Notes From the Sacred Space Symposium at BYU: Panel Discussion featuring Richard Bushman

The Sacred Space Symposium at BYU concluded with a panel discussion guided by Richard Bushman and included each of today’s presenters. Dr. Bushman had opening remarks and launched discussion with a few questions of the panel before turning it over for questions from the audience.  I did not take down the questions from the audience, sorry. We hope that providing these notes has been fruitful for many of you. Those of us who attended really enjoyed it and felt that the presenters were well prepared and engaging in their presentations.  Jim Faulconer deserves hearty praise for his work putting it together and we hope to see many more conferences like this one that bring the work of national scholars from within and without the Mormon tradition to bear on issues of Mormon studies.

Richard Bushman

Before the Manhattan temple dedication a group of us was shown through the building.

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Notes From the Sacred Space Symposium at BYU: Laurie Maffly-Kipp, “The Clock and the Compass: Steering Toward Zion”

Laurie Maffly-Kipp, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

In mid September 1983, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints dedicated a temple in Santiago Chile.  It was the first built in a Spanish speaking country, just a few months prior to the Mexico City Temple. Pres. Hinckley stood in for Pres. Kimball, Elders McConkie and Packer with wives and other leaders attended.  This occasion was the most visible sign of the Church’s recent growth in South America. Work had been going on for years to prepare for it. The first stake organized in Chile occurred 11 yrs earlier. The members, he said, were not ready for a temple then.

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Notes From the Sacred Space Symposium at BYU: Michael Fishbane, “Sacred Space and Divine Presence in the Hebrew Bible”

Michael Fishbane, Nathan Cummings Professor of Jewish Studies, Divinity School, University of Chicago presented on the Divine Presence in the Hebrew Bible.  He hilighted that sacred places are not natural, but are made in the Hebrew Bible. My notes:

My contribution to this conference will be to focus on the theme of sacred space in the Hebrew Bible.  The Hebrew Bible is the foundational document of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism.  My orientation has to benefit from the limitations of one slice of historic theology, but we’ll see that it has many dimensions.  To help narrow the focus, I want to talk about the interplay of sacred space in the bible and the sacred presence. 

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Notes From the Sacred Space Symposium at BYU: Hamid Mavani, “?The Prophet Muhammad: ?The Whole Earth is a Mosque (masjid) and is Sacred??

Hamid Mavani, Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies, Claremont Graduate University spoke on the sacred in Islam. In essence, he argued that sacred space is defined by intent in Islam.  My reformulated notes:

I should let you know that I am the only Muslim speaker; you can be assured that what I say is the absolute truth [laughter].

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Notes From the Sacred Space Symposium at BYU: Richard A. Cohen, “Place, Sacred Space, and Utopia”

Richard A. Cohen, Professor of Philosophy, and Director of the Institute of Jewish Thought and Heritage, University of Buffalo (SUNY) presented a paper a the Sacred Space Symposium on “Place, Sacred Space, and Utopia”. The session was chaired by Ralph Hancock, Associate Professor of Political Science, BYU.  Dr. Cohen argued, in essence, that there is no sacred space in Judaism and even the most publicly sacred place in Judaism, the temple, is a testament to the placelessness of holiness in Judaism. My notes are not to be seen as a word for word transcript. I have made additions and rewordings for clarity and I missed plenty.  Here it is:

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Notes From the Sacred Space Symposium at BYU: Introductory Remarks by Elder Cecil Samuelson

Elder Cecil O. Samuelson, President of Brigham Young University kicked off the Sacred Space Symposium with very brief remarks welcoming both presenters and guests. He remarked, in essence, that one of the roles of a university is to understand our own tradition better and also the understandings and perspectives of others. With presentations across a wide theological range, this is shaping up to be a great symposium. 

The JI is out in force here this morning and we will be providing notes for each presentation. Stay tuned!!

Pratt’s Doctrine of Equality Revisisted

Yes, I’m “revisiting” the subject of a less than 24-hour-old post! In some ways I restate what Ben said, and the issues I deal with are discussed in both Ben’s post and the following comments, but I also ask some different, though similar, questions.

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A Night at the Theater: Mahonri Stewart’s The Fading Flower

A couple of nights ago I stumbled across the antidote for all of you out there disillusioned with the attempts of LDS art to meaningfully engage with Mormon history: I saw Mahonri Stewart’s The Fading Flower, presented by New Play Project at Provo Theatre Company. I took along a date, so I was legitimately worried that the whole thing might flop. But I was pleasantly surprised: the play deals with the atmosphere surrounding Joseph III’s coming of age, his assumption of the leadership of the RLDS faith, and the heightening conflict between Nauvoo and Salt Lake – with the Smith family caught in between. It gives special attention to Emma Smith and her youngest son, David Hyrum, in a way serving as a stage adaptation of Valeen Tippetts Avery’s From Mission to Madness: Last Son of The Mormon Prophet.

Although aesthetics and empathy, not faithfulness to history, are the driving forces behind this production, it is compelling, even to the historical mind. And it’s especially significant for its intended lay LDS audience.

In any case, if you’re in Provo in the next week, it’s worthwhile. More information available at http://newplayproject.org/season/2009/fading-flower/.

Mormonism and Manifest Destiny

So I was thinking about Edje’s comment on Russell’s “Why I am a Tory” post:

If the British had stuck to the Proclamation of 1763 indefinitely (forbidding English subjects from settling west of the Appalachians) I think it would have made it rather difficult to implement any sort of centralized gathering scheme. The reaction would have been similar to what actually happened in the US, but with centralized law enforcement and nowhere to go, the Mormons would have been eradicated.

If I recall the diggers attempted a commune in 17th century England and were eradicated. Yet, if I recall, a major reason for the Proclamation of 1763 was to keep the colonists from encroaching on native lands. Since Russell had us on the topic of 1 Nephi 13, I’ll quote verse 14: “And it came to pass that I beheld many multitudes of the Gentiles upon the land of promise; and I beheld the wrath of God, that it as upon the seed of my brethren; and they were scattered before the Gentiles and were smitten.”

If the Mormons needed to have a frontier to flee to, were they a part of the manifest destiny movement, or were they fleeing from it?

“because there was not any missionaries near us?: Latter-day Saint Worship Patterns in the American South

What follows is a portion of the paper I presented at the annual meeting of the Mormon History Association last week in Springfield, IL. The paper focused on the religious lives of Latter-day Saints in the American South in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. My aim was to move narratives of the LDS experience in the South beyond analyses of missionaries who served there and the persecution and violence they encountered; to explore the lives of those Saints who were baptized but didn’t migrate West. One of the most interesting aspects of the lives of these “un-gathered” Saints was their patterns of worship.

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