scholarly journals Disconnection and the Healing Practice of Imagination for Mormon Environmental Ethics

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (11) ◽  
pp. 948
Author(s):  
Kristen Blair

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints possesses a subversive and fecund interpretation of the Christian creation narrative. This interpretation, denying creation ex nihilo, bespeaks a particular attention to and care for the living earth. However, Latter-day Saint praxis is wounded by a searing disconnect between the theopoetics of its conceptual creation and its lived practice. I argue that the Church must understand this disconnect as a wound and attend to it as such. I turn to theopoetics, arguing that it is in the lived practices of Latter-day Saints engaging somatically with the Earth that can restore our imaginative potential and move toward healing. I begin by exploring the Christian conception of creation ex nihilo and juxtapose this with the Latter-day Saint understanding of formareex materia. I then explore the implications of such a cosmology for environmental ethics and probe the disconnections between theory and practice in Mormonism broadly construed. I propose that the healing salve for disconnection is imagination, a salve found in the first heartbeat of the Latter-day Saint story. I speak with Latter-day Saint theopoetics and indigenous voices, proposing ultimately that is with them that the healing of theology and praxis must begin.

2008 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 673-723
Author(s):  
Micah J.B. McOwen

“[T]he fulness of the earth is yours, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air … and the herb, and the good things which come of the earth … [a]nd it pleaseth God that he hath given all these things unto man; for unto this end were they made to be used, with judgment, not to excess, neither by extortion.”The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the “Church”) is the great success story of American religion. Members of the Church (“Mormons”) now constitute more than five percent of the populations of Arizona, Hawaii, Nevada, and Wyoming, a far higher percentage of Idaho and Utah, and nearly two percent of the United States as a whole. Mormons fill five seats in the United States Senate (including the majority-leader chair) and about a dozen in the House. A Mormon recently completed a serious bid for the United States presidency. And their numbers are growing worldwide.


2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (4) ◽  
pp. 30-44
Author(s):  
Gordon Limb ◽  
David Hodge ◽  
Richard Alboroto

 In recent years social work has increasingly focused on spirituality and religion as key elements of cultural competency.  The Joint Commission—the nation's largest health care accrediting organization—as well as many other accrediting bodies require spiritual assessments in hospitals and many other mental health settings. Consequently, specific intervention strategies have been fostered in order to provide the most appropriate interventions for religious clients. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the fourth largest and one of the faster growing churches in the United States.  In an effort to facilitate cultural competence with clients who are members of the Church of Jesus Christ, a brief spiritual assessment instrument was developed.  This mixed-method study asked experts in Church culture (N = 100) to identify the degree of cultural consistency, strengths, and limitations of the brief spiritual assessment instrument. Results indicate that the framework is consistent with Church culture and a number of practice-oriented implications are offered.


1996 ◽  
Vol 79 (3) ◽  
pp. 1025-1026
Author(s):  
Timothy B. Smith ◽  
Richard N. Roberts

Previous research has documented increases in racial tolerance of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons or LDS). In the present study, 211 LDS college students held predominantly tolerant attitudes on racial identity which were similar to those of 78 non-LDS peers; however, the LDS subjects expressed more naivete, curiosity, and confusion regarding black people and black culture.


Author(s):  
Ann Taves

In 1823, Joseph Smith (1805–44), a farmer and treasure seeker in Upstate New York, had a vision in which a personage told him of ancient golden plates buried in a hillside, which Mormons claim he recovered, translated, and published as the Book of Mormon (1830) and which led to the founding of a restored church (1830). The revelation to Smith that Mormons now refer to as “D&C 3,” that is, the third revelation in the current edition of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' canonized Doctrine and Covenants, provides our first direct window into the emergence of early Mormonism. Although there is evidence to suggest that Smith received what he and others viewed as revelations prior to this one, this is the first revelation that was written down at about the time it was received. This chapter centers on that revelation, using it to reconstruct not only the event itself but the events that led up to and followed from it, as they likely appeared to those who were involved at the time.


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