Latter Days: A Guided Tour Through Six Billion Years of Mormonism [Hardcover]

Clayton Corey Newell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 22, 2000

Chances are very good that within five years someone close to you will have become a "Mormon," a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which adds a million converts every three years.

An audacious claim? Try this one:

Members of the Church will tell you exactly what God looks like, where he lives, what he wears. They can even describe his voice. Furthermore, they can tell you where you came from, why you're here on earth, and where you're likely to go after death.

This is the story of the Latter-day Saints, the story of when God came back to earth and started things over. In person.

It may be the most confident message of God in centuries.

Written with the non-Latter-day-Saint reader firmly in mind, yet free of proselytory pretense, Latter Days explores an utterly unique catalog of Christian doctrine regarding the purpose of human existence and destiny. It presents the Mormon story of the creation of the world and lays out what Mormons believe is the divine plan for mankind, from Adam to Noah to Christ to Joseph Smith to Brigham Young. It relates the astonishing story of their great Exodus, as they were driven from the supposedly civilized United States to the wilderness of the Salt Lake-- a truly remarkable story that most of us were not taught in our high school history books.

Latter Days reveals what may well be at once the most unique, the most misunderstood, and the most generous concept of Christian salvation ever developed. Coke Newell goes inside the very mind and heart of the faith, and does so from the perspective of an author/convert whose life has taken him from being a hippie in the Colorado Rockies to the inner sanctum of the faith in Salt Lake City, where he works as an international public-affairs officer at the Church's headquarters.

Come, take a guided tour through the mind of Mormonism.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Newell, a media resource development manager at the headquarters of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, provides an insider's (and sometimes heavily insular) view of Mormon theology and history. Rather than focusing on Mormons' much-commented-upon practices (e.g., tithing, wearing temple garments and eschewing coffee, tobacco and alcohol) Newell instead highlights Mormons' distinctive beliefs. These include the ideas that Eve's transgression was "a brilliant move," enabling humankind to bear children and thereby obey the commandment of replenishing the earth; that the resurrected Christ visited his "other sheep" in America, descendents of a group that the Book of Mormon records had fled Jerusalem centuries earlier; that Native Americans are the contemporary descendants of these Book of Mormon peoples; and that the Garden of Eden was geographically located in Jackson County, Mo. Newell also discusses the extraordinary Mormon commitment to "agency," or free will, a doctrine that is operative throughout eternity, not just on Earth. (Human souls, according to Mormon theology, have a premortal existence in which they may decide to follow their elder brother Jesus' example and undertake a mortal life, with all of its attending trials, in the hopes of one day returning to their heavenly parents.) Despite its intriguing and fresh topic, however, Newell's book is poorly written, with abrupt, short paragraphs tumbling upon one another without transition or adequate explanation. (May)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

This insider's description of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will serve to complement last year's more journalistic Mormon America (LJ 11/1/99). Newell manages the media research development at the church's headquarters, so he can hardly be faulted for writing a polemical piece that takes the truth claims of the religion at face value. He is convinced that his church is what it says it is and tries to give the reader a sense of being on the inside. Nevertheless, he wants to present the best face possible. As a result, controversial topics are often briskly dismissed, and the point of view is more idiosyncratic than Newell cares to admit--it is stronger on historical topics than contemporary Mormon life. Clearly, there are more ways to be Mormon than his. The style is chatty and familiar, as the subtitle suggests, making this an engaging read, but the footnotes make it appropriate for both academic and public libraries.
-David S. Azzolina, Univ. of Pennsylvania Libs., Philadelphia
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press; First Edition edition (April 22, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312241089
• ISBN-13: 978-0312241087
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,393,248 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Coke Classic - Excellent review of Mormons and Mormonism, August 13, 2000

By 

Toran MacArthur (Lehi, Utah, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Latter Days: A Guided Tour Through Six Billion Years of Mormonism (Hardcover)

Coke Newell's "Latter Days" has all the makings of a good book: it is interesting, accurate, amazingly thorough for its length, and eminently readable. The book flows quickly (he does not get off on tangents--has no time to), and covers a lot of territory.

I notice one other review that takes the author to task for working in the PR department of the LDS Church. Well. Every author writes from their personal perspective. I'm at least impressed when an author is upfront and revealing regarding where they are coming from. There are things Mr. Newell can tell us from and with his background that are unique and interesting.

Mr. Newell notes at the outset that he hopes to provide an accurate and helpful "insider's view" but one which he intends to be insightful and reasonably objective to anyone (non-member or member alike) with an interest in understanding Mormons or Mormonism. He simply never comes across to me as being in any kind of proselytizing mode.

Mr. Newell is primarily factual in presenting Mormon doctrine and history, but he does occasionally provide some "spice" in the form of brief commentary as well as some personal feelings and anecdotes from his own experience. I welcome that, as it makes the book that much more interesting and readable.

In the end, I felt I came away from the book with a rather complete view of Newell's topic. Yes, it is from his perspective, but he's upfront regarding himself and his purposes which are explicitly to tell a story, not to convert. I think this is as it should be. Bottom line: I loved the book.

25 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is a very good book, August 28, 2000

By 

Jeffrey Needle - See all my reviews

This review is from: Latter Days: A Guided Tour Through Six Billion Years of Mormonism (Hardcover)

Coke Newell's "Latter Days" is a lively and wonderfully-written account, not just of the institutional Mormon Church, but of the entirety of the metaphysics of Mormonism. Newell presents, with no apology, the Mormon cosmology that sets Mormonism apart from the rest of Christianity. No attempt is made to harmonize Latter-day Saint theology with larger evangelical thought, and this, I believe, is right. Mormonism either stands or falls on its own, finding its foundations in continuing revelation, sometimes independent of known written sources. This is a very good book. St. Martin's Press is to be commended for bringing this book to the market. And Mr. Newell is to be congratulated for doing such a fine job.

Review by Jeffrey Needle, Association for Mormon Letters [e-mail]

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is going to be a classic!, August 1, 2000

By 

Proxlie (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Latter Days: A Guided Tour Through Six Billion Years of Mormonism (Hardcover)

For the layman, and for those itching to take a glance at Mormonism, this book far more than any other present offer is the one to read. And for those only begining their studies into the religion of the Latter-Day Saint Church, this is where you want to begin (possibly excepting the Book of Mormon itself).

Coke Newell brilliantly and swiftly traverses through the wonderful history surrounding this religion. From the humble beginings in Palmyra to their vast empire in Salt Lake City. Every major event in the history of the Mormon people is covered. Not objectively, of course, since the author is a member of and works for the church. Thus, the embarassments of history, as are evident in all peoples, are left out and ignored. Nevertheless, Newell's brief outline of how the Mormons came to be where they are is engaging. Written with those not of the Mormon faith in mind, the work is a captivating introduction into a history which is often overlooked and ignored (perhaps considered an embarassment of America for some).

Two things stand out about the work: the prologue and epilogue Newell includes with his history. Other books have been written before, with Latter-Day Saint or 'Gentile' in mind, that do just as worthy a job as this one. This stands alone in the pack, to be noticed and admired, for its treatment of Mormonism as not simply a new creation brought up out of the creative mind of Joseph Smith, but as other religions view their ideology: an eternal, everlasting truth. With this attitude, Newell discusses what Mormons believe happened in the before-life and in the after-life. And it is this attribute which adds to the unique flavor this book presents and gives it the quality to be a worthwhile read (it gets a 5star because of this, too).