Volume 51, No. 4

Winter 2018

Fiona Givens beautifully begins the issue with musings "On Solace," which is companionly followed by Terryl Givens' article "Heretics in Truth: Love, Faith and Hope as the Foundation for Theology, Community, and Destiny." Blair Ostler's Personal Voices takes a personal, philosophical view on "Heavenly Mother: The Mother of All Women." And Mette Harrison takes seriously a LDS view of the "Resurrection" in a fiction piece about a young person who wants to be perfected in the body that is truly theirs. And so much, much more.

Articles

On Solace

Fiona Givens

Charles Dickens suggests that epochs roll into one another in a cyclical pattern. Each cycle comprises the pairing of opposites: wisdom and foolishness, belief and incredulity, Light and Darkness, virtue and vice, hope and despair.If Dickens is correct then the “best and worst of times” shall continue as humankind’s constant companions till the last syllable of recorded time. That being said, pillars of light occasionally descend, piercing the choking fog we currently inhabit. Those who witness them are appropriately named luminaries.

Heretics in Truth: Love, Faith, and Hope as the Foundation for Theology, Community, and Destiny

Terryl L. Givens

I want to begin with a passage of startling—and unsettling—insight, from John Stuart Mill:

There is a class of persons . . . who think it enough if a person assents undoubtingly to what they think true, though he has no knowledge whatever of the grounds of the opinion. . . . This is not knowing the truth. Truth, thus held, is but one superstition the more, accidentally clinging to the words which enunciate a truth.

What Would Jesus Do in Cyberspace? A Comparison of Online Authority Appeals on Two LDS Websites Targeting Believers and Non-Members

David W. Scott

Religious practice is shifting from churches to the internet in what some critics call a “post-denominational era.”One early commentator predicted that “the web would reduce us to a virtual community of believers practicing a kind of ‘McFaith’—fast, convenient, but hardly nourishing.”

The Restoration of Conscientious Objection

Ron Madsen

In 298 CE, Marcellus, a Roman centurion, was converted to Christ while serving with his unit in Northern Africa. A respite from conflict was taken to celebrate the pagan Roman emperor’s birthday and pledge allegiance to the empire. Marcellus rose before the banqueters, cast off his military insignia, and cried out: “I serve Jesus Christ the eternal King. I will no longer serve your emperors.”

British Latter Day Saint Conscientious Objectors in World War I

Andrew Bolton

Dialogue 51.4 (Winter 2018): 49–76
What of the Latter Day Saint movement that claimed to prophetically discern the times and seasons of these latter days and also boldly proclaimed that they were the restoration church?

Note on Identity and Community

Boyd Jay Petersen

Editing this issue, I have thought much on both identity and community. I want to assure Dialogue readers that we remain committed to being a place of continued connection, vibrant welcoming, and life-affirming discussion. In…

With Marbles for Eyes

Nate Noorlander

As they crested the final hill into town, the speed limit dropped and the noise from the tires was quieter and less constant. Travis looked out Sarah’s window and she looked at him like he…

Resurrection

Mette Ivie Harrison

Since he was a child, he’d dreamed of himself in one form and woken up, always disappointed, always jolted by the reality and by the way that others looked at him. In the first years,…

Letter to the Editor

Letters to the Editor

I think Dialogue readers might be interested in a recent change at the Church History Building. I was shepherding a group of Young Men from our ward at a youth conference on Temple Square. Several…

Pedagogy of Perfection: Joseph Smith’s Perfectionism, How It was Taught in the Early LDS Church, and Its Contemporary Applicability

Richard Sleegers

Dialogue 51.4 (Winter 2018): 105–143
Richard Sleegers contrasts 19th century Protestant teachings about salvations to what Joseph Smith taught about life after death.

Heavenly Mother: The Mother of All Women

Blaire Ostler

Dialogue 51.4 (Winter 2018): 171-174
Heavenly Mother is a cherished doctrine among many Latter-day Saints.
Her unique esthetic of feminine deity offers Latter-day Saint women a
trajectory for godhood—the ultimate goal of Mormon theology.

Well-Red

Tait R. Jensen

In my father’s small apartment in Salt Lake stood a bookshelf that nearly scraped the ceiling. Titles like The God Particle and The Story of Civilization rested next to each other, packed more than arranged,…

On Cherubim and a Flaming Sword by J. Kirk Richards

Tyler Chadwick

Like moths summoned by the gravity of light,
figures lean beneath sinuous white robes, their
point of communion is clear: hands in line with
the flame—its blade toward the earth’s unhealed

Talitha koum

Tyler Chadwick

Your body disrupts the narrative:
Jairus—unaccustomed to want—
calls Jesus to pull his daughter
from death. Jesus comes, touches
the girl; she rises. Just like Jairus
rehearsed it.

Walking Back to the ‘70s

R. A. Christmas

Remember, it’s a Covenant Path.
On our way we must keep hearts
and minds—as Brigham said—
“riveted on the cross of Christ.”

Dream Psalm

William DeFord

You wake me to the all and the every,
You breathe me to your shattering stillness,
Walk me to the brink of the dream
That jerks alert. You, the nurturing darkness

Placenta

William DeFord

I picture it, a milky glass teardrop
Just large enough to fill my cupped hand.
It floats in an almost-dark cave;
It lights the cave but slightly, casting
Wan shadows, a vessel of music and logic
Unknown among us.

What is an LDS Artist? | Glen Nelson, Joseph Paul Vorst

Micah Christensen

“Joseph Paul Vorst was arguably the most culturally significant Latter-day Saint painter of his time.”So, starts the Church History Museum’s video for the exhibition on the life and works of Joseph Paul Vorst (1897–1947). The video and the exhibition is a joint collaboration between the museum’s curator, Laura Allred Hurtado, and the independent writer Glen Nelson, who authored a catalogue detailing the life and known works of the German-American artist. Both exhibition and catalogue seek to rehabilitate the reputation of an artist that has largely been overlooked. Vorst’s life is beautifully evoked and contextualized on every page by Nelson, who raises questions about conventional definitions of what it means to be a Mormon artist.

Revealing the Holy in Deja Earley’s To the Mormon Newlyweds Who Thought the Bellybutton was Somehow Involved

Terresa Wellborn

Don’t let the book cover’s scandalous bare navel dissuade you. Deja Earley’s poetry collection, To the Mormon Newlyweds Who Thought the Bellybutton Was Somehow Involved, is well worth your time as she navigates the truths…

Can Faith Survive Choice and Circumstance? | Jack Harrell, Caldera Ridge.

Heidi Naylor

Kail Lambert, the protagonist in Jack Harrell’s new novel Caldera Ridge, stands in the front room of the small, older home he and his wife Charlene have bought in rural southeast Idaho. While Charlene works…

Running the (Selected) Gamut of Missionary Experiences | Mike Laughead and Theric Jepsen, eds., Served: A Missionary Comics Anthology

Mike Lemon

Served: A Missionary Comics Anthology features short graphic vignettes about the contributors’ experiences as LDS missionaries. It is the culmination of author Mike Laughead’s and editor Theric Jepsen’s Kickstarter campaign, which received $24,902 from 419 backers in thirty days. When backers receive their copies they will encounter a variety of short graphic narratives that are simultaneously varied in their visual approaches and bound together by major themes.

Making the World Light for Others | Keira Shae, How the Light Gets In: A Memoir

Matthew James Babcock

The trouble with reviewing a book like Keira Shae’s debut memoir How the Light Gets In is the reviewer finds himself in the position of assessing an account of suffering and survival, and in the…

A Private Revelation | William Victor Smith, Textual Studies of the Doctrine and Covenants: The Plural Marriage Revelation

Gary James Bergera

Can there be too many studies of Mormon plural marriage? As one interested in the topic for the better part of the past three-plus decades, and who acknowledges the plethora of works that grapple with…

Ministering

Kristine Haglund

My assigned topic is “Ministering with the Power and Authority of God.” It’s a daunting topic, and one that requires a preliminary confession: when I hear the word “minister,” my most immediate and strongest association is with the Monty Python sketch about the Ministry of Silly Walks, so it has been good for me to research this topic and find some other associations to go with the word. We’ll get to etymology in a minute, but first a story from the scriptures—or, uh, from the New Yorker.

Reflections on Life, Art, Loss, and Love

Rebecca Wagstaff

I was born an artist—I see this more clearly now. Yes, I am a painter, but that is only one of the mediums I use to make art.