LDS Church. Mormon Humor Serves This Laudatory Function
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JaSeWIXOM FIGURE AND PORTRAIT ARTIST DAN AND HIS BOYS (DETAIL) THE YOUNG PROPHET STUDIO - GALLERY 59 WEST FIRST SOUTH SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH 84101 (801) 359-6242 THINK OF YOURSELF AS A PIECE OF ART: YOU'RE AN ORIGINAL. COME AND SEE ME; I'D LIKE TO PAINT YOUR PORTRAIT. THE SERIOUSNESS OF MORMON HUMOR William A. Wilson 6 You are what you joke. THE HUMOR OF MORMON SERIOUSNESS Richard H. Cracroft 14 A response to William A. Wilson THE LEE REVOLUTION AND THE RISE Peter Wiley 18 OF CORRELATION The Church would never be the same again. DEFINING THE MORMON DOCTRINE OF DEITY Van Hale 23 How shall we label our unique view of God? THE SHEET OF OUR TRUE LORD JESUS Michael Solomon 28 WHY I AM A BELIEVER Leonard J. Arrington 36 First in the series "Pillars of My Faith" ONCE AT LA JOLLA Roberf A. Rees 39 POELMAN REVISES SPEECH 44 REVIEWERS SPLIT OVER CONTROVERSIAL BOOK 45 IS GOD MARRIED? PANEL DISCUSSES WORKING LDS WOMEN USE INSPIRED VERSION URGES APOSTLE SYMPOSIUM ON HUMAN RIGHTS RESPONSE GROUP AT BYU THE "MARTIN HARRIS LETTER: FACT, FICTION.. .FATE CABLE TV AND THE MORMON VOTE TWO-YEAR MISSIONS AGAIN FREEMAN INSTITUTE CHANGES NAME AFFLECK GUILTY OF FRAUD THE CASE OF MORMON SPIES THE FAR WEST RECORD Grant Underwood 58 Edited by Donald Q. Cannon and Lyndon W. Cook AMERICA'S SAINTS John Ashfon 61 By Robert Gottlieb and Peter Wiley GREENING WHEAT Karen Lynn 63 By Levi S. Petersen READERS FORUM 2 FROM THE EDITORS 4 THE NOUMENONIST Paul M. Edwards 40 On Our Story PARADOXES AND PERPLEXITIES Marvin Ryfting 41 Expensive Agency PEOPLE 54 SHORT SUBJECTS 57 BOOKNOTES 60 PUBUSHERfiMTOR Peggy Fldcher Burke, Connie Disney, Richnrd Harddt, be submitted in duplicate, type- tions are $35 tor one year by sur- MAW6 EDITOR Scott C. Dunn Sandra Mclntyre, Susan Pirle, Ieanne written and double-spaced, and face mail. Airmail subscriptions in MlOlREETOR Michad 0. Rognn Pugsley, Marcelyn Ritchie, Inckie should not exceed six thousand the U.S. are $27 for one year plus NEWS PITOM Cecelin Wnnter bominm, Linda Turner words. For increased readability, airmail postage charges. Appli- RSSOC WEWS EUllM MichelC Marfarlnne SUNSTONE discourages manuscripts tion to mail at second-class pos- FlCnON EOlTOR Susnn Stnker with footnoting. Manuscripts tage rates is pending at Salt Lake WETRY EDITOR Dennis Clark SUNSTONE is published by the should conform to the Chicngo City, Utah. POSTMASTER: Send BWK RMW EOlTOA John Sillito Sunstone Foundation, a non-profit Mnn~fi/of Sfyk. Unsolicited manu- address changes to SUNSTONE, 59 BUSINESS MAlWiER Toni Miner corporation with no official con- scripts should be accompanied by West 100 South, Salt Lake City, MUELBPMENTMAECTOR M.Mncfarlanr nection to The Church of lesus sufficient return postage. Send all UT 84101-1507. ACCWNTlH6 ChnrloffeHnmblin Christ of Latter-day Saints, Arti- correspondence and manuscripts AOUERTlslWG Christopher Allen cles represent the attitudes of the to SUNSTONE, 59 West 100 South, PRMUCTWM ASSISTANT Debbie Pnrkin writers only and not necessarily Salt Lake City, UT 84101-1507 Copyright 1985 by the sunstone MAEUUTIOW/PROMOTU)Nloseph Harris. those of the editorlpublisher or United States subscriptions to SUN- Foundation. All rights reserved, Rebercah T. Hnrris, Michael Stack editorial board. STONE are $27 for one year (12 Printed in the United States of 8TIKf KP~JWilliam Bafe, Brim Manuscripts for publication should issues). Outside the U.S. subscrip America. KRAMER VS. KRAMER Saints. I am speaking of important themselves to alternate ideologies; Karl Marx insightfully wrote: works like No Man Knows MyHis- so when their own is questioned, "The criticism of religion disillu- tory, Great Basin Kingdom, and they think the sky is falling. Their sions man so that he will think, Nauooo: Kingdom on the Mississippi. standard retort is the intended act, and fashion his reality as a Each of these studies depends on slur, "Nihilist!") I personally am man who has lost his illusions and its particular use of "sciepce" to still too much a novice to be a gained his reason. It is the task interpret its data. Some people nihilist, but I fail to see how a of history, therefore, once the other- today might quibble with Ms. semigenealogical account of world of truth has vanished, to estab- Brodie's early work, though his- science as ideology forces either lish the truth of this world." I suppose tory departments still include it on Bohn or me to give up our under- that I still believe in the "other- graduate student reading lists, but standing ("knowledge") of Mor- world of truth" and am not quite I think that we all might agree monism or our positions in diverse ready for it to vanish. My recent that both Arrington and Flanders academic communities. have written books of lasting attempt at introducing a couple of I would like my intuition to be new themes to the neverending interest. I certainly believe that the time I spent with their work correct that it is possible to write a debate in our community about history of Mormonism that history and its many methodolo- was invigorating and highly valu- able. That is not to say that I accounts for the paradoxes and gies seems to have struck a posi- conundra with which the cur- tive note. I feel that a few points found what they wrote to be accounts of the Church as a reli- rently constituted facts confront still need to be made on my behalf, us as well as for my belief in the however. giously important institution. There is very little in either book truth of Joseph Smith's explana- Like all writers, I am often to account for the spiritual power tion of the facts of his own expe- trapped by a language that has a and vigor of Mormonism. rience. Like Lawrence Foster, habit of saying what other people however, I am enough of a,prag- want it to say. So I wasn't sur- Mr. Walton also attributes to , matist to see that a history meet- prised to find Michael Walton me (as did Fordham Hurley) a ing my criteria would never con- wondering at my use of language tremendous and fervent hostility vince everyone. I frankly find no that to him sounded suspiciously toward academic history. It strikes compelling reason to believe that positivistic. It is important to me as odd that I would be accused an interpretation of "all the avail- understand, though, that rhetoric of anti-academicism or even anti- able evidence" will ever be able to often represents ideology (under intellectualism merely because I be written without having some- whose rubric we find both philo- asserted that historians seem not one condescendingly call it "faith sophy and knowledge) but never to be able to account for Mormon- promoting." Foster's remarks raise represents only an account of sense ism as a real force in people's lives. an intriguing question, though. If data. Thus it becomes easier to Mr. Walton, in fact, seems almost these new historians do not come understand how I might not have to agree with me, with the stipula- to their data with preconceived meant what he read. And he, after tion that we are thereby forced to notions of what they will or won't all, was the the one trying to make conclude that other groups who be able to find, notions easily as sense of it. have strong beliefs must then be pronounced as the "prejudices" of Having not read most of the his- allowed to find gods of their own the promoters of faith, why is it tories written about religion and in history. (I'm pretty certain they that they never mention as one of religious people in the last twenty all do anyway, whether we aca- the believable interpretations of years or so, I can't readily say demics allow it or not. I am, how- Joseph Smith's expereince that he whether science and history have ever, still wondering who the God simply told the truth? (My apolo- become progressively less positi- of the positivists might be.) The gies to historians like Milton vistic. In my simplicity, however, I- academic uncertainty I describe Backman and Richard Anderson have a difficult time seeing how and the relativism I subscribe to who obviously do that, even refinements of positivism make it do not force me out of the though, in Foster's terms, they any less positivistic. Certainly con- academy or make me any less must be "talking down to the temporary scientists like Stephen intellectual than other Saints.") academicians, but both do disallow Jay Gould and R. C. Lewontin There is currently a debate strong claims to objectivity or would find Mr. Walton's state- remarkably parallel to our own ment that "theories are judged by knowledge of the "factsn-the sense data. taking place among prominent how well they account for the vari- Catholic theologians. A number of ous pieces of data essential to the My denial of the validity of a them, including Hans Kueng and question being asked" to be a per- material data base as an epistemo- Edward Schillebeeckx, have begun fectly naive account of the myth logical center, the means of grasp- to assert that Jesus may not have of scientific objectivity. ing and understanding both the been literally resurrected. The I suspect, though, that I was not world and the people who inhabit methods they use to verify the as clear as I might have been in it, may incline some to accuse me reality of possibly historical events indicating that the history I am of having lost hope.