Category: Latter-day Saint Thought
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John Turner’s Experience with Joseph Smith
One of the big ticket items among 2025’s Mormon Studies books is John Turner’s Joseph Smith biography. It was officially released earlier this week, though I published my review earlier this month. In addition, however, John Turner recently shared some of his thoughts on the book in an interview at the Latter-day Saint history blog,…
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Mental Illness at Church
It’s hard to know how to start this series. It’s not going to be victorious. It’s not going to be about rising conqueror over our demons. It’s not going to be about the miracle of healing—at least not in the traditional sense. It’s just going to be one person’s perspective of what it’s like having…
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“Many Do Stumble”: Not Embracing Our Fuller Truth
Recent events have looked rather apocalyptic to me, both Israel’s wars and the US’s treatment of Latinos. Huge events seem to happen so quickly that I worry any attempt to blog about them will be old news by the time this post goes up. Trump has quite staunch support among conservative evangelicals, and I’ve seen…
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John Taylor and the 1886 Revelation
For Latter-day Saint document geeks like me, this weekend was a big moment – the Church History library released digital scans of the 1886 John Taylor Revelation and related documents (see the link here for the Church History Library). Accompanying the release, the B. H. Roberts Foundation also published a discussion of the document. I’m…
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CFM 6/23-6/29: Poetry for “Worth … the Riches of the Whole Earth”
We all value the scriptures, but we don’t always understand them, and often what makes them valuable to us isn’t clear. If, as Doctrine and Covenants section 70 says, the scriptures are worth the riches of the whole earth, how is that true? What makes them so valuable? Part of the difficulty with understanding pronouncements…
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Mormon Studies Books in 2025
I don’t remember seeing a list given anywhere of books planned for publication in 2025 in the Mormon Studies field. So, in the interest of sharing what has been published and what is intended to be published in 2025, here is the list I have been able to compile:
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“As a Young Lion among the Flocks of Sheep”
At times like these, I thinks it’s valuable to review one of the Book of Mormon’s most repeated prophecies. Quick review: Gentiles=white people. Remanent of Jacob=Natives. If Gentiles repent, they can join with the remnant.
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Selling Temples
It’s no secret that some are worried that the Church is overbuilding temples. While most make some sense in terms of the Church’s goal of having a temple close and accessible to members, anecdotes abound about temples being put very proximate to other temples that are already suffering from low attendance, and in the worst…
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CFM 6/16-6/22: Poetry for “The Lord Requireth the Heart and a Willing Mind”
What does it mean to have a “willing mind”? My first thought is that it is somehow about our attitude, how we confront or approach problems. But despite the prevalence of ‘positive mental attitude’ sayings and motivational posters, most people act as if their emotional state is something beyond their control. We act like we…
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Anti-Latter-day Saint Stigma in Academia
Anti-Latter-day Saint stigma in academia is one of those things for which there is no solid data, so all that anybody has to work off of are anecdotes. However, given that 1) we know that people in general don’t really like us, 2) we are associated with a conservative ideology, and 3) there is plenty…
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Planting the Acorn: A Review
One hundred years ago this December, a group of three general authorities dedicated South America for the preaching of the gospel while establishing a mission in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Given that this year is the centennial anniversary, there are a few ways in which the Church has been celebrating, such as the repeated visits by…
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My Take on Masonry and the Temple
I generally consider myself pro-apologist. I think apologetics and apologists get a lot of undeserved grief in the Church (I see this as something of a pendulum swing from the 90s or so when Hugh Nibley types were rock stars that commanded huge fireside audiences). However, there have been a small handful of places where…
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Review: Joseph Smith: The Rise and Fall of an American Prophet
The wait for the long-anticipated biography Joseph Smith: The Rise and Fall of an American Prophet by John G. Turner is soon over. Available through Yale University Press, this is the first major biography released about the founding prophet of the Latter Day Saint movement since the completion of the Joseph Smith Papers project. It…
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CFM 6/9-6/15: Poetry for “I Am with the Faithful Always”
While the early saints from the time that the Doctrine and Covenants was written were not just constructing an institution and building a community, they were also doing the mental work of building testimony—and it looks to me like the process may have been a little different from what we go through today. Where many…
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Words of Brigham Young
One of the most important initiatives using primary sources from the Church History Library has been LaJean Carruth’s efforts to transcribe George D. Watt’s shorthand records. Her work has elucidated insights into early Utah history and the speeches of Church leaders that were previously unavailable. Over the course of her work, LaJean Purcell Carruth has…
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Brigham Young was Right: Polygamy and Hypocrisy
It’s perhaps a little unpopular to argue that Brigham Young got anything right about polygamy, but one place where I think he was onto something was to point out the all-too-common hypocrisy of many vehement anti-polygamists (see full quotes below). Mark Twain authored that famous jab about how ugly Mormon plural wives were–but maybe that’s…
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CFM 6/2-6/8: Poetry for “Anxiously Engaged in a Good Cause”
I’ve always loved the idea of being “anxiously engaged in a good cause.” The sense of agency generally assumed from the phrase suggests that I can figure out myself good things that need doing and how to make those things happen. The idea that not everything good is planned out and my role is flexible…
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CFM 5/26-6/1: Poetry for “A Faithful, a Just, and a Wise Steward”
How do we define the word ‘stewardship’? In church we use it quite a lot — maybe as much as we use the word ‘responsibility’ — but since we use both and since they are somewhat interchangeable, I wish I knew of a clear statement that distinguished how we use these two terms. As far…
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The Genesis Creation Accounts: Thoughts on “Revealed Truths,” “Inspired Editors,” and Privileged Texts in the Latter-day Saint Tradition
Guest post by Joseph Green I’ve been reading with interest the new book on evolution published by BYU’s College of Life Sciences, The Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ and Evolution. (While the print version has yet to be released, a free copy of the PDF is available now on the college’s web site.) As someone…
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CFM 5/19-5/25: Poetry for “That Which Is of God Is Light”
If “that which is of God is light,” then we all want to be enlightened; that is, brought into God’s presence and to His understanding. While sections 49 and 50 of the Doctrine and Covenants were written to ‘enlighten’ Leman Copley and others, we might also find in them other light, addressing issues for us…
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“The Savior Welcomes All” — Shouldn’t We?
This past Sunday I was struck by a question in Sunday School. After the teacher had explained that the early Church had been forced to move from place to place until it reached Utah, a man who was baptized a few years ago asked, “Why were church members forced to leave so many places? I…
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Monogamy is the Rule, Part 5: The Rule of One
In the previous two posts in this series, I discussed an 1886 dictated revelation from John Taylor. A related claim to this document that I am addressing here is that when fundamentalist Latter-day Saint groups began to become a religious movement in their own right during the 1910s and 1920s, the leadership of the majority…
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Notes on Don Bradley’s Lost 116 Pages
This is about six years too late to count as a book review, but Don Bradley’s The Lost 116 Pages: Reconstructing the Book of Mormon’s Missing Stories is excellent. It is a rare combination of scriptural investigation and historical whodunit that is both fascinating and insightful.
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CFM 5/12-5/18: Poetry for “Seek Ye Earnestly the Best Gifts”
I get the idea of seeking good things, even gifts, but somehow it feels a little like being a child, pining away for the popular toy of the moment as a Christmas gift. If it’s a gift, shouldn’t it be something unexpected? Or at least shouldn’t we be humble enough to accept the gifts…
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Monogamy is the Rule, Part 4: Guardrails
How do we make sense of John Taylor’s 1886 revelation, in the light of the Church’s stance that monogamy is the rule and polygamy is an exception? My response is that, first, one needs to keep in mind that dictated revelations (like the 1886 revelation, or even those in the Doctrine and Covenants), are not…
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Should We Just Do It Ourselves?
Assuming you are regularly in an LDS ward and stake buildings in the U.S., and likely other places as well, signs like this one are probably familiar. The Church uses uniform and consistent materials in buildings, and most, if not all, rooms have a label like this on them. The size, font and orientation of…
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Monogamy is the Rule, Part 3: The 1886 Revelation
Back in November, I started a series entitled Monogamy is the Rule, outlining why we should expect monogamy to be the standard for marriage, both in this life and in the life to come. In the first of the series, I discussed how commandments and expectations from the Lord can change at different times, and…
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CFM 5/5-5/11: Poetry for “The Promises … Shall Be Fulfilled”
D&C 45 covers a lot of different things, from the role of the Savior to the safety of Zion. In the last few decades our LDS culture has also made a lot of this section’s observation that His disciples will ‘stand in holy places, and … not be moved.’ As an image that description suggests…
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Canonization, Part 2: The Future of Canon?
In my last post, I discussed the process of canonization. While formal canonization has been rare since the late 19th century, key additions to the scriptural canon—such as the Pearl of Great Price and select sections of the Doctrine and Covenants—highlight a pattern shaped by prophetic authorship, broad communal use, and alignment with institutional priorities.…