When I saw the list of the 2022 Academy Awards’ Best Picture nominees, I thought, “Which of these movies would be most useful to Mormons?” And the answer I came up with was Tár. Which seemed strange. After all, we had Avatar: The Way of Water, a movie about a family—and Mormons love families! We …
An excerpt from “E.T.: Celluloid Savior” by Marty Nabhan, in the September 1982 Sunstone Review. Consider the following. E.T. is a Christ figure. He is a botanist, a “shepherd of plants” so to speak. His mission is peaceful—he has come to save some of the earth’s endangered organisms. He arrives out of the heavens, heals …
I had been suckered into donating platelets, which meant I was going to be stuck in a chair with needles in my arms for two and a half hours. Fortunately, the Red Cross provides Netflix on a little screen for entertainment. But, since you can’t move your arms, whatever you pick, you’re stuck with it. …
Some historians claim that whenever Mormons moved into town, the crime rate went up. Is it true? Did Mormonism make some prolific thieves and robbers? Join Lindsay and Bryan as they dive into the seedy story. Shownotes: Donate to Sunstone and the History Podcast (leave us a note in the comment section to say hi!) …
From the September 1982 edition of the Sunstone Review. BYU’s Wilkinson Center bowling alley comes in dead last according to the October Playboy’s ranking of “sex on campus” among 20 American universities. BYU’s sexual temperature was a frigid 4 degrees while the “frontier free-for-all” University of Texas (Austin) boiled at a libidinous 212. In fourteen …
The New Testament is full of healing stories. But in real life, not so much. Dana Haight Cattani talks about her struggle with cancer.
Today I showed my wife this picture and asked her what came to mind. “It kind of looks like a Mormon temple pagoda,” she said. “I think so, too!” I said. “But why does it look Mormon?” The image is from a book called Temples of the Imagination: AI-generated Temples, Human-generated Insights, by Jeffrey Thayne …
In September 1982, the Sunstone Review published an interview with Mark Hofmann. At the time, Hofmann was known for having found a series of extraordinary historical documents. One was the Anthon transcript, which contained symbols Joseph Smith allegedly copied from the golden plates and sent to New York scholar Charles Anthon. Another contained an alleged …
After a tour of the Orem Temple’s art with Stephen Carter, Michael Stubbs talks about how difficult it is for him to find God in nature—even when hiking with a bunch of rowdy Young Men!
A recent Pew Research Center poll reported that Americans tend to view members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints more negatively than they view Catholics, Jews, evangelicals, atheists, and Muslims. It seems odd that a religion born and raised in the United States should be so distrusted by Americans. While I was …
