In June 1967, the late, eminent English historian, Arnold Toynbee, visited the University of Utah at the invitation of Professor Calvin Taylor where he gave three addresses: “Three Generations in a Crisis,” “On the Role of Creativity in History,” and “Is America Neglecting Her Creative Talents?” Have things changed significantly in the nearly forty years …
Tag: English
THE INSISTENT CALL OF MY MITOCHONDRIAL DNA: ONE WOMAN’S PRIMER IN FEMINIST GENEALOGY
While DNA science challenges such Mormon beliefs as Israelite ancestry for Native Americans, it promises fresh pursuits for genealogists. Particularly suggestive is our ability, notably publicized by Cambridge geneticist Bryan Sykes’s Seven Daughters of Eve, to track mitochondrial DNA mutations to seven European “clan mothers”, and beyond them, to African ancestresses. Traditionally overshadowed by surname-conferring …
Pillars Of My Faith
Pillars is traditionally one of the most popular sessions at Sunstone symposiums. Join engaging speakers as they reflect on their faith journeys and the way they have ordered their spiritual lives. What gospel principles have been especially animating for them? What people have helped guide their way? What have been the most powerful or defining …
From Culture To Church: Reflections On Jan Shipps’ ‘Sojourner In the Promised Land’
From Culture To Church: Reflections On Jan Shipps’ ‘Sojourner In the Promised Land’ Stacy Burton, Rebecca Chandler
Our Greatest Challenge: Why Women’s Priesthood Needs to be Recognized in the LDS Church Today
While traditional men’s organizations, such as clubs, corporations, the political process, law firms, and many churches, have given women full equality in our day, The Church of Jesus Christof Latter-day Saints continues to bar women from many significant leadership offices both at local and centralized levels.Yet ample evidence from the Old Testament, New Testament, and …
Old Testament Studies: The Deuteronomist De-Christianizing of the Old Testament; Isaiah as a Lens to the Other Books of the Old Testament
The Deuteronomist De-Christianizing of the Old Testament KEVIN CHRISTENSEN, B.A., English, San Jose State University. In a 1980 Sunstone article, Melodie Moench Charles described “The Mormon Christianizing of the Old Testament,” citing several “distinguishing features of the Old Testament theology” that are “relatively consistent and are irreconcilable with Mormon commentary on the Old Testament.” Following …
Seerstones, Scrying, and “Translating” Holy Writ: Can a Government Espionage Program Help Us Understand Joseph Smith’s Translation Methods?
Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon (according to some accounts) by burying his face in a hat with a “seerstone.” Skeptics think such methods undermine Joseph’s claim to legitimacy as a prophet, while apologists try to reconcile the apparent facts in a faith-preserving way. Calling on personal experience in a U.S. government remote viewing …
FARMS Redux: Why I Don’t Trust FARMS Research
FARMS Redux: Why I Don’t Trust FARMS Research At the 2001 Salt Lake Sunstone Symposium, John Hatch’s paper, “Why I No Longer Trust FARMS Review of Books,” focused on FARMS’ reviews of the work of others. This paper focuses on FARMS’ own research concerning the historicity and divinity of the Book of Mormon, specifically its …
Our Adventures Among the Mormons: A Chat with Candadai (Sesh) Seshachari
Our Adventures Among the Mormons: A Chat with Candadai (Sesh) Seshachari For more than thirty years, Candadai and Neila Seshachari have made notable contributions to cultural affairs among the Mormons of Utah. They were, for example, the only non-Mormons ever elected to the presidency of the Association for Mormon Letters, a position which Sesh (as …
Our Hands are Clean, Our Hearts are Pure: Are We Too Anal-Retentive to Care for the Poor
Our Hands are Clean, Our Hearts are Pure: Are We Too Anal-Retentive to Care for the Poor In his book, Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time, renowned scholar Marcus J. Borg shares the results of his research on the historical Jesus. He examines the ‘purity system” of the Jewish social world, and contrasts it …