Two separate gatherings of Latter-day Saint intellectuals are looking to add a little spiritual "heat" to Utah's long, hot summer.
Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are known for their penchant to discuss the particulars of their faith, and two philosophically diverse forums will give them that chance in the next few days.
The first session of the annual Sunstone Symposium will convene Wednesday, Aug. 7, at Utah Valley State College. Long considered the premier intellectual forum for liberal Mormon thought, this year's sessions — the bulk at the Sheraton Hotel in Salt Lake City — will feature three different documentary films dealing with different aspects of LDS history or experience.
The symposium runs through Saturday, Aug. 10, with topics ranging from discussion of upcoming biographies on church founder Joseph Smith to a showing of the PBS documentary "The Smith Family" and a discussion of its lessons. The documentary chronicles the story of an LDS woman who finds out that her husband and father of her children has been having affairs with men and the changes in her life that accompany the discovery, including her own diagnosis as being HIV positive.
Polygamy and perspectives on how the church's 1978 revelation allowing black men to hold the faith's priesthood are also topics for discussion.
At the other end of the philosophical spectrum, the Foundation for Apologetic Information & Research will sponsor its fourth annual Mormon Apologetics Conference at UVSC Aug. 9 and 10. This year's conference is titled "Turning Stumbling Blocks to Stepping Stones: Responding to Challenging Issues in Mormonism." Organizers say the conference — which traditionally draws conservatives and those who seek to defend the LDS Church from its critics — will explore "traditionally controversial LDS subjects such as blacks and the Priesthood, polygamy and changes to the Book of Mormon."
While on its face the two are offering similar topical discussions, organizers of both conferences acknowledge they take very different approaches to such subject matter.
Lance Starr, who is helping organize the FAIR conference, said "apologetics" is the reason his organization exists, thus organizers are seeking to answer critics of the LDS Church by discussing controversial issues in the spirit of offering answers and defending their faith.
Questions about the ban of priesthood ordination for black men prior to 1978 "seems to pop up every so often," Starr said. "There are no clear answers to it, but that segment of the church population is growing rapidly, especially in overseas countries, so that's one we decided to address."
As for polygamy, Starr said the Olympics highlighted the place of the practice in early church history and the Tom Green polygamy trials before the start of the Games re-ignited discussion of the issue.
"I've always been intrigued that some Mormons grapple with that part of their history," Starr said. "I've never grappled with it — I'm quite proud of it, but there may be a segment out there that is somewhat embarrassed by that. We'll be exploring the social aspects of it, and what it was like to live in a polygamous relationship."
Though some topics are similar to those being discussed at Sunstone, Starr doesn't anticipate any crossover in the audiences. "There may be some who would like to drop by but by and large our audience is not the same. They (Sunstone) tend to be more 'push the envelope' as far as criticism studies go. Our purpose is to support the church but do it in scholarly ways. We don't believe you have to back off (scholarship) in order to support the church." Starr said FAIR organizers made "the intentional decision not to call ours a symposium" but rather call it a conference, because they don't want "to be confused with Sunstone in any way. That was an intentional decision on our part."
The reason, he acknowledges, is that some years ago LDS church leaders used the pulpit of their twice-annual general conference to discourage faithful Latter-day Saints from participating in "symposia" which may discourage their faith. Though Sunstone wasn't named outright, few local Latter-day Saints had to ponder the meaning of the message.
Starr said in planning this year's conference, "we have been a little concerned about those discussions" but "we feel what we're doing is valuable and we don't want the message to get drowned out in applying the word 'symposium' " to their conference. LDS general authorities are "aware of us and we know that, but we don't make any overt attempts to get them to come or clear our program with them. Most of what we do is really not that controversial.
"We know there are issues in the (church's) past that have caused some people some discomfort and we're simply saying there's no reason for that."
Dan Wotherspoon, executive director of Sunstone, sees things differently.
The symposium he chairs is often "accused of being a liberal forum, where we're actually hoping to be an open forum where everyone speaks their mind freely and frankly." Such discussions don't attempt to offer answers, he said, but rather to present stories and experiences that relate to LDS doctrine or experience — and to let participants come to their own conclusions.
"Once our sessions are over, participants just live with that story without having to find a framework to categorize it. . . . There's really no agenda other than the importance of hosting a good discussion."
Yet many Latter-day Saints tend to categorize the symposium in negative ways. Some even view it as anti-LDS.
"You could say those aspects come with the territory. I'm comfortable in my own heart and mind that what Sunstone is trying to host and the kinds of conversations and papers I'm inviting — I'm comfortable with that and my own heart is at peace. We think in the long run, and even in the short run, that the church is benefited by open and frank discussion."
Wotherspoon said when particularly sensitive or hot button topics are discussed, "we do our best to find an opposing position or one that will contextualize that so there is a sense at the end of the session that the topic was treated fairly."
Yet well-rounded discussions can be difficult to organize, he acknowledged, because the church's expression of concern about such forums means Sunstone has a difficult time recruiting a wide spectrum of speakers or scholarly papers.
"It's difficult to find moderates or people affiliated with the (LDS) Church Educational System or BYU or BYU-Idaho who are willing to speak. From what I understand sometimes there is an explicit departmental decree that faculty can't participate. In other cases, I think many feel it's not worth the potential looks or conversations that it might generate for them. Yet there is no university decree that says they can't participate."
The result "absolutely" has hurt the forum, he said. "In some ways, having this feeling or atmosphere sort of pushes Sunstone more in the direction that we're accused of moving."
The result is "we can't find those voices to offer the countering or more moderate tone or they won't submit papers. . . . I can only deal with what comes to me other than what we chase down ourselves."
Sunstone's long-standing local history helps the symposium draw several hundred participants annually — a situation FAIR hopes to replicate as word of its conference spreads.
For information on the conferences, go to www.sunstoneonline.com or www.fair-lds.org.
E-MAIL: carrie@desnews.com