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Dialogue Conference Presenter Bios

September 1, 2016

downloadWho is speaking at our “Spirit of Dialogue” conference on September 30th at UVU? Speakers will include Dialogue luminaries Armand Mauss, Darius Gray, Alice Faulkner Burch, Ignacio Garcia, Gabrielle Blair, Patrick Mason, Meg Conly, Greg Prince, Michael Austin, Ben Park, Courtney Clark Kendrick, Paul Reeve, and Eric Samuelsen and more discussing LDS art, the issues surrounding Mormon groupthink, the place of Dialogue within Mormon studies and more. Find biographies of the presenters here.

22nd Annual Leonard J. Arrington Lecture

August 31, 2016

downloadPatricia Nelson Limerick presents “Hair-Raising Tales from the Department of the Interior: A Report from the Front Lines of the Battle Against Boredom” on Thursday, September 29, 2016, 7 p.m. at the Logan LDS Tabernacle
Contrary to the stereotype of the boring bureaucrat, the stories of the men and women who have worked for the agencies of the Department of the Interior carry intrinsic interest and give rise to thought-provoking interpretations of and insights into the American West’s past and present. Enormously important in the shaping of the American West, federal employees have been unjustly and inaccurately classified as “boring.” Formed just as the United States completed its coast-to-coast conquest of contiguous land, Interior became the pivot point for the nation’s attempts to absorb and manage the West’s peoples and lands. In this talk, Patty Limerick will make the case for directing more sustained and robust attention to the roles of federal clerks, surveyors, engineers, superintendents, agents, rangers, teachers, inspectors, and scientists in shaping the region.

SUMMER PREVIEW: Dialogue releases research on youth suicide rates

August 9, 2016

Screenshot 2016-08-08 at 11.07.47 PM
Analysis of the data suggests that the problem is worse in LDS communities than the national average,” says researchers Michael Barker, Daniel Parkinson, and Benjamin Knoll in their new article “The LGBTQ Mormon Crisis: Responding to the Empirical Research on Suicide” found in the upcoming Summer 2016 Issue of Dialogue: A journal of Mormon thought.
And in the supplemental article, “Youth Suicide Rates and the Mormon Context: An Additional Empirical Analysis,” Knoll looks at the research “in wake of the November 2015 (Mormon Church) handbook policy change that categorizes same-sex married couples as ‘apostates’ and forbids baptism to children in same-sex married households.”
Click in to purchase these articles.

Patrick Mason on Faith and Doubt

June 27, 2016

Planted-Book-Cover-Patrick-MasonOver at the Maxwell Institute, Board President Patrick Mason discusses his definitions of faith and doubt. Here’s a snippet:
“How do I understand faith?
I think about it as being much more than mere intellectual assent or “belief.” Faith is the substance of things hoped for but not seen (see Hebrews 11:1). So in that sense, faith is partly a product of doubt in the way I defined it above as a lack of certainty; it is a livelyhope for something that has not been seen. Acting in faith—and real faith always compels real action—means acting with hope and trust, yet without absolute assurance. So my notion of faith is more about trust and faithfulness—fidelity in a relationship, like being “faithful” to your spouse—rather than getting an answer right on a multiple choice test.
According to this view, doubt can become destructive when it compromises fidelity. But it can also be constructive when it deepens our yearnings and bolsters our efforts toward creating authentic relationships with God and others. Depending on what we do with doubt, which itself usually comes unbidden, we can strengthen or weaken our faith.”
Click here for the full post.

Book Review: A Not-So-Innocent Abroad. Way Below the Angels, by Craig Harline

June 24, 2016

20959406Craig Harline. Way Below the Angels: The Pretty Clearly Troubled but Not Even Close to Tragic Confessions of a Real Live Mormon Missionary. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2014.
Reviewed by Rosalynde Frandsen Welch
Craig Harline’s mission memoir, Way Below the Angels: The Pretty Clearly Troubled but Not Even Close to Tragic Confessions of a Real Live Mormon Missionary, is a hilarious, heart-of-gold account of the highs and lows of the author’s experiences in the Belgium Antwerp Mission in the early 1970s. The story proceeds chronologically through the events of Harline’s mission call and training period in the old LTM, his arrival in Belgium and subsequent travails with uninterested Belgians, and his eventual return home as a slightly-older and probably-a-bit-wiser young man. Throughout, young Elder Harline wrestles with his own unrealistic expectations of grandeur and occasionally encounters a moment of shimmering grace. The events and settings are, on the surface, highly entertaining but hardly exceptional. Non-Mormon readers, who are the primary audience for the book’s publisher, Eerdmans, will come away with a lightly-seasoned glimpse of a Mormon mission experience in Europe; Mormon readers familiar with mission culture will respond with recognition and identification.

Book Review: Peck's Peak. Wandering Realities and Evolving Faith, by Steven L. Peck

June 22, 2016

25961385-3Steven L. Peck. Wandering Realities: The Mormonish Short Fiction of Steven L. Peck. Provo: Zarahemla Books, 2015. 220 pp. Paperback: $14.95. ISBN: 978-0988323346.
Steven L. Peck. Evolving Faith: Wanderings of a Mormon Biologist. Provo: Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, 2015. 211 pp. Paperback: $19.95. ISBN: 978-0842529440.
Reviewed by Michael Austin
If someone ever asks me what kinds of things Steven Peck writes, the best answer I can give goes like this: the BYU biology professor and raconteur writes primarily in the fields of evolutionary biology, speculative theology, literary fiction, computer modeling, poetry, existential horror, satire, personal essay, tsetse fly reproduction, young-adult literature, human ecology, science fiction, religious allegory, environmentalism, and devotional narrative. You know, that kind of thing.

Book Review: A Book of Contradictions: Ink and Ashes by Valynne E. Maetani

May 24, 2016

Ink and AshesBook Review: A Book of Contradictions: Ink and Ashes by Valynne E. Maetani.
Reviewed by Melissa McShane Valyenne E. Maetani.
Ink and Ashes. Tu Books, 2015.
Valynne E. Maetani’s debut young adult novel is a tightly-plotted thriller, with plenty of misdirection and tension. It’s also a story about identity, family, and love. This ought to make it weak, neither one thing nor the other. What gives this novel strength is the interconnection between the two stories. Claire, in tracking down the mystery of who her yakuza father was, grows to better understand who she is—sister, friend, daughter, and woman.
Claire is a strong, compelling character, intelligent, athletic, and dogged in pursuing a mystery. When, on the anniversary of her father’s death, she discovers a mysterious message that points to contradictions in the story she was always told about him, she sets out to uncover the truth about her father, her stepfather, and a mystery over a decade old. Claire is believable as someone who might go to any lengths to solve a puzzle, and her skills (including martial arts and lock picking), while unusual, are sufficiently justified to keep from being over the top.

Editor Notes: Of Haircuts and Honor

April 26, 2016

Cross-posted at BoydPetersen.com
Screenshot 2016-04-26 at 10.54.02 AMThe BYU Honor Code has come under fire recently, and I don’t want to detract from that discussion, but it has caused me to reflect back on my own run-in with the Honor Code back in March 1984.
I’m pretty sure it was my friend Kent’s idea that we should run for ASBYU president and vice president during our junior year of college. We knew we didn’t stand much of a chance. We create signs or bribe students to vote for us by giving out free hotdogs. I don’t think we ever campaigned.
All candidates for ASBYU office had the opportunity to place their photos in the student newspaper, the Daily Universe. Unlike most candidates who had professional headshots in which they sported a tie, their faded white shirts, and indestructible polyester missionary suits, Kent and I took a self-portrait in more casual attire. A couple of days after our photos appeared, we both got a call from the Honor Code office and were required to meet with an administrator about some unstated infraction.

Updated with video: Mormonism and the Art of Boundary Maintenance

March 15, 2016
2016_msc_website_header-01The 2016 Mormon Studies Conference convened on April 12-13th at the Utah Valley University campus. You can watch such speakers as Michael Otterson, Jana Riess, Ross Douhat and Neylan McBaine discuss “Mormonism and the Art of Boundary Maintenance” here.
Among the most important features of religious communities is the way in which they establish and maintain boundaries. Religious beliefs, practices, and identities are shaped by a complex variety of internal and external forces. From its beginnings, Mormonism has challenged the boundaries of Christianity orthodoxy and its status as a legitimate form of Christianity continues to be debated.
Conversely, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has increasingly faced boundary questions within the community. From divisions over polygamy and spiritualism in the nineteenth century to more recent debates over same-sex marriage, women’s ordination, and prophetic authority, the Church continues to wrestle with questions of diversity within its ranks. This conference will explore how Mormonism at once both challenges Christian boundaries and is challenged to enforce its own borders in the effort to maintain unity and integrity as a tradition.
This year’s conference is hosted in partnership & collaboration with the Center for Constitutional Studies’ annual Religious Freedom Symposium. For a complete schedule of their 2016 symposium, click here.