The communist government of East Germany had really grown to like the Mormons in 1982. Which was strange considering apostle Ezra Taft Benson’s relentless condemnation of communism or anything he thought was connected to it (like the Civil Rights movement). But, as the November 1982 issue of the Sunstone Review reported, “Our preaching of good …
So, the next step up is, do we publish humor about founding leaders? For example, this cartoon about why Martin Harris was Joseph’s scribe only briefly. This is one of the very few cartoons I could find about Joseph Smith published in Sunstone. It seems that, for the most part, we stayed away from pictorial …
The filming of General Conference began humbly, with one man sitting in a hole he’d carved out beneath the Tabernacle floor. Frank Wise was a young British convert to the Church who grew up wandering the film studios around London. When he emigrated to Utah and joined the Church in 1939, he was immediately hired …
Today, the answer is “No!” But that was not always the case. The current missionary handbook reads: “Do not flirt or associate inappropriately with anyone. Limit physical contact with someone of the opposite gender to a handshake.” But in 1887, missionaries had a lot more freedom. Edward Davis, who was a missionary in England at …
Sunstone has been collecting weird Mormon stuff for a long time. For example, how many of you saw these in your grandmother’s house? These resin grapes were a popular homemaking meeting project back in the 1970s. And I guess one of them found a home here. After many stops at Deseret Industries, I’m sure. And …
Part II of the Sunstone Classics series Eugene England was a founder of Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought and a professor of English at BYU before becoming Writer in Residence at Utah Valley University where he started the first Mormon Studies program. He published this excerpted article in 2002. The whole article starts on …
One of the most interesting questions you can ask about a culture is what it considers to be within the realm of humor. What subjects and people can humor be about? Where is sacred ground—where humor is not allowed—and where is mundane ground—where it is? As Sunstone started its humor career, it stuck mainly with …
Imagine that your name is Lovina Gibson Andrus. You’re five years old, and you live in Salt Lake Valley. The year is 1849, so, naturally, you spend your summer days smashing crickets with a wooden mallet. Yes, this is the infamous year when the sky turned black as swarms of crickets flew in to eat …
“Every member a missionary.” You’ve probably heard this phrase more times than you can count. But what you probably don’t know is that it has its roots in the silent films Trapped by the Mormons and Married to a Mormon. Winifred Graham was one of the most ardent anti-Mormons in Britain. She had written two …
In honor of Sunstone’s 50th anniversary, I decided to put together a collection of the physical and cultural detritus that has collected in Sunstone’s office over the past few decades. But, to do so, I had to descend into the office’s bowels. You remember that creepy basement from Heretic—that horror movie about Hugh Grant luring …
