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In this final session of the “Spirit of Dialogue” conference, Marlin Jensen and Greg Prince dialogue about “The Future of Faith.” Transcript included.
There’s a new series of short commentaries on excerpts of the BoM in town. But this new series of books on the Book are, from the very beginning, said to be guided by interpretive strategies found within the BoM itself. Recall at the outset of this review I mentioned that the BoM contains scattered pieces of its own interpretive instruction manual. The editors and contributors to this collaborative new series excavate some of these instructions from Alma 32 (An Experiment on the Word: Reading Alma 32, ed. Adam S. Miller) and from 2 Nephi (Reading Nephi Reading Isaiah: Reading 2 Nephi 26-27, ed. Joseph M. Spencer and Jenny Webb).3
According to the series introduction, the books are produced by “The Mormon Theology Seminar,” an “unofficial and independent” scholarly collaboration. “Theology” is somewhat of a foreign word to many Mormons. (We have doctrine, we don’t have professional theologians, some might say.) But the series proposes and enacts a theological reading of the BoM. What does it mean to “read Mormon scripture theologically”? For this review I decided describe what Miller & co. mean by “Theology” in order to give you an idea if their approach is something you’d find worthwhile…
Son of the Black Sword: The Saga of the Forgotten Warrior I
Larry Correia
Baen, 2015
Hardcover, 412 pp., $25.00
Reviewed by Michael R. Collings
Larry Correia’s action-adventure novels range from military thrillers to urban fantasies to epic high fantasies, often with accurately detailed depictions of modern and imagined weaponry. His first novel, Monster Hunters International, placed on the Locus bestsellers list; its sequel appeared on the New York Times lists, as have subsequent books. His series include Grimnoir Chronicles, Dead Six (with Mike Kupari), and now The Saga of the Forgotten Warrior. His work in speculative fiction/fantasy is highly regarded, as is the straightforwardness with which he defends his stands on such diverse issues as the role of speculative fiction in society and gun use and gun control.
For readers familiar with Correia’s work only through his Monster Hunters International series, Son of the Black Sword might seem like an established approach to an accustomed pattern. In the first pages, Correia presents his hero, Ashok Vadal, with a monster to be dispatched: a sea-demon threatening to destroy villages along the coast of the continent Lok
Dialogue 50.2 (Summer 2017):55–88
Maintaining a conviction of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon
is no easy task in the era of DNA studies, archaeological excavations, and
aggressive attacks by evangelical Protestants. Latter-day Saints cultivate
commitment to the veracity of the Book of Mormon in many different
ways.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints isn’t the only major Christian denomination to have a history of racism. But it is the largest in the United States to have had a codified form…
Podcast version of this piece. No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be,Am an attendant lord, one that will doTo swell a progress, start a scene or two,Advise the prince; no doubt,…
Listen to a conversation about this piece here. JACOBA:[1] I have my genealogical abilities, and I wield them as I see fit. JASON: And you saw fit to marry your son to Chalo’s daughter? JACOBA:…
Dear Friend of Dialogue:
The past year has been an outstanding one for Dialogue. I hope you have found articles that speak to you. I must admit that I often turn first to the book reviews—it is a way for me to obtain thoughtful insight into the best of the new Mormon-themed books that are published each year….
Dialogue is more than just a print journal. If you haven’t visited our website lately, please do. You can find all the past Dialogue articles there, as well as pieces on selected Mormon current affairs. You might want to take a moment to click on the “Contact Us” link and skim the biographies and photos of our Board of Directors to see who’s working behind the scenes.
Dear Friend of Dialogue,
Dialogue is entering its Jubilee year – can you believe it’s been five decades? We have many debts to pay to our founders and all the authors, poets, and artists who have made Dialogue so special over the past fifty years. While all those people would no doubt generously forgive our debts to them in the spirit of the Jubilee, it seems to me that the best thing we can do is to pay it forward and ensure that Dialogue remains just as relevant, humane, thought-provoking, and forward-looking for the next fifty years as it has been since 1966.
Relevant, humane, thought-provoking, and forward-looking. That’s why I love Dialogue. In a world overloaded with blogs and tweets and memes, isn’t it nice to slow down and read something that has been carefully crafted, peer reviewed, and professionally edited?
Cross-posted at Wheat and TaresÂ
By Kristine A.
We live in an age of doubt, but we need not be overcome. When we are planted in the Savior we can be nourished as much by our questions as by the answers.”Â
“Planted: Belief and Belonging in an Age of Doubt” is written by Patrick Mason and is a joint venture between the Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship and Deseret Book. Patrick Mason is the Chair of Mormon Studies at Claremont Graduate College and a Mormon historian.
When I first saw this was being released I kind of rolled my eyes. “Great,” I thought, “another book that will describe what I’ve been through (a la Crucible of Doubt) that ultimately preaches to the choir.”