Another interesting session was sponsored by members of the Joseph Smith Papers staff whose expertise is in the law. One of the presenters, Jeffrey N. Walker, defended Joseph Smith's use of Habeas Corpus in disregarding arrest warrants issued by the state. Another presenter, Joseph I. Bentley, asserted that it was legal and right for the Nauvoo City Council to destroy the Nauvoo Expositor—that other cities had smashed presses deemed a nuisance, that the Bill of Rights did not apply to cities, and that this act prevented the inciting of a riot. (Not mentioned was the fact that when the city called up a posse to destroy the press, the citizens who began the looting and mahem went on to burn down the editors' houses; if the point had been to prevent a riot, it ironically produced one.) Whatever else might be said about this line of reasoning, it appears that the Joseph Smith Papers legal team is intent on defending Joseph Smith's every act, with the assumption that whatever he did was right. To see the content of the Nauvoo Expositor, click here.

Last year CESNUR, based in Torino, Italy, met in London, the year before that in Bordeaux. This year the Center for Studies on New Religions (CESNUR) is meeting in the City and County Building in downtown Salt Lake City. Scholars participating in the conference are coming from the Sorbonne, Queens University in Belfast, University of Milan, the London School of Economics, the Aletheia University in Taipei, Yale University, U.C. Berkeley, USC, BYU, and elsewhere; they will speak on Mormon polygamy, gay Catholics, self-immolation and the Falun Gong, postmodernism and Mormonism, Italian reactions to Big Love, frontier Mormon violence, literary sources of modern paganism, Scientology, Bah'ai, and other themes. See the program here.

Zion's Sisterhood: Celebrating Mormon Women's Contributions to Church and Culture. Other sessions include reflections on contemporary moral and ethical issues and their intersection with Mormonism, studies of historical and contemporary events and figures, popular culture, and the arts. For more information visit, https://www.sunstonemagazine.com/symposium.html.

This year's MHA conference will be held in Springfield, Illinois, with a focus on "Mormonism and the Land of Lincoln: Intersections, Crosscurrents, and Dispersions." For a brief overview, see the MHA news release. Located in downtown Springfield, the Lincoln Hotel and Conference Center, where the event will take place, is a stone's throw from the Lincoln home and law office, the old state captital, old railroad depot, and Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. For more information, visit the Mormon History Association website. The 32-page preliminary program is available for perusal online by clicking here: Springfield MHA Conference program.

It wasn't hard to decide where to hold an author reception for the Parallel Doctrine and Covenants since the book is introduced by Curt Bench, proprietor of Benchmark Books in Salt Lake City. He will speak briefly, answer questions, and sign books from 5:30 to 7:30, Thursday afternoon. For more information on the book, see The Parallel Doctrine and Covenants, now in stock but limited to 750 copies, as was its companion, The Parallel Book of Mormon, also prepared by Curt Bench. The latter sold quickly last fall and is out of print. Both volumes contain parallel columns comparing the earliest versions of the LDS scripture in question, showing changes over time: the 1830, 1837, and 1840 editions of the Book of Mormon and the 1832-33 Evening and the Morning Star, 1833 Book of Commandments, and 1835 Doctrine and Covenants.

Co-sponsored by the Community of Christ Seminary, John Whitmer Historical Association, and Sunstone Foundation, this ecumenical event allows LDS, Community of Christ, and other scholars exchange ideas about their common tradition. The symposium will be held at the Independence, Missouri, campus of Graceland University (1401 W. Truman Road). The welcoming address is by Prophet/President Stephen M. Veazey of the Community of Christ. One presenter, Christopher J. Blythe, a Utah State University history student, will discuss the Ethiopic Apocalypse of Enoch (1st Book of Enoch), published in English in 1821 and revised in a so-called "inspired correction" by LDS member Charles B. Thompson in the late 1840s. George D. Smith will give some "Reflections on Nauvoo Polygamy," including a comment about the lag time involved in canonizing new scripture, resulting in the Latter-day Saints practicing polygamy when the Doctrine and Covenants forbade it and forbidding it when the D&C allowed it. For more information, please see the Whitmer Historical Association website.

The opening event at the DC symposium will be a presentation by George D. Smith about his new book, Nauvoo Polygamy, including a reception in his honor at the home of Greg and Jalynn Prince in Potomac, Maryland. The next day papers will be read and critiqued at the Ballston Center, Marymount University, in Arlington, Virginia. The topics include Mormon art, contemporary politics, and current directions in Mormon history. For more information, click here: Sunstone DC Symposium

George D. Smith, author of Nauvoo Polygamy, will speak at Benchmark Books on Wednesday at 5:30 p.m. Benchmark is located at 3269 S. Main Street, Suite 250, in Salt Lake City. Curt Bench will introduce the speaker and facilitate questions and answers, and Pat Bench will be there with her famous petits fours, which make any conversation a pleasure. See you there!

For the news release on this title, please click here: Sex in the City of God. For the Salt Lake Tribune article on the book, please click here: Author Weaves Together Public and Private Lives of LDS Church Founder

The theme for this year's conference is "1844-1859: A Time of Transition" and will be held in Voree (Burlington), Wisconsin.

The years 1844-1859 were a period of turmoil, division, transition, change, and renewal for the Latter-day Saint movement. Still mourning the death of their prophet, Latter-day Saints were divided over the claims of his competing successors. In many cases families split apart, as one brother followed Sidney Rigdon eastward, and another followed Brigham Young westward.

During this period, James J. Strang quickly emerged as the movement’s most successful leader after Brigham Young. Strang organized the headquarters of his church outside the town of Burlington in Wisconsin Territory, founding a new stake called "Voree." This will be the site of our 2008 conference as we attempt to shine the spotlight on that important period in the movement’s history.

Signature will have a book table again this year. Some of you know our marketing director Tom, who will be available for a bit of friendly banter and possibly swapping a little gossip about the Mormon book world. Page is tagging along with Tom this year so make sure you swing by and say hello, grab one of our giveaways and have a look at an advance reading copy of Nauvoo Polygamy.

For more information on the confrence call: 734-995-8744

The syposium and pre-symposium workshops will once again be held at the Salt Lake City Sheraton (150 West 500 North). The theme this year is "The Spirituality of the Rising Generation."

One session will consist of a dialogue between two bloggers, one Dutch and LDS, the other American and RLDS. They will discuss women, nationality, gays, and social justice (in Dutch and English). Other sessions will examine the FLDS situation in Texas, the FARMS/FAIR apologetical phenomenon, boredom and its remedies, the environment, and a host of other contemporary issues with Mormon twists: Mormon humor, Mormon sex, Mormon apostasy, and even Mormon nudists. Mormons, Mormons, youth, and Mormons, to paraphrase a Monte Python sketch. (Or should we say Mormons, Mormons everywhere and not a wife to wed?) The angle in the session featuring "apostacy" is the question, to be addressed by former Mormon mothers, of whether to raise their children as Latter-day Saints.

The Smith-Pettit Lecture will kick off the symposium with Wade Clark Roof, the J. F. Rowney Professor of Religion and Society and director of the Walter H. Capps Center for the Study of Ethics, Religion and Public Life at University of California, Santa Barbara. Dr. Roof will speak on "Generations and Religion: Subtle Changes and Unresolved Challenges." He is the author of Bridging Divided Worlds: Generational Cultures in Congregations and Spiritual Marketplace: Baby Boomers and the Remaking of American Religion.

The symposium will close with a banquet on Saturday night in honor of Levi S. Peterson, Emeritus Professor of English, Weber State University, and author of The Backslider. He has titled his address, "An Old Liberal Mormon Takes Stock." For more information, contact Sunstone at 801-355-5926.

Traditionally, LDS faithful have assumed that all or most Native Americans are descendants of Lehi and Mulek. In recent years, DNA studies have shown this to be untrue. Now apologetic groups are taking sides. To keep score, keep in mind that on one side of the debate are BYU's Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS) and its off-campus affiliate, the Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research (FAIR). These groups have the backing of the LDS public relations department.

On the other side of the ring are Rod Meldrum and his traveling show called DNA Evidence for Book of Mormon Geography, along with its associated website and DVD. Meldrum has the backing of so-called diffusionists such as Wayne May, publisher of the magazine, Ancient American: Archaeology of the Americas before Columbus. He also has the support of at least one emeritus General Authority, Hartman Rector Jr., who accompanies Meldrum around the country to stage symposia on the topic, as well as of Mormon bishops who send mass e-mails to their congregations trumpeting Meldrum’s claims. It's the biggest thing since My Turn on Earth.

This week, Allen Wyatt from FAIR ridiculed Meldrum in a formal statement. Among other things, Wyatt said:

It would appear that Mr. Meldrum has, in approximately three years of research, uncovered the “verification” (read that as “proof”) that has somehow escaped prophets, leaders, scholars, and students for most of the past two centuries. And he is on a mission to bring that knowledge to the world, starting with the Church.

Wyatt continued with these objections, given as bullet points:

• Mr. Meldrum has attempted to assert revelation for those outside of his stewardship, and has used that revelation as a substitute for solid scholarship.
  
  
• The DVD contains much material that is misrepresented because the author is unfamiliar with the large body of work that addresses the very topics he seeks to address.
  
  
• The DVD plants erroneous concepts and expectations in the minds of viewers, making them easier targets for hostile critics when these errors are inevitably trumpeted by enemies of the Church.

Meldrum responded by accusing FAIR of dealing in “lies, conjecture and innuendo” and that Lou Midgley, associate editor of the FARMS Review, made harassing phone calls. Meldrum says he has written a sixteen page response to FAIR to be available at some future date. Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, Orson Scott Card has joined the fray with his own screed to end all screeds on the topic, writing in the Deseret News that the idea that most Native Americans are descended from Lehi is an idea cooked up by anti-Mormons and that DNA evidence is irrelevant: "Why would any educated person expect that these methods would reveal even a hint of a group of only a few dozen culturally elite people who arrived in America 2,600 years ago and probably almost immediately intermarried with the local population?" He says that "scientists and students of science will hardly be taken in by such a claim. But many naive people who lack the knowledge or experience to recognize a pseudo-science scam when they see one may well face a completely needless crisis of faith. "Card is most worried about "young Mormons who are … most susceptible to such fakery, not because they 'lack faith,' but because they are hungry for truth, and are likely to take 'facts' over testimonies. So," he continues, "let me explain why perfectly good and useful science—which the tracing of DNA in large populations certainly is—turns into junk science when those who are commited to unbelief find a spin that serves their purpose." And that, brothers and sisters, would be the last word on the topic, at least in the mind of the science fiction writer Scott Card.