This panel considers three case studies in which individuals and texts on the margins of Mormonism and helped shape the tradition's overall development. The first deals with John Taylor's uncanonized polyamy revelations from the 1880s, while the second explores the rise and fall of the Restoration Church of Jesus Christ, an institutional movement designed to accommodate LGBTQ+ Saints in the 1980s and 1990s. The final paper investigates how LDS thought has shaped a number of science fiction authors in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Together, these papers demonstrate the broad boundaries of Mormon revelatory, theological, and literary imaginations.
John Taylor (1808-1887) was the third president of the LDS Church. This paper will explore a little-known aspect of Taylor's time as prophet: his use of direct revelation in governing the Church. While Joseph Smith, the founding Mormon prophet-president, had organized and directed the Church using revelation, most of his successors have not used this textual form. Taylor is an exception. There are nine surviving Taylor revelations, each modeled on Smith’s style. Uncanonized and largely forgotten, they survive in several material forms which show Taylor’s flock using them as revealed scripture: seeking out and obtaining copies, studying them, sharing them with others, cross-referencing them to other scriptures, and acting on their commands. The material evidence of the use of these texts recommends against too strong a focus on the terms of formal canonization in the study of scripturalization in favor of greater attention to the informal contingencies of scriptural usage.
This paper explores the Restoration Church of Jesus Christ (RCJC) a queer Mormon sect that emerged in response to the exclusion of LGBTQ+ individuals by the larger Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS). Throughout the 1980s and 90s, queer Mormons wrestled with the question of what it meant to be Mormon, with some members of Affirmation: Gay and Lesbian Mormons feeling the organization was either too Mormon or not Mormon enough. In response, a group of Affirmation members in Los Angeles formed RCJC, seeking to create a space that allowed them to continue practicing Mormonism. Drawing on archival research, this paper examines how RCJC members navigated their religious and sexual identities, utilizing queer theory and queer-of-color critique to analyze their struggles and contributions to redefining Mormonism. The study sheds light on how these queer Mormons challenged traditional understandings of faith, sexuality, and community within the larger Mormon tradition.
In the wake of the moon landing, an official Latter-day Saint magazine published an article which asserted belief in extraterrestrial life as a natural part of Latter-day Saint theology: “Are planets out in space inhabited by intelligent creatures? Without doubt. … People ‘out there’ are like people here, because we are all of the race of Gods.” While aliens in science fiction are often used to explore the concept of the Other, Mormon science fiction writers are more likely to look at aliens as a part of themselves and part of a unity of creation. This presentation seeks to examine how Latter-day Saint theology has influenced the portrayal of aliens in stories from Mormon science fiction writers, including stories written for a Latter-day Saint audience as well as those written for a national market. Prominent writers examined include Zenna Henderson, Orson Scott Card, and Brandon Sanderson.