Spring 1979
The Spring 1979 Issue explores Mormon doctrine, history, and culture from multiple perspectives. Martin R. Gardner examines Mormonism’s stance on capital punishment through historical and doctrinal lenses, while Richard Sherlock addresses the intersection of faith and historical scholarship in the Snell Controversy. Melodie Moench discusses the 19th-century Mormon community as a "New Israel," and Hans A. Baer traces the development of the Aaronic Order, a modern Mormon sect. Stephen W. Stathis surveys current Mormon literature, and poets like Michael Fillerup and Dawn Baker Brimley offer verse on themes of family and nature. Marvin S. Hill discusses the significance of the First Vision in early Mormonism, and other contributors share personal reflections, including Lisa Hanson’s "Harvest Valley" and Mervyn Dykes’ humorous account as a suburban househusband.
On January 17, 1977, Gary Mark Gilmore’s execution by a Utah firing squad ended an almost ten-year moratorium on capital punishment in the United States. The death penalty, at least in Utah, had again become…
In early March, 1937, Elder Joseph Fielding Smith, of the Council of the Twelve, sent a strongly worded letter to church Commissioner of Education Franklin West. The subject of Elder Smith’s criticism was a pair…
The Mormons of the nineteenth century saw themselves as a new Israel very much like the old. They appropriated ancient Israel’s sentiments and traditions, and its special status as God’s covenant people. For a Christian…
Social scientists have frequently remarked on the proliferation of religious denominations, sects and cults in the United States. Since its early history, Mormonism has spawned a large number of sects directly or indirectly. At least…
Some years ago Sidney E. Mead, then professor of American church history at the University of Chicago, argued that the two live movements of the 18th century which shaped American Christianity were pietism and rationalism.[1]…
This time of year in the Willamette Valley is full to bursting, glutted with the harvest. Hazelnut trees, tassled and drooping with nuts, trail their branches in the fat green rivers; grain and corn line…
“Leave his diapers off for a few minutes each day,” said Tina, my wife. “It will do him good.” So I did, and that was how I came to be on my hands and knees…
I guess you could say that I’ve been a guest in my father’s house but have confined myself to one room. At any rate, that’s how I felt after visiting Nauvoo for the dedication of…
There is little sound, only the gulls’
Sailing song, way off, and the gush
On the grass more muted now and slow.
I am no monk, no flesh-thresher I,
To winnow out, by dank silence,
By hooded hunger and the raw, unflagging flail,
That Adam’s chaff, desire,
Till the husk of me lie powder on the stone.
As Hemingway put it, “A writer’s problem does not change. He himself changes and the world he lives in changes but his problem remains the same. It is always how to write truly and, having…
Most readers of Mormon fiction would quickly agree that the genre still awaits a writer of the stature of Chaim Potok or James Michener, to say nothing of a Joyce or a Faulkner. Perhaps one…
The study of early Utah history has been notably enriched by the recent publication of two contemporary accounts from the 1850s. The Journal of Martha Spence Hey wood, 1850 to 1856 includes Martha’s accounts of…
Accounts of Emma Hale Smith and her relationship with her husband Joseph are scattered, sketchy and superficial. In 1973 Irwin E. Wirkus published Judge Me Dear Reader, a little twenty-five-page booklet about Emma. This past…
Mira, the protagonist of Marilyn French’s best-selling novel, did not usually buy women’s magazines, but she pored over them at the dentist’s office: “Rate yourself: are you a good wife? Are you still attractive? Are…
