Pathways for Female Socialization

Jennifer Brinkerhoff Platt is currently an assistant visiting faculty member in Brigham Young University’s Department of Ancient Scripture. A former seminary and institute instructor, she earned a PhD from Arizona State University in lifespan developmental psychology, focusing on women and social issues.

In the past week I attended a stake activity days event, young women?s new beginnings and a relief society birthday celebration.  While each was carefully planned, well attended and inspiring I couldn?t help but wonder how effective it might have been had the three events been combined to celebrate a female trajectory of discipleship. A clearly celebrated sisterhood across the lifespan is something I feel is lacking in the Church. LDS females lack delineated rites of passage. Activity days for 8-12 year old girl and young women programs such as personal progress are posed to set females on a path of goal setting but lack rich ritual behavior and frequent association with women of varying ages over a span of years. Further, it seems the three female auxiliaries often function territorially rather than as homogenous, unified sisters. Having said that, I?m intrigued by the possibilities of next week?s intergenerational gathering in the historic General Women?s Meeting of the Church. I?m hopeful that this initiates a pathway for female socialization including increased frequency of gatherings of this type in localized communities.

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Mormon Rituals: Ordinances or Sacraments?

This quick-and-dirty post traces some of the history of Christian liturgy to consider a different way to think about Mormon ritual. It’s very much exploratory; I welcome your insights and critiques.

Many of the most rancorous debates of the Reformation Era–and there were lots of them–revolved around liturgy and the practice of Christian rituals. Not only did Protestants clash with the Roman Church as they attacked and rejected the conventional set of seven sacraments, but before long, the new Protestant schools of thought were in conflict with each other as well. More than anything else, in fact, it was the debate over the sacraments, especially the Eucharist, that shattered the prospects of a united Protestant Christendom.

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New Addition: Liz M.

We’re pleased to announce that Liz M., a PhD student at Claremont Graduate University, has agreed to join the Juvenile Instructor. Here is how she describes herself:

I am working on a PhD in American religious history at Claremont Graduate University. My dissertation is on women’s popular family theologies in between the world wars. One chapter will be on Mormon women. So I am interested in family religion and women’s religious history.

Please join us in welcoming Liz to the Juvenile Instructor, the best academic Mormon history blog on the interwebz since 2007!

Practicing Charity: Everyday Daughters of God

By Laura Allred Hurtado

On Monday, I attended a lecture celebrating the Relief Society Commemoration given by Sharon Eubank, Director of LDS Charities, sponsored by the Church History Department. Her comments were titled ?Matriarchy? and she indexed the many ways Mormon women have historically performed acts of charity and whose legacy of service continue to have influence on the many projects LDS charities executes today, albeit on a much grander scale.

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Gardening at Temple Square

In his introductory post to Religious “Practice” month here at JI, Ryan touched on the many ways ritual and practice informs Mormon lives, from the formal ordinances to the less formal expressions of lived religion, like hair wreaths or sacrament bread. Today’s post is about one of those informal practices, namely gardening, and more specifically, gardening at Temple Square.

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Pageants and practice

Megan Sanborn Jones is currently the coordinator for the Theatre Arts Studies program at BYU. She teaches undergraduate and graduate classes in theatre critical studies. Her work about religious performance in 19th-20th century America has been published in Theatre Journal, The State of the Art, and Theatre Topics. Her book, Performing America in Anti-Mormon Melodrama, was published by Routledge in 2009 and won the Best First Book Award from the Mormon History Association. We are pleased to have her contributions here at the JI.

My interest in religious practice in Mormon history is neither wholly religious nor very historical.  I?m grateful to colleagues in the field who focus on theological practices from baptism ordinances to temple ceremonies to relief society birth rituals.  The topics I study as performance scholar are rarely fundamental to salvation.  Contextualizing Mormon ritual is generally a nineteenth century study, requiring detailed looks at the archives to tease out foundational practices and first-person accounts of origins.  My interest in the material practice of Mormonism is more contemporary.  As Ryan T. points out in his introduction to Religious ?Practice? Month at the JI, ?Time. . .has brought a new consciousness of the embodied, external, purposive behavior of religious actors.?  I take his description literally and examine Mormon actors of the twenty-first century, on theatrical stages, in LDS Pageants.

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JI March Madness Bracket 2014

It’s that time of the year, when the snow begins to melt (hopefully) and a hoops fan’s heart turns to March Madness. This year, we at Juvenile Instructor are hosting a March Madness bracket challenge for our loyal followers. Join us!

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The Genius Ritual

Okay, my last post talked about the concept of the “genius”: guardian beings like angels.  Here I talk about a possible ritual that young Joseph Smith might have performed on the night of the Moroni visitation.  Michael Quinn argued that Smith may have performed some type of ritual on the night of the visitation.  After summarizing Quinn’s arguments, I present the following:

An additional piece of context for the Moroni visit was the statement from the neighbor that Smith was ?born with a genius.?  Again, this was a Platonic notion that remained prevalent in grimoires.

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The Genius

The following is a short excerpt from my dissertation.  It’s part of a bigger section on the Smith family religiosity.  It therefore refers to issues discussed earlier, which may make this a little confusing.  This section doesn’t address a ritual, but it’s important context for a post I’ll put up soon that does have to do with ritual.  Extra points for those who can guess what that post will be about.

The Chosen Son.  Associates of the Smiths in Vermont and New York said the Smiths spoke of Joseph Jr. as the chosen son.  Smith had a number of traits that would have set him apart in folk culture.  The Green Mountain Boys said that the Smiths said that Joseph Jr. was ?born with a veil,? which meant born with the caul: being born with the caul set children apart in European folk culture, often meaning that the child was a seer.^[1]  The Green Mountain Boys seemed to link that claim to Joseph Sr.?s desire to find a stone for his son by which he would ?see all over the world,? suggesting the caul and seeing with a stone were linked; Smith himself would claim the ability to ?see? with a stone.

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My two current favorite books on ritual/liturgy/practice

A couple of years ago, I was reading David Hall?s edited volume Lived Religion, and ruminated a bit on my reading along with a request for suggested volumes. For practice month here at the JI (deep in my heart it is really ritual/liturgy month), I wanted to similarly open up with a discussion of two books that have influenced my current study of Mormon liturgy, and then ask for your advice.

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