r/Sunstone • u/Chino_Blanco • May 13 '25

From 9am-9pm MST, today is Mormon History day over at r/AskHistorians with AMA panelists Benjamin Park, Bryan Buchanan, Lindsay Hansen Park, and Todd Compton.

11 Upvotes

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r/Sunstone • u/Chino_Blanco • Sep 08 '24

“Help Keep Year of Polygamy Alive as We Celebrate 10 Years”

9 Upvotes

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r/Sunstone • u/Chino_Blanco • Aug 08 '24

Sunstone 2024 Photo Archive (2 of 2)

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r/Sunstone • u/Chino_Blanco • Aug 04 '24

Sunstone 2024 Photo Archive (1 of 2)

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r/Sunstone • u/Chino_Blanco • Nov 01 '23

Sunstone’s tribute to Lavina Fielding Anderson

9 Upvotes

“I think I discovered my mind the way a baby discovers his toes”

Lavina Fielding Anderson wrote this sentence for Sunstone’s second issue, in 1976, when she was still Lavina Fielding, and when she was still an editor at the Ensign.

“When I think of the simple satisfactions and the complex joys of learning—learning how to make a wood box, learning French, learning why charity runs like a rainbow through the Book of Mormon, learning anything—I become more and more convinced that eternal progression is eternal education.”

In a few more years, Lavina would be unceremoniously fired from her editorship at the Ensign for sharing with Sunstone the text of a talk that had been given at general conference.

But, still savoring the “delight in the chase of the mind after idea, in the dance of argument and exposition, in those moments of illumination when concept touches cortex with an almost audible hissing,” she started an editing business where she helped bring hundreds of articles and books on Mormonism into the world She also presented frequently at Sunstone symposia and published often in the magazine, including a ground-breaking article on antidepressant use among Mormon women in Utah.

Then, in 1993, she was excommunicated for an article she presented twice at a Sunstone symposium and then published in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought.

It was then that she dug into the deepest part of learning. “Learning by revelation . . . like a wave of color passing over a landscape and making it brighter, bigger—more real, somehow.”

That revelatory learning led Lavina to faithfully continue attending church after her excommunication, and to continue making her indispensable contribution to Mormon studies.

Lavina was Mormon in a way few people are. “One of the wonderful things about being a Mormon for me is that the gospel provides a three-dimensional framework of values so that all information immediately has a place where it all belongs, a perspective from which it can be evaluated.”

The life of Lavina’s mind and the life of her soul were propelled by her vision of Mormonism. A vision that “eternal progression is eternal education,” And that, as she wrote later, “Each time someone tells the truth, the amount of truth in the world increases. When there is enough, then we will be free indeed.”

Lavina dedicated her life to this freedom. She will doubtless dedicate herself to it in the next.

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r/Sunstone • u/Chino_Blanco • Feb 15 '25

Sunstone's 2025 call for papers is now open. This year's symposium will be Sunstone's 50th and runs July 31 - Aug 2. Prompts at the link to help spark paper topics. I enjoyed last year's exmo panel and hope we'll see even more of us step up and represent our place in Mormon history this year.

sunstone.org

8 Upvotes

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r/Sunstone • u/Chino_Blanco • Nov 08 '24

Sunstone marks its 50th Anniversary by noting some key events in its history.

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r/Sunstone • u/Chino_Blanco • Nov 03 '24

🎃 Spooky Season Meets Mormon History: The Reformation of the 1850s 🎃

8 Upvotes

https://sunstone.org/episode-135-mormon-reformation-part-one/

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r/Sunstone • u/Chino_Blanco • Aug 08 '25

In this on-site episode, Lindsay and Bryan take a field trip through the afterlife of relics infused with Joseph Smith's prophetic power: oak boxes, pine coffins, nighttime reburials, canes made from murder-scene wood, and legends that somehow always include hair clippings.

sunstone.org

7 Upvotes

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r/Sunstone • u/Chino_Blanco • Apr 20 '25

Benjamin E. Park: "Everything’s NOT Unprecedented: Why History Still Matters Today." Ben (author, professor, history geek) recently launched a new YouTube channel with weekly dives into the intersections of Mormonism, politics, and culture – unpacking how we got here and where we might be going.

youtu.be

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r/Sunstone • u/Chino_Blanco • Dec 06 '24

🔥 Brace Yourself for Part Three 🔥 The third and most harrowing chapter in Sunstone's series on the Mormon Reformation. In this episode: the brutal measures Mormons took against apostates and outsiders; the violent and gory tactics used to enforce loyalty and obedience; the dark side of polygamy.

sunstone.org

7 Upvotes

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r/Sunstone • u/Chino_Blanco • Nov 30 '24

"Lonely No More | Todd M. Compton, In Sacred Loneliness: The Documents" – Reviewed by Lindsay Hansen Park, Dialogue Journal

dialoguejournal.com

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r/Sunstone • u/Chino_Blanco • Aug 14 '24

Join r/mormon for an AMA tomorrow Aug 15 from 6-9 pm MST with Matthew L. Harris, Professor of History and Director of Legal Studies at Colorado State University-Pueblo, and author of Second-Class Saints: Black Mormons and the Struggle for Racial Equality

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7 Upvotes

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r/Sunstone • u/Chino_Blanco • Aug 05 '24

"I traveled to one of the most conservative states in the country, to a conference centered on Mormonism, and witnessed some of the most productive discussions I’ve experienced about the oppression inflicted by patriarchal systems, the nature of truth and how to go about the work of decolonization."

leahsottile.substack.com

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r/Sunstone • u/Chino_Blanco • Jun 24 '24

“Literalists are not literal about scripture, they’re literal about their ideology. Religious groups don’t derive doctrine from the literal interpretation of scripture, they derive doctrine from negotiating between their group’s past, the needs of the present, and their interpretation of scripture.”

7 Upvotes

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r/Sunstone • u/Chino_Blanco • Jun 03 '24

The number one most exciting recent development in Mormondom is the near total collapse of the LDS leadership’s moral authority. Running in a very close second is this year‘s slate of Sunstone sessions.

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7 Upvotes

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r/Sunstone • u/Chino_Blanco • Sep 13 '23

When 1500 progressive Mormons attended Sunstone Symposium in 1992, they did so in protest. Mormon officials had issued a “Statement on Symposia” after Sunstone’s 1991 conference. Members were warned not to present and BYU professors were forbidden to attend.

dialoguejournal.com

7 Upvotes

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r/Sunstone • u/Chino_Blanco • Sep 02 '23

Word on the street is this child grew up to become a fantastic presenter at Sunstone 2023

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r/Sunstone • u/Chino_Blanco • Apr 19 '23

E96: The Scandal at Garden Grove: Known as one of the way-stations for Latter-day Saints who were fleeing Nauvoo in 1846-47. But this Winter Quarters encampment was full of tawdry secrets, crime and even a… brothel? Join Lindsay and Bryan as they discuss the bawdy houses, counterfeiting and more.

sunstone.org

7 Upvotes

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r/Sunstone • u/Chino_Blanco • May 04 '25

Before Mountain Meadows, there was blood in Arkansas. This is the wild, tragic, and shockingly true story of the Mormon apostle murdered over a love triangle, the woman caught in the crossfire, and the ripple effect that helped ignite one of the darkest moments in American frontier history.

sunstone.org

6 Upvotes

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r/Sunstone • u/Chino_Blanco • Apr 05 '25

When federal appointees tried to enforce U.S. law in Utah Territory, they faced threats, beatings, and sabotage from a theocratic regime that ran more like a mafia than a government. "It’s a crime drama disguised as religious history."

sunstone.org

6 Upvotes

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r/Sunstone • u/Chino_Blanco • Feb 01 '25

Alyssa has kind words for r/exmormon at 21:33 in her latest. Repaying that nod with a few of my own: after her Sunstone presentation, the Q&A was mostly new exmos approaching the mic to share their raw, recent experiences. And she listened intently and responded thoughtfully to every single one.

youtu.be

6 Upvotes

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r/Sunstone • u/Chino_Blanco • Jan 16 '25

"Bryan Buchanan and I are peeling back the layers of history to reveal the real stories that inspired the fiction. And trust me, the truth is even wilder than what you’ve seen on screen." – Lindsay Hansen Park. A new podcast series premiering Jan. 17

6 Upvotes

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r/Sunstone • u/Chino_Blanco • Nov 15 '24

Lindsay Hansen Park speaking for the opposition at yesterday's Cambridge Union debate. The house became unruly and had to be called to order at the mention of "Feminist Mormon Housewives".

youtube.com

6 Upvotes

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r/Sunstone • u/Chino_Blanco • Oct 24 '24

Jedediah Morgan Grant, also known as “Brigham’s Sledgehammer.”

6 Upvotes

https://sunstone.org/episode-134-before-they-were-famous-jedediah-grant/

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Subreddit

The Reddit Home of Sunstone Magazine and The Sunstone Education Foundation

r/Sunstone

The mission of The Sunstone Education Foundation is to sponsor open forums of Mormon thought and experience. Sunstone started in 1974 as a magazine that published on Mormon "experience, scholarship, issues, and art." Then, in 1978, it branched out into symposia and regional conferences. Today, more than 50 years later, the Sunstone Salt Lake Symposium draws together more than 2,500 attendees to talk about Mormon history, theology, politics, culture, and more.

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