Mormon Heretic

Daniel Peterson

Dan Wotherspoon put together a 4 hour interview with BYU Professor Daniel Peterson on a variety of topics.  It is available on the Mormon Stories Website or at iTunes.  I really enjoyed the interview, and decided to create a transcript for part 3 where Peterson talked about his (futile) experience trying to improve the church manuals.  On Part 3 at the 34:48 mark: 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.

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There are 13 memorials similar to this one dedicated to Utah Highway Patrol Troopers killed in the line of duty.  The Atheist Association Inc of New Jersey, sued to have the crosses removed because they claimed the crosses violated the separation of church and state.  A federal court ruled for the Atheists.  Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal on the case, meaning that the crosses likely will need to be removed

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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…

Tom Brokaw during a rehearsal, courtesy http://newsroom.lds.org/article/mormon-tabernacle-choir-tom-brokaw-remember-9-11

The past few days have brought a series of news stories remembering the terrible tragedy that happened 10 years ago.  I was curious to see if there would be any differences in our church services.  On the one hand, Music and the Spoken Word invited NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw to narrate a special tribute to the tragedy called Rising Above.  I watched the re-run of it Sunday night (since my church meetings were scheduled at the same time.)  I also note that President Monson wrote an op-ed piece in the Washington Post sharing thoughts about the tragedy.

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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…

When it comes to religion, there are 2 main camps:  fundamentalists and modernists.  Perhaps you would prefer the term “conservative” and “liberal”; to some degree, these terms make sense.  Casey Paul Griffiths came out with an article in BYU studies back in January called “The Chicago Experiment” and said “the Church had inserted itself directly into the modernist-fundamentalist controversy”.³

Griffiths describes the battle on page 92.  Theological liberals are Read more…

I’ve really enjoyed reading Newell Bringhurst’s book Saints, Slaves, and Blacks: The Changing Place of Black People Within Mormonism.  The epilogue has some really interesting events in the 1960s and 1970s.  There were some people inside the church that were more confrontational in their approach to the priesthood ban.  Bringhurst notes on page 185,

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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?

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…