Christian theology pays significant obeisance to the idea of God as omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, and omnific. Some Mormon thinkers have begun to endorse this idea, but there are many important reasons to avoid inconsistencies in these claims. David H. Bailey, Kim McCall
Event: Southwest Symposium 2003
COULD JOSEPH SMITH HAVE WRITTEN THE BOOK OF MORMON? Part III: The Case Against Automaticity
For several years, I’ve been examining various challenges to Joseph Smith’s claim that he translated the Book of Mormon through the gift and power of God. In this third installment, I examine the theory some naturalist critics have turned to as a more rational explanation: that it was the product of “automatic” or “spirit” writing, …
WILL THE REAL LAMANITES PLEASE STAND UP?
In a book just off the press, Armand Mauss traces the changing definitions and understandings of the term “Lamanite” across Mormon history and explains why such changes have occurred, not only with regard to Lamanites but also in reference to black Africans, Jews, Anglo-Ephraimites, and Israelites in general. These changes make for a fascinating study …
A BIOGRAPHER’S BURDEN: DECONSTRUCTING ROBERT REMINI’S JOSEPH SMITH AND WILL BAGLEY’S BRIGHAM YOUNG
Two recent books, Joseph Smith, by Robert V. Remini, and Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows, by Will Bagley, each present fresh, illuminating insights into their subjects. But each work also suffers from significan’t shortcomings that illuminate what I call “the biographer’s burden,” the responsibility to treat personalities, motivations, …
PEACE PROSPECTS IN THE MIDDLE EAST
Join two of Mormonism’s most experienced foreign policy analysts and dedicated peacemakers for a wide-ranging discussion of recent events in the Middle East, especially those related to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. What is happening today? How is the U.S.-led war with Iraq affecting the entire region? What are the biggest stumbling blocks to lasting peace? …
The Ghost of Elijah: Why Non-Mormons Do Geneology For Fun
Family history research is among the top five activities on the Internet. The majority of those doing genealogy are not Mormons. Where does the interest come from? Janet Brigham Rands
COPING IN ‘THE MERRY OLD LAND OF ODDS’
For many people, no matter if they are speaking geographically or culturally, “Mormonland,” is as strange and wonderful as Oz is to Dorothy: “Toto, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.” Join us for a great lunch and light-hearted “survivor’s guide” to our own land of “Odds” presented by Robert Kirby, one of Mormonism’s best-loved …
MORMONISM AND GENETICS
In the early days of the American eugenics movement, trying to improve the prospects of future generations was addressed in terms of eliminating the negative (“undesirable” heritable traits) and accentuating the positive (encouraging superior families). Mormonism attracted the interest of turn-of-the-previous-century theorists, for reasons of both theory and practice, with intriguing results. Now theorists are …
IS THERE A CONFLICT BETWEEN RELIGION AND SCIENCE?
Science and religion are often said to be irreconcilable. Are they? Can believers be intellectually responsible? Do they need to be? How strong, really, is the demand that religious faith submit to the authority of the empirical? Does that demand make science just another “god of power” for us to worship? Are there other ways …
THE JOURNAL OF CAROLINE BARNES CROSBY
Caroline Barnes Crosby’s journal ranks as one of the most descriptive and fascinating accounts of everyday Mormon life from Kirtland and Nauvoo to Salt Lake City in the 1830s and ‘40s. And it is by far the most detailed coverage of the Church in the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1850s, including her interactions …