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 …
Event: Salt Lake Symposium 2020
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.
Bengt Washburn Comedy Show
Bengt Washburn Comedy Show
No Industrial Revolution, No Latter-19th-Century (and later) Mormonism: How a Religion Founded in America Became Largely British
Had not its main body moved to the inter-mountain west, the Church would not have grown and prospered that way it did. In order to achieve an economically self-sustaining societal critical mass in an inhospitable environment, Brigham Young, the industrialist, needed a large number of workers possessing post-agrarian vocational skills and the motivation and financial …
How Faith and Rationality Are Incompatible
Of course all are free to believe whatever they want (as long as they’re not harming others), but not every belief is rational. In this presentation, Spencer Wright will demonstrate the ways in which faith-based beliefs are incompatible with rationality. Recognition of this incompatibility can be both a cause for grief and a cause for …
Freemasonry’s Impact on Mormon Mourning in Nauvoo
In Mormon Nauvoo, there was barely a person who did not feel the pangs of a loved one’s death. At the passing of one of his dear friends, King Follett, Joseph Smith sought to comfort those who had experienced loss. Secreted within the words of his sermon were Masonic themes which many in the audience …
Other Scriptures: Grief, Gratitude, and the Haudenosaunee Great Peace
The arrival of a messenger who heralds an era of prolonged peace and equality may be one of the only events in the Book of Mormon attested to by external sources. In Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) traditions, the Peacemaker and the Mother of Nations encourage ceremonies of condolence and thanksgiving missing from the settler colonial narrative in …
Mormons and Native Americans: Myths vs. Realities
Brigham Young is quoted as having said about Native Americans: “It is cheaper to feed them than to fight them.” Due to this and the Mormon belief that Native Americans are descended from the Book of Mormon people, it is a common myth that 19th-century Mormons were always kind to Native Americans. The reality is …