Mormon Convert, Mormon Defector

Mormon Convert, Mormon Defector PDF Author: Polly Aird
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
From the glens of Loch Lomond -- Calico flowers -- Mormon missionaries -- Fires of faith: a vision -- Among the Saints -- Farewell to Scotland -- Sails set for New Orleans -- The destroyer rides upon the waters -- Going home to Zion -- The Promised Land -- Famine, loss, and reformation -- Murder for apostasy -- Troubles and terror -- A year of disruption -- The army cometh -- Cradlebaugh's court -- Shaking the dust from their feet -- A new life, a new vision.

Mormon Convert, Mormon Defector

Mormon Convert, Mormon Defector PDF Author: Polly Aird
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
From the glens of Loch Lomond -- Calico flowers -- Mormon missionaries -- Fires of faith: a vision -- Among the Saints -- Farewell to Scotland -- Sails set for New Orleans -- The destroyer rides upon the waters -- Going home to Zion -- The Promised Land -- Famine, loss, and reformation -- Murder for apostasy -- Troubles and terror -- A year of disruption -- The army cometh -- Cradlebaugh's court -- Shaking the dust from their feet -- A new life, a new vision.

Playing with Shadows

Playing with Shadows PDF Author: Polly Aird
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780870623806
Category : Mormon Church
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This collection of narratives by four individuals who abandoned Mormonism--"apostates," as Brigham Young and other Latter-day Saint leaders labeled them--provides an overview of dissent from the beginning of the religion to the early twentieth century and presents a wide range of disaffection with the faith or its leaders. Instead of focusing on a single disheartened individual or sect, this collection includes dissenters with different motivations and a wide range of experiences. Some devout Mormon converts, finding Brigham Young's implementation of the Kingdom of God disillusioning, turned their backs on religion in general. Yet most never lost their love for their fellow Mormons or their longing for the ideal society they had dreamed of building. Newspaper articles, personal letters, journals, and sermons provide context for the testaments collected here--those of George Armstrong Hicks, Charles Derry, Ann Gordge, and Brigham Young Hampton. The four range from those who felt Brigham Young had not lived up to the precepts of Mormonism, to "backouts" who gave up and left Utah, to a plural wife who constructed a rich fantasy world, to a devoted Latter-day Saint who gave his all only to feel betrayed by his leaders. Young warned one dissenting group that they were "not playing with shadows," but with "the voice and the hand of the Almighty"; accordingly, many dissenters feared for their livelihoods, and some, for their lives. Historians will value the range of beliefs, opinions, complaints, hopes, and fears expressed in these carefully annotated life histories. An antidote to anti-Mormon sensationalism, these detailed chronicles of deeply personal journeys add subtlety and a human dimension to our understanding of the Mormon past.

The Mormon Rebellion

The Mormon Rebellion PDF Author: David L. Bigler
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 0806183969
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 409

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Book Description
In 1857 President James Buchanan ordered U.S. troops to Utah to replace Brigham Young as governor and restore order in what the federal government viewed as a territory in rebellion. In this compelling narrative, award-winning authors David L. Bigler and Will Bagley use long-suppressed sources to show that—contrary to common perception—the Mormon rebellion was not the result of Buchanan's "blunder," nor was it a David-and-Goliath tale in which an abused religious minority heroically defied the imperial ambitions of an unjust and tyrannical government. They argue that Mormon leaders had their own far-reaching ambitions and fully intended to establish an independent nation—the Kingdom of God—in the West. Long overshadowed by the Civil War, the tragic story of this conflict involved a tense and protracted clash pitting Brigham Young's Nauvoo Legion against Colonel Albert Sidney Johnston and the U.S. Army's Utah Expedition. In the end, the conflict between the two armies saw no pitched battles, but in the authors' view, Buchanan's decision to order troops to Utah, his so-called blunder, eventually proved decisive and beneficial for both Mormons and the American republic. A rich exploration of events and forces that presaged the Civil War, The Mormon Rebellion broadens our understanding of both antebellum America and Utah's frontier theocracy and offers a challenging reinterpretation of a controversial chapter in Mormon annals.

The Conversion of Mormonism

The Conversion of Mormonism PDF Author: George Townshend
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Latter Day Saint churches
Languages : en
Pages : 116

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Book Description


Robert Newton Baskin and the Making of Modern Utah

Robert Newton Baskin and the Making of Modern Utah PDF Author: John Gary Maxwell
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 0806189282
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 410

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Book Description
For years Robert Newton Baskin (1837–1918) may have been the most hated man in Utah. Yet his promotion of federal legislation against polygamy in the late 1800s and his work to bring the Mormon territory into a republican form of government were pivotal in Utah’s achievement of statehood. The results of his efforts also contributed to the acceptance of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by the American public. In this engaging biography—the first full-length analysis of the man—author John Gary Maxwell presents Baskin as the unsung father of modern Utah. As Maxwell shows, Baskin’s life was defined by conflict and paradox. Educated at Harvard Law School, Baskin lived as a member of a minority: a “gentile” in Mormon Utah. A loner, he was highly respected but not often included in the camaraderie of contemporary non-Mormon professionals. When it came to the Saints, Baskin’s role in the legal aftermath of the Mountain Meadows massacre did not endear him to the Mormon people or their leadership. He was convinced that Brigham Young made John D. Lee the scapegoat—the planner and perpetrator of the massacre—to obscure complicity of the LDS church. Baskin was successful in Utah politics despite using polygamy as a sledgehammer against Utah’s theocratic government and despite his role as a federal prosecutor. He was twice elected mayor of Salt Lake City, served in the Utah legislature, and became chief justice of the Utah Supreme Court. He was also a visionary city planner—the force behind the construction of the Salt Lake City and County Building, which remains the architectural rival of the city’s Mormon temple. For more than a century historians have maligned Baskin or ignored him. Maxwell brings the man to life in this long-overdue exploration of a central figure in the history of Utah and of the LDS church.

Rescuing Beefsteak: The Story of a Pragmatic Pioneer Idealist

Rescuing Beefsteak: The Story of a Pragmatic Pioneer Idealist PDF Author: Myron Crandall Harrison
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 1732032602
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 186

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Book Description
Fourteen-year-old George Harrison emigrated from England to Utah in 1856. He was part of a Mormon family relocating to "Zion" for both religious and economic reasons. The young man, suffering from malaria and extreme food shortages in the Martin Handcart Company, abandoned his family and spent a winter with a compassionate Indian family that saved him from starvation. Soon after, at Fort Laramie, Harrison served as a civilian cook for an army surgeon. He accompanied troops during the march into Salt Lake City in 1858 and cooked at Camp Floyd. Upon the camp's closure in 1861, he cooked at an Overland Stage and Pony Express station. George Harrison subsequently worked as a freighter and served in the Black Hawk War. In mid-life he built a small restaurant and hotel in Springville, Utah. Harrison's cooking, singing, and story telling attracted "drummers" (traveling salesmen) who gave the restaurateur the name of "Beefsteak" because of the quality of his steaks.

Brigham Young

Brigham Young PDF Author: John G. Turner
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674071794
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 728

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Book Description
Brigham Young was a rough-hewn craftsman from New York whose impoverished and obscure life was electrified by the Mormon faith. He trudged around the United States and England to gain converts for Mormonism, spoke in spiritual tongues, married more than fifty women, and eventually transformed a barren desert into his vision of the Kingdom of God. While previous accounts of his life have been distorted by hagiography or polemical exposé, John Turner provides a fully realized portrait of a colossal figure in American religion, politics, and westward expansion. After the 1844 murder of Mormon founder Joseph Smith, Young gathered those Latter-day Saints who would follow him and led them over the Rocky Mountains. In Utah, he styled himself after the patriarchs, judges, and prophets of ancient Israel. As charismatic as he was autocratic, he was viewed by his followers as an indispensable protector and by his opponents as a theocratic, treasonous heretic. Under his fiery tutelage, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints defended plural marriage, restricted the place of African Americans within the church, fought the U.S. Army in 1857, and obstructed federal efforts to prosecute perpetrators of the Mountain Meadows Massacre. At the same time, Young's tenacity and faith brought tens of thousands of Mormons to the American West, imbued their everyday lives with sacred purpose, and sustained his church against adversity. Turner reveals the complexity of this spiritual prophet, whose commitment made a deep imprint on his church and the American Mountain West.

The Gainsayers

The Gainsayers PDF Author: Darrick T. Evenson
Publisher: Horizon Pub & Dist Incorporated
ISBN: 9780882903385
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
When new LDS convert Darrick Evenson encountered anti-Mormon literature for the first time, it devastated him. He naively accepted it as true, and it led him out of the Church into the ranks of the Ex-Mormons for Jesus. Darrick learned their witnessing approaches and techniques and began functioning with them in their fight against the Mormon Church. But as he became familiar with them and their message, he found himself increasingly uncomfortable in their midst. What they were saying and teaching just didn''t match with the scriptures, not with what he personally knew of the Latter-day Saints. and though they professed to love the Mormons, he found the Ex-Mormon motivation to be just the opposite. Darrick began an extended period of research and assessment, trying to determine just where truth was to be found. As he encountered more and more instances of falsehood and deception in the Ex-Mormon teachings, his conscience began to work on him more and more. He finally renounced his affiliation with them and returned to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. As he served a mission in California, he found his knowledge of the tactics and techniques of the anti-Mormon movement serving him in good stead. He was able to recognize and rebut many of the ploys of anti-Mormon adversaries. But Darrick is aware that the message and methods of anti-Mormon gainsayers have kept many truth-seekers from hearing and accepting the gospel of Jesus Chrsit. Seeing the need for Latter-day Saints to be able to recognize and refute the assertions of these adversaries of the truth, he has recorded his observations of their methodologies and written strong rebuttals to the things they teach. What is a gainsayer? to gainsay means to oppose or deny, to speak or act against, to contradict, to dispute or declare false. Anti-Mormon organizations such as Saints Alive and Ex-Mormons for Jesus are modern gainsayers in the truest sense of the word. In this book, the author presents evidence which shows that the same techniques used by those who fought against Christ''s Church in the Meredian of time (the anti-Nazerines) are being used against the Mormons today. Satan''s work follows the same patterns down through time. the author describes the techniques used in Satan''s counter-mission, showing numerous ancient and modern parallels. He shows that Christ''s Church in ancient time was considered a cult by the mainline churches of the day, just as major churches in today''s panorama of Protestant organizations regard the Mormons as a cult. and what is a cult? It''s a word that really says, You''re different than we are. Then he focuses on key Mormon doctrines, showing that they were clearly taughts in ancient times by the Christian community. Key concepts such as the LDS belief that man can attain Godhood and that the temple service existed in Christ''s day are carfully documented. That documentation stands as clear rebuttal to gainsayer assertions that those teachings are recent Mormon fabrications. In another highly significant chapter, the author describes many of the missionary strategies currently used by the anti-Mormon movement. He exposes numerous witnessing techniques so that Latter-day Saints will recognize them and not be deceived nor influenced by their usage. He focuses on the film the God Makers, reviewing it as an example of extreme anti-Mormon propaganda. Recognizing that most Latter-day Saints will never see the film but that many of their non-LDS friends will be exposed to it, he summarizes the major scenes so that LDS members will be more aware of the blatant falsehoods and dstortions which are being used in an effort to harm the Church. a powerful chapter is devoted to a presentation of responses to many of the anti-Mormon distortions and misrepresentations currently being used. It is obvious that the author is well acquainted with the nature of yellow journalism used against the Church. He knows very well the types of falsehoods anti-Mormon agitators are currently using in their attempts to retard the growth of the Lord''s work. the final chapter is an intriguing dialogue involving two Mormon missionaries, an investigator and an anti-Mormon preacher. Using the Articles of Faith as their outline, the missionaries systematically answer many of the distortions commonly presented by modern gainsayers. It shows many useful methods of answering objections to gospel principles briefly and concisely from the scriptures. the Gainsayers is a powerful book! It refutes many of the falsehoods currently circulated against the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by those who seek to thwart the work of God. Its insights are of value to every faithful Latter-day Saint. Carefully documented, and supported by a strong contents listing and detailed index, it''s a book that will serve as a significant tool in defense of the faith.

God's Tender Mercies

God's Tender Mercies PDF Author: David Curtis Dollahite
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780998605265
Category : Mormon converts
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description
Inspirational! Reading this book was a "tender mercy" for me. I found myself laughing, crying, and thanking God for His goodness as I feasted upon its pages. This book provides a remarkable insight into this good man's soul, the process of his conversion to Mormonism, and his faith-filled life thereafter. It is spirit-filled and engaging. I couldn't put it down. I consider it a must-read and I intend to get a copy of it for each of my children and grandchildren!--E. Jeffrey Hill, Ph.D., Camilla Eyring Kimball Professor, BYU School of Family Life God's Tender Mercies offers hope that a lost and obscure soul can recognize, embrace, and be transformed by the marvelous work and wonder that is the restored gospel. As we progress through this vulnerably personal narrative, we see a directionless boy become a man of profound faith. From his reading of, and response to, a single book, we see an intellectually lethargic teen experience authentic conversion and become one whose vision has influenced the global Church. Dave's story is a remarkable one and he is a master storyteller. This combination provides a feast. And yet, as we are continually reminded, the center of this history is not Dave but the Father of us all. At its core, this work is an account of a Heavenly Father who relentlessly seeks after one of His children through the dark veil that enshrouds this world until He finds him, saves him, and blesses him beyond measure. It is a story of grace, challenge, growth, and redemption. It is a sacred narrative that has blessed my life and urged me to more clearly recognize "the hand of the Giver" as He spreads His tender mercies on each one of us.--Loren Marks, BYU School of Family Life and co-Director of the American Families of Faith Research Project

The Civil War Years in Utah

The Civil War Years in Utah PDF Author: John Gary Maxwell
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 0806155272
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 416

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Book Description
In 1832 Joseph Smith, Jr., the Mormons’ first prophet, foretold of a great war beginning in South Carolina. In the combatants’ mutual destruction, God’s purposes would be served, and Mormon men would rise to form a geographical, political, and theocratic “Kingdom of God” to encompass the earth. Three decades later, when Smith’s prophecy failed with the end of the American Civil War, the United States left torn but intact, the Mormons’ perspective on the conflict—and their inactivity in it—required palliative revision. In The Civil War Years in Utah, the first full account of the events that occurred in Utah Territory during the Civil War, John Gary Maxwell contradicts the patriotic mythology of Mormon leaders’ version of this dark chapter in Utah history. While the Civil War spread death, tragedy, and sorrow across the continent, Utah Territory remained virtually untouched. Although the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—and its faithful—proudly praise the service of an 1862 Mormon cavalry company during the Civil War, Maxwell’s research exposes the relatively inconsequential contribution of these Nauvoo Legion soldiers. Active for a mere ninety days, they patrolled overland trails and telegraph lines. Furthermore, Maxwell finds indisputable evidence of Southern allegiance among Mormon leaders, despite their claim of staunch, long-standing loyalty to the Union. Men at the highest levels of Mormon hierarchy were in close personal contact with Confederate operatives. In seeking sovereignty, Maxwell contends, the Saints engaged in blatant and treasonous conflict with Union authorities, the California and Nevada Volunteers, and federal policies, repeatedly skirting open warfare with the U.S. government. Collective memory of this consequential period in American history, Maxwell argues, has been ill-served by a one-sided perspective. This engaging and long-overdue reappraisal finally fills in the gaps, telling the full story of the Civil War years in Utah Territory.