Item Detail
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24012
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5
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0
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English
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Mormon Administrative and Organizational History : A Source Essay
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A Firm Foundation : Church Organization and Administration
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Salt Lake City and Provo
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Deseret Book and the Religious Studies Center, BYU
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611-695
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"One of the great strengths of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is its institutional vitality. Expanding from six members in 1860 to fourteen million in 2010, its capacity to govern and manage an ever-enlarging membership with a bureaucracy flexible enough to provide for communication and growth but tight enough to ensure control and stability is an important but little-known story. The essential functions of the Church were doctrinally mandated from its earliest years, and the commands to keep records have assured that accounts of its activities have been maintained. Such historical records created the essential informational basis necessary to run the institution. These records range from membership to financial to the institutional records of the various units of the Church, from the First Presidency to branches in the mission field...It is the purpose of this essay to highlight this emerging literature by complementing the essays assembled in this volume." [Author's abstract]