Ephesians 2:8-9 (KJV) speaks of salvation coming through the grace of God: “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:/ Not of works, lest any man should boast.” The interpretation of these verses is controversial.
More than ten years after the original appearance of an essay might be too long to wait to respond to it, but the republication of Eugene En gland’s “Dawning of a Brighter Day: Mormon Literature after 150 years” as the inaugural essay of Wasatch Review International (vol. 1 [1992], no. 1) calls for a response.
In 1975 I enrolled in the divinity school at the University of Chicago, where I hoped to earn a Ph.D. under Norman Perrin, a distinguished British New Testament scholar. But a call I made at the same time to the head of the LDS Church Education System in Salt Lake City stopped me cold in my tracks. He told me that if I wanted to teach New Testament for the church I could do so with a Ph.D. in physics or family counseling— anything but a degree in New Testament studies. That attitude has created a vacuum in serious New Testament studies among Latter-day Saints. One way to fill this void is to become a member of the Westar Institute of Sonoma, California, whose goal, among others, is to expose the public to serious biblical scholarship.
Twice now I’ve been told straight out and in so many words, “Don’t be too honest!” Both times this earnest counsel came from men whose friendship I cherish and whose priesthood callings command my respect.…
Sarah your clarinet
body squeaks at the valves, moans
off key, and lying still
and flat as a paper doll
Dialogue 27.4 (Winter 1994): 79–100
Eugene England addresses issues of inclusion and exclusion reflecting on what it means that “God is no respector of persons.”
I was expecting ripened avocadoes, Michael,
or half-used spices—the usual throwaways before
a move. Not a grocery bag of garments, unopened,
each slippery package a skin you never tied on.