Click to access the newest volume of the International Journal of Mormon Studies.
Articles of note:
…among many others.
[…] a post-heterosexual Mormon theology. A nice fat review section critiques several major new volumes, and a review essay on The Book of Mormon by Michael Hicks. And “From the Pulpit,” a lovely Christmastide sermon […]
Taylor Petrey offers some fascinating insights into apostasy narratives at Patheos.com:
Over the course of the 20th century, LDS narratives about early Christianity shifted dramatically in one respect. While earlier accounts explained that the Great Apostasy occurred due to the failure of church leaders, by the 1980′s retellings of the Great Apostasy narrative blamed the general membership for going astray. LDS narratives about early Christianity, like most other Christians, have a great deal to do with constructing a meaningful identity. In this way, these narratives have a different goal than those of historians. Nevertheless, this shift in the LDS narrative reveals a great deal about how LDS identity is constructed and what values these stories seek to communicate.
[…] Smith’s First Vision” in volume 47, issue #2 (summer 2014). I commend Larson’s research, thoughtful analysis and writing. I do have some negative comments, however. The first concerns Larson’s words on archival practice on […]
Cross-posted at By Common Consent.
By Board Member Michael Austin.
I read the Qur’an often because it speaks peace to my soul.
I know that sounds kooky, but I promise I’m not a hippie or anything. I don’t burn incense or wear sandals. I wouldn’t even call it a spiritual experience. It’s more like a calming effect. I love to read the text, and I love to listen to the recitations of a talented qāri’ (which I am doing even as I write). It’s not the meaning of the words that does the peace-speaking; it’s the words themselves. I have long been deeply affected by the way that the Qur’an represents the voice of God.
The divine voice that I encounter in the Qur’an is one of the most comforting things that I know. It reminds me of my own father’s voice when I was very young: calm and powerful, impossibly distant yet completely intimate, and supremely confident in who and what he is. Whatever this voice may be saying to other people, what it says to me is, “You can feel safe in my home because I’ve got everything under control. I’m not going to let bad things happen to you because you are mine.” This is how I need God to sound when it hurts.
This is why I become defensive when somebody says, “The Qur’an is an inherently violent book” or “Islam is a religion of hate.”
[…] devotion. A former missionary, Bishop, and counselor in a Mission Presidency; Bob has been outspoken in his writing about his advocacy of equal rights, particularly gay, gender and race rights – sometimes in […]
[…] Consent. By Emily Jensen Taking a cue from Doctrine and Covenants 6:28, I thought I’d pull to gether and transcribe some of the recent discussions about whether or not members can support same-sex marriage […]
[…] Mormon side of things. I followed that up by finding and reading a lot of Mormon historical writing on the subject. Again, at this late date I simply don’t recall everything I read, but […]
Brian Birch and Spencer Fluhman look at the “Past, Present, and Possible Futures of Mormon Studies” at this Mormon Matters podcast. From the website: “The academic study of religion has been around for a long time. And although there are many examples of books and articles that have used academic lenses to explore various aspects of Mormonism, it’s only in the past two decades that we’ve begun to see the formal rise of “Mormon Studies.” In this episode, Brian Birch and Spencer Fluhman, two thought leaders in this emerging field, help us understand Mormon Studies….Birch and Fluhman are very forthcoming about these and other questions, and they also let us peek a little bit behind the curtain into past and contemporary debates at places and organizations such as Utah Valley University and the Brigham Young University religion department, the Neal A. Maxwell Institute, as well as the Mormon Studies Review and Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. Along with Mormon Matters host Dan Wotherspoon, who also has studied religion in the academy, they also share their own experiences studying their religion through academic lenses. How has it benefited their feeling at home within Mormonism? What other payoffs from their academic work have they felt in their own spiritual journeys?”
Christian Anderson, who has an article in the upcoming Spring Issue, takes a hard look at membership numbers after they were released in April 2017 conference. Here’s a taste of his post “The Slowing of Church Growth.”
“Using the same methodology I used in (Dialogue Spr 2017; in press), making some reasonable assumptions about death rates and removals, the membership statistics suggest approximately 30,000 members were excommunicated or resigned in 2016, bringing the total for the last four years to just over 150,000. This value is based on several fudge-factors, and should only be taken as a rough order-or-magnitude guess. Randall Bowen at churchistrue.com used different fudge-factors (including assuming an increasing rate of removals of 110 year old lost members, and 9 year old children of record who had not been baptized) to arrive at an estimate of 20,000 defecting members in 2016 and about 95,000 over the last four years.”