I just started reading Greg Prince’s book, David O McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism. It’s been a great read so far. Prince tells some interesting stories about President McKay and the Word of Wisdom.
history
Sunstone 2010 – A Feminist Recap
I really enjoyed the last day of Sunstone, since I was able to attend all day, rather than a session here or there. Don Bradley gave a presentation titled “Dating Fanny Alger”, a bit of a play on words. I remember he gave a funny line to the effect of “By all accounts, she was hot!” Anyway, Bradley tried to pin down when the “affair” happened. Apparently, Emma discovered Joseph and Fanny late at night in the barn. According to Bradley, Alger appeared pregnant. Emma threw a fit, and threw Alger out of the house. (Apparently Alger had been...
Hanging Out with Apostles at Sunstone
Sunstone has been going on since Wednesday here in Salt Lake City. It ends tomorrow, and I thought I would give a few words about the conference. I have been blogging here at Mormon matters for about a year and a half, and have never met any other bloggers here….until this week! It has been nice to nice BiV and Stephen Marsh. I hope to meet others tomorrow. It was also nice to meet with a few apostles.
Elder Brown Defines Political Extremism
There are a large majority of Mormons (especially here in Utah) that think the Church is wedded to the Republican Party. A very interesting letter was read here in Utah on Mar 22, 2010 as Utah prepared for the upcoming Caucus Meetings. Let me quote something very interesting from the letter. (The full text from the LDS Newsroom can be found here.) “Principles compatible with the gospel may be found in the platforms of various political parties.” (Emphasis mine.) Why does it seem that many Mormons don’t seem to believe this, despite the church’s oft-quoted emphasis that the church...
Pyramids-R-US
Last week I spent a supper hour (it took that long) reading an article called “America’s Ruling Class – And the Perils of Revolution” by Angelo Codevilla. The overall article is well worth reading to better understand current political debates, but that wasn’t what called my attention to it as a possible subject for Mormon Matters. Rather, the following paragraph toward the end of the Article startled me: “Nothing has set the country class apart, defined it, made it conscious of itself, given it whatever coherence it has, so much as the ruling class’s insistence that people other than...
The Moral Panic Causes Trouble in Zion
Kenny Ballantine is in the process of producing a documentary called Trouble in Zion. The documentary discusses the events leading up to the 1838 Mormon War in Missouri. It highlights the Extermination Order and Haun’s Mill Massacre, as well as events leading up to these terrible events. Kenny showed a pre-release version of the film at the Mormon History Association in Independence, Missouri in May, and he is also showing the film at Sunstone here in Salt Lake City in August. I really enjoyed the film, and highly recommend it. I thought Kenny was pretty even-handed, and had experts discuss reactions...
Tackling the Mormon Myth about Alice Cooper
If you’re Mormon, you’ve probably heard the myth that Alice Cooper was a Mormon. Most of you have probably dismissed the myth as complete hogwash. Well, it turns out there is an element of truth to the myth. For example, his father’s middle name is Moroni and his grandfather was an apostle! Yes it is true! Alice Cooper was born with the name Vincent Damon Furnier in Detroit, Michigan. His father was a preacher by the name of Ether Moroni Furnier for The Church of Jesus Christ
Strangite Q&A
As I mentioned previously, I really enjoyed the Strangite session of the Mormon History Association meetings a few weeks ago. Vickie Speek, John Hamer, and Mike Karpowicz gave some fascinating presentations on this little known group. Following the session, they answered additional questions, and I thought it would be interesting to provide a transcript of the Q&A session. But before I get into the transcript, I should tell you a brief history of the Strangite Church. James Strang, prophet of the Strangite Church
Cookie Cutter Church Buildings
There was a time that each Church building, Meetinghouse, Stake Center and Temple was a unique structure, and, in many cases, very distinctive. For a while now, in order to save money, the Church has been using standard plans for its buildings. Caveat alert: Once you get outside of North America, all bets are off on building design. They seem to be more unique, even the newer ones. What’s interesting is that the leveraging of designs has really been going on since the 1950s. Prior to that, each building was designed and built from the ground up. Looking at...
Joseph and Sidney: A Strained Friendship
The friendship between Sidney Rigdon and Joseph Smith is very fascinating. Sidney was one of the earliest, and most impressive converts, joining the church in December 1830. His training as a Baptist minister was especially helpful to Joseph, and he often preached many wonderful sermons. As time wore on, there were some really interesting issues between Joseph and Sidney. Richard Van Wagoner wrote a biography called Sidney Rigdon: Portrait of Religious Excess. The Missouri and Nauvoo periods were especially tumultuous. With Sidney running the church in Quincy, Joseph and others were still in the Liberty Jail. Through the first...
United Order vs Consecration
I always thought the United Order and Consecration were the same thing. I’ve been reading a book called Great Basin Kingdom by Leonard Arrington (former church historian) and learned they are actually different. The basic difference to me seems to be that with Consecration, one gave all they owned to the church, and then were given back “what they needed.” With the United Order, it seems to have originated out of various economic cooperatives established to give fair, reasonable prices and jobs to the Mormons. In some cases, saints could choose to consecrate all their possessions to the United Order,...
Are you sure you’d like to live the United Order?
We had an interesting discussion on my Prayer and Politics post. (Unfortunately, we talked more about politics than prayer.) The discussion focused on economic policies. Many people don’t like President Obama’s push to “redistribute wealth”. I made the statement that “the United Order was all about redistribution of wealth, so there would be no poor among us. Brigham went out of his way to lambast capitalism’s evils.” Ken S replied that
A Schismatic End to the Mormon History Association meetings.
I attended the Mormon History Association meetings in Independence, Missouri this past week. I thought I’d share some pictures. If you’d like to read more about the conference, here are some links to my posts from Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3. CoC Independence Temple at Sunset
Church history and our quest for the Great Mormon Novel
About two years ago, Carter Hall wrote an article on this very site comparing and contrasting the types of heroes that Superman and Spiderman represent, noting the different cultural settings from which the two were born and, consequently, identifying different generational appeals to the different superheroes. As he wrote: Everyone knows Superman. He is simply the most powerful superhero ever created. Invulnerable to almost everything, his list of abilities includes flight, speed, strength, heat vision, x-ray vision . . . the list goes on. His private life also seems pretty sweet. He was raised by two stead parents (although...
Joseph Smith’s Presidential Platform
So, I came across an interview of Richard Bushman at the Pew Research Forum, about both early and modern Mormon politics. I’ve also been reading a book called The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power by D Michael Quinn on the early leadership of the church. I want to combine the 2 sources, and talk about Joseph Smith’s presidential plans of 1844. First, let me quote Bushman.
A Non-Historical View of the Book of Mormon
Perhaps the time has come in the church to recognize that some members want to openly espouse a non historical view of the Book of Mormon?
Book of Mormon on the Baja
When I think of the Baja California Peninsula, I think of the Baja 1000 off-road race where people take lots of vehicles and cross the deserts in all sorts of vehicles. However, the father-son team of David and Lynn Rosenvall believe the Baja Peninsula (south of California in Mexico–its most famous city you may recognize is Tijuana) could be the location of Book of Mormon lands. I’ve been promising to do a post on this theory, and it is time to review it in more detail.
Symonds Ryder and a Crisis of Faith
Once again, the story of Symonds Ryder has been misused to illustrate a point about leaving the Church over something inconsequential. Undoubtedly there have been Latter-day Saints who have apostatized from the Church over a small slight. However, the two tales which are often cited when warning of this danger, the Thomas B. Marsh strippings of milk story and the Symonds Ryder misspelled name story, are likely inappropriate in this context.
Bombshell at the BYU Studies Symposium
A small crowd at the BYU Studies Symposium yesterday was on hand to receive Richard Holzapfel’s self-proclaimed Mormon history “bombshell.” He presented the morning plenary session on Wilford Woodruff’s 1897 recorded testimony, the first sound recording made of an LDS General Authority. The audience was treated to hearing parts of this recording, which is also available at the BYU Studies website.
Memorialising the Holocaust: Post-memory and the Latter-Day Saints
According to Arrington and Bitton, “most individual responses of modern Mormons involve a kind of tie with the past” . History is central to the Latter-day Saint faith. Stories from Latter-day Saint history reverberate out from their local settings and have a global impact in the lives of many, for both good and ill. How and/or why does this happen?