Winter 2014
The Winter 2014 issue features several unique and prominent female voices in the church. The issue begins with Joanna Brooks looking to the future in "Mormon Feminism: The Next Forty Years," followed by a fascinating look at sister missionaries in "A Swelling Tide: Nineteen-Year-Old Sister Missionaries in the Twenty-First Century" by Courtney L. Rabada. Nancy Ross and Jessica Finnigan provide a fascinating and timely article, "Mormon Feminist Perspectives on the Mormon Digital Awakening: A Study of Identity and Personal Narratives." Several fascinating personal voices are featured followed by an interview titled "Developing Integrity in an Uncertain World: An Interview with Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife" by Kristine Haglund.
Dialogue 47.4 (Winter 2014): 167–180
Brooks talks about the period from 1970s Mormon feminism in Boston to the present and imagines what needs to be part of the future. She identifies five areas for Mormon feminism: theology, institutions, racial inclusion, financial independence, and spiritual independence.
“It was not a self-consistent ideology but a movement—a tremor in the earth, a lift in the wind, a swelling tide . . . an exhilarating sense of discovery, a utopian hope that women might…
Dialogue 47.4 (Winter 2014): 47–83
This study examines online Mormon feminists’ identities and beliefs and their responses to the Mormon Digital Awakening. This is the first published survey of online Mormon feminists, which gathered quantitative and qualitative data from 1,862 selfidentified Mormon feminists.
Dialogue 47.4 (Winter 2014): 85–90 Defenses of the male-only LDS priesthood generally pursue a combination of three approaches: ground the practice in ancient scripture, secure it in Restoration history and tradition, or justify it through its sociological effects on gender culture and family formation in the present day.
1886 When Darby turned fifteen, his mother Cora said if he didn’t make up his mind to accept Jesus pretty soon, it would be too late. She said he had to make the choice either…
Jennifer Finlayson-Fife is an LDS, licensed psychotherapist specializing in relationship and sexuality counseling. In addition to her dissertation research on women’s sexual ity and desire in long-term relationships, she has taught college level human sexuality courses, as well as community and internet based relationship and sexuality workshops. Her clinical work focuses primarily on helping individuals and couples achieve greater satisfaction and passion in their emotional and sexual relationships.
Dialogue 47.4 (Winter 2014): 79–84 One day you’ll probably hear the name Kate Kelly. And you’ll probably ask me my thoughts about her and her work with Ordain Women and her subsequent excommunication.
Dialogue 47.4 (Winter 2014): 89–94
The day the missionaries came to our house in 1988, a rainbow fell across the sky in our neighborhood on the hill. I stood on the ledge of the bathtub and curled my fingers on the windowsill to pull my scrawny body up to see.
I get up in the morning to go to church. I pull a dress out of my closet, deciding between this or my regular pants, shirt, and tie combination. It’s short, six inches above the…
His thumb and forefinger raised in declaratives
Draw initial notice, but it’s the hands of those
Near him that pull me back—something almost festive
Yet closer to restrained, in the bowed, worn widow
As children, we liked our red-carpeted front rooms best
when the Christmas tree tossed the air with the richness
of pinyon pine,
My grandson, age seven,
head bent over his crustless peanut
butter and honey sandwich,
small bowl of grapes,
The Beginning—improbable.
The End—incomprehensible.
Genesis and Revelation,
like wacky bookends.
According to one historian, Brigham Young
had “a talent for mimicry”—a talent
the Lord used to convince the Saints that
Brigham was Joseph Smith’s successor,
but that Brigham later used to poke fun
at his fellow apostle John Taylor’s
elegant voice, dress, and mannerisms.
(Taylor loyally disliked him for that.)
What Beatrice said of Dante might well apply to Susan Elizabeth Howe’s latest collection of poetry, titled Salt. The observation was fictional, served up in an obscure but brilliant nineteenth-century book, Classical Conversations by Walter Landor, in which, during an imagined last conversation, Beatrice tells Dante, “You will be great, and, what is above all greatness, good.”
Tension isn’t new to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. From its foundation, the Church has drawn fire for its religious, social, and political stands. However, these historical tensions seem, in large measure,…
Neylan McBaine’s book Women at Church includes the following interview excerpt:
On one Sunday in my ward, the final assigned speaker was a woman. She seemed flustered to be in the last slot, was apologetic to the audience and lamented that we weren’t going to get the final word in the meeting from a priesthood holder. And then she gave her talk.
The stake president happened to be visiting, and after she finished he stood to make a few comments. He thanked her for the talk, and acknowledged she was just being self-deprecating. But he said it was his responsibility as presiding officer in the stake to correct misinformation. He then affirmed that there is nothing wrong with scheduling a sister to speak in the last slot in sacrament meeting, that that is perfectly appropriate. When we don’t do that, it is just a tradition.
Russell Arben Fox: Okay, Megan, I’ll start. Miller prefaces his book with the statement that “Here, my work is personal. I mean only to address the real beauty and real costs of trying to live…
Last spring the daughter of my best friend from graduate school asked if I would speak at her Stake Standards Night. Sophie (whom her mother and I used to call “the Queen of the World” when she was a child) made one request: my talk could not be the standard Standards Night talk. She wanted all those young women to walk away from the evening feeling—you know—upbeat.
My husband grew up backpacking, and it was one of the conditions of our marriage that I would learn to backpack too. I do it now, and occasionally even enjoy it, but it’s definitely a stretch to say that I’m good at it or love it as wholeheartedly as Mike does; backpacking is perpetually a challenge for me, and my favorite part is the end of the day when I collapse in our tent with my Kindle. I say this by way of prefacing a personal story so that you understand the context as I start telling you about a time when nature nearly got the best of me.
