DiaBLOGue

Intellectuals in Mormon History: An Update

More than twenty-four years ago, Leonard Arrington asked some fifty prominent Mormons to identify the most important intellectuals in Mormon history. He published his findings in the spring 1969 issue of Dialogue: A Journal of…

The Man Without Sin

There’s this house where 
four retarded men live who 
go to church on Sundays. 

Apologetic and Critical Assumptions About Book of Mormon Historicity

Dialogue 26.3 (Summer 1995):163–180
FOR TRADITION-MINDED MEMBERS of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter￾day Saints the Book of Mormon’s historicity is a given: Book of Mormon events actually occurred and its ancient participants existed in ancient history

Lancashire Saint Dies

He wanders the back alleys of his childhood
Mossed and decaying bricks
Tower skyward to imprison him
Cobbles rise to thwart his escape

Watching

I step outside my New York City apartment, and my eyes become observant, sharp, peeled to anything that moves. I am watching for signs of the Second Coming. 

Leave of Absence

walk out and arrive 
near the lake— 
any route taken 
leads eventually 
to this 

You Are Not Alone: A Plea for Understanding the Homosexual Condition

Dialogue 26.3 (Fall 1993): 119–140
In fall 1993, TJ O’Brian wrote, “You are Not Alone: A Please for Understanding the Homosexual Condition.” O’Brian was a gay man and this esay addresses how church members should treat LGBT members. He points to Jan Stout’s article among other influential pieces that were beginning to soften LDS attitudes and change practices in the early 90s. But he also notes several examples of terrible things that LDS members were still saying and doing, not including an imfamous homophobic rant from Orson Scott Card in Sunstone magazine in 1990.

Hannah Grover Hegsted and Post-Manifesto Plural Marriage

Wilford Woodruff’s manifesto of 1890 declared that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was “not teaching polygamy or plural marriage, nor permitting any person to enter into its practice.” After the issuance of…

Resurrection

One gunmetal day, late fall, 
a fat shabby robin tired 
of flying in her natural world, 
desired to swoop across our couch, 

The Ordeal of Lowry Nelson and the Mis-spoken Word

On 8 February 1979 Lowry Nelson wrote to me about his operation. “At about one p.m. I experienced a seizure which racked my torso with terrible pain. I could think of no other thing but…