Posts Tagged ‘ RLDS ’

The Ten Commandments was one of the first Biblical epics to command a mass audience, and so my parents took me into downtown Detroit as a boy to be sure I saw it in its full widescreen glory in one of the few theaters capable of so screening it. The movie was well worth the [...]

In the lifetime of Joseph Smith, there were more than 100 revelations recorded in the Doctrine and Covenants.  In the past 120 years, we’ve had only the vision of Joseph F. Smith (section 138), and 2 Official Declarations added–the Manifesto, and the elimination of the ban on black members to receive the priesthood.  There are [...]

Community of Christ is attempting to form a tradition — now that its World Conferences are held every three years instead of at six month intervals as is customary in LDS practice — of having its Prophet address the church in non-Conference years in something of a “state of the church” address. Community of Christ [...]

The following comments were recorded at the 1993 Sunstone Symposium.  Bill Russell spoke on the recurring theme as Sunstone called “The Pillars of my Faith”. He is a past president of the Mormon History Association.  I don’t know who introduced him, but this is what the person said when he introduced Bill Russell. Introduction, “William [...]

Solomon Spaulding died in 1816, never knowing that some 14 years after his death, he would be linked to the Book of Mormon.  A copy of Spaulding’s manuscript can be downloaded from Oberlin College.  I posted a summary of  chapters 1-5 last week, and gave a very brief introduction to the Spaulding Theory.  Here is a [...]

As I was researching a post last summer on some of the organizations that have sprung up in the stead of the RLDS movement as fundamentalist alternatives to the Community of Christ, I discovered that a childhood friend had become one of the leading officials of one such organization, the Remnant Church of Jesus Christ of [...]

Soon after the publication of the Book of Mormon, critics believed that Joseph must have plagiarized it from another source.  One of the most prominent theories since the 1830’s is the Spaulding (or Spalding) Theory.  Briefly, the theory states that Joseph Smith plagiarized (or at least used as a source) an unpublished book written by [...]

Sunstone has had a recurring theme over the past 25 years or so titled Why I Stay.  Robert Rees collected essays from 20 people that have answered this question over the years.  As I thought of the question, I think my answer would mirror Claudia Bushman.  From page 31, I don’t want to explore why I [...]

“For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.” That’s a somewhat simplistic, but nevertheless effective way to teach the law of conservation of momentum, and I think there’s actually some metaphorical version of that law which applies to churches. When someone leaves a church, his/her absence allows/pushes the church that remains to go [...]

One hundred and fifty years after the dedication of the Kirtland Temple, the Community of Christ (then the RLDS) celebrated that event with a set of worship services in the main court of the Temple. My wife was asked to be the accompanist for the services, and so we made plans to drive from Maryland [...]

Did you know that the early saints charged admission to the general public to see Egpytian Mummies inside the Kirtland Temple?  John Larsen of Mormon Expression conducted a fascinating interview with John Hamer and Barbara Walden on the history of the Kirtland Temple.  I was so enamored with the interview, that I decided to transcribe the [...]

A few months ago, I attended several family reunions.  At the time, I was reading John Hamer’s book, Scattering of the Saints.  I was absolutely fascinated with all the accounts of Mormon schismatic groups.  I was especially interested in Strangism and the Church of Christ with the Elijah Message.  As I told the story of their [...]