Women, authority, church—deciding how those three words should connect has been the source of much pain in the past century and also in the first century. One New Testament chapter in particular provides a window on conflict arising in the early church over this issue. Paul’s supposed settlement seemed to have resolved the matter for …
Event: Salt Lake Symposium 2009
SL09171 Panel: Author Meets Critics: Nauvoo Polygamy
This panel discussion brings together scholars, readers, and thinkers familiar with George Smith’s recent book Nauvoo Polygamy … “but we called it celestial marriage.” Newell G. Bringhurst, Marianne T. Watson, Cheryl Lund Bruno, George D. Smith
SL09234 Panel: Divine Malfeasance [Partial]
Richard Nixon claimed, “If the president does it, it’s not illegal, Holly Welker, Michael J. Stevens, Doe Daughtrey, Stephen Carter, Parker Blount
SL09301 Devotional: Hope is the Thing With Feathers
“Hope is the thing with feathers, that perches in the soul.” Emily Dickinson We need hope as our companion as we try to navigate through our rapidly changing and often unstable world. Can we get control of violence before we destroy ourselves? Can we take care of the planet before we destroy it? Can we …
SL09335 Panel: Fragile, Tough Girl: Emerging Stories and Poems From a Womb With a View
Mormon females in contemporary fiction and poetry come in many incarnations. Child with a stained mouth (berries meant for her mother’s jam) cringes under the raspberry switch her father cuts to punish her. The older, fragile tough girl who dresses up her heart in bandages of steel. The housewife who takes home a curious item …
SL09375 It Begins With a Family: A Conversation With Dr. Caitlin Ryan About Families and Homosexuality
Caitlin Ryan of San Francisco State University is a leading authority on the influence of families on their lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender (LGBT) children, and on health and mental health issues for LGBT youth. She is the director of the first groundbreaking, comprehensive study of LGBT adolescents and their families, showing that parents, families, and religious communities can …
SL09121 In Emma’s Shoes: Understanding Emma’s responses to Trials and Loss
Many wonder about or criticize Emma Smith for not traveling west with the Saints after Joseph’s death. Understanding her frame of mind at that point is difficult without looking more closely at her lifetime experiences. Many sources record the events in Emma’s life—and some with valuable detail. The frequent moves, the death of her children, …
SL09172 Panel: Big Love’s Temple Episode: What the Controversy Shows about the World, the Church, and Ourselves
On 15 March 2009, HBO’s series Big Love depicted parts of the LDS temple endowment ceremonies. Although Deseret News editor Joel Campbell called the portrayal “religious pornography,” and a campaign was launched to boycott HBO, some Mormons felt the depiction was in good taste—even inspiring. We will shift away from the HBO depiction to explore …
SL09235 Twenty-five Years Since the Revelation on Women; Women and the Priesthood: The Community of Christ Experience and the Invisible Ties that Bind [Partial]
In April 1984, RLDS Church President Dr. Wallace B. Smith presented to the church’s World Conference a proposed revelation which, among other things, called for the church to begin ordaining women. The issue had been festering in the church for at least fifteen years and was very controversial. Approximately twenty percent of the delegates voted …
SL09311 The Changing General Conference Rhetoric of the Latter-day Saint Prophets
Joseph Smith set the doctrinal table of Mormonism, and a number of succeeding prophets regularly paid homage to him and his distinctive ideas. However, beginning most identifiably with David O. McKay, presidential general conference rhetoric became less devoted to Joseph Smith’s ideas and more devoted to more traditional and historic common Christian themes. Richard N. …