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The Mormon People
- The Making of an American Faith
- Narrated by: Mark Deakins
- Length: 11 hrs and 31 mins
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The Mormon People
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Summary
With Mormonism on the verge of an unprecedented cultural and political breakthrough, an eminent scholar of American evangelicalism explores the history and reflects on the future of this native-born American faith and its connection to the life of the nation.
In 1830, a young seer and sometime treasure hunter named Joseph Smith began organizing adherents into a new religious community that would come to be called the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (and known informally as the Mormons). One of the nascent faith’s early initiates was a 23-year-old Ohio farmer named Parley Pratt, the distant grandfather of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
In The Mormon People, religious historian Matthew Bowman peels back the curtain on more than 180 years of Mormon history and doctrine. He recounts the church’s origin and development, explains how Mormonism came to be one of the fastest-growing religions in the world by the turn of 21st century, and ably sets the scene for a 2012 presidential election that has the potential to mark a major turning point in the way this “all-American” faith is perceived by the wider American public - and internationally.
Mormonism started as a radical movement, with a profoundly transformative vision of American society that was rooted in a form of Christian socialism. Over the ensuing centuries, Bowman demonstrates, that vision has evolved - and with it the esteem in which Mormons have been held in the eyes of their countrymen. Admired on the one hand as hardworking paragons of family values, Mormons have also been derided as oddballs and persecuted as polygamists, heretics, and zealots clad in “magic underwear”. Even today, the place of Mormonism in public life continues to generate heated debate on both sides of the political divide. Polls show widespread unease at the prospect of a Mormon president. Yet the faith has never been more popular. Today there are about 14 million Mormons in the world, fewer than half of whom live inside the United States. It is a church with a powerful sense of its own identity and an uneasy sense of its relationship with the main line of American culture.
Mormons will surely play an even greater role in American civic life in the years ahead. In such a time, The Mormon People comes as a vital addition to the corpus of American religious history - a frank and fair-minded demystification of a faith that remains a mystery for many.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Staf Skinhead
- 17-08-22
Authoritative and fair LDS overview
Everything provided about the Latter Day Saints in an elegant and authoritative overview from an LDS scholar that is balanced and fair, contextually thorough and with an amazing guide to the bibliography at the end that provides all the directions you need to go forward. Whether you are LDS or simply interested in theology in frontier America, you have all you need. And more. If you are LDS it will deepen your faith. If you are not, it shows how things worked in the fetid climate of religion in the developing US.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 25-01-23
Rxcellent, if sometimes oddly negative, overview
Bowman gives an excellent overview of the history, influences and significance of Mormonism. One of the reviews below couldn't fathom that someone in the faith could write such a book. That is a patently false notion that ignores both the quality content, scholarship involved, and principle of good academic study. By this logic, no Catholics would ever write about Catholicism etc. etc
Three points that would help make it 5 stars. There are a number of times where adding in lterally one or two more sentences would have added extra layers of depth and also provided a more rounded view of things.
Furthermore, there are a number of assertions that are unnecessarily negative and which specifically have scholarly work that contradict them e.g. the notion of sending someone's husband off to get them out of the way.. in this sense the book plays to the cynical crowd too much, perhaps overcompensating if anything for Bowman being active in the church.
Finally, since Mormonism is an umbrella term that encompasses much more than the LDS church, the title and frequent reference to 'Mormons' is now outdated. It really should be called the Latter-day Saint People, since even when other associated people and groups are mentioned, it is always to show how the Saints stand out from them.
I would be interested in a further edition since a lot has changed since publication and some info is outdated now.
Otherwise, an excellent reatment of the LDS faith tradition.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
- Sir Hesket Newmarket
- 01-06-12
A little one sided
Matthew Bowman is a Mormon. There - I've said in four words what he failed to say in 12 hours or so of this audio book. It is the duty of any serious minded achademic to declare such a compelling interest from the start, even if he feels he has not allowed himself to be swayed by it.
The book is interesting but must be used as a starting point to carry out your own research as so many potentially negative details are missing. The book accepts practices such as divining with seer stones as being factual. Very few dissenting voices are heard. What happened to the missing 116 pages? This book quickly (and glibly) describes them as being simply lost and bounces along happily. The truth may not be known but there is more to the story than that and it should be included. Why did it cause Joseph Smith such anguish? Was it because he had failed in his instructions from Moroni or was it because he eared he had been caught in a trap? Only one side is given here - the side that portrays Smith in the best possibly light.
In many of these cases there are two explanations. One is that Smith was party to the most miraculous and extrodinary events to take place on earth in the modern era. A direct and lengthy channel of communication with an angel is no small matter. The other explanation is that Smith was a liar. These are both possibilities that should be explored, but this book always assumes only one - the former.
It is an interesting book and gives a fascinating glimpse of the word from a Mormon point of view, but it is not the achademic study I was hoping for. There are also Mormon hit jobs available equally biased from the opposite point of view. I'm not interested in them either. I just wanted a good straight forward factual book containing all the information in a scholarly manner - that and a little integrity. This book has neither.
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5 people found this helpful