The Mormon Question

The Mormon Question
Author: Sarah Barringer Gordon
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
Total Pages: 360
Release: 2002
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780807849873

From the Mormon Church's public announcement of its sanction of polygamy in 1852 until its formal decision to abandon the practice in 1890, people on both sides of the "Mormon question" debated central questions of constitutional law. Did principles of re

A Different God?

A Different God?
Author: Craig L. Foster
Publisher: Greg Kofford Books, Incorporated
Total Pages: 286
Release: 2008
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9781589581173

The Mormon Question

The Mormon Question
Author: Sarah Barringer Gordon
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
Total Pages: 354
Release: 2003-01-14
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0807875260

From the Mormon Church's public announcement of its sanction of polygamy in 1852 until its formal decision to abandon the practice in 1890, people on both sides of the "Mormon question" debated central questions of constitutional law. Did principles of religious freedom and local self-government protect Mormons' claim to a distinct, religiously based legal order? Or was polygamy, as its opponents claimed, a new form of slavery--this time for white women in Utah? And did constitutional principles dictate that democracy and true liberty were founded on separation of church and state? As Sarah Barringer Gordon shows, the answers to these questions finally yielded an apparent victory for antipolygamists in the late nineteenth century, but only after decades of argument, litigation, and open conflict. Victory came at a price; as attention and national resources poured into Utah in the late 1870s and 1880s, antipolygamists turned more and more to coercion and punishment in the name of freedom. They also left a legacy in constitutional law and political theory that still governs our treatment of religious life: Americans are free to believe, but they may well not be free to act on their beliefs.

Questions to Ask Your Mormon Friend

Questions to Ask Your Mormon Friend
Author: Bill McKeever
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 1994
Genre: Mormon Church
ISBN: 9781556614552

Bill McKeever and Eric Johnson have compiled fifteen questions that Christians can ask Latter-Day Saints to help them seriously examine their faith.

The Polygamy Question

The Polygamy Question
Author: Janet Bennion
Publisher: University Press of Colorado
Total Pages: 269
Release: 2016-03-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0874219973

The practice of polygamy occupies a unique place in North American history and has had a profound effect on its legal and social development. The Polygamy Question explores the ways in which indigenous and immigrant polygamy have shaped the lives of individuals, communities, and the broader societies that have engaged with it. The book also considers how polygamy challenges our traditional notions of gender and marriage and how it might be effectively regulated to comport with contemporary notions of justice. The contributors to this volume—scholars of law, anthropology, sociology, political science, economics, and religious studies—disentangle diverse forms of polygamy and polyamory practiced among a range of religious and national backgrounds including Mormon and Muslim. They chart the harms and benefits these models have on practicing women, children, and men, whether they are independent families or members of coherent religious groups. Contributors also address the complexities of evaluating this form of marriage and the ethical and legal issues surrounding regulation of the practice, including the pros and cons of legalization. Plural marriage is the next frontier of North American marriage law and possibly the next civil rights battlefield. Students and scholars interested in polygamy, marriage, and family will find much of interest in The Polygamy Question. Contributors include Kerry Abrams, Martha Bailey, Lori Beaman, Janet Bennion, Jonathan Cowden, Shoshana Grossbard, Melanie Heath, Debra Majeed, Rose McDermott, Sarah Song, and Maura Irene Strassberg.

One-Minute Answers to Anti-Mormon Questions

One-Minute Answers to Anti-Mormon Questions
Author: Stephen W. Gibson
Publisher: Horizon Publishers & Distributors
Total Pages: 208
Release: 2005-02
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780882907840

Criticisms of the LDS Church are frequently based on intentional misinterpretations of Mormon doctrine. This book provides useful clarifications and rebuttals of many of those misrepresented doctrinal and historical areas. It gives simple but authoritative answers to more than sixty often-asked questions posed by anti-Mormon detractors. The answers are direct and nonconfrontational, providing readers with a friendly, teaching way of responding to those who question them.

Bridges: Ministering to Those Who Question

Bridges: Ministering to Those Who Question
Author: David B. Ostler
Publisher: Greg Kofford Books
Total Pages: 229
Release: 2022-04-05
Genre: Religion
ISBN:

Second Edition, with a new chapter on ministering to and within mixed-faith marriages and families. With the advancement of the internet, changing worldviews, and the rising generation of millennials, Latter-day Saints today face unique challenges to faith on an unprecedented scale. Unlike most books written to help those struggling with their testimonies, Bridges: Ministering to Those Who Question is geared at helping local leaders and family members better understand the sources of these challenges and how to minister to those affected by them. This ministering is done through building bridges of love, empathy, and trust regardless of whether or not someone retains their belief or continues to participate. Author David B. Ostler, a former mission president, utilizes surveys with local leaders and disaffected members, research from social science and religious studies, and teachings from Church leaders to show how Latter-day Saints can work to better support those who have questions and create church environments where all can feel welcome.

A Foreign Kingdom

A Foreign Kingdom
Author: Christine Talbot
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2013-12-30
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0252095359

The years from 1852 to 1890 marked a controversial period in Mormonism, when the church's official embrace of polygamy put it at odds with wider American culture. In this study, Christine Talbot explores the controversial era, discussing how plural marriage generated decades of cultural and political conflict over competing definitions of legitimate marriage, family structure, and American identity. In particular, Talbot examines "the Mormon question" with attention to how it constructed ideas about American citizenship around the presumed separation of the public and private spheres. Contrary to the prevailing notion of man as political actor, woman as domestic keeper, and religious conscience as entirely private, Mormons enfranchised women and framed religious practice as a political act. The way Mormonism undermined the public/private divide led white, middle-class Americans to respond by attacking not just Mormon sexual and marital norms but also Mormons' very fitness as American citizens. Poised at the intersection of the history of the American West, Mormonism, and nineteenth-century culture and politics, this carefully researched exploration considers the ways in which Mormons and anti-Mormons both questioned and constructed ideas of the national body politic, citizenship, gender, the family, and American culture at large.

What Is Mormonism All About?

What Is Mormonism All About?
Author: W. Walker F. Johanson
Publisher: Macmillan
Total Pages: 244
Release: 2002-01-22
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780312289621

Organized in a simple and easy-to-read format, this book aims to answer dozens of common questions concerning the people, practices, history, and culture of the Mormon faith. Are Mormons Christians? What is the Book of Mormon? How does Mormonism contrast with the world's other religions? What exactly do today's Mormons believe? The book offers readers of all backgrounds an accessible and informative Q&A session that covers all facets of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Although sometimes misunderstood, Mormonism is the fastest growing religion in the world. Johanson's clear and concise volume shows us the ideas, beliefs, and rites behind this faith.

American Universities and the Birth of Modern Mormonism, 1867–1940

American Universities and the Birth of Modern Mormonism, 1867–1940
Author: Thomas W. Simpson
Publisher: UNC Press Books
Total Pages: 247
Release: 2016-08-26
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1469628643

In the closing decades of the nineteenth century, college-age Latter-day Saints began undertaking a remarkable intellectual pilgrimage to the nation's elite universities, including Harvard, Columbia, Michigan, Chicago, and Stanford. Thomas W. Simpson chronicles the academic migration of hundreds of LDS students from the 1860s through the late 1930s, when church authority J. Reuben Clark Jr., himself a product of the Columbia University Law School, gave a reactionary speech about young Mormons' search for intellectual cultivation. Clark's leadership helped to set conservative parameters that in large part came to characterize Mormon intellectual life. At the outset, Mormon women and men were purposefully dispatched to such universities to "gather the world's knowledge to Zion." Simpson, drawing on unpublished diaries, among other materials, shows how LDS students commonly described American universities as egalitarian spaces that fostered a personally transformative sense of freedom to explore provisional reconciliations of Mormon and American identities and religious and scientific perspectives. On campus, Simpson argues, Mormon separatism died and a new, modern Mormonism was born: a Mormonism at home in the United States but at odds with itself. Fierce battles among Mormon scholars and church leaders ensued over scientific thought, progressivism, and the historicity of Mormonism's sacred past. The scars and controversy, Simpson concludes, linger.