Dave's Mormon Inquiry

Bushman on Improving the LDS History Curriculum

An interesting AMA exchange with Richard Bushman was recently posted at Reddit. In one of the more interesting comments, Bushman states:

We are in a period of transition with regard to our history. The narrative is in the process of reconstruction. Right now that means there is the standard, comforting story, and then a series of controversies. Teachers are wondering how many of the surprises can be brought up in Sunday School without disrupting the spiritual purposes of the class.

Mormons and Race

Go read Russell Stevenson's review of Paul Reeve's Religion of a Different Color: Race and the Mormon Struggle for Whiteness (OUP, 2015). A sample quotation: "Reeve argues that Mormonism represented more than a strain of religiosity in nineteenth-century America; it also served as a prism revealing how complex racial attitudes could be."

If you want more on this topic, you can also go read my review of Russell's own book, For the Cause of Righteousness: A Global History of Blacks and Mormonism, 1830-2013 (Kofford Books, 2013). It has been a great year for LDS books!