Category: Book Reviews
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The Bible and the Latter-day Saint Tradition: A Review
The Bible and the Latter-day Saint Tradition, published by University of Utah Press, is an impressive collection of information about Bible studies and how Latter-day Saints interact with the Bible.
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Joseph Smith and the Mormons: A review
Joseph Smith and the Mormons, by Noah Van Sciver, is a fantastic addition to Mormon literature. And while not written as devotional literature, this graphic novelization of Joseph Smith’s life is very well-researched and makes a lot of effort to portray things in a fair and open manner. And the book itself is beautiful in…
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Latter-day Saint Book Review: Merchants in the Temple; Inside Pope Francis’s Secret Battle Against Corruption in the Vatican
The story of the Vatican Bank and Vatican finances in general is a bit of a wild ride, the kind of thing can get you lost down Wikipedia rabbit holes for hours. I suspect the fact that the Vatican is its own state, combined with the fact that it’s managed by a coterie of clergy…
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Vengeance Is Mine
The story goes that J. Golden Kimball was once preaching to a crowd in the South and became concerned when he noticed that only men were present. As he opened his mouth to talk, however, All at once something came over me and I opened my mouth and said, . . . ‘Gentlemen, you have not come…
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Voice of the Saints in Mongolia
Voice of the Saints in Mongolia by Po Nien (Felipe) Chou and Petra Chou is an informative account of the establishment and growth of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Mongolia. As the first comprehensive history of the Church in Mongolia, the book breaks historical ground and provides valuable insights into the…
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Let’s Talk About Race and Priesthood
Let’s Talk About Race and Priesthood by W. Paul Reeve is a thought-provoking and insightful book that explores some key aspects of the intersection of race and religion in the history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. To me, this volume is up there with Brittany Chapman Nash’s Let’s Talk About Polygamy…
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The New Testament: A Translation for Latter-day Saints, Revised Edition
Thomas Wayment’s The New Testament: A Translation for Latter-day Saints, Revised Edition is an exceptional resource for anyone, and particularly a Latter-day Saint, interested in studying the New Testament from a fresh and modern perspective through its clear and readable translation, insightful commentary, and expanded introductory material. One of the standout features of this book…
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My Lord, He Calls Me
To say that My Lord, He Calls Me: Stories of Faith by Black American Latter-day Saints, ed. Alice Faulkner Burch (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 2022) is an important collection would be an understatement. While small (clocking in at 225 pages), the volume contains around 35 chapters written by Black American Latter-day Saints, including…
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Imperial Zions
Latter-day Saints in the 19th century existed at a paradoxical intersection of American history. When they fled to Alta California to settle the Great Basin, they were refugees fleeing from the United States. Defiantly practicing plural marriage in the face of federal laws that opposed the principle, they came to face a heavy-handed effort by…
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Ancient Christians: An Introduction for Latter-day Saints
The Maxwell Institute at BYU recently published Ancient Christians: An Introduction for Latter-day Saints, and it is a fantastic journey into early Christianity geared specifically to Latter-day Saints. Through a collection of 14 essays dealing with topics ranging from praxis and worship to scripture and theology, the key elements of Christianity during its first several…
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Latter-day Saint Book Report on “Sex Cult Nun: Breaking Away from the Children of God, a Wild, Radical Religious Cult.”
One of the accusations you occasionally get from the far corners of the internet is that the early Church was a “sex cult” because of Nauvoo-era polygamy. That accusation, of course, begs the question of what a sex cult is. While I categorically don’t like to use the word “cult,” (for, among other reasons, implying…
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Mormon Women at the Crossroads
Caroline Kline’s Mormon Women at the Crossroads: Global Narratives and the Power of Connectedness (University of Illinois Press, 2022) is an important contribution to studies of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the 21st century. The book is based on a series of oral interviews that Kline did with women of color in…
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Grass Roots in Mexico
Grass Roots in Mexico: Stories of Pioneering Latter-day Saints by F. LaMond Tullis (Provo: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2021) was one of the books I was most excited to see on the lists of books coming out in 2022. Released in early July, Grass Roots in Mexico offers an important glimpse into the…
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Latter-day Saint Book Report on “The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara”
In 1857 officials raided a home in the Jewish ghetto in Bologna, Italy and forcefully removed a 6-year old child based on the testimony of a servant that he had been baptized as an infant and was, therefore, Christian. At the time Bologna was under the direct rule of the Pope (back in the day…
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Book Report-Veritas: A Harvard Professor, A Con Man, and the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife
This is a well-written journalistic account of a scandal that happened in the biblical studies community in 2012 when a purportedly ancient parchment surfaced that contained the words “Jesus said to them ‘my wife.’” Despite some red flags such as bad Coptic grammar, Professor Karen King, one of the preeminent scholars in the field, became…
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Method Infinite: On Masonry and Mormonism
The recently-published Method Infinite: Freemasonry and the Mormon Restoration by Cheryl L. Bruno, Joe Steve Swick III, and Nicholas S. Literski (Greg Kofford Books, 2022) is an insightful and information-packed volume about a plethora of possible points of contact between Freemasonry and the Restoration of the Church of Christ. While many studies of Masonry and…
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Daughter of Mormonism
Susa Young Gates was an interesting and important personality, and Romney Burke’s recently-published biography Susa Young Gates: Daughter of Mormonism (SLC: Signature Books, 2022) provides a well-researched glimpse into her life. Perhaps the best-known daughter of President Brigham Young, Susa led a life as a prominent figure in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. …
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Saints, Volume 3: A Review
Saints: The Story of the Church of Jesus Christ in the Latter Days, Volume 3: Boldy, Nobly, and Independent, 1893-1955 is a fantastic addition to the Church’s official histories. Picking up after the ending of the previous volume at the dedication of the Salt Lake City Temple, this volume begins with the Chicago World’s Fair in…
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Loving the Book of Mormon Prophets without Accepting Their Prejudices: A Review of “The Book of Mormon for the Least of These, Volume 1”
A while back, a friend sent me an uncomfortable text. She is not a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but someone had given her daughter the old illustrated Book of Mormon Stories book, and her daughter came across the passage in Second Nephi when Nephi narrates that Laman and Lemuel’s…
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Margarito Bautista – A Forgotten Revolutionary in Latter-day Saint History
Elisa Eastwood Pulido’s biography, The Spiritual Evolution of Margarito Bautista (Oxford University Press, 2020), provides a fascinating glimpse into one of the more significant but controversial figures in the history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Mexico. An important founding figure among Mexican Latter-day Saints, Bautista was a successful missionary who helped to…
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Let’s Talk about the Book of Abraham–a Review
Kerry Muhlstein’s Let’s Talk about the Book of Abraham Is the latest entry in a series that Deseret Book has been publishing to address controversial or touchy topics in the Church. Based on my experience with Brittany Chapman Nash’s Let’s Talk About Polygamy (the previous volume in this series of books), I had expected something…
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John Sillito’s B. H. Roberts: A Life in the Public Arena (book review)
In traditional Christianity, there are significant figures known as the Early Church Fathers who are noted as influential Christian theologians and writers who established the intellectual and doctrinal foundations of Christianity as we know it today. While the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is still a form of Christianity and is indebted to…
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So You Want to Talk About Polygamy?
I’ve long had an interest in understanding how and why my ancestors chose to practice polygamy. During my time at Utah State University, I spent most of my spare time reading Mormon Studies materials and went on a polygamy binge at one point. While reading Kathryn Daynes’s More Wives Than One: Transformation of the Mormon…
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Hear the words of the Church’s first lady — a review of Jennifer Reeder’s *First: The Life and Faith of Emma Smith*
“I have many more things I could like to write but have not time.” Thus wrote Emma Smith in a letter to her husband, Joseph Smith. I wish she did have the time! Jennifer Reeder’s biography of Emma Smith — First: The Life and Faith of Emma Smith — left me wanting even more of…
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Review: 2nd Nephi: A Brief Theological Introduction
I think one of the most repeated refrains I see in comment threads in the bloggernacle is that our Church meetings generally lack the vibrancy and ability to deeply engage with the scriptures and ideas in ways that can stimulate interest and growth. As Terryl L. Givens put it in a recent interview, “one of…
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Review: Buried Treasures: Reading the Book of Mormon Again for the First Time
Michael Austin’s book, Buried Treasures: Reading the Book of Mormon Again for the First Time is a quick, insightful and though-provoking read about the Book of Mormon. The book began its life as a series of blog posts at By Common Consent, documenting some of Austin’s thoughts as he read the Book of Mormon in-depth…
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Saints, Volume 2: A Review
The second volume of the Church’s official history, Saints: No Unhallowed Hand, 1846-1893 was released this Wednesday. I just finished blitzing through the book and wanted to share my thoughts on the volume. These official histories walk a tightrope, balancing a lot of goals at one time. This volume, for example, covers approximately 50 years…
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Pagans and Christians in the City (1/2)
Steven Smith (who has occasionally favored us with comments here at T&S) is not the first to describe our current cultural moment as a new conflict between pagans and Christians. As Smith describes at length in Pagans and Christians in the City, others, on both sides of the divide, have done so using the same…
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Brigham Young and the Expansion of the Mormon Faith, a Review
Back in June, Clark Goble mentioned that he was going to write a review of Thomas G. Alexander’s new biography Brigham Young and the Expansion of the Mormon Faith. It’s one of many misfortunes among the great losses of Clark passing away that we never had the opportunity to read the review he was planning…