[…] or resurrection, however, human beings do not perceive themselves as different from what they were in the world. As soon as the heart stops beating, the seer reported, the Lord draws forth the spirit […]
[…] mid-1600s which have survived to the present. Going even further than the warring Anglicans and Puritans in breaking with the beliefs and practices of Roman Catholicism, the Quakers adopted the position that the ultimate […]
[…] politics than Lutherans have. Luther’s Two Kingdom theory—that the Kingdom of God and the kingdoms of the world coexist, but separately—applied Christianity more directly to personal ethics than to social ethics, and allowed a […]
[…] had once lived. The young wives became matriarchs, raising large families within their towns, fearful of the world beyond and its alien language. Then the Mexicans came to follow this pattern of immigrant experience. […]
[…] generated particularly confusing perplexities. Muslim communities have long histories of resistance to Christian intrusions. Unlike other great world religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism, Islam was a bearer of civilization to far-flung regions of […]
[…] 5 or 6 percent a year. This prompted one sociologist to predict that Mormonism would be the world’s next major religion, with “a worldwide following comparable to that of Islam, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism.” By […]
[…] both of exhortation and of prophecy. Next, there is a reprieve of sorts. Enos gives us the world’s briefest account of the world’s longest prayer, and for those of us familiar with the history […]
[…] another, just as they moved from one place to another. The restless minds of the antebellum Atlantic World were a fertile preaching environment for the Latter-day Saints, and a core of dedicated people made […]
[…] prophet Joseph Smith, founder of a rapidly-growing religious movement that now numbers more than 8 million members worldwide. Joseph Smith’s motivation and the psychological dynamics that made possible both his successes and failures have […]
[…] would (in fact, through the lineage of Abraham and Isaac) come as a blessing to all the world. Yes, I’ve read Kierkegaard, and I know that faith in the living God makes ultimate demands—beyond […]