I Did Not Know

First Vision ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 239-246
Author(s):  
Steven C. Harper
Keyword(s):  
Shared Memory ◽  
Effective Means ◽  
Information Age ◽  
Church Leaders ◽  
First Century ◽  
Latter Day Saints ◽  
Next Generation ◽  
Next Generation Internet ◽  
Origin Story ◽  
The Church

At the turn of the twenty-first century church leaders and educators took for granted that Latter-day Saints shared the memory of Smith’s vision as their origin story and that it would automatically be transmitted to the next generation. Internet-empowered selectors and relaters disrupted that memory, however, leading many to question both the vision and whether they could trust the church regarding it and other points of history. Though slow to respond to the information age, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints remained the most powerful selector and relater of memory elements, and began introducing diverse and effective means of complexifying and solidifying a shared memory of Smith’s first vision.

Pacific Apostle

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
David O. McKay
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Focal Point ◽  
Information Age ◽  
Church Leaders ◽  
Latter Day Saints ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The World ◽  
Global Presence ◽  
Fact Finding ◽  
The Church

The year-long fact-finding mission of Mormon apostle David O. McKay and his traveling companion Hugh J. Cannon to the colonies of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was one of the most significant moments of the twentieth century for Mormonism. Although the contemporary church has grown to become a global presence, the early decades of the last century found missionaries struggling to gain converts abroad. For the church’s leadership, it was a pioneering endeavor to visit, observe, and fellowship with the church’s expanding global constituency in the Pacific. Other general authorities had visited individual church missions at various times—especially across Europe. None, however, had ever circumnavigated the globe, using the Pacific as a focal point of travel. In today’s information age, where such visits occur almost weekly for many senior church leaders, the significance of such an expedition is easy to overlook. When McKay was called in October 1920, no one knew the tour would eventually form many of the most important initiatives he had undertaken when he became church president three decades later. McKay’s rich and vivid account of his and Cannon’s 61,646-mile around-the-world journey illustrates the roots of Mormonism’s globalization. His diary account is without doubt one of the more significant texts in the historical cannon of global Mormon studies.

Aftermath

2021 ◽  
pp. 199-206
Author(s):  
Spencer W. McBride
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
The United States ◽  
Church Leaders ◽  
Latter Day Saints ◽  
Decision To Leave ◽  
Joseph Smith ◽  
The Church

This chapter describes the aftermath of the assassination of Joseph Smith. This aftermath includes mourning and a funeral in Nauvoo, debates over who should succeed Smith as the president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who the Mormons should vote for in the election, and the decision to leave the United States altogether. The Mormons were contemplating leaving the United States before Smith’s murder, but the violent act seemed to make this departure the only way forward in the minds of many church leaders. They had come to realize that without significant reform, the United States was incapable of protecting them. This chapter also considers the result of the presidential election of 1844 and what became of each of the candidates in the years that followed.

The Death and Resurrection of “the Homosexual”

2020 ◽  
pp. 175-210
Author(s):  
Taylor G. Petrey
Keyword(s):  
Religious Freedom ◽  
The United States ◽  
Family Values ◽  
Church Leaders ◽  
First Century ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Political Transitions ◽  
New Policies ◽  
The Church

This final chapter traces the intertwined theological, linguistic, psychological, and political transitions LDS leaders instituted in the first two decades of the twenty-first century. Church leaders adopted new terms like “same-sex attraction,” and eventually returned to the terms “gay,” “lesbian,” and “homosexual” as acceptable. The Church also introduced new teachings about homosexuality in the afterlife and new policies for transgender folks. As same-sex marriage was legalized in the United States, church leaders increasingly shifted away from “family values” to “religious freedom” to frame their opposition.

Twentieth- and Twenty-First-Century Apocalyptic Trajectories

2020 ◽  
pp. 217-270
Author(s):  
Christopher James Blythe
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Church Leaders ◽  
First Century ◽  
Latter Day Saints ◽  
The Face ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Final Group

This chapter documents the fracturing of end-of-world belief among Latter-day Saints in the twentieth century. Church leaders re-envisioned apocalypticism as a “moderate millenarianism.” At the same time, Mormon fundamentalists—deemed heretics by many church leaders—deployed apocalypticism to challenge the processes of Americanization, adding the church’s own apostasy as a distinctive part of their last days chronology. Finally, radical apocalypticism continued to find resonance with a contingent of committed Latter-day Saints. This chapter wrestles with how this final group has been able to negotiate their apocalyptic sentiments and LDS affiliation even in the face of continual criticism. Most importantly, it is in this chapter that the author demonstrates how apocalyptic ideas of any variety continued to be perpetuated in private and family circles.

scholarly journals Future-Day Saints: Abrahamic Astronomy, Anthropological Futures, and Speculative Religion

Religions ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (11) ◽  
pp. 612
Author(s):  
Jon Bialecki
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Outer Space ◽  
Speculative Fiction ◽  
Church Leaders ◽  
Latter Day Saints ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Church

In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, there is an intense interest in creating “speculative fiction”, including speculative fiction about outer space. This article ties this interest to a broader tradition of “speculative religion” by discussing the Mormon Transhumanist Association. An interest in outer space is linked to nineteenth and twentieth-century speculation by Mormon intellectuals and Church leaders regarding “Abrahamic Astronomy”. The article suggests that there is a Mormon view of the future as informed by a fractal or recursive past that social science in general, and anthropology in particular, could use in “thinking the future”.

scholarly journals Transformerende riglyne vir die kerk uit Lukas 14: Mense is belangriker as reels en grense

1997 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Piet Van Staden
Keyword(s):  
Social Behaviour ◽  
Personality Type ◽  
Church Leaders ◽  
First Century ◽  
Western World ◽  
Contemporary Society ◽  
Mediterranean Culture ◽  
The Future ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The Church

Transformative guidelines for the church from Luke 14:People are more important than rules and boundaries. It has been shown by scholars that Mediterranean culture of the first century exhibits certain distinctive characteristics in personality type and in concomitant social behaviour. Generally speaking, Mediterranean people can be described as of the interdependent personality type as opposed to the independent type of the modem Western world. The New Testament as a collection of documents reflects the values that prevailed at the time of writing. More importantly, each of these documents reflects an interpretive evaluation of past events for contemporary society, and at the same time intrinsically contains a vision for the future. In this article I wish to explore the implications of the Gospel of Luke's transformational guidelines for the church leaders of his day. His vision for the future of the church, I believe, can be presented in the form of the conviction: People are more important than rules and boundaries.

First Vision

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Harper
Keyword(s):  
Collective Memory ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Information Age ◽  
Memory Studies ◽  
Latter Day Saints ◽  
Joseph Smith ◽  
Privileged Position ◽  
The World ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Way

Joseph Smith, the founder of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, remembered that his first audible prayer, uttered in spring 1820, resulted in a vision of heavenly beings who forgave him and told him Christianity had gone astray. “The Mormon narrative,” according to a 2012 blog post, “seems to always start with a young boy who asked God a question one spring morning in 1820.” That is true if one qualifies the always, for it has not always been so. When and why and how did Joseph Smith’s “first vision,” as Latter-day Saints or “Mormons” know the event, become their seminal story? What challenges did it face along the way? What changes did it undergo as a result? Can it possibly hold its privileged position against the tides of doubt and disbelief, memory studies, and source criticism—all in the information age? First Vision tells how Joseph Smith—by remembering his past in various present contexts—opened the way for alternatives, how saints chose the collective memory they did, and what difference it has made for them and their critics. This book is the biography of a contested memory and how it was born, grew, changed the world, and was changed by it.

scholarly journals Dissent among Mormons in the 1980 Senatorial Election in Idaho

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-22
Author(s):  
Ronald L. Hatzenbuehler
Keyword(s):  
Church Leaders ◽  
The State ◽  
Electoral Behavior ◽  
Partisan Politics ◽  
Latter Day Saints ◽  
Documentary Evidence ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Positive Attitudes ◽  
Important Exception ◽  
The Church

The ecclesiastical organization of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons; or LDS; or Saints) is rigidly hierarchical, extending downward from the President. An important exception to the Church’s top-down approach lies in the area of partisan politics, where the Church as an organization dons the mantle of political neutrality. This official stance notwithstanding, politics does intrude itself into Church affairs, especially in hotly contested elections. The 1980 senatorial election in Idaho severely tested the Church’s commitment to political non-involvement. Church leaders extended accolades to incumbent Democratic Senator Frank Church for his support of causes favorable to the organization, but polling data and documentary evidence indicate that rank-and-file members dissented from their leaders’ positive attitudes, culminating in an important realignment in electoral behavior in the state.

Mormonism (or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Terryl Givens
Keyword(s):  
Jesus Christ ◽  
First Century ◽  
Latter Day Saints ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Book Of Mormon ◽  
The Face ◽  
Religious Sect ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
The Church

Mormonism, or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is America's most successful-and most misunderstood-home grown religion. The church today boasts more than 15 million members worldwide, a remarkable feat in the face of increasing secularity. The growing presence of Mormonism shows no signs of abating, as the makeup of its membership becomes progressively diverse. The heightened contemporary relevance and increasingly global membership of the Church solidifies Mormonism as a religious sect much deserving of awareness. Covering the origins, history, and modern challenges of the church, Mormonism: What Everyone Needs to Know offers readers a brief, authoritative guide to one of the fastest growing faith groups of the twenty-first century in a reader-friendly format, providing answers to questions such as: What circumstances gave rise to the birth of Mormonism? Why was Utah chosen as a place of refuge? Do you have to believe the Book of Mormon to be a Latter-day Saint? Why do women not hold the priesthood? How wealthy is the church and how much are top leaders paid? Written by a believer and the premier scholar of the Latter-day Saints faith, this remarkably readable introduction provides a sympathetic but unstinting account of one of the few religious traditions to maintain its vitality and growth in an era of widespread disaffiliation.

scholarly journals Kerkleiding in die een en twintigste eeu

1997 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Beukes
Keyword(s):  
Church Leadership ◽  
Church Leaders ◽  
First Century ◽  
Church Members ◽  
Post Modernism ◽  
New Thinking ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
The Church

Church guidance in the twenty-first century. The view of church members relating to the roll of the church, roll overloading and different roll expectations have caused new thinking in the church leadership with a view on the twenty first century. This new thinking is further extended (enlarged) by the nature of post-modernism and various systems of thought. The mission of the church, the priesthood of the laity and the above mentioned factors have resulted in a specific spirituality, knowledge and various skills in regard to the church leaders with a view on the twenty first century.

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