“The lessons we learn from scripture depend on the questions we ask… The Book of Mormon…warrants the most challenging questions we can throw at it. This book attempts to ask those difficult questions.” So opens this third and final volume of The Book of Mormon for the Least of These, focusing on the books of Helaman through Moroni. Specifically, this commentary asks what the Book of Mormon says “about genocide, bigotry, environmental destruction, poverty, and inequality? What can it offer a world that is broken, full of hatred and unfettered greed?” The Book of Mormon and this commentary have lots to say on these (and many other) crucial topics for this day and age. Olsen Hemming and Salleh bring myriad insights. (I counted more than 40 notes or highlights in my copy.) From underlining the unfairness of the justice system that locked up five innocent men in Helaman 9 (“how many times in the Book of Mormon do innocent people go to prison?”), to drawing attention to the failures of Nephi the prophet (“a promise from God that your work is right is not a promise of ease and safety”), to inviting readers to reflect on the likely fate of women and children carried away into the wilderness by robbers (“vulnerable bodies are frequently a casualty of men’s wars”). Again and again, the authors point to themes often largely neglected in discussions of these books. Olsen Hemming and…
Category: Book Reviews
A Review: Come Up Hither to Zion: William Marks and the Mormon Concept of Gathering
Come Up Hither to Zion: William Marks and the Mormon Concept of Gathering by Cheryl L. Bruno and John S. Dinger is an enlightening biography that brings attention to a significant yet often overlooked figure in the early Latter Day Saint movement.
Saints, Volume 4: A Review
The fourth and final volume of Saints: The Story of the Church of Jesus Christ in the Latter Days was published today. This newest book, Sounded in Every Ear, tells the story of the Latter-day Saints from 1955 to 2020, bringing the history up nearly to the present day. It discusses an era in which conversion rates exploded in South America, the Pacific islands, eastern Asia, and Africa. The 1978 revelation that ended the priesthood and temple ban was an important event enabling that growth. Temple construction to support membership across the world became a big deal, with the number of temples jumping from 9 functioning temples in 3 countries in 1955 to 197 dedicated temples in scores of countries today.
A Review Joseph Fielding Smith: A Mormon Theologian
I remember a conversation with an institute teacher that I was particularly close to while I was attending college. I was in his office and noticed a framed sketch that included important intellectuals and writers in Latter-day Saint history. While I liked most of them, I pointed out that I didn’t care for Joseph Fielding Smith and Bruce R. McConkie and the perspectives they held. The institute teacher then said, “I agree, but can you deny that they belong there because of the impact they had?” Joseph Fielding Smith: A Mormon Theologian, by Matthew Bowman is an impressive glimpse into the world and thought of one of the most influential writers and theologians in the world of 20th century Latter-day Saints. Joseph Fielding Smith was the son of Joseph F. Smith and grandson of Hyrum Smith who served as an influential and dogmatic theologian and high-ranking church leader for over sixty years. He published numerous articles and books, as well as many talks and discourses over the course of his long life, advocating for a position that had some similarities to fundamentalist Protestant thought.
This Abominable Slavery: A Review
This Abominable Slavery: Race, Religion, and the Battle over Human Bondage in Antebellum Utah by W. Paul Reeve, Christopher B. Rich Jr., and LaJean Purcell Carruth is a fascinating and detailed glimpse into the debates about slavery and race in Utah Territory in the 1850s. Incorporating never-before transcribed accounts of the 1852 legislative session that saw Utah Territory leadership pass a series of laws intended to regulate unfree labor, this volume provides a thorough analysis of those laws, the debates that surrounded them and how they fit into the national context of the United States at the time. In doing so, the book also offers insights into the early development of the priesthood and temple ban against individuals with Black African ancestry in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Open Canon: Scriptures of the Latter Day Saint Tradition, a Review
Open Canon: Scriptures of the Latter Day Saint Tradition, edited by Christine Elyse Blythe, Christopher James Blythe, and Jay Burton is a book that I loved reading. It is an anthology of essays focusing on the documents created and used as scripture in the broader tradition of religions that trace their roots to the early Latter Day Saint movement. The focus on the creation and reception of texts, the various branches of the Smith-Rigdon movement, and thoughts about texts that could be considered non-canonical scriptures are all right up my alley, and given the quality of research being presented, I devoured the whole volume.
Sonia Johnson: A Mormon Feminist, a Review
Sonia Johnson: A Mormon Feminist by Christine Talbot is a provocative and insightful entry in University of Illinois Press’s Introductions to Mormon Thought series.
Review: Bruce R. McConkie: Apostle and Polemicist, 1915–1985
Bruce R. McConkie: Apostle and Polemicist, 1915–1985 by Devery S. Anderson is the latest entry in Signature Books’ Brief Mormon Lives project. As has been the case with other books in the series, this one is a short biography of an individual of note in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and is very well done.
A Review: Unique But Not Different
Unique But Not Different: Latter-day Saints in Japan by Shinji Takagi, Conan Grames, and Meagan Rainock is a fascinating glimpse into the world of Japanese Latter-day Saints. The book is based on a comprehensive survey data, which it explores to examine the diverse social, political, and ideological backgrounds of Japanese Latter-day Saints. Over the course of exploring those data, the book provides valuable insights for scholars, missionaries, Church leaders, and members alike about the state of the Church in Japan. The format is very academic in its investigation of the survey results and reads more like a scientific paper than narrative history, and it is very well done.
A Review: Commentary on the Community of Christ Doctrine & Covenants, Volume 1
I’ve been hunting down resources to use in studying the Doctrine and Covenants, and one of the books I wanted to highlight in that regard is the Commentary on the Community of Christ Doctrine & Covenants Volume 1: The Joseph Smith Jr. Era, by Dale E. Luffman. It is a fascinating glimpse into both the Doctrine and Covenants itself and how it is viewed and used in a sister organization in the Restoration movement. The book goes through each individual document in the Doctrine and Covenants, offering information about the historical and theological context of the document, commentary and exegesis, how it was understood at the time it was written, and some interpretation and thoughts about how the document is significant to members of the church today. Throughout, it offers many important and interesting insights about this important volume of scripture.
A Review: Second Class Saints
The priesthood and temple ban against individuals with Black African ancestry is a topic that is both fraught and crucial in understanding the history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Matthew Harris’s recently-published Second Class Saints: Black Mormons and the Struggle for Racial Equality provides one of the most in-depth looks at that ban, with a special focus on the process by which it was challenged and lifted in the twentieth century by the 1978 priesthood revelation. It also discusses the ongoing effects of the ban and the anti-Black teachings in the Church that framed it after the revelation and the reluctance of Church leaders to come out against those teachings until 2013. Ultimately, however, the focus of the book is “on racism as it affected Black and biracial people in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” (p. xiv).
Joseph Smith’s Uncanonized Revelations, a Review
Joseph Smith’s Uncanonized Revelations, edited by Stephen O. Smoot and Brian C. Passantino, is a new collection of revelations by or attributed to Joseph Smith. It builds upon the research and publication of documents by the Joseph Smith Papers Project, drawing together the relevant documents into one easily accessible place and providing context for each. The main section of the book focuses on revelations that can reliably be attributed to Joseph Smith while an appendix contains revelations that either are attributed to someone close to Joseph Smith or are late, second-hand recollections that may or may not be accurate and authentic reproductions of Joseph Smith revelations.
A Review: The Last Called Mormon Colonization
Growing up in Utah, I heard many pioneer stories about my ancestors and their colleagues who traveled west to settle the Intermountain West region. I found, however, that many of the stories focused on the journey itself rather than the years that followed as they established settlements and survived in an arid region. The latter half is just as important, as is the observation that many people uprooted their lives repeatedly to settle more remote areas beyond the Wasatch Front in Utah. One dramatic story of that sort is among the last that could be considered pioneering—the settling of the Big Horn Basin in northern Wyoming in the early twentieth century.
A Review: Buffalo Bill and the Mormons
Buffalo Bill and the Mormons by Brent M. Rogers is a fun and interesting book about the intersections of “Buffalo Bill” Cody’s life with the Latter-day Saints. The basic idea is that the American superstar, soldier, bison hunter, and showman launched his acting career at a time when anti-Mormon propaganda had become a profitable and popular area of storytelling. Cody embraced using Latter-day Saints as stock villains in his storylines, portraying Latter-day Saints as enemies of the proper home. Cody was, of course, the defender of the proper home in the plays in which he performed and seems to have initially believed the messages of that propaganda to some degree.
Temples in the Tops of the Mountains
Temples in the Tops of the Mountains: Sacred Houses of the Lord in Utah by Richard O. Cowan and Clinton D. Christensen (BYU RSC and Deseret Book Company, 2023) helped me solve a long-time mystery about my life. You see, when I was six years old, I went to the Vernal, Utah Temple open house. For some reason, I walked away believing that there was only one temple baptismal font for the whole church that they just moved between temples. I even told my Primary that is what I learned at the open house when they asked me about it. Obviously, that’s not the case—each temple has its own baptismal font (and the book also informed me that there are some temples that will soon have two baptismal fonts)—but I have always wondered what led me to that conclusion.
The Heart of the Matter: A Review
The Heart of the Matter, by President Russell M. Nelson, is a book to live by. It serves as a collection and presentation of his core messages as president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and provides guidance for both belief and living as a member of that church.
Sins of Christendom: A Review
Anti-Mormon literature is always a touchy subject, but Sins of Christendom: Anti-Mormonism and the Making of Evangelicalism by Nathaniel Wiewora handles it deftly, putting it in a broader context of change and debate within Evangelical Christianity.
American Zion: A Review
If I were to ever write a single-volume history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I hope that it would turn out like Benjamin E. Park’s American Zion: A New History of Mormonism (Liveright, 2024). It is a very nuanced, insightful, and well-written take on Latter-day Saint history in the United States. It takes into account viewpoints from many different groups that have been a part of the Latter-day Saint movement over the years or who have split from the Church into their own faith communities. American Zion also builds upon a lot of important research that has happened since Matthew Bowman published The Mormon People: The Making of an American Faith in 2012 (the previous reigning academic history of the Church). Five stars out of five, as far as I’m concerned.
The Testimony of Two Nations: A Review
The Testimony of Two Nations: How the Book of Mormon Reads, and Rereads, the Bible by Michael Austin (University of Illinois Press, 2024) is a delightful and insightful venture into the ways in which the Book of Mormon interacts with the Bible.
No Division Among You: A Review
No Division Among You: Creating Unity in a Diverse Church, ed. Richard Eyre (Deseret Book, 2023) is a beautiful book in its intentions and efforts. The book is a collection of 14 essays that discuss ways to view the need for unity while embracing diversity. Each essay is by a different author, bringing in diverse perspectives of members who identify across the spectrum—Black and White, homosexual and heterosexual, male and female. Each shared experiences and perspectives that help build frameworks for how to approach unity as a diverse church.
Latter-day Saint Book Review: A Life of Jesus, by Shusaku Endo
A Life of Jesus is an introduction to the life of Christ by renowned Catholic Japanese novelist Shusaku Endo, the author of Silence, a book set during the early persecutions of Christians in Japan. Much of Endo’s work revolves around the tensions of being a Catholic in a very non-Christian country, and this book was written as a guide to the life of Christ specifically for people with a Japanese religious disposition who are less receptive to harsh, jealous, father-figure Gods.
A Word in Season: Isaiah’s Reception in the Book of Mormon (A Review)
A Word in Season: Isaiah’s Reception in the Book of Mormon by Joseph M. Spencer (University of Illinois Press, 11/21/2023) is a scholarly exploration into the interplay between the biblical prophet Isaiah and the narrative fabric of the Book of Mormon
Latter-day Saint Perspectives on Atonement – A Review
Latter-day Saint Perspectives on Atonement is a fascinating journey through the scriptures and teachings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints about the Atonement of Jesus Christ.
Chad’s Top 10 Book List from 2023
In case it’s of use to anyone, I’ve prepared a list of my top 10 books that I’ve read this last year. (That can include books that were not published within the last year, though the majority of them were published in 2023 or 2022):
Stay Thou Nearby: A Review
The 1852–1978 priesthood and temple ban on Blacks in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a bitter pill to swallow, especially for those affected most directly by it. I have been grateful, however, for efforts in the Church to address the issue more openly in recent years, including several publications from Deseret Book relating to the subject. These include both My Lord, He Calls Me and Let’s Talk About Race and Priesthood, with the most recent contribution to the subject from Deseret Book being Stay Thou Nearby: Reflections on the 1978 Revelation on the Priesthood.
Lowell L. Bennion: A Mormon Educator, a Review
I have to say that I’m a fan of the trend towards short, accessible biographies of notable figures in Latter-day Saint history. Between University of Illinois Press’s “Introductions to Mormon Thought” series and Signature Books’s “Brief Biography,” there is a lot of excellent work being published. One of the most recent, Lowell L. Bennion: A Mormon Educator by George B. Handley (University of Illinois Press, 2023), is a stellar addition to the library of any Latter-day Saint.
Diné dóó Gáamalii: Navajo Latter-day Saint Experiences in the Twentieth Century: A Review
Alicia Harris—an Assistant Professor of Native American Art History at the University of Oklahoma—wrote that “If the LDS Church really can work for all peoples, we need to more attentively listen, hear, and be represented by a much greater variety of voices. We must more actively prepare a place for dual identities to be touched and nurtured in the culture of the gospel.” Farina King’s Diné dóó Gáamalii: Navajo Latter-day Saint Experiences in the Twentieth Century (University Press of Kansas, 2023) provides a great opportunity to do just that by listening to the experiences of the Diné dóó Gáamalii (Navajo Latter-day Saints).
Like a Fiery Meteor: The Life of Joseph F. Smith: A Review
Joseph F. Smith (1838–1917) is a towering figure in Latter-day Saint history, so I have waited and hoped for an academically rigorous biography about him for years. Stephen C Taysom delivered on that hope this year in Like a Fiery Meteor: The Life of Joseph F. Smith.
Review: Melissa Wei-Tsing Inouye, “Sacred Struggle: Seeking Christ on the Path of Most Resistance”
Melissa Wei-Tsing Inouye’s new book, Sacred Struggle: Seeking Christ on the Path of Most Resistance, confirms her status as reigning queen of great subtitles. It also confirms her status as one of our tradition’s most insightful pastoral-ecclesiological thinkers, worthy heir to the great Chieko Okazaki. Melissa has the professional training, the personal background and experience, and most of all the unwavering faith in Zion to raise the most important questions about this precarious moment in the history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Inouye sees that the global expansion of the Church urgently requires a re-formation of North American Saints’ sense of ingroup identity to take in the full sweep of our tiny-but-worldwide membership. At the same time, the solidarity of the North American Church is being tested as never before by the fracturing effects of politics expanding its salience in all forms of association, including churches. She cogently asks, given global inequality, cultural acrimony, and the aggressive incursion of ideologies, “With such different understandings of how the gospel of Jesus Christ should unfold in everyday life, in a local political and cultural context, what holds us together?” (163). The opportunities and challenges of global Mormonism have taken center stage in Mormon Studies of late. What makes Inouye’s treatment different is its framing in Latter-day Saint theology. Melissa places the struggle for Zion in the context of the plan of salvation–our Heavenly Parents’ ongoing intention to teach…
Joseph Smith’s Gold Plates: A Review
Richard Lyman Bushman’s Joseph Smith’s Gold Plates: A Cultural History (Oxford University Press, 2023) is an important contribution to Book of Mormon studies. As a cultural history of the gold plates, the book traces the story of the plates and the translation of the Book of Mormon, reactions to the story and the development of folklore about the gold plates over the subsequent two centuries. It also discusses how the plates have been portrayed in artwork and literature, used in teaching programs in the Church, and some of the debates about the plates. Even while visiting the story of the plates—as he has before in Rough Stone Rolling and Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism—Bushman provides fresh perspectives on the story. For example, he focuses on the idea that Joseph Smith may not have understood the purpose of the plates as a record that needed to be translated initially, rather than being a treasure. At first, Joseph Smith may have approached the plates with his treasure hunting in mind rather than a religious perspective. After all, the idea of a book-length record on gold plates wasn’t really something that was a common idea. It was only gradually, as he became acquainted with the interpreters and what was on the plates that he realized it needed to be translated. It was a perspective that I’ve not seen emphasized before (at least within my memory). As you read, you can tell…