Without question, Mormonism’s most influential scholar during the first half of the twentieth century was B. H. Roberts (1857–1933), historian, theologian, public intellectual, and member of the First Council of Seventy of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Outside of his official church duties and his passion for research and writing, Roberts was an active figure in partisan politics, having run for Congress twice, elected once, but due to opposition from both political parties over polygamy, was never seated. This biography by prize-winning historian John Sillito, the fullest and most scholarly assessment to date of the controversial church leader, examines Roberts’s entire life, with particular attention to the public figure who remains influential, even today. Born in England to LDS convert parents, Roberts served as a missionary and several years after his call as a general authority, at age sixty, began serving as a chaplain during World War I. From 1922–27 he presided over the church’s Eastern States Mission. Although a hero to many even today for his scholarly output—a feat still rare among those called to church leadership—modern assessments recognize antiquated views on race and women’s suffrage. Yet Roberts remains a deeply compelling figure worthy of study.

In Baring Witness, Holly Welker and thirty-six Mormon women write about devotion and love and luck, about the wonder of discovery, and about the journeys, both thorny and magical, to humor, grace, and contentment. They speak to a diversity of life experiences: what happens when one partner rejects Church teachings; marrying outside one's faith; the pain of divorce and widowhood; the horrors of spousal abuse; the hard journey from visions of an idealized marriage to the everyday truth; sexuality within Mormon marriage; how the pressure to find a husband shapes young women's actions and sense of self; and the ways Mormon belief and culture can influence second marriages and same-sex unions. The result is an unflinching look at the earthly realities of an institution central to Mormon life.

Like other Christian denominations, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) has been engaged in the battle for the Bible since challenges to biblical authority began to exert significant influence in America toward the end of the nineteenth century. Other believing communities have responded with various reevaluations of the biblical text. Latter-day Saints have experimented with similar approaches, often taking liberal positions on biblical authority and conservative positions on history and authorship. However, Latter-day Saints accept additional scripture and embrace a theology notably distinct from traditional Christianity. Hence, they relate to the Bible differently from other Christians, creating gaps with mainstream biblical studies. This volume bridges that gap.

From comparing the Book of Mormon to the Bible or the Dead Sea Scrolls, to Mormon feminists’ views on the Gospels, this volume takes a comprehensive and inclusive approach to understanding Bible scholarship’s role in Mormon history, exploring these differences for both scholars and students. A diverse group of contributors presents an accessible resource to mediate between Latter-day Saint traditions and the broader context of biblical history, literature, and scholarship. Each essay provides a synopsis of relevant major scholarly views and delivers new insights into varied crosscurrents of biblical studies.

Until very recently, black Latter-day Saints were excluded from priesthood office in the church. In this revealing study, Embry culls answers from both oral history interviews and mailed surveys to determine how the age-old stereotypes and differences are disappearing as African-Americans are being assimilated into the church.

Said to have been dictated by Joseph Smith as a translation of an ancient Egyptian scroll purchased in Kirtland, Ohio, in 1835, the Book of Abraham may be Mormonism’s most controversial scripture. Decades of impassioned discussion began when about a dozen fragments of Smith’s Egyptian papyri, including a facsimile from the Book of Abraham, were found in the New York Metropolitan Museum in 1966. The discovery solved a mystery about the origin of the Egyptian characters that appear in the various manuscript copies of the Book of Abraham from 1835, reproduced from one of the fragments. Some LDS scholars devised arguments to explain what seemed to be clear evidence of Smith’s inability to translate Egyptian. In this book, Dan Vogel not only highlights the problems with these apologetic arguments but explains the underlying source documents in revealing detail and clarity.

Brigham Young was a rough-hewn craftsman from New York whose impoverished and obscure life was electrified by the Mormon faith. He trudged around the United States and England to gain converts for Mormonism, spoke in spiritual tongues, married more than fifty women, and eventually transformed a barren desert into his vision of the Kingdom of God. While previous accounts of his life have been distorted by hagiography or polemical exposé, John Turner provides a fully realized portrait of a colossal figure in American religion, politics, and westward expansion.

After the 1844 murder of Mormon founder Joseph Smith, Young gathered those Latter-day Saints who would follow him and led them over the Rocky Mountains. In Utah, he styled himself after the patriarchs, judges, and prophets of ancient Israel. As charismatic as he was autocratic, he was viewed by his followers as an indispensable protector and by his opponents as a theocratic, treasonous heretic.

Under his fiery tutelage, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints defended plural marriage, restricted the place of African Americans within the church, fought the U.S. Army in 1857, and obstructed federal efforts to prosecute perpetrators of the Mountain Meadows Massacre. At the same time, Young's tenacity and faith brought tens of thousands of Mormons to the American West, imbued their everyday lives with sacred purpose, and sustained his church against adversity. Turner reveals the complexity of this spiritual prophet, whose commitment made a deep imprint on his church and the American Mountain West.

The purpose of Brigham Young University: A House of Faith is to outline the struggle the Mormon church has encountered in trying to blend academics and faith and in reconciling church standards with norms at other American universites, not to produce a comprehensive, chronological history of BYU. Instead, a selective approach has been taken–a thematic introduction to events, incidents, and statements, both published and private, in selected areas where tensions between scholarship and faith, freedom and regimentation have been the most pronounced. Examples include the development of a religious curriculum, the honor code, the controversy surrounding organic evolution, politics, student life, athletics, the arts, and faculty research. We hope that this approach will help readers appreciate the religious and intellectual dilemma facing educators and church leaders, as well as the fundamental sincerity of those involved in trying to establish academic rigor within religious parameters or to prevent moral deterioration when traditional restraints are left unchecked. Whatever the particular issue under discussion, an attempt has been made to keep the presentation balanced and impartial, yet sympathetic. While some readers may question the descriptive, largely noninterpretive approach, it is hoped that most will, through this approach, at least gain a greater understanding of the complex challenges involved in successfully integrating religion and academics.

We especially hope that Brigham Young University: A House of Faith will be of use to those who appreciate more than a cursory history of Mormonism–in this case, the Mormon concept of education–and who relish the rich fabric of pluralism. Brigham Young University has an engaging past, which, we believe, deserves more than a superficial treatment. Perhaps this book can be a springboard for more thorough investigations into other areas of the school’s past. There have been so many noteworthy accomplishments, discouraging defeats, moving religious experiences, humorous accounts of human foibles, and undocumented daily routine, that much remains in describing all that has gone into making the university founded more than a century ago by Brigham Young.

In presenting the sources cited in this work, we have followed the recommendations of the 1982 edition of The Chicago Manual of Style, with slight modifications. Readers will notice, for example, our incorporation of Chicago’s “down style” approach to capitalization. In order to facilitate future research, complete source citations are included as endnotes. To avoid a cumbersome and ultimately unworkable linking of each sentence with its corresponding source and bibliographic reference, we have instead referenced each paragraph and [p. xiii]cited sources in the endnotes section in the order in which material is presented in the paragraph indicated. Where the reader would otherwise encounter difficulty in identifying the specific source of a given piece of information, or where the source is considered especially important, it is provided in the text in an abbreviated form within parentheses.

Bright Lights in the Desert explores the history of how members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Las Vegas have improved the regions’ neighborhoods, inspired educational institutions, brought integrity to the marketplace, and provided wholesome entertainment and cultural refinement. The LDS influence has helped shape the metropolitan city because of its members’ focus on family values and community service.

Woods discusses how, through their beliefs and work ethics, they have impacted the growth of the area from the time of their first efforts to establish a mission in 1855 through the present day. Bright Lights in the Desert reveals Las Vegas as more than just a tourist destination and shows the LDS community’s commitment to making it a place of deep religious faith and devotion to family.