Embodiment is essential to Mormon ontology. Even God has a body, and eternal life is lived in a physical body in a physical environment in social relationships with other embodied beings. Nevertheless, Mormon salvation discourse has not fully recognized the importance of the physical in salvation. Focusing on the kingdom of heaven opens up questions …
Event: Salt Lake Symposium 2011
Remembering Gene: A Silent Decade
Ten years ago, Gene England died. His unique voice, the moral clarity of his mind, and the energy of his spirit are keenly missed by all who knew him. Gene would have had important things to say about the 9/11 terrorist attacks and our (Mormon and American) response to them, and about other issues facing …
Sunstone Town Hall Meeting
There have been a few changes at SUNSTONE this year, including the 2011 Symposium’s move to Ogden/Weber State, using SUNSTONE’s Facebook page to promote events, launching a SUNSTONE student group at the University of Utah, and rolling out an electronic subscription via the SUNSTONE app for Apple devices (and soon on Android!). Michael J. Stevens
What I Learned From Editing Gentry
While editing and updating Leland Gentry’s uperb 1965 PhD dissertation on the Mormon War in Missouri, I kept Gentry’s text largely intact but included addenda at the end of each chapter. In these, I considered: the background of the phrase “nits make lice” in indian massacres, showing demonization of minorities in Jacksonian america; whether Joseph …
Disappearing
This personal essay follows two threads, one being the story of a day laborer high-rise window cleaner, the author, the other being Elizabeth Smart’s story. The essay explores visibility and connection (or the lack thereof) between people, and recounts both an encounter with Brian David Mitchell in the mountains and an encounter with Elizabeth Smart …
The Impact Of Wonder On Religious And Intimate Life
Wonder is excited by encounters with the unexpected, when we yield to “a sudden decentering of the self” (Bulkeley). Experiences of wonder spark both intense religious experiences and profound relationship connections. in both arenas—the intimately spiritual and the intimately social—when we are stunned, dazed, breathtaken, overwhelmed, consumed, or astonished, we feel yearnings to explore, to …
Flunking Sainthood
For her forthcoming memoir, Flunking Sainthood, Jana Riess tackled twelve different spiritual practices in a quest to become more saintly, including fasting, fixed-hour prayer, gratitude, Sabbathkeeping, and generosity. although she began with great plans for success (“Really, how hard could that be?” she asked at the start of her saintmaking year), she found to her …
Jon McNaughton, Mormon Artist/ Right-Wing Propagandist
Mormon painter Jon McNaughton is one of the most popular and commercially successful artists in the United States. His religious and patriotic paintings have sold widely, and YouTube videos of two of his most popular paintings have each been seen by more than 3,000,000 viewers. But McNaughton’s art is also controversial because of the overt …
Further Light And Knowledge
This paper analyzes esoteric ways of knowing in Mormonism to illuminate how particular LDS women have synthesized, supplemented, or replaced Mormonism with elements of twenty-first century New Spirituality. The New Spirituality is the current generalized spiritual milieu in the United States: dynamic, competitive, flexible, and hybrid—an inclusive category that can cover the wide range of …
Mormons And Maternal Culture
Motherhood and homemaking receive a lot of lip service within Mormon culture, but when women use the internet (and other venues) to descant on their lived experience with this noble calling, people do not hesitate to ridicule domestic minutiae, sneer at discussions of poop, and condescend to crafters. This reaction to the nuts-and-bolts of child-rearing …