Merrill, who urged a unique vision of reality that shaped a Mormon eschatology. He shows how authorities eventually retreated from the perception of reality as "true" and adopted a scientifically less secure position in order to protect their theology, an eventuality which ultimately resulted in a reactionary response to science within Mormonism.

This 1995 book presents an alternative and comprehensive understanding of the roots of Mormon religion.

It has taken modern science more than 3,500 years, and the genius of such men as Einstein to catch up with what Abraham and Moses knew so long ago. We can only ponder how many more wonders of God may be hidden in the astounding translations of Joseph Smith. In Joseph Smith and Modern Astronomy, Dr. Richard Ingebretsen, former science editor for the Ensign, a medical doctor, and a PhD scientist, confirms the truth of the writings and translations of Joseph Smith using advances in modern science and astrophysics. • Governing stars influence other celestial bodies (Abraham 3:2-4) • The “times” of heavenly bodies are not all the same (Abraham 3:3-4) • Absolute truths have been revealed in the translations of Joseph Smith These fascinating parallels explained by Dr. Ingebretsen will not only broaden your scientific understanding, but they will also present a framework to comprehending other revelations.

A church's liturgy is its ritualized system of worship, the services and patterns in which believers regularly participate. While the term often refers to a specific formal ritual like the Roman Catholic Mass, events surrounding major life events--birth, coming of age, marriage, death--are often celebrated through church liturgies. By documenting and analyzing Mormon liturgical history, Jonathan Stapley is able to explore the nuances of Mormon belief and practice. More important, he can demonstrate that the Mormon ordering of heaven and earth is not a mere philosophical or theological exercise. The Power of Godliness is the first work to establish histories for these unique liturgies and to provide interpretive frameworks for them.

Mormonism and the Emotions: An Analysis of LDS Scriptural Texts is an introductory Latterday Saint (LDS) theology of emotion that is both canonically based and scientifically informed. It highlights three widely accepted characteristics of emotion that emerge from scientific perspectives—namely, the necessity of cognition for its emergence, the personal responsibility attached to its manifestations, and its instrumentality in facilitating various processes of human development and experience. In analyzing the basic theological structure of Mormonism and its unique canonical texts the objective is to determine the extent to which LDS theology is compatible with this three-fold definition of emotion. At this basic level of explanation, the conclusion is that science and Mormon theology undoubtedly share a common perspective. The textual investigation focuses on unique Mormon scriptures and on their descriptions of six common emotions: hope, fear, joy, sorrow, love, and hate. For each of these emotional phenomena the extensive report of textual references consistently confirms an implied presence of the outlined three-fold model of emotion. Thus, the evidence points to the presence of an underlying folk model of emotion in the text that broadly matches scientific definitions. Additionally, the theological examination is enlarged with a particular focus on the Mormon theology of atonement, which is shown to play a significant role in LDS understandings of emotions. A broad exploration of such areas as epistemology, cosmology, soteriology, and the theological anthropology of Mormonism further contextualizes the analysis and roots it in the LDS theological worldview.

People who flyfish know that a favorite river bend, a secluded spot in moving waters, can feel like home—a place you know intimately and intuitively. In prose that reads like the flowing current of a river, scholar and essayist George Handley blends nature writing, local history, theology, environmental history, and personal memoir in his new book Home Waters: A Year of Recompenses on the Provo River. Handley’s meditations on the local Provo River watershed present the argument that a sense of place requires more than a strong sense of history and belonging, it requires awareness and commitment. Handley traces a history of settlement along the Provo that has profoundly transformed the landscape and yet neglected its Native American and environmental legacies. As a descendent of one of the first pioneers to irrigate the area, and as a witness to the loss of orchards, open space, and an eroded environmental ethic, Handley weaves his own personal and family history into the landscape to argue for sustainable belonging. In avoiding the exclusionist and environmentally harmful attitudes that come with the territorial claims to a homeland, the flyfishing term, “home waters,” is offered as an alternative, a kind of belonging that is informed by deference to others, to the mysteries of deep time, and to a fragile dependence on water. While it has sometimes been mistakenly assumed that the Mormon faith is inimical to good environmental stewardship, Handley explores the faith’s openness to science, its recognition of the holiness of the creation, and its call for an ethical engagement with nature. A metaphysical approach to the physical world is offered as an antidote to the suicidal impulses of modern society and our persistent ambivalence about the facts of our biology and earthly condition. Home Waters contributes a perspective from within the Mormon religious experience to the tradition of such Western writers as Wallace Stegner, Terry Tempest Williams, Steven Trimble, and Amy Irvine. Winner of the Mormon Letters Award for Memoir.