Mormon Studies is relatively open-minded when it comes to accepting the contributions of amateurs. Here I am defining amateurs as people who are not employed by academia as their main gig, whether or not they have a graduate degree–some do, some don’t; also, here I am defining “Mormon Studies” broadly, as any original research endeavor that touches on Mormonism in some way. In this post I am making a list of amateurs who have in my eye have made significant contributions to the Mormon Studies world, including many that some people may not be aware of. Of course, I am not as deep into the world as some are, so no offense intended if I miss somebody big, which I probably will.
Unsullied by careerism, there’s a certain added creativity to amateur work since they can simply do what they love without worrying about whether it’s what the cool kids are doing. Sometimes we have a hard time looking past the title, but it’s clear that amateurs have a lot to contribute. (Bike repair guys Orville and Wilbur Wright’s main competitor was a prestigious professor that enjoyed federal funding, and Albert Einstein was famously a patent clerk that could not get an academic job to save his life when he discovered relativity). So without further ado…
Ardis Parshall: I would not be surprised if Ardis Parshall knows more about Latter-day Saint primary sources than anyone alive. Her blog is a mine of unknown gems.
Robert Boylan: Irish graduate of divinity school, Robert is similarly probably one of the most well-read Latter-day Saints when it comes to ancient scripture and theology, and his blog is also a goldmine.
Greg Prince: I think his speculative Salt Lake City Vaticanology is quite off sometimes (e.g. his insistence that the brethren believe that the biology etiology of homosexuality is a myth), but nobody can deny that his book-length works place him on any top Latter-day Saint amateur list. (I believe he had a faculty position, but it was for medicine, so for the purposes of this list he is an amateur).
Blake Ostler: Philosopher/theologian in competition with Boylan for most well-read theologian/philosopher. His Exploring Mormon Thought series is an unparalleled, rather sophisticated look at Latter-day Saint thought through the lens of systematic theology and philosophy.
Samuel Brown: There’s small potatoes Mormonism (this or that policy, particulars of this or that ancient people, or this or that particular sermon), and there’s big deal Mormonism (Godhood, Worlds Without End), and Samuel Brown’s In Heaven As It Is On Earth helps people see the richness of Latter-day Saint thought through the lens of the latter.
Gary Bergera: Prolific long-time Signature Books editor. He has a string of impressively edited and annotated collections of primary sources.
Dan Vogel: Similar string of impressively edited and annotated collections of primary sources. Dan Vogel is openly antagonistic to Latter-day Saint truth claims, but to baldly speculate for a moment I suspect that him and others are at least partially responsible for the Church’s turn towards historical professionalization and things like the Joseph Smith Papers, because it became clear that if they didn’t do it that somebody else would, and they would become the go-to experts. So thanks where thanks is due. I do know that, for example, Rough Stone Rolling elicited some discomfort from a not-insignificant number of General Authorities, so I assume that pre-RSR there was some pushback from those kinds of efforts at the higher levels, and I suspect things like Vogel’s Early Mormon Documents series gave some leverage to those within the COB that wanted to go in the professionalization direction.
Ben Crowder: Less well known than the others on the list, and he’s more of a creative type than a researcher, but his Mormon Text Project and other publication projects have made early Latter-day Saint texts much more accessible.
Don Bradley: Ex-Ex-Latter-day Saint. Did a lot of the research legwork on Joseph Smith polygamy research; is known for his creative analysis (I don’t mean that pejoratively) as well as encyclopedic knowledge of the primary sources.
Jasmine and Neal Rappleye: Apologist couple who work at Scripture Central. Arguable successors to Daniel Peterson.
James Goldberg: Probably the main “Mormon Lit” guy. One would think BYU would have more of these, but it’s one of those areas where it’s surprisingly up to unfunded amateurs.
Again, no offense to any that I may have missed.
I love this list and have benefited greatly from the work of several here, especially Ardis Parshall, Don Bradley, and Greg Prince. And I’ve had occasion to spend a lot of time in Dan Vogel’s Early Mormon Documents series and and I’m grateful for all the scholarship those volumes made possible in the era before the Joseph Smith Papers Project. One of my long-ago Institute teachers, who had a previously worked for the Church Archives, told our class in about 2003-2005, when President Hinckley was still alive, that Thomas Monson specifically was one of those who was against the JSPP and that he (the Institute teacher) thought it could very well be that God was keeping President Hinckley alive as long as He had in part to keep Monson from shutting down the JSPP before it could reach the point of no return.
The amateurs definitely have the advantage of going right after the issues and getting to the truth of things because they aren’t afraid of losing their academic credentials and esteem amongst men of academic excellence.
Some additions to this list to keep an eye on:
They’re not really amateurs since they’re professional philosophers, but their treatment of the Church is mostly via blogs and videos so I think they belong here: Joseph Lawal and Tarik LaCour.
D. Charles Pyle primarily works on Quora but he’s a good researcher with the same sort of productive creativity that Bradley has.
Errol Amey mostly works on Facebook but he competes with Boylan as our best Patristics guy.
This post and the responses are evidence of the strong, deeply embedded, and unfortunate anti-intellectual strain in the LDS Church that has existed since the 19th century. Whether that originated with a backlash against Charles Anthon or not is debatable, but it has clearly been supported by people like Boyd K. Packer and has gained support in the broader U.S. socio-cultural backlash against universities in recent years.
A, in what ways does this demonstrate anti-intellectualism? The involvement of both amatures and professionals to me demonstrates more of a level of investment in the field that demonstrates a pro-intellectual strain in Mormonism.
I believe Don Bradley has a masters degree in history, so I’m not sure he should be classified as an amateur.
A unfortunately seems to have conflated intellectualism with the academic-industrial complex – which I find astonishing considering that many of history’s most brilliant minds were free agents or curious eccentrics who made their living some other way.
shouldn’t Brian and Laura Hales be on this list?
I hope that we can get away from the appeal to authority fallacy that became really prevalent in the information age. It persists quite strongly though. I still hear quite often in a class setting and the teacher is falling upon some scholar from a podcast they listen to for some insight which I find isn’t quite right. The very best teachers I’ve ever had in class at church was by someone without a lot of academic training from university. I do tend to think that the philosophy of liberalism bleeds through quite dramatically in universities and the longer one stays involved with university the more close minded they get.
It’s one reason I really like studying things on my own absent from most academic opinions. I feel like I’m free and have more options and in the end, wiser. The big problem we see now is censorship, even in the lds blogosphere.
@Sam: Oh duh, of course!
@Buraianto: Yes, some of these entries have graduate degrees, but for this particular list an “amateur” is somebody that doesn’t have a full-time academic position.
@Hoosier: Great additions, I hadn’t heard about some of these but they look great.
Ben Crowder is a hidden gem (like @ Kohinoor diamond).
J. Stapley is a good one. Haven’t seen much from him lately. I don’t always agree with his conclusions, but his histiorianship is spot on.
I worry that Stephen may be too generous, his criteria too loose. I know at least one person on the list whose terminal degree is a master’s of public administration from BYU.
Gary, it seems like an MPA would be entirely appropriate for a Mormon Studies amateur, wouldn’t it? I’m not quite sure what you’re saying.
About amateurism in general, I can see different sides. People who have academic credentials and are fully embedded in their disciplines and institutions can do some remarkable work, and people without that training can have some significant blind spots. At the same time, it’s nonsense to try to claim Mormon Studies as the exclusive domain of trained theologians, or credentialed specialists on 19th-century American history, or anyone else. In addition, all those amateur participants make for an engaged and incredibly well prepared audience compared to many highly respectable academic fields, which translates directly (via publishers’ bottom line) into books and articles by academic authors.
Jonathan: Gary Bergera is being facetious. He’s referring to himself: https://community.utah.gov/gary-bergera-on-his-lifes-work-as-an-author-and-publisher-of-history/
Ah, thanks for cluing me in. Carry on.
An assignment of authors as “academic” or “amateur” as the only alternatives acknowledged is altogether amusing. There is at least a third category: professionals. Some listed above are neither academic nor amateur.
The problem with trained scholars though is understanding their source for their credentials. It’s the same secular institutions that deny Book of Mormon viability, the divinity of Christ and his work, etc.
A really good example of trying to mesh secular understanding with Mormon studies is the work of the late John L. Sorensen who is basically the father of the meso-american setting for the Book of Mormon. He tries to force the text into this tiny tiny area of meso-america using the understanding of trained secular academia. The end result: people leave the church or deny the historicity when they see his model completely failing.
I think academia fails us where it matters most. For example, take the megalythic stone work of Puma Punku and Tiawanaku in Bolivia on the southern edge of Lake Titicaca. The stories academia contrives for both the methods used to create these works it and then how it was destroyed/abandoned is mind baffling. Anyone with any common sense has to laugh. Same with the stonework at Cusco and Sacsayhuaman. Everything they say from who built them, how it was built to how or why they were abandoned is quite laughable. And yet, we are supposed to trust them? Getting at the truth requires both some academic understanding and common sense.
Sorry, Jonathan. Yes, I was being tongue-in-cheek. Approaching 70, I count myself incredibly lucky to have been able to work, as an amateur, in Mormon Studies.
B.H. Roberts
I think I have to quibble a bit at including James Goldberg — not because he isn’t wonderful (he is), and a huge support to Mormon Literature. BUT, he largely does not produce academic work. He DOES produce wonderful literature, just not academic work. I must stress, however, I LOVE what he does produce.
Can I suggest a couple of alternative amateurs?
* Randy Astle, author of “Mormon Cinema to 1954”, probably knows more about Mormon film than anyone.
* Glen Nelson, who runs the Latter-day Saint Center for the Arts, might also be called an amateur, since he isn’t paid for his work, which isn’t academic in the way a professorship is academic. Glen is the author of a number of academic books about several different Mormon artists.
Thanks Kent, those are great additions that I wasn’t as familiar with.