Mormon Scholars Testify<\/em> website<\/a>.)<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
I share here a passage from Crossings<\/em>; it\u2019s one of many that I liked:<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
One way to understand Latter-day Saint faith is to analyze published doctrines, such as concepts of the Godhead, claims to restore Christ\u2019s primitive church, original books of scripture, and the pronouncements of ecclesiastical leaders. \u00a0Another way is to study history, such as the founding claims of an uneducated but charismatic farm boy in upstate New York, a period of persecutions by the Protestant and civic establishments, westward migration to the Great Basin, assimilation to American society, and, in recent decades, a momentous new process of globalization. \u00a0These approaches have their advantages and disadvantages. \u00a0On the one hand, they are systematic and comprehensive in scope. \u00a0They identify key actors, dominant trends, central concepts.<\/span><\/p>\nOn the other hand, a faith tradition is much more than a discrete set of ideas, beliefs, or even organizational structures. \u00a0It is deeply rooted in individuals\u2019 daily experiences, a way of life held together by a variety of complex person-to-person interactions. \u00a0Sociologists and anthropologists have attempted to explore these human dimensions through surveys and ethnographers, and writers have attempted to capture them in literature. \u00a0This localized or individualized approach yields piecemeal, sometimes contradictory representations of what it means to be a Latter-day Saint. \u00a0For instance, Eliza Roxcy Snow and Ann Eliza Webb were both wives of Brigham Young, but in her public discourse Eliza defended the Church\u2019s institution of plural marriage, while Ann Eliza published an expos\u00e9 describing abuse and heartbreak. \u00a0A survey of Latter-day Saint teenagers in the United States will paint a different picture of faith compared to an ethnography of mature Latter-day Saint women in Botswana. \u00a0Yet these focused, particularistic studies are just as authentic as sweeping theological or historical overviews. \u00a0The gospel of Christ does not exist in the abstract. \u00a0It only becomes real as it sounds in the ears of individuals who desire to hear it, and only comes forth as these individuals bend their lives to its call. \u00a0(256-257)<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 My wife and I are just back from the monthly meeting of a reading group to which we\u2019ve belonged for something approaching three decades. \u00a0Tonight, it was at the home of the brother-in-law and sister of Richard Bushman \u2014 like her brother, by the way, she earned a doctorate at Harvard; her husband […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1809,6579,55],"class_list":["post-79857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-church-of-jesus-christ-of-latter-day-saints","tag-melissa-inouye","tag-mormonism"],"yoast_head":"\n
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![\"LDS](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2016\/10\/The_Church_of_Jesus_Christ_of_Latter_-_day_Saints_Temple_-_panoramio_-_CHAMRAT_CHAROENKHET_9.jpg\")
<\/a>