Steven C. Harper

Steven C. Harper is married to Jennifer Sebring. He is a professor of Church history and doctrine and Brigham Young University, where his primary work is to teach the restored gospel of Jesus Christ in ways that help students develop resilient faith in and become lifelong disciples of the Savior. He is also the editor in chief of BYU Studies and executive editor of The Wilford Woodruff Papers. From 2012 to 2018, he was the managing historian and a general editor of Saints: The Story of the Church of Jesus Christ in the Latter Days. From 2002 to 2012, he was a volume editor of The Joseph Smith Papers. He has written several books, including Let’s Talk about the Law of Consecration, Making Sense of the Doctrine and Covenants, and First Vision: Memory and Mormon Origins.

Recommended by Us

How do I obey my temple covenant to live the law of consecration?

By Steven C. Harper

July 14, 2023 09:19 AM MDT

“I’m a little confused about how the law of consecration is applied in the twenty-first century.” If you share that question, read on.

7 Min Read

Latter-day Saint Life

Steven Harper: Joseph’s other dilemma

By Steven C. Harper

May 18, 2023 07:00 AM MDT

The inability to convey his ideas in writing was one of the horns of Joseph’s dilemma. The other was that he had been commanded to convey his ideas in writing.

10 Min Read

Latter-day Saint Life

Steven Harper: The dilemma at the heart of Joseph Smith’s First Vision

By Steven C. Harper

May 04, 2023 07:00 AM MDT

A recent article compares Joseph’s experience to some early American conversion narratives and concludes that Joseph’s accounts lack the angst and the typical “transformations of the heart.”

4 Min Read

Latter-day Saint Life

Steven Harper: Three important lines from hymn no. 26, ‘Joseph Smith’s First Prayer’

By Steven C. Harper

September 20, 2022 05:00 AM MDT

“It’s overly simplistic to say that the Presbyterian God abhorred people and the Methodist God didn’t, but the contrast helps us see a difference that meant a lot to Joseph.”

4 Min Read

Lucy,Mack,Smith,(,1775-,1856,),Mother,Of,Mormon

Latter-day Saint Life

Steven Harper: How apostasy shaped a family that was ripe for restoration

By Steven C. Harper

September 06, 2022 04:00 AM MDT

Among the revelators who experienced assurance that restoration was on the way, were women including Sarah Pierrepont Edwards and Lucy Mack Smith.

6 Min Read

Latter-day Saint Life

Steven Harper: Starting right—how an assumption led to apostasy

By Steven C. Harper

August 23, 2022 05:00 AM MDT

How did classical theism’s assumption that God is immaterial obtain its hold on Christianity, and how did the radical, restored truth, revealed through the Prophet Joseph Smith, challenge this theism?

7 Min Read

A Closer Look at Critiques of Joseph Smith's First Vision

By Steven C. Harper

December 30, 2019 09:52 AM MST

Books, articles, and numerous Internet websites work to undermine faith in Joseph Smith’s first vision, but historically there have been just three main arguments against it. The minister to whom Joseph reported the event responded that there were no such things these days. More than a century later and in a literary style that masked her weakness in following the historical method, Fawn Brodie wrote that Joseph invented the vision years after he said it happened. A generation later, Wesley Walters charged Joseph with inventing revivalism when, Walters claimed, a lack of historical evidence proved that there was none and therefore there was no subsequent vision as a result. By now it has become a foregone conclusion for some that there are no such things as visions, that Joseph failed to mention his experience for years, and that he then gave conflicting accounts that failed to match historical facts. 1 But these three claims assume much more than they prove.

6 Min Read