By Seth Bryant Seth Bryant is Director of the Kirtland Temple Historic Site and a former US Navy Chaplain. He has graduate degrees from the University of Florida and Vanderbilt University. I AM A cultural Mormon and a convert to the Community of Christ. So if religions are languages, I speak Community of …
Category: Mapping Mormon Issues
Creating in the Borderlands
By Stephen Carter Eight years ago, while working on my third issue of Sunstone, I edited an article by John-Charles Duffy titled, “Mapping Mormon Historicity Debates—Part II: Perspectives from the Sociology of Knowledge.”1 Not the most exciting of titles, but the article itself upended my worldview and sent me on an eight-year journey that …
Mapping Book of Mormon Historicity Debates: A Guide for the Overwhelmed–Part II
Continued from Part I III. Mapping the Positions Thus far this article has summarized the historicity question as if it were a two-party debate: arguments for versus arguments against. But in fact, writers have adopted a wide array of positions around this issue. William Hamblin (1994) organizes views on historicity into five categories: evangelical, …
Mapping Book of Mormon Historicity Debates: A Guide for the Overwhelmed–Part I
By John-Charles Duffy Art by Jeanette Atwood Book of Mormon “historicity” refers to the claim that the Book of Mormon is an authentic translation of an ancient volume of scripture. Whether or not one believes the Book of Mormon to be historical in this sense is maybe the most fundamental question affecting one’s relationship to …
Biological Evolution: Toward A Reconciliation of the Science and Our Faith
By William S. Bradshaw “Do you believe in evolution?” In my experience, the chance for positive dialogue to take place among Church members following such a beginning is not very good. The problem is that the word evolution elicits such a wide range of reactions that the discussants are rarely able to focus on a …
Written by the Finger of God?: Claims and Controversies of Book of Mormon Translation
By Don Bradley The accuracy of the Book of Mormon’s rendering into English was so important for Mormonism’s founding claims that—like the divine Sonship of Jesus in the biblical narratives of the Baptism and the Transfiguration—it needed to be declared from heaven (Matthew 3:13–17; 17:1–5; D&C 5:11–13).1 In June 1829, the Three Witnesses to the …
Approaching the First Vision Saga
By Stephen C. Taysom Art by Galen Dara Or right-click to download audio file here: Approaching the First Vision Saga Joseph Smith’s First Vision stories constitute a key element of contemporary Mormon self-conception. Anyone seeking to understand Mormonism will have to grapple with the complexities surrounding this event and the stories told …