Trouble, Right Here in Sal Tlay Ka Siti
“I always think there’s a band, kid.” —Professor Harold Hill in The Music Man
By the time that I figured out that I hated The Music Man, it had been my favorite musical for more than 20 years.
What is Mormon studies? Who is doing it? Where and how is it being done? What is the relationship between Mormon studies and apologetics? Does Mormon studies exclude or necessarily bracket discussion about the fundamental truth claims of the religion? How is Mormon studies to be situated within the wider academy?
Over the course of the 20th century, LDS narratives about early Christianity shifted dramatically in one respect. While earlier accounts explained that the Great Apostasy occurred due to the failure of church leaders, by the 1980′s retellings of the Great Apostasy narrative blamed the general membership for going astray.
Board member Patrick Mason discusses the ethical responsibility of religious people in looking at unmanned drones for The Christian Century.
After looking at “The King James Bible and the Future of Missionary Work” for Dialogue last summer, Grant Hardy now looks at the recent scriptural changes for Faith Promoting Rumor at Patheos, lamenting that accuracy has been unfortunately delayed in “The 2013 Adjustments to the Book of Mormon.”
The 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns of Mitt Romney was accompanied by unprecedented attention to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Dubbed by Newsweek Magazine as the ‘Mormon Moment,’ The Book of Mormon Musical, California’s Proposition 8, and the elevated profile of prominent Latter-day Saints provided a unique opportunity to observe the successes and challenges of this dynamic religious tradition. The lecture and panel featured scholars addressing issues related to the rise of Mormonism and the forces that have shaped its development as a distinctive Christian faith.
As a followup to Michelle Inouye’s Winter 2012 Letter to the Editor about the International Mormon Studies Book Project, here is a Patheos post with more information on how to donate. “As Mormonism continues to…
A short note from Editor Kristine Haglund:
It’s because every time I’m on a plane, and the captain’s voice on the intercom is female, I get a little teary. I’ve never wanted to be a pilot, and it really doesn’t make any practical difference whether a man or a woman lands the plane safely. I have no eloquent or reasoned argument to explain my emotion. But it matters. It. Just. Does.
I want my daughter to know girls can fly.
In case you missed it during the business that is the holiday season, the winter issue of Dialogue appeared on its website. As its lead article, our own Steve Taysom offers a fabulous look at one of the new and provocative theories in religious studies: Robert Orsi’s “abundant events.”
The Winter 2012 issue is up and begins with two path-breaking articles—Stephen Taysom frames a discussion of the gold plates in terms of Robert Orsi’s theory of “abundant events,” and Walter Van Beek uses the history of the Dutch temple to ask important questions about how temples work within communities to create sacred space.