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
Read morePortrait of a (Latter-day) Saint
Read morePrism
Read moreTikkun K’nessiah: Repairing the Church
Read more“Truth is the Daughter of Time”: Notes Toward an Imaginative Mormon History
Read moreJoseph Smith and the Face of Christ
Read moreWes Johnson: Visionary Historian
Read moreReview: Lost in Translation Adam S. Miller. The Sun Has Burned My Skin: A Modest Paraphrase of Solomon’s Song of Songs
Read moreForgotten Birds
Read moreReimagining the Restoration: Why Liberalism is the Ultimate Flowering of Mormonism
Read moreOrdination and Blessing
Read moreArticles and Essays in Mormon Studies
Read moreThe Imagination’s New Beginning: Thoughts on Esthetics and Religion
Read moreDramatic Christianity: The Trial of the Catonsville Nine by Daniel Berrigan
Read moreA Continuing Dialogue
Read moreThe Gospel, Mormonism and American Culture
Read moreScience, 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.”
The Possibilities of Dialogue
Read more“Cooperating in Works of the Spirit”: Notes Toward a Higher Dialogue
Read moreSomewhere Near Palmyra
Read moreFishers
Read moreMonologues and Dialogues: A Personal Perspective
Read moreBearing Out Crosses Gracefully: Sex and the Single Mormon
Read more“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.
Eugene England: Our Brother in Christ
Read moreJoseph 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.