At an early age, Mormon was sober of mind and “quick to observe” (Mormon 1:2). Among book of Mormon personalities, he appears to have been extremely faithful to Christ. But to what degree would contemporary Bible-based Christians recognize Mormon as a prophetic figure? And would today’s Latter-day Saints recognize Mormon as a prophetic leader when …
Event: Southwest Symposium 2010
SW10009: Author Meets Critics: Mormon Convert, Mormon Defector: A Scottish Immigrant in the American West, 1848-1861
Peter McAuslan, an 1848 Mormon convert, emigrated from Scotland in 1854. after arriving in Utah, the Mormons had experienced a series of natural disasters, a reformation, the Mountain Meadows Massacre, and the arrival of the U. S. army. These events and the insistence on absolute obedience to one’s file leaders tore at McAuslan’s faith. Now …
SW10010: American Indian Delegations to Joseph Smith at Nauvoo/Joseph Smith as a Spiritual Egalitarian
“The Great Spirit Has Told Us That You Are the Man”: American Indian Delegations to Joseph Smith at Nauvoo, Christopher C. Smith Joseph Smith as a Spiritual Egalitarian, Bryan Cottle Smith: In 1843 and 1844, several anti-American, formerly British-allied Indian groups dispatched delegations to Joseph Smith at Nauvoo. They apparently came to Smith because the …
SW10011: Book Preview: Banishing the Cross: The Emergence of a Mormon Taboo
According to Michael Reed’s research, the cross taboo was a rather late development in Mormon history, manifesting itself at a grassroots level around the turn of the twentieth century, later being institutionalized as protocol in the 1950s by President David O. McKay. Before then, many Saints had used and promoted the symbol in its visual …
SW10012: Cinema and Spirituality: Beyond Mormon Movies
From Star Wars and E.T. to The Passion of the Christ and Avatar, movies with spiritual themes have consistently broken box office records–yet such films continue to be more exception than norm. Are these films indicative of a spiritual renaissance in society, or are they in part an outgrowth of the spiritual lives and values …
SW10013: The Mormon Feminist Community of Exponent II: Its History, Its Legacy, Its Future
This panel will discuss what Exponent II has meant to Mormon women over the years, what it has achieved, and how it has evolved and changed since it published its first issue in the early 1970s. Panelists will also discuss their vision of the organization’s future as it reaches out to a new generation of …
SW10014: Book Preview/Panel: Persistence of Polygamy: A Mormon Anthology
Co-editor Newell G. Bringhurst presents an overview of this forthcoming anthology of 20 never-before-published articles about polygamy. Essays cover Joseph Smith and the beginnings of polygamy, polygamy in Utah after Joseph Smith and reactions to the practice from other restoration groups, and the perpetuation of polygamy among Mormon fundamentalists that emerged in the late nineteenth …
SW10015: The Liahona Children’s Foundation: Working to Alleviate Malnutrition in LDS Children in Developing Countries
Worldwide, an estimated 70,000 LDS children are chronically malnourished. Working in cooperation with local stake presidencies in developing countries, the Liahona Children’s Foundation is attempting to alleviate malnutrition and illiteracy among LDS children. Malnourished children suffer life-long cognitive and physical impairment and are much more likely to be dependent on both their government and the …
SW10016: All Hell is Boiling Over: The Utah War’s California History
This presentation examines neglected aspects of the Utah War, when in early 1858, the Buchanan administration sought to reinforce Col. Albert Sidney Johnston’s Utah expedition–then snowbound at Fort Bridger–with a massive infusion of troops into Utah from the Pacific Coast, especially California. The paper tells the story of this plan’s origins, its sometimes bizarre development, …