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The Uchtdorf Persuasion
President Dieter F. Uchtdorf’s talk has sent a shock wave of sheer joy throughout the Latter-day Saint community, ranging from conservative housewives to liberal academics. One blogger used Park and...
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Plague: The Mormon Opposition to Pornography, 1850s-1966
Mormons have called it a plague, a cursing, a disease, and the surest sign that the modern world loves to gaze at Gomorrah. For several years, hardly a General conference, stake conference, or even...
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War – Mormon History Guy Show – Episode 1
In this pilot episode, Russell Stevenson and Kate Harline discuss the historical undergirdings for the Mormon position on war. Drawing on Mormon scripture and various episodes of Mormon armed...
View ArticleMormon History Fact of the Day: Brigham Young’s Thanksgiving
Brigham Young made Thanksgiving Day official in Utah Territory almost twelve years before Lincoln declared it to be a national holiday. Source:...
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A Lesson Plan on Official Declaration #2
President Spencer W. Kimball Purpose: To use Official Declaration #2 to show class members how the Lord continues to guide his Church through revelation. Preparation: 1. Scriptures On racial equality:...
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The White Element: Heber Meeks and the First Mormon Mission to Cuba
Rural Cuba, 1941 In summer 1947, Southern States Mission President Heber Meeks traveled to Cuba in order to determine whether Mormon missionary work should commence in the nation of Cuba. Meeks had an...
View ArticleReview of Elijah Abel: The Life and Times of a Black Priesthood Holder
Published in the summer edition of The Journal of Mormon History, this review offers my analysis of W. Kesler Jackson’s Elijah Abel: The Life and Times of a Black Priesthood Holder. Parenthetical...
View Article2013?! Wow. Ok.
In a recent conversation with Doug Fabrizio, I made the comment that the priesthood ban was a collaborative endeavor, with plenty of culpability to spread around throughout the various strata of the...
View ArticlePodcast #2: Race and the Priesthood
In this podcast, Kate Kelly Harline takes on the role of interviewer and discusses Russell Stevenson (author of Black Mormon: The Story of Elijah Ables and author of the forthcoming, For the Cause of...
View ArticleLet Not God Speak with Us: The Tragedy of Mormon Racism
The story of white Mormon racism gives me heartburn. It makes me sad, tragically so. And tragedies are only possible when there’s something–something big–to lose. As Rabbi Abraham Heschel observed,...
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Podcast #3 – History of Mormon Dance
In this podcast, Russell Stevenson and Kate Harline discuss an aspect of Mormon cultural art that is easy to overlook: dancing. Though seemingly recreational, Mormon dance in fact highlights deeper...
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Podcast #4: Mormons and the Environment
In this episode, Russell Stevenson and Kate Harline explore Mormonism’s fascinating interactions with the environment and environmentalist thought. Unlike many Christian denominations, Mormonism has a...
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Podcast #5 -The History of Homosexuality and Mormonism
In this special episode, Russell Stevenson and Brittney Nielson delve into one of the most controversial topics of our times: homosexuality. During the first half, they discuss the history of...
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Podcast #6: Mormonism and the Single Saint
In this podcast–recorded live at the Salt Lake City Public Library–Russell Stevenson hosts a panel discussion in which he along with three single Latter-day Saints (Ryan Fleming, Kylee Shields, and...
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Podcast #7: The First Vision
It is the foundational event of Mormonism–or at least that is what it became. Beginning in 1832, Joseph Smith began to publicly talk about a visionary experience he had in a grove of trees nearby his...
View ArticleWhen Mormon History Fails You
It’s time to ask the tough question: is Mormon history even helpful to the Ordain Women movement? Like Joanna Brooks has said, this cause isn’t one that burns deeply within my soul. If President...
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One Being or Two: A Guest Post by Dr. Steven Harper, LDS Church History...
The following post is a follow-up to the podcast conducted with Dr. Steven C. Harper on the First Vision. It addresses one of the most common–and central–concerns about the differences among the...
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Podcast #8: An Interview with Robert Millet
Dr. Robert Millet, a longstanding and widely-respected scholar of the Latter-day Saint tradition, joins us this podcast to discuss his new book, Restored and Restoring: The Unfolding Drama of the...
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Podcast #9: Ordain Women in Mormon History-An Interview with Chelsea Shields...
In this exciting episode, Russell Stevenson interviews Chelsea Shields Strayer, a member of Ordain Women’s Executive Board. We discuss the history of the Ordain Women movement in the broader context of...
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Podcast #10: An Interview with Alex Beam, Author of American Crucifixion
In this special Mormon History Guy/Rational Faiths joint podcast, Russell Stevenson interviews Alex Beam, the non-Latter-day Saint author of American Crucifixion: The Murder of Joseph Smith and the...
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Guest Post: A Review of Alex Beam’s Treatment of Polygamy by Brian Hales
For my interview with Alex Beam, click here. On June 5, 2014, I downloaded the Kindle version of Alex Beam’s American Crucifixion and reviewed Chapter 5, “Polygamy and Its Discontents.” I immediately...
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Podcast #11: Joseph Smith and Polygamy: An Interview with Brian Hales
In this important episode, Russell Stevenson sits down with historian Brian Hales, author of the three-volume series, Joseph Smith and Polygamy. We talk about the concept of “dynastic marriage,”...
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Podcast #12: Women of Faith–An Interview with Church Historian Brittany Chapman
In this timely interview, Russell Stevenson discusses the newest volume of the Deseret Book-published series, Women of Faith. As an edited volume of short biographies about LDS women from the...
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Reviewing Meet the Mormons
Meet the Mormons, a documentary/informercial produced by the LDS Church about six remarkable Mormons across the globe, shows Mormonism at its coolest. Would I see it over Guardians of the Galaxy?...
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Podcast #13: An Interview with J.B. Haws
For generations, Mormons have navigated the tumultuous waters of public opinion. Whether defending themselves against charges of racism or making charming advertisements about the importance of family,...
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Podcast #14: Transcending Death: Dr. Samuel M. Brown on Mormon Death Theology
In this podcast, I sit down with Dr. Samuel M. Brown, a medical doctor at the Intermountain Medical Center and a brilliant historian of death theology in Mormonism, focusing particularly on his book,...
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Podcast #15: Of One Heart and One Mind Fireside
On March 8, Russell Stevenson, along with Blacks in the Scriptures and Northstar, sponsored a special event devoted to discussing how the LGBT/SSA/transgender and African-American communities have...
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Why We Can Condemn the Priesthood Restriction While Keeping Our Recommends
Today, the always-thoughtful Jana Riess posted a short piece criticizing commentators who continue to defend the priesthood restriction on peoples of African descent. These critics suppose that by...
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Was Elijah Able[s] Ordained by Joseph Smith? A Response to W. Paul Reeve
Yesterday, W. Paul Reeve, author of Religion of a Different Color: Race and the Mormon Struggle for Whiteness (Oxford University Press, 2014) posted a short piece on By Common Consent about the...
View ArticleLetting the Gods Go?: A Review of Patrick Mason’s Planted: Belief and...
“The fate of our times is characterized by rationalization and intellectualization and, above all, by the disenchantment of the world.”–Max Weber, “Science as Vocation,” 1918. The world of Mormonism...
View ArticlePodcast #16: The Man Who Plays Elijah-An Interview with Danor Gerald
In this episode, I interview Danor Gerald, an African-American working actor in Utah commissioned to play the role of Elijah Able[s] in new official LDS Church productions. Given Ables’ position as one...
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A Family Home Evening Lesson on Martin Luther King Day
Full disclosure: I like Martin Luther King. This shouldn’t surprise most of us. Most of us in 2017 do. He had a vision for human rights that have since transcended the times, and I celebrate it. Dr....
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Mythbusters, Official Declaration #2 Edition
Samuel and Amanda Chambers. Booker T. Washington considered Samuel to be a “colored Brigham Young.” We don’t do an awesome job of discussing Official Declaration #2, even though it serves as the best...
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Teaching Official Declaration #2
For the Mormon Sunday School teachers out there, this one is for you. This is a follow-up to an earlier post: Mythbusters: Official Declaration #2 edition. Today, I taught the lesson on Official...
View ArticleLetter to a Chronic Plagiarizer
Dear Chronic Plagiarizer: Over the course of this semester, you have taken every opportunity to proactively avoid learning. Rather than dare to know something about the forces that shape our...
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Dieter F. Uchtdorf Cannot Save You
At times like this, the elixir of postmodernity is at its strongest: there is no history–only narratives. Hagiography (a narrative that paints its subject in a particularly effusive light, typically...
View ArticleTeaching about Cain and Race in LDS Gospel Doctrine
Lesson 5 on Cain and Abel is coming up, and the proverbial elephant in the room endures: what of the Curse of Cain? Mormons live in a new era when it comes to racial exegesis. Grandfather’s talking...
View ArticlePodcast #17: Joseph Smith and Religious Liberty with Dr. Spencer McBride
Is the Mormon emphasis on religious liberty rooted in anything other than the considerations of 21st-century America? Neither fully American, Christian, nor white, Mormons found themselves at the...
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Black Ham: Ham and Race in the Old Testament
We have covered Cain and “blackness,” probably more than it deserves. In this post, I will run through a quick and dirty discussion of Ham and “blackness.” This explanation has, hands down, no...
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We Know A Lot About the Origins of the Priesthood Ban
“We don’t know where/when the priesthood/temple ban originated.” As we gear up for the Big 40th in commemoration/celebration of the lifting of the priesthood ban, this line of thinking is an old...
View ArticleNot Everyone was As Racist as Brigham Young
“It was a racist time. What do you expect of him?” In this week’s series on Silly Things Many Mormons Say to Make Themselves Feel Better, we tackle the Everyone Was Doing It, in hopes that the haze of...
View ArticleI’m a Progressive, and I’m Here to Help: On Emotional Manipulation in the...
It’s been a strange day for race in Mormondom. Jonathan Streeter penned a faux apology for the temple/priesthood ban with the layout, design, and imagery that made a serious effort to mimick the...
View ArticleApproaching an Apology for Mormon Racism
Note: Lest anyone think that The Faux Blogger Who Shall Not Be Named deserves credit for this discussion, this post is an engagement with the introductions to both Black Mormon: The Story of Elijah...
View ArticleA One-Stop-Shop on the Origins/Implementation of the Mormon Priesthood...
This title is misleading. Some folks have asked for something quick and easy they can share as we approach the 40th-anniversary of peoples of African descent receiving full access to all the offices...
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What Other Nineteenth-century Western Churches Were Doing About Racial...
This will be a fairly sparse post, considering the aspirations of the topic. Brevity, after all, is the soul of Not Finding The Blogger to Be an Insufferably Long-Winded Hack. It is common for folks...
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Emma Smith and the Massachusetts Black Community: A Note
Photo Credit: Salt Lake Tribune Thanks to the excellent research of Mark Staker, we know of an interesting point of intersection between the Joseph Smith family and the Massachusetts free black...
View ArticleThree Ways The Be One Celebration Broke New Ground
Finally had the opportunity to watch the Be One celebration sponsored by the LDS Church in commemoration of the lifting of the priesthood/temple restrictions 40 years ago. You can watch the...
View ArticleCan White People Be African Studies Scholars?
Being an onye ocha (“white person”) strolling down the dirt roads of Enugu en route to the archives invites, well, attention. It’s a bit like the opening scene to Beauty and the Beast–but replace Bon...
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“Better to represent ourselves than to be represented by others”: Thoughts on...
This blog will be retaining the Mormon History Guy label, since I do not confine my discussions to the history of the Church ofJesus Christ of Latter-day Saints proper–and the topic of this blog falls...
View ArticleBreaking the Mirror: A Note on Prophetic Fallibility
My current meeting place looks less like a site for worship service and more like somewhere you go to for a shady deal. Poor lighting. Deteriorating walls. There’s even a rank odor that floats by on...
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