Announcing a new column: Peculiar People: Mormonism through the World and the World through Mormonism

Some of you may have already seen the new column at Patheos.com’s Mormon Portal launched last week. The brainchild of two JI bloggers, Peculiar People aims to provide “commentary on culture, politics, the humanities, sports, the arts, and so on through the lens of Mormonism.” Featuring a talented team of contributors—including our own Ben P, Matt B, Ryan T, Max M, and myself, along with present and prior JI (guest) bloggers Rachel Cope, Heidi Harris, Rachael Givens, and David Howlett and a whole slew of other brilliant scholars of Mormon history and culture (Patrick Mason, Susanna Morrill, Taylor Petrey, Richard Livingston, Kate Holbrook, Seth Perry, Xarissa Holdaway, Emily Belanger, and Alan Hurst)—the column will appear twice weekly (Monday and Wednesday). We hope to attract both Mormon and non-Mormon readers, and invite those of you who follow JI regularly to check in over there occasionally, too.

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Is McNaughton an Artist? Or, what I said on RadioWest

[These are fleshed-out notes of what I shared on RadioWest on their show dedicated to Jon McNaughton?s paintings. As such, it?s pretty disjointed and should be read more as notes than an essay.

The audio for the interview can be found here. The first half is a fascinating interview with McNaughton; the portion where I come on, along with brilliant artis Adam Bateman, is shortly after the 25 minute mark.]

Thoughts on Gender in Mormon Theology – stemming from Mormon and Protestant Encounters

Rachael has a BA in history from Brigham Young University, is currently slaving away working in a law office in Washington DC, and is waiting to hear back about graduate schools this Fall. This post ushers in her guest-posting stint with JI.

?Gender is a modern invention,? Kathleen Flake declared yesterday at the Crossroads conference. Any logical discussion of the question of gender in Mormon theology was therefore declared ?impossible.? At least that?s how I and dozens of others understood her response that wasn?t a response to my query on the subject.

Today at Stake Conference, Elder Scott spoke of the sanctity of womanhood, and the need for men to appreciate and affirm women who ?magnify? the divine endowment of feminine traits they have been given.

Clearly, the theological place and meaning of gender is a massively tangled bramble bush of an issue, and this post is in no way meant to resolve the question I posed to Kathleen Flake yesterday as to what exactly constitutes ?femininity? and ?masculinity? in our eternal identity, and what implications these notions can have beyond the mortal realm and particularly in exaltation. This matter, of course, also has direct bearing on the controversy surrounding traditional and same-sex marriage, and I firmly believe that the Church needs a clear explanation of what gender is and why the particular synthesis of one man and one woman is the divinely ordained model, in order to offer more compelling defenses (theologically, at least) for traditional marriage. (I won?t countenance polygamy in this discussion as a potential arrangement in the afterlife. We can argue about that premise in another post).

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Conveying Joseph Smith: Brandon Flowers, Arthur Kane, and the Mormon Rock Star Image

(cross-posted at Religion in American History)

While pundits and theologians continue the seemingly endless debate over whether or not Mormonism is Christian/Mormons are Christians/a Mormon can be a Christian, over at Slate, browbeat writer David Haglund weighs in on the Mormon church’s latest advertising campaign (the “I’m a Mormon” campaign) and the recent participation of The Killers frontman and international rockstar Brandon Flowers in that effort:

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Quantifying Polygamy

This last week, FAIR went live with their Mormon Defense League website.[1] Among the “false claims” the website seeks to debunk concern the LDS Church’s current relationship to polygamy. In an effort to distinguish the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from polygamous groups in the western United States, the MDL emphasized that plural marriage was a limited practice that had been officially stopped over a century ago. (Including perpetuating the unfortunate rhetorical battle over the label “Mormon”–a battle of deep irony when considering our frustration of others refusing us the label “Christian.”) To answer the question of the number of Mormons who practiced polygamy, it replied that “modern estimates of LDS members practicing polygamy prior to 1904 range between 2% and 20%.” While the website does admit that it is tough to get an accurate number, and that it depends on who you count within the statistics, their final number (2% to 20%) is unfortunate in that it is not only false but misleading.

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Call for Papers: Mormon Scholars in the Humanities

Call for Papers

Conference Theme: Economies and Humanities
Conference Date: May 18?19, 2012
Proposal Deadline: February 15, 2012

Human beings have material needs. We claim, use, and trade the physical resources of earth and seas. We produce goods and services that we use or, not being self-sufficient, exchange. To the ancient Greeks, the consumer?the ?we??was a household. (The term ?economy? derives from Greek, meaning management of household labor and material resources.) Today the household remains the unit responsible for consumption decisions, and its internal roles adapt to external demands for members? labor.

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MHA 2011 Conference Preview: Paper Abstracts from JI Presenters

In case anyone needed more motivation to attend. (Or, in my case, more regret at not being able to attend.)

What follows are short abstracts of the MHA papers being presented by Juvenile Instructor contributors, just to give you a sampling. There are numerous other Mormon history and bloggernacle celebrities taking part in the conference (including JI’s friends Sam Brown, Brittany Chapman, Rob Jensen, Janiece Johnson, and Margaret Young, to name a few), so keep your eyes peeled to the online program.

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Contemporary Politics, Mormonism, and Sehat?s Myth of American Religious Freedom

Sehat, David. The Myth of American Religious Freedom. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.

Once again, the issues of religious freedom and freedom of conscience have surfaced in public discussion and popular awareness, both in the United States and abroad. Though often invisible in modern democratic life, these major issues have continued to rise to prominence episodically in American history, and it appears that we may be in or coming into one of those episodes. Between the debates over the building of Islamic mosques in various parts of the United States, the emerging conflict of the prosecution of gay rights with religiously-informed resistance, and the likely prospect of another religiously-informed presidential election ? the matter of religious freedom is increasingly at issue in the United States. This is, of course, to say nothing of other global developments like the recent persecution of Coptic Christians, the Pope?s consequent advocacy of religious freedom, and other religious freedom issues around the world.

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Provo Tabernacle on Fire

The Provo Tabernacle caught fire this morning at 2:45 am (Mountain Time) and is still currently up in flames. The major newspapers aren’t reporting on the fire yet, and the cause of the fire is still unknown at this point.

According to abc4.com, “Provo Fire Battalion Chief Lynn Scofield says the part of the roof has collapsed, and the fire has spread to most of the building.  He says there’s a chance that the building will be a total loss.”

This makes me sick, as the Tabernacle is a really beautiful building with significant historical meaning. Construction began in 1883, and although it was not completed until 1898, the Church’s General Conference was held in the building in 1886 and 1887. Attending Stake Conference there and driving by on a daily basis stand out among the many good memories from the six years I spent living in Provo.

[I rushed to get this post up this morning before leaving the house. I see now that Ardis also posted on this early this morning at Keepapitchinin and her post contains links to the several news organizations reporting on it now.]

Historical Fundamentalism and Mormon History

Historical fundamentalism has been a hot topic as of late. Partly as a reaction to movements like the Tea Party, partly as a continuation of the frustrating distance between mainstream and academic history, and partly in response to the growth of constitutional originalism in public discourse as an opposition to societal and political changes?all three parts, it should be noted, are unmistakably interconnected?there has been an increase of ruminations concerning the relationship between the past and the present. (See here, here, here, and here, for example. Also, and especially, here, and here) A recent and significant contribution to these debates comes from Harvard historian Jill Lepore, whose The Whites of their Eyes: The Tea Party?s Revolution and the Battle over American History is a captivating account of how people use (and abuse) the past for modern causes, collapsing the distance between then and now in an effort to gain political and intellectual validation. (A great overview of the book, as well as an insightful interview with Lepore, can be found here. For an enlightening previous interview with Lepore on the importance of being a ?public historian,? sees here.)[1] Personally, I?ve been looking forward to the book for months.

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