I had a delightful time at the Mormon History Association Conference this past weekend. I met scores of individuals, many of whom I had only read about. They were uniformly gracious in person, including those with whom I have sparred online.

But I realized the road to being accepted by some in this community is paved by scholarly papers.

As I evaluated why I have written this book, I realized I simply want this version of Joseph Smith to be available to a large number of people as soon as possible. So I am making the pdf version of the book available to anyone who wants to download it. Just click on the cover image in this post.

If you really want a physical copy of the book, it is being carried by Benchmark Books in Salt Lake City and you can get the book from Amazon. Even though I’m now giving away the pdf, I still think the nicest format is Kindle, making it trivially easy to access the footnotes. The version currently available via these sellers has the old cover and doesn’t include the updates based on Ugo Perego’s latest DNA analysis. The updated version represented by the pdf will be published on June 27th. Continue reading →

I’m here at the Mormon History Association Conference, and Ugo Perego has revealed his results regarding the paternity of Josephine. Josephine is not the biological daughter of Joseph Smith. Continue reading →

One of the talks that really stood out to me in this most recent general conference was one by Elder Jairo Mazzagardi entitled “The Sacred Place of Restoration. A few weeks ago I wrote a post on my blog explaining how this talk helps us learn about the process of receiving personal revelation.

This week I have been thinking quite a bit more about the question that caused Elder Mazzagardi to struggle so much: Why did the restoration have to occur in North America when it did rather than anywhere else or at any other time in human history? He offers some answers in his talk, namely the existence of religious freedom and the confluence of religious revival and economic explosion in upstate New York. These are very significant answers, but certainly many more things could be added to that list.

I have been listening recently to free lectures on Open Yale Courses while working out or commuting. And this week I have been listening to a phenomenal course of the Civil War and Reconstruction by historian David Blight. One of the early lectures is about the “Northern World View.” Listening to this lecture gave me added insight into Elder Mazzagardi’s question. Continue reading →

Since the beginning of Civil Rights for women, blacks and other special classes, we’ve seen an explosion of new special classes with special rights and privileges not given to other classes.

With Gloria Steinem’s version of feminism came a movement that not only sought to bring equality, but to actually diminish other groups, white males, in particular. Over the decades, white males have seen their place in society diminish. Privileges, based usually on merit, were given to others based on special class. Men were denigrated, as many women felt that women needed men like a fish needed a bicycle (Gloria Steinem). With the off-putting of men, came a decline in their self-esteem, determination, role as father and husband, and key bread-winner. There are more women graduating from college and high school than men. Single mothers often are the norm, rather than traditional families with two parents (M/F). Many young men today find it easier to find escape from the role confusion by spending their lives in video games, porn, and other “safer” relationships.

In the last couple years, we’ve seen a new special class rocket to the top, which suddenly gives some men the opportunity to beat women at their own game. For those who watched the Growing Up Kardashian tv show, you saw lots of pretty women that did pretty much what they wanted, while Bruce Jenner stood in the background frustrated. No longer is this the case. With changing his sex and name to Caitlyn, Jenner now has as many photo ops as Kim Kardashian. Caitlyn was named “Woman of the Year”, something natural born women were used to winning in the past. Continue reading →

I recently had a dear friend publicly announce that she was leaving the Church. I have known about her objections and her decision for a while, but seeing her announce it was still painful.

One of her criticisms that I have also heard others mention is that she felt that teaching in the Church was not focused enough on Jesus Christ and too focused on peripheral matters such as tithing or food storage. She felt that these matters distracted from the focus on Jesus Christ and harmed her relationship with him.

Of course, there is some merit to this critique. We should always strive to do better in tying our discipleship and everything that we do to the Savior and his Atonement. Without him all of the commandments that we keep, callings we hold, and sermons we preach would be in vain. Without his grace, everything would lack efficacy and meaning. If we lose sight of that, we lose sight of the true core of the Gospel. Continue reading →