The Mormon Book Review

Edward J. Blum is a historian of race and religion in the United States. He is the author of W. E. B. Du Bois, American Prophet (Politics and Culture in Modern America) (2007), and Reforging the White Republic: Race, Religion, and American Nationalism, 1865-1898 (Conflicting Worlds: New Dimensions of the American Civil War) (2005), and He is the co-author (with Paul Harvey) of The Color of Christ: The Son of God and the Saga of Race in America (2012), as well as the editor or co-editor of several volumes. An award-winning writer and teacher, Blum was named by the History News Network a “top young historian” in 2007. Additionally, The Color of Christ was named a "best book" of 2012 by Publisher's Weekly ... in religion; and Book List named it one of their top 10 black nonfiction of the year. In this interview Kirk and Edward discuss how Jesus has historically been portrayed in pictures, the common 19th century conception of Jesus, the meaning of a white Jesus to black and Native American Mormons, and the racial significance of Mormonism's usage of the Christus statue.

Michael Scott Van Wagenen is an assistant professor and public history coordinator at Georgia Southern University. He previously taught borderlands history at the University of Texas at Brownsville. He is the author of The Texas Republic and the Mormon Kingdom of God (South Texas Regional Studies) (Texas A&M Press, 2002) and co-editor with W. Paul Reeve of Between Pulpit and Pew: The Supernatural World in Mormon Folklore (Utah State University Press, 2011). His latest book, Remembering the Forgotten War: The Enduring Legacies of the U.s.-mexican War (Public History in Historical Perspective) , was published in 2012 by the University of Massachusetts Press. Prior to earning his Ph.D. in U.S. History at the University of Utah he was a national award-winning documentary filmmaker. His films about the U.S. – Mexico Borderlands have twice won highest honors from the National Educational Media Network and have been screened at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, the American Museum of Natural History, and numerous film festivals. In this interview Kirk and Michael discuss Mormon folklore and how it has changed between the 19th and 21st centuries. They tackle such issues as Bigfoot, UFOs, the War in Heaven, and the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.

J. Spencer Fluhman is assistant professor of history at Brigham Young University, where he teaches American religious history. He graduated summa cum laude from BYU and received masters and doctoral degrees in history from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has held fellowships from the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture (IUPUI) and the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Latter-day Saint History (BYU). His research takes up the question of religious identity and the intersection of religion and politics in the United States. His work has appeared in the New York Times, Journal of Religion and Society, Journal of Mormon History, BYU Studies Quarterly, and Mormon Historical Studies. His book, “A Peculiar People”: Anti-Mormonism and the Making of Religion in Nineteenth-Century America, was published by the University of North Carolina Press in 2012. He lives with his family in Cedar Hills, Utah. In this interview Kirk and Spencer discuss how Protestant Christians viewed 19th century America, issues surrounding Nauvoo theology in the 1840s, Mormon women, and the relationship between politics and religion in 21st century America.

Steven C. Harper is a historian in the Church History Department of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and a part-time professor of Church History and Doctrine at BYU, where he taught full time between 2002-2012 after teaching religion and history at BYU-Hawaii from 2000-2002. He spent the 2011-2012 academic year in Israel with his family, teaching at BYU’s Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies. He earned a PhD in early American history from Lehigh University after writing an MA thesis on the dynamics of proselytizing and conversion in the first decade of Mormonism. From 2002-2012 he served as a volume editor of the The Joseph Smith Papers , contributing to forthcoming volumes in the Documents Series and the first volume of the Revelations and Translations Series. Books he has authored include a study of a fraudulent land deal in colonial Pennsylvania titled Promised Land (Lehigh University Press, 2006), Making Sense of the Doctrine and Covenants: A Guided Tour Through Modern Revelations , and Joseph Smith’s First Vision: A Guide to the Historical Accounts (Deseret 2012). His next book is tentatively titled Joseph Smith’s First Vision: Memory, Meaning, and Mormonism, forthcoming from Oxford University Press. In this interview Kirk and Steven discuss Joseph Smith's first vision and why the various accounts of the vision are important.

Patrick Mason is Howard W. Hunter Chair of Mormon Studies and associate professor of religion at Claremont Graduate University. He received his PhD from the University of Notre Dame in American history, with emphasis in American religious history. He also earned a master's degree in international peace studies, also from Notre Dame. His first book, The Mormon Menace: Violence and Anti-Mormonism in the Postbellum South, was published by Oxford University Press in 2011. He is also the co-editor of the collection of essays War and Peace in Our Time: Mormon Perspectives, published last year by Greg Kofford Books, and the author of a number of essays on Mormonism, American religious history, and religion, conflict, and peace building, including an award-winning article in Dialogue entitled "The Possibilities of Mormon Peacebuilding." He lives in Rancho Cucamonga, California, with his wife and three children. In this interview Kirk and Patrick discuss how Mormonism has viewed war in the past and how Mormonism views war today. They also talk about Mormons that serve in the military and the current gun debate in the United States.

John Turner teaches and writes about the history of religion in nineteenth- and twentieth-century America. This past fall, he began teaching in the Department of Religious Studies at George Mason University. He is the author of Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet(Harvard University Press, 2012); and Bill Bright and Campus Crusade for Christ: The Renewal of Evangelicalism in Postwar America (University of North Carolina Press, 2008), winner of Christianity Today‘s 2009 award for History / Biography. Turner is a member of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). He lives in Burke, Virginia, with his wife Elissa and daughter Evelyn. In this interview Kirk and John discuss Brigham Young as a 19th century western pioneer and his relationships to women, polygamy, and Indians

Michael Reed grew up in Sacramento California, served a mission for the LDS church in Baltimore Maryland, has two children, and earned his BA and MA at California State University of Sacramento. He is currently a student at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, earning his PhD in Christian history, where he is focusing his studies in the US, Jacksonian Era. Michael wrote his Master's Thesis while at CSU Sacramento, he has spoken at several conferences and symposia on this research, and received some media attention from the Salt Tribune and Deseret News' Mormon Times. This thesis has since been expanded and revised, and is now published by John Whitmer Books.  The book's title is Banishing the Cross: The Emergence of a Mormon Taboo. In this interview Kirk and Michael discuss the role the cross plays in current and 19th century Mormonism