Spring 2003
In the Spring 2003 Issue Bradley Cook reexamines the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, offering insights into its complexities and implications. Robert Rees shares his perspective on America's War on Terrorism from a Latter-day Saint viewpoint, reflecting on the intersections of faith and national security. Bradley Walker continues his exploration of "Spreading Zion Southward," focusing on the theme of sharing resources within the church community. Heidi Hemming contributes a personal narrative titled "It Happens So Often," which likely addresses recurring themes or experiences within the context of Latter-day Saint life. Marianne T. Watson discusses Short Creek as a refuge for Latter-day Saints, highlighting its significance as a place of sanctuary and community for church members. Together, these essays present a multifaceted view of the challenges and legacies faced by Latter-day Saints in various contexts. And much more!
For more than fifty years, the conflict between Palestinian Arab nationalism and Jewish Zionism has been one of the most protracted and seemingly irreconcilable conflicts in the world. Most people have difficulties discussing this conflict in a detached or academic way because it is so fraught with emotion and consequence.
Ever since the dark hours of September 11, I have been disquieted about what is now called “The War on Terrorism.” While I share America’s moral outrage over the barbaric attacks on our nation and its people, I have also felt uneasy about the quick polarizing rhetoric, the boasting of our power, the clamoring calls for revenge, and the military force we have unleashed upon other countries. I have wondered if there weren’t a better alternative than to launch an all-out assault on a country (Afghanistan) that had already been devastated by recent wars (and which had suffered a million casualties in the decade of the nineties), to wage a preemptive war against another nation (Iraq) on the supposition that it was tied to the September 11 attacks, and to undertake the seemingly impossible eradication of terror from the face of the earth, if not from the hearts of its inhabitants.
In a 1933 address, Elder Glenn L. Pace asked the question, “Faced with ever louder cries for help from the world, how do we determine where to focus our efforts?” This essay asks a related question: How efficient and equitable is the allocation of the church’s charitable resources? As we compare the distribution of these resources to the poorer, less-developed countries (LDCs) with the distribution to wealthy countries (WCs), could efficiency and equity be improved?
“Wow, where do you people come from? You’re the fourth one tonight!!!” quips the emergency room attendant as I am eased out of my car into the waiting wheelchair. I do not laugh at his…
I believe the history of the Bremen Wards to be a good example of LDS history in Germany. The first branch was founded in January 1882 with seven members, and by the year 2000 there were 400 members in two wards. After a slow beginning there was in Bremen, as in all of Germany, a great deal of missionary success from the 1920’s to the Second World War and again in two periods after the Second World War (1946-1964, 1972-1987).
Dialogue 36.3 (Spring 2003): 71–87
Watson shares why early fundamentalists broke off from the main church and decided to leave Utah and settle Short Creek.
When I picked up David’s paper to read it, I had a pencil in my hand. Years of reading my students’ and my own papers made it natural to edit as I read. How ever,…
As in the lives of individuals, certain events in the lives of cities leave such a mark that time is thenceforth measured in terms of before and after. For example, following the Columbian Exposition that brought more than 27 million people to Chicago in 1893, that city would always be something more than “hog butcher to the world.” The dazzling Midway Plaisance, one of the fair’s high lights, soon disappeared. But an amazing stretch of parks and buildings along Chicago’s Lake Michigan waterfront continues to be a reminder that this Mid-western metropolis was once host to the world.
Refashioned beyond recognition, Salt Lake City hosted the Winter Games in February 2002. While the world partied Olympically—Budweisers in hand, whooping it up in chaotic street fetes—Latter-day Saints found haven in the LDS Conference Center.…
On Tuesday, the second of July, a fatigued but cheerful Sydney Rigdon took up his pen and addressed himself to a blank sheet of paper laying before him on a wooden writing table. At the…
Dialogue 36.1 (2003): 89–108
A claim is frequently made that science and religion are not incompatible. The contention is that science and religion can be made to co-exist by compartmentalization, that is, by carefully limiting the scope of each so that neither intrudeson the sphere of influence of the other. Such an approach is folly.
But Adam and Eve wept for having come out of the garden, their first abode. . . And Adam said to Eve, “Look at thine eyes, and at mine, which afore beheld angels in heaven.…
The tomb was a mouth
that knew one note: grief.
The rock lips opened,
closed: tight as a safe.
All bones, nose, and trouble.
It hasn’t been a year
since he burned the tool shed down
then crouched, crying, at the back
of the garden while firemen watered
the high whipping flames.
The moment that I cannot comprehend
is when you took your garments off.
I wonder (though I don’t quite want to know)
whether, when the moment came,
it was conscious or was incidental.
Silence and grace,
the only words I know
in either of their languages,
so I don’t say much.
He paid the three-twenty
three and slipped the familiar
red and white box into
his jacket pocket.
The trouble is in eternity, the Angels say,
Where my Mormon husband twenty years
Divorced believes in his sleep that we
Are married still. Always he is sleeping
In that first summer before a town was
(Only tents and wagonbeds), they tossed
Pails of water over the sun-scorched canvas.
The price is higher than he expects
he smiles, wondering if it
has something to do with the new
black fishnets
When I saw the title David Allred chose for his remarks, I wondered if he would directly address the issues I’d raised in my essay. I’m afraid I don’t think he did, and I will…
Douglas Davies “gets” Mormonism, as demonstrated by his latest book. This book is not his first. Mormon Spirituality: Latter-day Saints in Wales and Zion was published in 1987 and is also a must for scholars…
The Mormon Question is a good book: smart, amusing and yet sensitive to pathos, full of new insights about an old subject—the clash of Mormon polygamy and American law. Sarah Barringer Gordon has taken the…
It is difficult to make comparisons between previous works in LDS philosophy and theology and Blake Ostler’s Exploring Mormon Thought: The Attributes of God. This is the first volume in a projected trilogy that will include…
This authorized biography of one of Mormonism’s greatest minds and most prolific scholars is a wonderfully accessible entry point to the life and work of Hugh Nibley. Boyd Jay Petersen, married to Nibley’s youngest daughter,…
