Religion
LDS Church announces changes to missionary age
The LDS Church announced today in General Conference that the are lowering the minimal age for serving a mission: to 18 for men and 19 for women, down from 19 for men and 21 for women. Missions, which last for 2 years for men and 18 months for women, are paid for by the missionary’s family and are a requirement for men but not women. The goal of the new minimum age is to help more men and women serve missions, because logistics of military, education, and marital commitments can be interrupted by a mission beginning at a later age. While the discussion about the change– from the Church press conference, news reports, Twitter and Facebook...
Read MoreA non-Mormon’s guide to Utah
Several months ago I received a fantastic opportunity: a dissertation fellowship at the University of Utah’s Tanner Humanities Center. The George S. and Dolores Doré Eccles Foundation Fellowship in Mormon Studies is intended to support my dissertation work on evolving LDS identities in the internet age. I’ll be in residence at the U in Salt Lake City for a year. I arrived in Utah late Wednesday night, unpacked all day Thursday, and became acquainted with my new office on campus on Friday; but– since today is Monday — I’m considering this my “first week” in Utah. I am not Mormon, and I’ve not spent time in Utah (nor...
Read MoreInside outsider: Studying the religion of “others”
I’m doing a lot of thinking these days on what it means to study a religion of which you’re not a part. This has been an issue of interest to me (and to the Mormons I study) since I began ethnographic work among members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints four years ago. Still, it always catches me off guard when folks express incredulity that a non-Mormon would study Mormonism. Doesn’t that happen all the time? Isn’t it, after all, the classic anthropological model? My professor and mentor John L. Jackson Jr. studies black Hebrews… but isn’t a member of that movement. My advisor and friend Carolyn...
Read MoreA discursive break: Orthodox & heterodox conversations
This past weekend I had the pleasure of speaking on a panel at Utah Valley University’s annual Mormon Studies conference. The panel experience was unlike any I’ve sat on at other academic conferences — likely because the stakes, for the panelists and the audience too, are so high in terms of parsing out legitimate Mormon identities.My co-panelists are — put lightly — polarizing figures in various Mormon circles: Scott Gordon, President of FAIR, a website dedicated to apologetic defense of largely traditional and orthodox Mormon teachings and practice; and John Dehlin, founder of Mormon Stories, a progressive blog and podcast designed to...
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