DIALOGUEa 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 achievement based on their cultural heritage. The journal encour- ages a variety of viewpoints; although every effort is made to ensure accurate scholarship and responsible judgment, the views express- ed are those of the individual authors and are not necessarily those of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or of the editors. ii DIALOGUE: AJOURNAL OF MORMON THOUGHT, 43, no. 4 (Winter 2010) Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought is published quarterly by the Dia- logue Foundation. Dialogue has no official connection with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Contents copyright by the Dialogue Foundation. ISSN 0012–2157. Dialogue is available in full text in elec- tronic form by EBSCO MetaPress, www.dialoguejournal.metapress. com; and is archived by the University of Utah Marriott Library Special Collec- tions, available online at: www.lib.utah.edu/portal /site/ marriottlibrary. Dialogue is also available on microforms through University Microfilms In- ternational, www.umi.com. Dialogue welcomes articles, essays, poetry, notes, fiction, letters to the edi- tor, and art. Submissions should follow the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition. All submissions should be in Word, and may be submitted elec- tronically at https://dialoguejournal.com/dialogue_submissions/. For submissions of visual art, please contact [email protected]. Allow eight to twelve weeks for review of all submissions. Submissions published in the journal, including letters to the editor, are covered by our publication policy, under which the author retains the copyright of the work and grants Dialogue permission to publish. See www.dialoguejournal.com. EDITORSEMERITI Eugene England and G. Wesley Johnson (Vols. 1:1–5:4, 1966–70) Robert A. Rees (Vols. 6:1–11:4, 1970–76) Mary Lythgoe Bradford (Vols. 12:1–16:4, 1977–82) Linda King Newell and L. Jackson Newell (Vols. 17:1–21:4, 1982–86) F. Ross Peterson and Mary Kay Peterson (Vols. 22:1–26:4, 1987–92) Martha Sonntag Bradley and Allen D. Roberts (Vols. 27:1–31:4, 1993–98) Neal Chandler and Rebecca Worthen Chandler (Vols. 32:1–36:4, 1999–2003) Karen Marguerite Moloney (Vol. 37:1, 2004) Levi S. Peterson (Vols. 37:1–41:4, 2004—8) DIALOGUE: AJOURNAL OF MORMON THOUGHT, 43, no. 4 (Winter 2010) CONTENTS LETTERS Time for Galatians 3:28? Kyle D Williams v NOTES AND COMMENTS A Sacrament of Stewardship Kate Holbrook vi ARTICLES AND ESSAYS The Original Length of the Scroll of Hôr Andrew W. Cook and Christopher C. Smith 1 Joseph Smith’s Letter from Liberty Jail as an Epistolary Rhetoric David Charles Gore 43 Wives and Other Women: Love, Sex, and Marriage in the Lives of John Q. Cannon, Frank J. Cannon, and Abraham H. Cannon Kenneth L. Cannon II 71 In Lieu of History: Mormon Monuments and the Shaping of Memory Barry Laga 131 PERSONAL VOICES Ghost Towns Erin Ann Thomas 154 POETRY Bum Bam Boom J. S. Absher 179 Abracadabra J. S. Absher 180 Blue Glass Lizzie Skurnick 181 Internal Affairs Lizzie Skurnick 182 The Leg Annette Weed 183 iii iv DIALOGUE: AJOURNAL OF MORMON THOUGHT, 43, no. 4 (Winter 2010) FICTION Fish Stories Annette Haws 185 INTERVIEWS AND CONVERSATIONS The Best Place to Deal with Questions: An Interview with Brady Udall Kristine Haglund 195 REVIEWS Terryl Givens and the Shape of Mormon Studies Terryl L. Givens. The Book of Mormon: A Very Short Introduction Marc Alain Bohn and James C. Olsen 209 The World according to Golden Brady Udall. The Lonely Polygamist Phillip A. Snyder 219 The Plan of Stagnation Elna Baker. The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance: A Memoir Holly Welker 223 FROM THE PULPIT El problema del dolor/The Problem of Pain Christian N. K. Anderson 232 CONTRIBUTORS 242 ABOUT THE ARTIST 244 LETTER Time for Galatians 3:28? not been rebaptized. I am con- Thanks to Laurel Thatcher Ul- strained by a dream in which I rich for her article, “Mormon was ordained to the priesthood Women in the History of Sec- by a woman. I will consider ond-Wave Feminism” (43, no. 2 joining the Church when my [Summer 2010]: 45–63). Is sister has the authority to bap- there, I hope, another wave yet tize me and my stepmother has to come? Though I am male, I the authority to ordain me to look forward to the day when the priesthood. Galatians 3:28 is fulfilled: I continue to pray for the “There is neither . male nor Brethren in Salt Lake City. May female, for you are all one in they receive whatever revela- Christ Jesus.” tion is necessary to start treat- After twenty years of ab- sence, I’ve been investigating ing the sexes with equal dig- the possibility of reconnecting nity, allowing all worthy mem- with my Mormon heritage. The bers to hold the priesthood. Church’s stif ling patriarchy is Kyle D Williams one of the reasons that I have Woodbury, Tennessee v NOTESAND COMMENTS A Sacrament of Stewardship Kate Holbrook Carrol and Edwin Firmage contributed papers to the fall issue that review Mormon history during the nineteenth century and early twentieth centuries and scriptural precedent, in an attempt to mo- tivate a Mormon audience toward improved ecological fidelity: Edwin Firmage Jr., “Light in Darkness: Embracing the Opportu- nity of Climate Change” and Carrol Firmage, “Preserves” (43, no. 3 [Fall 2010]: 100–127 and 128–65). Readers cannot help noticing in these essays that the Firmages are patient thinkers who allowed the ideas in these essays to ger- minate and, as a result, have written prose that is moving and rich. The ambitious scope of these papers—scope that provided a stim- ulating reading experience—brings to the fore methodological considerations that warrant exploration. I offer the following ob- servations for others who might continue to develop these ideas. Both Firmages write in first person, bringing themselves ex- plicitly into their work by sharing personal anecdotes and declara- tions about their private spiritual allegiances. The inclusion of personal references has become de rigueur in certain kinds of aca- demic writing. Anthropologists, for example, embrace this prac- tice in an attempt to compensate for, and not repeat, the trans- gressions of their intellectual forebears. This contextualization of their observations can serve the important function of reminding writer and reader that conclusions are always impressions medi- ated by the mind and emotion of a subjective human being. By depicting their own thoughts about and interactions with their subjects of analysis, anthropologists offer themselves as ob- jects of study as well. A complex (and not-always-successful) move, bringing attention to observer-writers is ideally an offering of hu- mility, whereby they present themselves as fallible human beings on a par with those they study. The Firmages write themselves into their texts to a slightly dif- ferent effect. Their personal references indeed provide context vi Holbrook: A Sacrament of Stewardship vii for their observations and emphasize their subjectivity as writers. In this case, however, where both are trying to convince a specific audience about how better to live, emphasizing how they are dif- ferent from their readers can undermine their larger objectives. This happens less with Carrol Firmage who, in general, uses per- sonal anecdotes to invoke or engage a tale in which she is inheri- tor both of a place (Utah) and of agricultural acts (harvesting fruit from desert orchards and preserving the harvest for future con- sumption). Carrol feels responsible to the land not only as each person is to the Earth, but because her people—her literal ancestors and their spiritual community—worked this land and responded to a stewardship mandate regarding it. In this context, readers come to understand the nature of Carrol Firmage’s commitment to Utah lands as well as to the roots that nourish and ground that commitment. The occasional statement about her continued alle- giance to the land despite her spiritual divergence from the Mor- mon community is honest and provides important context for readers. In contrast, Edwin Firmage’s frequent references to himself as heretical or unbelieving tend to undermine the argument he weaves. His allusions to self hint at the forces behind his commit- ment to Zion and its lands, but more frequently they destabilize his portrait of communal unity. He expounds on the notion of a Zion people and how a Zion people, as interpreted by the Mor- mons of previous centuries, is one that eschews capitalist norms in favor of an ethic of shared wealth and common prosperity (in- cluding the prosperity of Zion’s air, land, and water). As Firmage states, “Our way today seems to me to embody precisely that worship of the self and of the selfish that is the great sin in biblical thinking” (114). God and His prophets do spend generations—centuries—in the Hebrew Bible trying to engender a Zion people. But the consummate key to their identity as a Zion people is actually not their ability to hold things in common or safeguard the land. Edwin Firmage shines when he expounds the merits of a com- munally minded biblical ideal: “To be meaningful, the biblical ideal of righteousness, of goodness in action, must be embodied in community and not just in individuals” (114; italics in original). Important as viii DIALOGUE: AJOURNAL OF MORMON THOUGHT, 43, no.