Equipping Saints • Engaging Culture • Examining Claims
EARLY MORMON PERSONALITIES — NINETEENTH INSTALLMENT Emma Smith, Loyalty, and the Limits of Faith ❦ ⬩ ❦ Introduction: A Woman on the Ice In February of 1839, a woman stepped onto the frozen surface of the Mississippi River with two small children clinging to her skirts, two more carried in her arms or strapped to…
EARLY MORMON PERSONALITIES — EIGHTEENTH INSTALLMENT Lucy Mack Smith’s Lifelong Search for Assurance ❝ ❦ ❞ A Voice on the Frozen Shore On a raw morning in early May of 1831, on the wind-scoured bank of Lake Erie, a company of weary religious refugees sat huddled and despairing. The ice had not yet broken on…
AI Colorized Photo: Joseph F. Smith, nephew of the founding prophet, and his family. Original black & white photo courtesy: Church History Library, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. A Theological and Historical Examination from a Traditional Christian Perspective ✦ ❧ ✦ I. A Faith That Cannot Look Away There is a particular…
EARLY MORMON PERSONALITIES — SEVENTEENTH INSTALLMENT William Clayton and the Records the Church Tried To Lock Away ❖ ❖ ❖ It was past one o’clock in the morning on Sunday, the twenty-third of June, 1844, when the knock came. William Clayton rose in the dark, dressed quickly, and made his way down to the Mississippi,…
Image: Google Gemini’s Nano Banana imagines the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles meeting with Jesus for some prophetic updates. A Comprehensive Biblical and Theological Analysis Borrowed Names, Vanished Signs ❖ ❖ ❖ Introduction: A Claim That Bears All the Weight The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints stakes everything on a single, breathtaking assertion:…
EARLY MORMON PERSONALITIES — SIXTEENTH INSTALLMENT Cut Not Thy Hair: The Samson of Mormondom and the Cost of Misplaced Faith ❖ ❖ ❖ A Stranger at the Christmas Door On Christmas night in 1843, a gaunt and filthy stranger pushed his way into the Mansion House at Nauvoo, Illinois, where Joseph Smith and his family…
First: An Observation. A casual observer who reads Joseph Smith’s “search for truth” as noted at BYU Studies, is met with an obvious question: “Joseph Smith (1805–1844) inhabited a visionary world and belonged to a visionary family. At about age twelve, he began to worry about his soul and started searching the Bible. As he…
EARLY MORMON PERSONALITIES — FIFTEENTH INSTALLMENT Sampson Avard and the Education of a Holy Vengeance Introduction: A Man Looking at the Sky On the last day of October 1838, a tall, restless physician stood near the unfinished temple lot at Far West, Missouri, and turned his face toward heaven. The autumn light was hard and…
EARLY MORMON PERSONALITIES — FOURTEENTH INSTALLMENT He Proved a Prophet Wrong with the Prophet’s Own Bible. ❦ ❧ ❦ On the warm evening of June 10, 1844, a column of nearly one hundred men marched through the streets of Nauvoo, Illinois, toward a modest brick print shop. They carried a sledgehammer. Inside stood a single…
EARLY MORMON PERSONALITIES — INSTALLMENT XIII The Blunt Apostle Who Helped Build the Kingdom in the Mountains ❦ ❦ ❦ A Light in the Eastern Sky On a clear September night in 1827, in the rural quiet of Mendon, New York, a young potter was roused from his bed by a neighbor pounding at his…