Comments on: I Believe! The Origin of “Strange” Mormon Beliefs

By: OUPblog » Blog Archive » Mea Culpa

OUPblog » Blog Archive » Mea Culpa — Sat, 09 Jun 2012 12:30:41 +0000

[...] There is much that is beautiful in us, in our church, in our religion. We care for each other and for the stricken with prodigious efficiency and enthusiasm; we generally take our religion and its obligations seriously; we support a coherence of community that is difficult to rival in the modern world. We are preoccupied with Christ, even if many traditional Christians reject our theology as heresy. Recognizing and celebrating all these strengths, we best honor the truth of our religion and our church when we allow just criticism to help us to improve, continuously. Samuel Brown is Assistant Professor of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at the University of Utah/Intermountain Medical Center and the author of In Heaven as It Is on Earth: Joseph Smith and the Early Mormon Conquest of Death. He is also the translator of Aleksandr Men’s Son of Man. Read his previous post “I Believe! The Origin of ‘Strange’ Mormon Beliefs.” [...]

By: Dr Neeley

Dr Neeley — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 18:23:04 +0000

@The Tim Channel
If you look back at the causes of mormon exile, the main problem probably arose because the LDS church decide to consolidate all it’s members in one location; first Kirkland, then Missouri, and finally Nauvoo before SLC. Imagine living in an area and then suddenly you have a new group of people with a different world view than you move in by the THOUSANDS. They were worried about what Mormon judges, sheriffs, and elected officials would do to their way of life.

By: Joseph King

Joseph King — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 15:33:37 +0000

Just because their nonsense can be compared to other religion’s nonsense doesn’t make them any more legitimate.

By: Alice

Alice — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 14:22:35 +0000

Thank you for the credulous/incredulous catch. The editor has been ordered to re-read the dictionary.

By: The Tim Channel

The Tim Channel — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 08:01:24 +0000

Having read quite a bit on the Mormons (being born in Omaha near the Mormon
Trail) I would say the Mormon ‘problem’ isn’t one of weird ritual, belief or garments. They obviously made very bad neighbors. I can’t imagine how badly they must have acted to literally get run out of Missouri back in a time when your closest ‘neighbor’ was likely miles away!! At the end of the day, it’s exactly why they are now in the middle of nowhere. I don’t have any particular animus toward the Mormons. Their religion is as goofy or as sacred (your pick) as any other. I expect it is the practice of their religion that ran them afoul of more normative society. Having religious dictates against coffee, tea and soft drinks makes as much sense as a biblical ban on seafood (who follows that old crap anymore?). Enjoy.

By: Miranda

Miranda — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 02:37:24 +0000

This was very interesting, particularly in terms of the connections between specific Mormon beliefs and early modern thought. I’m not Mormon, but I’m interested in the diversity of religion.

One small quibble: I believe you mean “credulous,” rather than “incredulous.”

By: Rick

Rick — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 01:40:06 +0000

I always hear about he magical underwear when people talk about Mormons yet I never even thought to liken it to holy water.

By: William

William — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 00:39:54 +0000

“…wondering how on earth Mormons could be so incredulous.”

I think you meant to say ‘credulous’ (or perhaps incredible).

By: Jeff Johnson

Jeff Johnson — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 00:13:31 +0000

This last paragraph: “In historical context, some of the early Mormon beliefs that have persisted into portions of modern Mormonism are primarily concerned with puzzling through the meaning of life, our integration into the universe, the persistence and scope of human relationships. Though at times these beliefs bear a more antique flavor than many contemporary observers would favor, the Mormon tradition vigorously attempts to make sense of the world. In some respects these Mormon beliefs recall, in idiosyncratic specificity, the visceral stirrings of awe that strike many of us at some point when we stare into the night sky and wonder how we could possibly fit into the universe.”

basically describes how the beliefs of every religion came into being. There is nothing in this unique to Mormonism. It’s a good description of why we can regard religions as early attempts to do scientific inquiry in an absence of information and knowledge. Human story telling and imagination filled in where empirical knowledge of reality was lacking.

By: Samuel Brown

Samuel Brown — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 18:37:13 +0000

The top women’s historian is Laurel Thatcher Ulrich–http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurel_Thatcher_Ulrich is a reasonable place to start. She’s a Pullitzer-winning university professor at Harvard and internationally renowned for her work on social history, women’s history, and material history. Her forthcoming book, her first scholarly work on Mormonism per se, will be wonderful. Incidentally, Claudia Lauper Bushman is also a wonderful women’s historian of great skill and stature. Her Contemporary Mormonism (Rowman & Littlefield, 2008) is well-worth the read.

Thanks for your kind words.

By: Ben P

Ben P — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 18:08:10 +0000

Murdock: I believe he is referring to Laurel Thatcher Ulrich.

By: Murdock

Murdock — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 16:25:16 +0000

OK, I give up. I am Mormon, but admit that I do not know who is the top women’s historian in the nation. So, who is it? You had better not say Claudia Bushman.

I have way too many books to read but, I was so impressed by the quality of this blog post, that I am going to buy the book. I guess I have been successfully marketed.

By: Contextualizing early Mormon beliefs « Samuel M. Brown

Contextualizing early Mormon beliefs « Samuel M. Brown — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 15:38:22 +0000

[...] big problem of explaining death but also to make sense of early Mormonism for outsiders. In this post on the Oxford UP blog, I contextualize two of the beliefs currently circulating in the [...]