When I received a copy of Dialogue volume 8 in the spring of 1973, my mind was immersed in Watergate, Vietnam, and civil rights. Lester Bush’s article on the evolution of a policy relative to…
Those of you who have paid attention along the way know quite a bit about Lester’s 1973 article, particularly because of the follow-up article he published in the Journal of Mormon History in 1999 that…
On this the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Lester E. Bush’s landmark Dialogue article “Mormonism’s Negro Doctrine: An Historical Overview,” I, along with other knowledgeable students of Mormon studies, gratefully acknowledge the crucial role…
Typical of far too many youths of my generation, I grew up in a racist home, a racist community, and in racist Latter-day Saint congregations. As a young man, I harbored deep racist sentiments and…
Listen to an interview about this piece here. Last night, I sat on the ballroom’s hardwood floor and laced up my practice shoes. Their black canvas fabric hugged the contours of my feet as I…
Listen to an interview about this piece here. Sometimes in the morning, I wake earlier than the others. I slip out of my room and sit down on that well-worn spot on the couch that…
In his 2022 Dialogue article “The Garden Atonement and the Mormon Cross Taboo,” Jeremy Christiansen adds to a fuller understanding of LDS reception history of the Lukan account of “Gethsemane,” namely Jesus’ agony and sweat/blood…
Will I run from the sheep? No. Will I forsake the flock? No. . . . I want you to understand that if I am your earthly shepherd you must follow me, or else we shall be…
Dialogue 57.3 (Fall 2024): 39–80
In what follows, I will suggest that Alma 5, somewhat like Lehi’s dream, begins with an account of the forefathers (men and women) passing through a wilderness only to find a special tree and its fruit; I will demonstrate the allusive presence of the tree of life in Alma 5 and attempt to get at the language’s redemptive implications; and I will demonstrate the allusive presence of the great and spacious building (or its inhabitants) in Alma 5.
Lester Bush’s 1973 Dialogue article is the focus here, as it brought much-needed clarity to the convoluted, deeply entrenched Mormon attitude toward race. We all know the story. Prior to June 1978 the Church of…