The purpose of this study was to trace the historical development of the Order of Aaron, or Aaronic Order, the governing body of the True Church of God, and to determine its present status in the religions of the world. The study included a summary of the origin of the Order, historical development, present establishment, organization within the Order, including types of memberships, as well as a resume of the theological teachings and practices of this group.Research involved a study of the publications of the Aaronic Order. Information from these sources was supplemented by correspondence and personal interviews with members of the Order of Aaron, namely the Chief High Priest, Dr. Maurice Lerrie Glendenning, and his wife, Dr. Helen R. Glendenning; Robert J. Conrad, First High Priest; and Bliss G. Childs, Second High Priest.The result of this study indicates that all material presented herein is the belief of the leaders of the Aaronic Order and it is printed with their approval as being true and an accurate summary of their history and doctrinal development.

This thesis applies Kenneth Burke's method of logology as exemplified in The Rhetoric of Religion to analyze the Mormon text Doctrine and Covenants Section 88. This method of logology is based on the assumption that what is said about God in theology reveals a religion's use of language to influence human motives. The logological method uses six analogies to discover the motives implicit in religious terminologies. These six analogies are as follows: words-Word, Matter-Spirit, the Negative, the Titular, Time-Eternity, and the Formal.This study revealed that the terminology contained in Doctrine and Covenants uses motives far diferent from the motives of traditional Christianity as described by Burke. Primary differences include the existence of a cluster of god-terms that describes a universal hierarchy, and emphasis on and affirmation of the physical, and an emphasis on the positive. An examination of these terms and motives can help Mormons better appreicate the advantages inherent in their terminology as exemplified in Section 88.

A gap exists between the religious ideals of human behavior and the common practices of man. Considerable effort has been expended in attempts to discover how to teach men to behave in ways that would be acceptable to society and still satisfy the ideals of the various religions. This problem is one of the major concerns of religious education.In an effort to solve the above problem among its membership, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has established a program of week-day religious instruction, commonly referred to as the "Seminary program." This organization is currently engaged in an organized effort to develop for its own use a more effective curriculum. This curriculum is being developed around thirty-three directional objectives which were formulated by a committee.The purpose of this study was to examine the general scope and validity of the Seminary's directional objectives. To accomplish this these objectives were compared with the subject areas or themes which have been stressed most often by the nine Presidents of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in their annual conference addresses since the Church was organized in 1830.

During Jesus' earthly ministry He taught the pure doctrine of corporeal resurrection to His disciples. Some of them became special witnesses to the literal bodily resurrection of Jesus after His death. Over time, men's philosophies perverted the true doctrine of the resurrection. Those teachings became the orthodoxy of the early Christian church and were handed down to modern Christianity. The pure doctrine of corporeal resurrection was weakened, and in some sects, was lost.The Lord restored the gospel through Joseph Smith. Part of the Restoration qualified him as a special witness of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Through him pure doctrines were restored. One of those doctrines was the Resurrection and its importance to eternal man.

The Primary Association of the LDS Church is an organization assigned to direct week-day religious training of children four to twelve years of age. The object of this study was to determine what factors led to the birth of the movement, how the early program developed, what its main features were, what some of the major problems were and how they were solved, who some of the prominent people were in the movement, and what were some of its major accomplishments.Results of the study have shown that the Primary became a great influence in the lives of many young children of the Church. It has developed into a major force in preparing young boys for priesthood ordination and in helping young girls understand their future roles as wives and mothers.

The purpose of this study is to present the history of events leading up to the division of the Mormon community of Slaterville, Weber County, Utah by apostasy. The work has been classified chronologically under the following chapter headings: The Founding of Slaterville, Joseph Morris in Slaterville, The Morrisite War, Apostasy Because of Change of Ward Leadership, Influence of Apostasy on Politics, and Influence of Apostasy on Education.

This thesis proposes that human beings by virtue of living in each new present moment are motivated to develop strategies to secure the best possible outcome in their lived experience. A personal account of the phenomenological experience of time is presented and a brief history is given. The implications associated with being thrown into the present moment make apparent the weaknesses of the current assumptions that the slices of the present moment form a continuity of past and future and create a coherent synthesis of life. The assumption that human beings are intentional, goal-directed, and prone to seek meaning in their lives is explored. The ultimate nature of human beings and what their responsibility is in this life is re-examined.A personal experience that enlarged the author's understanding of the tentativeness of the present moment is investigated. In addition, five theorists are selected whose work is concerned with temporal constructs, existentialism, and the intentionality of each human being.It is concluded that a theory of linear time cannot account for the time phenomenon created by human beings being thrown into the present moment. The continuity of the present with the past and future to form a whole life is only assumed, but not explained by current theories. The five theorists cannot account for humanity's intentionality and search for meaning. Implications of the personal time experience are explained. Religious doctrines found in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are examined to show how the gaps in the theories of time can be addressed by these beliefs. These doctrines include belief in pre-existence and an eternal afterlife, the reality of God and the Devil, and the power of faith and repentance.In summary, the thesis defends the conclusion that the theorists and humankind all have some level of faith in God, and that the theorists are limited in developing accurate theories about human beings because of the erroneous and incomplete understanding of the character and nature of God. God as the creator understands the whole process and it is only through His revelatory process can we understand humankind. God loves His children and has prepared a way through the atonement of Jesus Christ that all might return to Him.

In an effort to cope with forces which would remove the home from its place of influence, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints recently inaugurated the Family Home Evening Program. Emerging out of a fifty year history of efforts to institute the home evening practice, it is one of the most systematic and comprehensive efforts to date to implement change within the structure of its member families.Such a deliberate and predetermined effort toward improving the family system constitutes what applied social scientists call "planned change." Home evening, when adopted, has many of the elements of a behavior known as "family ritual." Inasmuch as the church has attempted to institute a ritual practice which the family itself would normally initiate, the Family Home Evening Program becomes, to the social scientists, an interesting social experiment.The family itself must ultimately make the decision as to what extent it will adopt any advocated innovation. Factors within the culture of individual families will play a prominent role in determining to what extent they will be susceptible to the influence of a change agent. This then, becomes a starting place for the investigation of the family home evening. Within this context, the present investigation had two objectives: (1) to explore patterns of family home evening acceptance and adoption, and (2) to explore the relationships between acceptance and adoption of family home evening and certain selected variables.

Research has related both physical fitness and religiosity to health. This study combined these ideas and examined the relationship between religiosity and physical fitness among middle aged Mormon men (n=110). Mormons are an ideal population for study because of their strict health code. Fitness variables were grip strength, waist/hip ratio, body mass index (BMI) and estimated maximal oxygen uptake (VO2max). A questionnaire assessed level of religiosity and separated subjects into two groups: highly religious (n=35) and less religious (n=14). Moderately religious subjects (n=61) were omitted. A one way ANOVA (between-groups design) found no significant differences in fitness variables between groups. Results indicate that fitness and religiosity do not appear to be related among Mormon men. These factors were found to be related in Mormon women (Blakemore, 1997:16). Therefore, an increase in religiosity may be associated with improved physical fitness for Mormon women, however, based on this study no such association can be made for Mormon men.

"The Witness" can be viewed as Clinton F. Larson's poetic manifesto that points the direction for much of his subsequent work. Although his poetic "mormonism" has been questioned by several of his critics, this thesis shows that Larson definitely expresses his Mormon faith in "The Witness" as a metaphorical quest for mythic consciousness. While searching in the poem for sacred space and time, Larson seeks to become closer to the divine and powerful center of being, creating at once a metaphor for his quest to understand and assimilate Christ's atonement and a poetic voice from which he can speak for and of God. It is from this imagined pinnacle as poet-prophet that Larson seeks to establish a Mormon poetic that boasts a Mormon "restoration" structure analagous to the Catholic "epiphanous" structure characteristic of much of Joyce's and O'Conner's work.