The Mormon Question


Book Description

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.




The Next Mormons


Book Description

American Millennials--the generation born in the 1980s and 1990s--have been leaving organized religion in unprecedented numbers. For a long time, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was an exception: nearly three-quarters of people who grew up Mormon stayed that way into adulthood. In The Next Mormons, Jana Riess demonstrates that things are starting to change. Drawing on a large-scale national study of four generations of current and former Mormons as well as dozens of in-depth personal interviews, Riess explores the religious beliefs and behaviors of young adult Mormons, finding that while their levels of belief remain strong, their institutional loyalties are less certain than their parents' and grandparents'. For a growing number of Millennials, the tensions between the Church's conservative ideals and their generation's commitment to individualism and pluralism prove too high, causing them to leave the faith-often experiencing deep personal anguish in the process. Those who remain within the fold are attempting to carefully balance the Church's strong emphasis on the traditional family with their generation's more inclusive definition that celebrates same-sex couples and women's equality. Mormon families are changing too. More Mormons are remaining single, parents are having fewer children, and more women are working outside the home than a generation ago. The Next Mormons offers a portrait of a generation navigating between traditional religion and a rapidly changing culture.




Joseph Smith and His First Vision


Book Description

Joseph Smith's First Vision of the Father and the Son in 1820 was the first of many visions the Prophet and early Church members experienced. This volume brings together some of the finest presentations from the 2020 BYU Church History Symposium honoring the bicentennial of the First Vision. Explore the influence of the First Vision, as well as teachings of other visionaries.




The Multicultural Dilemma


Book Description

This book considers the contemporary challenge of government in multicultural societies.




The Mormon Problem, the Nation's Dilemma


Book Description

Excerpt from The Mormon Problem, the Nation's Dilemma: A New Data, New Method, Involving Leading Questions of the Day The Mormon problem is related to some of the deeper prob lems of civilization, as well as to questions of the greatest practi cal moment; while it also offers some of the finest, truest lessons, in. The ethics of reform. But we have lived virtually under a reign of terror as regards this question. There are few persons who cannot tell how the Mormons should be dealt with, but not one in ten thousand has taken any pains to get at the truth; while the silence of a large class accustomed to think for them selves is one of the strangest features of the controversy. Noth ing will prove truer than that Mormonism is providential in being the means of emphazing reforms which the conceit or lethargy of an age is wont to leave to chance or fate. It is time this anti-mormon crusade were at an end, and a reform inauger ated whose life is the music of principle. The course hitherto pursued toward Utah, even though it were to end in the sup pression of polygamy, must partake more of the nature of defeat than of victory. The future must reveal the lack of principle or wisdom in that legislation which betrays no consciousness of the fact, that the difficulties of this Mormon problem are closely allied to questions with which we are confronted outside of Utah. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.




Stephen A. Douglas and the Dilemmas of Democratic Equality


Book Description

In this engaging new biography, James L. Huston explores the political life of Stephen A. Douglas and his definition and promotion of the ideal of democratic equality. By placing Douglas in the current historiographical controversies of the antebellum period, Huston updates our understanding of Douglas and the battles that he fought over the meaning democracy and its institutional framework in the building of the Democratic party, the struggle over slavery's extension into the West, the meaning of popular sovereignty and the legitimacy of peaceful secession from the Union.




The Mormon Problem, the Nation's Dilemma


Book Description

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.







Kingdom of Nauvoo: The Rise and Fall of a Religious Empire on the American Frontier


Book Description

Best Book Award • Mormon History Association A brilliant young historian excavates the brief life of a lost Mormon city, uncovering a “grand, underappreciated saga in American history” (Wall Street Journal). In Kingdom of Nauvoo, Benjamin E. Park draws on newly available sources to re-create the founding and destruction of the Mormon city of Nauvoo. On the banks of the Mississippi in Illinois, the early Mormons built a religious utopia, establishing their own army and writing their own constitution. For those offenses and others—including the introduction of polygamy, which was bitterly opposed by Emma Smith, the iron-willed first wife of Joseph Smith—the surrounding population violently ejected the Mormons, sending them on their flight to Utah. Throughout his absorbing chronicle, Park shows how the Mormons of Nauvoo were representative of their era, and in doing so elevates Mormon history into the American mainstream.