This session provides some examples in how to maintain relationships and communicate with people who don’t share your same faith or belief.
Event: Salt Lake Symposium 2020
Mormonism, Purpose, and Afterlife as Seen through a Purple Rain
Much of what we believe depends on what we hope or fear. We judge others and our church through the lens of who and where we are in a particular moment. Wonder becomes less a fascination than a question, while our questions of belief and believing are not inclined to be answered. Increasingly we see …
“Does Mormonism Have an Answer for Climate Change?”: Eco-Grief, Apocalypticism, and Mormon Environmental Rhetorics in the Anthropocene
Given the severity of climate change, its apocalyptic implications, and the growing trend of “eco-grief,” Mormon Studies must engage with this issue more directly and openly. By using the Wayne C. Booth’s theories of rhetoric, I hope to determine how people across the Mormon spectrum communicate about this issue and understand it; whether or not …
Film: The Return of Elder Pingree – Memoir of a Departed Mormon
THE RETURN OF ELDER PINGREE is a feature-length documentary film that follows lapsed Mormon Geoff Pingree as he retraces the steps he took 25 years earlier in Guatemala as devout missionary ‘Elder Pingree.’ He seeks to discover what has become of the Guatemalans who once trusted him with their religious faith, attempts to understand the …
Folksong of the Fringe
Since my teenage years, I’ve been interested in songwriting as a way to document my experiences. Religion was a big part of my life in my early years while growing up in a Mormon family and serving a mission in the early 1980s. Faith, doubt, rebellion, heresy, mysticism, ecumenicism and universalism all have their expression …
First and Second Vision Stories: Development, History, and Magic
1st paper: This paper will present the historical background to the earliest and most complete written accounts of the first vision of Joseph Smith. The three most important descriptions were provided in 1832, 1835 and 1839, and all have different backgrounds and emphasis. Early developments came in 1835 when theological changes were being made in …
Lunch Broadcast Pushed to the Edge: A Historical Discourse Analysis of the Intersections of Feminism, Transgender Healthcare, and Mormonism
In recent years, gender transitions and the lives of transgender people have been thrust into the consciousness of greater society, yet many remain unaware of the historical interplay of transgender healthcare and radical feminism on historical and contemporary Mormon (LDS) policies and viewpoints. Using her academic training in intersectional feminism, clinical social work, historical discourse …
Mormonism and White Supremacy: American Religion and the Problem of Racial Innocence
Mormonism and White Supremacy: American Religion and the Problem of Racial Innocence
“Tabernacles of Clay: Gender and Sexuality in Modern Mormonism”: A Book Panel and Response from Author Taylor G. Petrey
This panel brings together a diverse group of scholarly voices to react to Tabernacles of Clay: Gender and Sexuality in Modern Mormonism by Taylor G. Petrey. Drawing on deep archival research, Petrey situates LDS doctrines in gender theory and American religious history since World War II. His challenging conclusion is that Mormonism is conflicted between …
Gaining from Grief; Living in Gratitude
As human beings we are bonded by one common thread: we all go through seasons. Grief and gratitude are examples of such seasons and how we adjust to and learn from the seasons will determine who we become and whether we will able to acompilsh our God-given purpose in life.