According to President Obama’s deficit panel, “Federal health care spending represents our single largest fiscal challenge,” revealing the “awful truth … that Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid now eat up all federal reserves.” However, during the October 2005 General Conference, we were taught that the gospel of Jesus Christ can provide “solutions to the ills …
Event: Salt Lake Symposium 2012
MITT, MORMONISM, AND THE JEWISH OBJECTION (AMONG OTHERS)
Bible Christians say Mitt Romney is a cultist. Because he transported the family dog on top of the family car, various animal rights groups question whether he should be permitted to own a dog, much less become president. The Tea Party says he’s insufficiently conservative while the poor say he’s too rich. And now B’nai …
MITT ROMNEY AND THE CARTOONISTS: A 2012 UPDATE
A 2008 SUNSTONE Symposium session examined the range of political cartoons featuring Mitt Romney during the 2008 Republican primary race. Romney, now the party’s 2012 candidate, has been the subject of hundreds of political cartoons since 2008, but especially in 2011–12. This session looks at a selection of these cartoons and considers their role in …
HOW THE BOMB CORRUPTED THE WORLD AND MORMONS AND NATIVE AMERICAN SHAMANS CAN HELP SAVE IT
The Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), created by the Manhattan Project during WWII, is the birthplace of the atomic bomb and is notably Mormon friendly. Many consider it the original source of the corruption of science, while other laboratory and community leaders of good intent in Los Alamos ignore or deny charges of corruption. This …
THE COST OF DISCIPLESHIP: DIMENSIONS OF A MATURE MORMON FAITH, PART II
This is a continuation of a 2010 Symposium session exploring the dimensions of Christian/Mormon discipleship. Building on ideas about faith and doubt, courage and honesty, and imagination and love, this session considers such additional dimensions of discipleship as empathy, compassion, kindness, holiness, peacemaking, a commitment to counter suffering and injustice, and an openness to all …
DIVINE DISENCHANTMENT: TRANSITIONS AND ASSISTING THOSE IN RELIGIOUS MIGRATION
Reliable social science statistical data indicates that thousands of Latter-day Saints leave the LDS Church each year. Over time, these individuals adopt a variety of irreligious and religious pathways as a result of their prior Mormon experience. Although the social scientific literature includes material that sheds light on religious affiliation, disaffiliation, and reaffiliation, this material …
JOSEPH SMITH AND THE RELIGION OF EXPERIENCE
In select passages of Joseph Smith’s writings are the makings of a new, extraordinary religion. Unlike traditional monotheistic belief systems, with their complex layers of doctrines, rituals, and practices, the religion of experience makes no claims and affirms no premises. Its basis is the autonomy of the individual as manifested in the fundamentals of human …
JOSEPH SMITH, MORMON TESTAMENT, AND THE BIBLE: ADDITIONS TO THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS
Joseph Smith has been called a “prophet puzzle” by historians who find him enigmatic. Part of the answer to the prophet puzzle lies in Joseph’s adherence to the themes and teachings of the Bible. It is this preoccupation with the Bible and its precepts, scope, and ancient, non-Western settings that make Smith’s teachings seem strange. …
STUDENT POLITICAL ACTIVISM AT BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY, 1965-1971
On 11 May 1970, Ernest L. Wilkinson stated, “There is certainly a spirit of unrest throughout the country and while it is manifest only slightly at the BYU it is nevertheless manifested here.” Student political activism at BYU during the late 1960s to early 1970s was, like student activism elsewhere, as much a function of …
SUNSTONE TOWN HALL MEETING
Bring your compliments and complaints to this session and let the SUNSTONE leadership know what we’re doing well—and where we can improve. SUNSTONE board members and staff will report on the past year and describe new initiatives and projects for the years ahead. Laura Compton, Michael J. Stevens, Stephen Carter, Mary Ellen Robertson