VOLUME SIX, NUMBER SIX NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1981 Publi~:ker/Editor PETER BERGER PEGGY FLETCHER CONTEMPORARY 38 THE DILEMMAS OF PLURALISM Mana,gin,~ Editor ISSUES Need we fear the religious uncertainty of modernity? SUSAN STAKER OMAN Associate Editor MORMON WOMEN AND THE STRUGGLE FOR LORIE WINDER DEFINITION Assistant Editor. An evening with the B.H. Roberts Society NICOLE HOFFMAN Ar~~ Director 7 The Nineteenth Century Church CAROL CORNWALL MADSEN WARREN ARCHER II 12 Contemporary Women LAVINA FIELDING ANDERSON Drl,arl,u’,t Editors DENNIS CLARK, POETRY 17 What is the Church? FRANCINE RUSSELL BENNION ANNE THIEME, ONE FOLD SCRIPTURAL COMMENTARY, STEVEN F. CHRISTENSEN HISTORY 44 GROWING UP IN EARLY UTAH: THE WASATCH Staff LITERARY ASSOCIATION, 1874-1878 RONALD W. WALKER KERRY WJLLIAM BATE A jaunty forerunner of the MIA LOUISE BROWN PAUL BROWN 21 ZION: THE STRUCTURE OF A THEOLOGICAL SUSAIN KEENE REVOLUTION STEVEN L. OLSEN L. JOHN LEWIS CHRIS THOMAS History of an LDS idea MARK THOMAS 55 THE MORMON PAST: REVEALED OR REVISITED? JAN SHIPPS FINETTE WALKER Circulation/Promotion Distinguishing between sacred and ordinary history REBECCAH T. HARRIS RENEE HEPWORTH MARK JARDINE RELIGION 52 FINITIST THEOLOGY AND THE PROBLEM OF Business Manager BRUCE BENNETT EVIL PETER C. APPLEBY Financial Assistants A lucid analysis of a knotty issue TOD K. CHRISTENSEN SHAWN GARCIA SCHOW 27 WHAT IS MORAL OBLIGATION WITHIN National Correspondents MORMON THEOLOGY? KIM MCCALL James W. Lucas, New York City; Searching for the source of ethical behavior George D. Smith, San Francisco; Bonnie M. Bodet and Charlotte. Johnson, Berkel~; Joel C Peterson, Dal|a$; FICTION 32 SEPARATE PRAYERS ANN EDWARDS-CANNON Anne Castleton Busath, Houston; Kris Cassity and Irene Bates, Los Ansel~$; Susan Sessions Rugh, Chicaso; Janna Daniels Haynie, Denver; POETRY 58 Sanctuary DAWN BAKER BRIMLEY Allen Palmer, Two Poems on Entanglement DALE BJORK Anne Carroll P. Darger0 Boise; Renee Tietjen, Boston; Guatama’s Return SCOTT DENHALTER Curtis Burnett, Washington, D.C.; T. Eugene Shoemaker, Sacramento; Diane Bennion, Seattle; DEPARTMENTS 2 READERS’FORUM Kathryn F. Fowles, Menlo Park; Stephen Durrant, 6 ONE FOLD Thomas McAfee, San Dieso; 59 UPDATE Marjorie Spencer, Ogden; Bellamy [~rown, Phoenix; 60 FROM THE EDITORS Roger Thomas, BIo~minston. 61 MORMON MEDIA IMAGE Sunstone is published six times each year by 62 SCRIPTURAL COMMENTARY the Sunstone Fo~andation, a non-profit corporation with no official connection to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Articles represent the attitudes of the writers only and not necessarily those of the editorlpublisher or the editorial board. Manuscripts for publication should be submitted in duplicate, typewritten and double-spaced, and should not exceed six thousand words. [:or increased readibility, Sunstone discourages manuscripts with excessive footnoting. Subscriptions are $12 for one year, $21 for two years, and $30 for three years. One-year subscriptions are offered at a discount rate of $9 for students, missionaries, and retired people. Overseas subscriptions are $15 per year. Sunstone is mailed third class bulk and is not forwarded. Subscribers are responsible to notify the magazine at least one month in advance of addres~ changes. Sunstone is not. responsible for undelivered issues. Send all correspondence and manuscripts to Sunstone, P.O. Box 2272, Salt Lake City, Utah 84110 (Phone 801-355-5926). Unsolicited manuscripts should be accompanied by sufficient return postage. Copyright ~) 1981 by the Sunstone F6undation. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. Sunstone, P.O. Box 2272, Salt Lake City, Utah 84110 November-December/I Wade reversed previous precedents giving the unborn the right to receive compensation for injury and to be represented in court as a iperson (to have standing) for damages, even if stillborn. Since Wade, the Court has aders’ ForumI refused to rule on cases dealing with whether the unborn can have standing, even though ships and corporations do have standing in court. Because standing in court is not Comfort in Church perhaps be more helpful to attempt to limited to human life, the arguments I agree that the Church should teach understand Church guidelines in light dividing people over abortion are not us correct principles and then allow us of Church doctrine. One of the salient at issue here; yet, the Court has to govern ourselves. I have always characteristics of God is his ability to stripped the unborn of this right prided myself on being a free agent, create: His progression continues because of its refusal to balance the able to come to my own conclusions. through the increasing numbers of interests of the mother and the However, I have neither the self- His creations. He has given the divine unborn. confidence or "ego" to stand f:irm on a trait in part to man, and that this is a Rytting would have us leave all the decision when I am being assailed privilege and a blessing is emphasized balancing of these interests to the constantly on TV by opponents to my by His giving His most faithful mother alone. (In part, his argument thinking who are more educated than servants the promise of countless is based on the doctrine of free I, far superior in their manner of posterity. Hence, creation, from agency, a concept which does not expression, extremely persuasive in sexual intercourse, through birth, mean, as he sometimes implies, the presenting their viewpoints, and through mortal life, is sacred. The right to choose for oneself: what is almost hypnotic in their ability to sacred character of the process of right or wrong but rather that a sway opinions. creation is emphasized by the strict person, knowing right from wrong, controls surrounding it and by the has the God-given ability to choose No matter how certain I am in a seriousness with which adultery and conviction, I find myself wondering, between them.) His optimism about other violations of sexual the morality of his fellow humans is "Am I really old-fashioned? Am I commandments are viewed. becoming narrow-minded in my old admirable, but one of the age? Am I really just a puppet,. Within this context abortion may be assumptions underlying law has new.~r following blindly the instructions of seen as a grave interference with the been that .all humans are essentially Church leadership?" sacred process of creation. This view moral--rather the opposite. Those is more consonant with Church who have a self-interest in a decision. I agree that the Church leaders would guidelines, which allow for are not given sole power to balance lose their impact if they daily gave therapeutic abortions, than is Richard their rights against those of another. opinions on every aspect of daily Sherlock’s contention that: "The only Yet this is what current abortion living, economically and politically, but way in which the Church’s position policy does: it gives the woman alone when an issue so vital to our society as on abortion makes any sense is on the power to exert her interests against ERA or abortion comes up, then I assumption that the fetus is a human those of the unborn. Thus current feel we need the strength of their being." The logic of his position is policy is as likely to prove the maxim statements to lend support as we are that no abortion should ever be that "Abso.lute power corrupts being bombarded on all sides by performed; yet, that the Church does absolutely" as it is to lead ~:o moral highly-paid, highly-sophisticated allow therapeutic abortions indicates tension following Rytting’s ideal. arguments in opposition to life-long that abortions, at least in the early standards. Neither extreme political position-- stages of development, do not destroy prohibiting all abortions or abortion There are areas where I do not agree mortal souls (spirits united with on demand--can be justified by 100 percent with statements of bodies), but rather they are serious Church guidelines or Church doctrine. Church leaders, but I feel no sense of violations of the creative process and! Perhaps a middle ground can be found guilt nor do I feel compelled to may therefore be performed only in whereby the unborn are given rights strangle my own thoughts. I consider limited and controlled circumstances. and whereby those rights may be myself a free agent, in every sense of This perspective leads easily to protected by someone other than a the word, but I look to Church leaders agreement with Rytting that the self-interested person. as I would to strong parents, to give unborn should be given increasing Kathryn M. Daynes me a feeling of security, of strength rights over time. He is, however, Greencastle, Indiana and of stability. I may not always take mistaken in his assertion that this is the advice of Church leaders, but it is what current policy does under Roe v. The Morally Decisive Issue very comforting to belong to the Wade. Though that decision does give The selection of essays on abortion "family" where the strength is there. the states power to increasingly was useful for a Mormon audience, Marie L. Sorensen regulate abortions in the latter stages and honest debate is always helpful. Reno, Nevada of pregnancy, it gives the unborn no However, ~ince my own essay was rights. It is a mockery of the word to drafted in a different setting honesty Abortion and Church Doctrine describe current policy in Indiana as compels me to respond to the critics Instead of using Mormon doctrine to the "’right" of the unborn, during the of my position, especially Prof. buttress one’s political position on third to sixth months of their Rytting. By training and temperment abortion, as do Richard Sherlock and development, to be aborted in a am a philosopher concerned with Marvin Rytting (Sunstone 6:4), it would hospital rather than in a clinic.