All structures are, in some ways, ideology made manifest. This session will explore the Plat of Zion, a city planning map Joseph Smith received by revelation, and explore the way this city planning map changed to reflect trends in LDS teachings.
Tag: Sunstone Talk
Closing Broadcast
Closing Broadcast
How Grief Permanently Changes You
When you are grieving, people often want to help you “get through it,” as if there is some point at which you’ll go back to being who you once were. The reality is that grief never ends, that you will be forever changed, and that there are people who will not be able to go …
Mercy: A Devotional
Everyone needs mercy because everyone faces questions of justice. And everyone needs to be merciful because, as Shakespeare says, it is a virtue that is “twice blest”/It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.” Shakespeare also identifies mercy as “an attribute of God himself.” The Psalms say God’s mercy “endures forever.” As a virtue, …
Stronger Together: How to Communicate through Differences of Faith and Belief
This session provides some examples in how to maintain relationships and communicate with people who don’t share your same faith or belief.
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 …