Contributors

Milton V. Backman Jr. is Professor Emeritus of Church History and Doctrine at Brigham Young University. He earned degrees in history from the University of Utah and the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of numerous books, including Christian Churches of America: Origins and Beliefs (rev. ed., New York: Scribner, 1983); American Religions and the Rise of Mormonism (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1965); and The Heavens Resound: A History of the Latter-day Saints in Ohio, 1830–1838 (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1983).

W. Cole Durham Jr. is Gates University Professor of Law at the J. Reuben Clark Law School, Brigham Young University, and the director of the BYU International Center for Law and Religion Studies. He earned his A.B. and J.D. at Harvard University. His work and service includes: law clerk, Judge Robert A. Ainsworth Jr., U.S. Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit; Max Rheinstein Fellow, West Germany; secretary, American Association for the Comparative Study of Law Executive Committee; chair, Comparative Law Section, American Association of Law Schools; chair, Law and Religion Section; and member of several national advisory boards on church-state issues.

Matthew S. Holland is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Brigham Young University. He earned a B.A. at Brigham Young University and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Duke University. He was a Raoul Wallenberg Scholar at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He specializes in political philosophy and American political thought.

Richard C. Howe served on the Utah Supreme Court from 1980 to 2002. He was Associate Chief Justice from 1988 to 1993 and Chief Justice from 1998 to 2002. He currently serves on the Advisory Committee on the Rules of Appellate Procedure of the United States Judicial Conference. He received degrees in speech and law from the University of Utah and had a private law practice in Salt Lake City. Working twelve years in the Utah House of Representatives (1951–58 and 1969–72), he was Speaker of the House for the 1971–72 session. Elected to the Utah Senate in 1972, he served there until 1978. He was assistant minority leader in the 1973–74 session. During his eighteen years in the House and Senate, he served on every major committee. He introduced and sponsored legislation to establish a Judicial Council and Court Administrator in Utah.

James H. Hutson is Chief of the Manuscript Division at the Library of Congress. He has served on the faculty of the history departments at Yale University and the College of William and Mary. Dr. Hutson is the author of John Adams and the Diplomacy of the American Revolution (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1980); To Make All Laws: The Congress of the United States, 1789–1989 (Washington and Boston: Library of Congress, 1989–90; 4th edition, Washington, 1990); The Sister Republics: Switzerland and the United States from 1776 to the Present (Washington: Library of Congress, 1991; 4th edition, Washington, 1998); and Religion and the Founding of the American Republic (Washington: Library of Congress, 6th printing, 2003). He received his Ph.D. in history from Yale University.

Laurie F. Maffly-Kipp is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill. Her major publications include Religion and Society in Frontier California (Yale University Press, 1994), and African-American Communal Narratives (forthcoming). Her expertise is religious history of the American West, and African-American religious history. She serves on the editorial boards of Church History and North Star. She received a B.A. from Amherst College, an M.A. from Yale University, and a Ph.D. from Yale University.

The Most Reverend George H. Niederauer, Ph.D., is Bishop of Salt Lake City. He was ordained a Roman Catholic Priest in Los Angeles in 1962. He is the author of Precious as Silver (forthcoming in 2004, Ave Maria Press). He serves as president of the Utah Coalition against Pornography; executive member of the National Board Religious Alliance against Pornography; chairman of the USCCB Sub-Committee for Catholic News Service; and a member of the USCCB Committee on Communications. He earned a bachelor of philosophy from St. John’s Seminary, Camarillo, Calif.; a bachelor of sacred theology from Catholic University of America; a master’s degree in English literature at Loyola University of Los Angeles; and a Ph.D. in English literature from the University of Southern California.

Elizabeth A. Sewell is Associate Director of the BYU International Center for Law and Religion Studies at the J. Reuben Clark Law School. She plays an active role in consulting with governments, nongovernmental organizations, and other academic institutions to promote religious liberty throughout the world. Prior to joining the Center and the faculty of the J. Reuben Clark Law School, Professor Sewell was an associate in the Washington, D.C., office of Mayer, Brown & Platt, where she was a member of the Appellate and Supreme Court Litigation Group. At Mayer, Brown & Platt, she briefed a variety of constitutional issues in federal and state courts of appeal and in the U.S. Supreme Court. She graduated from Brigham Young University and from the J. Reuben Clark Law School.

Andrew C. Skinner is Dean of Religious Education at Brigham Young University. He serves on the board of the Institute for the Study and Preservation of Ancient Religious Texts at BYU. He is a member of the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies Research Committee and a senior editor of the Early Christianity Initiative, both at BYU. Dr. Skinner also acts as the director of the Religious Studies Center and is on several committees, including the Council on Religious Endeavors and the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Latter-day Saint History Executive Committee. He is on the board of directors for the Children of Israel Foundation. Dr. Skinner is the author of over a hundred publications, including Jerusalem, the Eternal City (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1996) and Discoveries in the Judaean Desert XXXIII: Qumran Cave 4 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001). He received his bachelor’s degree in history from the University of Colorado. He earned a master of arts in Hebrew Bible–Judaic studies from Iliff School of Theology and a master of theology in Biblical Hebrew–Hebrew Bible from Harvard University. He received his doctorate degree in European and Near Eastern history from the University of Denver.

John S. Tanner is Professor of English at Brigham Young University, where he recently served as department chair and, prior to that, as associate academic vice president. His research interests lie in John Milton and, more broadly, in the intersection between literature and religion. His award-winning book Anxiety in Eden (Oxford University Press, 1992) examines Milton and Kierkegaard. He is currently working on a book about the concept of premortal existence in the Western tradition. Professor Tanner received a B.A. from BYU and a Ph.D. from the University of California–Berkeley. He has also taught at Florida State University and been a Fulbright Lecturer in Brazil.

Grant Underwood is Professor of History and Research Historian at the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Latter-day Saint History at Brigham Young University. He is the author of The Millenarian World of Early Mormonism (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993). He earned a Ph.D. in history from the University of California–Los Angeles.

John W. Welch is Robert K. Thomas Professor of Law at the J. Reuben Clark Law School, Brigham Young University, and editor-in-chief of BYU Studies. He serves as director of publications for the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Latter-day Saint History at BYU and also on the board of the Institute for the Study and Preservation of Ancient Religious Texts, which oversees the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies. He has authored numerous books and articles and serves on the executive committee of the Biblical Law Section of the Society of Biblical Literature. He received a B.A. in history and an M.A. in classical languages from Brigham Young University, studied Greek philosophy and history at Oxford University as a Woodrow Wilson Fellow, and earned a J.D. from the School of Law at Duke University.

Rabbi Frederick L. Wenger, of Rock Island, Illinois, served as Rabbi at Congregation Kol Ami in Salt Lake City from 1987 to 2003 and now serves as its Rabbi Emeritus. Rabbi Wenger began his rabbinate as a U.S. Army chaplain serving in South Carolina and Vietnam. Upon completing his chaplaincy, he returned to serve as assistant Rabbi at Congregation Emanu-El B’Ne Jeshrun, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. After a year spent in further studies in Jerusalem, Rabbi Wenger served as first Rabbi at B’nai Sholom Congregation, a merged synagogue congregation in Overland Park, Kansas, and at Temple Beth Israel, Skokie, Illinois. Before coming to Salt Lake City, Rabbi Wenger served as vice chairman of the Huntington Human Relations Commission and taught religious studies at Marshall University. He has also served as the secretary of the Northwest Suburban Synagogue Council in the Chicago area, and the Black-Jewish Relations Task Force of the Chicago Board of Rabbis. In Utah, Rabbi Wenger has served on the Martin Luther King Human Rights Commission, the Religious Freedoms Committee of the Utah State Legislature, and many other civic organizations. He also sits on the boards of all major Jewish organizations in Utah. He volunteered at Hadassah Neurim Youth Village in Israel. He also serves as adjunct faculty at Westminster College and Brigham Young University.