Dialogue: a Journal of Mormon Thought
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DIALOGUE PO Box 1094 Farmington, UT 84025 electronic service requested DIALOGUE 52.3 fall 2019 52.3 DIALOGUE a journal of mormon thought EDITORS DIALOGUE EDITOR Boyd Jay Petersen, Provo, UT a journal of mormon thought ASSOCIATE EDITOR David W. Scott, Lehi, UT WEB EDITOR Emily W. Jensen, Farmington, UT FICTION Jennifer Quist, Edmonton, Canada POETRY Elizabeth C. Garcia, Atlanta, GA IN THE NEXT ISSUE REVIEWS (non-fiction) John Hatch, Salt Lake City, UT REVIEWS (literature) Andrew Hall, Fukuoka, Japan Papers from the 2019 Mormon Scholars in the INTERNATIONAL Gina Colvin, Christchurch, New Zealand POLITICAL Russell Arben Fox, Wichita, KS Humanities conference: “Ecologies” HISTORY Sheree Maxwell Bench, Pleasant Grove, UT SCIENCE Steven Peck, Provo, UT A sermon by Roger Terry FILM & THEATRE Eric Samuelson, Provo, UT PHILOSOPHY/THEOLOGY Brian Birch, Draper, UT Karen Moloney’s “Singing in Harmony, Stitching in Time” ART Andi Pitcher Davis, Orem, UT BUSINESS & PRODUCTION STAFF Join our DIALOGUE! BUSINESS MANAGER Emily W. Jensen, Farmington, UT PUBLISHER Jenny Webb, Woodinville, WA Find us on Facebook at Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought COPY EDITORS Richelle Wilson, Madison, WI Follow us on Twitter @DialogueJournal Jared Gillins, Washington DC PRINT SUBSCRIPTION OPTIONS EDITORIAL BOARD ONE-TIME DONATION: 1 year (4 issues) $60 | 3 years (12 issues) $180 Lavina Fielding Anderson, Salt Lake City, UT Becky Reid Linford, Leesburg, VA Mary L. Bradford, Landsdowne, VA William Morris, Minneapolis, MN Claudia Bushman, New York, NY Michael Nielsen, Statesboro, GA RECURRING DONATION: Verlyne Christensen, Calgary, AB Nathan B. Oman, Williamsburg, VA $10/month Subscriber: Receive four print issues annually and our Daniel Dwyer, Albany, NY Taylor Petrey, Kalamazoo, MI Subscriber-only digital newsletter Ignacio M. Garcia, Provo, UT Thomas Rogers, Bountiful, UT Brian M. Hauglid, Spanish Fork, UT Mathew Schmalz, Worcester, MA $25/month Sustainer: Receive Subscriber-level benefits, as well as Gregory Jackson, Lehi, UT John Turner, Fairfax, VA an annual book selection from BCC Press G. Kevin Jones, Salt Lake City, UT Blair Van Dyke, Cedar Hills, UT $50/month Digital Pioneer: Receive Subscriber-level benefits, as well BOARD OF DIRECTORS as two annual book selections from BCC Press, plus named recog- Michael Austin, Evansville, IN—chair Linda Hoffman Kimball, Woodland, UT nition on our site and in the journal Daylin Amesimeku, Boston, MA Christian E. Kimball, Wolf Creek Ranch, UT Molly McLellan Bennion, Seattle, WA Kyle Monson, New York, NY $100/month Sponsor: Receive Subscriber-level benefits, plus named Matthew Bowman, Claremont, CA Russell Moorehead, New York, NY recognition on our site and in the journal, four annual book selec- Stephen L. Bradford, Los Angeles, CA Benjamin E. Park, Conroe, TX tions from BCC Press, and invitations to two lunches per year with Joanna Brooks, San Diego, CA Brent Rushforth, Washington, DC the Foundation Board. Aaron Brown, Seattle, WA Karla Stirling, Bountiful, UT Rebecca de Schweinitz, Provo, UT Travis Stratford, New York, NY William S. Hickman, Bothell, WA Morris Thurston, Villa Park, CA www.dialoguejournal.com On the cover: Kent Christensen, Secrets of the Great Salt Lake, triptych, oil on linen, 40’’ x 64’’ DIALOGUE a journal of mormon thought is an independent quarterly established to express Mormon culture and to examine the relevance of religion to secular life. It is edited by Latter-day Saints who wish to bring their faith into dialogue with the larger stream of world religious thought and with human experience as a whole and to foster artistic and scholarly achieve- ment based on their cultural heritage. The journal encourages a variety of view- points; although every effort is made to en- sure accurate scholarship and responsible judgment, the views expressed are those of the individual authors and are not neces- sarily those of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or of the editors. ii Dialogue, Fall 2019 Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought is published quarterly by the Dialogue Foundation. Dialogue has no official connection with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Contents copyrighted by the Dialogue Foundation. ISSN 0012-2157. Dialogue is available in full text in electronic form at www. dialoguejournal.com and is archived by the University of Utah Marriott Library Special Collections, available online at www.lib.utah.edu/portal/site/marriottli- brary. Dialogue is also available on microforms through University Microfilms International, www.umi.com. Dialogue welcomes articles, essays, poetry, notes, fiction, letters to the editor, and art. Submissions should follow the current Chicago Manual of Style, using footnotes for all citations. All submissions should be in Word and may be sub- mitted electronically at https://dialoguejournal.com/submissions/. For submis- sions of visual art, please contact [email protected]. Submissions published in the journal, including letters to the editor, are covered by our publications policy, https://dialoguejournal.com/submissions/publi- cation-policy/, under which the author retains the copyright of the work and grants Dialogue permission to publish. See www.dialoguejournal.com. EDITORS EMERITI Eugene England and G. Wesley Johnson Robert A. Rees Mary Lythgoe Bradford Linda King Newell and L. Jackson Newell F. Ross Peterson and Mary Kay Peterson Martha Sonntag Bradley and Allen D. Roberts Neal Chandler and Rebecca Worthen Chandler Karen Marguerite Moloney Levi S. Peterson Kristine Haglund Dialogue, Fall 2019 CONTENTS iii ARTICLES AND ROUNDTABLES Article Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon: Co-Founders Steven L. Shields 1 of a Movement Roundtable Responses The Mormon Church and the Language of Michael Austin 19 My Faith Why I’m So Bad at Not Using “Mormon” Rebbie Brassfield 25 On “Mormon” in Mormon Studies Publishing Loyd Isao Ericson 29 “Mormon”: A Journalist’s Dilemma Peggy Fletcher Stack 35 What’s a Mormon Expert to Do? Mette Ivie Harrison 39 I’m Not a Mormon, and Neither Are You Clifton H. Jolley 45 Still You Kalani Tonga 51 Post Mormon Past Ronald Wilcox 55 Article “There Is No Equality”: William E. Berrett, Rebecca de Schweinitz 59 BYU, and Healing the Wounds of Racism in the Latter-day Saint Past and Present Roundtable Responses Listening for a Change Déborah Aléxis 85 Imagery and Identity Daylin Amesimeku 91 Room for Me A. J. Boully 95 True Joy Cannot Be Found in the Garden Jenna Rakuita 101 Pioneer Day Tinesha Capri Zandamela 105 POETRY Jesus Christ Tyler Clark 109 Bridegroom Dennis Clark 110 Creek Skating Anita Tanner 111 Advent: Moose in Moonlight Anita Tanner 112 The Four Stanzas of the Apocalypse Michael Hicks 113 iv Dialogue, Fall 2019 The Agreement Michael Hicks 114 True Religion, by James Michael Hicks 115 FICTION The Sacrifice Steven L. Peck 117 PERSONAL VOICES A Mormon Boy Meets a King Henry Landon Miles 161 To the Bishop Who Conducted My Kif Augustine 175 Father’s Funeral Service Yesterday ART ESSAY The Absurd in Art and Mormonism Kent Christensen, 181 Andi Pitcher Davis, Kristine Haglund, and Rita Wright REVIEWS On Truth Madison Bowman 189 George B. Handley. If Truth Were a Child: Essays. Crossings Allison Hong Merrill 191 Melissa Wei-Tsing Inouye. Crossings: A Bald Asian American Latter-day Saint Woman Scholar’s Ventures through Life, Death, Cancer & Motherhood (Not Necessarily in that Order). “Is this the Promised End?” Kylie Nielson Turley 194 Steven L. Peck. The Tragedy of King Leere, Goatherd of the La Sals. Embraced in Love Jenny Webb 199 Eric D. Huntsman. Becoming the Beloved Disciple: Coming unto Christ through the Gospel of John. FROM THE PULPIT Racism James C. Jones 203 Wrestling with the Racism Margaret Olsen Hemming and 209 of the Book of Mormon Fatimah S. Salleh CONTRIBUTORS 219 ARTICLE JOSEPH SMITH AND SIDNEY RIGDON: CO-FOUNDERS OF A MOVEMENT Steven L. Shields With the recent push by President Russell M. Nelson to refer to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by its proper name and stop using the term “Mormon,” perhaps the time has come to advocate for a more objective term for the academic study of the larger movement than “Mormon Studies,” which has tended to focus solely on the Utah-based branch. Students and scholars need a more objective name for the move- ment, one that is based in the history of its foundations. The studies they do must be done with a broader rubric of interpretation—not one that is focused on telling one side of the story.1 For historical and theological purposes, then, I argue that the academic community should adopt the term “Smith-Rigdon Movement” in their studies and publications. To call the movement “Mormonism” is confusing, even though “Mormon” and “Mormonite” are among the earliest nicknames to appear in history. A French scholar proposed referring to the movement as “Mor- monisms.” His argument is that because Mormonism is widely understood, The author presented on this topic at the thirty-ninth annual meeting of the John Whitmer Historical Association in Nauvoo, Illinois, Sept. 23, 2011. This is an updated and expanded version. 1. For a catalog of almost five hundred expressions of the movement, see the author’s Divergent Paths of the Restoration, 5th edition, Greg Kofford Books, forthcoming. 1 2 Dialogue, Fall 2019 making the word plural signals there is more than one brand.2 However, many denominations within the movement do not identify with the term.3 Furthermore, the term “Latter Day Saint movement” is anachronistic, regardless of whether the beginning of the movement is counted from 1820, 1829, or 1830.4 The phrase was not introduced to the movement until 1833.5 The name was formalized in 1834.6 But, as with “Mormon- ism,” many of the denominations in the movement do not identify with the phrase.7 2. Chrystal Vanel, interview with author, May 9, 2011. 3. Eber D. Howe, in early 1831, popularized the terms.