Samuel Brown: In Heaven as It Is on Earth

[CW A&E Pick] As the “Mormon moment” gained media traction in 2011, attention was focused on some of the more unusual elements of LDS cosmology and eschatology. In his compelling new book, In Heaven as It Is on Earth: Joseph Smith & the Early Mormon Conquest of Death , University of Utah pulmonary-medicine professor Samuel Brown explores how some of those tenets may have been shaped by both the general experience of death in 19th-century Protestant America, and the specific experience of the LDS Church's founder.

In a detailed piece of social history, Brown addresses the “holy death” concept of the 1800s--with its tension between grief and hope of heaven--and the uncertainty of death in a time when people regularly died young and medical science couldn't always guarantee that a person was actually dead yet. He also looks at Joseph Smith's personal confrontations with death, including that of his beloved brother, as pivotal events in his wrestling with conventional Protestant views of the afterlife.

The result is a unique framework for Mormon scripture and beliefs as an attempt to transcend, in the language of the time, “the silence of the grave.” The ability to translate the stories of a long-dead civilization, or to join families for eternity beyond death, become part of an effort to rebuke the idea of a capricious Providence, and to remove the sting of death. Join the author for a discussion of this perspective on the birth of a faith. (Scott Renshaw)

Samuel Brown: In Heaven as It Is on Earth @ The King's English Bookshop, 1511 S. 1500 East, 801-484-9100, Jan. 17, 7 p.m., free. KingsEnglish.com