Mormon Theology;

An early Christian text called the Revelation of the Magi presents itself as a history of the Magi before and after the birth of Jesus Christ. This text offers important insights into how the early Christian world may have conceptualized how other nations outside of Israel similarly looked forward to the advent of the Messiah, how they worshipped God, and how they knew who their Savior would be. The Book of Mormon similarly presents itself as an early Christian text, centered around two civilizations outside the land of Israel who knew who Jesus was, worshipped him, and prophesied of him. Both texts begin with similar premises, and each shares a remarkable level of consistency in matters of doctrine, narrative, and visions. These similarities resonate with belief in a historical Book of Mormon through its consistency with ancient Christian thought.

This study aims to examine the conditions for intergenerational religious socialization in families, with a focus on Vern Bengtson’s extensive longitudinal research. The analysis starts with the question: What elements of family dynamics facilitate the transmission of religious values to the next generation? Using qualitative content analysis, we examine Bengtson’s key work, Families and Faith, to reconstruct and interpret his views on religious socialization within families. The argument is structured around analyzing factors that are significant for religious transmission in families, such as emotional warmth between parents and children, parental tolerance of children’s religious choices, and the supportive role of grandparents. Bengtson’s studies reveal that emotional closeness between parents and children is crucial for effective religious transmission. High parental warmth and acceptance significantly increase the likelihood of children adopting their parents’ religious beliefs and practices.
Grandparents also play a vital role in reinforcing religious values, especially in families with strong intergenerational ties. Conversely, in families with divorced parents or mixed marriages, the likelihood of effective religious socialization decreases. The findings suggest that fostering emotional bonds within the family and allowing children to explore their religious beliefs can enhance the intergenerational transmission of faith. These insights are valuable for understanding religious dynamics in contemporary families and can guide religious education and family counseling strategies.

Equal representation of members of society remains a crucial determinant of how a thriving community integrates all members of its structure, including education and other sectors of development. If we are to acknowledge that education is the key to the development of society, then we doubly recognize that all members' experiential aspects of action must be considered. The paper addresses the deficiency in member representation that reduces the potential of society's holistic development by looking at the uplifting role women in leadership provide. Globally, women leaders have been at the frontline of progress in various sectors, including education. Kenya, a nation that recorded in its 2019 census that 3.5% of its population are degree holders, has only four universities out of the thirty-four national universities with women vicechancellors. In this respect, we acknowledge a need for a social paradigm shift that promotes gender equity in leadership within various sectors of society, and specifically for our discussion, in the education sector. This study uses three Biblical figures; Miriam, Deborah, and Mary, mother of Jesus from whom we can represent women in leadership and the consequential positive impact that they have in society. This study contextualizes the songs of Miriam, Deborah and Mary by using literary criticism, hermeneutical and poetic analysis of their songs in our discussion by so doing, they shed light on how they represent critical aspects of women's leadership in society.

How blessed we are to know what President Young taught us about our Heavenly Father— what kind of a being He is, what He is really like. How many people over the space of thousands of years have not even known that there is a Father in Heaven? How many individuals’ lives might have been different if they could only have known about our loving, merciful, and caring Heavenly Father? indeed, how blessed we are to have such teachings that center on the nature of our Father in Heaven. it is about God, our eternal Father, that i wish to speak today. The first article or principle in our declaration of faith as Latter-day Saints states, “we believe in God, the eternal Father” (Articles of Faith 1:1). i do not think it is accidental or coincidental that this statement comes first in our 13 Articles of Faith. The Prophet Joseph Smith said: “it is the first principle of the Gospel to know for a certainty the Character of God” (Teachings, 345). in other words, one of the foundation stones of t...

Chapter 9 from A Reason for Faith: In the spring of 1843, a group of men dug into a Native American mound near Kinderhook, Illinois - about seventy-five miles downriver from the Mormon settlement of Nauvoo, Illinois. Several feet into the mound, they found human bones and a set of six brass plates covered with inscriptions. These "Kinderhook plates" were soon brought to Nauvoo. The official History of the Church records that Joseph Smith examined the plates and translated from them. Many years later, two of the men present when the plates were uncovered revealed that the plates had been a hoax. The leader of the excavation had made the plates with some help from the village blacksmith and planted them in the mound just prior to their discovery. In 1980, the one surviving plate was examined and determined to be a modern forgery. This finding has been used to impugn Joseph Smith's credibility as a prophet and translator of ancient scripture. This polemical use of the incident ignores the historical context of Joseph Smith's personal interest in languages. A close investigation of the episode indicates that Smith's "translation" from the Kinderhook plates was an attempt at traditional translation. He had not attempted a translation with divine aid, as he had with the Book of Mormon and the Book of Abraham, and he did not lead others to believe he had. His incorrect translation of the Kinderhook plates was simply a human error.

Exploring the intersections of gender, sexuality, and kinship within the context of Latter-day Saint theology and history, this book contains elements that can be reinterpreted through a queer lens. Taylor Petrey reexamines and resignifies Mormon cosmology in the context of queer theory, offering a fresh perspective on divine relationships, gender fluidity, and the concept of kinship itself.
Petrey's work draws together queer studies and the academic study of religion in new ways, providing a nuanced understanding of how religious narratives and doctrines can be reimagined to include more diverse interpretations of identity and community.

These are all of the papers that have been published in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship. Click on a down arrow to see all of the articles in a volume. Or click on the volume title to see the formats that are available for each completed volume, including paperback and e-book. A complete volume is made available several weeks after all of its articles have been published on this site.

SEVERAL YEARS AGO, I presented a series of guest lectures on sexuality to undergraduate nursing classes at Brigham Young University's Salt Lake Center. My presentations were aimed at preparing students for their work with patients with severe neurological disabilities. During my first presentation, I was dismayed at the total lack of student interaction in a subject that in other settings usually met with lively discussion. I was even more surprised after the class by the number of students (all of them LDS) who wanted to talk privately about personal sexual matters. When it came to highly personal questions related to sexuality and Church policy, students were extremely anxious to talk privately with someone who shared their religious beliefs but who did not know them personally or was not in an ecclesiastical position over them. As I spoke with these students, I was struck by the uncertainty and, in some cases, guilt some were experiencing as they attempted to fit their sexua...

The concept that race has evolved rather than remaining static is not well understood, both outside and within The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In Religion of a Different Color, W. Paul Reeve shows how the concept of race evolved from painting Mormons as nonwhite in the 19th century to “too white” by the beginning of the 21st century. Review of W. Paul Reeve, Religion of a Different Color: Race and the Mormon Struggle for Whiteness (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015). 352 pp. $36.95 (hardcover), $24.95 (paperback). I December 2013 The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints published an online essay titled “Race and the Priesthood.”1 Who wrote the essay is unknown, but a note at the bottom states that the essay was written with the contributions of multiple scholars. It is not hard to understand why the essay was written; in the 40 years since the revelation on priesthood was received, the issue has not been addressed directly in a general conference talk. ...