Celebrating Forty Years: Retrospection and Assessment

Our readers may recall the announcement of our commemoration of Dialogues fortieth year in our last issue. In keeping with that announcement, we publish here two retrospective statements from earlier editors of the journal. One is a brief editorial by Robert A. Rees, published in 1974 in defense of a controversial issue on doctrine regarding persons of black descent. The other is a summary by Mary Lythgoe Bradford as she relinquished her editorship to Jack and Linda Newell in 1982. Other reflections on Dialogue by former editors, board members, or contributors will follow in later issues. 

Also in keeping with our announcement, we publish here a sobering personal assessment by Molly McLellan Bennion of the status and experience of Mormon women in the Church today. We chose to feature women in the Church as a part of our observance of Dialogue’s fortieth year because no fewer than four past issues of the journal were devoted entirely to that topic,[1] to say nothing of single articles and essays on the topic in many other issues. Other reflections and assessments on the subject will follow in later issues this year. In question is whether the attention paid to this subject by Dialogue and other forums of similar bent has had an ameliorating effect on the status of women in the Church. 

[1] Vol. 6, no. 2 (Summer 1971); Vol. 14, no. 4 (Winter 1981); Vol. 23, no. 3 (Fall 1990); and Vol. 36, no. 3 (Fall 2003).