Review: Terryl Givens. Mormonism (Or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints): What Everyone Needs to Know. New York: Oxford University Press, 2020.

Authors

Jill Peterfeso

Keywords

LDS, history, beliefs, polygamy, scriptures

Abstract

Terryl Givens’s new book Mormonism (Or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints): What Everyone Needs to Know is a resource guide that seeks to explain the LDS Church’s history, beliefs, and practices, and in so doing clarifies items of confusion and controversy. The book is organized into topic-driven chapters (such as “History,” “Polygamy,” “Organization,” and “Conflicts and Challenges”), which unfold in a question-and-answer format. The questions Givens tackles range from predictable (“Why did the Latter-day Saints practice polygamy?” “What is the church’s relationship to Christianity?”) to unexpected (“What do Latter-day Saint scriptures teach about peace and war?” “Does Mormonism have its own literary tradition?”) to being in apparent conversation with The Book of Mormon: The Musical (“What is Kolob?” “Do Latter-day Saints believe the Garden of Eden is in Missouri?”). The responses are typically 1–2 pages in length.

BYU ScholarsArchive Citation

Peterfeso, Jill (2022) "Review: Terryl Givens. Mormonism (Or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints): What Everyone Needs to Know. New York: Oxford University Press, 2020.," Mormon Studies Review: Vol. 9: No. 1, Article 10.
Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/msr2/vol9/iss1/10