Symposium on Mormon Issues Begins in Utah

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Nearly 1,000 people are expected in Salt Lake City this week for a symposium featuring panels and workshops on a number of different Mormon issues. The Utah Sunstone Symposium opens Wednesday and runs through Saturday at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.

This year's theme is "Mormon bodies: literal, metaphorical, doctrinal." The nearly 200 scheduled presenters were asked to contemplate how Mormon ideas about sex, sin, illness and pleasure effect how church members experience their bodies.

Other topics include the prospects of ordaining women, the reported faith crisis in contemporary Mormonism and how Mormons deal with gays and lesbians. Symposium director Mary Ellen Robertson says most of the participants are current or former members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.