The idea was exhilarating. Twelve of this country’s most renowned scholars in religious studies presenting a “Reflections on Mormonism” symposium at Brigham Young University. With allowances for the hyperbole of a dust jacket, it truly was a “dazzling array of talent and expertise,” with all the ingredients for the “watershed event of the decade.” Never before had an LDS affiliated organization invited so many eminent scholars to address themselves so directly to Mormon themes. Truman Madsen is ever to be congratulated for cracking the Mormon reputation of provincialism and anti-intellectualism with this symposium. And BYU’s Religious Studies Center is to be congratulated for sponsoring the event and then publishing the papers in their entirety.
This book is a must for any serious student of Mormonism, not only for its contents but for the promising precedent it sets, none of which seems to have been lost on the book-buying public. Little more than a year after Reflections on Mormonism appeared on the shelves, the first printing of 6,000 copies had been sold out and a second run of 3,000 was being prepared. Now, two-and-a half years after the papers were first presented, is an opportune time to assess the symposiums impact as well as its content.
