Customer Reviews

Mormonism in Transition: A History of the Latter-day Saints, 1890-1930

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Anyone even slightly familiar with the beliefs, practices and culture of the LDS church in the time of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young and with LDS beliefs, practices and culture today will note a number of differences.

It turns out that the period from 1900 to 1930, which is the subject of this book, was a watershed of cultural change for the Church. Before 1900, polygamy was a pillar of the social organization of the Church. Women were widely believed to acquire the priesthood authority of their husband through endowment and marriage. The Word of Wisdom was counsel, not systematically enforced -- and more than one early prophet thought that the most important element of the Word of Wisdom was the injunction not to eat meat! And so on. By 1930, in all these (and other) respects, the Church looked like the Church of today.

Whatever you think of the changes (personally, and polygamy aside, I find the Church of the nineteenth century pretty seductive), the history is interesting. The book is well written, the authors' viewpoint objective (i.e., not hostile to or critical of the Church, and also not fawning salvation history). Add it to your Church History library today.

My daughter bought this book for a church history class at BYU. When she was done with it, I began to browse, and got hooked. It provides an "institutional memory" for the interworkings of politics, social events, and the church at the turn of the century. That institutional memory applies amazingly well to the present time of rapid growth and change in the church.

Thomas G. Alexander is a Lemuel Hardison Redd Jr. Professor of American History at Brigham Young University, and Stephen J. Stein is a Chancellors' Professor of Religious Studies at Indiana University.