Results by title
255 books match the query 'Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon)' and 13 start with b
Baring Witness
36 Mormon Women Talk Candidly about Love, Sex, and MarriageEdited by Holly Welker
University of Illinois Press, 2016
Between Pulpit and Pew
The Supernatural World in Mormon History and FolkloreW. Paul Reeve and Michael Scott Van Wagenen
Utah State University Press, 2011
Cain wanders the frontier as a Bigfoot-like hairy beast and confronts an early Mormon apostle. An evil band of murderers from Mormon scripture, known as the Gadianton robbers, provides an excuse for the failure of a desert town. Stories of children raised from the dead with decayed bodies and damaged minds help draw boundaries between the proper spheres of human and divine action. Mormons who observe UFOs in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries find ways to explain them in relation to the church’s cosmology. The millenarian dimension of that belief system induces church members to invest in the Dream Mine, a hidden treasure that a would-be heir to Joseph Smith wraps in prophecy of the end times. A Utah version of Nessie haunts a large mountain lake. Non-Mormons attempt to discredit Joseph Smith with tales that he had tried and failed to walk on water.
Mormons gave distinctive meanings to supernatural legends and events, but their narratives incorporated motifs found in many cultures. Many such historical legends and beliefs found adherents down to the present. This collection employs folklore to illuminate the cultural and religious history of a people.
Between the Temple and the Tax Collector
The Intersection of Mormonism and the StateSamuel D. Brunson
University of Illinois Press, 2025
The founding and development of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints run parallel to the rise of the modern tax system and administrative state. Samuel D. Brunson looks at the relationships between the Church and various federal, state, local, and international tax regimes.
The church and its members engage with the state as taxpayers and as members of a faith exempt from taxes. As Brunson shows, LDS members and the Church have at various times enacted, enforced, and collected taxes while also challenging taxes in the courts and politics. Brunson delves into the ways LDS members used their status as taxpayers to affirm themselves as citizens and how outsiders have attacked the Church’s tax-exempt status to delegitimize it. Throughout, Brunson uses the daily interactions between the Latter-day Saints and taxation to explain important and inevitable holes in the wall between church and state.
Enlightening and informed, Between the Temple and the Tax Collector provides general readers and experts alike with a new perspective on a fundamental issue.
Black and Mormon
Edited by Newell G. Bringhurst and Darron T. Smith
University of Illinois Press, 2004
This challenging collection is required reading for anyone concerned with the history of racism, discrimination, and the Latter-day Saints.
Book of Abraham Apologetics
A Review and CritiqueDan Vogel
Signature Books, 2021
Brigham Young University
A House of FaithGary James Bergera
Signature Books, 1985
The purpose of Brigham Young University: A House of Faith is to outline the struggle the Mormon church has encountered in trying to blend academics and faith and in reconciling church standards with norms at other American universites, not to produce a comprehensive, chronological history of BYU. Instead, a selective approach has been taken–a thematic introduction to events, incidents, and statements, both published and private, in selected areas where tensions between scholarship and faith, freedom and regimentation have been the most pronounced. Examples include the development of a religious curriculum, the honor code, the controversy surrounding organic evolution, politics, student life, athletics, the arts, and faculty research. We hope that this approach will help readers appreciate the religious and intellectual dilemma facing educators and church leaders, as well as the fundamental sincerity of those involved in trying to establish academic rigor within religious parameters or to prevent moral deterioration when traditional restraints are left unchecked. Whatever the particular issue under discussion, an attempt has been made to keep the presentation balanced and impartial, yet sympathetic. While some readers may question the descriptive, largely noninterpretive approach, it is hoped that most will, through this approach, at least gain a greater understanding of the complex challenges involved in successfully integrating religion and academics.
We especially hope that Brigham Young University: A House of Faith will be of use to those who appreciate more than a cursory history of Mormonism–in this case, the Mormon concept of education–and who relish the rich fabric of pluralism. Brigham Young University has an engaging past, which, we believe, deserves more than a superficial treatment. Perhaps this book can be a springboard for more thorough investigations into other areas of the school’s past. There have been so many noteworthy accomplishments, discouraging defeats, moving religious experiences, humorous accounts of human foibles, and undocumented daily routine, that much remains in describing all that has gone into making the university founded more than a century ago by Brigham Young.
In presenting the sources cited in this work, we have followed the recommendations of the 1982 edition of The Chicago Manual of Style, with slight modifications. Readers will notice, for example, our incorporation of Chicago’s “down style” approach to capitalization. In order to facilitate future research, complete source citations are included as endnotes. To avoid a cumbersome and ultimately unworkable linking of each sentence with its corresponding source and bibliographic reference, we have instead referenced each paragraph and [p. xiii]cited sources in the endnotes section in the order in which material is presented in the paragraph indicated. Where the reader would otherwise encounter difficulty in identifying the specific source of a given piece of information, or where the source is considered especially important, it is provided in the text in an abbreviated form within parentheses.
Brigham Young's Homes
Colleen K. Whitley
Utah State University Press, 2003
Brigham Young, Colonizer of the American West
Diaries and Office Journals, 1832–1871George D. Smith
Signature Books, 2019
Thus, by 1877, some 400 Mormon settlements spanned the western frontier from Salt Lake City to outposts in Idaho, Nevada, Arizona, Wyoming, and California. As prophet of the LDS Church and governor of the proposed State of Deseret, Young led several campaigns for Utah statehood while defending polygamy and local sovereignty. His skillful and authoritarian leadership led historian Bernard de Voto to classify him as an “American genius,” responsible for turning Joseph Smith’s visions “into the seed of life.”
Young’s diaries and journals reveal a man dedicated to his church, defensive of his spiritual and temporal claims to authority, and determined to create a modern Zion within the Utah desert. Editor George D. Smith’s careful organization and annotation of Young’s personal writings provide insights into the mind of Mormonism’s dynamic church leader and frontier statesman.
Brigham Young, Colonizer of the American West
Diaries and Office Journals, 1832–1871: Volume 2George D. Smith
Signature Books, 2021
Thus, by 1877, some 400 Mormon settlements spanned the western frontier from Salt Lake City to outposts in Idaho, Nevada, Arizona, Wyoming, and California. As prophet of the LDS Church and governor of the proposed State of Deseret, Young led several campaigns for Utah statehood while defending polygamy and local sovereignty. His skillful and authoritarian leadership led historian Bernard de Voto to classify him as an “American genius,” responsible for turning Joseph Smith’s visions “into the seed of life.”
Young’s diaries and journals reveal a man dedicated to his church, defensive of his spiritual and temporal claims to authority, and determined to create a modern Zion within the Utah desert. Editor George D. Smith’s careful organization and annotation of Young’s personal writings provide insights into the mind of Mormonism’s dynamic church leader and frontier statesman.
Brigham Young, the Quorum of the Twelve, and the Latter-Day Saint Investigation of the Mountain Meadows Massacre
Arrington Lecture No. TwelveThomas G. Alexander
Utah State University Press, 2007
In this 12th volume of the Arrington Lecture Series, Thomas Alexander (Lemuel Redd Professor of Western American History, Emeritus, at Brigham Young University), asserts that Brigham Young and the LDS Church’s governing Quorum of Twelve made timely and diligent efforts to investigate the massacre and encouraged legal proceedings but were hindered by federal territorial officials and lied to by massacre participant John D. Lee, preventing Young from learning the full truth for many years.
Bright Lights in the Desert
The Latter-day Saints of Las VegasFred E Woods
University of Nevada Press, 2023
Bright Lights in the Desert explores the history of how members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Las Vegas have improved the regions’ neighborhoods, inspired educational institutions, brought integrity to the marketplace, and provided wholesome entertainment and cultural refinement. The LDS influence has helped shape the metropolitan city because of its members’ focus on family values and community service.
Woods discusses how, through their beliefs and work ethics, they have impacted the growth of the area from the time of their first efforts to establish a mission in 1855 through the present day. Bright Lights in the Desert reveals Las Vegas as more than just a tourist destination and shows the LDS community’s commitment to making it a place of deep religious faith and devotion to family.
Bruce R. McConkie
Apostle and Polemicist, 1915–1985Anderson, Devery S.
Signature Books, 2024
Although he served as an apostle in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for only twelve and a half years, Bruce R. McConkie’s twenty-six years’ service in the First Council of Seventy had already made him a household name within the church. Called to full-time church service at age thirty-one, McConkie quickly gained a reputation as a theologian and doctrinal teacher. He became a prolific writer, and his controversial book, Mormon Doctrine, remained a bestseller for decades. His writing style, dogmatic approach, and quickness to reprimand others he believed in error made him many enemies, while others endeared themselves to him because of those very traits.
McConkie the man was far more complex than the serious and focused general authority most church members saw and heard at the pulpit. Those who knew him best experienced his profound sense of humor. His passion for jogging, rock hounding, and jewelry making occupied much of his free time. Those who witnessed his final address delivered days before his death felt compassion toward him, no matter how they had always viewed him as a writer, speaker, or leader. Truly, to understand Bruce R. McConkie one must look closely at the entire picture.
Building a Global Zion
The Life and Vision of David O. McKayBrian Q. Cannon
Signature Books, 2025
Called as an apostle in 1906, David O. McKay devoted the remaining sixty-four years of his life to serving in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, including nineteen as church president. That lengthy tenure, combined with his warmth, extensive personal ministry, broadmindedness, deep spirituality, and unprecedented global travel made him one of the church’s most beloved and influential leaders of all time. When he died in 1970, roughly 60 percent of the church’s membership had known no other church president. Memories of McKay’s teachings and ministry remain a taproot for the spiritual convictions and values of many Latter-day Saints.
Brian Q. Cannon’s biography offers a fresh perspective on important features of McKay’s life, showing how his mission to Scotland, round-the-world tour as an apostle, and service as president of the European Mission shaped his global vision and priorities. Building a Global Zion illuminates previously underappreciated facets of McKay’s reach, including his crusades against alcohol consumption and political corruption, his long-term administration of missionary work, his spiritual impressions, his personnel decisions, and his mediation of interpersonal impasses in administrative settings. Cannon carefully reconstructs facets of McKay’s vast ministry to individuals, highlights distinctive themes of his teachings, and explores challenges that confronted McKay’s associates as his health and acuity waned.