The success of Mormonism’s “Word of Wisdom,” especially its prohibition of tobacco—in promoting Mormon health is now widely acknowledged. Mor mons have shown that they experience what medical science would predict from their lifestyle: a longevity several years greater than non-Mormons, with much less cancer and heart disease.
There is no exaltation in the kingdom of God without the fulness of the priesthood. . . . Every man who is faithful and will receive these [temple] ordinances and blessings obtains a fulness of…
The Restoration movements have tended to elevate historical claims to the level of theological dogma. But in our defense of historical beliefs we have often denied the reality of historical process by asserting that ideas,…
Henry William Bigler marched west with the Mormon Battalion during the Mexican War (1846-47) and by January 1848 was an employee of Johann Sutter, constructing a saw mill on the American River northeast of Sacra…
John Smith, brother of Joseph Smith, Sr., and uncle of the Prophet Joseph Smith, was an unspectacular, though far from ordinary man. Amid the troubles and uncertainties following the June 1844 martyrdom of the Prophet…
Since the appearance of higher biblical criticism, scholars have attempted to examine the Christian canon using contemporary standards of ethical analysis. From Russell to Bultmann, the critics have sought to make sense of the scriptural…
Minerva Bernetta Kohlhepp Teichert may be the most widely reproduced and least-known woman artist in the LDS Church. Her paintings have appeared more than fifty times in Church publications since the mid-1970s. Her Queen Esther…
By adopting the above-cited definition of mysticism, the compilers of the “Topical Guide” (LDS Edition 1979) distance Mormonism from a religious heritage which is perhaps as old as any other of record. The most obvious differences between Mormonism and mysticism are ones of form, and not necessarily of doctrine. The Church organization is both pervasive and extensive, whereas mystical practices are generally much less formal. Mormonism accepts a prophet as head of the Church organization which is endowed with divine authority through an organized priesthood, whereas many mystical traditions manifest a strong non-institutional tendency and go only so far as to incorporate the notion of a “guide,” a leader who does not speak with divine authority but is instead familiar with one path to God.
In 1959, while a graduate student at the University of Chicago, I wrote a review of the historiography of Mormonism for Church History which incorporated the major books and articles from 1832 to 1959 in…
In 1987 Americans celebrated the 200th anniversary of the United States Constitution. Topics previously confined to legal and philosophical journals became the subject of more common discourse. Nowhere was this development more evident than in…