Dialogue 45.3 (Fall 2012): 70–83
I will be talking today about how women fit into the functional structure of LDS church governance; but, unlike many of the others speaking today, I do not have advanced degrees in my subject, nor do I consider myself an academic
The scriptures include many references to creative women. Han nah and Dorcas created treasured textiles (1 Samuel 2:19; Acts 9:39), but we don’t know what those garments looked like. Sarah created memorable meals for her guests (Genesis 18:6), but we don’t know her recipes. The daughters of the Lamanites danced in delight (Mosiah 20:1), but no technology could capture their creative whirl. So most of the results of women’s creative efforts have been lost to history. But one form of women’s ingenuity has survived: contained within the canon itself are several examples of women’s sacred songs. This paper will explore some of these songs; we’ll see that sacred songs have been a central venue for women’s theological activity.
I don’t intend praise or to criticize these three engaging papers—they certainly are all clear and compelling—but to pay them the highest compliment, which is to comment on the thoughts they provoke. They compel us, as they were meant to do, to think more deeply about conversion. What does it consist of? What readies a person for conversion to Mormonism? What does Mor monism mean to converts?
When Edward Tullidge arrived in Utah during the late summer of 1861, one of his first actions was to write Brigham Young and state his “earnest desire” to enter the prophet’s service. “I care not in what form I am employed, within my capabilities, so that I am set to work by you,” he urged. A few months later, either out of worry that his original point wasn’t clear or because he wasn’t satisfied with the shoemaking job he had been assigned, he made a second, more detailed, plea: “From the time I came into the Church,” he wrote, “I fervently desired to live to see the Saints a great nation, and ranking in the first class of civilized society.” But witnessing wasn’t enough. He continued, “To desire to see this was in me also a desire to help it out. To be numbered among the workers-out of Zion’s social and national greatness, became my ambition.” Tullidge emphasized his activities of the past decade, especially his service as associate editor for the Millennial Star, Mormonism’s British periodical. He concluded the letter with a personal—and poignant—admission that next to his “ambition to do the work” was also “an ambition to gain your approbation and acceptance of my labours.”
In 1852, Heber C. Kimball delivered a funeral oration for Mary Fielding Smith, the sister-in-law of the martyred prophet and the wife of his brother Hyrum. Kimball described her as a devoted wife and mother. He told the congregation that “if any person has lived the life of a Saint, she has.”He offered her as an example to the women of Zion, as an exemplar of the faith who had looked after her sons and daughters. She also had not complained when her second husband had not visited her very frequently. Kimball ended by telling the congregation, possibly making insinuations about the industry of other women, that she lived with “economy” and “industry,” caring not only for her immediate family but also for several older adults in her care.Kimball was not the only one to eulogize her. Her son Joseph proclaimed that “nothing beneath the celestial kingdom” could “surpass [his] deathless love” for his mother. “She was good!” he exclaimed. “She was pure! She was indeed a Saint!” and “a royal daughter of God.”
In 1971, African-American artist Gil Scott-Heron released a powerful political anthem called “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.” Forty years later, in Tahrir Square and Occupy Wall Street, the revolution was not only televised, but also blogged, Facebooked, YouTubed, and tweeted. The phenomenon of Mormon-authored, Mormon-themed blogs—collectively known as the “bloggernacle”—may not properly constitute a revolution in Mormonism, but it has undoubtedly changed both the cultural landscape and the broader conversation both within and about Mormonism.
The many recent conferences on Mormonism, or sessions at larger conferences that deal with Mormon issues, show that Mormonism has become one of the hotter topics in the academy today—in part because Mormonism is such…
Robert A. Rees, Reading Scripture
I’m grateful for this invitation to speak to your quorum.
My objective today is to tell you about my faith journey and offer up some observations and possible conclusions. I’m going to speak the only way I know how: honestly and with complete candor. It means making myself vulnerable in front of group I don’t know well (yet), but we think you have a right to know your new stake presidency. If you sustain us as your leaders, then it seems you have a right to know exactly what it is you are sustaining.
Paul Gutjahr’s The Book of Mormon: A Biography is one of the inaugural offerings from Princeton University Press’s Lives of Great Religious Books—a series that proposes a new lens for studying major religious texts such…