Category: Book Reviews
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A Review: Latter-day Saint Art: A Critical Reader
Latter-day Saint Art: A Critical Reader is an excellent resource and insightful journey. The book aspires to be “the first expert critical treatment of Mormon visual art”, and it offers a breadth and depth that live up to that ideal. The volume includes twenty-two essays by scholars from various disciplines, perspectives, and backgrounds who offer…
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The Voice of the Lord: A Review
BYU published a few books late last year in connection with the Doctrine and Covenants. Among these is The Voice of the Lord: Exploring the Doctrine and Covenants, edited by Alexander L. Baugh. The book is a collection of essays previously published by BYU in a variety of forums (Sydney Sperry symposium publications, Religious Educator…
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A Review: Eduardo Balderas: Father of Church Translation, 1907–1989
I love finding out about key people in the history of the Church of whom I was previously unaware. Signature Books’s latest entry in its Brief Mormon Lives project, Eduardo Balderas: Father of Church Translation, 1907–1989, by Ignacio M. Garcia, is a great example of this.
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A Review: On the Overland Trails with William Clark: A Teamster’s Utah War, 1857-1858
The Utah War is a subject of ongoing interest in the history of Utah and the years leading up to the American Civil War in the United States. As a Latter-day Saint who was raised in Utah, I’ve generally been introduced to the perspective of the Latter-day Saints rather than the rest of the nation.…
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Joseph Smith as a Visionary: A Review
The latest offering from the Brigham Young University Religious Education Symposium in Honor of Sidney B. Sperry is Joseph Smith as a Visionary: Heavenly Manifestations in the Latter Days. Joseph Smith, Jr. is known for experiencing several visions, such as the First Vision, the visits of the Angel Moroni, the Vision of the Three Degrees…
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Latter-day Saint Book Review: The Coup at Catholic University
Note: This post was in the queue before this piece by Matthew Bowman went up at the Salt Lake Tribune. So it wasn’t created as a response to it, but in a way it does respond to the idea that the Catholics have figured out a way to effectively balance free thought with the religious…
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A Review: The Doctrine and Covenants Study Guide: Start to Finish
As I’ve been working on my annotated Doctrine and Covenants this year, one resource I’ve enjoyed reading is The Doctrine and Covenants Study Guide: Start to Finish (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2024), ed. Thomas R. Valletta. The book is formatted as the text of the Doctrine and Covenants with comments in wide margins and…
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A Review: Seven Visions: Images of Christ in the Doctrine and Covenants
The recently-published book Seven Visions: Images of Christ in the Doctrine and Covenants by Adam S. Miller and Rosalynde F. Welch is a fantastic opportunity to listen in on a conversation between two brilliant theological minds as they explore seven different sections of the Doctrine and Covenants with a Christological focus. The book is structured as…
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A Review: Seeing: Themes in the Doctrine and Covenants
The seventh and final book out of the Themes in the Doctrine and Covenants series that I read is the one by Mason Kamana Allred on Seeing. This one and Philip Barlow’s entry on Time seemed like the most strange or esoteric topics in the series, but like Barlow’s book, Allred’s offers interesting insight and…
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A Review: Divine Law: Themes in the Doctrine and Covenants
The sixth out of the seven books in the Themes in the Doctrine and Covenants series that I read is the one by Justin Collings on Divine Law. I admit that this one left me pleasantly surprised. I was expecting some sort of lawyerly analysis of how the commandments in the Doctrine and Covenants create…
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A Review: Time: Themes in the Doctrine and Covenants
Family. Isn’t it about … time? Yes, and so is the Gospel in general, according to Philip L. Barlow.
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A Review: Divine Aid: Themes in the Doctrine and Covenants
The fourth out of the seven books in the Themes in the Doctrine and Covenants series that I read is the one by Amy Easton on Divine Aid. As the title implies, the book posits that a repeated theme in the Doctrine and Covenants is divine aid, offered in a variety of ways. As with…
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A Review: Revelation: Themes in the Doctrine and Covenants
Continuing my reviews of the Themes in the Doctrine and Covenants series by Maxwell Institute, we come to the one on Revelation by Janiece Johnson. Of all the books in the series that I’ve read so far, this one is the one that leans the most heavily into the devotional and practical side of the…
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A Review: Agency: Themes in the Doctrine and Covenants
As I mentioned recently, I’ve been excited about the Maxwell Institute’s “Themes in the Doctrine and Covenants” series. So far, I’ve read four books out of seven, and the entry by Terryl L. Givens on Agency has been my favorite. It’s a beautiful blend of theological and devotional reflection that leans heavier into the comparative…
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A Review: Redeeming the Dead: Themes in the Doctrine and Covenants
The BYU Maxwell Institute has followed up their previous series of Brief Theological Introductions to the Book of Mormon with a similar series focused on Themes in the Doctrine and Covenants. I’ve been excited about them since I heard about them a couple years ago at a Global Mormon Studies conference, so I was very…
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Wrestling with the Restoration: a Review
I highly recommend Wrestling with the Restoration: Why This Church Matters, by Steven C. Harper, for any member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It is, at its heart, apologetics done well. In other words, it is a response to critics of the Church on a series of historic and praxis concerns.…
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Book review — “The Book of Mormon for the Least of These: Helaman-Moroni”
“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…
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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.
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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.
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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.…
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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…
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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…