Keeping a journal is perhaps one of the few areas where the advice given to the general membership of the Church and that given to aspiring writers is similar. Still today we occasionally hear the advice from the pulpit, usually in the context of how this will improve our spiritual lives. In contrast, writers have [...]

I recently finished At the Queen’s Command by Michael A. Stackpole. It was okay to pretty good. It’s American colonial alternate history with (limited) magic. There were things I liked, and things that bugged me. But what I found interesting for this audience was Stackpole’s mention of the Joseph Smith story. Of course, if it [...]

The more I read of Elder Orson F. Whitney, the more convinced I am that he was the most literary of our modern Apostles. A literary viewpoint influenced much of what he wrote about the gospel in a variety of settings. And his discussion of literary concepts and issues is not only frequent, but covers [...]

Title: The New Covenant, Commonly Called The New Testament: Volume I The Gospels and Apocalypse
Translator: Willis Barnstone
Publisher: New York: Riverhead Books
Genre: Scripture
Year Published: 2002
Number of Pages: 577
Binding: Hardbound in signatures
ISBN10: 1-57322-182-1
Price:
Title: The Jewish Annotated New Testament: New Revised Standard Version
Editors: Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Genre: Scripture
Year Published: 2011
Number of Pages: [...]

Given how strict and narrow George Reynold’s views were in last week’s “sermon,” I thought I would provide a different view, from someone who is often assumed to be as strict as the views Reynolds expressed. Instead of urging members to concentrate on the scriptures and avoiding literature written by others, Brigham Young teaches in [...]

My previous “Lit Crit Sermons” have been from sources that generally took a positive view of literature, seeing the role of the author or poet as an important and divinely inspired one. That view is, unfortunately, not universal among past General Authorities of the Church and those who wrote in LDS-oriented magazines. In fact, Church [...]

This is, as far as I can tell, either the first or second published discussion of literature in a Mormon source (an earlier article discussed writing letters). As might be expected from a Mormon periodical in 1832, Phelps’ arguments are very focused on the Bible as an inspired document, and one that is clearly superior [...]

If we define literary criticism as any discussion of literature or its role, then LDS General Authorities have frequently been literary critics, from the beginning of Mormon publishing. Yesterday I came across the following description from Orson F. Whitney, buried, of all places, in his pamphlet/short book, The strength of the “Mormon” position.