Volume 42, No. 2

Summer 2009

The Summer 2009 issue begins with "The Living Oracles: Legal Interpretation and Mormon Thought" by Nathan B. Oman, who looks at the difficulties faced by Mormon thinkers in relation to some of the thinkers from churches with a longer tradition of such activity, like the Catholic church. This if followed by Katie Clark Blakesley who examines the ever-changing modesty standards in the church and how they compare to the broader American standards during certain eras. Also contained in this issue are several reviews, including a review of the Twilight series, a sermon from Taylor Petrey, and a beautiful poem by Elizabeth Pinborough.

Articles

“The Living Oracles”: Legal Interpretation and Mormon Thought

Nathan B. Oman

Mormon thinkers have a problem. Suppose that a Latter-day Saint were interested in learning what his or her religion has to say about some contemporary philosophical, social, or political issue. Where should a Mormon thinker begin? Consider the counter-example of Catholic intellectuals. Faced with such a question, they have the luxury of a rich philosophical and theological tradition on which to draw. They can turn to Aquinas or modern Catholic social thought and find there a set of closely reasoned propositions and arguments to apply to the questions before them. T

“A Style of Our Own”: Mormon Women and Modesty

Katie Clark Blakesley

Historically, modesty of dress has had important symbolic mean-ing for leaders and members of the Church ofJesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Brigham Young, second president of the Church, often warned women against following the “indecent”…

Triptych: Plural

S. P. Bailey

I Nora bears the tray of hors d’oeuvres she spent three hours this afternoon preparing. Mushroom caps stuffed with chopped and sauteed artichoke hearts, onion, garlic, bread crumbs, and three cheeses. She approaches the door;…

The Widower

Theric Jepson

The Widower Eric W Jepson Four years had passed since Mary had died; Torrance still wasn’t comfortable dating and yet here he was, getting married. Five years with Mary may have been too short, but…

Meeting Donna Freitas: A Review of Sex and the Soul and an Interview

Donna Freitas and Heidi Harris

Returning from spring break in 2005, Dr. Donna Freitas, assistant professor of religion at St. Michael’s College, a small Roman Catholic school near Burlington, Vermont, witnessed an epiphany in her “Dating and Friendship” course. One by one, her students admitted to themselves and to each other their profound disappointment in the sexual culture of their school—the “hook-up culture.”

Letters to the Editor

Letters to the Editor, John-Charles Duffy, Rocky Anderson, Cheryl L. Bruno, Kevin L. Barney and William P. MacKinnon

Ross C. Anderson, A Call for Compassion
John-Charles Duffy, Clarifying My Own Stance
Cheryl L. Bruno, Asherah Alert
Kevin L. Barney, Kevin Barney Responds
William P. MacKinnon, Rest of the Story

The Education of a Bible Scholar

Sheldon Greaves

I first heard the tales of Hugh Nibley, the brilliant and eccentric LDS scholar whose fertile and fecund brain defended and expanded the faith of thoughtful Church members, virtually at my mother’s knee. I remember as a child listening rapt with wonder at the accounts of his marvelous ability with languages, his wartime service with Allied Army intelligence, and his vast knowledge of things ancient and arcane.

At the Cannery

Phyllis Barber

By myself, I’m driving east on 1-70, just out of Denver. I’m looking for silos. I’m also listening to jazzmeister Herbie Hancock on his new tribute-to-Joni-Mitchell CD, River. You gotta love that Herbie, I’m thinking. Tina Turner’s singing “Edith and the Kingpin,” something about victims of typewriters and how the band sounds like typewriters. I laugh. I’m one of those victims who’s emerging out of my cave where I write every day to volunteer at the Aurora Cannery, a division of LDS Welfare Services.

A Shaker Sister’s Hymnal

Elizabeth Pinborough

The frost grows fierce upon the pane,
crystals cluster in tight geometry. Inside my
glove my fingers freeze. I gasp the cold until I
am dumb: until my eyes are arctic marbles
rolling blue and plumb in their sockets: until
my leaden tongue sinks in my mouth.

Miracle #1; Miracle #2

Sunni Brown Wilkinson

First, it was water:
a marriage festival,
a mother
asking a favor
from her son
And it came:
wine.

Some Kind of Beginning

Sunni Brown Wilkinson

The alfalfa fields had their own luster
and, besides, no one came
for any harvest. Instead, as children, we drifted
in a golden sea with monarchs, my brother waving

Pulses

Caleb Warnock

For more than a week, I thought
cutting off my toe was penance.

I delved a hole for this toe,
a quick, tiny sepulcher at the crook

Reading the Mormon Gothic | Stephenie Meyer, Twilight; New Moon; Eclipse; Breaking Dawn

Tyler Chadwick

Mormons and vampires—a strange combination, indeed. Stephenie Meyer first brought them together in her mock-epic series of Twilight novels, a contemporary literary phenomenon that sprang, true to the classic gothic impulse, from the author’s vividly persistent dream. The series tracks Isabella (“Bella”) Swan and her “vegetarian” vampire beau, Edward Cullen, as they first meet in Forks, Washington, fall into forbidden love, and, after conquering a series of increasingly threatening obstacles, live happily ever after as immortal husband and wife.

When Your Eternal Companion Has Fangs | Stephenie Meyer, Breaking Dawn

Jonathan Green

As a teacher of language and literature, I am probably supposed to sneer at Stephenie Meyer’s novels. They are not just genre fiction but, by blending urban fantasy and romance, genre fiction twice over; they are not only written for the young adult market, but they also avoid offending the sensitivities of Mormon readers; and their prose does not insist that you stop and weep over its sheer beauty.

Insight Inside | Kathryn Lynard Soper, ed., The Mother in Me: Real-World Reflections on Growing into Motherhood

Rosalynde Welch

At a climactic moment of George Eliot’s novel Daniel Deronda, an adult Daniel meets the mother who abandoned him in his infancy. To this now-grown son, she utters an accusation and issues an ultimatum: “Shall…

Gazing Into the Face of the Other

Richard T. Livingston

Marrow: A Review of Richard Dutcher’s Mormon Films

Dallas Robbins

In Richard Dutcher’s latest film Falling, a rich scene revealing the subtle conflict between the demands of commerce and artistic endeavor is focused around the word marrow. The protagonist, lapsed Mormon Eric Boyle, a suffering videographer and aspiring screenwriter, is failing to sell his latest story to a well-tanned and successful Hollywood producer. After rejecting Eric’s work, the producer complains to him that if he wants to make it in the film business, he needs to do something different, something new.

Practicing Divinity

Taylor G. Petrey

Here, the author of this letter instructs his readers to live a life of piety, or godliness. He explains that the power of God has given us all the tools we need to live this life, and that it is in this way that we participate in the divine nature. Then he outlines a set of practices including goodness or virtue, knowledge, self-control, endurance, mutual affection, and love. This is the path to becoming divine.

About the Artist: Emily Plewe

Issue Art

Emily Plewe grew up in Centerville, Utah, and attended Wellesley College where she studied art and literature. She then pursued a master’s degree at BYU. Emily and her husband, John, who is also an artist…

Volume 42, No. 2

Contents

Articles

“The Living Oracles”: Legal Interpretation and Mormon Thought

“A Style of Our Own”: Mormon Women and Modesty

Fiction

Triptych: Plural

The Widower

Interview

Meeting Donna Freitas: A Review of Sex and the Soul and an Interview

Letters to the Editor

Letters to the Editor

Personal Voices

The Education of a Bible Scholar

At the Cannery

Poetry

A Shaker Sister’s Hymnal

Miracle #1; Miracle #2

Some Kind of Beginning

Pulses

Reviews

Reading the Mormon Gothic | Stephenie Meyer, Twilight; New Moon; Eclipse; Breaking Dawn

When Your Eternal Companion Has Fangs | Stephenie Meyer, Breaking Dawn

Insight Inside | Kathryn Lynard Soper, ed., The Mother in Me: Real-World Reflections on Growing into Motherhood

Gazing Into the Face of the Other

Marrow: A Review of Richard Dutcher’s Mormon Films

Sermon

Practicing Divinity

Volume Art

About the Artist: Emily Plewe