THE CHURCH of JESUS Ciqrist the Summer Is Nigh
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Volume Six, Number Three May-June 1981 Publisher/Editor RELIGION PEGGY FLETCHER 44 Defending the Keystone: The Comparative Method Madison U. Sowell Managing Editor Reexamined SUSAN STAKER OMAN Did Joseph Smith borrow from View of the Hebrews? Associate Editor 45 Defending the Keystone: Book of Mormon Difficulties George D. Smith, Jr. LORIE WINDER B. H. Roberts did not ignore potential problems Assistant Editors 10 Ritual as Theology John L. Sorenson DENNIS CLARK, POETRY Language is not easily shared in a culturally JOHN R. SILLITO, BOOK REVIEWS diverse church MARK THOMAS HISTORY Staff Writers 15 Mormonism in Black Africa: Changing Attitudes RON BITTON Newell G. Bringhurst JAMES CARTWRIGHT and Practices 1830-1981 LORRAINE CHRISTENSEN Reconciling racist stereotypes and Mormon KAYE SENZEE universalism 36 From the Pen of a Cohab Dale Z. Kirby Art Director Prison life of Mormon polygamists RANDALL SMITH CONTEMPORARY 28 The Institutional Church and the Individual: J. Bonner Ritchie Staff How Strait the Gate, How Narrow the Way? KERRY W. BATE The benefits and costs of sustaining a necessary JAN EYRING VINCE ITURBE though uneasy alliance L. JOHN LEWIS 24 Politics of Extremism DAVID C. RACKER Perspectives by Ray R. Canning, Esther Landa, and CHRIS THOMAS W. Cleon Skousen STEPHANIE WOODWARD HUMOR Administrative Assistant 22 Clinical Notes on the RM Tim Torkildson JOANN S. ARBON Stalking the real Real Thing Circulation/Promotion FICTION REBECCAH T. HARRIS 40 Demons Linda Sillitoe Business Manager BRUCE BENNETT POETRY Financial Assistant 27 Group Session Stephen Gould SHAWN GARCIA SCHOW To a Mother in Zion Roger Ken t Petersen National Correspondents The Covenant Susan Howe James W. Lucas, New York City; George D. Smith, San Francisco; Temperate Alison Booth Bonnie M. Bobet and Charlotte Johnson, Berkeley; Joel C. Peterson, Dallas; REVIEWS’ Anne Castleton Busath, Houston; Kris Cassity and Irene Bates, Los Angeles; 58 Bread and Milk and Other Stories by Eileen Gibbons Kump Lisa Thompson Susan Sessions Rugh, Chicago; 59 A Land Called Deseret by Janet Dailey Pamela Gillie Carson Janna Daniels Haynie, Denver; Allen Palmer, Rexburg; 59 To Utah by Edward L. Hart Dian Saderup Anne Carroll P. Darger, Boise; 60 Moods of Late by Marden Clark Dian Saderup Renee Tietjen, Boston; Curtis Bumett, Washington, D.C.; 61Nicholas Groesbeck Morgan: The Man Who Moved City Hall Samuel W. Taylor T. Eugene Shoemaker, Sacramento; by Jean R. Paulson Diane Bennion, Seattle; Sunstone is published six times each year bv $9 for students, missionaries, and retired Kathryn F. Fowles, Menlo Park; the Sunstone Foundation, a non-profit " people. Overseas subscriptions are $15 per corporation with no official connection to year. Sunstone is mailed third class bulk and Stephen Durrant, Provo; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day is not forwarded. Subscribers are Saints. Articles represent the attitudes of the responsible to notify the magazine at least Thomas McAfee, San Diego; writers only and not necessarily those of the one month in advance of address changes. Marjorie Spencer, Ogden; editor/pubIisher or the editorialboard. ~unstone is not responsible for undeLivered Manuscripts for publication should be Issues. Bellamy Brown, Phoenix; submittedin duplicate, typewritten and Send all correspondence and manuscripts to double-spaced, and shodld not exceed six Sunstone, P. O. Box 2272, Salt Lake City, Roger Thomas, Bloomington. thousandwords. For increased readability, Utah 84110 (Phone 801-355-5926). Sunstone discourages manuscripts with Unsolicited manuscripts should be excessive footnoting. accompanied by sufficient return postage. Subscriptions are $12 for one year, $2l for Copyright @ 1981 by the Sunstone two years, and $30 for three years. One-year Foundation. All rigl~ts reserved Printed in Cover Illustration Barbara Bailey subdcnptions are offered at a discount rate of the United States of America. May/June 1 I am aware that mixing scholar:ship and personal feelings can turn one :into a propagandist rather than a scholar; in fact I have written a book on that very subject (Folklore and Nationalism in Modern Finland). But I reiterate: In this instance I could no longer simF.ly gather rs’Forum my data and then objectively report: "This is the way some Mormons responded to the priesthood revelation." I couldn"t because the Passionate Researchers or Fussy First of all, you are wrong about the way Kingdom matters too much to me, Moralists? we collected the material. We did not because obeying the ’,Savior’s irtjunction The article "The Curse of Cain and other stand before our classes, cheerily ask to love all men matters too much to me, Stories: Blacks in Mormon Folklore" was them, "Do you know any good jokes because doing what I can to bring about a interesting and enlightening. The about the blacks and the priesthood?" world in which that love prewails matters research appears to have been solid. The and then berate them later for giving us more to me, finally, tlhan my reputation topic certainly is timely. what we asked for. Because we had as a scholar. But something keeps bothering me heard so many of the jokes ourselves in Shortly after our article appeared, about the article. Wilson and Poulsen natural contexts (without soliciting them Poulsen and I became aware of a joke seem to me to be of two minds. On the at all), what we did was stand before our that had evidently gained some one hand they seem to be dispassionate classes, tell our students that we were currency: "How do you keep tl-te little researchers, observing and noting the interested in the. general reaction to the black kid quiet in primary? You pin his human condition as manifest in priesthood revelation, and then ask lips to the wall." At the same ti~ne I anecdotes, legends, and folktales. On them to record a nd share with us what listened to a priesthood leader in my the other they appear to be fussy they had heard in their own social ward announce that tlhe music in an moralists. worlds. They kr~ew why we wanted the upcoming social would be very good, material and what we intended to do I can close my eyes and visualize them "not nigger music." I believe--at least I with it. Unfortunately, I know of no way hope--that such attitudes are not standing in front of their classes saying, of collecting unpleasant material--like "Anybody know any good jokes about widespread among us;. But so long as this racist humor--except by asking for they exist in any degree, we cannot lay the negro and the priesthood’?" Then I it. can visualize them getting together over claim to being a Zion people. If using a 7-LIp somewhere, shaking their heads You are correct when you say we tend to what I know through folklore study to and saying, "People willing to accept be both researchers and moralists. When help eradicate these attitudes completely blacks into full fellowship simply would we began the work, I had intended to makes me a "fussy moralist," I guess I’ll not tell this kind of joke." remain as dispassionate about the have to claim the title. On the one hand they say that telling project as you would have us be. But I William A. Wilson jokes, anecdotes, and stories ihelps eventually came to believe that in some Utah State [2Iniversity people articulate, and, hence, adjust to instances, in matters of most new social conditions. But the authors importance, one has to do more than Seduced, Provoked, and In Love then berate the people for doing so. simply observe and report certain SUNSTONE has stirred, ]provoked, features of the human condition--he seduced, aroused, inflamed, excited, Ethnic humor ca~ be cruel, demeaning, must also take a stand. Especially did angered, and even embarrassed me. In and, as Earl Butz,found out, socially ancl this seem true in this case since we were short, I LOVE IT! Almost every issue perso.nally costly. Ronald Reagan got writing mostly to an audience of induces mental "letters to the editor," into some hot water during the New fellow-Mormons and for SUNSTONE, but with my eight children presently Hampshire primary with an ethnic joke. which is interested not just in ranging in age from four months to I haw_~ no quarrel with someone who dispassionate articles, but also in essays eleven years I’ll have to make do with deplores ethnic slurs. aimed at making.: Mormons think about this one generalized letter for the time I guess my problem i,s that I don’t think their own behavior. being. It’s a bright day when the mailbox that the authors make it clear whether contains my SUNSTONE, and with the new they are researchers presenting the I am a committed folklorist, but I am also S. "Review" life will be twice as. bright! results of their observations or are a pair a committed Mormon. In my past Tracy (the man of the house) loves it too. of post-pubescent Ho’l’den Caufields studies of Mormon folklore, I have tried Betsy Hall expressing frustration because they can’t to keep my own feelings out of my Orem, Utah erase all the obscene graffiti in New York analyses. But this time I could no longer do that. This time I had to say: "This is ("Elizabeth H.", my formal signature, City. just didn’t seem to fit the intimatte way I Mary Jane Heatherington wrong! If we really believe that all of us feel about SUNSTONE. Lawrence, Kansas are literally brothers and sisters, descended from the same heavenly parents, then we must no longer demean Beer for Man Reply to Ms. Heatherington our brothers and sisters by behaving in The May-June 1979 issue of SUNSTONE Thank you for sending me a copy of your this way!" To have looked at the featured a discourse by Elder Stephen L.