If practicing Mormons eschew alcohol, tobacco, and illicit drugs, do they use other sub-stances, abuse prescribed drugs, or engage in behavioral addictions? What cultural attitudes, pressures, or beliefs might contribute to self-medicating behaviors and addictions? Mental health professionals describe some of the ‘creative” drugs of choice used in LDS populations and the cultural beliefs employed …
Event: Salt Lake Symposium 2004
SURRENDERING GODS AND HEROES
Leaving the Church was not an easy journey for which to pack; Mormonism had been my sole spiritual home. I wondered what to take, what to leave behind. Should I slip away quietly in the night, or light fireworks; go it alone, or drag someone with me; ask politely to be excused, or raise the …
TRUTH OR FICTION? READING THE DA VINCI CODE
Last year, The Da Vinci Code swept other books aside in sales as well as cultural impact. The plot consumed readers while its esoteric information piqued widespread curiosity and its religious themes struck a universal nerve, the divine feminine hidden in history, art, and culture emerging from obscurity. The book asserts that Leonardo Da Vinci …
NEPHI AND ME: PERSONAL JOURNEYS WITH THE BOOK OF MORMON
Book of Mormon studies have broken open in recent decades, leading to many new, and widely different, theories about its historicity, origins, theology, and function. But despite this flurry of activity among scholars, apologists, and revisionists, until recent publicity over DNA studies and the Church’s response caught their attention, very few Latter-day Saints had really …
MICHAEL MOORE’S FAHRENHEIT 9/11: HEAT OR LIGHT?
Part documentary, part mockumentary, part passionate political witness, part uproarious entertainment, this surprisingly commercially successful film criticizing the Bush administration’s response to the World Trade Center attack; the president’s launch and conduct of the Iraq war; the Patriot Act, and the Abu Ghraib torture scandal has provoked national debate. Meanwhile, two Mormons, Bush administration lawyer …
PILLARS OF MY FAITH
This is Sunstone’s perennially best-attended session. Here speakers share the events and concepts that animate their religious lives; a little soul-baring, a little spiritual journey, a little intellectual testimony-bearing. This self-reflective night is about the things that matter most, plus spirited congregational hymn-singing. Jody England Hansen, John Sillito, Terri Buhler
HOW ‘CHRISTIAN’ SHOULD MORMONISM STRIVE TO BE?
Abstract Mormonism seems to be in the midst of an identity crisis. For Church members, its founding claim to be the restoration of primitive Christianity along with its theology and worship practices have always made it feel very Christian. But with the Church’s efforts to emphasize Mormonism’s message of Christ even more strongly, subtitling the …
SAME-SEX ATTRACTION, SPIRITUALITY, AND MORMONISM: THE HERO’S JOURNEY
People with same-sex attraction in the LDS Church are involved in an ongoing struggle that reaches far beyond the struggles with behavior. This “other” struggle is about meaning making. Men, women, and adolescents exert enormous amounts of mental, emotional, and spiritual energy in an effort to find, create, or craft a story to help them …
WOMEN’S SEARCH FOR MEANING: SPIRITUAL PRACTICES THAT HAVE ENRICHED MY LIFE
This panel will explore the contribution of spiritual practices to our connection with “that which matters most.” Panelists will discuss the way prayer, meditation, temple worship, yoga, spirit world journeys, lucid dreaming, symbol and energy work, Native American sweat lodge ceremonies, and other contemplative activities have helped them find meaning in crisis and in everyday …
LOVE AND HATE IN THE DESERT SOUTHWEST: TEACHING MORMONISM ON THE FRONT LINES
The academic study of Mormonism in the public university continues to generate interest, particularly among historians, scholars of religion, and many Latter-day Saints with academic training. This discussion focuses on the development and delivery of an “issues in Mormonism” course over a two semester period at Arizona State University. Using examples from classroom presentations, journal …