New Mormon Books

Every faith and denomination has an approach for balancing faith and reason. In Chapter Two of the book, Bushman briefly outlines the LDS approach. The context, of course, is how a faith or denomination defends its claim to have possession of religious truth or correct doctrine. If reason alone suffices, it’s not a religious approach. Faith or revelation alone might seem like the religious ideal, but faith or revelation always, at the very least, needs reason to make the system of doctrines hang together with a minimum of contradiction and to interpret the written texts. So what is the Mormon approach?

Reason and revelation in Mormonism
By Dave Banack
Mormon Inquiry on Beliefnet, July 17, 2009.
http://blog.beliefnet.com/mormoninquiry/2009/07/reason-and-revelation-in-mormo.html

In Under the Banner of Heaven, Jon Krakauer interweaves this true-crime 1984 murder story with the fascinating history of the Church of Latter Day Saints, showing the undercurrent of violence and bloodshed prevalent in the religion since the early days, a legacy that endures in the Mormon fundamentalist sect which the Lafferty brothers wholeheartedly embraced.

Book Review: Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith by Jon Krakauer
By Friend Mouse
Blogcritics Books, Jul 06, 2009.
http://blogcritics.org/books/article/book-review-under-the-banner-of1/

As each of us goes about our daily business at the office, store, and elsewhere, it is likely that we will rub shoulders with a Mormon at one time or another. Heck, sometimes they even show up right at the front door. During these encounters, the conversation can at times be confusing at best. While Christians and Mormons may use some of the same words, the theological meaning each side places on these words are often oceans apart. In order to be better prepared for these occasions, I’d encourage you to educate yourself on the history, theology, and practices of the Mormon Church.

Book Review – The Mormon Mirage by Latayne C. Scott
By Shaun Tabatt
Bible Geek Gone Wild, June 30, 2009.
http://biblegeekgonewild.com/?p=1778

In the first paragraph of Mormonism in Transition, Alexander recalls two problems that he confronted when he began work on the book. One was the torrent of sources - magazines, diaries, minutes, letters, and the like the period 1890 to 1930 presented him with. The second problem was less practical, and therefore, for our purposes, more interesting. Alexander notes that “there was no narrative base from which to began.” …overall, [he] concludes that the sheer “scope” of the period lacked conceptual clarity until he found some threads with which to pull it tight. And those threads are rationalization, organization, clarification, explication. This was the period, according to Alexander, in which the Church was standardized.

Revisiting: Mormonism in Transition: a history of the Latter-day Saints, 1890-1930
By: matt b.
Juvenile Instructor, June 18, 2009
http://www.juvenileinstructor.org/revisiting-mormonism-in-transition-a-history-of-the-latter-day-saints-1890-1930/

David Ebershoff takes two distinct narratives, adds faux-historical documents, letters, and Wikipedia entries, and comes up with a completely engrossing look at the history of polygamy in America. This is a case of a hugely ambitious idea - multiple narrators, different time periods, the blending of history and fiction - that absolutely gets it right. I was grabbed by the first page, and by the end of the 500+ page novel didn’t want it to end.

Review & Blog Tour - The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff
By Elizabeth
As Usual, I Need More Bookshelves, June 10, 2009
http://needmoreshelves.blogspot.com/2009/06/review-blog-tour-19th-wife-by-david.html

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Don’t miss this book. It’s easily one of the best I’ve read in a while. Krakauer seamlessly intertwines the history of the Mormon faith with the story of Ron and Dan Lafferty, two Mormon fundamentalists who killed their sister-in-law and baby niece. It’s a fascinating and an addicting story. I couldn’t put it down.

Summer reading suggestions
By Elizabeth Held
Schenectady NY Daily Gazette Blogs: Held Out for Comment, June 10, 2009
http://www.dailygazette.com/weblogs/held/2009/jun/10/0610_books/

In the 19th century, for many in the East Coast of the United States, Brigham Young may have been the image they saw when they thought of Mormonism, but the ideas they heard coming from the new religion came mostly from the Apostle Orson Pratt. That’s a conclusion reached by Top of Utah author Breck England, in his still-important biography of Pratt, The Life and Thought of Orson Pratt.

Political Surf on the life of Mormonism’s first intellectual
by Doug Gibson.
The Political Surf, Ogden Standard Examiner Blogs, Jun 19th, 2009.
http://blogs.standard.net/2009/06/19/political-surf-on-the-life-of-mormonisms-first-intellectual/

I’d like to recommend three books that I have found vital to understanding our faith in relation to the rest of Christianity.

Relating our faith to the rest of Christianity
By Orson Scott Card
Mormon Times, May. 28, 2009
http://mormontimes.com/mormon_voices/orson_scott_card/?id=7991

Like a train-wreck followed by a tornado followed by the Holocaust, the story of the Mormon Fundamentalist religion is confounding and nightmarish. Jon Krakauer focuses on the 1984 murder committed by Ron and Dan Lafferty of their brother’s wife and baby daughter. But to understand the case (or, to fully comprehend the amount of historic horror that backs it up), Krakauer unpacks the Mormon story from its inception.

Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith by Jon Krakauer
by Micah Ling
BookPunch, June 6, 2009
http://bookpunch.blogspot.com/2009/06/under-banner-of-heaven-story-of-violent.html

The introductory chapter raises the persistent and somewhat puzzling issue of the widely contrasting public views of Mormonism. Here’s how Bushman describes the positive side of the “assortment of contradictory images” that some people have of Mormonism.

Contrasting views of Mormonism
By Dave Banack
Mormon Inquiry on Beliefnet, June 5, 2009.
http://blog.beliefnet.com/mormoninquiry/2009/06/contrasting-views-of-mormonism.html