#1071: The Banality of Evil
March 23, 2018Had I been a German in those Thirties,
I should have joined the Party:
I should have gone with the rest.
I should have condoned the persecution of the Jews.
Had I been a German in those Thirties,
I should have joined the Party:
I should have gone with the rest.
I should have condoned the persecution of the Jews.
Tongues of fire. All attentive persons within traditions that accept the New Testament are at least familiar with the phrase. Certainly I remember it from childhood when I celebrated the Feast of Pentecost as an Episcopalian, although I cannot recall any personal meaning it held for me. But later, as a Catholic, I realized through my own experience that this ancient spiritual gift is still bestowed. And now, as a Mormon, I can easily identify with pioneer accounts of its appearance among Saints who so richly received revelations and manifestations of the Spirit.
Let bells come
from porches and throats
of brown cows,
The modern Fundamentalist Mormon community consists of a number of groups and many independent family clusters. The two largest are the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS) centered in Colorado City, Arizona,…
Looking out of my window across my lawn, I see a red toy wheelbarrow tipped over, abandoned beside the sidewalk. Its redness is something I experience distinctly. Undeniably, I might be deceived, and there is no red wheelbarrow there. Maybe someone painted one on the window and I am confused, or maybe I am lying mad in a hospital bed and dreaming. Perhaps it is a hallucination. It could even be that I am the victim of a maniacal government experiment in which scientists are stimulating my brain in a way that makes me think I am seeing a red wheelbarrow. Nevertheless, whatever the cause, for me it is clear—I am seeing a red wheelbarrow.
Seven and a half blocks east and five blocks south of the Salt Lake Temple, the 0,0 of the city’s cardinally aligned grid, an inconspicuous gate on the north side of the street opens onto a long path that leads to what was once the backyard of Thomas B. Child. A stonemason by trade and Mormon bishop by calling, Child spent many of his spare moments between 1945 and 1963 designing surreal and sacred sculptures and engraving poignant aphorisms into stone tablets, gradually creating one of the most unique (and, even to most Mormons, unknown) collections of folk art in the United States.
Leslie and Morgan Dubiel, Mormons and the Arts
Jeddy LeVar, Mormon Peacekeeping in Practice
Chris Conkling, Animadversions
Erratum
This engaging labor-of-love book is a pleasure to read even if one does not always agree with its arguments. In it, BYU German professor Alan Keele mines German literature and drama for what he calls…
Kathy Wilson is the owner and manager of Sego Gallery and Framing Center in Salt Lake City. Her paintings featured on the cover of this issue, Tulips and Aspens at Fish Lake, were done in watercolor.…
Mild-mannered Mormon housewife uses her background in chemistry and family science to whip up a batch of tantalizing cinnamon fragrance as a last-minute party favor for a visiting teaching luncheon. Little did Donna Brooks realize…