Opening his short contribution to this collection of essays, Roger Olson, professor of theology at Baylor University, writes: “One can hardly do justice to the subject of religious authority in a brief reflection essay” (180).…
How do you read a collection of short stories by one author? Do you curl up with the book the same way you would with a novel, reading one story after another until your leg falls asleep or your stomach growls for food or the phone rings? Do you read one story, then close the book to think about it, perhaps reopening the book to reread parts or the whole? Do you expect the stories to be connected by characters or theme or tone and therefore search for universal elements? Do you come to each story afresh, hungry for wonder and new insights?
From its gorgeous dust jacket to its prosaic index, this valuable book provides narrative history, data compilations, and unexploited documents shedding light on one of the most unusual, controversial organizations of antebellum American military his tory, the short-lived Nauvoo Legion of Hancock County, Illinois. In the process, the authors add to our understanding of the violent forces that led to the 1844 assassinations of Joseph and Hyrum Smith as well as the subsequent westbound Mormon exodus from Nauvoo, then one of the largest cities in Illinois.
Susanna Morrill: I’d like to start the conversation by asking four framing questions relating to the issue of religious experience: First, are “abundant events” proper subjects of study for historians of religion? Second, how do historians of religions go about studying such experiences within the methodological expectations of the academy? Third, what are the responsibilities of scholars to the believers whom they write about? And fourth, to what extent will, and should, the faith of scholars appear in their work? Richard, could you start start the discussion with the ideas Robert offers in his article?
Prince: I want to start with what I thought was an amazing quote from Richard Nixon, where he says, “I can take some satisfaction from the fact that this was probably the last national election in which the religious issue will be raised at all.”What a prophet!
Casey: Right, right, what did he know? That was in his Six Crises, right?
Prince: Yes.
Yesterday morning
as I was sitting cross-legged at the kitchen table
enjoying a bowl of corn flakes
Jesus walked into our apartment.
“Hello,” he said. “I’m Jesus.
“I’m here to do the dishes.”
I’m in London, alone at a ballet,
wearing a wide hat
and sitting very straight.
The man next to me is eyeing
me, checking me out, maybe.
I sit in a class of virginal twenty-somethings,
rows of polka dot skirts, shiny shoes, sculpted hair,
waiting for a stern and nervous bishop
to deliver the semi-annual sex talk.
Before sleep I overhear them,
their scrabble of words
scattered to draw meaning
from a day with eight kids,
Now that you are named
and heretofore known
and promised missions and maidens
and temples and talents