Winter 1991
The Winter 1991 Issue examines lesser-known facets of Mormon history, cultural diversity, and personal narratives. Neal Chandler reveals stories from the Book of Mormon often omitted from traditional teachings, while Lola Van Wagenen explores how Mormon women politicized to secure voting rights in 1870. Ken Driggs discusses modern polygamy among fundamentalist Mormons in Utah. Mario S. De Pillis, Mane Cornwall, and Marjorie Newton analyze Mormonism's shift toward mainstream status and its challenges from multiple perspectives, including Australian and Reorganized Church viewpoints. Helen Papanikolas considers issues of ethnicity, diversity, and internal conflicts within the church. Robert A. Rees, in a sermon, discusses the concept of "bearing crosses" with grace, especially regarding single Mormons. In the "Personal Voices" section, Steve Siporin shares experiences as a Jewish individual within a Mormon community, while Angela B. Haight and Angela G. Wood reflect on family loss and gratitude, respectively.
Dialogue 24.4 (Winter 1993):15–50
n fact, it may be no more than a kind of perversity that brings me to admit what I will tell you now, namely, that when it comes to the Book of Mormon, that most correct of books, whose pedigree we love passionately to debate and whose very namesakes we have, all of us, become, I stand mostly with Mark Twain.
Dialogue 24.4 (Winter 1991): 75–96
IMMEDIATELY UPON THE PASSAGE of territorial legislation enfranchising Utah’s women in 1870, almost fifty years before the Nineteenth Amendment extended the vote to American women, arguments erupted between the Mormon and non-Mormon community over the reasons behind this legislation.
Dialogue 24.4 (Winter 1991): 44–58
Driggs shares the story of how in between the First and Second Manifestos, polygamy was still happening in secret.
Applying the term “mainline,” or “mainstream,” or “oldline” religion to Mormonism may raise a few eyebrows. After all, doesn’t “mainline” refer to the older, once dominant Protestant religions? Moreover, the term “mainline” lacks precision. How…
In some ways, Mormonism looks in 1991 very much mainline. Yet dis cussing the challenge of this new social status rests on two assumptions: that Mormonism actually is a mainline religion, and that as a…
During a history of religion class I attended at Sydney University a few years ago, another student asked the lecturer when the Mormons first arrived in Australia. He didn’t know and, looking round, asked, “Does…
There was a time when one could identify a sort of “mainline” religious configuration in the United States.
When I was a child growing up in a Carbon County mining town in the 1920s, I would pass the Greek coffeehouses on Main Street after attending Greek school. Sitting inside were off-shift miners and…
Tildy Elizabeth sat by the cradle, Book of Mormon open on her knee. One hand rocked absently while the other traced in painful concentration the small print, dim in the yellow lamplight. Some time ago…
During the first few weeks of January this past year, I suspect the thoughts of most Americans seldom moved for very long from the subject of war. Most of us felt hopeful and fearful, stimulated…
The successes of Operation Desert Storm hardly need to be mentioned. The media have joined forces with politicians to praise the superior fighting ability of the United States military, the diverse international coalition that was…
As anti-war demonstrations gained in size and frequency throughout the Western world during the Gulf War, it is doubtful that many Latter-day Saints took part, if experience during earlier conflicts is anything to judge by.…
When I was twenty and dewy-eyed, I visited Auschwitz. I found ghosts there. The red bricks of the camp were gritty with the black soot which was all that remained of four million people, gassed…
In the fall of 1990, I was asked to speak to an undergraduate honors seminar at Utah State University about being a Jew among Mor mons. I warned the student assigned the task of recruiting…
As I stood in the receiving line at my daughter’s wedding last May, a neighbor drew me aside. “Have you seen Janet recently?” she asked, referring to her eldest, unmarried daughter. “No,” I said. “Well,…
I took my violin and my music from the back of the car and listened to my heels tap on the asphalt as I walked across the parking lot. It was an icy December night,…
Just as we were meeting, she
Slid quick away—too far—
And I, surprised at sudden loss,
Ran leaping after her.
The fields south of Salt Lake
Must be old.
From the air, in October,
They lie barren, empty,
When the days drag on like TV reruns,
The Hero Woman conies.
She walks in with long strides from the hips.
She keeps her eyes on the horizon.
Nerved sparks, the Perseids
tonight, wincing out over Loafer
Father, you taught me to name
these — each streak of fire
A late review has the advantage of calling a good book to the attention of any one who may have missed it the first time around, and of reaffirming what time has already proved—its lasting…
Mormons in Early Victorian Britain, volume 4 in the University of Utah’s Mormon Studies series, is a significant contribution to the understanding of Mormon history in both the United States and Great Britain. As the…
One of the by-products of the federal crusade against plural marriage in late nineteenth-century Utah is the correspondence of separated spouses which dramatically records the personal impact of this volatile period in Mormon history. Because…
Latter-day Saints are an even smaller minority in Canada than they are in the United States. To put their numbers into perspective, if Canada were California (the populations are approximately equal), the Mormon community would…
In the more than five years I have served as bishop of a singles’ ward, sexual transgression has been the most pervasive, persistent, and painful problem I have had to deal with. Scarcely a week…
