This summer the JI hopes to host a number of fascinating and informative guest bloggers; our first is Jacob Baker, who blogs normally here and who also eats a mean calzone.

Jacob is a PhD student in Philosophy of Religion and Theology at Claremont Graduate University. He has published essays on Mormon theology, philosophy, and history in Dialogue and Element: The Journal for the Society of Mormon Philosophy and Theology and is currently working as editor of a collection of essays by Mormon and non-Mormon scholars on Mormon philosophy and theology (somehow he’ll need to learn write and care about non-Mormon topics if he is ever to get a job). Though ridiculously ignorant of history and historiographical methodology, he feels honored to be a former Bushman fellow (2007) and sit in wonderment and awe at the feet of Matt B., Stan T., and David G. (Richard Bushman and Terryl Givens were pretty good too). Most importantly, he he is married to the former Amanda Nielson and has 3 children.

It was a productive summer for JI bloggers in 2008.

Enjoy these gems, remembering that there were many more great posts than these.

Be sure not to miss Posts You Might Have Missed January-February 2008 and March-May 2008.

(more…)

More great stuff, March and April 2008:

Posts You Might Have Missed From January-February 2008

Directions to the Steed Farm Please

Mormon Responses to Darwin, 1859-1933 (more…)

For those embroiled by the academic search for truth—who have suspended belief or lost faith or sought a new faith—the word is not doubt but hope, fierce and brave and full of anxious questions. A few poems today from beloved poetess Emma Lou Thayne. (more…)

I realized I started a “Posts You Might Have Missed” series that was supposed to cull some memorable posts from our first year, but I only got through December, 2007.  So, this is the first part of my atonement for dropping the ball on that, which will cover from January to February 2008.  Enjoy with us this stroll down memory lane. (more…)

                      Parley and Orson Pratt and Nineteenth-Century Mormon Thought

                                    Public Symposium at Brigham Young University

                                    Sponsored by the Mormon Scholars Foundation

                                                               July 2, 2009

                                     B092 of the Joseph F. Smith Building at BYU

In the tradition of Richard Bushman’s summer seminars on Joseph Smith and early Mormonism, eight graduate students, under the direction of Terryl Givens and Matthew Grow, have studied the writings of Orson and Parley Pratt and will be presenting their research at this symposium. The seminar has been hosted by the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship.

10:00 Terryl Givens, University of Richmond, Introduction

10:10 Ryan Tobler, University of Chicago, “Parley Pratt and Evolving Views of the American Republic in Early (more…)

I received the following in my email. I’ll post it since it’s a great documentary as well as being a great Mormon book store.

(more…)

Over the past week, four contributors to the Juvenile Instructor have toured, given tours, researched in, peered through the windows of, and otherwise participated in the opening of the new LDS Church History Library and Archives. Their experiences, ruminations, and ponderables are below.

(more…)

If readers will indulge me for a moment, I’d like to tell a story as preface.  My wife and I went to the Salt Lake temple this morning (we were originally going to Bountiful, but changed plans at the last moment) and coming out of there at about 10:40 am, I saw that people were entering the library. I thought perhaps there was a tour of some kind. My wife wasn’t able to go to the open house tours last week, so I thought it would be a great chance to get her over to see it. Well, to my surprise it was actually open for the dedication of the building and as it was a ticketed event (I’m showing my in-the-loopness here <grin>), we didn’t have much prospect for entering.  However, the nice brother at the door told us to hold on a few minutes as the service would be starting shortly. He said that if there was room, we could come in.  So there was and we did.  I couldn’t help but feel thankful that circumstances had presented themselves so that this could happen.  It was a great meeting. Here are my notes. As always, this is not an exact transcription, but my reformulation of handwritten notes:

(more…)

This post inaugurates a new series at the Juvenile Instructor, featuring brief conversations reassessing the significance of major works of Mormon history.
(more…)

For early Mormon writers, their growing materialist theology brought several theological problems for their rationalistic minds to solve. Placing God within a physical body that takes up physical place perceivably posed threats to God’s omnipotence, omniscience, and, especially, omnipresence. Thus, many were left to determine how a godhead composed of three personages could be everywhere at the same time and have power over everything in the universe. The answer, at least for the Pratt brothers, was a redefinition of the Holy Ghost. (more…)

Charles L. Cohen is Professor of History and Religious Studies at University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Director of the Lubar Institute for the Study of Abrahamic Religions. He is the author of God’s Caress: The Psychology of Puritan Religious Experience (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986) and the editor, with Paul S. Boyer, of Religion and the Culture of Print in Modern America (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2008). Dr. Cohen was the 2005 Tanner Lecturer at the annual meeting of the Mormon History Association, and his lecture was published as “The Construction of the Mormon People,” Journal of Mormon History 32 (2006): 25-64. He is also the author of “No Man Knows My Psychology: Fawn Brodie, Joseph Smith, and Psychoanalysis,” BYU Studies 44 (2005): 55-78. Additionally, he advised Spencer Fluhman’s 2006 PhD dissertation (”Anti-Mormonism and the Making of Religion in Antebellum America”), and is currently mentoring Jed Woodworth’s graduate studies at UW-Madison.

(more…)

Apropos of nothing: some numbers about millennial temples. To justify its place at JI, let’s call it an exercise in evaluating an agent’s perspective. (more…)

Jeanne Halgren Kilde is the Director of the Religious Studies program at the University of Minnesota, where she earned her PhD. She is the author of two immensely important books: When Church Became Theatre: The Transformation of Evangelical Architecture and Worship in Nineteenth-Century America, and more recently Sacred Power, Sacred Space: an introduction to Christian architecture and worship, and of several articles. The value of her work is only enhanced by her graciousness as a scholar and mentor. We’re immensely honored to have her offer her thoughts here on the recent BYU Sacred Space seminar, at which she participated.

Thank you to Matt for inviting me to contribute a few words to this blog. And thank you to everyone involved in the Sacred Space symposium, including the audience members. Everyone I met was enormously hospitable and generous.
(more…)

Rick Phillips, “Mormon Religiousness and the Enduring Significance of ‘Gathered’ Communities.” Phillips argued that having a dense population of Mormons contributes to religiousness and church activity and sees statistical evidence for decreased religousness among LDS in the Mormon Culture Region (Utah, Idaho, etc.) as LDS population density has decreased. Don’t miss notes from Massimo Introvigne on Mormonism and Twilight in Italy, Michael Homer on Oriana Fallaci and Anti-Mormonism, and Elder Robert S. Wood, and Iain Irving on Mormonism and Postmodernism/Modernism.

Utah has been characterized as the Mormon homeland where it dominates politics, etc. In July 2005, a Salt Lake Tribune article presented statistics that said the proportion of Utah’s citizens that were Mormon began declining in the 1980s. In a series following, the Tribune took time to follow up on this trend.

(more…)

Ian Irving, “Modernity, Postmodernity, and Mormonism.” Ian was present, but feeling ill, so Armand Mauss read his paper. Irving argues, in essence, that the LDS Church has modernist and postmodernist elements that keep it relevant to people of both philosophical persuasions. Don’t miss notes from Massimo Introvigne on Mormonism and Twilight in Italy, Michael Homer on Oriana Fallaci and Anti-Mormonism, and Elder Robert S. Wood.

Why has the LDS Church retained appeal through the current cultural shift? By appealing to modernist and postmodernist groups. (more…)

Elder Wood was the concluding speaker at the 2009 CESNUR conference. He delivered his address at a closing banquet at the Alta Club Saturday evening. Stay tuned for notes from eight more sessions from CESNUR. For now, don’t miss notes from Massimo Introvigne on Mormonism and Twilight in Italy and Michael Homer on Oriana Fallaci and Anti-Mormonism.

I am delighted to be with you, I wish I could have attended the whole conference, but I’ve been in Virginia, and I arrive d this morning at 4 am, the plane was delayed a bit, but I made it in time for this evening. I should tell Dan, speaking of the Angelo Moroni, I remember some years ago standing in line at the Washington D. C. Temple open house, a man and his young son who were clearly not members were in line in front of me. The son pointed at the statue and said, “Daddy, who is that?”  The dad said, that’s the Angel Marriott, son [laughter]. So next time I saw Bill Marriott, I said you’ll never believe who’s up there on top of the temple [laughter]. (more…)

Massimo Introvigne, “New/Old Mormon Family Values: Italian Reactions to Big Love and Twilight.”

As background for this paper, last year I gave a seminar paper on Italian media and the Romney campaign.  It appears in International Mormon Studies 2, published after the conference of the European Association of Mormon Studies.  (more…)

Michael Homer, “Oriana Fallaci, Mormonism and Anti-Mormonism.” Michael Homer spoke this morning. I will have notes from Massimo Introvegne’s lecture later today as well as some notes and reflections from yesterday’s panel on the Temple Lot Church.

A new entry in anti-Mormon historical fiction. Some of the most enduring 19^th century writing by famous authors of historical fiction includes Mormonism after the move to Utah and the announcement of polygamy.  The Mormon image was crafted by those who never visited Utah. (more…)

CESNUR, the Center for Studies on New Religions, is holding their international conference in Salt Lake City June 11-13, that’s tomorrow, Thursday, through Saturday, in the City Council building. There are several sessions on Mormonism. Here is a link to the programme: http://www.cesnur.org/2009/slc_prg.htm