Fall/Winter 2001
The Fall/Winter 2001 Issue presents essays that explore various aspects of Mormon studies, particularly in a European context, while also addressing broader themes of growth, theology, and cultural dynamics within the faith. Douglas J. Davies discusses the influence of place, time, and family on Mormon identity, emphasizing how these elements shape the experiences of Latter-day Saints. He also examines the significance of Gethsemane and Calvary in LDS soteriology, exploring the theological implications of these pivotal events in Christianity. Terryl L. Givens contributes to the discussion of religious epistemology through the lens of the Book of Mormon, investigating how this text informs beliefs and knowledge within the church. Henri Gooren analyzes the dynamics of LDS growth in Guatemala from 1948 to 1998, providing insights into the factors that contributed to the church's expansion in that region. D. Michael Quinn reflects on the concept of "headquarters culture" within the LDS Church and its relationship to the broader Mormon experience, examining both historical and contemporary influences.
I am particularly grateful for the invitation to edit this special edition of Dialogue, largely because it allows me to address readers in a relatively informal and conversational way on certain academic issues which often…
Christianity claims to be a universal religion, but in its origins and development it is also a Mediterranean religion, a religion which began among the Jews of Israel at the joining point of the great…
In this paper I explore one of the key ways in which the idea of salvation as formulated within LDS thought differs from expressions of salvation in other religious groups. I will also raise the…
In his important study of Language, Belief, and Experience, the ethnographer Rodney Needham tells of a dream which disturbed his sleep one night. He found himself among a people he had once studied, the Penan of Borneo, struggling to converse with them in their native tongue. He was distressed to realize he could not translate one particular phrase: “I believe in God.”
The U.S.-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is rapidly becoming a worldwide church, particularly since the 1950s. One major reason for this is the church’s ambitious evangelization program: In 2000 it had 60,000…
The expansion of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints may be described from a broadly phenomenological perspective in terms of sound and silence. My observations here deal with the outer, open dimension of…
The Allegory of the Olive Tree, as found in Jacob 5 in the Book of Mormon, is one of the most complicated and enigmatic of texts. These com plications, however, can be resolved when the…
Mormon history contains its fair share of ironies and unintended consequences. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints began with a mission to restore the ancient church, but not for everyone at the same time. In its earliest days, the church was preoccupied with its mission to seek out the descendants of Abraham through Jacob or Israel; these Israelites, in turn, would prepare the world for the millennial reign of the Messiah.
In December 1830 the founding Mormon prophet Joseph Smith Jr. announced a revelation which established the doctrine of “gathering” the new church’s members at a headquarters area: “And again, a commandment I give unto the church, that it is expedient in me that they should assemble together at the Ohio. … ” (D&C 37: 3). Prior to that date, believers in The Book of Mormon were concentrated in three locations of western New York State: at Manchester /Palmyra (where the Smith family had lived a dozen years), also at Colesville, and at Fayette. Then from February 1831 to the end of 1837, the church was headquartered in Kirt land, Ohio (near Cleveland).
Mormon history contains its fair share of ironies and unintended consequences. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints began with a mission to restore the ancient church, but not for everyone at the same time. In its earliest days, the church was preoccupied with its mission to seek out the descendants of Abraham through Jacob or Israel; these Israelites, in turn, would prepare the world for the millennial reign of the Messiah.
The bus to Sao Bento up through a complex development of valleys and mountainous jungle. The canopy of trees changes periodically during the slow ascent from the typical street-lining palms to heavier blocked rows of pines; then a tangled, thick, jungle-like fabric of wider trees mixes with hanging moss, vines, and flowering branches. This is then patched with isolated acres of white, pencil-like eucalyptus trees and a darker more majestic body of Pinheiros. These are tall, nut producing pines whose trunks rise up high from the earth and then burst at the top like fireworks with long branches that arch toward the sky and terminate in large green pompoms.
Her afghans and roses give her day a pattern
that will untighten her mouth pursed by a memory—
how her mother would fatten the favored son with milk,
claiming only boys needed calcium, not girls.
Five of his and four of hers were
step-this-and-that to each other.
The Church said, “Families Are
‘Forever'”—in their case it was more
Run your finger across the arc of my cheekbone.
Notice how it curves like the hull of Noah’s ark
that propelled life through earth’s watery death.
I am invidious of mothers’ rubber air
Connecting them to baby. How they walk
With young on hip, the way the baby turns and
Here, the heavy brown ones from your father’s coat,
there the ladybugs from Jari’s first grade dress,
and from your birthday shirt, five urgent reds.
You, sorting the buttons while I sewed.
In 1925, the town fathers of Dayton, Tennessee secured their place in history by trying John Scopes for teaching evolution in the public schools.[1] With William Jennings Bryan as prosecutor, Clarence Darrow for the defense,…
Midway through her latest collection of humorous essays, former Brigham Young University professor Eloise Bell pleads for a calculated spontaneity in humorous writing. “I do in fact know that much humor is intentional and crafted.…
“Mormonism, unlike other modern religions, is a faith cast in the form of history,” argues historian Jan Shipps in this outstanding collection of articles and essays (p. 165). Implicitly, the volume presents an argument for…
This laudable and ambitious series presents a variety of life writing by Mormon women, ranging from diaries and letters to memoirs and more formal autobiography. Series editor Maureen Ursenbach Beecher begins each volume by advocating…
It was midnight, at a fast-food barbecue near Oxford, Mississippi. I was driving from New Orleans to Lamoni with two colleagues on the Lam oni School Board, returning from a national convention. We were driving straight through the night, a 20 hour drive, and we were hungry, so we got off Interstate 55 near Oxford, Mississippi, to get something to carry out.
About this time last year, my wife and I went on a brief cruise to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary.[1] It was so brief that we had only one stop—Nassau. However, neither of us had…
