The Desert Blossoms as a Rose. Toward a Western Conservation Aesthetic

Poligrafi ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 39-61
Author(s):  
George Handley
Keyword(s):  
Jesus Christ ◽  
American West ◽  
Latter Day Saints ◽  
The West ◽  
Environmental Transformation ◽  
Mormon Church ◽  
The Church ◽  
Ecological Wisdom

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (aka The “Mormon” Church) offers what believers consider to be the restoration of an original Christianity. This essay explores the grounds for a Latter-day Saint restoration of a once-lost ecological wisdom that could make contemporary settlements in the American West more sustainable, especially where Latter-day Saints have established many communities. While Latter-day Saints and many other settlers of the West considered their work to be a kind of fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy to make the desert “blossom as a rose” through radical environmental transformation, this essay argues for a more aesthetic and ecologically sensitive response to the native qualities of the desert that need protection or even restoration.

A Snake in the Sugar

2020 ◽  
pp. 146-164
Keyword(s):  
Jesus Christ ◽  
American West ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Latter Day Saints ◽  
Beet Sugar ◽  
Political Dominance ◽  
Mormon Church ◽  
The Church

This chapter talks about the remarkable partnership and political alliance between the Mormon Church and the Sugar Trust that was intended for the domination of the beet sugar business of America. It mentions Judson Welliver, an essayist for Hampton's Magazine, who wrote the most startling revelation of the power of Mormonism and of the business intrigue and political inside workings of the Sugar Trust. The chapter looks into Welliver's article that outlines how the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was a dangerous political power. It describes the Mormon church's influence that forced senators from Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Oregon, and Nevada to uphold the sugar tariff. It describes the suspicion on how the Latter-day Saints had used beet sugar to gain complete economic and political dominance over the American West through the mechanism of the Utah-Idaho Sugar Company.

The Mormons in Mexico, 1875–1901

2020 ◽  
pp. 26-43
Author(s):  
Elisa Eastwood Pulido
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Hierarchical Control ◽  
The United States ◽  
Latter Day Saints ◽  
Central Plateau ◽  
Mormon Church ◽  
The Church

This chapter summarizes the origins of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Mexico, from the 1875 journey of the first missionaries to Mexico to the 1887 establishment of polygamous Mormon Colonies in the northern Mexican wilderness. The chapter argues that early converts to Mormonism in Mexico were attracted first to etiological narratives from Mormon scripture expounding on the chosen-ness of indigenous Americans and second to Mormon communalism. Early converts included Plotino Rhodakanaty, the father of Mexican anarchism, who sought to build a colony in collaboration with the Mormon Church. His aversion to hierarchical control soon separated him from Mormonism. Agrarian peasants from villages on Mexico’s Central Plateau found Mormon narratives regarding Mexico’s prophetic past and future compelling. In 1887, the Mormon Church turned its attention from proselytizing in order to build colonies in Mexico as safe havens for polygamists fleeing federal prosecution in the United States.

Church Discipline and the Regulation of Membership in the Mormon Church

2003 ◽  
Vol 7 (32) ◽  
pp. 31-46
Author(s):  
Frederick Mark Gedicks
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Latter Day Saints ◽  
Church Discipline ◽  
Mormon Church ◽  
The Church

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, more commonly known as the ‘LDS’ or ‘Mormon’ Church, regulates its membership by means of a system that recalls the Old Testament far more than the modern West. All important decisions relating to joining and leaving the church are invested in the inspired discretion of local priesthood authorities who are governed by general standards rather than rules that have the character of law.

Conflict with Euro-American Mormon Leadership, 1922–1935

2020 ◽  
pp. 84-107
Author(s):  
Elisa Eastwood Pulido
Keyword(s):  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Salt Lake ◽  
Salt Lake City ◽  
Latter Day Saints ◽  
Indigenous Leadership ◽  
Lake City ◽  
Mormon Church ◽  
Cristero Rebellion ◽  
The Church

This chapter discusses Margarito Bautista’s efforts as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Mexico from 1922 to 1924, his preaching of unconventional doctrines while there, the fracas that ensued after his return to Salt Lake City over the lack of indigenous leadership in the Mexican Branch, and Bautista’s subsequently diminished influence in the Mormon Church. It argues that Bautista’s meteoric rise through the ranks of Mormon leadership came to a halt as he became increasingly insistent that Mexicans should govern their own congregations. Bautista’s name disappeared from the records of the Mexican Branch at about the same time the company that had employed him prior to his mission went bankrupt. During this period, his nationalism grew as he read about the Cristero Rebellion in Mexico. By 1930, without influence in the Church and unemployed, Bautista took up his pen and began to write.

MARITAL FERTILITY AND INCOME: MODERATING EFFECTS OF THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS RELIGION IN UTAH

2012 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 239-248 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOSEPH B. STANFORD ◽  
KEN R. SMITH
Keyword(s):  
Jesus Christ ◽  
The United States ◽  
Latter Day Saints ◽  
Moderating Effects ◽  
Annual Household Income ◽  
Younger Age ◽  
Lds Church ◽  
Children Ever Born ◽  
Mormon Church ◽  
The Church

SummaryUtah has the highest total fertility of any state in the United States and also the highest proportion of population affiliated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the LDS or Mormon Church). Data were used from the 1996 Utah Health Status Survey to investigate how annual household income, education and affiliation with the LDS Church affect fertility (children ever born) for married women in Utah. Younger age and higher education were negatively correlated with fertility in the sample as a whole and among non-LDS respondents. Income was negatively associated with fertility among non-LDS respondents. However, income was positively correlated with fertility among LDS respondents. This association persisted when instrumental variables were used to address the potential simultaneous equations bias arising from the potential endogeneity of income and fertility. The LDS religion's pronatalist stance probably encourages childbearing among those with higher income.

Are Mormons Theists?

1996 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 357-370
Author(s):  
A. A. Howsepian
Keyword(s):  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Latter Day Saints ◽  
Christian Doctrine ◽  
Holy Ghost ◽  
Doctrine Of The Trinity ◽  
Mormon Church ◽  
The Universe ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Trinity

It is widely believed to be a fundamental tenet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (hereafter the LDS, or Mormon, Church) that a plurality of divine beings inhabits the universe. It has often been pointed out, for example, that according to Mormon doctrine Elohim (the Father), Jesus (the Son), and the Holy Ghost are three distinct Gods.1 The traditional Christian doctrine of the Trinity is, thereby, unambiguously rejected. In light of this, it has become commonplace among Christian apologists2 to infer

Creating Utopia

2020 ◽  
pp. 182-216
Author(s):  
Elisa Eastwood Pulido
Keyword(s):  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Latter Day Saints ◽  
Young Girls ◽  
The Third ◽  
History Of ◽  
Mormon Church ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
The Church

This chapter follows the history of Bautista’s polygamous utopia, Colonia Industrial/Nueva Jerusalén, from the purchase of property in 1942 to Bautista’s death in 1961. The chapter argues that after his excommunication from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon Church) and his expulsion from the Third Convention in 1937, Bautista’s vision of Mexican chosen-ness accompanied by the responsibility he felt to prepare Mexicans for their millennial duties, catapulted him into the role of a utopian founder. The colony’s establishment involved backbreaking labor and years of austere living. Bautista enforced rules to regulate communalism and to govern the acquisition and behavior of wives, often very young girls. The chapter includes a discussion of Bautista’s theological pillars: polygamy, communalism, and indigenous priesthood. He continued to send missionaries from his colony to proselytize, and he continued to publish tracts and pamphlets he authored until two years before his death in 1961.

Latter-day Saint Re-Interest in Nauvoo

2018 ◽  
pp. 50-75
Author(s):  
Scott C. Esplin
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
American West ◽  
Latter Day Saints ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
The Church

While the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints utilized the Smith family properties in Nauvoo, Illinois, their religious siblings in the American West, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormonism), maintained a fascination of their own with their former home. This chapter examines the Mormons’ slow return to the area in the early twentieth century, first as visitors to familial sites and later through the acquisition of significant properties, including the nearby Carthage Jail and the Nauvoo temple lot. It examines initial forays into commemoration, including cooperation with the Reorganized Church in the building of a memorial, but the conflict that eventually ensued over rival interpretations, especially as rumors circulated regarding the reconstruction of Nauvoo’s temple.

God (Sometimes) Loveth His Children

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 198-211
Author(s):  
Tessa Vaschel
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
The United States ◽  
Latter Day Saints ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Performative Writing ◽  
Same Sex Marriage ◽  
Conservative Christian ◽  
Mormon Church ◽  
The Church

One of the most staunchly conservative Christian sects in the United States, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, or the “Mormon Church” as it is colloquially known, has led the charge in opposition to same-sex marriage for more than 20 years. In this article I use the tools of performative writing and autoethnography to examine how Mormonism and queerness as identities collide and how changing acts result in a changed identity.

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