Best of
Mormonism

2013

Letter To A CES Director


Jeremy Runnells - 2013
    In the spring of 2013, Jeremy was approached and asked by a Church Education System (CES) Director to share his concerns and questions about the LDS Church's origins, history, and current practices. In response, Jeremy wrote what later became publicly known as Letter to a CES Director.

Unveiling Grace: The Story of How We Found Our Way out of the Mormon Church


Lynn K. Wilder - 2013
    It is also a gripping story of how an entire family, deeply enmeshed in Mormonism, found their way out and what they can tell others about their lives as faithful Mormons.

The Mormons


David Fitzgerald - 2013
    Don't miss out on this fun, informative and painstakingly researched historical romp by the highly praised and award-winning author of Nailed: Ten Christian Myths That Show Jesus Never Existed At All. So when the missionaries show up on your doorstep, you'll have plenty to discuss with them... Later days, Saints! The Complete Heretic's Guide to Western Religion. Because Religion isn't just wrong. It's hilarious.

Gaze Into Heaven: Near-Death Experiences in Early Church History


Marlene Bateman Sullivan - 2013
    Filled with insight and inspiration, this book melds engrossing personal

Mormon's Codex: An Ancient American Book


John L. Sorenson - 2013
    

Speculative Grace: Bruno Latour and Object-Oriented Theology


Adam S. Miller - 2013
    In the process, it also provides a systematic and original account of Latour's overall project. The account of grace offered here redistributes the tasks assigned to science and religion. Where now the work of science is to bring into focus objects that are too distant, too resistant, and too transcendent to be visible, the business of religion is to bring into focus objects that are too near, too available, and too immanent to be visible. Where science reveals transcendent objects by correcting for our nearsightedness, religion reveals immanent objects by correcting for our farsightedness. Speculative Grace remaps the meaning of grace and examines the kinds of religious instruments and practices that, as a result, take center stage.

Fire on the Horizon: A Meditation on the Endowment and Love of Atonement


Blake T. Ostler - 2013
    Utilizing the insights of Soren Kierkegaard, Martin Buber, and others, Ostler offers further ruminations on what it means to fall from our relationship with God and once again have at-one-ment with Him.

Joseph Smith's Polygamy, Volume 3: Theology


Brian C. Hales - 2013
    It was long abandoned, Christians understood, by the time Jesus set forth the dominating law of the New Testament. But how did Joseph Smith understand it? Where did it fit in the “restitution of all things” (Acts 3:21) predicted in the New Testament? What part did it play in the global ideology declared by this modern prophet who produced new scripture, new revelation, and new theology?During Joseph Smith’s lifetime, polygamy was taught and practiced in intense secrecy, with the result that he never fully explained its doctrinal underpinnings or systematized its practice. As a result, reconstructing Joseph Smith’s theology of plurality is a task that has seldom been undertaken. Most theological examinations have either focused on its development during Brigham Young’s Utah period, with its need to resist increasing federal legislative and judicial pressures, or the efforts of twentieth-century and contemporary “fundamentalists” who continue to marry a plurality of wives.Volume 3 of this three-volume work builds on the carefully reconstructed history of the development of Mormon polygamy during Joseph Smith’s lifetime, then assembles the doctrinal principles from his recorded addresses, the diary entries of those closely associated with him, and his broader teachings on the related topics of obedience to God’s will, marriage and family relations, and the mechanics of eternal progression, salvation, and exaltation. The revelation he dictated in July 1843 that authorized the practice of eternal and plural marriage receives unprecedented examination and careful interpretation that illuminate this significant document and its underlying doctrines.Attempts to explain the history of Joseph Smith’s polygamy without comprehending the theological principles undergirding its practice will always be incomplete and skewed. This volume, which takes those principles and evidences with the utmost seriousness, has produced the most important explanation of “why” this ancient practice reemerged among the Latter-day Saints on the shores of the Mississippi in the early 1840s.

Treasures from the Journal of Discourses


Paul B. Skousen - 2013
    It is the record of spontaneous speeches by dozens of speakers, usually called upon without warning, with all the pressure and tension that today's Teleprompters have successfully erased. Despite human foibles and difficulties, the speakers delivered rich testimonies and glimpses into the difficulties of a new church in a new land---serious, comical, difficult, heart wrenching. The Journals truly are an enriching treasury of delight that has now been mined in this concise collection of extracts and questions. Meaty doctrines, inspiring calls to service and faith, insights into forgotten history and struggles, are brought together in this single volume to give answers and perspective as delivered from a stalwart and pioneering pulpit of 150 years ago: - How many earths are there? - How many Redeemers and Tempters are there? - Can resurrected people give birth, and if so, are the babies of flesh and bone, or spirits? - How did plants and animals arrive on earth? - What did Joseph Smith and others say about the US Constitution and freedom? - How long does God want us to live in mortality? - Is the United Order a form of socialism? - What is our relationship to God, Jesus and the Holy Ghost? - How does the power of the priesthood organize matter? - What really happens to Sons of Perdition? - What kind of knowledge should we seek? What about "the mysteries"? - What is the source of adversity, discouragement and persecution, and what can we do about it? - How does Satan work in our lives and how do we protect and strengthen ourselves to resist? - Is vanity a problem? - Was abortion an issue in the mid-1800s? What did the Brethren say about that? - What did the Brethren say about socialism, communism, the Constitution, and the coming cleansing of America? - What changes can we expect when the Millennium begins? Answers to these and a thousand more are listed in a Q&A format. First, a provocative question is presented to highlight the central message of a quote, and then the excerpt follows, with citations. The book is organized according to progression through the eternities---Heavenly Powers, our Pre-mortal Life existence, Earth Life, Opposing Forces, The Church, the Last Days, and After-life. The Treasures from the Journal of Discourses is a powerfully impactful exploration into the enticing realms of eternity. It is easily read from front to back, or delivers delightful insight with any random page. It is suitable reading for Latter-day Saints of all ages and persuasions looking for answers to questions that are hard to discover in today's busy world.

Joseph Smith's Polygamy, Volume 2: History


Brian C. Hales - 2013
    Born in 1805 and silenced thirty-nine years later by assassins’ bullets, he dictated more than one-hundred revelations, published books of new scripture, built a temple, organized several new cities, and became the proclaimed prophet to tens of thousands during his abbreviated life.Among his many novel teachings and practices, none is more controversial than plural marriage, a restoration of the Old Testament practice that he accepted as part of his divinely appointed mission. Joseph Smith taught his polygamy doctrines only in secret and dictated a revelation in July 1843 authorizing its practice (now LDS D&C 132) that was never published during his lifetime. Although rumors and exposés multiplied, it was not until 1852 that Mormons in Brigham Young’s Utah took a public stand. By then, thousands of Mormons were engaged in the practice that was seen as essential to salvation.Victorian America saw plural marriage as immoral and Joseph Smith as acting on libido. However, the private writings of Nauvoo participants and other polygamy insiders tell another, more complex and nuanced story. Many of these accounts have never been published. Others have been printed sporadically in unrelated publications. Drawing on every known historical account, whether by supporters or opponents, Volumes 1 and 2 take a fresh look at the chronology and development of Mormon polygamy, including the difficult conundrums of the Fannie Alger relationship, polyandry, the “angel with a sword” accounts, Emma Smith’s poignant response, and the possibility of Joseph Smith offspring by his plural wives. Among the most intriguing are the newly available Andrew Jenson papers containing not only the often-quoted statements by surviving plural wives but also Jenson’s own private research, conducted in the late nineteenth century. Telling the story of Joseph Smith’s polygamy from the records of those who knew him best, augmented by those who observed him from a distance, may have produced the most useful view of all.

Shattered Dreams Restored


Irene Spencer - 2013
    . . Thank you for making my first book, Shattered Dreams, a New York Times best-seller. In it, I told the story of my plural marriage to Fundamentalist Mormon, Verlan LeBaron. As the second of ten wives, I bore him thirteen children so that he could become a god of a future planet and guarantee my eternal life. But instead of salvation, I felt the damnation of alienation, poverty, abuse, and a broken heart. I watched as twenty-eight family members and friends, who dared to oppose my brother-in-law “Evil Ervil,” were murdered in cold blood. The book ended when Verlan was killed in a tragic car collision—and I was left alone, with seven children to raise. . . . RESTORED In this book, I’ll honestly answer the many questions people have asked after reading my memoirs. I’ll fill in many of the details from my early life. And I’ll bring you up to date with the many ways my life has changed. Where there was abuse, I have been wonderfully healed. Where there was hunger, I have been richly fed. Where there was a desperate longing for love, I have been blessed with unconditional love. And where there were shattered dreams, they have been restored!

The Persistence of Polygamy: From Joseph Smith's Martyrdom to the First Manifesto, 1844-1890 (Volume 2)


Newell G. Bringhurst - 2013
    and the origins of Mormon polygamy. In this second volume, they have assembled an array of new research into the wide diversity of polygamy as practiced by different Latter Day Saint groups during the later nineteenth century. In the third and final volume, they will consider the development of modern Fundamentalist Mormonism and the practice of polygamy after the 1890 manifesto.

From Above and Below: The Mormon Embrace of Revolution, 1840–1940


Craig Livingston - 2013
    As believers in divine-human co-agency, many prominent Mormons saw global revolutions as providential precursors to the imminent establishment of the terrestrial kingdom of God. French Revolutionary symbolism, socialist critiques of industrialism, American Indian nationalism, and Wilsonian internationalism all became the raw materials of Mormon millennial theologies which were sometimes barely distinguishable from secular utopianism. Many Mormon thinkers accepted secular revolutionary arguments that the old world order needed to be destroyed, not merely reformed, to clear the way for the new.In From Above and Below, author Craig Livingston tells the story of Mormon commentary on global revolutions from the European revolutions of 1848 to the collapse of Mormon faith in progress in the 1930s when revolutionary communist and fascist regimes exposed themselves as violent and repressive. As the Church bureaucratized and assimilated to mainstream American and capitalist values, Mormons became champions of the conservative view of political and social development for which they are known today. The first Mormon converts in Mexico and France, both political radicals, would scarcely recognize the arch-conservative twenty-first century Church.