Lavina Fielding Anderson

A Tractable Tract | Gladys Clark Farmer, Elders and Sisters

Writing a book of short stories/sketches about a group of missionaries in France is picking a hard door to knock on—missionary work is surrounded with ideals, taboos, and nostalgia—but Gladys Clark Farmer makes it swing…

Mary Fielding Smith: Her Ox Goes Marching On

I should preface these remarks by establishing two things. First, I am no blood relation to Mary Fielding Smith, although, like all of you, I proudly claim her for a spiritual sister; second, my subject…

Ministering Angels: Single Women in Mormon Society

Dialogue 16.3 (Autumn 1983): 68–69
I would like to discuss teh social experience of historical Latter-day Saint single women in the context of five questions: (1) Does she have an acceptable reason for being single? (2) Can she provide for her own economic security? (3) What place does she occupy in her family of origin? (4) Can she contribute to her community in a way that she will be rewarded for? (5) What was the emotinoal life of a single women in past generations? 

Making “The Good” Good for Something: A Direction for Mormon Literature

Ever since the classic triumverate of the good, the true, and the beautiful was set up as the literary ideal, the good—meaning the virtuous or moral—has had less success than either the true or the…

The Ambiguous Gift of Obedience

It strikes me that Mormon intellectuals, possibly excluding those occasions when Orson Pratt may have had lunch with B. H. Roberts, now constitute a genuine subculture within the larger host culture of Mormonism. We have…

Reflections from Within: A Conversation with Linda King Newell and L. Jackson Newell

After serving five and a half years, Linda and Jack Newell step down as editors of DIALOGUE as this issue goes to press, turning the editorship over to Kay and Ross Peterson of Logan, Utah.…

Disciplined Geography | John L. Sorenson, An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon

My acquaintance with this information packed, attractively printed, and modestly priced volume began in manuscript as a member of the Ensign editorial staff in 1975 when Sorenson, at the invitation of managing editor Jay M.…

Twenty Years with Dialogue: To Give the Heart: Some Reflections on Dialogue

While I was on my mission in France, I received number 1, volume 1 of a publication I had never heard of before—a chunky little journal in a bright blue cover called DIALOGUE. It was…

A Voice from the Past: The Benson Instructions for Parents

In February 1987 at a fireside for parents, President Ezra Taft Benson delivered an address called “To the Mothers in Zion.” In October 1987, he delivered a parallel address in the priesthood session of general…

A Strenuous Business: The Achievement of Helen Candland Stark

Helen Candland Stark, born of hardy pioneer Utah stock, was a thriving transplant in Delaware for most of her adult life with her husband, Henry Stark, a research chemist. Adoptive parents of three, they nurtured the Delaware Branch from its ecclesiastical preexistence until it became the Delaware Stake in 1974, only five years after they moved back to Utah. Many-roled, Helen has been teacher, actress, wife, mother, writer, environmentalist, and feminist, all interpreted in her own distinctive style. Now, almost eighty-nine and widowed by Henry’s death in 1988, she is a survivor of resilient spirit. In 1989, a DIALOGUE team of interviewers, Shirley Paxman and Belle Cluff, using questions composed by Ann Fletcher, conducted an oral history session which Helen herself edited and supplemented with the assistance of Wanda Scott, who transcribed tapes and typed many earlier drafts. 

The Grammar of Inequity

Dialogue 23.4 (Winter 1990): 83–96
This essay explores some of the strengths of deliberately choosing
to relate to our world with gender-inclusive language in three areas

Delusion as an Exceedingly Fine Art | Franklin Fisher, Bones

About fifteen years ago, Maureen Ursenbach Beecher invited Franklin Fisher, a young and aesthetically bearded professor of English at the University of Utah, to read from his novel in progress at a gathering of the…

Hazardous Duty, Combat Pay: Working in the Primary | Jesus Wants Me for a …

We live in a ward on the fringes of Salt Lake City’s central city neighborhood. Demo graphically, the ward contains a core of people who began young married life in their homes and are now…

The LDS Intellectual Community and Church Leadership: A Contemporary Chronology

Dialogue 26.1 (Spring 1993): 23–82
The clash between obedience to ecclesiastical authority and the integrity of individual conscience is certainly not one upon which Mormonism has a monopoly. But the past two decades have seen accelerating tensions in the relationship between the institutional church and the two overlapping subcommunities I claim—intellectuals and feminists.

Women’s Place in the Encyclopedia | Daniel H. Ludlow, ed., Encyclopedia of Mormonism: The History, Doctrine, and Procedure of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

When the Encyclopedia of Mormonism project was first announced with its all male board of editors, I developed a keen interest in how women’s issues would be handled and was delighted when two women were…

Freedom of Conscience: A Personal Statement

Leaders and Members: Messages from the General Handbook of Instructions

A Ministry of Blessing: Nicholas Groesbeck Smith

Nicholas Groesbeck Smith was born into Mormon aristocracy. He was a grandson of Apostle George A. Smith, a son of Apostle John Henry Smith, and a half-brother of George Albert Smith, who became eighth president…

True to the Faith: A Snapshot of the Church in 2004

In July 2004, the LDS Church published True to the Faith, a handbook of doctrines and beliefs arranged alphabetically from A (“Aaronic Priesthood”) to Z (“Zion”): 190 pages of what Mormons are supposed to believe, know, and do. Arguably, in creed-free and catechism-free Mormonism, the appearance of this concise compendium represents a new development. Its closest parallels may be the missionary “white book,” which spells out behavioral rules, the pocket-sized handbooks for Latter-day Saints in the military, or the newest revision of “For the Strength of Youth,” which provides explanations of principles governing correct behavior but is also quite clear about what that correct behavior is. All of these works are contemporary and concise. 

Candor, Craftsmanship, and a Worthy Subject : Edward L. Kimball, Lengthen Your Stride: The Presidency of Spencer W. Kimball