This Summer's Sunstone Symposium

Sunstone just put up their Preliminary Program for this summer's Symposium. The Symposium runs from August 12 to 15, and is held at the Salt Lake City Sheraton Hotel. The program this year looks just as loaded with fascinating presentations as it is every year, so you'll definitely want to start buying tickets and making reservations! The only downside is that sometimes there are so many great papers being given concurrently that you'll have to make the agonizing choice between them.

You'll find my paper listed as session #222 on the program. I have to compete with George D. Smith, Ron Romig, and Scott Kenney during my timeslot. Ugh. At least my paper's in a different genre. Maybe that will help draw some literary types who don't really like history.

Here are some of the other sessions I'll be attending:

112 - James MacLachlan - MEDITATIONS ON WILLIAM H. CHAMBERLIN AND WHY ONE SHOULD REMAIN MORMON

123 - Trevor Luke - THE SCANDAL IN THE PRACTICE: JOSEPH SMITH AS RELIGIOUS PERFORMER

132 - Panel - MORMONS AND MEDIUMS: LDS WOMEN’S PURSUIT OF MEDIATED AND NONMEDIATED COMMUNICATION WITH THE DEAD

154 - Jeffrey Needle - IMMERSED IN ALL THINGS MORMON EXCEPT THE FONT

161 - Steve Warren - DRAT! MYTHED AGAIN: THE STRANGE PERSISTENCE OF CERTAIN QUESTIONABLE TEACHINGS IN TODAY’S MORMONISM

171 - Panel - AUTHOR MEETS CRITICS: NAUVOO POLYGAMY

191 - Panel - THE DYNAMICS OF POWER AND AUTHORITY IN THE LDS CHURCH

213 - Loren Franck - ‘YOUR BOSOM SHALL BURN WITHIN YOU’: AN EVANGELICAL CHRISTIAN EXAMINATION OF THE LDS TESTIMONY

234 - Panel - DIVINE MALFEASANCE

251 - Don Bradley - MAPPING MORMON ISSUES: CONSPIRACY, DELUSION, OR REVELATION? THE 180-YEAR CONTROVERSY OVER THE BOOK OF MORMON WITNESSES

264 - Michael Reed - CROSS AT THE CROSS: LDS CONTEMPT FOR THE CHRISTIAN SYMBOL

272 - Panel - PREVIEW OF A FORTHCOMING BOOK: MORMON POLYGAMY: NEW PERSPECTIVES—FROM JOSEPH SMITH TO WARREN JEFFS

315 - Brian Hales - GENDER-SPECIFIC ROLES AND THE ETERNAL PATRIARCHAL ORDER: A THEOLOGICAL LOOK AT JOSEPH SMITH’S POLYGAMY

323 - Panel - WHY GAY MORMONS ARE SO OFTEN TEMPTED TO BLOW THEIR STINKIN’ HEADS OFF (IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER)

355 - Peter and Mary Danzig - “IT’S EITHER TRUE OR FALSE . . . ” DICHOTOMOUS THINKING IN MORMON CULTURE AND ITS IMPACT ON THE INDIVIDUAL

361 - Dale E. Luffman - MAKING A CASE FOR A NINETEENTH CENTURY READING OF THE BOOK OF MORMON

Does Lanctantius Allude to Constantine's Vision?

In his work The Life of Constantine, written shortly after the great Christian Emperor’s death in 337 A.D., Eusebius of Caesarea claims that the catalyst for Constantine's conversion was a miraculous vision:

About noon, when the day was already beginning to decline, he saw with his own eyes the trophy of a cross of light in the heavens, above the sun, and bearing the inscription, CONQUER BY THIS. At this sight he was struck with amazement, and his whole army also, which followed him on this expedition, and witnessed the miracle.

Eusebius also reports that the emperor had a dream the next night in which Christ appeared to him and showed him the same sign and told him to use it as a standard in all his army’s engagements.

Some historians believe that Eusebius fabricated the account of the vision, especially since no other authors of his day-- including Constantine himself-- make mention of it. Constantine's son's tutor Lactantius made mention of the dream within a few years of the event, but omitted reference to the vision altogether. So it seems reasonable to assume that Constantine had a dream but that the tale of the vision that preceded it is an embellishment.

I think, though, that in Lactantius' account of the dream there may be a heretofore unnoticed allusion to the vision. In Of the Manner in Which the Persecutors Died, 318 Lactantius says,

Constantine was directed in a dream to cause the heavenly sign to be delineated on the shields of his soldiers, and so to proceed to battle. He did as he had been commanded, and he marked on their shields the letter X, with a perpendicular line drawn through it and turned round thus at the top, being the cipher of Christ.

It is tempting to assume that "the heavenly sign" is called "heavenly" because it is a divine or religious symbol. But what if it is called "heavenly" because the emperor had seen it in the heavens? Could this be an allusion to a prior celestial appearance?

Granted, Eusebius likely exaggerated the importance of whatever Constantine saw in the sky. A number of scholars have noticed a similarity between the vision and a solar phenomenon called the "halo effect." The most common manifestation of this phenomenon is a rainbow that forms a halo around the sun (thus its name), but others include a cross of light with the sun at its center. According to A. H. M. Jones (Constantine and the Conversion of Europe, 96), the phenomenon is caused by the fall of ice crystals across the rays of the sun. Jones says, "The display may well have been brief and unspectacular, but to Constantine’s overwrought imagination it was deeply significant."

Stoke the Fires of My Egotism by Voting for Me at the Niblets!

That's right, I have been nominated for the "Nicest Evil Villain/Wolf in Sheep's Clothing" category at the Niblets! Go endorse my evil with your vote, and I promise to use the power of the Dark Side only to save starving children in Africa or something. (Damn you, Carol, for proving you're nicer than me by endorsing me. And for proving you're more evil than me by posting about sex all the time. How can I compete with that?) I also recommend My Religious Blog for funniest blog, and Irresistible (Dis)Grace for best new blog.

In other news, I recorded a podcast on the Book of Abraham with Mormon Expression last night. And once John's done editing it I bet you'll never even be able to tell that the call dropped during our conversation something like a dozen times. John's amazing like that. Actually, all the panelists over there are amazing. The MP3 be up in a week and a half or so, so keep your eyes peeled.

And finally, thanks to all the folks who linked to my interviews with the evangelicals over the past few days. The traffic from Times and Seasons and Mormon Times has been particularly overwhelming, and there's a pretty good discussion going over at LDS & Evangelical Conversations.

Some Thoughts on Mormon-Evangelical Dialogue

If you've been checking in here from time to time this week, you know I've posted interviews with three prominent and articulate evangelicals about their approaches to the Mormon community. Dean Jackson argued for reconciliation and repentance, Greg Johnson pleaded for "Convicted Civility", and Mike Stahura called for uncompromising commitment to the truth. But however much their approaches may differ, there is also a common thread among them. All three describe their activity as "dialogue".

This is an encouraging sign. In the past, evangelical outreach to Mormons tended to be described as "evangelism," "ministry," or even "missions," but rarely as "dialogue". "Dialogue" was a word that conjured the specter of an impotent ecumenical movement. It was a word that seemed to imply weakness and lack of conviction. So to see a conservative evangelical like Mike Stahura unashamedly using the word "dialogue" signals a welcome shift in the evangelical movement's attitude toward the term.

The great thing about the term "dialogue" is that it implies a two-way interaction. It means that both sides will have an opportunity to communicate their views, and both sides will be expected to listen to each other. The term "evangelism" suggests that one party has the knowledge and will be dispensing it to the other side, who is merely a passive recipient. In dialogue the two parties approach each other as equals, and both have an opportunity to be active participants.

It should come as no surprise that I disagree with much of what Mike Stahura said about Mormons. But at the same time, I respect his approach. He is a person of strong convictions, and he places all of those convictions on the table before entering into dialogue. There is something refreshing about the frankness with which he states what he believes is true. There is no masking of his views behind a facade of false acceptance or phony fellowship. The advantage of this is that his views and attitudes then become fair game for discussion. Assuming that he is sincere in his desire for dialogue, Mormons will have the opportunity to challenge his misconceptions with equal frankness. Whereas organized interfaith dialogue too often degenerates into an exchange of platitudes, Mike represents an opportunity for Mormons to engage in a robust exchange of ideas. This is interfaith dialogue of the truest kind. This is where the rubber meets the road.

My Interview with Mike Stahura of SLC Calvary Chapel

Given Greg's comment on the other thread about my failure to take proper steps in advance of posting interviews to ensure that the interviewee is satisfied with my report, I am temporarily removing this until I can check with Mike.

Interview with Pastor Greg Johnson of Standing Together

I thought I had license to post this interview, when in fact I did not. So I've deleted it. Apologies to those who read, commented on, or linked to it.

Universalism among the Early Church Fathers

Although Roman Catholics and evangelical Protestants today typically treat universalism as a heresy, there was a time in the early centuries of Christianity's spread when universalism was a fairly mainstream doctrine.

The story of early Christian universalism is closely tied in with the story of Alexandria. In the third and fourth centuries, Alexandria was one of the great (perhaps the greatest) centers of orthodox Christian theology. Clement, Origen, and Theodore of Mopsuestia, the luminaries of the Alexandrian school, were all universalists. Most of Origen's contemporaries seem to have considered him a great and orthodox theologian, and in fact he coined the term homoousios that became so central to the Nicene Creed. Only after Alexandrian influence waned did two sixth-century church councils posthumously declare him a heretic. The conquest of Egypt by Islam sealed Alexandria's irrelevancy. With the decline of the East, Rome looked to a Westerner named Augustine as its theological father-- Augustine, the great champion of exclusivism and predestination.

But during the heyday of Alexandrian influence, no one was denouncing universalism as heretical. In fact, so great an orthodox thinker as Gregory of Nyssa very explicitly and publicly taught the doctrine. It was privately held, it seems, by the likes of Gregory of Nazianzus, Macrina, Basil, Jerome, and Eusebius of Caesarea. These thinkers generally didn't think universalist doctrine should be promoted-- after all, the threat of hell is a powerful motivator for people to behave ethically-- but they were universalists nonetheless. Many more proponents of universalism could also be named, though these for the most part eventually shared in the condemnation and obscurity that was the Alexandrian school's final fate.

The general public believed in universalism, too. Jerome claimed that "most people" were universalists. Augustine said it was "very many". Basil made it "the mass of men". These assertions seem to be borne out by artwork in the Roman catacombs that shows Jesus carrying over his shoulder not a lamb, but a goat.