Summer 1967
This year marks the fortieth anniversary of the founding of the L.D.S. Institute of Religion. Dialogue is pleased to join in honoring the Institutes for their long history of significant help to college students and others faced with the difficult process of making their faith relevant to the university world and the pursuit of rational learning: The lead essay in Notes and Comments this issue is Leonard Arlington's history of the founding and development of the Institute, and his essay is followed by a letter concerning an important new program of financial aid to prospective Institute teachers studying for advanced degrees. Complementing Arlington's history is Ralph Hansen's review of current doctoral studies of the Institute program in Among the Mormons. In the concluding Note in this issue, Neff Smart challenges Mormons with the possibility that they are guilty of the "blasphemy of indifference" to the important issues of our time - neither engaging in careful personal examination of where they should stand nor providing vigorous moral leadership to others. A partial answer to his challenge is the Roundtable in this issue, which focuses on the perplexing problem of defining and controlling dangerous literature and drama under a Constitution we believe inspired in its guarantees of individual freedom. The participants draw on their particularly Mormon ethical vision to suggest some original and positive approaches to this problem. But Neff Smart's challenge is directed mostly to Mormon silence and inaction concerning the problems of race relations and modern warfare. Mormons speak to the former in the Letters and Notes sections of this issue and
As a Mormon writer, I have long been concerned that most of the books and magazine articles published nationally about the Mormons are written by Jews and Gentiles rather than my own people. In show…
During the 1960 presidential election campaign both candidates—Senator John F. Kennedy and Vice-President Richard M. Nixon—made appearances in Salt Lake City. Each was greeted cordially by David O. McKay, President of the Church of Jesus…
Most of our distinctly Mormon heritage, scriptural and otherwise, has been first spoken, recorded, or translated in the English language. In declaring that this heritage has worth for people of cultures and languages different from…
Sometime late in January or early February, winter’s dregs and the rancid crackers of academic routine begin to yield singularly stale sop. During those scraps of days in 1966 both of us turned our mental…
“Hefner,” I says. “Your own daughter lies dead still so still (not a breath of the autumn ruffles her lips) and you aimin’ to go on out huntin’ like a fool.” Hefner turns from lacing…
Dialogue 2.2 (Summer 1967): 5–7
In this important historical letter, Stewart Udall reflects on the need for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to reconsider its historical stance on race, particularly its practice of denying full fellowship to Black individuals. Udall argues that this practice, rooted in the belief in a divine curse on Black people, contradicts the principles of equality and brotherhood that the Church should embody. He concludes asserting that the time has come for the Church to abandon its racial restrictions and embrace full fellowship with Black individuals. He argues that recognizing the worth of all people, irrespective of race, is essential for the Church to fulfill its spiritual and moral ideals and to contribute positively to society’s progress toward greater human brotherhood.
An important facility near the campuses of colleges and universities in areas where there are substantial numbers of Mormons is the L.D.S. Institute of Religion.[1] In numbers of students the Institutes represent the most important…
The Mormon position on certain racial issues is being given attention in the popular press and has become a matter of concern to various segments of the whole nation—Mormon and non-Mormon alike. There is a…
Certain segments of the American voting public will be in a real dilemma next year. We don’t yet know which segments, but following are three hypothetical cases to illustrate: a) if the Democrats nominate candidate…
In December of 1945, when the nuclear age was hardly launched, an L.D.S. Servicemen’s Group in Europe met regularly to take comfort in the Sunday rituals of the Church and to congratulate each other on…
Among the issues which interest and divide men, none, with perhaps the exception of religion, seems so conducive to the use of labels as politics. Each phase of American political life has had its own…
The opening statement of the introduction to this book declares: “To be loved and cherished is woman’s highest goal in marriage. This book is written to restore your hope in such a goal—and to suggest…
The publication by Deseret Book Company of the work of a serious Mor man poet or playwright is not an event to be dismissed lightly, if only because it happens so seldom. Clinton Larson is…
I have seen The Bible and I believe in it as far as John Huston has translated it correctly. He is sometimes like DeMille and other scriptural movie makers—sugar coating, sentimentalizing, pompous piety—but most of…
One of the most prominent tenets of Mormonism emphasizes moral purity as essential to the Christian life. Self-mastery over physical appetites and passions is regarded as a fundamental aspect of the doctrine of eternal progression;…
Contrast the following: The saturation of our civilization with obscenity and pornography shackles and enslaves to lust and depravity. It is necessary to slip these surly bonds. This means it is necessary for each person in…
The argument over censorship and pornography is necessarily a muddled one. The factors involved are matters of taste and principle which do not lend themselves to simple logical treatment. The matters of taste concern aesthetic…
