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…
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…
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…
[…] the printed version. For citational and bibliographical purposes, please use the printed version or the PDFs provided online and on JSTOR. Although Elder Durham identified his source as Joseph Smith’s journal, I have been […]
Dialogue 23.4 (Winter 1990): 83–96
This essay explores some of the strengths of deliberately choosing
to relate to our world with gender-inclusive language in three areas
Latter-day Saints may be surprised to discover that Joseph Smith did not reject the importance of grace. Indeed, he developed a profound and novel view resolving many problems presented by the grace freedom dichotomy in…
Dialogue 24.1 (Spring 1991): 13–35
However, during the mid-1800s, speaking in tongues was so commonplace in the LDS and RLDS churches that a person who had not spoken in tongues, or who had not heard others do so, was a rarity.
If you had been a guest in Chattanooga’s Florentine Hotel on the evening of 14 April 1883, your sleep might have been disturbed, particularly if your room were near one of those occupied by the…