Calculated Risk: Freedom for Mormons in Utah Higher Education The freedom society provides us to teach and study unpopular ideas is a calculated risk. Society taxes and contributes to make possible our expensive higher educational system because it accepts that academic freedom, despite the discomfort, even anger, it often creates, serves the long-term best interests …
Event: DC Symposium 2000
When Pittsburgh Meets Utah: Mormonism’s Structural Resistance To Diversity
When Pittsburgh Meets Utah: Mormonism’s Structural Resistance To Diversity Five years after her very public leave-taking from Brigham Young University, Professor Farr found herself still fielding questions about that part of her life she thought she had left behind. More disturbing, she found she was still angry–but not at what the questioners imagined. Following the …
Teaching the Historical Jesus
Teaching the Historical Jesus Last year, David Barber was assigned as a teaching assistant to a philosophy course on contemporary historical Jesus research. The class was a learning experience for him. Not surprisingly, historians best accounts of the life and teachings of Jesus do not have much in common with the Sunday School stories of …
Strengthening the Members’ Sense of Humor Committee; or, How I Became a Mormon Humor Apologist
Strengthening the Members’ Sense of Humor Committee; or, How I Became a Mormon Humor Apologist Have you ever harbored suspicions there was something funny about Mormonism? Do you wake up nights with a sweaty feeling or dread that a mysterious church committee is keeping a file of your private antics to be laughed at from …
Creation: The Tales of Many Stories
Creation: The Tales of Many Stories Unlike other topics in the scriptures the story of the creation is told at least four times throughout the LDS scriptures. These stories are not the same; they are somewhat complimentary, but certainly the message is not a unison code of harmony. A review of the creation stories, taken …
Jesus was a Funny Guy: Satire in a Christian Community
Jesus was a Funny Guy: Satire in a Christian Community This presentation will examine the historical roots of satire and distinguish it from other kinds of humor, such as invective, lampoon, and sarcasm. It will argue that one cannot ‘satrinize” a specific community without being intimately connected to that community and honestly desiring its improvement. …
Anti-Semitism in the Scriptures
Anti-Semitism in the Scriptures Both the Bible and the Book of Mormon point to ‘the Jews” as responsible for the crucifixion of Christ. Historically, such interpretations have contributed to persecution and pogroms ranging from the crusades to the Holocaust. Were these scriptural authors really “anti-Semitic”? Or are we reading them out of context? And how …
The Evolution of Mormon Teachings on Marriage and Celibacy
The Evolution of Mormon Teachings on Marriage and Celibacy One of the contentious social issues in the United States is the nature of marriage. The Mormon Church has been actively involved in passing anti-gay legislation defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman. The presentation will explore evolution of Church teachings on …
Surprise, Surprise: Reflections on the Oxymoronic Question of Mormon Humor
Surprise, Surprise: Reflections on the Oxymoronic Question of Mormon Humor Last year, an associated press writer raised, yet one more time, the question of Mormon humor. He interviewed a variety of equally befuddled theorists, humorists, apologists, and DeGenerists in an attempt to arrive at the crux of Latter-day Saint levity. The reporter may be excused …
David O. McKay and Blacks: Building the Foundation for the 1978 Revelation
David O. McKay and Blacks: Building the Foundation for the 1978 Revelation Shortly after David O. McKay became church president in 1951 he traveled to South Africa, the first church president to visit that country. While there, he made an important and impromptu change in the church policy regarding ordination of blacks. While not reversing …