Kerry Shirts Rocks Sunstone!
Posted: Thu Jul 29, 2021 11:47 pm
Today Kerry Shirts spoke about the Hebrew Goddess at Sunstone, and he really did a fantastic job. So, too, did Maxine Hanks and Ed Goble. I will focus on Kerry Shirts in this post because he did some things that I thought were noteworthy. First of all, he took on President Gordon B. Hinckley for declaring that there is no praying to Mother in Heaven in the Bible. As it happens, Kerry argues, the Bible does have prayers to Mother in Heaven! He also argued that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is . . . . drum roll, please . . . . Mother in Heaven! Mother in Heaven also declares Jesus Her beloved son at his baptism. The list goes on and on.
One of the most remarkable things of all, however, is not what he was teaching, but how he proved himself a bigger person by recommending that everyone interested in Mother in Heaven go read Daniel C. Peterson's "Nephi and His Asherah," as a must. For all the tension that brews between those two corners of Mormon discourse, that Kerry Shirts should unreservedly praise DCP's work in public with genuineness and vociferous support is remarkable to me. Kerry thus demonstrates his sterling character.
I also have to say something about Ed Goble's fine presentation because he did something rare in Mormon scholarship. Ed argued in favor of seeing the hand of God in Joseph Smith's borrowing from his environment. And, I say, that if you are a believer, you should take Ed's argument seriously. I was appreciative of Ed's work to help faithful LDS people be less afraid or disturbed by the evidence for such borrowing on Joseph Smith's part. If progress is going to be made in how LDS people react to good scholarship, it will be made partly because people such as Ed made an excellent case for embracing these findings in a faithful way.
Maxine Hanks did an amazing job at laying out what Western esotericism is, why understanding it is vital to understanding Mormonism, and then providing a succinct history of Mormon scholarship in a Western esoteric vein. I would recommend, if you are interested in seeing in advance something of where Mormon historical scholarship on Mormon origins is heading, that you check out Maxine Hanks' Sunstone talk from this session. She did a fantastic job.
That is my Sunstone report of the session I was able to attend. I wish I had been able to attend many more, but a lot of things are bearing down on me in my life--nothing too bad, don't worry, but enough to distract me from benefitting as much as I would have liked from all the great talks at Sunstone this year. I had hoped to be able to see Cheryl Bruno, Gazelam Ale, and Josh Baird speak on Mormon Tarot, but, alas, I was unable dammit. I will console myself by checking out my new Joseph Smith Tarot deck made by Cheryl Bruno!
One of the most remarkable things of all, however, is not what he was teaching, but how he proved himself a bigger person by recommending that everyone interested in Mother in Heaven go read Daniel C. Peterson's "Nephi and His Asherah," as a must. For all the tension that brews between those two corners of Mormon discourse, that Kerry Shirts should unreservedly praise DCP's work in public with genuineness and vociferous support is remarkable to me. Kerry thus demonstrates his sterling character.
I also have to say something about Ed Goble's fine presentation because he did something rare in Mormon scholarship. Ed argued in favor of seeing the hand of God in Joseph Smith's borrowing from his environment. And, I say, that if you are a believer, you should take Ed's argument seriously. I was appreciative of Ed's work to help faithful LDS people be less afraid or disturbed by the evidence for such borrowing on Joseph Smith's part. If progress is going to be made in how LDS people react to good scholarship, it will be made partly because people such as Ed made an excellent case for embracing these findings in a faithful way.
Maxine Hanks did an amazing job at laying out what Western esotericism is, why understanding it is vital to understanding Mormonism, and then providing a succinct history of Mormon scholarship in a Western esoteric vein. I would recommend, if you are interested in seeing in advance something of where Mormon historical scholarship on Mormon origins is heading, that you check out Maxine Hanks' Sunstone talk from this session. She did a fantastic job.
That is my Sunstone report of the session I was able to attend. I wish I had been able to attend many more, but a lot of things are bearing down on me in my life--nothing too bad, don't worry, but enough to distract me from benefitting as much as I would have liked from all the great talks at Sunstone this year. I had hoped to be able to see Cheryl Bruno, Gazelam Ale, and Josh Baird speak on Mormon Tarot, but, alas, I was unable dammit. I will console myself by checking out my new Joseph Smith Tarot deck made by Cheryl Bruno!
