Jana Riess

A Question of Authority

I was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on September 25, 1993, almost immediately after Lavina Fielding Anderson was forced out of it.[1] Her stake disciplinary council had convened on September…

E. Marshall Brooks, Disenchanted Lives: Apostasy and Ex-Mormonism among the Latter-day Saints

The Word of Wisdom in Contemporary American Mormonism: Perceptions and Practice

“Infected With Doubt”: An Empirical Overview of Belief and Non-Belief in Contemporary American Mormonism

The Woman of Worth: Impressions of Proverbs 31:10-31

I am neither a scholar of the Hebrew Bible nor a theologian, yet very occasionally some unsuspecting soul asks me to preach or speak about the Bible. In 1994 I substituted one Sunday for a…

A Test Case for Heresy and Gender Discourse | Terryl L. Givens, The Viper on the Hearth: Mormons, Myths, and the Construction of Heresy, and Joan Smyth Iversen, The Antipolygamy Controversy in U.S. Women’s Movements, 1880-1925: A Debate on the American Home

The nineteenth century saw the rise and fall of many “crusades” that have been painstakingly examined by scholars, including abolition, temperance, and nativism. Yet the equally important campaigns to eradicate polygamy and stem the tide…

Book of Mormon Stories | Mark D. Thomas, Digging in Cumorah: Reclaiming Book of Mormon Narratives, and Terryl L. Givens, By the Hand of Mormon: The American Scripture That Launched a New Religion

After decades of neglect by scholars, theologians, and even rank and-file Latter-day Saints, the Book of Mormon may be finally getting its due. Recently, several books have under scored the importance of this controversial work…