Railroads, tourism, and government bureaucracy combined to create modern religion in the American West, argues David Walker in this innovative study of Mormonism's ascendency in the railroad era. The center of his story is Corinne, Utah-an end-of-the-track, hell-on-wheels railroad town founded by anti-Mormon businessmen. In the disputes over this town's frontier survival, Walker discovers intense efforts by a variety of theological, political, and economic interest groups to challenge or secure Mormonism's standing in the West. Though Corinne's founders hoped to leverage industrial capital to overthrow Mormon theocracy, the town became the site of a very different dream. Economic and political victory in the West required the production of knowledge about different religious groups settling in its lands. As ordinary Americans advanced their own theories about Mormondom, they contributed to the rise of religion itself as a category of popular and scholarly imagination. At the same time, new and advantageous railroad-related alliances catalyzed LDS Church officials to build increasingly dynamic religious institutions. Through scrupulous research and wide-ranging theoretical engagement, Walker shows that western railroads did not eradicate or diminish Mormon power. To the contrary, railroad promoters helped establish Mormonism as a normative American religion.

This Is A New Release Of The Original 1887 Edition.

The impetus for this book was a request from a group of Christian retreat directors who wanted to know what they could learn from Eastern spiritual traditions. Bruteau's response was a series of five easily accessible, non-technical reflections on various aspects of Hinduism and Buddhism offered generally as interpretations of Christian practices or texts. Here, she has added two additional essays, "Gospel Zen" and "The Immaculate Conception, Our Original Face". Both continue the interpretive application of Eastern traditions to Christian texts. The book's popular style is a strength as it is accessible to a broad audience. Bruteau's interpretations of Christian texts are often insightful and may spark further exploration and dialogue with the East.