Tag Archives: Joseph Smith
Wednesday’s Book Review: “Religious Seekers and the Advent of Mormonism”
Religious Seekers and the Advent of Mormonism. By Dan Vogel. Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1988. Pp. xiii, 237. I recently reread Dan Vogel’s 1988 book, Religious Seekers and the Advent of Mormonism. I am more convinced than ever that … Continue reading
Wednesday’s Book Review: “The Nauvoo City and High Council Minutes”
The Nauvoo City and High Council Minutes. Edited by John S. Dinger. Foreword by Morris A. Thurston. Signature Books, Salt Lake City, Utah, 2011. Preface, introduction, city and stake councilmen, appendices, index. Hardcover with dustjacket. ISBN: 978-1-56085-214-8. $49.95. Nauvoo, Illinois, in … Continue reading
An Iowa Sheriff Comments on the Mormons in Nauvoo, Illinois
In 1995 I published with John E. Hallwas a documentary history about the Mormon experience in Illinois in the 1840s. The book, Cultures in Conflict: A Documentary History of the Mormon War in Illinois (Utah State University Press). In this book … Continue reading
Wednesday’s Book Review: “More Wives Than One: Transformation of the Mormon Marriage System, 1840-1910″
More Wives Than One: Transformation of the Mormon Marriage System, 1840-1910. By Kathryn M. Daynes. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2001). 305 pp. $34.95. Plural marriage was by far Joseph Smith’s most controversial doctrine. The Mormon founder began the practice … Continue reading
The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints/Community of Christ and African American Members
The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (renamed the Community of Christ in 2000), one of the inheritors of the legacy of early Mormonism who developed a moderate theological position and coalesced as a recognizable group beginning … Continue reading
The Latter-day Saint Movement and the Concept of a “Chosen People”
Perhaps the single most important tenet of Joseph Smith Jr.’s (1805-1844) theology in founding the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) was the identification of his followers as a “latter-day Israel.” This identification drove much of the rest of … Continue reading
Was the United States Founded as a Christian Nation?
Why do some Americans insist that the United States was founded as a Christian nation? And what does that mean anyway? How does a Christian nation act? Why does one segment—a very vocal segment—of modern American society insists that the … Continue reading
Mormon Nauvoo and the Problem of Theft of Non-Mormon Property
Shortly after the Mormons arrived in Illinois in 1839 and founded the city of Nauvoo, and before much political antagonism had developed residents in some townships noted a significant increase in theft. Livestock, food, clothes, and other items were taken, … Continue reading
What Were the Origins of Mormon/Non-Mormon Conflict in 1840s Nauvoo?
The non-Mormons of Hancock County, Illinois, in the early 1840s probably disliked the Mormons from the first, in the same way that most Americans have generally disliked what they have viewed as religious fanaticism, but they were initially disposed toward toleration … Continue reading
Mormonism and the Founding of Nauvoo
During the bitter winter of 1838-1839 some 5,000 Latter-day Saints crossed the Mississippi River from Missouri and settled in western Illinois. Since the organization of the Mormon church almost ten years before, this group of religious pioneers, led by Joseph … Continue reading
