The Buzzard Tree
March 21, 2018Patty Lou looked out the door. She was waiting for her grandson, Robert, to come. She hadn’t seen him since her ninetieth birthday party three months earlier, when the whole family had come out to…
DiaBLOGue
Charity Never
March 21, 2018This is how I remember it. The morning before my business flight to England, our two-year old daughter, Myra, started shrieking as if a Ninja assassin had infiltrated her room. I wrapped a pillow around…
“The Other” in the Limelight: One Perspective on the Publicity Surrounding the New LDS Temple in Finland
March 21, 2018Dialogue 40.4 (2007): 70–105
The purpose of this article is to begin filling that gap by discussing some of the publicity accompanying the recently built Helsinki FinlandTemple, located in the southern Finland city of Espoo.
Hands Raised Up: Corruption, Power, and Context in Bolivian Mormonism
March 21, 2018The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has a strong authority structure. Power seemingly originates at the center of the Church, with the prophet and apostles, and radiates outward from there. This system of authority developed in the context of the Church’s efforts to colonize the U.S. Intermountain West, in its struggles with the U.S. federal government, and in its shift from a village to a suburban faith. Now this system must take account of its growth in many countries.
The Gospel in Communication: A Conversation with Communication Theorist John Durham Peters
March 21, 2018“John Durham Peters may well be the most original thinker in the broad field of communication and media studies in the United States.” So claims Michael Schudson, professor of communication at the University of California, San Diego.
A Defense of the Authority of Church Doctrine
March 21, 2018Authority is a key concept in Mormonism. If one were to ask most Mormons what makes their religion different from ordinary Christianity, many—perhaps most—would respond that Mormons believe in continuing revelation, modern prophets, additional scripture,…
Letters to the Editor
March 21, 2018David Timmins, A Neglected Chronicler
Kirk D. Hagen, Science/Religion Complement
Susanne Müller-Schröter, Praise from Afar
Michael Fillerup, Celestial Sex?
About the Artist: Jacob Fossum
March 20, 2018Jacob Fossum has little sense of belonging to a specific place, having lived in a number of states while growing up. He currently lives in Sacramento. He derives from a long line of Mormon pioneer…
Writing: An Act of Responsibility
March 20, 2018You’re a writer who loves these big, tough songs that pierce your heart and make you feel alive all over again. You believe in literature with a soul—the book that makes you think, that makes you feel as though you’ve been somewhere and experienced something, that you’re a different person for having read it. Writing just to entertain isn’t your goal. Writing to impress others with your cleverness or hoped-for-brilliance doesn’t matter as much as it once did. Your desire is something like Chekhov’s who spoke about writers describing situations so truthfully that readers could no longer avoid them. Or in your own words, to wrangle with the tough places in yourself and your subject. That’s what matters to you.
Should Mormon Women Speak Out? Thoughts on Our Place in the World
March 20, 2018I am happy to pay tribute to Gene England, a vivid and significant twentieth-century intellectual of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Gene influenced many Mormons with his rigorous ethics, his lived religion, his human interactions, and his ability to record his life and get it all down. He certainly influenced me.