Dr Cristina Rosetti grew up pretty uninterested in religion, and had a sort of born again faith crisis. She converted both to the Pentecostal Church and then Catholicism, while finding great joy studying not just Mormonism but Mormon Fundamentalism as well. Find out more about her faith journey, starting with a born again faith crisis, and the Juanita Brooks Conference. Check out our conversation….
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Meet Cristina Rosetti
GT 00:50 Welcome to Gospel Tangents. I’m excited to have my first–I’m going to call you a Catholic Mormon scholar.
Cristina 00:57 Do it.
GT 00:57 Yeah. So, tell us who you are and where we are.
Cristina 01:01 I’m Cristina Rosetti and we are in sunny St. George, Utah.
GT 01:05 Yes. Very nice. I was in Florida a couple months ago. St. George in March is really nice.
Cristina 01:14 It’s supposed to be [nice]. It’s kind of cold.
GT 01:16 It was a little colder than St. George is normally, but it was still good weather. So, what did we do this weekend? What did you organize this weekend?
Cristina 01:25 Well, me and I guess, Joseph Stuart, at BYU and I organized a conference in honor of the legacy of Juanita Brooks. And Rick very kindly came down for it.
GT 01:37 Yeah, it was fun. It was a lot of fun. Yeah, so it’s the first–is it going to be an annual event?
Cristina 01:46 I mean, a lot of people want it to be. We had a really good turnout. The hope is that it can continue. We’ll see. I’m going to talk to Utah Tech where I work, and [the school] helped host it. And so, it’s up to them. We’re going to be sending out surveys.
GT 02:08 Oh, you are? It was great.
Cristina 02:11 And so we’re going to, I mean, hopefully–we had a really good turnout for a very first time conference. I mean, getting 110 people to the Mountain Meadows Massacre site, and also, getting 110 people to stay through a whole day of conference talks, that’s [good.] I feel like people clearly wanted to be here. I was shocked. When Joey and I planned it, I said [that] I just want 40 people to show up.
GT 02:40 Oh, wow.
Cristina 02:42 So, I was really pleased. And it was really great to have so many friends from northern Utah and beyond come.
GT 02:47 So, you counted it was 110 that actually traveled to the Mountain Meadows massacre sites.
Cristina 02:52 Yeah.
GT 02:52 Okay.
Cristina 02:53 Yeah, we had, well 109 at out all the sites. We had 110 on Friday, and we had about 50 watching online. And then the stream, at this point, has been watched about 206 something times.
Cristina 03:08 Now we’re at 188.
GT 03:10 You’ll have to send me that link, and I’ll let people know to watch it again.
Cristina 03:13 Yeah, that’s be great, just because it is, I mean, some of the speakers were, I mean, all the speakers were great, but…
GT 03:19 Who were the headliners?
Cristina 03:21 Well, the keynote was Elder Steven E Snow, Emeritus Church Historian and Recorder.
GT 03:26 Former Gospel Tangents guest, I will add.
Cristina 03:29 Former Gospel Tangents guest. He also did the Saints series, which I think is how most people probably, how most people probably would remember his legacy. He also did the Gospel Topics essays. He was the Church Historian behind that. And then we had, I mean, we had so many incredible people. We had Amanda Hendrix-Komoto. We had we had Richard Turley. He did the tour of Mountain Meadows and spoke on it with Barbara Jones Brown. We had Paul Reeve. We had so many people.
GT 04:00 Greg Prince.
Cristina 04:01 Greg Prince was also [a speaker.] Yeah, Greg Prince was the first speaker of the day. He spoke on Lester Bush. We also honored Lester Bush with an award. We were really grateful that his wife was able to come out and accept it on his behalf. She didn’t know that it was happening. So, I thought she knew that Lester was being honored.
GT 04:25 Well, I talked to Greg while we were up at Mountain Meadows and I was like, “How did you make that a surprise?” He goes, “Well, I just told her I was speaking. I didn’t tell her about the award.” (Chuckling)
Cristina 04:34 He organized her being there. And so, I could only have assumed that she would know why she was in St. George.
GT 04:42 She was just listening to Greg. (Chuckling)
Cristina 04:45 For an award honoring Juanita Brooks, there really isn’t someone better to give it to than to Lester Bush for all the work he did. So, it was a great conference. And it was so great to be able to go out to the Mountain Meadows massacre site and have so many community members of St. George hear about the history from–I mean, if you’re going to…
GT 05:09 The best.
Cristina 05:12 If you’re going to hear the history of the Mountain Meadows massacre, there is no one else in the world…
GT 05:18 The only person who would was missed, probably, was Will Bagley, but he passed away, a year ago? I don’t remember how long ago. It’s been a while.
Cristina 05:25 And Janiece Johnson, she was there and she spoke and she has a new book coming out, called Convicting the Mormons, which is about how Mountain Meadows massacre was weaponized against Mormons in the media and to make them seem not American. So, she was also there talking about it. I mean, I was really happy with how it turned out. And I was so grateful to see so many friends and it’s good.
Cristina’s Born Again/Faith Crisis
GT 05:51 So great. So I’ve got to ask you, Rosetti, that It sounds like a very Italian name. Am I right on that?
Cristina 05:58 It is Italian, by way of Argentina.
GT 06:02 Oh, really?
Cristina 06:03 Yeah. I mean, I’m not from Argentina. But my dad was born there and lived his childhood in Argentina before coming here.
GT 06:09 But you’re not an Italian Catholic. You’re Catholic, but you didn’t grow up in the faith?
Cristina 06:14 No.
GT 06:14 So we’re going to talk a little bit about that.
Cristina 06:16 My dad did, though.
GT 06:17 Okay. Oh, I didn’t know that.
Cristina 06:20 Yeah, well, I don’t talk all about my Catholicism.
GT 06:25 We’re going talk about it today is what a time I need. I’ve had a Pentecostal scholar, a Lutheran scholar, Anglican, but you’re my first Catholic, and I did talk to Patrick Mason. He went to Notre Dame. But I don’t know if you saw that. Did he get anything wrong? Or did you even see the interview?
Cristina 06:41 I didn’t, but I mean, I would be shocked if Patrick Mason got something [wrong.]
GT 06:49 Yeah, he went to Notre Dame, which is so interesting that Notre Dame became such a prominent school in the United States that people forget that it actually is still a Catholic school, [and] that you have to take theology classes if you’re there.
Cristina 07:03 Yeah.
GT 07:04 But it’s not like BYU.
Cristina 07:05 No,
GT 07:06 That’s what Patrick said.
Cristina 07:07 No, it’s not. It’s not. Because there are Catholic schools that are [like BYU.]
GT 07:13 So you can be a non-Catholic and take Protestant classes at Notre Dame.
Cristina 07:18 Yes, you can do that.
GT 07:18 You can’t do that at BYU though.
Cristina 07:20 No, but there aren’t Catholic schools that are like BYU. So if you go to Sacred Heart College or Aquinas College, or one of the smaller [colleges.]
GT 07:31 Georgetown?
Cristina 07:32 Georgetown still feels similar to Notre Dame, but there are small ones that are like Immaculate Heart College that I’m sure is a little more Catholic than Notre Dame. But yeah, he did. I think we’ve talked about that a little bit, him and I. But yeah, I never went to Catholic school or college because I was not Catholic until very recently.
GT 07:56 Yes, so you were Pentecostal sort of. Right?
Cristina 08:00 I was.
GT 08:00 Before you became Catholic.
Cristina 08:02 Yeah. I wasn’t raised that either, though. [I had] multiple conversions. Yeah, I was raised generically Christian, like so many people in the United States. My dad was Catholic, but now I think he would identify as agnostic. And my mom is Christian but doesn’t go to church. And so, I went to Episcopalian school.
GT 08:02 Oh, really?
Cristina 08:02 I did.
GT 08:02 That’s very Catholic, though. Isn’t it? Or is it?
Cristina 08:12 I mean, I don’t know. I think what’s interesting about Episcopalian schools is they can go one of two ways. There are Episcopalian schools that are connected to Episcopalian churches, which have a lot of religious formation, and religious education attached to them. Mine wasn’t that at all. So, I left preschool through eighth grade, Episcopalian school, and I had no idea what an Episcopalian was, which was very funny because now my boyfriend is a priest in the Anglican Church of Canada. So now I really know what an Episcopalian is. But I had no idea.
GT 09:05 Is there tension between Episcopalians and Anglicans? Because they’re the same thing, kind of.
Cristina 09:10 So, it’s a complicated story, Rick.
GT 09:15 That’s what we’re all about.
Cristina 09:16 So the Anglican Church of North America is not the same thing as the Episcopal Church. The Anglican Church of Canada is in communion with the Episcopal Church. It is not in communion with the Anglican Church of North America.
GT 09:30 Now, that’s really confusing.
Cristina 09:32 Yeah. And the Anglican Church of Canada and the Episcopal Church are in communion with the Church of England. But the Anglican Church of North America is in communion with GAFCON, which are the Anglicans of the global south, or represent many Anglicans in the global south. So, it’s a complicated story of who people are in communion with. But all that to say, I didn’t really know. Now see, I told you. I know too much about it now because my boyfriend is a priest and he told me.
GT 09:32 You can’t know too much about anything.
Cristina 09:52 But yeah, all that to say, I left eighth grade, really not knowing what an Episcopalian was. Even though I had just gone to chapel every Monday for most of my life.
GT 10:13 You just like blew off everything or they didn’t [teach it?] I don’t know.
Cristina 10:16 Yeah, I mean, I didn’t go through Christian formation in any way. Again, my mom was Christian and always talked about it. And so I knew that she was Christian. And so I was like, “Well, I guess I am too,” but I never really thought about it. It wasn’t part of my life at all. And then I went to high school. I went to high school in Southern California. And my best friend got saved.
GT 10:43 Born Again.
Cristina 10:44 She got born again. And she invited me to church, and a lot of people did in my high school, like the surrounding area.
GT 10:52 This is Southern California.
Cristina 10:53 Yeah. So I was in Southern California. I went to Aliso Niguel High School. And a lot of people started going to two churches that were really prominent. And it’s interesting because one was reformed. So, it was very Calvinist. It was called Compass Bible Church. And then a lot of people started going to…
GT 11:09 Calvinist is once saved, always saved?
Cristina 11:12 Calvinism is predestination. It is total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, perseverance of the saints.
GT 11:22 Okay.
Cristina 11:22 So, predestination; But on the other end, a lot of people started going to Living Hope Christian Fellowship, which is where my best friend, at the time, got saved.
GT 11:33 They’re a Born-Again Church.
Cristina 11:34 Born again. And she invited me to church to youth group, which I had no interest in going to, but I went. Yeah, she was like, “We’ll get McDonald’s.” And I was like, “Great.”
GT 11:46 This is weird, because you’re a religious studies scholar, you sound like you were so uninterested in religion.
Cristina 11:50 In high school, I was really uninterested in high school, up until this moment. And we went to a youth group. It was called Altared Youth, but it was a play on words. It was Altared, like an altar, like an altar call, which is funny, because most non-denominational churches or evangelical/Pentecostal churches don’t have altars anymore. So, I went to youth group, and I really liked it, everyone was really nice. I kept going back. It was part of the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel, which is a pretty small Pentecostal church. And I had a salvation experience, a born-again experience where I thought I [was saved.] Well, it’s complicated, how you look back on moments like that. But I believed that I had been healed of something that had been a physical problem for quite a while. And I decided that I was going to get saved. So, I went to [someone] who became my youth pastor, pretty soon after, and we did the prayer. And then I was baptized.
GT 11:51 The Sinners Prayer?
Cristina 11:51 The Sinner’s Prayer, he did it with me. And then I was baptized in the ocean at North Beach.
GT 13:08 Wow.
Cristina 13:08 In San Clemente. My parents came. My parents have always been incredibly supportive of my religious…
GT 13:15 Journeys.
Cristina 13:16 Meanderings. They have always been incredibly supportive. But I was baptized in the ocean. It was very cold.
GT 13:23 Southern California, your water is very cold. If you want warm water, go to Florida.
Cristina 13:28 The Atlantic Ocean is warmer than the Pacific is what people tell me. Yeah, I was baptized in the ocean. And I was Pentecostal.
GT 13:38 Did you speak in tongues?
Cristina 13:40 Well, Rick, this is why I’m not Pentecostal anymore. Welcome to my faith crisis. We’re just going to jump ahead.
GT 13:50 I want you to know I attended a Bickertonite Church with Steve Pynakker in Florida.
Cristina 13:54 Yeah.
GT 13:55 And they’re very Pentecostal. It’s called The Church of Jesus Christ. And they sometimes speak in tongues. I was so disappointed they didn’t do it while I was there.
Cristina 14:05 Yeah, a lot of people did around me. It was a very common part of my Christian experiencing, people speaking in tongues. For those who don’t know, the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel was founded by Sister Aimee Semple McPherson in the 1920s. She was the first woman on the radio. And in LA, she built this building called Angelus Temple. And she was rad. I wanted to be her. She was so incredible. I mean, she had a very complicated life. She ended up, at some point, staging her own kidnapping to collect a ransom.
GT 14:44 Really?
Cristina 14:45 She ends up having multiple affairs, dies of a drug overdose. But I didn’t know that when I was Pentecostal.
GT 14:50 I bet they don’t emphasize that very much.
Cristina 14:53 They don’t.
GT 14:53 That would be anti-Foursquare Gospel, or anti-Pentecostal.
Cristina 14:57 {Laughs} That’s anti-Foursquare material. Yes, no one talks about that. I learned that later. And I was like, “What?” But she was…
GT 15:07 We’ve got some scandals in somebody besides Joseph Smith? This is great. We might have to have a second interview about this.
Cristina 15:13 She was beautiful though. She was charismatic. I mean, she was beautiful. And she did these big productions. People gravitated toward her. But the four squares are Jesus/Savior, Baptizer, Healer and King. And by baptizer, it doesn’t just mean in water. It also means in the Holy Ghost. And so because of that, a lot of people speak in tongues.
GT 15:33 That’s where people get the four squares, huh?
Cristina 15:35 Yes. And I remember going to the Foursquare convention in the Anaheim Convention Center. And I remember this distinct moment where the lights dim, and then like the stage lights come up, and everyone said, “We are Foursquare,” and put their hands up like this.
Cristina 15:50 And I was like, “I don’t know if I’m this, actually.” We didn’t do this at church. A lot of people spoke in tongues. There was a lot of healing.
GT 16:02 It didn’t freak you out or anything?
Cristina 16:04 I thought it was different. I mean, I want to Episcopalian school. And they didn’t do that, for sure. And my mom’s Christian, and she doesn’t do that.
GT 16:13 Well, Episcopalians are pretty [Catholic.]
Cristina 16:16 It was different. But I mean, it never seemed weird to me. It was just kind of like “Hmmm.” I thought the deliverance ministries were a little strange at the time, which was like when you cast demons out of people. That was kind of a little like, “Oh.”
GT 16:38 The Exorcist?
Cristina 16:39 But, now I’m Catholic, and we have Exorcist, but it’s different I guess. I don’t know. I just remember a lot of things connected to demonic spirits. And so, I had a spirit of insomnia cast out of me once.
GT 16:55 Oh, wow.
Cristina 16:56 I had a hard time sleeping for one week. I don’t know.
GT 16:59 Did it work?
Cristina 17:01 I mean, I never had chronic insomnia. The woman who did it just sensed that I had this.
GT 17:08 For the last seven years, I don’t know. I think it’s just because I’m getting old. I have a hard time sleeping through the night anymore. Usually, I get up. I go to the bathroom or whatever, and then I go back to sleep. And I’m good. But it bugs me because I used to sleep, 8-9-10 hours straight. It was fine.
Cristina 17:08 Well, Deliverance Ministries are available.
GT 17:16 Okay. {laughs}
Cristina 17:32 Apparently, I mean, it happened to me. But I was really invested in being Pentecostal and being Foursquare. And I wanted to go on a mission. And I looked at the forms. The forms to go on a Foursquare mission, you have to put the date of your water baptism and the date of your baptism in the Holy Spirit.
GT 17:52 They are not the same date?
Cristina 17:54 Well no. Your baptism in the Holy Spirit’s the day you start speaking in tongues.
GT 17:57 Oh, that’s interesting.
Cristina 17:59 And I didn’t have that. And in the Foursquare Church it used to be very kind of in the camp of, “are you saved if you don’t speak in tongues?” It’s no longer like that anymore, for the most part. But it really used to focus on that speaking in tongues as a sign of your salvation. And that’s really hard when you’re deeply invested in this religion, but you don’t have the outward sign that you are saved. And so that was really hard for me.
Cristina 18:28 And I went to college camp. This is right before I peaced-out. I went to college camp. And if people have seen the movie, “Jesus Camp“, it was very much my camp experience where it’s heightened emotion. It’s really intense. It’s really intense. And it’s kind of modeled after, there’s a day where you get saved. And then there’s a day where people just pray over you to receive the gift of tongues. And I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t do it. And I knew that people lied and pretended to be baptized in the Holy Ghost. But that didn’t feel [right to me.] The whole thing, it was really difficult. It was really difficult. And ultimately, that eventually led me to no longer being Pentecostal.
GT 19:12 Oh.
Cristina 19:13 I became non-denominational for a while. But it was my slow journey out is just being like “if this is required for me to be saved, and clearly I’m not. So why am I sticking around?”
GT 19:27 That sounds like some other podcasts I’m not going to mention. We don’t usually go here, but this is cool.
Cristina 19:39 We have an upswing coming though.
GT 19:41 Okay. Continue on.
Cristina 19:43 Yes, I mean, I became non-denominational. I don’t know. Over time I just stopped believing. It’s one of those things that when you stop believing part of it, how do you stick around for just part? I had a really hard time doing that. And so, I just stopped going to church. I became increasingly agnostic about things. I went to undergrad.
GT 20:06 You still believed in Jesus though. Right?
Cristina 20:08 Yeah, I did. I did. I think it’s hard because, in hindsight, I probably was–I eventually, by the time I started grad school, I was in a camp where I was probably leaning toward atheism. But even now, I feel really uncomfortable using the word atheist. And so, I say that I was really agnostic by that time.
GT 20:35 Kind of a hopeful atheist?
Cristina 20:36 Probably. I just, for some reason, atheism still feels a little too strong for what I was. And in reality, I wasn’t certain there wasn’t a god. I was very agnostic. I didn’t [know.] I was just very, like, I don’t know what’s going on. So, I started grad school. But because of everything, because of Pentecostalism, because of everything, I was like, religion is interesting to me. I want to know why people become religious, why people stay religious. Because of the religions that I was so interested in in the 19th century was something that I was fascinated by. And so when I started when I went to grad school, I signed on to study religion, because this was something that was just deeply interesting to me on a personal level, but also sociologically, it was so interesting. And yeah, so I was an agnostic person who’s started religious studies.
Diving into Religious Studies
GT 21:32 So, it sounds like high school, you were converted to a Pentecostal/Born Again kind of a thing. And then you got to college, and then you weren’t able to speak in tongues and had a faith crisis, is that [accurate?]
GT 21:43 Yeah.
Cristina 21:44 Okay.
GT 21:44 And then where did you go to college?
Cristina 21:46 I went to Cal State–well, I went to Saddleback Community College first, because I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life.
GT 21:51 Saddleback, that sounds like it’s in Arizona.
Cristina 21:53 No, it’s in California.
GT 21:54 Okay.
Cristina 21:56 We were the gauchos, though. But I went to community college because I didn’t know what to do.
GT 22:00 I used to work at Salt Lake Community College. It’s a great place to start. It really is.
Cristina 22:07 I didn’t know what I wanted to do. And I didn’t want to spend the money on just wafting around not knowing what I was going to do. And so, I highly recommend community college. I think there still is sometimes some kind of shame about doing that route.
GT 22:22 It’s not shameful at all.
Cristina 22:23 No.
GT 22:23 It’s smart because you save money.
Cristina 22:26 I highly recommend it. It is such a path for so many people. And it makes education accessible. I could go on forever. I’m a huge supporter of community college.
GT 22:38 Well, I was teaching at Salt Lake Community College and Utah Valley University at the same time. I didn’t have to do anything different. Because I mean, they were different books, but it was the same information. I’m like, “This is not any different than regular college.”
Cristina 22:51 I mean, if you take a math class, it’s going to be the same. I mean, exactly. I mean, the cost was so much cheaper. And I ended up being, I was not prepared to enter a four-year college or university after high school. I was just absolutely unprepared.
GT 23:08 I will tell you, I’ll throw out another community college success story. Todd Compton.
Cristina 23:14 Yeah.
GT 23:14 He went to Snow College and my daughter goes there.
Cristina 23:18 There’s no reason not to.
GT 23:20 Right.
Cristina 23:22 It’s such a pathway for success for so many people. And I mean, I also wasn’t good at school. I did really poorly in math and science. And so, I just was not prepared to go to a four-year college, at all. And then when I did, I transferred to Cal State Fullerton, which is a state school in California. We have two systems, the UC system and the Cal State system. And so I went to Cal State Fullerton.
GT 23:48 Is one more prestigious than the other?
Cristina 23:49 The UCs are.
GT 23:51 You’ve got UC Berkeley. Right?
Cristina 23:53 Yeah, the UC system is, but it’s really because California has this plan for education. And the idea was that the UC’s were going to be professional degrees. And that’s where you go to become a lawyer, a doctor, get a Ph.D., all of that. And the Cal State system really was geared more toward doing, like, they have really, really solid education programs, like a lot of elementary, middle school teachers, high school teachers go through the Cal State system. So, they were designed to do different things.
GT 24:31 But they probably overlap quite a bit now.
Cristina 24:34 Now they do. But it still is the case that the Cal States don’t have a lot of Ph.D. programs. They have some, but not a whole lot. So, I really loved Cal State Fullerton.
GT 24:45 I’m trying to remember Fullerton, are they the Titans?
Cristina 24:46 The Titans!
GT 24:47 I was right. Okay, good.
Cristina 24:48 Yep, and our mascot’s an elephant. But my dad went back, when I was in middle school, my dad really generously, I couldn’t do my math homework. And my dad went back to school to be able to help me, which was so kind of him. And I’m so grateful for that, even though like, do kids listen to their parents? Unfortunately for me, no. He went to Cal State Fullerton and he became a really…
GT 25:14 See, if I would have taught you, you would have been fine.
Cristina 25:17 Well, I don’t know. I was stubborn. I still have it. But he’s brilliant. He’s brilliant at math. And so I went to Cal State Fullerton because my dad was there. I was like, “I don’t know anything about college. What is college?” But I fell in love with school, the minute I found like something I liked.
GT 25:40 Which was? What was your major?
Cristina 25:41 I was liberal studies, which is humanities, general humanities. My concentration ended up being religion, by the end.
GT 25:49 Because you’re kind of having your faith crisis at this time, and you were like, “Why do people like religion anyway?”
Cristina 25:53 Yep, I actually wrote my capstone project on Aimee Semple McPherson.
GT 25:57 And she is?
Cristina 25:58 The founder of the Foursquare Church.
GT 25:59 Okay.
Cristina 26:00 I don’t know where that Capstone is. But I did that. And as I was working on that, my advisor, who became a really good friend of mine, he was like, “Maybe you should go to grad school.” And I was like, what is that? I don’t know. My grad school application experience was a nightmare. But by the luck of a draw and the grace of God, I got into grad school. And I went to University of California, Riverside. UC Riverside was…
GT 26:32 Do they have sports teams?
Cristina 26:34 Supposedly our baseball team is good. We are the, what is our mascot? It’s a bear. All the UCs are a bear. But, like UCLA is the Bruins. We’re not the Bruins.
GT 26:47 Golden Bears, you’re not the Cal Golden Bears?
Cristina 26:48 Clearly I’m a huge sports fan. (in jest)
GT 26:50 The Black Bears, who knows.[1]
GT 26:52 Okay.
Cristina 26:52 Clearly I love sports. Yeah, no. So, I went to UC Riverside. It was close to home. I got to see my family still, all the time. I was only 23 when I started my Ph.D. program. So I was at UC Riverside.
GT 27:05 Oh?
Cristina 27:06 I didn’t do a master’s.
GT 27:08 I thought you went to Claremont.
Cristina 27:09 No, I taught there.
GT 27:10 Oh, you taught at Claremont.
Cristina 27:12 For a minute, yeah. I did a VAP there after I graduated. Yeah, so I went to UC Riverside. And I was really interested in the 19th century. And I, for many reasons, I was really interested in the communitarian aspect of a lot of the religions that emerged in the 19th century. I mean, the revivals, the Great Awakening, the Second Great Awakening, as someone who was Pentecostal once, I read about the Second Great Awakening, and I’m like, this has been going on for a long time, about people just having these ecstatic experiences. That was just so interesting.
GT 27:46 The shouting Methodists, were you into them?
Cristina 27:48 I was into them and the itinerant preachers and the camp meetings. I mean, yeah, all of that. Charles Finney, it was just so interesting. But then there were all these other new religions that were emerging at the time. One of them you might be familiar with.
GT 28:04 Maybe.
Cristina 28:05 It’s called The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
GT 28:08 Also known as…
Cristina 28:10 The Mormons?
GT 28:11 Yeah, you can say the M word on this. It’s okay.
Cristina 28:13 But yeah, I was just so interested in all of this. And I did an independent study with the professor who became my advisor later on. And she, again, just by luck of a draw, by the grace of God, assigned me a book called Rough Stone Rolling.
GT 28:29 Oh.
Cristina 28:30 And it was part of an independent study. So, I read a bunch of different books on different traditions. She’s not a scholar of…
GT 28:38 See, I keep waiting for, “And then I knew this Mormon,” that doesn’t sound like it was in part of your story.
Cristina 28:45 No, I, she assigned me Rough Stone Rolling. And part of the weird situation of that is, I went home to see my family. Because I was doing that still really frequently. And I brought this book with me that I got from the library, Rough Stone Rolling, and I needed to finish it and so I…
GT 29:04 That’s a long book.
Cristina 29:05 Well, Rick, let me tell you the story. So, my kitchen table from my childhood home, I sit down at like six o’clock in the morning on Saturday, and I open it. And all of a sudden, it’s like four in the morning the next day.
GT 29:19 Oh, my goodness.
Cristina 29:20 And I was just like…
GT 29:21 Just like Parley P. Pratt.
Cristina 29:22 I was like, “This is what I’m this is what I’m going to study the rest of my life.”
GT 29:25 Wow.
Cristina 29:27 Like this is the most interesting story.
GT 29:28 So, it was like your Pentecostal conversion story. This is your Mormon conversion story.
Cristina 29:32 It was the most interesting story I had ever heard in my life.
GT 29:35 Wow.
Cristina 29:35 The story of Joseph Smith, I was completely captivated by the story of Joseph Smith, by the story of the Restoration. It was just like nothing I’ve ever read before. But, I mean, it kind of was in that it was very similar to other ones, but the difference is, that most people talk about, is that Mormonism survived into the present, in a way that the Shakers didn’t. Most people will go their whole life never meeting a Quaker, even though they, of course, continue.
GT 30:02 Richard Nixon was a Quaker.
Cristina 30:04 Richard Nixon, but I don’t know. Do you know a Quaker, personally?
GT 30:07 No, I don’t.
Cristina 30:08 Same. But I know a lot of Mormons, personally. In hindsight, I did know two Mormons in high school. One of them was on the surf team, but I didn’t really know what [they believed.] I had no idea what they were. My parents…
GT 30:25 Well, in high school, you weren’t really interested, until you had this [spiritual experience.]
Cristina 30:29 Right, but then I was Pentecostal and my parents would go out, would come out to Utah some winters to ski. But [we] didn’t really talk to anyone about religion.
GT 30:41 You didn’t go to Temple Square?
Cristina 30:43 No, I didn’t at all. Like, it wasn’t [a priority.] We knew it existed, I guess. But it was just whatever.
GT 30:50 We’re here to ski.
Cristina 30:53 We’re here to ski and my parents both worked in real estate in Southern California in a city called Irvine. And there’s a temple that was built there, the Newport Beach Temple.
GT 31:01 [The University is] UC Irvine Anteaters, I think. Sorry, I’m a sports nut. I can’t help it.
Cristina 31:06 Rick knows, every single UC–a spokesperson for the UC system.
GT 31:13 It’s all of college. I don’t restrict myself to just California.
Cristina 31:17 UCLA and Berkeley are the big ones. The only college football game I’ve ever been to was UCLA versus University of Utah. And I wore a University of Utah shirt, because I was a fellow there. So, I felt like…
GT 31:28 Oh, yeah.
Cristina 31:28 …I had to do it.
GT 31:29 I’m glad you did.
Cristina 31:30 I had to, and the U won.
GT 31:33 Of course. That’s not a surprise. (Chuckling)
Cristina 31:37 I mean, but UCLA–UCLA is not…
GT 31:40 They haven’t been good since the 1970s. Terry Donahue was the last good coach that they had.
Cristina 31:43 They haven’t been good since the 70s, folks. I don’t know anything. I don’t know anything about sports.
GT 31:53 Terry Donahue was the last good coach they had. Yeah, no, I’m getting him mixed up with John Robinson, but he was at USC.
Cristina 31:59 Those are not the same. Ask anyone in California.
GT 32:02 Oh, I know. UCLA/USC is as bad [of rivals], if not worse than BYU/Utah.
Cristina 32:09 Oh, yeah. I would say it’s, I mean, it’s at least–it feels probably more long standing. No, it’s probably not more…
GT 32:14 Oh, it’s way more long standing, yeah. Well…
Cristina 32:17 I don’t know when BYU got a football team.
GT 32:18 BYU was crappy until Lavell Edwards in the 70s. And then they…
Cristina 32:22 The 70’s was a high point of college sports, it seems.
GT 32:25 Oh, yeah. Yeah. That was when UCLA was good. And then we got Ron Meyer, or Urban Meyer, excuse me. Ron Meyer is somebody else. Urban Meyer, and then we dominate BYU again. So, it’s nice, but they have won the last couple of years.
Cristina 32:42 Go Utes! Shout out to the Utes! What’s their [sign?] Isn’t it like that?
GT 32:47 Yeah, there you go.
GT 32:48 And this is Weber, by the way. {Makes the letter “W” with fingers.}
Cristina 32:50 And this is Utah Tech. Go Trailblazers!
GT 32:54 Oh, it is? I didn’t know that.
Cristina 32:55 Yeah.
GT 32:55 Now Utah Tech used to have another name.
Cristina 32:58 It did.
GT 33:00 Can you say it?
Cristina 33:00 It was Dixie State.
GT 33:01 Yeah.
Cristina 33:02 Well, Dixie College, and then it was Dixie Academy before that.
GT 33:06 Yeah. Dixie State College, and they were the Rebels. And then they were the blazers?
Cristina 33:15 We’re the Trailblazers, now.
GT 33:17 Wasn’t there something in between Blazers and Rebels?
Cristina 33:20 I’ve only worked here for five months, Rick.
GT 33:21 Okay. Oh, is that all? Sorry, I didn’t realize that. I thought it was longer than that. I guess I’ve known you longer than that.
Cristina 33:28 Oh, yeah, I mean, you’ve known me since grad school, since I was in grad school.
GT 33:31 Yeah. Yeah.
Cristina 33:32 No, we’re the Trailblazers. How’s our football team?
GT 33:38 I have no idea. They suck. (Chuckling) I don’t pay attention to them.
Cristina 33:43 If any of my students are watching. I’m sorry, especially my football players.
GT 33:47 They’re not D-1. Are they? Maybe they are? I don’t know. You wouldn’t
Cristina 33:48 I don’t know what that means.
GT 33:49 But I will tell you this. Here’s our connection with Utah Tech. Utah Valley University used to be known as Utah Tech. I don’t know if you knew that.
Cristina 34:00 I didn’t.
GT 34:00 Yeah, back in the 80s. I remember when they were Utah Tech.
Cristina 34:03 Whoa.
GT 34:04 And then they became Utah Valley State College and then Utah Valley University. And then you stole our name.
Cristina 34:12 Me, I personally did, that’s right. (Chuckling) I just remember getting a notice. I think it was an email, letting new faculty know that we’re not supposed to say UTU.
GT 34:23 Oh, really? Why not?
Cristina 34:25 We’re just UT. It’s part of the branding.
GT 34:27 That’s University of Texas.
Cristina 34:28 Actually, it’s not. I mean, yeah, like UT Austin like. But that’s not Utah Tech Austin.
GT 34:37 (Chuckling)
Cristina 34:39 I don’t know. I was told very clearly, “Don’t say UTU.”
GT 34:44 Oh, that’s interesting.
Cristina 34:45 Because I remember having to erase, delete the last U from my syllabi.
GT 34:49 Oh, that’s funny.
Cristina 34:50 This spring.
GT 34:50 That was actually pretty controversial down here to change the name. Wasn’t it?
Cristina 34:56 Oh, yeah. I mean, I followed the controversy because, like, Nancy Ross, who some people might know, she works…
GT 35:02 She was a former guest.
Cristina 35:03 I mean, she’s incredible. She’s been there. She’s been at Utah Tech for 16 years.
GT 35:09 Wow. And she’s a Community of Christ pastor, I believe.
Cristina 35:14 She was ordained a few years ago. Hi, Nancy. I followed her, especially in it because she talked quite a bit about it on social media, on Twitter.
GT 35:27 About the name change.
Cristina 35:27 Yeah. And so I followed her talking about that, and I saw a few Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret News articles. It felt like a really obvious choice to change the name.
GT 35:41 Well, they were the Washington Redskins for a long time, until now they’re finally the Commanders. You know, some things die hard.
Cristina 35:48 Yeah. But now if you go to Utah Tech, it says Utah Tech University, Dixie campus.
GT 35:57 Oh, it does?
Cristina 35:58 It still says that.
GT 36:01 Oh, that’s weird. I didn’t know that.
Cristina 36:02 I don’t know if that was like a concession.
GT 36:04 It sounds like it.
Cristina 36:05 Yeah, it feels like it. But yeah, it does say that still. I don’t know. But the it’s a good school.
GT 36:13 Wow. Wow.
Cristina 36:14 Our football team, apparently, is bad according to Rick Bennett.
GT 36:17 (Chuckling) I don’t think they’re D-1. I think they’re like 1-AA. They don’t say 1-AA [anymore.] They’re FCS, not FBS. FBS is where all the good teams are.
Cristina 36:29 We have a great stadium.
GT 36:32 Okay.
Cristina 36:33 We have a really good dance team.
GT 36:35 Okay.
Cristina 36:36 One of my students is on the dance team and our dance team, like, won nationals, like our dance team is great.
GT 36:42 Very good. I don’t really [follow dance] even know my daughter is on the dance team at Snow. I don’t really follow it other than Snow.
{End of Part 1}
[1] The mascot is the Highlanders.
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