More than 120 men, women, and children perished in the slaughter. Massacre at Mountain Meadows offers the most thoroughly researched account of the massacre ever written. Drawn from documents previously not available to scholars and a careful re-reading of traditional sources, this gripping narrative offers fascinating new insight into why Mormons settlers in isolated southern Utah deceived the emigrant party with a promise of safety and then killed the adults and all but seventeen of the youngest children. The book sheds light on factors contributing to the tragic event, including the war hysteria that overcame the Mormons after President James Buchanan dispatched federal troops to Utah Territory to put down a supposed rebellion, the suspicion and conflicts that polarized the perpetrators and victims, and the reminders of attacks on Mormons in earlier settlements in Missouri and Illinois. It also analyzes the influence of Brigham Young's rhetoric and military strategy during the infamous "Utah War" and the role of local Mormon militia leaders in enticing Paiute Indians to join in the attack. Throughout the book, the authors paint finely drawn portraits of the key players in the drama, their backgrounds, personalities, and roles in the unfolding story of misunderstanding, misinformation, indecision, and personal vendettas. The Mountain Meadows Massacre stands as one of the darkest events in Mormon history. Neither a whitewash nor an exposé, Massacre at Mountain Meadows provides the clearest and most accurate account of a key event in American religious history.

    Though tragic, it is also a story of triumph that scarcely has an equal. It is one of history's great witnesses of the power of faith and sacrifice. Although this story is one of the most frequently told of all Mormon pioneer accounts, it is also among the least understood. This book provides the most comprehensive and accessible account of these pioneers' epic 1856 journey. In addition to painting a broad perspective of the trek, it includes dozens of personal stories from the pioneers themselves. Woven into the larger story of the journey west, these stories inspire, build faith, recount miracles, and reveal how these pioneers were able to endure such adversity. The book also includes chapters on the lives of many of these pioneers after the handcart trek. Immerse yourself in the challenges and miracles of this astounding odyssey as never before!

    Raised in a secular family but increasingly interested in the relevance of faith in our modern world, A.J. Jacobs decides to dive in headfirst and attempt to obey the Bible as literally as possible for one full year. He vows to follow the Ten Commandments. To be fruitful and multiply. To love his neighbor. But also to obey the hundreds of less publicized rules: to avoid wearing clothes made of mixed fibers; to play a ten-string harp; to stone adulterers.The resulting spiritual journey is at once funny and profound, reverent and irreverent, personal and universal and will make you see history's most influential book with new eyes.Jacobs's quest transforms his life even more radically than the year spent reading the entire "Encyclopedia Britannica" for "The Know-It-All." His beard grows so unruly that he is regularly mistaken for a member of ZZ Top. He immerses himself in prayer, tends sheep in the Israeli desert, battles idolatry, and tells the absolute truth in all situations - much to his wife's chagrin.Throughout the book, Jacobs also embeds himself in a cross-section of communities that take the Bible literally. He tours a Kentucky-based creationist museum and sings hymns with Pennsylvania Amish. He dances with Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn and does Scripture study with Jehovah's Witnesses. He discovers ancient biblical wisdom of startling relevance. And he wrestles with seemingly archaic rules that baffle the twenty-first-century brain.Jacobs's extraordinary undertaking yields unexpected epiphanies and challenges. A book that will charm readers both secular and religious, "The Year of Living Biblically" is part Cliff Notes to the Bible, part memoir, and part look into worlds unimaginable. Thou shalt not be able to put it down.

    Pastor Hagee reveals who they are, where they come from, and what they signify. Learn why Hagee believes that we are in the beginning stages of World War III, and how this will eventually take us to the Battle of Armageddon. Pastor Hagee vividly describes the key players that signify the King is coming!

    He trudged around the United States and England to gain converts for Mormonism, spoke in spiritual tongues, married more than fifty women, and eventually transformed a barren desert into his vision of the Kingdom of God. While previous accounts of his life have been distorted by hagiography or polemical expose, John Turner provides a fully realized portrait of a colossal figure in American religion, politics, and westward expansion.After the 1844 murder of Mormon founder Joseph Smith, Young gathered those Latter-day Saints who would follow him and led them over the Rocky Mountains. In Utah, he styled himself after the patriarchs, judges, and prophets of ancient Israel. As charismatic as he was autocratic, he was viewed by his followers as an indispensable protector and by his opponents as a theocratic, treasonous heretic.Under his fiery tutelage, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints defended plural marriage, restricted the place of African Americans within the church, fought the U.S. Army in 1857, and obstructed federal efforts to prosecute perpetrators of the Mountain Meadows Massacre. At the same time, Young's tenacity and faith brought tens of thousands of Mormons to the American West, imbued their everyday lives with sacred purpose, and sustained his church against adversity. Turner reveals the complexity of this spiritual prophet, whose commitment made a deep imprint on his church and the American Mountain West.

    Addresses such topics as learning how to know, love, and trust God; recognizing the purpose of this life; the importance of daily prayer and meditation; and service to mankind. The Divine Art of Living is a source of inspiration and encouragement towards developing a positive perspective on life.

    He has been hailed as a pioneer in helping ordinary Christians find God in their daily lives. Moved as a teenager by footprints of a barefoot Carmelite priest in the snow, Josemara felt called to greater generosity in the priesthood and in his struggles to build up Opus Dei during the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. This latest biography is the most extensively researched work on his family history, childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood. The reader benefits from an enormous wealth of details in extensive notes and appendices. Accompanying them are excerpts from his correspondence, spiritual writings and testimonials from dozens of friends and acquaintances. The remarkable story continues in volumes II and III.

    In the Bible we find that the Savior himself foretold such events. But we are also told that the Lord's followers will find refuge from the storm. How will that occr, and where will that happen?

    Elder Bednar discusses the importance of Christ’s character in accomplishing the Atonement, the difference between testimony and conversion, what moral agency means and why it is central to the plan of salvation, and the vital role of teachers.

    After a highly publicized and controversial exit from Mormonism, Lamborn intertwines the story of his awakening with psychological aspects of religious belief.

    According to Smith, Moroni told him of a buried stack of gold plates that were inscribed with a history of the Americas' ancient peoples, and which would restore the pure Gospel message as Jesus had delivered it to them. Thus began the unlikely career of the Book of Mormon, the founding text of the Mormon religion, and perhaps the most important sacred text ever to originate in the United States. Here Paul Gutjahr traces the life of this book as it has formed and fractured different strains of Mormonism and transformed religious expression around the world.Gutjahr looks at how the Book of Mormon emerged from the burned-over district of upstate New York, where revivalist preachers, missionaries, and spiritual entrepreneurs of every stripe vied for the loyalty of settlers desperate to scratch a living from the land. He examines how a book that has long been the subject of ridicule--Mark Twain called it "chloroform in print"--has more than 150 million copies in print in more than a hundred languages worldwide. Gutjahr shows how Smith's influential book launched one of the fastest growing new religions on the planet, and has featured in everything from comic books and action figures to feature-length films and an award-winning Broadway musical.

    The boy was beckoning me to join him on a voyage through the harrowing straits of memory. He was gambling that if we survived the passage, we might discover an ocean where the past would become the wind at our back rather than a driving gale to the nose of our boat. This book is the record of that voyage."When he was sixteen years old, Ian Morgan Cron was told about his father's clandestine work with the CIA. This astonishing revelation, coupled with his father's dark struggles with chronic alcoholism and depression, upended the world of a boy struggling to become a man. Decades later, as he faces his own personal demons, Ian realizes the only way to find peace is to voyage back through a painful childhood marked by extremes--privilege and poverty, violence and tenderness, truth and deceit--that he's spent years trying to escape.In this surprisingly funny and forgiving memoir, Ian reminds us that no matter how different the pieces may be, in the end we are all cut from the same cloth, stitched by faith into an exquisite quilt of grace.

    They may even have a point. But to build something so successful, so popular, so inescapable, you've got to have mighty strong foundations.Prior to 1992, the old First Division was England's premier prize. Its rich tapestry winds back to 1888 and the formation of the Football League. A grand century-long tradition in danger of being lost in the wake of Premier League year zero.No more! In The Title Scott Murray tells the lively, cherry-picked story of English football through the prism of the First Division. Rich with humour yet underpinned with solid research, this is a glorious meander across our national sport's varied terrain.With as much about Burnley, Wolves, West Brom and Portsmouth as the likes of Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester United, we learn the less well-known stories the sport has to tell, such as the plight of Glossop, the smallest club to ever play top-flight football, and final day drama involving Huddersfield and Cardiff that knocks Michael Thomas into a cocked hat. We bask in the managerial genius of Tom Watson, the bowler-hatted Victorian Mourinho; celebrate the joy of the Busby Babes; discover the shameless showmanship of George Allison; embark on righteous escapades with Hughie Gallacher; and meet some old favourites in Don Revie, Bill Shankly, Alex Ferguson and Brian Clough.At turns exciting, surprising, witty and bittersweet, The Title is a highly informed, fresh and affectionate love-letter to the English game, and a delight for any football fan.

    Provinces are in rebellion, while Emperor Nero struggles to maintain the remnants of his political power, as well as his last shreds of sanity. In the province of Hispania, the governor, Servius Sulpicius Galba, marches on Rome. In his despair, Nero commits suicide. Galba, the first Emperor of Rome from outside the Julio-Claudian Dynasty, is at first viewed as a liberator, yet he soon proves to be a merciless despot, alienating even those closest to him. A member of the imperial court, and former favorite of Nero, Marcus Salvius Otho seeks to become the childless Galba’s successor. When he is snubbed for another of the new emperor’s favorites, Otho decides to take the mantle of Caesar by force. At the same time, the governor of Germania, Aulus Vitellius, is proclaimed emperor by his legions, leading Rome into civil war. In the east, the empire’s fiercest general, Flavius Vespasian, has been embroiled in suppressing the rebellion in Judea over the last two years. With nearly one third of the entire Roman Army under his command, he wields formidable power. At first attempting to stay above the fray, and with the empire fracturing into various alliances, Rome’s most loyal soldier may soon be compelled to put an end to the Reign of the Tyrants.

     For most Pagans of any denomination, Yule is a high holy season. The ancient festival was a 12 daylong celebration beginning on the eve of the Winter Solstice (known to most Pagans as Yule) and ending at the new calendar year. This celebration was so important in ancient times that it was converted by the Christians to the 12 Days of Christmas. Many Pagans, especially those devoted to the Norse and Anglo Saxon Gods and Goddesses try to find some way to keep these 12 days, yet many are unsure exactly how to celebrate. Social media blows up in the weeks leading up to the Solstice with questions like: How do you celebrate? What do you do exactly? What activities, what rituals, what prayers and celebrations? For the past several years I have been working on this guide in an attempt to answer some of those questions for my own family and for others. This guide is a result of creating family traditions for this special and most sacred (not to mention FUN!) time of year. I put it all together into one little, handy and easy to follow guide, so that you and your family can celebrate the 12 Days of Yule together, with a little inspiration from what our family has been doing. Please enjoy!