Mormon America: How Is The Reporting In The New Nationally Published Tome On Mormonism? Last fall, nationally respected HarperSanFrancisco published Mormon America: The Power and the Promise by veteran Time religion writer Richard Ostling and journalist/editor Joan Ostling. After sketching Mormon history, with the balance and judgment of long-time Mormon watchers, the authors chronicle the …
Event: Salt Lake Symposium 2000
Spirituality and the Arts: Music, Books, and Movies That Have Enlarged My Soul and Religious World View
Spirituality and the Arts: Music, Books, and Movies That Have Enlarged My Soul and Religious World View The arts have been a source of inspiration and enlightenment from the beginnings of humankind’s spiritual awakenings. As people find meaning in the messages of poetry and biography, cult films and classics, and the varied genres of music, …
Wendy and the Lost Girls
Wendy and the Lost Girls This essay is an examination, with commentary, on the text of a suit filed by the “Citizens of Nebo School District for Moral and Legal Values” against a high school psychology teacher and volleyball coach, Wendy Weaver, who “came out” publicly as a lesbian in 1997. Matthew Hilton, a local …
Sub-ordination: Mormon Women’s Historical Relationship with Spiritual Gifts and Priesthood Authority
Sub-ordination: Mormon Women’s Historical Relationship with Spiritual Gifts and Priesthood Authority In spite of the work that has been done to chronicle Mormon women’s use of spiritual gifts in early church history, some questions regarding the rise and demise of these gifts remain unanswered. I argue that spiritual gifts were initially available to lay members …
Joseph Smith as Public Speaker
Joseph Smith as Public Speaker This essay presents a historical context and critique of Joseph Smith as public speaker and rhetorician. Smith’s “King Follett Discourse” is used as a case in point. It was discovered that Joseph Smith did not fit the generally accepted mold for effective orators of his day but was still able …
The Academic Study Of Religion: Prospects And Perils
The Academic Study Of Religion: Prospects And Perils The recent announcement that early steps have been taken toward establishing a Mormon Studies program at Utah Valley State College has generated much excitement among many who have long felt a need for such a program at one of Utah’s state schools, but it has also raised …
The Decade of the Sixties: The Early Struggles in the RLDS Shift from Sect to Denomination
The Decade of the Sixties: The Early Struggles in the RLDS Shift from Sect to Denomination This is a discussion of how, during the 1960s the RLDS Church made very decisive steps toward shedding its sectarian past. It began the decade clearly rooted in the sectarian worldview. But by the end of the decade, many …
Lucy’s Memoir: A Family Tree
Lucy’s Memoir: A Family Tree Lucy Mack Smith began dictating her family memoir within months after the assassinations of Joseph and Hyrum Smith and finished it the next year. This paper traces its surviving versions: notebooks, a rough draft, an intermediate manuscript, and two fair copies. (One came to Utah and has never been published. …
The Real Olympics Scandal
The Real Olympics Scandal The bribery scandal aside, is the Mormon culture mature enough to host an international event, or does local hubris keep it from being a world-class community? Ron Molen, Rob Bishop
From Belgrade to Sandy: Observations of an Outsider
From Belgrade to Sandy: Observations of an Outsider In June 1995, I relocated from the Netherlands to Sandy, Utah, due to a romantic coincidence. My move to Sandy resulted in my being submerged into the sea of Mormania. To that time, my contact with “the Church” had been limited to a few open-door meetings with …