Excerpts of Scholar: Political name-calling goes against Mormonism by Peggy Fletcher Stack, The Salt Lake Tribune
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If Mormon politicians were living their religion, they wouldn't engage in name-calling against their opponents or verbally attack any officeholder, especially the commander in chief, a prominent LDS historian said this week.
"I sorrow to hear my fellow Latter-day Saints resort to the demeaning language that has degraded political discourse in our time," Bushman told a packed audience at the University of Utah's Union Building. "Should not Mormons, with their tradition of working together, lead the [vanguard] in these calls for moderate speech and collaboration? Should they not live their religion seven days a week by extending the respect they afford church leaders to other kinds of authority?"
'Brant A. Gardner's new book is a game changer-a paradigm-bending exercise which combines rigorous methodology with creativity in a historical analysis of the Book of Mormon translation story. Gardner amasses evidence from the historical record, the actual Book of Mormon manuscripts, and its text in order to "discover the most economical explanation for all aspects of the Book of Mormon"' ... ' I can't recommend "The Gift and Power" enough.' -- Blair Hodges
The most recent issue of the Journal of Mormon History ... Gary James Bergera's "Transgression in the LDS Community: The Cases of Albert Carrington, Richard R. Lyman, and Joseph F. Smith." Part 1, the case study of Albert Carrington, appears in this issue, with articles on the other two cases [Apostle Richard R. Lyman and Patriarch Joseph F. Smith] scheduled for fall 2011 and winter 2012 issues of the Journal of Mormon History.
Part 1 begins with a very brief overview of excommunication in Latter-day Saint practice, followed by a brief biography of Albert Carrington, a 19th century member of the Quorum of the Twelve, then a detailed report of the investigation, hearing, and excommunication for adultery, and Carrington's appeal for mercy and the Quorum's consideration of that appeal. The narrative is straightforward, explicit, and painful, and I recommend it for reading of almost all serious students of Mormon history
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Excerpt: LDS patriarch pens evolution book by Duane Jeffery, correspondent, Herald Extra
" and is available from Kofford Books (Salt Lake City) and the usual LDS book outlets. ...
, was originally indicted in 1992 but was a fugitive for almost 20 years before being arrested last year in Honduras. She had faced 14 counts, including murder, and could have faced life in prison.
to provide a critical list and analysis of the women whom Joseph married. It is not, however, an attempt to provide a statistical analysis of plural marriage, and its consideration of the operation of plural family life is much shorter than we find in the works of Kathryn Daynes and Jessie Embry. Rather, it essays more on the organizational aspects of the practice, the antecedent practices, and the opposition to the practice. It also focuses more on internal opposition rather than on outside political pressure, as found in Sarah Barringer Gordon's The Mormon Question.
The Essential Parley P. Pratt
(now online)
, NOM 
by Charles R. Harrell, published by Greg Kofford Books. ... 
How We Got the Book of Mormon
Stephen C. Taysom, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Cleveland State University and the editor of this impressive collection, declares in his introduction that this is the book he "would love to have had as a graduate student. That way, [he] could have simply thrust it wordlessly into the hands of those who expressed skepticism about the fitness of Mormonism as an object of serious academic study. Anyone who gives the essays in this book a thorough and fair reading will be left with no reservations on that score" (vii). Readers should not think of it as a "comprehensive archive," he says, but as "an introduction to the kind of fine scholarship that is flowering in the field."
Excerpts of 
camped out for the weekend in a purple tent she had set up in her Tennessee yard. For nine days after this adventure, she abstained from sex and even from touching her husband. She stayed home from church, and toted around a stadium seat cushion to avoid sitting directly on chairs outside her home. Evans' goal was to obey the Bible's commandments for menstruating women in Leviticus Chapters 15 to 18, a passage that takes a lot of shalls and shall nots to make a simple point: Women on their periods are untouchable.
," in which she is following all the Bible's instructions for women as precisely as possible for 12 months.
The calamity of September 11th, 2001 has cast a long shadow. Ten years later, many of us are still haunted by its terrible tragedy of lost lives and broken hearts. This week, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, along with Tom Brokaw, will pay its own homage to the unforgettable events of September 11, 2001.
There was, as many have noted, a remarkable surge of faith following the tragedy. People across the United States rediscovered the need for God and turned to Him for solace and understanding.
Sadly, it seems that much of that renewal of faith has waned in the years that have followed. Healing has come with time, but so has indifference.