If you happen to be in California this weekend . . .

Hello all,

Here is a copy of notes taken during Karen’s talk over the weekend. Some of the details are inaccurate (i.e. not Katherine Flake, but Kathleen, etc.) but it is very interesting to read what Karen had to say considering all the rumors that have been flying about the details of Claremont’s decision to establish a Mormon chair. While I am truly thrilled about this move–I am less inclined than I originally was to think that this means big changes in the academy any time soon. Wealthy members of the Church are largely funding this position and Claremont school of religion is grateful and happy to let them do it because they have been in somewhat of a funding crunch since they separated from the rest of the graduate school. The other issue I see is one of legitimacy. Students who go to Claremont to study Mormonism (especially if they are LDS) will teach what, to whom, where? Karen indicates that at first people will only be able to minor in Mormonism with their primary training in some other field. As far as I can tell (based on the few people who teach Mormon stuff currently) that other field will have to be American history. Otherwise, the “Mormonism” minor will be either irrelevant or detrimental (say in Biblical studies or Early Christianity or Philosophy of Religion, for example)in trying to get a job. I worry that there will be a flood of students from BYU (where there is no degree in religion) that will go to Claremont to study Mormonism and then be unable to find a job… i.e is this practical?

Anyway—here are Juliann’s notes

Hey folks. To anyone out there, this is a very interesting notice.
Juliann is part of FAIR, but did Coptic studies at Claremont.

Meeting: March 13, 2004
Speaker: Dean Karen Torjeson
Subject: LDS and their place in the Mosaic of Early
Christian Belief-and-Why Claremont Graduate University
Wants to Establish a Chair of Mormon Studies

[notes taken by Juliann Reynolds]

The religion department of Claremont Graduate
University (CGU) originated with Claremont School of
Theology (CST) forty four years ago. The founder of
CST wanted to establish a west coast seminary with
stature. He took his first endowment across the
street to Claremont Graduate School (now University)
to fund a department of religion and they have had a
symbiotic relationship ever since. They are so
intertwined, that many do not realize that these are
separate institutions.

CGU ( School of Religion) has approximately 200
students and is one of the largest suppliers of grad
students to churches, universities, etc. The
majority of graduates go on to teach at colleges and
universities. It is ranked in the top ten
nationally. They currently have about thirty faculty
members (20 at the grad level).

She emphasized that the study of religion is a growth
field. Fifty percent of undergrad schools have
positions in religion. This is the time to shape the
future. It is part of our society can no longer be
ignored. Pomona College, one of the Claremont
consortium colleges, just approved a course on
Mormonism.

When the department of religion became the School of
Religion three years ago, they had to bring together
a Board of Visitors and envision what should a school
of religion look like in ten years. It should be:

1. A place where study of religion involves all
religion.
2. A study of religion that is faithful to the
religion that practices it.
3. Outsiders study the religion in a way that is
responsible to the community.

Their purpose and vision is to bring the university
into the service of the community. Their strategy is
in building relationships with the LDS community.
All CGU grads should leave being able to teach
Mormonism responsibly. They hope that they can
establish an approach and model of study that can be
followed by other universities.

Mormonism is a global religion. The presence of their
LDS students made them conscious that LDS students
needed to be a part of any study of religion. (When I
was there in the late 90?s there tended to be 4 or 5
of us kicking around every year). Another piece that
was important was the flowering of LDS scholarship
over the last ten years, e.g., Mormon History
Association, JBMS, etc. (She mentioned academic
sources only?not Dialogue/Sunstone). Outsiders now
have information available to them.

The Yale Conference was a big step for the Church to
be involved in rules of engagement with that
University and it was a big step for Yale. This gave
CGU the confidence that they are moving in the right
direction. Their upcoming conference will be a sequel
to Yale?s.

They began by bringing together a Board of Visitors
that involved all major religions. Leaders were
gathered from ?all over?. It is the most diverse
board in existence. The contacted Keith Atkinsen,
(sp?) of the So. CA Council of Public Affairs, to
begin the LDS council.

Also established councils, e.g., Council of
Protestant Studies, Catholic Studies, Islamic,
Judaism, Indian religions and LDS. The LDS council
was gathered with the help of Atkinsen. They meet
every month to three months. The councils represent
the partnership between the community and CGU. They
are to assure CGU is responsible to the communities,
be ambassadors (CGU needs students to come) and fund
raisers. They look for leaders in the community who
can do these things. The LDS council consists of
Judge Clay Smith, Clare Holt, David Andrews, Elder
Joseph Bently, Mylan Smith, Louise & John Dalton.

After the establishment of the Council, the first
conference was about how the study of the Church
should be positioned with respect to literary, source,
etc. criticism, and history, so that participants
could evaluate?how does this presentation change the
field you were in?. LDS have not been integrated into
the larger scene.

Bushman spoke in a 100 seat forum and it was standing
room only. Learning from this level of interest,
they used a 400 seat auditorium for the next year?s
speaker, Jan Shipps on ?How Mormons are Christians?.
It was also filled. Some of the other Councils
attended. There were those that came to express that
LDS were not Christian. Karen commented on how
respectful the exchange was and how we came to
understanding in that evening. ( I was in the front
row and I saw literal sparks fly from Shipps eyes as
she expressed that it was not her place to tell
someone that ?Jesus came for me but not for you?.)

The next step is the major conference on Oct 14-26th
and a conference on Joseph Smith the following year.
They will have lead speakers on each topic. The Oct.
conference will be used to showcase the scholars (they
want a historian)they are looking at to fill the
Chair: Katherine Flake, Phillip Barlow, Teryl Givens
and Kathryn Daynes. They will triangulate the
proceedings by supplying third party respondents from
Islam, Judiasm , etc. The need is to first create
friendships. The friendships create ties. We need
to get to know our differences and let them stand.
But we need to go beyond tolerance to real
understanding. She brought up Millet as an example
of this, crediting him with great success in his road
show presentations with his evangelical partner.

They are now in the process of establishing the Chair
of Mormon Studies. They need 2 ? million. Formal
fundraising will be launched in three months. [She
told me she expected the program to be up and running
in a year and a half. ] They have established
cooperation with organizations such as ISPART for
research connections. She visited BYU and seemed in
awe that she was ?treated like a foreign dignitary?.
Initially, two courses will taught as ?insider?
courses and two as ?outsider?.

The academy has a role to play in legitimatizing
Mormonism. It won?t be trivialized anymore. She
compared this process to what she had encountered as
she left her field of Patristics and turned to the
once trivialized field of women?s studies.

Some questions and answers:

Q: What tools do you analyze with.
A: We start with historian not theological. The
commitment is to evaluate but be balanced. Any
presentation must include what all positions are and
who holds them.

Q: Do the professors practice in any religion?
A: (I responded from my own experience and she
confirmed) I said that there is an unfortunate
stereotype that liberal scholars are always
secularists. I gave examples of two flaming
liberals, James Robinson and James Sanders, who would
talk about their Sunday lecture at church?Sanders
would actually slip in a little preaching in the
class.

Q: What employment opportunities will there be with a
Mormon Studies degree.
A: It will be treated as a minor at first. You will
go into a position as someone who can do such and such
and also teach Mormon Studies.

Q: Where there any surprises in the process?
A: How hotly debated the use of the name ?Mormon
Studies? was in the Council (The Council used the
CJCofLDS in their title.) ?Mormon? takes more under
its umbrella than the Council liked.

My impressions: These people are committed beyond
anything I have seen to legitimatize Mormonism and to
do it in a way that remains faithful to the community
of believers. To accomplish this, they are
deliberately beginning with a historical rather than a
theological approach. They are having all faiths
dialogue under rules of engagement to circumvent
internal Christian to Christian tension. There was
no mention of our band of rogue ?liberal
intellectuals? and from my personal experience at CGU,
they do not play and will not be able to play
according to those ?rules of engagement? that the
academy demands. However, having said that, CGU
is sponsoring the Sunstone Symposium in April because
the organizer is or was a student at CGU. ( I told
Karen privately that the vast majority of Mormons
soundly reject Sunstone.)

I hope BYU throws everything it has in support of this
undertaking…especially funding and sending students
to them…this is a very pricey private college. But
as she said, we are in a window of time in which can
determine the future.

————————–

Professor Karen Torjeson, Ph.D., Claremont Graduate
University, is the Margo L. Goldsmith Professor of
Women’s Studies in Religion, director of the women’s
Studies in Religion program, chair of the Religion
Department, and co-director of the Institute for
Antiquity and Christianity. Her research interests
include constructions of gender and sexuality in early
Christianity, authority and institutionalization in
the early churches, hermeneutics and rhetoric in late
antiquity, and comparative study of Greek and Latin
patristic traditions. During her tenure as assistant
professor of patristic theology at the University of
Goettingen (Germany), her book Hermeneutical Procedure
and Theological Structure in Origen’s Exegesis was
published by de Gruyter. Her most recent book is When
Women Were Priests: Women’s Leadership in the Early
Church & the Scandal of their Subordination in the
Rise of Christianity.

3 comments for “If you happen to be in California this weekend . . .”

Taylor says:

March 10, 2004 at 2:21 pm

Torjeson is an great scholar! I really like what I have read of her’s.
Melissa says:

March 15, 2004 at 10:16 am

Hello all,

Here is a copy of notes taken during Karen’s talk over the weekend. Some of the details are inaccurate (i.e. not Katherine Flake, but Kathleen, etc.) but it is very interesting to read what Karen had to say considering all the rumors that have been flying about the details of Claremont’s decision to establish a Mormon chair. While I am truly thrilled about this move–I am less inclined than I originally was to think that this means big changes in the academy any time soon. Wealthy members of the Church are largely funding this position and Claremont school of religion is grateful and happy to let them do it because they have been in somewhat of a funding crunch since they separated from the rest of the graduate school. The other issue I see is one of legitimacy. Students who go to Claremont to study Mormonism (especially if they are LDS) will teach what, to whom, where? Karen indicates that at first people will only be able to minor in Mormonism with their primary training in some other field. As far as I can tell (based on the few people who teach Mormon stuff currently) that other field will have to be American history. Otherwise, the “Mormonism” minor will be either irrelevant or detrimental (say in Biblical studies or Early Christianity or Philosophy of Religion, for example)in trying to get a job. I worry that there will be a flood of students from BYU (where there is no degree in religion) that will go to Claremont to study Mormonism and then be unable to find a job… i.e is this practical?

Anyway—here are Juliann’s notes

Hey folks. To anyone out there, this is a very interesting notice.
Juliann is part of FAIR, but did Coptic studies at Claremont.

Meeting: March 13, 2004
Speaker: Dean Karen Torjeson
Subject: LDS and their place in the Mosaic of Early
Christian Belief-and-Why Claremont Graduate University
Wants to Establish a Chair of Mormon Studies

[notes taken by Juliann Reynolds]

The religion department of Claremont Graduate
University (CGU) originated with Claremont School of
Theology (CST) forty four years ago. The founder of
CST wanted to establish a west coast seminary with
stature. He took his first endowment across the
street to Claremont Graduate School (now University)
to fund a department of religion and they have had a
symbiotic relationship ever since. They are so
intertwined, that many do not realize that these are
separate institutions.

CGU ( School of Religion) has approximately 200
students and is one of the largest suppliers of grad
students to churches, universities, etc. The
majority of graduates go on to teach at colleges and
universities. It is ranked in the top ten
nationally. They currently have about thirty faculty
members (20 at the grad level).

She emphasized that the study of religion is a growth
field. Fifty percent of undergrad schools have
positions in religion. This is the time to shape the
future. It is part of our society can no longer be
ignored. Pomona College, one of the Claremont
consortium colleges, just approved a course on
Mormonism.

When the department of religion became the School of
Religion three years ago, they had to bring together
a Board of Visitors and envision what should a school
of religion look like in ten years. It should be:

1. A place where study of religion involves all
religion.
2. A study of religion that is faithful to the
religion that practices it.
3. Outsiders study the religion in a way that is
responsible to the community.

Their purpose and vision is to bring the university
into the service of the community. Their strategy is
in building relationships with the LDS community.
All CGU grads should leave being able to teach
Mormonism responsibly. They hope that they can
establish an approach and model of study that can be
followed by other universities.

Mormonism is a global religion. The presence of their
LDS students made them conscious that LDS students
needed to be a part of any study of religion. (When I
was there in the late 90?s there tended to be 4 or 5
of us kicking around every year). Another piece that
was important was the flowering of LDS scholarship
over the last ten years, e.g., Mormon History
Association, JBMS, etc. (She mentioned academic
sources only?not Dialogue/Sunstone). Outsiders now
have information available to them.

The Yale Conference was a big step for the Church to
be involved in rules of engagement with that
University and it was a big step for Yale. This gave
CGU the confidence that they are moving in the right
direction. Their upcoming conference will be a sequel
to Yale?s.

They began by bringing together a Board of Visitors
that involved all major religions. Leaders were
gathered from ?all over?. It is the most diverse
board in existence. The contacted Keith Atkinsen,
(sp?) of the So. CA Council of Public Affairs, to
begin the LDS council.

Also established councils, e.g., Council of
Protestant Studies, Catholic Studies, Islamic,
Judaism, Indian religions and LDS. The LDS council
was gathered with the help of Atkinsen. They meet
every month to three months. The councils represent
the partnership between the community and CGU. They
are to assure CGU is responsible to the communities,
be ambassadors (CGU needs students to come) and fund
raisers. They look for leaders in the community who
can do these things. The LDS council consists of
Judge Clay Smith, Clare Holt, David Andrews, Elder
Joseph Bently, Mylan Smith, Louise & John Dalton.

After the establishment of the Council, the first
conference was about how the study of the Church
should be positioned with respect to literary, source,
etc. criticism, and history, so that participants
could evaluate?how does this presentation change the
field you were in?. LDS have not been integrated into
the larger scene.

Bushman spoke in a 100 seat forum and it was standing
room only. Learning from this level of interest,
they used a 400 seat auditorium for the next year?s
speaker, Jan Shipps on ?How Mormons are Christians?.
It was also filled. Some of the other Councils
attended. There were those that came to express that
LDS were not Christian. Karen commented on how
respectful the exchange was and how we came to
understanding in that evening. ( I was in the front
row and I saw literal sparks fly from Shipps eyes as
she expressed that it was not her place to tell
someone that ?Jesus came for me but not for you?.)

The next step is the major conference on Oct 14-26th
and a conference on Joseph Smith the following year.
They will have lead speakers on each topic. The Oct.
conference will be used to showcase the scholars (they
want a historian)they are looking at to fill the
Chair: Katherine Flake, Phillip Barlow, Teryl Givens
and Kathryn Daynes. They will triangulate the
proceedings by supplying third party respondents from
Islam, Judiasm , etc. The need is to first create
friendships. The friendships create ties. We need
to get to know our differences and let them stand.
But we need to go beyond tolerance to real
understanding. She brought up Millet as an example
of this, crediting him with great success in his road
show presentations with his evangelical partner.

They are now in the process of establishing the Chair
of Mormon Studies. They need 2 ? million. Formal
fundraising will be launched in three months. [She
told me she expected the program to be up and running
in a year and a half. ] They have established
cooperation with organizations such as ISPART for
research connections. She visited BYU and seemed in
awe that she was ?treated like a foreign dignitary?.
Initially, two courses will taught as ?insider?
courses and two as ?outsider?.

The academy has a role to play in legitimatizing
Mormonism. It won?t be trivialized anymore. She
compared this process to what she had encountered as
she left her field of Patristics and turned to the
once trivialized field of women?s studies.

Some questions and answers:

Q: What tools do you analyze with.
A: We start with historian not theological. The
commitment is to evaluate but be balanced. Any
presentation must include what all positions are and
who holds them.

Q: Do the professors practice in any religion?
A: (I responded from my own experience and she
confirmed) I said that there is an unfortunate
stereotype that liberal scholars are always
secularists. I gave examples of two flaming
liberals, James Robinson and James Sanders, who would
talk about their Sunday lecture at church?Sanders
would actually slip in a little preaching in the
class.

Q: What employment opportunities will there be with a
Mormon Studies degree.
A: It will be treated as a minor at first. You will
go into a position as someone who can do such and such
and also teach Mormon Studies.

Q: Where there any surprises in the process?
A: How hotly debated the use of the name ?Mormon
Studies? was in the Council (The Council used the
CJCofLDS in their title.) ?Mormon? takes more under
its umbrella than the Council liked.

My impressions: These people are committed beyond
anything I have seen to legitimatize Mormonism and to
do it in a way that remains faithful to the community
of believers. To accomplish this, they are
deliberately beginning with a historical rather than a
theological approach. They are having all faiths
dialogue under rules of engagement to circumvent
internal Christian to Christian tension. There was
no mention of our band of rogue ?liberal
intellectuals? and from my personal experience at CGU,
they do not play and will not be able to play
according to those ?rules of engagement? that the
academy demands. However, having said that, CGU
is sponsoring the Sunstone Symposium in April because
the organizer is or was a student at CGU. ( I told
Karen privately that the vast majority of Mormons
soundly reject Sunstone.)

I hope BYU throws everything it has in support of this
undertaking…especially funding and sending students
to them…this is a very pricey private college. But
as she said, we are in a window of time in which can
determine the future.

————————–

Professor Karen Torjeson, Ph.D., Claremont Graduate
University, is the Margo L. Goldsmith Professor of
Women’s Studies in Religion, director of the women’s
Studies in Religion program, chair of the Religion
Department, and co-director of the Institute for
Antiquity and Christianity. Her research interests
include constructions of gender and sexuality in early
Christianity, authority and institutionalization in
the early churches, hermeneutics and rhetoric in late
antiquity, and comparative study of Greek and Latin
patristic traditions. During her tenure as assistant
professor of patristic theology at the University of
Goettingen (Germany), her book Hermeneutical Procedure
and Theological Structure in Origen’s Exegesis was
published by de Gruyter. Her most recent book is When
Women Were Priests: Women’s Leadership in the Early
Church & the Scandal of their Subordination in the
Rise of Christianity.
Restoring Lost Comments says:

November 25, 2004 at 11:36 pm

[Restoring Comment Inadvertently Lost in the WP transfer] :

Thanks for the update. I knew something was going on at Claremont because every time I’m looking for a LDS-related book to order through my university library’s Calif. network, Claremont always pops as either the only or the most extensive set of holdings. It’s great to have more of the specifics.

Comment by: William Morris at March 16, 2004 05:02 PM

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