Philosophy
Recommended
On a Philosophy of Marriage
James E. FaulconerListen to an interview about this piece here. Many have seen one or another movie or television version of the Frankenstein story. The first was made in 1910 and there have been many since. The…
Free Forever to Act for Themselves”:Howard Thurman and Latter-day Saint Agency
Kristen BlairListen to a conversation about this piece here. There is in every person an inward sea, and in that sea there is an island and on that island there is an altar and standing guard…
Miracles Upon Miracles for Maher
Thora QaddumiMany years ago, my husband was saved by a series of remarkable events. Or miracles? Our international Muslim and Mormon family, which now includes four adult children, their spouses, and a growing number of grandchildren,…
A Superior Alternative
Julie J. NicholsI’m an Aries with my sun in the sixth house, which means, according to astrology, that since the moment I was born, health has been my top priority. I had a hard time believing that…
An Assortment of Meditations
Robert F. BennettSamuel M. Brown’s Where the Soul Hungers is something of a grab bag of sundry reflections on the gospel. As Brown himself explains, the book is intended to be part “pure devotions” and part “philosophical…
On a Philosophy of Marriage
James E. FaulconerListen to an interview about this piece here. Many have seen one or another movie or television version of the Frankenstein story. The first was made in 1910 and there have been many since. The…
Free Forever to Act for Themselves”:Howard Thurman and Latter-day Saint Agency
Kristen BlairListen to a conversation about this piece here. There is in every person an inward sea, and in that sea there is an island and on that island there is an altar and standing guard…
Miracles Upon Miracles for Maher
Thora QaddumiMany years ago, my husband was saved by a series of remarkable events. Or miracles? Our international Muslim and Mormon family, which now includes four adult children, their spouses, and a growing number of grandchildren,…
A Superior Alternative
Julie J. NicholsI’m an Aries with my sun in the sixth house, which means, according to astrology, that since the moment I was born, health has been my top priority. I had a hard time believing that…
An Assortment of Meditations
Robert F. BennettSamuel M. Brown’s Where the Soul Hungers is something of a grab bag of sundry reflections on the gospel. As Brown himself explains, the book is intended to be part “pure devotions” and part “philosophical…
The Earth and the Inhabitants Thereof (Non-)Humans in the Divine Household
Michael HaycockReading the Word: Spirit Materiality in the Mountain Landscapes of Nan Shepherd
Rachel GilmanDominion in the Anthropocene
Christopher OscarsonBleakness or a Future with Unicorns? Ryan Habermeyer. The Science of Lost Futures.
Ryan ShoemakerReview: Morning Has Broken Robert A. Rees. Waiting for Morning
Karen Marguerite MoloneyRoundtable: A Balm in Gilead: Reconciling Black Bodies within a Mormon Imagination
Janan Graham-RussellDialogue 51.3 (Fall 2018): 185–192
“As much we may hope that one would disregard the explicitly racial teachings of the past, the significance of corporeality in the Mormon imagination is such that Mormonism’s racial wounds run deep. With-out a thoughtful consideration of the impact of the priesthood and temple restrictions, their legacy manifests in implicit and explicit ways.”
The Truth, the Partial Truth, Something Like the Truth, So Help Me God
Clay L. ChandlerIn October of 1993 Dallin H. Oaks, an apostle for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and Steve Benson, editorial cartoonist for the Arizona Republic and eldest grandson of former LDS president Ezra Taft Benson, had an argument in a public place. Their dispute centered on the role played by Apostle Boyd K. Packer in the September excommunication of Paul James Toscano. According to both men, this had been a subject of discussion between them during two “confidential” meetings.
Philosophical Christian Apology Meets “Rational” Mormon Theology
L. Rex SearsAs Joseph Smith matured in his prophetic calling, he came to regard what he saw as the rational appeal of his developing theology as one of its chief virtues. Throughout the latter half of the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth, this attitude continued to animate authoritative interpretations and defenses of Mormon doctrine offered by leading Mormon churchmen and intellectuals.
On “Defense of Marriage” A Reply to Quinn
Armand L. MaussD. Michael Quinn, a scholar for whom I have immense respect, has written what he calls a “prelude” to the national campaign in “defense of marriage” with reference particularly to the efforts of the LDS…
Prelude to the National “”Defense of Marriage”” Campaign: Civil Discrimination Against Feared or Despised Minorities
D. Michael QuinnAmerica is currently in the midst of state-by-state political activism and judicial appeals to prevent the legalization of same-sex marriage. In 1996 the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated one example of the related effort to roll back laws protecting homosexuals from civil discrimination, but this campaign moves forward on various fronts in every state of the Union. Its organizers will certainly extend this political activism into all states currently lacking a “Defense of Marriage Act” (DOMA) which both prohibits same-sex marriage and refuses to recognize such unions legally performed in other states or countries. In view of the pace for this state by-state political activism during the 1990s, the Defense of Marriage campaign will probably continue throughout the United States for at least another decade.
Peace Psychology and Mormonism: A Broader Vision for Peace
Michael E. NielsenPsychologists have long been interested in peace and conflicts, and have made important contributions to society’s understandings of war and peace. A small but growing number of psychologists has become involved in the peace movement…
Rooted in Christian Hope: The Case for Pacifism
Richard SherlockAs a pacifist for my entire adult life, I find the DIALOGUE call for papers too inviting to ignore. During the Vietnam War thirty-five years ago, I came to grips with what pacifism requires of…
Anabaptism, the Book of Mormon, and the Peace Church Option
Andrew BoltonDialogue 37.1 (Spring 2004): 75–94
However, Mennonites and Latter Day Saints may be spiritual cousins. A sympathetic comparison of the origins of both movements may illuminate their past and also assist in contemporary living of the gospel of shalom.
The Ideology of Empire: A View from “America’s Attic”
Marc A. SchindlerLDS attitudes towards war and peace in general have been covered fairly comprehensively in the past decade or so. The attitudes are complex and generally attempt to strike a balance between the duty to defend one’s life, family, property and liberties on the one hand, with the commandment to renounce war as a tool of Satan on the other. While there is more than enough material in LDS scriptures and commentary to support a number of positions, until very recently any dichotomy in LDS attitudes towards specific wars has generally been seen only in the context of U.S. foreign policy.
The Possibilities of Mormon Peacebuilding
Patrick MasonIn 1992, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, then Secretary-General of the United Nations, announced his Agenda for Peace. Within it, he encouraged member states to become more actively involved in “peacebuilding,” a vaguely defined term that seeks to…
Imprisonment, Defiance, and Division: The History of Mormon Fundamentalism in the 1940s and 1950s
Ken DriggsThe modern Fundamentalist Mormon community consists of a number of groups and many independent family clusters. The two largest are the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS) centered in Colorado City, Arizona,…
The Current Philosophy of Consciousness Landscape: Where Does LDS Thought Fit?
Steven L. PeckLooking out of my window across my lawn, I see a red toy wheelbarrow tipped over, abandoned beside the sidewalk. Its redness is something I experience distinctly. Undeniably, I might be deceived, and there is no red wheelbarrow there. Maybe someone painted one on the window and I am confused, or maybe I am lying mad in a hospital bed and dreaming. Perhaps it is a hallucination. It could even be that I am the victim of a maniacal government experiment in which scientists are stimulating my brain in a way that makes me think I am seeing a red wheelbarrow. Nevertheless, whatever the cause, for me it is clear—I am seeing a red wheelbarrow.
Music of a “More Exalted Sphere”: The Sonic Cosmology of La Monte Young
Jeremy GrimshawSeven and a half blocks east and five blocks south of the Salt Lake Temple, the 0,0 of the city’s cardinally aligned grid, an inconspicuous gate on the north side of the street opens onto a long path that leads to what was once the backyard of Thomas B. Child. A stonemason by trade and Mormon bishop by calling, Child spent many of his spare moments between 1945 and 1963 designing surreal and sacred sculptures and engraving poignant aphorisms into stone tablets, gradually creating one of the most unique (and, even to most Mormons, unknown) collections of folk art in the United States.
Give Me My Myths
Lynne LarsonAn Imperfect Brightness of Hope
(author)“An Exquisite and Profound Love”: An Interview with Andrew Solomon
Gregory A. Prince“Questions at the Veil”
(author)Review: Adam S. Miller. Speculative Grace: Bruno Latour and Object-Oriented Theology
(author)An Interview with Rabbi Harold Kushner
Harold KushnerReview: Adam S. Miller. Rube Goldberg Machines: Essays in Mormon Theology
Robert A. ReesReview: Jacob T. Baker, ed. Mormonism at the Crossroads of Philosophy and Theology: Essays in Honor of David L. Paulsen
Edwin E. GanttReview: E-mails with a Young Mormon about Adam Miller’s Letters to a Young Mormon Adam S. Miller. Letters to a Young Mormon
Russell Arben FoxPlenty: A Morning Poem at 75
Emma Lou ThayneOn a Philosophy of Marriage
James E. FaulconerListen to an interview about this piece here. Many have seen one or another movie or television version of the Frankenstein story. The first was made in 1910 and there have been many since. The…
Free Forever to Act for Themselves”:Howard Thurman and Latter-day Saint Agency
Kristen BlairListen to a conversation about this piece here. There is in every person an inward sea, and in that sea there is an island and on that island there is an altar and standing guard…
Miracles Upon Miracles for Maher
Thora QaddumiMany years ago, my husband was saved by a series of remarkable events. Or miracles? Our international Muslim and Mormon family, which now includes four adult children, their spouses, and a growing number of grandchildren,…
A Superior Alternative
Julie J. NicholsI’m an Aries with my sun in the sixth house, which means, according to astrology, that since the moment I was born, health has been my top priority. I had a hard time believing that…
An Assortment of Meditations
Robert F. BennettSamuel M. Brown’s Where the Soul Hungers is something of a grab bag of sundry reflections on the gospel. As Brown himself explains, the book is intended to be part “pure devotions” and part “philosophical…
The Earth and the Inhabitants Thereof (Non-)Humans in the Divine Household
Michael HaycockReading the Word: Spirit Materiality in the Mountain Landscapes of Nan Shepherd
Rachel GilmanDominion in the Anthropocene
Christopher OscarsonBleakness or a Future with Unicorns? Ryan Habermeyer. The Science of Lost Futures.
Ryan ShoemakerReview: Morning Has Broken Robert A. Rees. Waiting for Morning
Karen Marguerite MoloneyRoundtable: A Balm in Gilead: Reconciling Black Bodies within a Mormon Imagination
Janan Graham-RussellDialogue 51.3 (Fall 2018): 185–192
“As much we may hope that one would disregard the explicitly racial teachings of the past, the significance of corporeality in the Mormon imagination is such that Mormonism’s racial wounds run deep. With-out a thoughtful consideration of the impact of the priesthood and temple restrictions, their legacy manifests in implicit and explicit ways.”
The Truth, the Partial Truth, Something Like the Truth, So Help Me God
Clay L. ChandlerIn October of 1993 Dallin H. Oaks, an apostle for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and Steve Benson, editorial cartoonist for the Arizona Republic and eldest grandson of former LDS president Ezra Taft Benson, had an argument in a public place. Their dispute centered on the role played by Apostle Boyd K. Packer in the September excommunication of Paul James Toscano. According to both men, this had been a subject of discussion between them during two “confidential” meetings.
Philosophical Christian Apology Meets “Rational” Mormon Theology
L. Rex SearsAs Joseph Smith matured in his prophetic calling, he came to regard what he saw as the rational appeal of his developing theology as one of its chief virtues. Throughout the latter half of the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth, this attitude continued to animate authoritative interpretations and defenses of Mormon doctrine offered by leading Mormon churchmen and intellectuals.
On “Defense of Marriage” A Reply to Quinn
Armand L. MaussD. Michael Quinn, a scholar for whom I have immense respect, has written what he calls a “prelude” to the national campaign in “defense of marriage” with reference particularly to the efforts of the LDS…
Prelude to the National “”Defense of Marriage”” Campaign: Civil Discrimination Against Feared or Despised Minorities
D. Michael QuinnAmerica is currently in the midst of state-by-state political activism and judicial appeals to prevent the legalization of same-sex marriage. In 1996 the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated one example of the related effort to roll back laws protecting homosexuals from civil discrimination, but this campaign moves forward on various fronts in every state of the Union. Its organizers will certainly extend this political activism into all states currently lacking a “Defense of Marriage Act” (DOMA) which both prohibits same-sex marriage and refuses to recognize such unions legally performed in other states or countries. In view of the pace for this state by-state political activism during the 1990s, the Defense of Marriage campaign will probably continue throughout the United States for at least another decade.
Peace Psychology and Mormonism: A Broader Vision for Peace
Michael E. NielsenPsychologists have long been interested in peace and conflicts, and have made important contributions to society’s understandings of war and peace. A small but growing number of psychologists has become involved in the peace movement…
Rooted in Christian Hope: The Case for Pacifism
Richard SherlockAs a pacifist for my entire adult life, I find the DIALOGUE call for papers too inviting to ignore. During the Vietnam War thirty-five years ago, I came to grips with what pacifism requires of…
Anabaptism, the Book of Mormon, and the Peace Church Option
Andrew BoltonDialogue 37.1 (Spring 2004): 75–94
However, Mennonites and Latter Day Saints may be spiritual cousins. A sympathetic comparison of the origins of both movements may illuminate their past and also assist in contemporary living of the gospel of shalom.
The Ideology of Empire: A View from “America’s Attic”
Marc A. SchindlerLDS attitudes towards war and peace in general have been covered fairly comprehensively in the past decade or so. The attitudes are complex and generally attempt to strike a balance between the duty to defend one’s life, family, property and liberties on the one hand, with the commandment to renounce war as a tool of Satan on the other. While there is more than enough material in LDS scriptures and commentary to support a number of positions, until very recently any dichotomy in LDS attitudes towards specific wars has generally been seen only in the context of U.S. foreign policy.
The Possibilities of Mormon Peacebuilding
Patrick MasonIn 1992, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, then Secretary-General of the United Nations, announced his Agenda for Peace. Within it, he encouraged member states to become more actively involved in “peacebuilding,” a vaguely defined term that seeks to…
Imprisonment, Defiance, and Division: The History of Mormon Fundamentalism in the 1940s and 1950s
Ken DriggsThe modern Fundamentalist Mormon community consists of a number of groups and many independent family clusters. The two largest are the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS) centered in Colorado City, Arizona,…
The Current Philosophy of Consciousness Landscape: Where Does LDS Thought Fit?
Steven L. PeckLooking out of my window across my lawn, I see a red toy wheelbarrow tipped over, abandoned beside the sidewalk. Its redness is something I experience distinctly. Undeniably, I might be deceived, and there is no red wheelbarrow there. Maybe someone painted one on the window and I am confused, or maybe I am lying mad in a hospital bed and dreaming. Perhaps it is a hallucination. It could even be that I am the victim of a maniacal government experiment in which scientists are stimulating my brain in a way that makes me think I am seeing a red wheelbarrow. Nevertheless, whatever the cause, for me it is clear—I am seeing a red wheelbarrow.
Music of a “More Exalted Sphere”: The Sonic Cosmology of La Monte Young
Jeremy GrimshawSeven and a half blocks east and five blocks south of the Salt Lake Temple, the 0,0 of the city’s cardinally aligned grid, an inconspicuous gate on the north side of the street opens onto a long path that leads to what was once the backyard of Thomas B. Child. A stonemason by trade and Mormon bishop by calling, Child spent many of his spare moments between 1945 and 1963 designing surreal and sacred sculptures and engraving poignant aphorisms into stone tablets, gradually creating one of the most unique (and, even to most Mormons, unknown) collections of folk art in the United States.