5:00 pm – 7:30 pm — Conference Registration

(1) 6:00 pm – 7:30 pm — Meet the Authors Open House

Our Open House will include book-signings with the latest offerings from John Whitmer Books, Herald Publishing House, and Signature Books.

(2) 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm — Wallace B. Smith Lecture

Presenter: Stephen M. Veazey

Our symposium will begin with the second annual Wallace B. Smith Lecture. The presentation will give us an insider’s perspective on our conference theme: "Exploring the Origins of Scripture."

Stephen M. Veazey is prophet-president of the Community of Christ. At the 2007 World Conference of the church, he presented a revelation that was added to the Community of Christ’s Doctrine and Covenants as Section 163.

(3) 9:00 pm — Opening Reception

You are invited to attend an opening reception with refreshments to observe the revival of the Restoration Studies journal with the publication of Volume X.

7:30 am – 11:30 am — Conference Registration

8:00 am – 5:30 pm — Book Sales from our vendors

(4) 8:00 am – 9:45 am — Plenary Panel

Presenter: Richard P. Howard

Richard P. Howard is emeritus historian of the Community of Christ and the author of the two volume history, The Church through the Years. Howard is a former president of the John Whitmer Historical Association and the Mormon History Association.

(5) 10:00 am – 11:15 am — Plenary Keynote Address

Presenter: Stephen J. Patterson

How has the notion of Christian scripture evolved over time? How has the Bible come to be regarded as the Christian scriptures in the era of the printed page and how (in the digital age) might our ideas about scripture in the Christian tradition continue to change? Is Christianity entering a post-biblical era?

Stephen J. Patterson is professor of New Testament at Eden Theological Seminary in St. Louis, where he has taught since 1988. He is the author of numerous books on the life of Jesus and Christian origins, including Beyond the Passion: Rethinking the Death and Life of Jesus and The God of Jesus: The Historical Jesus and the Search for Meaning. He is also Chair of the Jesus Seminar on Christian Origins.

(6A) 11:30 am – 12:15 pm — Concurrent Session

Presenter: William D. Russell

Refocusing the Community of Christ from a past emphasis on Joseph Smith to a future emphasis on Jesus Christ.

William D. Russell is Professor Emeritus of American History and Government at Graceland University, Lamoni, where he taught for 41 years, retiring in 2007.

(6B) 11:30 am – 12:15 pm — Concurrent Session

Presenter: Don Bradley

Notwithstanding its name, the "Book of Mormon" was not first delivered as a literary work to readers, but as an oral narration to hearers.  Before the new scripture could be read by purchasers, it was heard by scribes, who recorded it at Joseph Smith's dictation.  The Book of Mormon has thus had two historically significant audiences—an immediate, aural audience, and a later, literary audience. We will best understand its contents and its success by examining its impact on both these audiences.

This paper illustrates how the work's unfolding narration persuaded its scribal audience, answered questions emerging during the dictation process, and served as midwife to foundational experiences of Latter Day Saint faith.

Don Bradley is a freelance writer, editor, and researcher living in Salt Lake City.  He is also an avocational historian and author of "‘The Grand Fundamental Principles of Mormonism’: Joseph Smith’s Unfinished Reformation."

(6C) 11:30 am – 12:15 pm — Concurrent Session

Presenter: Steven L. Shields

Beginning with Joseph Smith Jr., Latter Day Saint understanding of the purpose of scripture has set the movement apart from the rest of Christianity. The time-honored tradition of new revelation continues in diverse scriptures produced by different expressions of the Latter Day Saint movement since the year 2000.

Steven L. Shields is the author of Divergent Paths of the Restoration and works in ministerial and leadership formation in the Community of Christ’s Asia Mission Field.

(6D) 11:30 am – 12:15 pm — Concurrent Session

Presenter: Christopher J. Blythe

The Ethiopic Apocalypse of Enoch (or 1st Book of Enoch) is an early and influential work of apocrypha or pseudepigrapha. Although published in English translation in 1821, it was apparently unknown to Joseph Smith. Charles B. Thompson, leader of a Latter Day Saint church in the late 1840s and early 1850s, produced an ‘inspired correction’ of the 1st Book of Enoch, following the example of Smith’s ‘inspired correction’ of the Bible. Thompson’s revisions created a text thoroughly Mormon in its theology and feel, which also legitimized his own claims in the post-Joseph Smith Restoration movement.

Christopher J. Blythe is a graduate student in history at Utah State University, studying under Philip Barlow. He is co-editor of the Intermountain West Journal of Religious Studies.

(7A) 12:15 pm – 1:30 pm — Lunch Panel

Chair: Mary Ellen Robertson

A lunchtime panel discussion will consider the question, "What makes scripture, scripture?"

Mary Ellen Robertson is director of outreach and symposia for Sunstone. She has an MA in Women’s Studies in Religion from Claremont Graduate University.

(7B) 12:15 pm – 1:30 pm — Lunch

Visiting and individual discussion is a key aspect of Restoration Studies Symposia. A second lunch room option, without presenters, will be available for attendees who want to take some time to visit.

(8A) 1:30 pm – 2:15 pm — Concurrent Session

Presenter: Ron Dawbarn

The books of James and Jude in the New Testament carry the names of Jesus’s brothers. These were among the contested books during the process of determining the New Testament canon. Today modern scholars are generally of the opinion that they were not written by either brother, but that their Jewish leanings may reflect the theological ideas of the brothers. This presentation seeks to discover the historical James and to determine his involvement with the nascent Christian church, the Temple cult in Jerusalem, and possibly the community at Qumran (and the Dead Sea scrolls).

Ronald Dawbarn is a lifelong Community of Christ member who has retired from being pastor of the Manchester, Tennessee, congregation and from his work as a physicist. He is currently working on a book exploring the origins of the Book of Mormon and evaluating its theology.

(8B) 1:30 pm – 2:15 pm — Concurrent Session

Presenter: Robin Scott Jensen

The newly uncovered manuscript "Book of Commandments and Revelations" (to be published by the LDS Church’s Joseph Smith Papers Project in 2009) is the earliest collection of manuscript revelations known to exist. In a real sense, this collection is the closest we can currently come in "examining the origin of scripture" given by Joseph Smith. This presentation will not only provide the provenance, physical makeup, and historical context of the creation of the "Book of Commandments and Revelations," but will also provide a brief glimpse into its contents.

Robin Scott Jensen works for the Joseph Smith Papers Project and is co-volume editor for the first volume of the Revelation and Translation Series. He holds an MA in history from Brigham Young University and has published on the missionary movement of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Strangite).

(8C) 1:30 pm – 2:15 pm — Concurrent Session

Presenter: Jason R. Smith

This presentation traces views of Scripture in the Church of Christ (Temple Lot) from its origins in the 1850s to the present day. Emphasis will be given to the revelations given through Joseph Smith in the 1831 Book of Commandments and later editions of the Book of Doctrine and Covenants, especially in the light of the church’s changing views of Smith as prophet. Also covered will be the concept of ongoing revelation, including the Messages from John the Baptist through Otto Fetting.

Jason R. Smith has published and presented numerous articles on the history of the expressions of the Restoration that trace their origin through Granville Hedrick.

(8D) 1:30 pm – 2:15 pm — Concurrent Session

Presenter: Alonzo Gaskill

What are LDS attitudes toward the concept of patron saints found in the Roman Catholic tradition? What do Catholics actually believe about patron saints and what are real the parallels with LDS practice? Are Mormons and Catholics closer in their beliefs about the role of patron saints than either realize?

Alonzo Gaskill is Asst. Professor of Church History and Doctrine at Brigham Young University and is the author of several books including, Know Your Religions, Vol. 1: A Comparative Look at Mormonism and Catholicism.

(9) 2:30 pm – 3:45 pm — Plenary Session

Presenter: Anthony J. Chvala-Smith

Historicist/naturalist/empiricist discourse dominates much public reflection on the Bible today. A curiously modernistic subtext still accompanies this discourse: if you can humanize the origins of the Bible you can debunk its authority. This assumption is misguided and unhelpful to the church. Further, while the use of historical-critical methods has a proven track record for helping us read the Bible well, these methods alone are insufficient for doing Christian theology in a global, post-modern context. Turning these methods into a hegemonic paradigm is a decision that has two negative consequences: it robs the church of the Bible as a norming, guiding text that faithfully narrates God’s identity and it opens the gates to hyper-individualistic experience as the only norm for church life.  This presentation will propose remedies for this situation, including learning anew to read the Bible with the church — meaning with the ‘communio sanctorum’ — the long, historic cloud of witnesses who have across the centuries heard other melodies in the Bible than merely historical ones.

Anthony J. Chvala-Smith is the Community of Christ’s theologian and is Assoc. Professor of Early Christian Theology at the Community of Christ Seminary (Graceland University). A Pauline scholar and historical theologian by training, he holds a PhD in scripture from Marquette University and a MDiv from Princeton Theological Seminary.

(10A) 4:00 pm – 4:45 pm — Concurrent Session

Presenter: Margie Miller

Early Christianity as we now know it was shaped by the apostle Paul and much of the information found in the canon scriptures about Paul is based not on facts about his life but instead on what the early church chose to propagate about him.

Margie Miller is a long-time pastor of her Community of Christ congregation and an independent researcher. She is collaborating with Ron Dawbarn on a book and a CD-ROM which explores the origins and contents of the Book of Mormon.

(10B) 4:00 pm – 4:45 pm — Concurrent Session

Presenter: John-Charles Duffy

The Book of Mormon’s authenticity has been hotly debated since even before the first copies rolled off the presses. However, the means of challenging or defending the book’s "historicity" (to use a late 20th-century buzzword) have shifted over the past two centuries. Those shifts correspond to social transformations within LDS and RLDS/Community of Christ communities, transformations which have altered what counts in those communities as privileged knowledge—accepted fact, tolerable opinion, and respected authorities. Book of Mormon historicity debates are a means whereby parties within these faith communities struggle to enact competing visions of how their communities should relate to other (overlapping) groups in American society, including academicians, modernist Protestants, and evangelicals. This presentation, developed as part of the Sunstone Foundation’s "Mapping Mormon Issues" project, recounts the history of the Book of Mormon historicity debates, taking the perspective that those debates are a contest over the cultural status of LDS and RLDS/Community of Christ communities.

John-Charles Duffy is a William N. Reynolds Fellow at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he is a doctoral candidate in religious studies. He has published several essays on the intellectual history of Mormonism, focusing especially on the late 20th century.

(10C) 4:00 pm – 4:45 pm — Concurrent Session

Presenter: Thomas Evans

Harry Edgar Baker, son of a post-Manifesto polygamist, received two revelations in 1916, which are among the few key examples of original fundamentalist Mormon scripture. Baker’s prophecy portrays the LDS Church as a modern version of apostate Israel and therefore supports keeping earlier practices alive, most notably polygamy. This presentation will look at the form of the Baker prophecy and trace its use by different fundamentalist Mormon groups as well as independents, while cutting through the folklore that has grown up around Harry Edgar Baker’s personal history.

Thomas Evans is an undergraduate student in Utah State University’s new Religious Studies Program.

(10D) 4:00 pm – 4:45 pm — Concurrent Session

Presenter: Bill Henson

The presentation will consider scripture that is written as scripture rather than writings which are later proclaimed to be scripture. If we assume revelation to be the defining nature of scripture, we still must ask several questions including, what is revealed? The truth? The nature of God? God’s own self? If scripture is revelatory, are the revelations contemporary? Should the dynamic nature of such revelation overpower or exclude the informative and noetic nature or purpose of scripture? Should and does scripture have a purpose?

Bill Henson is a natural skeptic toward both science and religion and has been described by a close friend as having a call to be devil’s advocate.

4:45 pm – 6:45 pm — Intermission for Evening Meal

(11A) 6:45 pm – 7:30 pm — Concurrent Session

Presenter: John C. Hamer

The gospels paint a number of distinct and often contradictory pictures of Jesus because of their late composition by writers with competing agendas. Members of the Restoration were initially most concerned with the Jesus who founds Christianity, because they hoped to restore the primitive church’s practices. Soon thereafter when the church renamed itself "Church of the Latter Day Saints," members became most concerned with the Jesus who was an apocalyptic prophet. More recently, as the Community of Christ and the LDS Church have tried to engage with the Christian mainstream, the Jesus who proclaims himself to be God has been emphasized. Liberal New Testament scholars have concluded that all three of these concepts of Jesus (church founder, apocalyptic prophet, and self-proclaimed God) are late, arising after Jesus’s actual lifetime. They argue that the most authentic Jesus was a teacher who believed that the Kingdom of God is not to be sought in some apocalyptic future or in some imagined afterlife — it’s to be found by individuals in the here and now when they shake off the shackles of conventional thinking. This presentation argues that the powerful message of this "fourth" (and most authentic) Jesus has special resonance for the Community of Christ today.

John C. Hamer is executive director of the John Whitmer Historical Association and editor of John Whitmer Books.

(11B) 6:45 pm – 7:30 pm — Concurrent Session

Presenter: Samuel M. Brown

This presentation will explore the ways that Joseph Smith saw seerhood as a mode for recovering the voices of the dead and will investigate notions of intergenerational association as mediated by scripture.  Consideration will be given to the meaning of Books of Remembrance, the Isaiah 29:4 exegesis, the Jaredite narrative, and to the use of the Book of the Law of the Lord and the Patriarchal Blessings Book in the early Latter Day Saint movement.

Samuel M. Brown is Asst. Professor of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at the University of Utah. He has presented and published widely in Mormon studies and writes at the popular Mormon blog, ByCommonConsent.com.

(11C) 6:45 pm – 7:30 pm — Concurrent Session

Presenter: Stephan Wyatt

While the New Testament canon ends with an apocalyptic vision, the Book of Mormon actually begins (before the exodus of Lehi and his family) by foreshadowing its ultimate end. Although influences from the apocalyptic genre upon 1 Nephi are suspiciously anachronistic, they are also overtly prescient. Careful comparison of the apocalyptic genre in the Old Testament to 1 Nephi 8 and 11-14 reveals similarities that highlight unison with the apocalyptic genre.

Stephan Wyatt is a graduate student in theology at St. Mary’s Seminary in Houston, Texas. With Judith Ryan, he is currently engaged in co-authoring an introduction to the New Testament for non-scholars.

(11D) 6:45 pm – 7:30 pm — Concurrent Session

Presenter: Seth Bryant

Early leaders within the Reorganization quoted from the Book of Abraham to support their claims to patrilineal ordination, but they also passed resolutions that one of the book’s key doctrines, the plurality of gods, should be taught "with prudence" and that it should not be a test of fellowship. Subsequently, Community of Christ conceptions towards the Book of Abraham as a production of a prophet reflect the church’s evolving understanding of both scripture and prophets. This scriptural trajectory creates commonalities between Community of Christ members and liberal members of the LDS Church and has potential resonance for understanding the Book of Mormon in the 21^st century.

Seth Bryant is a recent graduate of the Religion in the Americas program at the University of Florida. He plans to enter a doctoral program studying religion in the Americas with an emphasis on Latter Day Saint studies.

(12) 7:45 pm – 9:00 pm — Plenary Session

"Reflections on Nauvoo Polygamy"

Presenter: George D. Smith

George D. Smith’s long-awaited study, Nauvoo Polygamy: "…but we called it celestial marriage," was recently published by Signature Books. The author will share with us his reflections on the early practice of polygamy in Nauvoo, focusing on its theological basis.

George D. Smith is the founder and publisher of Signature Books. Among other books, he is the editor of An Intimate Chronicle: The Journals of William Clayton and Religion, Feminism, and Freedom of Conscience.

(13) 8:30 am – 9:45 am — Plenary Session

Presenter: Dale E. Luffman

To interpret the Book of Mormon responsibly requires readers be brought into a historical conversation with early 19^th century North America and into a larger hermeneutical conversation with the text itself. This presentation will outline how this interpretive strategy will enable a more adequate reading of the Book of Mormon, including the perceived aims and purposes of Joseph Smith Jr. himself, and will argue that without this approach, it is impossible to adequately understand the word and witness of the Book of Mormon. 

Dale E. Luffman is an apostle of the Community of Christ, assigned to the West Central USA Mission Field. Luffman holds a doctor of ministry degree from Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and a master’s of theology degree from the Princeton Theological Seminary.

(14) 10:00 am – 11:30 am — Tour

We will tour the newly reopened sanctuary of the Community of Christ Temple, the Temple Museum, and the Community of Christ Auditorium.