Spring 1986
The Spring 1986 issue presents a variety of essays and personal reflections on topics related to Mormonism, history, and spirituality. L. Jackson Newell's "An Echo from the Foothills" sets the stage for discussions on reason and faith, with insights from a 1945 perspective offered in "To Marshal the Forces of Reason." William D. Russell explores the limitations of literalism in understanding religious texts, while A. Bruce Lindgren examines different approaches to the Book of Mormon. Boyd Kirkland analyzes the roles of Elohim and Jehovah within Mormonism and their biblical implications. Helen Z. Papanikolas contributes to the pulpit section with a focus on Utah's ethnic legacy, highlighting the state's diverse cultural history. And more!
I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. —Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Benjamin Rush, 1800 I offer here a personal response to the increasingly stern demands…
Mormonism has, in my view, a serious theological problem with its understanding of scripture. The problem lies in the tendency to read the scriptures uncritically, and it exists in both the LDS and RLDS traditions.…
Dialogue 19.1 (Spring 1986): 69–75
How does the Book of Mormon present the basic doctrines of the gospel? What role should the Book of Mormon play in our religious and intellectual lives?
Currently, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints defines the Godhead as consisting of three separate and distinct personages or Gods: Elohim, or God the Father; Jehovah, or Jesus Christ, the Son of God both…
In the spring of 1836 when John Taylor was baptized in Toronto by Parley P. Pratt, he had completed a quest for religious certainty. His search had taken him from Methodism to Christian Primitivism and had…
One of the most vivid descriptions of the utter destruction of cities and the death of hundreds of thousands of people is found in 3 Nephi 8 of the Book of Mormon. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, landslides,…
This 1945 ward teachers’ message on the obedience apparently required of Church members, the response it sparked from a concerned Salt Lake City Unitarian minister, and the response of Church President George Albert Smith to…
I Friday morning. June sky like denim through the bus windows. The last day before the weekend, Marc repeated to himself, like a gypsy muttering a chant. He swung off the bus four blocks before his…
“Frank, please sit up here,” I pleaded, patting the doctor’s examination table and urging my husband forward. I was trying to be patient. By nature I move fast, and holding myself back to accommodate his slowness…
The leadership of President Kimball was usually gentle but generated profound ripples for good. His enunciation in 1978 of the revelation granting the priesthood to the blacks may be characterized as a tidal wave. It has…
Every art and science known and studied by the children of men is comprised within the Gospel. President Brigham Young, 1868 (JD 12:257) Beware of false science. Priests Study Course, 1973 (Series B, p. 79) For three decades I…
there’s honeysuckle in the exhaust, a fine green
beard between walks, spring softens us
again, now we confess the earth is a drum
encased in living skin, not concrete,
Vermont, Autumn 1805
And the boy, the milky angel said,
will be like the wild rain
that shatters the crops and spins the brittle stalks
end upon end.
If I could give to you a dew-wrapped day,
You have no need to tell me — I should know
That you would use it all to make things grow.
The furling bud, the fruiting branch are pay
A formidable challenge faces those who try to write confidently about Mormonism only to be denied access to critical resources. It is widely felt among those who follow Mormon scholarship that both Leonard J. Arrington and…
The conflict between creationism and evolution in the past few years has prob ably brought mixed feelings to many Latter day Saints. Although some excellent scholarship has demonstrated that we have little or nothing in common with the philosophical positions held by modern creationists (Jeffery 1973), their combination of conservative politics, religious devoutness, and concern with the moral condition of our society are appealing to many Mormons.
A Kingdom Transformed is required reading for anyone who may feel that statistical analysis can make only negligible contributions to the study of Mormon history and culture. Those who were already believers in the value…
This book is as much a history of the Mormon Church in California during the 1847-57 decade as it is a history of Mormon gold mining. The author gives a plethora of detail concerning both…
As I look at you graduates, I recognize in your faces, full-blown in some, slight in others, the ethnic people of your past. Among you sit men and women whose sorrowing ancestors were summarily sent to…
