Dave's Mormon Inquiry

Coming Apart at the Seams

That's what many Protestant denominations seem to be doing these days. The latest story, as reported at The Religion Clause, concerns another "who owns the chapel" lawsuit. Seems half of a Presbyterian congregation in Ohio decided to disaffiliate from PCUSA and join the NWAC. That's not the Northwest Athletic Conference; NWAC stands for New Wineskins Association of Churches. The other half of the congregation was apparently happy with the old wineskin, hence the lawsuit.

Mormon Studies Moves Up a Notch

Today's LA Times has a longish article on the recent official announcement of Richard Bushman as the Howard W. Hunter Visiting Professor in Mormon Studies, in the School of Religion at the Claremont Graduate University in Southern California. [There is also a story at the Salt Lake Tribune.] The appointment as a visiting professor is an interim post until the endowed chair is fully funded. The article makes some interesting comments.

We're Getting Pretty Good At Disaster Response

After you get the kids and pets into the family truckster and hightail it down to the stadium, it's not too long before creature comforts become a primary concern: food, water, blankets, a cot or mattress. That's when the LDS trucks arrive, along with a few dozen missionaries who are just thrilled to do something besides knock on doors for a few days, or lay Mormons with a taste for urban adventure who can take a few days off work. And just when did we get so good at this disaster response thing? Check out the stories in the Deseret News -- "In response to disaster, many LDS missionaries lend a hand" -- and the Newsroom at LDS.org -- "LDS Church Providing Emergency Relief to California Fire Victims." At least it's nice to see tithing dollars going where they can really do some good.

Claremont Appointment Announced

I received an email and attached press release from a member of the Media Relations Committee of the Council for Mormon Studies at Claremont announcing the official appointment of Richard L. Bushman as the "Howard W. Hunter Visiting Scholar in Mormon Studies." Here is the opening paragraph of the press release:

Claremont Graduate University has appointed distinguished Latter-day Saints scholar Richard Lyman Bushman as the Howard W. Hunter Visiting Professor in Mormon Studies in its School of Religion. The announcement was made on Friday, October 19, following final approval of the action by the CGU Board of Trustees. The appointment will begin in fall 2008.

Earth, Wind, and Fire

Bad mix, especially the wind and fire. Alone, not too bad. Wind and fire together, catastrophe. Predictable? Absolutely. You would think that California, which faces the absolute certainty that wind and fire will come together into these sorts of regional conflagerations from time to time, would tap into its zillion-dollar economy to create and equip an adequate regional fire response infrastructure. Nope -- it sure doesn't seem like it. In many places the firefighters are using picks and shovels, essentially doing hand-to-hand fire combat with their backs to somebody's house, which they generally manage to save if they get there in time. The firefighters do great work, but the fire infrastructure is a mess (and that's the gentlest term I can think of).

Well-Behaved Women ...

"Well-behaved women seldom make history." So penned historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich a generation ago, as recounted in a fascinating Deseret News article. Ulrich, who is LDS, took a late doctorate, then joined the Harvard history faculty and went on to get a Pulitzer Prize for A Midwife's Tale. The article notes that she is considering writing a book on LDS history at some point. For those in or near Salt Lake City, the article also give times and places for a couple of public lectures Ulrich is delivering this week.

The Wikipedia entry on Ulrich includes the following tidbits:

In late 1992, Brigham Young University's board of trustees vetoed without comment a BYU proposal to invite Ulrich to address the annual BYU Women's Conference. Ulrich did give an address at BYU in 2004.

At Harvard, Ulrich is actively involved in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She is the advisor for the undergraduate Latter-day Saint Student Association, the Mormon campus club, and teaches an Institute of Religion class.

Teaching the Net Generation

It's easy to forget how much time LDS teenagers spend in LDS classrooms, roughly seven hours per week. Are they learning anything? That's a fair question, as the "classroom model" that governs teaching hasn't changed much over the years, but students have.

Deconversion, Take Two

Pastor Todd, the Baptist at our Bloggernacle Barbeque, takes another try at interviewing a member of his flock who was once a Mormon but now considers herself a Baptist. This interview is a little more restrained than the first one. He is understandably a little anxious about the potential for "public critique" of the interviewee. That's fair — I always enjoy reading conversion and deconversion stories, and even if one disagrees I don't think it's proper to be openly critical unless the story itself is a just a veiled attack piece. Even then, what's the point?

An Evangelical Miracle

Yes, Evangelicals have brought to pass a modern-day miracle: by once again doing their best to loudly ridicule Mormons quietly attending the LDS Church's semi-annual General Conference in Salt Lake City last week, activist Evangelicals impelled the Salt Lake Tribune to publish an editorial defending Mormons. Print that page — you won't see it again soon.

On the Road for On the Road

I recently brought to a successful conclusion a one-month, eight-hundred-mile odyssey that had a simple and straightforward object: to purchase a copy of Richard L. Bushman's On the Road with Joseph Smith: An Author's Diary at Deseret Book. I didn't think it would be such a challenge.

On the Road, Part 3

This is the third and final installment reviewing Richard Bushman's On the Road with Joseph Smith: An Author's Diary, covering the main part of the book, including a lengthy section recounting interaction with LDS blogs. I'm going to keep this short, as I rediscovered Daniel Peterson's lengthy discussion of the book in his Editor's Intro to a recent FARMS Review, which covered the same things I noted. I suspect he said it better than I would, so I'll let you read the good stuff there and keep my comments here brief, again with quotes from the book in italics and my comments to follow.

School Prayer Law

There's a post at the Religion Clause with links to stories on the new Illinois school prayer law. The Illinois legislature overrode the governor's veto to enact a law requiring teachers to begin the day with a moment of prayer silence. If we can't legislate a moment of prayer, then at least legislate a moment of silence ... does this really make sense? Does anything about school prayer make sense? Learn at school and pray at home or in church. This seems like the way things should work.

A Scholar's View of Mormons in Politics

That's more or less the headline of a note posted at the Newsroom (at LDS.org) concerning an article in The Christian Century entitled "A Mormon president? The LDS difference." I'll make the article my online essay of the week. The article is written by Laurie F. Maffly-Kipp, a religion prof at UNC. The Newsroom really likes the article.

On the Road, Part 2

Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling ("RSR") was published and available for sale to the public on September 25, 2005. The first section of On the Road with Joseph Smith is titled "Preparations" and covers July and August of 2005, a period in which Bushman reviewed the RSR galleys from his publisher, spoke with journalists and book reviewers, and fretted more than a little over how the book was going to be received by its two primary audiences, Mormons and non-Mormons. Here are a few quotes (in italics) from this section of the book, with my comments following.

On the Road with Joseph Smith

I recently acquired a copy of the paperback edition of Richard L. Bushman's On the Road with Joseph Smith: An Author's Diary (Greg Kofford Books, 2007), and I plan to put up several posts as I read through it. Here are a few quotes (in italics) from the six-page Introduction, along with my comments.

Best Conference Coverage?

Alas, I was travelling over the weekend and didn't get any real-time Con-blogging in. I went online to see what happened in the sessions or parts of sessions that I missed. I'm trying to decide whether M&A, a zero-cost blog run by a non-journalist, puts up better Conference summaries than the Deseret News, whose coverage is presumably provided by several veteran journalists. You decide.

From Messenger and Advocate:

• Saturday Morning
• Saturday Afternoon
• Priesthood Session
• Sunday Morning
• Sunday Afternoon

From the Deseret News:

• New calls for Elders Eyring and Cook
• On the Saturday sessions
• New calls for Presidents of the Seventies

The Speech

It's coming, according to Robert Novak. While a few hundred thousand dedicated Mormons will tune in to hear speeches by General Authorities this coming weekend, a hundred million might tune in to Mitt Romney's speech in a month or two or three in which he tries to explain to the American electorate that it's okay to vote for a Mormon for President. He doesn't have to explain that it's okay to vote for a woman or a Jew or an African-American — Americans are already okay with voting for those candidates if they are, in other respects, their preferred candidate. But being Mormon seems to be a real stretch for some voters and for almost all journalists. We'll all share in the result, so let's hope Mitt rises to the occasion when he faces the Mormon Moment. Can't think of any other person better fitted for the task.

Church News Online?

The Church News is now available free online at the revamped Deseret News site. That's news to me -- I must have missed the memo. It's not cutting edge Mormon Studies stuff, but there are interesting stories from time to time. Examples: A story on the new Institute building on the ASU campus. Apparently ASU opposed renovation of the old Institute building for many years, but there was a change in leadership that paved the way for the new, expanded facility being built on the same site, right in the middle of campus. And there's an article about Anson Call, a 19th-century Mormon who apparently played a role in Joseph Smith's Rocky Mountain Prophecy (which may or may not be accurately reported).

Fall Colors

I can't whip up fancy banner-box images like the clever folks at Nine Moons, but it does seem like it's time for a change. Seeing I had a lovely drive through the mountains yesterday and saw the leaves turning orange and yellow and brown, I'll go with a mellow brown look for the new template. Same content, just fall colors. No posts planned for a couple of days, but I'm updating Net & 'Nacle with a couple of juicy links.