Dave's Mormon Inquiry

Review: A Peculiar People, or How Protestants Viewed Mormons in the Nineteenth Century

So I finally got around to reading J. Spencer Fluhman's book "A Peculiar People": Anti-Mormonism and the Making of Religion in Nineteenth-Century America. I was expecting another account of "beat up the Mormons" episodes in the 19th century. Instead, it was an entertaining and informative review of how informally established Protestantism worked in the 19th century (hence my subtitle to the post). The focus is not so much on Mormonism as on how everyone else, in particular the Protestant majority, reacted to Mormons and their religion in 19th-century America.

Review: Fresh Courage Take

I recently read the new book Fresh Courage Take: New Directions by Mormon Women (Signature Books, 2015; publisher's page), edited by Jamie Zvirdin with a foreward by Joanna Brooks. Twelve enlightening essays reflecting the plight, fight, and delight of being a Mormon woman circa 2015. You might ask: Not being a Mormon woman myself, who am I to write a review of this book? I know at least a few Mormon women rather well (mother, wife, daughter). Also, I have read lots of blog and Facebook posts by articulate Mormon women sounding some of the same themes and experiences, albeit shorter and less polished than these published essays. There's a certain "I'm mad as heck and I'm not going to take it for much longer, only a few more years, but I really enjoy teaching the Sunbeams" quality to a lot of Mormon feminist writing. These essays show even less mad and more enjoyment.

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!

Review: First Principles and Ordinances

I'm going to say some nice things about Sam Brown's First Principles and Ordinances: The Fourth Article of Faith in Light of the Temple, published in 2014 by the Neal A. Maxwell Institute. But first some background. This short book (153 pages of text) is part of the Maxwell Institute's Living Faith series, which also includes Adam Miller's Letters to a Young Mormon. What I like about both books is that they take a relentlessly positive approach to the LDS doctrines and principles they discuss but avoid the oversimplified discussion that has become the norm for the LDS curriculum and mainstream LDS books. These are books directed at the intelligent Mormon reader.

Joseph Smith's Polygamy: Toward a Better Understanding

You have probably heard about Joseph Smith's Polygamy: Toward a Better Understanding (Greg Kofford Books, 2015; publisher's page) by Brian C. and Laura H. Hales. It has been getting a lot of attention, coming as it does in the wake of the recently released polygamy essays at LDS.org. Furthermore, the book follows the three-volume treatment of the history and theology of Joseph Smith's polygamy, authored by Brian C. Hales and (for volumes 1 and 2) Don Bradley and also published by Kofford. Not having read the three volumes, I assume the 100 pages of narrative text in this shorter volume, along with the 75 pages of biographical sketches of the 35 women who were, in one sense or another, plural wives of Joseph Smith, are something like a summary of the material discussed at greater length in the three longer volumes. An abridgement, if you will.

For the Cause of Righteousness: A Global History of Blacks and Mormonism, 1830-2013

It's time for a discussion of Russell Stevenson's For the Cause of Righteousness: A Global History of Blacks and Mormonism: 1830-2013 (Greg Kofford Books, 2014; publisher's page). We are fortunate to have Russell presently doing a guest blogger stint at T&S, so I look forward to his responses to my review and to your observations or questions in the comments.

For the Cause of Righteousness is both comprehensive, as it takes a global view of the topic for the entire history of the LDS Church, and timely, coming just after the Church's publication of the definitive Race and the Priesthood essay. And the issue of race and the priesthood is not just an isolated topic or chapter in our history; it is a central theme that runs right through the middle of LDS history, from the first decade right up to today. It's not a pretty story, but it is one that you, as a Mormon, simply need to know.

Menacing Mormons

Just finished Patrick Mason's The Mormon Menace: Violence and Anti-Mormonism in the Postbellum South (OUP, 2011). It's an informative book but a bit of a chore wading through 200 pages of 19th-century white southern Protestants assaulting and sometimes killing members of every racial, ethnic, and religious group that wasn't ... white, southern, and Protestant. The short version is that Mormons had it worse than Catholics and Jews but much better than African Americans. But there is more to the story, of course.

Five Things You Didn't Know About Young Joseph Smith

This is the second post in a series (see intro post) looking at Matt Bowman's The Mormon People: The Making of an American Faith. Here are five things that I pulled from Chapter One, "Joseph Smith and the First Mormons, to 1831," that you might not know or maybe didn't appreciate.

The Mormon People: Introduction

I bought and read Matthew Bowman's The Mormon People: The Making of an American Faith (Random House, 2012) over a year ago, but never quite got around to posting a review. Instead of a review, I will now do several posts, pulling an issue or two from each chapter and providing links to helpful articles, essays, and posts that discuss those issues in a helpful or insightful way. The simple truth is that every Mormon ought to have read a book on the history of the LDS Church, and The Mormon People is the most up-to-date and balanced one-volume treatment available.

The Life and Times of Parley P. Pratt

I recently finished reading Parley P. Pratt: The Apostle Paul of Mormonism (OUP, 2011), by Terryl L. Givens and Matthew J. Grow. Most Mormons know Pratt by name from reading the Doctrine and Covenants. A few Mormons have read Pratt's autobiography, which gives some idea of the extent of his missionary travels, but provides little detail about his influential writings or his busy family life (he had 9 wives and 23 children at the time of his death). Any reader of this biography will come to appreciate just how significant a role Pratt played in the early LDS Church, almost from the moment of his conversion in 1830 right up to his death in 1857. Here are a few of the highlights from the book.

Socially Constructed Mormonism

This is the second post (see first post) discussing ideas presented in the recently published memoir of retired LDS sociologist Armand Mauss, Shifting Borders and a Tattered Passport: Intellectual Journeys of a Mormon Academic (Univ. of Utah Press, 2012; publisher's page). After taking five years away from his graduate work to serve as a counselor in a bishopric, Mauss returned to his studies in 1962 at UC Berkeley, where he quickly encountered a serious challenge to his faith.

Mauss on Dialogue

I am almost done with the recently published memoir by Armand Mauss, Shifting Borders and a Tattered Passport: Intellectual Journeys of a Mormon Academic (U of U Press, 2012; publisher's page). Like Leonard Arrington's earlier memoir, Adventures of a Church Historian, the book is something of a insider's guided tour of fifty years of Mormon Studies, including the two important books on Mormonism authored by Mauss, The Angel and the Beehive (1994) and All Abraham's Children (2003). Anyone who reads T&S or the other blog will certainly enjoy the tour.

Can Books Cause Problems? Reflections on Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet

I recently did a quick read of John G. Turner's Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet and posted notes here. Here is my one-sentence summary: "Turner gives a balanced if candid portrayal of Brigham, one that mainstream Mormons should be able to read without serious difficulties." But not everyone agrees. Some very bright people think the book might very well cause problems for mainstream Mormons and should therefore perhaps be avoided. It's a serious question: Can books cause problems? If so, what do we do with those problem books: Ignore them? Hide them in locked cases? Burn them?

Turner, Part 4: Brigham's Last Two Decades

[Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3] This last post covers Chapters 9 through 13 of John G. Turner's excellent Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet (Harvard Univ. Press, 2012). This section of the book covers events from the Mormon Reformation, the Utah War, and Mountain Meadows in 1857 through the completion of the St. George Temple and Brigham's death in 1877. Those are twenty eventful years.

Chapters 9 and 10 start with the Mormon Reformation of 1856/57. Here's Turner's account of a typical sermon:

In mid-September 1856, Young delivered a fiery sermon in Salt Lake City, forcefully condemning a multitude of sins, ranging from adultery to dishonesty to a failure to tithe. Mincing no words, he complained that some Saints kept their "brains ... below their waistbands." He warned that the "whole people will be corrupted if we do not lop off those rotten branches." At the same time, he held out the prospect of forgiveness and spiritual empowerment, calling on the repentant to repeat their baptisms and "receive the Holy Ghost and then live in it continually." Sinners could choose between repentance and flight. Otherwise, they deserved excommunication and possibly death. (p. 255.)

Turner, Part 3: Brigham as Pioneer and Prophet

[Part 1 | Part 2] This post covers Chapters 5 through 8 of John G. Turner's Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet (Harvard Univ. Press, 2012). This section of the book covers Brigham's assumption of leadership of the Church upon the death of Joseph Smith, his successful relocation of the main body of Mormons from Illinois to unsettled Utah, and the difficult first few years there, punctuated by the 1852 public announcement of the practice of plural marriage by the LDS Church.

Turner, Part 2: Brigham as Preacher and Polygamist

[Part 1] This post covers Chapter 2 through 4 of John G. Turner's Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet (Harvard Univ. Press, 2012). Topics covered in this fast-paced section of the book are Brigham's early preaching as an LDS missionary, his call to the Twelve and mission to England, followed by his return to Nauvoo and initiation into polygamy as practiced under Joseph Smith.

Turner, Part 1: Brigham the Reformed Methodist

I'm a little late to the party for John G. Turner's Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet, which has of late blazed through the Bloggernacle. I've read both Arrington's American Moses and Bringhurt's Brigham Young and the Expanding American Frontier, so this is familiar ground, but it's clear from other reviews that Turner uses a lot of archived letter and journal material that were either not accessible or not prominently featured in earlier books. In this post, I look at Brigham's pre-LDS religious experience as a Reformed Methodist. All quotations are from Chapter One, "A New Creature."

Turner's Book

It is hard to grasp the variety of early 19th-century sects, even within just one denomination. Brigham and his family were attracted to the Methodists but, being unhappy with the form of the Methodist Episcopal Church, gravitated toward the more congregational Reformed Methodists. Turner notes that "the Reformed Methodists exhibited several of the impulses later central to early Mormonism."

Review: Mormonism: A Historical Encyclopedia

It is published as a reference work, but you can read it like a book, albeit a book of essays: Mormonism: A Historical Encyclopedia (ABC-CLIO, 2010; publisher's page), edited by W. Paul Reeve and Ardis E. Parshall. Listing at $85 ($68 on Kindle), it might not find its way onto your bookshelf until a trade paperback version comes out in a few years, but at the very least it puts a very accessible LDS history reference on the shelves of America's libraries and newsrooms, featuring 140 entries covering individuals, places, events, and issues. I stumbled across a library copy that was in the stacks and could actually be checked out rather than being secured behind the librarian's firewall (that is, placed in the reference section). If you are so lucky, do the right thing and take it home for a few weeks.

Review: The Book of Mormon Girl

Joanna Brooks is the Chair of the Department of English and Comparative Literature at San Diego State University. She is the author of several books, most recently The Book of Mormon Girl: Stories From an American Faith (2012). The book is available at Amazon and at the author's website. A short couple of hundred pages, the book is at various turns both enjoyable and troubling, as the author recounts growing up LDS in Southern California, informally leaving the LDS Church then returning to activity, then rather suddenly emerging as a leading voice of what might be termed the progressive Mormon agenda which takes issue with traditional Mormon positions on race and gender. As such, she is on her way to becoming controversial (not generally a compliment in Mormon circles), so I need to start out with a couple of disclaimers.

Under the Tree: LDS Beliefs

The latest book to digest Mormon doctrine for the popular LDS audience is LDS Beliefs: A Doctrinal Reference (Deseret Book, 2011), by four BYU religion professors: Robert L. Millet, Camille Fronk Olson, Andrew C. Skinner, and Brent L. Top. Entries are alphabetical, with authorship and cited sources listed following each and every entry. It's out just in time for Christmas and will no doubt find its way under the tree in many LDS homes, as well it should. The best way to summarize the strengths of this one-volume reference work is to compare and contrast it with other modern attempts to summarize LDS doctrine: Bruce R. McConkie's Mormon Doctrine, True to the Faith, and The Encyclopedia of Mormonism.

An Unsettling Book: Grant Hardy's Understanding the Book of Mormon

This is the fourth in a series of reviews of Grant Hardy's Understanding the Book of Mormon: A Reader's Guide (OUP, 2010) that we are posting this week at Times and Seasons. It says something about the book that there is still a lot to talk about.

Mormons and Prosperity

The Prosperity Gospel (which the linked Wikipedia article defines as "the notion that God provides material prosperity for those he favors") is often associated with Evangelical megapreachers. [Note 1.] But we all know there is a Mormon variation of the Prosperity Gospel lurking behind the ubiquitous references to blessings and how to earn them that populate LDS books, sermons, and discourse. So when I started reading my review copy of What the Scriptures Teach Us About Prosperity (Deseret Book, 2010) by S. Michael Wilcox, I was hoping that at some point the author would distinguish the Mormon view of prosperity from the Evangelical version of the Prosperity Gospel.

The Possibility of Joseph Smith

Here's a second post [see Part 1] on Joseph Smith, Jr.: Reappraisals After Two Centuries (OUP, 2009). I didn't find the second and third sections quite as strong as the first section, although I liked Richard Bushman's essay "Joseph Smith and the Creation of the Sacred." But I'll talk a bit about Richard J. Mouw's essay "The Possiblity of Joseph Smith: Some Evangelical Probings." Some of what Mouw has to say rubs me the wrong way, but at the same time I'm grateful that this Evangelical theologian continues to make sincere attempts to engage with Mormonism.

What Happened in Nauvoo, Part 3: Polygamy

[See Part 1: Founding and Part 2: Flourishing] Any history of Nauvoo needs to give an account of the secret practice of polygamy between 1841 and 1846. In Nauvoo: A Place of Peace, a People of Promise, Glen Leonard does this in about twenty pages as part of Chapter 13, "Foes Within: The Church of the Seceders."

Reappraising Joseph

I posted a new Now Reading book: Joseph Smith, Jr.: Reappraisals After Two Centuries (OUP, 2009), a collection of scholarly essays edited by Reid Neilson and Terryl Givens. [Doesn't it seem like Givens publishes about three books a year?] The quality of the essays seems quite good, with the volume as a whole being yet another attempt to make progress on "the prophet puzzle." That puzzle concerns how historians can reconcile two glaringly different views of Joseph Smith — as prophet or charlatan — each supported by some historical evidence. I'll post on a couple of the essays when I'm a little farther along.