Help us plan the next event!
We want to plan the best event possible for Sunstone UK! Fill out the form below and let us know what to keep and what to change as we work on next year's program! All questions are optional and the form can be completed anonymously.
An Open Door and an Outstretched Hand
Submit your proposal below
Images of open doors and outstretched hands are used across the restoration spectrum. What do these images mean? How are they put into practice? What doors are we opening ourselves, and which have been held open for us to walk through? Is it enough to prop open doors, or are we obligated to hold out our hands to those around us, as well? How are we deciding which hands to take, and which doors to close?
For this year's conference, we're seeking papers and workshops exploring faith in action and the history of services and works across the restoration spectrum.
Proposal Timeline:
- Submissions close July 22nd
- Acceptance notices sent last week of July
- Final schedule released second week of August
- Conference date September 27-28
Location
This is a digital conference with no in-person sessions. Join us for sessions at the links below!
Schedule
Pre-recorded sessions will be made available the morning of Friday, September 27th. You can find the links to watch these sessions on YouTube on or after that date. Live sessions will stream live in our Sunstone UK Facebook group, OR you can find zoom webinar links below to join us on zoom for this year's live sessions.
Friday, September 27th
Pre-Recorded
René Steelman
Women's Search for Purpose Beyond Motherhood and Caregiving
Pre-Recorded
Peter Bleakley
The Mormon Scriptures That Could Win the 21st Century
LIVE 5:00 PM BST
Jane Christie and Sara Delaney
Better In The Bedroom: Baptism, Burlesque, Bras and Beyond!
Session Description:
An Essential Conversation For The Mormons, Community of Christ and Other Restoration Movements
Join 21st Century Saints Hosts Sara Delaney (Mormon) and Jane Christie (Community of Christ) as we discuss some of the problems women (and men) face in faith communities and offer some table tipping solutions!
LIVE KEYNOTE 7:00 PM BST
David Howlett
Between Care and Commodity: The Sales of the Kirtland Temple
Session Description:
Constructed in 1836, the first Mormon temple, the Kirtland Temple, was recently sold, along with other historic properties, by the cash-strapped Community of Christ to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for £151 million ($192.5 million). This was not the first time the Kirtland Temple was sold or offered for sale. Yet, the grief, anger, and guilt experienced by the sellers reveals the fraught nature of such transactions. This talk uses the Kirtland Temple to think about the social lives of contemporary sacred sites caught between relations of care and commodification. In short, what have sacred sites become in our market societies?
Speaker Bio:
A specialist in American religions, David Howlett has taught at Kenyon College, Skidmore College, and Bowdoin College. His work highlights how religious minorities participate in the construction of centers and peripheries, manage internal dissent and difference, and develop strategies to distinguish themselves from and proffer critique of more powerful groups.
Saturday, September 28th
LIVE PRESENTATION 5:00 PM BST
ANDREW BOLTON
Is what I am looking for religion or spirituality?
Session Description:
This will be an interactive workshop with lots of discussion, drawing on your own religious and spiritual experiences. We will draw on the work of Jewish philosopher and theologian Martin Buber to give us language and ideas to discuss and evaluate our experiences. This workshop aims to help clarify our past experiences and equip us to be able to seek a more authentic and meaningful religious/spiritual life.
Speaker Bio:
Andrew Bolton taught multi-faith Religious Education in a comprehensive state school in Leicester, one of the most diverse cities in Europe. He was a teacher trainer at Westminster College, Oxford, then was an educational advisor for Leicester Education Department.
Jewell Bolton, did her Master's degree in Human Relations at Nottingham University, and was a primary school teacher. They have two sons and 2 grand children.
They lived in Independence, Missouri when Andrew worked for Community of Christ in Peace and Justice ministries and then in Asia. They returned to Leicester after retirement and currently work together in the Leicester Schools Peace Project and down the allotment.
LIVE PRESENTATION 7:00 PM BST
DR. NAOMI KRÜGER
‘Truth Will Prevail’: Reimagining British Mormon Heritage as Historical Fiction
Session Description:
In 1837, Mormon missionaries arriving in Lancashire encountered a political rally in Preston town square. Impressed by an election banner with the slogan ‘Truth Will Prevail,’ they adopted this as their own motto – a declaration both of spiritual truth and predicted future success. This small act of appropriation, along with its unintentional erasure of political and social context, has set the tone for many subsequent mediations of church history: narratives that emphasise the heroism of American missionaries, the humble faith of British converts and the inevitable emigration to a religious centre across the Atlantic.
I will draw both on my experience growing up in Preston, wrestling with the complexities of British Mormon identity, and my research as a writer currently completing a historical novel set in 1842. The novel explores the legacy of the early British missions, both on characters who emigrate to America, and those who stay behind. I will read an extract from the novel and share insights from the research process: bringing together religious, political and social context and drawing on archival sources to reimagine and complicate my Mormon heritage.
Speaker Bio:
Naomi Krüger is a writer and Senior Lecturer in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Central Lancashire. Her debut novel, May, was published in 2018 by Seren and highly commended in the Yeovil Novel Prize. In 2021 she was awarded an Eccles Centre Fellowship at the British Library to explore transatlantic connections of faith, conversion, and emigration in early Mormonism as part of the research for her second novel. Her short fiction has been anthologised and published in literary journals. Most recently, her story ‘In My Father’s House are Many Mansions’ – which is set in a contemporary LDS chapel and explores childlessness, gender roles and eternal polygamy – was shortlisted for the Galley Beggar Press Prize for Short Fiction.