Category: Mormon Culture
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Legacy: A Distorted View of Mormon History
By Jerald and Sandra Tanner Legacy (1993) The Mormon Church’s official magazine, Ensign, printed the following in 1993: Imagine that you have just completed a tour of Temple Square in the heart of Salt Lake City, Utah. The guide suggests that you walk across the street and view Legacy, a new motion picture shown exclusively…
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Brigham Young Sermon: Tobacco
“We, as Latter-day Saints, care but little about tobacco; but, as “Mormons,” we use a vast quantity of it.” – Brigham Young
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Two Hours With Brigham Young
An interview with Brigham Young by the famous journalist, Horace Greeley Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Daily Tribune and famous for the phrase, “Go West, young man,” did just that, stopping in Salt Lake City for several days to “study” the Mormons while on his way to the west coast. This took the…
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Obstacles to Leaving Mormonism
Different assumptions often desensitize us to the perspective of LDS friends and family who are pondering. Take a moment to consider some of those before bulldozing into a conversation.
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The Struggle of Leaving Mormonism
It’s easy to forget that intellectual topics are not always the main challenge for people who are doubting their LDS faith. Hearing some of their stories can remind us of the complexity of their struggles.
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Dunn in the Name of God!
Confession by Emeritus General Authority of the Mormon Church Raises New Questions About the Origins of Mormonism By Jerald and Sandra Tanner In 1989, we found ourselves faced with a very serious decision with regard to a story that had been leaked to us concerning charges that Paul H. Dunn, who had served as a…
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Another Gospel?
The LDS teaching that full salvation involves our exaltation to godhood (just like Heavenly Father) is different from Jesus’ claim that salvation consists simply and wholly in accepting his sacrifice for us. Mormonism is indeed another gospel.
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Women in Mormon Theology
By Jerald and Sandra Tanner The recent excommunication of Sonia Johnson has caused national attention to be focused on the place of women in the Mormon Church. Mormon leaders have apparently been concerned for some time that this issue would finally come to a head. Just after President Spencer W. Kimball issued the revelation granting…
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Will Benson Be King?
Mormon Leader Strives for Political Power By Jerald and Sandra Tanner On February 24, 1980, the Salt Lake Tribune carried a full-page advertisement concerning our new book, The Changing World of Mormonism. In this ad we demonstrated that many important changes have been made in Mormon doctrine. Two days after this was published, Ezra Taft…
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The Thinking Has Been Done: The Mountain Meadows to Guyana
By Jerald and Sandra Tanner Since the recent massacre in Guyana there has been a great deal of discussion concerning what constitutes a cult and the process of brainwashing used by such a group. The Salt Lake Tribune for November 26, 1978 reported: The brainwashing, said the experts, was just as subtle as the charismatic…