USU's Religious Studies Program Hosts Noted Non-Mormon Expert on Mormonism

Utah State University’s Religious Studies Program hosts a lecture by noted scholar Jan Shipps Tuesday, Feb. 24, at 4 p.m. in Fine Arts Visual Room 150 (approximately 1200 E. 700 North, Logan). Her presentation is free and open to all.

Philip Barlow, USU’s Arrington Chair of Mormon History and Culture in the Religious Studies Program, said Shipps is the preeminent non-Mormon expert on Mormonism. The title of her presentation at USU is “From Peoplehood to Church Membership: the Mormon Trajectory Since World War II.”

 

The lecture offers a rare opportunity to hear one of the country’s preeminent scholars of religion probe dimensions of a regionally dominant religion, Barlow said. Shipps will be in Logan for 10 days completing research for a book titled Being Mormon. The book provides a look at what has happened in and to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints since the Second World War.

 

In her lecture, Shipps will look not only at the growth of the Mormon church, but also at changes of which even its adherents are often unaware, Barlow said.

 

Shipps is the author of what “may be the most brilliant book ever written on Mormonism,” according to author Richard Bushman.

 

Barlow encourages everyone to attend the lecture.

 

“It is a common mistake to believe that the study of religion is only for the religious, or the story of Mormonism is only for Mormons,” he said. “Religion entails people’s ultimate concerns — their understanding of the world, their values, their symbols and rituals and commitments, whether conscious or unconscious. Religion influences their individual and collective memory, a people’s way of being in the world and the things that hold them together. If one does not know how to think critically about religion, one is less thoughtful about one’s surroundings and culture.”

 

Shipps is widely sought by the media for her perspective on Mormon events, whether contemporary or historical. She is professor emeritus of history and religious studies in the School of Liberal Arts at Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis, sometimes known as IUPUI. She is the past-president of the American Society of Church History, the oldest organization of professional historians in the United States. She has also served as president of the Mormon History Association and of the John Whitmer Historical Association, a professional organization made up of persons interested in the Mormons who did not go west.

 

For information on Shipps’s lecture at USU, contact Barlow at (435) 797-3406.

 

Source: Religious Studies Program
Contact: Philip Barlow (435) 797-3406, philip.barlow@usu.edu