Letters to the Editor

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Dear Sirs: 

We had never heard of Dialogue until we made a trip to California to visit the people who had converted us eight years before. It opened up new vistas which we knew must exist within the Church, but which were not present in South Carolina. 

The Church here is extremely conservative. A few weeks ago a high priest visiting our ward lectured in Sacrament meeting for twenty minutes to the children on “the satanic peace symbol.” It was satanic be cause it was designed by an atheist, he maintained, and its presence in a home would keep the Spirit of the Lord from residing there. His talk expressed his view point as gospel doctrine, and most who heard it probably agreed with him. 

My husband is a professor at the University, and while we are active Latter-day Saints, we cannot view the peace symbol as satanic, any more than we can agree with many members’ positions on the Negro question, evolution, or birth control. 

The gospel has changed our lives and means a great deal to us. My husband is presently Stake Mission President, and I am serving as 1st counselor in the Relief Society and teaching the Gospel Fundamentals Class and Primary. As converts, we know how important the gospel is, and what it can mean in the lives of those who care to embrace it. And thus we hate to see members off on tangents alien to most of the world because we know that our primary responsibility is to show others just what God’s plan of salvation entails. 

Dialogue has helped us realize that it is possible to think and search for truth and remain active Latter-day Saints. 

If you need a representative in this area, I’ll be happy to serve, but the subscriptions, I’m afraid, will be few. 

Please continue to struggle along, for there must be others like us who ache to communicate with other “thinking Saints.” 

Marcia Cowley 
Columbia, S. C. 

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Dear Sirs: 

I read David L. Wright’s “The Conscience of the Village” five or six times at first sitting. The strength of his perception and expression caught me by surprise, and I wanted to be sure of my first impression of excellence. I am. 

It was a matter of recognition: David Wright’s people, imbued with the author’s special sense, are people I feel I have known. His mountains and rivers are places I have loved. His religion is one I have lived. 

Dialogue and Jim Miller have done us a great service by bringing this superb talent to light. The excerpts appearing in the Autumn 1970 issue only confirm what “The Conscience of the Village” had promised. I hope that we may soon see much more of David Wright’s work. 

Brent Rushforth 
Los Angeles, Calif. 

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Dear Sirs: 

Having enjoyed several copies of Dialogue purchased at book stores, I subscribed for it on Feb. 2, 1970. After about six months, I received the spring issue. Several months later the summer issue arrived. I am still waiting for the autumn issue.

Now I have been informed that my subscription is due. When I have received the four issues due me, I shall resubscribe—providing by sensibilities are not again outraged as they were by the illustrations in the Nauvoo story. The choice of a picture of a dilapidated privy to show the beauty of Nauvoo, the beautiful, was profoundly revolting, to say the least. If the texts are no more true to the spirit and accomplishments of Saints than the pictures were, then I am wasting my money. 

Oh, the temple was there, perched atop the outhouse, and surrounded by several more, which completely overwhelmed it in the pictorial composition. What a distorted picture of their heritage my grandchildren saw when they thumbed through the mag azine! And what bolstering came to my suspicions that Dialogue is something of a sounding board for mal -con tents and apostates! 

However, since I know how to read with the proverbial grain of salt, and since I am aware that some of your authors are openly opposed to Mormonism, and take a delight in publicizing their ideas, still 

I think many of the articles are stimulating and a feel mature enough to pick the wheat from the chaff, so to speak, I shall probably resubscribe when I have received what is coming to me from my first sub scription. 

I feel better for getting this off my chest. It has rankled me for months. The puzzle is – why did you choose such pictures? A perverted sense of humor? Malice? To test for reaction? Just plain ignorance? Is there a reason?

Vilate R. McAllister
Salt Lake City, Utah 

When looking for a significant photograph of Nauvoo for our special issue, the photograph in question was called to our attention by all the authorities contacted. There are numerous drawings of the temple and endless later photographs of individual buildings, but this is the only extant photograph which shows us how much of a city Nauvoo really was. The photograph was not cropped or adjusted to emphasize the outhouse – it was just there. We see no need to apologize for the fact that our forebears enjoyed the most modern sanitary facilities available in their day. -Ed. 

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Dear Sirs: 

re: Gary Hansen’s idealism piece (Autumn 1970): 

Right on! This is what I need. Where do we start? 

Christina VanRy 
Kansas City, Missouri 

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Dear Sirs: 

To a person who has devoted over thirteen years of his professional life to development assistance in the undeveloped regions of Asia and the Pacific Basin, the articles by Gary B. Hansen and Wesley W. Craig, Jr., in the Autumn 1970 issue of Dialogue were considered extremely insightful, appropriate, and challenging. 

In my world-wide travels I have become increasingly disturbed about the Church’s missionary program. (I must add that I am equally disturbed about other Christian churches’ missionary programs as well, except possibly that of the Catholic Church in Indonesia.) More is needed than just proselyting and conversion. This is only the initial stages in the Gospel process. Equally important is providing a way by which the new converts can grow and progress in the Gospel. 

We must face the fact that most of our converts are drawn from the lower eco nomic and social strata and that the Gospel represents, and it should be so, a hope for a better way of life. The Gospel provided real opportunities for several of my great, great grandparents to live a total life pattern of not only spiritual growth but also material and social gains which were way beyond any consideration in their Scandinavian homeland. I dare say that the latter were of more importance than the former in their joining the Church. Nevertheless, I am the chief beneficiary of their conversions, as well as other third or fourth generation Mormons, as a result of that unique 19th Century social institution which made it possible for them to move out of the grips of abject poverty. 

The same social and economic pattern is not available to the swelling number of Asian and Latin American converts. Along the lines suggested by Hansen and Craig, I feel that the Church should again try to meet the total needs of man. Unlike other Christian churches, the Mormon Church has a proven history that certain cooperative-like social institutions under conditions of low economic development work. 

On this point I cannot help but recall that in the Fall of 1958 Dr. Mohammad Hatta – a great Indonesian patriot, a founder of his country, a co-author of his nation’s Proclamation of Independence, Indonesia’s first Vice-President, and an inter nationally famous economist – asked me to secure for him a copy of Leonard J. Arrington’s Great Basin Kingdom, An Eco nomic History of the Latter-Day Saints (1958). Dr. Hatta understood well that the rich Mormon history of cooperative institutions offered a number of useful lessons for his new country. 

Since then, I have read much and writ ten considerable on the development process, but sadly report that little of the Mormon experience has attracted scholarly or professional attention. Possibly the answer to the reason why this has occurred is found in Hansen and Craig’s essays. Much of the dream of Zion has been lost in the United States’ 20th Century affluency. In one of my essays I noted that in the United States more is being spent on pet food than helping poverty-stricken peoples abroad.* I imagine that we Mormons also spend a fair size of our family budgets for the same purpose and that these amounts are considerably greater than our monthly fast offerings. Cats and dogs appear to have greater value than hungry and starving children abroad. 

Time has come that we who profess a belief in a unique Christian ethic should reconsider how we can help better our new Asian and Latin American brethren. The present organizational arrangement is in adequate to meet this challenge. But we are fortunate that our heritage provides the way. Nineteenth Century Mormonism rep resents a progressive and an innovative social institution for the vast majority of the world that live under considerably more primitive social conditions. If the Church as a body doesn’t act, then it is doing a grave disservice to many peoples and regions of the world. This I firmly believe. 

Garth N. Jones 
Dept. of Political Science 
Colorado State University 
Fort Collins 

*See my “Failure of Technical Assistance in Public Administration Abroad: A personal Note,” Journal of Comparative Administration, 2 (May 1970), 25-26. 

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Dear Sirs: 

Concerning the editorial evaluations of “Prayer From a Second Husband”: too bad none of your editors has a sense of humor. The last two lines contain the punch line; the second husband is thankful that his wife, who thinks first of the hogs and horses, is indeed sealed to the first husband and not to him! 

Gayle H. Bishop 
Upper Montclair, N.J. 

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Dear Sirs: 

I think it a fine idea to show what hap pens to manuscripts when they reach the Board (Notes and Comments), and I don’t mind being the guinea pig. But I am baffled by the “Ed. Note.” Please check the correct answer and return. 

( ) 1. To prove that women editors always recognize women poets (probably with their built-in detectors). 

( ) 2. To show that women write sentimental balderdash; whereas men write realistic balderdash. 

( ) 3. To flush out any Mormon Women’s Lib cells that may be lurking in the woodwork. 

( ) 4. To show that women do better at writing criticism. 

( ) 5. To be “cute.” 

Mary Bradford 
Arlington, Virginia 

(V) 6. To show that editors are male chauvinists. -Ed. 

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Dear Sirs: 

If “Editorial Decisions” in the Dialogue that arrived this week is an oblique search for new literary editors, please consider me an applicant. 

The three evaluations of Mary Bradford’s “Prayer from a Second Husband” missed the point. 

No. 1 misconstrues the second husband’s gratitude that he is not sealed to wife to be “curious acceptance of his wife’s loyalty to first husband.” 

No. 2 says the poem might be all right if something could be done about the last two lines, which he terms “sentiment.” 

No. 3 does ask the right questions but fails to see the answers. Why would the second husband thank God? Why would he thank the first husband? The final lines contain the answer. He is relieved he is not soldered to this wife for eternity. Time has passed – “house and barn grow dim” – ardors of younger days cool, and he is grateful the union is a temporal one. The poem is intentially ironic; your evaluations unintentionally so. Unless they are bait. 

Vivian H. Olsen 
Colorado Springs, Colo. 

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Dear Sirs: 

Re “Editorial Decisions” in the Autumn issue: No. 2 made me so good old Ameri can mad I put the renewal envelope aside in hope of cooling off. But I didn’t. “Relief Society faction,” forsooth! Of such Freudian slips are Femlibs made, in spite of all the sermons on the nobility of wo manhood. Like the speaker: “We members of the Church love our wives and children.” 

And why “appropriately only she accepted the MS”? I would have rejected the little poem for the same reasons No. 3 did. Would I have done so inappropriately?

I am a charter subscriber and have admired the generous spirit (and skill) with which you have avoided any suggestion of an inner elite communicating with kindred souls. And the way you have avoided those snide asides (even if lighthearted they’re so revealing but do nothing but set up resistance in their targets). I hope that you will continue to publish stimulating articles for people who like stimulating articles. 

After all, if you publish poetry which you cannot really defend as good poetry, you may yet be publishing recipes for frozen fruit salad for a wholly imaginary “Relief Society faction.” In which case they may find the Ladies ‘ Home Journal considerably cheaper. 

Pearl Budge 
Logan, Utah

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Dear Sirs: 

My mother just sent me her Dialogue (Summer, 1970), so I am a little slow in getting around to comment. I imagine you have gotten most of the reaction you are going to get from that issue. 

Anyhow, late or not, I must say some thing about O. Kendall White’s article, “The Transformation of Mormon Theology.” What he seems to be trying to say is that Mormonism can’t be true because present-day leaders in the Church contradict what was said in the past. 

Well, that’s all right, Mr. White. If Mormonism never was true then you are flapping your arms in vain, and if it used to be true but isn’t any more, then at least for a while we were one up on the Protestants, weren’t we? 

As evidence of what you call “Neo orthodoxy,” or new thought, among the Mormons, you quote men like Hyrum Andrus, David Yarn, Lynn McKinlay, and Glen L. Pearson. I have heard these men lecture and have read their books, and what impresses me is their four-square reliance upon Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, George Q. Cannon and Wilford Woodruff – all grand old men of the Church – for their opinions. 

The thing is, Mr. White, the doctrine of the Church hasn’t changed, but audiences have, and when you take a statement out of context you are not considering the people to whom it was addressed. Needs change according to the times. So you accuse Dr. Andrus of “Neoorthodoxy” when he admonishes a B.Y.U. audience to be more aware of the greatness of God. They probably needed that. I know I do, what with television, radio, movies, billboards, and a host of enticements pulling me in a worldly direction. The people who first came to the Utah valley were other-worldly, cut off, not with it. They needed to be pushed the other way. And so they were advised to get out and get an education, to seek learning in all things. I see no conflict in that. 

The thing that seems to bother you the most, Mr. White, is that there is no absolute agreement among Mormons on the nature of God, and that, as you say, we don’t understand concepts like “infinite, absolute, omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent.” In other words, for a religion to satisfy you, it must offer instant under standing, in everything. It doesn’t bother me in the least that God hasn’t seen fit to tell me all. If He had, then I would be like Him. I am content with the little He has revealed to me, and I have great faith that He is going to tell me more. I am not hung up on the apparent conflict of God’s knowing everything and yet al lowing me my freedom. To know what I am going to do is not to force me to do it. I am in this life not to prove things to God but to prove them to myself.

You show your vast ignorance of Mormon doctrine, Mr. White, when you quote Glen L. Pearson on the meaning of grace, and put your own interpretation on it. When Mr. Pearson says, “Paul was speaking of another salvation other than the resurrection,” he doesn’t have to explain further, because every Mormon from the cradle up knows there are two kinds of salvation – salvation from death which comes to everybody by the grace of Jesus Christ, and exaltation which has to be worked for. 

No, no, Mr. White, I am afraid your efforts to prove that Mormonism is going down the drain are (to be Pauline) “sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal,” and (to be Shakespearean) “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” 

Virginia Maughan Kammeyer 
Alderwood Manor, Wash. 

See Notes and Comments Section for additional views on Mr. White’s article. -Ed. 

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Dear Sirs: 

O. Kendall White, Jr.’s article in Dialogue (Vol. V, No. 2, p. 15) has a footnote which quotes from a letter of John H. Gardner found in Dialogue (Vol. II, No. 1, p. 5) as follows: – “the eternal intelligence was organized into ‘intelligences’ – This quotation was referred to as having been taken from the Teacher’s Supplement for the Gospel Doctrine Course entitled The Gospel In The Service of Man. The respondent herewith wrote the primary draft of the chapter in the Teacher’s Supplement referred to above. I was shocked at the comment of Dr. Gardner, for such a statement is directly contrary to my understanding of the basic Mormon position on the matter. However, I let the matter pass without comment at the time of Dr. Gardner’s letter. Since Mr. White has taken the statement as evidence of a change in the philosophical principles clearly set forth in the teachings of the prophet Joseph Smith I feel obliged to make a reply at this time. 

I have been unable to find the quotation, given by Dr. Gardner in Dialogue, in the supplement referred to. I do find on page 10 of the supplement a paragraph which undoubtedly was the basis of Dr. Gardner’s letter. I quote the paragraph in full as it appears in the text of the supplement referred to: 

“2. Read Abraham 3:18-25. Three key words are used here. These are intelligences, spirits, and souls. These three words mean the same thing. Soul as in Abraham and generally throughout the scriptures means the spirit, and a spirit child of God is an intelligence which has been organized or born from spirit element.” 

The above statement expresses very badly the idea intended to be conveyed. I am comforted by the thought that my original statement was adversely edited by one of the echelon of editors who scrutinized the manuscript before it went to press. I had no opportunity to see the edited document. However, since I have retained no copy of my original manuscript I am unable to confirm this thought. 

The statement as it appears in the Teacher’s Supplement is quite easily arrived at by an editor if he is thinking superficially of the matter, for Abraham 3:22 reads as follows: 

“Now the Lord had shown unto me, Abraham, the intelligences that were organized before the world was – ” 

The original purpose of the statement in the supplement was to point out that the three terms, intelligence, spirit, and soul, were used with a common meaning in Abraham 3:18-25. As presently understood in Mormon philosophy each of these terms has a distinct and different although related connotation. Why then should these terms be used interchangeably in the Book of Abraham? It appears to me that a sufficient and logically justifiable answer is that the distinctive meaning of these words as used in Mormon philosophy had not yet crystallized. Furthermore, soul and spirit are often used interchangeably in the normative Christian philosophy. When the Lord speaks to me he must do so in the current idiom and language of the hearer. 

I must point out also that Dr. pardner is less than fair in his criticism, for his “quotation” is out of context. Further more the “quotation” as given by him is not to be found in the supplement. He has rendered the “quotation” in his own language and in doing so has perverted the meaning. (Compare the Gardner “quotation” with its primitive from the supplement, as given above.) 

For the benefit of Mr. White and his readers let me set the record clear as to my position in the matter being considered. I subscribe wholly to the position on the matter as I understand it to be set forth in the various writings of Joseph Smith, including the written report of the King Follett funeral sermon. I interpret the teaching to be that: a) individual, distinctive, and uncreated intelligences (otherwise also sometimes referred to as egos) did exist co-eternal with the intelligence which was that of God; b) that God became the father of the spirits of men by in some non-understood manner providing “spirit bodies” for these co-eternal intelligences; and c) that man became a living soul when his spirit entered the physical world “clothed” with a body of flesh. 

Carl J. Christensen 
Professor Emeritus of Chemistry 
University of Utah 

***

Dear Sirs: 

Mr. Mulder suggests in his “Problems of the Mormon Intellectual” (Autumn 1970) that finding superstition and sophistication in the same fold is indicative of intelligence. I would suggest that a better term might be “tolerance.” 

Mr. Hansen’s reference to the true believer and the cultured Mormon in his re view of The Lion of the Lord (Summer 1970) was cogent. 

In my opinion, however, these writers only state the problem. I have not been able to discern a satisfying rationale justifying the cultured Mormons’ continued member ship in the Church. 

James E. Elliott 
Florissant, Missouri 

***

Dear Sirs: 

Would it be possible to get a reprint of part of Dialogue : Vol. V, No. 3, Autumn 1970? In particular “A New Look at Repentance,” edited by Douglas Alder. If that is not possible, then just the part titled “Encounter” by Douglas Alder. 

You have a most exciting magazine containing much of great value. 

Amy E. Isaksen 
Rexburg, Idaho