Robert A. Rees

Robert A. Rees, Ph.D., teaches Mormon Studies at Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley and at UC Berkeley. Rees is the editor and author of numerous studies in Education, American Studies, and Religious Studies. He is also a published poet, essayist, editorialist, and blogger. He is the editor of Why I Stay: The Challenges of Discipleship for Contemporary Mormons and co-editor of The Reader’s Book of Mormon.

Truth and Reconciliation: Reflections on the Fortieth Anniversary of the LDS Church’s Lifting the Priesthood and Temple Restrictions for Black Mormons of African Descent

Listen to the audio version of this piece here. The Church has no power to do wrong with impunity any more than any individual. Brigham Young[1] America’s history of racial inequality continues to haunt us.…

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Portrait of a (Latter-day) Saint

I miss Gene England! I have especially missed his voice these past twenty years. So many times, I have wondered, “What would Gene have said about . . .” as we have stumbled and bungled…

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Prism

Podcast version of this piece. They had agreedthat if she were seenthe boy wouldn’t be believedin seeing them.Nevertheless, she was there,her iridescent spherea coronaover their column of sun,reflecting,refractingthe morning.The flowers turned to her,the green of…

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Tikkun K’nessiah: Repairing the Church

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“Truth is the Daughter of Time”: Notes Toward an Imaginative Mormon History

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Joseph Smith and the Face of Christ

“He will unveil his face to you.” D&C 88:67–68 “Everything in the realm of nature and human existence is a sign—a manifestation of God’s divine names and attributes. . . . As it is said in the Qur’an,…

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Wes Johnson: Visionary Historian

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Review: Lost in Translation Adam S. Miller. The Sun Has Burned My Skin: A Modest Paraphrase of Solomon’s Song of Songs

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Forgotten Birds

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Reimagining the Restoration: Why Liberalism is the Ultimate Flowering of Mormonism

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Ordination and Blessing

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Articles and Essays in Mormon Studies

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The Imagination’s New Beginning: Thoughts on Esthetics and Religion

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Dramatic Christianity: The Trial of the Catonsville Nine by Daniel Berrigan

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A Continuing Dialogue

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The Gospel, Mormonism and American Culture

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Science, Religion and Man

Dialogue 8.3/4 (1973): 4–6
The divergence of science and religion is essentially a modern phenomenon. Until the 18th century, theology was considered the queen of the sciences and scientists considered that their discoveries allowed them “to think God’s thoughts after Him.”

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The Possibilities of Dialogue

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“Cooperating in Works of the Spirit”: Notes Toward a Higher Dialogue

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Somewhere Near Palmyra

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Fishers

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Monologues and Dialogues: A Personal Perspective

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Bearing Out Crosses Gracefully: Sex and the Single Mormon

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“In a Dark Time the Eye Begins to See”: Personal Reflections on Homosexuality among the Mormons at the Beginning of a New Millennium

Dialogue 33.3 (Fall 2000): 137–151

Rees’s Fall 2000 artice is titled “”In a Dark Time the Eye Begins to See”: Personal Reflections on Homosexuality among the Mormons at the Beginning of a New Millennium.” A straight man and local LDS leader, Rees shares his own experience counseling with LGBTQ members and their struggles, from “gay bashing” violence, most famously the murder of Matthew Shephard, to prejudice and more. Rees talks about his own changed perspective on this issue that started when he was a singles ward bishop in LA in the 1980s and shares what he had learned along the way. Rees calls for a number of steps and changes as a body of the church to improve these conditions.

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Eugene England: Our Brother in Christ

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Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon, and the American Renaissance

Dialogue 35.3 (Fall 2003):9a–128
I am a literary critic who has spent a professional lifetime reading, teaching, and writing about literary texts. Much of my interest in and approach to the Book of Mormon lies with the text—though not just as a field for scholarly exploration.

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America’s War on Terrorism: One Latter-day Saint’s Perspective

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Power and Powerlessness: A Personal Perspective

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The Cedars of Lebanon

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Blind Tears

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Why Mormons Should Celebrate Holy Week

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Heart Mountain

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Baptism

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El Cordero de Dios

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Between Suicide and Celibacy: In Quiet Desperation: Understanding the Challenge of Same-Gender Attraction by Fred and Marilyn Matis and Ty Mansfield

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An Open Letter to Nathan Oman

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The Possibilities of Dialogue

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“Lord, To Whom Shall We Go?” The Challenges of Discipleship and Church Membership

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Dining with the Devil: A Long Spoon: Poems by R. A. Christmas

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Black Handkerchief

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Wedding Flower

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The Goodness of the Church

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The Midrashic Imagination and the Book of Mormon

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Sabbath Baptism

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Melancholia

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Easter

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Ode to Joy!

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Review: Adam S. Miller. Rube Goldberg Machines: Essays in Mormon Theology

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Famine and Scarcity

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Review: Families are Forever and Ever and Ever Vivian Kleiman, dir. Families Are Forever [DVD]

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