Session 201 (8:30 a.m., Friday, September 25)

Title: “From Fawn Brodie to John Turner: Evolving Portrayals of Joseph Smith” by Newell G. Bringhurst

Abstract: This presentation explores evolving portrayals of Joseph Smith over the past eighty years, commencing with Brodie’s seminal No Man Knows My History and concluding with Turner’s Joseph Smith: The Rise and Fall of an American Prophet. While the major focus will be on comparisons and contrasts between these two works, reference will be made to other significant intervening biographies in terms of their impact on changing perceptions of Mormonism’s founder.

Biographical Sketch: Newell G. Bringhurst, professor emeritus, College of the Sequoias, Visalia, California, is a past president of The John Whitmer Historical Association and also the Mormon History Association. He is the author, editor, or co-editor of twelve books dealing with various aspects of Mormon/Restoration studies. His most recent work is an expanded second edition of his previously published Fawn M. Brodie: A Biographer’s Life, from which this paper is drawn.

Title: “The Choice of My Heart and the Crown of My Life: How Eliza R. Snow Remembered Joseph Smith” by Jenny Reeder

Abstract: Eliza R. Snow became acquainted with Joseph Smith during the winter of 1830–31, when family friend Sidney Rigdon brought him to the Snows’ home in Mantua, Ohio. She later taught the Smith family school and wrote that she had “ample opportunity to mark ‘his daily walk and conversation’ as a prophet of God.” Snow personally knew Smith for about fifteen years, privately as a plural wife and publicly as the secretary in the Nauvoo Female Relief Society. As Snow became more of a public presence in Utah Territory with the women’s organizations, she continued to remember and commemorate Joseph Smith. Time passed, and many people in Utah had not known Joseph Smith. Snow often shared memories of the prophet in nearly 1,300 meetings of the Relief Society, Young Ladies’ Improvement Association, and Primary.

Biographical Sketch: Jenny Reeder is a historian with the Church History Department in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She currently works with Historic Sites on the Whitmer farm. She recently edited a collection of Eliza R. Snow discourses: Rise Up and Speak: Selected Discourses of Eliza R. Snow.

Session 202 (8:30 a.m., Friday, September 25) 

Title: “Mormon Battalion: Relief and Extraordinary Service” by Glen Larson

Abstract: The Latter-day Saints, fleeing from persecution, were forced from Nauvoo, their “City Beautiful,” in the winter of 1846, having to abandon their prized temple. The Western-bound Rocky Mountain Saints were offered a life raft from an unexpected source: the United States government needed their service to enlist in the Army to quell the emerging American-Mexican War of 1846–1848. Five hundred plus men mustered out under the leadership of Brigadier General Stephen Kearney. Relief would come in the form of a one-year commitment of service, rations, the return of their muskets at the end of their service, a uniform allowance, and $42 per person, paid in advance for each recruit. 

This paper will briefly touch upon the key leaders of the Army of the West, of which the battalion was a part. A 2,000-mile march through the most arid parts of the country opened the way for a Southern wheeled wagon accessible route to California, forging the Manifest Destiny westward expansion. Exploring the little-known fact, the Latter-day Saints negotiated with the United States that, following the war, the United States would bring them to California as a final settlement for their people.

Biographical Sketch: Glen Larson has a keen interest in the study of early Restoration theology and leadership, including Joseph Smith, Sidney Rigdon, and the Whitmer Family. He has presented and written papers on the Micro (Bootstrap Economy) of Utah; Missouri Establishment of Zion: Governor Daniel Dunkin; the Law of Stewardship and Consecration; Kirtland Bank; Deseret Telegraph; Cattle: Bearing the Burden of the West; Mormon Battalion; and Canadian Colonization. During 2024, he presented papers at The John Whitmer Historical Association conference on the United Orders of Orderville, Knab, and Saint George, Utah. He holds a master’s in business administration (MBA) with a focus on health care financial management. During his career, he served as a chief financial officer and vice-president of finance, strengthening the picture to improve financial performance through matrixed analytics.

Title: “No Purse or Scrip: The History of Full-time No Purse or Scrip Missionary Service in the California Mission (1948–1950)” by Trace Rogers

Abstract: Between August 28 and September 11, 1948, Oscar W. McConkie, the president of the California Mission of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, asked the elders to vote whether they would give up their apartments and money from home to begin serving full-time as no purse or scrip missionaries. The vote was unanimous in the affirmative.

Not since before the turn of the century had an entire mission of elders served full-time without purse or scrip. Many missions of the era sent elders during the summer months, but none had done so year round. During the two years from August 1948 until President McConkie’s release in September 1950, and beyond, elders tracted door to door sharing the message of the church while also asking to be fed and provided a place to sleep. Some were not always successful. This session will review the history, within the church, of serving missions without purse or scrip with a heavy focus on the California Mission experience. Learn how one mission president went against the mainstream missionary practices of his day and its impact on the missionaries, missionary work, members, and the wider community across the mission.

Biographical Sketch: Trace Rogers is an independent historian with a BSEE from the University of Idaho. After a twenty-six-year career at Micron Technology, where he advanced to senior member technical staff, he became a consultant and senior solution architect in supply chain planning. For the past several years, he has researched and conducted interviews for two book projects: a history of full-time no purse or scrip missionary service, based in part on the mission of his father-in-law, James Morrell Bunn, and a biography of historian James B. Allen. He has presented at the Mormon History Association conference, Sunstone summer symposium, and other conferences on missionary history, James B. Allen’s legacy, faith transition, and related topics. Trace lives in Boise, Idaho, with his wife, Lorell Bunn Rogers. They have four adult children and one grandchild. 

Roundtable 203 (8:30 a.m., Friday, September 25) 

Title: “Benefits of Untold Stories” by Paul DeBarthe, Randall J. Soland, Joseph Johnstun, James Topic, Margret S. Shurts, and Eugene Shurts

Abstract: The roundtable will permit representatives from Untold Nauvoo Stories, which has been an annual event for the past two decades, to share with representatives from Untold Lamoni Stories, which began in March 2026 and plans to continue as an annual event. Discussion of the benefits of this type of social history will, we hope, encourage additional small communities to engage in the process.

Biographical Sketches: 

Paul DeBarthe has presented at both Untold Nauvoo Stories and Untold Lamoni Stories as well as at numerous JWHA events. His background as an archaeologist at the Joseph Smith Historic Sites in Nauvoo and now at the Joseph and Bertha Smith site in Lamoni provides a unique perspective on local history. 

Randall J. Soland, MA, MS, ED, MA, PhD, served forty-six years as a private-practice clinical counselor, adjunct faculty member, and master’s level historian. He is author of Utopian Communities of Illinois: Heaven on the Prairie. Two more books are in process, hopefully to be published in 2027, and a joint paper is in process with Joseph Johnstun.

Joseph Johnstun is a Nauvoo historian and director of the Tomb of Joseph Museum in Nauvoo, Illinois. He has been on the Untold Nauvoo Stories committee since its inception.

James Topic is a historian, educator, artist, and community organizer.

Margret S. Shurts has spent more than sixty years teaching food and nutrition through both classroom instruction and hands-on learning. She has also coordinated the refreshment table for Untold Nauvoo Stories for the past fourteen years, contributing her time and talents in support of its programs and events.

Eugene Shurts has a long-time interest in Nauvoo history working on recorded and documented NRI records that were sent to the LDS Church History Library. He is co-author with Karen Ihrig of  “The Way we Were—Walking Tour.” He  served on the Nauvoo “Journal Stories” program committee. He has been a member of the Untold Nauvoo Stories symposium committee for thirteen years and is presently the chairman. He served two missions for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day saints at the Church History Library. He has a BS degree in manufacturing engineering from BYU. 

Session 204 (8:30 a.m., Friday, September 25) 

Title: “A New Day in Zion: The 1926 Conferences of the Church of Christ (Temple Lot)” by Jason R. Smith

Abstract: Up through the early 1920s, the Church of Christ (Temple Lot) was a relatively small though dedicated band of saints, consisting of a handful of families centered around the small parcel of land in Independence, Missouri, for which they served as faithful stewards. A growing rift within the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS), culminating in 1925, led thousands of RLDS members to leave. Many of these former RLDS members found a new home in the Church of Christ. In April and October of 1926, general conferences of the Church of Christ were held, now with an infusion of new blood in the form of nearly three thousand transfers of membership from the RLDS church. At these 1926 conferences, several prominent former RLDS members rose to become leaders in the Church of Christ.

Biographical Sketch: Jason R. Smith (he/him) is a PhD student at Chicago Theological Seminary, where he studies interreligious engagement and comparative theology. Jason’s passion is exploring the history and theology of the lesser-known expressions of the Smith-Rigdon movement. He lives in Duncan, Oklahoma, and works as an IT Manager for a public water utility.

Title: “Otto Fetting, the Temple Lot, and the Rise of the Elijah Message Church” by Adam Oliver Stokes

Abstract: This paper examines the interaction between Otto Fetting and the Temple Lot movement in the early twentieth century. In this paper, I chronicle the initial acceptance of Fetting’s revelations by the Temple Lot church, his later excommunication, and the emergence of another Restoration tradition, the Elijah Message church.

Biographical Sketch: Adam Oliver Stokes has degrees in religion from Duke University and Yale Divinity School. He has written numerous articles and works on Restoration scriptures and Restoration history. His work has been featured in the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, Brigham Young University Studies Quarterly, and Interpreter. He currently serves as a librarian and classics teacher in New Jersey.

Panel 211: (10:15 a.m., Friday, September 25) 

Title: “Publishing Restoration Scholarship Today: Journals, Books, and the Future of the Field” by Ken R. Mulliken, Amanda Hendrix-Komoto, Justin Dyer, Seth Bryant, and Barbara Jones Brown

Abstract: This panel brings together editors and publishers from leading journals and book presses in Restoration scholarship to reflect on the present state and future direction of the field. Designed especially for graduate students, early-career scholars, independent researchers, faculty, and established authors seeking a better understanding of the publication landscape, the session will explore how journals and presses define their missions, evaluate scholarship, cultivate authors, and reach diverse audiences.

Panelists will discuss the scope and purpose of Restoration scholarship today, the kinds of questions and methods they hope to encourage, and the changing relationship between scholarly rigor, accessibility, community readership, and public engagement. The conversation will also address practical matters such as peer review, manuscript development, editorial standards, book proposals, audience, and advice for prospective authors. Considering the conference theme, “Crossroads of Identity, Community, and Technology,” the panel will consider how publishing institutions help define communities of inquiry, preserve and reinterpret religious identity, and respond to new opportunities and challenges, including interdisciplinary scholarship and emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence.

Biographical Sketches: 

Ken R. Mulliken is a historian, educator, and academic leader with more than twenty-five years of experience in higher education. He currently serves as editor of The John Whitmer Historical Association Journal. He most recently served as vice-president for academic affairs at Marian University and previously held senior leadership roles as associate vice chancellor for undergraduate education and institutional effectiveness at the University of Illinois Springfield and as executive director of the Honors College at Southern Oregon University. He also served for a decade as professor and department chair of history at the University of Saint Mary, where he directed the Global Studies Institute. Mulliken earned his PhD in history from the University of Missouri–Kansas City, where his interdisciplinary dissertation received the Mormon History Association’s Gerald E. Jones Outstanding Dissertation Award.

Amanda Hendrix-Komoto is an associate professor in the Department of History and Philosophy at Montana State University. The University of Nebraska published her first book, Imperial Zions: Religion, Family, and Race in the American West in 2022.

Justin Dyer is a professor of religious education at Brigham Young University. His research focuses on the impact of religion on well-being, particularly for Latter-day Saints. He is the principal investigator of the Family Foundations of Youth Development project, a ten-year study on the religion/spirituality, well-being, and religious retention rates of Gen Z youth. He currently serves as the editor-in-chief of BYU Studies.

Seth Bryant, a seventy for Community of Christ and former pastor of the Salt Lake City congregation, lives in Kirtland, Ohio. He serves as historic sites property manager, and as one of three World Church historians for Community of Christ. Seth is a combat veteran who served as chaplain for 3rd Battalion 7th Marines in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. He holds graduate degrees in religion focusing on American religious history.

Barbara Jones Brown is the director of Signature Books Publishing, which was founded in 1981 to promote the study of Mormonism at its intersection with American history. Over the years, Signature has created a unique literary repertoire—publishing biographies, documentary histories, personal essays, poetry, fiction, and humor related to Restorationist history and culture. Brown is the coauthor of Vengeance Is Mine: The Mountain Meadows Massacre and Its Aftermath (2023), winner of several awards, including The John Whitmer Historical Association’s Best Book Award. She is currently editing D. Michael Quinn’s manuscript on post-Manifesto polygamy, which Quinn’s children asked Signature Books to publish.

Session 221 (2:00 p.m., Friday, September 25) 

Title: “Author Meets Critics—Unsettling Scripture: Iroquois and the Book of Mormon by Thomas W. Murphy, Elise Boxer, Amanda Hendrix-Komoto, and Paul DeBarthe

Abstract: In Unsettling Scripture: Iroquois and the Book of Mormon, anthropologist Thomas W Murphy delves into the visions of Seneca prophet Handsome Lake, the epic narratives of the Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) Confederacy, and the origin story of the Book of Mormon, revealing surprising parallels between indigenous and Mormon traditions. Murphy offers a postcolonial reading of the Book of Mormon that juxtaposes Mormon stories about American Indian origins with Haudenosaunee stories about the roots of Mormonism in Iroquoia. 

Through ethnohistorical research and decolonizing methodologies, Murphy reexamines how both communities understand their origins, faith, and prophecy. From Handsome Lake’s revelations to Joseph Smith’s seer stone, from ancient sibling rivalries to the Great Peace, this book unsettles traditional narratives while opening new conversations on scripture, identity, and cultural exchange. Drawing from living indigenous voices, Unsettling Scripture challenges readers to rethink sacred texts and the histories they tell.

Biographical Sketches:

Thomas W. Murphy is the author of Unsettling Scripture: Iroquois and the Book of Mormon. He has a PhD in anthropology from the University of Washington, chaired the Anthropology Department at Edmonds College for twenty-two years, and is past president of the Mormon Social Science Association.

Elise Boxer is an associate professor of history and Native American studies at the University of South Dakota, where she also serves as the director of the Institute of American Indian Studies. Her book, Mormon Settler Colonialism: Inventing the Lamanite, is available from the University of Oklahoma Press. Her research areas include indigenous studies, settler colonialism, indigeneity, and Mormonism. She is also the co-editor of From the Skin: Defending Indigenous Nations Using Theory and Praxis. 

Amanda Hendrix-Komoto is an associate professor in the Department of History and Philosophy at Montana State University. The University of Nebraska published her first book, Imperial Zions: Religion, Family, and Race in the American West in 2022.

Paul DeBarthe has presented at both Untold Nauvoo Stories and Untold Lamoni Stories as well as at numerous JWHA events. His background as an archaeologist at the Joseph Smith Historic Sites in Nauvoo and now at the Joseph and Bertha Smith site in Lamoni provides a unique perspective on local history.

Session 222 (2:00 p.m., Friday, September 25) 

Title: “Latter-day Saint Theologian Among Christian Theologians” by Kyle Beshears, Grant Underwood, John Christopher Thomas, and D. William “Bill” Faupel

Abstract: Grant Underwood’s Latter-day Saint Theology Among Christian Theologies (Eerdmans, 2025) represents the most sustained attempt by a Latter-day Saint scholar to place his tradition’s theology in direct conversation with the broader Christian theological landscape. Underwood organizes the volume around the major loci of systematic theology and argues that Latter-day Saint thought occupies a recognizable place within the Christian intellectual tradition. The book makes its case through a single scholarly voice as Underwood represents the Christian traditions he engages. This panel extends the project by letting those traditions speak for themselves. Three scholars join Underwood in the kind of conversation his book invites. Kyle Beshears (Baptist) reads Underwood from within the evangelical-LDS dialogue tradition. John Christopher Thomas (Pentecostal) brings a hermeneutic shaped by his own published work on Latter-day Saint scripture. D. William Faupel (Episcopal) offers a perspective informed by decades of work on the history of Christianity and ecumenical engagement. Together, the panel explores what emerges when the theological placement Underwood proposes becomes a shared inquiry among the traditions themselves.

Biographical Sketches:

Kyle Beshears is a pastor in Mobile, Alabama. He holds a PhD from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, where he wrote on James Strang and his church, and presently serves on the board of The John Whitmer Historical Association. He is published in the JWHA Journal and the Journal of Mormon History, is the author of 40 Questions About Mormonism (Kregel Academic, 2025) and is currently writing on the development of Latter-day Saint history and theology (Baker Academic, 2027). He has been engaged in evangelical-LDS interfaith dialogue since 2014.

Grant Underwood is a professor of history and Richard L. Evans chair of religious understanding at Brigham Young University. A leading scholar in Mormon studies, he focuses his research on early Mormon thought, theology, Millennialism, and global Mormon history. Underwood has served as the founding co-director of the American Academy of Religion’s Mormon Studies Group and co-directed a National Endowment for the Humanities summer seminar on Joseph Smith and Mormonism. He is the author of the award-winning The Millenarian World of Early Mormonism and, most recently, Latter-day Saint Theology among Christian Theologies. His scholarship has significantly shaped contemporary understandings of Latter-day Saint history and theology.

John Christopher Thomas is senior professor of Biblical studies at the Pentecostal Theological Seminary, director of the Centre for Pentecostal Theology, and co-director of the Centre for Pentecostal and Charismatic Studies at Bangor University. Educated at Lee College, the Church of God School of Theology, Ashland Theological Seminary, Princeton Theological Seminary, and the University of Sheffield, he is internationally recognized for his scholarship on the New Testament, Pentecostal theology, and biblical interpretation. He has authored numerous books, commentaries, and articles, including The Apocalypse, The Devil, Disease, and Deliverance, and A Pentecostal Reads the Book of Mormon. He serves as co-editor of the Journal of Pentecostal Theology and has held leadership positions in the Society for Pentecostal Studies and the Book of Mormon Studies Association. His career has combined scholarship, publishing, teaching, and more than four decades of pastoral ministry.  

William (Bill) Faupel is professor emeritus of the history of Christianity at Wesley Theological Seminary and formerly served as director of its library. An ordained Episcopal priest, he previously taught at Asbury Theological Seminary while serving in parish ministry. Educated at Central Bible Institute, Evangel College, Asbury Theological Seminary, the University of Kentucky, the University of Birmingham, and Queens College, he has devoted much of his career to church history, Pentecostal studies, and ecumenical dialogue. Faupel has served as president of the Society for Pentecostal Studies and held leadership roles in numerous ecumenical organizations. His scholarly interests include Pentecostalism, Anglicanism, church history, and Mormonism, an interest that emerged during his doctoral studies. In retirement, he continues to serve in parish ministry as assistant priest at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Bonita Springs, Florida. 

Session 223 (2:00 p.m., Friday, September 25) 

Title: “Gnostic Mormonism: An Examination of the Scriptures of the Gnostic Temple of the Pearl” by Mike LeCheminant

Abstract: This presentation will discuss one of the lesser-known expressions of the Latter Day Saint movement led by John W. Bryant, which combines Mormon teachings with Gnostic Christianity. After experiencing a series of visions and visitations, he founded the Church of Christ (Patriarchal) in 1974. Their name changed several times, and they are currently known as the Gnostic Temple of the Pearl, with about fifteen active members. Evolving from fundamentalism to a more liberal theology, they were the first Latter Day Saint offshoot to ordain women to the priesthood. They practice a unique syncretism of Gnosticism and Mormonism, combined with aspects of Judaism and Jungian psychology. This presentation will discuss the church’s teachings, practices, and holy days, and will examine the content and themes of Bryant’s scriptural translations, including instances of intertextuality with other Latter Day Saint scriptures. 

Biographical Sketch: Mike has received degrees in zoology, dentistry, and endodontics from Brigham Young University, the University of Louisville, and the University of Southern California, respectively. He practices dentistry in Houston, Texas, specializing in root canals, and he is currently a part-time history student at Sam Houston State University. His primary research interest is studying the divergent paths of the Restoration. 

Title: “Flat Earthers, Anglo-Israelism, and the Golden Plates Revisited: The Responses of Three Churches with Problematic Inheritances Compared” by John Hamer

Abstract: In the early twentieth century, the former Christian Catholic Apostolic (CCA) church taught that the world is flat as doctrine. In the middle twentieth century, the former Worldwide Church of God (WWCG) held that Anglo-Saxons were racially and linguistically the direct descendants of the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel. And as of the 1960s, the former Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS) taught that the Book of Mormon contained a history of the American Indians that had been translated from characters engraved on golden plates. By the end of the twentieth century, the CCA rejected flat-earth doctrine and changed its name to Christ Community Church. The WWCG rejected Anglo-Israelism and changed its name to Grace Communion International.

While the RLDS church changed its name to Community of Christ, its response to academic challenges to the golden plates story has been more complex. While not explicitly rejecting Restoration distinctives, many have been significantly deemphasized by church leaders. This paper will update an earlier study presented at the 2019 JWHA meeting. Since that look, a significant turning point occurred when church leaders sold the Kirtland Temple, along with other heritage properties and artifacts, to the LDS church.

Biographical Sketch: John C. Hamer is a past president and lifetime member of The John Whitmer Historical Association. He is co-editor of Scattering of the Saints: Schism within Mormonism and co-author of Community of Christ: An Illustrated History. John’s research and writing focus on the many diverse expressions in the Latter Day Saint movement. Each Tuesday night for the last decade, John has lectured on a wide variety of topics in the fields of history, theology, and philosophy. Many of these lectures on YouTube have attracted hundreds of thousands of views. John serves as church historian for Community of Christ in Canada and is pastor of the Community of Christ Toronto Congregation.

Session 224 (2:00 p.m., Friday, September 25) 

Title: “Our Leader Is Dead; Who has the Instruction Manual?” By Vickie Speek and Katherine Peake

Abstract: When a religious movement loses its founding leader, it enters a volatile time of transition that often dictates its long-term survival. These moments typically yield one of four outcomes: continuation, dissolution, reform, or schism. Central to these results is a single question: to what degree was the leader’s authority institutionalized before their death?

While the 1844 transition and continuation from Joseph Smith to Brigham Young are well-documented, at least fifteen other schisms emerged in its wake. Vickie Speek and Katherine Peake will examine two such offshoots: the Strangites and Wightites, analyzing the catalysts for these divisions and their ultimate outcomes. Their work invites a deeper consideration of the existential challenges faced by splinter groups during a movement’s formative years. 

Biographical Sketches:

Vickie Speek, a journalist by trade, is the author of God Has Made Us a Kingdom: James Strang and the Midwest Mormons and The Amazing Jimmi Mayes: Sideman to the Stars. Her interest in the Strangites began unexpectedly while she was searching for basket-making supplies in Wisconsin.

Katherine Peake is an attorney who describes herself as an “accidental history enthusiast.” She was drawn into the history of the Wightites after spotting a typo—”Normon” instead of “Mormon”—in an abstract of title.

Katherine and Vickie became friends after a chance meeting at the 2023 JWHA conference in Fredericksburg. Both have been encouraged in their work by historian Mel Johnson.

Title: “The American Indian Movement (AIM) and the Occupation of the RLDS Kansas City Stake Office Building, 1978” by David J. Howlett

Abstract: In 1978, the American Indian Movement staged “The Longest Walk,” a walking pilgrimage from San Francisco to Washington, DC, where the participants delivered a petition to Congress. As the group neared Kansas City, Missouri, its then leader, Ernie Peters (Lakota) made contact with groups sympathetic to its actions, including the RLDS church. In response, RLDS Kansas City Stake officials arranged for Peters and other organizers to use an office in its stake office building while AIM held meetings with the press and general public. However, leadership disagreements within AIM led to another national leader, Clyde Bellecourt (White Earth Nation), coordinating the walk as it entered Kansas City. Taking a more militant stance that caught RLDS leaders off guard, Bellecourt led an AIM occupation of the Kansas City Stake office building for three days in an effort to pressure the RLDS president-prophet, Wallace B. Smith, to issue a statement in support of the Longest Walk and its petition. Using archival documents and autobiographical accounts, this paper looks at those tense few days and shows the surprising value of the failed collaboration for both the RLDS church and AIM.

Biographical Sketch: David J. Howlett is a lecturer in religion at Smith College, where he has taught since 2019. Raised in Independence, Missouri, he holds a PhD in religious studies from the University of Iowa. David is the author of Kirtland Temple: The Biography of a Shared Mormon Sacred Space (University of Illinois Press, 2014) and Mormonism: The Basics (Routledge, 2017).

Session 231 (4:15 p.m., Friday, September 25) 

Title: “Was Joseph Smith a Utopian Socialist?” By Mark Skousen

Abstract: The BYU Economics Department displayed a post of the various schools of thought and placed Joseph Smith in the category of utopian socialists along with Robert Owen and Saint-Simon. My paper will examine the evolution of Joseph Smith’s economic thought and how he gradually shifted away from utopian socialism toward a defender of private property and individual decision-making. 

Biographical Sketch: Mark Skousen, PhD, is an economist, author, university professor, and investment strategist. He serves as macroeconomic strategist for the Oxford Club and edits The Skousen Report. He earned his doctorate in economics from George Washington University and currently holds the Doti-Spogli endowed chair of free enterprise at Chapman University. Skousen has authored more than twenty-five books on economics, finance, and history, including The Making of Modern Economics, Economic Logic, and The Greatest American: Benjamin Franklin, the World’s Most Versatile Genius (2025). His work contributed to the federal government’s adoption of gross output as a complementary measure of economic activity. A former editor of Forecasts & Strategies, he has taught at Columbia University, Chapman University, and several other institutions. His writing has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and the Journal of Economic Perspectives.

Title: “Carrying the Candidate: Joseph Smith’s Electioneers, Robert F. Kennedy’s Campaigners, and Creating Political Community Before and After Assassination” by Derek R. Sainsbury and Allianna Nolte

Abstract: This paper reinterprets Joseph Smith’s 1844 campaign in comparative dialogue with the 1968 campaign of Robert F. Kennedy, the only other assassinated presidential candidate. Both candidacies are best understood through their campaigners. Building on my published scholarship on Joseph Smith’s electioneers and my oral-history interviews with surviving Kennedy campaigners, I ask how communities carried a candidate across distance, hostility, and grief; how race and gender shaped that labor; and how assassination became a crossroads that simultaneously splintered each movement and forged a hardened cadre determined to fulfill the fallen candidate’s political vision. In Smith’s case, Mormon exclusion produced a campaign sustained through gendered labor, print culture, and communal witness; after Carthage, the movement fractured over leadership while devoted believers carried forward Smith’s vision of theodemocratic pluralism. In Kennedy’s case, a coalition marked by racial tension, ethnic identity, and the underacknowledged work of women likewise splintered after Los Angeles yet retained a committed cadre seeking to embody Kennedy’s moral and democratic aspirations. Joining Restoration history, grassroots political history, comparative biography, and memory studies, this paper compares Nauvoo with 1968, showing how identity, community, and technology converged not only in the making of presidential movements but in their remaking after assassination.

Biographical Sketches: 

Derek R. Sainsbury is an associate professor of church history and doctrine at Brigham Young University. He researches and publishes on the intersections of Latter-day Saints and politics as well as religious liberty. He authored the groundbreaking monograph Storming the Nation: The Unknown Contributions of Joseph Smith’s Political Missionaries, along with several other publications. Derek is currently researching and writing a dual biography of Joseph Smith and Robert F. Kennedy as the only two assassinated presidential candidates.

Allianna Nolte is currently studying economics and Spanish at Brigham Young University, with the goal of attending law school and practicing anti-trust law. Originally from Wisconsin, she grew up visiting church historical sites and has a deep interest in and love for her faith’s history. She is particularly interested in the role American politics played in shaping the identities of early Latter-day Saints. In her free time, she enjoys spending time with family, ceramics, and reading, especially biographies.

Session 232 (4:15 p.m., Friday, September 25) 

Title: “‘I Am Anxious to See My Children’: Marriage, Authority, and Family Rupture at the Crossroads” by Eric Paul Rogers

Abstract: This paper examines Mark Hill Forscutt’s 1868 letter, written to Lucinda Hartwell in Council Bluffs, in which he declared that he was “anxious to see my children,” situating it at a personal crossroads within the broader Mormon crossroads of Council Bluffs. It develops a dimension of Forscutt’s life not addressed in Rogers’s earlier article, “Mark Hill Forscutt: Mormon Missionary, Morrisite Apostle, RLDS Minister” (The John Whitmer Historical Association Journal, 2001). Drawing on newly identified Utah divorce records, diaries, and correspondence, the paper shows that while Forscutt’s marriage to Elizabeth Unsworth had been legally dissolved, the relational consequences of that rupture remained unsettled. Close textual analysis demonstrates how his self-presentation operated within a context of shifting familial and marital possibilities, even as Elizabeth’s experience remained largely unrecorded. In doing so, it explores how marriage shaped ministerial credibility within emerging RLDS networks and how family disruption was unevenly experienced and preserved along gendered lines.

Biographical Sketch: Eric Paul Rogers is an independent scholar whose research examines authority, legitimacy, and belonging across Restoration traditions and within the LDS Church Educational System. His work explores movements including the Church of the Firstborn (Morrisite), Community of Christ, the Apostolic United Brethren, and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, alongside studies of gender, family, online learning, labor, and institutional change in Seminaries and Institutes of Religion. Current projects include documentary editions of the diaries of Mark Hill Forscutt, Sketch of Joseph Morris, research on datafication in Seminaries and Institutes, and new studies of Forscutt’s family life and ministerial career. His scholarship has appeared in the John Whitmer Historical Association Journal, the Journal of Mormon History, and other books and journals. He serves on the Board of Directors of The John Whitmer Historical Association.

Title: “The Epic (Fail?) of Mark Hill Forscutt’s The Saints’ Harmony” by Rebecca Roesler

Abstract: Mark Hill Forscutt’s RLDS hymnal, The Saints’ Harmony, mirrors his life: grandiose, cosmopolitan, and vulnerable to critique. Its introduction is rhapsodic and defensive, and its notated music—the first of any official RLDS hymnal—asks congregants and musicians to perform diverse, dramatic, and sometimes awkward tunes and harmonies. Like Forscutt, The Harmony is demanding and complex, enthusiastic and bold, and fully committed to its purpose. But The Harmony as a collection did not gain acceptance in its time. Richard Clothier and Wayne Ham have surmised possible reasons for its rapid replacement with The Saints’ Hymnal only six years later, and Forscutt’s exclusion from any involvement with the new project, including The Harmony’s expense, size, and the lack of familiarity of many of its tunes. This paper will further explore these and especially musical factors that may have put Forscutt’s “magnum opus” at cross-purposes with congregants’ needs and trained musicians’ sensibilities, while also successfully laying the foundation for RLDS/CoC hymnody to the present day, even ahead of its time. I will especially examine revisions that take place from The Harmony to The Hymnal by “a skilled harmonist,” as declared by The Hymnal’s introduction—presumably in contrast to that of Forscutt’s likely limited musical training.

Biographical Sketch: Rebecca Roesler recently joined the faculty at the University of Massachusetts Boston. She has taught music education and violin at Brigham Young University–Idaho, Boston University, and the University of North Texas. She received a PhD in music and human learning from the University of Texas at Austin. In addition to being an invited presenter at a book history workshop exploring hymnals at the LDS Church History Library, she has presented at conferences for the Mormon History Association, Book of Mormon Studies Association, International Society for Music Education, National Association for Music Education, the American String Teachers Association, and the Society for Music Teacher Education, and her articles appear in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Psychology of Music, Journal of Research in Music Education, Journal of Music Teacher Education, and String Research Journal.

Title: “RLDS and Mormon Hymns 1860–1890: Authors, Hymns, and the Meaning of the Times” by Bradley Armstrong

Abstract: The approach to sacred music between the Mormon church and the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ intersected and diverged simultaneously between 1860 and 1890. The RLDS church organized several hymnals during this time, culminating with The Saints’ Harmony, compiled in 1889. The Mormon church utilized several hymn writers and compiled The Latter-day Saints’ Psalmody the same year. 

There are four key authors of hymns in the RLDS and Mormon churches between 1860 and 1890. They created many of the most beloved hymns of the churches. The discussion will focus on the following authors: Mark Forscutt of the RLDS church, who wrote eighty-six hymns, and three LDS authors who together wrote at least twenty-eight hymns for the Mormon church: Ebenezer Beasley, Joseph L. Townsend, and George Manwaring.

Biographical Sketch: Bradley Armstrong is an independent historian. He has presented at several conferences on a wide range of topics, with a focus on LDS church history. He currently works for the City of Logan, Utah, in their Parks and Recreation Department, coordinating adult sports programs. 

 Session 233 (4:15 p.m., Friday, September 25) 

Title: “‘Thou Wilt a Mother to It Be’: Grief, Sisterhood, and Resurrection Theology in an 1847 Letter to Helen Mar Whitney” by Emelia Manwaring Jensen

Abstract: In October 1847, eighteen-year-old Helen Mar Kimball Whitney unfolded a letter in the makeshift settlement of Winter Quarters. Five months earlier, she had given birth to her first child, a stillborn or miscarried daughter. Seeking to provide comfort, Helen’s close friend Emmeline B. Wells composed a poem, one that promised reunion and restoration. The poem offers rare insight into how early Latter-day Saint women consoled one another amid child loss. This paper introduces that letter and situates it within the theological and material realities of Helen’s life in Winter Quarters. It contextualizes Helen’s traumatic childbirth experiences alongside the embodied suffering of women living on the edge of survival in Winter Quarters. It also traces how Emmeline’s poetic response drew directly on Joseph Smith’s teachings, that children who die in infancy will be raised by their parents in the resurrection. Her words reveal how women interpreted and emotionally enacted that theology. Together, Helen and Emmeline offer a portrait of early Latter-day Saint womanhood shaped not just by hardship, but by friendship, endurance, and belief in divine promises.

Biographical Sketch: Emelia Jensen is a family history major at Brigham Young University. She works as an editorial assistant for the Journal of Mormon History and as a research assistant for biographical and social history projects. Her research focuses on the intersection of nineteenth-century Latter-day Saint history, women’s social experiences, and maternal health.

Title: “Seven Nephite Inversions of Jesus’s Sermon at the Temple” (pre-recorded) by Elray Henriksen

Abstract: This paper identifies seven major narratives in the Book of Mormon that invert the ethical logic of Jesus’s sermon at the temple in 3 Nephi 12. These narratives appear to contradict what may be understood as the constitutional ethics of Zion. Structured around the antitheses of the sermon—murder, anger, adultery, divorce, oaths, retaliation, and enemies—the narratives establish new moral frameworks concerning nation, race, gender, justice, freedom, conspiracy, and destruction. In each case, moral closure is secured through divine legitimation: “the Lord has said.” 

By tracing these contradictions, I argue that Jesus’s sermon at the temple functions as a literary and ethical backbone to the Book of Mormon, though often through inversion. This bird’s-eye reading of the text suggests a broader narrative pattern in which readers might be implicitly warned against emulating Nephite society, if they want to follow Jesus’s teachings. The paper, therefore, proposes that the Book of Mormon contains not only a theology of discipleship, but also a sustained narrative critique of civilizations that sacralize violence, hierarchy, and exclusion.

Biographical Sketch: Elray Henriksen is a doctoral research fellow in religion and politics researching the Book of Mormon and its role in contemporary American political discourse. His work combines religious studies, political analysis, and discourse analysis, with a particular interest in how sacred texts shape moral and political imagination. He holds degrees in peace and development studies, religion, and political communication. Before entering doctoral research, he worked in peacebuilding and civil society contexts, including with the UN system and Norwegian Church Aid. Elray has also been involved in Community of Christ ministries and community-based refugee support initiatives in Europe.

Session 234 (4:15 p.m., Friday, September 25) 

Title: “Advance Documentary Screening: ‘Brother Joseph Again, Restoring the Likeness of Joseph Smith Jr.’” by Patrick Bishop and Joseph Brickey

Abstract: Many of those who knew Joseph Smith Jr. from life were not satisfied with paintings or drawings depicting him. Over the last hundred years, a persistent question has been repeated: “What did Joseph Smith look like?” After twenty-five years of historical and forensic research, we believe we can answer that question and determine if an authentic photograph of Joseph Smith exists. We invite you to weigh the evidence that will be presented and draw your own conclusions from it. This session consists of an advanced screening of the documentary. A presentation and Q&A session on the documentary and forthcoming book by Greg Kofford Books will be held on Saturday in Session 301.

Biographical Sketches:
Patrick A. Bishop is a dedicated author, academic, and outdoorsman. He is a graduate of Montana State University (2001) and Utah State University (2004). His background is deeply rooted in the Intermountain West. As a prolific author of religious texts, he has published titles such as Joseph Smith’s Histories in Harmony and Apostolic Succession in the Restoration. His twenty-five years of employment have been with the Church Educational System and Temple and Correlation Departments of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He and his wife, Liz, are the parents of five children.

Joseph F. Brickey is an accomplished classical artist who has won multiple international awards in both painting and sculpture. He received a master of fine arts in sculpture from the New York Academy of Art in 2012. He studied forensic facial reconstruction with the Smithsonian’s acclaimed forensic artist Jiwoong Che and has since been honored with the Walter Erlebacher Award for his studies in human anatomy. For over a decade, he has taught classical and forensic anatomy at the Beaux-Arts Academy, a school of classical art and architecture, where he currently serves as director. He also serves as president of the Classical Tradition Institute, president of the Inspirational Artists Association, and as a member of the board of directors of the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art.

President’s Address 241 (6:30 p.m., Friday, September 25)

Title: “‘What the Present Owes the Past’: Or, What Historians Owe LDS Church History” by Matthew Harris

Abstract: Part autobiographical, part philosophical, Matthew L. Harris’s presidential address will zero in on the moral and ethical obligations that historians have in writing Mormon history. He will talk about the hazards of writing devotional histories, the hazards of writing critical histories, and then offer solutions to bridge that critical divide. Most of his examples will draw from the work of LDS historians, as well as prominent historians from various universities in the United States and England. And finally, Harris will offer strategies to write good histories, including drawing on his own experience getting access to diaries, letters, and meeting minutes from top-ranking leaders in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Biographical Sketch: Matthew L. Harris is professor of history and director of the Legal Studies program at Colorado State University Pueblo. He earned degrees in history from Brigham Young University and Syracuse University. An award-winning author and teacher, Harris has written, edited, or co-edited numerous books on Latter-day Saint history, including Second-Class Saints: Black Mormons and the Struggle for Racial Equality (2024), which received The John Whitmer Historical Association’s Best Book Award, Watchman on the Tower: Ezra Taft Benson and the Making of the Mormon Right, and The Mormon Church and Blacks: A Documentary History. His scholarship has also examined early American history and religion. Harris currently serves as president of The John Whitmer Historical Association and is completing biographies of Hugh B. Brown and J. Reuben Clark. He considers it a great honor to be the forty-eight president of the JWHA.