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Baptism

October 24, 2018

The first time I remember seeing a baptism was at a tiny Southern Baptist chapel in Chiefland, Florida. All dolled up in my frilly pastel dress, white buckled shoes, and lacy socks, my brother and I walked across the hot parking lot from Grandma’s black Mazda truck into the homey brick chapel, each holding a finger of our grandmother’s hand. She had pressed her best dress so stiff she may as well have washed it in pure starch. My little brother’s six-year-old indoctrinated Southern etiquette displayed itself proudly—church was not a regular outing, and he didn’t mind being suited up and shown off. Plenty of others coming into the chapel were in their Sunday best, most of whom gave the air of being “regulars,” but medleys of worn denim mixed with the collared shirts and skirts didn’t seem out-of-place.

Deus Mea Lux Est: A Mormon Among Catholics

October 24, 2018

I am the Mormon among Catholics part of this equation. I was raised in Utah Valley—well I got taller, anyway. I got my undergraduate degree from Brigham Young University (BYU) and both of my graduate…

Into a Foreign Land: A Catholic Among Mormons

October 24, 2018

Although I was brought up in a Congregational church and my husband in an Episcopal church, after reading Thomas Merton’s Seven Story Mountain in the early 1970s, we converted to Catholicism. There we found a spiritual home. I now help out in a seven-month class for those who want to become Catholic. Why is a Catholic from Seattle interested in Mormon history? My background includes Episcopalians, Quakers, Presbyterians, Mormons, and Unitarians. It involves belief, dissent, and conversion, and then belief, dissent, and conversion all over again, with some large doses of persecution thrown in from time to time. 

Abundant Grace: The Humanness of Catholics and Latter-day Saints as a Basis for Friendship and Collaboration

October 24, 2018

At the conclusion of each Mormon History Association’s annual conference, there is a “devotional.” (Until I became a devotee of Mormon history, devotional was always an adjective, as in “devotional literature,” but the Latter-day Saints have shifted my grammatical foundations, and, because of my exposure to Mormons, I’ll never hear words like “fireside,” “garments,” or even “Jell-O” in the same way.) At these devotionals, I always look to see if my favorite LDS hymn is being featured—“The Spirit of God”—number 2 in the LDS hymnal.

Ordination and Blessing

October 24, 2018

I grew up in an anti-Catholic world. The first thing I remember hearing about Catholics in the small town in which I was raised was not just negative, it was extremely so. Everyone I knew was distrustful, suspicious, or hateful toward Catholics. When I joined the LDS Church at age ten, I heard more anti-Catholic sentiment, including the branding of the Catholic Church as “the Whore of Babylon,” and “the great and abominable church” or “church of the devil,” based on a biased reading of the Book of Mormon (1 Nephi 13:6, 14:9).

Mormon/Catholic Dialogue: Thinking About Ways Forward

October 24, 2018

I would like to begin with an image. There is a tree in the middle of a barren field. A rod of iron extends from it. People jeer from a large building bounded by a river nearby. Those holding on to the rod ignore the jeering from the building and partake of the tree’s sweet fruit, but there are some who heed the jeering and become ashamed even after eating the fruit, and are lost. This image is intimately familiar to so many Latter-day Saints as Lehi’s dream from 1 Nephi 8 in the Book of Mormon. It is, however, a relatively new image for me. I did not grow up with the image.

Leveling the Earth, Expanding the Circle

October 24, 2018

Hi, my name is Eunice McMurray. I’m married to Peter, who is an ethnomusicologist, and I’m a mom to four-year-old Penny, who is currently my job. We’ve been in the ward about ten years. I was originally asked to speak last week, but I was in Korea visiting my grandfather who is sick. He and my grandmother raised me on a chicken farm until I was five and I moved to the US with my parents. I joined the Church when I was twelve and, not having had the public speaking training from going to Primary, I am perpetually terrified of giving sacrament meeting talks. I even asked Penny to give this talk for me, but she said no because this pulpit is too big for her.