Equal Rites
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: January 15, 2003
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 256
ISBN-13: 9780231126403
Subjects: Cultural studies; Freemasonry & secret societies; Gender studies; History of religion; Mormons (Church of Latter Day Saints); Religion; Sociology; USA; Christianity - Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (; Christianity - Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saomts (; Freemasonry; Sociology of Religion; Religion / General; Christian Rituals & Practice - General; Christianity - General; 19th century; Doctrines; History; History of doctrines; Mormon Church; Religious aspects; Women
Description: "Both the Prophet Joseph Smith and his Book of Mormon have been characterized as ardently, indeed evangelically, anti-Masonic. Yet in this sweeping social, cultural, and religious history of nineteenth-century Mormonism and its milieu, Clyde Forsberg argues that Masonry, like evangelical Christianity, was an essential component of Smith's vision. Smith's ability to imaginatively conjoin the two into a powerful and evocative defense of Christian, or Primitive, Freemasonry was, Forsberg shows, more than anything else responsible for the meteoric rise of Mormonism in the nineteenth century."--Jacket.