This Mormon Life

The New Yorker Takes on Faith, Doubt, and Suffering

I love the The New Yorker magazine.  Twice a year they offer up a special fiction issue, with the lastest issue currently out.  Having a issue mostly dedicated to fiction is cool enough, but this issue includes a gathering of short essays under the header "Faith and Doubt."  All excellent reading.  And James Wood also tackles theodicy in his review of Bart Ehrman's "God's Problem."  And the plus side for you?  They are all available online.  Enjoy!

Faith and Doubt
Communion by Uwem Akpan
Winter Light by Tobias Wolff
Crabs by Edwidge Danticant
Mysteries of Flight by Mohammed Naseehu Ali
Counting Pages by Allegra Goodman
Hypocrites by George Sanuders

Review
Holiday in Hellmouth by James Wood

American Magazine: The National Catholic Weekly, offered this observation about the issue.

"Of course there were things to quibble about. The New Yorker would never run a series called “Faith,” one friend remarked, without appending the word “doubt” to soothe the secular reader. And the inclusion of George Saunders’s story about a liaison between a priest and a young nun was an entirely predictable choice. Yet there were moments that surprised too, such as Tobias Wolff’s “Winter Light,” a lovely reflection on the power of art to inspire faith; or the Nigerian Jesuit Uwem Akpan’s understated account of two street children who inadvertently stumble upon the mystery of the Eucharist. Even the essay by Wood, a religious skeptic, was a bracing journey through thorny theological terrain. One does not need to agree with Wood’s idiosyncratic conclusions to admire the seriousness that he brings to his task. He retains a “nostalgia for lost belief” that endows his critique with a quality of fairness absent from the work of the new atheists. And when it comes to the treatment of religion in the secular media, fairness is all the believer seeks."

As I Ingmar Bergman fan, I really enjoyed Wolff's piece - I am in awe of Bergman's film Winter Light.  It's definately an issue to go out and buy and keep around.  And I didn't even mention the best thing about this issue.  A previously unpublished short story by Vladimir Nabokov.  Now that's awesome.

Sunstone Anoints New Editor and Symposium Director

Dan Wotherspoon the current editor of Sunstone is stepping down this August in favor of possibly less stressful pastures.  I would like to thank Dan for all his wonderful work he has done since taking on the immense task of keeping Sunstone alive.  He had done a great job, and I will miss his editorial / essays in each issue.  (Dan, seriously, you should collect those and publish them.)  And I also appreciate his dedication to keep the magazine on a timely schedule.  He is the man!

This past week it has been announced that Stephen Carter will be the new Director of Publications and Editor of Sunstone.  And Mary Ellen Robertson has been chosen to be the new Director of Symposia.  I congratulate them both for achieving this wonderful and exciting, challenge before them.  Here is the full press release.

For those unfamiliar with these fine people, here are some links:

Stephen Carter:
Faith Seeking Definition
The Calling (2007 Eugene England Personal Essay Contest, First Place)
Smoke and Mirrors (2006 Eugene England Personal Essay Contest, First Place), PDF

Mary Ellen Robertson
Still Circling the Wagons: Violence and Mormon Self-Image, PDF
Small Miracles, PDF

I must confess that I also applied for the Sunstone editor position.  I never really expected to ever be considered, especially over these accomplished thinkers.  But I have a lot of thoughts about what will make Sunstone great in the future.  I'll write more about that later.  But until then . . .

Subscribe to Sunstone, why don't ya?

Vanity Fair Magazine Polygamy Spoof

Now this is what a Sunstone magazine cover should be like.  Full story.

Irreantum Fiction Contest Winners - Congratulations!

I was just browsing my AML-List emails and I saw this tidbit.  Irreantum is a LDS literary journal, published by the Association of Mormon Letters.  It is always worth checking out.   And the annual fiction contest winners have been announced.  Jack Harrell won first place.  Jack had another one of his stories podcasted on This Mormon Life a while back, click here to listen to it.  He is also the author of the excellent novel Vernal Promises.  Here is the complete list of winners:

In Utah This Week reviews Irreantum

In Utah This Week, a weekly paper put out by the Salt Lake Tribune that covers entertainment, night life, etc....  reviews the latest issue of Irreantum: A Review of Mormon Literature and Film.  I just saw this issue of Irreantum a couple days ago at the library.  Good issue, focusing on Mormon poetry and a nice tribute to Laraine Wilkins (who died recently).  Sam Vicchrilli, the reviewer for In Utah This Week, makes some interesting points:

In many respects, Mormonism is the ideal religion to have its own literature. It’s relatively small and new, and it adds radical new hallways to Christianity’s mansion. Catholicism is too deep, ancient and varied to allow for a communal perspective, and other religions too pharisaical about the sanctity of scripture to allow thoughtful, personal and creative interpretations. Mormonism, with its specific myths and closely guarded lineage, provides a strong basis for its adherents to, in the words of James Joyce, forge within the smithy of their souls the uncreated conscious of their race.

I don't know if I quite agree with everything Sam says here, but some food for thought.  He does end on an encouraging note:

Irreantum is a refreshing alternative to the vulgar pop offerings of “The Singles Ward” and Mormon fiction of that ilk. It is an honest navigation of Mormon theology that doesn’t pander to a mass audience or do Mormonism a disservice by implicating that its most interesting tenets revolve around auxiliary organizations and Jell-o. It is a voice in Mormonism that I have not heard and I am pleased to hear it now.

If you don't read Irreantum, you are missing out.

Making the Papers

For whatever reason, Peggy Fletcher Stack was interested in my opinion of the Sunstone Symposium, and interviewed me for a Salt Lake Tribune article in today's paper.  I wrote a rant about the symposium over a year ago, venting off steam about some issues.  Now it came back to haunt me.  Frankly, it's kind of embarrassing, but it's nice to get a plug in for my blog/podcast.  So no complaints here.  By the way, the next podcast will be available tomorrow, or early Monday morning, so subscribe today and don't miss it.  I promise, it will be much better than episode one.

Missionaries @ The New Yorker

In this week's issue, dated July 25th, 2005.

Dialogue on DVD

I don't really enjoy reading eBooks and such, but this I may have to get. All 37 years of Dialogue is available on a DVD. And it doesn't cost an arm and a leg. Cool.

Dialogue Online Archive

The University of Utah Marriot Library now has a digitized archive of Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought all online. They have all issues from 1966 up to the Fall 2004. I haven't played with it much yet, but it looks great, and I plan to use it often.

Evangelicals and Mormons

In the current issued of Books and Culture (from Christianity Today) there are two book reviews by evangelicals on Latter-days Saints: Evangelicals and Mormons Today? and The Historian as Latter-day Saint. I haven't had a chance to read them yet, but thought I would pass the link along. Enjoy