Welcome, dear readers, to the Fall 2018 issue of SquareTwo! Click here for the full table of contents for this issue.
Before we describe the issue, a few prefatory notes. We have a new logo designed by our editorial board member Erik Linton. It symbolizes the foundation stone of the Restored Gospel, our square one, with a green vine encircling what is built upon that foundation, our square two. We hope you like it!
In addition, in keeping with President Nelson’s injunction to change how we refer to the Church, we will use the terms Restored Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (RCJC) and Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ (RGJC) until such time as the Church provides some new terms and acronyms for members to use. Both of these changes—in nomenclature and in logo—will not be made retroactive, so older pages will have the older versions of these.
OK, on to the Fall 2018 issue! This is a special issue, penned largely by V.H. Cassler, who has been meaning to write several pieces and finally got around to writing them all!
First, Cassler writes about a Seventh Wave Feminism whose motto would be “AEROW”—Against the Erasure and Replacement of Women. The very ancient evil of misogyny is shape-shifting in the contemporary era; are we astute enough to recognize and oppose it in its new guises?
Second, Cassler adapts a recent conference address by Elder Brian K. Ashton, and asks if it is not time to publicly recognize that we have both a Father and a Mother. What changes when we speak of Them, instead Him? Much, according to Cassler.
Third, Cassler reviews Jordan Peterson’s book 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, which is very popular in some circles. What does Peterson get right? And what one, big hairy thing does Peterson get wrong?
Fourth, Cassler was very impressed with a recent tweetstorm by Gabrielle Blair, a Latter-day Saint mother of six who vented about the invisibility of men in the debate about unwanted pregnancy and abortion. In whose interest is it that men are invisible when these issues are discussed? What would happen if we foregrounded them instead?
Fifth, Kent Harrison reviews a very important book for our times called Clean Hands, Pure Heart which is one Latter-day Saint man’s journey through and beyond pornography and sex addiction. So many of our Latter-day Saint men (and increasingly, women as well) are being suffocated by addiction to pornography. Let this man’s experience inspire you and yours.
Sixth, we have some terrific comments on last issue’s Readers’ Puzzle concerning Jordan Peterson. Commentators were more skeptical than critical, acknowledging some helpful points about Peterson’s worldview but worried about both its incompleteness as well as its esoteric whiff of misogyny.
And finally, we also have a new Reader’s Puzzle on how a post-truth society such as we find in the United States can possibly maintain a democratic form of government. We think this is a very timely topic, and invite our readers to submit their comments for publication.
Enjoy this great new issue!
Full Citation for this Article: Editorial Board, SquareTwo Journal (2018) "Editor’s Intro, Fall 2018," SquareTwo, Vol. 11 No. 3 (Fall 2018), http://squaretwo.org/EditorsIntroFall2018.html, accessed <give access date>.
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