In honor of the late BYU Professor Eugene England (1933-2001), friends and colleagues have contributed their best original stories, poems, reminiscences, scholarly articles, and essays for this impressive volume. In one essay, "Eugene England Enters Heaven," Robert A. Rees imagines his friend being welcomed into heaven by the Savior. Rees then imagines England "organizing contests between the Telestial and Celestial Kingdoms, leading a theater tour to Kolob, and pleading the cause of friends still struggling in mortality. This," he concludes, "is the image I have of Gene, that I hold in my heart."
Twenty-one women and men discuss what it is about Mormonism that keeps them part of the fold. Their deep, unique experiences make their individual travels even more compelling. Kimberly Applewhite Teitter, growing up in the South as a Black Latter-day Saint, often encountered well-meaning Latter-day Saints whose words messaged the idea that she was at some level an outsider or perhaps not as authentically Mormon as others in her congregation. Thus, she writes, "At the end of the day I'm still Black--still have felt the weight of proving that I represent the church I've fought so hard for my entire life." Yet the very episodes that could have driven her from the church became lessons on the meaning of discipleship.
Wrestling the Angel is the first in a two part study of the foundations of Mormon thought and practice. The book traces the essential contours of Mormon thought as it developed from Joseph Smith to the present. Terryl L. Givens, one of the nation's foremost scholars of Mormonism, offers a sweeping account of the history of Mormon belief, revealing that Mormonism is a tradition still very much in the process of formation.
For example, they illustrate that for every assertion about God being a human-like man with a physical body, with a literal, physical son, accompanied by a third, spirit personage, there is a correspondingly definitive pronouncement from church leaders and scripture asserting the opposite: that the godhead includes a woman, that God is a spirit, that there is only one God, and that the Holy Spirit has a resurrected body. The Book of Mormon is trinitarian, the Doctrine and Covenants is not. The Toscanos propose that God might be visualized equally well as an androgenous being.
Ascend the glorious mountain of God. Members of the church, young and old, must grow in their understanding of true temple worship. is inspired book explores what the Saints must do, and how we must do it, to return to the presence of God. Learn what steps we need to take to climb to the Lord’s house, and how the temple can serve as a template for other areas of life, particularly scripture study. Make your temple experiences more than mere attendance and your scripture study more than simple reading. Begin to truly worship at the summit of Mount Zion.
This book examines how Christian love can inform legal thought. The work introduces love as a way to advance the emergent conversation between constructive theology and jurisprudence that will also inform conversations in philosophy and political theory. Love is the central category for Christian ethical understanding. Yet, the growing field of law and religion, and relatedly law and theology, rarely addresses how love can shape our understanding of law. This reflects, in part, a common assumption that law and love stand in necessary tension. Love applies to the private and the personal. Law, by contrast, applies to the public and the political, realms governed by power. It is thus a mistake to envisage love as having anything but a negative relationship to law. This conclusion continues to govern Christian understandings of the meaning and vocation of law. The animating idea of this volume is that the concept of love can and should inform Christian legal thought. The project approaches this task from the perspective of both historical and constructive theology. Various contributions examine how such thinkers as Augustine, Aquinas, and Calvin utilised love in their legal thought. These essays highlight often neglected aspects of the Christian tradition. Other contributions examine Christian love in light of contemporary legal topics including civility, forgiveness, and secularism. Love, the book proposes, not only matters for law but can transform the terms on which Christians understand and engage it. The book will be of interest to academics and researchers working in the areas of legal theory; law and religion; law and philosophy; legal history; theology and religious studies; and political theory.
