Summer 1989
The Summer 1989 issue delves into the development of Mormonism’s cultural and social identity. Philip L. Barlow traces the historical adoption of the King James Bible within Mormonism, establishing its shift from a common to official text. Jeffrey C. Jacob examines evolving social character within the faith, while Newell G. Bringhurst explores Fawn Brodie’s search for independence through her work. Irene M. Bates discusses assimilation experiences post-conversion, and Karen Marguerite Moloney reflects on the challenges of insider-outsider dynamics within the Mormon community. John Sillito addresses the experience of being misunderstood as a Mormon. Claudia L. Bushman contributes a personal reflection, and Margaret Blair Young’s fiction tenderly explores themes of family and loss. Poetry by Philip White and Timothy Liu captures themes of faith, connection, and the sacred in daily life. And more!
The excellence of the King James Version of the Bible does not need fresh documentation. No competent modern reader would question its literary excellence or its historical stature. Yet compared to several newer translations, the…
Richard Poll, hands clasped, leaned forward and strained to clarify, with labored sensitivity, two kinds of ideal-typical Mormons, the Iron Rod member and the Liahona Saint, whose characteristics he had recently detailed in a controversial…
Fawn McKay Brodie is known in Mormon circles primarily for her controversial 1945 biography of Joseph Smith—No Man Knows My History. Because of this work she was excommunicated from the Church of Jesus Christ of…
When we immigrated to Utah in 1967, Elder Mark E. Peterson said to my husband, “I hope you won’t be like so many converts who come to Zion. They think we should be perfect, and…
In a chapter from her autobiography, Blackberry Winter, Margaret Mead describes the rejection she experienced during her freshman year at DePauw, a small midwestern college. Students had come to DePauw, in Mead’s words, “for fraternity…
More than twenty years ago I was baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I can’t speak for the Church, but I suspect it is safe to say that neither…
My ex-grandmother-in-law is dying upstairs. Her being with me was my ex-husband’s idea. He said I could have the house if she stayed in it. I reminded him that Gran hated me. He said, “She…
I spent many hours in the Sunset Ward chapel in San Francisco when I was growing up. It was a handsome building, unlike any other ever built in the Church. Firmly planted on a hillside…
Students of Utah and Mormon historiography ought to be rejoicing at the flowering of literature in that field over recent years. Beginning perhaps in the last decade with Wallace Stegner’s biography of Bernard DeVoto and…
No one today knows more about the handwriting, letters, and other documents produced by Joseph Smith, Jr., than Dean C. Jessee. Long a careful student of these primary resources, his comprehensive editing of the Prophet’s writings…
Praise to the mostly anonymous team from F.A.R.M.S. who produced this massive work. They deserve praise first for dedicating so much time and effort to careful research through manuscripts, computer indexes, and printed material. Second,…
Dialogue 22.2 (Summer 1992): 146–147
In The Conferring Church, Richard and Marjorie Troeh present a detailed description of the RLDS conference process.
Last night I had pizza for dinner. Though I liked the taste, I felt I’d not had quite a complete meal. I also enjoyed An Abundant Life, the oral reminiscences of Hugh Brown Brown, a…
The lurid title notwithstanding, this little book is not a sequel to Indiana Jones, but rather an expose of damning parallels between Mormonism, magic, and Masonry. The authors (most of the story is Schnoebelen’s, with…
