The Enneagram is a spiritual tool that teaches us to know ourselves better, helping us to pinpoint our deepest longings—and our potentially destructive behaviors. The Enneagram’s nine basic “types,” or numbers, all have positive and negative aspects, and all exhibit different ways of relating with others and with God. In this session, “the Janas” will …
Speaker: JANA RIESS
Millennial Mormons: Pointing the Way to Change in the LDS Church
Millennials are more likely than older Mormons to support LGBT rights, drink a little coffee now and then, and say they’re bothered by women not holding the priesthood. Most are also strong believers, with the highest missionary service rates of any generation and a deep commitment to serving their neighbors. Riess has gathered all this …
Mormon Generations: What New Research Tells Us about Four Generations of Current and Former Latter-day Saints
Millennials, GenXers, Baby Boomers, and the Silent Generation. What do they have in common, and where do they diverge? This session looks at research findings from the nationally representative Next Mormons survey, conducted in late 2016. Which generation of Latter-day Saints has the largest number of children? Which has the strongest belief in God and …
Do They Still Teach That?
The song “I Believe” from the Tony award-winning musical The Book of Mormon mentions familiar, obscure, and even contested Mormon doctrines. This panel is a riff of sorts on ideas enumerated in the song, from the foundational belief that God created the universe and sent his son to die for our sins to the idea …
Parody Never Faileth: The Role Of Humor, Satire, And Kitsch In Mormon Culture
Mormons love a good laugh—and sometimes are willing to laugh at themselves. Join us for a lighthearted and light-minded Thursday evening plenary session wherein we will enjoy a closer look at the amusing, the humorous, and the absurd in Mormon creations. We will examine Jana Riess’s Twible project, a slide show featuring LOLcats with a …
Flunking Sainthood
For her forthcoming memoir, Flunking Sainthood, Jana Riess tackled twelve different spiritual practices in a quest to become more saintly, including fasting, fixed-hour prayer, gratitude, Sabbathkeeping, and generosity. although she began with great plans for success (“Really, how hard could that be?” she asked at the start of her saintmaking year), she found to her …
Mormonism in the Academy: Prospects and Challenges
Mormonism in the Academy: Prospects and Challenges A recent Boston Globe story led with the headline, ‘Colleges scramble to offer curriculum on Mormon religion.’ While certainly not a fixture in the academy, Mormonism in the past few years has experienced a dramatic rise in academic interest, which in turn has led to the formation of …
DOES GOD REALLY HATE AMPUTEES?, OR WHAT DOES SCIENCE AND REASON TELL US ABOUT THE EXISTENCE OF GOD?
DOES GOD REALLY HATE AMPUTEES?, OR WHAT DOES SCIENCE AND REASON TELL US ABOUT THE EXISTENCE OF GOD? The title of this panel discussion comes from a website discussed by atheist Sam Harris in his book, Letter to A Christian Nation, that insists that there are no “answered” prayers that could not be written off …