By Gloria Gardner Rees & Bob Rees I “Surely some revelation is at hand!”—Wm Butler Yeats, “The Second Coming” “Heavenly Mother’s emergence out of obscurity changes everything. Profoundly.”—Terryl and Fiona Given It is important to say…
Dialogue 52.2 (Spring 2019):1–58Attributing the Book of Mormon’s origin to supernatural forces has
worked well for Joseph Smith’s believers, then as well as now, but not so
well for critics who seem certain natural abilities were responsible. For over
180 years, several secular theories have been advanced as explanations.
Historians have long believed that history does not consist simply of recounting the past according to the Rankean ideal of telling it “as it really was.” The process of researching, selecting, and emplotting historical evidence within a narrative structure is often idiosyncratic, and may be employed to further a host of goals. Within communities, history represents a way of appropriating the past in order to serve the needs of the present. Maurice Halbwachs’s work emphasizes the role history plays as the “collective memory” of a community. Halbwachs argues that “no memory is possible outside frameworks used by the people living in society to determine and retrieve their recollections.” This process involves the retention of useful historical emplotment points coupled with the suppression of those “facts” which threaten to undermine a community’s structures.
One afternoon while eating my sandwich in the faculty lounge of the English Department at the University of Houston, I couldn’t help but notice a 1989 dissertation that was nearly a foot thick: Court of…
In a recent issue of Dialogue, Robert M. Price offers his perspective on the origin of the Book of Mormon and a recommendation for how Latter-day Saints should understand the significance of that book.[1] Dr.…
Engaging in doctrinal speculation, and then later adopting these speculations as religious dogmas, is as old as recorded history. One example is the adoption of the traditional geocentric, flat-earth cosmology of antiquity into the doctrinal…
Dialogue 40.3 (Fall 2007): 50–60
These articles were about legal arguments. The case against argued that marriage was already tenuous and allowing same-sex marriage would doom it, suggesting that people would become homosexuals if same-sex marriage were an option.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has a strong authority structure. Power seemingly originates at the center of the Church, with the prophet and apostles, and radiates outward from there. This system of authority developed in the context of the Church’s efforts to colonize the U.S. Intermountain West, in its struggles with the U.S. federal government, and in its shift from a village to a suburban faith. Now this system must take account of its growth in many countries.
What is an adequate label for the areas outside of the so-called “Church’s center”? If it pertains to non-US countries, “international” is commonly used, but semantically it is flawed because the United States itself belongs to the circle of all nations.
As a Latter-day Saint who studies sustainability, I have pondered the spiritual practices and beliefs that sustain our faith community over the long term. Prayer, scripture study, worship, and sacred ordinances are core practices that sustain the faith of members and, in turn, the Church itself. All of this happens within the framework of the restored gospel, which provides access to priesthood keys, a living prophet, and continuing revelation. Together, these have enabled remarkable growth since the Church was restored in 1830.