  I wanted to share a few impressions from the first few chapters.

During the Q&A session at the MHA meetings last year for the film Trouble in Zion, a few scholars took issue with the original narration that indicated that early Mormons in Missouri were abolitionists.  They said the Mormons weren’t in favor of slavery, but they weren’t abolitionists either.  Bringhurst expands on this topic.   Read more…

If you’ve followed my blog for a while, you know I really enjoy Mormon History, yet for some reason, I haven’t taken the time to become acquainted with the Martin and Willie Handcart disasters. I don’t have a good reason for that; I guess it is because other topics have more interest for me.

I was pleased to be invited to a screening of the film 17 Miracles (click the link to see a trailer). I had seen the billboards on my way into Salt Lake City every day, yet I really didn’t know what the movie was about. I could tell it looked like a pioneer movie, but really had no idea what to expect from the movie. I went with my wife and some friends Tuesday night and I wanted to give a review.   It was interesting to get their reactions to the film as well.  (If you want no spoilers, you should stop reading now.)

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Sadly, all good things must come to an end.  MHA 2011 finished with a bang.  Once again it was hard to pick which session to attend.  Steve Olsen, Shawn Bennion, and Brandon Plewe combined for a session titled “New Perspectives on Mormon History”.  Steve spoke on how we often argue history.  To bolster an argument is to support assumptions–to weaken an argument is to take apart these assumptions.  Shawn Bennion talked about how Mormonism is an ethnic group.  I’ve never really understood that point of view, but found his presentation compelling.  Brandon Plewe announced that he is working on a new LDS atlas of history.  It was interesting to see all the  maps he was making for the soon to be published book.  He also announced that there will be a website wiki about Mormon locations, but said it wasn’t available for public consumption yet.  It was a very interesting presentation.

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