Lynn K. Wilder (born 1952) is a Christian author and former Brigham Young University (BYU) professor. She became well known for discussing how she left the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) in the 2011 video-documentary Unveiling Grace. [1]
Wilder attended high school in Richmond, Indiana. [2] She married her husband Michael in 1974. [3] The couple have three sons, Joshua, Matt and Micah, and a daughter, Katie. [4] They joined the LDS Church in 1977, after Mormon missionaries knocked on their door and converted them. [3] [5]
Wilder earned a PhD at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. [2] She became a professor of Counseling Psychology and Special Education at BYU in 1999. [2] [6]
In 2006, she converted and became an evangelical Born-Again Christian after her son, Micah, who was serving a Mormon mission to Orlando, Florida, told his parents that he was having doubts about the LDS Church and after studying the New Testament. Two years after her conversion, she resigned from BYU. [3]
Jana Riess characterizes Wilder's signature book, Unveiling Grace, as "more even-handed" than the provocative marketing campaign would suggest, differing from what Riess characterizes as the typical tell-all, ex-Mormon memoir in that it shows Wilder's love for Mormons as people, even as she rejects LDS theology. [4]
Film | |||
---|---|---|---|
Year | Film | Role | Notes |
2011 | Unveiling Grace | Herself | Short film |
2015 | The Mormons: Who They Are, What They Believe | Herself | Documentary |
In the Latter Day Saint movement, the Heavenly Mother, also known as the Mother in Heaven, is the mother of human spirits and the wife of God the Father. Collectively Heavenly Mother and Father are called Heavenly Parents. Those who accept the Mother in Heaven doctrine trace its origins to Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saint movement. The doctrine became more widely known after Smith's death in 1844.
Eliza Roxcy Snow was one of the most celebrated Latter Day Saint women of the nineteenth century. A renowned poet, she chronicled history, celebrated nature and relationships, and expounded scripture and doctrine. Snow was married to Joseph Smith as a plural wife and was openly a plural wife of Brigham Young after Smith's death. Snow was the second general president of the Relief Society of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which she reestablished in Utah Territory in 1866. She was also the sister of Lorenzo Snow, the church's fifth president.
During the history of the Latter Day Saint movement, the relationship between Black people and Mormonism has included enslavement, exclusion and inclusion, official and unofficial discrimination, and friendly ties. Black people have been involved with the Latter Day Saint movement since its inception in the 1830s. Their experiences have varied widely, depending on the denomination within Mormonism and the time of their involvement. From the mid-1800s to 1978, Mormonism's largest denomination – the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints – barred Black women and men from participating in the ordinances of its temples necessary for the highest level of salvation, prevented most men of Black African descent from being ordained into the church's lay, all-male priesthood, supported racial segregation in its communities and schools, taught that righteous Black people would be made white after death, and opposed interracial marriage. The temple and priesthood racial restrictions were lifted by church leaders in 1978. In 2013, the church disavowed its previous teachings on race for the first time.
Mormon fiction is generally fiction by or about members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who are also referred to as Latter-day Saints or Mormons. Its history is commonly divided into four sections as first organized by Eugene England: foundations, home literature, the "lost" generation, and faithful realism. During the first fifty years of the church's existence, 1830–1880, fiction was not popular, though Parley P. Pratt wrote a fictional Dialogue between Joseph Smith and the Devil. With the emergence of the novel and short stories as popular reading material, Orson F. Whitney called on fellow members to write inspirational stories. During this "home literature" movement, church-published magazines published many didactic stories and Nephi Anderson wrote the novel Added Upon. The generation of writers after the home literature movement produced fiction that was recognized nationally but was seen as rebelling against home literature's outward moralization. Vardis Fisher's Children of God and Maurine Whipple's The Giant Joshua were prominent novels from this time period. In the 1970s and 1980s, authors started writing realistic fiction as faithful members of the LDS Church. Acclaimed examples include Levi S. Peterson's The Backslider and Linda Sillitoe's Sideways to the Sun. Home literature experienced a resurgence in popularity in the 1980s and 1990s when church-owned Deseret Book started to publish more fiction, including Gerald Lund's historical fiction series The Work and the Glory and Jack Weyland's novels.
Mormon cinema usually refers to films with themes relevant to members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The term has also been used to refer to films that do not necessarily reflect Mormon themes but have been made by Mormon filmmakers. Films within the realm of Mormon cinema may be distinguished from institutional films produced by the LDS Church, such as Legacy and Testaments, which are made for instructional or proselyting purposes and are non-commercial. Mormon cinema is produced mainly for the purposes of entertainment and potential financial success.
The self-reported membership of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as of December 31, 2022, was 17,002,461. The LDS Church has been known for rapid membership growth throughout its existence. Growth rates generally remain positive, outpacing world population growth with the exception of 2020 and 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2022, the annual growth rate in membership was 1.17% resuming the trend of outpacing the world population growth rate of .83% that year.
Carol Lynn Wright Pearson is an American poet, author, screenwriter, and playwright. She frequently addresses the topics of LGBT acceptance and the role of Latter-day Saint women.
Lynn Mathers Hilton was an American politician who served as a member of the Utah State Legislature. He was also known as an academic professor, businessman, Middle East explorer and author of many books related to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Deborah Laake was a columnist at the Dallas Morning News in the 1980s and later a staff writer, columnist, editor, and executive at the Phoenix New Times. She was famous for her 1993 book entitled Secret Ceremonies: A Mormon Woman's Intimate Diary of Marriage and Beyond, a candid and critical account of her experiences growing up and marrying as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Jana Kathryn Riess is an American professor, writer, and editor. Riess' writings have focused on American religions, especially the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints of which she is a member, and other new religious movements.
Mormon studies is the interdisciplinary academic study of the beliefs, practices, history and culture of individuals and denominations belonging to the Latter Day Saint movement, a religious movement associated with the Book of Mormon, though not all churches and members of the Latter Day Saint movement identify with the terms Mormon or Mormonism. Denominations of the Latter Day Saint movement include the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, by far the largest, as well as the Community of Christ (CoC) and other smaller groups, include some categorized under the umbrella term Mormon fundamentalism.
Bradley Ray Wilcox is a professor of ancient scripture at Brigham Young University (BYU) and has been a counselor in the Young Men general presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints since April 2020.
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Fiona Givens is an American writer, teacher, and speaker who focuses on matters of history, theology, and culture of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Janice Merrill Allred is an excommunicated Latter Day Saint, theologian, writer, and Mormon feminist. She was born in Mesa, Arizona.
FreeBYU is an advocacy organization dedicated to changing Brigham Young University (BYU) policies such that students can have an environment of religious and academic freedom. These policies mean that students who enroll in the university as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are not able to express a change in religious beliefs or express their lack thereof without risk of being evicted from their student homes, fired from their campus jobs, or expelled from the university. Currently BYU does not allow students who enrolled as Mormons to change their religious affiliation, and FreeBYU is advocating for university policy to apply the same standards for formerly LDS students as it does for non-LDS students, including charging a higher tuition rate.
Peter M. Johnson is a general authority seventy of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He is the first African-American general authority in church history.
Kate Holbrook was an American historian and writer. She worked as the managing historian of women's history in the Church History Department (CHD) of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
ComeUntoChrist.org, formerly known as Mormon.org, is a religious website maintained by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that serves as a visitor site for people not of the faith. Mormon.org was changed to ComeUntoChrist.org in 2019.