Dialogue 8.1 (Spring 1973): 11–68
Lester Bush’s landmark article tells the most comprehensive history of the church’s teachings on race and priesthood, destabilizing the idea that it originated with Joseph Smith or had been consistently taught.
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These special Dialogue podcasts, released in honor of our Dialogue Jubilee on September 30, has writers, thinkers, scholars, historians, advocates, editors and leaders presenting their ideas on what has made Dialogue strong in the past 50 years and what will continue it’s legacy in the coming decades. In this first session, essayists and bloggers discuss “Grappling with Groupthink: Dialogue’s Role in Addressing Critical Social Issues.”
Dialogue 51.1 (Spring 2018): 167–180
The issue of authority in Mormonism became painfully public with the rise of the Ordain Women movement.
Welcome to Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought What is Dialogue? The Dialogue journal has been around for over 40 years (45!) providing an important space for the independent exploration of Mormonism from a broad…
Lucky souls attending the Mormon History Association meeting in Layton, Utah on June 7th and June 8th can stop by the IMS 2013 Summer Fundraiser (graciously hosted by Dialogue) for free Asian treats. We will be raffling off some fabulous prizes collected from across the globe, including boomerangs from Australia and sacks of the tastiest lychee jellies in Asia! Those searching for an original Father’s Day gift will be pleased to learn that we are also selling several colors of the ubiquitous “家庭是永恒的” tie, the favored Sunday tie of the hip, hardworking Mormons of China’s Pearl River Delta. All proceeds will go to the IMS Book Drive project. We hope to raise all remaining funds needed for the 2013 collections at this Summer Fundraiser.
Cross posted at Maxwell Institute Blog by Blair Hodges
Common Ground, Different Opinions is a collection of essays written by a variety of Latter-day Saint authors on controversial issues like environmentalism, stem cell research, gay marriage, feminism, and war. James E. Faulconer, BYU professor of philosophy and the volume’s co-editor, emphasizes such a book is needed because members of the Church in various countries “are confronted with one issue after another that demands their thought and decision” while the Church, through its constituted authorities, has made no official pronouncement on many of them. Not all of the issues call for pro and con pieces (who would write against Margaret Blair Young’s appeal to eschew racism?). Faulconer emphasizes that the essays are less about providing arguments that readers ought to accept and more about modeling different ways faithful Mormons approach difficult topics:
Another review of Common Ground/Different Opinions: Latter-day Saints and Contemporary Issues, eds. Justin F. White and James E. Faulconer by Michael Austin, Dialogue Board member, and Provost of Newman University in Wichita, KS.
Cross-posted at By Common Consent
As citizens, we must argue with each other about important things. Participating in an inherently adversarial political system means proposing arguments and defending positions. Both our nation and the Constitution that governs it are built on a process designed to turn vigorous discussion and debate into manageable lumps of compromise that permit us to move ahead.
As Latter-day Saints, however, we must be of one heart and one mind. Becoming a Zion people means that we covenant to bear one another’s burdens that they may be light, to mourn with those that mourn, to comfort those who stand in need of comfort, and to stand as witnesses of God in all times and in all things (Mosiah 18:8-9).
These are not mutually exclusive responsibilities, of course, but they can be difficult to reconcile in the real world. To be good citizens and good saints, we must either learn how to agree with each other about everything, which is impossible, or we must find ways to disagree as loving brothers and sisters, which is really hard.
Unforgettable
Eric James Stone
Baen, January 2005
Trade paperback, 250pp., #15.00
Reviewed by Michael R. Collings
Eric James Stone is perhaps best known in the science-fiction community for his Nebula-winning, Hugo-nominated story, “That Leviathan Whom Thou Hast Made” (2010), one of fifty published short stories. “Leviathan” demonstrated Stone’s ability to tell a compelling story incorporating an SF theme—alien/human interaction—with equally compelling perspectives on ethics, morality, spirituality, and religion.
His novel, Unforgettable, at first feels more focused on the physical, however, in particular on connections between individuals and the fascinating worlds posited by quantum physics. Nat Morgan is a quantum “freak,” what one character refers to as “Schrödinger’s cat burglar,” who “exists” only as long as people physically see him; precisely one minute after he leaves, they immediately forget him. His mother has forgotten him. Cell phones forget him. ATM computers—indeed all computers—forget him. Worse, his handler at the CIA forgets him, so every time Morgan contacts the agency for an assignment, he must reestablish not only his identity but his existence.
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
Dialogue 44.1 (Spring 2011): 53–84
This essay explores conflicting messages within LDS teaching on LGBT rights, when it both opposed same-sex marriage and in the wake of Prop 8 also came out in support of other LGBT rights that display both wrath and mercy. It explores a theory of LDS teachings on homosexuality along these lines, as well as the context of shifting norms around sexual identity.