Mormon Theology;

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is known for its doctrine of exaltation: the belief that human beings can become gods who create and reign over their own worlds, even as God the Father has done with this world. The Church also teaches that God the Father is male and that gender is an essential and immutable characteristic of being. Though it intermittently proffers a “God the Mother” whose image women were created in, little has been officially declared of her other than that she exists. As such, while exaltation for men means the relative clarity of looking forward to becoming what God the Father is, exaltation for women is marked by considerable uncertainty.

While seldom examined directly in Mormon theological discourse, exaltation for women receives ancillary illumination when other theological areas of Mormonism are in focus, especially in regards to women and the priesthood, celestial marriage, temple ordinances, and Heavenly Mother. An examination of these four areas paints a clearer picture of what exaltation means for women, revealing that, while there are some promising areas of parity between women and men along with numerous broad affirmations of equality of the sexes, the specifics of liturgy, teaching, practice, and policy in these particular areas depict an androcentric exaltation in which women are lesser deities subordinated to their husbands.

Unitarian-Universalism and Mormonism differ in myriad ways.  Mormonism obviously has much further to go toward embracing an ecological paradigm.  There are some untapped resources in Mormonism which could be used to facilitate this shift, including Joseph Smith’s vitalist teachings and the Word of Wisdom advice to eat meat sparingly.  However, there are major obstacles as well, some of which may be insurmountable, including Mormonism’s inherent anthropocentrism and doctrines and teachings that promote unrestricted childbirth.  For their part, UUs still have work to do as well.  While UUs are perhaps the most environmentally concerned of any religious group, it is also true that they are among most concerned about every other social issue of the day.  The sheer number of worthy causes may contribute to diminishing the resources which are available to UUs to work against what is shaping up to be a global ecological catastrophe.

References

In 1819, a teenager named Joseph Smith found himself overwhelmed by the many different denominations of Protestantism vying for converts in New York state.  This lead Smith to wonder which of the various Christian denominations is truly Christianity. That is, Smith seemed to be concerned with the problem of heterodoxy. This problem is distinct from the problem of interreligious disagreement and is more fundamental, since it threatens the very content of religious faith.  This paper explores Smith's solution to this problem and argues that his solution fails to solve the problem.

Latter-day Saint theologians have taken to arguing that the Mormon view of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost (their preferred term for the Holy Spirit) is a form of "Social Trinitarianism." In this paper, I argue that Mormon theology is not a type of Trinitarianism at all because it is strongly anti-Nicene, has a radically different conception of God that is incompatible with any form of Christian Trinitarianism, and clearly affirms that the three Persons are three Gods. This paper was presented (in summary form) at the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society in San Antonio, Texas, on November 16, 2016.

The Church of Jesus Christ (Cutlerite) established its own singular identity among nineteenth century Mormon sects through the observance of Mormonism's temple rites. In performance and rhetoric, these ceremonies served as a link to the past before Joseph Smith's death and the subsequent fissuring of Mormonism's original incarnation in the mid-1840s. "The upper room work" acted as a means of legitimation - evoking a sense of authenticity for the movement when challenged by rival sects.

Since the foundation of Mormonism, popular perception of gender and sexuality has radically changed, but church doctrine on gender hasn't. This paper examines those changes and the church's proactive actions to maintain a gendered culture. It asks (but doesn't answer) whether the church can continue to provide emotional support and hope for current members, and continue to attract new members, in a post-gender society.

This paper is written from a sociological, feminist perspective. It analyzes the gendered cosmology of Mormon doctrine and the historical importance placed on the family. It examines how the church's commitment to traditional gender roles has influenced (and been influenced by) secular American society-- including political influence in the Equal Rights Amendment and Proposition 8. This paper finally addresses the impacts these gender roles have on the mental health of Latter Day Saint women, particularly those who identify as LGBT.

The author analyses the original christological concept propounded by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons), and compares it with the Christian theology. It turns out that the official Mormon teaching on Christ’s nature, origins, mission, resurrection and Parousia (thought of as inspired) is incompatible with the Christology of the traditional Christian denominations.
Despite J. Smith’s and his successors’ radical departure from the pronouncements of Christian denominations, the proposed text may encourage further research into the person of Jesus Christ and his role in – perhaps, not so much the official teaching of this new, para-Christian religion – but in the everyday life of Mormons, especially in their prayers, liturgy and communal relationships.

Other Mormon Histories, narratives in which formerly passive objects of history become active subjects, draw attention to the power relationships in the production of Mormon history. The Book of Mormon and traditional Mormon history imagine and then subjugate American Indians as Lamanites in a story of Christian triumphalism. Nahua authors, Margarito Bautista Valencia and Agricol Lozano Herrera, adopt the label of a Lamanite other and then domesticate Mormonism through narratives of Mexican peculiarity. Bautista's domestication of Mormon theology and his deployments of a Lamanite identity in the 1930s provoked hostility from Church leaders but that of Lozano fifty years later did not. Bautista's writings threatened power relations within the LDS Church because the other not only became a self, but the original subject also became a stigmatized object. Lozano did not stimatize Anglo-Americans in the same manner as Bautista. He moved them from subjects of their own accounts to romanticized objects of his account. While romanticizing Anglo-Americans Lozano internalized negative characterizations of Lamanites and used this imagery to warn Mexicans to avoid strident challenges to the Church hierarchy.

Chapter from Living Cosmology: Christian Responses to the Journey of the Universe, ed. Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim. Orbis: Maryknoll, New York, 2016, pp. 289-299. Covers LDS theology of creation and its relevance to contemporary cosmology and the environmental crisis.

The Aristotelian denial of the humanity of people with disabilities combined with Judeo-Christian charyt-turned-subjection to form the prevailing Western perspective toward this group. How does Latter-day Saint doctrine and practice reconcile the uniquely Mormon eternalist understanding of Work, Agency, and Sin embodied through people with disabilities? What response does mainstream Disability Studies and emerging Disability Theology offer an LDS audience, and what can our tradition contribute to the discussion?

Focusing on the first six months after Joseph Smith reportedly
obtained the gold plates, records left by Joseph’s family and friends demonstrate that he took significant steps to find someone other than himself who was able and willing to translate the characterson the plates. He began by drawing numerous characters on paper, perhaps attempting to compile an alphabet or list of characters. As part of his efforts to produce this list or alphabet, he sent Martin Harris to New York City in search of a translator, which suggests that Joseph Smith may not have envisioned himself, at least initially,
dictating the translation of the Book of Mormon simply by the power of God. Rather, Joseph Smith first instructed Harris to turn over the characters to the scrutiny of scholars of ancient languages, natural philosophy, and Native American studies. Of the potential translators with whom Harris met, Samuel Mitchill was likely the one in whom Harris placed the most hope.

This chapter sorts through the polarized historiography and
mixed contemporary accounts about Harris’s visit to New York. In the process, it challenges the traditional narrative that Joseph knew
from the beginning how he would translate and that he sent Martin
Harris to Charles Anthon to fulfill an Old Testament prophecy. By
building upon past scholarship and by taking a fresh look at wellknown sources in light of new discoveries,5 it offers an alternative approach in the face of contradictory claims by both contemporary accounts and later Mormon interpretations.

(Note: Academia's website would not allow me to upload the entire book.  To receive a complimentary .pdf of the book, send your request to:
    starlingrd -at- msn dot c0m)

This is not an academic paper, but a popular (at least I hope it will be popular) book for any thinking Christian (or even non-Christian) who is interested or at least curious about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 
    It was first self-published using Brentwood Press, under the title "Really Inside Mormonism: Confessions of a Mere Latter-day Christian".  This is the 2nd edition.
    As a faithful "Mormon" from Georgia who was raised in the "Bible Belt", worked in "Hollywood" for a number of years, produced professional videos for the LDS Church, worked as volunteer and as staff for Book of Mormon Central and Book of Mormon Archaeological Forum (BMAF), I believe I have made some unique contributions as well as useful compilations of other evidences on the ever-present question of whether Latter-day Saints are "Christians" (whatever that means for different individuals). 
    The central thesis of my book is not that Latter-day Saints are Evangelical Christians or Catholic Christians or even "orthodox" or "traditional" Christians, but that our teachings and doctrines and practices are consistent with those of the New Testament and pre-Nicene eras who were "first called Christians at Antioch".  I believe we are closer to what C.S. Lewis called "mere Christians", and I've tried to make a case for that belief in what I call "Latter-day Christianity".
      I offer it here in the spirit of 1 Peter 3:15 to "give an answer for the hope that is in me" with "meekness and respect", in a community where I can foster discussion and receive corrections if needed, but that hopefully they will be given in that same spirit of collegiality, and not contention.  The truth will make us free.
    I have tried to make my book substantive enough to be of interest to scholars, while still being accessible and entertaining to the general public.  I know that's a considerable challenge, and I invite comments as to what extent I've achieved that goal, and how it might be improved.

Unitarian-Universalism and Mormonism differ in myriad ways.  Mormonism obviously has much further to go toward embracing an ecological paradigm.  There are some untapped resources in Mormonism which could be used to facilitate this shift, including Joseph Smith’s vitalist teachings and the Word of Wisdom advice to eat meat sparingly.  However, there are major obstacles as well, some of which may be insurmountable, including Mormonism’s inherent anthropocentrism and doctrines and teachings that promote unrestricted childbirth.  For their part, UUs still have work to do as well.  While UUs are perhaps the most environmentally concerned of any religious group, it is also true that they are among most concerned about every other social issue of the day.  The sheer number of worthy causes may contribute to diminishing the resources which are available to UUs to work against what is shaping up to be a global ecological catastrophe.

The above text is a synthesis of views on the shape of the family and marriage, executed in the community of Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Starting from the basics of doctrine than are subsequently dealt with various characteristics of this religious group. There are primarily conjugality in the marriage, chastity, sexual purity, having children and a family life. Through the analysis of contemporary trends that influence the shape of the modern family, one can see specific changes taking place in the Mormon denomination. However, insightful insight into the issues undertaken allows us to illustrate a certain continuity of the family’s theology in the LDS Church.

As an offering in speculative theology, this paper re-considers the current normative understanding of a male only priesthood as presented in the Book of Mormon, Alma 13: 1-20 and proposes that Alma was presenting a more capacious model. Generally accepted as text supporting the establishment and practice of a male only priesthood (and a model of the Melchizedek priesthood) I argue that Alma’s message was meant to expand the role of priesthood in society, and to provide a way for an entire community to enter into a life of holiness.  The exegesis that this paper presents is not simply an attempt to bring women into the conversation, but to expand the conversation for the entire community – the community of all believers – men, women, and the rest of us.

The belief that the United States is a unique nation with a particular destiny has long been a staple of American rhetoric and this conception of American exceptionalism is often couched in religious discourse. Such discourses often highlight the American people or system of government, but the theology of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (commonly referred to as Mormons) provides a departure from these notions by rooting American exceptionalism in the land itself. This chapter explores how this emphasis on the American continent as a chosen land guides their views on the government, the Constitution, and the role of the church in both religious and political matters.

"This book is about how Joseph Smith established religious authority and a long-lasting, complex priesthood structure. The thesis of this book enlivens and builds upon three scholars’ major ideas about religious authority and Mormonism in antebellum America. In an effort to move the conversation toward politics and its relationship to religion, Porterfield argued that populism constrained that relationship. Though it is true that Mormonism grew, as Hatch shows, from the populist appeal of a lay priesthood and communal living in early Mormonism, Flake demonstrates that the Mormon priesthood was hierarchical. Left just outside the focus of the work of Hatch, Porterfield, and Flake is the role of Joseph Smith defining Mormon authority—a role that has not been fully examined within this context.

Smith’s authority grew in opposition to both civic and political authority being garnered by evangelicals and as a countertrend to the populist religious movements of the Second Great Awakening. In fact, Smith’s prophetic voice and scripture formed a hierarchical priesthood structure that eventually empowered every male member of his church to become a prophet, priest, and king, while they answered to each leader above them within the same structure. Thus this book argues that Smith’s prophetic voice became the arbiter of authority. It had the ultimate power to create and guide, while it was used to form a strong lay priesthood order in a stable hierarchical democracy devoid of the kind of political authority that evangelicals fostered."

Digital religion seems like a brand new phenomenon but it is actually best conceptualized by historically grounding these mediated practices within technological and cultural practices. Digital ethnographic observations are used to investigate the role of digital rituals in developing religious techno-faith surrounding Mormon social media usage. This paper seeks to apply a transmediated religious framework to understanding how digital religion works in the daily lives of religious congregations. Digital rituals are offered as a sub-category of media rituals, which serve as a lynchpin to inter-animate digital and face-to-face religious practice as techno-faith. Techno-faith mediates the central authority of the Mormon Church with the publication of individual, personal worship. Live-tweeting during Mormon General Conference, LDSTech, and the ‘And I'm a Mormon' campaign are the major sites of inquiry. Three major themes are identified in the data on Mormon social media: the role of ritual in digital ethnography, the role of publication and exposure within religious identity, and the role of techno-faith.

Latter-day Saint theologies of sexuality both reflect and reject broader cultural contexts and social values. In the nineteenth century, polygamy reflected a theory of sexuality as exceeding the limits that monogamy placed on it. Over the course of the twentieth century, Latter-day Saint theology adopted rigorous sexual norms, but eventually relaxed many of them in the wake of the sexual revolution in the 1960s. This shift caused Latter-day Saints to think of sexuality beyond reproduction, and to begin to discuss sexuality in terms of pleasure and spousal bonding. Commitment, not mere consent, was still the foundation of permissible sexual exchange. At the same time, reproduction remains a defining feature of the discourse of sexuality so as to delegitimize non-reproductive sex, such as masturbation and same-sex intimacy. The various overlapping and disjointed aspects of the tradition of LDS theology about sex leave open several places for ambiguity and disagreement.

This book traces the life and purpose of Joseph Smith’s seer stones from when they were found until today as they rest in the LDS presidency’s vault in Salt Lake City. It was on Deseret Book’s best sellers list and has gone through several printings in just two years. It has been reviewed numerous times and considered to be balanced scholarship for an LDS audience.
• Professor Benjamin Park of Sam Houston State wrote, “The LDS community needs this book. It is a model of how responsible and faithful scholarship should be written. Let’s hope it gets the audience it deserves.”
• Dr. Christopher Cannon Jones, who reviewed it for Journal of Book of Mormon Studies wrote, “MacKay and Frederick not only provide the single best historical overview of the function and role of seer stones in early Mormon history, but also offer a provocative (if not necessarily wholly convincing) reading of the significance of seer stones to Mormon theology.”
• It was nominated for the Best Book Award at JWHA.

Irenaeus, Joseph Smith, and God-Making Heresy seeks both to demonstrate the salience of “heresy” as a tool for analyzing instances of religious conflict far beyond the borders of traditional historical theology and to illuminate the apparent affinity for deification exhibited by some persecuted religious movements. To these ends, the book argues for a sociologically-informed redefinition of heresy as religiously-motivated opposition and applies the resulting concept to the historical cases of second-century Christians and nineteenth-century Mormons. Ultimately, Irenaeus, Joseph Smith, and God-Making Heresy is a careful application of the comparative method to two new religious movements, highlighting the social processes at work in their early doctrinal developments.

Readers of FAR have been treated to a number of posts over the past few months from members of the “Gendering Mormonism” class I taught this semester at Claremont Graduate University.  I was fairly apprehensive in offering the course.  For one, I’m not a scholar of gender, gender studies, feminist theory, feminist theology, queer studies, queer theology, or anything related—I’m a historian of American religion, and most of my training to that effect was about the white guys in American religion (most of whom, you’ll be shocked to learn, weren’t exactly feminists).

I can’t speak for anyone else, but from my perspective the course was an unqualified success.  The #1 reason for that:  the students (and, to be sure, our TA, FAR’s very own Caroline Kline).  Part of what I was apprehensive about was what the classroom climate would be.  It will come as no surprise to readers here that Mormonism has plenty of room for critique on gender issues, from the obvious to the more subtle, all of which I feared would be fodder for a semester-long rant against Mormon patriarchy, homophobia, and heteronormativity.  To be sure, there was plenty of that, but the conversation was richer, more nuanced, more analytical, and thus more faithful to the complexity and messiness of human experience.

One of the most powerful and frequently cited Mormon feminist blog posts, Kiskilili’s “The Trouble With Chicken Patriarchy” on Zelophehad’s Daughters discusses the strange brand of patriarchy Mormons contend with in the modern LDS Church. On the one hand, Mormons are told that men are to preside over their wives, and on the other hand, husbands and wives are told to act as equal partners with one another. As Kiskilili shows in her post, this embracing of two seemingly contradictory stances towards the issue of male headship leaves many Mormon feminists frustrated.