Author: Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Mormons
Languages : en
Pages : 1226
Book Description
Improvement Era
Author: The Improvement Era
Author: Improvement Era
Author: Sports in Zion
Author: Richard Ian KimballPublisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 0252091612
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 236
Book Description
If a religion cannot attract and instruct young people, it will struggle to survive, which is why recreational programs were second only to theological questions in the development of twentieth-century Mormonism. In this book, Richard Ian Kimball explores how Mormon leaders used recreational programs to ameliorate the problems of urbanization and industrialization and to inculcate morals and values in LDS youth. As well as promoting sports as a means of physical and spiritual excellence, Progressive Era Mormons established a variety of institutions such as the Deseret Gymnasium and camps for girls and boys, all designed to compete with more "worldly" attractions and to socialize adolescents into the faith. Kimball employs a wealth of source material including periodicals, diaries, journals, personal papers, and institutional records to illuminate this hitherto underexplored aspect of the LDS church. In addition to uncovering the historical roots of many Mormon institutions still visible today, Sports in Zion is a detailed look at the broader functions of recreation in society.
Out of Obscurity
Author: Patrick Q. MasonPublisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199358249
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 355
Book Description
In the years since 1945, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has grown rapidly in terms of both numbers and public prominence. Mormonism is no longer merely a home-grown American religion, confined to the Intermountain West; instead, it has captured the attention of political pundits, Broadway audiences, and prospective converts around the world. While most scholarship on Mormonism concerns its colorful but now well-known early history, the essays in this collection assess recent developments, such as the LDS Church's international growth and acculturation; its intersection with conservative politics in recent decades; its stances on same-sex marriage and the role of women; and its ongoing struggle to interpret its own tumultuous history. The scholars draw on a wide variety of Mormon voices as well as those of outsiders, from Latter-day Saints in Hyderabad, India, to "Mormon Mommy blogs," to evangelical "countercult" ministries.
Mormonism in Transition
Author: Thomas G. AlexanderPublisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 9780252065781
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 444
Book Description
Exceptionally Queer
Author: K. MohrmanPublisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 1452967520
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 383
Book Description
How perceptions of Mormonism from 1830 to the present reveal the exclusionary, racialized practices of the U.S. nation-state Are Mormons really so weird? Are they potentially queer? These questions occupy the heart of this powerful rethinking of Mormonism and its place in U.S. history, culture, and politics. K. Mohrman argues that Mormon peculiarity is not inherent to the Latter-day Saint faith tradition, as is often assumed, but rather a potent expression of U.S. exceptionalism. Exceptionally Queer scrutinizes the history of Mormonism starting with its inception in the early 1830s and continuing to the present. Drawing on a wide range of historical texts and moments—from nineteenth-century battles over Mormon plural marriage; to the LDS Church’s emphases on “individual responsibility” and “family values”; to mainstream media’s coverage of the LDS Church’s racist exclusion of Black priesthood holders, its Native assimilation programs, and vehement opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment; and to much more recent legal and cultural battles over same-sex marriage and on-screen Mormon polygamy—Exceptionally Queer evaluates how Mormonism has been used to motivate and rationalize the biased, exclusionary, and colonialist policies and practices of the U.S. nation-state. Mohrman explains that debates over Mormonism both drew on and shaped racial discourses and, in so doing, delineated the boundaries of whiteness and national belonging, largely through the consolidation of (hetero)normative ideas of sex, marriage, family, and economy. Ultimately, the author shows how discussions of Mormonism in this country have been and continue to be central to ideas of what it means to be American.
Knowing Brother Joseph Again
Author: Davis BittonPublisher: Greg Kofford Books
ISBN:
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 198
Book Description
“We live in an age of relativism. What is beautiful for one is not for another, what is good and moral for one is not for another, and what is true for one is not for another. Such an attitude, widespread in the world, condemns those who testify of truth... I shudder at the thought that my presentation here will lead to such soft relativism. I do not think that everything is up for grabs, with each person's opinion being equally valid. Just as Jesus was either Savior and Redeemer of the world or he was not, so Joseph Smith was either a true, authorized prophet of God or he was not. In recounting his visions, either he spoke the truth or he did not. Yet the fact remains that different people saw him in different ways. Even his followers emphasized different facets at different times. All human beings are complex and resist the reductionism that would dismiss them with a single adjective or noun. People like Joseph Smith are rich and complex... Different people saw him differently or focused on a different facet of his personality at different time. Inescapably, what they observed or found out about him was refracted through the lens of their own experience. Some of the different, flickering, not always compatible views are the subject of this book.” — Davis Bitton Davis Bitton's life was cut short before he could finish revisions on this collection of insightful essays about Joseph Smith, a prophet whom he also considers a hero in both classical terms and the context of nineteenth-century America. Knowing Brother Joseph Again explores images of Joseph Smith from both the devotion of believers and the hostility and skepticism of opponents.
Missionary Interests
Author: David GoldingPublisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 150177445X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 148
Book Description
In Missionary Interests, David Golding and Christopher Cannon Jones bring together works about Protestant and Mormon missionaries in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, charting new directions for the historical study of these zealous evangelists for their faith. Despite their sectarian differences, both groups of missionaries shared notions of dividing the world categorically along the lines of race, status, and relative exoticism, and both employed humanitarian outreach with designs to proselytize. American missionaries occupied liminal spaces: between proselytizer and proselytized, feminine and masculine, colonizer and colonized. Taken together, the chapters in Missionary Interests dismantle easy characterizations of missions and conversion and offer an overlooked juxtaposition between Mormon and Protestant missionary efforts in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Utah and the American Civil War
Author: Kenneth L. AlfordPublisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 0806159162
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 865
Book Description
When Fort Sumter was attacked in April 1861, hundreds of soldiers were stationed at the U.S. Army’s Camp Floyd, forty miles southwest of Salt Lake City. The camp, established in June 1858, was the nation’s largest military post. Utah and the American Civil War presents a wealth of primary sources pertaining to the territory’s participation in the Civil War—material that until now has mostly been scattered, incomplete, or difficult to locate. Organized and annotated for easy use, this rich mix of military orders, dispatches, letters, circulars, battle and skirmish reports, telegraph messages, command lists, and other correspondence shows how Utah’s wartime experience was shaped by a peculiar blend of geography, religion, and politics. Editor Kenneth L. Alford opens the collection with a year-by-year summary of important events in Utah Territory during the war, with special attention paid to the army’s recall from Utah in 1861, the Lot Smith Utah Cavalry Company’s 107-day military service, the Union army’s return in 1862, and relations between the military and Mormons. Readers will find accounts of an 1861 attempt to court-martial a Virginia-born commander for treason, battle reports from the January 1863 Bear River Massacre, documents from the army’s high command authorizing Governor James Doty to enlist additional Utah troops in October 1864, and evidence of Colonel Patrick Edward Connor’s personal biases against Native Americans and Mormons. A glossary of nineteenth-century phrases, military terms, and abbreviations, along with a detailed timeline of key historical events, places the records in historical context. Collected and published together for the first time, these records document the unique role Utah played in the Civil War and reveal the war’s influence, both subtle and overt, on the emerging state of Utah.