Intellectualism
Recommended
Mormon Dissent in the Age of Fracture
Benjamin E. ParkWhen fifteen hundred progressive Mormons attended Sunstone Symposium in August 1992, they did so in protest. The symposium had become a center point in the growing battle between Latter-day Saint leaders and activists, especially as…
The September Six and the Evolution of Mormon Magisteria
Kristine HaglundIn 1997, Stephen Jay Gould published a short essay aimed at limning the conflict between science and religion, particularly with respect to the question of evolution as the mechanism of generating life on Earth. In…
Mormonism’s Inside-Outsider Gordon Shepherd and Gary Shepherd, Jan Shipps: A Social and Intellectual Portrait: How a Methodist Girl from Hueytown, Alabama, Became an Acclaimed Mormon Studies Scholar
Cristina RosettiExcommunication and Finding Wholeness
John Gustav-WrathallDialogue 54.1 (Spring 2021): 69–79
Five years after my excommunication, I met and entered into a relationship with the man who is my husband to this day. We became a couple in 1991; we held a public commitment ceremony in 1995, a time when same-sex marriage was legal nowhere in the United States; we purchased a home together in 1996; and we legally married in California in 2008. Regardless of how or why I was excommunicated in 1986, current Church policy is such that if I were a member, my bishop would have grounds for excommunicating me now, and I cannot currently be reinstated into membership.
Review: Lost in Translation Adam S. Miller. The Sun Has Burned My Skin: A Modest Paraphrase of Solomon’s Song of Songs
Robert A. ReesMormon Dissent in the Age of Fracture
Benjamin E. ParkWhen fifteen hundred progressive Mormons attended Sunstone Symposium in August 1992, they did so in protest. The symposium had become a center point in the growing battle between Latter-day Saint leaders and activists, especially as…
The September Six and the Evolution of Mormon Magisteria
Kristine HaglundIn 1997, Stephen Jay Gould published a short essay aimed at limning the conflict between science and religion, particularly with respect to the question of evolution as the mechanism of generating life on Earth. In…
Mormonism’s Inside-Outsider Gordon Shepherd and Gary Shepherd, Jan Shipps: A Social and Intellectual Portrait: How a Methodist Girl from Hueytown, Alabama, Became an Acclaimed Mormon Studies Scholar
Cristina RosettiExcommunication and Finding Wholeness
John Gustav-WrathallDialogue 54.1 (Spring 2021): 69–79
Five years after my excommunication, I met and entered into a relationship with the man who is my husband to this day. We became a couple in 1991; we held a public commitment ceremony in 1995, a time when same-sex marriage was legal nowhere in the United States; we purchased a home together in 1996; and we legally married in California in 2008. Regardless of how or why I was excommunicated in 1986, current Church policy is such that if I were a member, my bishop would have grounds for excommunicating me now, and I cannot currently be reinstated into membership.
Being, A Household World
David Charles GoreReading the Word: Spirit Materiality in the Mountain Landscapes of Nan Shepherd
Rachel GilmanReview: Lost in Translation Adam S. Miller. The Sun Has Burned My Skin: A Modest Paraphrase of Solomon’s Song of Songs
Robert A. ReesReview: “Twisted Apples”: Lance Larsen Takes on Prose Poetry Lance Larsen. What the Body Knows
Darlene YoungReview: Nothing by Itself George B. Handley. American Fork
Sheldon LawrenceReview: Expertly Built: Stories within Stories Tim Wirkus. The Infinite Future
Gabriel Gonzalez N.Mormons Probably Aren’t Materialists
Samuel M. BrownThe Student: His University and His Church
Claude J. BurtenshawIn an attempt to encourage wider reading about issues raised in a class discussion, I once suggested that the students read an article which I referred to as a philosophic analysis of the subject. After…
The Quest for Religious Authority and the Rise of Mormonism
Mario S. De PillisIf there is to be any honest dialogue whatsoever between educated members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) and outsiders, the question of the historical origins of Mormonism must ever remain…
The Challenge of Honesty
Frances Lee MenloveBoth the Protestant and Catholic communities are being swept by a passion for honesty. They are scrutinizing centuries-old suppositions and re-examining current attitudes and goals. In the Protestant world, the writings of Bultmann, Bonhoeffer, Tillich,…
By Study and By Faith | Frank B. Salisbury, Truth by Reason and by Revelation
Joseph R. MurphyA survey of Latter-day Saint literature dealing with science and religion will reveal that, with few exceptions, biologists are poorly represented. All manner of other scientists and technologists, including chemists, physicists, geologists, agriculturalists, sociologists, medical…
Every Soul Has Its South
Karl KellerDialogue 1.2 (Summer 1966): 72–79
In this important article in one of the earliest Dialogue issues, Keller says “I went because I was frankly worried: worried that my wife and children should find me slipping after talking intense brotherhood, worried that the church members I led and taught should know where the doctrine but not the action in life is, worried that the students I counseled and read and philosophized with where I taught should reach for meaning for their lives and find no guts, worried in fact that I should somehow while propagating and preaching the Kingdom of God miss it, miss it altogether. The rest was nonsense.”
Thoughts on Anti-Intellectualism: A Response
James B. AllenWhenever a young Mormon intellectual attempts to discuss anti-intellectualism within his Church, especially in the broad, 166-year historical context attempted by Professor Bitton, it seems to me that he is faced with at least three…
Anti-Intellectualism in Mormon History
Davis BittonAlmost from its beginning Mormonism was disparaged as funda mentally superstitious and irrational, with an appeal only for the poor and uneducated. Even before the description of Joseph Smith as “ignorant” and “illiterate” by the…
The Intellectual Tradition of the Latter-day Saints
Leonard J. ArringtonIn one of the earliest books of imaginative literature about the Ameri can West (published in 1826), novelist-editor-missionary-biographer Timothy Flint reveals a common impression of the time that “in travelling towards the frontier, the decreasing…
The Sterling M. McMurring Papers
L. G. BrownDr. Sterling Moss McMurrin needs no introduction to Dialogue readers. He is one of the Church’s most outstanding scholars, and is a nationally recognized administrator, educator, and philosopher. He has been a member of the…
Gambit in the Throbs of a Ten-Year-Old Swamp: Confessions of a Dialogue Intern
Karen Marguerite MoloneyHow does an English graduate student who wants a visit to the East Coast, instruction in the American political system and an introduction into the Mormon publishing world satisfy these three ambitions in one two-month…
The Rise and Fall of Courage, an Independent RLDS Journal
William D. RussellDialogue 11.1 (Spring 1978): 115–119
Although Courage struck a responsive chord in quite a few hearts, its readers did not support it to the extent the editors had expected. Appealing only to a minority in a small church, and without either sufficient subscribers or a financial “angel/ Courage died after its eleventh number (Winter/Spring 1973).
Windmill Jousting and Other Madness: Century 2
Randy JohnsonJousting with windmills is a bit out of fashion nowadays, insanity even more so. But every now and then some glittering-eyed individual comes by with an idea most people do best to ignore.
The New Messenger & Advocate
Kevin BarnhurstA magazine is supposed to be one of the easiest businesses to start. It requires no office, no equipment (printing and even mailing can be farmed out to local businesses), no staff as long as…
Sunstone
Scott Kenney“Oh,” lamented Job, “that mine adversary had written a book.” Logic and syntax—even basic facts—which are unmistakably clear and irrefutable in manuscript form have a way of breaking down when committed to print. And when…
A Wider Sisterhood: Exponent II
Claudia L. BushmanMany readers were surprised and delighted when Exponent II burst upon the scene. “You have lifted my thoughts from the mundane and sweetened my dreams of fulfillment,” wrote one. Another commented, “A newspaper for Mormon…
BYU Studies, How She Is
Laura WadleyPeople are always asking me how I like working at BYU Studies. I say . . .
Gospel by the Month: Ensign
David BriscoeIn 1971, all official church magazines were literally swept away and replaced by three colorful, professional, slick publications, each aimed at a different age group—the Ensign for adults, the New Era for young people and…
Hying to Kolob
Edward A. GearyOld Bishop Leonard used to insist that the Spirit World was right here on earth and the dead were never far from home. He was not really the bishop anymore, but the title was for…
An “Inside-Outsider” in Zion
Jan ShippsAt the invitation of Sunstone, I sat down a couple of years ago to write a book review of Samuel Woolley Taylor’s Rocky Mountain Empire. As did Topsy, that review just grew and grew until…
Ideas as Entities | Sterling M. McMurrin, Religion, Reason, and Truth—Historical Essays in the Philosophy of Religion
Blake T. OstlerProbably few people derive their religious beliefs or lack of them from the philosophy of religion. However, when viewed historically, it becomes clear that the philosophy of religion has greatly influenced religion in general and…
Beyond Literalism
William D. RussellMormonism has, in my view, a serious theological problem with its understanding of scripture. The problem lies in the tendency to read the scriptures uncritically, and it exists in both the LDS and RLDS traditions.…
In loco parentis — Alive and Well in Provo | Gary James Bergera and Ronald Priddis, Brigham Young University: A House of Faith
Anthony W. MorganDavid Riesman, in his landmark study of American higher education entitled The Academic Revolution (1969), was fascinated by BYU and insightfully observes: “Despite academic upgrading, Brigham Young has not lost its sectarian character nor even…
A Survey of Current Dissertations
Stephen W. Stathis“Knowledge is a comfortable and necessary retreat and shelter for us in advanced age,” Lord Chesterfield told his son in 1747, but “if we do not plant it while young it will give us no…
Historiography and the New Mormon History: A Historian’s Perspective
Thomas G. AlexanderSeventeen years ago, Moses Rischin, Fulbright Professor of History at the University of Uppsala in Sweden, in a review essay first used the phrase, “the New Mormon History.” By it, he meant to categorize the…
Explorations in Mormon Social Character Beyond the Liahona and Iron Rod
Jeffrey C. JacobRichard Poll, hands clasped, leaned forward and strained to clarify, with labored sensitivity, two kinds of ideal-typical Mormons, the Iron Rod member and the Liahona Saint, whose characteristics he had recently detailed in a controversial…
B.H. Roberts’s Autobiography
Gary James BergeraThe B.H. Roberts Papers at the University of Utah
Everett L. CooleyIntellectuals in Mormon History: An Update
Stan LarsonFamine Relief, the Church, and the Environment
Donald L. GibbonConsecration, Stewardship, and Accountability: Remedy for a Dying Planet
Clayton C. NewberryThe Church and the Community: Personal Reflections on Mormon Intellectual Life
O. Kendall White Jr.Freedom and Grace: Rethinking Theocracy
Janice M. AllredComing of Age? The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in the 1960s
Roger D. LauniusDialogue 28.4 (Winter 1995): 31–55
In many respects the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints of the 1960s mirrored the general tumult, if not the details, of the larger American society.
Satan’s Foot in the Door: Democrats at Brigham Young University
Paul C. RichardsMormonism in the Twenty-first Century
Armand L. MaussMormonism in Modern Japan
Jiro NumanoBetween Covenant and Treaty: The LDS Future in New Zealand
David GilgenBetween Covenant and Treaty: The LDS Future in New Zealand
Ian G. BarberTowards 2000: Mormonism in Australia
Marjorie NewtonReinventing Mormonism: Guatemala as Harbinger of the Future?
Thomas W. MurphyMormonism in Latin America: Towards the Twenty-first Century
David Clark KnowltonEthnization and Accommodation
Walter E. A. Van BeekFeeding the Fleeing Flock
Wilfried DecooScience and Mormonism: Past, Present, Future
David H. BaileyDialogue 29.1 (Spring 1996): 80–97
Will the church be able to retain the essence of its theology in the faceof challenges from science? Will the church’s discourse on scientific topicsbe marked by fundamentalism, isolationism, or progressivism? Will the church be able to retain its large contingent of professional scientists?
Thinking About the Word of God in the Twenty-First Century
Karl C. SandbergMembership Growth, Church Activity, Missionary Recruitment
Gordon ShepherdMembership Growth, Church Activity, Missionary Recruitment
Gary ShepherdThe Uncertain Dynamics of LDS Expansion, 1950-2020
Lowell C. Ben BennionThe Uncertain Dynamics of LDS Expansion, 1950-2020
Lawrence A. YoungGuest Editor’s Introduction
Armand L. MaussRenegotiating Scylla and Charybdis: Reading and the Distance between New York and Utah
John BennionA Saint for All Seasons
Mary Lythgoe BradfordMax Weber and Lowell Bennion: Towards an Understanding of Hierarchy and Authority
Laurie Newman DiPadovaA Hard Day for Professor Midgely: An Essay for Fawn McKay Brodie
Glenn J. HettingerGood Literature for a Chosen People
Eugene EnglandElla Smyth Peacock: Seeking Her Place in the West
Kathryn J. AbajianThe Zion University Reverie: A Quantitative Assessment of Brigham Young University’s Academic Climate
Paul M. RoseEvidence Without Reconciliation: The Creation of the Book of Mormon: A Historical Inquiry by Lamar Petersen
Polly StewartBringing Balance to Our Historical Writing: From Mission to Madness: Last Son of the Mormon Prophet by Valeen Tippetts Avery
William D. RussellMissionaries, Missions, Converts, Cultures: Mormon Passage: A Missionary Chronicle by Gary Shepherd and Gordon Shepherd
David Clark KnowltonBuilding Cultural Bridges: Asian American Mormons: Bridging Cultures by Jessie L. Embry
Paul GuajardoMission Complexities in Asia: From the East: The History of the Latter-day Saints in Asia, 1851-1996 by R. Lanier Britsch
Glen M. CooperPostscript from Iraq: A Flicker of Hope in Conflict’s Moral Twilight
Matthew BoltonDialogue 37.1 (Spring 2004): 180–187
It was as I waded through the sewage, stagnant in the streets of one of Africa’s biggest slums—Mukuru, Nairobi, Kenya—while on an assignment with the Community of Christ-sponsore WorldService Corps in summer 2000, that I was first struck by the enormity of the world’s problems and the horrifying conditions faced by the majority of its inhabiants.
In the Service of Peace, in the Defense of War: War Is Eternal: The Case for Military Preparedness
Robert M. HoggeIn the Service of Peace, in the Defense of War: Of Wars, Maps, and Ideals
Barney HaddenIn the Service of Peace, in the Defense of War: From Flanders Fields
(author)In the Service of Peace, in the Defense of War: Reflections on War of a Liberal Catholic in Mormon Utah
M. Diane KrantzA Woman of Influence: An Advocate for Women: The Public Life of Emmeline B. Wells by Carol Cornwall Madsen
Deborah Farmer KrisChoices, Consequences, and Grace: God’s Army 2: States of Grace, written and directed by Richard Dutcher
Samuel M. BrownRemembering Gene and His Generation: Proving Contraries: A Collection of Writings in Honor of Eugene England, edited by Robert A. Rees
R. John WilliamsHow to Worship Our Mother in Heaven (Without Getting Excommunicated)
Kevin L. BarneyDialogue 41.4 (Winter 2008): 121–147
In this essay, I shall begin by describing what we can learn about our Mother in Heaven from the scriptures. I then will draw from those descriptions some (very modest) suggestions for how we might actually worship, or at least honor, Her in ways that should not be considered offensive or heterodox by traditionalists. This essay is therefore a little exercise in religion-making. It is my hope that I will be able to express my mediating thoughts in a way that will not be deemed offensive by those of either school of thought on the subject.
Modernism and Mormonism: James E. Talmage’s Jesus the Christ and Early Twentieth-Century Mormon Responses to Biblical Criticism
Clyde D. Ford“Weak-Kneed Republicans and Socialist Democrats”: Ezra Taft Benson as U.S. Secretary of Agriculture 1953-61
Gary James BergeraSeeking a “Second Harvest”: Controlling the Costs of LDS Membership in Europe
Armand L. MaussBelonging (and Believing) as LDS Scholars of Religion
Mauro ProperziToward a Theology of Dissent: An Ecclesiological Interpretation
Matthew Bowman“That Which Surpasses All Understanding”: The Limitations of Human Thought
Mark J. NielsenThe Best Place to Deal with Questions: An Interview with Brady Udall
Brady UdallWalking into the Heart of the Questions: An Interview with W. Grant McMurray
W. Grant McMurrayReview: Armand L. Mauss. Shifting Borders and a Tattered Passport: Intellectual Journeys of a Mormon Academic
Brayden KingEx-Mormon Narratives and Pastoral Apologetics
Seth PayneReview: E-mails with a Young Mormon about Adam Miller’s Letters to a Young Mormon Adam S. Miller. Letters to a Young Mormon
Russell Arben FoxDeveloping Integrity in an Uncertain World: An Interview with Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife
Kristine HaglundReview: Liberalism and the American Mormon: Three Takes David E. Campbell, John C. Green, and J. Quin Monson. Seeking the Promised Land: Mormons and American Politics Richard Davis. The Liberal Soul: Applying the Gospel of Jesus Christ in Politics Terryl
Russell Arben Fox“After the Body of My Spirit”: Embodiment, Empathy, and Mormon Aesthetics
Gary EttariThe Last Memory: Joseph F. Smith and Lieux de Mémoire in Late Nineteenth-Century Mormonism
Stephen TaysomMormon Dissent in the Age of Fracture
Benjamin E. ParkWhen fifteen hundred progressive Mormons attended Sunstone Symposium in August 1992, they did so in protest. The symposium had become a center point in the growing battle between Latter-day Saint leaders and activists, especially as…
The September Six and the Evolution of Mormon Magisteria
Kristine HaglundIn 1997, Stephen Jay Gould published a short essay aimed at limning the conflict between science and religion, particularly with respect to the question of evolution as the mechanism of generating life on Earth. In…
Mormonism’s Inside-Outsider Gordon Shepherd and Gary Shepherd, Jan Shipps: A Social and Intellectual Portrait: How a Methodist Girl from Hueytown, Alabama, Became an Acclaimed Mormon Studies Scholar
Cristina RosettiExcommunication and Finding Wholeness
John Gustav-WrathallDialogue 54.1 (Spring 2021): 69–79
Five years after my excommunication, I met and entered into a relationship with the man who is my husband to this day. We became a couple in 1991; we held a public commitment ceremony in 1995, a time when same-sex marriage was legal nowhere in the United States; we purchased a home together in 1996; and we legally married in California in 2008. Regardless of how or why I was excommunicated in 1986, current Church policy is such that if I were a member, my bishop would have grounds for excommunicating me now, and I cannot currently be reinstated into membership.
Being, A Household World
David Charles GoreReading the Word: Spirit Materiality in the Mountain Landscapes of Nan Shepherd
Rachel GilmanReview: Lost in Translation Adam S. Miller. The Sun Has Burned My Skin: A Modest Paraphrase of Solomon’s Song of Songs
Robert A. ReesReview: “Twisted Apples”: Lance Larsen Takes on Prose Poetry Lance Larsen. What the Body Knows
Darlene YoungReview: Nothing by Itself George B. Handley. American Fork
Sheldon LawrenceReview: Expertly Built: Stories within Stories Tim Wirkus. The Infinite Future
Gabriel Gonzalez N.Mormons Probably Aren’t Materialists
Samuel M. BrownThe Student: His University and His Church
Claude J. BurtenshawIn an attempt to encourage wider reading about issues raised in a class discussion, I once suggested that the students read an article which I referred to as a philosophic analysis of the subject. After…
The Quest for Religious Authority and the Rise of Mormonism
Mario S. De PillisIf there is to be any honest dialogue whatsoever between educated members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) and outsiders, the question of the historical origins of Mormonism must ever remain…
The Challenge of Honesty
Frances Lee MenloveBoth the Protestant and Catholic communities are being swept by a passion for honesty. They are scrutinizing centuries-old suppositions and re-examining current attitudes and goals. In the Protestant world, the writings of Bultmann, Bonhoeffer, Tillich,…
By Study and By Faith | Frank B. Salisbury, Truth by Reason and by Revelation
Joseph R. MurphyA survey of Latter-day Saint literature dealing with science and religion will reveal that, with few exceptions, biologists are poorly represented. All manner of other scientists and technologists, including chemists, physicists, geologists, agriculturalists, sociologists, medical…
Every Soul Has Its South
Karl KellerDialogue 1.2 (Summer 1966): 72–79
In this important article in one of the earliest Dialogue issues, Keller says “I went because I was frankly worried: worried that my wife and children should find me slipping after talking intense brotherhood, worried that the church members I led and taught should know where the doctrine but not the action in life is, worried that the students I counseled and read and philosophized with where I taught should reach for meaning for their lives and find no guts, worried in fact that I should somehow while propagating and preaching the Kingdom of God miss it, miss it altogether. The rest was nonsense.”
Thoughts on Anti-Intellectualism: A Response
James B. AllenWhenever a young Mormon intellectual attempts to discuss anti-intellectualism within his Church, especially in the broad, 166-year historical context attempted by Professor Bitton, it seems to me that he is faced with at least three…
Anti-Intellectualism in Mormon History
Davis BittonAlmost from its beginning Mormonism was disparaged as funda mentally superstitious and irrational, with an appeal only for the poor and uneducated. Even before the description of Joseph Smith as “ignorant” and “illiterate” by the…
The Intellectual Tradition of the Latter-day Saints
Leonard J. ArringtonIn one of the earliest books of imaginative literature about the Ameri can West (published in 1826), novelist-editor-missionary-biographer Timothy Flint reveals a common impression of the time that “in travelling towards the frontier, the decreasing…
The Sterling M. McMurring Papers
L. G. BrownDr. Sterling Moss McMurrin needs no introduction to Dialogue readers. He is one of the Church’s most outstanding scholars, and is a nationally recognized administrator, educator, and philosopher. He has been a member of the…
Gambit in the Throbs of a Ten-Year-Old Swamp: Confessions of a Dialogue Intern
Karen Marguerite MoloneyHow does an English graduate student who wants a visit to the East Coast, instruction in the American political system and an introduction into the Mormon publishing world satisfy these three ambitions in one two-month…
The Rise and Fall of Courage, an Independent RLDS Journal
William D. RussellDialogue 11.1 (Spring 1978): 115–119
Although Courage struck a responsive chord in quite a few hearts, its readers did not support it to the extent the editors had expected. Appealing only to a minority in a small church, and without either sufficient subscribers or a financial “angel/ Courage died after its eleventh number (Winter/Spring 1973).
Windmill Jousting and Other Madness: Century 2
Randy JohnsonJousting with windmills is a bit out of fashion nowadays, insanity even more so. But every now and then some glittering-eyed individual comes by with an idea most people do best to ignore.
The New Messenger & Advocate
Kevin BarnhurstA magazine is supposed to be one of the easiest businesses to start. It requires no office, no equipment (printing and even mailing can be farmed out to local businesses), no staff as long as…
Sunstone
Scott Kenney“Oh,” lamented Job, “that mine adversary had written a book.” Logic and syntax—even basic facts—which are unmistakably clear and irrefutable in manuscript form have a way of breaking down when committed to print. And when…
A Wider Sisterhood: Exponent II
Claudia L. BushmanMany readers were surprised and delighted when Exponent II burst upon the scene. “You have lifted my thoughts from the mundane and sweetened my dreams of fulfillment,” wrote one. Another commented, “A newspaper for Mormon…
BYU Studies, How She Is
Laura WadleyPeople are always asking me how I like working at BYU Studies. I say . . .
Gospel by the Month: Ensign
David BriscoeIn 1971, all official church magazines were literally swept away and replaced by three colorful, professional, slick publications, each aimed at a different age group—the Ensign for adults, the New Era for young people and…
Hying to Kolob
Edward A. GearyOld Bishop Leonard used to insist that the Spirit World was right here on earth and the dead were never far from home. He was not really the bishop anymore, but the title was for…
An “Inside-Outsider” in Zion
Jan ShippsAt the invitation of Sunstone, I sat down a couple of years ago to write a book review of Samuel Woolley Taylor’s Rocky Mountain Empire. As did Topsy, that review just grew and grew until…
Ideas as Entities | Sterling M. McMurrin, Religion, Reason, and Truth—Historical Essays in the Philosophy of Religion
Blake T. OstlerProbably few people derive their religious beliefs or lack of them from the philosophy of religion. However, when viewed historically, it becomes clear that the philosophy of religion has greatly influenced religion in general and…
Beyond Literalism
William D. RussellMormonism has, in my view, a serious theological problem with its understanding of scripture. The problem lies in the tendency to read the scriptures uncritically, and it exists in both the LDS and RLDS traditions.…
In loco parentis — Alive and Well in Provo | Gary James Bergera and Ronald Priddis, Brigham Young University: A House of Faith
Anthony W. MorganDavid Riesman, in his landmark study of American higher education entitled The Academic Revolution (1969), was fascinated by BYU and insightfully observes: “Despite academic upgrading, Brigham Young has not lost its sectarian character nor even…
A Survey of Current Dissertations
Stephen W. Stathis“Knowledge is a comfortable and necessary retreat and shelter for us in advanced age,” Lord Chesterfield told his son in 1747, but “if we do not plant it while young it will give us no…
Historiography and the New Mormon History: A Historian’s Perspective
Thomas G. AlexanderSeventeen years ago, Moses Rischin, Fulbright Professor of History at the University of Uppsala in Sweden, in a review essay first used the phrase, “the New Mormon History.” By it, he meant to categorize the…
Explorations in Mormon Social Character Beyond the Liahona and Iron Rod
Jeffrey C. JacobRichard Poll, hands clasped, leaned forward and strained to clarify, with labored sensitivity, two kinds of ideal-typical Mormons, the Iron Rod member and the Liahona Saint, whose characteristics he had recently detailed in a controversial…
B.H. Roberts’s Autobiography
Gary James BergeraThe B.H. Roberts Papers at the University of Utah
Everett L. CooleyIntellectuals in Mormon History: An Update
Stan LarsonFamine Relief, the Church, and the Environment
Donald L. GibbonConsecration, Stewardship, and Accountability: Remedy for a Dying Planet
Clayton C. NewberryThe Church and the Community: Personal Reflections on Mormon Intellectual Life
O. Kendall White Jr.Freedom and Grace: Rethinking Theocracy
Janice M. AllredComing of Age? The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in the 1960s
Roger D. LauniusDialogue 28.4 (Winter 1995): 31–55
In many respects the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints of the 1960s mirrored the general tumult, if not the details, of the larger American society.
Satan’s Foot in the Door: Democrats at Brigham Young University
Paul C. RichardsMormonism in the Twenty-first Century
Armand L. MaussMormonism in Modern Japan
Jiro NumanoBetween Covenant and Treaty: The LDS Future in New Zealand
David GilgenBetween Covenant and Treaty: The LDS Future in New Zealand
Ian G. BarberTowards 2000: Mormonism in Australia
Marjorie NewtonReinventing Mormonism: Guatemala as Harbinger of the Future?
Thomas W. MurphyMormonism in Latin America: Towards the Twenty-first Century
David Clark KnowltonEthnization and Accommodation
Walter E. A. Van BeekFeeding the Fleeing Flock
Wilfried DecooScience and Mormonism: Past, Present, Future
David H. BaileyDialogue 29.1 (Spring 1996): 80–97
Will the church be able to retain the essence of its theology in the faceof challenges from science? Will the church’s discourse on scientific topicsbe marked by fundamentalism, isolationism, or progressivism? Will the church be able to retain its large contingent of professional scientists?
Thinking About the Word of God in the Twenty-First Century
Karl C. SandbergMembership Growth, Church Activity, Missionary Recruitment
Gordon ShepherdMembership Growth, Church Activity, Missionary Recruitment
Gary ShepherdThe Uncertain Dynamics of LDS Expansion, 1950-2020
Lowell C. Ben BennionThe Uncertain Dynamics of LDS Expansion, 1950-2020
Lawrence A. YoungGuest Editor’s Introduction
Armand L. MaussRenegotiating Scylla and Charybdis: Reading and the Distance between New York and Utah
John BennionA Saint for All Seasons
Mary Lythgoe BradfordMax Weber and Lowell Bennion: Towards an Understanding of Hierarchy and Authority
Laurie Newman DiPadovaA Hard Day for Professor Midgely: An Essay for Fawn McKay Brodie
Glenn J. HettingerGood Literature for a Chosen People
Eugene EnglandElla Smyth Peacock: Seeking Her Place in the West
Kathryn J. AbajianThe Zion University Reverie: A Quantitative Assessment of Brigham Young University’s Academic Climate
Paul M. RoseEvidence Without Reconciliation: The Creation of the Book of Mormon: A Historical Inquiry by Lamar Petersen
Polly StewartBringing Balance to Our Historical Writing: From Mission to Madness: Last Son of the Mormon Prophet by Valeen Tippetts Avery
William D. RussellMissionaries, Missions, Converts, Cultures: Mormon Passage: A Missionary Chronicle by Gary Shepherd and Gordon Shepherd
David Clark KnowltonBuilding Cultural Bridges: Asian American Mormons: Bridging Cultures by Jessie L. Embry
Paul GuajardoMission Complexities in Asia: From the East: The History of the Latter-day Saints in Asia, 1851-1996 by R. Lanier Britsch
Glen M. CooperPostscript from Iraq: A Flicker of Hope in Conflict’s Moral Twilight
Matthew BoltonDialogue 37.1 (Spring 2004): 180–187
It was as I waded through the sewage, stagnant in the streets of one of Africa’s biggest slums—Mukuru, Nairobi, Kenya—while on an assignment with the Community of Christ-sponsore WorldService Corps in summer 2000, that I was first struck by the enormity of the world’s problems and the horrifying conditions faced by the majority of its inhabiants.
In the Service of Peace, in the Defense of War: War Is Eternal: The Case for Military Preparedness
Robert M. HoggeIn the Service of Peace, in the Defense of War: Of Wars, Maps, and Ideals
Barney HaddenIn the Service of Peace, in the Defense of War: From Flanders Fields
(author)In the Service of Peace, in the Defense of War: Reflections on War of a Liberal Catholic in Mormon Utah
M. Diane KrantzA Woman of Influence: An Advocate for Women: The Public Life of Emmeline B. Wells by Carol Cornwall Madsen
Deborah Farmer KrisChoices, Consequences, and Grace: God’s Army 2: States of Grace, written and directed by Richard Dutcher
Samuel M. BrownRemembering Gene and His Generation: Proving Contraries: A Collection of Writings in Honor of Eugene England, edited by Robert A. Rees
R. John WilliamsHow to Worship Our Mother in Heaven (Without Getting Excommunicated)
Kevin L. BarneyDialogue 41.4 (Winter 2008): 121–147
In this essay, I shall begin by describing what we can learn about our Mother in Heaven from the scriptures. I then will draw from those descriptions some (very modest) suggestions for how we might actually worship, or at least honor, Her in ways that should not be considered offensive or heterodox by traditionalists. This essay is therefore a little exercise in religion-making. It is my hope that I will be able to express my mediating thoughts in a way that will not be deemed offensive by those of either school of thought on the subject.