Ryan Reeder
History 390R
Derr and Esplin
March 8, 2001
I attended the Jan Shipps lecture at UVSC last February. Following are my notes from that lecture and a summary/response of it.
Jan Shipps Lecture: Sojourner in the Promised Land: Forty Years Among the Mormons
-Collection of Essays and Autobiographical Reflections-Observed and Observee
Faithful:-Conscientious effort to be faithful to original text and perspective
Polygamous Groups : Mormons :: Mormons : Judo-Christian Tradition
-Ownership of names - 'Mormon' and 'Christian' To understand ChurchCulture
'Gentile'-1. People that were, are, are not Momrons -effort to discontinue, mid 1990s 70s, 80s-Gentiles-Non Mormons-Nonmembers-Not 'Non.' History of Nomenclatural change reflects self impression 'Gentile'?-Softball questions?-No What is Mormonism? -Sect?-Cult? -Denomination? -Church? Try Tradition>
Mormonism: Christianity ::Apostolic Christianity : Judaism-LDS Public Archives -Midwest
1. Respect-on its own terms-Continually changing, not stop as Religion and Culture
2. Shipps' early history Oct '29-Depression Child South; Keeping up appearances - Music
Racial differences (Not Ethnic, Religious) but all were poor-little diversity Hewittown-Methodist, Baptist, Holy Roller? No Catholic, Jews; Baptism?
Learned to accept people-in ways connected to her history-Millworkers, blind, alcoholism, broken family-casual ceremony (50th)-Northwestern GI Bill-Methodist 'Orphanage'-Delinquent Teenage Girls-Utah and Mormons.
An Inside-Outsider's Perspective: As much due to people letting you in as a willingness to come in - Found acceptance among LDS-AntiMormons-|-|-|-SuperMormons-got to know all categories How can you know so much and not believe/be Anti-standing in the Middle, been welcomed
1960-1st year that more conversion/natural increase in 100 yrs; things changing in Salt Lake - Logan still "Tribal Mormonism" Fall into JackMormon community 8 or 9 yrs among 'text' Mormons-as opposed to 'live' Until early 70s.
Leonard Arrington-Archives opened - From Satyr to Saint: American Perspectives on Mormonism 1860-1960 MHA Sonja Johnson and 1978-Media; Attention-How can perfectly sane people believe all this crazy stuff-All religions have things that cannot be proved.
Perspective-Best way to understand Mormonism is as a restoration movement; Restoration of Gathering of Israel Non-Symbolic but literal Hebrew tradition; and Restoration of All things culminating in the temple
US forces Mormons to give up plural marriage and enclave living -Mormon Land
Baptists: Mormons :: Philistines: Jews 60 Minutes-We are not Weird and Olympics
A Form of Christianity that's just not mine
Questions? Genealogy? No; Women Suppression? Understanding of Mormon Doctrine Varying among women feel differently; Dynamic change and Future? Increasing understanding as Universal, World Faith, Mormons Think, Retention, Top 3 or 4 books for Press-Encyclopedia Americana, of Mormonism, Public Affairs and Local Mormons Story of LDS; Gays? Behavior and being - Natural phenomenon; technology? Correlation? Access to Church archives? Those who leave the Church? Antis?-No, used to be more but not now-secular people harder to switch churches -Cradle-why so restricted archives? Context provided by Reader-different interpretations; nothing to be afraid of in right context.
My impression of this lecture was good. I decided not too long before to go, and took off running from BYU to UVSC. I arrived shortly before it started, and briefly saw the social-ate a cookie or two, and went to the lecture in the Ragan hall. As I sat there, noticing those in attendance, I wondered who else might be in the room; people that I would recognize names but not faces. I thought of asking how the culture of tribal Mormonism prevalent in Utah and the Mountain West was being exported and adapted into other world cultures, but I didn't. I also suspect that the title of her book Forty Years Among the Mormons was taken from Daniel Webster Jones' (my ancestor) biography Forty Years Among the Indians. (I once asked Chris Heimerdinger on his website if Tennis Shoes Among the Nephites had a similar origin; he claimed he never heard of the book (see http://www.cheimerdinger.com/)). The lecture material was pretty much as I've described it in my notes above-she based it off the title "Gentle-Gentile: An Inside-Outsider's Perspective." It went well, and I caught a ride home with a guy I met there.
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