It is an unusual talent that can write a collection of short stories, transform them into the script of a musical, compose and direct the music (songs and lyrics), and play the accordion, organ, and…
It is not only refreshing in itself but also an occasion for rejoicing by all serious students of American religious history that Mario S. De Pillis is recalling our attention to the historical study of…
In recent years the subject of war and peace has taken renewed significance for American Latter-day Saints. The announcement by the First Presidency against the basing of the MX missile system in Utah came as…
During its 1984 session the United States Senate fell eleven votes short of the two-thirds majority required to endorse a constitutional amendment allowing government-sponsored prayers in public schools (S. J. Res. 1983). This was the…
Cross-posted at By Common Consent
By Board Member Michael Austin
What began as a hobby horse for me has now graduated to a soapbox. And the soapbox goes like this: Americans and other Westerners really need to start learning things about Muslim religion and culture. And by “things” I mean real things . We are doing quite nicely with broad brush strokes and glaring generalizations, thank you very much.
But as presidential candidates propose to cheering throngs that we ban Muslims from our midst, close down mosques, and otherwise betray the foundational principles of our country, the rest of us have an obligation to understand what is being invoked to scare us.
Quiet Stories, Complex EmotionDarin Cozzens. The Last Blessing of J. Guyman LeGrand and Other Stories. Provo: Zarahemla Books, 2016. 202 pp. Paper: $14.95.
Reviewed by Braden Hepner
Dr. Philip Barlow exclaims “The Joseph Smith in our heads is too small!” in the 13th podcast recorded at the Miller-Eccles Group in February. As explained at the website: that is an astounding claim, given the international derision and devotion he has inspired among millions. Yet the scope, nature, and radicalism of his prophetic project is more vast and more radical than his followers or critics generally grasp. He was correct in more ways than he may have intended when he said, “No man knows my history.”
When it comes to sacred places, I feel considerable holy envy toward the Latter-day Saints. Their sacred sites stretch across the continent, from Vermont to California. Mormons can visit their founding prophet’s birthplace, the grove…
Dialogue 27.3 (Fall 1994): 68–97
For faithful Mormons, the thought that someone had violated the sacred confines of the eighteen-year-old Salt Lake temple, which he desecrated by photographing, was “considered as impossible as profaning the sacred Kaaba at Mecca.”
Podcast version of this piece. It was not in a grove of trees, and I did not see a pillar of light when I first communed with Heavenly Mother. Instead, I was lying crumpled on…