Religion in Review section for December 12 issue. Scroll down to “A First Look at the Stars.”

I have twice been mistaken for a homeless person. Once was funny, the other devastating. Both happened in college. The first time, I was wandering from my dormitory to the Student Union for breakfast, when a pleasant middle-aged woman started chatting with me about the Boston area. After several minutes of gentle circumlocution that left me uncertain what she wanted, she revealed that she needed advice on where best to solicit donations (“panhandle”). I was so delighted that she had thought I was homeless and been such a pleasant companion on my walk, that I tried to take her out to breakfast (she was embarrassed despite my reassurances, so I brought her breakfast outside the Union).

The second experience was devastating. (more…)

Catching orthodoxers in what they saw as a logical trap, by the Nauvoo period Latter-day Saints were using the arguments of Trinitarianism to support frank polytheism. One Mormon physician explained to Henry Caswall the visiting Anglican, “‘we believe that the Father is god, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God; that makes three at least who are God, and no doubt there are a great many more.’”[1] (more…)

Death is a crucial test of a religious tradition. In the words of one sociologist, “the power of religion depends, in the last resort, upon the credibility of the banners it puts in the hands of men as they stand before death, or more accurately, as they walk, inevitably, toward it.” Mormonism has a long and rich relationship with death and its conquest, one that begins in many respects with the founding family of Mormonism. (more…)

Review of David F. Holland, Sacred Borders: Continuing Revelation and Canonical Restraint in Early America. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. 275pp. + index

Sacred Borders represents a rigorous and compelling consideration of traditions about the state of the biblical canon in American religion. For bookish Latter-day Saints, this volume will provide much-needed context for early Mormon beliefs about their open canon as well as a subtle and sympathetic view of both sides of the debate over the closed canon. While the style is highly accessible, given the complexity of the subject matter a reader may benefit from having digested a book like Brooks Holifield’s Theology in America (Yale 2005) or perhaps the survey by Jon Butler, Grant Wacker, and Randall Balmer, Religion in American Life (Oxford 2003). Many of Holland’s arguments will make more sense when the reader recognizes some of the actors, concepts, and traditions involved. Even so, I believe that Sacred Borders will be useful even to non-specialist audiences. I apologize that this review is as long as it is: the length of the review reflects the extensive insights of the book as well as the scope of the topic it treats. For expository clarity, I have divided the review into three sections. (more…)

The evangelistic emphasis of the Kirtland endowment persisted in its repetition at the 1837 anniversary of the church’s founding. Wilford Woodruff described his plans during that endowment to

be faithful in clearing my garments of the blood of Gentile & Jew” in order to “do honour to the HOLY Priesthood & the Annointing.[1]

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[1] WWJ 1:128

My dad was a troubled man. If he had lived in the time of Christ, I think he might have undergone an exorcism of the melancholy devil that short-circuited his attempts to be good and prevented his participation in meaningful relationships. Since he was born in the baby boom of the 1940s, he was instead diagnosed with manic depression and a personality disorder. We are all of us inclined to embellish in retrospect, to amplify faults in our cloudy memory—my father had moments of love and kindness that blessed the lives of the people around him. But his mind was broken, and his broken mind generally seemed to keep his soul hostage. (more…)

As a close friend has suffered a particularly difficult miscarriage recently, I want to pause from the usual vocations of life to express solidarity to and love for the many women who have similarly suffered. (more…)

“[T]his book is one of the most significant Mormon titles to come out in a while . . . an interesting and well-researched version of Mormon history . . . Brown’s work is a major accomplishment and an example of where Mormon historiography is headed.”

–Bryan Buchanan
Association for Mormon Letters

“in Brown’s ambitious reinterpretation of the oft-misunderstood faith that Smith established, victory over death emerges as a theological motif . . . . Careful research enables Brown to highlight the ways that mortal experience strained death-defying Mormon doctrines . . . readers . . . will have ever
more reason to consult Brown’s extended inquiry into [Mormonism’s] controversial affirmation of immortality.”

–Bryce Christensen
Booklist