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…
I received a wonderful surprise in the mail a few weeks ago. I received an advance copy of The Development of LDS Temple Worship, 1846-2000: A Documentary History from Signature Books. It will be released on March 24, and I just added it to my Books and Movies page. If you pre-order, Amazon is offering it for 34% off. I haven’t been through the whole book yet, but I wanted to offer some initial impressions.
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Last October, I wrote a post titled, Mormon Women Blessing the Sick, as a follow up to my post on Women with Priesthood in Ancient Christianity. Jonathon Stapley was the first to comment, saying
Equating early Mormon female healing with evidence of female priesthood is folly. Kris’ and my paper on female ritual healing is finally coming out in January (JMH). We treat most of your questions and clean up the historiography a bit.
In the interim here is our paper on the development of Mormon healing to 1847, including the role of women.
Well, I didn’t actually equate healing with female priesthood, but there is an interesting connection. I am finally getting around to reviewing Jonathan and Kristine Wright’s (abbrev SW) paper which was published in the Journal of Mormon History in the summer of 2009. Read more…
Kirtland Temple
There was a fascinating interview about the Kirtland Temple over at Mormon Expression. It was so interesting, that I decided to transcribe it here. John Larsen interviews historian John Hamer, and Barbara Walden, former Executive Director of the Kirtland Temple. Both Barbara and John Hamer give some really cool information about the Kirtland Temple, and I wanted to share this with you all.
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I’ve been reading some of the interesting changes in temple ceremonies (specifically the Endowment ceremony) in the book, The Mysteries of Godliness: A History of Mormon Temple Worship, by David John Buerger. (I talked about this in my previous post as well.) The temple is a place where we are constantly reminded that if we must communicate, we should whisper so that the Spirit of God will be there. However, it wasn’t always that way. Buerger records that following some initiatory ceremonies, and weddings, dancing was actually done in the Kirtland Temple. I wish such practices continued today.
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My book club just read this book, The Mysteries of Godliness: A History of Mormon Temple Worship, by David John Buerger. I have to say that while the book is interesting, I had some real discomfort while reading the book. As an active Mormon, we have promised not to talk about the sacred ceremonies outside of the temple. So, I will honor that promise. On the other hand, it was fascinating to learn some of the changes over the years, and I felt a greater understanding of temple ceremonies.
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